Monster (Tainted Elements Book 3)
Page 10
If Victor was so good, he’d be in the boss’s lab. But he wasn’t, and not only because he didn’t want to be. Elemontera would always find a way to persuade someone when they had to, but Victor remained here. I wondered why. Maybe even the boss thought he was a dangerous man and was afraid for his precious lab. “Would you send something to Elemontera to help them with their technology problem? Something that could at once shut down all the technological devices, like elemental energy detectors?”
He scratched his chin. “I think I might have something for that.” He turned around so quickly that I gasped, my control of my element wavering, but I managed to get back in control. Victor started picking up various liquids, wrinkling his nose and shaking his head. Finally, he picked up two tiny vials, one green and one yellow. “This!” he said triumphantly, nearly pushing the vials into my face. I jumped back, willing him to stay still.
“What is that?” I asked. “And please don’t use any scientific terms.”
“When these two are mixed, they explode, and the mist that rises after that has the power to corrupt every device enhanced with elemental magic. The particles in the mist attract elemental energy from the devices and bind it to itself, causing the device to malfunction.”
Okay, that sounded fantastic. “Does it do anything to people?” If something could attract elemental particles, then I had to make sure it didn’t suck out our elements too if it exploded nearby.
“Oh, no. That’s not how it works. Human elements are too strong for this, but they could be affected a little.” He put the vials down and rubbed his fingers together.
“Do you have a container that could keep those two liquids together without causing the explosion until it is opened?” Beads of sweat were starting to appear on my forehead as my element tugged and tugged, almost begging me to put the nice scientist out of his misery. Shaking the thought away, I focused on Victor.
He looked around the room. “Maybe. I can put it in a grenade, I suppose.”
A slow smile crept upon my lips. “Do it.”
If I activated the grenade, got to Elemontera and said to the boss that Victor had sent me, there’d be no way they could take the grenade from me anywhere else other than in the lab without risking every device in my vicinity.
Not that I had to tell them exactly what the thing would do. Killing me wouldn’t help them, and I assumed I could mind-control the guards to let me through the main door because the energy levels would be high anyway and trigger the alarms thanks to these liquids. It wasn’t a perfect and infallible plan, but what plan was?
I waited patiently as Victor ran around the small lab, opening hidden drawers in the wall. He took out a dark green grenade and opened it, making me flinch. He picked up the vials and spilled the contents into a small bag. Then he placed the bags inside the grenade. Even though I’d never seen a grenade up close, I suspected this wasn’t anywhere near a regular one. But as long as it worked similarly, I hoped everything would be fine and that I wouldn’t regret this.
A couple of moments later, Victor offered me the grenade. “It’s done.”
“How do I activate it?” I asked, carefully taking the grenade in my hand. It wasn’t heavy, and I was afraid to even touch its surface too much.
“Haven’t you ever seen one of these?” He laughed. “Pull out that ring and throw it.”
“Right. But if I don’t want to throw it immediately?” Using the grenade on the devices would be useless, because then I’d need a bunch of grenades and the lab would probably be sealed off by the time I got there.
He frowned, but I forced my element to get him to answer my question and not wonder why I’d want to do something like that. “Just press that thing.” He pointed at the top of the grenade. “And don’t move your finger until you want it to go boom!” Throwing his hands up, he grinned.
“Yeah, okay.” That sounded pretty much normal. “Are there any special buttons you added to it or something? Can it be deactivated?”
“No, it can’t. And there are no special buttons, unless you count the special trigger inside that can blow up the thing if I press a button.” He moved toward his desk.
“No!” I yelled, stopping him with my air. “You won’t press that button.” I carefully snaked my element around the signals in his brain. “Look at me.”
He turned around slowly, his eyes glazed. “You won’t remember any of this. You’ll only know that today you were working on a great new experiment that released a lot of fumes, and you got this amazing idea how to solve Elemontera’s evil technology problem. Then you remembered a girl delivered you something and thought an agent could do it again for you. Elemontera would surely appreciate your precious gift. You wanted to get an agent here as soon as possible, so you sent out the fumes above the lab to create a shimmering as a signal. One of the agents came and you convinced her to come into your lab. Then you gave her the active grenade, instructing her to go to Elemontera and use it on the devices. Understood?”
“Yes.” He bobbed his head, his eyes blank.
“Good. Now you’ll pack your things, leave this lab, and go somewhere you’ve always wanted to go.” I pulled my element back and ran for the door. Hoping the grenade wouldn’t accidentally activate, I held it tightly in my hand as I passed next to the cameras in the store, because once Elemontera inspected the footage, they’d have to believe the grenade was already active.
After I was safely out, I put the grenade carefully into my pocket and turned into air. As I came closer to Elemontera, I stopped on one of the rooftops. Making sure I was out of sight, I pulled the ring, my finger pressing the top. The grenade didn’t react in any way, and I wondered if the crazy scientist had done something wrong and the thing wasn’t even active, but I wasn’t about to try it out to check.
Keeping my hand low and hidden under my jacket, I strode down the street, careful not to brush against anything or bump into any people. My heart racing, I burst through the door of Elemontera’s headquarters. The alarm immediately went off. My air shot out, going for the heads of the guards who were already drawing out their guns.
“Stay back!” I yelled. “I need to see the boss! Now!”
“What is that?” A guard’s eyes went wide as he saw the grenade in my hand. “Get that out of here!”
“I can’t let go of it!” I screamed. “Please! I have to get to the boss!” I didn’t even know if the boss would be here, but I forced the guards to let me through. As I entered the elevator, I let panic show on my face. I thought about my parents getting hurt to force tears into my eyes. By the time the elevator opened, I was sure the whole building was in lockdown. More guards were waiting for me with their weapons raised, eyes wary. I lifted my free hand up.
“Please, don’t shoot. If you do, I don’t know what will happen!” I cried. “Please stay back. Does anyone know how to deactivate this thing?”
The guards just looked at each other. Finally one of them stepped forward and offered me a phone. I took it and pressed it to my ear.
“What’s going on, agent?” the boss’s icy voice rang through the line.
“I... that man... Victor... he... he... he gave me this,” I said.
“Pull yourself together and speak.”
“Victor Rice forced me to take this. Said it was a gift for you, and that you know about it. And as I held it in my hand, he just pulled that ring and... he said it would explode and destroy all evil technology in here. Can you please send someone to deactivate it? I really don’t know what else could be in this thing and I can’t let go of it.” There was nowhere else he could send me except to the lab. Nothing else could contain the spread of a disease or whatever else could be put in such a thing. “Please, sir.”
“Why shouldn’t I just send you out with this? Save my building?” he asked. “You’re just one agent.”
Damn it. “Because if you let me die, I’ll make sure to let go of this right here!” I squealed. There was silence on the other end of the line.
“What did you do to my parents?” I yelled, my grip on the grenade tightening. There was no doubt he was watching me through the cameras, so he’d better be careful with this.
“Oh, I didn’t do anything to them,” he said. “But I can’t help but wonder... I’ve found out some interesting things about your family.”
“Look, sir, we don’t have time for this. If you want to talk, we can talk later, but now I really want this thing deactivated. I don’t want to die. Please!”
The guards around me were fidgeting, and they all looked like they wanted nothing more than to bolt down the hallway.
“Hold onto it for a little longer, will you? I will send my men to take a look at the thing,” the boss said.
“Okay.” That wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but I hoped they wouldn’t try to deactivate the grenade here. That would be truly annoying. The line went dead and I handed the phone to the guard. A group of agents squeezed past me toward the door, eyeing me suspiciously. I was sure the agents were headed to Victor’s lab to confirm my story.
Three men and two women arrived on the scene a couple of minutes later, led by Jaiden, whose eyes were filled with worry. I held onto the grenade, my fingers already feeling numb. Jaiden stepped aside, and the rest came to take a closer look at the grenade.
“Did the man who gave you this say anything about deactivation?” a brunette with green eyes asked.
I shook my head. “No. He just said it will go off! Can you do something?”
“I can’t see anything like this.” The dark-haired man frowned. “We don’t know what’s inside.”
“Maybe we could do a scan,” a short, bald man suggested.
“No, you can’t! Victor said this thing doesn’t work well with technology enhanced with elemental energy. Unless you can do it from afar somehow,” I said.
“Well, we know it triggered elemental energy detectors, so it definitely has magic inside,” the brunette said. “The agent is right; scanning it very closely could trigger it. The detectors can read the energy that is outside, but if we direct energy inside the thing, it might explode.”
“Then what do we do?” a man with grayish hair asked.
“Take the agent to the lab with it,” the woman said. “We can create a safe environment and see what we can do.”
“Is our agent going to be in danger?” Jaiden asked, his eyes briefly meeting mine.
“No, she should be fine,” the woman said. “Well, she might lose a couple of fingers, but... we’ll try to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“What?” I said in a high-pitched voice. “No! Take this away from me somehow. I’ll throw it... I’ll...”
“Whoa! Calm down. I was just talking about the worst-case scenario. We’ll return you in one piece,” the woman said calmly. “If you’d please follow me...”
She started down the hallway, and I went after her, followed by everyone’s gaze. Jaiden just looked at me as I passed him by, and I could see the conflict in his eyes. Maybe he wanted to come with me, but he wasn’t allowed to go inside the lab, even in a situation like this. Holding the grenade tightly in my grip, I fought the urge to smile to myself. I’d managed to get myself a ticket into the lab. Now the only problem was how to find the main computer and infect it. I was sure the lab had several rooms, and I prayed I’d end up in the right one.
Chapter 16
My nerves jittered as we stopped in front of the glass door, the alarm sounding as soon as we came closer.
“Josette, would you please tweak the detectors so they detect only elemental energy coming from a real element and not this damn thing, whatever it is?” the bald man said, covering his ears. “We’ll go mad from all the alarms.”
I’d been hoping they’d turn off the alarms, but there was no such luck. The brunette, Josette, merely pulled out a tablet and pressed a couple of buttons, and the alarm went silent. My bracelet started to burn on my arm, and I had a bad feeling someone had blocked my elements.
Something must have shown on my face, because Josette smiled at me. “We made sure your elements don’t accidentally come out and cause the grenade to explode. I know this is a very scary and emotional situation for you.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I said, while all I wanted was to squeeze her brain with my element until it shriveled. Blinking, I tried to stay in control of myself. What I had to do was find a way to infect Elemontera’s system, not fantasize about killing people. The door of the lab finally opened, and I was hit by a sweet, flowery scent. There was a long white hallway in front of me with numerous doors. The biggest door was at the end of it.
But as I looked to my left, my heart got stuck in my chest. A huge sheet of glass covered the whole wall, and from behind it people stared at me. There were six of them in a small room that only had cots on the floor and nothing else, and they were all dressed in white shirts and pants. A girl of my age splayed her fingers across the glass, and something about her gaze was unnerving.
“This way,” Josette said sharply, and I realized I’d stopped walking.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Our volunteers for experiments,” Josette said casually. “Don’t mind them. Sometimes they get a bit moody.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. Volunteers. Yeah, right. This building was full of volunteers. “What are you researching?”
“Something that will greatly help humanity,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “Why?”
“I was just wondering. Talking helps me keep my mind off this thing in my hand, and... um, my mom is a scientist. She used to tell me about her experiments when I was little and...”
“Oh.” Josette said flatly. “What was she researching?”
“Genetics, mostly.” My mother had made sure she wasn’t on the list of those to take credit for genetic manipulation, so I assumed not many people would associate her with that or know her for it.
“Uh-huh.” Josette stopped in front of the door at the end of hallway and pressed her hand to the device next to it, and then looked into it, but the light still didn’t go green. Finally, she punched in some numbers and pressed her bracelet against it, and only then did the door open. I’d have never gotten in here on my own.
As the door opened, we entered a room so vast I couldn’t see where it ended. Tall shelves to my right reached the ceiling, filled with stacks of papers, books, and vials. To the left were the tables with microscopes and various devices, along with at least a dozen computers that looked nearly identical.
I felt a ball form in the pit of my stomach. If this was the room I was looking for, how would I find the main computer? What if they didn’t have only one, but a bunch of smaller ones? I had a device that would work only once. How would I ever choose the right computer?
“Come here.” Josette led me farther into the room, and I saw more computers. Great, fucking great.
Various scientists looked up at me briefly, but then quickly returned to whatever they were working on. I could see energy level detectors everywhere, and I wondered how that didn’t affect their experiments when Victor claimed it was so harmful. Or maybe whatever the scientist were researching was different. I was escorted to what looked like a tall metal box that had a huge sheet of glass on one side.
“Get inside,” Josette said, opening the metal door. I reluctantly obeyed and was surprised that I could still stand straight without hitting my head on anything. There was only enough room for one person. Josette shut the door.
My heart fluttering, I wondered if they’d just leave me in here with the grenade and wait for it to explode in my face. As the door was fitted tightly into place, I could no longer hear anything, just see what was going on. Maybe Noah had been right. Maybe this was the stupidest of all the stupid plans I’d had, but hey, I’d tried.
Trying to calm down both my
self and my elements, which were constantly pushing against the bracelet, I watched the scientists through the glass as they rushed back and forth. One man, maybe five or so years older than me, with short, dark brown hair and dark brown eyes approached Josette, his mouth moving. Her brow was creased in worry, and then she shook her head.
I couldn’t see much of the room from here, but I did see a woman with protective glasses and gloves who was examining something that looked terrifyingly similar to a human heart. Josette disappeared out of sight, and I thought she wouldn’t be coming back, but she did, pushing a white device that looked like an incubator on wheels. She and the dark-haired man tinkered with it, doing some readings and comparing notes. I was getting itchy and tired, sweat dripping down my back. After what seemed like an eternity, the door of my box prison opened.
“I think we figured out how to deal with your little problem.” Josette flashed me a smile. “Come out, but slowly. We don’t want anything to explode.”
I walked out on shaky legs and stared at the device. “Is someone having a baby or what?”
The man ran his hand over his face, and Josette rolled her eyes. “Of course not,” she said. “You’re going to put your hand with that thingy inside, and then we’ll make sure you can let go of it nice and safely.”
“Are you sure this is going to work? I mean, that thing looks just like a glass cage with holes. Won’t something leak through the opening?”
“It’s made to contain elemental energy, and if we’re lucky, it will slow down the explosion for ten seconds, which will be enough for you to pull your hand out.”
“Oh, nice,” I said with excitement I didn’t feel. Although I hoped that Victor hadn’t been crazy enough to make something truly dangerous, and that the grenade only held inside what he’d told me. Even if it exploded in here, the only things that would be affected were the devices. But Josette and her friend didn’t have to know that.