Doctor Who_ Warlock - Andrew Cartmel [84]
The trolley buzzed obediently along behind him as he hurried past the primate section. Dogs and cats were stored nearer the main lab area, next to the rodent section. Tommy switched off the trolley and let it coast the last metre and a half. He offloaded the caged dogs and left them inside the kennels, then steered the trolley through to the main lab.
For all he knew Pam might be gone for another two hours, lingering over port and walnuts with the new clients. Plenty of time for him to pursue some of his own experiments.
But first some routine maintenance. Tommy put on the animal handling gloves. These were bright blue, made of extremely heavy‐duty plastic which caused your hands to sweat and itch. Tommy didn’t really expect 417 to have any fight left in him, but better safe than sorry.
He put on the gloves, opened the shuttlebox, and transferred the rat to the guillotine. He could have used the gas box but the guillotine needed testing anyway, for the afternoon’s work.
He fixed 417 into position and pressed the switch. The precision‐fashioned blade of the instrument flashed smoothly down and the rat’s head was cleanly severed. There was surprisingly little blood.
Tommy carefully removed the rat’s head and body from the bench area. It wouldn’t do for this sample to get mixed up with the cohort he’d be sacrificing next. The other rats were part of a trial for a new anti‐arthritis drug and their remains were destined for analysis. Inclusion of a non‐trial rat could have an unforseen effect on the statistical analysis. It could, conceivably, upset everything. Tommy was a scientist and he would never allow something like that to happen.
He put 417’s head and body straight into the disposal bin and, on reflection, decided to empty the bin straight into the incinerator. It was unlikely, but his sister just might notice the remains and want to know where they came from. It would be just like her. She wasn’t aware of Tommy’s personal regime of experiments and he wouldn’t put it past her to try and stop them.
So Tommy lifted the bin to carry it to the incinerator room. As he did so he noticed a tiny red and white shape on the floor where the bin had stood. It was one of the laboratory mice. Now how did that get there? The little creature had been flattened, tiny limbs spread out around it, comically resembling a smashed‐flat mouse in an animated cartoon.
Except that this mouse had been pregnant and the head of its unborn baby was jutting out of its ruptured side. Tommy scooped up the mother and child and added them to the incinerator‐bound bin. The discovery reminded him that tomorrow he would have to deal with the surplus of experimental mice. This was one of his routine duties and Tommy didn’t really mind it.
The rodent section of the lab was a self‐perpetuating entity, since, unlike dogs or cats, it was feasible to breed animals on site. Breeding mice could provide a litter per month and it was easy to find oneself with a surplus of specimens, which could lead to pressure on accommodation and feed, and hence unnecessary expense.
So when the mouse population got beyond a critical limit it was Tommy’s job to thin their numbers. For adults the Perspex gas box was used, pumped full of carbon dioxide. But babies were traditionally dealt with in a simple and more direct fashion. You snipped off their heads with a pair of scissors. Tommy vividly recalled the sight of a bin full of baby mouse heads, still mouthing silently after being severed from their bodies.
After incinerating the waste material, Tommy returned from the dark annexe and quickly and methodically unlocked the first of the remaining cages on the trolley, the one with the black cat in it.
The lock was a very simple push‐button mechanism. He often thought that the cats could easily trigger it themselves, except that they couldn’t reach it from inside the cage. That