After Philip and Maria left the pub, they used Philip's hovercraft and sped towards the closest Lab.
They were about seven Main laboratories owned by several companies in the City who were well known for their breakthroughs in scientific research and inventions worldwide....
But the problem was that they had several branches under them who conducted experiments independently and would only give an original report when they completed their research..... So they was a high chance that a branch could be conducting an experiment but the main lab wouldn't know about it.
Now they would have to comb through the entire city to check out every lab, the main and the branches included.
With the time they had left till the day was over... it would be impossible for them to check them all, so they asked for help from their other colleagues in the City.
"Thank goodness that Manuel and BJ are in the City, this will be a lot faster with their help..... I just hope that Manuel will behave himself and not ask out every beautiful female he sees in the Labs... " Philip said with both gratification and helplessness as the got down from the hovercraft after arriving at the first lab.
"Who asked you to become friends with a Casanova?.." Maria chided him.
-
After getting out of the Hovercraft the first thing that greeted their sight was a two hundred and fifty tall storey building with the shape of a test tube and a glowing blue sign at the top that read, 'Orion's Laboratories'. There were other tall buildings in the are but none of them stood out like this one.
This was one of the branches of Orion Laboratories.
They walked towards the entrance which was heavily guarded. Philip tapped a microdevice glued to his jacket which showed a small hologram of his badge and rank..... The guards saluted immediately they saw it and let them through.
"A crimson ranked detective?", one of the guards said to his colleagues in shock after they had passed through.
"But he looks so young.... could he be the one they call 'The Young Phantom' with a record of over 150 cases solved in three years?" another guard asked with excitement written all over his face.
"I heard that he's still below twenty five years of age.... which makes him the youngest crimson ranked in history..." another guard said.
-
Oblivious to the fact that he was being spoken of, Philip and Maria were on their way to see the head scientist of the branch.
They got to the office area but the secretary told them that the head scientist was in the testing area, trying out some of the new inventions.
Boom! Boom!
sound of explosions could be heard coming from one of the floors.
From the sound, Philip and Maria already knew where the testing area was.
They started walking up to the elevator, but the secretary stopped them.
"You can go up there without a protective gear... it's dangerous..." she said to them.
"Dangerous? Pfft! don't make me laugh.... you haven't seen dangerous...." Maria replied while laughing.
"Don't worry we can handle it.." Philip assured her while glaring at Maria for being impolite.
They walked towards the elevator before she could say anything else.
-
They were about seven test floors in the lab. The test floors were very large, so as to give the Scientists enough room to test their inventions.
On getting to the test floor where the head scientist was,they headed in the direction that the secretary gave them and got to a place isolated with Bionanites refined glass walls that were much stronger than steel and could repair itself if damaged.
There was a large crack on the east side of the glass that was repairing itself.
Inside of the glass wall, thick smoke could be seen.
Cough! Cough!
coughing sounds could be heard coming from within the smoke.
"{Activating smoke ventilation system}"
The voice of an AI could be heard.
'Swooosvvvvv!'
The smoke was being sucked out of the room at a very fast pace.
With the smoke clearing up, Philip and Maria were able to see everyone faces clearly and a broken machine on the floor with smoke coming out of it. Obviously that was the machine that exploded.
"Miss Katherine i told you it wasn't ready, there are some compartments that still need to be added to it be..... uh? what are those two doing here without protective gear?" One of the scientists looking like a ball of rice with his protective gear on asked when he noticed the glass doors open automatically and them coming in.
He approached them while asking in quick successions, "Who are you and what are the both of you doing here without protective gears? are you new staffs? Don't you know that authorisation is needed before you can come here?"
Philip and Maria walked passed him like they didn't see him, till they got to the front of the person who was called Katherine.
"Are you miss Katherine?"
Philip asked.
"Hey! did you just here what i said.... you're not allowed in here, get o..." before he could complete his sentence, Katherine spoke,
"You must be detectives Philip and Maria..." she said while removing her head gear, "It's nice to finally meet 'The Young Phantom'...", she added while removing the strands of her red hair that was blocking her face and revealing a charming smile.
Gasp!
Immediately everyone in the room heard that they let out a surprised gasp.
The face of scientist who spoke rudely to them paled in fright. Although the public did not know Philip because he doesn't let information about the cases that he had solved go public, the same could not be said about people in high places. Any affluent person knew who he was. He was nicknamed the 'Young Phantom' by those who had heard of his deeds.
Philip wasn't even bothered by the behaviour of the other scientist but he was shocked to see how young the head scientist was, he wasn't expecting her to be this young because of her position as head scientist of Orion's Lab. Even though it was just one of the branches and not the main lab, it was still a big achievement for someone of her age.
"Why are you looking at me like that? do i have something on my face?" she asked when she noticed how he was staring at her.
*cough cough*
"Sorry, that wasn't my intention, i was just a bit surprised...." Philip replied after clearing his throat by coughing.
"Oh, is it because of how young i look?" She asked exactly what he was thinking of, and with the look on his face she knew that she hit the nail on the head.
"Hehehe... Mr Phantom you can say that i did some crazy things and had amazing results, which is what got me here and just like you I'm the youngest person to ever get to this stage... we're more alike than you think..." she replied with a light laughter.
"Can we talk outside?....we have an important investigation to conduct..." Philip asked her politely and she agreed.
They moved outside the isolated area to discuss. Philip went straight to the point as he explained why him and Maria were there. She gave them authorisation to access all their confidential files. It was a lot of information to go through at once, so they stored it in the system Philip had, on his microdevice. The microdevice that Philip had on his jacket could also store information.
After getting what they wanted they immediately left there to get to other locations. They were not worried that if they later found evidence of this place being the source of the crime, the perp would escape because they had access to the information of everyone working there.
Katherine was a bit disappointed that she didn't get Philip's contact, but she was sure that she would see him again.
-
While they were in moving to the next location in the hover craft, they were still checking out the information they got from Katherine.
"So, this was the project she was working on? A machine that can control the weather in a particular environment?" Philip asked in disbelief.
"Don't underestimate her.... she has had some shocking discoveries in scientific research that even some accomplished old scientists could never uncover." Maria stated.
"Oh?... I guess i need to pay more attention to news on scientific research..." Philip said as he held his chin.
They visited all the locations before it was 10 pm in the night and gathered a lot of information which they needed to check out completely before they would know how to proceed. Their colleagues also passed the information they gathered to them.
Philip and Maria decided to share it equally. They both had 50% of information to discern.
After getting back home around 12 midnight, Philip got to his study and began to work.
***************************************
*********5 am in the Morning *********
Gbam! Gbam! Gbam!
"Nothing! nothing! nothing!"
Philip kept hitting his head against the small desk in his study as he repeated the same words.
"A whole night of nothing.." Philip felt frustrated after checking through all the information he got and not finding anything related to their investigation.
He already called Maria and they were in the same situation. She told him to give her a ride so that she could pick up her hovercraft that she left at the pub.
They got to the pub around six a.m, she got down from Philip hovercraft and headed to hers. Philip decided that he needed a drink and entered the pub to get a soda.
Now that everywhere was not crowded like before he could see the inside well. He got to the counter and ordered a soda, and sat down. He looked around dejectedly. The soda was nothing special he had even better drinks stashed away at his place but he just wanted some time away from everything.
While looking around he saw a map of the city on one side of the walls. He stood up and moved closer to it, to get a better view.
He smirked as an idea came to his head right away and dashed out of the pub.
He was surprised to find Maria outside waiting for him.
When she saw him smiling she new that he had another idea.
"Let's go over to my place..." He dragged her hand and led her into his hovercraft before she could ask anything.
"I left my hovercraft there again..." she complained while they were headed to his place.