All characters in this story that do not belong to me (you probably can tell which ones they are) belong to their respective copyright owners.
Oh, and the scruffy guy finally gets a name in this chapter.
Errol had written down the last of the notes, but the project itself would take time. Earlier, he and Kimi had extracted a sample of the grouper fish's DNA and placed it in cold storage. Now for a while, they had been working on the paperwork for the whole thing. During the last half hour, though, he allowed Kimi to take a break, and she went over towards the other half of the room where the fireplace was.
Miss Double knocked on the door, and when she walked in, she said, "You have new mail waiting for you."
"I'll check up on it in a few, Miss Trouble," said Errol, not looking up from his paperwork.
"Actually, I'm Miss Double," she said.
"Right, of course," said Errol, "I wasn't actually looking."
"Do you want me to escort the girl home?"
"The girl?"
For the last half hour the room had been silent as Errol wrote down notes. He had almost forgotten Kimi was there and that she was his lab partner. He had not even noticed she had fallen asleep while Errol continued to work.
"Never thought lab work would be that exhausting," said Errol.
"Well not everyone is at your…superior intellect, sir," said Miss Double.
"I suppose you ought to escort her home," said Errol, "But I still need to work on a few other things that do not involve this science project."
"I understand," said Miss Double.
Miss Double picked Kimi off of the couch and carried her out the door. Errol, on the other hand, had set aside the notes for school and took out the other ones he had been concealing in the table drawer.
"One would think a file labeled 'Confidential' would be placed somewhere safer than a simple drawer," remarked Errol.
The file marked "Confidential" contained photographs of three men sitting together at a conference table. One of them was a dark bearded man with thick-rimmed glasses. He gave off a very stern demeanor in the way his eyebrows were narrowed. Another of them had red hair, looked more pleasant than the other, but still had a hint of seriousness to his face. The third figure was Errol himself, minus the glass eye. He could tell because the glass eye did not reflect the same way the other normal human eyes did. He was not wearing the same casual clothes he wore to school. Instead, he wore a very formal tuxedo, and his hair had much more gel in it. There had to have been a special occasion when the photo was taken.
But for the life of me, Errol thought, I can't even remember what I was doing there…or how I lost that eye.
Kimi consistently jumped between sleep and drowsiness while being driven home. She was not awake enough to grasp that she was being taken home, or that she had been working on a science project with Errol. She did, however, pick up bits and pieces of a conversation between the twin blondes escorting her home.
"Errol…are you sure about…"
"Why wouldn't it be him?"
"The boss…he won't…"
"Dangerous…he's too dangerous to be kept alive…"
"The chairman…he'll know…"
"Does Errol…"
"Either he doesn't remember, or he's…"
"Rendezvous…Splash Mountain…the day of…"
Kimi could only pick up that much without understanding the context. The next time she awoke, however, the car engine had been turned off, and her shoulders were being tapped by Miss Trouble.
"Are you awake, miss?" asked Miss Trouble.
Kimi sat up and yawned, getting a grip on her surroundings. She now realized she was in front of her own house. Errol must have had these two women drive her there.
"Errol is…?" asked Kimi.
"Back at the labs," replied Miss Trouble, "Everything he needed from you he already got."
"Oh," said Kimi, sounding slightly disappointed, "Well, tell him I said thanks. I guess…I'll see him around."
Kimi watched the flashy limo drive away before entering her front door. Her parents had already been asleep, but Chuckie and Tommy were sitting on the living room floor. It looked as though they were doing homework, but the things they were talking about suggested otherwise.
"What about Daryl?" asked Tommy.
"Nah, she already got over him," replied Chuckie, "How about Sean or Craig?"
"Sean's seeing Breann, and Craig…doesn't exactly play for the home team," added Tommy.
"So I guess they're out," said Chuckie, crossing their names off a list.
"What are you two doing?" asked Kimi.
"Trying to figure out who Angelica's crushing on," said Chuckie.
"And also why she has to act like she's dating Errol to keep it a secret," added Tommy.
"So he's not actually dating Angelica?" asked Kimi, "I figured he wasn't the dating type."
Kimi yawned again and decided to head up to her room, "I'm gonna call it a night. Don't burn down the house while everyone else sleeps."
Tommy and Chuckie most likely had a snarky retort in response, but Kimi was already upstairs and could not hear it. When she entered her room, she didn't even change out of her pedestrian clothes. She drifted off to sleep as soon as she hit the bed.
Again, however, she woke up at the most convenient of times. When she heard one of the doors open from across the hall, she felt it to be a soothing noise that could help her just relax and go back to sleep. However, it was when the sound of glass breaking was made that she was wide awake. Then the grunt that came next. It was in no way nasally or feminine, which ruled out anyone else in her family. Did someone break in the house?
The intruder, dressed completely in black with a dark mask on his face, opened the door to Kimi's room and approached her bed. The figure in it was not moving, so he assumed the girl was asleep. He thought wrong. The girl in the bed let out a loud, ear-breaking scream. Immediately, the lights outside her room went on, and everyone else in the house came running in.
"Dammit!" cursed the intruder.
It wasn't difficult for him to brush his way past the others. He was much taller and more muscular than anyone else in the household. Though he appeared to be stumbling a little, he easily ran down the stairs and out the front door. Chaz ran after him, but not only did the intruder get away and out of sight at this point, but also, Chaz was short of breath from the chase.
"Maybe…someone should call the police?" pondered Kira.
From nearby, the very same intruder watched from afar as the house he had just broken into became surrounded by police cars. The sound of sirens echoed throughout the neighborhood as other families got out of their homes to see what was happening. And during this commotion, the intruder escaped into the woods behind the suburban neighborhood. Trekking across the river and a series of fallen trees, the intruder stopped at the small, brick well that was located in the center of the woods, where two people were standing there waiting for him.
"You failed, didn't you?" asked Ashley, leaning against the well.
The intruder pulled off his mask, revealing a head full of long dark hair that touched his shoulders with heavy stubble and bloodshot eyes.
"Yeah," replied the intruder, "What was your first clue?"
"This is a serious matter, Roarke," said the scruffy guy, who was sitting on top of the well next to Ashley, "You were supposed to get in there to get a sample of DNA from Kimi Finster. If she's going into Gemini Labs with Errol, there's a good chance she's in on whatever he may be plotting."
"Alright then, you little wench, let's see you do better," growled Roarke, getting himself ready to hit the scruffy guy.
"Calm down, you two!" shouted Ashley, stepping in between them before a brawl could erupt, "So Roarke failed. We're all gonna make some mistakes."
"But this is a mission we can't afford to blow," added the scruffy guy.
Part of it was his dedication to the mission, but as he tended to display, it was also his typical streak of needing to win.
"Well, Devin, here's a thought," said Ashley, "You and I are at the same school as Kimi and Errol. We have a much better chance of learning her connection to Errol and Gemini Labs simply by being her school peers."
"So you just had me break the law by busting into a house for nothing?" asked Roarke.
"Getting a DNA sample from Kimi in her sleep was a long shot to begin with," replied Ashley, "but it still had to be considered an option. Now that we know it didn't work, we have a better idea of what to do. Devin and I will handle Kimi. You go back to Miss Double and Trouble; update them on the change in plans."
Stu and Didi Pickles were among the many people who went over to the Finsters house to inquire why there were police outside. Grandpa Lou, however, decided to stay in the living room and read that morning's newspaper, as he didn't get a chance to then and he sure wasn't going to get much sleep now. He managed to learn the winning lotto numbers (none of which were his) and some recent sports victories, but what really peaked his curiosity was the article written first in the political section.
"In the wake of yet another bold power grab, the city of Dimmsdale files for a government bailout. The Mayor of Dimmsdale had requested it after the failed negotiations between Dimmsdale and Gemini Biochemistry Laboratories. Years ago, the Mayor had permitted Gemini Labs to do samples and studies on the citizens of Dimmsdale. What the Mayor did not realize, however, was that as the economy tanked, Gemini Labs milked more and more money from the town due to the increasing demand for services in biochemistry from the federal government; the very same Dimmsdale is turning to for help in their hour of bankruptcy.
On a personal note, I am quite amazed people have not learned their lesson about dealing with Gemini Labs; the towns of Retroville and Tremorton (in this year alone) are suffering similar fates and are quickly losing control of their properties to Gemini Labs. What surprises me even more is that despite the definitive signs of foul play, Gemini Labs still continues to get a free pass for their actions."
As Grandpa Lou finished the last sentence in the article, Stu and Didi entered the house.
"So what's all the hub-bub about?" asked Lou.
"Well, the Finsters house was broken into, though thankfully no one was hurt," replied Didi.
"And apparently nothing was stolen, either," added Stu, "Guess I'll be going back to building those cameras for our house after all."
"There's also the fact that they just aren't safe in their own home so long as this crook knows how to get in," said Didi, "So we…sorta told the Finsters they could stay with us for the time being."