Claire didn't answer. She looked around the office - though it was more junk room and lab than office - and saw a small, cluttered table stuffed in the corner. It had a duct-taped, sagging office chair, but no visitor accommodations. 'Is this where we're going to work?'
'This? No. Definitely not. I was just 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 p**n , 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.'
Dr Anderson sent her a warm, knowing smile. 'Yeah, I know how that goes. Working for Myrnin means being zookeeper, nanny and best friend. Trouble is, knowing when each of those things is necessary, because making a mistake means you become a Happy Meal. Badge of honour for you to have survived the experience, Claire. And for getting the hell out of Morganville. Bet you think the worst is over, right?'
Claire shuddered, thinking about the draug, and Bishop, about the thousand life-threatening moments she'd made it through since coming to town. 'Hopefully,' she said.
'You're wrong,' Dr Anderson said. She sounded certain, and sober. 'You live there, at that level, it's like living inside a video game. Surviving is a high, an achievement. Then you come out here into the real world, and the PTSD starts to set in ... because nobody cares what you went through, or that you survived it, and your body's used to a constant adrenaline pump. It's like coming off a drug. If it hasn't hit you yet, it will ... normal life takes a lot of getting used to, Claire. But if you need to talk to someone, well, I've been through it. What's the biggest thing you're missing so far?'
'Shane,' Claire said. Her throat got tight and raw, and for a moment she couldn't go on. 'My boyfriend.'
'Ah,' Anderson said. Nothing else. Her eyebrows went up, but she didn't ask anything, and after she'd waited a moment she got the idea Claire wasn't going to tell, either. 'Let me give you the tour, then. I assume you're familiar with Myrnin's dimensional portals? Did he teach you how to operate them?'
From there, the hours passed fast, full of technical discussions and equations, lightning-fast chains of thought as each of them built on the other's ideas and work. By noon, they had a working mathematical expression of how the portals worked, and Claire matched it up against the work she'd done with Myrnin on the same thing.
Dr Anderson's final version was better, cleaner and covered more theoretical ground.
The afternoon was spent learning equipment, most of which Claire had never seen, though some of it she'd heard about. Most fascinating was a genetic sequencer hard at work cracking the code of vampire DNA. 'It's deceptively human,' Dr Anderson said. 'Tough to tell the difference, because there's really very little to find. It's almost as if the DNA was only part of the equation for how vampires change - it's not just a physical process. And I don't have any equipment that can capture something that only happens on the spiritual plane, at least, not yet.'
'I might,' Claire said. She felt tentative about it, and a little overwhelmed by what Dr Anderson was doing in this very sparkly lab; who was she to pretend to be an inventor? It didn't feel nearly as weird when she was with Myrnin; everything seemed possible.
Here, she felt very ... young. And inexperienced.
But she had Dr Anderson's undivided attention. 'Go on.'
'I ... I thought that since Myrnin had made machines that interacted with vampire powers, then it might be possible to make another machine to cancel them.'
There was a long, strange silence, and Claire felt herself growing hot and uncomfortable under Anderson's steady stare. Then her professor said, very carefully, 'Do you have such a device?'
'Maybe? I mean, I know it can amplify vampire emotions. I think if I can use it in reverse, it could make them afraid instead of angry, cancel out their aggression and hunger ... It's all really just a guess right now.'
'But you built it.'
'I have a prototype.'
'Where?'