20. Sébastien
A fter the magical intensity of the first night at the hunting lodge, the morning was a cruel return to reality.
Frank and Loulu’s violent clash reminded all of us that this isn’t some snowy fuck-cation by the lakeside; it’s a covert operation to uncover corruption and intentional sabotage at the highest levels of government—not to mention a super secret organization bent on clandestine world domination.
While unsettled by my discovery of Quentin’s Zeitnot antibodies and corresponding immunity, I cannot deny that I was also fascinated by my findings.
Before Caz and I left the cabin, I was able to gather samples from all the Saints and Loulu. I brought the blood samples, along with the minuscule amount of fluid remaining in the spent dart the breach team fired at Quentin.
Together, Cazzy and I had no trouble making our way into the Lakeside University labs.
Between Caz’s knack for physical security foiling and our collective charisma, we’re able to bluff our way past the campus sign in desks on pure charm and pop open old school spring latches with a little credit card ‘slipping.’ Only the last few doors required any kind of advanced ID for entry—and we were lucky enough to slip into the corner of the facility needed for my tests by being in the right place at the right time.
Really, our final obstacle—a door with a keycard tap access, wouldn’t have made Caz break a sweat.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Cazzy spoof an RFID to get us in somewhere; be it a building or through a turnstile for the train.
Didn’t need to, though. Another master’s student, dark smudgy circles beneath her eyes, held the door open for us as she made her exit—presumably after one hell of an all-nighter.
She didn’t even bother looking up at us as we scurried past her—just gave a sleepy nod and a half-hearted wish of “Happy Holidays” which we returned in kind.
Caz paced nervously past the bank of windows as I worked, hands fisted in the pockets of his nylon bomber jacket—a rare pair of stovepipe jeans, a baby blue cashmere sweater and camel plaid scarf borrowed from Tin-tin in order to help cover his many tattoos and lend legitimacy to his co-ed claims.
I myself wore my fingerless winter gloves, a Nordic pattern with floppy mitten covers and a turtleneck sweater purloined from Tin-tin’s collection in a similar fashion—parting with my heavy gloves only once we’re locked safely in the solitude of the lab.
With Caz as lookout, I got to work right away.
With the proper reagents, vessels, incubators and centrifugal spinning machines—I am able to get everything up and processing inside of a half hour.
Once there’s nothing left to do but wait, Caz and I take turns making small expeditions outside of the lab, making sure that one of us is always left to let the other back into the locked lab.
We managed some basics from the first aid kit installed on the wall; painkillers, fresh bandages and antiseptics for tending Frank’s wound—some clean hypos, test tubes, and other sample containers; as well as replacements for my own chemistry kit.
Not nearly enough of anything useful for me to build a bit of boom, but that can wait. Right now—our focus is narrow—trained on arming ourselves with armaments of information rather than weapons of destruction.
Caz is on one of his patrols around the building when the timer goes off on my last round of tests.
I move with purpose, carefully inserting a clean pipette into the first vial of fluid—dropping a single globule of the mixture of blood and chemicals onto a microscope slide before snapping it into place on the view plate.
I press my face to the eyepiece and hold my breath.
There’s a soft knock in a well-known pattern at the door. Even though I know from the pattern that the knock could only belong to Caz, I nearly jump out of my skin at the sound.
“What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he whispers under his breath as I hurry Caz back into the lab and jam the door shut behind him.
“I don’t know exactly what I’ve seen yet,” I warn soberly before rushing back to my work—preparing a second slide from the second sample.
This certainly seems more definitive, but I rush down the line of vials—preparing a slide for each before rotating rapidly through the entire set, comparing each in great detail.
I remember the first time I saw an image of fibrin in a textbook at the juvenile detention home; a glossy photo of bright yellow tendrils of spider-web-like-fibers holding a cluster of healthy red blood cells together on an electron microscope.
When I’ve looked at previous samples of actively infected omegas, alphas, or sigmas the malformations of the Zeitnot virus immediately brought to mind the fibrin structures, but localized to each blood cell; a sickly greenish brown web of fibers clinging to little perfect red inner tubes—while asymptomatic ‘carriers’ of the virus—betas, thetas, gammas, and deltas; appeared to have a few instances of cells with pale pink fibers.
Looking at samples of Caz’s and my own blood? I see just what I’d expect—pale pink fibroids; but when I take a look at Tin-tin and Loulu? There’s a shockingly geometric looking net of pale blue fibroids around each cell.
Eager to see Frank’s results, I’m baffled when I see his slide looks completely different—perfectly geometric lines of deep purple laid over healthy red blood cells.
There’s something else though—something I can’t see on the electron microscope.
I’m about to refer to the computer, to see if it’s nearly done compiling all the data from the testing machine to give me the reports on hemoglobin, white blood cell count—when the nearby printer clicks and beeps to life.
The first printout, a detailed analysis of Louise’s blood panel, floats down into the tray and I snatch it up—my eyes finding the line that reads: ‘Unknown Marker 42’ at the bottom of the results.
My heart rate skyrockets as I wait for the next sheet to drop into the tray, but I already know what I’ll find.
Unknown Marker 42, Undoubtedly the “Fated Mates” marker Landon and Margot Penny discovered in their research.
Now I’ve got more questions than answers and our time is almost up.
“Seb!” Caz hisses at me urgently, and I realize I must have been lost in thought.
“Sorry, sorry,” I shake my head, rushing to collect my things and clean up my workstation—paranoia stoking my sense of urgency from banked embers to raging blaze. “We gotta get out of here, Cazzy. We’re going to need more than this backwater lab to find out anything more.”
Caz looks to the jammed door, then the clock on the wall.
“We’ve got another two hours before the janitors start their rounds. Are you sure we shouldn’t—” he begins, but I cut my hand through the air between us ending any further discussion.
“Non, non, non. We need to get out of here now. Something about this stinks. We need to get at the records of the Penny’s research…
or whatever the hell the Feds or the Windmill are keeping locked up tight.
” I shake my head, sweeping my used supplies into a large plastic bag that Caz and I will carry out with us before hurrying to a nearby sink for a bottle of spray bleach cleaner and a roll of rough recycled paper towels.
Caz gets the message and sets to helping me. Between the two of us, four hands make light work—we’re packed out and waving our flirtatious goodbyes to the science campus receptionist inside of fifteen minutes.
We shout and argue, trading theories and speculation until we pull into the three-spot lot at the entrance of the camping park and scurry into the woods just as the sun begins to set.
The closer we get to the cabin, the quieter we become until we fall silent as the trees give way to shoreline.
Though we couldn’t be sure by the absence of a car in the lot—Caz and I had guessed we’d beaten Frank back to the lodge—and been correct.
When we open the door to the cabin, the intermingling scent of iris, rose, sandalwood, pink pepper, peaty scotch, and tart green apple assail us.
The small space has been transformed since we left the hunting lodge this morning.
Most of the extra cushions and animal skin blankets have disappeared from their places on or around the fireside couch and now adorn the swept wood floor so that no stretch of the old pine boards are visible.
They used two linen flat sheets from the loft's sleeping space to make a small, ditsy floral canopy that hangs like a pillow fort from the loft's overhead beams. The seam where both sheets meet parted like the drawn curtains of an old proscenium theater.
Quentin must have made a nest. We’re really in it now.
In the center of the nest-stage, Loulu and Tin-tin sit across from each other atop a deerskin blanket in a bare smattering of mesh and lace underthings—their skin glistening with a thin sheen of sweat as they mirror one another’s tender touches on their bare skin; fingers circling hard nipples, tongues tracing one another’s lips, eyes eerily open as they whimper and sigh in a glassy eyed stupor.
Merde.
They’re already starting their heat, the intensity of their perfume without any other stabilization from other pack members must be so potent that the two of them have gotten stuck in some kind of feedback loop—the pair enchanted by one another so completely that they seem to have forgotten that they need to get relief—lest the heat begin to take its toll on their bodies, which already show signs of distress from being in such a heightened state of arousal for so long with no heat helpers.
Louise’s nostrils flare as she scents Caz and I—her entire face turning slowly until her glazed eyes fix upon us—still motionless in the doorway.
Quentin is quick to follow, his phosphorescent green eyes nearly black with his blown-out pupils.