Excerpt: Weirdness Magnet

Early evening, but you couldn’t tell in the basement lab: stark concrete walls lined with shelves, cages on one side, equipment on the other, shadows scoured away by the harsh electric lights. He stood in the middle, tailored white lab coat and perfectly neat hair, skimming over the notes on his clipboard. With a satisfied nod, he picked up a clear plastic test tube with a murky yellow substance inside. “Just enough,” he said with satisfaction.

He walked up to one of the larger cages, labeled 72476, from which an orange cat with golden eyes glared hostilely at him. “I’ll be giving you an extra-large dose today.”

The cat hissed, tried to lash out with its claws, but couldn’t reach through the narrow wire of the cage door. “Stupid animal.” He lifted the whole cage and carried the yowling creature to a table in the back, where a large, plain silver box sat. The whole cage fit snugly inside, and the lid slid smoothly shut, trapping the cat and cutting off its cries.

Carefully, not spilling a drop, he emptied the test tube into a chamber on the side of the box, delicately adjusted the out-flow settings, ran a double check on all systems on his laptop, and, nodding with satisfaction, went to the wall and pulled a big switch. He loved a big switch, it was so…traditional.

The lights went out, to conserve power and avoid any obvious energy spokes, and he watched the box by the light of the laptop screen. There was no obvious sign of what went on inside, hardly even a hum to be heard; a small green light flashed to indicate when the process was complete.

When the power returned, he opened the box to reveal the cat, uninjured, unchanged, simply far more irate than it had been, hissing and caterwauling with renewed vigor.

In one great pull he lifted the cage to eye level and glared inside, shaking it roughly. The cat flinched and scrambled to get a grip on the plastic floor with its claws, but otherwise remained stubbornly the same.

“Another failure,” he said in disgust, slamming the cage back into place. “It makes no sense; if the simpler procedures work fine, surely this must have some effect?” he made a note on his clipboard. “Now I’m going to need more. What a waste.” He pulled out his cell phone and started dialing as he slammed the door and shut off the lights.

In the darkness, from the cage labeled 72476, a pair of green cat’s eyes gleamed.