Story code: ST-000229
Part 2: The Noon Protocol
Lanski cranked the cruiser’s ignition, wincing as a wet, heavy thud echoed through the cabin. In the rearview mirror, Arthur was violently throwing his own forehead against the reinforced plexiglass divider. Blood smeared across the clear partition with every frantic impact, streaking the barrier in jagged crimson lines.
“Knock it off, Artie, or I’m adding destruction of city property to your sheet,” Lanski snapped, shifting the car into drive.
“You do not understand!” Arthur howled, his voice stripped of any human dignity. “It is eleven-twenty! I have forty minutes! Her fever is going to spike! If she breaches the restraints-”
Lanski rolled his eyes, navigating the cruiser out of the alleyway. The rookie officer had heard every excuse in the world from cornered addicts. They always had a sick relative or a dying friend that supposedly justified their illicit activities. But Arthur’s specific brand of hysteria felt unnervingly clinical. He was acting less like an addict missing a fix and more like a courier who had just doomed his own life by failing a ruthless cartel boss.
“Save the sob story,” Lanski said, tapping his tactical vest where the small amber vial rested safely. “Whoever this ‘she’ is, she can find another runner for her designer synthetic. You’re done.”
“She is not a buyer!” Arthur shrieked, his handcuffed fists rattling against the metal doorframe. “She is seven years old! You are killing a seven-year-old girl!”
Lanski’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. *Classic manipulation*, he told himself. If Arthur was actually hiding a child in whatever squalid encampment he called home, Child Protective Services would handle it after the booking. He reached over and turned up the police radio, drowning out the veteran’s ongoing screams with dispatch static. He focused on the road, eager to frame the confiscation as a proactive strike against a new narcotics ring.
Ten minutes later, Lanski pulled into the precinct’s underground sally port. The moment he opened the rear door, Arthur lunged directly at Lanski’s chest, snapping his teeth toward the tactical vest like a feral animal.
Lanski sidestepped, grabbed Arthur by the back of his canvas collar, and slammed him down hard against the trunk of the cruiser.
“Enough!” Lanski barked, pressing his forearm into Arthur’s shoulder blades.
“Give them back!” Arthur choked out, spitting blood onto the concrete. “I will let you shoot me. Just let me take the vial to the basement. You have no idea what she becomes without it!”
Lanski hauled the thrashing man to his feet and frog-marched him into the booking area. The harsh fluorescent lights illuminated the sheer wretchedness of Arthur’s condition. The veteran was soaked in stale sweat, his eyes dilated to pitch-black saucers of terror.
Sergeant Miller barely looked up from his computer monitor as Lanski shoved Arthur against the holding counter.
“Got a live one today, Lanski?” Miller asked in a bored monotone.
“Found him holding a decoy stash of tar and a vial of something new,” Lanski said with pride, patting Arthur down one final time. “Keeps screaming about a ticking clock.”
Arthur snapped his head toward the large analog clock mounted above the holding cells. The red second hand swept past eleven-forty.
“Twenty minutes,” Arthur whispered, his voice abruptly dropping to a hollow, trembling rasp. “Oh god. It is too late. The quarantine is going to fail.”
“Empty the rest of his pockets,” Miller instructed.
Lanski reached into the deep, torn lining of Arthur’s jacket, pulling out a handful of junk: crumpled receipts, a broken flashlight, and a thick, laminated piece of paper folded into quarters. Lanski smoothed out the laminated sheet on the steel counter, expecting a list of drop locations.
It wasn’t a cartel ledger.
It was a heavily redacted medical chart, bearing a faded, official-looking government seal at the top. Columns of tightly typed text detailed a strict daily regimen.
*Subject: Evelyn.*
*Condition: Active Pathogenic Necrosis (Stage IV).*
*Suppression Protocol: Hexa-B Compound.*
*Interval: Strict 12-Hour Cycle. Fatal Mutation Upon Missed Dosage.*
At the bottom was a photograph paper-clipped to the laminate. Lanski stared at it. It was a picture of a young girl, maybe seven or eight, but her skin was an unnatural, sickly translucent gray, and dark, branching veins crept up her neck. Her eyes were completely bloodshot, staring blankly from behind what looked like reinforced glass.
Lanski felt a cold knot form in his stomach. He looked at the amber vial he had just placed on the evidence tray.
“What kind of sick drug ring is this?” Lanski muttered, forcing his police instincts to rationalize the bizarre medical jargon. “You keeping fake biological charts to make your product look exotic?”
Arthur didn’t answer. The fight had completely drained out of him. The veteran slid down the front of the booking counter, his knees hitting the linoleum floor with a heavy thud. He just stared up at the clock.
Eleven forty-five.
“You did not just kill her,” Arthur whispered into the sterile air of the precinct, tears carving clean lines through the grime on his face. “When the noon fever hits… she will break the reinforced door. You killed all of us.”
Lanski scoffed, aggressively sliding the vial across the counter toward Sergeant Miller to hide his own sudden unease. “Bag it, Sarge. Put a rush on the lab analysis.”
But as Miller reached for the unmarked container, Lanski noticed a faint, rhythmic clicking sound. He leaned in closer to the evidence tray. The six dense white tablets were visibly vibrating against the amber plastic, reacting to the ambient warmth of the room.