S5 Episode Fifteen: "Glass Cage"

It was as if the encounter from the previous week had broken through to something within the monster the city had labeled Basilisk… or rather, the someone formerly known as Dr. Alexandra Basil. 

The attacks had reduced, though not entirely gone away. 

Midas and Knight had left the door open for their assistance if needed, but largely left Adam and Lance to their work. 

“Fifteen percent fewer sightings of Basilisk in the last week,” O.R.A.C.L.E. announced. 

“Though my analysis indicates she is still slowly moving across the city toward Mythos Labs.” 

“She is fighting back, but can't fully resist…” Lance guessed. 

“We need to try to capture her again.” 

“Are you saying that with your chest over there?” Adam asked. 

“You're lucky she didn't break all of your ribs last time we encountered her!” 

Lance winced at the memory, his body still recovering from the punishment of trying to get in the huge reptilian-hybrid's way. 

“Doesn't change anything.” 

Adam shook his head with a sigh. 

“Do we call in backup again?” 

“Yes and no. Midas Corp has a… proprietary electric field generation device used for suspending certain more volatile substances. I think it could be useful here. If Mr. Midas will allow us to ‘borrow’ one of the units, we could repurpose it to capture Basilisk and perhaps contain her.” 

“Sounds too easy,” Adam suggested. 

“That's all I can think of short of lowering the temperature of an area long enough to make her lethargic… and I don't even know how effective that could be if she is in the service tunnels,” Lance said with a shrug. 

“Requisition request sent,” O.R.A.C.L.E. chimed in. 

“Tabling the environmental temperature regulation as a backup plan.” 

“Are we building a comic-book-esk freeze ray for that one or something?” Adam asked with a tired laugh. 

“You never know…” 

----

The next night they were out on the hunt to try to pinpoint Basilisk's exact location once more. Midas had not only expedited their request, but provided them an alternative that would better suit their specific need. 

“You being the resident Midas Corp employee, remind me what a company like Midas Corp would need an ‘electrified webbing launch mechanism’ for?” Adam asked. 

“Ironically I have an NDA with my employment there…” Lance suggested. 

“But if one were to hypothetically have one of these, they would hypothetically be for an emergency containment system."

"For what?"

"Imagine a thirty-ton transformer decides today's a good day to explode. You don't send a guy with a rope."

"So you throw a giant electrified net at it?"

"That's the simplified version.”

“And the hypothetical detailed version?” 

“The engineers may or may not have spent an alarming amount of time wondering what would happen if they shot it at a dinosaur.” 

“That's reassuring…” Adam mused. 

“Speaking of dinosaurs… I think I found her.”

“Are you certain?” 

A low growl sounded from Adam's end of the line. 

“Yup… pretty sure…” 

“I'm on my way to your position. Keep your distance until I get there.” 

“That may be… difficult!”

Lance arrived on scene just as Basilisk was ready to pounce on Adam. Several crumpled dumpsters, broken windows, and flattened fire escapes suggested he had been evading her since he encountered her. 

“Dr. Alexandra Basil! We are here to help you!” Lance called out. 

The creature Basilisk froze momentarily in recognition of the name and turned toward Lance. The hesitation was just long enough for Adam to aim the launcher that had been building a charge. He fired it. 

What appeared to be a spray of polymer wires spread out in a spiraling pattern and wrapped around his target with dizzying speed. A series of nodes on alternating segments released their electrical load, shocking the reptilian woman. A guttural, inhuman screech came from her as she fell. She twitched twice and lay still. 

“That was… surprisingly effective…” Adam said between labored breaths. 

“Can we keep it?” 

“I'll see about getting the schematics…” Lance said. 

“This one is technically a loaner.” 

A large, unmarked box truck rumbled up by the street entrance, stopping so that the box blocked the alleyway. An older man stepped out from the cab and casually walked to where the unconscious Basilisk lay. 

“Someone call for a pickup?” asked Knight with a grin as he tipped his ball cap. 

He looked over the reptilian with a grimace.

“Let's get her loaded up…” 

They injected her with a dose of tranquilizers that O.R.A.C.L.E. had sorted a dosage for and used a hidden lift on the side of the truck to load her into the box where a specially made cage had been secured. 

Half an hour later they were in a secured warehouse owned by Midas that was not far from their hidden base, readying for when Alexandra Basil awoke. Lance and Adam stayed in their full gear while Knight simply kept his hat and a pair of tinted glasses on.

“She should be waking up any moment now,” Adam noted. 

“But why am I worried that we are going to end up with more questions than answers?” 

“This is the way things are in this business,” Knight said. 

He had sat down in a chair set several feet away from the heavy cage, relaxing as best he could. 

“You solve one mystery just for two more to pop up branching from the first like a hydra…” 

“Do you have experience with hydras, Mr. Knight?” asked Lance. 

Knight turned with a glance that suggested an answer, but a low groan turned their attention to the cage where the scaly form stirred. 

The Basilisk slowly moved, twisting to assess her surroundings. She perked up, but the tranquilizer still had its grasp on her and she fumbled in rising. 

“Where… are… we…?” she rasped. 

“Somewhere safe for now…” Lance said. 

“Do you remember your name?” 

The reptilian woman turned to him and narrowed her eyes, trying to focus. 

“Alex…andra. Alexandra Basil…” she said. 

“Who… are you?” 

“People trying to help,” Adam said. 

“What else do you remember?” 

“I remember… enough…” Alexandra said, her voice beginning to come clearer, but still maintaining the bestial quality to it.

“This… instinct… comes and goes, and… my memory gets hazier every time… and I remember less.” 

The warehouse fell absolutely silent, save for the sound of the ocean nearby. 

“After the initial metamorphosis settled…” she paused, the memory seeming to both elude her and disgust her at the same time. 

“I could think, I could reason… the predatory instincts were there but not as prevelant…” 

She swallowed.

“Then there came gaps in my memory… hours, then days at a time…” 

She looked across the three of them, her yellow eyes holding both a human quality and and reptilian at the same time. 

“Who did this to you?” Adam asked hesitantly. 

“You seem rather informed… I'm sure you already know…” 

“Mythos…” Lance stated as he crossed his arms. 

Alexandra nodded. 

“We were supposed to be researching adaptive regenerative reconstruction. The idea was to restore damaged tissue, regenerate organs, reverse catastrophic injuries… that sort of thing.“ 

She paused. 

“Medical miracles?” Knight asked.

“At least, that was the official story…” 

She gave a depressive sigh. 

“There were other projects I was vaguely aware of before being assigned to projects in Zeta lab… but by the time I learned what else was really going on it was too late….” 

She looked at Lance. 

“Were you the ones who broke in? Set off the fire alarms?” 

“Possibly.” 

She nodded. 

“Around that time, after the incident, there was pressure to increase output and results for these projects… and my research was reprioritized.” 

“Pressure from who?” Adam asked. 

“I don't know… whoever the primary benefactor of the project was,” she said with a shrug, an odd gesture for her form. 

“There's always a benefactor…” Knight mumbled. 

Alexandra continued. 

“I discovered what Mythos was really working on… it wasn't about healing people… it was about building a weapon, a living weapon…” 

She closed her eyes. 

“I went to confront him… I had a sample of the latest formula and files regarding the project… he took the vial and turned it on me, trying to stop me…” 

A humorless smile, which had more the visage of bared teeth on her came to her face. 

“I thought I was helping people… Then he made me an unwilling test subject for my own work… the rest is a bit hard to remember at this point.” 

Lance stepped forward. 

“Is there a way to reverse the effects? Or at least slow them down?” 

Alexandra thought for a moment, as if the process was a challenge. 

"There was a failsafe..."

Alexandra pressed a clawed hand against her head.

"Something designed to counter the mutation if the trials went wrong."

She squeezed her eyes shut.

"I helped design it... but I can't remember the formula.”

Adam and Lance looked at each other. Knight spoke up between them. 

“I know that look… you're planning to break in to Mythos Labs, aren't you?” 

Lance turned to Knight. 

“Are you offering to help?” 

“Absolutely not. I'm getting too old for this, at least doing things like breaking into a laboratory,” he said as he painstakingly rose from his chair. 

“But I know that won't stop the two of you.” 

He glanced at Alexandra Basil in the cage as she lowered herself against the rear of the cage. 

“It sleeps now… sometimes…” she said, almost in a whisper. 

Her yellow eyes met Lance's.

“But I can feel it wanting to emerge again…” 

Lance looked at her for a long moment: not at Basilisk, but Dr. Alexandra Basil. She was a victim, a scientist… a person running out of time before something within her took over.

He turned back to Knight and Adam. 

“We need to get in there and look for that serum.” 

“Yeah,” Adam replied without hesitation. 

No jokes, no sarcastic comments, only certainty. 

Somewhere in Mythos Labs, there had to be a cure… because if not… 

They didn't know what would come next.