Resonance, J. B. Everett [the top 100 crime novels of all time txt] 📗

not your paper.”

 

He started to talk but she held up her hand. “Just because three of those frogs are sitting in my office, doesn’t make them university property. I would point out that my purse also sits in my office. Most of those frogs are still at my home. Sitting under a lamp I bought. They were caught in Tuppers that I purchased with my own money, I have a receipt.” She grinned, then continued, even as she talked this was getting better.

 

“They were caught by my siblings, on land owned by my parents, and since you haven’t anted up a penny for them yet, I’d say you would be pretty hard pressed to prove that I don’t own-”

 

He interrupted, as she knew he would. “In your contract with the university it says that all related discoveries-”

 

She laughed; God, her day was getting better. She had come for a reward for her brother and sister, and when he’d childishly refused, she’d upped the stakes. And now she was going to walk out with a paper.

 

“Doctor Warden, your contract might stipulate that, but mine doesn’t. I crossed those lines out, on the advice of my brother. Harvard Law, ninety-eight.”

 

Warden paled, and it was all she could do not to dance a little jig right there in the second floor J hall of the Reynolds building. She forced a smile and continued. “You can sign reward checks for my brother and sister, and my paper will have your name on it. Or I’ll go draft my resignation, effective immediately, and you can explain to the higher-ups why this doesn’t say ‘University of Tennessee’ all over it.”

 

He didn’t say anything. Just turned and went back to his office.

 

Becky tried to keep her voice light. “I’ll be back for those checks in an hour.”

 

“But-” He didn’t finish and she just smiled.

 

It was down the corridor, around a corner and through another lab that her office sat. Definitively out of the way. She went in and started writing up the findings, but after starting with the date, time, and location she realized that she couldn’t do anything. Not anything. Not until Warden put it in writing that the paper belonged to her and anyone else who she chose to have on it.

 

If she used university equipment or wrote up anything, the frogs and the paper could legally become property of the UT Biodiversity office. And, since finding new and unusual species and behavior was what the Biodiversity team did, she would be hard pressed to prove it was a personal project. So, for the moment at least, her hands were tied.

 

The ranas stared at her from their Tuppers lined up on her shelf. Three of them. All in a row, all looking right at her, their little throats bobbing as though with their breathing. One big, one little, one medium. There was nothing extraordinary about any of the three, other than the obvious extra legs.

 

Becky was suddenly extremely grateful to Aaron. That he had chosen law school and in his own arrogant way had decided that no man was complete without some knowledge of the law. He said she’d be grateful when she was in her first car accident or bought her first house. Neither of those things had happened yet.

 

But she sent up a silent thank you as she sat there.

 

She was also grateful for her own error, remembering how frustrated she had been, making an extra trip to the restaurant supply store for the lexans she had forgotten to bring home with her. It was all lining up. If she jumped ship she wouldn’t regret it. And if she got fired… well, she really still wouldn’t.

 

She filled her time reading emails, and doodling, and finally gathered the lexans into her arms. The water sloshed as she walked, the frogs trying to stay motionless out of fear, but constantly having to squirm to correct their balance.

 

Warden looked up as she entered. “You’re leaving?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I have your checks.” But he didn’t hand them over.

 

If she was fired, it would be worth it just to spend this minute watching the prick squirm.

 

“Do you have your resignation?” He eyed her, and leaned forward but didn’t ask again.

 

“No. Not if I get my checks now and tomorrow morning I have it in writing that the paper is mine and mine alone.” She took the checks and balanced the frogs in one arm while reaching into her pocket to pull out a sticky note. “Here’s my home phone number so you can call me and tell me when it’s ready.” Already knowing he wouldn’t take it, she stuck it on the nearest bookshelf.

 

Against the ropes, he nodded, swallowed a bit, then reached out. “Mind if I take a look?”

 

Just before his mealy hand closed on one of the Tuppers she turned away. “Yes, I do. These are still my frogs.”

 

It was two city blocks to the parking garage then up two floors, and all the way to the back. And this was privileged parking. She was only allowed here as an employee. Students had to park even further away. Her jacket was cloying and constricting, but she wouldn’t set down the frogs. They were her future right now.

 

And something was very wrong with them.

 

Her folks’ home was a ways out in the county, it was the only way they could have all that land. It just wasn’t as far out as it had been when she was small. Several of the neighbors had parceled large properties and housing developments now stood where nearby farms and fields had been.

 

She followed the local school bus the last few turns to her home and met Melanie and Brandon as they leapt down to the gravel roadside. “No one believes we caught six-legged frogs!”

 

The wail was that of a plaintive seven-year-old who was about an inch from a seriously good pout.

But that telling everyone part made her nervous. Becky scooped up her little sister and asked Brandon to grab the Tuppers out of the front seat. “Let’s not tell people just yet. They’ll believe you when they see your picture in the paper, even if it doesn’t happen for a while.”

 

Melanie consented, and after a slow evening her father showed up and her mother took advantage of adult company, pouring them three glasses of wine from the box in the fridge, if it could be called ‘pouring’. But it wasn’t bad, and partway through nursing her drink and contemplating how she had destroyed her future and was now the proud owner of forty-three frogs she couldn’t investigate any further than a good once-over, Brandon called up from the basement.

 

“Becky, your frogs are all staring at me! They’re weird!”

 

Her mother yelled back, but didn’t move an iota. “Of course they are, they’ve got six legs for chrissakes!”

 

“Becky, can we rotate them?!” Melanie wanted to torment the frogs, and Becky wished she hadn’t started those early biology lessons with her little sister. The girl was too bright - it would be great if she forgot something just once in a while.

 

“No!”

 

“But it’s fun!”

 

In a low voice she spoke only to the table. “Can’t argue that.” The frogs had a lot of built in responses.

 

When put on their back they would flip upright and get ready to jump. If you rotated the ground beneath them, they would turn to stay oriented to the original direction. And it was all reflex. The frogs would do this in the lab even if they were decapitated. Of course that response only lasted a few seconds before the dead frogs would jello-out and lose all muscle tone.

 

But it was enough to make the squeamish lab students jump and scream, and the more sturdy-hearted spend good lab time just rotating the dissection trays watching the beheaded frogs reorient one way then the other. In a few live frogs the responses could entertain a couple of elementary school kids for hours. For the frogs’ sakes, Becky regretted showing it to her little siblings.

 

It was quiet for a few minutes. Well, maybe more than a few minutes, her wine glass was empty. They all turned at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Brandon and Melanie emerged on the landing, arms full of little clear lexans.

 

“Becky, they keep orienting themselves.” Melanie put one Tupper on the table with a small thunk. “Look.”

 

She turned the Tupper and sure enough the little rana moved his front legs hand over hand and shuffled his back feet as the container moved, constantly keeping his nose pointed in the original direction.

 

“Melanie, I told you not to rotate them.” Looking to her parents for backing, Becky sighed.

 

Before her folks could put in their two cents, Melanie continued with her mini-lecture on the orienting process of frogs. She picked up the lexan and softly but quickly shifted it onto its side, leaving the inhabitant on his back. She put it on the table again, and up the little guy went, onto all six legs, squat and ready.

 

“That’s exactly what they’re supposed to do. So stop tormenting my frogs.” And to think she had spent this morning arguing for bonuses for the little Dr. Moreaus.

 

Melanie ignored her. “Now the four-legger.” She scooted over the container marked with the normal masking tape from its spot at the end of the table. Now center stage, the little rana performed, hand over hand, back legs shuffling, while Melanie rotated the container. Then she flipped him onto his back and set the Tupper upright in line with the three six-leggers.

 

And Becky saw it.

 

What Melanie and Brandon had seen. She barely paid attention to the little guy as he flipped himself up off his back and into ‘ready’ stance. It wasn’t what he did. It was what he didn’t do.

 

The difference was obvious. This time Becky grabbed one of the downstream frogs, flipping her softly onto her back, and as the little rana struggled briefly then expertly flipped herself upright, even Mr. and Mrs. Sorenson were getting onto their feet.

 

Her Dad spoke first. “Are they supposed to do that?”

 

“No, Dad, this is definitely new.”

 

When the four-legger hopped up, he faced whichever direction was easiest. No matter what she did, each time the six-leggers came to a stop, they faced the same way they had previously. All three of them, always the same direction, all the time.

 

Without speaking, each family member grabbed one lexan, and separated them to different rooms, hollering out. “Same way!” “Toward the bed!” “Facing the sink.” It didn’t matter though. All the phrases meant the same thing.

 

She left the Tuppers on the floor while scrambling down the stairs, her family close on her heels. With breath held tight, Becky flipped the light switch. All the little six-leggers were staring straight at her. Oriented the same direction as the ones upstairs. Her voice was weaker than she meant it to be. “What direction are they facing, Daddy?”

 

“Northwest, looks like.”

 

Greer walked into the lab like he owned the place. Which was silly, David thought, because he did.

 

“Hey, pretty boy, what’s up with your stones? Tell me something interesting, because I’m footing a helluva bill for that shut-down day.”

 

“It’s good.” It was better thon good, but David went back to perusing his pieces. He didn’t even bother to correct Greer about the ‘stones’. It was just said to annoy him anyway.

 

“Dude, you’ve got to give me more than that.”

 

David didn’t even look up. And that was the wonder of Greer. He always meant what he said just as he said it. You never needed to see his face. “All right, you are on par with Hell Creek.”

 

“Excellent. ”

Yup, he didn’t need to see Greer’s eyes to know that the sarcasm flowed in rivers.

 

“Now how about something I can use?” His friend prodded. “I want information that I’ll find worthy of shutting down my dig for a full day, and I want it in complete sentences.”

 

He looked up, gauging what to give away and what to keep. “Well, you’ve got the iridium layer at the KT boundary, just