OUTCAST Ops: The Poseidon Initiative

FORTY-THREE

Boredom and familiarity bred complacency. It was something with which the members of OUTCAST were all too familiar. After hours of standing watch over the same confined space, of seeing the same things over and over again, repeating the same actions, one could easily let their guard down.

But as Stephen Shah looked out the window again, he never would have guessed that this truth applied to scientists as well.

Jasmijn checked the readout on a mass spectrometer and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Almost time for the next phase in the experimental antidote development. More coffee would be good, though. She glanced over at the coffee machine where Dante was brewing another batch. First prep the solution. She was nearly ready to try an intermediate stage on a test subject, another lab rat. This time, though, she would infect the rat by injection rather than aerosol cloud, to see if that made a difference. She glanced at the spectrometer again. A couple of more minutes.

She opened the STX sample vault, reminding herself that only two of the precious vials remained. After the terrorists stole her vat supply, these tiny vials were all she had left with which to experiment in order to create an STX antidote. She pulled one of the clear glass tubes from its secure holder and lay it on the lab bench. She did a syringe pull, emptying the contents of the deadly neurotoxin into the hypodermic. Then she moved to the rat cage and withdrew one of the lab specimens. It wiggled in her hand and she clamped down on it. She walked it over to the lab bench where the STX hypo waited.

Picking up the syringe, she clutched the rat tightly in her gloved right hand. It was a procedure she’d done literally hundreds of times before. The muscles in her hands knew what to do. She flipped the rat onto its belly and in slid the thumb of her other hand up the syringe. The rat kicked its hind legs once and she squeezed it gently, cooing at it to calm down, this will all be over in a second. When it stopped, she brought the needle close to the animal’s skin.

The room was quiet, and she concentrated on the task before her while listening to the clock tick on the wall. It reminded her of the depressing deadline she faced. Only a few hours until more innocent people died, unless she could make this work…She depressed the plunger on the syringe.

“Coffee’s ready!”

Whether from shock or coincidence, the rat squirmed at the sound of Dante’s voice, struggling mightily in Jasmijn’s hand. It flopped over to one side as Jasmijn glanced over for a split second at Dante. When she looked back down she was horrified to see the needle plowing through the thin latex of the glove into the palm of her hand.

She gave a little yelp of surprise on feeling the prick of the needle penetrating her skin and jumped, shaking her hand as if she could undo the needle stab. The rat went flying onto a lab bench and the coffee pot crashed to the floor as Dante drew his weapon, thinking that some kind of enemy tactic was playing out. Naomi and Stephen also raised their guns, heads on a swivel as they looked around for threats.

All three OUTCAST operators converged on Jasmijn, slowly circling her while she stared at her open palm. The syringe lay on the floor. Jasmijn’s mouth was slightly open, her eyes wide as she gaped at a tiny speck of blood that bloomed in the center of her left hand. Meanwhile, the rat scrabbled away on the lab bench.

“Do we need to get the rat? Is it contaminated?” Naomi asked.

“N-no.” Jasmijn stuttered, now holding her hand upside down and squeezing it. “I’m contaminated. I—” She couldn’t finish her sentence.

“You stuck yourself?” Stephen eyeballed the syringe on the floor. No fluid seemed to be leaking from it.

“Yes!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

“What can we do?” This from Dante.

No one said anything. At length, Stephen asked, “What’s the status of the antidote?”

She shook her head. “Not ready! This injection for the rat was supposed to be an intermediate step to clarify something by using injection rather than aerosol as the delivery method.”

The trio of operators stared at her, stymied. There was not a single person on the planet who could help her now, except possibly herself. Worse, from past STX exposure cases they knew that without a successful antidote she only had about ten minutes to live.

Just then Stephen’s earbud crackled with Danielle’s voice. “Situation developing in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. Tanner and Liam on scene. Small-scale STX attack confirmed. President Carmichael’s yacht as yet unharmed. Update only, no action required. Requesting Euro sitrep, over.”

Shah turned away from Jasmijn and spoke softly into his transmitter. He didn’t want his reply distracting her at this crucial moment — which may be one of her last.” Copy that, home base. Internal situation developing here, do not require assistance as of yet. Will report back, over.” It felt strange for him to say they didn’t need any help when a key member of their team was dying, but the sad truth was that no assistance could be provided for Jasmijn.

Dante implored the scientist with his eyes.” Dr. Rotmensen. You’ve got to try it anyway. There’s no other way.”

“You’re right.” She bent down to pick up the syringe but Naomi stopped her. “Doctor. Please. We can take care of that for you. Focus on administering yourself the antidote. Anything at all you can tell us to do — anything — just tell us and we’ll do it.”

“Okay.” Jasmijn moved to the spectrometer and eyed the readout. She took a deep but shaky breath. “I can feel it,” she said. “The STX taking effect.”

“Is your dose of antidote as ready as it can be?” Stephen asked.

The scientist shook her head, a gesture of helplessness. “No. But it’s already becoming harder to breathe. Legs feel wobbly…” She sat on a lab stool in front of her workstation. “I need to make it now and take it, while my symptoms are still manageable. Looks like injecting it rather than breathing it in didn’t slow the onset.”

“What can we do to help?” Naomi inquired.

She instructed the OUTCAST team on what equipment to gather in order to prepare the antidote shot. They moved efficiently and in three more minutes the dose was ready.

Dante handed Jasmijn the hypodermic and she took it, but her hand was shaking so badly that she couldn’t hold it steady.

“Let me give you the shot,” Naomi offered, taking the syringe.

Jasmijn bared her shoulder to her.

Naomi plunged the needle into her skin.