Already on it. Patching through to their Ethertrak now.
Good. And then we just need to look at what they ended up producing, and somehow figure out what combinations could have been mixed.
Molly spun around looking round the lab for something.
“What? What is it?” Paige asked, her last sentence abandoned.
Molly’s eyes scanned the far reaches of the lab. “I’m looking for where they might actually store these toxins once they’ve produced them.” She noticed a door with another securi-field and a keypad. “There…” she nodded with her head, subtly so that only Paige was aware.
Paige turned to look where Molly had indicated. “What do we need to do? They’ll give us access, right?” she asked.
“I would have thought so.” Molly looked around for where their escort had gone. He was nowhere, but there were plenty of other employees walking around in white suits.
She stopped a passerby with a rack of samples in his hands.
“Excuse me,” she said.
He looked at her, and nodded, without bothering to speak.
Her hackles went up a little, and her face firmed, noticing his attitude.
She continued, “I’m here investigating the situation for Dr. Knotts. I need to see the storage area, please.”
“You’re the one who wrote the paper?” The lab-coated passerby spoke, his voice more cold than impressed. The guy was young, and he stood tall and proud; his Estarian blue glow not completely diminished like most of his colleagues. Molly guessed that he had only arrived that morning, whereas the others had probably been working most of the night.
Molly pursed her lips. “If you’re talking about the paper on splicing and dicing the Yultok plant to prove that fucking around with genes is a bad idea…”
The young scientist looked taken aback. Paige assumed it was Molly’s language.
“You look surprised,” Molly commented flatly.
She watched the irritation swell in the guy’s chest and face. “Yeah. Well…” he started, “it was a fucking stupid paper to write.” Then his voice suddenly softened, and his chest relaxed a little as if he were changing his mind. “But I hadn’t realized your reason for writing it - until you said that.”
“Oh,” Molly raised her chin slowly, and paused. “Yeah, that was the main premise. I got graded down because it read more like ‘a manifesto of what science shouldn’t do’,” she shared. “What did you think the paper was for?”
The scientist looked a little embarrassed. “To wreak death and destruction. Probably set you up for your nice cushy job with the military.”
Paige’s eyes widened, watching for Molly’s reaction.
Molly’s mouth flew open in outrage. “You’re serious?” her voice louder and two octaves higher. “I worked with computers in the military. I would never develop this kind of toxin - or any toxin - for military use! It would be a crime against life!” She ran out of breath, and had to stop speaking to breathe.
Paige wasn’t certain, but she thought she saw tears of anger forming in Molly’s eyes.
The young scientist relaxed his frame, and nodded sympathetically, now looking ashamed of how he had jumped to a conclusion that was so far off the mark.
He looked down at the floor, and scuffed a toe against the surface, flicking his hair out of his eyes before looking back at her. “So,” he said more quietly now. “You’re here to help us find an antidote?”
“Yes,” she told him, cautiously holding her hand out to shake his. “I’m Molly, and this is Paige,” she tilted her head in Paige’s direction. “And we need to move fast.”
“Guss,” he answered. He shifted the rack of test tubes into his left arm, and offered them each in turn a fist to bump. “Geek hand-shake,” he explained. “Product of working in a lab with all kinds of things you don’t want to transfer.”
They fist bumped. He smiled at them, as he turned around. Paige shook her head to herself.
This really was another world.
He quickly popped the samples down in a nearby gas cupboard and locked it with a fingerprint device. “Okay, follow me,” he instructed, leading them off to the door across the lab. Clearing the securi-field, he gave them the rundown of how things were stored.
“By category and date?” Molly confirmed.
Guss nodded.
She looked out at the shelves of temperature-controlled samples. “This means that we can take a guess at the products that were disturbed in a given area, and then cross reference them with the lab reports.”
Guss looked at Molly, and blinked. “Yeah. And that would tell us what was missing,” he said, finishing the thought. “I guess we hadn’t thought of that.” He scratched his mop of brown hair, looking a little sheepish.
Molly wasn’t paying attention to him, though. They’d found the shelves that had been disturbed. Some of it had already been cleaned up for obvious reasons. But Molly looked carefully at what had been disturbed. “It looks random. And rushed. She walked up and down the other shelves in the area to check that nothing else had been broken, or looked obviously missing. “This doesn’t look like a special concoction was being produced,” she commented.
Guss had one hand on his hip, and one gripping his hair. “Yeah, uh. I guess you’re right,” he admitted, looking around to see what else he’d missed.
Molly and Paige took images of everything that they would need to narrow their task down, and Guss led them back out to the main lab where they met Eugene. He’d accumulated several boxes worth of samples and materials they would need.
“You guys have transport?” he asked, his hand on a stack of three of the crates.
“We do,” Molly told him. “Out in your visitor parking lot.”
Molly was suddenly glad that Brock had changed the plates before they left, just in case they were being tracked. The car itself worked for their low-key op, as it was inconspicuous and not too new. No one would look at it twice in the downtown environment.
“Okay, let me give you a hand then,” Eugene said, lifting the first set onto an antigrav hover device he’d located while he was fetching the supplies. Guss scurried off to get another couple, and before they knew it, they had “hovered” everything out and loaded up the car.
Guss closed the trunk, and patted it with the flat of his hand. “That’s the last of it.” he told her.
“Thanks for all your help,” Molly said, fist bumping the two nerds. “I’ll be in touch as soon as we need more intel, or when we have something to report.”
Paige hopped into the passenger seat.
Guss and Eugene smiled back at Molly, then Paige. Then Eugene had a thought. “You don’t want to see Dr. Knotts before you head out?”
Molly was already opening the car door on the driver’s side. She shook her head. “He has my holo. He knows where to reach me. Something tells me he’s otherwise disposed right now.” She gave them a knowing glance.
Eugene assumed that she was talking about him trying to run down all the intel she had asked for. It was going to be politically tricky that’s for sure.
Guss stepped back onto the pavement and waved. “I’m glad to have bumped into you, Molly Bates,” Guss gushed. “It’s a comfort knowing someone as qualified as you is on the case.”
Paige glanced at Molly through the open car door window, as if to comment on the attitude turnaround in Guss.
Molly, feeling the weight of Paige’s stare, and guessing why, chose to ignore it out of politeness. It was something they might giggle about later, once they were safely out of earshot.
They made their goodbyes once more and Molly finally got into the car to head back to the hangar. Any moment away from the safety of the ship, Molly was exposed. And now was the not the time to get embroiled in a media showdown, or an old murder investigation.
Especially since on this occasion, she was innocent. Mostly.
Spaceport, Hangar 08771A, Outskirts of Uptarl
ung
Molly was moving fast, and Paige fell in to helping her load the equipment into the ship. “Let’s just get these loaded and then close the main doors. The fewer people see we’re here, the better.”
Paige picked up a box, and heaved it onto their KrateMaster. She frowned a little. “Why don’t we just leave it in the car?”
Molly didn’t pause to think. “I might be able to make a start on organizing at least some of it when we’re en route.” She checked to make sure the five boxes they’d stacked were adequately balanced before starting to move the whole stack. “If it’s in the car, and in that other compartment, we can’t get access to it until we reach Gaitune.”
“Oh, I see,” Paige nodded. She trotted after Molly, who wheeled the stack towards the hangar. When they came to the ridge into the hangar, Paige helped lift one end of the archaic crate mover onto the ridge as Molly pushed from behind.
Their stack of crates accelerated once they were on the level ground of the hanger floor. Molly grinned dryly. “Shame they didn’t offer us their antigrav boards, eh?”
Paige laughed. “Yeah, I think Brock would have loved to have seen that!”
“Yo!” Crash came jogging down the length of the hangar. “Lemme help you with that.”
“Ah, thanks,” Molly stood up straighter. “If you guys can handle that, I’ll organize some of those other boxes. Maybe we don’t need to bring all of them in.”
“Sure,” Paige said.
Crash made a nod in Molly’s direction, as Paige watched her disappear out to the car again. “You guys are back sooner than I thought you would be…” Crash said to Paige. “Given you were at a lab, that is.”
Paige smiled, understanding exactly what he meant. “Yeah, she was all business. I was more intrigued by the place than she was. We basically just grabbed the intel and supplies, and came straight back.”
Crash looked mildly surprised. “What? No tour? No nostalgia?”
Paige shook her head. “Nada.”
“Wow,” he bobbed his head. “Probably smart, though. She was on another news report this morning. We need to keep her out of sight, if we can.”
The two continued wheeling the stack of crates along the side of the ship to the tailgate.
* * *
Molly had stepped outside. The air was fresh and comfortable, even without her atmosuit jacket on. The breeze whipped gently across her face, catching her hair. She dragged the stray strands from out of her eyes and looped them behind her ear.
As she moved her hand, something caught her eye over on the far side of the hangar from where she stood. She did a double take. There was nothing out of the ordinary, but she could have sworn she felt a person there, just for a second.
She shook her head.
Seeing things, she thought to herself.
It’s all that inter-realm meditating.
She ignored Oz’s dig.
She continued on to the car, her back now to that side of the hangar. She was just about to open a few of the boxes to figure out how to stack them, when she was distracted.
Someone was watching her.
She could feel it.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She reached down to her holo to see if she could send a message to someone, but then remembered she had Oz.
Oz. I think someone is here. If anything happens, be ready to send an SOS to Paige, Crash, and Joel.
Okay. I’ve got messages drafted.
With that confirmation, Molly turned around carefully. There was no one nearby. She started to walk down towards the far side of the hangar.
Movement again. This time a man appeared from behind the hangar wall. He didn’t seem threatening. He just stood to show himself and looked around, as if he were staying out of sight of everyone but her.
Molly watched him, taking in the details she could see. Big, muscular arms. Tall. Brick shit-house like. Tattoos. Probably ex-military. She’s seen enough of those types in her time. If she had to guess friend or foe, she’d probably go with neither right now. There was no way she could take him. Not even with her martial arts expertise. Her mind raced, flitting through her options.
Without reaching with her hand, she tried to feel by pressing her arm against her side if she had her gun on her belt.
Shit. Nope.
She wouldn’t have been able to take it into the lab, so it was still on the ship.
Going to have to try this the old-fashioned way.
What’s the old-fashioned way?
“Hi,” she called out gently; not loud enough to draw any attention to them, in case people were around the other hangars.
The guy motioned with his head, beckoning her to come over.
She stepped away from the car and started to move in his direction. She moved slowly, hesitant to move out of plain sight; she didn’t want to make it too easy for him to jump her.
She stopped a few paces back so she would still be visible to anyone who might be around. She could always scream.
“Molly Bates?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m Sean Royale. I work with your friend Garet Beaufort.”
He noticed her shoulders drop, and her face become less stoney.
“Garet sent me to touch base with you, to loop you in on some details. I work for him privately. Outside The Syndicate.”
He glanced around before continuing. ”He has information about this outbreak, and you’re going to need some help.”
Molly was still wary. She hung back. “What kind of help?” she asked. “What do you know?”
He looked around furtively again. “Can we do this inside?”
She hesitated, then looked inside the hangar. The others were up there. Crash might be helpful, if they needed to take this guy down. But it would be putting both of them in danger.
She paused.
“Sure,” she said.
Heck, inside or outside didn’t matter. It wasn’t like he was a vampire, and inviting him in was going to put anyone in any more danger than they were already in. Vampire. She rolled her eyes internally, remembering she would still have to have a conversation with Joel about that.
She signaled to him to lead the way. “Down to the bottom,” she instructed, and then followed. She waited until they were well inside before she started talking.
“My team is just loading some things onto the ship. Want to head up there and grab a mocha with us, and tell us what’s going on?”
“Sure. I’ve got some time. Andus’s people think I’m on the other side of Spire right now.
Molly looked at him quizzically.
“Long story,” he said flatly.
The two strode down to the tailgate and up the ramp onto the ship. Molly noticed as she made the introductions to Crash and Paige that all her concerns about him being a threat had evaporated.
“So, you’re ex-military?” she asked, as they sat in the makeshift kitchen, the mocha machine churning out one cup of nectar at a time.
“Yeah,” he said, sitting squarely at the table, hands perhaps deliberately visible to put them at ease. “Was my whole life,” he continued, “until I was retired by a downsizing initiative out in another system. Recently recalled, though.”
Paige looked confused. “I thought Molly said that you’re working with Garet?”
He nodded. “Yes. That’s right. But he doesn’t know the whole story. We need to keep it like that.”
Paige’s frown got a little deeper. Sean explained, “For his own safety, more than anything. He’s in a very delicate position, and can easily be leveraged. We can’t risk putting the rest of the operation in jeopardy. But yes, I also work for him, to help him fight the good fight where he can. And keep him as safe as I can… given the situation.”
Molly’s mind was racing trying to guess all the different moving pieces to what was going on. Sean seemed to pick up on that.
“Look,” he said, tur
ning to Molly now, “I’m not able to bring you in on everything. At least, not yet. But what I can tell you is that there is a media initiative to make it unsafe for you to be here, Molly. On Estaria.”
It was Molly’s turn to frown. “Why?” she asked, wanting the specifics.
“Because you are the only person who can possibly figure out this toxin thing. And because it is in certain peoples’ interests to have this toxin become a problem.”
Paige gasped, horrified that people would deliberately have thousands of people killed for political ends. “Oh, my ancestors!”
Sean agreed. “Yeah, its pretty horrific. But our best course of action to save those lives is to have Molly create the antidote, and also stop whoever has the toxin blend now from deploying it en masse.”
Molly noticed he used the word blend.
Someone else who knows more than he’s letting on?
Abso-fucking-lutely.
Sean kept talking, his eyes trying to convey his sincerity, and his hand-waving seeming to punctuate his honesty. “Have you put together that these outbreaks of violence in different areas in the city are related to the toxin?”
Molly and Paige looked at each other.
“You said there was something wiggy about that!” Paige exclaimed.
“No, we hadn’t. Not exactly,” admitted Molly slowly, trying to understand what he was telling them. “So you’re saying that this toxin induces aggressive outbursts?”
Crash placed a mug of mocha in front of Sean, and Sean nodded his thanks while he kept talking.
“Yes. About twenty hours before death. It’s just a matter of time before the media starts putting it together. Because of the longish lag time between the outburst and death, it’s going to take a few more days for the pattern to become clear to the authorities. We thought that if you had a heads up on the symptoms though, it might help you isolate the toxin components and come up with a fix.”
Molly had pulled up her holo and was taking notes. “Uh huh. Yes,” she agreed. “That’s helpful, actually. Are there any other symptoms? And any differences between oggs, Estarians and humans?”
“Not that we’re aware of,” he shared, taking a sip of his mocha. “We understand that it affects all races equally, and without discrimination.”
The Ascension Myth Box Set Page 34