Fired

Acquiesce Serum

*In S.T.A.R Labs*

"Good Morning guys",said Sam, walking inside the lab with a cup of coffee in his hand.

"Good morning Sam!",said Diana and Oliver at the same time. Sam never understood how they got up so early and start doing all the work without yawning. Sam guessed that their life was not as wonderful as he thought it was.

"Soooo, what are you guys making early in the Morning?",asked Sam cheerfully.

"We were just modifying the force field with time graphic design software ",said Oliver.

"Not that I understood, but good luck and as it sounded....I think this is for my problem ,right?",asked Sam.

"Yes", answered Diana who seemed extra occupied with the tab in her hand and writing something down.

"Alright then,...I will bother you guys later",said Samand turned to leave.

"No Sam wait",said Oliver,"we are going to try and make another copy of the device you described that you were holding on the night you were affected"

"Oh! But there's no need! I already have it?!",blurted out Sam, without thinking for a second.

"WHAT?!", shouted Diana and Oliver in unison.

"Well....yes....I have it...Ronald gave it to me , remember? He had given it to me 'to protect myself' and I kindof kept it because I thought it might be of use in the future and also Ronald never asked for it. And, I thought it might be fun if i brought it here with me",said Sam with a very nervous smile on his face that clearly depicted fear.

Oliver and Diana just plainly stared at him.

"Sam! You brought that thing all along here and you never thought of telling us? Were you ever gonna tell us?", snapped Oliver.

Sam started," Yes ,I-"

For some reason Oliver looked disapproving,"I spent the last night with Hugh,trying to figure out the device,what it did to you and all its reference in the ancient history books!"

"I am sorry Oliver....I didn't want you to waste your time...I didn't know about it",said Sam with hurt in his eyes.

"Perhaps if you had told us earlier!",said Oliver,"We asked you that day if there was anything you wanted to tell us, we told you that if you wanted us to help you then you had to co-operate with us! You can't-"

"OLIVER!", snapped Diana,"That is enough!"

Both Oliver and Sam looked startled, and Diana said," It's bad that Sam didn't tell us earlier but you are being too hard on him! It was just a mistake! What's there to be so angry about?!"

Oliver took a deep breath ,looked at Sam and said,"I am sorry.... I don't know why but I just suddenly cracked . Forgive me, just no more secrets please! "

Sam nodded and gave a weak smile.

Diana said,"There ! It's not hard ,is it? Just be polite and go easy , now,Sam, please go to your room and bring that device here, we have a lot of work to do"

Sam thought all was resolved, and he went on his way to bring the device to them.

Sam was thinking of telling them his secret ,about his parents and the main reason was working as Ronald's assistant, but the reaction he got just then,clearly depicted that they were not very good at coping with lies and secrets,he had to go on with the story that he had told them earlier.

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*In Ronald's Labs*

"Mr. Ronald it's ready",said Dr. Kush.

"Explain what you have made Kush",said Ronald from behind his desk.

Kush who was sweating from head to toe started speaking,"So sir, the connection between yours and Mark's brain was such that you were controlling him with your brain and that drained out too much of your power. So, here,I made this serum, this one, if you inject the patient with it, the subject will do exactly as you say, he stops thinking with his own brain and starts doing precisely as you say. This is a mind-controlling serum. It can be also called as the acquiesce serum, because it stops the normal functioning of the brain and does exactly as you command."

"Very well....it is very unusual that you work so well, when under pressure",said Ronald standing up,"And I hope you know what will happen if this serum fails"

Kush's eyes bulged out and he started saying,"But sir, I haven't tested it yet, because you wanted it early in the morning. I don't know if it works well on male or female and I don't know what effect it has on specific blood groups,if there are any side effects or not. If you had just given -"

"Alright! Alright! I will give you more time to explore the necessary things but you know what? I am really anxious to try this out",said Ronald pointing at the serum in packets on Kush's grasp.

Kush knew that it was unnecessary to say anything so he simply handed him five packets and kept five so that he could research on it.

"And I want the results by evening, you can do it?",asked Ronald.

"Yes sir",replied Kush, and gulped.

Ronald smiled 'kindly' and said," Dr. Kush, you don't need to be so afraid of me, I just want to make this world a better place. Don't be so afraid of me, I am not a monster am I?"

Kush looked at Ronald ,unsure about the answer and then replied,"No sir,you are not".

"That,was a rhetorical question Dr. Kush", said Ronald as he opened the door of his office for Kush to go out.

The moment Kush went out, Ronald closed the door, and excitedly went to admire the serum and anxious to do ,what he was about to do.

"PATRICK!", shouted Ronald,"Come inside"

"Yes sir",said Patrick opening the door.

"I want you to prepare the 'room above' for some testing and collect Dr. Amanda, Dr.Kush and some of Smith's armed guards, and I want you bring subjects 717 ,716 ,715, 714 and subject 713 inside the room.",said Ronald.

"Um...okay sir!",said Patrick,confusedly and closed the door behind him as he went.

******************************

*In S.T.A.R Labs*

"This is the device",said Sam, handing over the long slim, and strange looking device he fetched from his room.

"Alright....never seen anything like this before!",said Diana ,examining it.

"Me too...This seems like a strange device!", exclaimed Oliver touching it.

"Hugh might be able to find something useful that relates to this. He knows a lot about history",said Diana, saying this, Diana went out of the room to fetch Hugh

"Whatever this is.....it is definitely not good news",said Oliver, looking intently at the device.

******************************

*In Ronald Labs*

Ronald stared as everything was being fixed in their places in the room where all the experiments regarding their mission took place. The five subjects were placed side by side on the big table inside the glass barrier, and the serum was getting ready for injecting with big needles placed on top of their chests , just one press on the buttons and all the serum would be injected inside each of them.

After everything was ready, Ronald pressed the button. He waited, as all the subjects got injected with the serum. He waited for something dramatic to happen. But nothing happened.

Dr. Kush and Dr. Amanda were sitting,glued to the computer screens to see if some change takes place inside the body of the subjects. The guards were standing ,holding guns in their hands, to act if Ronald commanded them to shoot.

Five minutes.

Ten minutes.

Fifteen minutes.

Thirty minutes.

Nothing happened.

Ronald slammed his hand on the desk and cursed.

"Sir,there must have been something wrong with the serum, I will fix it by the evening! I did not know all about it ",explained Kush.

"Look Kush, I am giving you time, FIX IT…!", snapped Ronald,"Everybody clear up! Leave those bodies, Kush, you will check out what went wrong "

Saying this Ronald went away along with the other team members, leaving Kush behind. Kush preferred not to remain in a room with five bodies. He got an excellent plan. If he poisoned those dead men with carbon monoxide, the result would show the presence of carbon monoxide in their system and if Ronald asked him about it, he will answer he didn't know how CO got there and he would simply show the samples of the other packs of serum which were made along with those.

All of it happened very quickly, Kush went to his lab , he collected carbon monoxide in its liquid form, went back to examining room , opened the glass door and injected all the dead subjects with carbon monoxide. He went to check the results and found traces of carbon monoxide in the bodies made a few changes, he took out a print of the result to show that the cause of death was not the serum and he went away to show it to Ronald and pretend to be innocent.

The subjects were dead. And they would have stayed dead if Kush had not done what he did. The serum was highly reactive with Carbon monoxide. The reaction of all of it inside a dead human's body, caused an unexplainable amount of reactions and it turned the dead men, insane, and thirsty for blood.

After a few minutes, the bodies of the dead men moved . And all of them moved and they opened their eyes, that were completely black.