Order of Magnitude

XLIV. Renewed Missions

      Dr. Moon studied the lackluster data on his computer while he ate a taco. Since the Prime Minister was killed, humans had been indiscriminately murdering parvs. The reports were all over the news. There were even unofficial hunts created by angry citizens to murder as many as they could. As such, the tiny creatures were more scared than ever of the humans, and did their best to hide in the shadows. That made Dr. Moon's job even harder. He couldn't experiment on parvs if they were all hiding from him.

      The door opened and Dr. Soleil entered, carrying a pizza. "I brought lunch," he said.

      "Too late," Moon held up his taco.

      "Then we'll just have leftovers. Hey, whenever you get a second, I have something to show you."

      "What is it?"

      Soleil tapped on his computer and brought up a video. "You know how Sloane gave us the order to dissolve the BTOF project, right?"

      "Unfortunately."

      "And how we're supposed to destroy all of our old specimens."

      "Which is taken care of since we don't have any old specimens. Heck, we don't even have any new specimens to try our formulas on."

      Soleil started playing the video. "You see, I thought that too. I mean, we've been stagnating her for the past couple of weeks. The last bit of success we had was with BTOF-Delta..."

      "And he's dead too."

      "Wait 'til you see this." Soleil sped up the video, which was of Prime Minister Antony's final speech. "This was the press conference video, right?"

      "Yeah..."

      "Well, there were cell phone videos of the attack taken from different angles. Citizens from inside the Burger World. Look, you see that guy there with the red jacket?"

      "Uh-huh."

      "He's recording from behind the Prime Minister. Thankfully he posted the video to the internet."

      "Please, I don't need to see this again."

      "Just wait. I've matched up the audio from the news speech to sync it with the cell phone video. Watch."

      Dr. Moon watched as Antony was attacked by the parvs, this time from a different angle. The scientist couldn't help but turn his head. He saw enough of it on the news over the past week. "Why are you showing this?"

      "Wait... wait... there. From the podium, you see that. Somebody threw a match at the Prime Minister from inside the podium."

      "Who cares? We know that parvs killed Antony."

      "Yes, but watch this." Dr. Soleil zoomed into a small corner of the screen. There was a group of parvs watching as Antony was lit aflame. He adjusted the brightness and contrast, and paused the video. "Do you see it yet?"

      "Have you been drinking again?"

      "I'm serious, Moon. And no, not yet." Dr. Moon shot him a look. "Whatever, man, just look at the lower left corner."

      The scientist squinted his eyes and stared at the blurry freeze-frame image. "Okay, I just see a mess of colors. Probably faces and clothes."

      "And what color do you see here?" Soleil pointed to a single section with his cursor.

      "It looks kind of... blue."

      "Yes."

      "Wait a minute, are you suggesting..."

      "That is BTOF-Delta."

      Dr. Moon shook his head, but the more he looked at the screen, the more he could make out the blue-headed parv in the group. "That's impossible. He must be dead by now."

      "Apparently not. Maybe the Delta formula was something of a success after all."

      "Should we tell Sloane?"

      Soleil shook his head. "No, he wants us to exterminate them now, not 20 years from now. That's why we're stuck creating poisons instead of solutions."

      "But we had a success. Maybe we should at least inform Dr. Reno."

      "And tell him what? That not only did our infected parv escape but is responsible for killing the Prime Minister?"

      Dr. Moon opened his mouth to say something about honesty, but thought better of it. This was certainly a bad situation for them. "What do we do, then?"

      "As long as that thing's out there, it is a danger to all of us. No mistakes this time." Dr. Soleil grabbed the sonic emitter. "We have to find BTOF-Delta, and we have to destroy it, whatever it takes!"