“Hello,” the receptionist said as the twins walked through the door to their father’s clinic. According to the human resources records, her name was Laura Runkle. She’d only recently graduated from business school and started working at the clinic a month ago. She was young, pretty, and very uncertain about her power. Her face and tone said, “Are you lost?”
Louise had Tesla take up an “off-duty” position beside one of the waiting room chairs, and then made a visible production of settling into said chair. She put on her reading glasses, flipped through the projected pages of her holographic book, and squirmed into the chair to read.
Jillian aimed the receptionist’s attention on Louise by staring at her intently and then sighing loudly. “Bookworm.” And then, having established that Louise was the quiet one of the twins, Jillian turned brightly to the receptionist. “Hi, I’m Jillian Mayer. I’m here to see my dad. He works here.”
The receptionist started to smile, and then she came to a full, horrified stop. “Oh! You’re George’s twins.”
Unsaid was “You’re the two that blew themselves up.” Really, do it once and people don’t let you live it down.
“Yup!” Jillian juggled the big box she was carrying, nearly spilling it, to point in the direction of their father’s office. “Our dad is this way — right? I got something to show him.” She started to march down the hall, all but commanding that she be followed.
“Wait. I don’t know if he’s back there!” The receptionist glanced at Louise, who seemed nose deep in a book. Swallowing the bait, she headed after Jillian. “Which one were you again?”
Louise counted to five, and the shrieks started. According to Laura’s social network page, she was terrified of snakes. While Louise loved the ball python they’d found at a small and possibly illegal pet store, Jillian could better act out “accidentally” dropping the box and setting the snake free.
“Follow,” Louise told Tesla and hurried down the hallway toward the cryo-room. They had practiced the extraction at home, using all stand-in material. It should take her only three minutes, but that was assuming that nothing went wrong. Louise swiped the copy of their father’s keycard through the lock. Jillian could keep the office distracted for several minutes but probably not more than five.
There were skintight gloves, big blue protective gloves, a heavy lined apron, and a full-face plastic facemask. She pulled them on quickly as she scanned the blue-capped cryogenic tanks. In an odd design flaw of the security system, there was no camera in the room. They hadn’t been able to determine how the tanks were labeled. There were two tall square units and two tall cylinder tanks and then a host of short tanks tucked under a work counter. The taller units were simply labeled “1” or “2,” while the short ones counted up to “6.” She knew that the babies were stored as H-2-3-2-753694. The initial seemed to indicate a size, but which of the three units labeled “2” was “H”?
“Hello?” Joy suddenly appeared on one of the small tanks under the counter. “Who’s there?” She patted the side of the tank, claws clicking. “Hello?” Without an aquarium for her, they’d been forced to keep her locked in Tesla’s storage compartment. Luckily, like any baby animal, Joy mostly ate and slept.
“Shhh!” Louise cried. Why did the baby dragon have to wake up now? Louise picked up Joy and put her on her shoulder. The tank was a “2.” Was it the right one?
The small tank was on wheels. She rolled it out from under the counter. Louise swiped her father’s keycard through the reader on the cap and typed in 753694. If the vial was inside, the lock would acknowledge the code. . and unfortunately make a record that it had been accessed.
The reader blinked from red to green. It was the right tank. Louise flipped up the lid and took out the polyurethane cap under the lid. Instantly the air hitting the opened pit turned to misty clouds. There were six wire handles of the racks suspended within the liquid nitrogen. Each was etched with a number. She wanted the second box off the third rack. She unhooked the handle labeled “3” and carefully raised up the rack, wisps of freezing air flowing off it. On the rack were five little boxes inside wire frames, pegged into place by a restraining bar. She removed the bar and wriggled free the second box. She slid off the lid to the box, revealing four frozen vials standing inside slots. She took the first one out and peered closely at the label.
“Hello?” Joy pointed at the one on the far end. “Who’s there?”
Louise put the first vial back into the stand and checked the end vial. 753694. “Score!”
