Chapter 559: Chapter 559 A Deal with Doctor Raiti and a Delivery for Cerise
Doctor Raiti stood silently in contemplation for nearly three minutes as she thought over Avery’s question.
"Yes, I think that would be about all of them." She eventually said, nodding her head.
"That took longer than I thought it would. How many potential mad scientists are out there that are capable of something like this?"
"Well, those that I know of with the potential expertise number three hundred sixty-one. But I can eliminate most of them based off of a number of factors. A lot of them work directly for the Dramid Alliance or have positions at reputable companies. So, if I were to narrow it down to those that are free agents like I used to be, I would say there are twenty-seven individuals that are capable of this both in skill and lack of morals." Mercedes said.
However, she did warn Avery that her knowledge of other experts in her field and simar ones was not extensive enough to cover everyone.
Especially since the experiment was being conducted within the Zatis Consortium.
She did have some work acquaintances there and knew a lot of their brightest minds, but she was certain that there were plenty of intelligent researchers she had never heard about before.
Space was vast, and there were a lot of people. There was just no way that Doctor Raiti could keep track of every scientist, even in her fields of interest.
"Your input will still be useful. If you can make a list of potential suspects, that would be immensely helpful."
Mercedes frowned at this and wore a look of reluctance on her face.
"I’d prefer not to. Most of these people just want to live their lives in quiet while enjoying their own research. Just like I do. Should you or the Alliance Police start looking into and harassing them, it could ruin them. That would cost me some valuable sources of information."
Understanding what she was getting at, Avery assured her that he would not provide any names she gave him to Cerise and would only use them while checking the information they obtained from the Odium Syndicate base.
Only if a name came up and there was reasonable suspicion to believe they were involved with the criminal organization would he start investigating anyone. He promised to not treat everyone with just the potential to have conducted these horrid genetic experiments as guilty without any evidence.
"Good, that is acceptable. If your criteria were just anyone capable of this, then you would need to suspect me as well." Mercedes said confidently.
"I figured as much, but you could actually do this?" Avery said, motioning towards the tanks filled with the mutated people’s bodies.
"Yes, with enough time and resources. Though, if I started from scratch, the results would undoubtably be different, albeit similar enough. I’d need several years and potentially billions of Krenin to research and develop a mutagenic process capable of affecting so many different species. I can tell you now, whoever is leading this experiment has been at it for quite some time."
Doctor Raiti shook her head, obviously appalled by the people that did all of this.
It was essentially the antithesis of her own work.
She studied the anatomy and biology of every living creature she possibly could in order to better understand the workings of nature and what made certain species special.
Certainly, some might say that the physical augmentations she performed also changed people’s bodies, but she always strived to achieve harmony while enhancing people’s bodies.
Mutating them to turn them into vicious monsters was far away from anything that she ever wanted to do.
"Ah, I just thought of something else you might be able to do. You have plenty of connections within the scientific community, right? Do you think you could reach out to some of your contacts and see if anyone knows about what the Odium Syndicate is up to and who is involved?" Avery asked.
Unfortunately, he did not get the response he was hoping for.
Doctor Raiti did not try to hide her unwillingness to do the task Avery was asking of her.
"I’m certain that you understand that while I have plenty of colleagues that I’m in communication with, none of us our particularly friendly with one another. It’s all just purely business. If I start asking around about stuff like this, it’s going to strain relationships. Some people might even cut off connections with me. Plus, I’d rather not waste my valuable time on such an endeavor."
It was evident that she had no desire to gather information for Avery.
At least, not for free.
He did not miss the underlying subtext of her words.
"Fine, I’ll increase your personal research budget for the next three years by five percent. I’ll also allocate a hundred and fifty million Krenin for you to use to convince some of your colleagues to assist us. Whatever you don’t end up using, you can keep, so long as you obtain some credible information that’s pertinent. And depending on what you do find, I’ll offer you additional bonuses. How does that sound?"
Mercedes’ frown flipped into a smile almost immediately, and she seemed far more amenable now that she was going to be getting something out of this.
"That’s a good start. But I would like to conduct another thorough examination of your body. The samples I have are already interesting, but I want to compare them with current ones to see how much you’ve continued to evolve. Also, money won’t be enough to entice a number of my colleagues. If I have permission to share some of my data on you though, most of them will start frothing at the mouth to divulge even their deepest darkest secrets just to have a peek at my findings." Doctor Raiti said, her lips twisted up into an almost evil grin.
Avery was loath to give her permission to start spreading information about his body’s peculiarities.
Still, if they could figure out the person leading the mutation experiments that the Odium Syndicate was conducting, it could have a major impact on stopping them.
"Fine. Just don’t go sharing any information they could use to identify me. I don’t need other scientist harassing me."
"Of course, I have no intention of letting information like that slip. Why would I ever give up my current subject of study to anyone else. Don’t worry, I’m going to be keeping you all to myself."
Avery could feel his two hearts start to pick up speed. For some reason, he felt like Mercedes was looking at him like a predator that had locked onto its prey.
With his business concluded and not wanting to stick around any longer, Avery briskly walked out of the lab.
Before heading back to his office, he dropped by sickbay one more time to check on Liesel for a bit.
Her found her lying in bed reading a comic series that she enjoyed, so he left after exchanging just a few words with her.
After that, he spent the rest of his day in his office catching up on work.
There were plenty of reports for him to read through, and he wanted to familiarize himself with the data they had obtained from the production faciality.
A lot of the information was encrypted and took time to get into, but there was also just an enormous amount of data.
Still, Avery at least wanted to familiarize himself with the most important bits, so he made sure to keep up with everything as it was sent to him, along with his other duties.
He spent most of the next two days like this, until they finally arrived at the location where they would be meeting Cerise.
It was a system devoid of practically anything except for a small star and a few large rocks caught in its gravity.
The location was about as unremarkable as anywhere could be, and the perfect place to not be disturbed.
When Avery arrived, they found Cerise already waiting, with around half of her fleet present.
"We really need to stop meeting like this." Avery said jokingly once the two of them were connected over a call.
Cerise’s hard expression softened a bit, and she responded saying, "Yes, I’m starting to get tired of all of these clandestine meetings. I wish that the intelligence department would deal with stuff like this, but their focus is always more directed internally."
Once they had exchanged a few pleasantries, the two of them got down to business.
Avery was carrying a few thousand prisoners onboard the Intrepid, and he desperately wanted to get them off his ship.
Just keeping them fed and in sanitary conditions was difficult for his crew, and there had already been several escape attempts. Though all of them had been put down quickly.
"I’m guess that there’s not going to be any public trials for these people." Avery said, while the prisoner transfer was ongoing.
"No. There most certainly won’t be. This operation never occurred so far as any public records will be concerned. The Zatis Consortium would accuse us of abducting their citizens, and it will become a huge headache."
Avery already figured that this would be the case. He was just asking for confirmation.
He was not sure how he felt about taking people from their homes and delivering them to the Alliance Police who would likely execute them or imprison them for life.
However, his pity for all of the people he had captured dried up when he thought about what they were doing. Their work had been ruining millions of people’s lives and been setting them up to be turned into monsters.
For the Dramid Alliance, Avery’s home, it was far better that they would be detained. Never again able to further the Odium Syndicate’s goals in creating and distributing Paradise.
