Page 93 of I Married A Syllen

Orian gestured with her head at two Syllens to accompany him. Maeve glanced up as if she could see through the ceiling, her frown deepening.

“I’m not detecting any other person or sentient lifeforms in the building,” Maeve said pensively. “But there are three large rooms that my scanner cannot penetrate. It’s very common for research labs to do that to prevent spies from stealing their secrets. But we’ll definitely want to have a look inside.”

On our way to the elevators, we glimpsed into the other rooms. As Maeve stated, they were offices and boardrooms that the Syllens had zero interest in. The Enforcers who had tagged along wasted no time slapping hacking devices on every computer. We didn’t wait for them as they scavenged all the data they could. The only room the Syllens agreed to properly explore was the storage by the shipping area.

The stacks of crates in the corner had been scheduled for pick up in the morning. Their contents were legitimate products which constituted their main sources of income. We used the service elevator so that we could all comfortably fit in one cabin. It was big enough to fit three hospital beds side by side.

Although the Syllens didn’t suffer from claustrophobia, they hated being inside that sealed cabin. I could only imagine how much more distraught they would have been had we used one of the regular elevators. Granted, we could have used the stairs, but this was the fastest and most direct route. Maeve bypassed the biometric lock and up we went.

The doors opened to reveal the long corridor that perfectly divided the second-floor smack in the middle. At the end of the hallway, a large set of double doors granted access to the scanner-proof room on that floor.

Taelen completely ignored the first few rooms as their glass walls gave a clear view of the interior. One of the three remaining Enforcers with us entered the first room to start downloading their data.

Seeing him make a beeline for a biohazard container confirmed they wanted samples as evidence. As we hadn’t seen anything incriminating yet that he would do this already hinted that they were here for more than just the Syllen issue.

They already have a warrant…

While the UPO and the Enforcers could work quickly when needed, this seemed extremely fast for them to secure a warrant against a corporation of Procrea’s caliber. There was something more happening.

The next two rooms presented just as little interest for us, but the fourth one stopped us dead in our tracks. Through the glass wall, I immediately recognized the Laurellis flowers on one of the workstations. At the back of the room, two tanks each contained a full Laurellis bush with a few flowers on it.

I swallowed hard as Maeve unlocked the door for us. Since those bushes killed that idiot in the Botanical Garden, my innards always twisted whenever I found myself in the vicinity of those plants. The fact that the bushes were sealed inside tanks only partially soothed my unease.

Anger bubbled within me moments after we entered the room, and I cussed under my breath.

“What is it, my mate?” Taelen asked.

“If I’m reading this right, those fuckers are trying to weaponize the toxin from the flowers,” I said through my teeth. “They’re trying to get the flowers to produce and release the spores on demand.”

“So they can trigger the attack at will,” Maeve said grimly. “But what makes you think that?”

“I’ve seen and used this technique before. But in our case, it was for medical reasons. The patients needed to remain in an environment with a specific level of spores in the air. Every time the levels started to drop, the monitor would emit a unique sound. We trained the mushroom that produced those spores to release a small amount of them in response to that sound,” I explained. “But this seems to have a different trigger.”

“So they knew these plants were lethal when they placed them in your garden?!” Taelen exclaimed angrily.

“No,” Maeve responded in my stead. “After the incident at the Botanical Garden, Procrea was tasked to look for a treatment to help anyone who might be exposed to those spores in the future.”

“I see,” Taelen said pensively before casting a confused look my way. “Then what makes you think they’re trying to weaponize it? If they’re trying to test the spores, it would make sense for them to look for a way to produce them at will, so they have enough samples for their research.”

“That’s correct. Except these charts indicate that they’re trying to increase the toxicity, not dampen it,” I said dejectedly while pointing at a monitor hanging from the ceiling near the workstation.

“Very well,” Taelen said grimly before glancing at one of the Syllens accompanying us. “Take care of it.”

The Syllen nodded and walked towards the tanks. I didn’t know what that meant. Was he to take the bushes out of here? Was he to kill the plants? Could he prevent the bush from flowering ever again? Was he—?

Every Syllen in the room suddenly jerked their heads towards the destroyed window looking out onto the far back corner of the side of the building. Orian and Taelen rushed towards the opening and made that hiccupping motion towards the sky. For a split second, I could have sworn something blurred a short distance ahead.

Whatever they heard was beyond my ability to detect and also fooled Maeve’s scanner. The two Theshes raised their wrists towards the sky, arm stretched straight ahead. I realized then that they’d use echolocation to pinpoint their target. The vines on the back of their forearms swelled, then a black dark—half the length of a hairpin—shot out from the front tips of the vines.

I remembered him firing a similar one at Professor Ludwig in the garden. Like on that occasion, the impact sounded like a bullet hitting a metallic target. This time, I saw the clear glitch of a stealth shield. The Syllens in the room, as well as those on the ground, emitted a deep sound that vibrated all the way down to my core. A network of vines appeared around the invisible shape of a personal shuttle dashing away.

Maeve opened her com, likely to tell their ship to give chase and use its tractor beam on the shuttle to stop it, but a startled gasp escaped her before she could say a single word. I yelped when a loud explosion went off outside. Judging by the way the vines wrapping part of the shuttle spun in the air, the vessel had sustained a massive blow that had knocked it off course. Two Syllens on the back of Nordjarimms gave chase, each shooting a blow dart at the camouflaged vessel.

Just as I was thinking that there was no way a blow dart could travel that far, two explosions resonated in the distance. The stealth shield collapsed under the impact of the first one, revealing a severely damaged vessel. The second explosion gutted it. My jaw dropped upon seeing the three large punctures the size of basketball on the flank of the small ship. There was no smoke, and no sign of burning or fire. You’d think it had just been stabbed by a giant trident.

The pilot lost control, and his efforts to stabilize the shuttle failed as he crashed into the river. The two shooters flew back to the shore where they landed, but a handful of Syllens by the water hopped onto their Elijinns to recover the fallen ship.

“Was that Crimson Datura?” Maeve asked.