Chuck and Antonio looked at each other and shrugged. Their anger dissipated somewhat at his prize.
“Okay,” Chuck said, “let’s get it in the back. But don’t you ever do something like that again alone.”
Rodrigo nodded, too excited to be dismayed. He spent the entire trip back to Salvation turned around in his seat, watching the netted specimen in the bed of the truck like a child with a brand-new toy. He couldn’t wait to begin the experiments.
Rodrigo was feeling down. After an entire week of tests, nothing seemed to have any real effect on the samples. Bleach was the closest, causing the porous skin of the samples to crust up a little and fall off. Not good enough, nowhere near good enough. Surprisingly cinnamon made it curl up as if it was in pain but did no real damage. The salt caused it to smoke a little, which scared him enough to back up. He had cloth covering the lower half of his face. However, he still wasn’t taking any chances on inhaling that. After he’d tried everything as single sample tests, he began on combinations. His notebooks were filled with his notes and results.
Whenever he stopped to think about it, he would go into the compound to get some food and company. Mason Henry and Richie always checked him thoroughly for any signs of infection before allowing him to enter, passing through the gate. He didn’t blame them and even encouraged it.
This evening, however, he was still sitting at his desk, when there was a knock at the door. He had been working on a list by lantern light of combinations to try first. When he opened the door, he saw that Tracy had escorted Lori out to the lab with a tray of food and cup of tea.
“You haven’t been eating much,” Lori said to him as she stepped inside.
Tracy winked at him and he blushed.
“Just put this yellow flag out when you want me to escort her back,” she said, handing him the bright yellow scrap that used to be part of a shirt.
“Thanks,” he said to her as he shut the door behind her.
He turned to see Lori looking down at the pieces of appendage, safely inside locked clear containers.
“Yeah, Shirley and Edna were nice enough to let me have those. But they don’t want them back,” he joked.
“How is it still alive?” she asked in fascination.
He was amazed that she stood so close, not backing from it like most everyone else who’d been in the lab. He stepped up behind her and realized that her hair was clean and fresh and she smelled so good. He had a sudden longing for her to turn around so he could take her in his arms. He never let himself get close to anyone; why turn someone into a widow when he would probably die out there. Since joining Chuck’s compound and training under him, he’d become an even better fighter and he gained more confidence. He realized that he might actually have a future now, but hadn’t really thought to any kind of relationship yet.
He nervously cleared his throat, “So, uh, what’s for dinner?”
“Oh, yeah,” she turned and took the makeshift lid off his bowl. “It’s stew. I know, again,” she teased, “but it’s the last of the deer meat, except for what they dried for jerky. It’s not bad. The potatoes have been growing great, so there are lots of them in it.”
“Will you join me?” he asked, feeling silly, like a teenage boy asking a girl out for the first time.
“I already ate,” she replied, but quickly added before he could frown, “but I’ll stay and keep you company while you eat.”
He smiled and they sat down at the table away from the mutant pieces.
“It’s still delicious,” he agreed, as he ate the lukewarm stew.
Truthfully, he hardly even tasted it or the tea. He was having trouble concentrating on anything except the woman sitting before him who seemed to be getting more beautiful by the minute. Her dark brown hair was long and kept in a single braid down her back. Her blue eyes were shining in the flickering light of the lantern and she only had eyes for him.
As he finished, he wiped his mouth and asked her, “I know I’m kind of… new… here, so I don’t really know. But do you have someone you, uh, see… here at Salvation?”
He was so nervous and couldn’t believe he just asked her that. She simply smiled and put her hand on his cheek, shaking her head.
“I mean I wouldn’t want to come between you and... I mean—”
“Rodrigo, I know what you mean,” she replied with a smile, her hand still on his cheek.
Since the day he arrived, she couldn’t keep her eyes off him. Every time they talked, he had a smile for her and she felt like she was falling in a hole. He was rarely around since he became part of Cocky and eventually Sabaton. He trained a lot and was out on every mission. He was smart and handsome; his shoulder length black hair was kept in a braid and his dark eyes shined like onyx. She thought her heart would break along with his when Carlos died. When she saw Shirley getting a tray together to take to him tonight, she asked if she could take it to him. She didn’t even try to hide the reason, because there wasn’t much going on in Salvation that Shirley didn’t know. Now that she was here with him, she wasn’t going to blow it.
The next morning Tracy went to the gate and looked out at Rodrigo’s Lab; still no flag. She walked back inside with a grin, not at all surprised. She found Mason Henry at the table waiting on her. He had gotten them both cups of coffee and was stirring the sweetener in hers.
“So she spent the night, huh?” Mason Henry asked her with a smile.
“She sure did,” Tracy replied, sipping her coffee. “I won. You owe me a back massage.”
Mason Henry kissed her, promising her more than that. Antonio plopped down next to Mason Henry and looked over to say good morning to them. He turned away in a hurry and slid down the bench. Chuck sat down across from him laughing at how red he got.
“In the past no one dared to think about relationships,” he told Antonio. “People died too easily and got hurt. It’s nice to see everyone thinking positive about life again.”
“You know that feeling will go down again when we start seriously planning an attack on the Z.E.D.s,” Antonio replied. “I sense a split on that one, but it’s based on fear of retaliation more than anything.”
Chuck nodded as he gulped half his coffee, “I want to see how Rodrigo is doing on the experiments.”
He took his cup and washed it, putting it on his hook before walking out.
“Did he say he was going to see Rodrigo?” Tracy asked; she looked like she just broke the lip lock with Mason Henry when she heard that.
“Yeah, why?” Antonio asked.
Tracy and Mason Henry exchanged a look and both laughed. They contemplated letting him go but then thought how much they’d hate an interruption when they had time alone. They got up and ran after Chuck.
“Please take care of our cups,” Tracy shouted to Antonio as they went through the door. Bewildered he pulled their cups towards him and when he finished his own cup, he took them all into the kitchen.
They caught up with Chuck just as he was getting Richie to let him out of the gate. He blinked in confusion when he saw the door to the Lab open and a slender hand hanging a bright yellow cloth on the doorknob before shutting it quickly.
“Is that a cry for help?” he asked Tracy and Mason Henry as they stopped next to him.
They both laughed again.
“If it was a cry for help he would’ve put it out last night,” Richie chortled. “Since it’s out this morning, everything must be all right!”
Tracy and Mason Henry laughed even harder.
Chuck, still not getting the joke, turned to Richie, “What?”
“Hold on, be right back,” Tracy said, as Richie let her out. “Stay.”
She held her hand up to Chuck as if he was a puppy, went to the lab door, and knocked. A moment later, Lori came out with a tray of empty dishes and a smile on her face. Rodrigo came out and quickly pulled her back to him as he kissed her again. Chuck turned to Mason Henry and Richie who both grinned.
“I’m not needed here then,” h
e said, scooting back into the compound.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Rodrigo felt like he was floating. He needed to concentrate on what he was doing but couldn’t get Lori out of his mind. She was coming back later to bring lunch and maybe dinner as well. He pulled out his notebooks and stood before the specimens, trying to focus on the experiments. As he turned, he caught one of the tanks with his elbow and it slid near the edge. He turned back and caught it just in time.
“Fucking eye opener!” he blurted out, breathing fast. “Lori—later. Things that will kill me—now!”
He finished writing several combinations of the samples he had, starting with the ones he had in the largest quantity. He skipped obviously useless combinations like hand soap and shampoo and concentrated on stronger things mixed with the rarity. He glanced down at the box of empty plastic bottles that Shirley brought him last night and pulled out five of them. Using a marker, he labeled them 1 thru 5 and began making his concoctions. The first four did absolutely nothing to the specimen. However, Number 5 burned his eyes a little as soon as he mixed it. Water, bleach and cinnamon, oh yeah the bleach. He shook it up carefully to mix it, not wanting a chemical explosion in his hand and poured a small amount on a fresh section of the specimen. He half expected it to do nothing as the rest had and was shocked when it began clenching. His heart racing, he watched bubbles erupt on the surface of the skin and one of the spikes completely dissolved away within seconds.
“What?” He yelled, “What?! No way!”
He kept watching and, while it was dissolving the porous skin, it was doing so very slowly. He was ecstatic! The first step was made! He decided to keep on with different combinations in case something else worked even better!
“The spikes must be made of something different than the skin,” he muttered as he marked the results in his notes, “but I have to find something that will work faster.”
Just before Lori was expected for dinner, he sat at his desk and put his hands in his head. Nothing else worked. Number 5 was the only one with any hope but it wasn’t enough. He’d tried adding that mix with several others with no different results. In fact, three of those mixes completely neutralized it and stopped the dissolving.
“Shit!” he said, hitting the table with his fist. “I’m so close.”
When he heard a knock at the door, he stopped. It had to be Lori. He opened it and found a wicked sharp knife in his face.
“Never do that again,” Tracy said with a grin, only partially joking. Lori was standing behind her. “Zombies don’t knock, but Z.E.D.s sure as hell can. Next time ask before opening the door. Maybe we need to come up with a code word. I’ll discuss it with Chuck and Antonio.”
“Sorry,” he replied, sheepishly, “I knew it was Lori. But you’re right, I should’ve checked first.”
Tracy waved as she walked back and Rodrigo shut the door, feeling foolish. He had let his feelings for Lori get ahead of safety.
“Smells like you’re making dessert,” Lori commented, taking in a whiff of the air. “Cinnamon?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “Check this out.”
He showed her the dissolved sample and explained where he was on his tests.
“But you still have other combinations to try with Number 5, right?” she asked. “Don’t give up. Let’s eat and then we’ll work on those new combinations together.”
It was a good thing he still had that pepper that he separated from the salt samples. Tonight’s dinner was very bland and needed something to flavor it. It took two little packets of the black pepper to help. He was going to send the rest back with Lori so she could suggest it to those cooking. Since they cooked in quantity, they might be eating this again tomorrow too.
“Let’s play mad scientist,” Lori said with a grin when they finished eating.
He pushed aside the plates, knowing he’d be back to nibble in a little while. Lori helped him split up some of the Number 5 into yet four more bottles: Numbers 5g thru 5j. That was the last of his choices. When they got to Number 5i with no discernible difference, Rodrigo began to feel depressed again.
“We still have Number 5j!” Lori said cheerfully, “The last could be the one.”
She handed him the bottle and he held his breath as he poured it on another small sample. Nothing new. He didn’t want Lori to see him crying, but he sure felt like crying right now, so he turned and grabbed a piece of bread. He bit into it and remembered the pepper. He turned back to her with the bread and pepper and sprinkled it on the bread. It poured out faster than intended, and a cloud of it floated down on the samples. A loud hissing sound erupted form the samples and the pieces clenched completely into balls. Within seconds, all of them had dissolved into nothing.
“You did it!” Lori yelled, hugging him tightly and kissing him.
“But what did I do?” he asked. “The pepper? The pepper did that?”
He looked at the last bite of bread in awe. “But it fell on almost all of the Number 5 combinations. We don’t know which one it works with. We’ll have to do more experimenting to see which combination to add it to.”
“Okay genius,” Lori said, staying his hand before he wasted all the pepper in all the bottles, “Start simple. Drop some of the original Number 5 then sprinkle with pepper. You may not even need the other additives.” Rodrigo nodded and did just that. They both held their breath as he poured a small amount on a new sample and she sprinkled a pinch of pepper at the same time. The effect was incredible. Without any other additions to the original Number 5, the pepper caused the reaction immediately and the entire sample was gone in two seconds.
“You did it,” Lori said with awe in her voice.
“We did it,” he replied. “We did it together. Now let’s get another fresh bottle and fresh sample and see how much pepper should go in the bottle. We have to come up with a ratio that works.” She grinned as she handed him a bottle that she marked Number 5P.
“P for Pepper,” she stated.
“Appropriate,” he replied with a grin.
They started with a full bottle and a half pinch of pepper. It dissolved the sample but did so at a slower rate. Since they only had a limited supply of pepper they needed to find a safer ‘dissolve time’ using the least amount of pepper. After several tries, they found that half of bottle of Number 5 per one pinch of pepper took almost thirty seconds for the entire sample to dissolve.
They cleaned up the mess and wrote down the results in the notes then washed their hands in the basin. Rodrigo dried off his hands then handed the cloth to Lori. While she was drying her hands, he took her face in his hands and kissed her lips. She dropped the cloth on the floor and wrapped her arms around him. It looked like the announcement to Salvation was going to have to wait.
The next morning Lori gathered up the dinner tray while Rodrigo put the flag out. Minutes later Tracy knocked on the door. Rodrigo was about to open it when Lori pulled his hand back.
“Who goes there?” she asked mysteriously.
“Aha. He’s learned,” Tracy laughed through the door.
Rodrigo opened it and kissed Lori goodbye, giving her a knowing look. She was only supposed to tell Chuck about their results so he could come out to see them himself. Then he could decide how much and what to tell the rest of Salvation.
Twenty minutes later there was another knock on the door. Rodrigo had cleaned up and rearranged, making sure there was room for several people to view the experiment. After checking who it was, he opened the door to see Lori with Chuck, Antonio, and Tamar. Antonio had the biggest grin on his face. Rodrigo wasn’t sure he’d ever seen him smile that wide. Lori stood on the other side of him while the others stood around the table.
He decided against the dramatics and just went to it. He already had three small samples cut and ready. Without a word, he poured less than a teaspoon on each. There were gasps of shock as the samples began dissolving immediately.
“Less than a minute,” Chuck breathed, “That was amazing!”
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“Around thirty seconds for completion. I can make it dissolve faster but that would take more pepper and we only have so much to use,” Rodrigo said. “I thought I’d make it as effective as possible in the least amount of time. If we can risk it taking longer, I’m sure that less pepper will do that. We’ll have to see how much we can get together.”
Chuck turned to Antonio, “You and Lori go back and take a look in the kitchen, see if they have any pepper stashed in there. But don’t say anything just yet. We’re going to figure that out first.”
The next week was a frenzy of creating as much Number 5P as they could. Between what they found hiding in drawers in the kitchen and everyone’s personal stashes, they had enough ingredients to make what they thought was enough to destroy the pit monster. Chuck, Antonio, Tamar, and Rodrigo sat at their table in the common room and spent many hours discussing how best to use Number 5P to kill the pit mutant.
“The biggest dose of it needs to go into the center of the pit,” Chuck said. “If that thing had any kind of brain or center, that would be it.”
“But getting that close will get someone killed,” Antonio said.
“Mr. Chuck?” a small voice piped up.
They all stopped and saw six-year old Kenny, who had walked up behind them with his hands behind his back.
“Kenny, we’re in an important meeting right now,” Chuck said. “Can you go find Shirley? I’m sure she could help you.”
“I already saw Miss Shirley,” he grinned, showing a missing front tooth. “She told me to come to you.”
Chuck and the others looked confused.
“What’s up Kenny?” Tamar asked, immediately noting his hands behind his back.
“Miss Shirley said that you would really like this,” he brought his hands out in front of him to show the large colorful, plastic gun he was holding.
Survive (Book 1): Salvation Page 16
