She was starting to feel even weaker, but she pressed on. Next to the heavy steel, high‑security air lock leading into the laboratory was a card reader and she swiped the white card through the slot.
The air lock opened silent and perfunctory. When she went through, the door behind her automatically closed and then the hermetically sealed door in front of her opened. She was in.
Next a bright fluorescent light clicked on, all by itself.
"Jesus!"
Maybe it was connected to a motion sensor. Or on a timer.
Then she looked around. This, she thought, is the place where the Gerex Corporation has supposedly changed medical history. What was created in this very room had if Grant was telling the truth, saved her mother's sanity. And if she could believe the monitors she had looked at in her room, her own heart condition had begun to be reversed after a lifetime of progressive decline.
Yet something about it had been pushed too far. Somewhere in the midst of this miracle, the Gerex Corporation had done something so obscene no one could even talk about it.
She looked around the laboratory, wishing she could understand what she was seeing. It smelled like solvent, acetone, with a mingling of more pungent fumes. The black slate laboratory workbenches were spotlessly hygienic and equipped with several large microscopes that featured flat‑panel screens. She noticed a heavy server computer at the back, presumably networked to all the terminals in the building, and then she remembered that Van de Vliet had once spoken of computer simulations.
Someday soon, she told herself, she was going to understand what really was going on here, but for now she headed for the elevator.
Another zip of Grant's white card and the door opened. There was indeed a floor below the laboratory, and she pushed the button. The Dorian Institute was all about security, but this subbasement area was doubly secure.