Dr. Noc turned on her heels and stalked over to the portable lab. She entered it and sat down over her compact electron microscope
and studied the virus for a short time, appearing to be busy to the other two scientists inside. Ngyung knew that both of them were
probably spies for Sgt. West and Dace. They were there to make sure she behaved as well as to research with her. She knew she could
not trust the taciturn pair. The other two were on the other side of the town taking water samples, upstream, and making plans to head
into the woods above the falls to study the effects on animals. There were rumors of a large otter colony around there, hence the name
for the town.
Dr. Noc was angry enough to punch both of the scientists. She was about ready to pack her things into small carrying case and do some field studies to help gather information for
Dr. Summers, when a nock was heard at the door. Dr. Noc opened the door to see Sgt. West. She glared at him, but said nothing.
“Dr. Noc. I felt it was best for the lab if you, as our most important scientist, had a guard. Allow me to introduce you to Peter Rushton.
He’ll be your personal guard while we are out here.” Said Sgt. West was a patronizing smile. “We can’t have a brilliant scientist, like
you, attacked by one of those monsters.”
Dr. Noc knew what he really meant. This soldier was her ‘bell and collar’ to stop her from blabbing to Dr. Summers and to keep her
line in case she tried anything else.
“I’ll assign guards to the others too so you scientists won’t have to be together as much. This way you can run a wider variety of tests.
Am I correct doctors?”
Both scientists nodded their heads in ascent and left the lab saying something about field work in the woods. Sgt West turned and left
giving Dr. Noc her first chance to see who was assigned to her.
‘Obviously,’ she thought, ‘they do not respect nor trust me very much.’
Peter was a young man in his early twenties, if that. He had thick mousy brown hair and an innocent face. He held his gun clumsily,
which to Dr. Noc who had served in the military for years knew right off as a sign of a green horn. But then she had probably seen more
field action service then half the soldiers here.
She stepped into the lab feeling slightly dejected, but refused to let anyone see this. She continued to look over her work and started
planning how to tell Dr. Summers, covertly, what was going on. The difficulty came from the fact neither she nor Summers had
considered duplicity from the company.