Chapter Eleven
Melinda scooted old equipment and boxes from the side of the room and set up a table to place the older portable maze they once used. Seemed the establishment had a bit of a hoard mentality, which in this case worked for her. She needed to keep her mind occupied while Hamel took care of her lab.
Which in itself seemed a bit weird. He was a PhD-level person who appeared more in the know with CSI than CDC. But what did she know about a real Oversight job description besides the required asshole part? Pretty much zilch.
And what the hell was with all that sniffing and deep breathing? If he needed a tissue, all he had to do was ask. For a moment, she was going to offer him a box, but he was so intense in what he was doing, she didn’t want to disturb him. Snot or not.
Whatever. Everyone had their little idiosyncrasies. Her habit of having a place for everything and being predictable—her ex complained about that once—could bug the crap out of others. But those two attributes were good for a research scientist to have. Especially when having virus-covered stuff sitting around.
She placed a treat in the far corner of the maze then walked around the table to put the baby mouse in the far gated slot. She looked at the clock above the door to mark the time, then realized she didn’t have her laptop to record her notes.
She sighed and searched the room for paper. Twenty drawers, six cabinets, and three shelves later, she found an old set of large sticky notes. That would work. She doubted much would happen on this first trip though. She just needed to know if the smells of unknown mice on the path would affect the baby’s willingness to complete the journey.
Walking back to the beginning of the maze, she noticed the treat she thought she put there was gone. She had put one down, hadn’t she? After placing another at the end, she rounded the side, glancing at the clock. Then she realized she didn’t have a pen to write with. She slapped a hand on her forehead to keep from screaming her frustration. She couldn’t get her laptop back soon enough.
Knowing there wasn’t a writing utensil in the room, she raided a nearby unused office to find a pink pen with yellow and green fuzzies on the top. No wonder it was there; no one wanted to use it.
Already tired and not caring, she snatched it up and headed back to her temporary lab. Again, passing the end of the maze, she noted the treat was gone. What the fuck? She glanced at the mouse still behind the wire gate on the other side.
Her eyes searched the room, making sure no one else was hiding or playing a prank on her. Now was not the time. Her nerves where shot from the invasion of her lab this morning. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, she laid another treat in the maze then leaned against the cabinet.
Maybe she should go home and sit on her balcony, relax to the waves for a while, and come back later. About a glassful of wine was left in the bottle. Even though Moscato had the lowest alcohol rate, it would still help—
The baby mouse squeaked and shuffled around in its spot, drawing her attention. The treat on her side of the table began to roll. Melinda didn’t move. Didn’t even breathe. She watched the treat clear each turn of the maze, never needing to backtrack, ending up in front of the mouse, who reached under the gate to pull the treat in and nibble it.
Holy teleporting freaky moving shit. Her heart pounded. She felt better knowing she had put treats down earlier and wasn’t losing her mind. But wow! Reaching for the desk phone, she dialed Dembe. “Hey,” she almost hollered into the receiver when her friend picked up, “can you do a Mickey hat right now?” Getting a reply of yes, Melinda snagged the mouse on the run out the door, down the hall, and into Dembe’s lab.
“Oh my god!” Melinda yelled as she slid through the door. “You’re not going to freaking believe this.”
Dembe stood next to the scanning machine, tiny metal hat with protruding wires in her hand. “Jesus, Melinda, you’re scaring me. What happened this morning?”
This morning? “Oh, yeah. That’s something totally different. Someone broke into the lab.”
“That was the rumor. Are you all right? Last I knew you were in Mr. Kintu’s office.”
She waved a hand through the air, brushing off any concern. “Yeah, everything’s fine. Hamel is taking care of it. I’ve got something more amazing.”
She reached toward her pocket to see her baby mouse’s front paws and head sticking up, looking at the world. It was soooo cute. “Come on, little guy. We’re gonna put Mickey ears on you and see what your brain’s doing.”
Dembe pointed to a medium-sized wire cage. “Put him in that and bring it over here. What did you discover?”
Melinda set the critter in the container, then wrapped her arms around it. “Just you wait—” When lifting the cage, she didn’t raise it enough to clear the soda can on the counter. “Oops.” Dembe always had at least one Diet Coke sitting around. “Sorry, Dee. I’ll buy you another one.”
Her friend shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. After you called to say you were coming, I put another one in the fridge to cool.” Melinda laughed. Dembe knew her well. Melinda carried over her load while Dembe called housekeeping for cleanup on aisle five.
“Okay,” the cocoa-skinned woman said, “let’s get this cute little thing wired.” For the next five minutes, the ladies wrestled a miniature brainwave detector onto an even smaller, constantly wiggling head. “You know,” Dembe started, “if you could tell these pests to sit still, this process would be a lot easier.”
Melinda smiled. Dembe liked to tease her about her affection toward the four-legged animals her friend considered nuisances. “Sure, Dee. I’ll sign up for Mouse Speak 101 next semester.”
A knock on the door broke their concentration. A man Melinda hadn’t seen before stuck his head in from the hall. In native Ugandan, he said he was sent with a mop. Dembe pointed him toward the soda spilled on the floor. He pushed the door open and rolled in a yellow bucket with a squeegee attachment.
With the Mickey ears firmly in place, she set the mouse in the cage. Dembe fired up the equipment. “Okay, Mel. Show me what you got.”