Emmy Laybourne (3 page)

Ceglowski sagged forward against his bonds, weeping as the material rained down on him.

"Get me out of here!" he railed.

And Dr. Massey had her face and hands pressed against the glass, like the bloodbath inside was a Christmas window at Macy's.

James rose to pour himself a scotch. There was dust in the glass. He blew into it but the dust didn't come out. Not all of it. So what?

His neighbor had lost eighty pounds with the help of that girl hypnotist from YouTube, and there was no reason why he shouldn't see her. If Susan found out, she would mock him, saying that he was a man of science. Brayden would mock him too, if he could be bothered. But there had to be a way to blot out the memories. Dull them. Throw a veil over them.

Now the hardest part. The conclusion.

The music from below was back up again, so loud, and the kids were singing. Were they drunk? They sounded drunk. Four forty-five on a school day and his son had a party going in the rec room.

Your kinda love is gutting me, they were all singing/shouting together. Gutting, gutting. Your kinda love is gutting me to the bone.

James sipped his scotch at the window, looking out at the yard. There stood the trampoline. Brayden had broken it back in June when he threw a party and it just sat there on two legs. Dead leaves had collected underneath and half the netting had torn off and fluttered helplessly in the wind.

James vowed to take it down. It was going to happen that very weekend and Brayden was going to help him do it, if it meant taking away every privilege his son had. They were going to take down the trampoline and Brayden was going to haul it to the dump in his Lariat and that was that.

James sat down and straightened the tablet on its stand and placed his shaking fingers back on the wireless keyboard.

The malfunction in the gel-dispersal unit had tragic consequences.

True.

I believe that if Dr. Massey had anticipated the outcome of the demonstration, she never would have proceeded.

Lie. The look in her eye . . . She loved seeing MORS work. And the reason she had pushed so hard for a human trial was not to honor the memory of her dead husband. Far from it. It was because she wanted to watch it work on people. Plain and simple.

If the demonstration had gone according to plan, the efficacy and deadliness of MORS would have been proved conclusively.

True.

Despite the fact that the demonstration did not go according to plan, I believe the same outcome was achieved.

True. MORS was deadly and efficient. Point oh-oh-five milliliters had caused the deaths of four people within two minutes, and that was within one sealed-off room. Dr. Massey wanted to produce ten liters. Enough to level the population of India.

I believe that MORS is . . .

James tilted the remainder of the scotch into his mouth. Lukewarm scotch on a Thursday afternoon. What a life.

He typed:

murder in powdered form.

Then deleted it. Then:

the triumphant creation of a criminally insane scientist.

Then backspaced it away. Then:

stable enough for mass production, as long as stringent safety measures are upheld.

And he blew his nose in a napkin that had come with his coffee and he sent the damn thing.

"Dress Your Marines in White" copyright (c) 2011 by Emmy Laybourne

Art copyright (c) 2011 by Gregory Manchess