health. Sharks must be here a minimum of thirty days before they can be used as a subject.”
“Do you get their written consent? Sorry.”
Her eyes glowed turquoise in the reflected light. “I wouldn’t joke around if I were you. If Dr. Becker thinks you’re a goof you’ll be kicked out of her program just like your friend, Jesse.”
“My bad.”
“And the teen slang—never use it around Becker or Dr. Kamrowski. They hate it.”
She led me out of the observation chamber and through a basement corridor, the hallway white and antiseptic looking. We passed several small offices before coming to a steel and reinforced glass door labeled BSL3-A.
“Kwan, this is the real serious stuff, so no joking around, okay? All of our animal labs are Bio-Safety Level Three environments. Four is tops, used for stuff like Ebola, so three is pretty safe. Don’t worry, we’re not working with viruses or toxic substances, but we do work with rats that have the potential to escape the facility. There are four labs which rotate between night and day settings. The walls inside are three-feet-thick cinder block—even if a rat were to escape there’s no place for it to go. You have to enter the lab through an airlock with self-closing doors. Once the outer door is secured we’ll be able to enter the lab. The lab uses negative airflow to contain airborne agents.”
“Why all these precautions if you’re not using toxic substances?”
“Rats have fleas. Fleas can escape. We don’t want a flea that has bitten a treated rat to leave the lab—negative airflow prevents that from happening. So do our plastic cages. And our waste policies. All waste must be decontaminated before it’s incinerated—especially dead animals.”
“Do I have to wear one of those spaceman suits?”
“No. That kind of stuff is only worn by lab techs who are in contact with the rats. Ready to go inside?”
“I guess so.”
She pulled open the outer door, which hissed from the air pressure differential. I followed her inside a small room which separated the corridor from the lab. When the door behind us clicked shut, Anya pushed open the interior door. She held it for me and I rolled my wheelchair inside the lab.
The room was rectangular, about forty-feet long and half as wide. Along the wall to my right were three workstations with aluminum tables, microscopes, and a sink powered by a foot pedal. Above the basin were shelves stocked with test tubes and beakers and petri dishes. The closest work area was occupied by a woman in her thirties. She wore a blue lab coat and was peering into the lens of a microscope, her back to us.
Anya led me to the opposite wall where metal shelves held three foot-long clear plastic containers. Inside each container was a white rat.
“See these hoods on top of the cages? They’re used to ventilate the rat’s habitat. Each unit has piles of wood chips that the rat uses as a nest and a water bottle designed with a sipper feeder tube. The green stuff is rodent chow. None of these rats have been treated yet. They’re being acclimated and prepped for the stem cell injections we’ll be extracting from Taurus.”
“I hate rats,” I said, a bit too loud.
The woman in the blue lab coat looked up from her microscope. “Anya, bring your friend over here please.”
Anya shot me a harsh look then led me over to the first work station.
Dr. Nadja Margareta Kamrowski was half German, half Polish. She had dark brown hair cut very short and gray-hazel eyes—only the left eye was off, in a perpetual squint. Anya told me later it was caused by a birth defect.
“Dr. Kamrowski, this is Kwan Wilson, our new intern.”
“Do you know why we use rats in medical experiments, Mr. Wilson? We use them because their genetic, biological, and behavior characteristics closely resemble those of humans. We use them because diseases and conditions that affect humans can be replicated in mice and rats. We use white rats because they are
“Do you get their written consent? Sorry.”
Her eyes glowed turquoise in the reflected light. “I wouldn’t joke around if I were you. If Dr. Becker thinks you’re a goof you’ll be kicked out of her program just like your friend, Jesse.”
“My bad.”
“And the teen slang—never use it around Becker or Dr. Kamrowski. They hate it.”
She led me out of the observation chamber and through a basement corridor, the hallway white and antiseptic looking. We passed several small offices before coming to a steel and reinforced glass door labeled BSL3-A.
“Kwan, this is the real serious stuff, so no joking around, okay? All of our animal labs are Bio-Safety Level Three environments. Four is tops, used for stuff like Ebola, so three is pretty safe. Don’t worry, we’re not working with viruses or toxic substances, but we do work with rats that have the potential to escape the facility. There are four labs which rotate between night and day settings. The walls inside are three-feet-thick cinder block—even if a rat were to escape there’s no place for it to go. You have to enter the lab through an airlock with self-closing doors. Once the outer door is secured we’ll be able to enter the lab. The lab uses negative airflow to contain airborne agents.”
“Why all these precautions if you’re not using toxic substances?”
“Rats have fleas. Fleas can escape. We don’t want a flea that has bitten a treated rat to leave the lab—negative airflow prevents that from happening. So do our plastic cages. And our waste policies. All waste must be decontaminated before it’s incinerated—especially dead animals.”
“Do I have to wear one of those spaceman suits?”
“No. That kind of stuff is only worn by lab techs who are in contact with the rats. Ready to go inside?”
“I guess so.”
She pulled open the outer door, which hissed from the air pressure differential. I followed her inside a small room which separated the corridor from the lab. When the door behind us clicked shut, Anya pushed open the interior door. She held it for me and I rolled my wheelchair inside the lab.
The room was rectangular, about forty-feet long and half as wide. Along the wall to my right were three workstations with aluminum tables, microscopes, and a sink powered by a foot pedal. Above the basin were shelves stocked with test tubes and beakers and petri dishes. The closest work area was occupied by a woman in her thirties. She wore a blue lab coat and was peering into the lens of a microscope, her back to us.
Anya led me to the opposite wall where metal shelves held three foot-long clear plastic containers. Inside each container was a white rat.
“See these hoods on top of the cages? They’re used to ventilate the rat’s habitat. Each unit has piles of wood chips that the rat uses as a nest and a water bottle designed with a sipper feeder tube. The green stuff is rodent chow. None of these rats have been treated yet. They’re being acclimated and prepped for the stem cell injections we’ll be extracting from Taurus.”
“I hate rats,” I said, a bit too loud.
The woman in the blue lab coat looked up from her microscope. “Anya, bring your friend over here please.”
Anya shot me a harsh look then led me over to the first work station.
Dr. Nadja Margareta Kamrowski was half German, half Polish. She had dark brown hair cut very short and gray-hazel eyes—only the left eye was off, in a perpetual squint. Anya told me later it was caused by a birth defect.
“Dr. Kamrowski, this is Kwan Wilson, our new intern.”
“Do you know why we use rats in medical experiments, Mr. Wilson? We use them because their genetic, biological, and behavior characteristics closely resemble those of humans. We use them because diseases and conditions that affect humans can be replicated in mice and rats. We use white rats because they are
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