The infirmary's door closed with a loud creak. Een needed to think. Luckily, there didn't seem to be anyone besides him there. It was one of the few places where he knew no one would disturb him. Base Tau only had a few doctors, who doubled as teachers. And he'd figured they wouldn't be in the infirmary at that hour. Een sat down at the desk, rubbing his chin. There were a few pieces of paper lying around... He tapped his pencil on the table. However, he had no clue where to even begin. So, they were going to go straight for the Ringleader. But how were they supposed to do that? It was safe to assume that Gull knew how to find the creature. What happened after that, though? Een let the pencil fall out of his hand and stretched his arms across the table, closing his eyes. His head was starting to spin. That wasn't a fight they could win with brute force alone, so they needed some sort of strategy. How was he supposed to come up with a plan when he didn't even know what they were going up against? A creature more powerful than Superiors... He couldn't even begin to imagine it. When he was a child, he'd used to dream of the day when those creatures would just disappear, a day when they'd all be free of that torment and agony. And the AAD had given him a chance to make that dream reality. After all those years, they were so close. But humans were weak. By themselves, they didn't amount to much. If he thought about it, even their weapons were useless. The only thing that could actually kill an Aberration was that poison.
"That being said, we don't really have a way to make sure it'll work on that thing," Een mumbled. They didn't know when Gull would return. The others probably going to spend that time preparing for the upcoming battle. No matter how much they trained, however, they couldn't do anything without new weapons. And, despite everything that had transpired there, Base Yuna was their best shot.
"Slacking off, are we? Didn't expect to find anyone here, though."
Een jumped from his seat, jerking his head in the entrance's direction. He hadn't even heard the door open. It was none other than the medic who'd treated Shono the night before. Remembering how she'd fallen asleep right after tending to their friend's wounds brought a smile on Een's lips. Was she really going to lecture him about slacking off?
"Well, I didn't expect anyone to come here either. Looks like we were both wrong. Can I help you?" he asked, making an effort not to let displeasure show.
"No, not really. I just got tired and felt like taking a break, that's all. On the other hand, you do realize this is the infirmary, right? So, what're you up to, um..."
"Een. Pretty much the same thing. I simply needed to cool my head. You know, think about stuff."
He was hoping she'd leave if he said that, but the woman simply lay down on the small couch, as if he wasn't even there. Een didn't have the right to get mad at her. He was in the infirmary, after all. And she was a doctor. If anything, he was the one who wasn't supposed to be there.
Een sat back down, and his shoulders sagged. He examined the documents he'd brought with him one more time, the same ones they'd found Gun holding back at the Agency. Both Shono and the Captain had asked him to take a look at them... Especially at the poison recipe. It was incredibly detailed, but there was something off about it. Apparently, neither of them had been able to identify one of the ingredients. Een's eyes narrowed as he studied the piece of paper. Second paragraph, fourth sentence.
"What in the world is a myrosinase?" he groaned. The poison those guys used in the Upper District was better than what they'd been using so far, sure. But what if they could take even that to the next level? What if they could come up with something even better? To do that, however, he needed to at least understand the original recipe. "If only Dante was here... We're fighters, not scientists. I should've paid more attention in chemistry class. I can't make something like that from scratch."
"It's an enzyme found in some plants, like daikon or wasabi. It works as some sort of defense mechanism. But here'd that come from?" The woman yawned, tilting her head to the side.
"I want to try creating a new type of poison. One that can kill it, Een heard his own voice say. He read the entire thing yet again. Myrosinase... So that was what it was. The other components weren't anything special, either. Een's face lit up. They could do it.
"Alright, that settles it. Count me in. My name's Annie, by the way." The medic snatched the document and began inspecting it. Around halfway through, her eyes widened in surprise. "Do you seriously want to use myrosinase for this? This... Actually, it could actually work. But we can't do something like that here, you know? We lack the equipment."
Annie let herself drop onto the old sofa, still holding the recipe. Noticing Een's visible confusion, she explained what she meant by that. Before becoming a teacher, she'd been a guard at Base Yuna. That was also where she'd acquired most of her medical knowledge. When she'd first arrived there four years before, the two research bases, Yuna and Phi, were working together to develop a new, more efficient toxin. She was eighteen at the time. So, naturally, she'd got curious. Dante was still an assistant back then, so he'd been thrilled to find someone willing to listen to his ideas. Someone who took him seriously. After a week or so, Annie had decided that she wanted to become a doctor, since being a scientist would've been way too exhausting for her. Pursuing that dream, she'd spent the next two years studying at Base Yuna. Even if she hadn't aimed to become a scientist, she'd learnt the ins and outs of how that toxin worked. Eventually, Annie had returned Base Tau.
"Upon coming back, I realized that, in terms of equipment, Base Tau couldn't hold a candle to Base Yuna. See, the poison we use isn't necessarily better. Instead of myrosinase, it's made with glycosidases, more common enzymes. If we were to somehow combine the two recipes..."