Michael Palmer: The fifth vial

"I know."

"On your left!" a voice from behind called out.

Two boys, wearing the purple and white of perennial track power-house St. Clement's, flashed past them on the inside, forcing them to move to the right. Then, in unison, the youths glanced back, their expressions scornful condemnation of the policy that would allow just anyone onto their track.

"Easy," Millwood muttered. "They jail people for what you're thinking of doing. You don't have a weapon anyhow."

"Don't be so sure."

"So, Doug tells me you're spending quite a bit of time in the lab."

"What else do I have to do? The other techs want to kill me for making them look bad by being the first one in and the last one out, only they don't appreciate that I don't have anything else to do. They also don't know that just on general principles, I want to kill them more."

"What time did you say your shrink appointment was today?"

"You think I'm too angry?"

"I wouldn't be much of a friend if I just kept telling you that you were right all the time. You know I adore you, Nat, but I have to agree with what Goldenberg said about that hard edge of yours getting in the way."

"I am who I am. You of all people should appreciate that."

"You mean because I'm gay? That's what I am. I wouldn't want to change that even if I could — which I can't. The kind of person I am is another story, and as wonderful as you are, you have a chip the size of Minnesota on your shoulder that's getting in the way of- "

"On your left!"

Once again, the St. Clement's runners rudely forced them to the right.

"Hey, guys!" Natalie called.

"I don't think I want to see this," Millwood muttered.

Up ahead the boys stopped and turned. They were older than Natalie had first thought — probably juniors or seniors. One of them, curly blond hair, some residual acne, kept trotting effortlessly in place, while the other, swarthy and utterly self-assured, took a step back toward them, hands on hips, head cocked. Natalie had no doubt that this was hardly the first time the youths had asserted themselves this way with recreational joggers. She felt Millwood's mute plea to forget the whole thing, but there was no chance. He was right that she didn't have a gun to shoot them with, or a knife with which to carve them up, but she did have her legs.

"Why didn't you just go around us?" she asked.

"Because we're serious runners in training, and you're joggers who could be running anyplace."

Wrong answer. Natalie saw Millwood step back, arms folded.

"Is that so?" she said. "I'll tell you what, serious runners, if either of you can beat this old, broken-down lady jogger back around to this spot, my friend and I will leave and go trot about someplace else. But if you can't beat me in a quarter mile, we'll keep our spot here, and you two can move way to the outside — or better still, go sit down on the grass and watch until we're finished."

The youths exchanged looks and smiled knowingly. They were both good, Natalie realized, maybe very good. But hopefully not good enough. She was a distance runner, and a quarter mile was a sprint, but at that moment, she needed nothing more than to beat them. No, she needed to crush them.

Natalie stepped out of her warm-ups as Millwood moved aside.

"I'll call the start," he said, helpless to alter history in advance.

As she lined up on the outside of the two teens, Natalie felt the familiar, fierce rush of competition course through her. You are not going to beat me…You are not going to beat me…You are not going to send that man out of the ER without a CT scan…

"Ready…get set…go!"

The youths were fast and arrogantly warm to the challenge of a race — especially against an older woman jogging on the track with a middle-aged man. Still, within the first twenty yards, Natalie knew that unless they each had rockets strapped to their legs in reserve, they were in for a rude surprise. The two of them seemed about equal, and ran that way — shoulder to shoulder. For a time, Natalie stayed back, drafting in the twin shadows. But a quarter of a mile was just that, and she was in no mood to nip these rivals at the finish. They both needed a profound attitude adjustment. Nothing close. The blond was Cliff Renfro, the darker one Sam Goldenberg.

"Hey, fellas," she called, "on your left!"

The two looked back, clearly startled that she wasn't far behind. It took only that instant for her to burst between them and accelerate away. Whether or not the teens could have run better had they known how fast she was didn't really matter. In a hundred races they would lose to her a hundred times, only perhaps never again as badly as they did this day.

Millwood had started the race halfway down one of the straight-aways. Now he watched in some amusement as Natalie pounded around the final curve and sprinted in, not letting up until she had passed him. The St. Clement's boys were just finishing that last turn. Without looking back, and battling not to show that she was even breathing hard, Natalie took her friend by the arm and led him down the track in a brisk jog.

"Happy now?" Millwood asked.

"Less miserable," she said.

It was early afternoon when Natalie finished dropping off groceries for Hermina and Jenny and at her own apartment, and arrived at the lab. Jenny, upbeat as always, had finished Wuthering Heights and started in on Oliver Twist. As far as Natalie was concerned, unless her niece suddenly leapt out of her wheelchair and ran to play with the other kids, God had some serious ground to make up.

Even with Berenger's lab to go to, empty time was weighing heavily. The latest of what passed for a romantic relationship for her had ended quietly nearly three months ago, and in truth, she really hadn't missed it — until now. Berenger and Millwood had promised to help her land another residency spot, but so far, what preliminary inquiries she had made had produced nothing. She had signed up for more time at the women's shelter where she had volunteered since college, and had even enrolled in a knitting course at Boston Adult Ed. Still, having been forced to shift in an instant from fourth gear down to first, her life felt as if it were moving in slow motion.

In addition to the track and the roads, the lab was a godsend — a place she could stay productive. She was one of a team of three, assigned by Berenger to a project examining the side effects of a new immunosuppressant drug still in the early phases of animal testing. If the evaluations were encouraging, somewhere down the line, the drug might replace or augment one of the toxic medications currently in use to reduce the frequency and severity of transplant rejection.

Natalie changed into light blue scrubs and a lab coat, and took the elevator up to Berenger's impressive research suite on the ninth floor of the Nichols Building. The two other members of the team, Spencer Green and Tonya Levitskaya, greeted her with their typical lack of enthusiasm. Given Berenger's intellect, charisma, variety of interests, and superb surgical skill, it was a wonder to Natalie that either of them was still on the pay roll.

Green, a cadaverous, dour Ph.D. who had never mastered the knack of getting grants, had been with Berenger for ten years, and Levitskaya, a Russian-schooled resident on the transplant service, now doing a six-month research fellowship, seemed to have a deeply ingrained opinion on almost everything — usually negative. Married, in her late thirties, and absolutely humorless, Levitskaya almost certainly had a crush on their mentor, and so treated Natalie as a rival. Berenger, himself, seemed oblivious to the continuously smoldering acrimony among his research team.

Entering the lab, Natalie checked to be sure that the small animal procedure room was available, then went to the holding area and returned with a cage of twelve specially bred white mice.