"What do we do? How do we start? I should stay away from you," Blowhole said backing away again.
Kowalski sighed and shook his head. He then jumped up on top of Blowhole's head and sat himself down just to make a point of how unlikely it was for Kowalski to get infected. Since Kowalski would have to draw blood from Blowhole and drink it for him to get infected as time stood.
"Francis, where is your blood?" Kowalski asked.
Blowhole cocked a brow and tried to reach up at Kowalski but only got slapped away.
"Inside me?"
"Exactly. I'm not going to get infected unless we make some sort of blood pact."
Blowhole leaned forward and nearly caused Kowalski to fall but the bird steadied himself on Blowhole's new horns, planting a foot on each. It seemed the depression had started to settle in Blowhole's mind already.
"We have to take precautions. Limit my contact with others."
"We have to work fast and efficiently. I suggest you halt production of everything so we and your team can solely focus on this."
Blowhole groaned and scratched his head, lowering it and forcing the bird to jump down and onto the desk again.
"I don't want to degrade anyone but my lobsters aren't the brightest creatures in the ocean. I do all the important scientific stuff, with help sometimes by others that I hire. If anyone finds out about this though, I'll be hunted down."
Kowalski thought for a moment and sat down, leaning against the computer monitor.
"We'll both have to work 24/7."
"But you can't stay here all the time. This could take weeks and what of your team? Skipper won't like to see you disappear."
"We'll have to tell him."
Blowhole's eye widened and he shook his head. Everything he had been working so hard for found out by Skipper again? He had been in this lair for months hiding from Skipper. Once all of this was over, if it would end happily, Blowhole would have to move everything just so he wouldn't be found again. It could take another year or two to get set up and functioning again.
Kowalski crossed his flippers and looked up into the dolphin's eye.
"It's an easy choice. Do you want to become a monster, or tell Skipper?"
Blowhole clenched his flippers closed and scowled. Every second he spent resisting was a second more his body was changing, his mind turning. But just what had he done to deserve this? He'd suffered so much by the hands of the humans and he was only trying to give them back what torture they had put him through. He didn't deserve this. Or was it karma?
"It's no use getting angry. As much as I don't want to say it, you brought this on yourself."
Blowhole lifted his flippers from the desk and slammed them back down, causing the monitor to wobble a little but Kowalski stayed still. He'd somewhat gotten used to Blowhole's hissy fits and wasn't going to let the dolphin train fear into him.
"Can we talk about something else now and not my impending doom?" Blowhole asked through clenched teeth.
Kowalski stood and walked forward, examining Blowhole's flippers incase he'd hurt himself in his fit of rage.
"We also need to figure out how this happened. You say you have never been so careful in your life? So how did the virus get into your blood in the first place."
Blowhole shook his head, utterly defeated.
"I don't know."
Kowalski sat himself down and thought for a good minute. Blowhole's eerie silence didn't help but Kowalski managed to find some sort of plan in his head.
"We have to get to work straight away. We'll spend today laying the foundations of our plans, which we'll come up with."
"But Skipper? You've been gone far too long."
Kowalski shook his head firmly.
"Your life is more valuable than Skipper's temporary feelings of worry."
Blowhole looked down, sorry for himself and nodded. How had he gotten himself into this mess? More importantly, how was he going to get himself out of it?
Kowalski suddenly jumped up, eager to get started and give hope to the poor dolphin. So, with a confident smile he hopped off the table and started for the physical files Blowhole kept of the Behemothvirus.
"Here's the plan, for now. I'm going to make a start on the cure, you need to inform your workers and figure out the exact moment you were infected. I should think Red One would know. He's been monitoring you very closely."
Blowhole nodded, lifting his heavy head and reaching for his segway. From there, he rode to the lab door but didn't exit the room. On the wall, to the side of the door, was a keypad used to control and lock the electrical doors. Evidently it was also an intercom as Blowhole lowered his head down to it after pressing a button.
"Red One, to my lab. That's Red One to my lab, now."
Blowhole then opened the door, left it and went back to feeling sorry for himself at his desk.
Kowalski continued to riffle through files and take them out of the drawers one at a time after carefully looking over their labels and making sure he had the right ones. He could read sufficiently now but he was a little slow when he was stressed. Kowalski did look back to Blowhole every now and again after he pulled another file out and found Blowhole examining himself in a hand mirror after a minute of silence.
Kowalski knew there was nothing he could possible say that would make the dolphin feel better about his current condition, so he stayed quiet and didn't attempt to accidentally make things worse.
A moment later, a slight tapping sound could be heard from outside the door and down the hall. A scuttling sound drawing closer. The lobster appeared in the doorway and looked around before taking a step in, then fixing his eyes on Blowhole as the dolphin turned to acknowledge his presence.
"Woah," the lobster said after a moment of silence. "What- ah... what happened?"
Kowalski turned to watch the exchange and as Blowhole lowered his head and took a moment to breathe, the lobster scuttled in closer, wary of himself.
"I've been infected with my Behemothvirus," said Blowhole and then he wasn't sure what else to say. The sight said it all.
The lobster stared, blankly.
"Can you fix yourself?" He asked nonchalantly.
Blowhole shook his head and looked back to his desk, where he just stared down at his flippers clutching the hand mirror.
"I don't have a cure. I never thought I needed one."
The lobster turned cold. His face dropped and so did his colour.
"I-I thought you had developed a cure... that was in the plan."
Blowhole shook his head, still not looking over to the lobster.
The lobster then suddenly turned to Kowalski, a dark look on his face like he knew he had already lost his boss and best friend.
"Kowalski, can I talk with you? Outside?"
Kowalski nodded and followed the little red guy to Blowhole's office, where he shut the door and stood in silence for a moment.
The lobster looked besides himself. Completely void of emotion, just encased in fear. It took a moment for him to gather himself and look up to the penguin.
"How long will a cure take to make? Is he going to be ok?"
Kowalski looked down this time. He hadn't had much time to think about that. Perhaps 10 minutes since he found out Blowhole was infected and even though he was a super genius, his brain couldn't work that well in such a short amount of time.
"As I see things now, I might be able to slow the development of the virus but eradicating it from his body... the chances are slim to too late."
The lobster shook his head.
"No, this can't be right. I thought he already had the cure made!" The lobster exclaimed.
Kowalski shrugged, lightheartedly and looked back to the office door.
"Karma's a bitch. I told him he was rocking the boat too far. And he was careless."
"No," the lobster said. "I was careless."
"I shouldn't have let him do this. His other schemes seemed harmless compared to this one. Flooding the world, how could harm come to him from that? I've failed him as his right hand lobster," Red said hanging his head.
"This isn't your fault. Perhaps it's fate's way of getting him to stop this petty revenge."
There was a moment of silence. Both of them knew there was little to no hope but that certainly didn't mean they were going to give up trying everything they could.
"Anyway, me and Blowhole are going to start on something that'll help him. I want you to hault all production of this virus scheme. Possibly forever. Whatever teams you have planning attacks, where to drop the virus, all that stuff, stop it immediately. Have everyone at the ready if something bad is to happen. I have to alert Skipper and let him in on all of this. If anything happens with Blowhole while I'm away, alert me. I still have the speaker in my leg."
The lobster nodded, now acknowledging Kowalski as the boss of the operation. Blowhole had no choice but to surrender if he wanted to survive.
"Kowalski," Blowhole suddenly appeared in the door. "In case anything does happen, let me take the poison capsule out."