[https://i.imgur.com/3grBLpp.jpg]
Calvin and Seager were still trembling. At least Seager’s pathetic wailing hadn’t lasted long. When he’d seen Mia fighting to help Deacon, his face had been so twisted with emotion, Sipos had been tempted to let go of him and watch the fool rush to his death. Now Seager was closed off and calm, while Calvin’s leg ticked up and down endlessly.
If Sipos recalled correctly, during the incident, Calvin had only stood there, frozen. Really, the man was a complete nonentity.
Sipos put a cup of coffee in front of Calvin and kept the last for himself. He moved away from the table where the other two were sitting and leaned back on a nearby counter.
“What do we do? What do we do?”
Oh, god, Sipos thought with dull resignation. Was Calvin going to repeat everything he said as yet another nervous tick? When they were handing out annoying mannerisms, the little tit shouldn’t have hogged them all for himself.
“We’re going to wait until we’ve calmed down,” Sipos said. “Then we’ll decide what to do.”
Seager looked up. His stunned disbelief changed to resolve. “We’re going to send a messenger to the Supremacy MI as soon as possible.”
“Why would we do that?”
“Why would—would you listen to yourself?”
“I am listening to myself. I find it easier to listen to myself because I’m not hysterical. But I’m also trying to listen to you, Seager. Why would we message MI? Do you want a bunch of idiotic, untrained soldiers destroying over a year’s worth of research?”
“Two of us are dead, Sipos! We have to report.”
Sipos shrugged. “That’s certainly what the regulations would say. I never figured you’d care about following them. After all, you’re always the first one in line to complain about the military—”
“This isn’t some rule created out of bureaucratic self-interest, Sipos!” Seager’s chair almost fell backward when he stood up. “People are dead. We have two—I don’t even know what!—and a vat full of something that’s obviously dangerous!”
Calvin put his hands over his ears. “Please, stop yelling.”
Seager sat down again.
“What are they, do you think?” Sipos mused.
“We don’t know,” Seager grumbled.
“They certainly look human now.”
Seager put his head in his hands. Sipos wondered if he was remembering how he’d reached out to the torpid figure and said Mia’s name. Calvin had actually moved toward the thing that looked like Deacon, only to be yanked back by Sipos, who nodded down at the thing’s hand. It’d been slowly reaching out, stretching its fingers toward Calvin. Bone white points had strained toward him.
“We have to kill them,” Seager said.
“Maybe.” Sipos sipped his coffee. “One of them, at least, but I think that’ll only be necessary if the DNA tests show enough significant difference to warrant a full dissection. Even then, we’ll have to do all the scans first.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Sipos?”
“Hmm?”
“Deacon and Mia are dead! Do you not get that? Do you not care at all?”
“Of course I care. Not as much as you, obviously—if you remember, I did ask if you could be professional—but they were my team and we’ve worked together for a long time. However, as you’ve felt compelled to repeat three times, they are dead. Caring won’t make a difference at this point.”
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Seager seemed to choke on his words. Or his emotions. Either might have been too much for him.
Moric put his coffee down on the counter beside him. “I think we should consider all the safety precautions we’ll need as we go in to work on them—”
“We’re not going to work on them!” Seager turned. “Calvin! Tell him!”
Sipos rolled his eyes. “Yes, Calvin. Tell me.”
“I-I…I don’t—”
“Calvin!” Seager cried.
“I doubt barking at him will help,” Sipos said.
Calvin closed his eyes and clutched his hands together. “I agree with Seager. We need help, Sipos.”
“Is that really what you think?”
Seager got up and stepped between Sipos and the hunched figure at the table. “Don’t try to bully him. Not now.”
“I don’t bully him. You’re the one shouting.”
“Please!” Calvin shot to his feet. “None of this matters! None of it! This isn’t some kind of experiment! It’s awful. We need help and those things are dangerous. If you don’t know how dangerous a situation is, you contain it and reapproach with more cautions in place.”
“Stay out of their reach, and how dangerous can they be?” Sipos said. “They’re practically vegetables.”
“If you don’t know how dangerous a situation is, you contain it and re-approach with more cautions in place.”
“Dear lord, Calvin! Does reciting text books to comfort yourself help? Is this what you have to do to get up in the morning?”
Seager grabbed Sipos by the arm and pulled him to the corner of the room. When he spoke, it was through grit teeth.
“Listen, Sipos. We don’t know what those things are. We don’t know anything about them, and we certainly don’t know if they’ll stay comatose forever. You don’t get to make fun of Calvin. He’s right! We need to kill both specimens, quarantine the lab, and get a messenger out.”
“Maybe you’ve forgotten, Seager, but I’m the senior researcher for this scientific team. I decide what’s going to happen.”
Seager’s hand tightened around Moric’s bicep. “We’re alone on this planet. Think about that. A mutiny is really easy to arrange when it’s two against one, and who are you going to go to for help? I’m not going to let you force us into doing something stupid, where we’ll either lose our lives or destroy our careers!” His grip eased at the same moment the shine appeared in his eyes. “Haven’t we lost enough already?”
Sipos’s eyes moved from him, over to Calvin. He had followed them to the corner to listen, but he’d kept what he felt was a safe distance.
“And you agree with him?” Sipos asked.
Calvin’s head jerked when he nodded.
Moric’s lip twitched, but he refrained from sneering. He yanked his arm out of Seager’s grasp. “I don’t seem to have much choice then, do I? As my second is gone, I’m the only one with access to the official messengers, so I’ll have to be the one to set it off. But since you’re both so concerned for our safety, I think we should dispose of the specimens first.”
Calvin’s head jerked again. Seager conceded with silence.
Sipos went on, “Since, of all of us, I seem to be the most composed, I think it’d be wise for me to do the job. I’ll get my containment suit. Seager, do we have enough knock-juice to take out two fully grown humans?”
“We should. I’ll prepare a mini-tank.”
“Please make sure it has a high concentration of gas. After all, they may only look human. If it doesn’t work, we’ll have to try something else.”
[https://i.imgur.com/6iM8gcI.png]
Sipos stood at the entrance to the lab and entered the code to shut down the emergency seal. When he heard the doors unlock, he pushed one aside, entered, and made sure to close it again. The lab was eerily still and quiet. Nothing had moved. The only thing different from how they’d left it was faux-Deacon’s claws. They had retreated. The hand looked normal.
Because of his suit’s seal, Moric was spared from having to smell the fecal matter and urine that would be haunting the corpses of Mia and the real Deacon. The two…things—the specimens, as Sipos thought of them—didn’t seem to mind the stench. He could see their chests moving in unhurried respiration.
How were they standing? If they’d stayed on the ground after their formation, Sipos would’ve assumed they were completely brain-dead, but both had managed to make it to their feet.
Deacon was looking at him.
No! Sipos berated himself. Specimen One has turned its eyes to me.
Moric put the mini-tank down on the table and went over to the open container that was sitting on the counter. He looked down at the swirling silver-white surface of the mass inside.
Without thinking, he plunged his arm in up to the elbow. He could feel something pushing against the glove of his suit. It wasn’t the uniform pressure of a liquid. Something was moving.
“I don’t know what you are,” he whispered, “but I know you’re like nothing we’ve ever found before. You’re going to make me famous, and I won’t let anyone take you from me.” He turned and looked back at the closed lab door. “Or destroy you.”
When he withdrew his hand, something was clinging to his suit. Fascinated, he watched it creep up his arm.
But he didn’t have time to observe it. He knew Seager didn’t trust him.
Sipos used a sterile syringe to remove the goo from his suit and dropped it into a specimen jar. Then he retrieved more of the substance from the container and put it into a second jar. After tucking them both into a carrying case, he pulled the case’s strap over his shoulder.
He picked up the mini-tank on the way out. He would need it.
The security panel chirped as he entered the codes to reseal the room. He didn’t want anything happening to Specimen One and Two while he was working.