If it was not already too late.
*
'Stop it! Stop it!' she cried, covering her face with her hands. She had gone with him, and listened as he spoke of junkies, toxic waste, victims and violence and hospitals. From place to place, in growing horror, thinking with one last gasp of real courage that perhaps she deserved this, and needed to know.
But when he brought her at last to the ruins of an enormous research facility, and began to describe, in detail, the torturous experiments performed here on bound, terrified animals in the name of progress and the greater good, she felt the tip of the blade licking at her heart.
Because she knew it was true. Her father had been assigned here as an intern. He had stormed out in a rage at the asphyxiation, force-feeding of toxic substances, vivisection, 'Sweet Jesus,' and stress tests', performed on dogs and cats, rhesus monkeys and other primates, some more intelligent than the lackeys who tormented them. Refusing to participate had put his career in jeopardy, something he was willing to do, to stand up against what he knew was wrong and indefensible. And he had spoken out against the Horror, for those who could not speak.
But many of his colleagues had not been willing. All the beloved doctors and scientists, characterized as forthright, altruistic men and women, working for the good of humanity, if not actively involved, at least turning the other way as innocent, uncomprehending creatures were subjected to physical and psychological tortures that were the rival of the Holocaust. The Leeds Institute of Animal Research, called by its critics, LIAR.
She kept thinking of Alaska.
But William felt no sympathy for her. The fact that such men had murdered themselves in the process, that humanity had been no kinder to its human victims, that it was over now', could not cover the brutal shame of it. All of it. Could not bring back the dead. The innocent and the dead, who had been helpless before the grim machinations of vicious human fear and ignorance.
He let her remain there, hobbled against a mound of slag. Then he drew out his stiletto, and shot the blade into place. And held it six inches from her face. She had ceased weeping and sat helpless, sobbing, ready for the fall. As he said in a gentle, sing-song voice.
'Time to wake u-up.'