“Did you say Tunnel?” I asked.    
     She pointed into it, “Doesn’t it  
look like one?”                        
     Someone from the Clean-Side waved,
and we waved back.                     
     “It sure does,” I agreed.         
     “Once a rack is empty,” she con-  
tinued, “we send them to the Clean-    
Side by way of the Cart-Washer.        
     “We use it for carts and things   
like that too, but mostly it’s used for
racks, although, for some reason, no   
one’s ever called it a Rack-Washer.”   
     She pointed to a metal door that  
was right next to it.                  
     “That’s the autoclave, and it’s   
used to send anything that has to be   
sterilized first, or can’t be sent     
through the other machines,” she said, 
and then showed me how to start and    
* stop each one, and then how to dump      
cages and send them through the Tunnel.
     “That’s it. That’s the whole she- 
bang, except for the killings.”        
     “The killings?” I asked.          
     She showed me a bright yellow line
that was tapped to the floor near the  
only door in and out.                  
     “That’s the de-contamination line.
Anything passing over it is considered 
contaminated and can’t leave this room,
unless it’s de-contaminated first. That
means, the only way out of here is by  
Tunnel, Cart-Washer or autoclave.”     
     “How the hell do we get out of    
here?”                                 
     “Oh, we can leave, but we can’t go
anywhere else in the Vivarium, except  
back here, unless we first take a      
shower and change into clean scrubs.”  



CHAPTER 3: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22nd
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