Fall of Night The Morganville Vampires - By Rachel Caine Page 0,28
tinkering while I was waiting for you. Before we go, you’ll need ID.’
‘I have a student ID card—’
‘Not that.’ Dr Anderson went to her desk, opened and closed drawers, muttered, and finally came up with some kind of black magnetic strip card with a logo on it that looked eerily familiar – the Founder’s sign. She typed and moused on the computer, then ran the card through a mag strip device. ‘Here. Press your thumb in the box where it says.’ She passed Claire a small tablet device, and Claire did as requested. While she did, the tablet clicked, and she realised it had taken a picture, too. Before she could ask about it, Dr Anderson took it back and tapped on the screen, then took the mag strip card she’d made and put it into a small white device attached to the computer.
It made some soft whirring sounds, and thirty seconds later, it spit out a finished ID card, complete with picture and thumbprint. Dr Anderson examined it, pronounced it good, and decorated it with an MIT lanyard as she handed it over. ‘Wear it around your neck,’ she said. ‘No tying it on your belt, or backpack, or wearing it as a headband, and trust me, I’ve seen students try to do all those things. If it’s not in the right place, you’ll get a visit from security, and you really don’t want that. Where we’re going, security’s very, very serious.’ Dr Anderson, Claire saw, was already wearing her own ID. It looked identical, except for the photo. ‘If you cut your hair or dye it, or your physical profile changes at all, you get new ID. It has all kinds of data encoded in it. Sounds Orwellian, right? It is. Get used to it.’
Claire scrambled to follow as Dr Anderson shucked her lab coat, tossed it on a hook, and led the way out of the office and down the long hallway to a sealed door with an electronic pass reader on it. Anderson buzzed in, but when Claire started to follow her through, the other woman stopped her. ‘Use your card after me,’ she said. ‘If you come through without swiping, alarms will go off. Like I said. Secure.’
Claire nodded, and let the door shut before she ran her own badge and got a green light to enter. She slipped the lanyard back over her head and stepped through into a very different world.
This part of the building looked new, shiny, and sterile. It was bustling with activity – grad students, professors, people in suits who looked like official government types, or maybe private industry. It was often groups composed of all of those, huddled together, walking and talking. She caught snatches of conversations about genetics, about drug therapies, about nanotech, and that was all in only a two-minute brisk walk. Dr Anderson exchanged nods with most of them, but there was no small talk.
Dr Anderson’s lab was marked with a simple white card in the slot that said RESTRICTED. Nothing else on the card … but when Claire moved to the side a little to allow Anderson to swipe through, she saw that there was something else on the paper, after all. The Founder’s logo had been printed on it holographically, so it was only visible from certain angles.
The door made a soft sighing sound as it opened, and a puff of cool air that smelt like metal and chemicals washed over Claire. Dr Anderson shut it behind her, and Claire badged through. She didn’t need to be told twice about the security measures.
Inside it was … well, Myrnin’s lab, only sane, orderly, and clean. But she recognised a lot of what was going on at each of the worktables, though instead of using Dark Ages alchemical techniques, Dr Anderson had modern chemistry set-ups and state-of-the-art instruments and computers. It was like porn, but for science geeks. ‘Wow,’ Claire breathed, and ran her fingers tentatively over a brushed-steel worktable, not quite daring to get her fingerprints on any of the blindingly cool equipment yet. ‘You’re—’
‘Well funded? Yes. Amelie wanted to establish another, less chaotic method of research to validate and record Myrnin’s discoveries. You know him; he’s brilliant, and he’s the living embodiment of chaos theory. So my job is to find out why his discoveries work, document and make them easily reproducible with modern equipment and techniques. And now that’s your job, too.’
‘I was already doing that. Trying to, anyway. When he’d let me.’