by S. C. Davis
There was accent lighting that highlighted this particular panel and made it stand out from the rest. The etching on it was a large and beautiful portrait of a short-haired young woman sitting with her head tilted slightly down, her chin resting lightly on her hand.
She gave a faint secretive smile that seemed to suggest that she knew something the viewer did not. A woman that brilliant always knew something that everyone else did not, Dr. Wyatt thought in reverence about the woman in the portrait. At the bottom of the panel were etched the words: “Rosalind Franklin, 1920-1958”.
Dr. Wyatt was surprised when Rigby reached out and pressed down a small vertical wooden lever next to the portrait. It had blended so well into the surrounding wood that he would never have noticed it without seeing it used. The large panel swung open silently into a large and lavish office. Another discrete door, Dr. Wyatt thought to himself. Rosalind was proving to have many secrets.
Inside the office, a heavy mahogany desk was centered in front of a floor-to-ceiling oil painting of Rigby himself. Rigby took a seat at his desk and gestured for Dr. Wyatt to join him in the chair on the other side.
Dr. Wyatt obliged, then crossed his legs and sat back, waiting for what he assumed was a second pitch to partner on his research. As before, he was prepared to decline, only this time he was not so confident that it would be that easy.
“I'm sure Miss Pritchard explained to you the reason for this meeting,” Rigby began. The feigned warmth had disappeared from his voice, and Dr. Wyatt had the feeling he was about to see Rigby's true character.
“She gave a story of sorts, yes,” Dr. Wyatt said candidly. “But she didn’t disclose the real reason. I’m fully aware of who you are, you know. I’m confused as to why you felt the need to intimidate me into meeting with you.”
Rigby smiled at the unexpected boldness of Dr. Wyatt's response.
“Very good, Dr. Wyatt. I'm glad we can speak frankly with one another,” he said. “It's as simple as this. You're working on some very important research that could change the world as we know it with regard to the placement of solar power panels.”
Dr. Wyatt nodded impatiently. He did not need an introduction to his own research. Rigby was simply buttering him up.
“A brilliant scientist such as yourself shouldn't want to be bothered with the tedious work that lies ahead. Things like handling investors, obtaining patents, working with developers and energy companies and all that,” Rigby said, dismissively waving his hand as if he were describing boring and unimportant tasks.
“I'm a business man, Dr. Wyatt. That is my bread and butter. Just as your knowledge of science vastly surpasses mine, my knowledge of business tactics and financial prowess vastly exceeds yours.”
Dr. Wyatt politely smiled at the man’s “compliments” of him, but so far Rigby had not given him any new information that would change his mind. The man was simply wasting his time.
“I was disappointed in your refusal before, but I understand. You didn’t have enough information, and that was my mistake. Now that we know each other a little better, I'd like to propose a deal once more,” Rigby said.
Dr. Wyatt wondered if the “information” Rigby spoke of was not so much about his business prowess, but about what lengths he would go to in order to get what he wanted. Dr. Wyatt had, after all, been brought here without a choice. And that was just step one.
“The key is in your oil mixture—Jasper, is it?” Rigby continued.
At this, Dr. Wyatt's forced smile faded, and he cringed. That was not public knowledge. How did Rigby get that information? Dr. Wyatt felt a chill travel through his body. Now he was absolutely convinced that he had been right; they had been watching him.
“How did you—”
“Never mind the specifics,” Rigby interrupted. “I have my ways. Let's get back to this deal. Bottom line up front, I'd like to purchase the formula for Jasper from you. No patents, no crediting anyone for its creation, nothing like that. Just purely and simply purchasing the formula from you.”
Rigby opened a large drawer at the bottom of his mahogany desk and pulled out a locked briefcase. Dr. Wyatt glanced uncomfortably around the room, and gave a slight jump when he noticed that Axel had been standing in the corner behind him the whole time. That guy is not human, Dr. Wyatt thought as he turned back toward Rigby.
“I’m prepared to negotiate, but I think you’ll find my offer more than generous,” Rigby said as he fed a small brass key into the briefcase and opened it. He turned it around to face Dr. Wyatt, revealing thick stacks of crisp one-hundred dollar bills filling the entire briefcase.
Dr. Wyatt, a morally sound man, was still human. For a moment, his heart fluttered at the sight of that sum of money. Any sane person would consider it, if even for a brief moment. Or at least that's what he told himself.
“This is five-hundred-thousand dollars, in cash. Half a million. This is yours. All we need from you is to sign this contract,” Rigby said as he retrieved from a drawer a sheet of paper, covered in extremely fine print. He placed it before Dr. Wyatt.
“It’s simply an agreement that you will provide the formula for Jasper to us, but never to anyone else. You’ll be permitted to keep the formula for yourself, of course. But the agreement also states that any future advancements of the formula will be solely provided to me and my organization, and to none other.”
“But I don't know anything about you,” Dr. Wyatt said. “I don't know who you are, or what you or your 'organization' does. How can I be sure I would be selling this to a worthy party?”
“A valid concern, Dr. Wyatt,” Rigby said, smiling reassuringly. “My organization is simply here to help you handle the large exchanges of money, that is all.
“The same developers and power companies that would approach you directly about using your product would simply come to us instead. We’d be working on your behalf, buffering out all that business nonsense that I'm sure you would rather avoid, isn't that right?”
Dr. Wyatt sat and thought for a few moments. This simply wasn't right. He knew absolutely nothing about this man and his organization. Why would he entrust his critical research to them?
It was just absurd that they would even ask like this. Exchanges of this magnitude didn't just happen between two people in a private office with briefcases full of cash. Not if they were legitimate, or legal.
It did not take long for Dr. Wyatt to generate his answer. He took one last look at the money in the briefcase, knowing it was the last time he would ever see something like that in person, and then spoke.
“Dr. Rigby,” he began, no longer inclined to speak to him informally. “I thank you for your time and interest in my work, but I simply cannot accept your offer.”
“Fine, one million dollars.” Rigby responded so quickly it startled Dr. Wyatt.
“No, I don't think you understand me. It's nothing to do with the amount of money, I just simply can’t sell you the formula at all. I'm sorry,” Dr. Wyatt said as he stood from his chair, making it clear he was ready to leave.
Still, he wasn’t entirely sure they would allow him to. He got the feeling Rigby was not known to make time for games, to beg, and certainly not to take “no” for an answer.
As if he had expected it would come to this, Axel was standing directly behind Dr. Wyatt when he stood up. He reached out and placed a hand on Dr. Wyatt's shoulder in a passive-aggressive warning that he would not be going anywhere.
“Once again, I'm disappointed to hear this, Dr. Wyatt,” Rigby said, also standing.
“However, I was prepared for the possibility of this answer. I believe that after we spend some more time together, you’ll change your mind. So with that, I would like to say 'welcome' to our facility. I'm sure you’ll find your stay...enlightening, to say the least.”
“My...stay?” Dr. Wyatt said, his nervousness beginning to escalate into genuine fear.
“Yes, of course!” Rigby said, his face showing something like madness. “Axel, please sho
w the doctor to his quarters.”
Axel did not ask Dr. Wyatt if he wanted the easy way or the hard way, but rather made the decision himself. After a fractured second of sharp pain on the back of his head, Dr. Wyatt's world went completely black.
Chapter 22
The Midnight Break–In
THE S3C MEMBERS WERE keenly aware of the urgency of our mission. Every hour that passed was another hour that Dr. Wyatt was missing. So we agreed to meet the following day after school, giving each of us some time to let everything marinate, but not too much time to waste.
Mr. Gregory met us as well, and gave us the rundown on our new watches. After everything was programmed in properly, they worked just as he had said they would.
The feature we drooled over the most was the video recording. Mr. Gregory demonstrated it by activating the cameras, wearing the watch like normal, and walking down the hall. He had set it to broadcast the video feed live to all of our watches, where we could see on our screens what his watch was picking up.
There was a micro camera lens on the face of the watch, as well as on the forward-facing and backward-facing edges. This meant there were three different vantage points being captured at once: in front, behind, and to one side of the wearer.
Our screens were divided into three sections, showing the feed from each of the camera lenses on Mr. Gregory's watch as he walked down the hall. Amazingly, we could see all around him.
“How did you even get these?” Chase asked when Mr. Gregory returned, as he continued to tinker with his watch.
“They were part of Rosalind's inventory before the new leadership took over. I took them from storage, then went into the records and changed the number it said we had on hand so no one would be the wiser,” Mr. Gregory answered.
“You mean...you stole them?!” Britta asked, wide-eyed in feigned shock, which drew a laugh from the group.
“Speaking of stealing,” I interrupted, deciding it was time to get down to business. “I was thinking about going back to Dr. Wyatt's lab. I can borrow my mom's key to the building, so I could easily go at night or some other time when no one else will likely be in the building.”
“And what exactly would you be doing there?” Alexandra asked.
“Well, like we already discussed, it seems Dr. Wyatt may have tweaked the Jasper Oil on purpose, hoping Kieran would find it. It might be important that he does find it. I'm not sure. But what I do know is that he won't, because we probably have the only bottle that Dr. Wyatt altered,” I reminded them.
“I think we should take some of the tweaked oil and leave it for him, but still keep some for ourselves in case we need to study it more,” I suggested. “Plus, it might be a good idea to take a look around for other clues, now that we have a different context.”
The group agreed that it was a good idea, and I offered to go that night.
“I have to go when Kieran's not around. My parents go to bed around ten. You guys know I live just a few minutes’ walk from the college. I'll plan to go around eleven, just to be sure they're asleep,” I said.
Mr. Gregory walked over to the cabinet, retrieved the bottle of Jasper Oil and handed it to me.
“I don't like the idea of you going at night,” he said. “Only if you're comfortable.”
“I'll be safe,” I promised.
“Jenna, please just be very, very careful. I wish I could go with you, but like I said, they've got eyes on me pretty much any time I'm not at school. Of that, I'm sure,” Mr. Gregory said, glancing around nervously as if he wondered whether he was even safe at school.
We agreed to meet again after school two days later, and parted ways for the night. I went to bed as usual around nine thirty, Parsley curled up next to me.
I waited to see the lights go out and listened for my parents' bedroom door to shut. It did around a quarter after ten, and I stayed in bed another twenty minutes until I heard the faint sound of my dad snoring.
I slipped out of bed, already dressed, and reached under the bed for a dog toy I had filled with peanut butter. I placed it in front of Parsley, who attacked it immediately.
Knowing he was now preoccupied enough not to follow me or whine for me, I grabbed a canvas bag that I had packed the boxed Jasper Oil into, and tip-toed down the stairs in my socks. By the door, I carefully worked mom's keys off of the hook on the wall, picked up my shoes, and slipped silently out onto the front porch.
The street was empty in front of me, and no lights were on in any windows of the shops and restaurants that lined it. I was clear to go.
I sat on the front step and began pulling on my boots, when I heard the chain of the porch swing to my right give a familiar squeak; the one it always gave when someone stood out of it. I jumped to my feet and nearly toppled off of the porch steps.
“Shhhh!” a hushed but familiar voice came from the shadowed figure heading toward me. “It's me!”
“....Wes?” I said, squinting in the darkness to see him.
“You didn't think I was going to let you go break into a laboratory in the middle of the night alone, did you? Hmm...guess you still have a lot to learn about me,” he said, and I could hear the teasing in his voice.
A wave of comfort and relief washed over me. As adventurous as I was, I actually had been a little nervous about going alone, but I hadn't wanted to ask any of the other kids because they lived so much farther away. Plus, I preferred to do things myself.
“How did you get out here?” I asked, careful not to let him hear the relief in my voice.
“I told my uncle I would work a shift washing dishes at his restaurant tonight. It was perfect timing; I finished up about half an hour ago,” he said.
“Jeez, how many businesses does your family own around here?” I said teasingly as we headed out onto the sidewalk.
“We basically own the town,” he joked.
We walked mostly in silence the rest of the way to the college. I was thinking through the plan of what we were about to do, but I kept getting distracted by random butterflies whenever Wes would accidentally brush against my arm.
I can NOT be crushing on Wes, I thought to myself. That’s a conflict of interest, and plus, it's just downright distracting. I'm supposed to be all about refocusing these days! I commanded myself to pull it together and to stop being so easily distracted and day-dreamy.
When we got to the science building on campus, I glanced around to be sure no one was watching, then pulled out the key and began unlocking the door.
For a brief moment, I worried there would be a security alarm inside that I would have no idea how to disarm. But the door opened without any beeping or blaring sirens, so we proceeded down the stairs toward Dr. Wyatt's lab.
The hall was mostly dark, except for the occasional light beam emitting from the frosted glass of the laboratory doors. I didn't hear any movement, so I assumed we were alone.
Some of the labs let off eerie beams of light in various colors, and I wondered what sort of equipment or experiments were running inside. The low hum of motors, or the bubbling of air stones in aquariums could be heard behind some doors.
When we got to Dr. Wyatt's lab, the door was closed. But, like several of the other labs, the light was on inside. I reached out to turn the door knob. Locked.
“Shoot!” I whispered to Wes, angry at myself. “What was I thinking? Of course the labs are locked at night!” I made a vain attempt to see if the key I had to the building would work, but of course it didn't.
“I didn't think of that either,” Wes whispered, but his voice was calm and reassuring, as if he didn't want me to beat myself up about it.
Just then, I heard what sounded like glass clanking together from inside the lab, and through the frosted glass I saw a figure moving around.
“Someone's in there!” I whispered through gritted teeth.
Wes stood next to me and peered into the window. The figure was starting to move toward the door. Panicked, we looked around in either direction and ran for the fi
rst object we saw: a wheeled cart full of text books with a sign that said “Free!”, pushed up against the opposite wall.
We ducked behind the cart, thankful that it wasn't in the path of any of the beams of strange light cascading across the hall. The doorknob rattled and began to turn. The light inside the lab flicked off, making the end of the hall we were in almost completely dark.
A man exited the lab and pulled the door closed quietly behind him. I couldn't see any of his features, but right away I knew it wasn't Kieran. He was too tall, and too solidly built, to be Kieran.
The man turned and walked down the hall away from us, passing through alternating beams of the unnatural light and dark shadows. He had a black duffel bag draped over his shoulder, but otherwise I couldn’t tell his hair color or the type of clothes he was wearing, except that they were all dark.
I looked at Wes. The look he returned told me he was thinking the same as me. That was no graduate student of Dr. Wyatt's, and that certainly wasn't Dr. Wyatt himself. Who would be in his lab this late at night, and how did they get in? It wasn't worth posing the question out loud. We already knew the answer. It was someone from Rosalind.
Once we heard the door close at the end of the hallway, followed by the echo of footsteps climbing the stairs, we came out from behind the cart and returned to the lab door.
I tried the handle again. Still locked. I shook my head in defeat, disappointed in myself for not thinking of this very obvious hurdle ahead of time.
“Don't worry about it,” Wes said. “We'll come back. We just have to be strategic enough to come when it's open, but also avoid Kieran.”
As we walked back to my house, we were mostly silent again, this time because I was pouting. But along the way, I hatched a new plan.
“Wes?” I said, looking up at him with pleading eyes. “Don't tell the others that this didn't work.”