F

urther down the hall, Sam hesitated outside Alice's office.

The bullet hole in the wall had been marked with forensic chalk and a number taped nearby. The rest of the door frame bore the scars of the explosion in the lab, and the blue tiled carpet by the desk was stained a deep, dark crimson. Another number was taped nearby. The chair Lyn had rammed into the mystery attacker had been put in the corner, but dust, fragments of plaster and shards of glass still covered this room. No-one had cleaned in here yet. The only evidence someone had been here was the scuffed footprints of at least two people who had carried Alice out on a stretcher.

His phone was still plugged into the wall by the door, but the screen was smashed. He tried turning it on but it was completely dead. Sam pulled off the back and carefully removed the sim card, then dropped the pieces of the phone in the bin. The noise caught the attention of somebody.

"Hey, who's there?"

Sam stepped back into the hallway. At the far end of the lab was the door to the fire escape. Gordon was walking toward him. Behind him was another technician Sam didn't recognise.

"Only me. Sam? From this morning?"

"Oh yeah," said Gordon, as he came close enough to shake hands. "I heard you were the hero of the hour this morning. Thank you."

Sam looked over his shoulder at the stained carpet.

"Not much of a hero."

"You caught the guy didn't you? You stopped him getting away with it."

"Getting away with what?"

"Bio-terrorism most likely. We do get a few crazies making threats from time to time, the right-wing extremist types, you know? Because of the fertility work and the 'playing god' that we do."

"Yeah, I know the type. I've seen stories on the news," said Sam, but the thought niggled at him.

"Is Lyn with you?" said Gordon.

Sam pointed back down the hall. "I think she's in her office." He nodded in the direction of the fire escape. "Is that where the guy got in?"

"We think so. He probably would have just got out the same way if you hadn't disturbed him."

"Do you have any camera's back there?"

"One, on the ground floor. I think the police are getting the footage, but it won't make much difference will it. Haven't they charged him by now?"

"I don't know. Probably. How long is it going to take you to get all this straightened out?" Sam said, taking in the ruined lab with a sweep of his hand.

"Two, three weeks to get everything back the way it was, but we can get back to work in a couple of days on some things. We have some spare equipment in storage we can get in here over the weekend, and Lyn can use her university connections to borrow anything else we need until our new gear gets here. We might have to do some work off-site for a few days. UCL isn't far and we have a good relationship with them. I'm sure Lyn can call in some favours." he scratched his head. "The only real delay is going to be getting some of our backup samples here in time."

"How come?"

"We use a specialist courier service because they are biological samples, and they don't work on weekends. The earliest we can get something here is Tuesday afternoon."

"Is that a problem?"

"It just delays things. We have contingency plans in place for equipment failures so we can be up and running within 24 hours, but we didn't plan on losing everything in the fridge. It just means our gear will be sitting idle for a couple of days, and that is time we are going to need to make up as soon as we can."

The door to Lyn's office slammed and she emerged stuffing a tissue into her pocket.

"Hi Gordon, are you ok?" she asked gently.

"I'm fine, we both are." Gordon waved to indicate the young woman at the back of the lab. "How about you? Are you ok?"

"I'm ok. Have you any more news on Alice?"

"Nothing new. The last I heard was that her condition has been downgraded from serious. She'll be ok. I think they are keeping her on some pretty strong painkillers at the moment."

"Ok. That's good," said Lyn, as she tried to look anywhere else but past Sam into Alice's office. "How are things coming together here?"

Gordon repeated some of what he had told Sam, but this time he spoke professional to professional, and Sam realised how much Gordon had dumbed things down for him to understand. But the gist was the same. They would have new equipment but no material to work on. Sam expected this news to frustrate Lyn, but it seemed to give her focus.

"Ok, I'll go and pick it up myself."

"What, tonight?" said Gordon.

"I can be back late tonight, and bring a portable fridge with me. it will save us waiting till Tuesday."

"Where do you have to go?" said Sam.

"Cambridge. Well, not far from Cambridge," said Gordon.

"I can be back in a few hours," Lyn said to Sam.

"What are you going to do? We can find you a hotel if you don't feel like travelling home yet. It's getting late."

"I'll be ok. Hey, can I use a phone before I leave. I have to make some calls and tell people what happened. Mine was busted earlier."

Lyn started to point at Alice's office then checked herself and instead indicated one of the treatment rooms.

"There's a phone in there. Dial nine to get a line. Oh, wait, are the phones even working?"

Gordon assured her that they were, mostly, and Sam disappeared.

Lyn pulled out a notebook.

"Ok," she said to Gordon as the intern began sweeping once again. "What do we need from Cambridge?"

Lyn fished her keys from her bag and unlocked her white Fiat 500 as she approached. The car was her one treat for working hard. It wasn't a top of the line model, but she had fallen in love with it's cheery little face when it had been relaunched a few years earlier, and she had bought one as soon as she could justify spending the money.

She hadn't yet prepared herself for the drive to Cambridge but it felt good to have a purpose. Thanks to Gordon (bless him) the clean up at the lab was under control. With everything closing for the weekend there was nothing else she could do, but driving to fetch the backup samples would be a good use of her time. She could be back late tonight and visit Alice in the morning to see how she was recovering.

She plugged a memory stick into the usb port of the dash and readied her audiobook for the journey but didn't press play yet. She wanted to be able to enjoy it, and navigating north London to reach the M11 on a Friday evening was going to demand all of her concentration. Hopefully the motorway would be clear, or at least as clear as can be expected at the start of a bank holiday weekend.

She put the car into gear, touched the handbrake and yelped as someone rapped a knuckle against her window.

She peered out. It was Sam.

"You made me jump!"

"Sorry, I thought I was going to miss you."

"You need me for something else?"

"Well, it's just that my plans have been cancelled for the weekend. And I was thinking, wondering, if you would like some company on the drive there and back."

"You want to come?" She noticed he seemed as nervous as she was surprised.

"I thought that maybe I could drive so you have a chance to relax?"

After her conversation with Alice that morning it was clear that anything could happen. It didn't matter how well you followed the rules if someone could change the game at a moment's notice. Lyn made her second snap decision of the day.

"Sure. Company would be good, but I'll drive. Deal?"

Sam grinned in the dusk, and Lyn smiled inwardly at the relief she could hear in his voice. "Deal," she said.