What Keeps Our Hearts Beating

Chapter 12

"And why is he helping us again?"

Raiph was getting paranoid as Brasen was out of his bounds and helping Dr. Weber mix some of the blood together for a diagnosis test. Raiph was pushed to the sides like he was some rift raft in the laboratory.

"Because, we have a deal," Weber said, having agreed to Brasen's request earlier that Tuesday morning. In fact, Weber had shut down the testing that day to see if Brasen would live up to his end of the bargain and in fact he went straight to work, just like they had before the poisoning incident that changed the course of their friendship and relationship.

"Why don't you get the Bunsen burner ready," Brasen quipped to his former best friend, a menial task for assistants and he laughed internally as Raiph humphed and went out of the room to get the equipment.

"I don't think young Raiph is too happy about our arrangement," Dr. Weber added solemnly, as he helped hold up one of the test vials to put on the glass strip of the telescope.

"I got over it," Brasen said curtly. "I'm sure he will be back in the driver's seat once my father is freed."

"Yes. When you initially interned with me, how much of it had to do with learning or was it primarily to spy on the lab for your father?"

Brasen dropped too many drops onto the telescope causing it to blur and smudge. He raised his goggles. "So you knew about that."

"I figured that was part of the reason why you were poisoned. Little did you know you were going to be a more valuable weapon than the virus you were trying to intercept for your father."

Brasen nodded, recalling the Mirage Virus that his father had been hired to intercept for a wealthy mogul overseas. Once Brasen realized the complications of that virus, he confided in his father who told the mogul that the deal was off. Later that week, Brasen was poisoned in his sleep in the hospital. He assumed it was the mogul who had hired someone to attack Brasen and get back at his father but the security cameras had only seen the outline of a woman's dress. Who that woman was, if it even was that woman, was anyone's guess. But his father was arrested that same day for the attempted poisoning of his son, called in by the mogul himself Heir Golub, who said he had heard a fight between father and son and that the son would not get the virus for his father no matter the consequences.

"I learned a lot from you Weber," he honestly said, as he wiped the glass plate and put it back under the telescope. "I just didn't realize how much I would have changed."

"We all change, my boy," Weber admitted sadly. "I started out in this field to help people too. But just like all the great inventions in history, eventually people will find a way to militarize it. The airplane, the atom. If it wasn't me it would have been someone else. At least here I can protect you."

"Protect me!" he whirled to face his former mentor, grabbing his shirt collar in his grasp. "Lie to yourself all you want to sleep better at night, but you are not protecting me by keeping me here. You should have let me run after the fire when you had the chance and saved both of our consciences."

"Watch yourself," Weber snarled, his finger resting on his wristwatch that would signal for the guards to come in. "One press of this button and our agreement is off.

Just then the door swung open and in tottered Raiph wobbling with the Bunsen burner. "Where should I put this?" He asked, and then stopped short when he saw the confrontation in front of him.

"Dr. Weber should I get the guards!" Raiph shouted.

"No need," Weber said, smiling sadistically at Brasen, like it was another test. That he was seeing how easy it would be to break him and do his bidding. "Brasen was just helping to wipe some water off my collar, weren't you Brasen?"

Brasen felt his hands release from the collar and nodded obediently to his mentor. "Yes, it's much better now."

"Address me as Dr. Weber." Weber insisted, fixing his collar and eyeing his pupil carefully.

"Yes, Dr. Weber," Brasen added that name with forceful indignation, but then wiped the beads of sweat from his brow as Raiph set up the Bunsen burner beside him. Brasen couldn't believe his anger had almost destroyed his hopes and chances for saving his father.

"Are you ok?"

Brasen was caught off guard by that question coming from the voice he had known so well. It felt like a dagger stabbing him in the back.

"You have no right to ask me that," Brasen said, his words alarmingly cold; the first words he had addressed toward his former best friend in 3 months. "You should have asked me that after the fire."

"Before or after you tried to kill me. I was your friend Brasen. You should have come to me."

"And then you would have went to Weber." He whispered fiercely, setting up the vile to spin in the Bunsen burner. "If only you could see what we are creating is..."

He cut himself short as Weber darted into the room, his hand menacingly on the button on his wristwatch, daring him to continue that sentence.

"What?" Raiph asked.

"Nothing," Brasen responded quickly, his gaze returning to the task at hand. "You have the Bunsen burner on wrong. Let me show you."

Brasen watched Raiph glowering at him, steaming, annoyed to have done something wrong and reprimanded by Brasen. Brasen felt sick, fearful that his plan was going to backfire and felt like the Halloween dance could not get here fast enough. There was no guarantee that Mrs. Halloway was going to help him, but he needed to make sure that he got the chance to tell her the truth. Then there was still no guarantee that Weber would allow him to go. He knew his only chance was militarizing the blood. He had to go through hell to get what he wanted and be stronger on the other side, digging deeper his hole leading into the gates of hell.