Nyx (Complete✅)

Chapter 30

Ruth watched the monitors. Beth and her friend had been absent for several hours, and she wondered when they would return. It was hard. Ruth had no idea if the cause of Beth's disappearance was because of teleportation or something else. Without knowing what caused it, she had no way of studying it further. Their investigations were at a standstill.

For all she knew, the disappearance could have simply been a malfunction with the equipment, caused by radiation, which in turn was caused by the serum they'd injected into Beth. The sheer amount of endless possibilities gave her a headache, and she turned away from the monitor. There was still someone in Beth's room, but they'd done nothing but sit there the whole time.

Ruth was still intrigued by the reason for the extra person. There were no records of them on the ship's logs, and the readings they gave out were slightly different than average. It opened up the possibility that Beth had brought someone back from wherever she'd been going to. Whether that place was in the past, future, or somewhere else entirely, was still a mystery.

She'd been almost certain that the serum had worked, but she was having doubts. There was no way of knowing for sure without blowing their cover and risking everything they'd worked to build. Hacking the ship's camera system would raise all sorts of red flags, and that hack would surely be traced back to the very laboratory that she was sitting in. Hacking pretty much anything besides what they'd already hacked would most likely result in their downfall. Nothing could happen until they found out what was really happening in Beth's room, but if they found out what was happening, they would get found and arrested.

They could always take the risk of administering the serum before knowing for sure if it was safe or not, but it could backfire terribly. Beth was unique. She had a condition called 'Alexandria's Genesis.' It was the reason she had purple eyes. Hair didn't grow anywhere on her body except for her head, she had a superior immune system, and despite not having a menstrual period, she could still give birth. She was lucky. Not many people had the condition, and there were none on the ship, making her the last human with it. Her unique body might have been the cause of her having survived the injections. There was no way of knowing without running more tests on Beth herself, but that had been made impossible.

She tried not to blame Aaron and her husband for making Beth inaccessible, but it was hard. They had gotten themselves caught, and to make matters worse, they'd confessed everything. Well, almost everything. They hadn't mentioned the secret lab or the fact that more of the Protectors of Earth had survived. They still had some traction, but not much.

If only she was able to monitor Beth in some way, then everything would be fine. Then she realized, Miss Cane was posing as a nurse on the ship. She would be able to ask Beth into the hospital wing without her suspicion, and Ruth could sneak in and run a few tests. They would be in and out before any of the real doctors came back. It would be so easy.

When she worked out the finer details of her plan, she radioed Miss Cane and told her all about it. They would plant a dormant and curable virus in someone's food. When the person got sick, it would spread like wildfire. The sickness had the same symptoms as a very deadly illness, and the doctors would have to work overtime to deal with all the complaints. When they were sure that every doctor was away on a sickness call, they would request that Beth is sent to the hospital wing immediately. They would do the tests, take a few blood and spinal fluid samples, then be gone before anyone got suspicious. Miss Cane, although a bit apprehensive at first, eventually agreed. They told the others the plan over the private chat server. They also agreed. Aaron was especially supportive, and he was glad that they'd found a way to get to Beth without blowing their cover.

The monitor's alert beeped almost as soon as she closed the chat server. Beth and the other person, a male from the looks of the readings, had returned from wherever they'd gone.

Ruth told Miss Cane to start spreading the illness as soon as she was ready. Ruth didn't want to wait any longer. She didn't know what was waiting for them on Nyx. No one did. Anything could happen, and the human race had so much more of a possibility to survive if they were enhanced. Superior speed, to run away from predators, and to catch prey. Superior vision to detect predators in the first place. Other abilities that were completely unknown. Better sight, smell, and hearing, all put together to form the ultimate survival machine. Of course, over the years, the abilities would fizzle out, getting less and less active as the generations progressed. She predicted that, in a hundred years time, each human would only have one or two enhanced abilities, rather than tens or hundreds. But by then, the abilities would hardly be needed. The humans would have progressed enough to be without special powers. They wouldn't be as advanced as they had been on Earth, but they wouldn't need the abilities that the serum provided.

Beth and the mysterious person talked for a good long while, and when they were done, Beth and the unknown man left her quarters. Only a short time after this happened, Ruth got a call that the virus had been planted in one of the food pots in the kitchen. Not everyone would get it that way, and it would seem less suspicious. It would seem more like an actual virus rather than something that had been purposefully put into, say, a food pot. It would take longer for the disease to spread, but like everything they did, they took the less risky path.

Ruth didn't have a scan for the whole ship, so she didn't know where Beth had gone, so she settled for just watching the man they'd left in her room. He only moved every once in a while, and when he did, he didn't go far. He never left the room. He never even went into the bathroom. There was definitely something strange about him.

Ruth would try to get a glance into Beth's room. Mayhaps when she escorted Beth back after her 'doctor's appointment.' She wanted to see who or what was living in Beth's room, and if it was a what, she wanted to study it.

After a while, the lunch bell rang. Ruth knew that it would only be a short time before the illness spread throughout the ship. She left the lab, got into the elevator, and headed to the lunch room.

When she arrived, she searched the room for Beth, and it wasn't long before she located her. She was sitting with a boy that looked to be the same age as her. A love interest, perhaps? Ruth suspected him to be the unknown male that Beth had been within her room.

Ruth stayed near the door, watching Beth for most of the lunch hour. When a good portion of the people were gone, a commotion started in the corner of the room. Someone was throwing up. Three people were, actually. An older member of the group stood by helplessly, trying to remedy the ill people. Ruth could see a swirl of blood in some of the barf, which was all a dull gray color, like the food they always ate. After some time, in which Beth and her friend rushed over to help the ailed group, they stopped throwing up but continued coughing. The coughing produced a surprising amount of blood.

She was honestly surprised that the sickness had taken hold so quickly, and she left the room as soon as she'd seen what she needed to see. She didn't want to contract the illness. She needed to stay healthy if she was to correctly perform her duties. She had a mission, and that was to help the human race survive. She wouldn't let a small stomach flu stop her if she had anything to say about it.

Ruth retreated back to the lab. On the way, she saw several other people, doubled over in the hallway, practically swimming in a pool of their own barf. Only one of them was already at the stage of coughing up blood. She avoided them as much as possible, but by the time she reached the elevator, she had a small coating of gray goop on the bottom of her shoes. She hoped that the amount of exposure that she'd had wasn't enough to get her infected.