Free Containment by Kyle Kirkland

"Who else?"
    " If he's worried about this case he's got company." Cecily summarized her visit to Vision Cell Bioceuticals. Roderick listened intently.
    " Man, I've got a bad feeling in my gut." Cecily shook her head, and some of her wet bangs fell over her face. She pushed them gently out of the way. "Really bad."
    Roderick seemed unmoved. "But no smoking gun, I gather."
    " No, but I was trembling when I got out of that place. It was that bad. Listen. There was one lab—I mean, a pair of labs—that really got under my skin. A combinatorial chemist and a retina researcher. There was this weird energy and I don't know what to make of it."
    " There's always some competition in biotechnology companies. Sometimes it's hidden, especially to visitors, but it's there, just underneath the surface. Perhaps that was what you were picking up."
    " I don't know, man. Maybe. But it wasn't the people that were so good—I mean, so bad. It was the whole picture, the whole set-up."
    " The CEO, maybe? The person in charge? Was that what bothered you?"
    " I just don't know." Suddenly Cecily laughed. "You're taking me seriously, aren't you? Or are you just putting me on?"
    " You know me better than that, Cecily."
    " Yeah, I guess I do." Cecily's smile disappeared. "It was that lab, I think. That pair of labs."
    " The combinatorial chemist and retina biologist, you said." Roderick paused. "Human retina, I'm sure."
    " Yeah. She's working on growing retinas in the lab, for transplants. The problem is getting the retinal ganglion cells to generate the optic nerve. That's why they've got the combinatorial chemist. He's mixing up batches of related organic chemicals, trying to come up with some molecule that will coax the ganglion cells to do what they want. I don't know how it all works."
    " Combinatorial chemistry is common these days," said Roderick. "You simply take a basic compound and then perform wholesale reactions to adjust the molecular groups. Which gives me a thought. Perhaps one of those compounds is our culprit. It's not likely that a poisonous compound capable of spreading far and wide would be created in those reactions, because they usually only use fairly safe molecules for the basic compounds. Molecules that are common in the body, for example. However, combinatorial reactions produce thousands of different chemicals, so even if there is only a small chance one of them is harmful, it's possible that over time a dangerous product would get created."
    " The problem with that, Sherlock, is that I think this agent, whatever it is, replicates. Which an inert chemical can't do."
    " What makes you think it replicates?"
    Cecily told him her ideas about the creek and the mice.
    "You're speculating," said Roderick.
    " Yeah, I know. Awful of me, isn't it?"
    " Have you told Kraig about this?"
    " No." Cecily grinned. "That's what I've got you for, sweetie. You're the brains of our team. You think it's worth telling, you tell him."
     
    Bethesda, Maryland / 5:00 p.m.
     
    A moment later Roderick Halkin stared at his phone. His conversation with Cecily finished, he sat still in his chair—which had organic body-contouring, microadjustable padding that adapted to the user's shape. Roderick's shape was mostly flat and so was the contour.
    He sat back in his expensive chair, courtesy of Chet 's budget, and thought about Cecily.
    She was, to all outward appearances, a nearly incomprehensible mystery. She marched to the beat of a different drummer, a drummer that few other people heard; possibly nobody else in the world but her. She was also one of the most eerily perceptive people Roderick Halkin had ever encountered. He even considered her his equal in a number of categories. His superior, in one or two.
    Cecily suspected, albeit on flimsy evidence, that whatever was rampaging through Medburg was capable of reproducing itself. And if it were as infectious as the mice epidemic suggested, the consequence could be disastrous. People might begin dying