Driven by the need to gather intelligence, the team made the daring decision to venture into the shadows on one condition, someone needs to be left behind to stay in the lab. Artemis swept her hair back scratching the back of her head as she looked at her team with concern before speaking, “Leslie, I trust you can hold down the fort while we meet up with this mysterious person?”, “Yeah you know me, I won’t let anyone in under my watch, no matter what.”, as Leslie gave Artemis a soft smile before reassuring her with a small tap on her hand before turning around to continue working on the research.
As Artemis prepared to leave with Emmett and Elias she gave one last look at Leslie before turning away to leave as they made their way down the hallway out the corridors of the facility they went over the directions of the rendezvous point of meet with this anonymous person who claimed to have important information, risking their lives to uncover the truth. Armed with caution and a small leather wrist band containing a blade and an unwavering spirit, they embarked on a perilous journey while looking back to see if anyone was following them close behind.
As they made their way to the outskirts of Manawatu Gorge, they rounded a corner leading to an abandoned building and a black car waiting for them, as they got closer to the mysterious person’s car their hearts racing, breath trembling, Artemis looked around for some sort of sign of any ambush waiting to happen as she clenched her fists preparing herself for the worst before a hooded figure came into view as Emmett stood prepared for anyone else to stand in their way the figure began to remove their hood before speaking, “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to make it, I thought you were going to leave me out in the open lik-”, “Enough with the chit chat! Get on with it mate.” Emmett shouted at the figure as they removed their hood fully coming into view it happened to be a man who they seem to see on a few rare occasions at the facility, “Well now, before we get to the details why don’t you guys relax with the hostility you are clearly displaying towards a future ally an-”, “If you don’t have anything to share we will be on our way back now.” Artemis spoke with such harshness in her tone as the man before them let out a chuckle as he slid a folder over to the group as he walked away opening his car door before turning and saying,”Names Tywin Bode, but you sweet heart can call me Bode, everything you need to know is in that folder there.”, giving a smirk to Artemis before shutting the door and driving away leaving her dumbfounded before Emmett picked up the folder handing the contents to Artemis as they made their way back to the facility, little did they know this encounter would change everything, secrets would be revealed in ways they wouldn’t imagine, alliances would be tested to its limits, and the true nature of someone will be revealed.
As the team made it back to the lab, Artemis clenched the folder to her chest waiting for the perfect time to read it before Elias sat down next to Artemis on the little green stools before speaking low, “Are you sure we could trust that man?”, “What choice do we have, at this point I need to understand if anyone else will be coming for these samples, I need to know why it’s so interesting!”, as she whisper shouted at Elias, he gave her a nod before turning to the others and joining them in small talk about getting more resources from outside, “Emmett I think you should join Leslie to retrieve more things, we happen to be running out of food and more clothes to wear”, “Yeah, I think we need to stick in teams of two at this point, right mate?”, “Yeah by sundown we could head out, that’s when the “Guards” will be more likely busy watching videos on their phones” as Leslie sighed rubbing her temples they agreed by sundown to get more resources together.
With the sun setting Leslie and Emmett made their way out of the building to collect more food and other resources for the team, as Elias turned to see Artemis blankly staring at the unknown contents of the mysterious folder from this Bode person she scoffed before ripping open the folder as it began to reveal fragments of a dark conspiracy, a web of deceit and manipulation woven by the Dark Covenant and none other than their own teammate, her only friend she thought she had as she audibly gasped covering her mouth and throwing the folder away from her onto the floor, she couldn’t believe what she just read, as Elias scrambled to retrieve the folder and its contents he looked over the contents, Elias’s voice quivered as he spoke, “You mean to say that this whole infiltration was because of….Emmett, how, why would he, why?” as he looked through the folder he saw more devastating news on what they plan to use the samples for as he kept rereading the same words over and over again, “World Domination, Power, God”, what could it all mean? As he thought to himself what could they possibly gain from dominating the whole world with this infectious fungi if it will only kill them, as Artemis snatched the folder away from Elias to look over it once more before Leslie and Emmett made it back she looked over how they planned to infiltrate the area in Germany where Elias first discovered the big energy change in that abandoned mine to create some sort of virus with it infecting everyone, she knew what this would mean and she knew what would happen to her teammates.
As Elias waited for some sort of answer from Artemis he rubbed his temples before speaking, “Look what do we do? How do we know it’s not them trying to pin Emmett against us?”, “I don’t know, let’s keep this between ourselves, no one else will know about any of this okay?” as Artemis firmly grasped Elias’s hand in her own he gave her a slight nod before Emmett and Leslie came into view as if they happened to stumble upon a few teenager about to commit some sort crime by making out, Leslie let out a laugh before speaking in a sarcastic tone, “Well what do we have here, we leave for a few minutes and already you guy’s try to jump each other's bones for crying out loud.” as Artemis and Elias noticed there hands still connected and faces just a bit close they moved away from each other before getting back to work and hiding the folder away from the other two as she didn’t want to have to explain what was in the folder before Emmett asked the obvious, “So, what was in that folder? Anything usef-”, “No!, it was just complete garbage, Bode played us, we are wasting time here worrying for nonsense!” as Artemis spoke quickly, turning around to help Leslie go over more possible solutions for the fungi before giving Elias a soft look and turning away to focus.
Emmett noticed tension in the room between the two before he made his way over to Elias as he whispered,”Hey mate, did we actually ruin a moment the two of you were having here? I can step out with Leslie if you nee-”, as he had a smirk plastered on his face Elias scoffed and shrugged Emmett off rolling his eyes in the process before joining the two women hard at work offering any sort of assistance to the two.
The weight of this revelation settled heavily upon Artemis and Elias as they both kept a close eye on Emmett as their minds reeling with implications of every possible thing that could go wrong and how they could have easily gotten betrayed by their closest friend they could trust, the quest for salvation of the samples and any antidote they could counterattack the infection of the spores with was number one priority.
As Emmett joined in the study of a new sample he watched as Artemis and Leslie passed samples to each other while Elias scribbled away in his journal, making sure he was handing the right components with right measurements to the two women as they dropped little pieces of the fungi inside of the liquid components as it sizzled up turning the liquid black signaling another failed experiment, as Artemis walked over to her paper filled desk she typed away on her laptop yet another failed experiment upon many others before going over the data she noticed a pattern of each time a certain powder component was added, she halted Leslie from trying again as she hurriedly made her way over to Elias stopping him from mixing another solution, “Here try removing the powder contents and leave in straight liquids.” as Artemis handed the vile of liquid over to Leslie watching closely as she dropped in a small fragment of the fungi as they watched in amazement as the liquid started turning a hue of a light pale red color, as they stood watching as if waiting to see if any chemical changes would happen, but nothing occurred, as Emmett came closer to the group he exclaimed loudly, “Bloody hell, you did it Artemis! You did it!, this could solve the infection it causes, we nee-”, “We need to test it right away, but we need a much larger area for testing.”, Elias exclaimed in a rush cutting off Emmetts amusement, he couldn’t help the fact that his friend seemed to be playing a part of betraying the team, as both women nodded in agreement with Elias, Emmett couldn’t understand the whole dismissal from the team but one thing for sure he had to keep a close eye on the experiment now.
As Artemis looked over the area of her small room she realized she may be able to take over the next room over as it was just storage of every chemical component, “Blutarsky, help me move this, Leslie keep monitoring the sample.”, as Leslie nodded marking a new analysis of the improvement, Elias made his way over helping Artemis move a titanium cabinet she had seemingly blocking a door leading to the storage, he was puzzled at first but didn’t bother asking why she blocked it off seeing as she didn’t trust anyone in the facility he understood why she did what she did at this point. As they started moving shelves in the other room on the other side of the walls they realized it was a fairly large area they could be doing so much more as long as Artemis also extended the security locks to this room they where good to go, as they started setting up shop in the next room.240Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1i0lpWpKMr
