is a sterile labyrinth. Each hallway seems to stretch and branch endlessly, bland beige and blue tunnels with cold lighting from above. The walls, ceiling, and lights are all segmented and I can’t help feeling as if I’m wandering down the inside of a worm. My borrowed shoes are bouncy against the hard floor. The facility is extremely clean and brightly lit but there is a faint trace of something dank in the air. At even intervals are mirrored domes that likely house security cameras, and they make me thankful for my beard and unkempt hair covering my features. I walk past doors with thick panes of glass, turn randomly down hallways, and search for anything that may seem familiar. It has been two years since Grace first showed me this facility.
Eventually I recognize my surroundings. The entire floor may be painted and lit the same way but I have seen this particular configuration of doors and windows, and at the end of the hall is the entrance to Grace and John’s supervisor’s laboratory. This doorhas a five-button security lock, with two numbers sharing each button. I punch in the final code,
2 5 1
0
, and watch the green light illuminate. The door opens inward.
The anteroom is small and cluttered with rolling plastic cabinets, boxes of rubber gloves, and hanging lab coats. Opposite the room’s entrance is another door, this one with a viewing portal, and through it I see no researchers, only stacked cages. I unwrap Buddy from the blue shirt and set him on my right shoulder. He paces across the back of my neck to my left shoulder, and scurries back again in agitation when I push through the next door into the pitch-black rat colony. My nostrils are flooded with the smell of piss and my ears are filled with the din of hundreds of animals rattling the wire lids of their cages. On the other side of the colony room is the final door, wedged open with a piece of wood, and a little lacquered sign that says
Procedure Room.
It takes a few hard kicks to get the wedge out and the door closed behind me.
In the centre of the procedure room is what I came for: a dark Plexiglas cube that’s big enough to house a rat. In the shelving underneath the cube I find extra Plexiglas panels, one with a rubber-lined hole in it, and messy wires that sprout from an electrical box. The wires feed to a desktop computer that sits on a long stainless steel bench. On the shelf above the bench are stacks of papers as well as some other computer supplies, tools, and jagged pieces of plastic and metal.
I have been in this very room once before, but only now does it occur to me: its layout, contents, and purpose are strikingly similar to those of the second bedroom of John and Grace’s apartment. It’s hard to pin down, but it concerns me that John’s wooden box has no wires, no overt mechanisms. In its elegance it seems more sophisticated, more dangerous than this laboratory setup.
“O.K.,” I say to Buddy. “Enough wasting time. Let’s get moving.”
He pays no attention to me. His long whiskers and nose aretwitching furiously and he’s dangling off my shoulder to sniff the room. It appears he remembers this place.
I turn on the computer monitor and find an unexpected challenge: the desktop has many log-in names and each is password protected. There are only two names I recognize, John’s and Grace’s, so I try my sister’s log-in first. There is a small “?” icon to the right of the password space and when I press it I’m given a hint that was written by the user.
I realize that if through science I can seize phenomena and enumerate them, I cannot, for all that, ___.
I know this. I remember this. An argument between Grace and Nicole. A talk with John. I’ve even read this recently: Camus. But I can’t remember how the quote ends. I try typing
understand reality
but the system warns me it will lock me out after two more failed attempts.
“Goddamn it,” I say to myself, “your head is full of garbage.”
I click back to
Eventually I recognize my surroundings. The entire floor may be painted and lit the same way but I have seen this particular configuration of doors and windows, and at the end of the hall is the entrance to Grace and John’s supervisor’s laboratory. This doorhas a five-button security lock, with two numbers sharing each button. I punch in the final code,
2 5 1
0
, and watch the green light illuminate. The door opens inward.
The anteroom is small and cluttered with rolling plastic cabinets, boxes of rubber gloves, and hanging lab coats. Opposite the room’s entrance is another door, this one with a viewing portal, and through it I see no researchers, only stacked cages. I unwrap Buddy from the blue shirt and set him on my right shoulder. He paces across the back of my neck to my left shoulder, and scurries back again in agitation when I push through the next door into the pitch-black rat colony. My nostrils are flooded with the smell of piss and my ears are filled with the din of hundreds of animals rattling the wire lids of their cages. On the other side of the colony room is the final door, wedged open with a piece of wood, and a little lacquered sign that says
Procedure Room.
It takes a few hard kicks to get the wedge out and the door closed behind me.
In the centre of the procedure room is what I came for: a dark Plexiglas cube that’s big enough to house a rat. In the shelving underneath the cube I find extra Plexiglas panels, one with a rubber-lined hole in it, and messy wires that sprout from an electrical box. The wires feed to a desktop computer that sits on a long stainless steel bench. On the shelf above the bench are stacks of papers as well as some other computer supplies, tools, and jagged pieces of plastic and metal.
I have been in this very room once before, but only now does it occur to me: its layout, contents, and purpose are strikingly similar to those of the second bedroom of John and Grace’s apartment. It’s hard to pin down, but it concerns me that John’s wooden box has no wires, no overt mechanisms. In its elegance it seems more sophisticated, more dangerous than this laboratory setup.
“O.K.,” I say to Buddy. “Enough wasting time. Let’s get moving.”
He pays no attention to me. His long whiskers and nose aretwitching furiously and he’s dangling off my shoulder to sniff the room. It appears he remembers this place.
I turn on the computer monitor and find an unexpected challenge: the desktop has many log-in names and each is password protected. There are only two names I recognize, John’s and Grace’s, so I try my sister’s log-in first. There is a small “?” icon to the right of the password space and when I press it I’m given a hint that was written by the user.
I realize that if through science I can seize phenomena and enumerate them, I cannot, for all that, ___.
I know this. I remember this. An argument between Grace and Nicole. A talk with John. I’ve even read this recently: Camus. But I can’t remember how the quote ends. I try typing
understand reality
but the system warns me it will lock me out after two more failed attempts.
“Goddamn it,” I say to myself, “your head is full of garbage.”
I click back to
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