Chapter 53: The Greatest Scientist of This Century

Chapter 53: Chapter 53: The Greatest Scientist of This Century

Chapter 53: The Greatest Scientist of This Century

A federal scientist?

Axel Vance frowned as he looked at the excited young man in front of him. "Shouldn’t you still be outside studying that mountain of rotten flesh? How do you have enough free time to come looking for me?"

Dr. Seth Brundle immediately lowered his voice and glanced around the grocery store. "Mr. Vance, the public might not know what actually happened here, but some of us working with the federal team have access to the less sanitized reports. This whole incident involved something supernatural, didn’t it?"

The excitement in Seth’s eyes was almost impossible to hide. Axel studied him for a moment before giving a slight nod, which was as close to confirmation as he intended to offer. Seth’s attention immediately shifted toward Lionel Cosgrove, who was still sitting at the table struggling his way through the enormous ham.

Seth pulled out his notebook and began writing rapidly. "Your report identifies Mr. Cosgrove as a victim, but most of the dead were connected to his household, and the original outbreak started inside his home. Logically, that puts him very close to the center of whatever happened."

Lionel stopped chewing.

His face slowly tightened with anxiety.

The atmosphere inside the grocery store changed almost immediately. Axel stepped between Seth and Lionel without saying anything, then stared silently at the young scientist until Seth’s enthusiastic expression began to collapse.

A chill ran down Seth’s back. He quickly raised both hands and forced an awkward smile. "Hey, don’t misunderstand me. I’m a researcher and federal consultant, not some field agent here to arrest anybody."

He pointed toward his white lab coat as though it proved his innocence. "I’m not here to threaten Mr. Cosgrove or drag him into an interrogation room. I’m just an employee trying to survive a terrible assignment."

Axel’s expression relaxed slightly.

Seth released a quiet breath before continuing. "Here’s the problem. I’ve been ordered to recover some important experimental records from an abandoned federal nuclear-testing range in New Mexico."

He paused before lowering his voice again. "One of my colleagues worked around that area years ago, and according to him, something is very wrong with the place. I requested an armed escort, but apparently ’possibly haunted’ isn’t an approved justification for assigning soldiers to a physicist."

Seth looked genuinely miserable about that decision. "Normally I would complain and go anyway, but then I heard about you. People inside the investigation say you’re unusually good at dealing with things that don’t fit inside normal scientific reports."

Axel crossed his arms. "And you came here hoping I’d volunteer?"

"Not for free."

Seth leaned closer as if preparing to reveal classified information. "Consider this a show of good faith: the biological material recovered from those infected bodies appears to trigger extremely accelerated cellular regeneration under certain conditions."

Axel’s expression sharpened.

Seth tapped his notebook. "That’s why half the government suddenly showed up. Everybody sees potential value in those samples, and several departments are already fighting over who gets access."

That explained quite a lot.

The crowd outside had never been interested in the town itself. They were interested in whatever could be extracted from Vera’s infected remains, and Axel knew exactly where that curiosity would eventually lead once dead tissue stopped producing useful answers.

Lionel was still alive.

Worse, his altered body possessed an impossible capacity to survive injuries that should have killed him.

If researchers began connecting those facts, Lionel could quickly become far more valuable than a jar of infected tissue. Axel doubted every scientist involved would behave like a horror-movie villain, but it only took one ambitious department or private company to turn a frightened young man into a research subject.

Seth noticed Axel’s expression softening and immediately prepared to continue his sales pitch. Before he could speak, Axel raised his head and asked, "All right. What exactly are you offering me for taking this job?"

Seth straightened instantly.

Confidence returned to his face.

"To tell you the truth, I only accepted this assignment because my own research is almost finished." Seth placed his notebook under one arm and declared with absolute conviction, "Once I complete the final stage, Seth Brundle will be remembered as the greatest scientist of this century."

Even Lionel stopped eating.

Paquita’s grandmother slowly turned toward Seth.

Axel raised an eyebrow. "That’s a pretty big claim. What are you building?"

Seth took a deep breath.

"A teleportation system."

The grocery store became quiet.

Seth spread his hands excitedly. "Two paired chambers—telepods. Matter enters one pod, the system analyzes and disassembles its structure, then transmits the information so the receiving pod can reconstruct it at the destination."

His words came faster as his excitement increased. "Once it works properly, an object could move between two locations almost instantaneously. Eventually, even a living person could step into one pod and emerge from the other."

Nobody responded.

Lionel slowly stopped chewing his ham.

He stared at Seth as though the man had just announced he planned to build a ladder to the moon.

Paquita’s grandmother narrowed her eyes suspiciously and examined the scientist from head to toe. Axel remained silent the longest before finally asking, "So let me understand this correctly. You’re supposedly close to inventing teleportation, and the government decided the best use of your time was sending you alone into an abandoned nuclear-testing site that might be haunted?"

Seth’s face immediately turned red.

The confidence vanished from his posture.

"Well... the prototype is still enormous," he admitted. "The telepods are in my laboratory, the control systems take up half the room, and there are still problems with the biological side of the process."

Axel kept staring.

Seth became increasingly defensive. "Those bureaucrats don’t understand what I’m doing! They see the equipment budget, electricity costs, computer time, failed components, and experimental losses, then start asking whether teleportation is really worth the money."

His voice rose with every sentence. "They’ve been looking for an excuse to cut my funding for months. This recovery assignment is basically punishment because I refused to shut the project down."

Lionel looked toward Axel.

Axel looked back at him.

Strangely enough, Seth’s irritation made his story more believable.

A competent liar would probably have delivered a polished explanation instead of becoming genuinely furious over research budgets.

"All right," Axel said. "I believe that part. Tell me about the test site."

Seth’s mood changed immediately.

The anger disappeared, replaced by genuine unease.

"The official files don’t mention anything unusual," he said. "But I accessed some restricted reports connected to earlier recovery teams, and several people sent into the area disappeared."

Axel narrowed his eyes.

Seth continued, "There are stories that the old nuclear tests disturbed something that was already living there. Other reports blame radiation, contamination, or people who never evacuated when the government took over the land."

He hesitated before adding, "Then there are the stories about voices, missing investigators, and things moving through the old testing village after dark. Nobody agrees on what’s actually there."

Axel rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

An abandoned nuclear-testing range in the New Mexico desert immediately sounded like the opening act of another horror movie. Whether Seth’s supposed ghosts were actually spirits, mutated survivors, or something even stranger remained impossible to tell from rumors alone.

"Sounds more interesting than Crystal Lake," Axel said.

Seth stared at him. "Mr. Vance, I’m being serious."

"So am I."

"That somehow makes it worse."

Seth rubbed his face before continuing. "The records I need are inside the main control facility near the center of the old range. That’s also where most of the disappearances seem to cluster."

Axel looked toward him. "And you need me to get you inside and back out."

"Exactly."

Seth stepped closer, his excitement returning as he reached the part of the proposal he actually liked. "Get me to those records, help me complete this assignment, and I should have what I need to finish the next stage of my telepod work."

Then he smiled confidently.

"When the system is stable, I’ll build you a compact set."

Axel’s expression changed.

A portable teleportation system was the kind of reward that could completely change how he handled supernatural cases. Even if Seth was exaggerating how close the technology was to completion, the possibility alone was worth serious consideration.

Axel glanced toward Lionel.

The young man had gone back to eating, but his face remained pale after hearing what federal researchers had discovered about the infected tissue. As long as Lionel stayed in a town full of scientists searching for regenerative breakthroughs, somebody would eventually begin asking the wrong questions.

"I’ll help you," Axel said.

Seth’s face lit up.

"Fantastic! You have no idea—"

"But I have three conditions."

Seth stopped.

Axel raised three fingers.

"First, you use whatever federal connections and credentials you have to settle Lionel’s situation. I want the record to make it clear that he was a victim and cooperating witness, not the mastermind behind the outbreak."

Lionel immediately looked up.

Axel continued, "No agency dragging him away because some researcher suddenly decides he looks interesting. Get him whatever protected-witness status or federal documentation is appropriate, and make sure my own involvement in this mess is officially cleared too."

Seth considered the request for several seconds before nodding firmly. "I can push the right people and make sure the scientific teams understand he’s off-limits without authorization. I’ll handle it."

"Good."

Axel lowered one finger.

"Second, if your telepods actually work, I get a duplicate system."

Seth answered without hesitation. "Agreed. That was already part of my offer."

Axel lowered another finger.

"Third, you pay for the entire operation."

Seth blinked.

"Transportation, fuel, food, lodging, ammunition, equipment, replacements, anything we destroy, and anything something else destroys while trying to kill us," Axel said. His expression became noticeably more serious as he remembered the crushed remains of his brand-new Ford.

Seth opened his mouth.

Axel pointed toward him with the final raised finger.

"I am not paying for another car because some supernatural freak decides to use mine as a weapon."

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