“What are they working on in the tank I was looking at?” Kaden mentally crossed his fingers.
“We’ve been using waste tissue to culture microbes. If there’s no danger, we wait to see if there are any substantive changes and then incinerate the material. Sometimes discoveries happen by chance.”
“Like penicillin.”
“Exactly.”
Harris sat him in front of various pieces of equipment and had people tell him exactly what their job entailed. They were multitasking on several projects and all of them were excited about their work. Except each of them made the point that the worst horrors in the world were invisible, and Kaden was evenmore freaked out by what he’d done. He’d not put his hand in that pocket again. Part of him was hoping the blue blob had…dissolved.
When they went to the canteen for lunch, Kaden ate virtually nothing. Harris gave him a puzzled look.
“Are you all right?”
“Disappointed. No fillet steak on offer.”
It was a joke but Harris tsked. “Eat! I’ve paid for it. Don’t waste it.”
Kaden took a bite of one half of his sandwich and while Harris’ attention was elsewhere, he slipped the other half into his pocket.
Shit!He’d not meant to put it in with the blob, but if he took it out again, his new pal might emerge with it, assuming it was still there. Harris turned back to face him and his chance had gone.
He ought to confess.
He really didn’t want to.
Harris had a horrible temper and telling him what he’d done would unleash it. At least Kaden knew the blob wasn’t dangerous because he’d not dropped down dead.Yet. Oh God.All he’d done was rescue it before it was thrown into the incinerator. But he shouldn’t have taken it.Please be gone!Though if it was, that was somehow more worrying. His heart thumped painfully. He ought to go to the toilet and check.
As he trailed around after Harris that afternoon, guilt made him more and more miserable. He did his best to look interested, but he knew he was being quieter than Harris expected, except ironically, his boyfriend seemed pleased about him being subdued for once. If he found out what was in Kaden’s pocket, assuming it still was in his pocket, he’d be so angry.
Kaden was taken to meet Harris’ boss, Martin Walker. He seemed a nice enough guy but all Kaden could think about waswhat he’d done. If the blob was dead, maybe he could flush it down the loo. No one would ever know. Unless it wasn’t dead, it just looked dead, and once it reached the sewer it would grow into some monster that poisoned the entire country’s water supply, then the oceans… Just like he imagined sea monkeys would do when he was a kid.
He was freaking out.Oh God.His heart was beating too fast, something the pacemaker couldn’t fix. Beating too slowly, which it could, wasn’t likely to be an issue.I’m so stupid. I should never have touched it.
Once they were out of the CEO’s office, Kaden finally excused himself to go to the toilet and locked himself in a stall. Swallowing hard, he gingerly put his hand in his pocket.What the hell?Kaden jerked his fingers out. He couldn’t feel the sandwich at all, just the gooey blob and it was bigger. Had it eaten the sandwich? He took a deep breath, slid his hand in again and his fingers sank into soft, silky matter that flowed on and off his hand.Oh shit.
“It’s okay,” he whispered. “No one’s around.”Who am I talking to?
When he tried again to take it out, the blob shaped itself into a ball on his palm. Almost tennis ball size now with something dark in the middle of the blue. A tendril emerged and touched Kaden’s fingers one after the other before pulling back into the ball. Was it trying to communicate? He stroked it and it rippled, spread out on his palm, then balled up again.Ticklish?
“Can you hear me?” Kaden whispered.
One pale finger-like protrusion emerged to touch his middle finger. Kaden gulped.What the hell?Was that a yes?This little thing understood him? Kaden sucked in a breath. “If you understand me, touch my middle finger once.”
One touch.
“Yes.” Kaden almost sighed the word. “If you touch twice, that means no. Okay? One touch for yes.Two for no.”
His middle finger was touched again. Once.
“Do you want to go back in the tank?”
Two touches.No.
“Are you safe in the tank?”
No.
“Should I tell someone?”
