Read Online Lab Notes: a novel by Gerrie Nelson - Free Book Online Page A

wearing an impish grin, as Diane approached. “Your husband is trying to figure out what it is; would you like to hazard a guess?”
    “It looks like an oversized airport metal detector, but I’m sure Vincent has already covered that one.” After studying it for a few moments, she shrugged and said,” Okay, if it’s not a carwash for Mini Coopers, I’m out of guesses.”
    Jerry laughed and turned to Vincent who held up his hands in surrender.
    “I give up.” he said.
    “This was Harry Lee’s tinker toy. We named her ‘Maggie,’” Jerry said as he reached over and tapped a touchscreen on a control panel mounted outside the glass wall. He tapped the panel in several more spots and turned to Vincent. “Okay. I’m going out that door. When I’ve closed it behind me, you push ‘enter’ to start up the system.” Vincent nodded without total comprehension. Jerry grinned, “You’ll hear a brief blast of noise—that’s just part of the process.”
    He walked through the frame and out the back door. Vincent pressed “enter” on the screen as he had been instructed. Two electronic eyes, about ankle high on either side of the inner frame, switched on.
    Jerry Wentzel re-entered from the hallway. As he passed through the frame, a pleasant female computer voice said, “Hello, Jerry Wentzel.”
    “Interesting,” Diane said when Wentzel rejoined them. “Are you wearing some sort of magnetic tag?”
    “Good guess. You try it,” Jerry said, touching the screen. He looked down at Diane’s pumps. “But you’d better remove your shoes first. They could have metal shanks.”
    Diane, looking puzzled, glanced down at Jerry’s Adidas, then obediently stepped out of her shoes.
    Jerry explained. “There’s a powerful magnetic field that comes up past your ankles. If there was any metal in your shoes they’d stick to a strip in the floor and you’d either step out of your shoes or fall on your face.” With that, he threw back his head and laughed.
    “Harry Lee always left the thing turned on, and one evening it got him.
    “He was headed downtown and stopped by here to pick up something. He used the back elevator, as he was accustomed to doing, and came through that door. But Harry forgot he was wearing his dress shoes. Maggie grabbed his left shoe, and he had to throw his hands out to break his fall.” Jerry laughed again. “Instead of enjoying Aida performed by the Houston Grand Opera, Harry spent the evening in the emergency room with a fractured wrist.”
    Diane was fascinated, “Well, it’ll be amazing if Maggie can identify me .” She headed through the frame in her stocking feet and out the back door.
    Jerry tapped the touchscreen, and the electronic eyes lit up. Diane reentered from the hallway and stepped through the frame. Then just as she opened the glass door to reenter the lab, a pulsating electronic screech issued forth in quadraphonic sound, and Maggie shouted out, “Intruder entering, intruder entering.”
    Jerry tapped “Reset” on the screen and the alarm fell silent. He looked over at Diane who appeared slightly stunned. “Of course, Maggie would give you a warmer greeting if she got to know you,” he said with a smile. “The problem is, no one knows how to introduce you to her—other than Harry Lee, that is.”
    Diane glanced around the empty laboratory, then back at Wentzel. “Whatever happened to Dr. Lee?”
    Jerry’s features drooped. “Nobody knows. He announced he was taking a sabbatical one day. Then he deleted all his work from the computers and disappeared the next night. They say he was burned out—most unfortunate.
    “He was jack-of-all-sciences; a physicist, biologist—a gadgeteer who was onto a great discovery. And, he was a hacker extraordinaire. He’d tell me about his midnight excursions around the internet. He even hacked into government sites. I’d hold my ears and shout at him: ‘Don’t tell me those things. You’re making me an accessory.’ But it was