Chapter 2
In the Lab

Sublevel 17, Science labs
Jarod was used to being alone. In the morning he had worked on a simulation with Sydney, but now he was working on a chemical experiment for his term paper. Sydney had enrolled him at a university in Germany, so
that Jarod’s brilliant mind would not be idle. Jarod liked it very much because it meant that for once he could leave the monotone and grayish sublevel he lived in to work at the science labs.

From Monday to Friday the science labs were used by the center staff. Because of that there were some personal stuff and even postcards on the refrigerator where they kept the samples. One of them showed a colorful small house made of wood that said “Greetings from Sweden.” There was another one from Florida
with a big humanlike smiling mouse wearing white gloves. But the most intriguing item was a photograph at one of the workspaces. It showed a boy who was huddled against his dog that had gold colored fur. Both of them laid in vivacious beaming green grass. Jarod looked at the picture very closely and tried to remember how it felt to touch the grass.

Behind him dark liquid simmered in an Erlenmeyer flask which was heated by a Bunsen burner. When he heard loud clatter and footsteps he rushed over to his experiment and pretended to look very focused on it.
Suddenly he recognized who those footsteps belonged to and smiled.

Miss Parker opened the backdoors to the science labs, pushing a wheel barrow into a small corridor. The dishes clattered so loudly that Miss Parker feared her father could hear her from the conference room 22 levels above. She left the wheel barrow in the corridor and climbed the two steps that was required to get
into the chemistry laboratory. She found Jarod standing behind his intricately set up lab experiment.
“Miss Parker!” He said excited. Jarod wanted to say more but his heart was pounding too hard over the sight
of the most wonderful and sweetest human being he’d ever met standing at his doorstep.
“Hi, Jarod” Miss Parker said coolly as she entered the room.

“What are you doing?” She asked while looking at the things Jarod built.
“I am distilling alcohol” Jarod said, feeling embarrassed. He didn’t know if Miss Parker was even interested or bored over such things.
“Alcohol?” asked Miss Parker. “Are you trying to get drunk?”

Happy that Miss Parker showed some interest he answered: “No, this is an experiment I am writing a protocol for. “
Miss Parker pointed to a pot simmering on the lab’s stove exclaiming,

“What kind of experiment is THIS?”
“This is no experiment” Jarod said “I am cooking potatoes for the rabbits in the biology lab. We can go and feed them together when they are ready if you like?”
Miss Parker, too busy looking around for the dishwasher, didn’t hear what Jarod had said. She suddenly found it in the corner of the lab.
“Jarod, could you do me a favor?” Jarod, disappointed because she didn’t react to his offer, suddenly replied eagerly,

“Sure, what is it, Miss Parker?”
She went into the little corridor to get the wheelbarrow, raising the blanket that covered the dishes.
“I have to wash these dishes before my father comes home. There’s a dishwasher in the lab, right?” Jarod’s eyes went wide.
“You carried that heavy cart all the way here?” Jarod wondered why Miss Parker increased the distance-time-relation with a big variable, but said nothing. Deep within he hoped that she did it for him, so that she had a reason to see him. He felt always very happy when she was with him.

He took the bottle with yellow colored liquid he found on the pile of dishes.
“What’s that, surfactant?”
“No, that’s dish liquid.” replied Miss Parker.
Jarod looked at the bottle of dish liquid in curiosity: On the front of the bottle was a picture of a man with no hair, seemed to be very strong, wore a white t-shirt and had an earring in his right ear. In big red letters was
the name “Mr. Clean.” Jarod wanted to explain to Miss Parker that most dish liquids like this worked with surfactants.
“That’s a pity. If I knew this Mr. Clean” Jarod continued; “I could ask him about his composite of ionic and anionic surfactants.”
Miss Parker laughed, replying; “Jarod, not everything in the world is chemistry. Besides, Mr. Clean is not a real person. He is just in the commercials.”
“Actually it is, Miss Parker. Everything in the world is a chemical bond, even you and me.”
Miss Parker noticed that Jarods eyes lit up as he talked about it and that he really was interested in such stuff.
She decided to distract him.
“Are you helping me or not?” She asked impatiently.
“Of course Miss Parker!” He went to the dishwasher, opened it and looked at it doubtfully.

“But first we have to clean it. Yesterday I did an experiment with Iron-(II)-lactate and…” He stopped mid-sentence as he saw Miss Parkers bored expression.

“I-I-I…mean, your dishes could get pink if we don’t clean it first.”
“Pink? My mother would kill me, this is Villeroy and Boch.”
“I am very sure your mother would never kill you.” Jarod was appalled. Miss Parker rolled her eyes, but changed her mind and thought: “How could he know?” She explained it nicely to him: “This is just a saying
for ‘getting into trouble.’
“Oh, I see.” He said, closing the dishwasher. He then went to the door.
“Where are you going?” Parker asked.
“I really need to get those chemical protocol blank forms from Sydney.” He pointed to his experiment.

“If I am not finished with this tonight he will kill me.” He smirked about the use of the newly learned expression.
He got serious again. “Please Miss Parker you are not going to leave until I get back?”
“I’m sure.” Miss Parker didn’t really listen. She was distracted by studying the control panel of the dish washer. Jarod ran as fast as he could to be back quickly. He didn’t hear what Miss Parker said next…

“I’m just getting started with the cleaning.” Miss Parker had never used a dish washer before. The Parkers were the richest family in town but her father always said some manual work would do them good. But most of the time it has been Miss Parkers hands that had to do the manual work. Miss Parker assumed that he was just a big scrooge.

The machine didn’t seem too complicated. There was a start button and a turn-switch that showed several temperatures. Miss Parker spread a generous amount of Mr. Cleans dish detergent into the inside of the empty dish washer and pressed start. When the dish washer started humming she went into the biology lab next door to see the bunnies. She took her favorite, a white very soft one, out and caressed it.

Meanwhile, at Sydney’s office…
Sydney sat on his desk and looked up from his paperwork when Jarod ripped the door to the sim-lab open and entered the stairs to the gallery.
“Sydney, I need more blank forms.” He panted.
“You ran?” Sydney opened the drawer from his desk and fetched some papers.
“I’m in a hurry.” Jarod said.
Sydney passed Jarod the papers but when Jarod took them Sydney kept hold of them. Curiously he looked into Sydney’s eyes.
“Is Miss Parker with you?”
Jarod let the papers go. He really hoped Sydney would not send her away.
“Don’t get distracted. You know we need all of this in Germany on Monday.” He laid down the stack of papers.
“Yes, Sydney” Jarod said relieved. He took the papers and ran back to the lab.

In the lab…
When Miss Parker heard Jarod’s steps, she placed the bunny back into his cage and went back to the chemistry lab. As Miss Parker was sure the dish washer had to be clean by now, she pressed the stop-button and opened the cover. Suddenly, water flushed out on both sides with a lot of foam.
“Shut it off!” Jarod called from the doorway as he hurried to her. Miss Parker closed the cover very quickly, but Jarod slipped on the water-foam-mix and tried to hang on a table on which stood his Iron-(II)-lactate experiment. With a move of his hand, Jarod pulled down the bloodlike liquid filled test tubes. The red liquid spilled, spreading all over his head and shoulders. Miss Parker screamed because she thought Jarod had hurt himself.

His only thought was to remove that liquid as fast as possible, before the furniture permanently turned pink. Suddenly, the timer sounded with a loud and piercing series of peeps telling Jarod the potatoes were ready.

Jarod, ignoring the alarm, got up and went carefully as if walking on eggshells to where the cleaning utensils could be found. The lid on the pot clanked loudly as the briskly boiling water jabbed against it.
“Please Miss Parker turn on the pump!” He called out. Miss Parker turned the switch to “Pump” and pressed
start. An ear-battering rattle could be heard in the lab. In his arms he carried a big batch of cloth and two buckets.
“Turn it off again!” Jarod called through the noisy lab the sound of the pump telling him that it must be broken.
“What!?” Miss Parker called. Jarod repeated what he said while heading as fast as he could but still slowly to Miss Parker. Jarod didn’t noticed that the brownish stinky liquid in the Erlenmeyer flask above the Bunsen burner boiled very heavily and that there was already a lot of pressure in it.
“Here, keep that bucket next to the cover!” he said loudly over the rattling of the pump, the peeps from the timer and the clattering lid. He spread out the cloth on the floor and finally turned off the pump. The rattling stopped but you could still hear the peeps and the sound of big water drops falling on the hotplate.
“Ok, on the count of three, we open the cover and try to pick up as much water as possible.” Jarod instructed
Miss Parker. “O-ne, t-wo, Th-ree!”
KAPOOMMM!
What happened next all happened in a few seconds.
First Miss Parker and Jarod opened the cover of the dish washer and the foamy water started to flow into the buckets.

Second, Jarods set-up for the distillation of alcohol exploded and bits of broken glass blasted through the room. Jarod and Miss Parker were so surprised that the buckets fell out of their hands and the water spread everywhere. Jarod pulled Miss Parker to the ground. He leaned over her head, protecting them
with his hands. One of the flying glass splinters met the peeping timer, which fell and broke into many pieces.

And third, the potato pot boiled over, the steam pushed the lid from the pot which fell on the floor with one final clatter. The last of the water spilled from the pot onto the hot plate again causing it to steam upward.
After a moment of silence Jarod moved.
“Are you hurt, Miss Parker?”
“No, but I’m wet.” She said as she got up. Jarod got up, went to the stove, turned it off and shoved the pot from the hot plate. Then he gazed at the destroyed lab.

Jarod looked around him to assess the damage. The floor was completely wet. His hours worth of experiments were gone. The dish washer was full of foam. Brown liquid dripped from the walls. Red liquid oozed from the working table. Every step he took made a crunching noise from the glass splinters on the floor.
And then, drops of moisture began falling from the ceiling, as if rain started to set in.

At Sydney’s office…
Mr. Parker knocked lightly on the door frame to Sydney’s office. The door was usually open. Sydney, on his
way to the file cabinet, turned around at the sound of Mr. Parker’s knocking.
“Mr. Parker.” he responded, not sure if this visit was good or a bad. Sydney approached his boss, respectfully shaking his hand.
“Sir, what can I do for you?”
“Uh, I was hoping to find my daughter down here. You don’t know where she could be?”
“I’m sorry. I haven’t seen Miss Parker today.”
“Hmm.” Mr. Parker looked down the hall toward the sim-lab.
“Where is Jarod? How is he doing?”
“Jarod is doing very well, getting smarter every month as a matter of fact. I just recently registered him to study online at Justus-Liebig-University in Germany. It will help him become faster with some of the simulations.”
“Jarod had been a very good investment.” Exclaimed Mr. Parker.

An alarm suddenly sounded.
“A Fire?” Mr. Parker asked uneasily
“That’s in the chemistry lab. Jarod is there!” Sydney exclaimed as he ran toward the lab.

In the lab.
“Hurry Miss Parker, you have to leave!” Jarod panicked. “eeck!, eeck!, eeck!” the fire alarm sounded unmercifully.
‘Oh no, the dishes!’ Miss Parker thought and ran to the door that led into the sublevels.
“No, don’t take this exit!” Jarod called. Miss Parker came back and tried to lift the wheelbarrow over the steps. Jarod went quickly to her and helped her. They hid it in the bio lab.
“Please don’t tell Sydney, why I came here.” Miss Parker pleaded. Jarod nodded. Then Miss Parker left through the main exit that led directly to the over ground levels on which Jarod wasn’t allowed to go. Just the
moment when the door behind Miss Parker had closed Sydney arrived at the lab.
“Jarod!” Sydney said worried.
Jarod shivered while looking at him. Water dripped from his forehead. Sydney covered his head with his arms and walked through the artificial rain to Jarod. He shoved him aside and opened the cupboard underneath the sink, closed the main tap and stopped the alarm.
Sydney grabbed Jarod’s Arm and asked harshly “What happened here?”
Mr. Parker arrived at the lab and watched the chaos in silence. Jarod looked from Mr. Parker to Sydney.
“I-I burnt the rabbit food.”
Mr. Parker came closer. Each step he took, made a crunching sound from the floor. He spoke into Sydney’s ear.
“We will talk about this incident later. Keep me reported” Mr. Parker then turned to Jarod, looking sternly in to his eyes. “Boy, have you seen my daughter?” Jarod shook his head hesitantly. His heart was racing because he feared that
Mr. Parker knew he was lying. But Mr. Parker just nodded before he left.
Sydney took Jarod by the arm down the corridor back to Jarod’s room. Jarod looked back toward the lab.
When Sydney felt they were far enough from Mr. Parker Sydney scolded Jarod; “Why did you lie to Mr. Parker?”
“I didn’t” Jarod defended himself.
“Don’t you lie to me now! I asked you earlier if Miss Parker was with you.”
“But I didn’t say yes.” He said sullen.
Sydney let go of him. He took a magnet strip card out of his pocket and swiped it through the scanner. He went through the wardrobe and gave Jarod a towel and dry clothes. Jarod took his wet clothes off.
“Jarod, he wants a report from me by Monday. He’ll want to see records from the cameras.” Sydney took his wet jacket off and put it on a chair.
“That’s not what he said.” Jarod argued.
“Oh yes he did. He said `Keep me reported’ and that means he wants a report and he wants it on Monday.”
Jarod sat down wearily on his bed.
“And that’s why I will get in to the technical department on Monday to get those records from the technicians. So if you lied to me this is your last chance to tell me the truth.”
Jarod kept silent. If he wanted to convince Sydney, he had to stick with his version of the story until he had an idea how to get Miss Parker and himself off the hook.