Chapter 16

The day had come to a close and so had the lab. Almost everyone had gone home already. Only Conor and Alyssa were left and they weren't planning to go home anytime soon either. Both of them was examining research papers on suitable plantation conditions. Their target was one; find a place that can be used to grow high-carb crops such as potato and corn.

Even after a whole day of examining, there was still no fruit to their labour. All the comparison between location climate and crop climate requirements wouldn't match. Alyssa had proposed going to Antarctica since all the ice had melted and there's dry land, but Conor thought it could be dangerous and unworthy of a shot.

'Why though? It might work.' Alyssa said.

'Alyssa, we cannot rely on "might". We must have stronger chances. We have to be absolutely sure it will work. Antarctic land has been under ice for very long- it might not be fertile anymore.' Conor explained. Alyssa, however, wouldn't give up.

'We could run the simulator.' Alyssa said.

'No, we can't. We don't have the metadata needed to set the variables on the sim. We need data and then we can run sims.' Conor counter-argued. Alyssa gave up and exclaimed "fine" and she went away to grab a cup of coffee.

After another hour of fruitless researching, Alyssa finally decided that she was tired and headed home. She said bye-bye to Conor and left. Conor came back from the front door and slowly started to clean up his messy workspace.

Suddenly, he heard footsteps. He stopped doing whatever he was and stood still. Conor listened carefully. There were more footsteps. It seemed like more than one person was there. There was a loud bang on the door and then silence.

Without warning, the door of the lab flew open and two large men came in. Both were carrying rifles in their hands. Conor had noticed this very fast and he ducked under his table. The two men looked around as if they were scanning the room.

One of them gave a nod and then both started firing at random. Glass shattered, tables got holes on them, papers were damaged and much more. Conor was panicking at his moment. The noise was so loud, it was distracting him to think.

The two men stopped shooting for a few seconds to reload their magazines. Conor heard the empty mags hit the floor. He knew it was time for him to move. In one swift but silent motion, he slid underneath the next table.

The men had started shooting again and the lab had endured more damage. Conor thought hard of what to do to escape. For sure they will shoot him down if he got up and ran. He had no chance against two automatic rifles. He needed a distraction.

As if as a miracle, Conor realized he was curled up under the table near one of the fridges. As far as he knew, every fridge had a pack of dry ice in the bottom compartment. Suddenly, the men stopped shooting to reload again. Conor listened carefully and he got what he needed; water. They had shot a pipe it seemed and it was clearly audible that there was a pool of water nearby.

Conor opened the bottom compartment slowly and silently. he knew that the two men won't see him open it as the doors were very low. Carefully, he put on a piece of plastic on his right hand and took out a rather large chunk of dry ice.

Conor moved to a place where he could easily throw the ice into the water puddle. He thought the puddle was just, well, a puddle, but it turned out to be a small pool. It wasn't bad, it only made Conor's work easier. With all his might, he managed to break the ice into three separate pieces and then slid it into the pool of water. He could see the bubbles form. They grew and grew until they popped and the smoke inside was let out.

The shooters immediately changed direction to shoot towards the smoke. This gave Conor one chance to bolt for the window which was closer than the door. He grabbed a heavy piece of metal as a shield and continued running.

The two men were still shooting when they suddenly heard a big crash. Glass had shattered. One of them turned around quickly and saw the cloak of man swish outside the smashed window. He ran towards the window and looked down and saw his target lying on the ground, staring into his eyes.

Conor was on the ground, groaning at the pain. The piece of metal which turned out to be a random satellite dish prop didn't help much. His ankle was hurting and he could feel blood on his ribs. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the man with the rifle leaning on the window ledge, staring right at him. He stared back. Suddenly, the man reached for his rifle and Conor stood up, running towards his car which can bring him to safety.

After all that had happened just now, Conor basically drove the car as if he was trying to fly it and took alternative routes to shake off any tails that he might have. He felt it unsafe to go to his home so he headed for Mr. Atlas's place.

Once he arrived, he limped out of the car. His ankle was hurting very badly, and the pain in his ribs was getting worse too. He clicked the doorbell several times painfully and waited. Conor was feeling even weaker and he slouched on the door.

Mr. Atlas had woken up when he heard the doorbell ring. Feeling annoyed, he went downstairs, thinking it must be his neighbour's alcoholic son again. The kid liked to disturb at night when he was drunk.

'It's the middle of the ni- woah woah hey!' Mr. Atlas exclaimed. 'Conor, what happened to you?!' Mr. Atlas asked. Conor didn't answer he had passed out already. 'BETTY! COME HERE NOW, IT'S EMERGENCY!' Mr. Atlas called for his maid. Betty came and was shocked at the scene. She didn't hesitate though and immediately grabbed Conor's legs. They both carried Conor to a bed and laid him down.

Mr. Atlas wondered what had happened, and why Conor's ankles looked like someone had twisted them backwards.