>>6346375>>6346387>>6346407>>6346949>>6347191>>6347303"Take me to the equipment, where they actually made this stuff, I can work with that."
"No problem." Jerry says, stepping past you. "This way. Far from a sterile operation as you can see."
You follow his gesture to a small plastic bucket half filled with shards of glass. You kneel down and put on a pair of gloves as you gently nudge the pieces around.
"Doesn't seem like a chemistry whizz to waste so many test tubes." You say pulling a malformed bit from the pile and rotating it.
"Not waste." Jerry says leaning in and dragging a fingertip over a piece of the glass that's beaded and rolled onto itself.
"Melted? For what?"
"Ampules." He says matter-of-factly. "Old school method of containment for medicine or other chemicals, usually ones that aren't safe to expose to oxygen or let off nasty fumes. We probably won't know for sure until the labs run all this."
You rise from the waste bin and glance over the table it heads. Long stainless steel, probably taken from the kitchen, makeshift gas lines attached to burners and heaters. Trays of a white-yellow powder and various foil packaging bags lined neatly in a cardboard box.
"Northern winds?" You ask, lifting a bag by it's corner. You let out a humorless chuckle at the image on the foil; Santa on his sleigh leaving behind comical green clouds.
Your chuckle dies as you flip the bag over and see a familiar looking clown. You lift the flap of the cardboard and see it in dark lettering across the cardboard.
"Pagliacci Party Supplies..." You mumble.
"That mean something?" Jerry asks.
"Early on in the case we found a place, old party supply store, it was owned by the guy we think is at the top of this. The one getting all these crooks together."
"Kal Quincy Late?" Jerry asks.
"You read up on the case then?"
"No, didn't get a chance. That's the name on the papers for this whole strip mall, bought out earlier this year and just sat from the looks of things."
"Hm, well this is good. We have a link now, a box from one of his old properties ending up in a chemical weapon lab? That seems probable cause enough to pry right?"
"We'll pass it up to Gordon along with anything else you scrounge up here. So make sure it's a good one. If you can control that kind of thing."
"I can do my best." You mumble as you walk down to the far end of the table.
Your shoulders hike as you feel a frigid tickle slide from the nape of your neck to tracing your collarbone. You hover a hand over the steel table and feel a sort of static popping against your palm. You press latex coated finger to the table and it's like plugging into an outlet, your fingertips have a low hum to them and it travels up the small bones of your hand. You've never felt anything give off this intense a feeling other than SIM's disgusting bundle of hair. You shudder again, this time a blooming heat spreads across your face, you can't put a finger on why but it makes you... afraid.
