“Did you read any of the protocols about running this lab? Are you even competent to do the job?” a young female asked him. The nametag on her white suit read Williams.
“I’m more than capable; now just tell me why you’re putting those damn things on. I haven’t even run any tests yet for your information, so you can stop yelling at me.”
“The suits are for safety, because some of the samples gave off peculiar readings. Whenever we’re in the labs with specimens, we wear these.”
Arthur caught the suit tossed to him by the less scary looking guard and examined it, lightweight, durable, and easy to move in. The Tyvek name gave him some consolation so he slipped into it. The breathing apparatus felt constricting and the goggles over his eyes fogged up. The helmet top made him feel like an idiot, but he did as told. He sighed, if this was the only concession, he would find a way to live with it.
He picked up the paper-thin bit of rock and put it in the machine that he liked to think of as the pulveriser. In seconds, nothing but dust remained. He pulled out the small vial and examined the contents. Tiny particles caught stray bits of light, but there were other things floating to the top.
Arthur poured the powder into the mass spectrometer and pressed start out of habit.
“Behind the observation window, remember?”
Arthur felt himself pushed aside two seconds before the machine blew up with enough force to launch one of the assistants across the room through the Plexiglas of the observation room.
Noises echoed around Arthur and his ears rang from being so close to the source of the explosion. The lights flickered then went off, as did the computers, and everything else. Arthur felt a wave of dizziness take hold and his last thought was how pissed off “the man” was going to be.
Arthur managed to blow the lab up on his first day of work, which had to be a record of some sort.
Chapter 4 –
John Hooks took a sip of coffee, which caused him to make a face at the bitterness. Operation Covington went into effect a few hours ago and he bet the poor bastard still hadn’t figured out he was a prisoner. Then again, his obsession with those rocks would keep him busy and hopefully not asking questions any time soon.
He read over the data once more, wondering what the unidentifiable compound had the potential to be. If his company could corner the market on a new source of fuel, Sunset Inc. would control the world. If there was a potential vaccine for cancer, he could charge people whatever he wanted, because of the limited supply.
Of course, there was always the possibility of it being nothing more than a neat new flavor of gum, or bacteria that ravaged the Earth of all its resources. He forced a chuckle to ward off the dark thoughts.
Lately, his mind wandered to the edgier side of things. Dora, his wife said it was because of his close call with death a few months ago. Out of the blue, his heart had seized while he was playing a round of golf with friends.
Today was his first official full day back at work, and though his doctor told him to take it easy, the fatigue taking him over let him know he’d pushed too hard. He shut down his computer, and picked up the phone to call Dora, when a red light on his desk went off.
John felt the blood drain from his face and flow to his overworked heart. Why the hell was that light on? Project Covington hadn’t been active for a full twenty-four hours yet, well at least part of it. He started running his own tests a week ago when the rocks first arrived, but his people were doing something different. His assistant, James Barrow, burst into the room, his ashen face a match to John’s.
“Sir, we have a problem.”
“Thanks for stating the obvious. Do you have anything else to add or should I hire a trained seal to do your job?”
“Sorry, the last few moments of footage we received showed an explosion in Dr. Covington’s lab. It seems he took a sample of rock, ground it up then placed it in one of the machines. Seconds later, the machine exploded. We lost contact ten seconds later.”
John took a deep breath and reached into his pocket to pull out the small container of nitroglycerin his doctor gave him for situations like this. He placed the small pill underneath his tongue and forced his breathing to even out.
“I take it, normal security procedures have been enacted?” he asked James.
“Yes, sir, the entire facility has been locked down. What do you want to do?”
“How long until emergency power kicks in?”
James looked uncomfortable. “Not sure, the electricians are looking into it.”
“Motivate them to look harder,” John yelled.
He needed to think. A small lab explosion was nothing to get too worried over. It could’ve been caused by anything; faulty equipment, a crossed wire, misuse of the machine, and lastly, what was placed inside to be analyzed.
He never thought these rocks could contain something that he could weaponize. With tensions rising around the world over oil shortages, this was the perfect time to come out with a brand new “I can kill you more” weapon.
The samples were now priority one.
“Get a strike team ready. I want Monroe to head it up.”
James stuttered as he spoke, “Monroe won’t like that.”
“I don’t care what he likes. He does what I tell him to do, or I find someone who will.”
James left the room to make the necessary arrangements, while John picked up the phone to let Dora know he was going to be late for dinner.
He could tell she was mad. After thirty years of marriage, he knew this was an expensive weekend away somewhat upset. He forced the thought out of his head and pushed the power switch on his tablet. He’d had the electronics division connect him directly into their feed so he could monitor everything in the facility.
No one could sneeze without him knowing about it. He called up fifteen minutes of footage before the accident. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except two things. On Level 14, he saw an unfamiliar face meddling with some vials, dropping a few on the floor. The second thing was on Level 8, a technician wandering around the room and stopping in odd places.
John tried to zoom in, but he couldn’t see anything. A minute later, the screen went blank. Dr. Covington’s mishap triggered their security protocols. Each floor would be locked down, no going up or down. The elevators would be shut down, as would communications.
Certain floors would now be “armed” in case anyone was trying to steal from him. Monroe was the only one familiar enough to send in, and if he was lucky, come out alive. John glanced at the time. A full three minutes had passed and he still had no visual. The one thing he wanted maintained under any circumstances was visual.
“James, why don’t I have visual, dammit?”
The empty room didn’t respond, but something about this didn’t seem right. He would take notes on what he saw and get James to investigate.
Frank eased his feet up on the seats next to him. A glass of 100-year-old Scotch swished in the glass on his stomach as the limo moved at a steady pace to the airport. His phone vibrated and he ignored it. The third time he glanced at the caller ID and almost fell off the seat when he saw the corporate number.
He cleared his throat and answered, “Monroe, what can I do for you, Mr. Hooks?”
Frank swallowed the amber fluid in one swig and grabbed the bottle to prepare for the bad news he felt coming. That idiot Covington did something; he just knew it.
“
The sound of his teeth grinding echoed in his head. “Sir, are you absolutely sure this is necessary?”
“
