Chapter 11
In Which We Get a Bit Mushy
Phoebe was in a hurry. She brushed through her cropped hair one more time with one hand while feeling the dresser searching for her pearl earring with the other. She stopped a second and looked at her alarm clock. The party was in fifteen minutes. She groaned and scurried to her closet to grab some heels.
Her co-partner and sometime boyfriend, Dr. Edward Colic, had arrived to pick her up for the annual Science Leaders of America Banquet about half-an-hour ago. The only problem was that Phoebe, who was usually so punctual, had forgotten all about it. She was too occupied with her current project, that is, figuring out this "hot air".
What else can I do to it? she wondered as she struggled to put on her shoes. I've tried every test I could think of. What am I missing? Is there a further analysis I should have attempted? It appears to be mostly plant life, but all of the samples come up unidentifiable for our computer system. What next? She glanced in the mirror, smoothed her dress slightly, grabbed her coat off a chair and headed downstairs.
Edward was waiting for her. She walked over to him and smiled when he leaned down to kiss her forehead. He took a step back and stared at her. Phoebe blushed.
"What are you looking at?"
"You. You're stunning." Phoebe ducked her head shyly.
"You've also got your dress on backwards."
Phoebe blinked and looked down. Sure enough, the zipper on her crushed velvet purple shift was in front. Where is my head? She made a move to go back upstairs.
"No don't change. I like it that way." Edward grinned and slipped his arms around Phoebe.
"I just don't know how I managed that." she told him, frustrated.
"Me neither. I wouldn't have thought it possible. So what's on your mind? It has to be something big for you to lose your focus like this. I thought you were looking forward to this banquet."
"I was—am. I just…" Phoebe shook her head firmly. "No, I'm sorry. I was just thinking about a project I've been working on. I'll go get changed and then we'll have a wonderful time at the banquet, I promise."
Edward seemed to contemplate her for a moment, then he in turn shook his head. "Miss Hyerdahl, you're obviously not prepared to go anywhere tonight, expect perhaps back to the lab. I forbid you to come with me. How can you enjoy the party if you can't even concentrate on it?"
Phoebe started to protest, but suddenly she blinked at him and her eyes grew wide. Dr. Colic smiled at her.
"I know that look. Whatever world-wide problem you've just solved in your mind, be sure to tell me about it when you're finished, ok? And don't disavow all knowledge of me when you become rich and famous." He let go of her and turned to leave. A pang of guilt struck Phoebe.
"What will you do?" she asked.
He sighed. "Oh, don't worry about me. I'll just go wander the moors for a while, calling 'Phoebe! Phoebe!' over the echoing hills." He snapped out of it and looked at her. "Either that or spend the night with a good book. I'll see you tomorrow. Don't forget to change out of that dress before you go to the lab, you wouldn't want to ruin it." He blew her a kiss and left, ducking under Phoebe's smaller-than-average doorframe as he went.
Phoebe didn't waste a second. She dashed upstairs to change.
*******************
Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport boasts of being the busiest airport in the US. (Why they would want to boast about this remains beyond the understanding of the other airports.) The International Concourse was no exception. People were bustling everywhere, hurrying to catch their flights after being held up for hours at security. Harried airport staff tried to satisfy the people who hadn't made their flights, and a few early birds waited at the gates for their planes to arrive.
Brenda Halloway was tired of it all. She had been working for Delta Airlines for almost five years now. Five years of standing behind a counter dealing with stupid people who blamed her for their being late. Five years of explaining that an expired boarding pass could not be exchanged for a first-class ticket. Five years of politely telling the coach-class businessman why the woman with three screaming children was allowed to board before he was. Five years too long.
Of course, since 9/11 she had had to answer a whole new range of questions. "Why do you have to check my bag?" "Do I look like a terrorist?" "Look at him! What don't you pull him aside?" Just last week she had had to take away a pair of metal knitting needles from a grandmother-type – who then proceeded to swear at her for a full fifteen minutes until she was forced to summon security. And everyone looked at Brenda as if it was her fault. She didn't write the security procedures, for crying out loud! And it was getting worse. The memo today said they were all required to watch a video on recognizing suspicious characters tomorrow during lunch hour.
Although suddenly Brenda was wishing that she had already seen it. She was stationed at Gate 23, which had so far today been a departure to Tokyo, an arrival from London, and a delayed departure to Toronto which was eventually cancelled. Right now she was waiting on an arrival from Paris, which was also delayed. A half-dozen people were slouched in the gate chairs, waiting for it.
But two of those people were not waiting for the Paris flight. Brenda knew this because they had been there since early this morning, before 7 when she had begun her shift. It was four o'clock now, and they hadn't moved from their seats except to get a drink or something to eat. A black man and a blonde woman. Actually quite a nice-looking pair, Brenda thought. They had to have plane tickets to have gotten past security, but it was obvious that they weren't waiting for any flight. What were they doing here? Should she report this to someone?
Gerald glanced casually towards the gate information desk, then looked at the floor while muttering to Helga, "That airline lady is staring at us again."
Helga sighed and crossed her legs. "Well maybe if you didn't look at her so much…"
"It's not me. I think she's suspicious of us."
"Here, I'll go tell her what's going on."
"Oh yeah, you go flashing your badge in her face, that'll make her less nervous."
"Well what do you suggest, Geraldo? Find a new place to sit?"
"Naw, she'd probably alert security to be watching for us. We just need to act normally."
"Gerald, we've been up all night. Someone's trying to kill us. We're sitting here trying to figure out who they are and how to stop them. In our spare time, we also need to find somewhere safe to hide. Under the circumstances, I think I'm acting as normal as I possibly can."
Gerald looked at his companion. Helga had folded her arms across her chest and was glaring holes in the opposite wall. There were deep shadows under her eyes and he noticed that her left eye was starting to twitch. Both of them looked as though they had slept all night in the clothes they were wearing – which was only half true, as they had been wearing the same clothes since last evening (longer for Helga) but neither had gotten any sleep. Running for your life tends to do that to you. All in all, he was surprised security hadn't picked them up already. He checked his watch, then his cell phone. Simon hadn't tried to call, which was good because Gerald didn't plan on talking to him. He didn't know where the information leak was, but somehow someone had found out where he and Helga would be last night. And as that person had then tried to kill them, he didn't want to take any chances. Fortunately Moria hadn't tried to call Helga yet either. He looked at Helga again. She had now begun to scowl at the wall as well.
"This won't do. Look, Helga," he pleaded with her, "You have to relax."
"I'm relaxed."
"Yeah, like a porcupine with a rash. Stop looking at the wall like that; what'd it ever do to you?"
She turned her glare on him. "You got a better idea?"
"Just flow with me."
"Huh?"
Gerald suddenly had a wicked thought. Heh, she's gonna kill me. He relaxed, stretched, and casually put an arm around Helga.
She froze. He watched with a masochistic fascination as her facial features twisted with Helga's attempts to get a handle on her rage. Finally successful, she put on a nice-but-fake smile and rested her head on Gerald's shoulder. Out of the corner of her mouth she whispered, "You're dead, you do realize that, right?"
"Got the airline lady to stop staring at us."
Helga scoffed. "Bet you twenty bucks she's back at it in five minutes."
"You're on."
"So where do we go from here?" Helga attempted to continue discussing a plan while ignoring the way Gerald's fingers brushed against her arm.
"Well, you'll have to move to DC."
"What? Why?"
"Because long-distance relationships never seem to—" he cut himself off in a gasp of pain as Helga jabbed him in the side with her elbow.
"Ouch! That hurt!"
"Good." She smiled innocently up at him. The fluorescent lights above them made his face stand out in profile. Without thinking she said, "I like your hair like that. Shorter, I mean. You can see your eyes more."
"Was that a come-on?"
She rolled her eyes. "Dream on, Ger—" Her cell phone rang, making both of them jump. Gerald let go of her as she looked to see who it was.
"Don't answer it."
"I'm not." She got up and headed towards the pay phones. She could feel the airline lady's eyes on her. "And you owe me a twenty."
"That's not fa -- wait, who is it? Don't talk to Moria!"
"Calm down Tall Hair Boy. It's Phoebe." At that, Gerald got up and followed her to the phones. Helga waited for her cell to stop ringing, then called Phoebe at the lab, positioning the receiver so that Gerald could hear too.
"Hello?" said a tired voice.
"Pheebs, it's me. I can't talk on my cell right now, I'm on a pay phone. What's up?"
"Helga? What's wrong with your cell?"
"Nothing, except that someone may be listening in on it." Helga took a quick look around to see if anyone was paying attention to her, then added a bit softer, "Gerald's car was blown to bits last night."
"Oh my-- Are you serious? Are you guys ok? Where are you now?"
"It's ok Pheebs, we're safe." Gerald raised an eyebrow at her, and Helga shrugged in response. "We just need to take a few extra precautions is all. But you didn't call to ask if Gerald's car blew up."
"No, but…Helga are sure you—"
"Criminy, Pheebs!" Helga's nerves were already worn thin, "Just tell me why you called, I don't have much time here!"
"Sorry," Phoebe said quickly, "I'm just worried about you. But ok, I've been up all night but I think I've finally gotten somewhere with the sample you gave me."
"Yeah? Not a health drink after all huh?"
"Not exactly. I'm still not sure what it does, like I said it is primarily plant life. But I noticed something unusual about the plants. Well, it's not unusual really, especially when it just occurs in one plant but when you take it from all the plants involved, the chances of it being accidental in such a substance are so small that—"
"Phoebe? Could you hurry it up a little?"
"Right. Well simply put, it's plutonium."
"What? In a plant?"
"Yes. It's perfectly natural for it to occur in certain foliage, that and traces of uranium are found all the time. Of course we're talking about miniscule amounts here, nothing that could possibly be a danger, although I noticed that all of the plant species involved in the sample have relatively high concentrations of it. So, I put all the ratios of all the separate plants I identified together and ran a reading of the relative concentration of plutonium versus the other various plant matter. And it's off the charts. Small enough not to show up in a normal scan, but if you know what you're looking for…but it's not radioactive. And I don't mean not enough to hurt someone, I mean not at all. Which isn't, as far as we know, actually possible. My guess is that something in the plants is serving as a dampening effect on the radioactivity, rendering the substance perfectly safe."
Helga waited for Phoebe to take a breath, then asked, "So what is that in English Pheebs?"
"Right now, it's a health drink. Without the extra plant substances, it could be a bomb."
"Gotcha. Bad stuff then."
"The thing is," Phoebe sounded slightly confused, "I feel like I'm missing something here. I mean, I can certainly see the potential for masking plutonium with biological substances, but why liquefy it? For a traditional bomb, the plutonium would need to be solid. It seems an entirely unnecessary step to take. And why call it hot air? Why not hot water or hot liquid?"
"Doesn't sound as cool. Ok Pheebs, well thanks for the heads up. If you need to contact me again, don't call my cell. Here's the number of my beeper," she gave it to her, then added, "I never use it, in fact I only got it last week, and they won't be able to trace it. I'll find a way to call you back."
"Ok Helga. I'll keep working on this and let you know if something else comes up. And be careful, ok?"
"You got it Pheebs. You be careful too, I don't want to read anything in the papers tomorrow about a lab explosion." Phoebe laughed, and Helga half-smiled. "See ya soon."
Helga handed the phone to Gerald, who hung it up. Before he took his hand off the phone, however, it began to ring. Gerald stared at it. Helga stared at it.
"It could be Phoebe."
"It could be a wrong number. Or the phone company could be doing a test."
"Or it could be Phil." Helga said darkly, scowling as she said it.
Helga's a lot nicer when she gets a full night's sleep. Gerald shrugged at her and picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Hello Gerald." a voice whispered.
A/N: I'm already working on the next chapter – this is another case of, "well this chapter was supposed to be longer but I've already taken too long to write it so I'll split it in half". So hopefully I'll put up the next this weekend.
Well I'm about 3/4 of the way through this now. Scary isn't it, that I still have a whole 1/4 to go and I'm at how many words now? Oy. Oh, and I'm over 60 reviews! Wow! Ya'll are so cool, thanks!
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Don't forget to check out Miss Matched's Hey Arnold Fanfic Awards! Just check out the end of any of her fics for details. (Speaking of which, I should probably practice what I preach and go vote myself…)
Miss Matched: What, no Kudos? No wonder I took so long to get this out, lol. Just kidding of course, thanks for the encouragement. :) And the FGWK (Fat Guy With Kitties) will be back next chapter. He scares me too.
nfg-babe33: More H/G in this chapter…but will it last? ;)
pokey: Thanks :)
Maxine: Well, nothing's happened to them…yet… I'll try to get the next one out quicker, honest! :)
miss amyami: I'm not even going to ask about the rat thing…but I like the Olive Garden too. :)
DropsofJupiter: Feel free to blame me for any bad grades in Pre-Calc. Or my mom (she's a math teacher). But then, to be fair, shouldn't I get credit for any good grades in English? ;) There's a lot of plot questions in this batch of reviews…sadly, I must refrain from answering them…except to say that several of your questions will not be answered until the next story. Sorry…::ducks tomatoes::
Sennical: Cell phones are *never* secure. Anyone who knows what they're looking for can tap into one without ever touching the phone itself. Sorry, I'm not giving out written instructions. ;) I will however exclusively reveal that love polygons may…or may not…be forming. Helpful, aren't I?
TaDah: I feel Gerald's pain. It hurt to write that part. The poor Mustang…it was so young…
Rachael West: I think I'm the one who was confused! My apologies, yes I was speaking of this definition: a throwing of a person or thing out of a window. Such a great word. And thanks for the rave review as well, grin.