The next day...
"Charles…" Sterling whispered.
"Sterling…" Charles replied.
The two scientists locked eyes with each other. Then, they looked at the leftover corpse of the python that Arthur had brought.
"My blood is rushing. Can we…just we started?" Sterling asked, already putting on gloves.
"I don't think we need wait any longer…" Charles replied, putting on a mask.
After they prepared themselves, Sterling took a scalpel and tried to pierce the snake's scales. The sharp blade couldn't pierce the skin, poking like a feather trying to pierce wood. Sterling grumbled and stretched out his hand.
"Give me something sharper." He spoke.
Charles nodded and turned around, he looked at the array to tools and took a certain one. He handed it to sterling and he smiled.
"An air saw…"
He activated it and tried cutting the skin again. The saw went smooth through like butter, splitting the reptiles' body in half. Sterling deactivated the saw and put it down.
"Now…let's check it's inner's." Charles stated with a grim expression.
"Don't be disgusted. We find something new in there." Sterling grinned.
"If it's snake eggs, I'm going to vomit."
"Oh, don't be a child, Charles. This python isn't even ready to bear children."
"I know – I know."
The duo dug into the snake's inner, trying to find any new mutation or organ. Eventually, after an hour or so, they're search was concluded.
"Nothing." Charles stated.
"Nothing at all." Sterling sighed, disappointment clearly in his tone.
Charles stroked his chin and scanned the reptile's skin.
'What looks different…? Wait…the scales!'
He instantly approached in corpse, gliding his fingers across the surface of its skin.
"What are you doing…?" Sterling inquired.
"Sterling." Charles replied. "The scales…"
Sterling paused and thought, realizing what they had missed. A smile couldn't help but form on his face as he activated the saw again. He slid it across the skin, separating the scales from it.
"Woah! Be careful."
He spoke as sterling handed him a piece of the scale. Charles felt something…strange. He felt slight pressure as if something was covering his hand very slowly. Charles gulped realizing, something was definitely wrong with these scales.
"Let's run this through everything." Sterling interrupted Charles thoughts.
"Y-Yes! Let's get to it immediately." Charles replied.
They ran it through several tests and though nothing was biologically different…something inside the scales was.
"There is something inside the scales. It's not blood. Otherwise, our machines would've discovered it." Charles stated.
"The scale itself was made of amounts of lithium…do think it's energy?" Sterling stroked his chin.
"Sir…I don't mean to but…have you lost your mind? How could there be energy?"
"Y'know that lithium is made to produce rechargeable batteries…then, why not apply the same concepts?"
"But those are two completely different topics you're talking about."
"Hey…" Sterling patted Charles shoulder. "We're somewhere that…doesn't make sense to science nor humanity either way, predictions and hypothesis are the basis of science."
Charles sighed. "If you say so…"
He placed it on a scanner that pushed out green waves, scanning the scale thoroughly. Then, it started beeping rapidly.
"Shit." Charles blurted.
"Well…Shit." Sterling did the same.
The results instantly went to the super-laptop which they rushed to. As the laptop calibrated the data, an error sign appeared. The duo froze. Sterling approached and check the error.
"[No listed energy type found.] What? A new type of energy?"
Charles jumped in. "Tell it to find similar energy types."
"Right…" Sterling tapped his fingers across the keyboard.
After receiving the command, the laptop started trying to find similar energy types. After a few minutes of searching, it spit out an answer.
[Most similar to Emotions 'energy in motion']
Their jaws dropped. They looked at each other, then the laptop, then at each other again.
"Oh my god!" Sterling exclaimed as excited as a child.
"We did it!" Charles reached his hand out.
Sterling shook the latter as they smiled, knowing they had just made a breakthrough discovery.
***
David sat in front of Matthew, Josh and Nolan who all looked to be sleep deprived. He sighed heavily and asked in a serious tone.
"So…I heard some strange things last night. I felt something too…do you know what it is?"
Nolan nodded slowly. "…Chaos."
"So?" David intertwined his fingers. "Have you anything to say to me?"
The trio lowered their eyes, crossing their eyes with one another. Then, they lifted their heads and replied in a tried voice.
"No…sir…"
David frowned.
'I know something is up with them. I can feel their sense of dread through my telepathy… but they don't even share it in their thoughts. What happened? What are they so afraid of?'
He adjusted his cap.
"Really? You don't have anything to report?"
Josh smiled crookedly.
"No, sir. Why would there be dangers that we 'chaos incarnates' couldn't handle?"
David narrowed his eyes to a slit.
'They're not behaving like themselves either…they try to hide it but they can't hide it from me!'
He waved his hand. "Then, you're dismissed.
The trio nodded, saluting him which was also odd and left the tent. David leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling of the white cloth.
"Something is seriously wrong…and I need to know what it is…" He muttered under his breath.