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pulled out the last drop.
    He had guessed he was only a few blocks from Dr. Mendelson’s lab, and so he trudged forward on foot, picking up his pace, feeling a little better with each step. He was pushed by a mental tail wind, a need to find this man and with him, his wife’s cure.
    As if guided by some internal GPS, he reached his destination in a matter of minutes; the bizarre auroras flooded the streets with green-red light, making it easy to see.
    Mendelson’s lab was in worse shape than his own. In fact, block after block of this area had been consumed by massive fires. More pieces of the puzzle fitted together to provide a more complete picture of what had happened.
    After jimmying the door and getting inside, he easily found Mendelson’s office, but it was mostly destroyed, and there was nothing salvageable that would lead him to the cure or the man on whom Betsy’s life depended. He had one last lead: Mendelson’s home. From the mental picture he had of the map, it was about four miles away. He needed to find some more supplies and procure another bicycle, and maybe some sort of weapon.
    Stepping outside, he scrutinized the area to get a sense of what was around him to fill his mental shopping list. His head tilted up and once again he was distressed.

Chapter 17
    Aug 10 (04:14)
     
    “That was a waste of my time,” the man grumbled to himself as he sat back in Dr. Ron’s creaky university office chair and considered his next move. The office was meager, filled with a chaotic arrangement of stacked books, typed student reports, and University correspondence. The bookshelves were bursting with volumes about physics, mathematics, quantum mechanics, relativity, thermodynamics, and words the man had never heard of. Randomly poking out from the tangle of books and piles were faculty and science achievement awards, and various knickknacks and trip pictures. Submerged beneath this sea of paper and junk was his target’s desk and computer, networked with the university system. None of this yielded anything but a dull headache.
    He longed for one of his cigarettes; they helped him think. But he wasn’t about to break down and smoke one of his last two just yet, not when it could be a long time before he would be able to find another pack. He hated this piss-ant section of America that didn’t sell the things he held so dear, like his Dunhills. Far worse was the ignorance of its people, with their poor taste in clothes and food, their bad accents, and their always wanting to shake his hand. He couldn’t stand to touch any of them, even with his gloves on. He tugged on the end of his right Fratelli Orsini, mindful of not stretching the leather too much, and then curled his fists into balls, squeezing tight for a moment, and then exploding his fingers outward as if that could expel the sickness he imagined swarming around his gloved hands.
    His phone’s buzzing broke his concentration and the silence, agitating him further. The phone’s display said the number was “blocked,” but there was only one person who would be calling him now.
    “Is it done?” His handler’s voice was both insistent and whiny.
    “No! The package is missing. The police are after him and he is most likely on the run.” His words seethed out like the steam from a boiling tea kettle. He should have demanded triple his fee for their putting him through this.
    “It is imperative you finish and get the data before the authorities or someone else gets him. We will pay you four times your normal fee, but this must be done by tomorrow at the latest.”
    “Da,” he acknowledged before ending the call and slipping his phone back into his sport coat’s inside pocket. He would go back to the doctor’s lab and poke around there, police or no police. It was time to push this along. The trail was getting colder.
    The man sprang up from his seat and walked to the door. His chair scooted backward across the timeworn linoleum floor, coming to rest