Chapter I

Ethan Jones came to work as one of the first, as usual. Morning shifts at the Distribution Department of the Equilibrium Centre were always most burdensome – the residents of Sector 10 were to be supplied with their daily dose of Prozium. With the new system of distribution his job became even more troublesome – and more dangerous.

He glanced at the large wall cabinet. Its drawers were filled with Prozium III vials. But no one else in the Department knew that Ethan kept in his own desk drawer some vials of Prozium II. In order not to arouse suspicions, he also kept there on the top the blank delivery receipts of Prozium – a thing that had to be signed by every Librian upon collection of the dose.

Ethan took two caskets and went to the cabinet, to take the Prozium III vials. Carefully, watching out not to break any of them, he put the vials inside. Just after he closed them, he heard a ringing phone.

"Now that was all I needed!" he thought. That could mean only one thing: even more work than usual. He proceeded with the caskets towards his desk. In the meantime his colleague, Kate Smith, picked up the phone.

"Distribution Department."

Ethan put the caskets on his desk, listening carefully.

"How many?" he heard. Then the man looked at Kate, sensing that he won't like the thing he will hear.

"That will be difficult. We are already pushing our limits. Yes, we have sufficient reserves, but this will take three hours at least before we manage to supply everyone."

"What's happening?" Ethan asked. Kate looked at him briefly and raised her hand, giving him to understand that he should wait.

It was after a while, when she hung up.

"The dosing systems in the Equilibrium Centre in Sector 9 still haven't been repaired." Kate gave her colleague an enigmatic look. "They can't produce any Prozium and today they ran out of reserves, so Sector 9 residents will be directed here and to other adjacent sectors. But, since this is one of the largest Centres in Libria, many of the affected residents will come here."

"How many?"

"Like three thousand…"

"You mean over half of the sector?"

She nodded.

If Ethan had been off the dose, he would now tear his hair and swear loudly. But since he wasn't, he just sat at his desk and rested his chin against his hand.

"Three hours is not acceptable," he said after a while. "We have to bring in the people from the afternoon shift."

"How many of them?"

"The whole shift! People have to come to the Centre an hour before Prozium stops working. So we have one hour, not three. We cannot afford an emotional breakout of such scale. That would be… disastrous. Anyway, tell the boss to get here as many people as possible. I just hope Sector 9 will deal with their equipment problem as soon as possible."

Ethan's colleague nodded, accepting his argument. She grabbed the receiver and dialed the appropriate number, while Jones pulled out some receipts – with the doses of Prozium II concealed there.

"I have to be more careful," he admonished himself inwardly. He barely refrained from saying aloud, what was really troubling him – those people would die. Even though the message about the introduction of Prozium III had been officially denied, Ethan knew from his contact in the Tetragrammaton Research Department this denial was a lie.

He knew, but his colleagues didn't.

Ethan glanced at the large clock hanging over the cabinet. It was already ten to six, which meant that the first residents should come any minute. Kate saw that as well; she also put her caskets on desk and pulled out a pile of receipts from the drawer.

They were waiting.

The first Librian appeared at six o'clock sharp. Ethan recognized him instantly; this was Jack Taylor. Pale, frail and inconspicuous, he was among the one of the most valuable contacts in the whole network. He came a bit earlier than usual. As far as Ethan knew Taylor's habits, it meant that something is up.

Ethan reached to the casket and then for the receipt. He concealed the vials of Prozium II in his left hand and passed all of this to Taylor. Luckily, in the meantime other residents came and Kate had to service one of them, so she didn't have the chance to watch Jones too intently.

Taylor signed the receipt and after giving it back, casually, with a practiced movement, he closed his hand on the vials and left the counter. He wouldn't have problems with distinguishing the vials – the Prozium II ones were marked with a red dot.

As Ethan held the rolled up receipt, he felt a small, elongated bundle. He placed it in the document rack on the side of his desk and turned towards a next Librian, who was waiting for his dose. This man wasn't a part of the network, so Ethan with a typical clerical dispassion passed him the Prozium III vials.

Servicing the Librians, he couldn't resist a thought that this one was a close call. He could only be thankful that there was someone, who in the critical moment distracted his colleague for long enough to prevent exposure. People were supposed to watch each other and Ethan was pretty sure that his colleague was good at that.

He also concluded that in one aspect Father was speaking the truth; there weren't many left to oppose. He was observing Librians carefully, watching for the prearranged sign – those who resisted were supposed to wear their watches on the right wrist, instead of left.

There weren't many of them; in fact, now that there were more people to service, the proportions seemed to be even more disadvantageous than ever. That meant that he had to be extra careful.

It seemed like an eternity, before the hot period passed. Luckily, the people from the afternoon shift came fairly quickly, so that they managed to relieve the lengthy queues. At the same time Ethan noticed that he was running out of vials. For a moment he was tempted to pull out the bundle and see it, but he knew that the only reasonably safe place to do it were the toilets.

Under the pretext of refilling the caskets, he put the sign "Be right back"; imperceptibly he took the bundle, then both caskets and headed towards the cabinet. He put them on the ground and then, turned with his back to the waiting people he took the vials and crouched, in order to put the vials into place. Being in that position, he quickly slipped the bundle behind the watch strap. Then he continued to put the vials into the caskets, until those were full. Ethan concluded that this will be a convenient moment to go to the toilet and take a look at this thing.

He locked the door behind him and sat on the toilet seat, then looked at the bundle. It was carefully wrapped in a piece of paper and secured with a rubber band. Quickly he removed the rubber band and unwrapped the paper.

There was a small vial, with a very small amount of a transparent substance. Wondering, what could that mean, he noticed that the sheet of paper was repeatedly folded. As he unfolded it, he saw that it was used up on one side. Ethan recognized Taylor's handwriting – small and tight letters were surely written by his hand. He began to read:

"This is the last hope of mankind – this is the small bit of Stein's antidote I managed to steal. To our fortune it hasn't been destroyed yet, but researched. From what I've seen, Dorn is close to understanding it. Below are the results of this research done so far. You must pass on the substance and this message to the others, so they can keep it, in case everything goes wrong. I shall try to recreate it myself and smuggle it. I can't promise I'll make it, but at least I intend to die trying. Guard this with your life; there's no price too high to pay to protect this knowledge from destruction."

Ethan swallowed hard. If the ceiling collapsed right now, that wouldn't make such great impression on him. Now he badly needed one of his contacts in the Police Force. Only they were able to pass on this thing.

In the meantime, Kate noticed that she ran of receipts. Knowing that her colleague left for a moment and that he usually keeps some spare receipts in his drawer, she headed towards his desk, opened the drawer and took some of them.

She surely didn't expect to find there more Prozium vials.

But they were there. And that could mean only one thing.