Burt kept watch of the area. It has been one day but he knew something was going on. He was viewing the area with his binoculars when he heard a helicopter. He followed the sound and watched it head towards an area where he believed the lab was possibly located. It was a black helicopter. Military grade, Pave Hawk.
The wind from the helicopter pelted the RV facility with sand. The two inside looked out the window. Dr. Hyde was about to say something when the door opened up. Three people entered the facility.
"You tattled on me, Dr. Frankenstein," Dr. Hyde ignored the three soldiers who walked past her. Bloodsport and Commando were men with muscled bodies that made Dr. Hyde smaller than he actually was when both of them placed one of their hands on either side of his shoulders.
"No, just sending a possible rabid dog back to its cage," Rose felt relieved they showed up in a few hours from the call. "Goodbye Dr. Hyde. The next time I will hear from you, hopefully it will be through the mandated channels, which is just emails."
The two pushed Dr. Hyde forward as he scowled at her. Lancelot stood guard in front of her. The door opened again, sand from the wind entered again. Lancelot closed the door behind them.
He turned around to face her. "Dr. Moreau and the rest of us apologize for not knowing he had left the facility. Dr. Jekyll also warned us of his intentions after your call. S.S. is fine and in recovery. He will be back in two weeks. Dr. Moreau has issued top priority in his recovery. Please keep up the good work."
She gave him a soft smile. "Thank you, Lancelot. I am glad he is fine."
"Where are Dr. Hyde's items?" Lancelot was here to retrieve the items and drive the vehicle back.
"In the back," Rose gestured.
Lancelot left to get the items. The wind no longer pelted the sand against the facility. Dr. Hyde has left this area. The relief Rose felt from his absence made her smile. Lancelot came back to the research area. He couldn't help but smile as well.
"Dr. Frankenstein, it is my turn to leave," he held the keys in his hand. The gear bag was slung on his shoulder. "Be safe. If you need more guards, please call on us. We would love to help."
"I will keep that in mind," she stood up. "Let me show you out." She opened the door when her wrist seismo went off. Both of them froze while El Blanco passed on by them. After a few minutes, the two began to walk towards the vehicles.
"It would be fun guarding you here," Lancelot chuckled. "We could play freeze tag whenever El Blanco is around."
"That we could," Rose tried not to roll her eyes. "Take care."
Lancelot waved goodbye from the inside of the Land Rover. He took off, leaving a cloud of dust behind him.
"Fancy Land Rover is hightailing it out of town, over," Tyler was outside of Chang's Market.
"Military helicopter was also just at the doctor's, over," Burt was heading back into town.
Larry and Jodi were watching Tyler come into the Market. He wore a worried expression.
"There has been a lot of disturbance going on with our local mad scientist," Tyler sat down on a barstool. "Isn't our potluck tonight?"
"Yes," Jodi set down a glass of water.
"Two helicopters and a Land Rover," Larry pointed out. "You think a discovery was made?"
"Well, Wes did get life flighted, but the Land Rover and the other helicopter is something new," Tyler pondered. "It was only a night and not even two days and they left. Helicopter could mean a discovery."
Burt came bustling into the Market next. "You didn't get a chance to see who was in the Land Rover, did you?" He asked Tyler.
Tyler swiveled around taking a gulp from the glass. "No, I did not. Hightailed into town and hightailed out of town."
"Our potluck is tonight," Burt sat down next to him. "Maybe she will give some answers then."
At the potluck, everyone gathered at Nancy's house. Rose never showed up to the potluck. The group was a bit worried about her. After dinner, Burt tried reaching her through the radio channels but she never answered. Rose kept ignoring him. On his usual route of observing the area, he made sure to watch out for anything suspicious.
Rose kept to herself. She was finally allowed to go over the incident of when she was chased out of the lab. She wrote down everything she could remember. She relistened to noises from that day onwards. It was the same. The only thing she could do is just continue her work.
Headquarters let her know that her larger cages were being made and were ready to be shipped, but she was notified that the entry into the lab may not be big enough for these cages and was recommended to create a bigger entry with either a winch or a gantry crane to bring the cages up and down.
"That means I have to go back and measure," Rose groaned. She was reluctant but reminded herself that she was just going back to measure, she wasn't going back down into the lab. She gathered herself and some courage to walk back to the place that gave her fear.
It took longer to get there than usual. She stared at the metal entry way. The hairs upon her skin stood up. She tried to ignore the memories that bubbled up reminding her that she could have died down there.
She measured the entry way, took samples of the soils at certain points, and took pictures. Rose stared at the hook that was next to the metal door. It still had the rope tied upon it. She opened the metal door as if it was lifting off the lid of a boiling pot. She didn't look inside but pulled her rope up. She kept pulling only to find the rope was chewed in half. She peered inside the pit. There was nothing down there. She held back her tears in relief. Rose shut the entry way. It was time to head back and email headquarters the information to see what new equipment would best fit for the excavation of larger creatures.
As Rose kept to herself, the impromptu quarantined did not help the town. Larry helped Tyler and Jodi with his blog and inept of social media on getting tourists back into town. There were lots of questions from followers online asking about what had happened. Pictures from the followers showed what happened around the outside of the town. Roads were blocked with soldiers from the nearby base.
There were also pictures of construction workers building metal barriers. Some posted videos of the barrier being tested. There were different signs that would pop up from the barrier indicating why they were blocked out.
"There's a sign for Graboids," Jodi read them out loud for the rest. "Shriekers, Assblasters, sandstorm, flood, landslide, fire, construction zone, animal crossing, chemical spill, radiation, town in quarantine, and it keeps going on. A lot of people are asking what is going on in our town. I don't even know what is going on. Has anyone seen either scientist?"
Rosalita came over to where the three were at. "We just saw Casey and Roger collecting samples. Harlow and I asked if they had any updates but they haven't heard anything either. They don't know why there was such a stir with the other scientist. You think she feels guilty for what happened to Burt's son?"
"The letter that Heather had said he had a near fatal injury," Tyler reminded them. "Something big went on in the lab, she may have been spooked enough to quit."
"Really?" Larry didn't think that was true. "Someone with her curiosity and a need for science would be so terrified not to keep researching. She's boldly going where no man has gone before. She's not just another redshirt."
"Those references, just whoosh," Tyler moved his hand over his head.
"He's talking about Star Trek," Jodi explained. "Do you think daily blogs for each of our sites will help gain more tourists?" She looked over to Larry who was sketching on a notepad.
"Blogs are like diaries, right?" Rosalita sat down. "Maybe that could help boost this area. Didn't the diary of that Jewish girl help others know how terrible it was in Germany."
"The Diary of Anne Frank," Jodi glanced at her. "All of that was devasting and a reminder of racism and genocide. I don't think that is applicable to our situation."
"It's not applicable, but I can see where you were leading," Larry spoke while keeping focus. "Just like the scientists gathering information daily, it would be the same for us in Perfection. What we encountered and such but more of a mission log."
"Mission log?" Rosalita was confused this time.
"Star Trek, again," Jodi explained.
"Oh," Rosalita nodded. "But he was correct. Make a blog or post the public saying today Perfection watched Burt on his twentieth observation route of Perfection. Oh, that could turn into a drinking game." She started to smile. "Take a sip every time Burt takes a trip around Perfection. Take a sip when El Blanco passes through the tow. Take a sip when Twitchell hands us new rules from the government. Take a shot when something bad happens in town-"
Tyler waved her to stop. "Wait, wait. Drinking games are supposed to be fun. You're going to give someone alcohol poisoning with that type of thinking. Even if we do a blog, what about the days when we have nothing going on. What are we going to post about then?"
"Instead of doing it individually, we all could post on the same place, that way there will be lots of information, instead of all us posting on our own," Jodi suggested.
"That could work," Tyler agreed. "We all help each other out with business. It's all in one spot."
"Too bad we don't know where Rose lives, we could visit her," Rosalita was still wondering about her.
"There's a reason why we don't know where she lives," Tyler took a sip from the drink before him. "Burt would be hounding her to let him into the lab." All of them nodded in unison.
"Since the fourth of July is coming up, I know we don't do much, but should we?" Jodi looked up from her computer. "To bring back the tourists. Maybe host a patriot theme with graboids."
"I don't know, El Blanco doesn't like loud noises," Tyler was thinking it through. "He would run away if we start lighting them off. That would also drive away paying customers."
Silence again.
"Wait, when was the first discovery of Graboids?" Tyler thought out loud.
"March 1, 1990," Jodi spoke without hesitation.
"That has already passed," Tyler glanced at the calendar. "Maybe we can do something else?"
"Hey, I like that," Rosalita was on board. "You can show them all the spots where they discovered them. Maybe we can get the rest of the people with Nancy and Burt and walk us through that situation."
"That does sound like a good idea," Jodi agreed. "Why haven't we done this before? Graboid day. We can have Shrieker day and-and Assblaster day!"
"You aren't getting the point, March was two months, basically three months ago," Tyler tried to get them to understand.
"What are those dates?" Rosalita followed up. She took out her phone and started to add them to her calendar so she could remember.
"May 11, 1995 is Shrieker day and Assblaster day is October 11, 2001," Jodi smiled. "But Tyler's right, we need another day now."
"What about El Blanco, when it arrive?" Rosalita created the calendar events.
"Oh, that's June," Jodi perked up. It could work. "I would say the eleventh since it takes Graboids three months to reach full maturity. That's plausible and it doesn't interfere with Father's Day. Plus, we can educate others on the first graboid incident and then on October eleventh, we can celebrate El Blanco since it helped our survival that day."
The other two agreed that it was plausible. It could work, plus it's hard to get the ball rolling without knowing the background.
"On El Blanco Day," she started to type an itinerary on her computer. "We will have tours taking us through those few days of when Graboids attacked our town, which Tyler would be in charge of, then we can have them participate in our drills. See if they can successfully get on the rough, like an escape room."
"Oh, and have like Nancy and Burt talk about what it was like those day, like at two is Nancy speaking about how she felt about what all happened and how she dealt with it as a single mother," Rosalita pointed out.
"Escape room?" Tyler didn't understand.
"It's where you get put into a room and you have several clues and you have to go through the clues and use them to escape under a time limit," Larry explained.
"Ah," Tyler nodded. "We could do tours and then for the escape room or whatever, we can have them do obstacles similar what happened that day."
"I like that," Rosalita clapped. "This is going to be fun!"
"Larry, you have not added anything really, are feeling ill?" Tyler turned towards him. "What are you working on?"
Larry looked up as he paused. "Oh, sorry. I was working on some fanart."
"Fanart?" Tyler scrunched his eyebrows.
"It's art of different fiction but how the person wants it," Larry explained. The rest were still confused. "Look, its fanart but of Rose and Wes as Men in Black." He lifted the sketchbook.
"That's really good but why are we drawing two people that should not be known to everyone else?" Tyler questioned.
"Oh, this won't go on my blog, this is just for my own entertainment," Larry explained. "The ones that do go on my blog," he showed the other sketches. "Are these." They were sketches that the rest did not know the reference, but it looked like famous shows and movies. "There are many comic books and games copyrighted of the graboids. I am actually working on a webtoon for graboids, but it centers around the labs, since its fictional, no one will know that it will be somewhat the truth."
"Tell that to the government watching us, didn't Rose say all of us have file," Tyler countered.
"She did, but she doesn't care and she doesn't involve herself," Rosalita added. "She knew about my past but left it alone."
"I could create posters and flyers for our Graboid, Shrieker, Assblaster, and El Blanco days," Larry volunteered himself.
"Yeah, and make regular posters too, oh can you create like a mural that people can take a picture with, our sign outside is cool but we should up date some things," Jodi typed that as well.
Larry's eyes lit up. "Yeah, we can even photoshop them in." Larry shifted through his sketch pages. "Here. Something like this background and then the tourist can take a picture and then we can add either graboids and such or Burt. That would be amazing."
"And then we can sell those yummy new drinks you made," Rosalita nodded. "Which that sounds good right now. Can I have one of those? Which one was it?" She looked at the drink menu. "Oh, can I have a Snakeoid?"
"Sure, coming right up," Jodi moved from her computer to mix up the drink.
"Snakeoid? Let me see that," Tyler read the list out loud. "Graboid Attack, Long Island Shriek-tea, the One Ass Blast, the Tremor, the Perfection Margarita, Gummer Cocktail, Seismo Sidecar. Wow. Do you have food to go along with these as well?"
Larry and Jodi looked at one another. They haven't thought of that.
"And now we will," Jodi answered. "We just got signed with some distilleries to make some vodka, tequila, mescal, and some others with the graboid brand."
"How about we make a list of whatever big events have and then just go through it to see if you two have thought of it already," Tyler suggested.
"That sounds good," Rosalita agreed. "Then we can go over what we are doing for El Blanco day, too."
The four tossed ideas back and forth.
Nancy had been sifting through the old photographs, concert tickets, and clothing that she had when she was still with Lucas. It brough back lots of nostalgia. She enjoyed reliving some of the memories while others she laughed at herself as why she did that. She thought it through. Maybe she could give him another chance. She told herself to think it over some more before she did anything irrational.
Burt went through his rounds. He was worried about his son and Rose. He tried to reach Rose again. Radio silence. He decided to head back to his home and look through the information. It would keep his mind off of the current situation.
A few days later, a black semitruck and trailer headed through town, heading towards Rose's camp. Burt and Tyler kept tabs on it.
Rose stepped out of the trailer to meet the driver. "Dr. Frankenstein, I have your three-ton gantry crane with a wireless transmitter that comes with two spares, one pair mechanical steel French doors with attached transmitter and two spares, medium and large military grade cages, and I am here to set these up for you." He handed her the clipboard to sign.
"Thank you," Rose looked over the items before signing. "You do know the entry is about a thirty-minute walk from here."
"Yes, headquarters made sure I was well equipped to suit your needs," he was confident. "It will only take half a day, but this will be set up. I have the coordinates."
"Oh, no help from me at all then," Rose handed the clipboard back.
"None, miss," he shook his head taking the clipboard back. "Headquarters just wants you to keep working on your research."
Rose nodded. "Be careful, if you do need help, please let me know."
"Thank you, but I'll be fine," he headed off to unload the trailer.
Rose headed back inside. She continued to work on the data and petri dishes. She hoped the worker was fine. That area still scared her. Since it was the day time, he should be okay.