Chapter 2: Unfortunate Events and Unlikely Allies
by Dillon Fisher (8th)
January 1st, 4:43 PM
Raquel Parington arrived at the Metroplex a little later than told, despite Bayne’s request. Rona also arrived, but Lieutenant Ashley wasn’t able to come. Some other officers also came, such as Earl Hathaway, Kira Marshall, Wu Young, and Dakota “Dak” Praxton. Oddly enough, Greg Baynes wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
“Where’s Takashi?” Dakota asked, “He’s supposed to be here, that darned Yonoma.”
“Takashi will be here, hopefully” Wu replied.
“No use waiting out here in the cold, let’s head in boys. And girls.” Rona chattered through, “Wow it’s cold.” Then he sprinted into the building, everyone else following him.
The building seemed ominous, but maybe that was just because it was nearing night time. Either way, it was particularly unsettling. The goal, get to the janitor’s room, not the closet, but a room. It was an entire room for the janitors to stay when they weren’t on shift and it was also a storage area. Suddenly, he sensed something stealthy walking up behind, he turned around quickly and saw; Takashi Yonoma.
“You idiot, you’re late,” grumbled Parington. “Plus what were you thinking, I have chloroform in my pocket in case of an emergency, I could’ve accidentally knocked you out!”
“Yada yada yada,” Joked Yonoma, “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Shut up and go help Earl and DK,” Grumbled Parington.
Raquel opened the door to the Janitor’s Room, tensed up and ready to deal with whatever was in there. One problem, there was nothing there. Like absolutely nothing. I mean there was the furniture and the entertainment, there was also the cleaning products and tools. But nothing out of the ordinary. Which was a problem, a very big problem. He kept walking around and keeping a sharp eye out for anything odd, and then he saw it. A glob of greenish, brownish goo that looked like mold, but with a mossy texture.
“Huh, weird.” Raquel wondered aloud. “Yo, Earl, come over here.”
“Yes?” Earl said as he entered the room, Earl was the resident CSI (Crime Scene Investigator), “Eww, what’s that?”
“That’s what I was going to ask you Earl,” Sighed Raquel.
“Seems to be a glob of mold, with the texture of moss,” said Earl as he investigated the strange substance. As a precaution, Earl sniffed the air around him and immediately shot up in alarm. “Back up and leave the room, NOW!”
“Why?” Questioned Raquel.
“There is a lot of Mercury in that thing, it reeks of it in fact. You and I need to leave, or else we could die.”
Raquel and Earl started to leave, but just as Raquel left the room, he heard a shout. He looked behind him as he saw that gooey thing climbing on Earl, and enveloping him in such a gruesome way, I would get this story age-restricted if I described it. Earl fell limp to the floor. But just a moment later, he got up and started sprinting in Raquel’s direction, eyes glazed over.
Uh oh, that’s not good.
“EVERYONE IN THE STORE, WE NEED TO LEAVE NOW.” Screamed Raquel.
Rona peeked around the corner and saw what was happening, Rona then proceeded to head to the security room, presumably going to warn Takashi, and Wu, who seemed to not have heard Raquel. When he glanced through another window facing into the parking lot, he saw Kira and Dak outside safely. Raquel rushed to leave the building, and then manually closed the sliding doors shut, and forcibly made them never able to open again. He could only hope the others were safe, and found another exit. And 20 minutes later, the group showed up, holding Earl who seemed to be unconscious. Raquel was about to ask what happened but Rona gave him the look that meant, we’ll talk later. Right now, they have bigger problems.
***
January 2nd, 11:00 AM
Rona watched as the clock struck 8. Right now, he was in the Hospital Waiting Room, waiting for Raquel to finish his blood cleansing. They had to clean his blood to avoid him getting sick, as the Mercury penetrated his veins when he was in the room. Wasn’t long enough to hurt him or cause any lasting effects luckily. Earl was doing fairly well, he had many injuries and the doctors had him hooked to blood and body cleansing machinery for a while now. He also had a lot of damage to organs and tissues, though scientific advancements made in the past few decades could heal those injuries. He would have to be in there for a week or two though to fully recover.
Immediately following the incident, the HAZMAT team came in and scoured the store for anything dangerous, and they found something. They found the moldy substance that attacked Earl. The good news was that they managed to contain that substance and bring it in for testing. The bad news is that the Metroplex was closed down and quarantined, no one could get in or out without going through brutal security checks. That’s going to be annoying, since he needed to get back in.
He needed help, and he knew what kind of help he needed.
Enter Kirby Neisinger. Car mechanic and ex-Special Ops agent. Also, Raquel’s childhood best friend. With Kirby’s street-smarts, reliability with tools, and his strength at forgery, he was perfect for the job.
Trying to get to him was tough, Kirby wasn’t picking up on his calls and Raquel couldn’t take a chance by forwarding it to voicemail, he might get busted by doing that. So, that meant he had to go in person.
Kirby was located in the Eastfall City downtown district ,(basically the slums), which was dangerous for a police or any officer to go near, the residents had grudges against the police after the brutal and violent treatment of them up until 2030 when the old Head of Police got the boot and a new one came in and started a fairer and less violent regime. All this meant that he had to leave all his police gear, (even the undercover gear) at home and go in unarmed and unprotected. Risky, but it could be worth it.
Walking the streets of the slums made Raquel nervous, even though the residents didn’t have much, that meant they made the most of what they had, for better or worse. Raquel stopped in front of a building called Kirby’s Auto-Parts. Peeking in he saw Kirby working on a motorcycle inside.
“I’ve always been wondering about why you set up a car repair shop in an area with barely any cars.” Wondered Raquel aloud as he walked in.
Kirby looked up from the vehicle and grinned, “Contrary to the name of my business , I do more than fix cars. I fix bikes, scooters, I l know how to deal with water issues and can fix houses, to some extent.”
“Good to see bud.”
“Same here, now what brings you around these parts?”
Raquel sighed “I need a favor.”
“For what?”
“I need an ID for something.”
“Why.”
“Did you hear about the incident in the Metroplex a couple days ago?” Said Raquel
“I’ve heard rumors.”
“The government locked it down. Almost no one can get in, and… I need something from there.”
“What do you need from there?.” Kirby asked
“Security footage and some special papers.”
“Fine, but I need you to do something for me.”
“I got it.” Said Raquel with no hesitation.
“There are these documents and layouts regarding the water supply here. And I need them, something fishy is happening with the pipes pumping water here. I’ll explain later, not in the mood right now. Capisce? Ok, now, let’s get you that ID.”
***
This is Afternoon News on Dargon News Station 6, currently we are reporting on the Downtown Riots that started this morning. Starting with the Chesterville areas and spreading to the surrounding towns, to name a few, Rochen, Granite, Arthurville, Gra-
Kirby sighed, while Raquel was out on his mission, he was sitting in his living room. He loved his town, the folks here didn’t have much, but they did have a nice community, and he preferred that over having to deal with the problems that the city board always caused. They never really bothered with fixing this place up, so the board never really impacted them. Until now. Kirby was hearing rumors about people in districts like Rochen and Arthurville drinking water being pumped through pipes, only during certain times of the day, and getting seriously sick. Normally, those people didn’t make it. This is what started those riots, the water supply.
Now, Kirby didn’t believe that this was a case of a contaminated water supply, because the bad water was being pumped through from 12-3 PM give or take an half hour or so. Every day, for the last month or so. Any other time of the day it was fine to drink out of. It worried him, he didn’t know what was going on with that water but he knew it was suspicious. Something not normal was being pumped through here. And he needed to find out.