Ollie scrolled through Toronto’s local news, quickly skimming over the mundane articles. Another incident in downtown. Three casualties, two in critical condition.

The email detailed a new drug that caused crystals to sprout from the insides of victims. Police were on track to find where the supply came from, but they’d never know. Another incident, another mouth to shut. Maybe this time, blame the Russians.

Sitting on the hidden top floor of TD Tower, just a couple of floors above the restaurant, the building itself was notoriously called “Glory’s Bazaar” in Aur. Behind his desk was a panoramic view of the city’s skyline, where only a few of the highest skyscrapers obstructed the view.

Rain pattered against the windows. Lightning lit up the sky, followed by muffled thunder. His phone buzzed and a notification lit up.

[Rachel: Don’t forget to have your dinner.]

Ollie turned the phone downwards on the table. The casualty report was more important. This exposure was too close to the lab. Someone had messed up on his side.

Two knocks on his glass doors rang suddenly, and the door opened with a soft click. A man walked in. Name, Alexander Lin. His white lab coat had no coffee stains today despite the late hour of 2AM. He carried a tablet and wore an expressionless face, though the bags under his eyes betrayed that composure.

“Mr. Glory,” Alexander said. “The results from Lab 7 are ready.”

“Go on.” Ollie leaned backwards, rubbing his eyes.

“The crystallization process has accelerated in the latest batch.” Alexander swiped through data on his tablet. “When exposed to mundanes, the transformation takes approximately 120 hours to complete. Previous cases averaged 272 hours.”

“And the success rate?”

“Zero survivors among the mundanes. The crystals form in major organs first, particularly the skin, heart, and lungs. Death rate is still at 100%.”

Ollie tapped a pen on the desk. “What about the break-in?”

“Security footage showed individuals entering through the loading dock yesterday at 2:47AM. None of the alarms rang. Most likely they knew our security rotation.” Alex laid the tablet on the table. “They took samples from batches 23-A through 24-F.”

“Stable versions.”

“Yes, sir. Batches designed for Aurians.” A barely noticeable slight crease at the corner of Alexander’s left lip appeared. “They also downloaded the research data on crystal formation patterns.”

Ollie stood up, turned, and walked to the window. Looking down, Wellington Street was just below. Dozens of people walked along the sidewalk in groups. Cars flew by on the one way street. It was past midnight, yet the nightlife in the financial district was still kicking. Somewhere out there, someone was using his research for purposes that he hadn’t intended. Or maybe exactly as he intended. He wasn’t sure anymore though.

But that wasn’t important. Ollie clicked his tongue. He missed profits from those sales that those thugs would make. If they were going to use or distribute his product, they better pay him something otherwise what’d be the point?

Money? It was for the success rate. More research.

“The United Knights are getting suspicious,” Alexander continued. “They’ve increased patrols around known distribution ports in Montreal. The Path is losing negotiations in those areas due to the dust outflow into Europe.”

“Let them suspect.” Ollie turned back to his desk. “We should be safe as long as they can’t point the finger on us.”

His phone buzzed again. It was a notification from Rachel. He ignored it.

“There’s more,” Alexander said. “The Jiuling have started their own investigation. Their agents were spotted near our secondary facility in Agincourt, Scarborough. More landings of their agents were sighted at YVR.”

Ollie’s lips curved into a slight smile. “How many shipments went out this week?”

“Fifteen. All through approved Path channels. Neither faction can point to us.” Alexander scrolled through the spreadsheet. “Other than that, profit margins are up twelve percent from last quarter. The new formula’s popularity among Aur users has exceeded projections.”

“And the side effects?”

“Minimal, in proper doses. The addiction rate remains high, but that’s…” Alexander cleared his throat. “That’s not necessarily a negative factor for sales.”

Ollie nodded. Down below on the street, a woman wearing a red dress tripped. The man beside her caught her, putting the umbrella on top of her. They all looked so small, helpless that they couldn’t even do anything on their own.

“There was an incident in the downtown lab,” Ollie said. “What happened there?”

“Maintenance crew found a broken container in the ventilation system. Likely planted there by someone inside,” Alexander said. “The victims showed signs of advanced crystallization within hours. Much faster than our previous data suggested possible.”

“That’s not our formula, is it?” Ollie asked.

“Parts of it is. The crystal structures we found don’t match our baseline samples, but they do share the same host attack signature. This one’s more aggressive, less stable.” Alexander picked up the tablet from Ollie’s desk and opened a diagram, showing Ollie. “The molecular structure has been altered to target mundanes specifically.”

Ollie put two fingers on the screen, zooming in on the bonds. “Is there anyone in Canada that can do this?”

“Based on our analysis, only three facilities in North America have the necessary equipment and expertise. Two are controlled by the Path. The third…”

“Is ours,” Ollie said. “We have a leak.”

“Yes, sir. Security protocols are being reviewed, but…”

“Handle this quietly.” Ollie returned to his chair. “Make sure the Path agents don’t know. Bribe them if you need to or take them out silently. As for the public… blame the Russians.”

His phone buzzed again on the table. Probably Rachel. Answer it later.

“What do you need from me?” Alexander asked.

“Increase security at all facilities. Review employee access logs for the past three months. Anyone showing irregular patterns gets flagged for investigation.” Ollie’s fingers tapped quickly on the keyboard. “And Alexander?”

“Sir?” Alexander replied.

“Prepare a press release for Aurian Star and a separate one for the mundane newspapers about the downtown incident. Industrial accident. Tragic but unforeseeable. Russian incompetence. The usual template.”

Alexander nodded once. “Of course, sir. Will that be all?”

“One more thing.” Ollie looked up from his screen. “How many mundanes were affected this quarter?”

“Thirty-seven confirmed cases. Likely more unreported.”

“And Aurians?”

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“Sales to registered users continue to rise. No significant adverse effects reported when used as directed. And as always, they come back for more afterwards.”

Ollie turned back to his monitor. “That’ll be all, Alexander. Keep me updated on the investigation.”

The glass door closed softly behind Alexander, leaving Ollie alone. His phone no longer buzzed from Rachel’s meaningless worries. But before he could open another spreadsheet, the phone rang again. Not a message this time, a call.

Holding the power button, the phone finally turned off. Looking back at the screen, notifications on a messenger popped up on the bottom right of the screen.

[Rachel: Don’t forget to have your dinner.]

[Rachel: Ollie, I know you’ve been at the office since the morning, and I know you’re reading these. The lab incident isn’t your fault.]

[Rachel: At least drink some water. I left a bottle on your desk this morning.]

He sighed. Looking at the bottle in the corner of his desk, he knew he couldn’t escape her persistence. She didn’t really understand what he went through that night after being discharged from the hospital. She didn’t understand what he was trying to do. None of them really did, but he also wasn’t sure if he still understood what he was trying to do.

Profit margins from the dust trade had built this empire. Every victim, every look on their face as they succumbed to the crystals that became their coffins.

Jiuling agents and knights sniffed all around from east to west. None of them could find a stain on his record. Not with the right people by his side.

Rachel was one of them. Her family somehow had connections to dust. He didn’t question it. He only wanted to solve it. Concern from her was just a burden. Before another notification popped up, he put his desktop on ‘do not disturb’.

Someone tampering with his dust and not giving him anything in return? It didn’t matter who they were or who was behind them. They made the formula more aggressive specifically on the mundanes. The research was supposed to save them. Their act itself twisted the cause and even put coin in his pocket. Something needed to give.

But wait. Would intervening cause the research to slow? It was all business at the end of the day. As long as those thugs didn’t bother to lead the wrong people down his path, he didn’t care. Progress is what mattered, not petty street fights.

Lightning struck again just behind him. The plastic of the water bottle caught a glint of that light. Rachel still saw him as the person from before. Before they came back, before the profits started rolling in. A part of her cohort that came back from the dark forest.

Ollie turned the phone back on, quickly turned on messenger and sent a single letter to her: k.

Suddenly, a new email popped up in his inbox on his PC monitor.

[Incident_Report#2170|by: church & king street]

Life was so much simpler when they were in the dark forest. If only he didn’t get stuck. If only…

Extending his hand out to the water bottle, his sleeve caught on a picture frame just beside his laptop. The picture contained a girl, black hair, smiling, hugging him while he blushed under High Park’s cherry blossoms.

He gripped the picture frame tight, enough to crack the glass, and threw it against the wall. The glass shattered, frame destroyed. The picture lay on the floor along with the fragments of glass.

Running his hand through his hair, he turned around and saw lightning flash once again, showing his image on the window. A successful man in an expensive suit, running a profitable enterprise.

He should be happy. He got to where he wished to be. That’s what you told her.

Hang in there. All of this is for research purposes, right? All of it was just so that none of this shit ever happens again to anyone, right? And maybe you’ll get even richer once you get the cure. That’s it. Get rich. Make the cure. Save lives. We can think about what happens later.

Ollie stared at the broken fragments. This was no time to linger on thoughts. He sighed, took the phone, and exited his office. The picture, the broken frame, and shattered glass remained on the floor.

The elevator doors slid open. Ollie entered into a normal looking office. Cubicles lined up in rows, everything looked gray.

He went to one particular cubicle situated at the wall, 5th position from the window. Upon lifting up the phone in that cubicle, the wall disappeared and a white corridor replaced it.

Lab 7.

Ollie straightened his tie as his leather shoes clicked against the polished floor.

A man in kevlar vest scrolling through his phone greeted him. The man quickly pocketed his phone and opened the door beside.

“Evening, Sir Glory.”

Security checkpoint. Ollie nodded and walked his way through the open door.

Through reinforced windows, rows and rows of hospital beds contained patients. Crystals sprouted from their skin, bleeding and purple from where they poked out. Each bed held a board that would contain their numbers.

Dr. Sarah Chen stood by the observation door at the end of the hall and another security checkpoint. Her tablet clutched at her chest, dark circles under her eyes, lab coat stained with multiple coffee stains. From the pattern of it, looks like some of those stains had been there from a week ago.

“Mr. Glory, we weren’t expecting you until morning.”

“Changes in schedule.” He kept walking, forcing her to match his pace. “Show me the new cases.”

“Patient 2187 exhibited complete crystallisation of the epidermis within 24 hours of exposure,” Dr. Chen said.

They passed through another set of security doors, and the smell of antiseptic grew stronger.

“The pain levels…” She hesitated.

“Continue,” Ollie said, his tone flat.

“The pain levels exceeded our previous measurements. We had to increase sedation by 300% just to keep vital signs stable.”

Ollie stopped his pace and through a window saw a middle aged man thrashing against his restraints. Crystals poked out from his arms like broken glass, blood dripping onto the sheets. The heart rate monitor spiked to 200.

“How long until total system failure?” Ollie asked.

“At this rate? Twelve hours, maybe less.” Dr. Chen’s voice quivered. “Mr. Glory, these results don’t match any of our previous trials. The acceleration rate is unprecedented.”

A doctor named Nathan Brown stood at the end of the hall. His lab coat was wrinkled, also stained from coffee here and there, still the same clothes he wore 3 days ago. The man’s hair stood up on one side, resembling someone who slept at their desk for multiple nights. The man didn’t even bother to cover it up as if it were just another day. His eyes were red rimmed behind the glass.

“Oliver,” Nathan said. “We need to talk about what’s happening here.”

Ollie checked his watch. “Make it quick.”

“These people…” Nathan pointed at the numbers on Dr. Chen’s tablet. “They’re not just test subjects. They have families. Lives. What we’re doing-“

“Is necessary for progress,” Ollie cut him off.

“At what cost?” Nathan’s voice cracked. “This new formula someone made… it’s torture. Pure torture. Evidence points that it’s a branch of one of ours. We’re not just killing them anymore, we’re-“

“Dr. Brown.” Ollie’s voice dropped to ice. “Your concerns are noted. But remember why you’re here. Remember what happened to your sister.”

Nathan flinched.

“The modifications to the formula was for malicious purposes. Someone deliberately made it more aggressive. More painful. We need to stop this.”

“What we need,” Ollie leaned forward towards Nathan, “is results. How close are we to isolating the trigger mechanism?”

Dr. Chen stepped forward, her tablet showing diagrams of molecular bonds. “The crystal formation appears to target specific protein chains in mundanes. We’ve identified three potential binding sites.”

A loud piercing scream interrupted the conversation for a brief moment, muffled by layers of glass and steel. Patient 2187’s back arched as new crystals slowly formed on his chest. The monitors wailed as the patient’s heart rate increased to over 230 beats per minute. Did she experience this too?

“Record everything,” Ollie murmured, watching the man squirm.

Dr. Chen tapped a few times on her tablet and a small red light came on in the lab behind the glass.

“The pain response suggests neural involvement,” she continued. “The crystals might be forming along nerve pathways first, which explains the increased agony in recent cases.”

Ollie nodded, his eyes fixed on the dying man. The crystals had reached his neck, spreading up toward his face. “Time to full transformation?”

“One hour, based on current progression.” Dr. Chen’s voice trembled. “Sir, they’re in pain we have to do som-“

“This is all we can do.” Ollie turned away from the window, then continued walking down the hall at the same pace as before. “I want full analysis of the crystallization pattern. Compare it to our baseline data. Find out who modified the formula and how.”

Nathan sprinted ahead and looked back at Ollie. “People are dying, Oliver. Real people. Not just numbers in a spreadsheet.”

“People die every day, Dr. Brown.” Ollie pushed him to the side. “At least these deaths might mean something. Might lead us to a cure.”

Might lead to more profit, he didn’t add. The lives today will save lives tomorrow, and maybe she wouldn’t have been in that crystal coffin. Might as well make them useful for research.

Ollie’s phone rang.

[Call from Carl]

Before tapping the green button, Ollie cleared his throat and put on a slight smile. “Hello, this is Ollie’s Glorious Bazaar, is the Sir Jonathan doing a custom request?”

“Cut the crap, Oliver. Managers are to meet at location 15. Be there at 0500 sharp. Don’t be late.” The man on the phone hung up as soon as he was done talking.

Location 15 was a specific meeting room in City Hall. Ollie sighed, taking a deep breath. It was a room usually reserved for critical issues within the North American region of Aur.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep