Raiyev Part 9
#9 of Raiyev
How long had he been standing there, idle with his thoughts? Raiyev silently cursed his foolishness. Bilicek eyed Raiyev up and down, glaring almost irately. Raiyev tried to think of something to say.
"Well?" Bilicek said after another moment had passed. "What are you think you're doing over here, huh?"
Raiyev decided that the truth was the best answer. He finally replied, though a bit dryly, "I was just looking for Toni Hawthorne. She is?was?Dr. Paxton's assistant."
Bilicek glared at the raccoon a moment more, studying him. "Were you in the cafeteria, then, when it happened?" she asked of him, her tone not letting up.
"Yes."
"Yeah, I remember you," she said, then consulted her clipboard, which Raiyev had just noticed was still in her large paw. Finding his name, she tried to sound it out. "Cossuh...cossuhCO..."
"Kosekovic," Raiyev offered quickly.
"Yeah, whatever," she grunted. "Well, you were there, and you're scheduled to be questioned, anyway. So get on out of here and go back to wherever you're supposed to be workin'!"
Raiyev slinked away, his generally bright tail slinking apathetically behind him. He muttered a couple curses under his breath, his anger towards Bilicek at that moment greater than it had ever been. Yes, she had seemed incompetent before, but now she was just being a bitch. Raiyev's anger subsided, though, as he made his way slowly back to his lab.
When Raiyev got back, he was almost lost, having nearly forgotten about his work after the events that had just happened at lunch. The collection of blood he, Harper, and Thomas had taken just that morning now seemed like days ago. The subjects were dismissed for now, and all of Raiyev's coworkers were silently and solemnly set to work. Raiyev recognized that some of them had also been in the cafeteria when the...scene had...occurred.
Geez, Raiyev thought silently, it feels so superficial to say it in such an analytical tone. He took to his general workstation by Thomas and asked what the status quo was.
"Just general analyzation of the samples and such for now," Thomas explained, referring to the procedures on a photocopy of the older file he had shown Raiyev previously. Raiyev sighed and set to work, just as silently and solemnly as everyone else in the room. It was a long and tedious process, which Raiyev would generally enjoy regardless of its tediousness, but the idea that someone's life had just been lost...right before his very eyes, too... Who had done it? It really didn't seem like just a freak accident...
"What are you doing?!" Thomas exclaimed. "You just saved new data over another data file!"
"I did?!" Raiyev was feeling terribly distracted. He took another look at the computer screen. "Fuck!" he exclaimed, berating himself loud enough that everyone in the lab looked up.
"Stand aside," Thomas sighed, gently nudging the raccoon out of the way. Thomas typed away at the computer for a couple minutes. Raiyev watched half-heartedly, his eyes casting to the ground every so often, his tail limp and ears folded back. "Got it," Thomas said after a couple minutes. "Was able to tap into the company's main system and get it back?but I shouldn't be doing that, so be more careful in the future!"
Raiyev sighed and whispered an apology and got promptly back to work, doing his best to focus on the subject at hand. As the day wore on, the team was able to find and isolate the general chemicals that seemed to be in excess in the blood stream. Different strands of seemingly random chemicals were slowly collected in an order that gradually made more and more sense, like fitting together pieces of a huge genetic puzzle, until finally...
"I think we've got it," Harper said, coming to Thomas and Raiyev to compare notes. There was some mild debate, and a bit more testing, but it looked rather clear: they had isolated the chemical that appeared to cause Gigantism. Lab 8 took a huge collective sigh, and everyone took a fiver.
"So we've got the chemical," Raiyev said, holding a Styrofoam cup of water in the break room, talking to Thomas and Harper. "What now?"
"I think some basic testing," Thomas answered after taking a sip of his tea. "You know?on plants."
"Plants?" Harper said, somewhat incredulously. "You want to test an animalistic chemical on plants?"
"Can you suggest something better?" Thomas asked, a vague hint of challenge in his voice.
"Oh, for Christ's sake, we're not gonna start on THIS again, are we?" Harper said coldly. "So you have the highest fucking IQ in the Lab. Big fucking deal. Grow up. That doesn't make everyone else incompetent, you know."
"I was merely asking?"
"I know what you were asking, and no?I can't think of anything better, other than to test it on other ANIMAL subjects that don't have Gigantism."
"I dunno," Raiyev said. "Getting test subjects to extract blood from is one thing; getting subjects to inject a foreign chemical is whole other story. We could get into a lot of hot water with the activists groups and media, you know."
"I don't care!" Harper exclaimed. "They don't pay us enough here to worry about hype from the media."
"But they do pay us enough to make us sign a legal contract about secrecy of what goes on here," Thomas argued.
"Whatever," the rabbit sighed, giving in. "You guys can test this chemical however you want. Let's just get some results, okay?!"
The group headed back to the lab and started the set-up for Thomas' idea. Testing on plants was going to be difficult, though, as there were only a few specific plants that would show similar results to animalistic chemicals. By the next day, the lab had acquired only a small handful of plants they could use for testing, and more were on their way.
This was also the day, as Raiyev was told that morning by his fiancée, that Brad was to be questioned about everything he witnessed at the scene yesterday. Brad was scheduled to go early in the morning, so Raiyev was looking forward to hearing from him again during lunch.
"Wow," Raiyev said, sitting down at his and Brad's usual table. "I just realized something."
"What?" Brad asked, already munching on his salad.
"It's just...24 hours ago, approximately...you know?" He was staring over at the table at which it had happened. The police line was still set up around the scene, orange cones set around it. "Just...weird, I guess."
Brad looked down at his plate, a grim look on his face.
"What's wrong?" Raiyev asked, concerned.
"The fricken' questioning?that's what."
"What happened?"
"They treated me like shit!" the larger raccoon said, looking up at Raiyev. "Especially that bitch Bilicek. She kept badgering me about it, as if I was the one who did it!"
"Well, you didn't, did you?" Raiyev realized in horror what he had just said, but it was too late.
"Of course I didn't do it!" Brad bellowed, turning a few heads in his direction.
"Sorry," Raiyev whimpered, lowering his head. "I didn't mean..."
Brad sighed. "I'm sorry. I know you didn't mean to suggest anything. It's just this whole goddamn week has been messed up, you know? It's enough to break anyone, I guess." Raiyev was still staring down at his food. "Hey," Brad said gently, reaching over and lifting Raiyev's head in his paw, a finger tucked under Raiyev's chin. "I'm sorry I got angry at you. Okay? I love you."
Raiyev smiled weakly. "I know, sweetie. It's okay." The two ate in silence for a couple moments before Raiyev spoke again. "She really rode your ass about it? She really thought you did it?"
"I don't know what she was thinking?I think she's just trying to scare information out of people. I think I overheard someone else saying that she had been mean to them, too. So when are you supposed to get interviewed?"
"I really don't know," he said, going back to his food. "I sure hope the same doesn't happen to me," Raiyev thought aloud. However Bilicek treated him, he wasn't quite ready to return his mind back to that event. Death wasn't a fun topic to think about.