As they ran through the lobby, they heard the announcements taking place that Barica had tragically come to an end and her grandson would be appointing someone to run everything until he could take his rightful place. Blaine cringed, internally. He'd rather be with Lana and Kyle. At the same time, the small amount of time he'd spent here, they did have a few interesting projects. Not everything being done was unethical as evidenced by the results grandmother brought home to test.
The door in the stairwell was still open. They ran back to the cold room Gene occupied. He was at a desk typing away with a stack of papers next to him that he was referencing diligently. Blaine and Lana burst into the room disturbing his quiet and scaring him so badly papers went flying everywhere.
"Master Blaine, can I help you?" Gene stammered, not expecting visitors. He started collecting his papers.
Blaine observed what he was doing, "I apologize. I need to enter my room," as he gestured to the third door in the room.
"Oh!" Gene looked relieved and tapped the stack on the desk trying to realign the papers into a neat stack. "If you need anything, please ask," he said as he resumed his task.
Lana was holding Kent because the speed was concerning him and she didn't want her neck to get clawed. She really needed to work with him more.
Blaine gulped when he confirmed, indeed, his name was on that door. He approached and scanned his badge. It beeped, the light turned green and he heard the door click. He pulled it open and the lights turned on automatically.
The room was quite large, bigger than expected. As the door closed behind them a message played in a hologram in the middle of the only table in the room.
"My dearest Blaine. I know you hate me and I don't blame you. I have done the things I have done and that is that. I lost my way a long time ago. I tried to turn the whole family into what I became. I have also become the product of my own undoing. One of my projects, well, I was infected by it. There is no cure and it only makes my… issues more pronounced. I expected to have many years to research and perhaps find a cure. Chances are, if you're watching this, my attempts failed and it killed me."
"If I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish, the cure to the Assassin Snake is in the freezer labeled 1D. The cure to the Nemesis Plague is in 3F and the cure to the Prismatic Poison is in 9D. There is no cure for what I have at the time of this recording. It's a disease that breaks down mitochondria and prevents the cells from replicating. No replication means death."
"This room houses many secrets. I suggest you research them and do with the information what you will. I'm not going to say I didn't enjoy being cruel, because I did. I felt it was the only way for a girl to survive in this world. I didn't just survive but I thrived until I became my own undoing. I leave everything to you because, somehow, you are still strong in some way. I think it's Kyle's influence."
"For what it's worth, your little bodyguard girl is worthy of you though it pains me to admit it. The idea that someone outside the family could meet my standards is… well, it's a foreign concept. Take care of her if that is the choice you make. Men take us women for granted. Make sure whoever you choose always knows you cherish them."
The message ended and Blaine was dumbfounded. The oomluat recorded everything. Lana was already looking for the freezer with the cure. Those above had been away from home for too long and deserved to finally be free and return to their families. Out of curiosity, Lana looked in 3F and 9D. 3F had a few vials while 9D was empty. She silently hoped whatever that poison was, a cure would never be needed or it would be found before it was needed.
Another oomlaut was hacking the system and getting the instructions on how to use the cure. Lana found the injection tool and grabbed 4 trays. The oomlaut also printed out a list of everyone infected. Lana grabbed that list.
"Blaine, let's go." She grabbed his hand as he remained staring at the table dumbfounded. He got everything because his grandmother thought he was strong? How long had she been sick for? Could he have beaten her ages ago and ended their misery?
Kyle laughed in his head. Blaine, I refused to take over the body on the island for how many years? Of course she would think that.
Blaine shook his head and followed Lana's lead to the elevator after making sure the door to the room was secure. In the lobby, she handed the list to Darith.
"Get these people here, now." Then she and Blaine rushed off to cure the werewolves.
It was getting really late and they were tired. Cere and their friends arrived while they were in Blaine's room and hung out near the entrance.
"Lana, Blaine, you two look exhausted! What's the plan."
"All of those with an assassin snake need a shot with this. These tubes go here. When it empties, just swap it out. I gave Darith the list of people who need it. Once these people are cured, they can leave. There are people inside who need the cure once these are taken care of, we'll see what the next step is? Sleep maybe?"
Rene reached over and grabbed the medicine, "I'll take care of this part. You guys work your magic."
Sam volunteered to be her assistant. Dobin was looking his sister over. The rest were examining the scene and seeing if they could see any threats to their friends.
"This is more complicated than we expected," Blaine started, "Apparently my grandmother was sick and planning to give me the company, so they were planning to give it to me one day. Just not so soon." Still … something doesn't make sense.
"So, you were just handed a corrupt company? Should that be celebrated?" Almin asked.
"Not all of it is corrupt, apparently. It looks like she was expecting the questionable stuff to be done before she died. That's just my opinion, of course. There was also always the chance that she thought, somehow, she could corrupt me, but I think she knew better. Let's go inside."
The lobby had some new faces, some that were there before.
"Listen up!" Blaine decided to borrow Lana's choker and use Amplify. Every head turned his direction. "My friend Rene is curing everyone of the assassin snake at the moment. Once she is done outside, she will come in and take care of you. I expect you to be respectful and not crowd her. She will take care of everyone."
"Darith, you are with me," Blaine made his intentions clear.
Once again, they descended the stairs. He took Cere to his room so she could access everything. She downloaded the entire hard drive and set up a program to send everything from the server to her personal system at her home. While that was happening, she looked for the room, or rooms where the werewolf program was being done.
The next hour was spent going room to room emptying all the storage areas into the middle of the room. Kyle created a fire tornado and destroyed everything in every room. Once everything was destroyed, Paul reenabled the halon system in each room. They stopped by the room one more time to make sure everything was transferred. Cere then destroyed every server that contained werewolf data to ensure the data could not be recovered in any way. Humans didn't need such data.
On the way upstairs, Blaine asked Lana exactly how the fight went since he was trapped in time-stop. Kyle was deep in thought. She only used three abilities? She always has five… She was also way too nice in that message. Something's wrong.
Back in the lobby, "thank you guys for the support. I need to look into the other three students."
"I already did. They will be returned to the school on Sunday evening. It seems the minute it became clear you took over, the other portions of testing were canceled," Cere explained to Blaine. Kyle only took over to control the fires then let Blaine have the limelight back.
"Mom, it's getting late. When did you want to take everyone home? We still need to take care of some things here." Lana said.
"I'll leave once everything is taken care of. I need to make sure you are not being taken for a ride."
Lana nodded.
"If you're ready for the legalities, we can head up to your apartment and get that stuff taken care of?" Darith suggested.
"I think that would be good, Darith. I still need to talk to my family and take grandmother home. There are important things to handle, such as our wedding."
Darith was shocked by Blaine's words. "I see." He motioned to the lawyer who was standing around watching the healing process.
"Wait here for one moment. I want to check on the progress outside and let Rene know where we will be," Cere said before running outside. Her eyes found Mr. Silverwolf and she approached him, "I wanted to tell you it's done but you need to come see me later in the week."
Inside, Cere found Rene and Sam who were just finishing up. She sent them in to join their friends.
Without waiting for a reply, she hurried to catch up to the kids.
Everyone piled into three elevators up to the top floor. Blaine's new apartment took up the whole floor. While everyone looked around at the garish adornments, Blaine, Lana, and Cere sat on the couch while Darith and Slim sat opposite them.
"First off," Slim started the meeting, "your grandmother was expecting an illness to kill her, not her grandson. I saw the footage and her death will be ruled self-defense. Since you are just 17, you cannot take over the company. You will need a proxy to handle things. In the mean time, Darith is running the company per her instructions. You may advise him, but he has the right to overrule you until your proxy is appointed."
Blaine nodded, "that makes sense."