Chromium

8.3

Unedited/First draft

Reyes didn't seem to like her explanation.

"Listen, Dia, I want you to understand..."

"No, you listen." She heard enough lies in the last three days and was fast losing the little patience she had left. "I know we have a job to do. So, let's cut the crap and let's do it."

"If that's what you want." He looked disappointed, but she didn't waver.

"It is." She said, her tone final.

Good going, Dia. So much for playing smart. The idea was to move according to Omen's plan and get close to Reyes. Useless to say it didn't go well so far. Well, at least my reaction was "natural."

"What do you know about the target?" Reyes asked. He sounded very professional, a bit like her old instructor.

"Nothing except he is a scientist, and the Umbra wants him for some reason."

"Go on." He said, waving his hand.

"That's all. I know he is somewhere on the planet, but I don't know his name, how old he is or how he looks like." She shrugged. "As I said, I know nothing."

"Well, I think I can shed some light on it." He said before starting to tinker with his handheld. "Here. That's your new PDA. I already sent his file."

Dia took the handheld and immediately noticed this report came directly from the "Guardian corps", the Empire's police.

Well, it's not that strange. If what Omen said is true and they actually breached the Network, retrieving information from the cops should have been a piece of cake.

"We don't know much about him, but I can say his name is Malcolm Gibbson, 52 years old. Born in Ladromia, Gibson graduated in the imperial science academy when he was just nineteen. Then he worked as a teacher for a while, but he wasn't very good at it."

"Well, I can see why. According to his profile, he doesn't play well with others."

"True. That's why a couple of years later he started working as a researcher for a private project on Lamuna III."

"It didn't go well."

"No, it didn't. He was paranoid, afraid the others could steal his research."

Paranoid and antisocial, eh? It will be a pleasure to have to deal with him. She groaned. Damn, I'm already starting to hate this mission.

"I see he is a xenobiologist."

"Right. Many of his colleagues describe him as brilliant but unsociable, opinionated and amoral."

"Amoral?"

"That's mainly because of his academic publications in which he stated and I quote: the biological difference between humans and animals makes the utilization of test animals ineffective and inadequate. In many of his articles, he strongly hinted that the current regulations had no reason to exist and that ethics is just an outdated concept, the biggest obstacle hindering the scientific research and human evolution."

Dia paled, realizing what that meant.

"He wanted to use humans guinea pigs." She whispered.

Reyes nodded. "To a lesser extent, picking them among criminals and dissidents, but mostly, he wanted to get his hands on the non-citizens living on the fringe worlds."

"He didn't succeed." She knew he didn't. She would know it otherwise.

"No, he didn't. As you well know, according to the law human trials are strictly regulated in the empire. But that's not why his idea caused a public outcry. Actually, there are many scientists that think like him and probably a lot of the people in the core worlds would gladly vote a law like that."