[OLD] The Phoenix Project (#3)

Two

"I had a friend at a lab in California analyze it. It's not in its pure form. It looks like they added other elements during the synthesization process to make it stable. But it's still mostly alterium.

"A few members of my team do have an interesting theory, though," Dr. Newman continued. "They think another metal, with similar properties to Serum-P, could exist that negates alterium's effects on you. They're calling it anti-alterium."

"Was there anything else interesting in Claudia's journal?" Ivy asked.

"Maybe something about where they might be keeping Claire?" Victoria added.

Dr. Newman shook his head. "Unfortunately, most of it is encoded. We haven't even begun to figure out how to decipher it. But, I do have an idea of where we should look for Claire next." His expression was grim as he pulled something up on the laptop and turned it to face them. A diagram, similar to the one they'd seen at Scorpion, filled the screen.

"This is what we know about Zodiac," Dr. Newman said. "The organization itself is run by a man named Andrew Hale. We've pulled information on him from every database we could access. It looks like a lot of it was removed from public record, but we were able to find a few files. He grew up in southern California, and was expelled from high school for starting a secret organization."

Spencer frowned. "That doesn't sound too terrible."

"He used the organization to gain power over his fellow students, teachers, and eventually people working for his local government. Most of the information has been scrubbed, but we were able to track down a few news stories. Apparently drugs and blackmail were involved, and a city official was even murdered around the time of the incident. They were never able to find the killer, but they think there was a connection."

"So then what?" Victoria asked. "He went and did a similar thing, but on a much bigger scale?"

"Sort of. He started taking business courses at a college, befriended some kids in the science department, then dropped out of school and off the face of the earth. The only thing on his record after that is a marriage. His wife, Catherine Hale, is now locked up at a mental facility."

Ivy swallowed. "Malcolm's doing," she muttered.

An uneasy silence fell over everyone. Malcolm had told them himself what he was capable of, and Newman said there had been terrible rumors for years.

But, Malcolm knew more about Zodiac than anyone else they could talk to, giving them no choice but to work with him.

"Knock, knock," came a familiar voice from the doorway.

Ivy's blood ran cold. Had he been eavesdropping?

"Expelled from high school?" Malcolm asked as he sauntered in and took a seat at the table. "Fascinating."

Dr. Newman stiffened. "You here to give us some useful information, Malcolm? A lot of what you told us is in the files we obtained from Scorpion."

"And I only told you a little of what I know." Malcolm examined his fingernails. "So go on. I'll correct you or fill in information where needed."

A few seconds dragged by. Spencer cleared his throat and nodded at Dr. Newman. "What else did you find?"

"Right, well, that seems to be about it for Andrew."

"Actually, Andrew did dabble a bit in the sciences himself. He's very intelligent, but didn't get far in school. He does give Cancer projects a bit of guidance from time to time." Malcolm leaned back in his seat.

"That takes us to Claudia, then. Sometime in the eleven years since she arrived at Scorpion, she was promoted to Overseer. Know anything about that?"

"It happened sometime in the past five years. That's when I left, so I can't say much about what's happened since. But I'd guess that the organization got so big Andrew needed help running things. I'm sure he's assigned Overseers to most, if not all, of the other organizations, if they didn't already have one."

Victoria tapped her fingers against the table. Ivy could sense her impatience. She wanted information on Claire, wanted to do something other than sit around and listen to Malcolm give them information, all smug that he knew more than them and got to walk around free when he deserved to be locked up. But this was information they needed if they wanted a chance at fighting Zodiac.

"Well, Claudia's highly intelligent too," Dr. Newman said. "Since she was young she's been at the top of her class. Good grades, high test scores. She's got pHDs in biology and chemistry."

"And despite all that, she managed to be outshined by her siblings," Malcolm said. "Her sister, Ash and Tyler's mother, was a retired, world-renowned soccer player." He sighed. "Too bad their father took a job at Cladis Point, of all places."

"How many siblings did she have?" Spencer asked. "Are the rest still alive?"

"Yes, they're alive, as far as I can tell," Dr. Newman said. "I think there's a lawyer, a surgeon...another athlete, maybe?" he glanced at Malcolm, who shrugged.

"Something like that," Malcolm said. "If I remember correctly, the youngest plays tennis."

"Anyway, the last person I looked into was John Smith," Dr. Newman continued. "Very difficult to search for, as you can imagine. I found a home near Los Angeles that I believe is his, but other than that I've got nothing. There's evidence that any record of him was deleted around eleven years ago."

"Around the time of the Cladis Point incident?" Ivy asked. "I thought he was with Zodiac, and they didn't have anything to do with that."

"Me too. It's a mystery, I guess."

Ivy glanced at Malcolm in time to see a flicker of...something cross his face. Then he was back to looking bored. "I'm afraid I don't know much about him, either," he said. Ivy narrowed her eyes. Was he hiding something?

Stupid question. He was probably hiding a lot.

But there was a difference between withholding information, and lying.