in a kiosk stationed at the entrance gate, and Max pulled up and stopped, lowering his window.
“I have a two o’clock lab scheduled,” he announced. The guard stooped down to look in the window.
“ID please,” he held out his hand.
Max held out his identification, and the guard checked his name against a list on a clipboard, “Who’s your passenger?”
“This is Marina. Uhm, she’s my…uh, assistant.” he said unconvincingly.
Spoken like someone not accustomed to telling lies, I thought, pulling out my student identification. I leaned across Max to hand the man my card, “Professor Powell has arranged for me to visit the lab.” I smiled broadly and made eye contact.
He smiled back, and then looked down at my card, reading aloud, “Marina Vanderpool?”
“Yes sir,” I nodded.
“You have until four,” he waved us through.
Max parked, turning to look at me, “Any relation to Martin Vanderpool?”
“He’s my father.”
He looked shocked, blurting out, “Didn’t he just get blown up by a land mine?”
“He was injured,” I explained, rushing to get out of the car, “But he’s going to be fine. Now let’s go check out this lab.”
I didn’t want to discuss my father. We only had an hour, and I needed to see as much as possible. I had to know if what Yuri said was true. I hurried towards the large windowless building, looking up to see a pair of cameras on either side of the door aiming down at us. I turned around to see Max standing behind me with a strange look on his face.
“How do we get in?” I asked impatiently.
Max motioned to a keypad and I stepped back, watching as he rapidly typed in six numbers. Too rapidly, as I could only make out the first and last digits. A green light came on, and he opened the door, gesturing for me to go in.
“Why so much security?” I asked.
“I guess they’ve gotten threats from animal rights activists. Some rich guy donated the land and they got a huge grant, but if you ask me, they’re blowing it all on surveillance.” The door closed behind us with a loud click.
I followed him into a short hallway with a couple more heavily fortified doors. It reminded me of a hospital corridor, save for the eerie blue lighting and the abundance of cameras in the ceiling. We passed a door with a sign posted over it that announced, “Danger : Restricted Area : Authorized Personnel Only”.
“What’s in there?” I whispered.
“That’s what we’d all like to know,” he groused.
Max stopped at the second door and punched the same six digit code into the keypad. This time I got the first three numbers.
The room was large, and humming with row upon row of tanks that held all kinds of sea creatures and plants. We passed a couple of students intent on feeding a tank full of anemones, and a girl poring over something through the lens of a microscope.
Max pointed out the pipes that lined the walls, “Since we’re located so close to the shore, we have a system that pumps in fresh seawater constantly. It’s a vast improvement over the old lab… We can keep so many more specimens alive now.”
“Alive,” I repeated, looking around.
He led me to the circular tanks that held his specimens, “See the egg cases here, and look!” he sounded excited, “Paralarvae!”
“Wow!” I said, my eyes darting around the room, “Is the restricted lab as big as this one?”
“Bigger,” he said. “Professor Powell told me they had a tank installed that could hold a good sized Orca.”
“Does he have access to it?”
“I’m not sure.”
He turned his attention back to his aquariums, pointing out the mature squid, “Most people don’t give very much credit to the common squid… But watch this!”
He disappeared behind a tank for a moment and returned with a small net full of squiggling krill that he dropped into the water. The squid inside grew excited, darting around the tank and changing from a bluish color to a dark red. I watched in fascination as they used the two longest of their ten tentacles to snare the little shrimp-like creatures.
I looked up to meet Max’s smiling eyes. “Chromatophores, ” he said.
“What?”
“They have color changing cells. Each cell consists of a pigment sack surrounded by radiating muscles.” Max went on and on about the squid while I took in every detail of the room, trying to imagine its mirror image. “As the muscles contract –”
“Excuse me, but is there a restroom here?”
“It’s out the door at the