Alchemy 101

I hope you've been enjoying the story so far so here's a new chapter for peoples to sink their teeth into, I should be updating fairly regularly now I'm back at uni but I wouldn't hold your breathe on that one. Anyways I don't on the Jak Universe but I do own my characters .

As Ortz and Torn moved back up through the hatch they passed down to get to the dock, the moon had taken its place high in the sky over Haven city it's dim light cast huge indefinable shadows which made the slums look even darker than they were. After they had both cleared the hatch they flipped it back over and shut the sewer away. They both made their way down into the network of rooms and tunnels that made up the underground headquarters, everyone walked straight past them like nothing had happened.

"Do they even know what happened?" Ortz asked Torn as they made their way into the corridor that led to the shadow's room.

"No, why should they?" Torn replied, as he walked off towards the shadow's quarters.

Ortz shrugged as he walked back into the mess where a few of the underground soldiers were relaxing and talking amongst themselves, some spoke of family, others of women and a select few talked about rumours of an explosion at the harbour. Ortz ignored most of it, he didn't know many faces in the room but he didn't want to make friends as most knew he was KG not even a week before.

Ortz walked slowly across the room towards two massive jerry cans which contained water, it tasted like mouldy ass but atleast it was water. However it only became drinkable after a few purification tablets were dropped in it. Ortz took one of the dirty glasses of the side next to the water and cleaned it with his dirty still damp shirt but it made him feel better that it looked a little cleaner, as he tipped the jerry can and poured a glass of luke warm water but it was clear as clear can be. The water in the guard was always cloudy never clear it had so many chemicals in it that there was barely enough water for it to still be called water, the guards often called it Charlie Whiskey or chlorine water.

As he tipped back the glass washing the salt from his mouth the horrid tasting water tasted better than a gourmet wine in the Baron's palace, "Christ you're actually drinking this shit?" A red haired woman walked up behind him. She had a similar tattoo scheme on her face to Torn but she wore a blue jacket with an old KG style wrist array on it and blue trousers which looked straight out of a bondage film, as they had gaping holes in the sides of them on her thighs exposing lot of her femininity. "You the one who came from the KG?" She asked Ortz as he finished the glass pretending that he hadn't checked her fully out as he lowered the glass.

"Yeah, what's it to you?" He replied attempting to sound pathetically mysterious.

"It seems like everyone useful in the underground comes from there," She went on to say giving a dig at the underground as she moved closer to Ortz looking him straight in the eyes.

"Clearly they are," He said as he broke her gaze and knelt down to get another glass of water.

"Just so you know I think Panacea was looking for you," the red head said as she slowly walked out of the room trying to over accentuate her hip swings, just as she reached the door she pulled her belt up to cover the edge of her underwear which stayed up for a step or two, knowing that she had Ortz's full and undivided attention.

Ortz shook his head as she left the room, "Damn she was hot," he said to himself as he poured a second drink and quickly gulped down the water. He then made his way down the stairs into the medical room where he knew Panacea spent most of her time. As he walked down the concrete stairs he saw the kid he rescued in the middle of the floor with the hound running around him while he threw a ball. As Ortz moved further into the room he spotted Panacea who was hunched over a bench with lots of paper on it and a few glass objects. "Hey, I heard you were looking for me," Ortz told her softly as he moved next to her.

"Where have you been?" She asked excitedly but just as he was about to reply she continued talking, "Never mind, look at these results," she told him as she shoved a pile of paper at him, as he fumbled around trying to look at the papers but being swamped by numbers and words he didn't understand. He shook his head at her, "You don't understand a thing that's on there do you?" She asked him jokingly.

"I've never been a science person," He told her as he handed back the sheets of paper.

"Well, I'll explain it to you then," She replied sounding like he was in for a lecture, "It's quite simple actually, that mucus you extracted from the boys lungs just proved positive for a high concentration of nitrogen and chlorine, upon further analysis I found these to be nitrogen mustard agents and phosgene."

"But they don't cause that much damage so fast?" Ortz questioned her.

"That's where things get interesting so I ran tests on the kid's synaptic fluid," She started but Ortz was already lost.

"What the hell is synaptic fluid?" He asked.

"It's a fluid present at the junction of two nerves," She explain and then went back to her lecture, "But everything was normal in the fluid, levels of acetylcholine, sodium and calcium. However there was one deficiency acetylcholine esterase, the compound that breaks down acetylcholine, if this isn't there then it causes nerves to stop functioning and so causes the body to shut down. Only a few compounds cause this."

"Nerve agents!" He told her.

"Yeah, but I couldn't identify which one," She told him as she looked over the paper to see if she'd missed something.

"Does this help?" He told her as he pulled out the ampule that contained the gas from the submarine.

"Where did you get this?" She asked as she took the ampule gently from Ortz's hands and shook it.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," He told her as she made her way over to the table in sheer excitement, but just as she was about to extract some of the gas Ortz stopped her, "Are you sure you wanna do that in here?" He asked her as he gently clasped his hand around her wrist.

"Yeah, I really should take this outside," she said excitedly as she grabbed a few bits of glassware and a small vial of colourless liquid. She then put the vial in her pocket and grabbed Ortz arm and dragged him outside into the back yard of the complex. She then sat the large beaker that she collected from the area she was working in on the floor and then placed the liquid from the vial into the beaker. She then shot a look across to Ortz who was looking in amazement at her working on setting the equipment as precisely as she could.

"What are you setting up for?" Ortz then asked her as she stood up and held onto the ampule of gas.

"Well I'm going to try to mix the gas and this liquid and this will hopefully give us some answers," Panacea told Ortz expecting him to know what she was going on about. Ortz just stood back and watched Panacea as she broke open the ampule and held her breathe as the gas poured into the liquid nothing seemed to happen but after a few seconds some black crystals started to form at the bottom of the beaker.

"What the hell is that?" Ortz asked her in shock.

"I have no idea," she replied.

"So this isn't what you envisioned happening?" Ortz then asked her sarcastically.

"Nope not exactly," She replied as she picked up the beaker, "It's really warm," She then told him while holding it out towards him.

He took it from her and touched the bottom of the beaker, "Ah, warm? It's hot!" he told her as he passed her the beaker back quickly.

"I have never seen anything like this before," She said in fascination of the tiny black crystals that formed at the base of the beaker, "The shadow might know what this is, come on," She told Ortz as she made her way inside still gazing at the beaker from every possible angle.

As the two of them entered the room where Torn, The Shadow and the woman who he had met earlier were talking. "Panacea, why are you here?" the shadow turned and asked without even scanning to see who it was.

"Sorry to disturb you sir but I need your knowledge on this," she said to the shadow sounding almost submissive like a student to the teacher, as she raised the beaker with the crystals at the bottom.

"Ah, then you may want to listen to this," He told her and then looked at Ortz, "you, my boy, I have another job for you this is a simple observation job with Torn and Ashlin." Ortz looked confused and then looked at Torn and the woman, he finally made the connection that her name must be Ashlin, he nodded in acceptance of the task and then Torn lead Ashlin and Ortz out into the corridor.

"So what is the job?" Ortz asked Torn as he led them outside to an old looking hover car.

"Don't ask me," He told him with a chuckle.

"Yeah, don't ask him, he's got a brain but not the brains for this type of mission," Ashlin told Ortz while laughing at Torn opening the door for her to get into the hover car.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter I know it's a lot less action packed than the last chapter but it will pick up soon I promise. Please feel free to review and tell me what your thoughts on the story so far and how I can improve it but until the next time….. PEACE!