JULIET'S QUILL

CHAPTER 8: DOUBLE TREAT

"Science preaches us to believe only on things we see from our very own eyes. Have you seen their dead bodies?"

"No, but..."

"They aren't dead. They got stuck somewhere, and we need you to bring them back."

"WHAT? You're kidding me?" I shook my head hard enough to sprain my neck muscles.

Louis entered a password on the large computer, and his desktop appeared on the screen. He clicked on the "Surveillance Camera" file. There were hundreds of files there listed in alphabetical order. My eyes scanned through the names of the folders and stopped at my surname, "Breton." He double clicked on the name and few video files appeared.

"Your parents stole from us." Stephen frowned.

"Doctor Alice and Alexander Breton were the finest of the staff we had here. We all worked as a team, and we managed to achieve the impossible. The night we had to carry our last experiment, they stole the canister. But the security alarms made it impossible for them to escape the Laboratory. They had no other way out. So, your father hid your mother and the canister inside a cubicle that was connected to a machine. The guards approached, and your father got injured. Your mother dragged him inside the machine, and it got activated. They became the test animals for our last experiment"

"What happened to them?" My lips trembled.

My mind was racing with so many questions at once. Was it true or not? And if it was, then why would Ethan lie to me? What was Isabelle up to and who attacked us earlier? It was too much to absorb at one time. Louis sensed my confusion and played the video to give me the visual proof of a lie that I lived for so long. My mother walked in the room where I was standing, followed by my dad. She was holding something; it was a tiny glass container with a silver liquid bubbling inside it. They said something to each other, which was hard to discern from their lips. Dad pointed towards a large cubicle which was attached to a huge machine but my mom shook her head. Dad pressed few buttons on the keypad and the surveillance camera videos appeared. The armed guards had surrounded the room along with Doctor Stephen, and there was no way out. I saw a frightened look on mom's face, as if she knew, that there was no escape except death. Dad pushed her inside the glass cubicle and closed the door. The peculiar thing about the glass was its ability to conceal the person behind it.

I turned my head towards the wall where there was no sign of cubicle or the machine anymore. I looked at the screen again, and the guards were already inside the room. Dad was standing with his back towards the cubicle and his arms folded around a test tube. It wasn't the canister, but a random test tube he picked up from the nearby station. Doctor Stephen grabbed the gun from the near-by guard and pointed it towards him. He pulled the trigger without hesitating, and the bullet pierced through my father's chest. He stumbled over the cubicle door, and my mother grabbed him before he hid the ground. She dragged him inside and before closing the door, she pushed the button. The machine activated at once.

I turned around and grabbed Stephen by his collar. "You shot him?"

Louis placed his hand on my arm. "I wouldn't do this, if I were you." I let go of him and Stephen straightened his collars and gave me a smile.

"Your mother knew that they would get killed or would be handed over to the authorities. Honestly, she was inclined towards the first option and so were we. So, she activated the machine that would vaporize both of them, killing them in less than a nanosecond. But something else happened; they were transported to another place"

"What place?" I questioned.

Stephen stretched his hands," We didn't know, but we recently found out from the frequency of the machine that they went somewhere, in the past"

"Are you telling me that they travelled back in time?"

"We think so. But we aren't being able to achieve any positive result with the test animals. All of them died, leaving behind their ash unlike your parents. This led us to believe that something is different about the human body that made them travel back in time, but not the animals"

"What was in the canister?"

"The serum that could make anyone travel forward in time but not backwards. This machine was made to peek into the future and change the conditions before something worse happens. The last experiment was to send a monkey into the future with a tiny camera fixed in its retina. We had to know the changes that the body will go through in that process. But we lost all the serum because of your parents."

"Can't you make it again?" I shrugged.

"Your parents stole the formula first, and then executed this thing. We were after the formula but now, we are going for a more practical thing." Louis announced.

"What I have to do?" I asked, though I knew what would be the answer.

"We need you to travel back in time, and bring the canister back along with your parents." Louis explained.

"What if they aren't there?"

"There's only one way to find out." Stephen smiled.

The door burst open, and Eloise walked inside. "He doesn't have to do this, if he doesn't want to"

"Mind your own business, Eloise." Louis shook his head.

"This is my business. I won't let you force Marcus for making a discussion. This isn't fair."

"It's alright, Eloise. I might have a chance of seeing my parents alive."

Stephen shoveled a bundle of papers in my hands and motioned me to follow him.

"Everything's written in these papers. A theoretical plot of finding and bringing your parents back"

"Where are they stuck?" I asked.

"Paris, 1789"

A big smile appeared on my lips as this meant a double treat for me.