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III
It was rare for Lucy to spend the night at James's apartment, because he lived like a slob and Lucy had standards about that kind of thing, but they had di
Finally, there was daylight, and Lucy slipped out of bed. James's bathroom was just this side of disgusting-she suspected he cleaned it about once a year-but the shower was nice and strong. Since she had to wear her clothes from the night before, she was glad she had changed right before di
It was still pretty early, so she stopped at Starbucks. She looked wistfully at the scones behind the glass as she poured a thimble of nonfat milk and a package of Splenda into her coffee.
She parked in the garage under the building. For once she would beat David to work-normally he was there when she walked in, already pounding away at his computer or changing the rats’ litter. Whenever he pointed her relative tardiness out to her, she, in turn, always pointed out that he wore an old T-shirt and jeans to work every single day and that she actually made an effort with her own appearance, which took time. “Yeah, well there aren't enough hours in the whole year to make me look decent,” he said once with a sigh and that successfully silenced her.
Lucy rode the elevator up from the garage and headed toward their corridor. She rounded the corner and saw someone at the lab door. Her first thought was that it was probably some kind of delivery that she'd need to sign for, so she was already speeding up when she realized that no, it wasn't a package, that the girl was putting something on the door, and then the girl had turned and seen her and there was a moment when neither of them moved, and then something about the panic in the girl's eyes made Lucy realize she couldn't just let her go, so she ran toward her and the girl scrambled away in the opposite direction-only then she must have realized she'd left her messenger bag leaning against the door because she hesitated and looked back, and in that moment Lucy had already caught up to her and didn't even need to see the “THERE'S BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS” sign hanging crookedly-the girl had only succeeded in tacking up one corner-to know she had just captured the Enemy.
The Enemy was short, blond, a little on the pudgy side, and about twenty years old.
“You hurt my arm,” she said, cradling her elbow against her chest. She was sitting in a chair in the lab all hunched up inside the big black man's peacoat she was wearing.
She had twisted and fought when Lucy first grabbed her arm, and, since she was both frantic and determined, had succeeded fairly easily in breaking free of Lucy's grip-but Lucy had the foresight to turn and snatch up the girl's bag, and the girl stopped a few steps away, torn between escape and retrieval. Lucy had said-in as reasonable tone as she could muster between gasps for breath-”I’m going to know your name and where you live in a minute, so there's no point in ru
Lucy dumped the contents of the girl's bag onto the desk. Papers, Sharpies, tubes of lip balm, keys, tissues, loose coins, and a wallet all fell out, followed by a can of spray paint, which then rolled off the desk and onto the floor.
She opened the wallet. “Hey, look-a student ID. That's helpful.” She studied it briefly, then looked up. “So how are you liking UCLA, Ashley? I see you're living off campus.” No response. “So what kind of name is Skopinker, anyway? Russian?” The girl was silent. “Ukrainian?” Ashley just glared at her. “Polish, maybe? Am I at least right to focus on Eastern Europe?”
“You can't do that,” the girl said. “That's my stuff. It's illegal to go through someone's stuff without a search warrant.”
“It's also illegal to pour paint on people's cars and send hate mail through the Internet,” Lucy said. “Maybe you and I should cut each other some slack.”
“You don't need to cut me any slack,” Ashley said. “I’ll be fine. It's the rats I’m worried about. Look at them, locked up in those tiny cages. Waiting to be slaughtered. Don't you have a heart? Or at least a conscience?”
“They love their cages,” Lucy said, with a brief glance over in that direction. “They're fed, they're warm, they have company-”
“Until you kill them.”
“It's a very fast, painless death. It's not like life is so great for a rat on the street, you know.”
“I bet they'd be willing to take that chance,” the girl said. “How about we set them all free and see whether or not they come back to their cages?”
“They'd die in a couple of days,” Lucy said. “Their adrenal glands don't function.”
“Holy shit,” the girl said. “What have you done to them?”
“They were born that way.”
“Bred that way, you mean.” The girl shook her head and her long blond hair swung first one way and then the other. It really was beautiful hair, Lucy thought. Too bad she was carrying around some extra weight, because the girl had potential. If she just lost twenty pounds and did something about her skin…
“It's scientific research,” Lucy said. “Ever heard of it? It's led to a lot of cures for a lot of people. For animals, too. In fact, Addison's disease is more common in dogs than in humans, and it's one of the-”
The girl cut her off. “There are ways of doing scientific research without torturing and killing harmless animals.”
“You're right,” Lucy said. “We could use college students instead. You want to be our first volunteer?”
The girl got up from her chair and walked over to the cages. “Poor little things,” she said. “What kind of a creature is man that he can do this to other animals without even feeling guilty about it? We're the ones without souls, not them.” She poked a finger in one of the cages and made little cooing noises for a while. Then she turned back to Lucy “Have you ever bothered to get down on their level and look them in the eyes, ever even tried to see the intelligence and the humanity-for want of a better word-that's in there?”
“Actually,” Lucy said, “believe it or not, I’m what you might call an animal lover. But I’m also a realist. Sometimes you have to kill a rat to save a human life, or two, or three thousand, and that's a choice I’m willing to make.”
“Easy for you to say. You haven't asked them.“ She gestured toward the rats.
“They're welcome to perform medical experiments on humans, as soon as it occurs to them to do so. And they get a grant from the NIH.”
“How can you say you're an animal lover? You think because you pet dogs now and then, that means you care?” She shook her head in sincere disgust. “If you really loved animals, you wouldn't just go and kill a few every week without even thinking twice about it-”
“No, not without thinking about it,” Lucy said. “I think about it all the time. And then I go ahead and I kill them because it's ultimately the right thing to do.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because it is. Choices aren't always easy, Ashley.”
Ashley snorted. “That's what evil people always say. You start with small animals, then why not kill bigger ones? And while you're killing bigger animals, why not kill off sick or weak humans? And, if you're going to kill them, why not kill the ones you decide are inferior to you? Because they're like a different race or religion or something? And then, of course, you'll have to kill anyone who doesn't agree with you-”