M.I.T. Can Be Murder
By Frank M. Weyer












Copyright © 2000-2007 by Frank M. Weyer

This is a work of fiction.  Any similarity to real people or events is coincidental.






To Katie for inspiring me to start the book, to Troy encouraging me to keep going, to Tracy for giving me motivation to finish, and to Mercy for teaching me to never leave well enough alone.










"The compulsion to work,
 often at the exclusion of all other activities, 
can warp the minds and bodies of students, 
sometimes with tragic results. . . .
M.I.T. should include a warning label
 with its offers of admission -- 
'WARNING:  
The Institute May Be Hazardous To Your Health'"

Quote from "The Tech," M.I.T. Student Newspaper, May 1988.

Chapter 1
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
December 2, 1979
12:56 A.M.

	He stood in the shadow of the dumpster.  He shivered.  Wet snow had been falling all night.  He swore to himself.  He hated winter.  He looked at his watch impatiently.  One A.M.  Where the hell was she?  The M.I.T. student center store closed at midnight.  She was usually on her way home before twelve-thirty.  Shit!  His fingers were getting numb.   He hadn't expected this early December snow storm.  Maybe she'd gotten a ride home with someone.  If she didn't come out in fifteen minutes, he'd have to call it off for tonight.  But tomorrow would be too late.
	One-ten A.M.  A shaft of light broke the shadows at the back of the student center.  A girl, eighteen or nineteen, with long dark hair and olive skin, was briefly silhouetted against the light of the open door.  She waved a hand to someone inside.  The door closed.  Wearing only a light windbreaker over her jeans and sweater she walked quickly to Massachusetts Avenue.  She turned right.  Her steps made loud squishing sounds in the wet snow.
	As soon as he saw her come out of the door, he began to move.  He hurried to reach Massachusetts Avenue ahead of her.  He crossed the street to the other side.  He walked quickly down the snow-covered sidewalk towards Harvard Bridge.
	She noticed a figure crossing the road about thirty yards ahead of her.  The figure walked hurriedly along the other side of the street towards the river.  It looked like a guy with a backpack.  She wasn't worried.  It was probably just a student heading back to his apartment in Back Bay after a late night of studying.  Anyway, he was ahead of her.  He wasn't following her.  If anything, she was following him.
	She crossed Memorial Drive and began walking across the bridge.  It was slow going in the wet, ankle deep snow.  When she got to the midpoint of the bridge, she stopped and looked down at the cold black water of the Charles River.  It hadn't been cold enough long enough yet for the water to freeze.  The water looked uninviting, deadly.  She shivered.
	She walked on.  The figure on the opposite sidewalk had disappeared.  Odd, she thought.  He hadn’t been far enough ahead of her to already have crossed over the bridge.  She became a little uneasy.  She walked a little faster.
	She was almost at the end of the bridge.  She breathed a little easier.  It was now only a few blocks to her apartment.  In another ten minutes, she'd be safe and snug in bed.  She passed the stairway leading down from the bridge to the riverside park.  Sometimes, when it was warmer, she would go down those steps to jog along the banks of the Charles River.  On a nice day there would be dozens of joggers.  Now the stairway was dark and empty.  She hugged herself against the cold.
	Suddenly, without warning, arms grabbed her from behind.  The lights of the bridge vanished as she was dragged into the dark stairway.  She jerked violently, trying to break free.  The arms clamped around her wouldn't budge.  She opened her mouth to scream.  Before she could, there was a loud thud.  Something cold and hard smashed across the back of her head.  She collapsed, unconscious.
	When she came to, she was lying spread-eagled on the wet snow on the bank of the river.  Her arms and legs were stretched out, in four directions.  She struggled.  Her arms and legs wouldn't move.  She tried to scream.  Her mouth was taped shut.
	She looked up.  A man was standing next to her.  He must be the figure she had seen ahead of her.  He was of medium height, medium build.  It was too dark to see his face. 
	A rush of anger overcame her fear.  She glared at him.  Go ahead, jerk!  She thought.  Get it over with!  But, so help me God, you're going to damn well live to regret it!  She gave a defiant toss of her head and angrily jerked at the ropes pinning her arms and legs. 
	The dark figure stood motionless, watching her.  He bent down, picked something off the ground.  He held a long handle.  He started swinging it rhythmically back and forth in front of him, like a pendulum.  Sparkles of distant city lights reflected off its broad metal end.  She watched it, mesmerized.  Realization slowly hit her.  He wasn't going to rape her.  He was going to do even worse.   Sudden, total panic seized her.  She struggled convulsively against her bonds. 
	Slowly, deliberately, staring into her terror-filled eyes, he lifted the ax over his head.  He paused.  Then he brought it smashing down onto her neck in one powerful, horrible blow.  The sharpened ax blade sliced through her windpipe, jugular vein, and vertebrae like butter, completely severing her head.  For a few seconds, her body spasmed violently, spewing blood.  Then it lay still.
	He dragged her headless body to the edge of the Charles River, tied the ax to its feet, and it off the bank and into the swirling black water.  He watched it sink quickly, pulled underwater by the weight of the ax.  He walked back to where her head lay in a circle of blood that melted some of the white snow.  He took out a plastic bag out of his backpack, and carefully placed the head in the bag.  He took out a second plastic bag, and placed it around the first.  He put her double-bagged head in his backpack.  A minute later, he was walking back over the bridge to the Cambridge side.  The headlights of a passing car reflected eerily off his intense, feverish eyes.




Chapter 2
WOODS HOLE, MASSACHUSETTS
July 17, 2007
5:43 P.M.




	"Really? You were a high-tech patent attorney in L.A.?  That must have been a pretty good job.  So why did you decide to give that up and come here?"
	Mike hesitated before answering.  He had been a graduate student in the M.I.T./Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ("WHOI") "Joint Program" for about a month now, and it seemed like every day someone would ask him that question.  The question was natural enough.  Most of the other graduate students were just out of college, willing to put five years or more of their lives on hold while pursuing graduate studies in the hope that they, too, in the end, would land "a pretty good job."  It didn't make sense that someone who already had a good job would go through the same rigmarole just to end up again where he started.  If he was lucky.  Or worse off, which was more likely.  Mike was getting a little tired of the question.  Maybe because he wasn't quite sure of the answer.
	"For the hamburgers, of course,” Mike said, taking a big bite from the hamburger he'd just gotten off the barbecue.  It was Friday, and during the summer, WHOI put on Friday evening barbecues for the “Joint Program” students.  The “Joint Program” was a graduate program in which students took classes at M.I.T. and did their research at WHOI.  If they were successful, they were awarded degrees from both institutions.
	Frank grabbed a plate of salad and walked over to an empty picnic table.  He sat down.  Poking at his salad with his fork, he wondered why the heck he had come here.  To get his PhD of course, just like everyone else.  But why did he want that PhD again?
	He raised the fork to his mouth, started chewing on the salad.  He looked up, and stopped short, startled.  Sitting across from him, sunlight sparkling from blazing hazel eyes and long dark hair, was a strikingly attractive young woman.  Just the sight of her was enough to make his whole day.  Better yet, she was smiling straight at him.
	"Hi!" Kristen said laughing.  "Just thought I'd come over and surprise you."
	"It didn't work,” Mike said.  "Better try again."
	They both grinned.
	"So what brings you to these parts?" Mike asked.
	"I forgot my antidote on the Westward,” Kristen replied.  "Sean got it off the boat for me, so I came down to pick it up.  Anyway, I just wanted to say ‘hi.’"  She got up.  “Hi,” she said.  "See you later."
	"See you,” Mike said.  He stared after Kristen as she walked across the lawn to a group of other graduate students.  He thought about the Westward cruise where they first met.
	The Westward was a 140 foot long, three-masted "tall ship."  It was owned by SEA, the "Sea Education Association."  SEA, like WHOI, was based in Woods Hole, a small picturesque fishing town on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, about an hour and a half drive from Boston.  SEA ran programs for high school students, taking them out on two-week cruises to teach them seamanship, oceanography, and teamwork.  A month ago, Mike and Kristen took part in a special ten-day cruise for new Joint Program students.  The twenty-odd students on the trip were assigned to three "watches."  Each watch was four hours long, and members of a watch were on duty for one watch, and then off-duty for two.  During a watch, duties included sailing duties such as working on the sails and rigging, science duties such as taking and examining various kinds of sea life, ocean water, and bottom sediment samples, and clean up duties such as washing dishes.  Kristen and Mike were assigned to the same watch.  As a result, they often spent time together working the sails on deck or doing experiments in the Westward's tiny laboratory.
	Mike was impressed with Kristen right off the bat.  She was smart, energetic, and feisty.  A real fireball.  She challenged everything anyone tried to tell her with sharp, insightful questions.  He wasn’t spared either.  She kept him on his toes.
	He finished his burger.  Kristen was waiting in line by the barbecue.  He walked over.
	"It was good seeing you again,” he said.  "I'm taking off.  Just wanted to say good-bye."  "Bye,” Kristen said.  Then she stuck out her hand.  He shook it, surprised by the formal gesture.  "See you up at M.I.T,” he said.  He looked briefly into her eyes, turned and left.

	Ten minutes later, Mike coasted to a stop and dismounted.  He propped his mountain bike against some rocks next to the bike path that wound its way from Woods Hole to the next town of Falmouth along the banks of Vineyard Sound, a broad channel of water separating Cape Cod from the island of Martha’s Vineyard.  He took off his shirt and shoes.  He walked across the narrow stretch of sand, and jumped into the clear blue ocean water.  Even though it was already mid-July, the clear blue Cape Cod water was still surprisingly cold.  Mike broke into a practiced crawl, swimming straight out about forty yards, then turning right, paralleling the shore.  One, two, three, breathe.  One, two, three, breathe.  Slowly, the cool water and steady rhythm erased the week's tensions.  His body relaxed, his mind wandered. 
	He thought about Kristen.  He remembered that she loved to swim, even though she was allergic to jellyfish, which were not uncommon in the summer Cape Cod waters.  A sting could cause her to go into convulsions, even die if she was not properly treated.  On their first day on the Westward, when everyone was introducing himself or herself, Kristen told the other students about her allergy.  She showed them the ugly needle containing the antidote that she brought along, and told them that if she ever got stung and went into convulsions, to jam the needle into her thigh.  The captain of the Westward took the antidote and placed it under the hinged top of the cockpit table, just in front of the steering wheel, and made sure everyone knew what and where it was, just in case.
	Mike swam on.  One, two, three, breathe.  One, two, three, breathe.
	Mike was surprised that he and Kristen shared common interests.  After all, Mike was more than a dozen years older than Kristen’s twenty-six.  Mike had three college degrees, Kristen one.  Mike had been a lawyer for a dozen years, Kristen was barely out of college.  Mike had lived in Europe and Africa, Kristen had never left the United States.  But they both wanted to save the world, liked camping and Golden Retrievers, preferred wide-open countryside to city congestion.  Too bad she was so young.  Mike was pretty sure she had a steady boyfriend, too.  She hadn’t said that she was dating anyone, but she mentioned “my friend Steve.”  Mike had learned from long experience that the women who said the least about their boyfriends to other guys were the ones who were most serious in their relationship.  Kristen said hardly a thing.  She must be completely serious.  Lucky stiff.
	One, two, three, breathe.  One, two, three, breathe.  Mike passed the rocky jetty that jutted out from the mouth of Oyster Creek. He turned around, started swimming back.
	The fact that Kristin had a serious boyfriend didn't mean he and Kristen couldn’t be friends, Mike thought.  There was no harm in that.  Mike would probably end up being friends with her boyfriend, too, if he ever met him.  That tended to happen to Mike a lot.  He'd meet a girl somewhere.  They'd hit it off.  Then the boyfriend suddenly materialized.  Mike tended to hit it off with the boyfriend, too.  He hated it when he hit it off with the boyfriend.
	Mike launched himself into a butterfly stroke.  After twenty-five yards he stopped, breathing hard.  He went back to an easy crawl.  One, two, three, breathe.  One, two, three, breathe.
	One day on the cruise, Mike remembered, he told Kristen he was thinking of  buying a house on Cape Cod, and getting a roommate or two.  He had some money saved up, and his earnings record for the last three years was good.  Mike thought he might still be able to qualify for a mortgage, based on his most recent tax returns.  But this would be his last chance.  Over the next five years, his tax returns would only show his graduate student stipend, and no one was going to qualify for a mortgage with that.  Kristen jokingly said that if Mike bought a house, she wanted first dibs on a room when she came down to Woods Hole in the Fall.  Mike hesitated.  Mike didn't make promises lightly, even in jest.  Then he agreed.
	One, two, three, breathe.  One, two, three, breathe.
	In the two weeks since the end of the Westward cruise, Mike reflected, he hadn't done a thing about buying a house.  His excuse was that he had been too busy getting used to being back in grad school and all that.  But he knew that was a cop out.  This weekend, he would start putting his money where mouth is, and look into buying a house in earnest.
	That decided, he turned and swam back to shore.   A vision of Kristen, wearing a tight, bright pink bathing suit, emerging like a mermaid from blue green water onto the deck of the Westward after a swimming stop, long wet hair, pert breasts, nipples, erect from the cold Atlantic water, straining against the thin cloth of the bathing suit, flashed into his mind. 
	He was glad the sea water was cold.  He doubled his pace the last twenty yards to shore.




Chapter 3
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
August 21, 2007
2:57 P.M.




	"Five, four, three, two, one.  Go!"  
	Mike and Pete, kneeling on the edge of the dock, steadied what looked like a bright yellow, six foot long, teardrop-shaped torpedo and pointed it straight out from the M.I.T. boat dock towards the middle of the Charles River.  Vijay counted down the time.  With two seconds left, Mike grabbed a boat hook and pushed down on the top of the torpedo-shaped hull, plunging it two feet underwater.   The propeller started.  The torpedo moved smartly straight out from the dock, diving deeper under the surface.  A Styrofoam float with a bright red flag tagged merrily behind.  The red flag was supposed to help find the torpedo if for some reason it didn’t return to the surface after running a mission.  "Looking good so far!" Vijay observed.
	The torpedo was actually a small, experimental, unmanned, robot submarine called "Prometheus."  Specifically, Prometheus, was an "autonomous underwater vehicle" or "AUV."  It had originally been designed and built at M.I.T. and was now being tested and modified by WHOI.  Mike, Pete, who was also a new Joint Program grad student, and Vijay, a former Joint Program student who had just earned his PhD and was working at WHOI as a post-doctoral fellow, had driven the seventy miles from Woods Hole to Cambridge to do test runs with Prometheus in the relatively safe Charles River.  Later, once the river tests were successful, they planned to take Prometheus out for more rigorous trials at sea.  
	Mike, Pete and Vijay had been running tests for a couple of hours.  They programmed Prometheus' on-board computer to run a simple out-and-back “mission.”  Prometheus was supposed to go straight out from shore for ninety seconds, turn left for thirty seconds, come back for sixty seconds, and then stop, all at a constant depth of two meters.  Prometheus was slightly buoyant, so that it floated naturally to the surface when its propeller stopped turning,  They had run about half a dozen missions so far.  After each mission, they went out in the Whaler, a small motorboat, and retrieved Prometheus from where it surfaced.  They plugged in a computer cable and downloaded navigation data logged by Prometheus during the test.  So far, the tests had not gone very well.  Prometheus kept going in the wrong direction, and changed depth erratically.  Vijay kept tweaking Prometheus' software, trying to get it right.  After every mission, Vijay was convinced he had the problem figured out.  But every time he fixed one thing, something else seemed to go wrong.  This time, though, he assured Mike and Pete, he really had gotten it right.
	Vijay, Mike and Pete watched the red float marking Prometheus' progress move out from shore.  It went out for ninety seconds, just as it was supposed to.  Prometheus was now about 150 yards out, halfway across the Charles River.  They waited to see the float turn left.   It didn't.  The float kept right on going.  Straight towards the other river bank.  Suddenly, Prometheus popped nose-first out of the water, like a dolphin trying to jump.  Then it plunged back down, head-first.  Its propeller flipped up, driving Prometheus straight down.  A few seconds later, Prometheus' nose jumped out of the water again.  Prometheus flipped and dove again.  Prometheus was now dangerously close to the opposite river bank.
	"Abort, abort!” Vijay yelled.  "Prometheus is out of control!   It's going to hit the river bottom if we don't get to it first!"  
	Mike and Pete jumped into the Whaler, gunned the outboard motor, and raced across the Charles River.  Prometheus surfaced once more, right next to the opposite bank.  Then it dove again, nose first.  This time it didn't come up.  By the time Mike and Pete got to the far side of the Charles, the only thing visible was the Styrofoam float, now bobbing quietly five feet from shore.  The thin line tying the float to Prometheus stretched straight down into the river.
	As Mike cut the engine, Pete leaned over the side and scooped up the float.  Pete pulled the thin line tied to Prometheus until it was taut, then gave a further tentative tug.  Prometheus didn't move.  He looked up at Mike.  
	"Looks like Prometheus is stuck,” Pete observed.  
	"The mud at the river bottom is like a vacuum.”  Mike replied.  “The float line will probably break if we try to use it to pull Prometheus free.”
	  And then we'd have a hell of a time finding it again.”  Pete agreed.  “We can't risk it."
	"I'll go down,” Mike said.  "The water can't be more than twenty feet deep.  I'll follow the line down.  I should be able to pull Prometheus free."  He pulled off his shirt and sandals, and got ready to jump over the side.  "Don't go away."  He grinned at Pete, and dove into the grimy water.
	Mike kicked his legs and followed the float line down into the muddy depths.  As he descended, light faded quickly, and the water got cold.  By the time his hand finally touched Prometheus' propeller at the end of the float line, he was in darkness, the water around him a thick chocolate brown.  He tried not to think what chemicals and other pollutants were contaminating the water.
	Mike grabbed Prometheus by its rear fins and tugged.  But floating as he was above Prometheus, he didn’t have enough leverage.  To free Prometheus, he would have to swim down deeper and brace his feet in the river bottom.
	Mike reckoned he had been under water about thirty seconds now.  It was starting to get difficult holding his breath.  He pulled himself down along Prometheus hull, twisting around so that his feet pointed downwards.  He grabbed hold of the metal ring normally used to lift Prometheus out of the water, and pushed his feet into the river bottom.  His legs sank up to his knees into a gooey mess of mud, decomposing leaves, and what felt like broken twigs, before hitting more solid bottom.
	He pushed with his feet and pulled at Prometheus' lifting ring.  Prometheus moved a little, then stopped.  Mike was seriously low on breath.  He braced his feet against the bottom again, and heaved at Prometheus again.  Prometheus moved a bit more, then suddenly popped free.  As it did, Mike's left foot slipped.  Mike felt a sharp pain as the sole of his foot smashed into a hard, sharp object.  Fearing infection by some toxic chemical container, he bent down and stuck his arms into the muddy bottom ooze, searching for whatever it was that had cut him.  His hands found something flat, heavy, and hard.  Mike tugged it up through the ooze.  With his breath running out, he kicked quickly up towards the surface.  He surfaced right next to the Whaler.  He grabbed the gunwale with his left hand, and with his right dumped the thing that had cut his foot into the bottom of the boat.  It landed with a loud metallic thump.  For the first time, he got a look at the object.  It was a big, ugly, rusty ax head, sans handle, about ten inches long, five inches wide, with two sharp, curved, wicked-looking edges.
	"What the hell is that?” Pete asked, looking around from where he had been tying a towline to the mud-covered nose of the now re-surfaced Prometheus.
	"Damned if I know,” Mike replied.  "But it tried to take my foot off."
*	*	*
	Mike limped down the steps of the M.I.T. health center and walked slowly across campus.  The cut on his foot had needed a couple of stitches, but with luck there would be no infection.  He glanced at his watch.  Quarter to five.  Vijay and Pete probably had Prometheus packed up by now and were waiting impatiently for him so that they could beat the rush-hour traffic back to Woods Hole.  Mike hurried along as best he could.
	There were a surprising number of students around, considering it was still summer break.  The fall semester didn't start for another week.  Then Mike would be on campus, too, taking classes full-time.  Living back in a dorm of all places.  Maybe he should have tried to find an off-campus apartment, like a lot of the other grad students.  But he had taken the easy way out and had applied for on-campus student housing.  Ah well, too late now.  Anyway, sharing an M.I.T. dorm room should be an interesting experience.  And it would only be for a semester.  Next semester, he'd have the house.
	"The house" was a unique, contemporary Cape Cod-style house located on a small cul-de-sac called "Cranberry Lane."  It was located on the outskirts of the town of East Falmouth, about seven miles from Woods Hole.  That was a bit further than Mike had originally wanted.  Seven miles was a little too far to bicycle every day, especially in winter.  But Mike had liked the house immediately.  It had been owned for a dozen years by a seventy-five year old minister and his wife, who had kept it in immaculate shape.  The house had two stories plus a full basement, half an acre of property, woods on one side, and overlooked a cranberry bog.  But what Mike liked best, and what he had fallen in love with the moment he saw house, were the big front windows.  Almost the whole front side of the first floor, overlooking the cranberry bog, was taken up by eight seven-foot high, floor-to-ceiling windows.  In addition, because the house was built into a slope, the front of the basement, facing the bog, was completely above ground.  The basement had had a whole row of windows along the front wall, which made the basement seem like another whole story, rather than a basement.  
	The first floor had a kitchen, a small dining room, one medium sized and one small bedroom, a bathroom, and a living room.  A stairway from the living room led up to the second floor, under the traditional steeply pitched roof.  The second floor had a master bedroom on one side, a bath in the middle, and the rest of the floor was one big open room.  
	The second floor would make a great rental apartment, Mike had immediately thought.  Perfect for Kristen.  Now he shook his head.  Those thoughts were completely irrational.  He hadn't seen or spoken to Kristen since the picnic, over a month ago.  They were both kidding when he talked on the Westward about getting a house, and she said she wanted to rent from him.  Surely she would want something closer to Woods Hole, would want to get her own place or share with someone else.  Be real!  He told himself.   But he still was glad he had made an offer on the house, and glad that it looked like the mortgage would come through.  If Kristen didn't want the second floor, he could always rent it to someone else.
	"Hey, Mike!"  Vijay's shout rousted Mike from his reverie.  Mike looked up.  Vijay was leaning out the front passenger window of Pete’s Blazer.  "How long does it take to cut off a foot?  You've been gone for hours."
	"That's the problem,” Mike replied.  "I told the doctor my colleagues were in a hurry, so just cut it off, if you please.  But no, she wouldn't do it.  Kept saying something about not wanting to be sued for malpractice.  So she sewed me up instead.  Lousy waste of time."
	"Bloody lawyers!"  Vijay grinned.  "See what the country is coming to?  You can't even get a decent amputation these days.  Back home in India, that wouldn't be a problem."
	Mike climbed into the back seat of Pete's Blazer.  Pete gunned the engine, and headed down Massachusetts Avenue, direction Cape Cod.




Chapter 4
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
December 2, 1979
2:08 A.M.




	It was past two AM when he got back to his graduate student dormitory.  He knew his arrival at this hour would raise no eyebrows.  Here at M.I.T. students were up at all hours of the day or night.  He stomped the snow off his wet shoes, opened the front door, and went up to the student working at the front desk.
	"Pretty miserable out there, eh?” She said with a Canadian accent.  "'Course this would count as a summer day back home in Calgary."  She smiled at him good-naturedly.
	High from the kill, he really didn't feel like chit chatting with her.  "I'd like to check out the exercise room key,” he said.  He concentrated on keeping his voice normal.
	"Got your ID?” She asked.  He handed it over.  She glanced at it and handed it back.  "Fill out your name and room number on the key check-out list."  She pointed to a clipboard that had a pen attached with a string and some masking tape.  He dutifully filled in his name, and his room number.  205B.  She handed him the key.  
	He turned and walked to stairway that led to the basement.  At the bottom of the stairs, he turned right, then left, then left again, into the long, sloping, underground passageway connecting the West and East wings of the Ashdown House dormitory building.  The passageway was not used much.  It was old and dusty.  Heating pipes hung down from the ceiling.  Electrical wires ran along the walls.  Dirty light bulbs cast intermittent pools of light in the shadows.  The passageway was littered with empty cardboard boxes and rusting refrigerators.
	He stopped in front of a door on the left side of the passageway, about a third of the way down its length.  He glanced up and down the passageway, making sure no one was around.  He placed the exercise room key in the door lock, and turned.  The door swung slowly backwards into a dark void.  A cold, musty odor escaped into the passageway.  He stepped quickly through the doorway, and shut the door behind him.  He groped for the light switch, flicked it on.  A dusty storage room emerged out of the darkness.  Old boxes were strewn haphazardly on the floor.  A thick brown layer of dust seemed to cover every surface.  A path of footprints showed on the dusty floor.  He locked the bolt on the door, and followed the footprints to an old table at the back of the room.  He took off his backpack and placed it on the table.  For a moment, he just stared at it.  As he did so, he felt himself growing unbearably hot.  His blood pounded fiercely in his veins.  He started to sweat.  He closed his eyes.  He replayed the giddy moments on the river bank in his mind, remembering the terrified look in her eyes as he brought the ax slicing down towards her neck.
	He took a deep breath, opened his eyes.  They focused on a large cardboard box sitting on the table behind his backpack.   He reached over and opened the box.  Inside was a large glass jar and two plastic containers filled with liquid.  He took out the glass jar.  He unscrewed its ten-inch diameter lid.  He opened one of the plastic containers and poured its contents into the jar, filling it about half way.  The thick smell of formaldehyde mixed with the musty air of the room.  He turned to the backpack.  With heady anticipation, he opened the backpack and pulled out the double bagged package.  He ripped open the tops of the plastic bags, and held them up to his nose.  He savored the sickly sweet smell of her blood.  He reached into the bags with his right hand.  He grabbed a handful of thick, blood-soaked hair.  Holding the bottom of the outer plastic bag with his left hand, he lifted up with his right.  Slowly, the girl's head emerged.  He paused, looking at her.  Her eyes, still open, looked back at him.  Staring into the dead, still terror-filled eyes, he turned on the faucet in the big porcelain sink next to the table.  Carefully, he held her head under the faucet, watching as the stream of water washed away blotches of already dried blood.  He turned off the faucet, lifted up the head, and dropped it slowly into the jar.  He grabbed the second bottle of formaldehyde.  He filled the remainder of the jar with the smelly liquid.  As he did, the plastic bags that had carried the head dropped unnoticed off the corner of the table onto the floor.  He screwed the lid back onto the jar.  He sat down on a wooden crate, his eyes locked with the girl's eyes that stared out at him from inside the jar.  He marveled at the wonder of it.  He stared at her possessively.  He felt powerful, omnipotent.  Hours passed.  He didn't move.
	Beep beep.  Beep beep. Pause.  Beep beep.  Beep beep.  He shook his head, annoyed at the intrusion.  Beep beep, beep beep.    His eyes sought out the source of the annoying sound.  It was his watch.  Beep beep, beep beep.  His eyes focused, he became alert.  His watch said 8:45 AM.
	He picked up the jar and placed it back into the cardboard box.  He placed the box on the floor, next to the table.  The box with her head looked like all the other boxes cluttering up the room.   He picked up his backpack, turned, walked back to the door.  He switched off the light, undid the door bolt, and cautiously opened the door.  Seeing no one, he stepped quickly into the hall.  He went back upstairs to the front desk.  A different desk clerk was on duty.  He returned the key.  He went out the front doors, turned right, and strode purposefully away.




Chapter 5
WOODS HOLE, MASSACHUSETTS
August 21, 2007
8:58 P.M.




	It was nearly nine PM when Pete, Mike and Vijay arrived back at Woods Hole.  They unloaded Prometheus and wheeled it on a cart into J-6, a laboratory room in the basement of the Bigelow building.
	"There's still a bunch of mud inside Prometheus,” Vijay said.  “We could clean it up now, or we can wait till tomorrow.  I've got meetings all morning, so it would have to be done by one of you two."
	"I've got Navy activities all day tomorrow,” Pete said.  "A tour by some admiral or other."
	"Guess that leaves me,” Mike said.  He grinned.  "I always liked playing with mud."
	They walked out of J-6.  Vijay locked the door.  They walked down the hallway to the exit.  Pete got back into his Blazer.  Mike walked over to where his bike was leaning against the wall.
	"How's your foot?” Vijay asked.  "You going to be able to ride home okay?  I could give you a lift."  Vijay had his car parked up at the Deep Submergence Laboratory, known as "DSL", a couple of blocks away.
	"Thanks, but I'll be okay,” Mike said.  "The cut is in the heel.  I'll pedal with my toes."  He got on his bike.  "See you guys tomorrow."
"See you,” Vijay said.  He started walking up the street towards DSL. 
	Pete started his engine.  "Oh, I almost forgot,” he called.  He bent down a minute, then sat up again, and opened the door.  "I saved your sunken treasure for you."  Mike got off his bike and walked over to Pete's car.  Pete handed Mike a plastic bag.  Inside was the ax head that had cut Mike's foot.  Pete gave a wave of his hand and drove away.
	Mike unlocked the door to the Bigelow building, and went back down to J-6.  He took the ax head out of the bag and placed it on one of the tables in the lab.  He threw the plastic bag into a trash can, walked back outside.  He locked J-6 and Bigelow behind him.  He got on his bike, turned on the headlight, and pedaled home.



	Mike got "home" to the Oyster Pond townhouse complex fifteen minutes later.  For the summer, he was sharing a three-bedroom townhouse owned by WHOI with three other grad students.  He parked his bike on the back porch and went in through the back door.  Mike said "hi" to two of his roommates who were watching TV and went upstairs to his room.  He turned on his laptop and waited for it to boot up.  He got a "You have 12 new messages" message.  He wasn't surprised.  Besides the inevitable spam, he was on the Joint Program student mailing list.  Every day he got a half dozen messages or so about upcoming speakers, people needing rides to M.I.T., student activities.
	Mike double-clicked on the Thunderbird email program icon.  After a few seconds, his inbox appeared.  He scanned the list of new messages quickly.  The third one caught his eye.  It was from "KCW@uri.edu".  From Kristen!  He double-clicked on the message header and the e-mail message from Kristen appeared on his screen:

Hi Mike,
	I was happy to hear from you!! I started to write a letter in response to your full moon evening ponderings, but once I had written two pages I realized that I would make more sense if I talked to you in person. Briefly, while I think we will continue to contemplate our usefulness indefinitely, I maintain my sanity at this stage by believing the following:
	An oceanography degree will open options for me in environmental fields, and teaching.  The importance of this is twofold. One, I feel that both of these fields hold a significant role in our future.  While I doubt the ability of any scientist to make an impact individually, cumulatively, I hope this field will be able to guide us in understanding how our actions control the quality of life around us.  Teaching can be a means of communicating the results we find in research and our temporary solutions to the problems we encounter. But, it is also an avenue into students’ lives on a personal level. This leads me to the second fold.  I think pursuing a career studying the ocean is not only interesting and inspiring, but also fun!! I have also taught, and while at times I find it discouraging, overall, I feel it is one of the best ways to touch someone's life with enthusiasm for the actual subject matter and for the things I cherish in life. A bit egocentric perhaps. Yet, I do feel that teaching is one of the areas that has suffered from "the world owes me something mentality."  If any passion can curb that attitude, I hope some of my dreams would aid others in finding theirs.  Above all, I think the person who finds a way to pursue a career that they enjoy and that makes them happy, will have the strength and peace of mind to add a little joy into other's lives.  Hopefully, the next couple of years will teach me discipline and patience, and then I can enjoy that peace of mind thing!!
	Well Mike, I've rambled on a bit, and while it's no longer the full moon, you may have trouble understanding what I am trying to say-We've got the next five years to figure it out.
	Off that note, I had a wonderful vacation!! I went to Acadia National Park, Fundy National Park, and Prince Edward Island.  There was some beautiful scenery, and I met some neat people.  I've got pictures, so if we get a chance I'll show you them someday.  How is the house hunt? Did you decide to take the plunge, or are you going to wait?  My parents sold their house last week, and they are moving to Conn., so they told me I have to go get my piano. Fun, fun, fun. I think I am going to put it in my grandparent's house until I move to Woods Hole. Have you found a place in Cambridge?  Alexandra and I found a nice two-bedroom on Beacon St., and we will move in on the first of Sept.
	I must be going, as I have taken up enough of your time for now,
			Take care,
				Kristen

	Mike smiled.  Kristen was great!  He had sent Kristen an e-mail message a week or so ago.  It was one of those nights where he had doubts about being in the Joint Program, what good he was doing anybody, how grad school fit in, if at all, with "saving the world."  It was also a full moon.  He wrote Kristen his doubts, asked her advice.  She responded like he knew she would - with sincerity, intelligence, and common sense.  He read her e-mail again.  He felt a lot better.  He turned off his computer, took a shower, and went to bed.




Chapter 6
WOODS HOLE, MASSACHUSETTS
August 22, 2007
7:46 A.M.




	On his bicycle ride into Woods Hole the next morning, Mike thought about Kristen's e-mail.  He wondered about her use of the pronoun "I:"  "I" had a great vacation, "I" had a great trip to Prince Edward Island, "I" met a lot of people, "I" took a lot of pictures.  What's with the "I" bit, he wondered.  On the Westward, when Kristen talked about the trip she was planning, she had used "we" instead of "I".  So she obviously went with someone, probably her boyfriend.  So why didn't she just write "George and I" or "Nick and I" or "Emilio and I" or whatever the guy's name was.  Mike shook his head.  "Women!" he thought.  He pedaled faster.
	Mike pulled up at the Bigelow building just after eight A.M.  He locked his bike to a fence pole, and went downstairs to J-6.  To his surprise, the door to J-6 was open.  He went inside.  Someone was standing with his back to Mike, bent over one of the tables, staring intently at the ax head Mike had retrieved from the bottom of the Charles.  Even from behind, there was no mistaking the distinctive, curly-haired figure.  It was Derek Cartwright, Mike's advisor.
	"Morning!" Mike said.
	At the sound of Mike's voice, Derek lifted his head.  He paused for a moment, then turned slowly around..  For the briefest of instances, there seemed to be even more intensity than usual in Derek's eyes.  Then he grinned.
	 "So I hear you risked life and limb to rescue Prometheus,” Derek said. "We like that kind of enthusiasm from our new graduate students."
	"You know me,” Mike said.  "Any excuse to go for a swim."
	"How's the foot?” Derek asked.
	"It throbbed a bit last night, but its okay."  Mike walked over to the counter.  "That's quite an ax head, isn't it?  I don't think I've ever seen one that size before.  I wonder what it was doing on the bottom of the Charles."
	"It's from an old Alaskan lumberjack ax,” Derek said.  "I remember seeing them one summer as a graduate student when I went on a research cruise in the Bering Strait."  He paused for a moment, seeming  to stare at something far away.  Then, abruptly, he switched topics.  "One of the scientists from the biology department is giving a tour to some visiting NSF officials around ten-thirty this morning.  They want to see Prometheus.  Will it be presentable by then?"
	"I’ll get started right away," Mike said.  "I should have it cleaned up by then.  And I'll have the hull open.  So they'll be able to get a good look at the inside workings."
	"Great,” Derek said.  "I'll tell them its okay to stop by.  Well, gotta run."
	"See you,” Mike said.  But Derek was already gone.
	Mike dropped his backpack onto an empty chair.  He went over to the counter where Derek had stood and looked down at the ax head.  "Alaskan lumberjack ax, huh?"  He wondered if Derek was serious.  With Derek, it was always hard to tell.  Mike shrugged.  He walked over to Prometheus, and started cleaning.
	Mike pushed the cart holding Prometheus outside and hosed off the exterior of Prometheus’ hull.  There was a surprising amount of now dried river-bed mud caked around Prometheus' nose, where Prometheus had buried itself in the river bottom.  Mike wheeled Prometheus back into J-6, and started removing the screws holding the yellow plastic outer hull in place.  Prometheus' outer hull was split along the middle into an upper half and a lower half.  Mike lifted off the top half, and removed the screws holding a second plastic inner hull liner in place.  He lifted up the top half of the yellow plastic inner hull, and set it on the floor next to Prometheus.  Prometheus’ insides were now exposed.
	Mike made a quick visual inspection of the two glass spheres and the myriad of wires that were the heart and guts of Prometheus.  They looked none the worse for wear.  There was a big dried chunk of mud lying next to the front sphere, and some more dried mud spread out on the bottom of the hull.  But for the most part the insides were clean.  Mike picked up the big chunk of mud and looked at it for a second.  It was shaped like a cylinder, about two and a half inches in diameter and about five inches long.  Prometheus’ hull had a round hole in its nose for a sonar transponder.  The transponder was not yet installed, so the hole was open.  When Prometheus buried its head in the bottom of the Charles River, the mud must have squeezed through the hole like pasta dough through a pasta machine.  Mike tossed the chunk of mud into the sink in the back of the room.  He grabbed a spray bottle with water and rags, and started cleaning the remaining mud from inside Prometheus.
	Mike finished about a hour and a half later. He was washing his hands in the sink when there was a knock on the door.  He wiped his hands on a paper towel, walked over and opened the door.
	A group of six people, three men, three women, were standing in the hall.  One of them, a man Mike didn't recognize, spoke up.
	"These people are from the National Science Foundation.  They'd like to take a look at Prometheus.  Derek said it was okay."
	"Sure,” Mike said.  "Please come in."
	The group filed in through the door and went over to the still open hull of Prometheus.  They looked with interest at the glass spheres, electronic circuit boards, metal boxes, the bewildering array of electrical wires.
	Mike noticed the sound of running water and remembered he left the water running in the sink.  While the NSF group inspected Prometheus’ interior, Mike went over to the sink to turn off the water.  When he looked in the sink, he noticed that the running water had started to break up and wash away the dried cylinder of mud Mike had removed from inside Prometheus.  Something that looked like a yellowish white round stick or rod, maybe three-eighths of an inch in diameter, was sticking out where the mud had washed away.  Mike leaned over to take a closer look.
	"Excuse me," a voice said.  Mike looked up.  The speaker was an intelligent looking woman maybe in her mid-forties.  "Could you tell us about the design of your vehicle?  For example, why does it use these glass spheres?  Wouldn't metal pressure chambers be less expensive to make?"
	Mike turned away from the sink and walked back over to Prometheus.
	"Well, you're half right,” Mike said.  "If the spheres had to be custom manufactured, they would probably be more expensive and difficult to make than metal chambers.  These spheres, though, are actually off-the-shelf items.  They're made by a company right here in Falmouth that mass produces the spheres for use as instrumented descent buoys commonly used on oceanographic research ships.  The spheres are really quite amazing.  They've been pressure tested to six thousand meters in depth, and are surprisingly inexpensive.  In fact, the use of the spheres is a big reason why cost of Prometheus is much lower than similar vehicles being developed at other institutions."
	The woman nodded.  One of the men from the group spoke up.
	"I notice that there seems to be a computer of some kind in one of the spheres," he said.  "What else do the spheres contain?"
	For the next half-hour or so, Mike engaged in a lively discussion with the NSF group concerning various details of Prometheus' design.  Mike was in the midst of discussing the difficulties of communicating over any appreciable distances underwater with anything other than sonar when the man who Mike assumed was their host spoke up.
	"Sorry to break up the party, but we've got about two minutes to get to lunch.  If you'll please follow me."  He walked over to the door and waited.  
	“Would it be okay to ask just a few more questions?” the intelligent-looking woman asked.  “It should only take a few minutes.”
	“No,” the host said.  “I’m afraid not.  We have a tight schedule.  We have to go.”
	The NSF group looked at each other in silence.  After a short pause they thanked Mike for showing them Prometheus, and filed out the door.  Mike shook his head, not impressed with the WHOI host's behavior.  Probably one of those egocentric prima donna scientists.  Unfortunately, Mike was learning, there were quite a few around.  All too often, along with brilliance, came bad behavior.
	The host’s mention of lunch, though, made Mike hungry.  He dug his lunch bag out from his backpack and walked into the hall.  He closed the door, but didn't lock it.  During the day, the doors in WHOI were usually left unlocked.  He went outside.
	It was a perfect Cape Cod late summer day.  The sun was shining, the sky was a clear blue, the air was warm, humidity was low.  Mike walked past the souvenir and book shops down to the Woods Hole-Martha's Vineyard ferry docks.  There were a few picnic tables next to a snack bar by the docks.  Mike liked to sit there and eat his lunch, surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the thousands of tourists on their way to the famed island of Martha's Vineyard, visible only a few miles away.  Despite having to wait in line for the ferries, sometimes for hours, everybody always seemed to be in good spirits.
	Mike sat down, took a sandwich out of his lunch bag, and started eating.  He let his mind wander as he looked over the rows of cars waiting for the ferry.  Quite a few were carrying bicycles.  Mike had heard that bicycling was great on Martha's Vineyard.  Maybe later in the fall, when the tourists were gone, Mike would come down from Boston one weekend and check it out.
	Mike's thoughts shifted to the upcoming semester at M.I.T.  He would be taking classes full time for the next two semesters, something he hadn't done since he finished law school at Berkeley nine years ago.  This summer had been a nice introduction to the Joint Program, but next semester grad school would begin for real.  Unlike other M.I.T. grad students, who typically split their time between research and taking classes, students in the Joint Program took classes full time the first year.  That way, instead of taking one or two classes a semester for three years, Joint Program students finished their required classes in one year, after which they did research full-time.  The good news was that he only had to take one year of classes.  The bad news, from all Mike had heard, was that first year would be hell.
	Mike had taken one course over the summer, an advanced math class taught by an M.I.T. professor who came down to Woods Hole for the summer.  It was a tough class: three hour lectures twice a week, plus homework problem sets that took ten to twelve hours, if you were lucky.  Mike didn't relish the thought of taking four classes like that at a time.  The coming semester was going to be murder.
	Mike finished his last sandwich.  He got up, threw his empty lunch bag into a trash can, and headed back to J-6.




Chapter 7
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
May 14, 1980
1:24 A.M.




	He ran, naked, terrified, down the dark alley, weaving desperately from side to side.  He had been running for what seemed like hours through the ruins of the burned-out city.  Hot, acrid smoke filled the air, scorching his lungs.  Red, blazing fireballs screamed though the night air, following him, hitting the ground with thunderous explosions.  Flames leptout, searing his skin.  He stumbled, caught himself, ran on.
	He had no more energy left.  He stopped, looked up.  Up ahead, bent, broken shadows of rusted out dockside cranes stood out black against the orange glow of the smoke-filled sky.  Beyond the cranes, he could see the shiny expanse of liquid black.  "The sea!” he thought.  The sea would be his escape.  He knew the sea.  In the sea he would be safe.  With desperate hope, he ran on.
	Another fireball exploded, knocking him to the ground.  He struggled, unsteadily, back to his feet.  He was close.  He could smell the salt in the air.  He forced himself to go on.  Twenty yards more, and he would be at the dock's edge.  He could almost feel the comforting embrace of the sea.  One step, two steps, he lurched on.
	The edge of the dock was still ten feet away when he heard the approaching, high pitched scream.  Another fireball!  Summoning all his remaining strength, he took three desperate strides.  The scream of the approaching fireball was deafening.  But he had made it!  He was at the edge of the dock.  All he had to do was step over the edge, and he would be safe!
	He lifted his leg, moved it forward, stepping off the dock, hovering over the sea below.  He looked down with hopeful anticipation.  Then he froze, shocked.  Convulsively, he pulled his leg back, horrified.  The sea below was not the calm, black, comforting pool he had expected.  Instead it was a teaming, phosphorescent ooze of horrific creatures.  Thousands of neoceratias spinifer, melanocetus johnsoni and lasiognathus sacrostoma, hideous-looking but normally small, harmless inhabitants of the deep sea, had grown more than ten-fold in size, creating ten-foot long, eerily glowing monsters, with huge mouths, three foot long teeth, knife sharp spikes covering the outsides of their bodies, and ten foot, suction cup covered tentacles reaching out on all sides.  The monsters were in a rage, viciously attacking each other in a frenzied feeding spree, making the sea churn like a pot of boiling water.  If he fell in, he would be torn to shreds.  For a moment he teetered precariously on the dock's edge.  Then, with a supreme effort, he steadied, caught his balance, pulled his foot back.
	"Wham!"  The approaching fireball crashed into the dock five feet behind him.  Its explosive shock wave slammed into him, propelling him over the side.  For a moment he seemed to hang in the air, suspended.  Then he fell, screaming, into the hideous mass of sea creatures below.




Chapter 8
WOODS HOLE, MASSACHUSETTS
August 22, 2007
1:26 P.M.




	It was about one-thirty PM when Mike returned to J-6 from his lunch.  The door was partially open.  Pete or Vijay were probably inside, working on Prometheus.  Mike pushed open the door and walked in.  He looked around.  No one to be seen.  Everything looked like he had left it.  Prometheus was still apart in the middle of the room.  The ax head was still sitting on the counter.  Mike shrugged.
	Mike was heading to the computer to check his e-mail when he remembered the lump of mud in the sink.  He went over to the sink, and looked down.  The lump of dried mud had pretty much been washed away when he accidentally left the water running in the sink.  What was left was a small mound of gooey, mostly liquefied mud.  The end of a brownish-white cylindrical object was sticking out of the mound.  It looked like the end of a chicken bone, maybe a drumstick.
	Mike pulled the object out of the mud.  As he did so, something fell off the end that had been buried in the remaining mound of mud.  Mike caught a quick glimpse of a round metallic object before it rolled and disappeared down the drain.
	Mike held the chicken-bone like object between his right thumb and index finger and lifted it up towards the ceiling lights so he could get a better look.  It really did look like a chicken bone, he thought, except it was a bit short and stubby.  About three-eighths of an inch in diameter, and an inch and a half or so long.  He looked at it a while.  Maybe it was some other kind of bone, Mike thought.  He didn't know anything about bones.  He'd save it and ask Kristen.  She was a biologist.  He'd tell her about his underwater adventure.  She'd be enthralled and fall hopelessly in love with him.  He grinned.  Then something cold and hard smashed the back of his head and he dropped, unconscious, onto the cold laboratory floor.



	"Hey Mike! Wake up! Are you all right?"  Mike slowly opened his eyes.  He saw Vijay's worried face looking down at him.  Mike sat up groggily.  "Ow!" he said, touching a growing bump at the back of his head.  "What happened?"
	"Looks like one of the overhead lights came loose and hit you in the head."  Vijay pointed at one of the double-tube fluorescent lights that dangled by its wire next to Mike.  "You've got a nasty bump on the head.  How are you feeling?"
	"I'm okay,” Mike said.  He slowly got to his feet.  As he stood up, his head started pounding.  He stood for moment.  The pounding subsided to a dull throb.  He looked at the light dangling from the ceiling, it's lower end coming down to his shoulders.  Funny, he thought.  The thing that had hit him in the head had felt a lot more solid than a sheet metal lighting fixture.  He looked around for the piece of bone that he had been looking at when he had been hit.  He didn't see it around anywhere.  His mind was still foggy.  He shook his head trying to think clearly.  That was a mistake.  His head just started pounding more.  He closed his eyes.
	When he opened them, Vijay was looking at him with concern.  "Didn't you hear me?” Vijay said.  "I said maybe you should go lie down.  You look pretty groggy.  I can finish up here."
	"Yes,” Mike said vaguely.  "Maybe I should go home."  He looked around the room, spotting his backpack on the counter by the back window.  Mike paused for a moment.  He had a vague feeling that something in the room was out of place, but couldn't quite put his finger on it.  He frowned.  It was hard to concentrate with the pain in his head.  Mike went over and picked up his backpack.  "Thanks for finishing up with Prometheus," he told Vijay.
	"No problem,” Vijay said.  "Just take care of yourself.  Do you need a ride home?"
	"No, I'm okay,” Mike said.  He walked over to the door.  "See you."
	"See you,” Vijay said.
	Mike retrieved his bike from the back of the Bigelow building and rode slowly home to Oyster Pond Road.  By the time he got there, his head wasn't pounding too badly, but he was still dizzy.  He went up to his room and went to bed.  Even though it was still early in the afternoon, he dropped quickly off to sleep.




Chapter 9
NEEDHAM, MASSACHUSETTS
August 23, 2007
1:46 A.M.




	A cool breeze blew through the bedroom window, ruffling the curtains, causing bands of moonlight to dance across the bedroom walls.  Kristen smiled.  She turned to say something to the dark-haired, stocky form lying next to her on the mattress, but stopped.  Steve was already asleep.
	Kristen turned back.  She was tired, content, but not sleepy.  She glanced over to the window.  She could see a sliver of moon in a corner of the window.  She scooted down a bit in the bed, until the whole moon was visible.  Steve grunted, turned, his naked back leaning against hers.  She marveled again, how good it felt, naked skin against naked skin.
	It had been a good summer, Kristen thought.  She was glad that she had decided to take the summer off, instead of jumping straight into grad school after getting her bachelor's degree in May.  She had gone on the Westward cruise, but that didn't count, that had been fun.  She smiled to herself as she remembered how the Captain had designated her to be the emergency helmsman.  Everyone on the cruise had been assigned a specific job to do during any emergency.  Hers had been to take the wheel.  No emergencies had actually occurred, but she had been ready.
	Kristen and Steve had had a good trip to Nova Scotia.  They spent two weeks, driving around, staying at inexpensive motels.  When Kristen and Steve were planning the trip, Kristen hoped she would be able to talk Steve into doing a biking-and-camping trip, but Steve refused.
	"I work my butt off all year,” Steve had said.  "I'm not going to work my butt off during my vacation, too."
	Kristen and Steve had been together for almost four years, since Kristen's first year at the University of Rhode Island, when she was a freshman, and Steve was a senior.  Kristen had worked for a couple of years as a nurse’s aid after high school before going to college, so she and Steve were the same age.  They were both headstrong, and had massive fights.  But that was to be expected in any relationship.  Kristen really loved Steve.  She only wished he would learn to love the outdoors, and outdoor sports like biking, hiking, swimming, like she did.  Unconsciously, she sighed.
	Her thoughts shifted to M.I.T., where classes would be starting in a little over a week.  She had found a decent apartment in Cambridge, about a mile north of M.I.T.  She would be sharing it with Alexandra, another new Joint Program student.  She was moving in tomorrow.
	Classes.  Yuk.  She grimaced.  She loved her field, marine biology, but she had already taken enough classes.  Kristen wanted to do real research, not just book learning.  She got a taste of field work last summer, and had excelled.  She was excited about working with her advisor, Tim Cannery.  Tim was a leading figure in pelagic/benthic research, the study of the interaction of surface and bottom ocean species.  This relatively new field of study held promise of helping explain, and hopefully reverse, the severe depletion of ocean fisheries.  Kristen could hardly wait to get involved.
	First, though, she had to get through one semester of classes.  She shouldn't complain, Kristen thought.  She was lucky to have worked out a deal with Tim to let her do research down at Woods Hole after only one semester at M.I.T.  Almost all of the other Joint Program students had to take a full year of classes.
	Pretty soon, Kristen thought, she would have to start looking for a place to live down in Woods Hole.  Maybe she could find a place near the beach, close enough to bicycle down to her laboratory in Woods Hole.  Mike had said she could have a room in the house he was buying.  Kristen wasn't quite sure how she felt about sharing a house with Mike.  They got along great on the Westward trip, but that had been under special circumstances.  Mike seemed to be a nice guy.  They knocked heads a bit at first, but they worked together well.  Mike really came through at the end of the trip, helping her analyze data she had gathered during the trip for a presentation to the rest of the students.  Kristen wondered how old Mike was.  He'd done a bunch of things, she knew.  Peace Corps.  A masters degree.  A law degree.  He sure wasn't any slouch.  He had to be in his late thirties, like the Navy guys, Pete and John.  Mike was somehow more boyish, though.  He always had that smile in his eyes.  Kristen smiled as she remembered how she had surprised Mike at the barbecue.
	Still smiling, Kristen closed her eyes, and drifted off to sleep.




Chapter 10
FALMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS
August 23, 2007
1:56 A.M.




	In his dream, Mike was back in the Charles, battling with Prometheus, trying  to pull it out of the mud while the air in his lungs was running out.  He strained futilely, pushing Prometheus one way and then the other.  Suddenly, Prometheus popped free, and went floating up to the river’s surface.  Mike tried to follow.  He couldn't.  Something was holding one of his feet!  Mike looked down.  A slim white hand was sticking out of the mud.  Its thin but strong fingers, one wearing what looked like a gold school ring, were locked around his ankle.  Mike flailed his arms and his free leg desperately, trying to break away. The hand wouldn't let go.  Mike's lungs felt like they would burst.  He couldn't hold his breath any longer.  He had to breathe! He had to breathe!  He opened his mouth, tried to scream.  But instead, water rushed in.  He choked.  He coughed.  His lungs convulsed, trying to expunge the invading water.  It did no good.  More water rushed in.  After a while, his convulsions stopped.  He became calm, peaceful.  He felt lighter, lighter, his life slowly ebbing away.  Then Kristen's concerned but smiling face appeared in front of him.  He jerked awake.
	Mike opened his eyes.  The room was bright with moonlight.  He looked at the clock radio.  2:17 A.M.  Mike sat up.  He felt the back of his head.  The bump was still there, but smaller.  His headache was gone, his mind clear.  He knew what had bothered him about J-6.  The piece of bone wasn't the only thing that had been missing.
	Mike got up, walked quietly down the stairs.  He let himself out the back door.  He walked over to his car, a white 1982 Mercedes Turbodiesel station wagon.  Mike opened the back hatch, rummaged around in the toolbox he kept in the back of the car, selected a tool.  He put the tool in his backpack, quietly closing the hatch.  Mike grabbed his bicycle, turned on the generator powered light, and pedaled back towards Woods Hole.



	Woods Hole was dark, quiet.  Mike rode down Woods Hole Road and into the Bigelow building parking lot.  He leaned his bike against the wall and went to the side door of the Bigelow building.  No one was around.  The windows were dark.  Mike unlocked the door, and stepped into the dark stairway.  He groped along the wall for the light switch, and flicked on the stairway light.  He walked down the half-flight of steps to the basement.  Light from the stairway spilled about a third of the way down the basement hallway.  The rest was in darkness.  Equipment stored in the hallway cast eerie shadows.  Mike felt the hairs curl on the back of his neck.
	J-6 was about a third of the way down the hall.  Mike walked quickly down to J-6.  He unlocked the door, stepped inside, and turned on the light.  He closed and locked the door behind him.
	Mike turned and looked about the room.  He was right!  The ax head was gone from the back counter.  That was why, in his daze, he had thought something was out of place.
	Mike went over to the sink.  He looked up at the light fixture that Vijay thought hit Mike in the head.  It was now firmly back in place.  Vijay must have reattached it.  Mike could see no reason why it should have come loose.  He stood for a moment, thinking.
	The bright flash of headlights through a back window roused Mike out of his reverie.  A car was turning into the Bigelow building driveway.  There was no reason for Mike to do so, but some instinct made him run over to the light switch and flick off the lights.  Out side, the car’s headlights went out.
	Mike heard the outside door to the Bigelow building creak open.  Footsteps came down the stairs.  Mike quickly moved to the back right corner of J-6.  Several crates of cables and electrical equipment, relics from a past research cruise, were piled up near the wall.  Mike heard footsteps coming down the hall as he climbed over a large wooden crate and ducked down behind it.  The footsteps stopped in front of J-6.  Mike heard the scratching of a key in the lock, then a squeak as the door swung open.  Someone stepped inside, and turned on the light.
	Now that Mike's conscious mind had caught up with his instinctive actions, he felt pretty foolish.  What was he doing hiding like a scared kid behind these dirty wooden boxes?  It wasn't as if he was doing anything wrong.  With the light on, Mike could see that his hiding place wasn't that good, either.  Anyone who walked over to the right side of J-6 would be bound to see him.  Mike tried to think of some plausible explanation to explain his hiding in a corner of the dark, locked laboratory room.  He couldn't think of anything, so he stayed down, quiet.  He crossed his fingers that whoever had come in would leave again quickly without coming over to Mike's side of the room.
	Mike heard three footsteps from the other side of the room, then silence.  Mike shifted his position quietly, trying to find a crack between the boxes through which he could glimpse the other side of the room.  Mike finally found a gap he could see through.
	"I should have known!” Mike thought with relief.  The person in the room was Derek.  At the same time he recognized his advisor, a good excuse for Mike's being in the dark laboratory flashed into Mike's mind.  He had been working late, got tired, and laid down in the back of the room to catch some shut eye.  Considering his knock on the head, that was perfectly reasonable.  Mike decided to get out from behind the boxes, feigning having just woken up.  He took one last peak through the crack to see what Derek was doing.  What Mike saw made him stop.  Derek was leaning over the sink, staring down, his hands deep in the basin.  Derek's arms were moving, like he was washing his hands, but the faucet wasn't running.  After about half a minute, Derek raised a hand out of the sink to turn on the faucet.  The hand was covered in mud.
	Mike watched as Derek washed his muddy hands.  Derek dried his hands with a paper towel, then stepped away from the sink.  Derek stood for a moment, staring up at the light fixture.  He had a frown on his usually grinning face.  Derek walked over to the door, turned out the light, and left.  Mike heard Derek's footsteps recede down the hall, up the stairs, and out the side door.  
	Mike waited till he saw headlights leaving the Bigelow lot.  Then he turned on the lights, walked over and looked down into the sink.  It was empty.  The lump of Charles River mud Mike had removed from Prometheus was gone.  Mike took the pipe wrench he had brought with him out of his backpack.  He knelt down under the sink.  He disconnected the U-shaped drain trap, and turned it upside down.  A round, yellowish metallic object dropped out onto the floor.  Mike picked it up with his thumb and forefinger and held it up to the light.  It was a gold woman's class ring.  "Cambridge High School" Mike read. "1979."  Mike noticed an inscription on the inside of the ring.  He looked closer.  The inscription was three letters:  "M.E.R."
	Mike put the ring in his pocket.  He reconnected the drain trap, placed the pipe wrench back into his backpack.  He turned out the lights, and left J-6.  He made sure the door locked behind him.  Mike retrieved his bike from behind Bigelow, got on, and rode home.  Along the way, the moonlight sparkled brightly on the waters of Vineyard Sound.




Chapter 11
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
May 14, 1980
2:05 A.M.




	He woke, thrashing, screaming, into pitch black darkness.  He looked around wildly.  Where was he? Where were the giant, mutated deep sea angler fish?  He sweated.  His heart pounded.  His hands shook violently.  His breath came in short, sharp, gasps.
	"Hey, what the fuck?" said a voice out of the darkness.  A light switched on, and the familiar sight of his shared dormitory room emerged from the darkness.  His roommate's haggard face stared over at him from a rumpled bed on the other side of the room.  "Shit, not again,” his roommate said.  “You oughta get some therapy, man."
	"I don't need no fucking therapy," he said.  "It was just a fucking nightmare."  He tried to calm down, but his heart was still pounding, and he still gasped for breath. 
	"Nightmare my ass," his roommate said.  "You've been waking up screaming every night for the last week!  Every time I'm about to get a couple of hours of sleep, there you go, screaming like a madman."  His roommate looked over at the clock radio.  The time was 4:22 A.M.  "Shit, I've got a hydrodynamics final in three hours."  He turned out the light.  "Do me a favor, huh?  Just don't have another one tonight, okay?  I haven't slept all week, and if I don't get at least a couple of hours of sleep before tomorrow's final, I'm fucked!"  He heard his roommate huddle back under his blanket.  "And get some fucking therapy!"
	"Asshole!" he thought.  "I don't need no fucking therapy!  I've got my own fucking therapy!"  Angrily, he got up, threw on jeans and a T-shirt, and stomped out of the room.




Chapter 12
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
August 28, 2007
10:14 A.M.




	Mike found a parking spot on Memorial Drive less than a hundred yards past Ashdown House, the graduate dormitory in which he had been assigned a room.  He pulled the Mercedes into the parking spot, and got out.  He started walking towards the dormitory, then remembered that this was Boston, not Cape Cod.  He went back to the Mercedes, and locked the doors.
	A banner over the front entrance proclaimed "Welcome to Ashdown House!" as Mike walked up the path to the red brick building.  Tables with donuts and orange juice were set up on the walkway leading up to the front doors.  Mike grabbed a Boston creme-filled donut and a paper cup of orange juice, and walked through the doors to the front desk.  A pretty red-headed grad student was manning the desk.  
	"Hi,” Mike began,  "I'm a new resident and-"
	"You're here to check-in," she finished for him, flashing a brilliant, intelligent-looking smile.
	"Exactly,” Mike said, smiling back.  He liked smart women.  "What's your name?"
	"Hey, that's my line!” she said.  But then she conceded.  "I'm Randy.  And you are?"
	"Michael Werner.  That's W E R N E R,” Mike spelled automatically.
	"Here you are.  Room 205B,” Randy said.  "Right down the hall from me."  She gave Mike a very direct look.  Then she grinned.  "With those beautiful green eyes of yours, I'd trust you with my life," she said,  "but I can't give you your key until I see your student ID."
	Mike smiled, a little embarrassed, and handed over his M.I.T. student ID card.  Mike considered himself average looking at best.  He was six feet tall, a trim but strong 150 lbs.  He had been prematurely bald for the last ten years, and kept the remaining hair temples and back of his head cropped short.  He had a friendly smile, he knew.  But he never knew what to make of the complements he often got about his eyes.  
	Randy made Mike sign a receipt for his keys.  There were two keys: one for the door to the hallway, which was shared with room 205A, and one for the room itself, 205B.  Randy gave him a booklet about Ashdown House, and pointed him to the stairway to his room.
	"Thanks,” Mike said.  "See you around."  Randy gave him a brief smile, then turned as another student approached the desk.  "Don't tell me," he heard her say, "you're a new incoming grad student and want to check in.  What's your name?"  Mike turned, smiling, and headed to the stairway leading up to his new dorm room.
	The door facing the hallway said "Rooms 205 A-B."  Mike tried one of the keys.  Wrong one.  He tried the other one.  The door opened into a short, dark foyer.  Mike found the light switch, turned on the single overhead light.  Three doors led to the foyer.  There was a brass "A" on the door to the right, a "B" on the door to the left.  So the one on the left was his.  The door straight ahead would be the bathroom Mike would be sharing with his roommate and the two occupants of 205A.  
	Mike unlocked the door to 205B and stepped inside.  The room was square, about twenty feet long on each side.  There were two big windows along the front wall that looked out over Massachusetts Avenue.  There were two beds, two desks, two bookshelves, a closet, and a free-standing wardrobe.  One of the beds was by the front window, the other along the back wall.
	Mike dropped his duffel bag on the bed by the window, sat down on the bed, and looked around.  The room was old, sparse.  Oh well.  It was only for one semester.  Then he would commute up from his house on the Cape.
	Mike went back downstairs.  Another student had taken Randy's place at the front desk.  Along the wall, on the other side of the front desk, was a wall full of pictures.  Mike went over to take a look.  The pictures were old group photographs of the residents of Ashdown House, with cards below each photo listing the names of students in the picture and the year the photo was taken.  The photos all seemed to be over ten years old.  The oldest one was from 1979.  Mike looked at the students in the 1979 picture.  There were about forty male students, only two women.  A lot of the students had long, shaggy hair, and many had beards or mustaches.  Sideburns, too.  
	Mike studied the quarter century old picture.  It had been taken on the front steps of Ashdown House, which looked pretty much the same as now.  The picture must have been taken in the Fall.  The two trees in the picture had lost their leaves, and almost everyone in the picture was wearing a jacket, a sweater, or a sweatshirt.  A few were even wearing hats.  One student was wearing one of those Canadian knitted caps with the flaps over the ears.  "Tuks", thought Mike.  That's what they were called.  Or something like that.  Mike paused.  The student wearing the "tuk" looked familiar.  Mike ran his eye down the list of names below the picture.  James Bartley, Thomas Burns, Tim Cannery, Derek Cartwright.  Derek.  Of course!  Mike should have recognized him right away, but the "tuk" hid Derek's trademark, long curly hair.  Derek said he took a research cruise up to Alaska while he was a graduate student.  Maybe that's where got the cap.
	Mike thought again about Derek's odd behavior in J-6 two nights ago.  Did he take the ax head?  Why?  Why did he examine the mud in the sink?  Was he looking for the ring?  Could he have known about it?  Of course not.  There was no way anyone, let alone Derek, could have known that the piece of mud Prometheus scooped up when it got stuck in the bottom of the Charles River had anything in it, let alone the old class ring.
	Mike shook his head.  It was more likely Derek came into J-6 to wash his hands, noticed the mud in the sink, and simply cleaned it up.  That was all he did with his hands in the sink.  Mike's knock on the head must have made him paranoid.  
	Mike looked back over at the desk.  Randy was still nowhere to be seen.  Her shift must have ended.  Mike looked at his watch.  It was just after eleven-thirty in the morning.  Still early.  If he started back now, he could get back to Cape Cod in time to catch a little beach time.  Mike left Ashdown House and headed for his car.




Chapter 13
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
May 14, 1980
2:44 A.M.




	He stormed into the basement in a rage.  It was a good thing he had made himself a copy of the exercise room key and no longer needed to borrow it from the front desk.  He didn’t have the patience.  He marched straight to the storage room door, not caring whether anyone saw him or not.  No one did.  He unlocked the door with his copied key.  He went in.  He flicked on the light, slamming the door behind him.
	He walked to the desk at the back of the room.  He picked up the box from the floor, slammed it down on the desk.  Angrily he pulled out the jar.  Hatefully he stared at what had once been the head of a beautiful girl.  Four months in the formaldehyde had turned the head into a bloated, wrinkled, faded monstrosity.  Looking at her no longer gave him a rush of power, like the first few weeks.  Now it only made him angry.  She was ugly.  He hated her!  She gave him nothing.  And without the power, he was helpless.  He needed the power!  He had to find someone new to give it to him.
	His first final was Wednesday.  He had two days left.  Maybe that was enough.
	He put the jar back in the box.  Holding the box under one arm, he left the room.  He walked down the hall to a big metal trash dumpster.  He opened the heavy metal lid, and dumped the box inside.  He let the lid drop shut.  He went up the stairs, leaving Ashdown House by the front door.  Dawn was turning the eastern sky a deep red as he turned right.  He headed toward MIT’s “Building 1,” the beginning of the long hallway called the "infinite corridor."




Chapter 14
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
September 4, 2007
10:43 P.M.




	Mike looked at the red digits clock radio.  "10:43 PM," they said.  Mike looked down at the legal pad in front of him.  It was filled with scribbled equations.  He looked down at the waste paper basket nearly filled with crumpled, discarded sheets of paper.  He sighed.  Only a week and a half into classes, and already he was buried in homework and hopelessly behind.  He looked back down at the legal pad.  He looked again at problem three of his "Linear Control Systems" class problem set.  "Identify the state variables of the following systems," it said.  "Determine whether the systems are linear or non-linear," it continued.  "For each linear system, derive the state equations using force state variables and/or energy state variables, as appropriate."  Then followed diagrams of ten different physical systems, including mechanical spring-mass systems, electrical circuits, hydraulic systems.  When he handed out the homework assignment, Mike's professor said that the first problem set was "review" and it shouldn't be too difficult.  Not too difficult!  Maybe if you had a clue about what "state variables" and "state equations" were.  Mike didn't.  Mike had spent four hours doing the first two problems in the problem set.  He had worked on problem three for another two hours, and had made barely any progress.  He should have known better than to take a course for which he knew he didn’t have the required prerequisites.  But he brazenly thought he would quickly pick up whatever it was he was supposed to know.  It looked like he was wrong.
	He looked over to his roommate's empty desk.  Patrick was probably in the computer room.
	They had only been roommates for a week, but it was already pretty clear that Mike and Patrick had little in common.  Mike was a day person, an early riser, who didn't often stay up past midnight.  Patrick was a night owl, staying up until three or four A.M., sleeping till noon.  Hopefully they wouldn't drive each other completely crazy.
	Mike had to get up, he couldn't think anymore.  He needed to get some exercise.  He had done nothing but study for the last week.  He needed something to rejuvenate his energy.  It was high time he checked out the gym that was supposed to be in the basement.
	Mike wearily pushed his chair away from the desk.  He got up, pulled off his Levi's, put on a pair of shorts, left the room, and headed to the front desk.
	To Mike's disappointment, Randy was there.  Mike hadn't seen her at all since that first day when he checked in, a week and a half ago.  Instead, a male graduate student was manning the desk.  The label "nerd" ungraciously flashed into Mike's mind.  Mike walked up to the desk.
	"Hi,” Mike said.  "How do I get into the exercise room?"
	"Show me your I.D., fill in your name and room number in the sign-out book, and you can check out the key."
	Mike filled in his name and room number.  The desk clerk handed him the key.  "And where is it?” Mike asked.
	"Take the elevator to the basement, turn right, then left, then your first right, and it'll be the first door on your right."
	"Great.  Thanks.”
	"Just make sure to return the key to the desk after you're done."
	"Will do.” Mike turned away from the desk.  Then he turned back.  "Oh, by the way, do you know when it's Randy's turn at the front desk?"
	"She has her generals next week, so she's off studying.  She probably won't be back at work for another two weeks.  Thursdays are her nights."
	"Well, see you in about an hour,” Mike said.
	Mike got out of the elevator.  It opened into a short hallway with cement walls, painted white.  A bare light bulb hung from the ceiling.  To the left, some old, dorm-sized refrigerators were piled up along the wall.
	Mike turned right, like the desk clerk had said.  After about ten feet, the hallway dead-ended into another hallway.  This one was fairly long. It seemed to run along the west side of the west wing of Ashdown House.  What had the desk clerk said again?  Turn left, and then take your first left.   Mike turned left down the hallway.  After about thirty feet, he hit a passage running left.  This one had a sloping floor, heading down.  It was more poorly lit than the first two hallways had been.  Exposed pipes and cables ran along the ceiling, held up, every ten feet or so, by angle-iron brackets.  Mike saw that after about a hundred feet, the floor of the hallway leveled out, then started climbing again.  Mike couldn't see the end.  This must be a passage leading from the west wing of Ashdown House to the east wing, he thought.  There must be some obstacle in the way, a pipe or something, that the passage had to go under.  That's why it sloped down, leveled, then sloped up again.
	An odd place for an exercise room.  Mike turned into the hallway, and started down the incline.  Every few feet, he had to duck under one of the metal brackets hanging from the ceiling.  Mike reached a door, on the left side of the hall, about halfway to the bottom of the incline.  That must be the exercise room.  The door was dusty.  Hmm, Mike thought, guess it doesn't get used much.
	Mike put the exercise room key in the lock.  It didn't move.  Mike jiggled the key, turned harder.  The lock turned a bit.  Mike applied more pressure.  The lock turned stiffly, but eventually opened.  The gym door lock could use a little lubricating oil, Mike thought.  He pushed open the door.  A strong, musty, mildewy odor wafted out at him.  The gym could use a little Lysol, too.  Mike took a step inside, groped for a light switch.  He found one, and flicked it on.  A dim overhead light went on.  It was not a gym.  Wooden shelves with cardboard boxes lined the walls.  More boxes littered the floor.  A thick layer of dust covered everything.  The room looked like it hadn't been touched in years.  An old, forgotten storage room, Mike thought.  He must have made a wrong turn somewhere.  But the gym key had unlocked the door.  That was odd.
	Mike stepped further inside.  He walked over to one of the shelves, his feet stirring up dust clouds as he walked across floor.  He looked inside one of the boxes.  Inside were some old cans of paint.  He took one out.  It was covered in rust, the label long since gone.  Mike wondered how old it was.  He looked in some of the other boxes.  More cans of paint, some scraps of wall paper, old bottles of cleaners.  The room must have been used as a storage room for building maintenance.  Obviously, though, it hadn't been used in years, maybe decades.  Mike wondered why.
	Mike walked to the back of the room.  A small, dormitory-sized, dust-covered refrigerator sat in a corner.  A broken heap of what had once been a desk lay piled on the floor, the old desktop leaning against the wall.  Several empty plastic bottles lay on the floor next to the remains of the desk.  They, too, were covered with a layer of dust.  On one of the bottles, Mike thought he could make out a label.  Mike bent down, picked it up.  He blew on the front of the bottle.  A cloud of dust erupted in Mike's face.  He coughed, closed his eyes.  He kept them closed for a few seconds, waiting for the dust to disperse.  When he opened his eyes, he saw that the bottle did in fact have a faded blue and white label.  "M.I.T. Microbiology Laboratory," the label said.  "Formaldehyde 1000ml."  At the bottom of the label was a date of manufacture.  Mike squinted at the faded date.  It looked like "May 1979."
	Formaldehyde.  Mike frowned.  Formaldehyde didn't fit in with the paints and cleaners in the other boxes.  Mike picked up another bottle.  This time, he used his hand to wipe off the label.  The label on the second bottle said "M.I.T. Microbiology Laboratory.  10 % Buffered Formalin."  The second bottle was dated "February 1980."  
	"What the heck is formalin?" Mike thought.  He picked up a third bottle.  This one was small and brown.  There was no label.  He shook the bottle.  There were a few drops of fluid still inside.  He unscrewed the top, held the bottle to his nose, took a cautious sniff.  A sweet, pungent smell filled his nostrils.  He quickly replaced the top.  He started feeling dizzy.  He leaned back against the broken desktop, searching for support.  With a crash, the desktop toppled over and collapsed onto the floor.  Mike too went crashing to the floor, landing hard on his rear end. 
	For a moment, Mike just sat there, head down.  After a minute, his wooziness began to clear.  He gave his head a few vigorous shakes.  He looked behind him at the now even more broken desk.  He noticed a plastic bag pinned under what might once have been one of the desk's legs.  Mike reached over to pull the bag out from under the desk leg.  There was a loud slam.  He stopped, turned around.  The door to the room, which he had left half open when he entered, had slammed shut.  An errant draft of air?
	Mike turned back to the plastic bag.  He reached for it again.  Before he could grab it, the overhead light bulb flickered, then died.  The room was plunged into total darkness.
	Mike waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.  Nothing happened.  The blackness stayed complete.  Mike shivered.  The air in the room, which had been comfortably warm, suddenly felt lifeless, cold.  That was impossible.  Mike thought.  The temperature couldn't change that quickly.  His mind was playing tricks on him.  Still, he felt goosebumps rise on his arms.
	From what he remembered before the room went dark, Mike estimated the door was only about twenty feet away.  Mike carefully got to his feet.  Holding his hands out in front of him, Mike walked slowly forward.  He took one step, then another.  This wasn't going to be so bad, he thought.  Then his leg hit one of the boxes.  "Ouch!" He nearly tripped.  He moved forward more slowly.  After what seemed like an incredibly long time, his hands touched a flat surface.  Mike groped around, found the doorknob.  He turned the knob, and pulled.  Nothing happened.  Mike pulled harder.  The door finally squeaked open.  Mike stepped gratefully into the hall.  To his surprise, he found that his heart was pounding, and there were beads of sweat on his forehead.
	Mike was no longer interested in the gym.  He just wanted to get out of the basement.  He found his way back to the elevator, and took it up to the main floor.  Mike thought about asking the desk clerk about the room, and why the gym room key fit the lock, but decided not to.  He returned the gym key, and went back to his room.




Chapter 15
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
September 6, 2007
6:34 P.M.




	Kristen was fuming as she left her microbiology seminar.  It was only the first meeting of the class, but she hated it already.  It had sounded good in the catalog.  A student-run seminar in which the students, not the professor, chose the topic for discussion for the following week.  Students would do their own research on the topic, then discuss their views in class.  Just the kind of thing that Kristen liked.  At least that's what she had thought.  She hadn't expected to be stuck in class with a bunch of pretentious, prejudiced jerks.  So what if she was only a first year graduate student, she thought.  Her ideas were at least as good as anyone else's.  But the ten or so other students in the seminar wouldn't listen to her.  They were all second and third year students, knew each other, had their own cliques.  Well, she'd show them, Kristen thought.
	Kristen's seminar had been on the eighth floor of the "Green” building," a tall building in the center of the M.I.T. campus that housed most of the earth science departments.  She took the elevator to the ground floor, and walked out the revolving doors.  The Green building was taller and slimmer than most of the other buildings at M.I.T.  It had its own courtyard.
	It was just after six-thirty in the evening.  Kristen walked across the courtyard, and entered the "infinite corridor," the long, quarter-mile long hallway that led from the courtyard through M.I.T.'s main campus buildings (called Buildings 1, 2, 3 and 4) and out to Massachusetts Avenue.  It was the campus' main artery, and was almost always full of students.
	Kristen walked down the infinite corridor, heading towards Massachusetts Ave.  She was still brooding about her seminar, and nearly collided with a group of four students who burst out of a door right in front of her.  She stopped short, barely avoiding getting trampled.
	Kristen looked at the room the students had come out of.  It was one of the "Athena Clusters," one of the computer rooms with computers hooked up to M.I.T.'s computer network, called "Athena."  The computer rooms at M.I.T. were always crowded.  You could never find a free computer.  Kristen preferred using her own laptop, which she had left in her apartment.  Glancing though the glass door to the computer room, Kristen saw the unfamiliar sight of two unoccupied computers.  Taking advantage of this rare gift, Kristen quickly stepped inside and sat down in front of one of them.  Kristen typed in her login name, "Kristen" and password, "dreamer."  She checked her M.I.T. e-mail.  A couple of notices about her classes, nothing else.  That wasn't too surprising, since she hadn't told anyone her M.I.T. e-mail address yet.  Then she went to her e-mail account at U.R.I.  She had fifteen messages.  She scanned the list of senders.  Mostly spam.  The last name on the list said "mikew@mit.edu."  Her eyes lit up.  That must be Mike's new M.I.T. address.  She clicked on the message.

From: mikew@mit.edu 
Date:  Sep 6 16:14:17 2007
Subject: Re: its a full moon, sorry
To: kcw@uri.edu

Hi Kristen!
	Thanks for your e-mail!  It got to me just at the right time.  I was about to hang it all up and go back to L.A.  (only partly kidding).  Thanks for the pep talk.
	Sorry for taking so long to get back to you, but I was on a secret mission for the president trying to track down where all the socks disappear to when you put them in the dryer.  Turns out they don't disappear at all.  Instead, the sock manufacturers have deviously devised a way to weave subliminal messages into the socks themselves, making us think that socks are missing, when in fact they're not.  That way, they get us to keep buying socks, even though our closets are full of them.  The president has asked me to look at the disappearing pen problem next.
	I know what you're thinking.  And you're right.  I'm weird.
	Anyway, sounds like you had a good summer.  Hope your first week at M.I.T. hasn't been too bad.  Mine hasn't been bad, except that I can't figure out how after one week I can already be two weeks behind.  Must be one of those advanced calculus things I'll learn next semester.
	Hey, guess what?  I got the mortgage for the house!  The closing is in two weeks.  I won't be able to move in for good until next semester, but at least I'll have a place to escape to on weekends.  I'll be renting out the upstairs, which has a living room, a master bedroom, and a bath.  You've still got first dibs on it, if you want.  If you ever head down to the Cape, I'll give you the key, and you can check it out.
	Hope your apartment is working out okay.  How's Alexandra?  I haven't seen her since the Westward trip.
	I seem to remember you saying on the Westward that you worked in a forensics lab in New York one summer.  If that's the case, I need to ask you something.
	Well, I better get back to the books.  Give me a buzz sometime, and maybe we can get together for lunch and figure out how to get on with this changing the world thing.  My phone here in the dorm is 257-2334.
	Ciao.
	-Mike

	Dryers and socks?  Kristen thought.  Mike's right.  He is weird.  But Kristen was smiling as she signed off the computer.  She got up, grabbed her backpack, and left the room.  Her dark mood had vanished.  Her steps were light as she walked down the hall, left the building, turned right, and headed home.




Chapter 16
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
May 14, 1980
4:47 A.M.




	He strode down the infinite corridor, out the door, and across the courtyard.  He followed a walkway leading to a four story, glass-walled, modern looking building.  He didn't notice the first of the sun's rays reflecting off the top floor windows as he walked up to the building's big glass double doors.  A sign next to the doors said "M.I.T. Medical Center."  He walked through the doors.  He ignored the reception desk, which was manned twenty-four hours a day, and instead walked up to a building directory hanging on the wall.  He scanned the directory for a moment, then abruptly turned and walked over to a stairway.  He climbed to the second floor, two steps at a time.  He walked down a hallway till he arrived at a door marked "Medical Center Library."  Like all libraries at M.I.T., this one was open around the clock.  He opened the library door and stepped inside.



	He walked down the dark aisle, scanning the shelves of dusty volumes.  He reached up, and pulled a slim, black-covered book from the library shelf.  "M.I.T. Medical Center," the cover said.  "Recommended Procedures for Preparing Cadavers for Study."
	He took the book over to one of the study cubicles, sat down, and opened the cover.

INTRODUCTION TO EMBALMING
	A cadaver must be properly embalmed to preserve the cadaver for anatomical study.  The preferred technique is arterial embalming using a gravity-tank apparatus fixed approximately three to four feet above the body. The embalming fluid used consists of a mixture of propylene glycol (to keep muscles moist); 10% buffered formalin; isopropyl alcohol (a preservative); and liquefied phenol (to prevent mold). 
	There are a number of embalming techniques used for different purposes.  Funeral homes emphasize appearance over long-lasting preservation.   The M.I.T. medical center, however, emphasizes long term preservation.  Using the procedures described below, M.I.T. has been able to preserve cadavers for over a year when stored at room temperature, and up to five years using refrigeration.

	Five years!  He thought excitedly.  He read on.  He skimmed hungrily through a chapter on embalming technique, finally finding what he was looking for:

EMBALMING FLUID
	The gravity-tank is filled with embalming fluid consisting of: 
		1 gal. isopropyl alcohol
		2 gal. propylene glycol
		1/4 gal. amphyl
		1/2 gal. 10% buffered formalin
		50 oz. liquefied phenol

He copied the formula carefully into his notebook.  He picked up his backpack, put the book back on the shelf, and left.




Chapter 17
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
September 7, 2007
7:46 P.M.




	Mike finished the last bite of his turkey burger.  He sat for a moment, looking at his empty plate.  He sighed.  So much for his dinner break.  Time to get back to his "Signals and Systems" problem set.  He glanced at his watch.  7:48 pm  He could put in another three hours tonight, then another two hours tomorrow morning before his nine o'clock "Structural Mechanics" class.  That made a total of five hours.  So far, he had finished half of the problems.  With luck, he should be able to finish the rest of the problem set in time.
	Mike picked up his dishes and walked over to the sink.  He washed his plate, his frying pan, his knife and his fork.  He put them in the cardboard box he used to carry food and utensils from his dorm room to the kitchen, picked up the box, and started back to his room.  He walked down the red carpeted main hallway that led from the West wing, where the second floor's kitchen was located, to the East wing.  He passed the West wing lounge, and turned right, into the hallway leading to the East wing's dorm room.  As usual, at this time of night, there were four or five students in the lounge, studying.  Mike's room was about halfway down the hall.  He was still a couple of doors away when a door to Mike's left suddenly opened.  A figure rushed out, and slammed into Mike, knocking the box out of his arms.  Plates, condiments, cutlery went flying.  "Hey!” Mike exclaimed.  "Take it easy!"  He bent down to retrieve the box, and started gathering up the items strewn over the floor.
	"I, I'm sorry," a nervous sounding voice said.  Mike looked up.  His face showed surprise, then shock.  The speaker was Randy.  She looked awful.  Her hair was scraggly.  Her skin had a sallow, bluish tint.  She looked at Mike from dark, sunken eyes.  "I fell asleep.  I'm late for my geochemistry general!"  She raised her hands in a helpless gesture, turned and ran down the hall.
	Mike looked after her, startled.  He could hardly believe that the nervous, forlorn, insecure woman he had just seen was the perky, confident, smiling ball of energy who had greeted Mike when he had first checked into Ashdown House.  Could Randy be that stressed out about taking her "generals?"
	"Generals" were the doctoral qualifying exams that every graduate student pursuing a PhD had to take, and pass, before formally becoming a PhD candidate.  During the summer, Mike had met a few students who had just been through their generals.  They looked drained, but glad to have gotten through them.  At that time, Mike hadn't known anything about "generals," and so hadn't paid much attention.  Since then, Mike had found out a bit more.  In Mike's university department, Ocean Engineering, graduate students had to take their generals within two years of beginning graduate school.  The generals consisted of three written examinations, and three oral examinations, each on different engineering topics.  The generals were spread over a week, the orals usually taking place in the evening.  They were an all or nothing matter.  If you passed, you could continue working towards your PhD, and you'd have a three year reprieve before having to do your doctoral "defense," which was supposed to be even worse than the generals.  If you failed, you were out.  Luckily, Mike thought, he didn't have to worry about his own generals just yet.  His regular course work was tough enough.  Mike wondered whether he would be as stressed out as Randy was when his turn came to take his generals.
	Mike finished picking up the pieces from the floor.  He walked down the hall to the door to his dorm room.  Patrick was sitting at his desk as Mike walked in.
	"Hey,” Mike said.
	"There was a call for you,” Patrick said.  "The name and number are on your desk."
	Mike walked over to his desk, put down the box, and picked up a torn slip of notebook paper.  "Kristen," it said.  "385-9337."
	Mike's heart beat a little faster.  "When did she call?"
	"Oh, about fifteen to twenty minutes ago,” Patrick said.  "She said you could call her till about eleven-thirty."
	Mike picked up the phone and dialed Kristen's number.  For some reason, his palms were sweaty and he had butterflies in his stomach.  He must have eaten too fast, he thought, as the phone rang once, twice, three times.
	"Hello?" a female voice said.  It wasn't Kristen's voice.  It was Alexandra.  Next to Kristen, Alexandra was the person he liked best on the Westward trip.  Mike hadn't seen or been in touch with her in the three months since then.
	"Hi, Alexandra?” Mike said.
	"Yes?" Came the hesitant reply.
	"This is Mike.  From the Westward trip?"
	"Oh.  Hi!  How are you doing?  Are you up here in Cambridge now?"
	"Yeah.  Living in the dorms, pretending to be a graduate student and all that.  So far no one has seen through my disguise.  I figure I'll be able to keep it up till my first quiz.  How about you, how are you doing?”
	She laughed.  "Keeping busy.  I'm still finishing up a paper on the research I did in the summer, I've got four classes, and my advisor has me analyzing a ton of seismological data.  But its not as bad as it sounds.  I have nearly two hours left over each day to eat and sleep."
	"Ouch!” Mike said.  "I was going to complain about being so busy that I've had to cut my Monday through Friday golf routine down to Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, only.  But I think now I'll keep that to myself."
	"Yes, you certainly wouldn't want some poor slaving exhausted soul to be burdened with troubles like that as well,” Alexandra said.
	"Right.  That would be insensitive,” Mike said.  He paused.  "Is Kristen around?"
	"Yeah, hold on.  I think she's in the shower."
	"Hey Kristen!"  Mike heard Alexandra call.  "You've got a phone call!"  There was a pause, an indistinct sound.  Then,  "It's Mike!"  Another indistinct sound.  Then Alexandra's voice back in the phone.  "She'll be right there.  I've got some pasta about to boil over, so I've got to go.  But it was good talking to you."
	"You too,” Mike said.  He heard a clang as Alexandra put down the phone, followed by receding footsteps, a muffled "Damn!," the clink of pots and pans.  A little later, a door banged, running footsteps, Kristen's breathless "Hi!" in the receiver.
	"Hi yourself,” Mike said.
	"I got your e-mail.  You're a nut,” Kristen said.
	"Yes,” Mike said.  "But don't tell anyone.  It's my secret weapon for getting through my classes.  So how are you doing?  Suffering from any summer-withdrawal symptoms?"
	Kristen laughed.  "I think I have a terminal case.  I hate all my classes, and I think all my classmates are jerks.  All I want to do is get out of here and go down to Woods Hole as soon as I can to start doing some real research."
	"Yeah, I know how you feel,” Mike said.  "But didn't you say you've only got classes full-time for one semester?  Unlike the rest of us, who have to go through a whole year."
	"Well, I don't even know if that's going to happen now,” Kristen said.  "Tim, my advisor, is now dropping hints that maybe it would be a good idea for me to take a whole year of classes after all before working in the lab.  But no way I’m going to stay up here a whole year.  I only came to the Joint Program because Tim promised I'd be able to do full time research after the first semester.  I'm not going to let him renege now."
	"Damn right!” Mike said.  "And if he doesn't abide by what he promised, I'll sue the bastard!"
	Kristen giggled.  "I may just take you up on that."
	"So, do you want to do lunch sometime?"
	"How 'bout tomorrow?” Kristen asked.
	"You want to meet over by the lunch trucks, say about twelve-thirty?"
	"Can we make it one o’clock instead?  I've got a twelve o'clock class."
	"I've got a class at three, so one o’clock is good for me."
	"Great!  See you tomorrow at one."
	"One it is. Lunch wagons ho!” Mike said, hanging up with a grin.
	Kristen held the phone for a moment, then hung up.  She was smiling, too.




Chapter 18
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
May 14, 1980
6:11 A.M.




	It was full daylight now but still early.  He left the Medical Center and walked to the Green Building.  He rode the elevator to the eighth floor.  He stood facing the door of the main microbiology laboratory.
	Through the frosted glass window, he could see that the room lights were still off.  Good.  No one was inside.  He took his keys out of his pocket.  He unlocked the door, and stepped inside.  He closed and locked the door.  He left the room lights off.
	He weaved around laboratory tables to a cabinet along the back wall.  His eyes searched the rows of glass and plastic bottles visible through the glass of the cabinet doors.  He opened one of the doors, and took out a brown glass bottle.  He took a smaller brown plastic bottle out of his backpack.  He held his breath as he opened both bottles, and poured a clear liquid from the larger brown glass bottle into the smaller brown plastic bottle.  He closed both bottles.  He put the brown glass bottle back into the cabinet.  He put the small plastic bottle back into his backpack.
	He picked up his backpack and walked to a door set into the back wall of the laboratory.  He took out a key and unlocked the door.  He opened the door, revealing a ten-foot deep storage room with dozens of white plastic bottles stacked on shelves along both walls.  He picked out three bottles and put them in his backpack.  He closed and locked the storage room door.  He listened for sounds from the other side of the laboratory door.  Hearing none, he unlocked the laboratory door, and stepped outside.  He locked the door behind him, and headed down the hall to the elevator.




Chapter 19
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
September 8, 2007
5:45 A.M.




	"Barroom!"  Mike jerked awake as the blare of a semi-truck horn blasted through the open window next to his bed.  He looked over to his clock radio and groaned.  5:45.  To have any chance of finishing his “Circuits and Systems” problem set, he'd have to get up now.  To heck with the homework set!  He thought.  With his roommate’s rustling papers and having his desk light on until four o'clock in the morning, Mike had again gotten less than two hours of real sleep.  He buried his head in his pillow.
	A moment later, he reluctantly tossed his pillow onto the floor.  He got up, walked quietly across the dorm room, out the door, and into the shower.  Fifteen minutes later he grabbed his textbooks and iPod, and walked down the hall to the second floor study room.  As usual, at this time of the day, the study room was empty.  Mike sat down at one of the two tables, spread out his textbook, notes, and problem set, plugged his headphones into his iPod, cranked up the sound, and hunkered down to work.
	An hour and a half later, Mike looked at his watch.  He looked down at the mathematical equation-covered page he was working on.  He sighed.  Only half an hour to go before his first class.  He looked down again at the problem he was working on.  He shook his head, exasperated.  He had worked at a good pace, cranking out equations at a fast clip to the sounds of U2, Green Day, Killers, Linkin Park and the other alternative rock bands playing on his iPod.  He finished the first three of the four remaining problems in barely an hour, giving him hope that he might get done early enough for a leisurely breakfast before class.  He might even get to chance to read the newspaper and find out what had been going on in the world during the past week.  But the last problem was a killer.  He had worked on it for half and hour and had gotten nowhere.  Unless he figured out what he was doing wrong, and fast, he wouldn't have time for any breakfast at all, let alone a leisurely one.
	Mike looked back through his three pages of scribbled equations.  He frowned.  Why wasn't he getting the right solution?  He got the first three problems to work out, so he must be on the right track.  The homework problems all involved using Laplace transforms to obtain transfer functions for various electronic circuits.  The circuits for each of the problems was different, but the basic methodology was the same.  He went back to the beginning of problem four, and for the fourth time reviewed his equations.  In the middle of the second of three pages of equations, he suddenly stopped.  He grabbed his textbook, flipped through some pages, found what he was looking for.  Damn! He forgot a minus sign in one of his transforms!  So the last page and a half of his attempted solution were garbage.  He would have to redo everything after the middle of the second page.
	Linkin Park was singing "Let Mercy come and wash away all I’ve done" on the iPod.  "Tell me about it!" Mike thought, smiling grimly.  Determinedly, he set his pen to paper, feverishly jotting down line after line of equations.  Fifteen minutes later, he triumphantly threw down his pen, pumping his arm in a "Yes!" gesture.
	Mike gathered up his books, and walked quickly back to his room.  He opened the door quietly.  Patrick was still asleep.  Quickly, but as quietly as he could, Mike poured himself a bowl of cereal and a glass of O.J.  He shoveled the Spoon-Sized Shredded Wheat into his mouth as fast as he could, gulped down the orange juice, grabbed his backpack, and hurried out the door.  He walked into his Structures class just as the Professor was beginning the lecture.




Chapter 20
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
May 15, 1980
12:51 A.M.




	Vicki Navarro, as usual, was dressed to kill.  Her high-heeled black leather boots showed off her long, lean, dancer's legs to perfection.  Her skimpy black bikini top, displaying what she knew was a scandalous amount of skin and cleavage, barely contained her firm, shapely, generous breasts.  Her short, more than skin tight, Levi's hot pants left no doubt that on the other side of the blue cotton denim was nothing other than smooth, sensuous skin and warm, moist hollows.  As usual, dozens of pairs of intense, hungry eyes followed her around all evening.  
	Vicki was a cocktail waitress at the Cambridge Brew House, a pub-style bar located at the corner of Central Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue, about a half mile north of the M.I.T. campus.  The Brew House catered to a variety of customers: young professionals who worked in Boston but preferred living in the quieter small town atmosphere of Cambridge; local teenagers just over the legal drinking age of eighteen; construction workers and other trades people engaged in the massive amount of building and rebuilding that was going on in Cambridge, occasional Harvard students journeying the three miles down from Harvard Square.  But the biggest group of customers were stressed out students from M.I.T.  The other waitresses thought the M.I.T. guys were weird.  So while they flirted with the other customers, they served the M.I.T. students, but nothing more.  Vicky, however, paid them extra attention.
	Truth be told, Vicki thought, the M.I.T. students were a little strange.  But they couldn't help it.  Cooped up in their classrooms and laboratories all day, studying all hours of the day and night, no women around, it was no wonder they were always intense, hyped-up, stressed out, and didn't have a clue how to talk to women.  Vicki had a cousin who had gone to M.I.T.  Before M.I.T., he had been a chunky, bright-eyed kid with a sharp wit and an easy smile.  He emerged from M.I.T. four years later underweight, with sallow skin, intense and sunken eyes, a sharp temper, a sour expression, and a bachelor's degree in applied physics.  She hadn't seen him laugh since.  So Vicki had sympathy for the M.I.T. students.  She dressed up for them, flirted with them, tried to brighten their miserable lives.  What the heck.  It didn't cost her anything.  Quite the opposite.  The M.I.T. students were very appreciative.  Once again, she would be going home with more than twice as many tips as any of the other waitresses.
	The Brew House closed that night at one A.M.  Vicki stayed around for a few minutes after closing, chatting with the waitresses and bartenders.  Then she put on her short leather jacket, said her goodnights, and left.  
	The Brew House didn't have its own parking lot.  Vicki’s old VW Beetle was parked on a side street a block and a half away.  It took her less than five minutes to get there.  She unlocked the car door, got inside.  She put the key in the ignition, turned the key.  The engine roared instantly to life.  She smiled and padded the dashboard.  "Way to go, baby," she murmured.  She sat back in the driver’s seat and let the engine warm up.  An old boyfriend told her that the two most important ways to save wear and tear on an engine were to change oil regularly and to let the engine warm up before putting it in gear.  She long ago dumped the boyfriend.  But she changed her oil religiously every three thousand miles, and always let her engine warm up a minute or so before driving.
	She shifted the gear lever into first and was about to ease off on the clutch when there was a tapping on her side window.  Startled, she looked up.  A face with thick, black, horn-rimmed glassed was peering into the window.  She recognized one of the M.I.T. students who had been in the bar.  He was not a regular, but he had given her a good tip.  He knocked against the window with one hand.  Vicki couldn't see the other one.  He had a pleading look on his face.  His lips moved, but the engine drowned out what he was saying.  "What now!" she thought, exasperated.  She really wanted to get home.  With a sigh, she rolled down the window to hear better.  She still couldn't make out what he was saying.  She stuck her head out of the window.  As she did so, the student's hands shot out.  One hand grabbed the back of her neck.  The other clamped a white cloth over her mouth and nose.  The cloth was damp.  A sickly sweet smell infiltrated her nostrils, making her dizzy.  "Don't breathe!" she told herself.  "Don't breathe!"  She tried to jerk her head out of his grip, but with her head sticking awkwardly out of the window, she couldn't get any leverage.  She tried to stick her arms out the window to hit him, but couldn't do that either.  Her lungs were starting to ache.  "Don't breathe!" she thought.  "Don't breathe!"
	It was too late.  She just couldn't hold her breath any longer.  She coughed, gasped, struggled, tried desperately not to breathe in.  But though her mind fought on, her body, deprived of oxygen, gave in.  As she slipped into unconsciousness, the last thing she saw was two dark eyes, strangely intense through the lenses of the horn-rimmed glasses, fading into a sea of blackness.




Chapter 21
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
September 8, 2007
11:51 A.M.




	Sitting in his usual spot in the auditorium, about one-third of the way back from the front, Mike let his mind zone out after another intense forty-five minute lecture.  He watched idly as the “Circuits and Systems” professor and a lab assistant set up equipment for some kind of demonstration.  "Circuits and Systems," also known by its course number “6.003,” was a hard-core undergraduate electrical engineering class that graduate students in other disciplines, like Mike in ocean engineering, could take for graduate credit.  Mike had always liked electronics, and was pretty good at fixing radios, tape recorders, and other electronic gadgets.  But he didn’t have any formal electronics training.  He thought he would enjoy 6.003.  And maybe he would have.  If he had more time.  But, like in his other courses, the homework took so much time and effort that he couldn’t enjoy what he was learning.
	Mike took advantage of the break in the action to look around at his classmates.  Being a part of the undergraduate electrical engineering core curriculum, the 6.003 class was far larger than any of Mike's other classes, which were strictly for graduates.  Mike guessed there were about 250 students in the class, most of them undergraduates.  Somewhat surprisingly, at least compared to Mike's undergraduate engineering experience fifteen years earlier, nearly half the students in the class were women.  And some very attractive ones at that.  Mike's eyes wandered over to the front row, where the graduate student teaching assistants, usually referred to as "TA's," sat during lectures.  His glance came to rest on Barb Epstein, a smart, spunky, and incredibly sexy TA.
	The typical graduate course at M.I.T., Mike discovered, included two different kinds of class sessions per week.  The main sessions were called "lectures."  The “lectures” were supplemented by one or more "recitations."  “Lectures” were generally taught by the actual course professors.  “Recitations” were typically taught by graduate student TA's.  At other universities, professors were typically more interested in doing research than teaching.  As a result, those professors were often bad teachers who left most teaching to their graduate student teaching assistants.  Mike had been surprised, and impressed, that at M.I.T. the professors seemed to sincerely enjoy teaching, and most were good teachers.
	In 6.003, there were two lectures each week, on Mondays, and Wednesdays, from eleven to twelve o’clock.  In addition, there were two recitations, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Finally, there was a “tutorial” class each week.  For the recitations, the students were divided into six groups of about forty.  In 6.003, unlike his graduate classes, the recitations weren’t taught by TA's, but by assistant professors.  The TA’s taught the “tutorials.” The tutorials had the smallest groups, typically about ten students.  The 6.003 class was extremely well managed and organized.  The only thing Mike didn't like about it was that he wasn’t assigned to Barb Epstein’s tutorial.
	The demonstration was ready to go.  The topic of the lecture had been feedback control and stability.  To demonstrate a feedback system, the professor had set up a mechanism that consisted of a small metal car on a three foot track of rails.  The bottom end of a two-foot long rod was attached to the car with a pivot.  The professor tried to balance the rod with its free end in the air, but it kept falling over, rotating about the pivot.
	"As you can see," he said, "this rod, which acts as an inverted pendulum, is an inherently unstable system.  But what Jim here has done, he has connected a potentiometer to the pivot shaft.  The potentiometer provides a means to measure the angle of the pendulum.  The potentiometer provides feedback to the cart by sensing which way the pendulum is falling.  Jim has wired up a proportional controller that generates a voltage that is proportional to the angle of the pendulum.  The voltage is applied to the motor on the cart to move the cart in the direction in which the pendulum is leaning.  If any of you have ever balanced a broomstick in the palm of your hand, you'll know what I'm talking about."  The professor pointed to a dial mounted on a circuit board next to the cart.  "This is a gain control.  It controls the level of the voltage applied to the motor.  Lets start with a low setting, and see what happens."
	He tilted up the pendulum until it was more or less straight up, and nodded to his assistant.  The assistant flipped a power switch, and the professor let go.  The pendulum started tilting to the right.  The cart moved to the right, too, trying to correct the pendulum's tilt.  But the cart went too slow, the pendulum kept falling.  The cart reached the end of the track, stopped abruptly, and the pendulum hit the table with a bang.  The class, including, Mike, laughed.  "That's me trying to catch up with my homework!" Mike thought.
	"Now lets see what happens at a high gain setting."  The professor twisted the gain control knob.  He pushed the cart back to the center of the track, lifted up the pendulum, and let go.  This time the cart weaved wildly from side to side, keeping the pendulum from falling down, but causing it to swing wildly first one way, then the other.  "As you can see, at too high a gain setting, the control system keeps the pendulum from falling down, but at a cost of excessive control action."  While the cart kept racing side to side, the professor slowly turned down the gain control.  The back and forth oscillations gradually decreased.  Finally, the cart appeared to almost stand still, the pendulum standing perfectly straight.  The professor looked up triumphantly.  "The trick with a proportional controller," he said, "is to have just the right amount of gain, to get the right amount of balance."
	With that, the lecture ended.  As Mike filed out of the auditorium, he reflected on the demonstration.  "That's what I'm missing," he thought.  "Balance."  He looked at his watch.  It was just after twelve noon.  He wasn't meeting Kristen till one o’clock.  He decided to return to his dorm room.  Maybe he would be able to squeeze in a half-hour of work on his Hydrodynamics problem set, which was due the day after tomorrow.  He sighed.  "No rest for the damned," he thought.
	Forty minutes later, Mike looked up from his Marine Hydrodynamics text book, and glanced at his watch.  12:43.  Damn!  He'd been so caught up trying to figure out the "La Lagrangian" component of Bernoulli"s equation for fluid dynamics that he lost track of time.  If he didn't hurry, he'd be late for his lunch date with Kristen.
	Mike jumped up from his bed and quickly tossed his Hydrodynamics textbook and a notebook into his backpack.  He was about to leave the room, when he stopped.  He turned around and went back to his desk.  He opened a drawer, and dug around till he found what he wanted:  the realtor’s specification sheet for his house.  He pulled it out.  As he was shutting the drawer, he noticed a glint of gold showing through under some papers.  The ring!  He had been so caught up in his class work that he had completely forgotten it.  He put the ring into his pocket.  Then he turned and hurried out of the room.




Chapter 22
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
September 8, 2007
12:52 P.M.




	Her mind wouldn't rest.  She was emotionally spent, physically exhausted.  But her mind raced on.  Wild, unconnected, incomplete thoughts.  Weird, black, unclear images.  She could feel her brain working at an uncontrolled, feverish pace, but she was aware of no conscious thoughts.  It was as if all her thoughts were being sucked away, into a vast black hole.  She couldn’t think.  But she could feel.  And what she felt was cold, dark unending despair.
	She struggled up from the bed, lurched unsteadily to her dresser mirror.  She looked up.  A ghoulish figure with straggly hair, swollen red eyes, sallow skin stared morosely back at her.  What a loser!
	She stumbled over to the open bedroom window.  Sunlight was streaming in.  The window sill was low, coming up to just above her knees.  She walked over, stood in front of the window.  She closed her eyes.  The sun felt warm, inviting.  She stood there for a long time.  Gradually, bit by bit, her racing mind slowed, soothed by the warmth of the sun.  She leaned forward a little, to catch the heat of the sun on the back of her head and neck.  A serene calmness slowly filled her.  Her eyes were still closed.  She was barely breathing.  Slowly, almost imperceptibly, she leaned further forward, into the sun.  A wonderful feeling of lightness filled her.  She leaned forward further.  She opened her eyes.  She smiled.  Free at last.



	Six stories below, a group of students were throwing a Frisbee on the lawn, burning up energy between classes.  An overly enthusiastic throw sent the Frisbee over the head of its intended recipient and into a bush next to the building.  The student ran over to retrieve the errant Frisbee from the bush.  As he reached for it, a shadow suddenly blocked out the sun.  Startled, the student looked up.  He jumped back, horrified.  He watched, unbelieving, as the nude figure of a young woman, body straight, unmoving, toppled slowly out of one of the top floor windows.  Soundlessly, gracefully, she did a slow half somersault before crashing headfirst into the ground with a terrible, sickening thud.




Chapter 23
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
September 8, 2007
1:15 P.M.




	Mike watched Kristen take a big bite out of her slice of pepperoni pizza and chew it with obvious relish.  Nothing held back with this girl, he thought with amusement.  Look out world!
	"And St. John's was great!  Of course it was cold and windy, even in mid-summer.  The water was freezing, but a beautiful dark blue, and the waves were fantastic!  The water was so exhilarating!  The locals thought I was crazy, but I think they're crazy, not going in just because it’s a little cold.  We met the greatest people.  I've got to show you my photographs."  Kristen paused for a second to take another big bite out of her pizza.
	"So who is the other part of 'we'?” Mike asked.
	"Steve, of course,” Kristen said, still chewing.  "My boyfriend.  I told you about him on the Westward."
	Damn!  I knew it!  Mike thought.  So the guy's name is Steve.
	"Well, I knew there was someone, but this is the first time I've actually heard his name."  Mike was proud that he managed to keep his voice light and natural.  Though he had suspected that Kristen was in a relationship, her words still hit him like a punch to his stomach.  For camouflage, Mike took a sip of his iced tea.
	"So you got your house!” Kristen said, oblivious.  "That's great! Tell me about it."
	"Well, the closing isn't for another two weeks.  But its great!  Its on this little cul-de-sac called "Cranberry Lane," half an acre of property, overlooking a cranberry bog."  He picked up his backpack from under his seat, and pulled out the realtor's spec sheet.  "Here's a picture."  He handed the sheet to Kristen.  "Its got two stories, a full basement, and the whole front is floor-to-ceiling windows.  The upstairs is like a whole separate apartment.  The house isn't huge, but not tiny either.  I feel like I really lucked out getting it."
	"Where is it?  Is it close to Woods Hole?” Kristen asked, looking at the spec sheet.
	"Its a little further than I originally wanted, about seven miles from Woods Hole proper,” Mike said.  "A little too far for a daily bike ride.  But it's less than a mile from a beautiful lake that's great for swimming.  And here,” Mike pointed to the lot drawing on the spec sheet,  "it borders on conservation land."
	"Looks like it would be a great place for a dog,” Kristen said.
	"Yeah, it is!  In fact, last time I was there, this big, beautiful, golden lab was running around.  I think he came from the neighbors, up behind the house.  There's no traffic on Cranberry Lane, and its all pretty open land.  It's perfect for a dog."
	Kristen's eyes sparkled.  "I love golden labs!" she said.
	"Me too,” Mike said.
	Their eyes locked for a moment.  Then Kristen looked down, took another bite of her pizza.
	"You know,” Mike said, "I wasn't kidding about you having first dibs on sharing the house,  If you want."  Kristen looked up.  "It's probably a bit further from Woods Hole than what you were thinking, but its a really neat place."
	"How much are you thinking of charging for rent?” Kristen asked, practical as always.
	"Something like $350 a month, plus half the utilities, for the whole upstairs,” Mike said.
	"I'm going down to the Cape next month some time to start looking around for a place.  Maybe if you haven't rented it out by then, I'll stop by and take a look."
	They each took a bite of their respective pizza slices, and chewed for a moment.
	"So how come you hate your classes?” Mike asked.
	"It’s not my classes,” Kristen said.  "Just one class.  And its not the class itself, but the students.  It's a marine biology seminar class.  Most of the other students are second and third year grad students, and they just ignore everything I say.  Anyway, I've had enough classes.  I just want to get out of the classroom and start doing research."
	"What's the deal about you not going down to Woods Hole next semester?  I thought that was all set."
	"So did I!  But yesterday I talked to, Tim, my advisor down in Woods Hole.  Suddenly he thinks it would be better for me to take some more classes up here before working in his lab.  But the classes I'm supposed to take won't help me do his research.  They're just general biology classes.  The lab work involves trace nutrient analysis, for which there aren't any classes.  Plus the only reason I came here instead of going to Washington State was because here I'd get to do real research more quickly!  And I'm even bringing my own NSF grant money!”  Kristen took an indignant breath.  “I don't know, I worked with Tim last summer as an undergraduate intern, and he was great.  Now he's a jerk.  Like Jekyll and Hyde, or something.  I don't get it."  She glared at Mike with suddenly blazing eyes.  "But there's no way I'm staying up here for two semesters, no matter what Tim thinks!"
	Wow! Mike thought.  What great eyes!  "Hey, don't get angry with me!" he said.  "Remember, I'm just another poor slob grad student."  He paused.  "But you're right, hot shot scientist or not, Tim can't promise you one thing to entice you to come here and then after you've relied on his promise go back on his word and renege the whole thing.  That's not only unprofessional, it's an illegal breach of promise, and just downright dishonest.  It’s hard enough to deal with just the normal stress around here without having to play politics, too."
	"So will you be my lawyer when I take Tim to court and sue him for millions?"
	"Absolutely!  You can count on me,” Mike said.  He paused for a beat, then added, "for a fifty percent contingency fee."
	"Fifty percent!” Kristen replied.  "That's outrageous!  I can get hundreds of other lawyers to do it for twenty-five!  I'll give you thirty, but no more."
	"Sure, you could get some random attorney to do it for that.  But no other attorney will have the special insight and knowledge about the case that I have, as a Joint Program grad student myself.  You can't buy that kind of experience.”  Mike sighed dramatically.  “OK.  I wouldn't do this for anyone else.  But for you, I'll take forty percent, and that's my bottom line.
	"I'll give you thirty-five percent, not a penny more."
	"Done!” Mike said.  They both smiled.  Kristen took another bite of her pizza.  Mike took one of his.  They chewed together in companionable silence.
	"So what did you want to ask me about that has to do with working in a forensics lab?” Kristen asked, remembering Mike's e-mail message.  "That sounded kind of mysterious."
	Mike hesitated a moment before answering.  Kristen noticed that he suddenly looked serious.  Kristen waited for him to speak.
	"This is going to sound a little strange," Mike said earnestly.  "It happened about two weeks ago.  At the time it seemed it might be something important.  I was going to try and look into it some more, but with classes and all, it slipped my mind."
	Mike looked at Kristen.  She gazed at him curiously.
	"Okay.  I think I told you on the Westward that I was going to be working with autonomous underwater vehicles."  Kristen nodded.  "Well, we brought the vehicle, its called 'Prometheus,' up here to do some testing in the Charles.  The idea was to test its basic navigation control systems in the relative safety of the Charles before going out into the ocean.  We were running simple tests, telling Prometheus to go out in a simple box pattern, you know, go out straight 200 feet, turn left 100 feet, come back, that sort of thing."  Mike paused, then continued.  "Trouble was, there was a bug in Prometheus' software.  It just wouldn't do what it was supposed to do.  It veered violently off course, dove way too deep, then came up and popped up out of the water head first, just like a dolphin jumping.  Vijay, the post-doc who is pretty much the guy responsible for Prometheus, had a heck of a time trying to get Prometheus to behave.  But no matter how much he fiddled with the control software, Prometheus seemed to have a mind of its own."
	"Sounds like my kind of robot!” Kristen said, grinning.  "Are you sure Prometheus isn't female?"
	"I wouldn't know,” Mike replied.  "I'm just an engineer.  You're the hot shot biologist."  He grinned, too.  "Anyway, Pete, you remember him, don't you, from the Westward trip?  He's one of the Navy guys.  Pete and I spent the whole day chasing Prometheus down in a motorboat and dragging it back to the dock for Vijay to fiddle with again."
	"This is all very fascinating," Kristen said, "but when do we get to the mysterious part?"
	"I'm getting there,” Mike said.  "I just wanted to give you a little background.  So, on the last test run, Prometheus goes really haywire.  Instead of going out a little ways, and then turning back, like its supposed to, Prometheus just keeps going straight out across the river, heading for the other side, jumping headfirst out of the water, then plunging straight back down.  Pete and I raced after Prometheus in the boat, but we were too late.  By the time we got to the other side of the river, Prometheus had buried itself headfirst in the mud at the bottom of the river."
	"How did you know where Prometheus was, if it was under water?” Kristen asked.
	"We had tied a red float to the back of Prometheus with about a twenty foot long piece of nylon line.  The float was barely above water, about five feet from shore.  So we knew Prometheus was about twenty-feet down.  We tried pulling on the line, but Prometheus didn't budge.  The only way to get Prometheus up was to dive down and pull her out of the mud."
	"Her?” Kristen said, lifting an eyebrow inquisitively.
	"All boats are 'hers.'"  Mike replied.
	"You called Prometheus an "it" before.  How come now its a "she?"
	"Do you want to hear the story, or what.?” Mike asked.
	"Sure, go right ahead.  It's not my fault if you're inconsistent,” Kristen replied, sweetly.
	Mike glared at her in mock anger.  Then he continued.  "So I dove into the water, and swam down to Prometheus.  SHE," Mike said, looking fixedly at Kristen, daring her to say anything,  "She was indeed down at the bottom, her nose buried nearly two feet in the muddy ooze.  And I tell you, that stuff was dark, slimy, really gross.  The water was dirty, too, I could hardly see.  I had to stick my legs down into the mud to get enough leverage to pull Prometheus free.  Then, just as Prometheus popped free, my left foot slipped in the mud, and I hit something hard and sharp.  It hurt like the dickens.  I was just about out of breath, but I was scared that I might have cut my foot on some toxic waste container.  So I stuck my arms into the mud up to the elbows and found something big, flat, pointed, and hard.  I pulled it out of the mud, and kicked for the surface.  It wasn't until after I had dumped the thing into the boat that I realized what it was."
	"And,” Kristen asked, "what was it?"
	"A huge old, rusted double-sided ax head.  The kind Alaskan lumberjacks used to use."
	"Well, that's not so mysterious,” Kristen said, sounding a bit disappointed.  "There must be all kinds of old junk in the bottom of the Charles.  I thought you were going to say you found a body or something."
	"I haven't gotten to the mysterious part yet,” Mike said.
	"Oh, sorry,” Kristen said.  "Just more background?"
	"Can I continue, please?” Mike asked.
	Kristen gave a half-nod, and smiled graciously.  "Please,” She said.  “Go on.”
	"The next morning, despite having been gravely injured in the heroic rescue of Prometheus,” Mike paused.  Kristen refused to bite.  He continued.  "I was in the lab back in Woods Hole, cleaning out Prometheus.  Prometheus had scooped up quite a bit of bottom mud, some of which had dried into a hard, cylindrical chunk.  I dumped the chunk of mud in the sink.  A few minutes later, in the middle of washing my hands, I was interrupted by some arrogant biologist who was showing around a group of people from NSF.  I opened the door to let them in, then remembered that I had left the water running in the sink.  When I went over to turn off the water, I noticed that the chunk of mud had started to dissolve.  Some of the mud had been washed away, and something that looked like the end of a round, white stick was sticking out of the mud.  Then the NSF people started asking questions about Prometheus, so I spent some time explaining Prometheus' design to them.  They were really interested, and I enjoyed talking to them.  Then suddenly this biologist guy buts in abruptly and says everyone has to go.  What a jerk.  Typical biologist,” Mike said, grinning slyly at Kristen.
	"Sounds like Tim in his "Mr. Hyde" mode,” Kristen said.  "What did he look like?"
	"Oh, I don't know.  Medium height.  Skinny.  Brown hair, glasses, a beard."
	"I bet it was Tim!” Kristen exclaimed.
	"In that case, I'll do it for only thirty percent,” Mike replied.  "Anyway, I forgot about the chunk of mud in the sink until after I got back to the lab after lunch.  I went over to look at it again.  The chunk was now a gooey pile of mud.  The white stick now was sticking out one side.  It looked like a chicken bone.  I was curious, so I grabbed the end of the chicken bone or whatever it was and pulled it out of the mud.  As I did so, something metal that had been hidden by the mud fell off the end and rolled down into the drain.  I was standing there looking at the bone, wondering what the metal thing was, when, bang, something smacked me in the side of the head and knocked me out cold."
	"Wow!” Kristen said, showing some real concern.  "What hit you?"
	"Well, when I came to, one of the fluorescent light fixtures was dangling by one end, swinging back and forth right about where my head would have been when I got hit.  Vijay had come in, found me unconscious, with the light dangling, so he assumed that the light hit me.  But I'm not so sure."
	"Why?” Kristen asked.  "Do you think it was too much of a coincidence for the light to come loose while you were standing under it?  I agree that the odds of that happening are pretty low, otherwise people would be getting beaned by lights everyday.  But people do get hit by bricks coming loose from buildings while walking down the street, so if you're unlucky enough, it could happen."
	"Whatever hit me felt a lot harder than sheet metal, which is what the light fixture is made of,” Mike replied.  "But if that had been all, I don't think I would have thought twice about it.  The thing is, though, that wasn't all."  Mike paused, looking at Kristen thoughtfully.
	"Well?" she said, questioningly.
	"Two, things,” Mike said.  "No, three.  You remember that piece of what I thought was chicken bone that I was holding when I got bonked?"
	Kristen nodded.
	"When I came to, I didn't see it anywhere around.  That, too, by itself was no big deal.  Who knows where it might have landed when I fell down.  And my head was hurting pretty good, so I didn't look around that much.  Something else in the lab seemed out of place, too, but with my head pounding I couldn't think straight.  Vijay told me to go home and lie down, which was a good idea, so I did."
	"What you should have done is gone to a doctor!” Kristen said.
	"No, it wasn't that bad,” Mike said.  "Anyway, I rode home and went to bed.  It was only about three in the afternoon, but I just zonked out.  I had a weird dream, and then woke with a start about two A.M.”
	"What was your weird dream about?” Kristen asked.
	"Well, the part I remember was being back in the Charles, retrieving Prometheus.  I was down on the bottom, Prometheus was already on its way to the surface, I was running out of air, but my leg was stuck on something.  I pulled and pulled, but couldn't get loose.  I couldn't hold my breath any longer.  I looked down to see what was holding me, and I saw this ghostly white hand sticking up out of the mud, with long bony fingers, wrapped around my ankle, holding me tight.  There was a thick gold ring, lick a class ring, on one of the fingers.  At that point, I just couldn't hold my breath any longer.  I opened my mouth and sucked in water.  I felt like I was drowning.  Then I saw your face in front of me.  Then I woke up."
	"Hey!” Kristen objected.  "If you want to go around having crazy dreams, go ahead.  But keep me out of them, if you please."
	"Like I can control what I dream about,” Mike said.  "Anyway, you weren't actually in the dream.  It was just your face, just for a second, as I was waking up.  I'm sorry I mentioned it."
	"When was this again?” Kristen asked, suddenly remembering the night at Steve's, when, looking out at the full moon, she, too, had thought about Mike.
	"About two weeks ago,” Mike said.  "I don't remember the date, but I remember it was a full moon.  Why?"
	"No reason,” Kristen said, a little too quickly.  Then, "So what happened next?"
	"Well, when I woke up, I remembered two things.  First, seeing that ring reminded me of the shiny object that rolled down the drain just before I got hit.  Second, I realized why something in the lab had seemed out of place.  The ax head I dug up from the bottom of the Charles, and that I was on the counter in the lab that morning, was gone.  At least I didn’t remember seeing it when I came to.  Anyway, I had slept almost ten hours, my head wasn't hurting anymore, and I was wide awake.  I decided to go back to the lab.  I grabbed some tools from the car, jumped on my bike, and rode back to Woods Hole."
	"And,” Kristen asked.  "Did you find anything?"
	"Well, when I got to the lab, I found I was right about the ax head.  It was gone.  I wanted to check out the light fixture, too, to see if I could tell how it came loose, but someone had already reattached it to the ceiling.  I was about to take off the trap from under the sink to see if I could find that metal object, when a car pulled up behind the lab.  So I quickly turned off the lights, locked the lab door, and hid behind some boxes at the back of the lab."
	"Why on earth did you do that?” Kristen asked.
	"I don't know.  I guess I was still spooked from all that had happened.  Anyway, I barely ducked down behind the boxes when I heard a key turning in the lock.  The door opened, someone came in and turned on the light."
	"Who was it?"
	"This is the weird part,” Mike said.  "It was Derek Cartwright, my advisor."
	"What's so weird about that?  It's his project, his lab, isn't it?"
	"Yeah, but he didn't come in to look at Prometheus.  Instead, he went right over and stood under the light, the one that allegedly hit me, and stared up at it a while, as if looking for something.  Then he bent over and put his hands down in the sink.  I couldn't see what he was doing from where I was hiding behind the boxes, but after a minute or so I caught a glimpse of his mud-covered hand as he reached up to turn on the water faucet.  The water ran for a while.  Then he turned it off, grabbed a paper towel, and wiped his hands.  He turned around, looked slowly around the room, then turned out the lights, and left."
	"Jeez, you're paranoid!” Kristen exclaimed.  "He probably heard what happened, was working late, then came down to see what had been wrong with the light on his way home.  I would probably have done the same."
	"Yeah, but what about Derek going through the mud in the sink with his hands?” Mike replied.  "Like he was looking for something."
	"He probably saw the mess you had left, and decided to clean it up,” Kristen said.  "Anyway, what would he be looking for in a pile of Charles River mud?"
	"This,” Mike said, pulling the ring out of his pocket and holding it out to Kristen.
	Kristen took the ring from Mike's outstretched hand.  She looked at it carefully, then gave it back to Mike.
	"Yeah, so?” Kristen said.
	"Don't you see what it is?"
	"Sure, its someone's old class ring.  Big deal."
	"But don't you see how it all fits together?” Mike insisted.  "My dream, the ax head, the bone, the ring?  The light?  Derek's night time visit?  And, I didn't tell you, but earlier that morning, when I first got to the lab, Derek was standing there staring at the ax head, like he'd seen it before.  He even told me it was from an Alaskan lumberjack ax."
	"Don't tell me you're thinking what I think you're thinking,” Kristen said incredulously.  "You can't seriously think that there's some connection between the ring, the bone you think you saw, the ax, and Derek?"
	"It's not so far fetched,” Mike said.  "Look what it says on the ring.  'Cambridge High School, Class of 1979.'  Derek was at M.I.T. in 1979, I saw his picture in Ashdown House.  Who knows?  Maybe the ring belonged to his girl friend.  Maybe they got into a fight.  Maybe they were out in a rowboat, and she drowned.  I don't know.  But why else would Derek have been looking for the ring in the sink?"
	Kristen looked quizzically at Mike for a moment, then burst out laughing.  "Well, no one can accuse you of not having imagination!  You find an old ring, and old ax, and a chicken bone, and, from that, you conclude that your graduate advisor is a deranged killer!  Are you sure you were a lawyer back in L.A.?  You sound more like a bad screenwriter!"
	Mike opened his mouth as if to say something.  Then he stopped.  Then he laughed, too.  "You know, you're right," he said.  "My mind must be getting fried, or something.  When you say it like that, it does all sound pretty far-fetched."  He sighed.  "Maybe it's because I'm not getting enough exercise.  With classes and hitting the books all day, I build up all this nervous energy.  I can't seem to find a time or place to exercise, so I guess it just fuels my imagination."
	"I know what you mean!” Kristen agreed.  "I haven't been getting near enough exercise, though I try to run a couple of miles at least every other day."
	"Really?” Mike asked.  "Where do you run?"
	"Along the Charles.  There's a really good three mile run.  I start on Memorial Drive, run across the bridge down by the Science Museum, run down along the riverbank on the other side, then cross back across Harvard Bridge to Cambridge.  I try and run between five and six o’clock.  It's not so hot anymore.  You should try it."
	"Running isn't my favorite exercise, at least not running for runnings sake,” Mike said.  "Tennis is really my sport.  For some strange reason I love chasing impossible-to-get balls.  But maybe I'll give jogging along the Charles a try.  I've got to do something."  Mike thought about his failed attempt to find the exercise room in Ashdown House, but decided not to say anything about the mysterious room.  Kristen was probably already thinking he was a little too weird.
	"Oh my God!” Kristen said suddenly, looking at her watch.  "It's almost two-thirty!  I've got to run."
	"Me too."
	They got up quickly, and walked side by side up the walk towards the M.I.T. campus.
	"Well, that's where my office is," Kristen said, pointing, when they reached the Green building.  She stopped, looked Mike in the eyes.  Nice, warm eyes, she thought.  "It was good seeing you again, even if you are crazy."  She smiled to show she was kidding.  "If things work out with Tim, I'll be going down to Woods Hole to look at places to stay.  Maybe I'll check out your house, if you still need a roommate."
	"I'm pretty sure I won't have it rented out by then,” Mike said.  "It was good seeing you too."
	"See you around,” Kristen said.
	"You too,” Mike said.
	Kristen took a step towards the Green Building.  Then she stopped, turned back to Mike.
	"Just out of curiosity, what was it, exactly, that you wanted to ask me, that had to do with forensics?" she asked.
	"Well,” Mike said.  "It sounds stupid now.  But I was going to ask you whether, if a human hand was under water for nineteen years, and if a ring had been on one of the fingers before it had been submersed in the water, if the ring could end up still being around the finger's bone after all the flesh had decomposed."  Mike looked directly into Kristen's eyes.  "But like you said, that kind of thinking is crazy."
	Kristen thought for a moment.  "Yes," she said.
	"Yes?”
	"Yes,” Kristen said.  "The ring would still be around the bone."  She smiled.  "And you could probably find out whose initials those are from the 1979 Cambridge High School year book.”
	She gave a little wave and walked away.  




Chapter 24
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
May 15, 1980
2:13 A.M.




	He ran frantically down Massachusetts Avenue.  "Shit!  Fucking shit!"  He thought, over and over again.  Angrily he tore the glasses from his face and threw them into the gutter.  He kept running.  He was nearly out of breath when he finally spotted the dark outline of Ashdown House about a hundred yards distant.  He hoped desperately that he wasn't too late.  "Fucking bitch!" he thought again.  Only minutes ago, he had been so close.  Now he had nothing.  He ran on.
	At last he was there.  He ran around the side of the building.  He unlocked the side door and ran inside.  He ran down the stairs to the basement, through the hallway to the east side of the building.  Finally, he stopped, breathless.
	With a sense of doom, he lifted the lid of the dumpster and peered inside.  It was empty.  For a full five minutes, he stared at the inside of the empty trash dumpster.  The box, the jar, the head, were gone.  Now he didn’t even have that.  When he finally turned away, his eyes were blank, vacant.  With slow, mechanical steps, he trodded back down the hallway.  He dragged himself up the two flights of stairs to his dorm room.  He lurched inside, and collapsed in a heap on his bed.  He buried his head in his pillow.  His body shook with silent, unrelenting sobs.



	A half mile away, Vicky Navarro was sinking into a thick, gray, impenetrable fog.  Far away, she heard a metallic, crashing sound.  In a detached sort of way, she wondered what the sound was.  After a long, empty silence, she heard another sound.  A voice, muffled, distant.  Suddenly, something grabbed her by the shoulders.  Vicki started violently at the touch.
	"Excuse me Miss.  Are you all right?"
	Vicki's eyes shot open.  She immediately recoiled as she caught sight of a man leaning over her though the VW's open driver's door.  Then, anger overcoming her, she started pounding the man with her fists.  "Get the hell out of my car, you fucking pervert!" she yelled.  "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
	The man raised his arms to shield his face from Vicki's blows.  After a while, Vicki noticed that the man was not the student who had attacked her before, but was, instead, a man in uniform.  A policeman's uniform.  She dropped her arms in her lap.  
	"I, I'm sorry," she stammered.  "I thought you were the guy who attacked me."  Then she bent her head, and, for the first time in years, she cried.
	After a while, she felt the policeman's steady hand on her shoulder, and looked up into a large, kind face with curly red hair and warm, concerned blue eyes.
	"It's okay," he said with a lilting, Irish, accent.  "I'm a policeman.  Officer O'Brien.  You're safe now, miss."  He gave her a friendly, reassuring smile.
	Sean O'Brien watched in admiration as Vicki took two deep breaths, paused to regain her composure, then looked up at him with a strong, steady gaze.  She looked around, taking in her situation.  Her VW was on the sidewalk, about fifty feet from where that jerk stuck his hand in her car and smothered her with that sweet-smelling cloth.  A couple of metal trash cans were lying on their side in front of the car.  One looked like it was stuck under her bumper.  The jerk was nowhere to be seen.  She looked back at Officer O'Brien.  "So what the hell happened?" She asked.
	"I was kind of hoping you could tell me, Miss--?" he broke off, questioningly.
	"Vicki," she said.
	"Miss Vicki," he continued.  "We got a telephone call about ten minutes ago from an irate citizen who was woken up by a horrendous noise at two in the morning.  He said a car had jumped the sidewalk and smashed into the trash cans in front of his house.  I came by to check it out.  And found you passed out over the wheel of your car."
	"I was not passed out!” Vicki said indignantly.  "At least not the way you’re thinking.  Some guy tried to drug me!"  She looked around the inside of the car, spotted the rag lying next to the clutch pedal.  "Here!" she said, handing Sean the rag.  "Here's the rag he clamped on my face.  See?  You can still smell the stuff on the rag.  I tried not to breathe in, but in the end, I couldn't hold my breath any longer.  I breathed in this horrible stuff, and that's the last thing I remember."
	Sean took the rag from Vicki, held it up to his nose, and sniffed, carefully.  He wrinkled his nose distastefully as he smelled the sweet odor.
	"Chloroform!" he said.
	"I knew it was something like that!” Vicki said.  Her eyes lit up.  "It must have been the clutch!"  She smiled a devastating smile at Sean.  "I had the engine running, the clutch pushed down, and had just shifted into first when that jerk attacked me.  When I passed out from the chloroform, my leg must have slipped from the clutch."  She padded the dashboard lovingly.  "My baby saved me!  My hero."
	Sean felt a sudden weakness in his knees, imagining Vicki looking at him with the same adoring eyes with which she was looking at her little VW.  He almost fainted when she turned her head and trained those same dark, beautiful eyes at him.




Chapter 25
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
September 8, 2007
2:41 P.M.




	Mike was thinking about Kristen's parting words as he neared the exit to Massachusetts Ave. at the end of the infinite corridor.  Kristen had just about convinced him that his half-baked murder ideas were ludicrous.  Like Kristen said, there was no real evidence that anyone had even died.  So then why did Kristen go tell him to look in the yearbook?  Were his ideas crazy or weren't they?  Well, he didn't really have time to think about them now, anyway.
	Mike walked through the rotating doors leading to Memorial Drive and down the steps to the sidewalk.  He was surprised to see nearly a dozen fire trucks, police cars, and emergency rescue vehicles, red lights flashing, lined up in front of Ashdown House.  Spectators were standing on the sidewalk, peering around the west corner of the building.  As he got closer, he saw that barricades with yellow police crime scene tape had been set up to keep spectators away from the patch of lawn next to Ashdown House.  Mike noticed that one of the vehicles parked haphazardly on the street bore the words "Cambridge City Coroner."  He spotted Magnus, a Hungarian grad student, one of his suite mates from Room 205A.  Mike walked over.
	"Hey,” Mike said.  “What's going on?"
	"Hey,” Magnus said.  "Someone fell out of one of the windows.  A woman.  She was nude.  Supposedly she didn't utter a sound.  Just fell out of the sky, smashed headfirst into the ground."
	As they stood watching, a pair of paramedics appeared from around the side of the building, carrying a stretcher.  On the stretcher was a black plastic body bag, obviously not empty.  Mike and Magnus watched silently as the paramedics placed the stretcher into the back of one of the rescue vehicles.  They closed the rear doors.  A minute later, the rescue vehicle backed into the street.  Red lights flashing silently, it drove slowly away.
	"Any idea who it was?” Mike asked Magnus.
	"I heard someone say it was that red-headed student who sometimes worked at the front desk.  I think her name was Sandy, or something like that.”  Magnus paused, looking at Mike's suddenly white face in alarm.  "Hey, are you okay?"
	"Randy,” Mike said quietly, shaking his head.  "Her name was Randy."



	Tired, out of breath, legs feeling like rubber, Mike started up the slight grade that would take him back to him back to his starting point: the Cambridge end of Harvard Bridge on the corner of Memorial Drive and Massachusetts Avenue, diagonally across from the back, southeast corner of Ashdown House.  Still about 200 yards to go.  Damn, his lungs hurt.  He had run too fast.  He needed an exhausting run.  But he had gone overboard.  It was too much too soon after nearly a month without exercising.  He felt like he was about to collapse.  He'd better take it easy and walk the rest of the way.
	Mike had every intention of doing just that.  But, though his mind and body had given up, something else, deep within him, refused to let him stop.  A jogger, a young woman, coming towards Mike was surprised to see a sudden look of fierce determination appear on Mike's face.  Despite having no strength left in his legs, and no energy, his legs, instead of slowing down, accelerated.  His stride became long, powerful.  He was seized by a feeling of lightness, of soaring.  He accelerated even more, until he was flying up the walkway at the speed that had won him track medals in grade school and still continued to amaze his tennis playing opponents.  He reached the corner, the end of his three-mile loop around the bridges, in an all-out end sprint.  He slowed down, then stopped.  He nearly collapsed.  He bent over, his hands on his thighs, his lungs heaving.
	But the run had done the trick.  Mike’s body was drained.  His mind, gratefully, was blank.  He was finally free of the haunting vision of Randy's frightened, distraught, figure, as he had seen her last night, running, forlornly, down the red carpeted Ashdown House hallway.




Chapter 26
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
May 15, 1980
10:34 A.M.




	He opened his eyes.  Bright shafts of daylight were streaming in through gaps in the heavy drapes covering the windows.  He lay there, looking idly at the glowing rectangle formed by the sunlight.  Fire in the darkness.  Then he remembered.  Shit!  Fucking Volkswagens!  What would he do now?  He needed the power, or he didn't have a chance in hell of passing his finals.  Where could he get it now?
	His eyes wandered over to the clock radio.  Ten thirty-five.  He grunted.  He forced himself to think.  Twenty hours.  He stared at the numbers on the clock.  Was there enough time?  He lay back, thinking hard.  Who else was there?  Someone with long, dark hair.  And bright, penetrating eyes.  He started to sweat.
	Shit!  That waitress would have been perfect.  He didn't know anyone else.  Could he find a replacement?  Where?  There were always a lot of young women around Harvard Square, but it was too crowded.  What about somewhere outside of Cambridge, maybe over in Boston?  Fanieulle Hall?  Too many people, even late at night, and too hard to get to.
	Out by the river?  A lot of people jogging, now that it was getting warmer.  Women too.  Too many people during the day, but what about at night?  Were there any late night, solitary, women joggers?  Shit.  He didn't know.  There had to be.  They were having an early summer.  Even though it was only May, it was hot during the day, cooled off at night.  It was probably quite pleasant to run at night, when it was cooler.
	Where would be a good spot?  Because he didn't know who he'd be looking for, he needed a good view.  In both directions.  And he needed a secluded spot.  Maybe the stairway would work again.  Did joggers use it?  He didn’t know.
	He got up.  He had to do some reconnaissance.  He noticed for the first time that he had slept in his clothes.  Good.  No need to get dressed.
	He left the dorm room, walked down the hall, down the stairs, past the reception desk, and out the front door.  As he went through one of the big double entrance doors, he vaguely registered that someone was coming through the other one.  He didn't pay any attention.  He had more important things on his mind.



	Officer Sean O'Brien glanced idly at the disheveled figure that passed him as he went into yet another of the M.I.T. dormitories.  Holy mother!  He thought.  These guys all looked the same.  Grimy clothes.  Sallow skin.  Intense, darting eyes.  Stiff, jerky movements.  He shook his head.  He wouldn't want to be in their shoes.  No way.
	He walked up to the front desk.  A tall, thin, Asian student was sitting on a chair behind the counter, head buried in a thick text book.
	"Excuse me,” Sean said.  The student looked up reluctantly, marking his place in the book with his finger.  "I'm Officer O'Brien with the Cambridge Police Department."  Sean placed the sketch the police artist had made from Vicki's description on the counter.  "Do you recognize this person."
	The student looked at the picture of a man, mid-twenties, with scraggly hair and thick black glasses.  He shook his head.  "With those glasses,” he said, sourly, "it could be just about anyone."  Suddenly, he grinned at Sean.  His whole face lit up, transforming the dour, serious student into someone who looked more like a prank-playing little boy.  "Except me," he said, still showing his broad, white-toothed smile.  "That guy is no Asian."
	Sean sighed, taking the drawing back from the student.  He had heard nearly the same story at all the other dorms he had visited.  Could be anyone.  He shook his head.  "Well, thanks anyway," he said.
	As he was leaving, he noticed a photograph on a wall next to the front desk.  He walked over to take a look.  It was a group picture taken in front of the dormitory.  He looked at the caption.  It was dated last November and said “Your Friends and Neighbors in Ashdown House!”  Sean studied the picture carefully.  A lot of the students in the picture were wearing glasses, but none like the ones worn by the man in Vicki's sketch.  He held up the sketch, and imagined each of the students in the picture wearing those thick black glasses.  He stared for a moment at a student in the middle of the picture who was wearing one of those Canadian knit caps.  Then he sighed.  The front desk student was right.  It could be anyone.




Chapter 27
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
September 18, 2007
10:06 A.M.




	Mike walked slowly out of the back door of the Walker Memorial building.  He blinked in the sudden glare of sunlight.  He stood there for a moment, disoriented.  He felt completely drained.  He put down his backpack.  He sat down on the steps and waited for his mental batteries to recharge.
	After a minute or two, his mind kicked back into gear.  He started thinking again.  And remembering again.  Remembering the ordeal he had just been through.  He was not happy.
	Mike had just experienced what, at M.I.T., was euphemistically called a "quiz."  Mike knew what quizzes were.  He had taken lots of them, as an undergraduate, as a Master's candidate, in law school.  What he had just gone through was no quiz.  It was an eight hour bar exam compressed into ninety minutes.  It was impossible.  He had been totally unprepared for the number and range of problems he had been confronted with.  Mike had always been a good test taker, his mind shifting into high gear, totally concentrating on the test problem before him.  He had taken two and three day bar exams without breaking into a sweat.  But he had never been confronted with the impossible set of problems he had just faced.  Despite giving it his all, focusing his mind and energy like never before, he had managed to work out answers to only seven of the "quiz’s" ten problems.  And he was pretty sure he had done something wrong even in the problems he answered.  He didn't like the feeling of failure.  He understood now how Randy must have felt.  He too felt the beginning of despair.
	Mike shook his head, forcing his mind to forget the quiz.  No use crying over spilled milk.
	With a start, he realized that he had been sitting on the steps to the Walker Memorial Building, lost in thought, for quite some time.  He looked at his watch.  10:53.  Could he really have been there for over half an hour?  Damn.  He was spacing out.  That was not good.
	He had planned to work on his 6.003 Circuits and Systems homework set during the three hours before his next class.  But now he didn't have the energy.  He needed a diversion.
	He suddenly remembered what Kristen said about the ring and the high school year book.  With a shock, he realized that was nearly two weeks ago.  Damn, what was going on with him?  He was getting caught up in his studying, forgetting everything else.
	His thoughts wandered back to the ring.  Maybe he should check out the Cambridge Library.  They might have back issues of Cambridge High School yearbooks.  It was time he explored Cambridge a bit, anyway.  It was a nice late summer day.  He'd take his bike.  Screw the damn quiz!  He picked up his backpack, and skipped down the steps, two stairs at a time.



	“Back corner, next to the phone books,” the reference librarian said.  Mike walked to where the librarian pointed.  The phone books were there all right.  Mike's eyes scanned the shelves.  There we go.  Cambridge High School yearbooks.
	Mike picked out the yearbook for 1979, and took it over to one of the library tables.  He opened the front cover.  He read the benediction.  "As we, the class of 1979, go forth into a new decade, we look forward to the as yet unwritten story that is our future.  We are confident that with the skills we have learned in our four years here, and those that we will acquire in the future, we will help shape that future into a better world for all.  But wherever we go and whatever we do, our roots, our beginnings, are here.  And we will always cherish the memories of that special time, and those special friends, of which this yearbook is but a small memento."  The benediction was signed "Elizabeth Washington, Senior Class President."  Not bad.  Mike thought.  I wonder where Elizabeth Washington is now.
	Mike flipped forward to the senior class pictures.  They were in alphabetical order, four pictures per page.  The initials in the ring were "M.E.R."  Mike flipped quickly through the pages till he got to the "R's."  He scanned the names on the first page.  Helen Joan Radcliff.  Roger Matthew Ramsey. Mark John Reiser.  Antonia Rivera.  An M.J.R., but no M.E.R. here.  He turned the page.
	His eyes were immediately drawn to the lower left hand corner of the page.  A stunning woman, strangely familiar, with long dark hair, classically sculpted face, and blazing dark eyes stared defiantly out at him.  A chill ran through him.  He didn't need to look at the name.  He knew it was her.  He stared at her, mesmerized.  Finally, with an effort, he tore his eyes away from the striking picture, focusing on the name under the photograph.  "Maria Elena Rodriguez," he read without surprise.  M. E. R.




Chapter 28
BOSTON (BACK-BAY), MASSACHUSETTS
May 15, 1980
10:24 P.M.




	He had found no spot he really liked. 
	He had considered the stairway on Harvard Bridge.  It provided a decent hiding spot, but it didn't provide a good enough view of the jogging path on the bank of the Charles River.  The jogging path itself, on the other hand, provided an unimpeded view as it ran straight east for a mile or so along the river bank.  But for the most part, it was too exposed.  Last winter, that hadn't been a problem.  After sundown, the path was deserted.  Now, however, late night joggers would not be uncommon.  On the one hand, that was what he was counting on.  On the other hand, it meant he had to be careful to avoid being seen.
	He finally decided on the band shell located on the Boston side of the Charles,  about a quarter mile west of the Longfellow Bridge.  The band shell was located under a canopy of maple trees next to the jogging path just after the path made a sharp left turn at the end of its straight, one mile run from Harvard Bridge.  The band shell had several advantages.  First, it was dark.  Its circular brick walls and the thick branches of the maple trees shielded it from the streetlights that lit up the jogging path.  Second, it afforded a clear view of the jogging path, at least in the Harvard Bridge direction.  Even at night, he would be able to see the path for several hundred yards, giving him plenty of time to scope out potential quarries.  Finally, it had a dark, tunnel-like arched entranceway facing the jogging path.  A jogger coming from the straight part of the path lit by streetlights along the river would be blinded by the sudden darkness as the jogging path turned left under the maple trees, passing the entranceway.  He would be able to step out, grab the jogger, and drag her into the dark passageway before she knew what was going on.
	But the band shell also had some major drawbacks.  Although the view in the Harvard Bridge direction was good, the view in the other direction was not.  The same trees that provided the band shell its seclusion also blocked the view of the jogging path as it continued east past the band shell.  He could only see about thirty yards in that direction.  That could be especially bad:  The park police station was only about a hundred yards away.  But if he was quick, he should be okay.
	He reached the band shell.  Looking about to make sure no one was around, he stepped quickly into the darkness of the entranceway.  He dropped his backpack to the ground.  He sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall of the passage.  He confirmed that he had a good view, from where he sat, of the western stretch of the jogging path.  He glanced the other way, but his view of the eastern part of the path was blocked by bushes and trees.  On his way to the band shell, he noticed that a runner jogged by about every five minutes, most coming from the west.  He should be okay.
	He opened his backpack.  He took out the bottle of chloroform and a white handkerchief.  He put them on the ground next to the backpack.  He reached back into the backpack and pulled out a long, flat newspaper-wrapped bundle.  He checked inside the backpack to make sure he the plastic bags were there.  He unwrapped the flat bundle.  Inside was a meat cleaver with an evil looking, three inch wide, ten inch long blade.  He gripped the handle and hefted the cleaver experimentally.  It had a nice, solid, heavy feel.  He preferred an ax for the extra rush it gave him.  But this time, the cleaver would have to do.
	He put the cleaver on the ground next to the handkerchief and bottle of chloroform.  He sat down, leaned back against the entrance passage wall.  He peered down the long stretch of jogging path and waited.
	Barely a minute later, he spied a dim shadow moving along the jogging path, in and out of the pools of light from the lights lighting up jogging path.  The jogger was still probably three-quarters of a mile away, too far to make out any features, or even to tell whether it was a girl or a guy.  He waited as the jogger came slowly closer.
	When the jogger was about a quarter of a mile away, he could see long, shoulder length hair that bobbed up and down as the jogger ran.  It could still be a guy, he thought, or a blond.  But he started to tense up, anyway.  From an eighth of a mile away, he could make out the soft bouncing swell of what were unmistakably two very female breasts.  He quickly twisted off the cap of the bottle.  He grabbed the handkerchief, placed it over the bottle opening, and turned the bottle upside down.  He closed the bottle, and moved closer to the band shell entranceway, chloroform-soaked cloth in hand.  He looked back at the approaching jogger, now only thirty yards away.  He followed her progress fixedly, admiring her long, athletic stride.  With his attention focused on the approaching jogger, he failed to notice a new, dim shadow that appeared on the jogging path a half mile behind her.  As the first jogger approached, he was able to make out her features.  Nice face, early twenties.  Ash blond hair tied into a ponytail.  She was attractive enough, he thought, despite her blond hair.  His pulse quickened.  Now she was twenty yards away.  The rush of power was starting.  He began feeling hot.  Should he risk waiting for a brunette?  What if none showed up?  Ten yards away.  He didn't have much time.  A bird in hand, he thought.  His ears roared.  His heart pounded.  Five yards away.  Yes!  Do it!  Four yards.  Three.  Two.  One.  
	Now!  He pounced.  He leaped out, grabbed her by the neck, dragged her backwards into the entranceway.  He clamped one hand behind her neck, the other, holding the chloroform-soaked handkerchief, firmly over her mouth.  For a second she froze, taken by surprise.  Then she started struggling, ferociously.  Her arms flailed wildly.  Her hands grabbed at his arms and face, punched him, scratched him.  She twisted back and forth, trying to break his grasp.  He held on, ignoring the warm streams of blood that erupted from the scratches on his face.  She was fit, strong, feisty.  But he was pumped up, too, reveling in the struggle.  He kept the handkerchief clamped tightly over her face.  After a few seconds, her struggling slowed, then stopped, the chloroform finally doing its job.  He exulted, his excitement heightened by the battle.  "No bloody runaway car this time!” he thought, triumphantly, as her body went limp in his arms.
	His rising feeling of power grew stronger, in anticipation what was about to come.  His mind was clear, his thoughts accelerated and expanded, his senses sharpened.  He could hardly wait for the climax.
	He carried her to the end of the passageway and inside of the band shell proper.  He laid her down on top of a row of wooden bench seats.  He went back to the entranceway and picked up the cleaver.  He went back to where she lay, the bench conveniently positioning her body at a height of about two feet.  He placed the razor edge of the cleaver onto the soft hollow of her neck.  Slowly he moved the blade across her neck, increasing the pressure, until he barely broke the skin.  He watched, fascinated, as tiny beads of blood appeared.  He moved the blade a quarter of an inch down, again drew it across her neck.  A second red line appeared.  "Chloroform is fucking great!" he thought.
	He caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his left eye.  He looked up quickly.  For a second he saw the dark shadow of a figure, backlit from the lights on the path, silhouetted against the band shell entrance.  He could make out the whites of two horrified, wide open eyes.  Then the figure was gone.  He heard the sound of quickly receding footsteps running down the path.  Then a female voice started yelling “Help!  Help!  Police!”
	"Shit!" he muttered, furiously.  He made some quick calculations.  Assuming the runner headed straight to the police station, he estimated he had no more than a minute, maybe a minute and a half, to finish the job and get away.  His mind switched into a cold, calculating mode.  There would be no time to hide the body.  No time to hesitate.  Do it quick.  Get out.
	He moved.  He grabbed the handle of the cleaver with both hands and raised it high over his head.  He focused his eyes intently on her face, then brought the cleaver down in a mighty, swooping blow. The moment the blade hit her neck, her eyelids tore open.  Her eyes stared wildly.  The blade sliced cleanly through her jugular vein, her windpipe, her vertebrae, and buried itself a half inch into the wooden bench.  Her torso jerked violently.  Her severed jugular vein spewed a fountain of blood.  Her head rolled off the bench, coming to rest against his foot.  Her wide blue eyes stared horrified, straight into his.
	His eyes locked on hers as her warm blood sprayed onto his legs and chest.  He was overcome.  His ecstasy was almost too much.  Then he recovered.  He grabbed the handle of the cleaver.  He ripped it out from where it was stuck in the bench top.  He took three steps to the band shell entrance, and, with one fluid motion, pitched the cleaver in a high, looping arc towards the bank of the river, thirty yards away.  Confident it would reach the river, he turned away while it was still in the air.  He grabbed the plastic bags from his backpack.  He went over to where her head still lay, eyes turned heavenward.  He grabbed the head by its long, blond, blood-streaked hair.  He double-bagged the head in two plastic bags and packed it into his backpack.  He looked quickly around.  He picked up the handkerchief and bottle of chloroform from where they had fallen on the ground, and quickly left to the band shell.  The whole thing had taken less than thirty seconds.  He reached the jogging path.  Without hesitation he turned right, heading straight towards the police station.  He needed thirty seconds.  If he managed to make it past the police station before the alarm was raised, he would be home free.  They wouldn’t expect him to walk right towards the police station.  They would be looking for him in the other direction.
	He walked rapidly, steadily, down the path.  As he neared the police station, he heard a woman's voice, yelling, pleading for the police to do something.  Another voice, a man, official sounding, was telling her to calm down, that help was on its way.  At that moment, two squad cars came barreling down Storrow drive, sirens blaring, red lights flashing.  He heard them jump the curb, barrel across the thirty yard stretch of grass between Storrow Drive and the band shell, and come to a skidding stop on the dirt of the jogging path.  Car doors slammed, hurried footsteps echoed in the entranceway.  A horrified voice yelled "Oh Jesus!"
	He kept walking.  He heard more sirens, saw more flashing lights as another half dozen squad cars converged on the band shell.  He reached the bridge.  He took off his bloody T-shirt, buried it in the bottom of a trash can.  He put on the sweatshirt and sweatpants he had stashed in his backpack.  A Red Line subway train rumbled across the bridge above him, heading into Boston, towards the Massachusetts General Hospital subway station only a few hundred yards away.  He walked up the pedestrian stairway onto the bridge.  Instead of turning north, towards Cambridge, he turned south, towards Boston.  Following the bridge over Storrow Drive, he looked down at the band shell, now lit up like a baseball stadium under the glare of the headlights and searchlights of nearly a dozen police cars.  He walked steadily on.  He reached the Massachusetts General subway station five minutes later.  As he was buying a token, a Cambridge bound train rumbled into the station.  He managed to squeeze onto the train just as the doors were closing.
	Two minutes later, the train reached Kendall Square.  He exited the station, mingling with other students heading back to the M.I.T. campus.  He reached Ashdown House ten minutes later.  He used his key to open the side entrance, and took the stairs to the basement.  He glanced at his watch.  It was eleven-thirty P.M.  He had plenty of time.




Chapter 29
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
October 10, 2007
4:38 P.M.




	Kristen slammed down the telephone receiver and stomped angrily out of her office.  "That butt-hole Tim!" She fumed.  His objections to her going down to Woods Hole full-time next semester were a bunch of B.S.  "Your background in analytic chemistry is a bit light," he said.  "I honestly wouldn't feel comfortable having you do crucial trace nutrient measurements without a bit more training, especially with the project's funding coming up for renewal.  Getting research funding is tough enough as it is.  I can't afford any slip-ups.  I really think it would be better if you spent another semester at M.I.T."
	So what if she wasn't a chemical analysis expert and didn't yet know all the fine points of using Tim's nutrient analysis instruments?  She thought.  She'd learn that quickly enough when she started doing the research.  Don't worry Tim.  She thought.  I won't screw up your precious funding!  You promised I'd be doing research at Woods Hole next semester, and, by God, I'm going to hold you to it!
	She looked up, and was surprised that she had already covered the mile between the campus and her apartment building.  She went through the security door, rode the elevator to the apartment she shared with Alexandra on the second floor.  She unlocked the apartment, dumped her backpack on the couch.  "Alexandra?" she called.  No answer.  Alexandra wasn't back yet.
	She walked around the apartment restlessly.  She had to burn off some energy.  She changed into a sports bra, sweatpants and T-shirt, and headed back out the door.




Chapter 30
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
May 16, 1980
1:05 A.M.




	He stepped back and surveyed the setup critically.  A one-gallon plastic bottle, filled with a clear liquid, hung upside down above the desk, held up by a crude rope harness that hung from one of the rusting pipes running along the ceiling.  A plastic bucket stood on top of the desk, below the plastic bottle.  One end of a clear vinyl tube was attached to the bottom of the upside down bottle.  The other end disappeared into the bucket.  A shiny metal clamp was attached to the tube just below the bottom of the plastic bottle, pinching it shut.
	It wasn't pretty, he concluded, but it should do.
	He reached up and removed the clamp.  The clear liquid from the upside down plastic bottle started flowing through the tube.  He followed the path of the clear liquid as it flowed slowly along the tube.  He looked down into the bucket.  He watched as the liquid followed the tube down into the dark opening of the carotid artery that was sticking up from the severed neck of the jogger's head sitting upside down inside the bucket.  He watched, fascinated, as the blood from the veins and arteries of the head was pushed out by the pressure of the clear embalming fluid flowing down through the tube.  Thick, dark, coagulating blood oozed up out of the jugular vein.  It ran down her neck and head, forming a slowly spreading dark red pool in the bottom of the bucket.  As the bottle of embalming fluid emptied itself into the carotid artery, an equal amount of fluid emptied out of the jugular vein and into the bucket.  The displaced blood swirled slowly around the long blond hair spread out below the upside down head, turning the hair into a dark, sticky mess.  As more blood emptied into the bucket, the fluid level in the bucket rose, slowly submerging the upside down head.  
	Five minutes later, when the bottle was half empty, the fluid being pushed out of the jugular vein began to thin, turning from a thick, dark red ooze to a thin, pink-hued, transparent stream.  When the bottle ran dry a few minutes later, the trickle coming out of the jugular vein was as clear as the fluid coming out of the bottle.  All of the blood in the head had now been replaced by the embalming fluid.
	He pulled the end of the tube out of the carotid artery and out of the bucket.  He picked up the bucket and walked over to the sink in the back corner of the basement room.  He turned on the water faucet.  He tilted the bucket and emptied the mixture of blood and embalming fluid into the sink.  He placed the bucket upright in the sink.  He lifted out the gory, blood-covered head and held it upright, by the hair, under the cold steam of water from the faucet.  Slowly, the water washed away the accumulated blood.  He watched, mesmerized, as the gory, blood-covered head was transformed into the head and face of a beautiful, blond-haired woman.  He turned off the faucet, and gently dried off the head with a big white towel.
	For a long while, he stood there, staring down at the head peacefully nestled in the soft white towel.  He felt strong, confident, and, surprisingly, at peace.  He opened the door of the small dorm refrigerator he had brought down to the basement, and carefully placed the head and towel inside.  There was just enough room.  He took one long last look, then closed the refrigerator door.
	He left the basement room and ran up the stairs to his dorm room on the second floor.  He was surprised at this new sense of power.  He felt confident, yet serene.  It hadn't been this way before.  He felt great.
	He looked at his watch as he reached his dorm room.  2:12 A.M.  Good.  He thought.  He could even get in a couple of hours of sleep.



	He awoke five hours later, refreshed, practically buzzing with new-found energy.  He whistled a tune as he took a shower.
	When he came back into the dorm room, his roommate was up, staring at him with bleary, sleep-deprived eyes.  "Hey, what's up with you?" his roommate said.  "You just get laid, or what?  And what the hell happened to our refrigerator?"
	He looked at his roommate idly, but didn't reply.  Silently, he got dressed, picked up his backpack, and left the room.  He stepped into the hallway, absentmindedly kicking the rolled-up morning newspaper into the room before closing the door.
	After he left, his roommate sat for a moment, staring at the now closed door.  His roommate walked over to where the newspaper lay on the floor.  He picked it up, took off the rubber band.  He glanced quickly, then more attentively, at the front page headlines.  He opened his top desk drawer and took out a pair of scissors.  He cut out one of the articles from the newspaper's front page.




Chapter 31
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
October 10, 2007
5:08 P.M.




	"At each level in a hierarchical analysis/synthesis process," Mike read for the fifth or sixth time, "we seek to combine functional descriptions of subsystems and structural information as to how the subsystems are interrelated in order to derive a functional description of the larger system, which in turn can be combined with functional descriptions of other systems and structural information about their interrelations to derive a functional description of a still larger supersystem, and so on."  It all seemed like gibberish.  He shook his head, trying to clear his mind.  He read the passage again.  It made no more sense to him than before.  Nothing sunk in.  His mind was on strike.
	He remembered one of his favorite "Far Side" cartoons.  A chubby student with a dumb, but serious look on his face was sitting in a classroom with his hand raised.  "May I please be excused?” the caption said.  "My brain is full."
	"That's me,” Mike thought wryly.  "My brain is full."
	Mike's last class finished an hour and a half ago, at three-thirty.  He spent the next hour finishing the homework problem set for his Controls class that was due tomorrow, Thursday.  Then he started on his Circuits homework, which was due Friday.  His Circuits homework assignment was typical.  Read a thirty page chapter in the textbook, do fifteen problems.  It took him twenty minutes to read the first five pages.  He'd been stuck on the sixth page for over ten minutes.  His eyes kept going out of focus.  He was getting nowhere.
	"Well, this is a waste of time," he thought.  He hated wasting time.  Especially here at M.I.T.  There was no extra time to waste.
	He got up from his desk chair.  He exchanged his Levi's for some dark blue sweatpants and grabbed his iPod,  If he was going to waste time not doing homework, he might as well do something productive and get some exercise.



	Kristen ran with long, fluid strides past the M.I.T. boat house along Memorial drive on the Cambridge side of the Charles River.  She kept up a good, seven minute mile pace.  Her muscles warmed and limbered as she ran.  Her anger slowly dissipated.  Her determination did not.
	She reached the Cambridge side of Longfellow Bridge.  She ran up the stairway, turned right, and continued across the bridge.  A Red Line subway train rumbled past her, the yellow setting sun reflecting off its metal sides and windows.  The bridge formed a long, flat arch over the Charles.  She reached the highest point of the arch, at the bridge's midpoint, and started an easy lope down towards the Boston side.  She enjoyed the cool, fall breeze coming off the river.
	"I'll just go get a room or apartment down in Woods Hole," she decided.  Then, faced with a fait accompli, Tim would have to let her stay and do research.  She decided to drive down to Woods Hole tomorrow after her one morning class and start looking around.
	That decided, Kristen's spirits lifted.  She opened up her stride a little.  Reaching the Boston side of the bridge, she bounded down the stairway to the river bank, taking two steps at a time.  She jumped down the last three steps in a single stride, throwing up a little cloud of dust as her foot hit the jogging path.  She followed the path as it curved right past the police station and the old band shell, finally reaching the long straight stretch that led West along the river to Harvard Bridge.
	As she neared the bridge, she noticed a figure, wearing a sweat-soaked T-shirt and dark blue sweatpants, standing on the grass at the river's edge.



	Mike thought about the picture of the feisty young woman in the Cambridge High School yearbook.  Did she meet her death here?  If so, what a terrible waste!  He thought about Randy, too.  Could the pressure of M.I.T. really get so bad?  So that passing a test became more important than life itself?  It had become that way for Randy.  He swore he would never let it get that way with him.
	"You're going to catch pneumonia in that sweaty T-shirt if you don't get a move on.  Don't they teach you engineers common sense?"
	Mike looked around at the sound of Kristen's voice.  His mood instantly lightened.  "That's an old wives tale," he replied.  "You don't catch pneumonia from cold.  You catch it from pneumonia germs."  He grinned at her.  "As a biologist, you should know that."
	Kristen stuck her tongue tip out at Mike.  "They're not germs," she said, wondering what had caused the solemn look in his eyes when he first looked up at her.  "Pneumonia is a virus."  She went over and stood beside Mike, looking down at the ugly brown water of the Charles.  "Thinking of going for a swim?" she asked.
	"Not today,” Mike said.  He turned to face her.  "You know, " he said,  “I found her.”
	"Congratulations!” Kristen said.  "I knew your day would come."  She paused.  "Found whom, exactly?"
	"M. E. R.  The ring.  I found her in the yearbook, like you said.  Maria Elena Rodriguez.  M.E.R."
	"Well, did you give her back the ring?"
	"No, not yet.  I haven't found her in person, only her picture in the yearbook.  I haven't had a chance to track her down.  Some of us have to work at this grad school thing, you know.  Anyway, I don't think she's still around."  He looked down at the water.
	"You and your crazy theories,” Kristen laughed.  She pointed down at the water.  "Is this where you found the ring?"
	"Close as I can remember."
	Kristen shivered from a sudden chill.  I don't know about Mike, she thought.  But I'm sure as hell going to catch pneumonia if I keep standing around.  Germs or no germs.  She grinned.
	"Hey," Kristen said.  "I'm going to go down to Woods Hole tomorrow to look for a place to stay next semester.  That room in your house still available?"
	"So Tim gave in, eh?” Mike said.  "Great.  Yes, the room is still available, if you want to take a look."
	"I thought I might as well check out this supposed great house of yours,” Kristen replied.  "To answer your question, though, no, Tim hasn't given in yet.  But he will."
	Mike suppressed a smile at her suddenly determined look.  "I can drop the key and directions off at your office tomorrow morning after my Structures class.  It ends at nine-thirty.  Or is that too late?"
	"No, that'll work,” Kristen said.  She started flapping her arms.  "Well, you can freeze to death, if you want, but I've got a run to finish."  She turned back to the jogging path.
	"Maybe I shouldn't tempt this pneumonia thing after all,” Mike said, following her up to the path.  "Which way you headed?"
	Kristen pointed west towards Harvard Bridge.  "How about you?"
	Mike pointed the other way.  They grinned.  "Have fun in Woods Hole tomorrow," he said.  "Let me know what you think of my place."
	"I will.  What are you asking for rent again?"
	"I was thinking around $500 a month, plus half utilities, for the whole top floor."
	"$500!  That's a bit steep for a poor grad student!"  She bent down, stretching, getting ready to run.  "We’ll have to talk."  She gave him a devious little smile.  Then, with a wave, she was off.
	Mike stood for a moment, admiring her smooth, elegant strides.  Then he turned, and started down the jogging path the other way, east towards Longfellow Bridge.




Chapter 32
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
October 10, 2007
5:21 P.M.




	He looked at his watch with exasperation.  He was going to be late again.  Big fucking deal.  He hated the joint monthly departmental meetings, especially the ones that were held at M.I.T.  What an asinine time to hold them, too.  Right in the middle of rush hour.  He punched his horn viciously, knowing full well it wouldn’t do any good.  The car ahead moved two feet, then stopped.  Only a quarter mile to go, he thought, but it's going to take a half hour at least.
	His gaze wandered restlessly as he waited impatiently for the bumper to bumper traffic on the northbound side of Harvard Bridge to move.  He looked to his right, down at the stretch of green grass running East along the Boston side of the river.  People were walking, jogging, and roller blading along the riverside path.  Two joggers, a man and a women, were standing with their backs to him on the bank of the river.  He watched them idly.  The woman pointed down at the water.  The man nodded.  Then they both turned around.
	With a start, he recognized Mike.  And Kristen.  And the spot at which they were standing.  
	It was where it all started, nearly two decades ago.
	He had never felt any guilt or regret about what he had done then, or later.  It had been necessary.  He realized, in a detached, academic way, that what he did was defined as a crime, and that he would be dealt with harshly if he were ever found out.  But no one ever had even an inkling of what he had done.  In all these years, he had never felt the least bit threatened.  Until now.
	It was a shock when he walked into the J-6 laboratory back in August and saw the ax head lying there on the laboratory table.  It was a second shock when, coming back to remove the ax head, he saw Mike inspecting the fragment of bone from the chunk of Charles River mud in the sink.  At the time, he thought he had overreacted when he hit Mike on the back of the head with a piece of metal pipe that he picked up from one of the laboratory tables.  After all, no one but he himself knew the significance of the ax head, or the source of the bone.  If he hadn’t done anything, Mike would probably just have tossed the bone in the trash.  Mike might have kept the ax head as a souvenir, but that would have been the end of it.  
	But now, seeing Mike and Kristen on the river bank, his initial apprehensions returned.  He would have to keep an eye on Mike.  And now, on Kristen, too.  It was still unlikely they would find anything to link any of the killings to him.  But it would be prudent to watch them, in any case.  He should probably also think back and make sure that there were no loose ends anywhere.  Did he leave anything in the basement room in Ashdown House?  Anything at all?  He couldn't remember.  He had better go check.  He still had the key somewhere at home.  On his next trip to M.I.T., he would check it out.
	The loud blare of a horn jerked him out of his thoughts.  He looked up.  The cars in front of him had moved a measly six feet.  "Hey asshole! Get a move on!" a voice behind him yelled.  "Yeah, fuck you!” he yelled back.  He let his car creep slowly forward.  He took a last look down at the river bank.  He saw Mike's form receding in the distance.  He didn’t see Kristen.
	The horn blasted again, angrily, behind him.  He turned around to yell at the other driver.  As he did so, he caught a glimpse of Kristen bounding up out of the stairwell leading up from the river bank.  He quickly ducked his head.  



	Kristen ran up the stairs to the bridge, two steps at a time.  Her steps felt light, full of energy.  Emerging from the stairway, she turned right, toward Cambridge.  She picked up her pace a bit.  As she ran, smoothly, gracefully, across the bridge, the back of her mind registered the line of cars sitting bumper to bumper on the roadway next to her.  But she didn't take particular notice of any of the individual cars.  Or their drivers.  She didn't feel the fierce, brown, penetrating eyes that followed her, boring into her back, as she sprinted down the incline of the bridge towards M.I.T.




Chapter 33
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
October 15, 2007
8:25 P.M.




	"Hey that's great!  Congratulations,” Mike said into the phone.  He tried to concentrate on the voice on the other end.  But it was hard to do so, with Kristen sprawled out on her back on his bed, the soft rise of her breasts, straining against her white knit sweater, rising enticingly into his line of sight.  Mike once saw a movie in which one of the characters held up a French champagne cup, which looked more like a shallow, rounded wine glass than an American-style champagne glass.  The bowl of the glass was a size and shape that could be perfectly cupped by the actor’s hand.  “You know the history of the champagne glass, don’t you?”  The character in the movie asked.  “It was designed in the shape of the perfect woman’s breast.”  That’s what Kristen had.  Perfect champagne cup breasts.  "Ouch!" he thought.  Not the best thing for a sex-starved grad student to start thinking about.  With an effort, he looked away.
	Kristen called a couple of hours earlier, while Mike was struggling through another set of Hydrodynamics homework problems.  She wanted to come by to talk about Mike's house.  She had class until eight-thirty.  Would it be okay, she asked, if she stopped by Ashdown House afterwards?  Sure, Mike said.  Anytime.
	At eight thirty-five Mike closed his books and went down to the reception desk to wait for Kristen.  Mike always considered Kristen to be very attractive, but even so, he was floored when she walked in through the big double doors.  She looked more like a fashion model than an M.I.T. grad student: stylish brown leather jacket over soft, white woolen sweater, skin-tight Levi's stuck into calf-high black leather boots, long dark hair slightly windblown, pink glow from the cool evening air on her cheeks, eyes shining.  "Eat your hearts out, everyone," He thought foolishly.  "Look who's come to see me!"
	They went up to his dorm room.  His roommate Patrick wasn't around.  Mike felt a little awkward at first, about having Kristen in his room.  But Kristen walked right in.  She took a quick look around, and matter-of-factly threw her jacket on Mike's bed.  She bent down, took off her boots, and sat down cross-legged next to the jacket on the bed.  She took a daytimer and a pair of eyeglasses out of her purse.  She put on the glasses, flipped open the cover of the daytimer, looked up at Mike, and in a very business-like manner said,  "So, lets talk about the house."
	Mike had never seen Kristen wearing glasses before.  He liked that she was wearing them now.  They made her look even more attractive.  He turned his desk chair around to face Kristen, and sat down.  "Okay," Mike said.  "Shoot."
	Kristen looked down at a page in her daytimer.  She told him she looked at a number of places on the Cape, a couple of which she liked.  She looked at his house, too.  She liked the idea of having the whole upstairs to herself.  But she measured the drive from the house to Woods Hole and it was quite a bit further than she wanted.
	Damn!  Mike thought with disappointment.  She's not going to take it.
	Kristen said that the rent Mike was asking, $500.00 a month, plus half the utilities, was also higher than what the other places were asking.
	Mike's spirits sank further.
	The thing she didn't like about the other places, Kristen said, was that she would be sharing with two or three other house mates.  She was very particular about the kind of persons she could live with, and she didn't know if she would feel comfortable with the other people.
	Mike felt a flicker of hope.
	The thing is, she said, she really couldn't afford what he was asking.  Especially the utilities.  She shared a house last year, and the heating bill one month during the winter was over $300.  She didn't have that kind of money.
	Mike nodded.
	"So here's the deal,” Kristen said.  "I know you have to pay the mortgage on the house and all, and I know you need to get a certain amount of rent.  But I really can't spend more than $450 a month, including utilities.  I know that's a lot less than you said, and I understand if you say no.  But that's the best I can do."  Then she looked up at Mike with suddenly super-big hazel eyes.
	Mike paused a minute before replying.  He was tempted to say yes immediately.  Realistically, though, he had to watch his finances, too.  The down payment on the house, the closing costs, and the used furniture he had bought, along with other moving-in expenses, had already used up most of his savings.  He would have to live within his grad student stipend, just like Kristen.  If he paid all of the utilities, it would be tight, and he didn't know how steep the winter heating costs would be.  The house was well insulated, though.
	"If you need some time to think it over, that's fine,” Kristen said.
	What the hell.  Mike thought.  Getting Kristen as a house mate, having the chance to get to know her better, even with boyfriend, was worth the risk of running out of money and losing the house.
	"No, that's okay," he said.  "I was just working through some calculations."  He paused again for a moment, then said "Yeah, I think that would work.  It would be a little tight, but $450 a month is okay."
	"Are you sure?” Kristen asked.
	"Yes,” Mike said.
	"Great!" she replied.  She paused, a little awkwardly, then asked,  "How do you feel about . . . visitors?"
	"Visitors?" he asked, not sure what she was asking.
	"You know," she replied.  "Would you mind if Steve stayed over sometimes, on weekends?"  As she looked at him, to Mike's surprise, she began to blush.
	Would he mind, Mike thought to himself, lying downstairs, alone in his bed, knowing that Steve was upstairs, in Kristen's?  Damn right he'd mind!
	"No, of course not," he said, surprised that he actually meant it.  "It would be your home, as much as mine.  You could have anyone over you'd like."  He paused, visions of "Animal House" flashing into his mind. "Well, within reason."
	Kristen smiled at his sudden frown.  "Don't worry,” she said, "I'll make sure anyone I invite over is house-broken."
	At that moment, Mike's telephone rang.  It was his sister.  While he talked on the phone, Kristen leaned back, stretching out on her back on the bed.  She was still there now, oblivious to the effect her pose was having on Mike.
	"No, it won’t be a problem,” Mike said into the phone.  "I'll be there.  Just let me know when."  He listened for another moment.  "Okay.  Give my congratulations to John.  See you Thanksgiving."
	Mike turned back to Kristen.  "Sorry," he said.  "That was my sister.  She just got engaged."
	Kristen didn't seem to hear him.  She was staring up at the bottom of the bookshelf that was attached to the wall above the bed.  "What are you hiding behind your bookshelf?" she asked.
	"I'm not hiding anything,” Mike said, puzzled.  "What do you mean?"
	Kristen raised an arm, pointing.  "There’s a folded piece of paper pushed up between the back of the bookshelf and the wall,” Kristen said.
	Mike walked over to the bed and leaned over next to Kristen so he could see where she was pointing.  Sure enough, from where Kristen was lying, the corner of a folded piece of paper could be seen in the crack between the back of the bookshelf and the wall.  He went over to his box of kitchen utensils that he kept on the wide window sill.  He rummaged around for a kitchen knife, then went back to the bed.  He knelt on the bed next to Kristen, who was now sitting up.  He slid the knife up into the crack between the bookshelf and the wall, and slowly extracted a folded piece of newspaper.  It was yellowed, brittle.
	"What is it?” Kristen asked.
	"It looks like an old piece of newspaper."  
	Mike sat down on the edge of the bed.  Carefully he unfolded the piece of newspaper.  He flattened it out on the bed, between himself and Kristen.  They both looked at it curiously.  It was the front page from an old Boston Post newspaper.  The date said May 16, 1980.  Their eyes were immediately drawn to the thick black letters across the top of the page.
	"JOGGER BRUTALLY MURDERED IN RIVERSIDE PARK" the main headline said.  "Headless Corpse Found Along Popular Charles River Jogging Track" the subheading added.
	They looked at each other.
	"Okay,” Kristen said.  "This is starting to get a little weird."




Chapter 34
HATCHVILLE, MASSACHUSETTS
October 25, 2007
6:24 P.M.




	Furiously, he flung open the door.  It slammed back, the door knob punching a hole into the wallboard.  He didn't notice.  He stomped through the doorway.  He took his briefcase in both hands, and heaved it in a mighty arc across the room.  It slammed into the brick fireplace, bursting open.  Papers, file folders, pens and pencils went flying.  "Fucking in-greats!" he yelled at the top of his lungs into his empty house.  No one answered.
	He opened a door to his left.  The top a stairway could be seen, leading into a black void below.  He groped for the light switch, flipped it on.  Unfinished gray cinder block walls and a gray cement floor emerged from the void.
	He descended the stairs into the basement.  A bare light bulb cast a circle of light at the foot of the stairs.  Beyond the circle of light, dark silhouettes stood out against the shadows.  Cardboard boxes lay strewn about in a haphazard fashion, some empty, some full.  A washer and dryer stood along one wall to the right.  Dirty clothes lay in a pile on the floor.  The dark outline of a door could be seen to the left.
	He took a key ring out of his pocket, and walked over to the door.  Three separate locks barred the door.  He unlocked each with a different key.  He pushed the door open.  He paused a moment.  Then he stepped inside.  He closed the door.  He the utter blackness of the unlit room close around him.  He turned and faced into the room.
	"Fifteen fucking years I've given them!" he shouted into the darkness.  "Fifteen fucking years!  And what thanks do I get?  Fucking nothing!  'We're sorry,' they say.  'We'd like to give all deserving researchers tenure, but with all the budget uncertainties, we just can't do that right now, Maybe next year,' they say 'If you manage to get your research grant renewed.  That would of course be a factor in your favor."  He reached out, located the wall switch with his fingers.  "What do you fucking think about that?" he yelled as he flicked-on the wall switch.
	Two glass display cases sitting in dark red satin lined wall niches lit up in front of him.  They formed brightly illuminated rectangles that stood out of the black void of the room.  He gazed intently at the silhouettes in the display cases.  He waited, as if expecting them to answer.  But the two heads, one black-haired, one brunette, stared back at him in silence.  Finally he stirred.
	"You don't fucking think anything!" he said, angrily.  "You know why?"  He paused.  "You know why?" he repeated, louder.  "Because you're fucking dead!" he yelled, erupting into hysterical laughter.  "You've been fucking dead for years!"  With a sudden move, he stepped to the wall on his left and grabbed an item that was hanging from hooks in the wall.  He lifted his arms high above his head, then brought the long handled, ugly ax crashing down.  The first display case shattered in an explosion of glass shards.  He swung the ax again, smashing it into the second display case.  "You've been fucking dead for years!” he repeated.  Again and again, the ax came crashing down, until the floor was covered with shards of glass, chunks of broken flesh and bone, and long, black and brown strands of hair.




Chapter 35
E. FALMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS
October 26, 2007
5:24 P.M.




	The room suddenly got darker.  Mike looked up.  The last rays of sun disappeared behind the trees on the other side of the cranberry bog.  "Damn!" thought Mike.  "Is it that late already?"  He looked at his watch.  It was nearly five thirty.  Once again, the weekend was almost half gone, and all he had gotten out of it was another case of brain overload.  He put his head down, rubbed his eyes.  He was tired.  He needed a break.
	He got up and went to the kitchen for a drink of water.  Glass in hand, he walked back to the table and sat down again.  He sipped slowly, letting his mind extract itself from the intricacies of irrotational, non-viscous flows and state equation pole/zero diagrams.  
	He let his mind wander for a moment.  For the last week and a half, since he and Kristen found the old newspaper article about the brutal slaying and beheading of the young woman jogger, Mike had been itching to find out more.  He hadn't yet had the chance.  He would give himself a half-hour break, and do a bit of research now.
	Mike reached over to his backpack and dug out the old newspaper article.  He walked over to the coffee table in the living room, where he had set up his laptop.  He sat down on the couch, spread out the newspaper clipping, and started to read.
JOGGER BRUTALLY MURDERED IN RIVERSIDE PARK
Headless Corpse Found Along Popular Charles River Jogging Track
BOSTON.  May 16.  Police late last night discovered the headless, blood-covered, still-warm corpse of a young woman, dressed in jogging clothes, lying on a bench in a riverside band shell in Back Bay.  Half a dozen BPD police cruisers reportedly converged on the band shell, a popular spot for summer concerts, at around 10:45 P.M., just moments after the brutal slaying occurred.  BPD immediately moved to seal off an area within a mile radius of the band shell, but an all night search failed to turn up the unknown assailant.  Police spokesperson Michelle Peters stated that the BPD had not yet determined any clear motive for the killing, but that there was no evidence of any sexual assault.  Ms. Peters refused to comment on reports that police had been slow to respond to a witness who had alerted police at a BPD substation located barely one hundred yards from the murder site, minutes before the killing.  Ms. Peters confirmed that BPD had identified the victim using fingerprints, but that the victim's identity was being withheld pending notification of her family.  CONTINUED ON PAGE 5.

	Mike finished reading and sat back, thinking.  When Mike and Kristen first read the article after extracting it from behind the bookshelf, he thought that the murdered woman might be Maria Elena Rodriguez, a.k.a. "M.E.R."  But Kristen pointed out that the band shell was located almost a mile downstream from where the body was found.  There was no way that the ring could work its way upstream, against the current.  The killer might have removed the ring, walked upstream a mile, and then tossed it in the river.  But why would he do that?  And that still wouldn't explain the piece of bone that the ring had been stuck on.  No, the ring couldn’t have belonged to the murdered woman.  But Mike still had a feeling that there was some connection between the murdered woman and "M.E.R."
	If M.E.R. suddenly disappeared one day, by being murdered or otherwise, then somehow somewhere someone may have written a newspaper article about the disappearance.  Mike opened his Firefox internet browser on his laptop, typed “Maria Elena Rodriguez” into the Google search box, and pressed enter.  After a few seconds, Google returned got over 10,000 hits.  He scanned the first 100 search results.  Nothing on those web pages seemed relevant.  He tried adding “Cambridge” to the search terms.  This time he only got {} hits.  None were about a missing high school student or a murder.  He changed “Cambridge” to “Murder”, and tried again.  This time he did get some articles about a Maria Rodriquez  [flesh out]
	Mike thought for a moment.  M.E.R.’s class ring was marked 1979.  If there was a newspaper story about M.E.R., it would probably have come out in 1979 or a couple of years later, say between 1979 and 1989.  That was still the pre-internet era.  There was a good chance that a newspaper article from that time wouldn’t show up on Google.  It might, however, show up on a newspaper’s website, if the website had an option for online searching of its archives.
	The newspaper clipping Kristen found in his dorm room was from the Boston Post.  Mike typed in "www.bostonpost.com" and hit the return key.  After a few moments, a web page appeared with a banner that proclaimed "Welcome to the Boston Post On-line!”
	Mike quickly scanned the page, then clicked on the "Search Archives" icon.  After a few moments, the "Search Archives" page appeared.  "Use Search Archives to search the archives of the Boston Post for articles from 1980 to the present," it said.
	Mike scrolled down until he found the search criteria entry fields.  He looked at the old clipping, thought for a moment.  He entered "band shell and murder," and clicked on the "search" button.  A few seconds later, a list of articles appeared, sorted by date, from the oldest to the newest.  All told, there were twenty-two newspaper articles.  The first article on the list was dated May 16, 1980.  That was the same date as the old clipping.  The next articles were dated May 17, 18, 19, 20, 1980.  There were a few more articles in May 1980, a couple in June 1980.  Then there was a five year gap.  Another flurry of articles appeared in August and September of 1985.
	Mike scanned the listed headlines.  The May 19th headline said: "Police Release Name of Murdered Jogger."  Mike double-clicked on the headline.  After a few seconds, the text of the article appeared.  He scanned it quickly.  "Police identified the woman who was found decapitated last Monday in a band shell next to a popular Charles River jogging trail as Judith McGregor, a twenty-five year old investment banker."  Well, that confirms it, he thought.  It wasn't M.E.R.  He read further.  "No known motive.  Police believe it may have been a random killing. . . .  Boston Coroner's office releases additional details . . . no sign of sexual assault . . . traces of chloroform found in blood . . . appears to have been used by killer to sedate the victim . . . . no clues to identity of killer. . . Police baffled. . . ."
	There was a button marked "Click here for accompanying photo."  Mike clicked on the button.  A photograph appeared of a young woman in a graduation gown, long blond hair, intelligent, challenging eyes, confident smile.  She looked like she would have accomplished a lot in life.  If she had had the chance.  Mike right clicked on the picture and saved it to his hard drive.  He would print it out tomorrow, after he got back to M.I.T.
	Mike looked at his watch.  He still had ten minutes of his thirty minute break left.  He clicked the "back" button of his browser, and scanned the headlines again.  A headline from August 1985 caught his eye.  "Hikers Discover Headless Corpse on Cape Cod."  He double-clicked the headline.

HIKERS DISCOVER HEADLESS CORPSE ON CAPE COD
Waquoit, MA.  August 23.  The remains of a headless corpse was found yesterday afternoon by a family hiking on Waquoit Island, a small island off the southern coast of Cape Cod.  Bob and Janet Swanson, a vacationing couple from Boston who had taken a day trip to the small, uninhabited island with their two teen-aged children, discovered the partially decomposed, headless body of a woman washed up on the beach after being alerted by the barking of their pet German Shepherd "Bismark."  The Swansons notified Falmouth police via cell phone.  According to preliminary reports from the Barnstable County coroner's office, the unidentified corpse is between two and three weeks old, and appears to be that of a young woman, aged twenty-five to thirty years old.  The cause of death is not yet known, but the body shows signs having been purposely decapitated.  According to Falmouth police chief John Scarlino, the matter is being treated as a homicide.  Chief Scarlino said that at this early stage there is no evidence of any connection between the current case and the brutal murder and decapitation of a young woman jogger in a Charles River park band shell five years ago, but that a connection has not been ruled out.  Chief Scarlino said he expects the coroner's report to be issued later today.  He said police are reviewing recent missing persons files in an attempt to learn the victim's identity.
	
	Another young woman beheaded, this one on Cape Cod.  He looked up.  There was a flicker of light outside the living room windows.  A light on the porch of the house on the other side of the cranberry bog had been turned on.  One of his neighbors he hadn't met yet.  Mike looked out the window, thinking.  So far, his playing detective had been just that, playing.  It was something to divert his mind from his incessant studying.  He didn’t really believe that his advisor Derek, intense though he was, was a vicious serial killer.  That was crazy.  But there was no denying that a young woman was beheaded in Boston in 1980, while Derek was a grad student at M.I.T. taking classes, and another one on Cape Cod in 1985, when Derek was working on his PhD dissertation at Woods Hole.  The two beheadings had to be connected.  And what about Maria Elena Rodriguez?  Was she murdered, too?  Or was she, as Kristen believed, still alive, happily oblivious to the dark mystery Mike was creating for her?
	Mike glanced at his watch.  His half-hour break from studying was almost up.  He turned back to the computer screen.  He clicked the browsers "Back" button to return to the list of headlines.  He double-clicked the last headline on the list.

HEADLESS BODY IDENTIFIED AS MISSING BROWN CO-ED
Falmouth, MA.  September 16.  Falmouth Police Chief John Scarlino announced today that the Barnstable County Coroners Office has identified the headless body found last month by a vacationing family hiking on a small island off the southern coast of Cape Cod.  According to Chief Scarlino, the body has been conclusively identified as Barbara Meyer, a twenty-one year old Brown University co-ed.  Ms. Meyer finished her junior year at Brown University in Providence last May and was spending the summer working on Cape Cod.  She was reported missing by her house mates on July 11th after she failed to return from a weekend trip to Martha's Vineyard.  Police were able to identify Ms. Meyer after their examination of the skeletal structure of the body revealed a multiple fracture of the fibula that occurred years earlier.  An examination of the medical records of women reported missing in the Cape Cod area led to the identification.  Police have moved their investigation of the murder to Martha's Vineyard in an attempt to learn the whereabouts of Ms. Meyer at the time of her disappearance.  

There was another "Click here for accompanying photo" button following the article.  Mike clicked the button.  Another photo appeared, this one of a young woman in a white tennis dress, long dark hair flying about her face, intense eyes focused on the blur of a white tennis ball streaking towards her outstretched racket.  Mike saved the picture to his hard drive.
	Mike glanced at his watch.  His half-hour break had expired ten minutes ago.  He looked back at the computer screen.  He thought for a moment.  The newspaper database went back only as far as 1980.  He shrugged.  He would give it a try anyway.  He went back to the search page, and typed "Maria Elena Rodriguez."  A single headline appeared.  The date was June 26, 1985.  He double-clicked on the headline.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE YOUNG WOMEN GONE?
In the Last Five Years, Over 100 Bostonian Women, 
Aged 16-23 have mysteriously disappeared
Boston, June 26.  On a cold wet night in December 1979, Maria Elena Rodriguez, 18, a freshman at Boston University, finished her shift as a cashier at the convenience store at the M.I.T. Student Center.  As she had done three times a week for the last three months, Ms. Rodriguez locked up her cash register, carried her money tray to the manager's office, signed out, said goodnight, and left.  It was a ten minute walk from her night job at the Student Center to the apartment she shared with two other B.U. students in Back Bay, just over the Harvard Bridge from M.I.T.  She never arrived.
	Ten days later, Sarah Jane McCarthy, 17, an honor student at Braintree High School, was helping her mother bake Christmas cookies.  Needing more butter, she went down to the corner store, five minutes away.  The proprietor remembers her coming in and buying a pound of butter.  She left the store, and was never seen again.
	Ms. Rodriguez and Ms. McCarthy are only two of the more than 100 young women who have disappeared in the Greater Boston Area in the last five years. . . .

Mike skimmed the rest of the article.  No other mention of Maria Elena Rodriguez.
	"I knew it!” Mike thought.  The spot where Prometheus scooped up M.E.R.’s ring was right next to Harvard Bridge.  Somehow, on her way home, M.E.R. ended up in the river.  According to the newspaper article, it was December when she disappeared.  She wouldn't have been swimming.
	Mike looked at the date in the article again.  M.E.R. disappeared in December 1979.  He hit the "back" button to go back to the other articles. Judith McGregor, the young investment banker/jogger, was beheaded on May 15, 1980, five months later.  Barbara Meyer, the Brown co-ed whose decapitated body was found on Cape Cod, disappeared July 11, 1985, five years after that.  Mike wrote the dates on a sheet of paper.  He stared at them.  Was there a pattern, a connection?  Mike couldn't see one.  He glanced again at his watch. It was nearly seven o'clock.  He really should get back to his studying.
	Mike was about to turn off the computer, but stopped.  He frowned.  He felt like he had missed something.  He hit the "back" button on the web browser.  The last article he had read reappeared on the computer's display screen.  Mike's eyes scanned through the article..  What was it, what was it?  He scanned further.  "traces of chloroform found in blood."  There!  That was it.  Chloroform!  He had recently run across a bottle of chloroform.  Where?  He couldn't remember.  He sighed.  Hopefully it would come back to him. 
	Reluctantly he turned off the computer.  He got up from the couch and walked back to his text books and class notes piled on the dining room table.  He sat down on the chair, picked up a book, and started reading.




Chapter 36
WOODS HOLE, MASSACHUSETTS
October 28, 2007
4:56 P.M.




	He held the photograph in his hand, staring at it.  She had the look.  Long dark hair.  Bright, challenging eyes.  Odd that he hadn't noticed before.  But before last Friday, he hadn't been looking.
	He looked at the photo again, imagining her head pulled back, her soft neck exposed, her eyes wide with terror.  Deep inside, he could feel the old flame start to glow, the old feeling of excitement, of power.  Could he pull it off again?  It would be tricky.  Especially with Mike digging around in the past.  Never before had he chosen someone so close.  It would be too dangerous, he told himself.  He was bound to fall under scrutiny.  There were plenty of others to choose from.  Plenty of others who, like the first four, had no ties to him, who were safe.  He should find someone else.
	But it was too late.  He had already made up his mind.  He could already see her wild unbelieving eyes, feel the surge of power as he swung the ax down, electric shock erupting in her eyes, the blade crashing down, the ecstatic warmth of her blood on his hands, his chest, his face.  He wanted her.  He had to have her.  No one else would do.  
	He heard the sound of a car door slam outside his office.  Someone was coming.  He placed the photo quickly back into the folder.  He managed to put the folder into the top left desk drawer just before his visitor entered.
	He looked up.  His old roommate came through the door.  Funny that they had both found scientist positions at WHOI.  They still didn’t get along.  The roommate paused for a moment, looking at him oddly.
“Hello, Derek,” he said.




Chapter 37
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
October 29, 2007
3:48 P.M.




	Mike wrote furiously, lines of equations spewing forth from his pen.  He stopped.  Stared.  Crossed out the page he had just written.  Started scribbling furiously again.  He glanced at his watch.  Damn!  This problem was taking way too much time.  Barely ten minutes left, and he hadn't even started the fourth problem yet.  But he was close.  He could feel it.  Just one more minute, then he'd go on to the last problem.  Poor time management, he knew.  He should have given up on problem three and gone on to problem four at least five minutes ago.  Then at least he would have had a shot at answering all of the problems of his third and last Hydrodynamics "quiz” within the allotted 45 minutes.  But he kept at problem three obsessively.  He looked at his watch again.  Only eight minutes left now.  Not nearly enough time for the final problem.  His delay had been fatal.  He was sunk.
	With an effort, he tore himself away from his incomplete answer to problem three, and quickly read through problem four.  His heart sank.  Problem four was the most complicated of them all.  He didn't even understand the question.  He should have allocated at least twenty minutes to Problem four.  He had less than half that left. He didn't have a chance.  He read it again, fighting back panic.  Think!  Think!  He told himself.  He wiped his forehead.  He was sweating.  He looked back at his watch.  Another two minutes gone!  He forced himself to read the question again, carefully.  He was halfway through the question.  Suddenly, his mind clicked.  He understood the question.  And he knew how to get the answer.  But there were only five minutes left!  Nowhere near enough time!  Damn it!  Mike told himself.  You're not going to give up now!  Forget the time!  Just do it!
	Mike forced himself to concentrate on the problem.  He started writing, sketching a diagram of the basic problem, setting up the governing equations.  As he did so, his mind kicked into high gear.  He attacked the problem with a vengeance, plugging away furiously, racing to get the solution.
	It was a race he couldn’t win.  He was barely halfway done when Al, the TA, instructed everyone to put down their pens and drop off their quiz booklets at the front table.  Obediently, Mike lowered his pen.  As he did, he was overcome with a renewed feeling of despair.  He had choked again.  This was the third and last Hydrodynamics quiz, his last chance to improve on his below-average scores on the first two quizzes.  He had failed.  Now he had only one slim chance left.  The final exam, in four weeks, would count for forty percent of his grade.  If he aced the final, he might be able to pull his grade up to a B.  But for that to happen, he would need a miracle.  He didn't believe in miracles right now.
	Mike picked up his exam booklet from his desk, and walked slowly, tiredly to the front of the room.  He dropped the exam booklet in the basket on the front table, and left the room.  He returned to his dorm room.  He threw himself down on his bed, buried his head in his pillow in frustration.  Ten minutes later, mind and body drained, he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.




Chapter 38
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
November 6, 2007
5:47 P.M.




	Kristen hung up the phone, dumbfounded.  She ran out of her office, and knocked on the door of the office next door.  "Alexandra?" she called.  "You'll never believe what just happened!"  But there was no answer.  Alexandra wasn't in.
	Kristen went back to her office, picked up the phone, and quickly punched in the familiar number.  On the fourth ring, a voice said:  "You have reached Steve Broccoli at extension 448.  I am away from my desk, or on . . . ."
	"Damn!” Kristen thought, hanging up.  Steve had already left work.  She tried his cell phone.  Again, only Steve’s voicemail.  She hung up.  Voicemail wouldn’t do.  She had to tell someone.  In person.  Now.
	She picked up the phone again, and punched another number.



	Wham!  Wham!  Right.  Left.  Wham!  Wham!  Left.  Right.  Wham!  Wham!  Wham!  Left.  Left.  Right.  Wham!  Wham!  Wham!  Wham!  Right.  Right.  Left.  Left.  Wham!  Wham!  Wham!  Wham!  Wham!  Wham!  Wham!  Wham!  Wham!  WHAM!  Mike put everything he had into the last blow, then stepped back, lungs heaving, heart racing, sweat pouring out of every pore.  Head bent down, eyes closed, hands on his knees, he waited to catch his breath.
	He had woken up forty-five minutes earlier.  His hour-long nap had eased his physical exhaustion, but his mind still reeled with the frustration of having blown another Hydrodynamics quiz.  He needed something to work out his frustrations.  He thought about going on a run, but sheets of cold, wind-blown rain were pounding his dorm room window.  The last thing he needed now was to catch a cold or flu.
	From talking to some of his dorm mates, Mike had learned that there really was an exercise room in the basement.  Last time, he made a wrong turn and ended up in the mysterious old basement room.  He hadn't visited the real exercise room yet.  Now would be a good time.
	He signed out the exercise room key at the front desk, and walked down the stairs to the basement.  He walked straight down the hall this time, not turning down the underground passage to the east wing, where he went last time and found the other room.  Sure enough, the first door on his left after the underground passage had a big sign that said "Exercise Room."  He put the key in the door.  It turned easily.  He stepped inside.
	He was pleasantly surprised to find a large, decently equipped exercise room.  It had a four-station universal weightlifting machine, an "ergonometer" rowing machine, a couple of exercise bicycles, even a pool table.  This was great.  He should have come here long ago.
	Another room was visible through an open doorway at the back.  Mike glanced inside.  It looked like a small aerobics room, mirrors along one wall, a couple of exercise mats on the floor.  There was also a heavy punch bag hanging on a chain in one corner.
	Mike had never boxed before, but he sure felt like hitting something now.  He walked up to the bag, and gave it an experimental punch.  He liked the feel of his fist hitting the bag, the surface cushioning his blow, but the weight of the bag refusing to yield.  He hit the bag again, harder.  The bag shuddered, moving back slightly, reluctantly from the force of his blow.  He hit the bag again, this time with his other fist.  Another reluctant shudder.  He took a step back, then stepped forward, putting his whole body behind the next blow.  This time the bag swung backwards, maybe two or three inches.  As it came swinging back, Mike hit it again, this time using his left fist.  He shuffled his legs, hit the bag again with his right fist.  Wham!  Then again with his left.  Wham!  He started ducking and darting like boxers he had seen on television, weaving back and forth.  Wham!  Wham!  Wham!  He got into a rhythm.  Right.  Left.  Left.  Right.  Wham!  Wham!  Wham!  Soon he was hitting the bag with a vengeance, his anger, his frustration welling up in him.  Wham!  Wham!  Wham!  He took it all out on the bag.
	Twenty minutes later he stopped, anger spent.  He stood with his eyes closed, head bent down, hands on knees, catching his breath.
	He opened his eyes.  Two raw, bloody sets of knuckles stared up at him.  He straightened up, looking at the backs of his hands in surprise.  He hadn't felt it, but he had bashed his knuckles raw.  Guess that's why you’re supposed to wear boxing gloves, he thought.  He flexed his right hand.  "Ouch!"  His knuckles could probably use some disinfectant.
	Mike left the gym and walked down the hallway to the stairs.  As he passed the hallway to the old room, he remembered the bottle he had found, the one that had made him dizzy when he had unscrewed the top and sniffed the contents.  That was it! That was what he couldn’t remember, when he read about the chloroform used to sedate the beheaded jogger.  Had the liquid in the bottle been chloroform?
	Mike decided to take a short detour and have another look at the old storage room.  He turned right into the hall, and walked down to the old room.  He inserted the exercise key in the lock, and turned.  Sure enough, the door swung open.  He groped for the light switch, flicked it on.  Nothing happened.  No one had replaced the overhead light that burned out during his first visit to the room, now nearly two months ago.  "I guess that proves this room isn't used much," he thought.
	Mike stood for a minute, just inside the door, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.  Slowly the outlines of gray shapes emerged from the darkness.  He took another step into the room.  From what he could tell, nothing had been touched since the last time he was there.  He tried to remember what he had done with the bottle.  He must have dropped it on the floor at the back of the room, when the desk he was leaning on collapsed.
	Arms stretched out before him, Mike walked slowly forward.  The light from the open door didn't penetrate very far. The further he went in, the darker it got.  After what seemed much too long a time, his hands touched the opposite wall.  At the same time, his left foot hit the remains of the collapsed desk.
	He bent down, and felt around on the floor, trying to locate the bottle.  He groped along the floor around the broken desk.  He felt dusty floor, broken boards.  He moved a step back, felt around again.  There!  That felt like a bottle.  But not the right one.  It was to big.  He felt around some more.  Aha!  That was it!.
	He grabbed the bottle, turned around, and hurried back to the welcoming light of the open door.  Stepping into the hallway, he looked at the bottle.  It looked like the one he remembered.  Carefully, he loosened the cap.  Without removing it, he held the bottle up to his nose.  Yes.  That was the smell he remembered.  He screwed the cap back on.
	He closed the door, locked it with the exercise room key, and headed back towards the stairs.  Just before the stairway, he passed another door.  This one had a sign:  "Boiler Room."  On impulse, Mike stopped, and tried the door knob.  The door was locked.  He took the exercise key out of his pocket, and tried to fit it in the door lock.  It fit.  He turned the key.  The door unlocked.  That explained it, he thought, as he re-locked the door.  For some strange reason, the exercise room key wasn't just the exercise room key.  It was a master key.  He wondered if anyone else knew.



	Mike turned off the shower and grabbed his towel from the towel rack.  He was just about to start drying himself off when he heard his and Patrick's telephone ring in their dorm room next door.  He quickly wrapped the towel around his waist.  Still wet, he hurried out of the bathroom and into his dorm room, leaving wet footprints on the floor.  He picked up the phone on the third ring.
	"Hello,” he said.
	"You'll never guess what happened!" came an excited, breathless voice.
	He grinned.  "NASA's discovered the moon really is made of cheese?"
	"No," came Kristen's puzzled reply,  "Cheese?  Moon?  What the heck are you talking about?"  Then she went on.  "No, Tim wants me to come down to Woods Hole!  And not next semester, but now!"
	"Hey," Mike said.  "That's great!  What happened?"
	"He just called out of the blue.  He said that the funding for his palagic/benthic interaction research project is going to be reviewed next month, sooner than expected, and that he needs help completing the current phase of the project and preparing a presentation to the National Science Foundation.  He asked how soon I could come down."
	"What did you say?” Mike asked.  "Aren't you still in the middle of classes?  And what about him saying he thought you needed more classes before doing research?"
	"That was just a bunch of bull, anyway,” Kristen replied.  "I guess he's running into a deadline on the research project, and he needs an extra body.  But that's fine with me.  The earlier I get to go down to Woods Hole, the better!"
	"So what about your classes?  Don't tell me you're already done!  I've still got a couple of weeks left, and then finals."
	"Well, I'm taking two of my classes at Harvard, and they finish up a couple of weeks earlier than M.I.T.  In my other two classes, we've got to write term papers instead of having finals.  One I've already got done, so I've only got one left.  I can finish that one down in Woods Hole.  So I can head down after my Harvard finals next week.  Would it be okay for me to move into the house then?"
	"Sure,” Mike replied.  "No problem."  He glanced over at the calendar on the wall above his desk.  "So you'd want to move in when?"
	"The weekend after next,” Kristen said.  "The sixteenth.  Though I was hoping I could start to moving my stuff down earlier."
	"Sure,” Mike said.  "That'd be okay."  His eyes suddenly fixed on the brown plastic bottle on his desk under the calendar.  He had put it there after bringing it up from the basement.  "Listen," he said.  "If I brought you a bottle, would you be able to tell if it had chloroform in it?"
	"Chloroform?  What are you doing with a bottle of chloroform?"
	"It's a bit of a long story,” Mike said.  "But could you tell?"
	"I think so,” Kristen said.  "I used enough of it in my undergraduate biology labs."
	"Great!” Mike said.  "Where are you now?"
	"In my office."
	"Will you still be there in fifteen minutes?"
	"I could be."
	"Okay.  I'll meet you there in fifteen.  I'll tell you all about it when I get there."




Chapter 39
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
November 6, 2007
6:48 P.M.




	"Come on, come on, get it over with already!" he thought.  He glanced impatiently at his watch.  Damn! It was nearly seven P.M.  He had been sitting in this stupid departmental joint committee meeting for nearly an hour and a half.  What a fucking waste of time!  Nothing ever got accomplished.  He never wanted to be on the committee in the first place.  He should just chuck the whole thing.  But then those bastards would never give him tenure, even if he renewed his funding ten times over.  He wouldn't give them the satisfaction!
	"Okay."  He finally heard the chairman say.  "That wraps up today's meeting.  To sum up, we're agreed that the candidates from Brown, Princeton, and Columbia should be admitted to the Joint Program, as well as the woman from U. Mass Amherst.  U. Mass really isn't that strong academically, but she does have an NSF fellowship, and we can use the money.  The applications of the other candidates will be denied.  Don't forget the next meeting, because of Thanksgiving, will be in five weeks, not four, down in Woods Hole.  Meeting adjourned."
	“Finally!” he thought.  Ignoring the chit-chat of his colleagues, he grabbed his briefcase and hurried out the door.  He walked down the hallway, past the half dozen doors to the tiny cubicles that grad students were given as their "offices."  He headed towards the elevator banks at the end of the hall, and punched the down button impatiently.  He watched the indicator lights mark the slow progress of the elevator.  Eight, nine, ten, eleven.  At last, a chime indicated the elevator had arrived at the twelfth floor.  He started moving forward, barely waiting for the elevator door to start to open.  He slammed full force into a man who was exiting the elevator as he was trying to enter.
	"Watch the fuck where you're going!" he exclaimed, pushing brusquely past the man into the elevator.  Angrily, he stabbed the button for the ground floor, then looked up.  The man he had bumped into was turning around to face the elevator.  Just before the doors slid closed, he caught a glimpse of the man's face.  It was only then that he realized who he was.



	Mike watched, surprised, as the elevator doors slid shut.  Now what the heck was that all about?  Mike shrugged, and turned up the corridor towards Kristen's office.
	Her door was ajar.  He could hear her voice talking inside.  He knocked.
	"Come in!” Kristen called.  Mike pushed on the door.  It swung open, revealing Kristen, sitting at her desk, cradling a phone to her ear with her shoulder.  She looked up, waved Mike inside.
	"Okay hun,” Kristen said into the phone.  "Talk to you tomorrow.  Love you!" She made a kiss into the mouth piece and hung up.  She looked up at Mike with her big, hazel eyes.
	Mike was surprised by a sudden mixture of jealousy and longing.  Stop it! he told himself.  Kristen's got a steady boyfriend.  They've been together for years.  And she's completely loyal.  She's not going to leave him.  Don't even think it.
	He forced a grin.  "You really shouldn't talk to your advisor that way, even if he did just invite you down to Woods Hole.  It's not very professional."
	Kristen made a face at him.  "So what's this mysterious bottle you were babbling about on the phone?" she asked.
	"I don't remember doing any babbling,” Mike said, slipping his backpack off his shoulder.  He dug out the brown, unlabeled bottle and handed it to Kristen.
	Kristen took the bottle, shook it, and held it up to the light.  "It feels empty,” she said, starting to unscrew the top.
	"Careful!” Mike said.  "It may be empty, but the vapors are still pretty strong."
	Kristen, more carefully now, loosened the cap and held the bottle up to her nose.  She wrinkled her nose in distaste and quickly resealed the bottle.
	"Yuk!" she said.  "It's chloroform all right.  And really old stuff, by the smell of it."  She looked at Mike inquiringly.  "So, where'd you dig this up?"
	"In Ashdown House.  In an old room in the basement."
	"So?” Kristen said.  "There must be tons of old bottles lying around all over M.I.T.  What's so special about this one?"
	Mike hesitated.  She was right.  It was foolish to think that this bottle of chloroform was in any way significant, even more foolish to think that it was tied with the murder of the young investment banker six years ago.  He was making an ass of himself.  Once again, he was letting his imagination get the better of him.
	"Its your murder theory, again, isn't it?” Kristen said when he didn't answer.  She leaned back in her chair, pretending to sigh.  Then she suddenly leaned forward.  "Oh my god!,” she said.  "What happened to your hands?"
	In his rush to see Kristen, Mike had forgotten to bandage his bloody knuckles.  "I screwed up on another Hydrodynamics quiz," he said, ruefully.  "I took it out on a punching bag."  He held up his hands.  "They look bad.  But they're okay."  He flexed his hands to show that they were all right.  He winced in surprise at the sudden pain.
	"Okay my foot!” Kristen said.  "Those hands need to be taken care of, or they'll get infected."  She got up and walked to the door.  "Stay right here."  She was back in less than a minute, a white metal first aid kit in one hand.  "Now sit!" she commanded Mike.  He obediently sat down on her chair.  Kristen knelt down in front of him, took a critical look at his hands.  She opened the first aid kit and dug out a bottle of disinfectant and a roll of bandages.  She grabbed his left hand and started dabbing disinfectant on the bloody knuckles.
	"O.K," she said, "Tell me about the bottle."



	He glanced down the hallway.  No one was around.  He walked quickly to the door.  He stuck the key into the lock, and turned.  The old key still worked!  He pushed open the door.  He stepped quickly inside, closing the door behind him.
	He groped for the light switch, found it, switched it on.  Nothing happened.  Damn!  He'd have to go grab his flashlight from the car.  He listened at the door.  Hearing nothing, he slipped back outside.
	Fifteen minutes later he was back.  He closed the door again, and flicked on the flashlight.  He shone the flashlight around the room.  The beam of the flashlight passed over the shelves along the walls, the ancient desk, now a pile of rubble, against the far wall, the old sink next to the desk.  A thick layer of dust covered everything.  It looked just like he remembered it, only more decrepit.
	He played the beam of light along the shelves.  The light passed over boxes of cleaners, paints.  Nothing of his.  He shone the light down, towards the floor.  He froze.  A set of fresh looking footprints led away from the door.  He followed the trail back to the broken desk.  Here the trail became jumbled.  Here and there he could make out a hand print on the floor.  Someone had been looking for something, in the dark, feeling with his hands.  What were they looking for?  Had they found it?
	He swept the flashlight beam around the remains of the desk. Two large white plastic bottles were lying amid the debris on the floor.  He picked one of them up.  He looked at the old, yellowed label. "Formalin 10%", it said,  "M.I.T. Microbiology laboratory February 1980."  He picked up the second bottle.  "Formaldehyde, M.I.T. Biology Dept., May 1979," he read.  Shit!, he thought.  He had been careless.  He should never have left the bottles behind.
	He spent the next fifteen minutes searching through the rest of the room, sifting through every box, looking in every corner.  He found nothing else incriminating.  He grabbed an empty box, put the two bottles inside.  Box in hand, he walked back to the door.  He listened.  Nothing.  About to open the door and step outside, he gave the room a last once-over with the flashlight.  There was a flicker of white as the flashlight beam passed over the remains of the broken desk.  He walked over, bent down, and pulled out an old, white plastic bag that had been buried under the debris.  He looked at it curiously for a moment, then looked inside.  He stared.  Even after all these years, the remains of long black strands of hair, caked in dried blood, stuck to the inside of the bag were still easily recognizable.  Fucking shit! Beads of sweat formed suddenly on his forehead.  If someone had found the bag, there was sure to have been an investigation.  A DNA analysis of the hair and blood could have identified the victim.  And he had left the bag sitting here all these years, just waiting to be found..  He stuffed the bag in the box with the plastic bottles.  He flicked the flashlight around the room one last time, then quickly opened the door, and left.



	Mike pushed through the revolving door of the Green Building.  He stood for a moment.  The rain had stopped.  Lights from campus buildings reflected off the glistening dark surface of the Quad.  He turned left, and walked slowly back to Ashdown House, taking the long way back along the Charles.
	He passed the M.I.T. boat house, stopped, leaned on the railing.  Kristen was right, he thought, as he looked down at the slick dark water of the river, swollen from the rain, flowing smoothly by.  He should stop screwing around.
	As Kristen bandaged his hands, Mike told her about finding the bottle in the basement, the newspaper article about the beheading on Cape Cod, the disappearance of Maria Elena Rodriguez, about screwing up, again, on a Hydrodynamics quiz.  She was been silent for a while.  Then she asked whether he was serious about the Joint Program.  Surprised, he said of course he was serious, that's why he was here.  Well, Kristen said, it seemed that Mike was more interested in twenty year old murders than he was in his studies. She asked, carefully, whether it might be better, these last few weeks of the semester, to give his playing detective a rest, and to concentrate on his classes, especially since he wasn't doing that well.
	That's not true, Mike protested.  He was interested in his studies.  But he couldn't study all the time.  The murder thing was just an outlet, a diversion.  It wasn't serious.  And he wasn't doing poorly in all of his classes, just in a couple.
	But inside, he knew Kristen was right.  He was wasting too much time on the murders.  Time was something, especially now, he couldn't waste.  It was getting to be crunch time - the last few weeks of classes, then finals.  If he was going to pull out decent grades for this semester, he had to buckle down now.  No more distractions,he told himself, no more avoiding what he had to do.  From now until the end of the semester, he had to concentrate on his studies, nothing else.  The murders happened years ago.  Last week, Mike ran into Vijay, who had told him that Derek was out on a research cruise, wouldn't be back until January. There was no hurry.  The murders had been sitting around unsolved for twenty years.  The mystery would keep.  Finals would not.
	Mike reached the intersection of Memorial Drive and Massachusetts Avenue.  He waited for a break in the traffic, then dashed across the intersection to the back of Ashdown House.  He walked up Massachusetts Ave.  He stopped in front of the side entrance to Ashdown House, looked at his watch.  It was still early.  He could grab a quick bite at the Student Center, then get back to Ashdown House for a good three or four hours of studying.  Mike continued down Massachusetts Ave. towards the Student Center.  He didn't notice the figure carrying a cardboard box that emerged from the side door of Ashdown House behind him.




Chapter 40
NEEDHAM, MASSACHUSETTS
November 6, 2007
11:47 P.M.




	Eyes closed, head resting on Steve's chest, her breasts pressing against his stomach, arms wrapped around his waist, Kristen felt warm, secure, enjoying Steve's caresses as he absentmindedly stroked her back, her hair. Their lovemaking had been good, as it usually was, but it was these calm, intimate moments afterwards that she really enjoyed.  She gave him an affectionate squeeze.
	She was glad she made the forty-five-minute drive to Steve's from M.I.T., even though it was the middle of the week.  Usually, Steve and Kristen tried to get together at least every other weekend, but this time, she didn’t want to wait.  She wanted to be with him, so he could share her good news.  She'd have to get up early tomorrow and fight the commuter traffic back to M.I.T., but it was worth it.  She gave a contented sigh.
	"I'm not sure that moving in with this guy Mike is such a good idea,” Steve said, slowly.  "What do you know about him, really?  You said yourself, he gave you a good deal on the rent.  Why would he do that?  He wouldn't have done that unless he expected to get something from you.  And the house is isolated.  I just don't think it’s safe."
	Kristen turned her head to look at him.  "Mike's okay,” She said.  "Some people are just nice, you know.  Not everybody is trying to take advantage of everyone else."
	"Maybe not,” Steve said.  "But believe me, guys are all alike.  They're always on the make."
	"Sounds to me like someone's a little jealous,” Kristen said, wriggling her stomach against his groin, now soft, after their lovemaking.
	"Well, maybe a little,” Steve admitted.  "I just don't see why this guy Mike should get to play house with you down on the Cape while I'm stuck up here in Needham."
	"It is true,” Kristen said, teasing, "that a warm, passionate woman like myself needs a great deal of attention.  And Mike really is kind of cute."
	"Cute!” Steve said.  "The guy is old enough to be your father!"
	"Well, you know what they say about older men,” Kristen continued.  "They know how to please a woman."  She moved her hand down between his legs, began stroking him playfully, enjoying the feeling as he began to harden.  "I guess you'll just have to make sure you keep me satisfied."
	He grabbed her, twisted her onto her back, pushing her arms back so that she lay below him, arms stretched out to the side, breasts exposed, nipples coming quickly erect.  "Yes,” Steve said, lowering his head, flicking his tongue at the pink circle of her left aureole.  "I guess I will."




Chapter 41
FALMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS
November 24, 2007
12:17 A.M.




	Mike lay in bed.  He couldn’t sleep.  He tried wrapping the pillow around his head.  It didn't do any good.  The sounds still came through.  He tossed restlessly.  He felt depressed, lonely.  And stupid.
	For the last three weeks, Mike had put everything else out of his mind and concentrated solely on his studies.  Every day he had gotten up at six A.M.and gone to bed at midnight.  Outside of time spent eating and in classes, and except for the half hour of exercise he allowed himself each day, he had spent every waking moment studying: reviewing his class notes, reading his text books, doing homework sets, going to tutorials, writing lab reports.  It had been the most exhausting three weeks of his life.  But he had done it.  Three weeks ago he had been two weeks behind in his classes.  But when he finished his last class of the semester earlier that Friday afternoon, he was right on schedule.  Now all he had left was the Thanksgiving “study break,” then finals.  His first semester at M.I.T. would be history.
	Mike's first and worst final, Hydrodynamics, was on the Monday after Thanksgiving.  Mike was driving down to Connecticut to see his parents on Thanksgiving Day, but had decided to spend the rest of the week studying for finals at his house on Cape Cod instead of in Cambridge.  It would be better than studying at Ashdown House, where everyone would be stressing out about finals.  Besides, it would give him a chance to see Kristen, and to get a taste of what it was going to be like having her as a roommate.  So Friday evening, he had packed his books into the Mercedes and driven to Cape Cod.
	It was a seventy mile trip.  There was less traffic than in the Summer, when it seemed that every other person in Boston took to the road on Friday evening for a weekend fling on the Cape.  Even so, a steady stream of cars headed south out of Boston.
	Mike turned on the car stereo as he followed the river of red tail lights going south.  He thought about the last three weeks, thankful he had heeded Kristen's advice and stopped wasting his time on those stupid murders.  Looking back, he realized Kristen had saved him from what was starting to become an unhealthy obsession.  He'd have to find some way to thank her.  Maybe invite her out for a nice dinner.
	It was close to nine o'clock when Mike finally turned into Cranberry Lane.  From the turnoff, he could see that the house lights were on.  Good, he thought.  Kristen would be home.
	Sure enough, Kristen’s old brown Plymouth was parked next to the house.  But there was a second car, too, parked next to Kristen's.  Damn.  She must have a visitor.  Well, it would have been too much to hope for to catch her alone on a Friday night.
	When Mike walked into the house, he found Kristen lying on the couch in the living room, snuggled up with a dark-haired, stocky guy in his late twenties watching a movie on TV.  Kristen looked up at the sound of the door opening, and called a cheery "hello!" when she saw Mike. "Hello yourself!" Mike called back.  He dumped his bags on the floor in the hallway and walked over to the couch, where Kristen introduced the figure on the couch as "my friend Steve."  So that’s Steve, Mike thought.  Steve sat up.  They looked at each other curiously as they shook hands.  Then Steve laid back down on the couch, pulling Kristen down beside him.  He put his arms around her possessively.
	"Kristen rented 'My Best Friend's Wedding'"  Steve said, looking up at Mike.  "I think she's trying to give me ideas.  It's already half over, but you're welcome to join us for the rest."
	So I'm welcome to join you in my living room while you're on my couch watching a video on my TV using my DVD player?  Mike thought.  How generous of you!
	"I think I’ll grab a bite to eat first. “  Mike said.  “Maybe I'll join you later."
	Mike fixed himself a sandwich in the kitchen, then returned to the living room.  He sat down in the old rocking chair he had gotten at the Salvation Army Thrift shop.  Kristen and Steve remained, lying arm in arm, on the couch.  He ate in silence while the video played.
	When the video was over, Steve got up.  He looked over at Mike.  “You going to be around for the weekend?” he asked.  Mike nodded.  “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” Steve said.  He walked over to the stairway leading up to Kristen’s rooms.  Kristen sat on the couch, straightening out her hair.  She looked an Mike parted her lips, like she was going to say something.  Before she could, there was a call from the stairway.
	“Kristen!” Steve called.  “Are you coming or not?”
	“Coming!” Kristen replied.  She gave a little shrug, said a quiet “Good Night!” to Mike, and disappeared up the stairway, closing the door between the living room and the stairway behind her.
	Mike sat for a while, staring at the TV, the opening dialog of the Letterman show flickering across the screen.  But instead of Letterman, Mike kept seeing Kristen’s face, as she had turned to look at him a minute ago.  Had there been a sad look in her eyes, or was it just his imagination?  God, she was beautiful.  Damn Steve.  Tired, depressed, not a little jealous, Mike too got up, and went, alone, to bed.  .
	The room Mike had picked as his bedroom was directly below the upstairs master bedroom.  Now he realized that was a big mistake.  He should have taken the other downstairs bedroom.  Even though the house was well insulated, muffled shrieks, laughter, and now, rhythmic creaking penetrated through the ceiling from above, assaulting his ears, his mind.  Damn! he thought.  He had never stood a chance with Kristen.  He had gone through his elaborate machinations, buying the house, giving her a deal on the room, hoping she would move in, with the insane idea that, living together, she would fall in love with him.  He had ignored what she told him about her and Steve, how they had been together for four years, how, in a year or two, she hoped they would get married.  Mike had heard, but didn't listen.  He was an utter fool.
	After what seemed like an excruciatingly long time, the sounds from above lessened, then stopped.  All was quiet.  Except Mike’s mind.  It was a long time before, mind and body exhausted, he finally drifted into an uneasy, restless sleep.




Chapter 42
WOODS HOLE, MASSACHUSETTS
November 28, 2007
9:48 P.M.




	Kristen placed the tip of the syringe into the thin layer of clear liquid in the Petri dish.  Carefully, she pulled back on the plunger, slowly drawing the liquid containing the plankton cultures into the body of the syringe, keeping the tip of the syringe under the liquid’s surface so that only the liquid, no air, was drawn in.  There was enough liquid in the Petri dish to fill most of syringe, which had a 50 milliliter capacity.  When the Petri dish was nearly empty, Kristen lifted the syringe.  There was a rack of forty test tubes, arranged in four rows of ten, on one side of the lab table.  The test tubes in the four rows contained four different concentrations of benthic nutrients.  She moved the syringe over to the rack, and carefully injected one milliliter of fluid from the syringe into the first of the test tubes.  She inspected the result critically.  Satisfied, she removed the syringe from the test tube.  She glanced at her watch.  Almost ten pm!  She sighed.  Well, only thirty-nine test tubes to go.  With luck, she thought as she moved the syringe over to the next test tube, she’d be able to get out of the lab before eleven.



	He watched her, mesmerized.  For the last hour, he had stood outside in the corridor, just to one side of the door.  Looking though the glass window.  Looking at Kristen.  Watching her.  Her supple movements.  Her intense concentration in what she was doing.  She had a strong life force.  He could feel it, even in the corridor.  It fueled his need, his hunger.  Soon, he told himself, he would satisfy that hunger.  But not now, not yet.  It was too early. He needed her to finish what she was doing.  His preparations weren't ready yet, either.  If he did it now, there was a good chance he would be caught.  It would only be a few more days.  He could wait.
	As he stood and watched, however, his hunger, his longing, grew.  His blood began racing.  His heart started pounding.  His resolve to wait evaporated.  Don’t do it!  He tried to tell himself.  Wait!  Wait!  But she was too close, his need too great.  He couldn’t resist.  He had to do it.  Now.
	He looked around, desperately.  How could he do it?  Think!  Think!  He told himself.  There must be something lying about he could use.  The table?  A chair?  Could he take her barehanded?  Knock her unconscious?  He needed something heavy.  Maybe something in the lab?  He looked back through the window in the lab door.  Kristen, oblivious, was bent over a lab table, her whole concentration focused on injecting the clear fluid from the big white syringe into the rack of test tubes.  His eyes searched the part of the lab he could see through the window.  Nothing!  Then he noticed the top of a valve sticking up into his field of view.  He stared at it, thinking.  The valve, he knew, was connected to one of the long steel gas tanks standing upright against a lab table about four feet diagonally to the right of the door.  He shifted around, trying to get a better view.  The tanks remained hidden from view.
	He closed his eyes, trying to remember what was in the tanks.  Nitrogen?  No, the tanks would have to be insulated, cooled.  He knew they weren't.  Oxygen?  Did they use oxygen in the lab?  He shook his head.  No.  Then he remembered.  Hydrogen.  And Carbon Dioxide!
	His excitement grew.  He could feel the hot flow of blood surging through his veins, the growing sense of power.  Yes!  Carbon dioxide would do.  He would have to open the door, step inside, turn on the valve, then step out again, all without being spotted by Kristen.  The carbon dioxide, colorless, odorless, would soon displace the air in the lab.  Kristen would grow drowsy, unconscious.  Easy prey.
	He glanced back through the window.  Kristen was still bent over the rack of test tubes, oblivious to everything else.  He placed his hand on the doorknob, and turned.  Slowly, silently, he eased the door open and stepped inside.



	With a feeling of satisfaction, Kristen injected fluid from the syringe into the last of the test tubes.  She deposited the used syringe into a red container marked “Hazardous Waste,” then carefully sealed each of the test tubes with a rubber stopper.  Finally, she picked up the rack and carried it over to the incubation chamber, a metal cabinet the size of a small refrigerator with a half dozen dials above the door.  She placed the rack inside, double checked the settings on the dials, then sealed the door of the chamber.  She checked her watch.  10:45 P.M.  The incubation period was thirty-six hours.  She would have to be back Friday morning at quarter to eleven.  She sighed.  So much for a long Thanksgiving weekend.  Steve would be pissed.  Well, there was nothing she could do.  This was the last batch of Tim’s samples that had to be tested.  He needed the results for his presentation to the NSF next week.  Tim had been edgy all week, telling Kristen again and again that she better get all the samples done by the weekend, or she would be back up at M.I.T. in no time.  What a jerk!  Everyone had been a jerk this week.  Tim.  Steve.  Even Mike.  What was it with guys?  Kristen shook her head in exasperation.
	She suddenly felt very tired.  She went over to the sink and splashed some cold water on her face.  It didn’t seem to help.  She had worked late in the lab all week.  The long hours must be getting to her.  Well, tonight would be a relatively early night.  With luck, she’d be in bed before midnight.  She smiled at the thought of bed.  Hmm.  Bed.. Sleep.  Her eyes began to close, her head to nod.  She began to fall asleep where she stood.  She started leaning forward, her upper body bending over the lip of the sink. 
	Kristen jerked back as the cold water from the still running faucet sprayed across her arms, her head, her chest.  She looked around, bewildered, shaking her drenched arms furiously to get rid of the water.  What the hell was going on?  Had she actually fallen into the sink?  Her head was throbbing.  Had she hit it on something?  She couldn’t remember.  But she had a feeling something was terribly wrong.  She had to get out of the lab.  Immediately.
	Kristen turned and stumbled towards the door to the corridor.  Two steps from the door she halted.  She stared hard at the door.  Had it moved?  Don’t be silly, she told herself.  How could it move?  She became uneasy.  The back of her neck tingled.  Tim had left hours ago.  No one else was supposed to be here.  Yet she had a strong feeling she was not alone.  She stood for a moment, swaying.  She took a last lurching step to the door, stumbling into it.  She pushed.  It didn't open.  With her fuzzy mind, it took her a while to realize that she needed to turn the doorknob.  She groped for the doorknob, twisted it, pushed the door open.  She peeked out into the corridor.  It was empty.  She stepped into the corridor.  No one was there.  
	The laboratory door clicked shut behind her.  Kristen took a deep breath, then began walking down the hall to her small office.  Be calm, she told herself, there’s nothing to worry about.  But she didn’t believe it.  She felt less sleepy now.  She picked up her backpack from the floor next to her desk, and hurried back down the hallway towards the exit.  She glanced back over her shoulder.  Nothing.  Just a still, empty corridor.  She reached the outside door, her heart pounding.  She let herself out the door, locking it behind her.  Outside it was a crisp, clear autumn night.  She walked down the path to the parking lot, empty except for her old brown Plymouth.  She got inside, turned the key in the ignition.  The engine sputtered, then sprang to life.  Thankfully, she shifted into gear, and, a little too quickly, roared out of the parking lot onto Woods Hole Road.



	He stood in the darkened room, looking out the window.  He watched the red taillights of her car disappear towards Falmouth.  Damn!  He had been so close.  Another minute, and she would have been out cold.  He stood for a long time waiting for his racing blood, his pounding heart, to slow.  He had been wrong to try it now, he knew.  It was still too early.  He should have been more patient.  But he had wanted her, wanted her now.  Fate, again, had intervened.  He should stick to his plan.  Only five more days.  It would be hard, he thought, but he would have to wait till then.




Chapter 43
EAST FALMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS
November 30, 2007
2:44 P.M.




	Mike angrily closed the black binder containing his Hydrodynamics class notes, and tossed it onto the table.  He closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair, took some deep breaths.  The CD changer flipped disks.  The hard guitar chords of ACDC's "All Night Long" began blaring out of the loudspeakers.  "All night long," Mike thought morosely, “that’s how long I’m going be sitting here at this damn table studying these damn books.”  He sighed.  Reluctantly he leaned forward, opening his eyes.  For a moment, he looked longingly out of the window.  It was uncommonly warm for the day after Thanksgiving.  The yard, the cranberry bog beyond, were drenched in bright afternoon sunlight.  On the other side of the bog, a boy and a girl, dressed only in shorts and T-shirts,were running around,  playing with a large brown dog.  Mike wished he could be out there, too, playing.  He wished he was doing anything other than sitting here with his damn books.  What was the deal with M.I.T. anyway?  Were they just a bunch of masochists, or did they really believe there was some benefit from forcing students to do impossible amounts of studying?  
	He looked out the window a moment longer.  Finally he let out another, deep, sigh.  Then he picked up the next book from the pile on the table, opened it, and started to read.



	Kristen pulled into the driveway, parking her Plymouth next to Mike’s Mercedes wagon.  She turned off the engine.  She leaned back, closing her eyes, enjoying the warm rays of the sun shining through the windshield and onto her face.  She sat that way for a few minutes, waiting for the stress of the last few days to melt away.  It had sure been a hectic week.  Spending fourteen hours in the lab each day, rushing to get Tim’s experiments done.  She managed to have Thanksgiving Day off, but Thanksgiving had been anything but restful.  She drove up to her parents in Eastern Connecticut, then over to Steve’s parents in Fall River.  She spent the night with Steve in Needham, then got up early so that she would make it back to the lab by the time the test tubes had to be removed from the incubator.  Steve was not happy when Kristen told him she’d have to work in the lab today.  He refused to even get up out of bed when she had to leave.  She wasn’t happy about it either, but at least he could have been a little supportive!  She took a deep breath and tried to put Steve, work, everything out of her mind.
	After another minute, she opened her eyes.  What a beautiful day! she thought, gazing at the garden, the short Cape pine trees, the cranberry bog bathed in golden sunlight.  More like late spring than late autumn.  Even the birds were singing.  Winter was just around the corner.  But today was a glorious reprieve.
	Kristen glanced at her watch.  It was nearly three o’clock, only two and a half hours till sundown.  After sitting in the lab all day, she better get her butt in gear or the last few hours of this beautiful day would slip away.  What should she do?  Go for a jog?  How about a bicycle ride, down to the beach?  She hadn’t gone for a bike ride in ages.  Now would be a perfect time.  So a bike ride it is!
	Kristen grabbed her overnight bag out of the car and bounded up the steps to the front door.  She could hear the pounding beat of rock music filtering through the door.  She stepped into the foyer to the sound of ACDC belting out “Back In Black.”  I thought Mike said he was studying all day, Kristen thought.  Can anyone study with all that noise?  She took a step into the hallway.  She could see Mike sitting at the dining room table.  With the loud music, he hadn’t heard her come in.  His back was to her, his head bent over, engrossed in a text book.  A half dozen other books and notebooks were piled on the table.  So, he really was studying.  
	As Kristen stood there looking at him, Mike lifted his head.  He paused for a moment.  Then, in one smooth, continuous  movement, he turned his head around, directly at Kristen.  As his eyes locked on hers, for the fleetingest of moments, there was a look of such sadness and dejection in Mike’s eyes that Kristen actually felt a stab of pain.  She blinked.  The look in Mike’s eyes had vanished.  Now, Mike had his usual, infectious, good-natured smile on his face, in his eyes.  With sudden insight, Kristen saw Mike in a whole different way.  Before, she had thought of Mike as a light-hearted, happy-go-lucky person.  He joked about having a tough time with his studies, but with that smile in his eyes, it was hard to take him seriously.  But now, she was overcome with a sudden feeling of compassion.  And stupidity.  Of course it was tough for him.  Coming back to school after ten years.  Having to relearn everything he had long forgotten, having to adjust back to the life of a student.  He was always willing to help her, help others, give them his encouragement and support.  He never asked anything in return.  She had been a selfish shit.
	Mike smiled at Kristen.  Yelling “Hold on!,” he jumped up from the dining room table, hurried over to the stereo, and turned the volume down.
	“Sorry,” he said, coming into the hallway.  “Didn’t hear you come in.  So, are you done with your experiments?  And happy belated Thanksgiving!”
	Kristen stared at Mike’s smiling face for a moment.  There was no trace of the sadness she had seen earlier.  She could sense that Mike’s smile was completely genuine.  But she wasn’t fooled anymore.  Inside, Mike was hurting.  He had always lifted her spirits with his infectious good humor.  Now it was her turn to lift his.
	"Yes, thank God!"  She said.  "The experiments are finally finished.  To celebrate, I was thinking of taking a bike ride down to the beach.  You wanna come?”
	Mike hesitated.  He glanced over to his books on the dining room table.  He opened his mouth, stopped, shook his head.
	“I’d like to,” he said.  “But I’ve still got a bunch of studying to do.  Thanks for the invite, though.”  He flashed her another smile.  “I’ll take a rain check.”
	If Mike thinks he’s going to get out of it that easily, he doesn’t know who he’s talking to, Kristen thought to herself.  Mike needs a break, and he’s going to darn well get one!  “You’re sure?” she asked.  “It’ll only be for an hour or so.”  
	Mike shook his head regretfully.
	“Okay.  Suit yourself,” Kristen said.  “I’m going to run upstairs and get changed.  You’ve got two minutes to change your mind.”
	Mike watched Kristen disappear up the stairs.  He sighed.  He’d like to take the bike ride with Kristen.  It was a beautiful day.  It would be fun to spend time with Kristen.  But he just couldn’t take the time out from his studying.  His Hydrodynamics final was on Monday, less than three days away.  He needed all the study time he could muster if he was going to have even a ghost of a chance on the final.  
	Mike went back to the dining room table.  He sat down.  He looked at the pile of books and notebooks on the table.  He sighed.  Reluctantly, he picked up the book he had been reading, flipped to the page he had been on, and started reading.
	A few minutes later, he heard Kristen come down the stairs.  “Last chance to change your mind!” she called merrily.  Mike turned around.  “Thanks.”  He was about to say.  “Sorry I’m a party pooper.  I’ll make it next time.”  He opened his mouth.  He stopped.  He blinked.
	Kristen had emerged from the stairway.  She stood in the living room, wearing a black skin tight body suit that showed off Kristen’s athletic body to perfection.  She smiled at Mike coquettishly as she pulled a loose white sweatshirt over the deep v-neck tank top of the body suit.  “Come on!” she urged.  “You could use the break.  And I don’t want to go alone.”
	Mike recovered, found his voice.  “Um.  Sure.  Okay,” he said.  “You’re right.  Some fresh air would do me good.”  He got up from the table.  He tried not to stare at Kristen.  “Let me just grab my sweats,” he said.  He took a step towards his bedroom.  He stumbled, almost fell, caught himself, continued on to his bedroom.
	Kristen watched him, a bemused, satisfied smile on her face.  “Guys are so predictable!” she thought.



	It was after five-thirty and starting to get dark when Mike and Kristen coasted down Cranberry Lane and back into their driveway.  
	It had been an enjoyable two hour bike ride.  They rode four miles down to Falmouth Harbor, then followed the coast a few miles up to Oyster Creek.  Along the way, they passed Deer Pond, one of Cape Cod’s deep, beautiful, crystal-clear glacial kettle ponds.  Kristen pointed across the pond.  
	“That’s Tim’s house,” she said.
	Mike looked over at where Kristen was pointing, but couldn’t see anything but trees and bushes.  Then he spotted the silhouette of a roof, barely visible through the trees.  
	“I guess he likes his privacy,” Mike observed.
	On the way back from Oyster Creek, they discovered a secluded ocean beach behind some houses near Falmouth harbor.  Even in the late afternoon, the wind blowing in from the water was surprisingly warm.  They walked up to where the waves were crashing onto the narrow stretch of sandy beach.  Kristen bent down, felt the water.  “Hey!  Its not that cold,” she said.  She looked up at Mike challengingly.  “I’ve never been swimming this late in the year.  How about we grab our swimsuits when we get back?  Are you up for it?"  Mike bent down and felt the water, too.  It felt pretty damn cold to him.  He hated cold water.  But there was no way he was going to let Kristin think he was a wimp.  “You bet!” he said.  “Let’s do it!”
	Now, finishing up their bike ride, Mike and Kristin stashed their bicycles in the basement and walked together up the basement stairs.
	"You still game?"  Mike asked.
	“You bet,” Kristin said.
	They stood for a minute.
	“Well, we should probably change into our swimsuits,” Mike said finally.
	“Yes” Kristen said.  “We should.”
	On their ride back to Cranberry Lane, the sun had started to go down.  The temperature had dropped quite a bit.  Now neither one seemed in a hurry to jump into their swimsuits.  What seemed like a good idea in the warm afternoon sun seemed less of a good idea now.
	“O. K. then,” Mike said at last, turning towards his bedroom.  “I’ll be ready in five minutes.”
	Kristen turned towards the living room.  “Better make it ten!” she called as she ran upstairs.
	Twenty minutes later, Mike parked the Mercedes next to one of the houses across from the path leading to the beach.  He looked across in the direction of the beach.  Night had fallen.  A full moon had risen.  A brisk wind was howling around the car.  He glanced over at Kristen in the passenger seat.  She was wearing a loose fitting white T-shirt over her pink bathing suit, a towel folded in her lap.  He looked at Kristen and grinned.
	"Last chance to bail out,” he said.
	"No way!” Kristen replied, opening the passenger door.  "Last one in is a rotten egg!"  She jumped out of the car, jogged across the street, and ran down the path to the beach.
	"Damn!” Mike thought.  He grabbed his towel off the back seat and chased after her.
	When Mike got to the beach he found Kristen standing just out of reach of the waves, still wearing her T-shirt.  He stood next to her, looking out at the water.  The waves seemed to have gotten larger since they were there earlier that afternoon.  Black walls of water crashed heavily onto the beach, exploding into fireworks of white, moonlit iridescence.  A strong breeze, cool but not cold, blew with the waves onto shore.  Mike shivered involuntarily.  They were going to freeze their butts off.
	Mike looked at Kristen.  "So what happened to 'last one in is a rotten egg?'"
	Kristen smiled at him sweetly.  "I thought I'd give you a second chance," she said.  "Besides, it’s safer if we go in together.  Are you ready?"
	Mike pulled off his T-shirt, stepped out of his Teva’s, and dropped them with his towel on the beach.  He immediately started shivering.  And he hadn't even gotten his feet wet yet.  He gritted himself.  "Ready as I'll ever be," he said.
	"Okay.  Let's go!” Kristen said enthusiastically.  She grabbed Mike's hand.  Hand in hand, they ran into the water, yelling to drown out the shock of the freezing water.  They ran until they were waist deep in the water, then stopped and ducked down, completely submerging.  They burst to the surface, yelling and laughing with exhilaration.  They ducked under an incoming wave, and again, under a second one.  They jumped up and down in the freezing water, laughing and screaming.  Finally, still laughing and yelling, they ran back onto shore.
	"Damn!"  Mike said, grabbing his towel and toweling furiously.  " The water is FREEZING!  I was starting to loose feeling in my arms and legs.”
	“Oh come on,” Kristen said.  “We were only in for a minute.”
	“Any longer and we would have been ice cubes!”
	They walked back to the car in companionable silence.  The adrenaline rush slowly subsided, but a sense of triumph and exhilaration remained.
	“Are you all right?  We heard screaming.”  
	A woman, about sixty, stood at the door of the house in front of which Mike had parked the car.  Mike and Kristen looked at each other sheepishly.  They walked up to where the woman was standing.
	“We’re all right,” Mike said.  “The water was just a little colder than expected.”
	"We're sorry if we startled you,” Kristen added.
	The woman looked at Mike and Kristen with their wet clothes, towels wrapped around their shoulders.  Then she smiled.  “That’s okay.  I was thinking of doing the same thing.  If I was twenty years younger, I’d have been out there with you.”  She paused only for a moment, then went on.  “You’re welcome to use our shower if you want to wash off and get into some dry clothes.”
	“That’s very kind of you!” Kristen said.  “But we didn’t bring any dry clothes.  We’ll be okay.  Our house is only a few minutes away.”
	“Well, next time, bring some.  Just knock on the door before you head out to the beach, and I’ll have some hot chocolate waiting when you get back.”
	“Thank you very much!” Kristen beamed.  She gave a little wave, then turned walked back to the car.
	Mike stuck out his hand.  “I’m Mike, and that’s Kristen,” he said.  “It was nice to meet you.”
	“Abigail Swanson,” the woman said, gripping Mike’s hand with a surprisingly strong grip.  “It’s always nice to meet a fine young couple.”
	Mike smiled.  He turned around and followed Kristen to the car.  Fine young couple?  It wasn’t true.  But he liked the sound of it anyway.  He was still smiling when he got into the drivers seat next to Kristen.  He started the engine, turned the heater on high, and headed home.




Chapter 44
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
December 2, 2007
7:52 P.M.




	Mike was still in good spirits Sunday night as he piloted the Mercedes through Boston on his way back to Cambridge.  The Friday afternoon bike ride, the Friday evening swim, and the Friday night spent lounging around with Kristen, were just what he needed.  He was still nervous about tomorrow’s Hydrodynamics final, but not as stressed out as was before.  He had studied long and hard.  He was as ready as he was going to be.
	Mike was somewhat surprised to realize he wasn’t feeling jealous of Steve.  After Mike and Kristen returned from their swim, they jumped into their respective showers, then met up again in the kitchen a few minutes later.  They cooked their dinners separately, as usual.  But this time, they ate together at the dining room table.  Afterwards, Kristen mixed up a pitcher of Mudslides, and they lounged in the living room, Mike on the couch, Kristen on the floor, getting pleasantly inebriated from the chocolate flavored drink.  They talked about their pasts, their dreams for the future.  Kristen told Mike about how she had met Steve four years ago, standing in line at the University of Rhode Island cafeteria.  It had been love at first sight.  They had been together ever since.  They had horrendous fights, but they were made for each other.  In another year or so, she said confidently, they would be getting married.
	Kristen also told Mike about her dream to start a school after she finished her PhD  The school would be built on a New Hampshire farm.  It would be a high school, and its focus would be science.  It would encourage independent scientific experimentation.  It would take students from all over the country, but give preference to gifted students from poor urban schools.  The teachers would not just be teachers, but scientists in their own right, with PhD’s from leading universities.  Each teacher would teach two courses: one their scientific specialty, the other something completely different. The teachers would be learning at the same time as the students, fostering new ideas, fresh approaches.  Mike, caught up in her enthusiasm, found himself promising to help set up the school, and, at least for a while, be one of the teachers.
	When they finally said their goodnights, long after midnight, he sensed a change, a solidification of their friendship.  Mike was impressed with Kristen’s honesty, loyalty, and passion.  He felt a bit guilty about having had romantic feelings for her, now that he knew she was genuinely, totally committed to Steve.  Mike, with some disappointment, understood that he and Kristen would never be romantically involved.  But they could become close, lifelong friends.  That wasn't the same.  But it wasn't bad, either.
	Mike, lost in his thoughts, was surprised to find he was already back in Cambridge.  He turned left onto Memorial Drive, just as a car was leaving a prime parking spot behind Ashdown House.  O.K!, he thought, as he pulled into the just vacated spot.  Rock star parking!  He hoped he would be as lucky during tomorrow’s final exam.



	Kristen was thoughtful as the Plymouth crested the Bourne Bridge and descended towards the Cape side of the Cape Cod Canal.  She had only been living on the Cape for a few weeks, but every time she crossed the bridge, she felt like she was coming home.  It was a nice feeling.  But that wasn’t what she was thinking about now.
	She was thinking about Mike.  More specifically, she was thinking about how she suddenly felt very different about him.  And, as a result, about Steve.  Before Friday, she had liked Mike, but she never really thought about him as a guy, in any kind of romantic or sexual sense.  But after Friday, that had changed.  It started when she caught that brief look of pain and despair in his eyes.  It grew when she saw his exuberance and exhilaration when they ran, laughing and screaming, into and out of the water, which, she had to admit, was much colder than she expected.  Then, as they were standing on the beach, toweling themselves off, she noticed, for the first time, that Mike was, physically, in quite decent shape.  And not just for someone his age.  He was in good shape.  Period.  In much better shape than Steve.  And, as she was thinking that, she had felt the first stirrings of physical attraction.
	Kristen at first attributed this to the excitement of the nighttime swim and the resulting adrenaline rush.  She was sure that by the next morning, her feelings would be back to normal, and she would look at Mike as a good friend, possibly a very good friend, but nothing more.  When she got up after sleeping in late the next morning, her wayward feelings towards Mike seemed to have gone.  She was maybe a tad more disappointed than normal when she discovered, coming downstairs, that Mike was gone, running some errand or other.  She packed an overnight back, and drove, as planned, to Steve's.  But last night, when she and Steve were making love, she found herself imagining what it would be like, lying in bed, with Mike, instead of Steve.
	Kristen felt uncharacteristically nervous as she turned into Cranberry Lane.  This is stupid, she thought to herself.  How could she all of a sudden get nervous at the thought of seeing Mike?  As she pulled into the driveway, Mike’s Mercedes was nowhere to be seen.  Mike said he would be heading back up to Cambridge tonight, so that he would be all set for his final exam tomorrow afternoon.  It looked like he was already gone.
	Kristen was both relieved and disappointed.  She parked the Plymouth in the driveway, turned off the ignition, and sighed.  Well, it was certainly going to be an interesting week.  Tomorrow she’d be working all day trying to get the lab data ready for Tim’s presentation to the National Science Foundation.  Mike said he would be coming back after his second final on Thursday.  And Steve was coming down from Needham on Friday night.  Life was suddenly becoming very complicated.



	A mile and a-half away, a figure stood in the shadows of a basement doorway.  He slowly swept his gaze around the room.  In the far left corner, the gleaming stainless steel embalming station was ready to go.  In the center, the rebuilt, refrigerated, glass-fronted display case was finished, waiting to be filled.  To the right, the long handle of the ax was resting against the wall.  The newly razor-honed edges of the ax head sparkled in the sparse light of the room.  He nodded with satisfaction.  His equipment was ready.  His plan was ready.  Tomorrow, at long last, his hunger would again be satisfied.  Kristen’s life would be his.




Chapter 45
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
December 3, 2007
3:52 P.M.




	Damn, damn, damn!  Mike thought.  He glanced at his watch.  Less than ten minutes left.  He glanced down at his exam booklet.  Quick.  He had to decide.  Did he have enough time?  No.  Ten minutes was not enough.  He should just leave it alone.  At least he would get partial credit.  If he tried to do the problem over, he didn’t have near enough time to finish.  He’d get even less credit.  Damn!  Why hadn’t he caught his mistake earlier?  Stupid, stupid, stupid!  It was too late now.  It took him half an hour to do the problem, wrong, the first time.  There just wasn’t enough time left to go back and do the problem right.  No way.  He should just leave it the way it was.  He would get partial credit.  It might be enough.  He should leave well enough alone.
	Damn it again!  Mike thought to himself as he crossed out his old answer, and started an impossible race against the clock.  His pen scribbled furiously, spewing out equations even before they were consciously formed in his mind.  He was on total autopilot, letting his mind connect directly with his hand.  Eight minutes later, when the exam proctors told everyone to stop writing and put down their pens, he saw he had written four pages of equations.  But he had no idea what he had done, whether his equations made any sense, whether he even arrived at an answer.  Damn it all!  He thought as he walked his exam booklet up to the proctors at the front of the room.  He should never have tried to redo the problem.  He should have left his answer alone.  He had screwed up yet again.  He should face it.  He just wasn’t cut out for M.I.T.
	Mike walked back to Ashdown House in a sour mood.  When he got to his dorm room, he dejectedly tossed his backpack on the floor next to his desk.  He stood there for a moment, brooding, staring unseeingly at the wall.  His eyes slowly focused on the printouts of the newspaper articles of the murdered women that were still lying on the shelf above his desk.  He meant to put them away somewhere, but hadn't gotten around to doing it yet.  He looked idly, then more intently at the pictures of the murdered women.  Something about the dark haired-one, the one who had been killed on Cape Cod, looked familiar.  He remembered having the same feeling when he first saw the picture of Maria Elena Rodriguez in the Cambridge High School yearbook.  He stared at the picture, trying to figure out what was bothering him.  Then it struck him.  M.E.R. and the woman from Cape Cod both reminded him of Kristen.  They had the same long dark hair, classically sculptured face, and blazing eyes.  Hmm.  He thought.  That was odd.
	Mike sat down at his desk.  He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.  He thought about his next final, Circuits, on Thursday.  He should probably start studying for it now.  He sighed.  What was the point?  He was just going to fail that final, too.  He just wanted to go home.
	Mike got up and walked over to the window.  The evening rush hour had started.  Cars were bumper to bumper, heading south over Harvard Bridge. He couldn't leave now.  He would just get more frustrated being stuck in traffic.
	He could go work out, Mike thought.  That usually helped when he screwed up a test.  But this time he didn't even feel like doing that.  He sighed.  He glanced back to the newspaper articles on the shelf above his desk.  He could go back to the basement room where he found the bottle of chloroform.  He never did go back and thoroughly check it out.  He could get his flashlight from the car and do it now.  What the hell.  He had already failed his final.  Maybe he would find something that would prevent his day from being a complete failure.
	Fifteen minutes later, having retrieved his flashlight from the Mercedes, Mike signed out the exercise room key at the reception desk.  He also asked for a spare light bulb.  Key, flashlight, and light bulb in hand, he descended the stairs to the basement.
	Mike unlocked the basement room door.  He turned on the flashlight and stepped inside.  He shone the flashlight up at the ceiling.  Part of the frosted light bulb had blackened.  It was clearly burned out.  He pointed the flashlight down at the floor, swung the light beam around.  He found a wooden box and placed it under the light fixture.  He stepped on top, unscrewed the old light bulb, screwed in the new one.  He basement room was immediately flooded in light.
	Mike stepped off the box and looked around.  He frowned.  The dust on the floor showed more footprints than he thought he would have left from his previous two visits.  When he visited the room before, he more or less followed a straight line from the front of the room to the back.  So his footprints should follow the same straight path. Some of the footprints did.  But were additional footprints, too, all over the room.
	Mike put his foot down into the dust next to one of the outlying footprints.  He lifted his foot, and compared the two footprints.  His footprint was slightly, but distinctly, larger than the other one.  Someone else besides Mike had visited this room.
	Mike inspected the front part of the room.  Nothing was out of place, as far as he could remember.  The same cardboard boxes were on the floor and on the wall shelves.  As far as he could tell, they contained the same old paints and cleaning materials that he found on his first visit.
	Mike walked towards the back of the room.  He frowned at the old broken desk, remembering how it had collapsed, and how he had searched in the dark on his hands and knees for the small bottle of chloroform that knocked him out on his first visit.  He looked around for the two other bottles, the two plastic ones, he found along with the bottle of chloroform.  They weren't there anymore.  Mike spent ten minutes searching the room.  The plastic containers were definitely gone.  They were here three weeks ago when he came back to retrieve the chloroform bottle.  He was sure he touched at least one of them while he was crawling around in the dark.  They should be here.  They weren't.  
	He thought back, trying to visualize the bottles in his mind.  What had the labels said?  One said Formaldehyde.  What was on the other one?  Some name he didn’t recognize.  He closed his eyes, trying to remember.  Formazine, or something like that.  The name of an M.I.T. laboratory.  Was it microbiology?  And a date.  1979, or 1980.  Right about the time of M.E.R.’s disappearance.
	He opened his eyes.  He was standing in front of the broken desk.  He looked down at the pile of rubble.  Something was wrong with it, too.  He frowned again.  What was it?  Then it struck him.  The plastic bag.  The one he was about to grab when the light bulb died during his first visit.  It, too, was missing.
	Mike stood there considering.  Nothing else in the room seemed out of place.  Some time in the last three weeks, someone had come into the room, looked around, and deliberately taken three items:  two empty, twenty-year old chemical bottles, and a plastic bag.  Mike could have sworn that the first time he came to the room, thinking it was the gym, it hadn’t been touched in years.  Now, suddenly, it was Grand Central Station.  Mike could think of only one reason.  The two missing bottles must connected with the missing ax head Mike had found in the river.  Whoever had taken the ax head from the J-6 lab in Woods Hole must also taken the bottles from the basement room.
	Could it have been Derek?  The bottles and the plastic bag were taken some time between now and three weeks ago, the last time Mike had been in the room.  But at that time Derek was already out to sea on his research cruise. He still wouldn't be back for a few more weeks.  So it couldn’t have been Derek.  He had been wrong in suspecting Derek all along.  But if it wasn’t Derek, then who else?  Mike didn't have a clue.  And now, whatever evidence had been in the basement room was gone.
	Well, that’s two failures today, Mike thought gloomily as he headed back to his dorm room.  First he had failed his Hydrodynamics final.  Now he had failed in his stupid detective work.  Bad news comes in threes, he thought.  He wondered what the third would be.




Chapter 46
EAST FALMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS
November 28, 2007
8:12 P.M.




	It was just after eight o'clock when Mike got home to Cranberry Lane.  The porch light was on, the Plymouth was in the driveway.  His spirits rose.  Kristen was home.  He parked the Mercedes and got stiffly out of the car.  He stood for a moment and stretched.  It had been a long day.  He had screwed up on his Hydrodynamics final.  He had screwed up on his stupid murder investigation.  He was glad to be home.
	Mike unlocked the front door and stepped into the hallway.  He was surprised to find that the house was dark.  He turned on the hallway light.  Kristen must have been working in the dining room.  There were piles of papers and scientific journal articles on the dining room table.  But where was Kristen?  The door to her stairway was closed.  Maybe she was taking a nap.
	Mike made a cup of tea.  He sat down at the dining room table and opened the mail he had taken from the mailbox on his way in.  Bills and more bills.  What else was new?  He frowned at a Visa bill.  He was sure he had already paid it.  He went downstairs to check the stack of paid bills he kept on the desk in the basement.  He found the Visa bill, marked “paid.”  Good.  He wouldn't have to pay it again.  He marked the envelope "Nothing Due" and tossed it on the stack on the desk.  He went back upstairs.
	He sat back down at the dining room table and sipped his tea.  He stared idly at the stacks of documents on the table.  Kristen had told him that Tim's presentation tomorrow was a pretty big thing for Tim.  Tim's whole funding for the next two years depended on it.  Kristen said Tim had been tense about it for weeks.  Luckily Kristen had her own independent funding.  So even if Tim lost his, she could still do her own research.  Without funding, Tim might lose his position.  Kristen would have to find another advisor.  No loss there, Mike thought.
	Something nagged at the back of Mike's mind.  Something about the basement.  He went back downstairs and looked around.  There was an empty spot next to the stairs where Kristen usually kept her bicycle.  He frowned.  Kristen didn't have a headlight on her bike.  Where would she be at this hour?
	Mike sat back down at the dining room table.  He started to get uneasy.  He looked at the papers and materials strewn out on the table.  They included a manila folder containing what looked like notes and PowerPoint slides from an earlier presentation Mike had made.  Maybe it was from the last time Tim had gotten his funding renewed.  
	The stuff on the table also included several scientific papers and articles authored by Tim.  Mike picked up one of the papers.  It was titled: “The Effect of Pelagic Nutrient Concentrations on Benthic Pelagic Interactions.”  Kristen had told him briefly about the project she was working on.  It involved studying the interaction between “pelagic” organisms, those that lived near the surface of the oceans, and “benthic” organisms, those that lived at the bottom, the “benthos.”  According to Kristen, the conventional wisdom was that the benthic and pelagic regions were usually too far apart (typically thousands of feet) for one to have any significant effect on the other.  Tim, however, was convinced that, though widely separated, the two were linked tightly together as a result of nutrients and waste materials migrating up and down a water column.  The tests that Kristen had been running were designed to determine growth rates of pelagic organisms when exposed to very low concentrations of the type of nutrients produced by benthic organisms. 
	Mike flipped idly through the paper.  He glanced at the biographical paragraph of Tim on the last page.  "Tim Cannery received his PhD in Marine Microbiology from M.I.T./Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1985."  1985.  So Tim had gotten his PhD same year as Derek.  That was also the year the Brown co-ed was murdered.  Mike looked at the photograph of Tim printed next to his biographical information.  Mike recognized him as the rude jerk who brought the National Science Foundation visitors to the J-6 lab the day the ax head disappeared.  He was also the person who nearly ran into him as he was getting out of the elevator when he went to Kristen’s office to show her the chloroform bottle.  	
	Mike sat for a moment thinking.  The labels on the missing bottles from the basement room came from the MIT Microbiology Department.  Tim was a microbiologist.   If Tim received his PhD in 1985, he likely would have started at M.I.T. in the fall of 1979.  His first finals would have been in December 1979.  That was when M.E.R. disappeared.  His next round of finals would have been at the end of the next semester, in May 1980.  That was when the jogger was beheaded.  And his doctoral defense would have been in the summer of 1985, when the Brown co-ed was murdered!  Damn!  It wasn't Derek at all, it was Tim!  In times of stress, he committed murder.  With a start, Mike realized something else.  Tim was under stress now.  Kristen had said so.  And at least two of the murdered women looked like Kristen!  
	A chill swept over Mike.  With sudden certainty, he knew where Kristen was.  He bolted out the front door, jumped in the Mercedes, and roared out of the driveway.



	A sharp pain to the back of her head brought Kristen back to consciousness.  What the hell was going on?  The last thing she remembered was sitting in Tim's kitchen having a cup of coffee and going over her lab test results for tomorrow's presentation.  She was trying to cut down on coffee, but Tim had insisted. 
	She opened her eyes and stared at a moonlit night sky.  She tried to sit up, but to her surprise found that her arms were pulled back over her head, and wouldn't move.  She tried to lift her legs.  Something heavy kept them down, too.  She couldn't open her mouth either.  She could lift her head a bit.  She looked around.
	She was in a boat.  A wooden row boat.  She was lying on a wooden bench seat.  Her arms were stretched back over one side of the boat, tied to something that didn't move.  Her head was lying awkwardly against the gunwale on the other side.  She must have hit her head on the edge, that was what woke her.  Her legs were stretched out along the bench seat, her feet dangling over the far side.  She could feel something heavy tied to her feet.
	There was a thump, the boat shook.  A shadow loomed up in front of her against the gray sky.  The boat seemed to be moving.
	The shadow bent down over her.  "So you're awake,” Tim's voice said.  "You should still be out.  Well, it won't really matter."
	Furiously, Kristen strained at the ropes.  She wanted to yell at Tim.  What the hell did he think he was doing?  This time he had really gone too far.
	"Interesting thing about these ponds, Kristen, is how steeply the bottom drops off,” Tim's voice spoke again.  It sounded strange, thought Kristen, distant.  "Just ten feet from shore, the bottom drops to fifty feet, with three feet of mud.  Anything that gets stuck in the bottom stays there forever.  Becomes a part of the benthos, so to speak.  Somehow appropriate, don't you think?"
	Kristen thought about the weight attached to her feet.  A chill went through her.
	"Far enough,” Tim said.  Kristen could see the shadow of the boat dock about fifteen feet away.  Tim picked something up in the stern of the boat and came towards her.  "When I was five years old, I spent a summer on my uncle's farm in Ohio," Tim said.  "The day I was about to leave, he took me out to the hen house.  'So tomorrow you start first grade.'  My uncle said.  'I was a little afraid of the first day of school, are you?'  I nodded my head.  'What you need is a little confidence builder.' he said.  He went over to a chicken pen, grabbed a chicken, and walked over to an old tree stump.  'Go get my old ax from the shed', he told me.  When I came back, he was holding the chicken, feet in one hand, head in the other, neck stretched over the stump.  'Nothing builds confidence like having the power over life and death.' he said.  I raised the ax, and with all my strength brought it crashing down on the chicken's neck.  The head popped off like a cork.  Warm blood spurted out, ran over my face and chest.  The chicken's life was mine.  I was high for a week."
	Tim was now standing over Kristen.  "Unfortunately, chickens don't do it for me anymore," he said.  "I need something bigger."  His hands held a long-handled ax with an ugly, curved, ten inch blade.  He looked down at her for a moment.  "Its too bad it has to be you,” he said, regretfully.  "You could have made a great microbiologist."
	With a feeling of ice in the pit of her stomach, Kristen watched Tim raise the ax high over his head.  It paused there for a moment, then moved forward.  As it came swinging down, a picture of a green New Hampshire farm flashed in Kristen's mind.  With regret, she realized she would never get to start her school now.  She closed her eyes.



	Mike skidded to a wild stop in front of Tim's house.  He was out of the car even before it stopped moving.  Kristen's bicycle was leaning against Tim's porch.  "Kristen!" he yelled as he tore open the front door and raced into the hallway.  "Watch out, Tim's insane!"  Lights were on, but no-one was around.  He raced upstairs.  The bedrooms were empty.  Looking out through a front window, he saw a shadow moving in a boat down by the pond.
	Mike tore down the path to the pond.  The boat was just off the dock, the dock was fifty yards away.  Mike sprinted on.  From thirty yards away, he could make out a body lying in the front of the boat.  In the back of the boat, the shadowy figure was raising something over its head.  With a shock Mike recognized the ugly looking ax.  He ran like he had never run before.
	Twenty yards away.  Fifteen.  He would never make it.  He was still ten yards away when the ax started swinging down.  Calling on every ounce of energy and defiance from every unreachable tennis shot he had chased down over the years, impossibly, he accelerated even faster.  The ax was halfway down and swinging inevitably towards Kristen's exposed neck when he reached the dock.  He was too late.  With a last desperate effort he launched himself into the air.



	With the ax blade just inches away, a bellow of rage and fury made Kristen rip open her eyes.  What looked like a long black shadow burst out of the air and smashed into Tim with such force that Tim, ax, and shadow crashed into the water nearly ten feet away.  The boat itself rocked violently, almost tipping over, nearly tossing Kristen over the side.  Another cry of rage, sounds of a struggle, a loud thud, then silence.



	"Kristen! Kristen! Are you okay?"  Mike yelled as he dragged Tim's unconscious body to the shore.  There was no answer.  He jumped back in the water and swam back out to the boat.  Anxiously, he pulled himself up over the gunwale and looked down, straight into Kristen's blazing, deep hazel eyes.  Relieved, he reached over, and gently pulled off the tape covering Kristen's mouth.  
	"Ouch!" she said indignantly.  
	"I'm happy to see you, too," Mike said.




Epilogue
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
November 30, 2007
7:52 P.M.




	Mike put down his Circuits text book.  He leaned back in his chair, and sighed.  He was less than half-way through his studying, and already he was having trouble concentrating.  His final was now only eighteen hours away.  He had at least another twelve hours of studying left.  He was tired.  He would never make it.
	Mike turned his head and looked out of the window.  The warm weather of last week had been replaced by an early snowstorm.  Thick, white snowflakes, blown by the wind, floated outside the window.  Down below, a soft white carpet of snow, already six inches thick, covered the usually stark Massachusetts Ave.  A taxi cruised slowly by, unusually quiet, the sound of its engine muffled by the snow.
	Mike looked back down at his text book.  He tried to concentrate.  He failed.  His mind wandered.
	It had been a hectic couple of days.  He spent most of yesterday talking to the police down in Falmouth.  It was a zoo.  Falmouth Police.  State Police.  Even an officer O'Brien from the Cambridge Police Department.  He told them his story, what he knew, what he thought.  They looked at him skeptically.  We’ll look into it, they said.  We’ll be in touch.  What’s the problem?  Mike thought.  They had Tim, they had the ax, they had found Tim’s basement room.  So why all the skepticism?
	Luckily, the police hadn’t bothered Kristen too much.  They took a brief statement, but said they would wait a few days before asking more.  To let her get over the ordeal.
	Kristen, spunky gal that she was, had taken her attempted murder by her advisor surprisingly well.  But yesterday she was more subdued than usual, and her eyes, when she looked at Mike, had seemed bigger, softer than before.  Mike was surprised that Steve hadn’t come down to Cape Cod to visit Kristen when he found out about Tim’s attempt on her life.  Nor had Kristen driven up to Needham to see Steve.  He wondered why.  Maybe Kristen just wanted some time to think things through alone.
	Mike glanced at his watch.  8:06 P.M.  Al, the Hydrodynamics teaching assistant, had said that the Hydrodynamics final grades would be posted by eight P.M.  They should be ready now.
	Should he go look?  He glanced out the window again.  The grades would be posted outside Al’s office, on the third floor of “Building 2,” just across the street from Mike’s dorm window.  It would only take five minutes to find out.
	No, Mike thought.  What’s the point?  He was having enough trouble studying for the Circuits final as it was.  Going over and finding out his Hydrodynamics grade would just make him more depressed.  Better to not know how badly he had done.
	Oh damn it! Mike thought.  He was being a wimp.  He might as well go face the music.
	Mike left Ashdown House by the side door, exiting onto Massachusetts Avenue.  He stood for a moment, watching the thick, soft snowflakes fall around him.  The street was strangely quiet, empty.  It seemed, somehow, unreal.
	Building “2” was right across the street.  Mike crossed over, and walked up the steps to the big double entry doors.  The snow on the stairs was fresh, undisturbed.  No one had been this way since it started snowing.
	Mike went inside.  He turned and walked slowly up the big winding stairway.  When he reached the third floor, his heart was pounding, but not from the climb.
	He walked down the hallway towards Al’s office.  He could see a light blue sheet of paper taped onto the door.  That would be the list of grades.
	Mike closed his eyes for a second, preparing himself for the bad news.  Then he walked up to the door.  He scanned the page.  Mostly A’s and B’s.  A couple of C’s.  That would probably be him.  And in grad school, C’s were pretty much failure.
	The grades were listed by the last four digits of the students’ social security numbers.  Mike’s last four digits were nine-eight-six-five.  He searched the list of numbers.  9856.  There he was.
	Mike shifted his gaze from the column of numbers to the corresponding column of grades.  Before he could focus on the grade that lined up with his number, water from a melting snowflake ran down his face into his left eye.  He blinked.  His eyes came slowly back into focus.  He stared at the list.  He blinked again.  He shifted his gaze from the column of grades to the column of numbers, and back again.  He double and triple checked the alignment between his number and the column of grades.  But no matter how often he checked, the result didn’t change.
	Shit.  Mike thought, unbelieving.  A-minus.  Holy fucking shit.
	Mike turned away from the door, and skipped down the stairs, two steps at a time.  His steps were light, jubilant.  His lethargy had vanished.  Maybe, just maybe, he thought, he would survive M.I.T. after all.
	He ran through the snow back across Massachusetts Avenue to the Ashdown House side entrance.  Still full of energy, he bounded up the stairs.    He ran down the hallway back towards his room.  He turned the corner at the end of the hallway, and nearly collided with a figure standing in front of his dorm room door.
	“What are you doing here?” he asked in surprise.
	Kristen didn't say anything.  She slung her arms around his neck and gave him a long, hard, warm kiss.
	“What was that for?” Mike asked, a bit out of breath.
	“That one,” Kristen said, “was for saving my life.” 
	She kissed him again, not quite as hard, and a little longer.
	“And that one?” Mike asked after he caught his breath again.
	“No reason.”  Kristen said, smiling.  “No reason at all.”	

THE END

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading my first book, MIT Can Be Murder.  I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.  If you have any thoughts or comments, I would be happy to hear from you.  My e-mail address is frank@weyer.net.