Chapter 2
1086 Words
Chapter 2
Dinah walked around the exclusive chemical lab at the headquarters of LeBlanc Pharmaceuticals in London. It had been three days, and she hadn't been able to develop the compound Ciaran had asked her to make. In Iilos, she would have blamed limited resources. She looked around and sighed. Any government in the cosmos would be drooling just to get their hands on this lab. The slow process could be because she had never before made weapons of this caliber. Or maybe she wasn't as good as she had thought and should settle for being a private investigator rather chemical engineer. But damn it, she liked chemistry.
Dinah frowned and rubbed her thumb on the button of the weaponry jacket Ciaran had made for her. He always asked for two-hundred percent commitment from those who worked for him. He wasn’t king of the most prosperous universe in the multiverse for no reason.
A week ago, Earth time, Arete had challenged Ciaran, his council, and Arik to the second round of the multiversal hologame. Xiilok rebels had used a toxic fume that had nearly killed Ciaran and Madeline, and Ciaran believed they'd use an even more lethal weapon against them in the game. He wanted Dinah to create a compound that would protect them and prevent them from being affected.
“Piece of cake! I'll just pull the formula out of my ear,” she said to the computer monitor which was streaming out test results that amplified the magnitude of her failure.
She raised her arms in the air in frustration then let them fall at her sides. Turning around, she walked straight into a trolley at the corner of the room, sending lab tubes and equipment shattering all over the floor.
“Ow!”
She had bumped her hip on the side of the trolley. She wasn’t clumsy, but her frustration with the task at hand had cause her to be careless.
“You’re such a klutz, Dinah.” Her business partner grinned from the doorway.
“I’m not in a good mood, Cooper!”
He sauntered in without an invitation and sat on her lab stool. She was only five foot two, so she had adjusted the height of the stool to suit her needs. Cooper readjusted it so that his lanky body could settle comfortably. “You won’t be in a good mood being around Arik.”
“Well, I’ll need to use that chair soon because someone has to develop a chemical compound to protect us in the upcoming multiversal hologame.”
“I’ve been working out all night. My muscles are screaming. Can I sit for a bit?”
Dinah wagged a threatening finger at him. “I made those fake ab muscles for you. Remember that I can take them back.”
He gestured up and down his torso. “They’re already gone . . . when Ciaran shot at me in the market, remember? But I’m happy with the way I look now. I work out just to improve my agility.”
“Jenny and her martial arts have had some good influence on you then?”
“No one can influence me. I’m always comfortable in my own skin.”
Dinah rolled her eyes. “Says one who begged for fake abdomen muscles a short while ago!”
“Come on, can we not talk about that?”
“Yes, sure, if you stop calling me a klutz.”
“It’s a deal. Listen, I’m here to ask you for a favor.”
“Naturally.” Dinah rolled her eyes again. “I won’t make you a love potion.”
“No, that’s not what I need. But if I don’t get this problem figured out, no love potion will help.”
Dinah frowned. “Are you okay?”
Cooper shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about the sound I heard when I called you from Iilos and didn’t get a response.”
“You said it sounded like a space creature. And it made perfect sense because we’d just had a fight before that, and they took my communication unit.”
“Yes, but hear me out. I don’t think it’s just any sound. It was a static noise, like someone was tuning for frequency from the multiverse.”
“Yes, we knew that, Cooper. Arete and his people were searching for some kind of frequency, and they had been manipulating Arik’s brain waves. That was why he heard crazy music and all that.”
“Yes, but I thought about it again, and it’s not that simple. Or maybe it is in Arik’s case. But in my case, when I played that sound again and again in my head, it started to make some sense. If I rearrange some of the tune, it’s like a song. And in my last attempt, I think I got it right.”
Dinah raised an eyebrow.
He sighed. “When it formed some sort of sensible tune, it shot a shock wave through my body. The energy in me surged and then subsided.” He stood up and looked at her. “Unfortunately, it stayed that way. At the subsided level.”
“So you lack energy? You need a vitamin shot?”
He raked his hands through his hair. “It’s not that kind of energy. It’s my libido.”
“Cooper! You have officially crossed the line of our business partnership! You want me to help you get your rocks off?”
“Lower your voice, Dinah. Come on!”
“Cooper, I know masculine performance is important for a man. But we’re on a mission here. The multiverse is in trouble. Lives are at stake. And you’re worried about your libido?”
“I’m the one who’s making sacrifices for the greater good here, telling you about my manliness problem and all.”
“How is that sacrificing?”
“I think the control from the badasses who are hunting for the apertures has something to do with chemicals and a mind-controlling frequency. But you know that much. I also think they tried to either control or get information about something much more primal than that. Like s****l urges. I mean, think about it. In one sequence, my libido is up. Reversing it, my libido is down. And that was controlled across the cosmos.”
Dinah nodded. “They’re trying to control senses.” She paced the room. “This is bad. Really bad. Senses rely on the immediate environment, and that’s impossible to formulate without extensive simulation. That’s beyond my skill set. But Ciaran can do it.”
“Wait, you’re not going to tell Ciaran about my libido problem, are you?”
“How else am I going to explain about the controlling of energy via multiversal frequencies?”
“Just say energy . . . or senses.”
“Yes, but s****l urges are a primal sense. Those urges control human beings in a lot of ways. What if we miss out on the bigger picture by omitting that information?”
“I don’t know . . .” Cooper said in frustration.
“It looks like we’re having a heated debate about lab results?” Ciaran said from the doorway.
- Writer
