"Like a defibrillator?"

He snaps his fingers excitedly. "Just so! 'A method to stimulate the activity of animal cells in the absence of circulation.' That was the original title of my thesis, though my formulation at the time wasn't effective. I later read the work of von Helmholtz and Gibbs, which suggested that the reagent needed to carry a certain amount of chemical energy in order to overcome the thermodynamic stagnation of death. I added a small quantity of glycogen for energy and dilute oil of vitriol as an oxidizing agent."

"Did that… work?"

"It was promising, but my results were insufficient to garner funding. Luigi Galvani made the limbs of dead frogs twitch with mere electricity in the eighteenth century; modern grantmakers have higher standards." He waves his hand dismissively. "I later determined that although the limit was twelve minutes, a specimen deceased for as little as sixty seconds had much greater odds of seeing a full recovery. With that taken care of, I was able to make the critical refinements that later lead to my reagent accomplishing its intended effect."

"Fascinating. Where were you sourcing volunteers for the procedure?"

"I and my assistant worked as medics with the Red Cross during the war. It was fairly straightforward to locate men whose time of death was scribed in stone and who rather wished it wasn't. That was when we did the bulk of the research."

So, either West isn't sourcing bodies from a patron or he's smart enough to lie about it. She doesn't really care one way or another, but checking for the involvement of other groups of interest looks good in the after-action report. Besides, that research does sound fascinating…

Alas, that will have to wait. They've reached the end of their journey.

On the portico of the country club is a plastic folding table covered in clipboards, staffed by a slightly uncanny woman wearing dark sunglasses. To the side is a pegboard dripping with keyrings.

He's lagging behind after hauling a sixty pound briefcase up that last hill. Waller can go first.

Morgan approaches the desk. "Good morning. I'm here to register for the conference."

"Do you have your invitation with you?"

Her words are stilted, almost robotic.

It's in the front pouch of the briefcase, still in the torn envelope it was delivered in. As far as anyone could tell, it was printed on a mundane sheet of A4 printer paper by a laser printer with the forensic pattern deposition feature disabled. She retrieves it.

The woman behind the desk takes the letter and promptly discards it on the ground unexamined.

"Name?"

"Doctor Morgan Waller."

"Which institution issued your doctorate?"

"Stanford. Why, planning to check?"

"Yes. Take one of the brochures."

Maybe they've had to deal with too many 'doctors' who've never been to medical school? That seems like the kind of problem you could run into, hosting an event like this. Hopefully the registrar's office doesn't ask too many questions when they get the call – they only have one asset employed there and she's already overworked.

She takes one of the brochures and flips it open to read the annotated map of the country club.

"Doctor Herbert West. MD from Zurich, PhD from Miskatonic." He hands over his own invitation and picks up a brochure.

It has some useful information, but the branding came from the venue rather than the event. The tagline welcomes them to Celestial Greens LLC, complete with a logo of a smiling unicorn in a golf visor with a putting green in the background.

Wherever you go, you're never far from Celestial Greens! 🦄⛳

The map divides the ground floor of the building into a handful of different areas. Apart from the cafeteria and the auditorium, the rest are labelled with different medical specialties. Some of them are familiar: infectious disease, immunotherapy, genetic screening, radiomedicine. Others are more concerning. Morgan is morbidly curious about 'pseudoelective surgery' and 'augmetics'. Part of the atrium is simply labelled 'trade show', with no mention of who or what will even be there.

The attendant checks off two rows on the paperwork and sets down her clipboard.

"Doctor Waller, you'll be staying in room 301. Doctor West, room 217. Take your hotel keys on the way in. The opening ceremony begins in ten minutes."

She sits back in her chair, completely motionless.

He glances down at the briefcase.

"We should see about having a bellhop take this to your room, or else store it in a cloakroom if you need it today."

"Good idea," she says, watching the attendant closely to see if her chest has stopped moving. "Say, do you know why there are two neurology divisions? Half the room is marked 'reductive' and the other half is marked 'holistic'."

"Depends on where the information is stored."

Morgan startles, adrenaline rushing through her veins. She's going to have to start paying more attention to her surroundings if she doesn't want to have a nervous breakdown before lunch.

(She is not normally this jumpy, but something about walking into another universe has her on edge. She prefers to stay far, far away from Red Sea Objects.)