Scene 25

MAX and GLASS are in the office.

GLASS

Well that was a complete failure!

MAX

What were you trying to do in there?

GLASS

I thought you told me that the girls would connect? That they react like one being?

MAX

Yes.

GLASS

Then how do you explain their reactions just now? They reacted in complete opposition.

MAX

I was just telling you what I saw.

GLASS

I need results now.

MAX

Those girls, those girls could have died in there.

GLASS

They didn't.

MAX

We caught Angelique before she went into the final stage of hypo—

GLASS

Are you questioning my methods? Tell me, how long have you been considered a doctor?

MAX

What?

GLASS

How long?

MAX

I graduated last year.

GLASS

I have been a doctor for more years than you have been alive!

MAX

I—but listen to me, those girls, why did you have to? Why in the water? Why do you have to control them?

GLASS

You relate to botany, yes? Well, those girls are unpredictable subjects. We need to create similar controls for our work to have any validity. This is no different from the study of plants, is it?

MAX

But the girls aren't—

GLASS

Science is science… there is no hierarchy because of the complexity of the cell structure. Do you prune your plants?

MAX

What plants?

GLASS

Your specimens, your controls, do you prune them if they threaten to invade another environment?

MAX

Yes, if they begin to grow beyond their controlled boundary… for… safety.

GLASS

It's for the safety of the subjects that they stay within their controlled boundary?

MAX

Yes, sir.

GLASS

In all my years as a medical professional, never once have I delimbed one of my subjects. It seems to me that amputation is a much harsher control method than a firm hand.

MAX

Are you joking?

GLASS

Are you questioning how things work here?

MAX

But the twins—

GLASS

The twins are everything! Can't you see that?

MAX

But you are using them for research with no regard—

GLASS

You have no idea what you're talking about.

MAX

It's dangerous! It's unethical!

GLASS

You have no idea! Those girls are everything to me! If it weren't for them— Twenty-one years ago, when you were six years old, I was a doctor with a family of my own. I had a wife and a three-year-old son. We were driving home from a party at a colleague's. The car slipped on the ice. I was pinned to the wheel—my wife, our son on her lap, slammed into the windshield— In the ambulance we… the three of us covered in each others' blood.

MAX

What?

GLASS

They died before we got to the hospital. Why them and not me? What had I done? What hadn't I done? I was the walking wounded. I moved, worked in a tiny hospital, had to go through every day wondering when people would notice blood pooling on my lab coat, see the gaping hole in my side.

MAX

Sir—

GLASS

It wasn't until those girls came that I could become whole again.

MAX

And you saved them, sir.

GLASS

No I didn't. I didn't have anything to do with their survival… they did. As soon as they were together, they, their blood gelled and the bleeding stopped. They saved each other.

MAX

But, sir, of course you had a hand in—

GLASS

You know I was furious? I couldn't help it. I was so angry they didn't need me. I was only a… could only ever be a bystander. What was it about them? Why had they pulled each other through? When I was lying beside my own family, what wasn't enough? Why don't you question yourself? Why don't you find something out instead of hiding in your room with your plants? Those girls are about to walk out my door! Don't you ever question my ethics because I have spent the past ten years giving those girls my life! We need to know the answers now! Why don't you find out something that will help us!

The following is said in the dark:

POUBELLE

Angelique, la chaleur, it's burning me hot.

ANGELIQUE

Poubelle, the ice in my blood, it's starting to clot.

POUBELLE

You promised beside me is where you would stay.

ANGELIQUE

And I'm watching you, cracking and floating away.