Chapter Fourteen
Breathe
Sitting at a table in Boylan's, a coffee at his elbow, Jim thinks through all that he discussed with Taylor the previous evening. While it seems a reasonable assumption to make - someone has tried twice to kill Malcolm, but failed - some aspects of it just don't make any sense.
How could said killer have known that the building was going to collapse? One of the construction guys mentioned something about corrosion - but no one knew it had happened, because it wasn't meant to have got that bad so fast. Yet it did. And even if they did know about it, how could they have known that it was going to come down when it did? The whole thing seems too reliant upon chance to be possible. No - he can't figure it out at all.
As for the other 'accident', with no possible suspects, no security footage - why would there be a need for security in the Research Labs, for Pete's sake? - why shouldn't it have been a straightforward accident? The most stringent safety protocols can be messed up from time to time. If the stuff that caused it was in a cleaning cupboard, perhaps someone thought to use it for cleaning. People can be that foolish. Maybe he should speak to the hygiene teams - see if any of them might've accidentally used it to get some grease off a glass.
Much though he finds Malcolm irritating - and he does - he still can't believe that the pompous Brit has managed to push someone so far that they'd attempt to physically harm him. Besides, he's mellowed a hell of a lot, even in the time since the Tenth - and even more so now that he's taken up with Max. Not to mention the revelation that he's entirely aware that people think he's a…what did he call himself once? A prat? Whatever that means…and that he was so acutely aware of it that he kept a brutal attack upon himself secret to avoid people thinking he was angling for undeserved sympathy. The impression he gets is that Malcolm used to be at least ten times more annoying than he is these days - but if that's the case, why wait until now to take it out on him? Nope - it just doesn't make any sense.
The wreckage of the collapsed building is still abandoned where it fell, as there is nowhere to take it yet. The foundry isn't ready to accept the undamaged aluminum for re-smelting, so no one's done anything about breaking it up. Finishing his now-cold coffee with a slight grimace, Jim departs to re-examine what's left, putting in a call to one of the Construction Foremen to drop by and talk him through it.
"Yeah - look. This is completely corroded through." The Foreman, a robust French Canadian by the name of Robert ('with a silent 't' Mr Shannon - it's pronounced the French way'), is crouching beside a rather ghastly looking joist that looks as though something has eaten half of it away, and turned the rest of it a revolting shade of brown, "It was an accident waiting to happen - there must've been a chemical reaction in the exterior - perhaps a bad batch of paint. We got a lot of poor quality materials in the early days, until Taylor kicked up a fuss about it with Hope Plaza."
"So it didn't rust?" Jim asks.
Robert shakes his head, "Water doesn't corrode aluminum - it reacts with the air and forms a hard coating of aluminum oxide - water can't get through it. You need chemicals; usually acids, or something like that. Some of the paints we had through in the early days reacted with the rainwater here and became acidic; though I've never seen it do something like this before. First time for everything, I suppose. Maybe that storm we had last autumn caused a leak."
"What about the other buildings that went up when this one did?"
"Raj had them all inspected for Commander Taylor - I think the report's in. I can check for you?"
Jim nods, and continues to examine the wreckage. It seems so remarkably convenient - a bad batch of paint; water ingress causing a conduit for an acidic solution to corrode something that wouldn't otherwise rust. But it still doesn't explain how someone would know that the place was ready to come down. Hell, it wasn't even being used when the storm happened, was it? He'll need to check that. But why would the corrosion of one joist bring the whole thing down? Bemused, he starts to look for as many others as he can see, and stares at them in astonishment. They're all corroded - most aren't as bad as the one he was looking at, but several are pretty close. Hell - how could anyone not have seen this?
He looks up as Robert returns, a plex in hand, "Here it is. We're lucky - none of the other buildings were affected. It may be that this one was compromised by other buildings that went up around it later on; maybe they caused a wind-tunnel effect; forced rain into the upper portion of the roof. If that paint is bad, then that would've been your cause."
"How quickly would it've got this bad?" Jim asks; the joists look incredibly thick.
Robert looks at them, clearly thinking the matter over, "Difficult to say - I'm not a scientist, and I've not seen this happen before. It depends on how strong the corrosive was, what it was, and how much was coming in. It could've been happening on and off for years - or fairly quickly over a matter of weeks. It's impossible to tell now, I'm afraid. I'd suggest getting a paint sample and asking someone to test it."
Jim nods, "Thanks."
"Anytime. If you need anything else, just give me a call." Robert turns to go, then stops as he appears to remember something, "Oh, Raj has scheduled this for removal in the next week or two. If you want to get any samples before it all gets broken up at the foundry, I'd do it now, if I were you."
Still crouching, Jim eyes the mess with disgust. He needs to have a chemical test done. Now, how to do that without involving Malcolm?
Jim returns to the table at Boylan's. As he doesn't have an office per se, and would normally prefer it that way, he tends to hole up in a quiet corner in the bar when he needs to work in peace - particularly now that people still aren't drinking. With no apples to ferment, the cider's run out again.
His small sample of paint sits, accusingly, in front of him. He needs someone to test it, and he would normally prevail upon Malcolm to do so - though he no longer has to start disassembling the lab as a persuasive measure; he smiles to himself as he remembers the look of consternation on the Science Officer's face when he did it. This time, however, given that he is investigating the possibility that this was a targeted attack - and Malcolm is, supposedly, the individual at whom it was targeted - he doesn't feel he can ask.
"Can I bother you, Jim?" He looks up to see that Yseult has found him.
"Sure, Max. Take a seat. What can I do for you?"
"I was over at Malcolm's last night," she begins, a little tentatively.
"Really?" He smiles, a little cheekily.
"No, I didn't stay the night, Mr Dirty Minded Shannon," she glares at him, not entirely seriously, "Contrary to rumour, we are not perpetually 'at it like rabbits'."
"Sorry. Please continue."
"Thank you." She smiles, then sighs, "He was telling me what happened in the labs yesterday. After what happened with the building collapse…I was just wondering." She pauses, then goes for it, "Is someone trying to harm him?"
Jim looks at her, surprised, "Does he think that?"
She shakes her head, "No - he hasn't made the connection yet. As far as he's concerned, the collapse was an accident, and the acetone in the glassware was someone being phenomenally stupid. He's still fuming about that."
"Seriously?" Jim stares at her, amazed, "Mind you, I'm not complaining that he seems to be that dense."
"He is under no illusions over what people think of him, Jim; but it hasn't occurred to him that he's pissed someone off so much that they'd try to kill him. Why should he? No one would normally think that they're being targeted by a killer, would they? Besides, the incidents affected other people, and it hasn't dawned on him yet that both of them would - but for a chance occurrence - have affected him." She smiles, fondly, "He's too busy being miffed that someone ignored his carefully established safety protocols."
"God, he really mixes up his priorities doesn't he?"
"It's the way he is, Jim."
"And you love him for it?" He grins at her.
"Shut up." She blushes, and slaps him on the arm. But then she looks worried again.
"Be honest with me, Jim. Are you investigating these as potential attacks on Malcolm?"
He nods, "It doesn't make a whole lot of sense - if these are planned attacks, then they're putting a lot of faith in chance. What were the odds of the roof collapsing when it did? What chance was there that Malcolm would've been the one who put the acid in the flask? In both cases, they missed him."
"It's likely that the second one would've failed anyway - Malcolm can smell acetone."
"And that helps precisely how?"
"Not everyone can, Jim. I can't - Connor, his chemist, couldn't. Perhaps the person who washed out the glassware couldn't either. It's not that rare a trait, but there are far more people who can't detect it than people who can." She thinks for a moment, "I imagine, if he ever does make the connection, he'll be treating Rob Stanley like his guardian angel."
"Huh?" Jim looks at her, bemused.
"He was going to do those tests in that lab himself, remember? Trouble was, he didn't have time to do them as quickly as Rob needed the results - which is why he delegated it. And the two of them got so fascinated by the results from some tests Rob was conducting that he ran out of time to prepare the etching solution before he was due to have a meeting with Chris, so he had to ask Connor to step in and do it."
"Wow - I see what you mean. He was damned lucky, wasn't he?"
"He was. My concern is that, if this person is determined, and wants to have another go, his luck's going to run out."
Jim has given up trying to find someone else to run his tests. With Malcolm so annoyed that his safety protocols were ignored by someone, he has rather clamped down on what people can, and can't, do in the labs without referring to him first. It won't last long - even he'll get fed up with it - but in the meantime, no one is willing to conduct any form of test on the sly to avoid his finding out.
"I need you to run some tests on a paint sample." He begins, as Malcolm is bent over a set of test tubes with a pipette, "We're checking for sources of corrosion on the collapsed building."
Malcolm doesn't transfer his attention away from his work, "Only if you promise not to try and destroy my lab again."
It's better than an outright 'No'.
Setting down the pipette, Malcolm turns to Jim, "Why paint?"
"We're wondering if that's what caused the corrosion in the building that came down. The Foreman, Robert, suggested that they got some rogue batches through that turned rain into acid. Or something like that." He adds, the processes involved being rather more complex than he was taught in school.
Malcolm takes the bait without hesitation, "I remember Commander Taylor mentioning something about that - substandard materials being sent through at one time. I didn't hear anything about paint, though." He muses, intrigued, "Let me run some tests - I'll let you know."
"How soon can you do it?"
"I'll stay back tonight."
"What, no date?" Jim grins, impertinently.
"Not that it's any of your business," Malcolm bristles, "but Max is starting another charcoal burn this evening. We've got enough rumours around our heads as it is without people dropping hints the size of anvils about us sneaking off into the woods. You'll have your results tomorrow morning." The dismissal is monumentally unsubtle, but the pair of them have a façade of childish enmity to maintain, after all. Leaving the sample on the workbench, Jim departs.
"Was that Dad?" Maddy asks, coming through with her plex under her arm and a sample pot of some clear fluid or other in one hand.
"He wants me to analyse a paint sample from the collapsed building. The Construction Foreman he spoke to thinks the paint on it might have been compromised in some way."
"Could it have been?"
"Possibly - when the colony started up, a few people thought that we would be a great dumping ground for substandard materials. As I understand it, Commander Taylor disabused them of that notion very early on. The last delivery that came through before he threw a fit and demanded we get better quality stuff arrived with the Third, which was more-or-less when that building went up. It's feasible that the paint was substandard in some fashion - it could've reacted with the local rainfall to produce something corrosive."
She nods, "I'm done for today, I think. Mom and I are going to try some more tests on our latest analgesic tomorrow." She raises the pot for him to see, "I'm just going to put this into cool storage before I go."
"That sounds good. I'll see you in the morning."
Gradually, the labs empty around him. It used to be regularly like this - people departing while he stayed behind and continued to work as darkness fell. At the time, he thought it was simply because his work was important to him; but these days, now that he has someone to go home to, he recognises the real reason. He had no social life. No friends. No one to talk to about his day. No wonder he preferred to stay as late as he could: better that than sitting alone in a silent house with nothing but scientific papers to keep him company.
The results of his tests have been spat out onto paper by the spectrometer - one of the older ones as he doesn't want to use the finer machines to mess about with building materials - and he retires to the 'lock up' to peruse them. Somehow it's become a habit to retreat there - people always avoid him when he does, so he finds he can get far more work done, particularly now that he has imposed additional restrictions to try and get it through everyone's heads that he has protocols for a reason. Ironically, he seems to do the same even when there's no one left in the labs to bother him.
Reading through the results, he frowns: there is nothing wrong with the paint that he can determine - while other supplies might have been of poor quality, the paint was perfectly fine. Something else must've been the source of…
Clunk.
He pauses, and then experiences a cold chill up his spine. He can guess what caused that noise, and even as he forces himself to turn, he doesn't want to. He knows already what he will see.
Oh God…
The front of the vivarium has come away…and its occupant is nowhere to be seen.
He doesn't hesitate. Scorpions can't jump, and the table at which he sits has legs of tubular steel that it won't be able to climb, so he scrambles onto it, and looks about nervously for the escapee.
The room is sparsely furnished - there are no cupboards or solid units against the walls, so it doesn't take him long to spot the creature - which has positioned itself within skittering distance of the door. Best not to open it, then - or it'll get into the main labs and then he'll never find it.
"Great. Now what?" he asks it, crossly, fumbling in his pocket for his comm unit to summon assistance.
Nothing.
Nervously, he starts checking every pocket he has - and he's wearing one of his utility jackets, so he has a lot of them. He sighs with a large degree of self-disappointment, and looks out through the window. Even though the lab is in semi-darkness, he can just make it out, a small unit beside two abandoned plexes. One his, one someone else's. He's on his own.
"So." He addresses the hunched arachnid, "Two options. I try and recapture you, or I sit here like a lemon all night until someone comes in tomorrow and helps me try recapturing you - and I never live it down." Bizarrely, even now he doesn't consider killing the creature to be an option.
He has no means of persuading the scorpion to return to its confinement - even if it could understand him, it would have every right to stay as far away from the vivarium as possible. Limited though its intelligence is, it associates the vivarium with confinement, and regular fights that end in a nasty stab in its tail. No amount of cockroaches are going to compensate for that. He doesn't believe for a moment that the little creature is deliberately vindictive - it just wants to find a dark crevice to hide in, as it would in the wild - but a busy research laboratory is so wholly unsuitable that he's got no choice. He's got to trap it.
"Look." He says, "If I put you in something, and you don't sting me. How about I let you out tonight and we call it quits?"
He looks about for something to use - and groans inwardly. His tidiness has let him down; all he has is the vivarium. He has about as much chance of getting the bloody thing back into it as he has of persuading it to waltz with him.
No choice then.
"I'm sorry." He looks at the scorpion, still poised aggressively in response to his scrutiny, "We can't stay here forever. I'd hoped to release you back into the wild again - but that's not going happen, is it?"
His eyes settle upon a solid-looking electronic scale. As long as he's careful, and uses the long edge to keep his hand out of the creature's reach, he should be able to kill the scorpion in a single blow. Reaching for it, he checks that the scorpion hasn't moved, and carefully gets down from the table as far away from it as he can, in case it has got a vindictive streak and opts to charge at him.
As he watches it, it watches him in return, but remains absolutely still, pedipalps to the fore, its tail coiled and ready as a last line of defence. Despite its rather hideous countenance, he still can't help but feel sorry for it. This was supposed to end with its release back into the wild - and he was planning to do it in the next couple of weeks. Now, however, he's going to have to do the one thing he hadn't planned to. How the hell did it get out? He hasn't touched that damned catch - did it malfunction? He'll have to check that once this is over.
It remains absolutely still, watching his every move. He knows it's doing so with the sole intention of taking evasive action; and he moves carefully. It won't attack him - not unless he corners it and gives it no choice.
"Stay still." He urges it, quietly, "Stay still and this'll be over before you know anything's happened."
He strikes out with the edge of the scale, and it contacts with the laminate floor as the scorpion skitters out of the way and heads to the other side of the door, "Damn!"
Great. Now it knows his approach is intended to be lethal.
His second attempt is no better, and this time it attempts to strike back at him, rushing at his hand as he rises again, and causing an almost instinctive, if undignified, leap back up onto the table. So far, he has shown it that he intends to kill it - and, it seems, singularly pissed it off. God, you're useless, Wallace.
Malcolm stays on the table for another fifteen minutes - checking his watch periodically. Perhaps that will be enough to persuade the scorpion to calm down again. It's still close to the door - it must have worked out that, if that door opens, it can get out of the room - it's seen him do it often enough.
He has no means of creeping up on the creature - no matter what he does, it'll see him coming. Maybe he needs to be less tentative about it; move more quickly so it can't prepare for his attack.
This time, he positions himself close to the front of the table and sits on the edge of it, closest to the scorpion. It shifts slightly, expecting an attack; but instead, he remains where he sits, checking his watch until ten minutes have passed. Then, moving as quickly as he can, he pushes himself from the table, and slams the edge of the scales downwards.
"Got you!" he can't keep the triumph from his voice as the hard steel crunches down onto the thick shell of its exoskeleton. He's got it…
For a moment, the pedipalps snap wildly as the scorpion's nervous system goes crazy, and then the tail snaps forth like a whiplash; a last failing action that looks like vengeance, but is nothing more than reflex. Malcolm has no more than a few seconds to see where it's going. Straight into his wrist.
The pain is appalling, and he cannot stop the scream that leaps from his throat. Bizarrely, the act causes him to lose his temper, and he slams the scale down on the dying scorpion several more times, "You utter bastard!"
By the time he regains control, the creature has been largely crushed into a nasty, gooey pulp, and he is halfway back across the room behind the fallen table with no real idea how he got there, or how the table ended up on its side. Trembling, groaning at the vicious burn of the sting, he examines his wrist, and tries to get up. He needs to reach his comm unit next door and call Elisabeth. Now.
Except he can't. His legs have stopped working.
Rules for poisoning by venomous animal. Keep envenomed area lower than the heart. Breathe slowly. Stay very still. Stay calm and await help.
Who told him that? He can't remember now - it was probably in one of his Zoology seminars when he was at Trinity. Will it make any difference? Probably not - he's missing the last part: awaiting help. There won't be any - everyone's gone for the day. His staff are used to his staying behind. They're used to his not socialising with anyone. They won't realise he's not gone home - he never spends time with them, so how would they know that he's here? Of course they wouldn't. Yseult would, of course - but she's at her compound overseeing the charcoal burn.
He can't send a message. He can't call someone - even if he could still get words out, which he can't anymore, no one would hear his cries - not within two sets of walls.
The paralysis feels strange. He knows he's lying on the floor - and there's a sense of pressure from doing so, but he can't really feel it. Nor can he move - his arms and legs are beyond his ability to control any longer. How long has he been like this now? He can't see his watch.
No one's coming. No one is coming to his aid - no one knows he's here. The thought persists in his mind; he is going to die here, on the floor. Alone. No one even knowing until someone comes in tomorrow and finds his body.
I'm sorry, Max…
She's lost someone to the local wildlife before - and now it's going to happen again. Has he told her he loves her? Really told her? Spoken the words 'I love you'? He can't remember…
How long does he have left? I think it takes probably about half an hour from initial sting to the diaphragm and intercostal muscles grinding to a halt - give or take another fifteen to twenty minutes or so. We've only had one incident, so no one's quite sure.
He doesn't want this. Not to die like this…not to die at all - but not like this; slowly waiting for his ability to breathe to falter, and to endure the horror of suffocation while lucid and aware. Even now, he is quite convinced that it's becoming harder to persuade his ribs to move, to get air into his lungs…
Oh God - please, help me. I don't want to die - I don't want to leave her. I've only just found someone. God no…please God…
There is nothing. Just silence, and the inevitable wait for death to claim him. Unbidden, tears escape from his eyes and trickle downwards across his face towards the floor.
"See? It's not that difficult." Maddy says, as Zoe's eyes light up with understanding. Today's math problem has confused her a great deal, and it seems that her teacher has not been as helpful in the teaching of it as her sister, "I know - I found it hard the first time, too."
Behind them, something smells very pleasant. Having been engaged in assisting Zoe with her homework, she hasn't been paying much attention to her mother's preparation of their evening meal. Now that the work is done, and knowledge has been imparted, however, she is more than content to hand over her sister to the attention of her doting father, as Jim comes in from work, "Hey, that smells good." He calls across to Elisabeth before joining Zoe and failing hopelessly to understand her homework.
Smiling at his rather foolish pretence that he completely understands what Zoe is telling him, Maddy looks about for her work plex, so she can talk to Mom after dinner about tomorrow's testing.
"Has anyone seen my plex?"
"It's in your room." Elisabeth advises, sagely.
"No, my work plex." She stops, then snaps her fingers, crossly, "I left it in the labs when I put the sample away." Immediately, she is on her feet, and on her way out of the door, "I'll be back in a bit - I want to get it before Malcolm locks up."
"Dinner's in ten minutes!" Elisabeth calls after her.
Moving at a swift trot, as their home is not far from her place of work, Maddy is soon at the labs, and is not surprised to see a light on within. He's still there then. From what she has picked up from her other colleagues, this used to be a daily occurrence until Max came along - and the reduction in late evenings at work has, not surprisingly, caused much comment.
Passing her workstation, she heads to the bench alongside the fridge where she stored her sample. There it is - alongside Malcolm's plex and comm unit. She looks about, wondering where he is; the light's on in the 'lock up', but he doesn't seem to be in there.
As she often does, when she passes the room, she crosses to the door and looks in to view that horrible scorpion. It gives her the creeps to do it - but she likes to assure herself that it's still confined. Then she stops dead.
The front of the vivarium has shifted - and it's empty.
Her eyes widening, she immediately looks down at the floor, and there it is - a gloopy pulp of internal organs and shattered exoskeleton - and then, further back, behind the table, which has overturned - legs, and boots.
She needs no further information. Instead, she turns, and bolts.
"How was your day?" Elisabeth asks Jim as he looks up from Zoe's homework with his traditionally baffled air. Even when he understands it, which is more frequently than he lets on, he still does it. She loves it.
"Busy. Malcolm's testing some paint from that building that came down. The Foreman thinks that the paint might've been a bad batch. Apparently they got poor quality materials dumped on them when they first came through. He reckons that it could've reacted with the rain and dripped corrosive onto the aluminum joists."
They are interrupted by the front door bursting open, "Mom! Dad!" Maddy is out of breath, "Malcolm - the scorpion."
They need no further information, Elisabeth turns to her, "Stay with Zoe." Pausing only to turn off the hob, she and Jim are gone.
They part company briefly, Jim sprinting straight for the labs, while Elisabeth heads to the infirmary. God knows how long it's been since Malcolm was stung, so he may not even be alive. Despite everything that's happened since, Jim does not relish the prospect of having to do CPR on his wife's ex-boyfriend.
He pauses only to look inside the window, in case the little critter is still alive. Seeing the crushed mess, he punches in the override, and finds Malcolm lying helpless behind a table on its side. He is breathing - just.
"Malcolm?" he is down on his hands and knees now, as there is no response. Then he sees a look of absolute terror in Malcolm's eyes: his breathing is starting to fail, and he knows exactly what's happening to him.
"Elisabeth's on her way with equipment. Hang on, okay?" Jim has no idea what to do. Malcolm has more or less fallen into the recovery position by himself, quite a relief since he has lost the ability to swallow; and is still, more or less, breathing. He can offer reassurance, but not much else. Until Elisabeth arrives with respiratory assistance, he has no choice but to watch Malcolm's breathing grow weaker, until it gets to the point that he has to take over. He's never performed CPR on anything other than a dummy before, "Look. If you don't hang on, then I'm going to have to give you mouth to mouth. Do you really want that?"
Malcolm's mouth doesn't move, but he seems to be trying to speak - even without the means to do so. Jim has no idea what he's trying to say, "I can't understand you, Malcolm. Wait until you're through this, okay?"
There is a sequence of beeps behind his head, and the door opens to admit Elisabeth, "Step aside, Jim."
He doesn't hesitate, scrambling away as Elisabeth drops to her knees beside Malcolm, "Listen to me, Malcolm. I'm going to sedate you so that I can intubate you and start you on a ventilator. I can't do it while you're conscious - you'll reflexively try to fight me. Trust me, okay? You know I'll fight all the way."
He makes a ghastly strangled noise, which is all that he's capable of emitting with a paralysed larynx, but Elisabeth ignores him and quickly injects the sedative, "I've got a team coming, Jim - be ready to open the door, okay? And don't touch what's left of the scorpion, its venom will still be pretty potent."
It doesn't take long for the team to arrive, and Jim's role is largely reduced to that of a doorman. He watches, redundantly, as Elisabeth takes command of her people, turning Malcolm onto his back, inserting a tube into his throat and attaching the ventilator. Not a moment too soon, it appears, as the automatic systems kick in almost immediately - his breathing must have failed.
"Everyone ready?" Elisabeth calls, as they transfer Malcolm's recumbent body onto a gurney. Nods all round - and Jim steps hastily back as they transfer their most recent sting victim to the infirmary, and to a week or so on life support.
Standing alone in the now-silent lab, he turns back to the vivarium. What the hell was Malcolm thinking? Why let the little bastard out at all?
Then he pauses and looks at the catch on the top. It hasn't been unfastened: It's been smashed.