The Glade and Its Glitch: Book 2 Allies or Enemies

Chapter 15

 Cassandra held a tray full of vials. Black liquid with flecks of orange sloshed around inside. Of course, the liquid was really more of a sludge. It sloshed around but the liquid was quite thick. As Cassandra sat the tray down on a table, the black muck began to settle.

"Another failure, love," she said as Devin walked into the room. The woman turned and walked over to her husband, "I can't believe nothing is working."

"Me either Cass," Devin rested his chin on Cassandra's head. "But we'll figure it out, Glitch will be victorious."

Cassandra groaned, "I can't believe we're following a child." She walked back over to the tables. The sludge in the vials had settled to the bottom, but Cassandra began to lift them off the tray. The contents were disturbed again as she put the vials into a small case.

Devin walked over and began to help his wife. Neither spoke as they concentrated, but moving the vials was fairly simple. All the pair had to do was slide the tubes into their slots in a chilled box. Once they finished, a small girl walked in.

She had her hair pulled back in two long light brown pigtails. Smoothing down the front of her yellow and black T-shirt, she walked over to the couple. "We just received a transmission from Glitch. He says the bounty hunter is on his way."

"Good girl Quake," Cassandra said, she picked up the box and pushed it into the younger girl's arms.

Bending over because of the weight, Quake carried the box over to a shelf. Along the shelf, there were many other boxes similar to the one the girl carried. "No luck I presume?"

"Not yet. But we're getting there," Devin assured her. "Once we're able to really test these things," he clapped a hand on one of the boxes, "We'll be ready."

"Come on Quake," Cassandra walked over to the other two people in the room, "Let's go meet our bounty hunter. I'll be fine on my own love." She and Devin shared a kiss before she led Quake out of the room.

Devin walked back to the table and pulled out a notebook. He flipped to the nearest blank page. As he looked through the book, he looked over his previous notes. They ranged from positive to negative, though the negatives outweighed the positives.

'Today was a complete failure. The solution didn't work, we failed again. These losses are getting worse and worse. We've been set back a few weeks now, and Glitch is getting impatient. Cass and I are going to try and pulverize the stone now. Perhaps that will get us closer to making it a liquid.'

That entry was dated almost exactly eight months before today. Devin smiled at how far he and his wife had come. The next entry Devin found was written in neat loopy handwriting. Cassandra's.

'Devin and I succeeded today. We have finally turned the rock into a liquid. I was beginning to lose hope, I know Glitch was too. But we did it! We only managed to get one vial but one is enough. Soon we can make more. Then we'll have to contact Glitch. We can't perfect the experiment if we aren't able to test it. Quake has been sent out to find some live subjects for us to practice on. Fingers crossed it works.'

Devin smiled as he remembered the first attempt that worked. Cassandra had jumped up and down and hugged him so hard. That had happened five months ago. Sadly, the rats Quake had gotten never survived. Devin tried to use a bigger live subject but Quake had protested. Quake was too soft for this type of job. The next entry was written by Devin again and it took place only a couple of months earlier.

'We need bigger subjects. The injections aren't working. They're too dangerous and are killing everything we test. We are going to have to figure out a way to dilute the substance in order to not kill all our subjects. However, if we make it too diluted the injection won't work. But we've made a lot of progress over the last few weeks. Not as much as we'd like, but still, progress is progress.'

The next page was blank. Devin pulled out a pen and began to write.

'We created a new serum to test today. So far we haven't tested any. Cassandra and I requested that Glitch give us some new subjects to test on. As of the moment, I'm writing this Cassandra and Quake have headed down to meet a bounty hunter Glitch has sent us. Hopefully, he should be able to get us some human test subjects. Quake was able to make our holding area for any human subjects we obtain. Once we get them, the testing will begin. Whatever elemental masters we find, won't be that powerful for long.'