Balls

23

Under the moonlight, they raced across the park and quickly climbed up the gum tree facing the wide windows of the lab.

The lab was dark, but Iqball climbed a thick branch that led closer towards the building. Like a tightrope artist he peered into the area where the tanks were lined up. The corridor lights from the building provided some illumination.

"I don't see anything sticking on what I think is T7's tank. But if I counted correctly, there are stickers on tank 1 through 5," he reported back to Ballqis who could only stick around the main bark.

"Are you sure?" she whispered.

"Seventy percent," he replied.

"Come back here so that I can take a look," Ballqis decided, not wanting to leave the fish to chance.

Iqball retreated. He and Ballqis awkwardly switched places as he approached the bark. He had to lend her a hand to let her cross safely.

Ballqis released her grip on his arm the moment she found her footing on the large branch.

"I'm not sure if you're right," she hissed.

Iqball sighed. "There's not much we can do right now. Even if we risk taking any fish out, it's not like we have a place to keep him. And we're not even sure if he wants to be rescued," Iqball said in a low tone.

Ballqis stared at him for a few seconds before nodding.

I'd like to know what it is like out there, if given the chance. 

The voice they've come to know as the talking fish bubbled into their heads.

Ballqis nearly fell off the branch, but Iqball managed to grab her cardigan and pulled her towards the tree bark. Ballqis lunged towards him and hit her head on his chest without much grace.

"Oof!"

"Shh!"

They both glanced around to see if anyone was around. The park was empty, it was already 11pm after all. However, the patrolling guards might just happened to swing by.

After a few seconds, Iqball motioned for them to head down.

They walked in silence back to their apartment block.

"That was a plea for help, right?" Ballqis said.

"Some fish's too proud to say, 'Save my scaly ass', I guess," Iqball quipped.

"Should we be buying a tank and pump? Get a supply of pellets?" Ballqis ventured.

Iqball mulled the suggestion for a few seconds.

"We can't be the ones keeping him. If we do somehow managed to rescue T7, we'd be the first people to be summoned by Mrs Jogh. And I can't even think of any way to smuggle him out," he finally breathed an reply.

His companion stopped walking. They were at the intersection where the left lane would take them to Iqball's apartment block. Ballqis' block is another two minutes walk ahead.

"I've been carrying a ziplock plastic bag since the day we saw T2 being scaled alive," Ballqis admitted.

"Really? Me too! But T7 keeps growing. That's another cause for concern, I believe. Today he might fit into our ziplock bags but given the fish's exponential growth..." he trailed, knowing Ballqis needed no further reminder.

"We need to hash things out with T7," Ballqis said.

"What, have a meeting with him?" Iqball questioned.

"Well, he would know his needs best, don't you think?" she retorted.

Iqball slowly agreed. "True. Tuesday, then," he suggested.

***

Their turn at the lab came that Tuesday and routine tasks were completed quickly. Iqball discreetly scanned for cameras and any other suspicious device. He did not tell Ballqis but given that the fish researcher had came into a lot of money recently, he would not put super-surveillence equipment past Mrs Jogh's latest shopping list.

Tanks 1 through 5 had the green DISPOSE sticker Agamemnon was talking about. Yet the Monday boys on duty at the lab did not receive any new instruction from Mrs Jogh, so they said. Iqball casually visited them the day before, under the pretext to play hoops with the fish in Tank 6.

T7 remained quiet then, and again today. Ballqis and Iqball were running out of ice-breakers.

T7, talk to us, please. We want to know what you know, and if you need to be rescued, Ballqis thought, hoping the fish would respond. She kept hanging around the tank. She let Iqball finish off the cleaning duty at the filing cabinet.

"Hey, here's something I've never seen here before," Iqball noted out of the blue.

He picked the white envelope which was lying on the cabinet base, which was also white. Seeing how the envelope could easily have been there all these while, he hesitated for a tad but in the end, picked it up.

It was a normal-sized envelope that one might use to post a snail mail. It did not have any writing on it, so Iqball slowly flick its sleeve, which was not glued to its body.

Inside, a receipt for Mrs Jogh from a company by the name of Aaronmail. The professor who didn't like her title apparently paid over three thousand dollars for the transaction. The amount itself made it quite clear that the receipt is important.

"We ship anything and everything." Ballqis read the company's tagline that was printed under its letterhead.

"It's an old receipt. This was issued last year. Transport of six undisclosed items to a pet store, by the name of Mexotic. Is that where Mrs Jogh send the older fish?" Iqball mused.

"This is too random and too easy. As if it was planted here so we'd discover it," Ballqis interjected uneasily. Yet she took a photo of the receipt without Iqball noticing.

"I think I'm going to use this," Iqball suddenly decided.

"Use it? How? When? You should just keep it back," she reasoned.

"But it's practically lying there, seemingly out of place. The files in this cabinet is meant for fish behaviour reports. The one above is for food intake. This receipt should be filed under finance or something like that, don't you think?" he argued.

Ballqis thought this over before saying, "I don't like where you're going with this, but I trust you know what to do."

Her words warmed his heart.

"Even when you don't even know what I've got planned?"

She nodded.

"Ballqis, do you know that you rock?"

Elated, Ballqis smiled so wide that Iqball fell for her once again, just as he did when they were both just distant schoolmates.