Victor had wanted to get into Leonard's office for a long time. He'd never been invited in there. He'd see his father unlock the door with a key he always kept on his person, go in, and quickly close the door behind him. Same coming out: door shut and quickly locked. When Victor asked his father what went on in the room, all he'd get was a vague smile and a murmured "one day you'll see." Sometimes he'd listen outside the door, but there were no giveaway sounds. Occasionally odd smells: acrid, pungent, gassy, like something was burning. He assumed his father had some kind of secret lab in there and fantasized about getting his hands on the key and having it copied.
One day, by a complete fluke, he did get into the office. Janet was over, the two of them working on math problems, and Victor's parents were out for the day. His mother had given him a list of things to do: empty the dishwasher, take out the trash, feed the dog, and turn the oven on to 350 degrees at five-thirty. "We'll be home at six," his mother told him. "We're going to have lasagna for dinner. It's already made and just needs to be heated."
It was a Saturday afternoon. Roy was away at school and Diana at a friend's for a sleepover. Victor and Janet had the house to themselves. Out of habit Victor tried the door to Leonard's office as he passed it on a trip to the bathroom. Miraculously, it opened. "Jesus fucking Christ!" he shouted, as if an angel had just appeared with the secret of life. "Janet, come here!"
The two of them entered the room cautiously. At first it looked perfectly ordinary. A floor-to-ceiling wall of books. Desk, chair, filing cabinets, a xerox machine. An improvised lab area with a Bunsen burner and shelves holding jars of chemicals. A sink. Stainless steel counters, rows and rows of drawers. The room measured about 10' x 12". On closer inspection, it wasn't so ordinary. A display case filled with old medical tools and vessels containing specimens – a human fetus, an eye, various murky organs that resembled sea creatures floating in formaldehyde. A full length skeleton. A bulletin board thumbtacked with photos of people, men in business suits Victor didn't recognize, some of them circled in red, as if they were targets of a search.
Victor studied the photos, perplexed. Who were these people and why were they important? Meanwhile, Janet scoured drawers and closets, thumbing through papers, folders, notebooks, journals. "Some of these are probably important," she told Victor. "We should probably xerox them." Then, hidden beneath stacks of files, she found a dusty old leather-bound book that was very big and thick and resembled a bible.