Gavin is about four minutes late to class as he speed-walks into the chemistry lab. The lunch rush around the NYU campus delayed him a bit more than usual today. Normally, he’d be worried, but it seems Professor Viali is somehow later than he is. Which is weird because she’s always here at 1:00 PM—class starts at “precisely” 1:00 PM. That’s what she told everyone on the first day of the fall semester. If she’s late, there must be something important holding her up.
Then again, everything the professor does is important. As a true pioneer in the field of biochemistry, Professor Viali’s time is valuable. After all, she’s helped make dramatic leaps and bounds in how scientists understand the chemical interactions of neurotransmitters in the brain, amongst other key discoveries. That’s also to say nothing of her wide collection of published works, most notably including her 2017 book, “Chemical Trials of the Temporal Lobe,” which played a huge role in readjusting scientific studies on memory functions. All that’s missing in her impeccable repertoire is a Nobel Prize.
Nevertheless, Gavin grabs his lab coat, goggles, and gloves off the rack before taking his usual seat at his workstation. He finds his lab partners, Emelia, Alice, and Adrian, are already present, and they each give him a nod in acknowledgement, which he returns in favor. The other 12 students in the room are either idling on their phones or engaging in the usual pre-class banter.
Dropping his bag to the floor, Gavin quickly glances at his watch, which now reads 1:05 PM. As if on cue, Adrian blurts out the obligatory, “If she doesn’t show up after 15 minutes, we can leave, right?” Most of Gavin’s classmates laugh in agreement, but he stifles a chuckle. He enjoys the light humor but would personally consider it a great loss to miss out on this class, given it’s the only one he really cares about this semester. He looks forward to it every Thursday—three hours of chemical bliss. Between the daring experimentation and the professor’s genius fully on display, what’s not to love?
Lo and behold, though, just as the clock strikes 1:06, the door swings open, and Professor Viali briskly marches in, looking especially frazzled today. She scatters her blood red tote bag and a short stack of books across her desk, earning a few rogue snickers from some of her students. After rapidly collecting the few items that fell to the floor, she does her best to fix her curly black hair and adjust her fine, brown spectacles.
Gavin notices the professor’s lab coat is already covered with several scant splash marks, like’s she already been deep in some sort of experiment all day. It all looks so fresh. One speck of deep crimson stands out in particular, and he can’t help but wonder…
“Books open to page 244, please,” the professor says, snapping Gavin out of his daydream and promptly shutting everyone else up. The students all take out their copies of the professor’s acclaimed book, “Redefining Human Chemistry,” and open them to the appropriate page. They find several images of the human brain pictured in grueling detail, along with a variety of questions pertaining to the organ’s functions in response to a wide range of factors, physical and chemical.
“Now, for the past several weeks,” Professor Viali starts, “we’ve been building toward a discussion of chemical reactions in the brain, as well as the interactions between the brain itself and other outside elements. We want to examine all of this because the brain is where some of our most interesting internal reactions take place, among the thousands of others that occur within our bodies every day. Most reactions can be completely traced back to the brain since it serves as a focal point for our core body functions. On the surface, this kind of material shouldn’t be new to any of you—you wouldn’t be allowed in my class if it were. But as my own research has shown, much of this only seems to be the tip of the metaphorical iceberg.
“Personally, I believe such studies have gone underappreciated lately in the scientific community, so I feel obligated to share what I know with those who are willing to listen. Or, in your case, those who are forced to listen.” The professor’s comments earn a handful of laughs from her students, Gavin included. “So, if you haven’t been convinced or entertained by my ramblings or readings so far this semester, I’m certain that today’s experiment will help change your minds. If you’ll all put on your coats and such, we’ll begin our work for the afternoon. One of you from each of your stations should also collect a tray with your testing materials.”
Gavin dons his lab attire before retrieving a tray for his group from the other side of the lab. Returning to his station, he and his partners find four samples of what appear to be brain matter prepared for testing and analysis via microscope, in addition to several vials containing raw elements, such as mercury, bromine, and arsenic. Gavin notices the faces of some of the others turn seemingly befuddled. He feels himself grinning.
“What you have in front of you now are small samples of brain tissue, along with a variety of potent chemicals,” the professor continues. “The brain tissue samples were carefully curated from several donors overseas—post-mortem, of course. As we all know, there are five core chemicals that operate inside the brain: dopamine, glutamate, serotonin, epinephrine, and norepinephrine. What we endeavor to study today is how the remaining levels of those core chemicals are affected as we introduce various foreign substances.” The professor nods to the class. “You’ll have the rest of the afternoon to run whatever tests you see fit. Please don’t be afraid to get creative or ask questions as necessary.” She then offers everyone a smile and a clap of her hands. “Off you go.”
While her students go about their work, Professor Viali continually paces around the room, her steps never falling out of a methodical rhythm as she mindfully watches and offers guidance as needed. Gavin can’t help but glance back and forth between his experiment and the professor, keeping a careful watch on his progress while also checking to see if he’s garnering any attention from his mentor. He’s confident his work speaks for itself, but he wouldn’t mind a little validation either. When he does manage to catch her gaze, she offers him a nod and a smirk, having taken note of his progress. Gavin smiles in response before quickly refocusing himself.
“This makes no sense,” Adrian then mutters for Gavin and the girls at their table to hear. “Won’t this stuff just melt the brain matter?”
Gavin pays him no mind as he maintains his concentration. Of course, Adrian wouldn’t understand the potential complexities of such an experiment. Sure, just dumping on heavy doses of mercury would completely deteriorate the sample. The key, as the professor said, is to get creative.
“Isn’t futzing with people’s brains what got her in trouble in the first place?” Emelia whispers with a chuckle. Adrian and Alice both shrug, while Gavin, again, pays them no mind. Although, he knows Emelia isn’t wrong.
Of course, she’s referring to the now infamous Barcelona incident. Back in the spring of 2019, as part of an international conference in Spain, Professor Viali was invited to demonstrate a revolutionary experiment at a gathering with a handful of her peers. She claimed it would be her magnum opus, even describing it as, “The next step in uncovering humanity’s full potential.” Since this test trial was being conducted behind closed doors, Gavin made it a point to read any and all reports he could find from the event online.
From what he understood, the key to Professor Viali’s experiment was contained within a single vial, a serum of sorts that she derived from her very own Viali Formula. She never disclosed the contents of the formula to anyone, save for the few superiors whose approval she needed in order to proceed with human trials. Most people could guess easily enough, though, that it was some sort of next-generation performance enhancer—that hidden gem scientists around the world had spent decades searching for. It seemed like Professor Viali had finally cracked the code.
For this experiment to work, the professor was going to directly inject the serum into several key areas of her subject’s brain—those being the parietal, occipital, and temporal lobes. The man to undergo the procedure was named Travis Clarke, a nobody by all accounts who wasn’t long for the world anyway, due to late-stage lung cancer. Were the experiment to succeed, it would essentially give him a new lease on life.
The injections had to be made simultaneously so that each region of Mr. Clarke’s brain could concurrently process the serum. That, and he had to be awake the whole time, with his skull wide open and his brain fully exposed. In theory, the serum would rewrite his core sensory and motor functions, ultimately improving them well beyond the capabilities of a normal human. That’s how it was supposed to go. Based on all reports, what actually happened was far grizzlier.
It apparently took mere seconds for Mr. Clarke’s brain to corrode and decay as it rejected the serum. This, in turn, caused his body to suffer from intense convulsions and spasms. The professor insisted there would be no pain, even in the event of such an outcome, but she was, in this rare instance, proven wrong. A quote from one of the attending scientists noted that, “Even Mr. Clarke’s screams weren’t enough to save us from hearing him effectively snap his own neck.” The subject died after a minute and 37 seconds, and the experiment had tragically failed.
But rather than allowing herself to be blacklisted in the scientific community, Professor Viali managed to stabilize the situation, thanks largely to the fact that Mr. Clarke had signed every waiver given to him; he knew there was an inherent risk to the procedure and proceeded regardless. In one interview, Professor Viali remarked, “Mr. Clarke was going to die anyway. At least now he died for science.” It was cold, but valid. Given that, along with the abundant evidence she produced proving the mismanagement of the lab by other staff members on the day of the experiment, she was effectively scot-free from any wrongdoing. She was also, however, forced to give up her formula and all of her research notes pertaining to it. Her superiors believed it would all be better off in more capable hands, like those at Spartan Labs.
The professor subsequently took on her teaching position at NYU, having lost much of her prestige and the respect of many of her colleagues, but landing on her feet, nonetheless. It was no secret, of course, that she believed this new position was well below her typical station, but if it allowed her to remain active in the field, she wasn’t going to put up much of a fight. She had already done plenty of that trying and failing to retain her formula.
But even now in the eyes of her students, Professor Viali is often regarded as off-putting, to say the least. It isn’t even necessarily her questionable methods, like testing the brain functions of living subjects under less than stellar circumstances. What typically staggers others is her boundless vigor. These days, it is rare to find a scientist as enthralled by and dedicated to their studies and projects as her. Professor Viali quite literally embodies the most devout of chemists, to the point that many of her peers have labeled her obsessive and, at times, psychotic.
Of course, Gavin knows it’s all mild hysterics and hokum. After all, if she were insane, would she still be able to teach a college curriculum? Plus, if she’s going to cultivate the next generation of outstanding chemists, she shouldn’t coddle or cheerlead her pupils; she has to be tough. To him, it seems like the truly insane individuals are those who harshly judge the professor without getting to know her, and those who have chosen to completely ignore her invaluable intellect because it’s cool to be a contrarian. They just don’t understand her like he does.
Nevertheless, while the professor’s infamous experiment may have been less than stellar, the experiments of her students are seemingly going much more smoothly. Gavin and his fellow classmates work for the rest of the period, and although it’s all mostly amusing for everyone to partake in, it yields no immediate results.
“This is the first day in a new line of experimentation for you all,” Professor Viali tells the class as the clock strikes four. “Errors and snags are to be expected. But remember, if you hope to discover something new, then you have to be willing to look beyond the obvious answers and search for the hidden truth that lies beneath. Anything less will only end in failure.”
Gavin takes those words to heart.
“We will continue this next week. Until then, start thinking about new paths of exploration. I expect everyone to have something to share when we pick this back up.”
The class files out with haste, and Gavin immediately returns to his dorm room to continue his studies. Sitting alone in his lightly furnished space, he pours himself back into his notes, just as Professor Viali had said, hoping to figure out how he might continue his experiment in class next week. He feels utterly inspired by her parting words for the day, if not also a bit distracted by them. While he is eager to progress and make his own discoveries, he also lives in constant fear that he may falter or fail. But he knows the professor sees something in him, and he’d be remiss to let her down.
It doesn’t take Gavin long, then, to calculate something new to bring to the table—a potentially intriguing fusion of arsenic with both liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen, which should prove less potent overall but still allow for some interesting interplay in the chemical makeup of the brain samples. But his mind is racing; he wants to act on this now. And as it just so happens, he knows the professor often remains on campus until the late evening hours each Thursday to complete some of her own private work. It couldn’t hurt Gavin to pay her a visit and see what she thinks of his ideas.
After stuffing a slice of cold pizza into his face for a late dinner, Gavin races back to the science building of the NYU campus, reaching the building a little after nine o’clock. Moving through the now sparsely lit halls, he eventually arrives at the professor’s office, finding her door slightly ajar. He hears raised voices coming from inside the room; it almost sounds like an argument. He hesitates to enter, fearing he might interrupt something important. After all, everything Professor Viali does is important. And though he knows it’s rude to eavesdrop, Gavin can’t help but overhear the conversation. Much of it warrants some concern.
“I told you,” Professor Viali declares rather sternly, “if you want this project of yours to go anywhere, I need more test subjects.”
“I’ve given you plenty already, Alexandra,” another voice responds. Her tone indicates it’s another woman, speaking with an air of confidence, much like the professor. “I would think a woman of your talents would have been much further along by now.”
“Oh, please. Those scraps that you’ve had your two thugs dig up out of the gutters for me hardly count. I need someone…alive. Someone fresh. Someone who hasn’t had their brain halfway rotted because they’ve doped themselves into oblivion.”
The other woman chuckles. “You have an entire student body to play with. Have you really so little imagination?” A slap echoes out through the office and into the hallway, followed by silence, and then another brief chuckle. “Sorry, did I pinch a nerve?”
“It’s thanks to my imagination that we’ve even gotten this far, Amy. You came to me, remember? This entire enterprise of yours hinges on my work. Without me, you’d have nothing. Nothing!” Professor Viali bites back.
There’s another lull in the conversation.
“Don’t forget your place, Professor,” the woman named Amy says. “I’ve delivered everything on my end of the bargain so far. I got your updated formula back from Spartan Labs, gave you a new laboratory, and provided you with dozens of test subjects. If you don’t want to comply, trust that I will find another capable doctor who will.”
At this point, Gavin figures he’s overstayed his welcome, having heard way more than he probably should have. But as he’s about to attempt a silent getaway, he bumps into someone else.
“And who do we have here?” a new voice whispers to Gavin. He turns sharply to see a horrifically scarred woman now standing before him, a wicked smile plastered on her face behind a veil of long, matted red hair. “You lost, buddy?” she asks him, as she pulls out a knife coated in dry blood from the inside pocket of her leather jacket.
Gavin tries to speak but chokes on his words.
“Scars? What is it?” Amy calls from the professor’s office.
“Got ourselves a little peeping Tom out here, Amy. I don’t like him.”
“Bring him in.”
The one called Scars shoves Gavin through the doorway into the office, and he falls to the floor with a hard thud. Looking up, he sees the woman he assumes to be Amy standing above him, sporting a similar head of hair to the knife-wielding maniac, only shorter and far cleaner, and adorned in military attire. She also holds a gun in her hand, pointing it straight in Gavin’s face.
“Oh, fuck,” the professor mutters.
“One of your students?” Amy asks. The professor nods in response. “Well, what shall we do with him?”
Gavin looks to Professor Viali, who sighs and offers him a stare of sorrow and regret. The young man then sees a familiar glint in her pale green eyes; it’s the look of inspiration.
“I guess I did ask for better test subjects,” the professor says, turning her gaze back to Amy. “Let’s bring him to the lab.”
Amy nods with a smile, then gestures toward the woman still standing behind Gavin. “Scars. If you would?”
“Lights out, dude!” the deranged woman says with a giggle. And before Gavin has a chance to protest or make a break for it, he feels a crushing blow at the back of his skull, and his vision fades to black.
* * *
It’s impossible to tell how much time has passed as Gavin comes to consciousness. He’s incredibly lightheaded, and he can’t move, with his arms, legs, waist, and head all tied down to the chair he finds himself resting in. Nor can he see all that well, as it’s far too dark in this space, and his vision remains slightly blurred. He mumbles to himself through the gag in his mouth, and shortly after that, he is greeted by a flash of lights, as well as approaching footsteps. They belong to Professor Viali.
As she moves into Gavin’s field of view, she offers him a warm smile, her eyes hidden behind a set of working goggles. “Hello, Gavin,” she greets him warmly. “Welcome to my private laboratory. We’re not terribly far from Manhattan, actually. Just on the north side of the Hudson. This place was a gift, courtesy of my new business partners. I apologize for their rude behavior back on campus. They’re not like us—intellectual, that is.” She turns to present a raised window on the far side of the room. It leads into an observation chamber, where Gavin can see the woman known as Amy staring back into the lab.
“If you’re feeling a little dazed, I apologize,” Professor Viali continues. “I’ve removed the upper half of your skull and exposed your brain. You see, I need you to take part in a little experiment of mine. I know that you’ve followed my entire career, so I imagine you’re already fairly familiar with this one. Honestly, I regret that I didn’t have someone like you in my limited audience the first time I carried it out—someone with an open mind.” She pauses, then chuckles. “Sorry, no pun intended.”
Gavin’s mind is frantic, unable to comprehend even the possibility that the professor would be conducting that same experiment on him now. She couldn’t do that. Not to him. And yet, here he is, tied to an operating chair and at the utter mercy of Professor Viali’s highly capable hands.
“You were always my favorite student, Gavin. I hope you understand that. There is an unbridled obsession within you to create progress, something I admire greatly. You remind me of myself in many ways. It’s a cliched sentiment, I know, but it’s the truth. For that reason, I’m very sorry to tell you that this procedure will likely kill you. I still haven’t worked out all the kinks in my formula, especially since I’m now working with a newer version that’s been woefully tampered with by those idiots at Spartan Labs. But I assure you, your contributions to science will not go unappreciated. As you’re well aware, I always give credit where it is due. And you, my faithful pupil, are due for a great deal.”
Gavin feels his cheeks growing wet with tears. He had always dreamed of being part of Professor Viali’s legacy, but not like this. He wants to scream, but all he can muster is a whimper, as his mentor dons a right-handed glove fitted with injection needles along the fingers.
“Please don’t be scared. I promise you won’t feel a thing.”