The cinderblock wall stored a winter's worth of cold, and it seeped through R.J. Blass's coat. He hardly noticed the chill as he slouched against it, smoking his cigarette, and watching the ships come back with their loads of king salmon, black cod, halibut, and opilio.
Bill from Operations came out and let the heavy metal door slam shut behind him. The exertion of rushing from his desk to the parking lot showed in the chilled vapor he puffed into the afternoon air.
In the last seconds of his solitude, R.J. sucked up the remaining acrid dregs from the butt and stomped it out. He closed his eyes and let the hit of nicotine massage his overexcited nerve endings.
"Szymanski's looking for you." Bill took up position next to him, unintentionally mimicking his stance. In his long black coat, he made a shorter and wider shadow.
R.J.'s only reply was to take out a fresh cigarette and light it.
"Shit." Bill crumpled his empty pack in an exaggerated display and stuffed it back into his pocket. "Can I bum one?"
He held out the pack and let Bill rout a cigarette out.
At the mention of Jim Szymanski, R.J. felt his excitement shift to agitation, and the tide of his thoughts turned to stormier seas. The taste in his mouth became focused on the sulfur, bitter iron, and burned vegetal flavors of his cigarette.
Mila had hated his smoking. Four dates in, he had given it up, cold turkey and without a second thought. He didn't touch another cigarette until the night she walked out the door, fifteen years later.
At twenty-two, his body had bucked the habit without a twinge, and he never thought about it all that time they were together. But the moment she was gone from his life, the first thing he did was to go out and buy a pack.
It was as though there was a sharp line drawn around his life with Mila and everything inside was this warm, bright unimaginable dream. A dream from which he awoke to find everything dull and lifeless. To find himself standing in a fish yard in Alaska, smoking a cigarette, and dreading going back inside to face his boss.
He had no fear of Szymanski, just a deep loathing. He was more invertebrate than man. He had been promoted up to middle management simply due to his total incompetence at everything besides kissing ass. And he made R.J.'s life hell.
He had been after R.J. all week for the revised figures for the NMFS quarterly quota report. Filling out the National Marine Fishery Services report had never been a problem, but he hadn't been able to concentrate on anything since Wiley's visit. The numbers always blurred, until he closed his eyes and saw the video again.
It was only a minute and a half long. The second time Wiley played it, R.J. held his breath from start to finish. It was filmed in a brightly lit, gray concrete room. The camera moved behind cream-colored metal bars. It panned around trying to capture the creature that bounced off the walls of the cell. The animal never stopped moving.
For most of the video, all that could be seen of it was flashes of its muscular, fur-covered body. But there was never any doubt that it was special. The movements were off. The dimensions weren't quite right. Even at a glance, R.J knew it was something he had never seen before.
By the third time through, R.J. finally asked, "What exactly is it?"
"We call it LARS." Not waiting to be asked, Maxwell elaborated: "It stands for Lycanthropic Anomalous Research Subject."
"A lycanthrope? This creature's physiology is tied to the phases of the moon?" He leaned in as though getting closer to the screen could give him a better viewing angle.
"Absolutely. Look at the time stamp." He pointed to the digital numbers in the upper right corner. "April 8th. The last full moon. Two hours after this was filmed, it became human again."
R.J. became acutely aware they were both avoiding using the term werewolf.
"How is it possible?"
"No idea. That is why we want to hire you, Mister Blass: to find out."
The point where it became clear that the video couldn't be a fake was when the animal began thrashing at the bars right in front of the camera. The fine details were too incredible to be the product of special effects. Each hair stood out on its black muzzle. Spittle flew from its jaws. Every tiny bump of the tongue's papillae could be seen. Light reflected off of the large, razor-sharp teeth, and they scratched lines of shining steel in the paint, where they came into contact with the bars.
The video came to an abrupt end after the creature furiously launched itself towards the camera. It froze on a close-up of the snarling beast. Every capillary could be made out in the pale blue eye that glared murderously into the lens. A shadowy reflection of a man with a handheld camera could be seen in the glistening moisture covering the iris.
R.J. didn't hit replay again. He sat back feeling tightness spread across his chest. An ancient sorrow threatened to squeeze the strength out of him like a boa constrictor.
"I'm not the right man for the job," he said. Each word needed to be forced out. That eye – that magnificent blue eye.
"And why would you say that, Mister Blass. Could it possibly be because of the Gilchrist Hoax?" Maxwell pronounced it wrong, accentuating it like two separate words, with the second one being the son of God. R.J.'s nostrils narrowed at the error. "If so, my employers are fully aware of it."
R.J. turned away. Through the narrow cracks in the Venetian blind over the kitchen sink, the dull lead sky appeared. Lost from any reference it could have been mistaken for a shroud of mist. Like the ones that would hide the tall pines in the early morning hours, while Mila and him would plan out the day's search area, during that fateful summer.
"Then you know that any scientific paper with my name on it would be instantly discredited."
"Of course. But there won't be any scientific papers going to the Journal of Cryptozoology or any other publications. This is a classified project. The work you do will be for your government and only your government." R.J.'s frown tightened. He looked back at the agent who had turned slightly in his chair to face him. "If you are looking for fame or vindication this won't give it to you. But if you want to study the most significant biological find since Darwin discovered the Galapagos, then we would really like to have you leading the research group."
Maxwell finished with an earnest, closed mouth smile. The expression said, c'mon be a pal, like he was asking R.J. to help him move.
"Darwin didn't discover the Galapagos Islands, he studied them." He regretted correcting Agent Wiley's ignorance but found he was unable to stop himself.
"Really? Who did discover them?" Maxwell leaned forward still smiling, waiting to be informed.
R.J. opened his mouth and hesitated. He couldn't remember ever reading anything that mentioned it. He became aware of the lengthening silence, as he searched for an answer that wasn't there. "I don't know. But that's not the point."
"You brought it up."
"The point is..." Maxwell could feel his anxiety getting the better of him. A haze of anger, confusion, and regret added a harsh not to voice. "Withholding this from the scientific community is unconscionable. As a scientist, I have a responsibility to contribute to the wealth of human understanding."
"I thought you counted fish?" Maxwell leaned back in his chair clearly pleased with himself.
R.J. closed the distance and pointed at the frozen image on the screen.
"If this is real, this is huge. It shatters so many notions of human biology I can't even fathom it. What right does the government have to keep people in the dark about it?"
"I assure you, it is real. And it is huge, which is precisely why we must not let the public find out about it." Before R.J. could make an objection, he continued, "What exactly do you think would happen if it got out that werewolves were real? How do you think average people would take it? How do you think they will react knowing that their friends, their neighbors, people they pass on the street might change into monsters when the moon is full?"
"Is it really that widespread?" There was hushed awe to his voice.
"We have no evidence of that. But do you think people will care? Do you think they'll need evidence? Look around you. Think about the people who live in this town, your coworkers at the plant, what would they do if this hit the twenty-four-hour cable news cycle?"
The rebuttal on R.J.'s lips died cell by cell, like a bacterial culture exposed to antibiotics. The image of a rapt populace excited by a momentous scientific breakthrough crumbled and was replaced with a vision of a new Dark Ages. There would be witch hunts. People would be dragged out of their homes, victims of baseless accusations. Pyres would pop up in the middle of town squares and mall parking lots. Grudges would be settled on the back of communal fear. The tenuous hold that science had on civilization would be supplanted by superstition. What should be a source of wonder would instead open the all too flimsy door of savagery.
He could count on one hand the people he knew, who would react to the news with the reverence it deserved. Mila would understand. A sudden urge to call her and let her know about this creature came over him. But he didn't have her number. He wasn't even sure where she was. The last he heard she'd taken a fellowship at the University of Greifswald. That was years ago. Was she still in Germany or had she moved on? And if he tracked her down, would she believe him? Or would she think it was some desperate, unhinged ploy to try and get her back?
But if he accepted the offer, perhaps he could get them to add her to the team. Once she saw the evidence, she would leap at it in a heartbeat.
No. That was wrong. She would never agree to those terms. She would prefer to risk mass hysteria than to keep this discovery – any discovery secret. And she would despise R.J. for ever agreeing to it.
"Mr. Wiley, I am not the man you are looking for." It took all of R.J.'s strength to turn him down. "You might be right that the public would react badly to the news." Flames and the smell of burnt flesh rising into the night flashed in his mind. "But I cannot be a part of a cover-up. It goes against everything I believe in."
Maxwell was instantly on his feet. "Well, if you change your mind. Here is my card."
"I won't."
The agent put the card down on the table. "Just in case," he said.
The contract and the rest of his things were packed up in his briefcase, and his coat was back on. Then he was gone.
Bill hacked out a cough and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his coat. Gulls continued their constant slow circling of the docks. R.J. took the cigarette out of his mouth and watched as the ball of smoldering fire worked down to the butt.
He flicked the remains of his smoke and skipped it like a stone across the parking lot, trailing sparks in its wake. The small rectangle of cardboard weighed down his shirt pocket with its presence. He had been carrying it like a talisman since that morning a week ago. At night his hands would worry it, wearing down the edges, as the wondrous pale blue eye gazed out at him from his memory.
He had made the right choice, but it had brought him no closer to Mila. If anything, it had only served to show him how utterly devoid of meaning his life had been since the University had fired him and she had left. Did it really matter what she would think about something she never knew about? Would it really matter what he did, if they never saw each other again?
He took a step towards the side door, for the first time in years eager to see Szymanski.
Bill stopped him. "Do you think I could get another off of you?"
"Here." R.J. pressed the pack into his hand. "Keep it. I just quit."