Chapter 28

"That aside, let's get back to what we were talking about." Jackson closed the file of the image and opened another file which was a document with a bunch of words. He moved away again to give Jean a clearer look at it.

"What is this?"

"Do you want me to explain the gist of it to you instead of having you read the entire thing?"

'Yes, please." The words were so small that Jean could barely make out what they were. It would take her at least ten minutes to read the entire thing. Furthermore, that was only the first page. It looked like there were multiple pages to the document.

"Alright so, the-" Before Jackson could start telling Jean what the document was about, the sound of a phone buzzing interrupted him. "Uh, sorry, give me a sec." Jackson went over to his phone which was sitting on a counter by the kitchen and picked it up. He took one look at the screen and raised his eyebrows.

He swiped his thumb across the screen and put the phone to his ear. "Did something happen?" he instantly asked the person on the other side. This was the first time in her life that Jean had seen Jackson have such a serious expression on his face. It looked like it was someone or something important, or both.

"No, I haven't. Why? What!?" Jackson hurried over to his laptop and closed the document and opened a browser and typed something in. Jean peeked over his shoulder to see what was happening. It looked like he received an email of some sort from an unknown person. It was probably from whoever was calling him.

"I got it," Jackson told the person in the call. He put down the phone for a moment and then turned to Jean who was watching from behind him. "Sorry, I know I don't have the right to tell you this after what I said, but can you please leave for now. I'll tell you everything tomorrow or on some other day, I promise."

Jean nodded her head and walked out of the apartment. Jackson escorted her and closed the door behind her all the while speaking to the person on the phone. Jean could faintly hear the voice on the other side of the phone and oddly, she felt that she had heard that voice before somewhere. "Who are you talking to?" she asked Jackson as she stepped out of the door.

"Hm? Sorry? I didn't hear that." Jackson brought the phone down for a second and asked Jean to repeat what she just said.

"Who are you talking to?" she asked again.

"Uh, I can't exactly tell you that."

"But you can tell me everything else?"

"Uhhh..."

A small voice shouted out of the phone, "Hey, are you still there!? Did something happened!? Hey, reply!" Jackson quickly brought the phone back to his ear again and apologized to the person.

"Sorry, I was doing something." Jackson politely gestured for Jean to go away and he mouthed something to her, 'Please leave. Come back tomorrow.' Jackson then closed to door. Jean could hear him talking to the person on the phone as he walked away. "So, what do I have to do? Mhm, got it. Yeah. Mhm. Wait, that's it?"

His voice eventually faded off as he went further into the apartment. Jean was surprised at what just happened. Apparently, there were some things that even Jackson took seriously. He was a bit more responsible than she thought he was, but just a little bit. Otherwise, he would have kept his mouth shut and not told her anything at all.

As she walked back to her apartment, she wondered who the person Jackson speaking to was. To make someone like him suddenly tense up and put on a serious face, it had to be someone important. And that someone's voice sounded a lot like someone she has heard before, but who was it?

Jean knocked on the door, not having brought her keys with her since her father was home. She heard footsteps as her dad walked to the door and opened it. "Welcome back. That was quick, what did you two talk about?"

"Nothing much."

Her dad raised an eyebrow but didn't ask further and moved to the side to let her in. "Anyway, do you want to make dinner, or should I do it today?" he asked.

"Is it already that late?"

"No, but there really isn't much to do. And also, I need something to do to get my mind off everything," he told Jean.

"You do it," she told him. She was still tired and wanted to go back to sleep. What was going on these days anyway? Her plan of having a peaceful and normal life was very rapidly falling apart. The situation here with the terrorists was starting to get out of hand. If things continued the way they were, Dome Blue Zone will end up just like Dome Blue Depths.

"Okay, is there something you want to eat, or is anything fine?"

"Actually, I'll help you cook," Jean changed her mind. She needed something to distract her as well. Might as well join her dad in cooking. That will help take her mind off today a little.

"Hm? We haven't done that in a while, have we? Why not I guess," he said. She and her father headed over to the kitchen where they started to go through what they had and decide on what they should have for dinner.

"The fridge is pretty empty..." Jean told her dad while looking through it. There was almost nothing left inside. When was the last time that they restocked it?

"Huh, I think I forgot to get groceries when it was my day off." Her dad walked over to the fridge and looked over Jean's shoulder and saw that it was as she said. There was practically nothing inside other than for a few boxes of frozen food.

"Do you just want to have that for dinner, or should we go outside and buy some stuff?" he asked.

"Let's just go with this," Jean chose. She wasn't in the mood to go outside again. She was pretty sure that her dad wasn't in the mood either. After all, who would want to go outside after what just happened? It was safer to stay inside.

"Alright." Her Jean reached over he shoulder and randomly grabbed one of the boxes and pulled it out. "Are you fine with this?" he asked while holding up a box of some kind of food that she has never seen or heard of before.

"It's up to you." Jean didn't really care what they ate. It was a miracle that she even had an appetite today.

"Yeah, I don't know either. Guess this will do. You choose something else from the fridge as well. I don't think this alone will be enough."

Jean also picked something random from the fridge and went over to the stove and started helping her dad cook. She didn't much attention to what she was doing and almost burnt the food. Luckily, her dad saw and pointed it out to her and she turned off the fire before the entire thing was about to be charred. "Don't have your head up in the clouds when you're cooking, it's dangerous," he warned her.

"I know. By the way, what have you been doing at work nowadays?" she suddenly brought up, remembering what Jackson said to her earlier.

"What I have been doing..." Her dad thought about the question for a moment before giving a not-so-clear answer, "I'm not sure myself. The higher-ups are asking us to splice genes of aquatic animals. Don't know what that has to do with fixing the earth, and to make matters more confusing, they won't tell us either. But if I have to guess, I'd say that they're thinking of bringing back extinct animals or creating a hybrid species for whatever reason."

"You're splicing genes?" Jean repeated what her father said. Looks like Jackson wasn't lying when he said that I.C.E. was up to something odd.

"Mhm. I really wonder what we're doing all this for. Oh well, they will tell us eventually," her father lazily said. "Speaking of which, that is the reason why a bunch of people quit a few months ago. We were told to splice genes and everyone wanted to know how that had anything to do with I.C.E.'s mission. People were not happy about it since we hadn't made any progress for a long time and now we're suddenly told to do something that made no sense. I mean, how does that even help us achieve the goal in any way!?" he angrily shouted, not realizing the sudden change in the tone of his voice.

Jean looked at her father with her eyes wide-opened. It was her first time hearing him so angry in a long time. He was normally a calm and gentle person, and it was surprising to see that there was something that would even get him riled up.

Jean's father looked at Jean and embarrassingly cleared his throat. "Ahem, sorry about that. I didn't mean to rant," he apologized.

"Oh, don't worry about it. I was just a little shocked that you would get mad over something."

"Ugh, yeah. I really don't know what I.C.E. is doing. President Bailey is keeping everything a secret."

"Bailey..." Jean muttered to herself. That reminded her, Josh said that he was his son. He might know something about all of this. It looks like she will have to find him and ask him about it.

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