Free Emmy Laybourne by Dress Your Marines in White [ss] Page A

it's not nearly as effective a presentation. Not a tenth as impressive. What we want the brass to understand is how MORS affects a group of people. Not a series of individuals. All four at a time will really strike a graphic visual."

    "I have less concern for striking visuals than I have for the clarity of the demonstration."

    "Dr. Savic, with all due respect, do you want mass production funded or not?" Massey asked, her hands on her hips. She was notoriously combative and ambitious.

    James had found it thrilling, at first, to be the assistant to a woman who cared not a shred about what people thought. She cared only for the success of MORS and her own rise in the lab. The thrill wore off a month or so later.

    She went through a new assistant every four-point-eight months or so. James was a year and a half in, and he was going to stick it out until MORS was funded. There'd be a bonus then. And he deserved the bonus.

    It had seemed like such a good idea at first - Monument. A small town in the foothills of a sunny, rocky forest preserve. Out of loud, ugly Manhattan where the snow turned gray the moment it hit the ground and even the moon hung smutty in the sky.

    Brayden was flourishing here. Back in the city he'd been on the fringe - heavy into gaming and basically living online. Here he was on the football team and was with friends and girls at all times.

    But every day James spent with Massey took something out of him. Some measurement of optimism and goodness, it felt like. Susan didn't see or didn't care. The move had not got him out of the doghouse. James would never be out of the doghouse with Susan. She liked being married to an a-hole and an a-hole he would forever be, in her mind. If he wasn't an a-hole, then some of her misery was her own fault.

    "I want MORS to be funded. However, we can't risk a repeat of the leak in 2021," Savic insisted.

    April 2021. The biological-warfare compound MORS had accidentally leaked into a test room during a rival scientist's presentation. Massey and Savic had both been there. The rival scientist had died and Massey had lost her husband, a doctor who had been the cocreator of MORS, in the leak.

    James felt that loss must have been what fueled Massey's determination to see MORS make it into production. She had to have some deep psychological attachment to the outcome. Otherwise . . . what was she?

    "Of course not," Massey said. "Least of all me. But that demonstration room was not properly prepared - "

    And here Savic started to object, "Now just a moment - "

    But Massey shouted over him, "For a class one biological-warfare compound and you know it!"

    Her teeth were clenched. Dr. Savic's knuckles were white on the handle of his cane. It was clear to James that she was going to win. It was also clear that neither of them had really recovered from the leak in 2021.

    Massey took a deep breath and smiled her fakey smile. The one that was clearly an indicator of aggression and not affection.

    "All I'm saying, Dr. Savic, is that the room was not sufficiently prepared to test MORS. If it had been, things might have gone more smoothly. Can we agree on that?" she asked.

    "Yes."

    And so she put in her proposal for the demonstration to Colonel Davidson. It was highly unusual to test a warfare compound on human subjects. There were long months of paperwork and revised proposals and waiting. And planning.

    Four test volunteers were recruited from the garrison at Fort Leavenworth. It is my understanding that each marine was offered a full pardon in return for his participation in the test.

    He felt sick, thinking of her planning for the demonstration. The plans she shared with him with such excitement and flair - the bile was right there at the bottom of his throat.

    They celebrated when they received permission to execute the demonstration. Massey sent Cha, her other assistant, out for a magnum of Dom Perignon.

    "The safety gel is what makes it safe," she said, pacing with a