The Legacy of Martin Stein - updated 2 V 2007

[mawa]

Hello, that's me again. Hereby I present you the sequel of "The Files of Martin Stein", written by me ages ago. It will be posted in installments. I hope you'll like it and I hope my writing improved somewhat since then. Any feedback, constructive criticism highly appreciated. Enjoy!

Prologue

Jack Taylor, a young lab assistant, was about to work until late. Again. This prospect didn’t make him happy, especially given the fact that he had a family, which was waiting for him. But he knew that this inconvenience was nothing compared to the information he could gather. Until now he hadn’t have the opportunity to work that long with Michael Dorn – the hero of Libria to those who lived to support the system and an amoral son of a bitch in Taylor’s own personal opinion.

Michael Dorn, busy performing a thermal decomposition of Stein’s antidote, didn’t notice Taylor, who was bringing him requested reagents. The lab assistant, making advantage of Dorn’s preoccupation, peeked through the scientist’s arm in order to see his notes.

“Ah, here you are!” Dorn turned his head to see his assistant, who barely managed not to jump. “Thank you. Now, if you could get me my notes on the Omega substance, lying on my desk. Then you may leave.”

“Will I be needed again?” the lab assistant asked, hoping for a yes.

“No. Up from now I prefer to take it alone.”

Taylor nodded in reply and headed towards Dorn’s desk. Now that would be a great opportunity to scour through his papers if not for two things: that he kept almost everything in the drawers, which were always locked and that the laboratory was monitored.

The man sighed. He could feel that he was about to discover something crucial, when Dorn dismissed him. But, on the other hand, he was thankful that Dorn – due to his hurt ambition and curiosity, obvious to anyone, who cared to observe other people – instead of destroying the substance, decided to research it. Otherwise, there would be no hope left.

Taylor took the folder from Dorn’s desk and flicked through it, before giving it to the scientist. He hoped that this looked innocently enough; he intended to last at least long enough to obtain the information that might give his resistance companions a reason not to give up.

While handing the folder to the scientist, he peeked once again at the notes, hoping that Dorn will not become suspicious. The scientist took the folder, muttering “That’s all” and focused again on the substance.

Taylor turned away and headed towards the exit, barely holding back a sigh of relief. Now he could bring hope to those who needed it. Last day he managed to steal a very small amount of the antidote and now he managed to steal some useful information – his photographic memory once again proved invaluable.

Now he had to pass it on. Those, who – like he – resisted by dosing Prozium II, produced in great secret, once sworn to liberate those who were slaves of Prozium III. Dorn, although unknowingly, made the first step, Taylor was making a second one. The rest was up to Taylor’s contact in the Equilibrium Centre.

The young lab assistant left, desperately hoping that his contact hasn’t already been burnt.

[Witcher Wolf]

*grins* Very interesting...very interesting indeed. Good to see a return there MaWa

[Libby]

Glad to see this back MaWa...

[Sontin-JudasFm]

I agree; so far it looks great

[mawa]

Chapter I

Ethan Jones came to work as one of the first, as usual. Morning shifts at the Distribution Department of the Equilibrium Centre were always most burdensome – the residents of Sector 10 were to be supplied with their daily dose of Prozium. With the new system of distribution his job became even more troublesome – and more dangerous.

He glanced at the large wall cabinet. Its drawers were filled with Prozium III vials. But no one else in the Department knew that Ethan kept in his own desk drawer some vials of Prozium II. In order not to arouse suspicions, he also kept there on the top the blank delivery receipts of Prozium – a thing that had to be signed by every Librian upon collection of the dose.

Ethan took two caskets and went to the cabinet, to take the Prozium III vials. Carefully, watching out not to break any of them, he put the vials inside. Just after he closed them, he heard a ringing phone.

“Now that was all I needed!” he thought. That could mean only one thing: even more work than usual. He proceeded with the caskets towards his desk. In the meantime his colleague, Kate Smith, picked up the phone.

“Distribution Department.”

Ethan put the caskets on his desk, listening carefully.

“How many?” he heard. Then the man looked at Kate, sensing that he won’t like the thing he will hear.

“That will be difficult. We are already pushing our limits. Yes, we have sufficient reserves, but this will take three hours at least before we manage to supply everyone.”

“What’s happening?” Ethan asked. Kate looked at him briefly and raised her hand, giving him to understand that he should wait.

It was after a while, when she hung up.

“The dosing systems in the Equilibrium Centre in Sector 9 still haven’t been repaired.” Kate gave her colleague an enigmatic look. “They can’t produce any Prozium and today they ran out of reserves, so Sector 9 residents will be directed here and to other adjacent sectors. But, since this is one of the largest Centres in Libria, many of the affected residents will come here.”

“How many?”

“Like three thousand…”

“You mean over half of the sector?”

She nodded.

If Ethan had been off the dose, he would now tear his hair and swear loudly. But since he wasn’t, he just sat at his desk and rested his chin against his hand.

“Three hours is not acceptable,” he said after a while. “We have to bring in the people from the afternoon shift.”

“How many of them?”

“The whole shift! People have to come to the Centre an hour before Prozium stops working. So we have one hour, not three. We cannot afford an emotional outbreak of such scale. That would be… disastrous. Anyway, tell the boss to get here as many people as possible. I just hope Sector 9 will deal with their equipment problem as soon as possible.”

Ethan’s colleague nodded, accepting his argument. She grabbed the receiver and dialed the appropriate number, while Jones pulled out some receipts – with the doses of Prozium II concealed there.

“I have to be more careful,” he admonished himself inwardly. He barely refrained from saying aloud, what was really troubling him – those people would die. Even though the message about the introduction of Prozium III had been officially denied, Ethan knew from his contact in the Tetragrammaton Research Department this denial was a lie.

He knew, but his colleagues didn’t.

Ethan glanced at the large clock hanging over the cabinet. It was already ten to six, which meant that the first residents should come any minute. Kate saw that as well; she also put her caskets on desk and pulled out a pile of receipts from the drawer.

They were waiting.

The first Librian appeared at six o’clock sharp. Ethan recognized him instantly; this was Jack Taylor. Pale, frail and inconspicuous, he was among the one of the most valuable contacts in the whole network. He came a bit earlier than usual. As far as Ethan knew Taylor’s habits, it meant that something is up.

Ethan reached to the casket and then for the receipt. He concealed the vials of Prozium II in his left hand and passed all of this to Taylor. Luckily, in the meantime other residents came and Kate had to service one of them, so she didn’t have the chance to watch Jones too intently.

Taylor signed the receipt and after giving it back, casually, with a practiced movement, he closed his hand on the vials and left the counter. He wouldn’t have problems with distinguishing the vials – the Prozium II ones were marked with a red dot.

As Ethan held the rolled up receipt, he felt a small, elongated bundle. He placed it in the document rack on the side of his desk and turned towards a next Librian, who was waiting for his dose. This man wasn’t a part of the network, so Ethan with a typical clerical dispassion passed him the Prozium III vials.

Servicing the Librians, he couldn’t resist a thought that this one was a close call. He could only be thankful that there was someone, who in the critical moment distracted his colleague for long enough to prevent exposure. People were supposed to watch each other and Ethan was pretty sure that his colleague was good at that.

He also concluded that in one aspect Father was speaking the truth; there weren’t many left to oppose. He was observing Librians carefully, watching for the prearranged sign – those who resisted were supposed to wear their watches on the right wrist, instead of left.

There weren’t many of them; in fact, now that there were more people to service, the proportions seemed to be even more disadvantageous than ever. That meant that he had to be extra careful.

It seemed like an eternity, before the hot period passed. Luckily, the people from the afternoon shift came fairly quickly, so that they managed to relieve the lengthy queues. At the same time Ethan noticed that he was running out of vials. For a moment he was tempted to pull out the bundle and see it, but he knew that the only reasonably safe place to do it were the toilets.

Under the pretext of refilling the caskets, he put the sign “Be right back”; imperceptibly he took the bundle, then both caskets and headed towards the cabinet. He put them on the ground and then, turned with his back to the waiting people he took the vials and crouched, in order to put the vials into place. Being in that position, he quickly slipped the bundle behind the watch strap. Then he continued to put the vials into the caskets, until those were full. Ethan concluded that this will be a convenient moment to go to the toilet and take a look at this thing.

He locked the door behind him and sat on the toilet seat, then looked at the bundle. It was carefully wrapped in a piece of paper and secured with a rubber band. Quickly he removed the rubber band and unwrapped the paper.

There was a small vial, with a very small amount of a transparent substance. Wondering, what could that mean, he noticed that the sheet of paper was repeatedly folded. As he unfolded it, he saw that it was used up on one side. Ethan recognized Taylor’s handwriting – small and tight letters were surely written by his hand. He began to read:

“This is the last hope of mankind – this is the small bit of Stein’s antidote I managed to steal. To our fortune it hasn’t been destroyed yet, it is being researched. From what I’ve seen, Dorn is close to understanding it. Below are the results of this research done so far. You must pass on the substance and this message to the others, so they can keep it, in case everything goes wrong. I shall try to recreate it myself and smuggle it. I can’t promise I’ll make it, but at least I intend to die trying. Guard this with your life; there’s no price too high to pay to protect this knowledge from destruction.”

Ethan swallowed hard. If the ceiling collapsed right now, that wouldn’t make such great impression on him. Now he badly needed one of his contacts in the Police Force. Only they were able to pass on this thing.

In the meantime, Kate noticed that she ran of receipts. Knowing that her colleague left for a moment and that he usually keeps some spare receipts in his drawer, she headed towards his desk, opened the drawer and took some of them.

She surely didn’t expect to find there more Prozium vials.

But they were there. And that could mean only one thing.

[Witcher Wolf]

Ooooh...nice :>

I wonder what Kate's going to do *chuckle*

A good start there MaWa, more please

[mawa]

Thank you

As for Kate - well, you'll find it out soon enough. But I think even more interesting will be the thing that Ethan will do. *cackles*

But hush...

[mawa]

Chapter II

Ethan realized that it was high time to get back to work. However, as he opened the toilet door a crack, a bits of a conversation caught his attention:

“Security,” his colleague’s voice was clear enough for him to hear, “there is a sense offender. Ethan Jones. There are plenty of unused doses of Prozium in his drawer. Please come to the Distribution Department, counter number one at once.”

That forced him to revise his plans. The security would come here any moment, so he could forget about passing the bundle to another Resistance member. He had to smuggle it somehow by himself.

He moved back inside and locked the door. Then he glanced at a window on the side wall. It wasn’t too big, so there might be problems for a man to squeeze through it, but Ethan knew that he had to take the chance.

He climbed the toilet bowl, opened the window and caught its frame. After this he put his right leg on the radiator and, making sure that his position is stable, he put there his other leg, so now his head was at the same level as the window.

Loud and violent knocking to the toilet door told him that he needs to hurry. Simultaneously, he jumped and pulled himself up. It wasn’t easy for him to squeeze his torso through and he had to use all of his strength not to fall back inside.

When he was about halfway through, one of the security officers shot the lock twice. Violently pushing back with his hands Ethan managed to squeeze through just when the officer got inside.

Luckily for him he landed in a garbage; otherwise the fall would most likely prove fatal. Learning that he didn’t break or sprain anything, he quickly dug himself out from the garbage.

The shouts coming from the distance told him that the security found out his escape route. Ethan was about to make his way out of there, when he spotted a crowbar. He recalled what he and the others were told during one of his training meeting – if things get really desperate, they should seek shelter in the sewers.
Ethan frowned at that thought, but he knew that he has no other choice. He grabbed the crowbar and started to run as fast as he could. One look back told him that the security officers were already on his trail.

If his plan was to succeed, he had to find a more secluded place. Fortunately, there were some back roads; Ethan headed in that direction.

But the pursuers didn’t intend to give up that easily. Ethan jumped aside after a bullet passed just inches from his head and started to run zigzag. That was even more exhausting, but at least the security officers had much harder time aiming at him.

The fugitive dashed into the nearest lane – he knew that he had to get out of their sight really soon. His heart was pounding and every breath he took was painful. Either they would get him or he would fall from exhaustion, unless he found a convenient place to disappear.

Again, he turned right into the nearest lane, then dashed between the apartment houses and started to weave his way between them. He looked back and noticed that they lost him – at least for a moment.

Now Ethan saw his chance. The fugitive scanned the surroundings for a nearest manhole until he found one, not far from the place where he stopped. He sighed; there was a considerable risk that someone from the apartment houses would notice him and report the unusual incident to the authorities. But, considering that he had no more strength to run and seek a less risky place, he decided to seize the only option he still had. He ran up as fast as his overtaxed strength allowed him to the manhole, then he hooked the crowbar on it. With all the remaining strength he could gather, Ethan pulled the manhole, almost rolling over. To his relief, the manhole budged.

Immediately, Ethan squeezed through the hole and, firmly holding the ladder with his left hand, once again he hooked the crowbar on the manhole and pulled it violently several times, in order to close it. It was a bit easier than opening it, but given Ethan’s condition that didn’t mean easy.

Then he made it. He couldn’t possibly know whether he was seen or not – he could only hope.

Suddenly Ethan felt completely drained. The adrenaline rush, will of survival and the awareness of the importance of what he is carrying brought him this far, but he couldn’t go on endlessly only thanks to his willpower. He let go of the rung and fell into the sewage.

Only now he became aware of the unbelievable stench here. Immediately, he felt nauseous. He had to move out. He had to deliver the remainders of the antidote to a safe place.

But what safe place? The Nethers were crawling with patrols; it was apparent for anyone who had eyes to see and ears to hear that Father declared a total war on the remaining opposition.

Paradoxically, the Nethers were the most dangerous place to be. Libria was relatively safer, but not for those who didn’t have access to Prozium II. The EPPT proved to be an extremely reliable device.

Was there any safe place left at all?

* * *

The security officers weren’t sure when the man has gone. The last thing they were sure about was that the sense offender disappeared somewhere between the apartments. Regardless, they couldn’t leave it like that – the leading officer grabbed his short-wave radio and alarmed the rest of the security officers at the Equilibrium Centre; the message should be passed on to the Police Force – an exact description would be drawn up and made known to every single Librian. The man had no chance of escaping; in fact, he could as well already consider himself processed.

Still, the security team didn’t intend to give up. The man couldn’t just vaporize – that happened only after processing, after all – and couldn’t have gone too far. Sooner or later he had to get tired and stop somewhere.

The only question was – where?

The leading officer ordered his team to split and search the area. With their guns at the ready, three two-person groups started to scour their assigned zones. The few citizens they encountered couldn’t recall anyone running around, who would match the description.

Ethan Jones just disappeared.

[Witcher Wolf]

Heh, nice, action packed and a superb sense of flight in this one. Ethan's heart pounding and the near-escape from security, works really well