CHAPTER 11.

Initiative. Sarah Reyes.

Time/Area: SOS. Lunch time. Science Club room. July 7th.

Okay so this was risky. I couldn’t get caught, but I couldn’t just do nothing either.

After all, this was one of two main reasons I had signed up to this dump. The first one was to keep an eye on Damien, and the second... was to perfect INVERSE.

I had lied when I told Doc that I had forgotten my essay in the Testing room. I just needed to pick up samples of the Inverse liquid. If I could figure out how to sustain the electricity produced, I could get this to Doc and..

Boom

Problem solved.

Right now I was in SOS’ science club room, setting up everything that I needed.

I had set up a fake C-Unit and I-Unit that would survive one test with the real Inverse liquid with parts around the room. Though I would never admit it to Damien, they actually had some good stuff in this place.

I had been crunching numbers all day and I had finally come up with a trial run I could test. I paced the black tiled room, connecting plugs and wires left and right until everything but the last piece had been set up. I sighed as I dug into my pocket, producing a test tube with a blue liquid inside. If my theory was right, this should be the key to stabilizing the electric current generated through Inverse. I let out a half laugh, half sigh of relief as I remembered how I got this.

--Earlier That day, 1:00 in the morning.-

I walked the cold streets of the Bronx, a blueberry muffin in my hand as I did.

This could be the stroke of luck I needed.

This could be the thing that saves lives.

"Or," I thought, turning the corner and arriving at my destination, "This could be the thing that kills me."

I looked up at the Synth Power plant in awe. It really was as big as Dad described. I shook my head, "Not here for pictures." I reminded myself.

I got a notification at midnight that the Synth Electric plant had a radiation leak, and I Immediately remembered Dad talking about the kinds of things they built there.

They had been working on an Electricity regulating system for their lasers and, according to my calculations, I think I could use it to regulate Inverse too. And a radiation leak would serve as the perfect cover to get a sample. I had stuffed my pockets with things that I might need. I raided my dad’s office for a map of the plant. I got a flashlight from my dorm, took a test tube from Doc and a box of latex gloves. I grabbed some duct tape from my University's engineering room, and I brought both of my phones. [I have a normal cell phone, and a Satellite phone.]

“Now to find a way in,” I thought, scanning the plant for any entrances. The CDC had set up trucks on every corner of the plant, and behind them tape blocked off every public door. I looked upwards, noticing an inflatable stairway had been set up from the ground to some above floor.

The leak was most likely in the sub levels, seeing how it affected the water supply. If I could get up those stairs, I could find a way into the sublevels and grab a sample with a test tube I brought.

"Alright it's time for you to leave Miss." A distant voice said.

I turned my head to see a CDC employee shooing away a woman that was reporting the incident for New York Daily. The reporter was obviously annoyed, but she'd probably be back by the time Damien woke up.

"ALRIGHT EVERYONE FORM UP BEHIND THE BUILDING!"The employee yelled.

I watched in awe as literally every CDC member went towards the back.

Well if I was gonna do it, it had to be now.

"They're probably going to investigate the piping."

I thought, taking off across the street.

“I’m going to die, I’m going to die..” I said to myself, diving behind an empty CDC truck.

I looked up from where I landed. The inflatable stairs were only a couple of feet away now, and I, feeling good after making it this far, was about to charge for it until the sound of footsteps suddenly filled the air.

“Yea, and then I was like, BOOM!” a voice yelled from the distance. Another voice laughed.

“Crap crap crap.” I whispered. They were getting closer to the truck, “Think think think!”

They were turning the corner.

“Oh! Duh!” An idea suddenly came to me. Right before the voices came around the car, I dropped on all fours and rolled underneath the truck.

“Did you hear something?” One questioned any noise I had made, coming to a stop in front of the door. I could see two pairs of hazmat boots from my position.

“Nah, let’s just deflate the thing and go.” The other replied, both sets of feet walking away.

Well I couldn’t have that happen.

I desperately looked around for something to use as a distraction.

Suddenly, I felt something sharp on my finger,

“Ow,” I thought, looking at my left hand. There, on the concrete, laid an extremely sharp screwdriver-looking tool, “One of them probably dropped this.”

I grabbed it, the metal spike glimmering against my skin as I held it up to look at.

“Hmm.” I wondered aloud, looking past the tool. There was the truck’s fuel tank.

I looked at the sharp object, then at the tank.

“Alright ready?!”

One of the voices had reached the stairway.

Then came the other voice, way too close for comfort, “No!” It yelled. I looked to the other side of the truck to see the familiar pair of hazmat boots from before, “I think I dropped the Screwdriver somewhere!”

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The other voice came, “Just get over here!”

The feet ran off.

“This is probably a terrible idea…” I thought, lifting the screwdriver towards the fuel tank.

I brought it back, then, with all of my strength, shoved it straight into the tank.

I immediately retracted the tool and rolled out of the way as fuel sprayed from the hole.

“Hey what was that!?”

Footsteps came from the other side of the truck.

"Now, while they're distracted!"

I came out on the opposite side of the workers, rushing towards the inflatable stairway with all haste. Luckily, the distraction I made was quite...well...distracting.

They didn't notice a thing as I rushed up the mushy stairs, careful not to slip on what felt like solidified air. Once I reached the top I let out a breath of relief. Never had concrete felt so satisfying to be on.

I was now in what seemed to be the second floor of the power plant. I was about to question why they needed the inflatable stairway in the first place when I turned around to find that the normal stairway door had collapsed. I crossed my fingers while looking around for another possible entrance into the facility.

"Aha." I thought, setting my eyes on a ventilation shaft a couple of feet away. It might have been a little James Bond like, but it's not like I had any other options. I jogged over to the metal panel, placing my hands on each side and giving it a tug.

It didn't move.

But I didn't expect it to anyway.

I just wanted to see if it really was like James Bond.

I dug into my jeans and produced the screwdriver from earlier. I smiled, appreciating how well this was going. One day, when I was old, I would probably tell Damien about this.

I located the first nail on the upper left corner of the panel and inserted the screwdriver in its slit.

"Righty tighty," I thought as I began to twist left, "Lefty loosey."

Surprisingly, I got the nails out in little to no time at all. My smile faded, however, as I removed the panel and placed it on the floor. I guess it had just occurred to me that I would be crawling through some nasty vents during a radiation leak. I took a deep breath before lifting myself into the shaft. It was pretty tight, but nothing I couldn't handle. I sighed as I struggled to reach my back pocket. I retracted my hand, now holding a map of the facility I had stolen from Dad's office.

"Pays to be prepared," I thought, dragging my finger along the path of the vents.

Bingo.

I found the sublevels. But due to the facility's size, it was going to be quite the trip. Plus I might even have to navigate around radiation zones. I sighed once more as I began to shuffle through the pipes.

--

After three hours of crawling, not entirely sure if I was even heading in the right direction, I finally found the sublevel access hatch.

I peered down between the bars of the panel to see a dimly lit hallway. The Walls of the hallway had the symbol “SL” for sublevels written on them. I checked the hallway once more, it didn’t look like anyone was there.

“Alright then,” I breathed, finding my screwdriver again.

Once I had finished unscrewing the panel, I had expected it to just fall on the floor, but the panel remained stuck inside the shaft.

“Cmon,” I thought, bringing my foot in front of my face. I let my foot slam on the panel, causing it to fall halfway through, but not altheway.

“One more,”

I repeated the action, and sure enough, the hatch dropped to the floor with a very audible

CLANK!

I crawled forward until my legs were dangling over the floor, then pushed off with my hands. I landed on my feet with a smile, relieved to be finally out of the tight space.

I shivered as I looked around the one way vacant hall. As it turned out, the dim light bulb seemed to be the only lightbulb in the space. I couldn’t see beyond 5 feet in any direction. I pulled out my flashlight, clicking the bottom and illuminating some of the corridor. Broken glass littered the floor, and there were cracks in some walls.

“Some leak..” I thought, picking a direction and walking down the hall.

Thirty minutes passed before I found what I was looking for. I bent down to find a crack in a glass tube that had fallen. The tube had the words, “Electric Reg Liquid” written on it, and a bluish liquid was leaking from a crack. I quickly put some gloves on and, taking out my test tube, began transferring the glowing liquid into it. It took about a minute for the tube to fill up.

Once it was full, I placed the cap back on and tightened it.

“Now I just have to get out of here.” I said to myself, finding another shaft access point from the lower wall. It was worrying me that it was so easy to find that. It made me wonder about how much of a leak this really was.

I shivered once more before beginning to unscrew my exit. I know it sounded selfish, but I was glad this only affected the Bronx. I didn’t want Damien anywhere near this place right now. Once I had opened the hatch, I glared at the long path in front of me.

I sighed, placing the sample in my pocket and trading it for the map. I bent down and began crawling through the vent.

When I finished, I had to immediately get to Damien’s school to test the sample in his Club’s lab. Plus, I had a job working with his Physics teacher now so I kinda wanted to make a good impression.

“Ugh,” I thought, reaching the halfway mark, “This is gonna be a long day.”

----------Present Day----------

Yea, that was a little too scary for my liking. I had finally finished setting up everything for the test, all I needed to do now was place the blue liquid inside my updated I-unit and it should be ready to go. I tried to ignore the nagging questions and thoughts in my brain like,

“Assuming this did work, would that completely eliminate risk?”

“No , it wouldn’t. Regardless, people are going to die.”

“If a mutation did break out, what would happen to my family? To Damien?”

That last one was what I was really worried about. That was also why I didn’t really want to be around him today. Because now, everytime I look at him, I feel as if whatever time I spend with him is too short..too temporary. Like it could be taken away in a manner of seconds. Hopefully I was being too dramatic, but still.

I inserted the tube into the slit I had designed, watching the familiar red diodes change blue as the machine clicked and turned. There would be no voice activation for this test so I was controlling everything manually from a console screen on my laptop. I had also stolen one of the body scan tablets from the testing room in Energis so I could measure the neuron margin.

I ran what I named “Trial 1” on the console screen, causing the miniature C-Unit to whir to life. The lifeform I had placed inside the C-Unit was a gray squirrel I had found outside [Don’t judge], that was sporting 453,660,000 neurons. For this test I needed the amount to grow..then stabilize. I didn’t need to do anything to get the squirrel under stress, as it was already doing just fine on that front.

Without wasting any more time, I typed in the code for the gas release and watched the body scan device intently, silently praying for this to work.

...

My laptop beeped, signaling the test had finished. Soon after, my fake I-Unit, C-Unit, and wires shorted out, causing sparks to fly across the room. I quickly looked at the scanning tablet, not caring about anything else.

I froze when I saw the number.

I looked away, blinked a couple of times, then looked back.

It was still there.

The number had grown by a million and had stopped. Meaning that the amount had stabilized. Meaning that the test had worked. Meaning that I was a frickin’ genius! I quickly checked the C-Unit tube. The glass had cracked but the squirrel was fine. I saved a screenshot of the results on the tablet and watched as the squirrel’s neuron count went back to normal. While this was a definite victory, my thoughts went to Doc D and what she said.

It wouldn’t stop a mutation if it happened.

I shivered a bit. If I could get this to Doctor Diamond, I could save a lot of people’s lives at the test, even if a mutation occurred. But I wouldn’t be able to save anyone from a breakout. I wouldn’t be able to save my parents. I wouldn't be able to save my friends.

I wouldn’t be able to save Damien.

I shook my head.

Gosh Sarah, stop being so dramatic.

“You’ve been rock climbing before? That’s cool!” I heard Jason Cole’s voice from outside the club door.

“Oh snap.” I thought, discarding all the machinery in the trash and throwing the squirrel out of a nearby window. I shoved the rest of the bluish liquid and inverse samples in my pocket just as the door opened.