Lani

Could this be the answer to what he had been working on? So many failures! Thank God no one followed up about the homeless volunteers. He had another trial lined up. It had to work this time! Perfect timing with the benefactor being admitted, too. A little extraction & voila!

Then, the dizziness started. People fell like dominos, collapsing & convulsing on the cold tiles of the platform floor. From a sealed lab, cold faces watched screens tapped into the CCTV network & made notes on symptoms against time. T=0 release ... T=765seconds, full mortality.

Feeling prepared at last, he headed to the Gentleman's club he & his friends favoured. He smiled & nodded over dinner, waiting for post-pud socialising to bring out his badinage. Alas, his success was marred by his target being shocked into a fit. He doesn't go out much anymore.

Tea tried to tell the police that it wasn't him. Coffee swore he was with her all night. But the prints on the knife matched. In the dark of a nearby alley, Jack brought out a 2nd knife. It bore Coffee's prints. He was going to use it on Tea. He preferred his crime reads grisly.

In the months that followed, I learned that the poky, paper-filled study was a decoy. Once the outer door had been locked, a catch to an inner chamber could be released. This chamber was also inundated with books, but these had been studied, catalogued, revered. These were magic!