Author: Richard P Grant

He had tolerated the recent questioning much as he might listen to a graduate student from another lab give their first talk – part of his brain on the lookout for anything intellectually stimulating, but the rest of him detached

it was always trying, visiting Mary’s mother. 

Most Saturdays, Slater would rise early and sit in the box room he liked to call his study, with a pile of academic papers, perhaps a lab notebook or two or a student’s thesis, and catch up with everything he hadn’t been able to do during the week.

The woman slammed the paper down.
“Who is this journalist? Why don’t we know about her?”

Toni suppressed a laugh. Weren’t scientists meant to be observant?

Sabine checked her watch against the clock over the door. It wasn’t that she and Max ever agreed to meet, but his habit was to be at the lab half an hour after leaving his office.

“You’ve done something here, Mike!” Slater shook his head. “I can’t let you leave now, there’s still too much to do. We can find a way through this.”

Slater was headed his way, but not looking where he was going. Why was he so pale?

“But she died of chikungunya fever. And you had some in the lab. Is it possible she could have been infected by it?”

Max sat on a bench, smoking his fifth cigarette of the morning and keeping his eyes fixed on the main entrance of the Wolfhaven Institute.