The Chemist

The dog snarled and slavered under her while she tried to maintain her hold. She’d used the heavy-duty five-inch-diameter, class 200 pipe, but it was still shaking from her sudden attachment to it. She was sure it would bear her weight… unless someone attacked the base. Hopefully Kevin wouldn’t think of that.

Kevin started laughing. She could imagine how she looked.

“Who’s chained to the floor now?” he asked.

“Still you,” Daniel muttered.

At the sound of his master’s voice, the dog gave a little whine and looked around. It dropped off the desk and went to examine Kevin, with one parting growl in her direction. Kevin patted its face while the dog leaned down to lick him, still whining anxiously.

“I’m okay, buddy. I’m good.”

“He looks just like Einstein,” Daniel said, wonder in his tone. The dog looked up, on guard at the sound of a new voice.

Kevin patted Daniel’s foot. “Good boy, he’s cool. He’s cool.” It sounded like another command.

And sure enough, dropping the whine, the huge beast went to Daniel with its tail wagging furiously. Daniel stroked the gigantic head like that was the most natural thing in the world.

“That’s Einstein the Third,” Kevin explained.

Daniel scratched his fingers through the thick coat appreciatively. “He’s beautiful.”

Her arms were getting tired. She tried to readjust while still watching, and the dog bounded right back to the desk, snarling again.

“Any hope of your calling the dog off?” she asked, trying to keep her voice composed.

“Possibly. If you throw me the keys.”

“And if I give you the keys, you won’t kill me?”

“I already said I’d call the dog off. Don’t get greedy.”

“I think I’ll just stay up here, then, until the gas knocks you all out. Daniel’s probably got enough brain cells to spare.”

“See, I think I’ll be okay. Because even though Einstein can’t reach you, Daniel can. And if the gas hits you after he relieves you of those masks… well, the unconscious fall to the floor won’t kill you, obviously, but it won’t do you any favors.”

“Why would I do that?” Daniel asked.

“What?” Kevin demanded.

“She’s on our side, Kev.”

“Whoa there. Are you insane? There are two very different sides here, kid. Your brother is on one, and the sadist who tortured you is on the other. Which side are you on?”

“The side of reason, I guess.”

“Good,” Kevin grunted.

“Um, that’s not your side, Kev.”

“What?”

“Calm down. Listen, let me broker a truce here.”

“I can’t believe you aren’t reaching up there to throttle her yourself.”

“She was only doing what you would have done in her place. Be honest – if you knew some stranger was going to kill millions of people and you needed to find out how to stop him, what would you do?”

“Find another solution. Like I did. Listen to me, Danny – you’re out of your league here. I know people like her. They’re sick. They get some twisted high off other people’s pain. They’re like venomous snakes; you can’t turn your back on them.”

“She isn’t like that. And what’s the big deal to you, anyway? I’m the one who got tortured. What do you even know about that?”

Kevin just stared at him, deadpan, for one moment, then pointed with his secured left hand to his secured left foot. He wiggled his four toes.

It took a few seconds for comprehension to hit, and then Daniel sucked in a horrified gasp.

“Amateurs,” she scoffed from the ceiling.

“I don’t know,” Kevin said coolly. “They seemed pretty good to me.”

“Did they get what they were after?”

He made a disbelieving noise in the back of his throat. “Are you kidding?”

She raised one eyebrow. “Like I said.”

“And you could have made me talk?”

Her lips pulled into a bleak smile. “Oh, yes.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Daniel shudder convulsively.

The dog was quiet now but still alert underneath her. It seemed unsure of the situation, with its master talking so calmly to its target.

“Hey, I know who you are,” Kevin said suddenly. “Yeah, the girl. I heard rumors about you. Exaggerations. They said you’d never had a miss. You were batting a thousand.”

“Not an exaggeration.”

His expression was skeptical. “You worked with the old guy, the Mad Scientist, they called him. The Agency called you the Oleander. Honestly, I didn’t put it together at first because I heard you both died in some lab accident. And also, I always imagined the Oleander was pretty.”

Daniel started to say something, but she interrupted.

“Oleander? That’s just awful.”

“Huh?”

“A flower?” she growled to herself. “That’s so passive. A poison doesn’t do the poisoning, it’s just an inert agent.”

“What did your unit call you?”

“The Chemist. And Dr. Barnaby was not a mad scientist. He was a genius.”

“Tomato, tomahto,” Kevin said.

“Back to the truce I was speaking of,” Daniel interjected. The way he looked at her hands and arms, she thought he might have guessed how much they were hurting her. “Alex will give me the keys, and Kevin, you will call off Einstein. When I think everything is under control, I’ll let you out. Alex, do you trust me?”