Defective

Prologue

Slippery from the steady rain splattering the metal, her hand slipped off the pole she used to steady her balance. Pulling the earbuds from her ears, she pocketed the cord and removed the katana sheath hilt from insides the folds of the black umbrella rested beside her. Water dripped from her red hair as she tied it into two long and curly pigtails with black ribbon. She wiped the rain from her eyelashes, gaze sliding up to stare at the window shielded by blinds. 

The man was watching her vigilantly. She strode away from the light of the street lamp into the shadows of the night. Her shoes clacked on the sidewalk and splashed in a puddle. 

His two fingers parted slats of his mini blind, eyes darting fervently back and forth. The man watched rain spit on streets vacant of any living presence. Weak yellow light from streetlamps dotted the sidewalk on both sides of the main road. Despite the intent to be comforting, he only felt his fear grow each rapid breath he made. He couldn't see the girl anymore. 

On the other end of his phone line a female voice droned nonsense into his ear, hoping he would end the call himself.

"Hello? Yes, I would like to speak with the head adviser. My relations with him? He's my colleague."  

The woman didn't seem convinced, and he listened to fingers tapping on a computer keyboard. 

"Look, tell him it's about the specimen. He'll answer then."

His mini blind snapped closed as he jerked back and hastened into a smaller room. Alcohol bottles smacked his leather shoes, clattered along the littered floor, and eventually rolled to a stop when they bumped the pin-striped wallpaper covered walls. In the center of the mess a typewriter rested beside stacks of paper in manila folders on a wooden, office desk ruined by age. Crumpled aluminum wrappers overlaid the knobby surface, which his hands easily brushed onto the floor to be company for the massive dust animals. The man used his shoulder to press the plastic cell phone against his ear as a familiar male voice answered on the line; he recognized it to be the man he knew from long ago. 

"What? Data recorded the specimen to be in France before our tracers were cut, but we've known that for months now."

Papers scattered in all directions as he scrambled through his folders, hands holding several different documents he tucked inside an empty, coffee stained portfolio. A long, drawn sigh from the phone caused him to pause, fingers trembling at the silence. For a moment he thought the other man had declared the conversation over. He gulped down the lump formed in his throat, adam's apple bobbing.

"They found out where I was hiding. I need help, if they discover the location of The Water Life Experiment everything we worked for will be finished."

Waiting for a response, the man raked his dirty hands through disheveled and oily swamp brown hair. Eyes darting nervously to the window, he resumed hoarding the massive collections of information, stashed hidden away inside his desk. A few papers stuck in his type-writer were torn out, ink wet and splotchy. When he finally heard another annoyed sigh from his colleague, he knew his fate was sealed neatly like a letter carefully crafted for a lover.

"I just need something for them to get off my trail, please, I helped you towards our dream since the Third World."

All his desperate pleas that were prepared in case of an emergency faded, lost. Months had wasted since the team kicked him off after failing to capture the specimen; the friendship he and his colleague created years ago no longer existed. His firm grasp crumpled one of thousands of papers before being placed onto top the folder stack he subconsciously built. Scratching the stubble growing on his chin, the man ran for his closet, whipping open the door. Mountains of scrolls and science materials tumbled to the ground, glass vials cracking, creating spider web fractures.