A Nutty Incident

by Ian Pierce

When Professor Neilson’s students entered the laboratory for the first class of the day, something felt oddly out of place. Instead of the stuffy filtered air and the whirring fan noise, the students noticed the refreshing smell of the outdoors and unusual silence. She looked through the cages where the test animals were kept and discovered that all of the mice had gone missing.

Professor Emily Neilson was a prominent professor at the Northwest Animal Facility at UC Berkeley. The facility housed up to 40,000 research animals at a time, in two underground stories. The building was covered in vines and shrubs, concealed in the shadows of young redwood trees. The building was left unmarked, operating in secrecy, the only signs depicting penalties for trespassing. The opening to the loading dock is a recessed platform elevator, also kept hidden, covered by a metal plate and sealed with a padlock.

Professor Neilson had been using thirty mice to research the effects of Ricin, a highly toxic protein that could potentially be synthesized to create medicine to kill tumor cells in humans. Ten of the mice were kept on a healthy diet, the next ten were kept on a low dosage of Ricin, and the other ten on a higher dose. At the end of the term, she would kill them all providing they were not already dead, to examine their organs and demonstrate the effects of the toxin. If all had gone well, she could had made groundbreaking discoveries to help cancer patients everywhere.

She muttered under her breath, “Two years of intensive research down the drain. The department will surely cut my funding if I can’t get to the bottom of this.” She bit her maraschino cherry colored fingernails in frustration. The brightly manicured nails stood out in a peculiar manner against her diminutive physique.

She was so absorbed in the situation that is took several moments to notice that students had gathered in the laboratory. She whispered to her research assistant who was equally at a loss, “Chris, this could have been an insider job. There are no signs of forced entry. See if you can find anything out from students in my class. Start with the newcomer, the foreign exchange student. If you can get the mice back or find who did it, I can reward you.”

“I’m so sorry this happened to our research. I’ll do my best.”

“Good, I’ll get the police to write up a report. You should start looking for clues too,” suggested the professor.

Professor Neilson dismissed the class and waited for the campus police to arrive.

~

Outside, Chris approached the new exchange student in Professor Neilson’s class. He rememberred that she was some kind of Asian but had forgotten both her ethnicity and her name. “Hey what’s your name?” asked Chris.

The girl replied somewhat warily, “Why should I tell you? I have a boyfriend already.”

“Look, I’m not trying to get with you like that or anything, but I just want to get to know you. Will you have lunch with me today?”

She was a little taken aback but quickly succumbed to the combination of his disarming smile full of perfect American teeth and the muscles busting out of his shirt, “I’m Ning Tan. No one has ever said that to me before. You’re really kind, so sure. Let me drop off all this stuff before we go out,” she said, gesturing at her book bag.

“Let’s just walk over to the Free Speech Café up on campus, I don’t want to trouble you with walking all the way to your place.”

“Okay, that sounds fine. They do make good panini sandwiches.”

At the café they each ordered their sandwiches, Chris got a small coffee and Ning Tan got a raspberry Italian soda. They sat down out on the patio, with people on all sides of them. As they sipped their drinks and waited for their sandwiches to come, they each busted out some of their school materials to study. The sandwiches came, they ate and then continued to study. After some time, Ning Tan got up to use the restroom. Chris was beginning to get a bit flustered by his lack of productivity in his task at hand and started to glance around at his surroundings. He started to fiddle with his pen and accidentally dropped it on the floor. He bent over to get it, but as he looked up, his eye got caught on the top half of a flyer that had gotten partially dislodged from Ning Tan’s bag when she pulled out her books in the café. The visible portion of the flyer read:

BOAA Monthly Meeting

First Tuesday of the Month @ 243 Dwinelle Hall

Chris felt that the acronym was vaguely familiar for some reason... “Shit!” he exclaimed. It was a flyer for the Berkeley Organization for Animal Advocacy. And the meeting was going to be held the very next day. He had seen the acronym in the laboratory on the list of banned organizations right under PETA.

He looked up and regained composure as Ning Tan returned from the bathroom.

“What were you doing down there?” she asked with genuine curiosity.

“Oh, nothing, I just dropped my pen.” Ning Tan began to gather her stuff to leave and made sure to shove the flyer down into her bag when Chris suddenly decided to ask her a question, “Hey, I actually have something on my mind that has been bothering me. What do you think about the experiments we have been doing in psychology?” His bait was set, he just wanted a concrete response so he could be sure.

She responded truthfully, “I actually think some of the stuff is really messed up and absurd. I think something should be done but if the professor found out I would get kicked out of the class so fast!”

Chris responded soothingly, “Yeah I know what you mean, I sometimes think about this when I’m giving the poison to the test animals, but I never really compared the mice to people or amore significant animal. How do you watch all of it and still do nothing?”

“I used to just waste tons of time pondering it, but then I found this group. I think you should go. The meeting is tomorrow night if you are interested. Take a flyer.” Ning Tan pulled the crumpled flyer out of her bag and handed it to him. “I gotta run, but it was nice having lunch with you. I’ll see you later.”

“Alright then, I’ll see you around,” Chris said when she exited. He took the flyer, memorized the information and then threw in a nearby trash receptacle so it wouldn’t be on him if he was searched.

~

After Ning Tan left, Chris went back to the Northwest Animal Facility to relay some of his info to the Professor. Professor Neilson immediately shot some questions at him in a somewhat wicked cooing tone, “So, how did your little date go? Did you find out anything interesting?”

Chris, not wanting to betray Ning Tan right off the bat, bent the truth a little bit, “Her name is Ning Tan. I didn’t really find out anything, but I think I’m getting somewhere. I’m going to visit some local animal rights meetings to see what they’re up to.”

“Sounds good, the Campus Police came by and did an investigation of the room. They found an open vent on the side of the building, which would explain the fresh air, but it was extremely narrow. No person could have possibly gotten in through there. The fact that there was not a forced entry leads me to believe that the invader must have been either a person who works in the building, or perhaps, a student. We reviewed the surveillance tapes and no unauthorised personnel have been coming in or out. They were all in proper uniform, but the surveillance cameras are all posted high above the doorway, so they didn’t record any faces.”

“Was there anything else they found?”

“Yeah, they found pistachio shells over near the air vent. And something even more interesting, a dark brown strand of hair. Looks similar to the Asian girl’s hair if you asked me. I had it looked at by the crime lab to check out the DNA. If we can pull her in maybe we can get a solid case going against this bitch,” Professor Neilson added.

“That’s actually really intriguing, but I gotta go check out something from the library. I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.”

“Yes, you go do that. I’ll be able to get some more mice easily, I’m glad that this criminal didn’t steal any of the more valuable animals.”

~

The Professor’s harsh words made Chris think about how she valued life for its monetary value, but not for the beauty of its existence. He had never thought this way before but it disgusted him somewhat. It made him feel like a hippie and sent an uncomfortable shudder down his spine.

As he unlocked his bike, he took his bag off and proceeded to put his bike lock into it. He had a bag of chips that made a loud rustling noise. As it crumpled, he felt something light tap the back of his leg. There was a squirrel behind him with its front paws reaching out to touch him and beg for some food. Damn, they know what cellophane sounds like and can relate it to food! Those are some smart motherfuckers, he thought. He pulled out a chip and waved it through the air, watching the rodent’s beady eyes tracking it, never taking its eyes off the chips oily surface. Bored, Chris tossed the chip into a bush a couple feet away. Immediately the squirrel dove into the bush and, victorious, emerged seconds later holding the chip in it’s paws. Chris left the bike rack and walked east, up a staircase and by the neuroscience building, when he realized the squirrel had followed him up the stairs! It’s beady eyes continued to track his motions so he ventured further and placed a chip on the branch of a low hanging tree. Expecting his original companion to go for it, he was startled as several more squirrels jumped down from higher branches of the tree and battled each other, eventually each coming away with half a chip. This is insane, thought Chris, these animals will do anything for food.

Chris left the vicious animals behind and continued up the hill on his normal route to the main library on campus when he passed by the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s house and observed a very strange sight. There was a middle aged man surrounded by eight or so squirrels. He was handing them grapes and pistachios from his truck. Chris made the connection and decided to go talk to him, “Hey, how did you get all of these squirrels to come to you?”

“I guess they just love pistachios,” said the man.

“Maybe they just like you?”

“Perhaps, that could be the case. You are a very kind man. What is your name?”

“I go by Chris, what is yours?”

“People call me Vincent, but I rarely make new acquaintances since I fell from fame years ago,” the squirrel man replied.

Deeply interested in the squirrel man’s tale, Chris enquired for more information, “Do you mind telling me what happened?”

“I have not spoken to anyone of this since it had happened, even my very own children. Go to the meeting tomorrow at Dwinelle and you shall get what you seek.”

“How did you know that I was planning on going there?”

“Why else would you come talk to an old geezer like myself?” the squirrel man added with a laugh.

~

In psychology class the next day, the Professor asked Chris if he learned anything interesting last night. He responded truthfully saying that he had only been studying material from other classes. Psychology went by fast and uneventfully, Chris sat back while Professor Neilson gave her lecture. He wasn’t paying attention anyway, his mind was contemplating what would happen later.

~

Chris approached the steps of Dwinelle hall and climbed the stairs up to the second floor. He pulled open the door and was a little bit late, but as expected saw Ning Tan present. Chris was about to take a seat next to her but then realized her boyfriend sitting next to her. The meeting commenced and an angry looking hippie with wild, bushy hair took the podium, “I would like to call a round of applause for the actions that happened at the Northwest Animal Facility! Many innocent animals have been spared from death at the hands of Professor Neilson...” Chris was getting bored and fed up with all of this hippie fundamentalist bullshit. Once the unkempt, dirty looking hippie sat down, Ning Tan’s boyfriend stood, congratulating her for relaying the information of the escaped animals to the organization. Chris was fed up, realizing that he wouldn’t be able to get anything useful out of the meeting and left the room. Vince hadn’t even showed up, the meeting had been a complete disappointment to Chris.

After Chris descended the stairs and exited the front doors, a voice called out to him, “Over here!”

Chris looked over to his side and saw Vince, “Hey, you weren’t at the meeting!”

“I had a hunch that you weren’t going to stick around and didn’t want to make a scene having both of us leave at the same time. I hate those hippies just as much as you Chris. They are completely irrational, and understand so little about what they are fighting for.”

“I’m glad someone is saying this other than the Professor. Many of the experiments are insane, but a good number of them are done to help humans... I mean, isn’t that what we live for?”

“That is such a difficult question that even I do not know the answer. By the way, which Professor were you talking about?

“Neilson. She’s the head psychology professor at the lab. She is a great teacher but totally abuses her power and shows too much enjoyment inflicting pain on living things.

“I actually have a story to tell you.” Vince shook his head lightly in disbelief, “A long time ago, I attended UC Berkeley as a grad student. I met that Emily when were both students here, but she was not so evil when I first met her. We talked for a while and eventually fell in love because we were both so passionate about searching for new cures to diseases and working to help sick people, that we completely overlooked the suffering we caused to the animals we were doing tests on.”

“That is a lot like how I feel right now,” Chris reasoned “The part about animal rights at least,” he added with an awkward laugh.

“I wish that things could have been different,” Vince said, almost looking sad, “We both did well and got jobs in the brand new animal facility. We thought it was a researcher’s dream come true. After a few years, I started to question whether the gains we were making really outweighted the value of the lives of animals. I tried to stop her too, but she was convinced we were doing the right thing. After I openly disputed some of the experiments on animals we did in the lab, I was soon fired. They fire whistle blowers, and anyone who disagrees with their ideas.”

“Man, that’s just tragic, I wish it could have ended better.”

“She had never once acknowledged that what she did was wrong. Can you keep a secret, Chris?”

“Now that I know more about the professor’s history, I’m sure. I’m curious. Did Professor Neilson always have oddly colored nails?” Chris was completely enthralled in the squirrel man’s tale.

“Yeah, that’s a thing I could never understand about her. She is a very complicated human being. Perhaps it’s an odd infatuation with blood, or at least its color,” Vince reasoned. “The other day I attended a BOAA meeting and I saw Ning. She was talking about what was going on in your lab, and it outraged me to know that Professor Neilson was still up to no good. I knew I would have to do something about it.”

Vince sighed, as if a weight wer being lifted from his chest, “I donned my old lab coat with a fake ID badge and headed for the lab. I brought one of my tamed squirrels and a handfull of pistachios. They do anything for food, you know. I tossed some pistachios down the venthillation shaft and the squirrel went down to get them. The state of the art air conditioning system shut down because of the interference. It is made extremely sensitive and I knew that no one would be able to come in to fix it in the middle of the night. The inside of the building was freezing cold. At that point I knocked on the front door and convinced the custodian I was there to help transfer some animals to a warmer room so they wouldn’t freeze to death in the night. It was an easy job.”

“Oh damn. That’s where the shells and hair were from! This all pieces together perfectly. Except the Professor will try to have Ning Tan arrested!”

“And she will fail. That woman always got ahead of herself... she’ll probably get the police to test the DNA on the hair. Asian hair is strikingly different from that of a squirrel in the eyes of a crime scene investigation unit.”

~

At the end of class the next day Ning Tan lingered behind, chatting it up with some classmates. Professor Neilson called out to her, “Ms. Tan, can I have you come over here?”

“Of course! What is it?” Ning enquired.

“The UC Police did a backround check and according to the police report, you are affiliated with the BOAA. Tell me honestly, who took the mice? The report said that a male in a white coat came to get the mice that night. Is this one of your group’s pranks or something?”

Ning Tan felt goose bumps everywhere as the hairs on her spine stood, erect. She knew her days as a foreign exchange student were over. Her full scholarship would soon be revoked. Professor Neilson would never allow an animal activist to remain enrolled in her class. In a trembling voice, she replied, “I have an alibi for what happened the night the mice were stolen. I was with my boyfriend pulling an all nighter for finals at the Moffitt Library. I have witnesses too! I’m not affiliated with that hipie extremist group either. I know better than to be around those maniacs.”

The Professor’s eyes glared madly, she knew there was nothing she could prove or do.

~

It was a dark night already. Chris walked up to the Northwest Animal Facility, that was leaking an eerie yellow light from it’s covered windows. He put his hand to the door, debating with his concience whether or not he would tell Professor Neilson what Vince had said to him. He was wondering if he deserved the reward that she had promised. He had a guaranteed future working with Professor Neilson. He would have her gratitude and financial security to last a lifetime. But he considered the events that had conspired and removed his hand from the doorknob and walked away.