Project Apollo

Chapter 27

"Well, I need evidence. If you don't have evidence, you're nothing more than a conspiracy theorist," Porter explained.

"It's all on this flash drive." The informant placed the small memory stick between them on the bench.

"What do you want?" Porter asked as he reached for the memory stick. The informant's hand covered the stick, guarding it from Porter.

"I want you to do your job. Inform the American public." The informant awaited a nod; he received one and then released the flash drive for Porter to have.

Porter brought the memory stick to his view; he focused in on the mysterious device before him.

What is on it? Are we really under attack? How so?

Porter looked up from the stick and began asking a question, but stopped abruptly at the sight of the empty seat next to him. He turned, but could not see his cloaked informant.

He was gone.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Catherine and Tobias continued their autopsy of each vital organ, probing the cadaver of Lieutenant Walker for any clues related to the disease. Their inflated suits closed them off from the acrid smell emitting from the body, while a row of Petri dishes held the extracted organs. Catherine inspected each organ, as Tobias continued to biopsy samples and place them in growth mediums lined next to them.

"You okay? Haven't talked much today..." Tobias finally mustered the courage up to talk to her.

"I guess this whole plague-on-the-loose thing has me on edge..." She pushed the words off her chest.

"I heard your sister died from a seizure, similar to Lieutenant Walker here?" Tobias ventured onto unchartered waters. She stopped for a moment and connected eyes with the unassuming scientist before her. His eyes flashed a compassionate sincerity that pierced through her protective suit.

"Yeah... she was only nine... I was eleven. She had been complaining of headaches ever since summer camp. She was my best friend... I came home from Primary School and found her shaking on the sitting room floor. My mum was out... and I couldn't do anything to stop her. And then she just died... right there... I didn't understand how her brain could just revolt on her and take over her body like that. That was the day I decided I wanted to cure diseases," she explained, through solemn, distant words.

"Well, from what I hear, you are damn good at it." Catherine dismissed the compliment with bashful humility and offered one herself.

"Well, you're not half bad yourself." She winked at him.

"So, where are you from?" Tobias asked, trying to keep her focus from the memories of her sister's death.

"Highgate, just north of London" Catherine answered.

"What's your team?"

"Arsenal, of course." She smiled at him with a straight and narrow English charm. "What about you?"

"As you can see..." he held his arms out. "I'm not the biggest sports fan..." She feigned a chuckle but became mired again in the sadness of her childhood. Tobias noticed that she could not escape the melancholy.

His focus returned to the body on the table. His plastic gloves burrowed further through the innards, until they found something rigid. He paused upon contact and looked up at Catherine working at the next table. He smiled at a thought – one last chance to cheer her up.

"So, what did the skeleton order at a restaurant?" He asked her, his hand inside the opened cadaver.

"What?" Catherine stopped reluctantly, sensing a joke.

"Spare ribs." He lifted his hand out holding a thin curved bone. The joke forced an irresistible grin over her face.

First, her eyes fell to her work – and then back up to Tobias where her smile cracked wider and she shook her head.

"Okay, what did one eye say to the other eye?" Catherine fired one back. Tobias smiled wide at Catherine, awaiting the punch-line.

"Just between the two of us... something smells." Tobias cracked up uncontrollably. Their laughter harmonized – their eyes connected.

After a moment of intimate warmth, Tobias shrank back to his usual nervous state and shuffled across the lab table for a small power saw. The garage door screeched open – Xander and company had returned. Catherine turned but could only make out blurred silhouettes through the isolation unit's translucent curtains. The buzz of the power saw turned her back to the body.

"Let's see, what's going on in that head of his..." Catherine nodded her go-ahead.

She turned from the table of organs and approached the table as Tobias lowered the saw to the cadaver's cranium. He began to move the spinning blade from temple to temple, careful to split the skull but not to pierce the brain. After one precise revolution around the head, Catherine wiped away the residual blood still standing idle in the punctured blood vessels. Tobias turned the saw off and placed both hands on the side of the head.

"Is it weird, that this is my favorite part?" he asked her.

"Not at all, it's mine too..." Catherine responded.

"You're so weird, Catherine." She laughed and nudged him in a flirty way. Tobias's face broke out into a crimson blush. He pulled up on the skull and it opened like a Russian egg – inside was the brain. The blush faded from Tobias's face immediately.

Catherine's complexion went pale.

She angled toward the opened skull.

Her mouth gaped in befuddlement.

"What the hell...."

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