Page 80 of Captured By the Scaled Outlaw
Time seems to move in slow-motion, the sounds of bullets going quiet as color drains from my face. “What are you talking about?”
Kinsley rolls his eyes. “You’re not an idiot, but you don’t hide your feelings well. You think I don’t know about your secret stash of backup samples? You have the only incriminating sample of my creation in your personal collection, so I’ve only kept you alive because I have no clue where it is.”
I always keep a single backup, just in case, but I’ve never told anyone about it.
It takes a minute for me to digest his words, two words replaying repeatedly until I finally understand their meaning.
He said, “Mycreation.”
I stumble backward into a scientist. My knees feel weak.
“Youcreated that — that poison?You?”
With a disgusting wink, Kinsley’s mustache lifts to a smile. “One could call it a ‘biological weapon,’ of sorts,” he laughs, his tone twistful. “I wasn’t the Director of Biological Warfare for nothing, May. It’s a shame the others had to take the fall for me, though — I quite liked some of them. But I couldn’t let the Board of Ethics think it wasmewho created the poisoned herbicide, you know? Then we’d be stuck in an endless loop of having to reapply for construction permits that would eventually be rejected, and the whole department would shut down. I’ve done it all for the betterment of Nilsan.”
The words make me scoff in disbelief. I always knew Kinsley was a deplorable man, but I would have never suspected him capable of something so diabolical.
“Misya Swamp… was your doing?”
He laughs. “Of course! I couldn’t trust any of these idiots not to fuck it up.” He points to the scientists around us. “I had been trying to transfer to this department for years — higher pay, and amucheasier workload. But that old Director refused to retire, so I simply showed the Nilsan Government how incompetent he was.” Kinsley lounges in his seat. “And years after, here you come, always pushing the issue back to the surface. I had to demote you. Otherwise, you’d never give up on your quest. But you get it now, right? We’re on the same team. You just needed to remember your place in the natural order.”
I can barely speak.
Kinsley demoted me because he thought I would expose his secret to the Board of Ethics. He thought I knew about the poison the entire time but had chosen to keep quiet.
But if he’s trying to offload the chemicals on Gaia 4then…
“Why are you dumping the chemical, then? I’m now in your debt and won’t betray you,” I ask, my voice no more than a squeak.
Kinsley twirls his mustache absentmindedly. “Yeah, but you see,” His lips curl in a sneer, “the Board of Ethics is re-evaluating your initial data.”
“But every sample I submitted was negative, so it doesn’t matter.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “You don’t seem to understand me. They are re-evaluatingallprevious data, and I made many mistakes on my first go-around with the herbicide.”
“Oh, my Goddess.” The ground nearly caves beneath me. “That means they’ll redo the analysis for Misya Swamp.”
Kinsley sighs, shaking his head as sweat-drenched strands cling to his face. “See why I need to involve you? We’re in this shitstorm together. Both of our careers will be ruined if the truth comes out.”
“I had no idea what you were doing at that time. I’m not complicit like you are,” I bark back. I want to smack the pompous smile off his face.
“Good luck proving that to the Board of Ethics. You won’t be far behind if you try to throw me under the bus.” He clicks his tongue. “I’ve been synthesizing this herbicide for decades; one doesn’t have to look far once they find it. Once they trace it to me, they’re bound to find you.”
“Then why come to save me? I could expose you even though it would burn me in the process,” I say, pulling my lips into a thin line.
“You idiot, I didn’t come to save you. When I got word of the Board of Ethics revisiting the case, I knew I had to offload this shit before they found it in my storage,” he laughs, patting the seat next to him to urge me to get in. “It’s a gift you’re still alive. I thought you were long dead. Having you aid me in another coverup to save our careers is much more persuasive than just doing it myself.”
I don’t get in the seat beside Kinsley, which sours his expression.
“You must be crazy to think I’deverside with you. I’d rather spend the rest of my life in prison than aid and abet you,” I snarl, my browsfurrowed.
“I thought you’d say that,” Kinsley sighs as he slumps his shoulders. “So I slide some of your old Misya Swamp research samples into the boxes the Board of Ethics will review. Oh, and Iaddedsome of the herbicide, so it’ll be clear as day that you were involved, and if I’m lucky, they’ll just pin it all on you!” His smile makes my skin crawl. “If they never suspect us of wrongdoing, they can’t investigate us, can they?”
Fury doesn’t begin to describe the white-hot rage I feel.
“Then why try to dump it on Gaia 4?”
He holds up two fingers with a wink. “This is the second part of our plan if we’re found out: blame it on Gaia 4.Quite simple, but effective now that we have eyes on their base.”
