To Kill a Cactus - Namaste part 3

Namaste part 2: HERE

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It took us a few more weeks to finally make sense of all of the notes that we had been given. Bruno had categorised all of the diaries according to dates and he also had a bunch of loose paper sheets that Norval had scribbled something on top of. I was the one to mainly do all of the experiments. I was struggling to make the cure stable enough. It vaporised too fast straight out of my sealed test tube. I had gone a bit off track from the original instructions, so I figured that was why it wasn't working.

"Should've just done as it said, this is clearly not working," I muttered under my breath as another litre of vapour disappeared straight from my eyes. 

I closed the fume cupboard and went to where Bruno was buried beneath a pile of papers. He also didn't appear to be in the best of moods. I had been seeing the familiar frown for days but didn't want to bother him with questions.

"This is impossible," he finally said as he lifted his eyes from two papers in front of him.

"What is the matter?" I finally asked after he briefly dwelled back into the papers.

"You remember how I told you that in one of his papers he mentioned that the use of synthetic dichrozad Evertenian blades as a source of isolation was useless, just two weeks after that he mentioned the use of DCZ E blades, which you know sounds as if he still used them. He is the inventor o the blades, he should know how they work. It's just odd. Then a few weeks later there is just a paper with the note no DCZ E blades again, like what is he thinking, I'm so confused," he sighed and put the papers down.

I lifted the last note he mentioned, it was written in all capital letters, it looked more smooth and elegant than any of his other writings. He was known for his hasty writing and frequent misspelling of words. The note seemed so out of place.

"That is weird. I've never considered using the blades since I also noticed the remark about it being impossible. Do you think it'd improve the outcome?" I asked Bruno who seemed to light up at my question.

"I have been such a horrible lab partner, I haven't asked you at all, how you are doing?" Bruno inquired.

"Well, I get everything done until the last addition of the methyl group, but then the active group gets too active and just flies out of my test tube, I don't know what to do," I answered while feeling a little defeated.

"So the outcome is a vapour?" he asked again.

"Yeah," I nodded.

"But that could be even better, easier to distribute, we should see if it works, we can attach the tube to our glass cage with the infected rats and see if it works. If it does we could attach it to some major system, such as the drainage system and just spread it everywhere, Paithoon, you're a genius, let's try," Bruno sounded the most excited he had in a while.

"Let's do it," I caught on to his excitement and we quickly started setting everything up.

I could feel myself getting closer and closer to the answer. It was at the tip of my fingers. I could feel it in the air, we were going to make it at last.

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To Be Continued

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