The events of the previous night were a blur to him. Kail staggered out of his bunk. He remembered getting on the ship. He remembered not talking to anyone. He remembered going to sleep. It all seemed so surreal. So dreamlike. More importantly he could remember that Jones, Collins, and Bratch were all dead.
Kail slept long but not well. He was running through questions for Butterfield in his mind. He was wondering what kind of emotional effect this would have on Selestia. Would the men turn against him on the decision to go to Nocturnal Island?
Kail rushed into the food room, looking for Butterfield, who was inspecting his fish sandwich. Keiran sat beside him chewing on the core of an apple. He had that look that said that he knew something that Kail wanted to. “Tell him everything that you told me,” Keiran said confirming Kail’s assessment of his look.
Butterfield set down his sandwich and gazed up at Kail. It appeared as if he just recognized his presence now. “Phoenicus mesoleucus rosa,” he began. Kail just stared. The words had no meaning to him. “That’s the name of the roses. They were engineered in our labs.”
Kail was right. The Empire was behind it. “They gave Faber and Keiran weird hallucinations.”
“Oh, I know. They’ve told me all about it.” Picking up Butterfield was a fortunate break. Though Kail felt like he was the scum of the earth his information was invaluable.
“Is that what they were supposed to do?” Kail asked.
Butterfield half nodded, half shook his head. “In a way, I suppose.” Keiran made a circular motion with his hand signifying Butterfield to continue. “Right… Well, we experimented with many different plants. We actually had expeditions around the world to find exotic ones.”
This news didn’t surprise Kail at all. They had often seen and robbed Pleneasian ships on the open sea, but they never came across one with plants as the only cargo.
“We found that the plant had hallucinogenic properties,” Butterfield continued. “The problem was trying to create a synthetic environment that could match the environment on that island. We just couldn’t do it.”
“So you decided to replant and harvest it in an orderly fashion in Dameria,” Kail finished his thought. The disdain in his voice was evident. Almost as evident as Kail’s rumbling stomach. He pulled out a chair and sat down. He grabbed a fish sandwich off the plate on the table and began to eat.
“Exactly. But the intriguing part came when we gave different doses to people,” Butterfield had remorse. Kail could tell. It was hard to see however through his overall excitement at the scientific possibilities his experiments had. It made Kail sick to his stomach and he tossed his sandwich flat onto the table.
“In small doses under 10 mg, relative to the subject’s body size, they reacted much in the same way that Keiran and Faber did.”
“That’s probably why I took longer to get back to normal,” Keiran piped in. “Faber’s a lot bigger than me, so it would hit his system slower and kick it out faster.”
“Of course, it could have also been the dosage,” Butterfield gave an alternative explanation. “Your wound drew blood, while his barely broke the surface of the skin.”
Kail was intrigued. Not by the reason of why Keiran was delusional longer, but what happened in larger doses. He cleared his throat as if to ask for continuation.
Butterfield took the hint. “At 20 mg the subjects were rendered in a state of unconscious or subconscious if you prefer. Their brains were open for us to mold. We could order them to do whatever we wanted and they would obey. They would also have no memory of anything that they did while under the roses power.”
