Order of Magnitude

XLIX. The Wrath of the Moon

      The Parv Locater blipped. There was a large congregation displayed on the RADAR just south of their location. Dr. Moon moved forward with purpose. This was the largest group of parvs they had seen near the laboratory, so the odds were good that this was the group he was looking for. If he found the group, he could find BTOF-Delta, and if he could find BTOF-Delta, then he could eliminate it once and for all.

      "It's that way," Dr. Moon gestured to Dr. Soliel. "Less than 10 meters."

      "Are you sure?" Soliel asked. "I don't see anything. If it's as big a group as you say, we would see something."

      Moon looked around. "There's tall grass that way," he said. "Maybe they are using it for cover."

      "Smart little creatures..."

      The scientists walked forward. "There, just by that round rock," Moon said. "There has to be 30 or 40 of them."

      Soliel pulled out the sonic emitter and turned the knob halfway up. "Just tell me when, and I'll turn it on."

      "Keep the frequencies down," Moon warned. "We want to make sure we get him this time. No more mistakes."

      "Don't worry; we got it this time."

      The scientists stood on either side of the round rock, and gave each other a meaningful look. "Are you ready?"

      "Yes," Soliel answered.

      "Now!"

      The scientist turned the sonic emitter on, and waited. Almost immediately he began to see results. The large army that they picked up on the Parv Locater began to scatter in all directions. Instinctively, Soliel brought his foot down on the few unfortunate ones that accidentally wandered too close.

      "What are you doing?" Moon chided him. "Observe, report, then destroy BTOF-Delta. The rest we try to collect."

      "Sorry, force of habit."

      Moon dropped the Parv Locater, and started documenting all of the tiny creatures with his camera. If they missed their opportunity today, then at least they could review their efforts for a later date. If none of the parvs in this group had blue dye in its hair, then they would know that they had to expand their search. Unfortunately, the potential specimens were moving too fast for him to get a bead on. It only took him a moment to understand why.

      "Look at that, Soliel," Moon said in little more than an awed whisper.

      "What? Did you find him?"

      "No, look at their movement. They are fleeing us on the backs of spiders. What a fascinating discovery."

      "Can that wait?" Soliel said, trying to collect whatever he could in a mason jar. "We kind of have other things to deal with at the moment."

      "Simply fascinating..."

      "Aw, damn it!"

      "What's the matter?" Moon asked, forcefully snapped out of his reverie.

      "I crushed another one," Soliel said, holding a dead parv between his fingers. "These things sure are hard to collect when they're moving around like that."

     "Do be careful."

      "What difference does it make? We are going to kill the lot of them anyway."

      Dr. Moon sighed. "No, just BTOF-Delta. The rest can go for all I care."

      "Hey, folks are dying all over the country. Don't you want to do something about that?"

      "After all we've learned about parvs, and all we are continuing to learn, how can you be so flippant about destroying these things?"

      "Funny coming from you?" Soliel scoffed. "Weren't you the one who developed the BTOF formula?"

      Moon opened his mouth and closed it again. He really didn't have an answer for this. Instead, he weakly coughed and went back to taking pictures. "It's just all so brutal, is all," he softly stated.

      The scientists continued their search for the parv they were looking for, but found them in short supply. Those that remained were either dead or dying from the sonic emitter, and none of them had blue dye on their hair. Soliel shot his colleague a look. "Well, this was a bust," he said. "I guess we move on."

      "I don't get it. This was the biggest group of parvs in the area. Where else could he be?"

      "Maybe he saw us coming and ran underground to hide. We should check those pictures, anyway. We could have lost him in the shuffle."

      Dr. Moondidn't reply at first; he was still focusing on Soliel's words. "Hmm...underground, you say? Interesting..." With that, the two walked away from theround rock, leaving the fractured remnants of the Lost army behind them.