Chapter 191

191 A Video Call

Soon enough, we arrived at the FBI base, as it was still nighttime–the moon was out and it was dark enough to hide in shadows as we walked inside the doors of the base. We passed a few agents who were already asleep or standing in front of their desks before one of them saw us.

“Okay, Malachi needs medical attention,” September said, once we landed. Fulton looked at him with worry, but he shook his head as he sighed in relief. Then he told us, “Go down to the second floor–there’s a waiting room in the corner near the elevator. You can take the elevator down from there.”

“Thanks,” I said. Fulton smiled, “The least I could do.”

Something inside of me compelled me to just talk to him, see how things are going, so I asked him, “So how is your job treating you?”

“Oh...it’s fine,” he replied with a small smile.

“Really?” I asked with a slight raise of my eyebrows. He nodded and chuckled and then sighed, “Well, it has its ups and downs.”

I smiled back at him and said, “Well that’s what I always thought.”

We reached the waiting room in no time and sat down on the chairs together. September went ahead to sit down by the wall and observe the room before she decided to speak up. “Okay,” she said, “the folder is on its way to the main server now. They’re just waiting for confirmation that we have received it. Once it’s confirmed–we’ll get outta here.”

“Yeah, it’ll be over soon,” I said with a nod, but then I turned around to see Tisiah sitting down beside me with his knees together and his hands resting on them.

.....

“You okay?” September asked him, and Tisiah nodded. “Yeah...it was just really shocking at first.”

“Yeah,” Nikki replied with a smile.

“Yeah,” Tisiah agreed as he glanced at me with his brown eyes–they looked tired and worn out from the shock he must have felt. “Well, good thing we got the folders,” I said, and Fulton nodded, “but that wasn’t what I meant. You looked really nervous there for a moment.”

“Oh,” Tisiah said with a blush, “I guess I’m just still in shock.”

Then Agent Nelson came inside of the waiting room, looking as if she didn’t care a single bit. “So, based on the files we see, he is definitely working on the virus. The folder contained names of other scientists, the purpose of the virus and the virus name.”

“What’s the name called?” I asked, getting up and moving closer to Agent Nelson.

“The name is called the ‘Cobra Virus’,” she answered as she looked at me with a serious expression. “It is a deadly virus that has been developed by a few other people besides him. It can cause mental disorders, and it will slowly kill the host until the body completely shuts down.”

“Oh god...” I gasped out as I leaned against the wall. “So it’s like a slow killer?”

“Exactly,” she said. Fulton took a deep breath in surprise, but then he just looked at me with worry and sighed again. “The Cobra Virus was used in the Middle East to wipe out entire cities with only one person infected with it. It could be used on any city or even just a few hundred people within a city to cause massive damage and death.”

“What?” I gasped.

“So,” Fulton said, “that means we’re in real danger.”

“That’s right,” Agent Nelson said with a sigh. “I mean we have no idea where they’re keeping the virus now–or if they’re even keeping it.” Nikki stood up. “What do we do next?”

Agent Nelson smiled as she heard the question. “We’ll go through the list of those scientists and find the virus,” she said with a confident smile, “we just have to be careful that it doesn’t get out of our control.”

“What do you mean?” Nikki asked with a frown.

“We have to be cautious about how we approach these guys,” Agent Nelson said. “Anything we do could make matters worse.” I nodded, but all of a sudden–one of the agents rushed inside of the room. “What?” Agent Nelson said as she turned around to the agent, who had blond hair.

“Dr. Mord is on a video call with us.” My face folded into confusion and consternation.

“Why would he call us now?” Tisiah asked in surprise.

“I have no idea,” Agent Nelson replied with a sigh, “we should probably just let him talk.”

The agent nodded and walked out of the room, leaving us with Agent Nelson and Fulton. I could tell that they were both nervous by their body language–and it wasn’t just them. We all knew what this could mean for us if we didn’t act fast.

“Alright,” Agent Nelson said as she sighed and folded her arms over her chest. “Let’s go.”

We walked over to the main foyer of the FBI base, as the screen showed his intimidating face. “I hope I’m talking to the FBI, would be kind of embarrassing if I didn’t,” Dr. Mord quipped, but then his smile faded away as he looked at me with an intimidating glare in his eyes. “So you’ve done it.”

“Done what?” I asked in a hushed voice as Agent Nelson held her hand up and put it on her chin, signaling for us to remain silent. “Raided my base, and took our folders,” he said with a chuckle. “I guess I can’t complain about that though.”

I clenched my teeth as I saw his smile fade away. “You think you got me?” I said in a low voice. “Well think again!”

He smirked and chuckled again as he shook his head. “Oh, come on,” he said with a shake of his head, “you can’t be that naive. You’re just a kid, right?”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

He licked his lips before speaking again. “Now, you may have seen the Cobra Virus. You may have seen my scientists, but you don’t know the location of the virus. This is revenge for my wife,” he said. “What you guys did to her.”

“She tried to kidnap a young boy. You think we’d stay back from that?” September hissed at him with a fiery voice. “You’re a sick man!”

“No, what happened was...unfortunate.” He looked away for a moment as his jaw twitched and clenched. “Very unfortunate. And trust me, I’ll do everything just to see you watch the world boil.” I felt like jumping inside the screen and punching him, but I stayed silent as he looked back at me. “But you don’t know anything. So keep your mouth shut and your hands off of that virus. I’m sure you’re all so eager to find it.”

“We’re not going to let you spread a virus for fun, Dr. Mord,” Agent Nelson spit fiercely, but then she sighed and said, “But we’ll do our best to find out where the virus is located.”

“Yeah,” Dr. Mord said with a nod as he turned around and faced off towards the camera. “You go right ahead. But don’t complain once you find yourself on the ground, bleeding, crying for help, while your children are dying around you.”

“You moron...” Nikki growled in fury as she clenched her fists so tightly.

“So, now that’s all settled–how about you leave me alone?” Dr. Mord said with a smile, and then the screen turned black before he hung up. Agent Nelson sighed and turned around as Fulton walked over to us and whispered to us, “He’s just trying to mess with your head.”

“Well, he’s doing an insane job at it,” September said, shaking her head in surprise.

“Yeah,” Nikki muttered as she nodded.

“Well...we need to keep an eye on him,” Fulton said as he looked at us with worry in his eyes. “We need to find this virus and destroy it.”

“And quick,” Agent Nelson added as she turned over to a man who seemed quite geeky: he was wearing a pair of glasses that had lenses thicker than my fingers, and he wore a black sweater over a white shirt that was buttoned all the way up to his collar. He wore black pants that were too short, and I could see his socks were black with a white pattern on them.

He seemed to be in his thirties and had dark-brown eyes, and he was tall and thin, but his hair was messy and had strands that stuck out here and there.

“Agent Max, find us on what you can in finding the that first scientist on that list,” she said and Agent Max nodded. “I’m going to need to pull up the other scientists’ information too.”

“Right away,” Max said as he pulled out a small notebook computer from his pocket and started typing on it with his fingers. He looked up from the computer screen and sighed as he glanced over at me. He looked back at the computer and soon enough the screen began to show a man.

“We’re looking at a scientist named Robert Fletcher,” Agent Max said with an awkward voice. “He has a PhD in physics from Princeton University.”

“A physicist?” Nikki asked with wide eyes. “A physicist?”

“Yeah,” Agent Max said with a nod, “he worked on the Large Hadron Collider project for ten years before getting fired.”

“I know what the collider is,” I said as I looked at Agent Max, “I thought they got rid of him because of that.”

“They did,” Nikki said with a frown, “but apparently he was working on some other projects as well.”

“Yeah,” Agent Max said as he shrugged, “but we don’t know what those projects are or what they are for.”

“How does a physicist get involved in a virus?” Fulton asked curiously.

“I think we’re about to find out,” Agent Max said as he typed away at his computer again. Then he frowned as he looked at us all again. The man seemed like he was in his 40’s: he was quite tall and had dark-brown hair that was messy. He had dark-brown eyes that looked like they could pierce through anything, and he had a nice nose and big lips with a smirk on his face.

“I want everything on Fletcher, and I want to know his location,” Agent Nelson said as she pointed to the screen, and Agent Max nodded as he began to type away again.

“We have an address for him,” he said as he typed away at the keyboard again and then sighed. “But we don’t have any information about where he lives.” Agent Nelson paused before she looked back at him. “How did you find an address but no information on him?” she asked, as she scratched her head.

“He has no criminal record,” Max said with a shrug, “so we couldn’t get any information on him.”

“I guess he’s hiding somewhere,” I said as I looked at him with a frown.

“Well,” Agent Max said as he shrugged again, “he doesn’t seem to have left the country.”

“Alright,” Agent Nelson said, “that’s enough for now. We’ll get in contact with you again if we need more information. You guys stay here, I’ll contact Mr. Drails and tell him he’s gonna have to make up a story foy y’all.”