End Of The Beginning

Chapter 11- Lab 7

" Hard as diamond outside and soft as butter inside, just like Albert " said Dan sarcastically

They collected enough samples and send them to several labs for testing. And later at noon Dan and Emily then went to eat lunch.

Dan was talking about random things, but Emily wasn't paying attention to her. She was thinking about something else

" Are you here ? " Dan asked Emily

Emily didn't hear it, suddenly Dan gave a small pat on Emily's shoulder.

" Yeah yeah...!! " Said Emily

" What yeah ? You here or somewhere else ? " Asked Dan

" I'm here " Emily replied " Do you have any friends here ? Other than from this lab ?"

" Well yeah, not close friends, but I do talk to few; there is this guy from lab 3, couple of girls from floor one and two and the guy at the cafeteria. I'm a delightful person to be around." Dan answered her question " Why ?"

" Nothing !! " Said Emily

" I know what this is about. You need to talk to someone, but you don't have the courage. " Said Dan. " Do you know why you don't have friends other than me and Albert ? Because you are a dork!! "

Emily looked at Dan and rolled her eyes " I'm not a dork!!!! "

" Let's agree to disagree " Dan replied " So who is it ? Who do you want to talk to ? "

" Well.., I won't tell. You know why ? Cause I'm a DORK " Emily replied

" Mmmm ok.. it's ok for you to talk to someone, as long as you don't talk about what we do here. They are constantly watching us, but they really don't care about our personal life. Just don't mention anything to anyone about the lab, then you will be alright." Said Dan

Just like Wayne and Steve, Emily and Dan are best friends. They both met each other in here. Dan is 31, 5.1 feet tall and Emily describe her as crazy. She is a microbiologist (a microbiologist is a scientist who studies microscopic life forms and processes) and Emily is an astrobiologist (an astrobiologist is a person who studies the possibility of life beyond Earth).

Its almost 5.00 pm, everyone was doing their jobs. They were conducting tests. But so far nothing happened.

" It's not working. These tissues are not reacting with anything. We can't even figure out what it's made of. " Said David

" Yeah, We did many experiments on it but nothing worked, It has a structure that we have never seen before. We don't know what it's made of, it doesn't even have a DNA. " Said Dan

" What about the sword ? Anything new ? " Vince asked Albert

" No.... Nothing new " Albert replied

" So we are again back to square one.. " We don't know what the sword is made of, we don't know anything about this alien and we don't know anything about that thing " he pointed his finger towards the octagonal box.

" Not necessarily. We know that all these things are not from earth, we know that the sword is emitting some sort of radiation." Vince replied

" But the biggest questions remain unanswered. How did it get there ? Who killed it and cut off it's hands ? The sword belongs to whom ? " asked Diya

" Are you still convinced it's a human ? I mean.... how ? There were no humans during that time " said Albert

" I know... But it's a sword.... The creator could have made the weapon in any shape, but they made it look like a sword. Their inspiration probably came from humans. " replied Diya

" Proves my point exactly.... What if we humans took inspiration from them? What if we copied them ? " replied Albert

" Why don't we cut the box open with the sword ? " Asked Dan

Everyone stopped talking

" How many times I told you no ?" Asked Vince

" Well we tried everything, it's the only thing left. We did have the same argument about the body too, nobody wanted to use the sword. But look at us now. " she replied

" It's a firm no." Said Vince

" Ahh...Well then we all are stuck in here forever. And after staring at it for the next ten years, I am certain that you will say, ' Let's break it open '. " said Dan

" Well.. we can think about it later. Time to clean everything. " Said Vince

" You four " he pointed his finger at Dan, Emily, Diya and David. " Come with me. You are going to help me make the reports. "

" Why me ? You never asks me. I want to go to my room " said Dan

" Because for a person who is so smart, you ask stupid questions " Said Vince and everyone started to laugh.

" Oh shut up " Dan told everyone.

It took them couple of hours to finish the reports.

" Can I get half day off tomorrow ? " Asked Dan

" No " Vince replied quickly

They all went to the elevator, Emily looked at her watch, it's almost 8.00 pm. The elevator stopped at the top floor. Everyone went to their rooms. While walking Emily saw the cleaning guy standing there.

" I will meet you at cafeteria in 30 minutes " said Dan

" Huh.. yeah ok. " Emily replied

They walked past Wayne. Emily noticed him looking at her and walked on as she didn't see it. After going a little further she looked back and he was still mopping the floor looking at the opposite direction.

After taking a bath in her room, she headed to the cafeteria. She and Dan ate their dinner. She looked around as she went back to her room. But she didn't see him anywhere. She reached her room and went to bed. Few minutes later she heard someone knocking on her door.

She opened the door and saw Dan standing there. Dan looked at her and asked

" It's that cleaning guy, isn't it ? "

" What do you mean ? " Emily asked Dan

" It's that cleaning guy, you wanted to talk to that cleaning guy " Dan replied with excitement

" You are delusional, go to sleep " Emily told her

" Tell me the truth....... Or I will die " Dan sounded so desperate

" Ok ok.... I don't have a crush on him, I was a little rude to that guy earlier today. So I felt like I owe him an apology. And I saw him while coming back, but I ignored him, that's all. " Emily explained

" Mmmmm..... So do you need any help ? " Dan asked

" No, no please..... Just go back to your room and sleep. Leave me alone please..... " Said Emily

" Ok " Dan went back to her room.

Emily closed the door, but she heard someone knocking again

" It's me again, you sure that you don't need my help ? " asked Dan

" Go bacckk to sleeeep....." Emily replied, she waited there for few seconds, but didn't hear anything. She shook her head and went to sleep.