Adam watched with little enthusiasm as the cityscape sped by the passenger side window of his brother’s cruiser.
“Did you hear me or are you still napping over there?” said Cody, snapping Adam out of a daze.
“Huh?”
“You seem more spaced out than usual over there, cadet,” joked Cody. “I was just saying that we might be getting close to sorting out the case.”
“Oh, ok…” Adam responded. “That’s good.”
“Yeah.”
There was a pause, the only sound being the hum from the vehicle’s engine in front of them.
Cody spoke up, breaking the momentary silence.
“Actually… I wanted you to look into something for me.”
Adam adjusted in his seat to try to wake himself more.
“Like what?”
“Well… we technically gained access to the databases of the school records as part of the case,” Cody began. “But I feel that the information we have collected is either incomplete or inaccurate…”
“Wait… you aren’t going to get in trouble for talking to me about this, are you?” Adam asked, putting up a hand to stop his brother.
“While this is relevant, this is off the books as far as you and I are concerned,” noted Cody. “While I trust my team, I trust my friends and family even more and there are just some things that aren’t seeming to add up.”
Adam sighed.
“So what do you want me to do then?”
Cody adjusted the grip on his steering wheel.
“I need you to look at the records in NAU’s labs for anything that seems amiss regarding past experiments,” he said. “Your field of study technically overlaps some of what they do there, so it wouldn’t technically be suspicious. What I’m looking for is to see what may or may not be missing from archives or storage.”
“That seems oddly specific indeed…” Adam commented carefully.
“As far as you and I are concerned in this conversation that never happened, that is all you need to know and may help at least solve what the motive was,” Cody stated. “Your biobots were very useful in getting to this point, but that’s as far as we’ve gotten.”
“Can I ‘phone a friend’ on this one?” Adam asked. “Lance would likely be able to plug into the system and find it faster.”
“If you can find a way to keep it low profile, go for it. Otherwise, you might need to go the old-fashioned way.”
“I take it that you're asking me this now because we are on the way to campus and want me to probably do it now?” speculated Adam.
Cody shrugged.
“Sooner rather than later, but today is ideal since you're going there anyway,” he stated. “After you finish whatever you're going there for of course.”
“I was going to borrow some things from the university library, and then Lance is going to pick me up for us to go elsewhere,” Adam said plainly.
“Perfect.”
Minutes later they had arrived at the monumental front steps to the university. Adam climbed out of the cruiser and grabbed his bag from the back seat. He waved goodbye to his brother and entered the facility. He took a deep breath as he marched toward his destination: the university library.
While they lived in a time where any and every bit of information could be found digitally, the core founders of New Atlantis University saw value in maintaining a physical library as well. Collections from around the world and various periods of history were preserved in many of their original forms within the walls of the university’s extensive library. Many were off-limits to being handled, but they could be viewed and studied otherwise at anyone’s leisure.
Adam entered the library and scanned for an available kiosk to make use of. Upon spotting one, he approached it and scanned his student I.D. to access the database. First, he attempted to find any public records of genetic studies he thought might be relevant. Several digital articles mentioning Dr. Mythos were the first results and he scrolled down through the titles to see if anything stood out to him. He knew that Lance’s searches had probably skimmed through all of these sorts of things, but he wanted to look for himself.
After a few minutes, he added the word ‘zeta’ to his keywords to try to refine the search. When none of the articles that came up seemed relevant, he refreshed the system and started over, deciding to focus on Dr. Mythos. He found an article from six years prior that mentioned several N.A.U. graduates who had been hired by Mythos Labs, the university’s employment fast-track system connecting them to the company. He made a note of their names just in case and continued his search.
When his search wasn’t getting him anywhere, he paused for a quick break. He peeked around the room to see how many other people were around.
“Desperate times and all that…” he said quietly to himself.
From his bag, he took out a small drive and clicked it into a free port on the computer. Lance had given it to him with a “simple code” that could help him search the university servers for more ‘off-limits’ information. He ran the program and a red warning popped up briefly, but was quickly removed from the screen by the program. In its place, a simple black and green dialogue box appeared, prompting an input. Adam referenced a note he had and typed in a search for the science lab records. L.A.S.S.I. had generated a string of search parameters that Lance had assumed would help them narrow down the specific records of the compound.
After a few minutes, a few branched directories appeared. He attempted to open them and then a new dialogue box appeared.
“The file(s) or directory is corrupted and unreadable.”
“That’s odd…” Adam mumbled. “I guess someone doesn’t want people to know about it… which means it was here at one point…”
He was in the process of writing down the file names and looked up just in time to see a somewhat familiar girl looking at him and heading in his direction. She had reddish hair with a silver streak and glasses. Trying not to be conspicuous, he quickly closed the program, opened a normal library search, and typed in the first thing that came to mind: Greek Mythology. He attempted to be surprised when she came up and spoke to him.
“Hey, are you almost done with that?” she asked. “I’ve been waiting to use one and it doesn’t seem like anyone is budging…”
“Oh, this thing?” Adam asked with a nervous grin plastered on his face. “Yeah, let me just get the location for this book…”
She glanced over his shoulder to see what he was looking for.
“A Collection of Greek Mythology, huh?” she noted. “I just read through that one myself. School project?”
Adam shrugged.
“Just for some light reading,” he responded as he stepped back from the console. “Both my general fascination with the topic and recent events I suppose.”
“Makes sense,” the girl said. “I borrowed it for a personal project myself. Trying to write some articles for The Daily Hermes, on top of some other things.”
“That’s why you seemed familiar!” Adam commented. “Sylvia Wynters, right?”
“Yes,” Sylvia confirmed. “And you’re Adam Chase.”
“Yeah… that’s me,” Adam said sheepishly. “Lucky guess?”
“Not entirely, considering the events at the expo last year,” she answered.
“You and your friend, Lance Shepherd, made quite the headlines.”
“Oh.. is that so…? That whole fiasco?” he asked dismissively. “I almost forgot about it myself.”
“How could anyone forget about that?”
“You’d be surprised about what I have forgotten,” Adam replied with a goofy smile as he stepped toward one of the many aisles of bookshelves. “Sometimes I forget what I ate for breakfast.”
“Well, do you mind if I test that theory anyway?” Sylvia pressed, her need to use the kiosk suddenly unimportant to her.
“Ask away I guess…” shrugged Adam. “Hope you don’t mind walking so I can look for this book.”
Sylvia looked at the guides marking the ends of each shelf and pointed in a different direction.
“The book you want is on that side of the library,” she stated casually.
“Oh, right…” Adam confirmed after he checked the guide himself.
“There has been an increase in activity from the Ouroboros since that event,” Sylvia commented as they walked across the library floor.
“Any idea what that might be related to?”
Adam shook his head.
“I'm just an average student who works at his family’s coffee shop. Not really much more to say beyond that… I'm not that interesting.”
“Funny,” noted Sylvia with a sly grin. “Uninteresting people generally don't have to say that. I think you have something you're trying to hide…”
Adam glanced up at the shelves and spotted the title he was searching for. Attempting to ignore the accusation, he reached for it.
“Hey look, here it is…” he started.
Suddenly a series of screams and loud crashes echoed through the library that drew everyone's attention. Adam and Sylvia followed a group of people who had quickly moved to investigate when a large snarling form padded around a corner down the hall. Sniffing the air around it, the familiar form of a three-headed dog-like creature suddenly perked in the direction of the library.
“Uh-oh…” Adam groaned to himself.
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