CHAPTER 7 #2
“I told her I’d head over after I ate.” As Garyson mowed down the sandwich, he asked Asterion about the asteroid thing and got a full accounting.
Seemed a quest for the device had been the reason the minotaur got released after centuries of being trapped.
Interesting dude who retained a positive attitude despite his time in isolation.
After his meal, they headed up the steps, Grayson’s thighs burning at the many flights he climbed, but he imagined he’d get used to it since he’d be doing it daily. Hunh, look at him already accepting the fact he’d be living in this weird place.
They reached Leila’s lab and found her hunched over her microscope. She whirled on her chair and arched a brow. “You brought reinforcements, I see.”
“I was curious,” Asterion admitted with a shrug.
“I gassed it about ten minutes ago, and thus far, it appears to be sleeping.”
“Can I see it?” The minotaur didn’t hide his excitement.
“Through the window.” She waved a hand.
Asterion ambled over, and so did Grayson. The alien remained in the cage, splayed on the bottom.
“It grew from a blob in a single day?” Asterion murmured. “That is quite impressive.”
Leila joined them and replied. “Extremely. The clinical applications, if we could figure them out, could be life-changing in the field of medicine. Imagine if we could regrow a limb or organ.”
Grayson’s mind turned to the darker applications. “Which sounds great until you realize people would abuse it by chopping others into pieces and seeing if they could create clones of themselves.”
“The propensity for evil is there.” Leili sighed in agreement. “Although you do raise an interesting point. Is the sample that grew a clone of the original or a unique individual?”
“You could test that with the specimen you have,” Asterion pointed out. “See if a piece taken from it reacts the same way.”
“I don’t know if I would want two of them in my lab,” her murmured reply. “One has proven tricky enough. Two might form an alliance that could prove dangerous, especially since Tower can’t see it.”
“Invisible like the asteroid. I wonder what it is about them that we can see them but the Astraeus and Tower can’t.” Asterion rubbed his chin.
“When do you want to grab the sample?”
“I’d like to do it sooner rather than later, but I don’t know how long it will remain unconscious. I don’t want you getting injured.” Leila eyed his still-dusty hands, which he’d just eaten a sandwich with. Hope it didn’t wreck his digestive system.
“We’ll wear gloves, the kind that go up to the elbow. And don’t forget. Asterion will be helping. If two big guys can’t hold that little squirt, then we’re in big trouble.”
“Fair point. Let’s get you protected, and then we’ll collect what I need.”
It didn’t take long to be outfitted with Tower providing safety gear. Wearing face shields and reinforced gloves, they headed into the room with the cage quietly, tiptoeing as if the slightest noise would wake the alien.
The creature didn’t move.
“Is it even breathing?” Grayson whispered, watching its chest.
“Not that I’ve been able to detect.” Leila crouched. “It could be it absorbs oxygen or doesn’t need air to survive.”
“An alien that doesn’t need a breathable atmosphere can go anywhere, even planets with toxic gases,” Asterion opined, crouching for a closer peek.
“It also means it could hide underwater without drowning.”
“The Toronto area meteor hit the lake.” Grayson remembered hearing about it.
“Which is teeming with animal-based life, and yet it took them more than a week to emerge. Meanwhile, it seems other meteor strike zones had issues almost immediately.” Leila appeared lost in thought.
“What are you thinking?” Grayson could see the gears in her head working.
“That fish flesh isn’t quite the same as land-based animal. I’ll have to try feeding Blue some aquatics to see.”
“Blue?” he queried.
“It needed a name.”
“And you chose Blue, as opposed to something more apt, like Piranha or Mini Rex?” He couldn’t hide his incredulity.
She shrugged. “What can I say? It reminded me of that velociraptor in Jurassic Park.”
Asterion cleared his throat. “I wonder if it can be taught to not be murderous. After all, look at dogs. If left alone in the wild, they become hunters, even of people, but domesticate them and they’re loving.”
“This thing is rabid,” Grayson noted. “I doubt it can be tamed. As for your dog example, even some that are house trained end up turning on their owners.”
“I think that’s a fine idea, Asterion,” Leila countered. “Guess we’ll have to try to find out for sure. Now, if you’re both ready, Blue won’t sleep forever.”
Grayson glanced at Asterion. “I’ll grab its two arms on the left, you hold the pair on the right. Then even if it wakes, it won’t be able to go anywhere.”
They must have looked incongruous, two giant males pinching the spindly limbs of the sleeping alien.
However, having tangled with a fully-grown one, and his hands phantom throbbing at the sight of the razor-sharp teeth in the jaw Leila pried open to run a swab for saliva collection, had him leery.
Grayson didn’t realize he’d stopped breathing until Leila took her hands away from the creature’s mouth.
“Why does it have nostrils if it doesn’t inhale air?” Asterion asked. A good question.
“Most likely to scent for sustenance.”
“Didn’t the blob find food before it got a nose, though?” Grayson didn’t mean to be contrary, but his brain struggled to understand.
“It did, meaning it must have more than one sense it relies on for hunting, or could be I’d fed it enough that, before limbs and other things, it developed an olfactory receptor.”
Fancy sentence to say, it grew a nose first.
“And how did it propel?” Asterion’s turn to ask a question.
“Probably slid like a snail, inching its way. Or maybe the flesh formed a tiny limb underneath that I didn’t notice.
If I do grow another piece, I’ll have a camera recording to catch what it actually does.
” She sounded excited, whereas Grayson eyed the alien and wondered if keeping it alive was the right thing to do.
After the mouth swab, she scraped the alien’s outer layer of skin, clipped its claws, and then took out a scalpel to excise some tissue. She took three pieces, none of them larger than a pea, from the tail, an arm, and its back.
“Why the different spots?” Grayson knew nothing of research and biology yet found it fascinating—and not just because Leila was super-hot.
“In reptiles, the tails have more connective tissue and less muscle. The difference is especially marked in lizards that can shed their tail to escape predators. Given their appearance, I wonder if the aliens are somewhat the same.”
Made sense. It did look like a mini dinosaur without the leathery skin.
“I’ve got all the samples I need,” Leila announced. “If you’re both comfortable with it, I’d like to take some measurements now.”
“Go for it,” Grayson breezily replied, and Asterion nodded in agreement.
She measured it, tail tip to head, limb length, and weight, then palpated its belly. Tugged its tail, which remained firmly attached. Tried to pry open its eyes, but the lids remained firmly shut. Odd.
“Okay, I think that’s enough for now,” she stated, standing up and retreating. “You can put it back in the cage.”
“I’ve got it,” Grayson stated, and Asterion released the tiny arms he held. Grayson cradled the body in his palm so as to not crush it. As he put the alien inside the cage, it woke so suddenly he didn’t have time to react.
It attacked his thumb, teeth biting hard into the thick glove while the four limbs wrapped around so it could gnaw. It didn’t hurt, but caused a dilemma since no amount of shaking loosened it.
“Hold on,” Leila yelled, leaning over to grab a syringe she’d had stuffed in her lab coat pocket. She stabbed the alien and pushed the plunger, injecting it with a sleeping agent that turned it from rabid to sleeping.
Grayson pried it off his thumb, lay it in the cage, and slammed the hatch shut before securing the lock.
“It is quite vicious,” Asterion observed as they exited the chamber.
“I’m thinking hungry,” Leila replied. “During its growth phase, I imagine it wants to eat often.”
“You going to keep feeding it?” Grayson couldn’t hold back a note of disapproval. While he understood why she would, he worried about her safety.
“Yes. I’ll want to measure if the amount or type of sustenance correlates to how rapidly it evolves. Do certain meat proteins energize it more than others? Does the quantity matter more than quality?”
“May I assist you?” Asterion inquired. “This is all quite new and intriguing.”
“Only if you’ll obey my every instruction.” Leila’s firm counter.
“But of course. You are the scientist. I am merely your pupil.”
Lucky bastard. Grayson kind of wished he’d offered, but then again, he’d not been brought here to play scientist, but warrior.
Speaking of which… The lights in the room flashed before Aries’ voice came out of nowhere.
“Libra, please report to the training room.”
Guess the real work was about to begin.