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The scientist walked into Mallow’s office without knocking.

“I want to talk about my role here,” he said.

Mallow nodded. “Of course, but let’s not talk about this right here.”

Fox didn’t say anything as Mallow led him to the testing site.

“You were brought on to the project because your work on the interplay between probability mechanics and biochemistry is cutting-edge. Absolutely brilliant.” Mallow wasn’t sure whether he was overplaying the flattery, but as far as Fox was concerned, it couldn’t hurt.

“Obviously. I’ve been working on my assignment. What I’d like to know is how regulating the body’s response to chemicals that would cost thousands of dollars per dose at any meaningful concentration ties into the FACM sunscreen project.”

Mallow didn’t like where this was going. The calls from security didn’t portend a happy ending to this conversation.

“Why do you want to know that?”

“It’s likely that Lindley’s conception of the project is dead-wrong. It’d be easier for me to correct his laughably juvenile mistakes if I knew what everyone on the project were attempting to accomplish. Besides, it’s only fair that a scientist of my calibre should have some input in the foundation of our strategy.”

Mallow’s eyes narrowed. “You bring up some good points. FACM will probably never be commercially available, for the private sector at least. The Department of Defense has contracted us to provide a permanent sunscreen. They expect that, at a cost of roughly $500 per soldier, they would save considerably and avoid the logistical nightmare of distributing hundreds of thousands of bottles of sun screen each month.”

“Their math is ill-founded and, if you think we can sell this at $500 a dose, yours is too. The amount of chemicals necessary to ensure that the body actually takes to the skin-transforming vehicle is prohibitively expensive. I could probably reduce the cost per dose considerably if I could perfect my work by examining the work on the vehicle, butLindley has stonewalled my requests for that information.”

Mallow could scarcely stop from wringing his hands in frustration or screaming. First the setbacks, then the inpatience from the project’s benefactors, and now Fox. At least he could limit the Fox problem.

Fox stared at the vat of FACM before turning back to Mallow.

“About that, Dr. Fox. It has come to my attention that you attempted to look at the files related to the vehicle.”

Fox’s eyes widened. Even though he wasn’t a master at computer hacking, it gravely surprised him that anyone on the project was good enough to catch him.

“Like I said, it would have enormously bolstered my work to facilitate the vehicle if I understood how the vehicle operated. I assumed thatLindley had misconstrued my requests as an attempt to second-guess his work and I acted accordingly.”

“Didn’t it occur to you that we might have some reason to segregate that information from your aspect of the project?”

Fox’s expression changed like he had been forced to drink lemon juice.

“No? No. I haven’t before worked on a project– or even heard of one– where the flow of information between scientists working towards the same goal was deliberately inhibited. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Actually, it makes quite a lot of sense. I’m going to have to get rid of you.”

Fox’s features hardened.

“You’re firing me?”

“Something like that.”

Mallow whipped out a silver tranquilizer gun. Before Fox could react, he had two darts protruding from his chest. Fox slumped to the ground as numbness and paralysis spread through his body.

“I had hoped that I might be able to include you in the FACM project. But when you violated the trust between us, it was clear that it was either you or the project. Goodbye, asshole.”

The only thing the groggy Fox could think of as he was effortlessly tossed into the dumping mechanism was how weak the villain’s victory speech was.

Twenty-five seconds. That’s how long it took for the container to be lifted over the vat. At that point the container slowly began to overturn. The last thing Fox saw was the blue, bubbling acid.

Mallow heard Fox hit the acid. He had a vague notion of what to expect.  Fox hadn’t completed his part of FACM, the Fast-Acting Chemical Mutagen. Even so, the brew was corrosive enough that full submersion would probably kill him even before he drowned.

Mallow definitely hadn’t expected a sizzling sound and then crackles. Crackles followed by gradually larger explosions. Acid came lapping over the vat’s sides. Mallow didn’t think long before running out of the laboratory, careful only to avoid the facility’s 38 security cameras before leaving.

_____________________________________________________________

Jay heard something that sounded slightly like a hail of artillery. The guard station’s security monitors didn’t show anything unusual.

The sounds continued. Definitely explosions of some kind, he figured. He examined the facility’s map and concluded that the explosions must be near the only high-hazard room without security cameras, the testing grounds.

As Jay approached the doors, thick and acrid smoke filled his nostrils. The door and even part of the wall had been compromised by the fire.

The electricity in the room had already failed. Jay probed around with a flashlight, looking for anyone knocked out by smoke inhalation or falling debris.

The floor was slicked with blue liquid. His beige combat boots now had a nasty stain that he knew would never come off. Curses.

He came across an enormous bucket, more of a vat, maybe, that had large holes ripped through it. It looked to be the epicenter of the destruction.

Jay caught a glimpse, through a large tear at the bucket’s base, of something black bobbing in the cerulean liquid.

On closer inspection, the object appeared to be some animal. Definitely not human and maybe not even an alien. It was a purplish mess, with wings hanging awkwardly off the back and fingers that looked more like prongs. It looked to be (barely) alive, given that its chest still expanded and contracted with shallow breaths.

Across the room, a ceiling light fixture shattered as it hit the floor, sending sparks flying. The bucket itself looked shaky enough that it might collapse towards one side or another. Jay slung the creature, heavier than its wiry frame indicated, over his shoulder and ran for the exit. By the time he had gotten to the lobby, the building’s power had completely failed*. He had to force his way outside by kicking the door down.

Jay placed the thing in his backseat, even though it would definitely make Jay’s beautiful leather seats look like a quart of liquid detergent hit them. Under the car’s lights, Jay looked a bit more closely at the creature. In his admittedly limited journeys through the cosmos and northeastern Missouri, he hadn’t seen any extraterrestrials that looked even vaguely similar. He vaguely remembered that other lifeforms lived in this quadrant, namely the moonbats of Milky Way-7 , but he was fairly sure that they were not remotely close to interplanetary travel. Or weren’t, at least, circa 1915. Humans themselves had advanced considerably over that time, he reminded himself.

Jay thought about driving to a hospital. The lifeform might have benefitted from proper medical care, although he seemed to be breathing more steadily now. On the other hand, hospitals were built, drugs were developed and doctors were trained with humans in mind. He doubted that they could offer any genuinely helpful medical care.  They might easily attempt something that was helpful enough to Earth’s humans that actually proved lethal for the moonbats of Milky Way-7 (what was that, Saturn?). His contract, his word, bound him to provide for the security of everyone who came in the facility. Sending his charge to a hospital would be at best a dereliction of duty and maybe a virtual death sentence. Additionally, it would be hard to correct human misconceptions of extraterrestrial physiology without answering some awkward questions about what qualified him to speak on the matter.

At a red light, Jay heard sirens as a slew of emergency vehicles rushed past. The security system alerted the fire-department as soon as smoke was detected. That’s a response time of what, 15 minutes? It’s a good thing the project security team hadn’t been cut back as much as management had originally calculated, he figured.

Crickets chriped as Jay came in the door. Clarissa, his babysitter, was inside and witnesses might be problematic. He slipped inside, only to see his favorite babysitter locked at the lips with a male companion he hadn’t seen before.

“Hello,” he said. The lovers awkwardly broke their embrace. “I’m Jay. Nice to meet you… I just thought I’d give Clarissa a break by coming home early tonight.”

The boy, blushing a deep scarlet, mumbled something about how he thought it was her house. Jay had never seen two people flee so quickly. Clarissa hadn’t even remembered to ask for her payment. Jay made a mental note to come home early more often.

Having eliminated the witness(es), Jay lifted the moonbat to the basement. It was damp and chilled, but there was an old couch down there and it was the only place besides his office that Rusty didn’t go.

*– note to self: this detail means that, at some point later, the company will know that Jay walked towards the testing grounds but that the security cameras failed before they would have taped him with the creature. This is important because I don’t want the company to have a good idea of what happened in the facility, but it will give me a way to advance the plot as the company tries to piece together what happened.