Atlantech: The Early Days Volume One

Chapter 27: Shock and Shame

THREE DAYS EARLIER

Justin didn't waste any time once he entered the lab, quickly slipped into his white coat, and then rushed over to the table to set up his equipment. There wasn't any sign of Chris yet but Justin didn't have time to worry about that now as he fired up the Bunsen burner then began carefully emptying the contents of one of the flasks containing a purple colored solution into a beaker. He then stopped and peered over his shoulder, surprised to see that Chris still had not shown up yet.

I guess Ol Sergeant Dickerson must have forgotten he was supposed to babysit me today; he snickered to himself as he placed a pair of protective goggles over his eyes. He then slipped on some rubber gloves, picked up the beaker giving it a quick little swish before setting it down over the fire, and observed as it began to bubble. Please don't boil over this time, he begged when all of a sudden he heard the lab door behind him slide open and Chris finally walked inside.

"Sorry I'm late," Chris apologized as he made his way over. "I see you've gotten an early start already, is everything okay so far? Oh and sorry to disappoint you if you were under the impression that I wasn't coming," he chuckled and gave Justin a light pat on the shoulder. "The elevator was jam packed so I had to wait a while."

"Yeah, no worries," Justin replied in a disgruntled manner as he kept his eyes the bubbling liquid. "I'm just prepping this chemical, that's all."

"Oh I see," Chris responded curiously while looking over his shoulder. "Interesting color by the way. So what does it do?"

Great, Justin rolled his eyes. Just what I need right now, questions. "It's uh; it's my own special recipe actually. A highly concentrated reactant that is capable of detecting even the tiniest molecules of another substance present in another element."

"I see," Chris stroked his chin. "Well uh that's interesting, so was this the same method you used in detecting the nitro from those remains?"

"Um, yeah of course," Justin answered fast. "That's exactly what I did. But uh, I don't want to bore you with my chemistry talk, so I brought you some reading material," he gestured with his hand toward a stack of magazines and books sitting at the end of the table.

"Really?" Chris raised a brow at him and then headed right over to check it out. "Well all I see is a lot of science related material here," he remarked as he began sorting through them. "So not much of a difference is it?" Then he suddenly spotted a particular looking magazine sticking out of the pile that immediately caught his attention. "Oh and what do we have here?" Chris announced smugly as he pulled it out and looked it over.

"Atlantis Pin-Up Girl Follies?" He smirked as he turned and waved the risqué magazine at Justin. "You mind telling me what a magazine full of half naked women has to do with science, Corporal?"

"Biology comes to mind," Justin gave a lopsided grin and shrugged. "But I honestly have no idea how that even got in there. But you might as well enjoy it while you can, Sergeant," he winked.

"Uh-huh," Chris narrowed his eyes at him. "A likely story I'll say, but if I didn't know any better I'd say you were trying to distract me, Corporal. Not to mention my wife would outright kill me if she caught me looking at this, so there is that."

"Well I won't tell if you won't," Justin replied knavishly. "I'm almost finished in here anyway."

"Good to know," Chris noted as he started flipping through the magazine out of mere curiosity. "I don't believe it but I actually recognize some of these faces," he mentioned. "A lot of these women are big stars in the film industry now, so these pictures must have been taken before they were famous."