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At first, Michelle Ito mistook the knocking on her apartment door for the storm going on outside.
It was one of those late fall blizzards. The kind that came too early, and froze everything in the world that was expecting just a couple more moments of sunlight and warmth. She turns over, and tries to fall back to sleep.
But the knocking keeps coming. And it’s not like the chaotic banging of the wind outside. It’s in a specific pattern. Almost like the beat of a song that she had heard before.
And then she recognizes it. It’s that damned song that he was always going around humming. Someone was at her door, and she knew exactly who it was as she forced herself out of bed.
Grayson Takahashi looked like shit.
He looked like he had trudged his way through the snow and the storm at three in the morning, presumably because he had. “Don’t you have a car?” Michelle asked. “You spent all that money on a fancy car, you rub it in every single day at work, and you don’t even bother to try and drive it here?”
“Thanks, Ito, I’m so glad you care for my safety,” he says with a chuckle. The snow on his face and the frozen bits of hair looked out of place on him. Grayson looked like the typical So-Cal Asians she grew up with. Tall, tanned skin, dark eyes with glasses that seemed to frame his face rather than make him look like a dork, and dark curls of hair that seemed more fitting on a beach along the Pacific than in the snowy weather of Aegis City. “When I spin out and crash, I’ll make sure to tell the paramedics you sent me.”
“Ha ha ha. Just get inside, you look like shit.” The two of them walk in, and Grayson crashes right on Michelle’s couch.
“Fucking hell, Ito. Do you always keep your apartment so cold?”
“It’s not that cold.”
“It’s fucking freezing! I don’t get how you and Clair fucking stand it.”
“Yes, Grayson. I traveled all the way to a place that actually has a real winter just so I could continue to sweat my ass off. Is that an appropriate response for you? Are you happy? Are you content?”
“Very,” he said, sinking right into the couch. Michelle grabs the two of them some boxed wine from the fridge, and hands Grayson a glass.
“You know this stuff makes you lose heat, Ito.”
“Just drink up. Cheers.” They clink their glasses, and she downs the wine like it’s a shot, just like they did back in their college days.
She and Grayson had met at a party back when they were undergrads, in a corner of the house taking pills and drinks to take their mind off of the chaos of the crowds. They had hit it off talking about biology and physics while high out of their minds, and she was quick to discover that Grayson somehow kept that enthusiasm even when he was sober and in the student center. There was something just so fascinating about talking to Grayson about the unknown. Every once in a while, he’d call her up along the lines of “hey, Ito, I know you’re asleep, but I’ve got a theory and you’re the only one who would listen.”
The two of them became lab partners after graduation, studying the paths of atoms and electrons within the human body and mapping them out like they were the bus lines they took to travel around the city. She couldn’t have imagined her adult life without the guy. He was the first person to make it to her hospital bed after a nasty car accident that left her hopped up on painkillers for a month. She was the best man at his wedding: she remembered when he asked her, going on with his whole spiel about how the term “best man” is so fucking sexist, because she wasn’t a man, but she was definitely the best man he knew to accompany him and his new wife. Their co-workers liked to joke that they were friends with benefits, talking in public and fucking on the side, and it wasn’t like she hadn’t thought about it, but their conversations about the world and everything in it felt a whole lot more intimate than any kind of sex the two of them might have.
“Ito, this wine tastes like shit,” he says, swirling the wine in his glass. It wasn’t like him to not be thirsty.
“It’s the boxed stuff, Grayson. If I knew you were coming, I would have gone to Costco and got the rosé just for you.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
“And I didn’t. Because you woke me the hell up.” She sits down next to him. “Does Clair even know you’re here?”
“...If anyone asks, I’m crashing here because the two of us got into a fight. Couldn’t go back for a while because of the storm.”
“You two actually got into a fight, didn’t you.”
Grayson looks at her right in the eye, and turns on the television. He turns up the early morning news just loud enough that no one outside could hear them talking. He swaps over to his shaky Japanese, just to make sure no one could understand. “...You know how stubborn she is.”
Stubborn was an understatement. She had met Clair near the tail end of her doctorate program, back before the crisis. Clair was one of those former child prodigies, the kind of person who had never really struggled with anything she put her mind to and therefore developed the mentality that she had to be right about something, or good at something, or else it wasn’t worth it. She continues the conversation in her more fluent Japanese. Someone must be listening, from how he was acting. “What was the fight about this time?”
“About…you know. My smoking problem.”
Smoking problem. She knew what he meant. Back when they first started doing that “special project” after the crisis subsided, they figured there had to be a more convenient way to refer to it without getting all of them in jail, or worse.
“She always seemed alright about your problem.”
“Things have changed. I need to kick it. The uh…medical people-”
“Doctors.”
“The doctors are saying I need to kick the habit. She cares about my health.” The investigators are onto us. “And she wants to destroy…she wants us to get rid of the packs.”
“Just keep them at my place.”
“She’s insistent I need to destroy it. And I don’t want to, it’s my life’s work. She said, you know, we have a son, I can’t ruin his future by being disgraced.”
“How is he, anyways?”
“...He’s fine. She wants to enroll him at the high school, I’m telling her that he needs a normal life with normal friends. She said she turned out fine, we had another argument about that.”
“I’m glad.”
“You should talk to him. When’s the last time you saw him? When he was like, three? Four?”
“That wasn’t that long ago.”
“It’s long ago for a kid. It’s basically half his lifespan.”
“I’m not great with kids.”
“You can’t be worse than the both of us,” he laughs.
“Just continue about the ‘smoking problem’.”
“Whatever information you have…you need to hide it. Or burn it. They might figure out we worked together on it.”
“I don’t keep it here. It’s at the office. Why would I keep it in my apartment?”
“I can’t exactly talk to you about it on the phone. I’ll help you move it out, if they investigate, I just need your help.”
“...Fine. Let me get dressed, first.” She gets up. “We’ll leave in fifteen minutes. Get your drinking done before then.”
They would have plenty of time to get there before the storm subsided. Michelle pulled her hat over her face and stuffed her hands into the oversized Army surplus jacket she had bought when she first moved here. It deserved to be replaced. The wrists were frayed and dirty, and the zipper had broken off, leaving her to attempt to button it up and protect her from the cold. But she kept it for situations just like this, the desperate situations that weren’t worthy of a fancy coat, and where she would hate to be recognized.
The “office” was located in a nice townhouse two miles away from Michelle’s home. On a better day, she would be caught biking there, but this wasn’t a better day, and she and Grayson were trudging through a foot or two of snow to get there. She could hear him humming under his breath. It was that fucking song again.
“You really, really like that tune.”
“What can I say? It gets stuck in my head. It’s got a ring to it. You’ve got your new head filled up with smoke, I’ve got my veins all tangled close… ”
He liked it so much he insisted on it being the soundtrack to his first dance with his bride. You couldn’t go a few days without hearing him hum it under his breath. Michelle liked it too, but not so much she found herself humming it literally all of the time. She wondered why, exactly, that song was so catchy to him?
“So, what’s your plan when we get there?”
“Take what we absolutely need, burn the rest. Leave nothing that traces both of us to this place.”
“And does anyone else on the project know you’ll be destroying this?”
“They’ll find out when they can’t find it.” Inconsiderate, Michelle thinks, but she figures he wouldn’t have been able to warn everyone without getting caught. “Not even the guy who owns the building?”
“We won’t burn down the building.”
“Optimistic.”
“I’m just confident in my skills.”
The building itself was a small townhouse; not exactly the kind of place that you would consider for what they were doing, but that was kind of the point. Michelle shifts through her keys, and unlocks the back door while Grayson plays lookout.
“Can you hurry up? It’s freezing.”
“Door’s jammed. Just…” She shoves her whole body weight against the door, shoving it open as snow falls on her. “After you.”
“No, after you.”
“You’re the one who wanted to come here, after you.”
“Ito, I insist. It’s polite.” Not wanting to continue this argument, Michelle walks into the house.
The walls of the house were painted white, with plastic sheets covering them. Makeshift ventilation and backup generators littered the hallways. The space heaters in the examination rooms bathed their faces in orange light as they walked through the dark. From behind her, she can hear Grayson lighting a cigarette; he really did have a bit of a smoking problem, something that made their code words a lot more believable. “So, Ito. You take the basement, I’ll take everything up here?”
“That sounds good.”
“Cool. I’ll give you the signal when I’m ready to go.”
He heads up the stairs, and Michelle looks down the dark passageway to the basement. She never liked going down here. Too loud. Too hectic. When she did her work upstairs, she didn’t have to look them in the face. She could pretend it was just like the research she did during the invasion, the crisis, whatever you called it, when they were pushing dollar after dollar into understanding something that threatened to destroy the world as they knew it, instead of some continued pursuit of the truth that she and Grayson fell into when everything was said and done and no one wanted to keep talking about the fact they just discovered some extraordinary thing that could change the entire world as they knew it.
She and Grayson had mulled it over drinks one night, all those years ago, while she was at his place, after everything had died down, and the city started to rebuild. She could recall the night like it was yesterday. The two of them were hanging off the fire escape, at a little house party with their colleagues to celebrate the good news. She recalled the taste of whiskey on her lips as he talked.
“CARMINE”, he said, “was that what they decided on calling it? I like it. Rolls off the tongue.”
“I’d be more excited about it if it didn’t mean we’re basically losing all our funding for the next decade.”
“Oh come on, it should be easy enough. Just keep telling them, ‘yeah, it’s another alien. It’s another creature. Another uh…it’s fucked up blue stuff this time.’”
“They wouldn’t fall for that.”
“They would. Isn’t that what this whole thing proved? We needed those like…Nexus is the appropriate word, right? Don’t want to say shit only for it to be accidentally offensive because I didn’t keep up with the times.”
“Nexus is the politically correct term. Correct.”
“Anyways, we needed those guys because all our armies and politicians were all too stupid and weak to figure out what to do with it, didn’t we?”
“...True.” She took another sip of whiskey. “There could be better people in charge.”
“Like us.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“I would. ‘Cause think about it, Ito. Maybe we’re not, like, superhuman, but it would be nice if people like us were in charge. Smart enough to know what’s happening. Willing to do what’s necessary to get it done without all the damn red tape. It’s a damn shame that we’re not in charge, really.”
She had to admit, it did sound tempting. A place where people like him and her and all the scientists and researchers inside getting sloshed out of their minds like tomorrow wouldn’t come (Ironic, she thought, considering the only reason they were partying was because they knew tomorrow would be guaranteed) were in charge. But rationality prevailed. “I don’t know nearly enough about the law to run a country.”
“It can’t be that hard. I bet those zombies could run a country.” It wasn’t the technical term for the victims of the alien invasion, all turned into mindless, violent creatures by exposure to a strange red substance they were all studying. But everyone called them zombies anyways: they acted like zombies, they looked like red zombies, they’re basically zombies.
“Maybe if they stopped killing everything in their way.”
“Maybe you could do that. The perfect cocktail that could enhance the mind and body, let them talk amongst themselves and share information while not killing everything and everyone.”
“I think… I am drunk.”
“Huh?”
“Every time I’m drunk, your rambles about the world and how it should be start to make sense.”
“Oh, come on. I’m not that insensible.”
“No, it’s just…” Michelle looks down from the fire escape. On the street below, she can see people running back and forth, drinking and lighting fireworks. They were celebrating, all that devil-may-care energy that had been building up ever since the crisis began now being released in the form of loud music and bad decisions. They celebrated, because what else could you do in the wake of the life-altering revelation that you’re not alone in the world, and whatever’s out there could and would treat you like nothing more than a toy or a puppet?
There were normal people. They weren’t like the Nexus that were going out with incredible abilities, coming out of the edges of society in order to change the world. They were normal people, normal capabilities, normal lives.
And when you’re powerless, all you can do is raise a toast to the end of the world.
“Your cocktail idea. Imagine what you could do if you could just inject everyone in the world with that. Make people stronger, smarter, all without the side effects. I bet you could sign up anyone with that pitch.”
“Alright, let me test it. Ito, you want to try it?”
She just looks at him for a moment, the wind blowing through their hair. “I think I made my opinion clear. Maybe you should ask other people here. And follow up when they’re sober.”
So he did. Turns out, a couple of other people in their circles were having the same idea. She heard from him and he heard from a friend who heard from a coworker who heard from a meeting who heard it from whoever. People who were interested in continuing to harness its power. And so, the two of them got involved. On their off-days, they’d go to their second “job” of sorts. The townhouse with a makeshift lab where they worked with CARMINE, analyzing its abilities and how to harness it for the sake of the new people they worked with. Michelle would like to say that research was its own reward, but she had to admit it also paid very well.
And so, their lives went on. They continued to work at their own jobs at the university, and on the weekends and late nights popped in to continue their work, making sure to cover their tracks. If anyone asked, they were just part of a nice little club with a couple of other people from their workplace. They worked with subjects from all walks of life, watching as CARMINE enhanced their bodies, yet stunted their minds. To enhance the mind seemed to be a roadblock for them: no matter what cocktails they injected to strengthen blood-brain barrier rejuvenation, or increase the neuroimmune system, the subjects would continue to be bloodthirsty and deadly.
The failures and experiments piled up next to their everyday lives. She wondered if the stress was starting to get to Grayson; he was never one to show panic, but he had a lot more going on in his life than she did. Michelle lived simply; sending cash to her aging parents and younger relatives, paying the rent on her apartment, and making it week to week. Grayson, on the other hand, was always doing something new. If she didn’t hear it from him directly, she saw him posting it online: trips to amusement parks or historical sites, and at least one picture of him getting really excited over The Bean on a vacation.
Maybe that’s how he let it slip that he was involved with this. Maybe it was piling up so high that he couldn’t even think to remember that this revolutionary work had to be a secret.
The basement was damper than the rest of the building, something that set her on edge. In some of the rooms, she could hear banging and screaming from some of the subjects. And this is why I do not come down here alone, she thought to herself.
Michelle makes it to the records office. It wasn’t meant to be an office, as one could tell from the unused washer unit that was now being treated like a desk, with everything but the display haphazardly shoved into the inside because there was nowhere else to put it. But it was the most convenient place to hold records about what they were doing. She boots up the laptop, and logs in with the admin password.
Once in, she takes a flash drive and starts downloading every single piece of information that she needs. Maybe one day, when all of this dies down, she’ll be able to continue her research. But for now, she pockets this and searches for every single file that could possibly implicate her or Grayson in this work.
Ctrl + F, all files. Put them in their own separate folder. Watch as they’re deleted by the system in one fell swoop. Once she’s satisfied, she makes her way back up to the first floor, trying to block out the screams of all the zombies around her. If she was working here any longer, she would recommend once again that they soundproofed this place from the inside as well as the outside. She pitied the poor archivist.
She waits in what would have been the living room for Grayson. Minutes pass. Maybe even an hour. Michelle wonders for a bit, what the hell is he doing up there? Does he really just have that much he needs to bring down? Maybe he needs to be more thorough. Maybe he needs to make sure that his family wouldn’t have anything to hold against them, nothing to tarnish their future. Finally, she hears the signal. A bluetooth speaker starts playing that song he liked so much. I just want to break you down so badly, I trip over everything you say…
She heads upstairs, the plastic wrapped floors crunching underneath her boots. Upstairs was where the two of them typically worked. It was the floor that looked most like a lab, filled with analysis equipment and fume hoods attached to windows. “Grayson, let’s go.”
No response.
“Grayson? Hello?”
Quiet.
“Grayson Takahashi, you better fucking-” She’s interrupted by a tall figure grabbing her from behind.
“It-Michelle. Look. You don’t have to forgive me.”
She tries not to let the fear show in her voice. “Grayson, if this is your idea of a joke-”
“Look. I told you. They’re onto me, or at least, figure someone in our lab is working in a place like this. This is going to be the last time you see me, at least for a while.”
“What are you talking about-”
“I need you to take the fall.”
Her muffled “no” is barely heard over the sound of the storm outside.
“Listen to me, look. Think about it. You have less to lose if people find out you’re involved, and less to lose if they find out someone deleted a bunch of their records.”
“What is wrong with you?”
“I have some relatives in another city, I’ll just crash with them for a bit. I’ll tell them the marriage fell out, I won’t tell a single soul about what happened here tonight.”
Michelle elbows him in the stomach, and he lets go. “I am not taking the fall for you.”
“Look. Someone has to-”
“No one has to.”
“Someone’s got to. At least one of us has to, or else they’ll go after all of us and destroy everything we’ve been working for.”
Michelle backs away. “Grayson,” she said, “that can’t be the reason. What’s the actual reason?”
“There’s no other reason.” He holds his hand out, as if he’s still hoping for some moment of forgiveness for what he was about to do. “What we’re doing, with this CARMINE…it’s got the future at stake. And if I’m going to keep pursuing this, if we’re going to keep pursuing this, I can’t be held back by liability. I told you, they’re onto me. If I keep doing this here, they’ll catch me, and everyone I love, my friends, my wife, my kid, they’ll be ruined. And if I just run, the same thing will happen, it’ll just take longer.”
“So you want to pin it on me.”
“It’s for the greater good, Michelle.”
“ Your greater good.”
“Look. You don’t have to forgive me-” She doesn’t stay to hear the rest of it. She just runs. She runs out the back door and into the storm. It’s only gotten worse since the two of them first came inside, but that fact is pushed to the back of her mind as she keeps going, leaving Grayson behind in the lab that could have been a home.
She didn’t hear from Grayson again. She went to work after the storm only to find he hadn’t shown up. Days went by, and then a week. Someone files a missing persons report, but Michelle knows the truth. He’s not missing at all. He’s run off, in the pursuit of some greater knowledge and away from the consequences of that search. She can’t even blame him: she would have done the same thing if it was her in that position, her being pursued by investigators with everything she had worked for on the line.
Every once in a while, she wonders where he went. Sometimes, she’ll hear his favorite song, and she almost thinks it’s a signal, that things have finally died down, that he’s no longer running from consequences, that he’s ready to apologize to his friend and work to make the future brighter.
The lab burnt down in the storm, with no one coming to put it out. A couple of days later, she got a letter in the mail, offering a position as a biophysics research director at that new academy for gifted students, Project Skyward.
Attached to the offer was a note.
A more official way of doing your research.