The Legacy Theory | #OnceUponNow

Two

When the two of them had scrambled down the hall as quickly as their legs could carry them, they found the workers in complete distress over where the two animals had gone — Minotaur X was in its pen, they were informed. Quinn was almost in tears over the fact that the polecat had escaped, and the fact that they were all standing there in the middle of the night didn't help matters one bit. He of course, volunteered to go find it while everyone else would try to tranquilize the lizard before it hurt anyone.

It was stupid that they would even have to go after the animals in the first place (in the middle of the night, no less) because Quinn was extremely confident that none of them would have escaped. There was a whole load of reasons why they shouldn't have escaped, from the passwords on the doors to the habitats that should have made the animals not want to escape. Quinn could have spent all night musing about those reasons, though he had his precious polecat to find. He raced down the halls with this sense of urgency, his eyes darting back and forth — he was waiting for someone to tell him where exactly the animal was, though he was perfectly content to follow the traces of dirt that it left behind.

A loud hiss alerted him of the weasel's presence a few minutes later. The poor thing — it must have been traumatized throughout its trip around the compound. (But then again, anyone or anything would be traumatized if they were thrown into a world of pure white metal.) He sprang back in surprise, inching closer and closer to the weasel hugged against the wall in fear. It would have been perfect if he were able to scoop it up like he would with ice cream and take it back to its pen — I'm afraid that wasn't the case, however.

Every time Quinn got close, the polecat scampered away a few more feet, as if taunting him to give chase. Of course, he was far too lazy to chase the animal in the middle of the night (and in his pajamas no less) and he resorted to calling for backup to tranquilize it.

"Can I get someone with a sedative down here, I'm in the east quad, by the main lab," he requested, stowing his phone away in his pocket. This was perhaps the only time pajamas with pockets would have come in handy.

It took only a minute for someone to come down the hall to meet him, a dart gun at hand and bags under his eyes — the man was older after all and Quinn assumed that old age came with eye bags. "Where's your polecat?"

"Right there," he replied, a thin finger pointing to the dark mass of fur pressed against the wall. "But be careful, he's quite the feisty one."

He let out a sort of gruff chortle, loading the gun. "Don't worry kid, that's why we're here. I'll tell you when he's knocked out."

And so Quinn was left to his own devices as the man — he wasn't too sure if he was security or some scientist — began hunting down the little weasel. There was some audible cursing as it snapped and hissed some more, but he wasn't too worried when the man had a dart gun on his side. Various doors were open, others closed. He usually stayed in his own little portion of the lab, but he knew enough to know that there were other scientists working for the company. Now that he thought about it, his boss' office was around this area as well. Interrupting whatever late-night work others were doing was unthinkable, and it wouldn't hurt to see if there was anyone in the office — it would be in his best interest to alert the people in charge of the current predicament. That was what Quinn told himself, though it was beyond unlikely that someone would be working at such an hour.

Besides, he convinced himself, he needed a quick water break and there was a little water dispenser with those cute paper cups inside — Quinn liked those more than he really liked to admit. He assumed there was no one inside anyways, but he was sadly mistaken. His reflexes were sharp enough to shut the door before anyone was the more knowledgeable. If he could remember correctly, his boss (better known as Janson Witt to the public) and another man were deep in conversation.

It was against all his morals, but curiosity won out. He pressed his ear against the door.

"Are they almost done with it," a gruff voice said — must have been the stranger that was with Janson.

"Of course of course," was Witt's reply, and he could imagine him waving his arm carelessly in the air. "Minotaur X is as fine as it gets, and we should be ready to give our young scientists the human gene tomorrow. Of course, they don't know it's a human gene — we're just going to tell them it's yet another serum boost its health. You know kids, always freaking out over a failed experiment."

Quinn's voice seemed to be stuck in his throat; there was no way that they could have been talking about someone else when the details were too coincidental. He should have known that this whole set-up was too good to be true, and the young man could do no better than to listen in horror.

"That sounds good. When do you think our little bio-weapon will be ready?" the other man asked curtly. "The next election for mayor is coming up and I don't want to take any chances."

"Does two weeks sound like a good time? We may need an extra day or two to clear the evidence and get rid of the boys, but that shouldn't be too hard."

The voice spoke again. "That's more than enough."

That was enough to make Quinn half ready to throw up and sprint away as fast as his legs could possibly carry him — he was feeling rather nauseous at the fact that he and Brooklyn were making a weapon without knowing it themselves. He felt his legs lurch to the side in a sort of drunken walk as he made his way back down the hall to see if the polecat was sedated yet. When he found out that it wasn't (the poor man had wasted quite a few darts trying to shoot the elusive weasel), he let out a sigh and took matters into his own hands by taking the dart gun and going after the polecat himself.

By some miracle, Quinn was able to land a shot on it on his first try, the animal struggling for a few minutes before it slumped onto the floor. He picked it up with a strained smile, cradling it as if it were a baby — it might as well have been a baby given how much he spoiled the fickle creature. It was a distraction at the very least as he made his way back to his lab, wondering how the heck he was going to break the news to Brooklyn, and in the middle of the night no less.

Brooklyn paid his partner little attention as he watched the Komodo Dragon sleepily explore its den, while Quinn locked up the polecat. (He figured they would have another fiasco like this in the next week or so.) "It's getting late," he said gruffly, marching back to his room with as much dignity as one could clad in their nightwear.

"That's a good idea, but I have something to tell you first," the other interrupted quickly as they turned the corner, his head whipping back in forth in case anyone listened. He dragged Brooklyn by his wrist and set him against the wall before talking. "Witt hasn't been totally honest with us."

"How so?" Brooklyn asked, his brow furrowing in concentration. "He probably has his reasons for everything."

He went on. "We're not making Minotaur X to help people. He wants a bio-weapon."