“So what brings you here, Eric?” asked Dr. Fall.

“Insomnia. I can’t sleep. The state of the world, the current administration, it’s too much. I was reading up on meds like zolpidem. I wondered…” 

“You want a prescription? Sure. Might as well while Jr. still lets us prescribe these things, huh? Is there anything else?” Dr. Fall asked. He appeared to be in a hurry to end the appointment. 

Eric shook his head, “No, that’s pretty much it.”

“Well, make sure you’re getting lots of exercise, and maybe speak to a therapist. But I can definitely help you out with the meds.”

Eric nodded as Dr. Fall squinted at his computer screen, typing in a few things. He inquired about Eric’s preferred pharmacy, then typed something else.

“You got any kids, Eric?” Dr. Fall asked. 

Eric shook his head. 

“You’re not yet fifty. You could settle down, you know. Get a wife and a baby. Might take your mind off the woes of the world.”

“I’m pretty sure it would just add to them, doctor. I believe it’s too late for me.”

Dr. Fall shrugged, “Suit yourself. Now, don’t take more than the 10mg dose with this stuff, and don’t try to quit cold turkey once you’re taking it consistently, or you’re gonna have a bad time. Let’s have a followup in about three months, okay? Unless there are issues before then.” Dr. Fall gave a hearty chest cough into his sleeve, and then stood up, shook Eric’s hand, and left. The session was over. 

Later that night, as Eric was crushing up two of the zolpidem, and scooping their contents into a little baggie, before crushing up two more into a separate baggie as backup, he found himself smiling for the first time in months. A genuine smile. Not one forced out of him at work to try and fit in. 

He continued to scroll through Dr. Raj’s Facebook, Wikipedia, and linked in pages, as well as every other social media platform and article he could get his hands on regarding the man. He had already been at it for weeks, but this was like cramming for the test. He didn’t want to mess this up. 

This was it. This weekend, the long weekend, he would finally have a chance to make the world a better place. His last chance.

*****

“Dr. Raj, your daughter is calling. She says she has been trying to get a hold of you,” came Mara’s voice over the headset.

Dr. Devansh Raj, Dr. Raj to most, Dev to his best friends, and papa to his daughter Anika, took a deep breath in his hazmat suit as the air flowed around him somewhere below the roar of an airplane.

“Tell her I promise to call her back when I’m out of here,” Dev spoke as loud and clear as he could, hand trembling slightly as he returned the remainder of the rapid-acting virus to its container, and began to seal and sterilize everything with the bottle of diluted bleach. He glanced over at the ammonium salts bottle, wondering why Evers hadn’t bothered to finish cleaning up his station. Oh well. They could worry about it on Tuesday when they finished the process of shutting the lab down. 

Dev set about putting his tray of cryovial samples in the deep freeze, putting the viruses in one freezer and the vaccines in another.

He sealed the freezers, then walked over to the cages where they housed the Rhesus monkeys. Eeyore was the only one left, the sole survivor, and first of the monkeys given Dev’s current vaccine. Dev opened the cage and placed a handful of vegetables and nuts in the special container set up to avoid contamination. Almost before the cage was closed, Eeyore was snatching them up and devouring them rapidly.

“You’re about to go on a long journey, my friend,” Dev said. “I hope they treat you well.”

The results in Eeyore had been so promising, his cells so resilient to the virus now, that Dev had gotten assurances from the Boston lab that they would keep Eeyore alive for observation.

In a way, Dev was relieved that his beloved lab was closing down. His hard work being sent away. Well, relieved only in the sense that he wouldn’t have to watch everyone else do the research he could no longer do as his tremor and panic attacks worsened. It was a straight path to teaching now for him, assuming the current administration would allow It. 

It was a selfish thought he permitted himself as he genuinely did care about all his fellow workers at the lab, and the years of research they had done. He wished them all the best in their next endeavors, and prayed that shutting down these labs wasn’t going to bite humanity in the ass.

Who was he kidding, of course it would. Humanity was fucked when ignorance prevailed. 

He entered the chemical shower in his positive pressure suit, turning to make sure the disinfectant reached every square inch of him. Several minutes later, once he was satisfied that his suit was clean, he stepped out of the containment zone and carefully removed his gloves and suit.

Several minutes later, after a rigorous personal shower, he was changed back into fresh clean purple scrubs, his favorite work atire since it was so easy to don, and happened to be his daughter’s favorite color. Finally, he was standing outside the lab area with security. Eric Quinn and Trevor Bailey looked up at him with somber faces from their positions at their computers. 

“Guess I’ll see you Tuesday, Dr. Raj,” Trevor said. “Then it’s sayonara.” 

“Don’t be a stranger,” Dev gave a gentle smile to the men before heading to his office to finish up some work. It took him half an hour to remember to call Anika back, and by the time her phone was ringing, it went straight to voicemail. She must be in class, he thought. He left a short message. 

“Hello Pipette, sorry I missed you. I know you’re thinking about your mother a lot this weekend, and I am too. We’ll get together for dinner on Sunday and reminisce, okay? Sorry again, but with the lab shutting down, everything has been so chaotic. Love you, Pipette.” 

Dev hung up with a sigh, setting his phone on his desk and taking off his glasses to lean forward with his face in his hands. It had been one year this weekend. How had it been a year already? And why did the lab have to be closing down now? It all seemed like too much. 

There was a soft knock at the door, and he looked over to see Eric waving at him through the window. Dev gestured him in with a forced smile, still caught up in his own feelings about everything happening. The memory of his wife. 

“Sorry to intrude Dr. Raj,” Eric said, looking sheepish. “I just wanted to bring you this as a thank you for everything, you know? You’ve been so generous to all of us here at the lab, and offering to be a reference for my next position really meant a lot to me. So, I went to your favorite coffee place across the street and got that Chai you love so much.”

Eric held out the cup of tea, and Dev couldn’t help but genuinely smile at the sweet gesture. 

“Thank you so much, Eric,” Dev said, taking the cup, “this will help me power through the last of my work tonight before I head home for the long weekend.”

“Don’t work too hard,” Eric insisted, fidgeting with the string on his hoodie as Dev took a sip from the cup. 

“Mmm, perfect,” Dev grinned.

“Well, I’m gonna go help Trevor finish wrapping things up,” Eric said. “I’ll walk you out later, if that’s alright?”

“Of course!” Dev nodded, taking another sip of the tea, and relishing in the sweet flavor. Such a kind gesture. 

Eric nodded and left, closing the door behind him and leaving Dev to his work. 

****

“Dr. Raj must have been working his ass off,” Trevor said as he and Eric walked by Dr. Raj’s office. Eric glanced in to see Dr. Raj with his arms on the desk, face down, fast asleep. 

“Oh jeez,” said Eric, “Hey, you go on, I’m gonna make sure he gets home okay.”

“I didn’t see his car in the lot today,” said Trevor. 

“He mentioned something about having a flat tire this morning. Said he took an Uber in. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he gets home,” said Eric, heart thumping as he watched Trevor stare at Dr. Raj’s unconscious form. 

“I can’t believe it’s been a year since that business with his wife,” Trevor said. “That poor poor man.”

“Yeah,” Eric nodded, wishing Trevor would leave already. 

“Well, I’m gonna go home and drink to the end of our beloved lab. Hit me up later if you want to celebrate the end,” Trevor said. 

“I might just do that,” said Eric, lying through his teeth. He watched Trevor finally leave, heading for the elevator. Eric let out a sigh and walked into Dr. Raj’s office. He closed the door behind him and shut the blinds, before picking up the cup of tea. Dr. Raj had consumed the whole thing. Eric vaguely wondered if he’d had a chance to use the bathroom. He picked up one of Dr. Raj’s arms, and dropped it on the table. The man didn’t budge. He was out cold. 

Eric pulled out his laptop, checking the security cameras he had uploaded to his personal device. Edward, the front door guard, was downstairs at the entrance, chatting away with Trevor, probably being invited to his end of the lab drinking session. Eric typed in a command, and a red alert button lit up on Edward’s display, cutting his conversation with Trevor short as he had to check on whatever had triggered the alarm in the bathroom. 

As soon as Trevor was out the door, and Edward was distracted trying to figure out the bathroom sensor, Eric inputted the camera footage he had secured from three weeks ago of him walking out with Dr. Raj around this time. The remainder of the building’s footage now showed no one else around. It was too difficult to make it look like he and Dr. Raj had actually swiped out with the way that security was set up, but he would deal with that issue in a little bit. 

For now, with the cameras no longer showing him or Dr. Raj being in the facility, Eric was free to start his little project. He went and grabbed the wheelchair that they kept in the upstairs closet in case of emergency, and maneuvered Dr. Raj into it, before using the elevator to take him way down to the sublevels before Edward got back to his desk. 

****

The first thing Dev noticed when he woke up was how stiff his neck and shoulders were. 

The second thing he noticed was that he couldn’t move his arms. 

He blinked repeatedly in an attempt to remove the cloud of drowsiness he was currently enveloped in as he tried to understand what was happening. Hadn’t he been in his office? Doing work?

He recalled feeling drowsy, and laying his head down on the desk for a moment of relief, and now…

He looked around, feeling the crunch of his aching neck as he did so, letting out a small hiss of pain. He was in a strange room he had never seen before, one loaded with different boxes of files. To his left, a door was slightly ajar, the light to the next room on, and he could see a toilet. To his right, the door to the room he was in was closed. He was seated on a mat, his arms secured behind him with what he could feel were handcuffs. He looked up, realizing that he was wearing his glasses, and saw that he was attached to a thin pillar that went from ceiling to floor. A discovery he made along with a great deal of noise as the handcuffs clanged against the pillar. 

“Oh good, you’re awake,” came a voice from the bathroom. Dev startled, watching anxiously as the bathroom door opened all the way, and Eric Quinn came out, a grin on his face. 

“Eric? What-” Dev shook his head in an attempt to try to make sense of what he was seeing. He only succeeded in making his neck tense more, feeling a definite strain on his shoulders. 

“I’m sorry, I know it can’t be that comfortable. I promise it wasn’t my goal to make you miserable,” said Eric, sitting down on the floor across from Dev.

“What are you doing?” Dev asked, reality beginning to set in as he looked at the man across from him who seemed to have no intention of freeing him from this pillar. 

“I just want to talk,” said Eric. “I just want to convince you to help me save the world, Dr. Raj. Save it from all the evil terrible people that would do it harm.”

“How exactly would we do that?” Dev asked, looking around the room for any sign of something that could free him from this place. From this insane moment. 

“We’re going to release your virus, doctor. The extended one. The one with the potential to kill 88% of the world’s population. We’re going to save the planet.”