by Lee Sau Woon
>As they followed her, Martin nudged Vanessa on her arm.
>"Look at her fine skin. If she weren't moving, I won't know that she is human."
>Vanessa smiled, but said nothing. The moment she saw the leather >choker-type chain around Jessica's neck when the latter turned, she had >given their tour guide a nickname.
>Man's best friend.
Brookhaven, Long Island, MD 2, morning
Jessica took them out of the corridor into the open space, and walked in the direction where a clusters of buildings are situated.
"Brookhaven currently houses over five hundred staff. Out of these five hundred, only two hundred of them are dealing directly with the different scientific fields. The rest are mainly administrative, like me."
"Administrative? Isn't that abit too many for clerks and secretaries?" Martin interrupted her introduction.
Jessica turned and smiled at the agent.
"Oh yes, if their work is clerical, Agent Reed. However, the word administrative need not necessary mean just that. " She changed the topic. "We have a total of seven buildings in Brookhaven. The first one, is, of course, the main building which you came to just now. It is used for meetings, conferences and other purposes. Five other buildings houses the facilities and other staff."
"And the seventh building?" Vanessa asked.
"A storage house, Agent Lee. It also contained a power generator, a water purification facility, and other machineries. It is located at the other side of the compound to keep all the noise and dirt away from the scientific facilities."
"Will we get to visit it later?"
"I'm afraid not. The staff there are a strange group. They hated people to interrupt them when they are working. Moreover, there is nothing interesting there."
Jessica stopped in front of a building and swapped a security card through a scanner just next to the door. The door swung open, and she led them in. They took a lift to the second floor and Jessica led them through the white, brightly lit corridor. Doors lined on both sides of the corridor, and each of these door had a round glass for them to see through. A peep into a few of them, however, revealed only people clad in genderless white suit tapping on keyboards and staring into computer screens.
"Right now, there are more than twenty kinds of research being carried out in Brookhaven. Some of these research are government-funded, but we do have privately-funded researches carried out. For example, two years ago, a rich businessman sponsored us to do research on cancer. "
"That was nice of him." Jordan said.
"I'm afraid his motive was not to save lives, Agent Stern. His business was failing, and he wanted us to find out how to cause his very rich and healthy wife to die quickly of cancer so that he will get the money."
"Did he succeed?"
"In a way. His wife died within the year. Of Aids. But then she had also willed most of her money to her 22 year old boyfriend."
"Can we entered some of the laboratories and take a look?" Martin asked.
"I'm afraid not. Like what I had said before, the people here are quite strange. All those talks about weird scientists are not unfounded. Those dealing with computers are the worst. They can only socialise with computers and spoke in binary."
Vanessa, a former computer science student herself, rolled her eyes skyward at the steorotype.
"How about research on genetics? Are there any research on this field currently? Like perfecting the human gene, cloning, or something to that aspect?" Jordan
"Absolutely no cloning. Despite the fact that they are scientists, they do have a conscience."
Oh yeah, Vanessa thought, and their conscience allowed them to try to develop cancer cells in a woman as requested by her husband.
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NRPG : this is _not_ related to the mission at all
RPG :
Same time, on a certain highway somewhere in USA
Jack Elliot stood in the rain, shivering. As he stood there, his hands outstretched, another car came into sight. For a moment, he thought that it was going to stop, until the driver picked up speed and drove into the darkness.
"Damn it." Jack swore.
That was the fifth car he had seen on this highway in the past three hours. Jack swore again. It seemed that there is no way he could hitched a hike tonight. What to do then? Sleep in the rain on the highway? Or try to go on and hoped to find a exit?
For a moment, he hoped that he was back in the mountains, back in the lodge, sitting on a couch in front of the fireplace, with his wife Sophia. Listening to her telling him about the happy times they used to spend together, hunting, fishing, farming, until that accident which took away all of his memory and left him a empty shell of what he used to be.
"But I still love you, Jack," Sophia had told him. "You'll regain your memory. You will, I'm sure."
But he had also heard her said something else, when she thought that he was asleep.
"Yes, he is still taking the medication. I give them to him as instructed. No, he does not seem to recall anything. " She had said over the phone.
Jack walked down, his steps slower and slower in the pouring rain. He did not see a rock on his path, and tripped on the rock, stumbling, then clumsily fell down on the concrete. Behind him, the sound of engine approached.
For a while, Jack thought that the car would not stop, and might even crashed onto him as he tried to stand up again. However, as the headlights shined onto him, the engine stopped, and he heard the sound of door opened.
Jack knew that the person or persons was near him when he felt himself sheltered from the pouring rain. He looked up, and saw two men. One of them wore a black trenchcoat with dark sunglasses, and held a big umbrella which sheltered the three of them. The other man, dressed in a brown trenchcoat, with his face smiling, reached out his hand and helped Jack stand up.
"You all right?" He asked.
"Yes, I'm fine. Thank you. I'm really glad someone stopped. I had been trying to hitch a hike for the past few hours." Jack told him.
"I'm sorry I came late." The man apologised.
Weak as he was, Jack had to laugh at that one.
"Where are you going?" The man asked, as he led Jack towards the direction of the two cars.
"Long Island." Jack told him, then stopped. He had not know that that was where he was going until that very instant.
"Did you say Long Island?"
"Well, I guess so. But if you would be so kind as to give me a lift, I would drop off wherever its convenient and get another lift."
"Well, I had a proposal. You take my car." The stranger told him, waving his hand toward the car in front of them.
"What?" Jack was surprised. When he saw the car, he was even more surprised. It was a black Benz. "Take your car?"
"Yes, its all yours." The man confirmed as he opened the door of the car, and pushed Jack into the driver's seat. "In fact, I even got everything ready. They are all in the glove compartment."
If Jack Elliot was ever shocked in his life, that was the moment.
"Why thank you."
"You deserve it, Jack." The man told him.
"YOu know my name? Who are you? Why are you helping me?" Jack asked the man, slightly nervous now.
"My name is Green, Jack. And I'm a friend. Go home now, be home free." Alex Green told Jack as the former slammed the door shut. Before Jack could react, he quickly entered the second black Benz and the two stangers drove away.
Jack looked at the car in front of him disppearing into the shadows. Remembering what Green had said, he quickly opened the glove compartment and took out its contents.
There was a rental paper for the car, and a small pouch. Unzipping the pouch, he removed a stack of papers from it, until he realise what he was holding. They were all money. All used notes in tens and twenties and fifties. He dug further into the glove compartment and came up with a stack of documents. There was a driving license, a American Express credit card, and identification papers. They all had his face on it and all had a common name tagged to it. The name is Christopher Starling.
Jack saw a map on the passenger seat and looked at it. A red marker had already mapped out a route. It was leading to Long Island. Green had known where he was going all along, even before he knew it himself.
"God, what am I getting into?" He asked himself.