by Francis Tint
With her hand on the metallic plate, she booted up the computer. She needed to be careful with the messaging. She typed the following, starting with the positive:
Group continued to antagonize the Typhon. Group also reacquainted with Corey and started investigating the drug chemistry.
She waited before the computer anxiously. She could already feel the disappointment on the other side of the network. Technically, she hadn’t failed her assignments. Corey had been framed. It’s not her fault he had exonerated himself and the group had grown somewhat fond of him. The reply came through:
Noted. Any updates on the subject?
That felt cold. Should she suggest something to clean up the mess? Or had she already been benched? Perhaps she should just stick to answering the questions.
She found her dad’s place and his work.
She sent the message through. She fumbled more on the keyboard debating what further details to give. Before she entered more of her thoughts, a response appeared on the screen, short and simple.
Ensure subject stop looking for her dad.
A new assignment, so she’s not completely benched after all. That wasn’t so bad, but was still super frustrating. They would never give her more insight to the overall plan. How could she just be a pawn in this whole scheme?
She abruptly shut off the computer and left the covert area.
“Dude, it’s overcast,” Julia said. “What’s with the shades?”
“I don’t know,” Tylor said. “It just feels kind of bright to me.”
After Tylor had recovered, the group decided to first check out Beryl University. Maybe they could find the piece Dr. Po had hidden, and also learn more about him. The group arrived at the address. Instead of the typical student campus clustered with undergrads walking around with books wrapped in their arms, the group saw before them an abandoned area with concrete debris and unkempt wild plants.
“This is where Beryl University used to be,” explained Rachael. “I was reading about the college on the way here. There was a demolition sixteen years ago. It sparked quite some outrage at the time since the school closure wasn’t properly communicated to the staff or students. There have been a number of plans to repurpose the land for residential use or to build a commercial center, but the government permit never came through. And now, the land remains unclaimed.”
“Do you remember this place, Corey?” asked Blake.
“Vaguely,” answered Corey. “There is no remarkable landmark around to know for sure if this was where our parents took us.”
Blake inspected the wreckage, with no memory of ever being there. “Why would someone just demolish a university campus?”
“Underfunding perhaps?” Julia suggested. “Colleges close down from time to time due to bankruptcy. Professors ask for higher pay. Students ask for lower tuition. Alumni stop donating. It’s a broken business model.”
“That’s why the government should always fund higher education,” Rachael said. “It’s an essential human right.”
“That’s a loaded political statement,” Julia responded. “Let’s just stick to the pseudoscience we’re dealing with.”
“Do you guys smell that?” Tylor asked. “It’s the fragrant smell of pistachio ice-cream!”
“Are you just saying you want ice-cream?” Julia mocked.
“Seriously, you guys can’t smell it? The flavor is so strong!” Tylor insisted.
Rachael pointed to the other side of the street. “That looks like an ice-cream store. Why don’t we check it out? My sweet tooth is calling me.”
The group walked over to an old-fashioned ice-cream store. The wind chimes rang as they pushed open the door. The smell of freshly made waffle cones filled the space. They were greeted by a middle-aged woman. “Welcome! We have a new honey-pistachio flavor today. Want to sample some?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Tylor volunteered.
Corey approached the ice-cream display case. “Blake, look! They have your favorite. Chocolate chip cookie dough. This was probably where your father got your ice-cream.”
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Blake asked. “How long have you been in business for?”
“For some twenty-odd years now,” she responded.
“Do you remember the college across the street?” Julia asked.
“Of course. And all the business I would get from the college kids. It’s never been the same since.”
“What happened to the college?” Rachael asked.
“They tore it down,” she replied. “I will never forget that day. The demolition was so sudden and scary. Completely out of the blue. I kept the security footage for that day since it was so unreal!”
“Can we see the footage by any chance?” Blake inquired.
The store owner gladly complied and brought out the videocassette.
“I love the retro tech!” exclaimed Rachael.
They played the tape on an old-fashioned computer monitor. The grainy image showed a serene and quiet student campus. A car arrived and parked on the side of an otherwise empty road. A man got out of the car.
“That looks like my dad,” Blake said. Corey concurred.
Dr. Po got in the lab. A short while later, another car arrived and parked behind Dr. Po’s vehicle. A strange man exited the car and entered the campus.
“Who’s this man?” Julia asked.
“Could be anyone,” Zach suggested. “Many people work in a university.”
Without warning, the main building started tumbling down.
“Woah, that was dramatic, even without the sound,” Julia commented.
“Hey, look over there,” Zach pointed out. “The mystery man’s leaving. He got in his car and left.”
They watched the computer monitor attentively, waiting anxiously for Dr. Po’s appearance. They reached the end of the recording. The car was left unclaimed.
“We must’ve missed something,” Blake said. “Play it again, from the beginning.”
Rachael replayed the recording, all the way through the demolition. There was no movement other than the mystery man leaving the building after the destruction.
“One more time,” Blake said.
Rachael repeated the video. The group watched silently, knowing very well what Blake was looking for, also knowing that she would be repeatedly disappointed with every replay.
“He never left,” Blake muttered. “He was buried alive.” Her words came out with a heavy heart. Julia gave her a tight hug soundlessly as tears gushed down from her eyes. Blake held tightly on the photo pendant of her dad with her younger self. “I shouldn’t have expected anything different. It was silly for me to think my dad would still be alive.”
Rachael returned the videocassette and thanked the owner. Before they left the area, Zach examined the façade of the ice-cream store, and thought to himself that the owner must have removed the security camera since the demolition.
Next day, they arrived at Dr. Po’s home. Rachael was late and had not yet joined them. “She’s still at work. She says she’ll pop by later.” Julia walked over to the lab computer. “Zachy, any secret files on this computer?”
“No luck so far,” he replied. “I searched everything and repeated what Rach did last time. Zip, zilch, nada.”
“So where did Blake’s dad keep the secret instructions?” Julia wondered out loud.
Blake walked out of the lab and entered her dad’s study. She reexamined the books stacked neatly on the bookshelves, consisting of volumes of scientific publications on alternate dimensions from notable figures in the scientific community. There was nothing out of the ordinary for an academic researcher in the field. She sat down by her dad’s desk, and picked up the photo of her dad and herself.
Was that it? Was she supposed to give up all hopes that her father might still be alive somewhere? Unconsciously, she squeezed tight at the photo frame, and noted a strange texture. She flipped to the back of the frame, and opened it up. Her suspicion was confirmed. Ther
e was a folded piece of paper hidden behind the photo.
“I think this is it!” Blake rejoiced as she ran back to the lab. “I think this is what we’re looking for.”
Zach examined the piece of paper carefully, and compared it on his laptop with the information from the decrypted folder downloaded from Dr. Po’s computer. “Yes! This is definitely one of the parts described in the file.”
“Woohoo! One down,” Julia celebrated. “Two more to go.”
“I guess I need to pull an all-nighter cracking the encrypted folder from Hermes,” Zach commented.
“Wait,” Corey interrupted as Zach started to pack up his belongings. “Blake, you mentioned your dad had a spectrometer in his lab. We should find out what Hermes’s solution really is. Zach, did you bring the cure we used on Tylor?”
Zach took out the neon-green solution from his bag and passed it to Blake, who pipetted a small amount and fed it to the spectrometer. A few minutes passed, and a printout was produced. Blake studied the results quietly, with a shocked expression on her face. “This can’t be,” she muttered. “Zach, are you sure Dylan got this from Hermes?”
“Well, I can’t really be sure it’s from Hermes,” he replied, “but where else could he have gotten this from?”
Julia took the printout from Blake’s hand. “What’s so significant about this chemical?”
Corey took a peek at the printout. “This structure looks familiar.” He pondered over it for a moment. “It’s the same one from Dr. Po’s notebook.”
“Can someone fill me in?” Tylor interjected. “What’s going on?”
“This can’t be,” Blake repeated in a low tone. “This just can’t be. There’s no way. Maybe I made a mistake last time. I need to remake the solution.”
Corey briefly explained to the group that Ashlea had not only worked with Dr. Po before, but she had also re-created one of his chemicals from his journal. Meanwhile, Blake anxiously took out the remaining Imperiall and C05I drugs. Corey said, “If this is true, that means Ashlea’s HMID trial and Hermes’s Capacify program are related.”
“This is the missing link to all this. Ashlea Edwards is running Phase Two,” Zach concluded.
“Here’s a crazy idea,” Tylor suggested. “Why don’t we use the code name of the experimental drug to decrypt Hermes's folder?”
“On it,” Zach complied.
As Zach started his decryption program on his laptop, Blake started to grind up the Imperiall and C05I pills, wishfully hoping for a different result. She dissolved the crushed-up granules and placed the mixture over heat. When the haunting neon-green color appeared, she gingerly removed the beaker with crucible tongs from the heat.
“Cracked it,” Zach exclaimed loudly, startling Blake and causing her to spill the freshly brewed chemical. There’s no more denying, Blake thought to herself as she stared at the rhombus pattern created by the spill.
How could it be her? Ms. Ashlea Edwards, the woman she had admired essentially her whole life. She had been her inspiration. Her mentor. She was supposed to be a leader advancing medical care, not a criminal exploiting vulnerable patients for her own personal gains.
What else had gone down between Ashlea and Blake’s dad? Had she also been responsible for his demise?
“Hey,” Zach picked up the bottle of pills Blake left on the table. “This looks like the ones Rachael’s taking the other day.”
“What?” Blake exclaimed. “She’s on Imperiall? Why hasn’t she told us?”
“That’d explain how she was activated,” Corey speculated.
Blake questioned, “What else is she hiding from us?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Brain Activities
“Dee, if we don’t activate our powers now,” Edison urged, “we will never be able to stop it. It’s now or never.”
Hidden in a dungeon, the two administered bright blue injections into their arms. Instantly, they each felt a wave of energy flow through their bodies, supercharging every atom in every cell. They left their hiding spot, and were faced with a giant flying dragon hovering above them.
The beast roared and breathed fire at the two. An immense heat wave approached them. They quickly dodged the attack. Edison lifted his arm and shot ice arrows at the creature. But he only managed to hit its tail, not landing any critical damage.
Dmitri chanted a spell. He densified the moisture content around the dragon, forming a water globule around it. It temporarily incapacitated their enemy. “Quick,” Dmitri said, “shoot him again.”
Edison lifted his arm again and aimed precisely, right at its head. He inhaled deeply, boosting up his power. Kaboom! Before he launched the attack, the dragon forcefully broke through the constraint. It expelled waves of water at the two, crushing them to the ground.
The dragon opened its mouth and started summoning a dark energy. The sky dimmed and a purple glow appeared around the dragon.
“Uh-oh,” Dmitri said, “is that the final boss move?”
In their research lab, the two PhD candidates gathered around an artificial intelligence machine they had designed to be their game master of a fantasy tabletop game. “Is our defense good enough?”
The artificial intelligence said, “No. If the attack lands, you both will be defeated.”
“Damn. Oh well. Po, roll the dice. Maybe it will miss.”
One of the dice landed on the floor. Edison stood up and took a step forward. Without warning, the floor started to rumble.
“Do you feel that? Is it an earthquake?” Edison asked.
“I’m not sure.” Dmitri also stood up. The ground shook more violently. The two grabbed on the table for balance. Some of the lab glassware fell on the floor, shattering into pieces.
“We should take cover!” Edison suggested. They hid under a bench. Across from them, the backroom of the lab suddenly lit up with electric sparks around the door frame. At the same time, their lab machines started to beep, alerting them of a surge of foreign isotopic frequencies.
After a minute, the space calmed down. They carefully approached the backroom. They opened the door and saw a defenseless woman in a disheveled appearance beside a strange-looking tubular gadget.
“Who are you? Where did you come from?” asked Edison.
“Name’s Sue.” She rocked the toddler with platinum blond hair gently in her hands. “I came from a place far, far away.”
A very young Blake ran toward Corey, who was holding two cups of chocolate-chip-cookie-dough ice-cream. They were entertaining each other in the white-painted lab while their parents examined experimental data with Dmitri. Blake scooped out a large portion of her ice-cream and shoved it in her mouth. “Ew…,” she exclaimed, and took the spoon out from her mouth, revealing a light-green texture. “I hate mint! It’s like brushing my teeth.”
Corey started laughing hysterically. He had secretly covered his mint-chocolate-chip ice-cream with some of the other one to trick Blake, knowing very well she detested the mint flavor. “Here’s your real ice-cream,” he passed the real one to Blake and took back the mint-chocolate one.
“Look at these results,” Edison discussed with his research partners. Since Sue’s mysterious appearance in their lab, they had been researching the multiverse and their children’s powers at Beryl University. “These dormant genes on c12 are actively expressed when the two use their powers.” He had also found coexpression activities with the OCA2 gene in Blake, the gene that would typically determine eye color.
The two kids sat down by the table to enjoy their desserts. Corey grabbed a glass of water to quench his thirst, and Blake stared intently at the glass with a sly smirk. He tilted the glass and ice started pouring down, splattering all over his face. With her eyes glowing a luminescent blue, she said, “Got ya!”
Dmitri pointed at the computer screen showing a simulation of the chemical Edison hypothesized. In order to better understand the superpowers, they wanted to replicate a mechanism that would allow the dormant genes to be expressed. “
It looked like it could indeed help express the dormant genes on c12,” Dmitri said, “but there might be a lot of unintended side effects. It might alter the user’s atomic makeup, but we won’t be able to confirm that until we perform actual tests.”
“The consequences could be very dire,” Sue commented.
“We should think of a different approach,” Edison concluded. “Let’s just file this.”
Dmitri gave the results and formulation to a newly hired lab assistant. “Thank you, Ben.”
“What happened? Why is our chemical published in this disreputable journal? I thought we agreed we would forget about it,” Edison asked. Dmitri and Sue both looked puzzled.
Dmitri thought back at a conversation he’d had with Ben. “Wait, hold on. Ben said he saw you meeting up with some dude a few days ago. He even sent me a recording of it. I didn’t think too much of it then. It’s you, isn’t it? Why did you do it?” He retrieved the message Ben had sent him and showed it to the group.
“This is fake,” Sue argued. “I did no such thing. Ed, you got to believe me.”
“I should’ve known,” Dmitri continued. “Your intentions were never pure. Coming from a different dimension? A different universe? That’s preposterous!”
Edison remained silent. He didn’t know what to make of all the information. He didn’t think Sue would betray them, but the evidence was undeniable. Why would Ben fake the recording? It wouldn’t benefit him at all.
Sue looked Edison in his eyes. She knew instantly he had lost trust in her. She pressed her lips and left the lab.
“What should we do to her?” Dmitri asked. “I bet she must be working for some spy organization.”
“Drop it, Dee. I don’t want to talk about it.”
As if on cue, a woman in horn-rimmed glasses knocked on the door. “Is this Dr. Po and Dr. Mit’s lab?” she asked. “I’m your new research assistant, Ash Edwards.”
“What did I miss?” Rachael entered a tension-filled room with all eyes on her. She put down her bag hesitantly on the desk as she repeated her question to what seemed like a black hole of sound. “Is everything alright? Did we find the piece Dr. Po hid?”
