What do you do when you're not here?� �I'm posting a sign.� �That says what?� �That says there are several amphibious specimens loose in here and that they're all poisonous.� Michael laughed. �And you think that will work?� �No, not really� Darryl admitted, returning to his lab stool, �but then I think the thieves have already got the only thing they actually wanted.� On the counter in front of him, Darryl had a fish, about a foot long, splayed open from one end to the other, with pins holding its skin back. The whole thing was nearly transparent. Its gills were white, and its blood�if there was any�had no more color than water. Only its eye, fixed and dead, was golden. Michael was unpleasantly reminded of biology class in high school. The next victim was already lined up, sitting almost motionless at the bottom of a supercooled tank with frost coating its rim, on the other side of a row of glass jars, the size of shot glasses; all the jars were filled with solution, but two or three also contained small organs extracted and preserved for further study. �Should he be watching this?� Michael said. �That's why I've blocked his view with the jars.� �Looks sort of like a perch,� Michael said, of the fish being dissected. �You've got a good eye,� Darryl said.
