Avatar The Last Airbender Fan Fiction ❯ Avatar: New Century's Dawning ❯ Chapter 3: Lulling in a Lab ( Chapter 3 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

sky of the cool night slowly cleared up, revealing the serene starry twilight. Loping through the alleyways of the dense urban sprawl of the middleclass ring a solo Dai Li agent moved through the darkness with incredible speed, avoiding the open, empty avenues dimly lit by the streetlamps. It wasn’t for a while until the agent finally decided to stop at a tight pathway between two small shops. Leaning his back onto the side of a wall, he stood motionless, as if he wasn’t breathing. The only distinct feature of the agent was his bulging belly. Though the agent appeared to be a bit overweight for his own good, he opened the his Dai Li robe to reveal a backpack strapped over his abdominal. Adjusting the straps on his shoulder he closed his robe and retightening his belt, before heading off again.

At last the agent arrived at his destination. Off the main street there was dead end room leaving to several small homes. The agent walked up to the entrance of one. The house had a fairly quaint and simple. All its windows were closed tight; the unusually wide chimney extending from the center of the roof was the only aperture leaking out the indoor light, reflecting off the smoke streaming up from it. Figures, he’d be up. The man thought as he approached the door. He gave a firm knock to the side of the door, then returning his hands into his sleeves, giving out enough patience to wait before needing to knock again.

The sliding door cracked open, “Who’s there?” A man’s voice called out from inside. The voice bared no steak of fatigue, indicating that he hadn’t just awoken.

“I thought you’d be up and about this time of hour, you night owl. ” The Dai Li imposter replied.

“What?” The man’s voice became curious as he opened the slid open the door all the way. The resident, wearing small circular glasses, eyed the man with surprised looked, restraining any intense expression. “What are you doing, here?!” Giving a loud whisper, “And this early. And why are you…” The resident then paused and stepped back as if a sudden thought had struck him. The agent charlatan looked up at the man to make eye contact. “Jeez Roe, is that the kind of respect you address a Dai Li?”

Ignoring what he said, the resident gestured the visitor to enter and hissed, “Just get in.”

Entering the home, the agent cleared his throat, exhaling abruptly from his nose upon catching a whiff of a stagnant bitter odor. At the center of the home was a fairly large cauldron filled with boiling water, over a roasting fire. Standing off the side of the foundation of the central hearth was a large table, with an assortment of glass tubes, pipes and beakers of all shapes and sizes. Some were filled with many different liquids of various colors, luster, and transparency, all arranged and interconnected through a complex system of glass veins.

Looking around the agent dispassionately asked with a light cough, “So uh…what are ya cooking?”

The resident closed the door, “Eason. Why are you here and in a Dai Li uniform?” The resident wanted to get to the point. The agent turned to face the man, his head tilted down with the conical hat still extending over his face. Standing no taller than the agent, the middle-aged man wore the usual plain, upper middleclass garments with the various shades of green, which was obscure to his tanned complexion. His long dark hair was tied back into a ponytail. His most notable feature was his narrow, pointed beard, but in this case what stood out more was his expression of disapproval in his deep blue eyes upon encountering the imitation agent. “I seriously hope you haven’t gotten into any unnecessary tribulation. From what I know you should be busy with that arduous assignment of yours. Wait don’t tell me, Eason.” The man folded one arm while stroking his beard, “You plan to use the disguise to get into the palace, and are in need of my of a few items from my collection.

“Actually Roe,” the imposter began to correct, taking off the robe, “I already used this disguise to get ‘out of’ the palace. And no those sleeping darts of yours were enough.” Exposing the bag strapped over his stomach, he took it off and tossed it on the floor in front of him, several scrolls sticking out upon impact.

Still stroking his beard, Roe looked down upon the bag of scrolls, His eyes widened behind his glasses as his arms slowly dropped, “You…you already obtained the scrolls?” He then looked up to Eason and paused a moment before snipping with quick anger, “You better have a swell of a reason why the blazes you’re not out of this city and instead endangering not only yourself but my cover as well?!”

Crossing his arms, the Eason cleared his throat before getting used to the tart smell in the air, “Well it wasn’t a surprise that I didn’t leave the palace unseen so I had to put up a bit of a show. Luckily I managed to pull off a decoy and lost the police force through the sewers, but the main sewer lines are gated under each dividing wall. And all the agents are covering the wall to the upper ring so it’d be suspicious being seen as a lone agent. Anyhow, to make the story short, I’m here because I know you’re connections are more reliable. It’d be safer if you escort me the city, since you actually have such friendly reputation in the city.”

“Uh, wait-what? Did I hear correctly? Did the infamous ‘Firestorm’ just affirm a concern for safety?”

Eason removed his hat and held it to his side. His brown hair was thick, but it was short enough that it didn’t retain any hat-head. Keeping his facial hair shaved, he looks a few years younger than his actual age. His gray eyes grinned at Roe, somewhat humored.

Adjusting his glasses, Roe continued, “Oh. My mistake. Tonight your name would be the all mysterious ‘nightbender.’ At least that’ll be the first alias of yours inscribed in the wanted list throughout Be Sing Se.”

Ignoring Roe’s further attempt of cajoling, Eason gave the short explanation, “Doing this I’ll be able to pass this down to the people that actually give a damn about these scrolls as quick as possible and I can be on my way back into the frontlines.”

Roe sighed as he picked up the backpack from the floor, “Ah, fighting throughout the heat of battle in hopes of encountering that true warrior hat would actually be able to put a scratch on you. You sure have a bizarre power-fetish. Seems your true alias will always be Firestorm. It’s a shame that name will wear out and lose meaning sooner or later.” Roe placed the bag on the table, “It’s only a matter of time every corner of the Earth Kingdom realize the Fire Nation really isn’t the enemy. And if Jagmohan promptly makes use of what you have here, than all the nations will have no clue who’s hitting them. By the way,” Roe grabbed a scroll from the bag, opening it, “So this really is the information of such a procedure. I myself would of thought the whole idea nonsense if I didn’t see the historical documentation myself at the university about the Dai Li conspiracy that took place 70, 80 years ago.”

“That goes to show you think to much,” Eason replied, shifted his visual attention away from Roe.

“Touché, but that’s one attribute of mine that I’m well aware and well proud of. It’s gotten me this far.” Roe slipped his glance from the scroll, “Eh, psychology isn’t my field anyway. Let Jagmohan’s so-claimed telepaths and hypnotists handle this shenanigan. And yes Eason, you can have some of my saki.” He finished as he saw Eason with a cup at hand, pulling out a bottle off a self with various beverages.

Pouring the saki into the cup Eason added, “And if you look at that other scroll you’re holding, I also found another tidbit that Jagmohan had had his mind on.”

Looking to the other scroll at hand, Roe opened it. His eyes squinted as he drew his face closer to the scroll. “This…this is the map to…but this place hasn’t been seen for over a hundred years. Don’t get me wrong, if this place does exist, it’d be a dream come true. But let’s be realistic Eason, this is only going to add on to Jagmohan’s side quest goose chasing and other delays.”

Eason raised his filled cup of saki to his eye level, “That right there, is only going to add on to my pay check.” And Eason then chugged the cup.

Roe rolled his eyes, thinking, [i]If it’s not for power, it’s for the money[/i] but said, “I forgot, you don’t have the bit of interest in Jagmohan’s cause.”

Before taking another gulp on his second cup Eason squinted his eyes at Roe, almost taking offense. “I admire the guy for having the nerve to challenge the world. Yeah, what most of what he’s doing now is a bit sneaky and deceitful, but he feels it’s the most ‘humane’ way to reach his goal and I’ll respect that.” Eason then tossed his free hand to direct attention to the whole room, “And I suppose you have expectations beyond confining yourself in closed rooms, mixing different juices in fancy glass bottles and talking big words.”

Roe slipped the scrolls back into the bag as he responded, “Yes, I do, as a matter of fact, I take pride in my studies as chemist and as member of the scientific community. The day the conflict ceases to exist throughout civilization is the day we as a whole can put full effort into the vast quest for knowledge. That is the day, the era, I look forward too.”

“Eh, how fun. Hopefully I’ll be dead by then…” Eason mumbled under his sip of saki.

Roe went back on the subject, “Well the sooner you get pass this to Jagmohen’s middlemen, the sooner we’ll we won’t have to handle all this. I’ll thank you later for getting me into this.” Roe narrowed his eyes at Eason.

“You remember,” Eason extended his index finger with cup at hand, “my cover is confirmed as a guest in the city…your guest. So if I was caught, they would have stormed you down anyway. Any who, it’s settled. You’ll hook me up with your connections?”

“Sigh, very welll. Well I’d take you out of the city personally. But as you see, I’m busy here. But I have several interns who have to supervise a shipment of chemicals out of the city. You’ll accompany them and you’ll be able to hide these goods in one of the stone containers. Officials can’t open them if they’re label with various safety precautions. My interns aren’t involved, but the ones receiving the delivery will be people you’ll be familiar with.”

“Sounds good to me. So what are you doing now. You mixing up some new poisons or sedatives for Jagmohan or me to use.”

“Heavens no. I don’t conduct any actual experiments for Jagmohan here in the city. That’s what my funded international ‘field’ studies are for. I also order out the ingredients I use, including the batch you’ll be exporting with tomorrow. These here,” Roe referred to his lab setup, “are samples of experiments conducted by my students here at the university. I’m following a procedure to test if their synthetic solutions exhibit with the precise results. Speaking of which, I believe there’s a sample ready for examination.” Roe paced to the edge of the table where the end of the circuits of glass tubes dripped various liquids into different flasks. Aside the cone shaped flasks was an empty beaker. As the flasks were each about filled to the top, Rose aimed his fingers at the glassware. Then with a series of waves and motions of his fingers and wrists, the solutions from the flasks streamed up into the air. Three different liquid colors flowed through the air all pouring and mixing into the beaker. The waterbender spun his finger over the beaker as the mixed solution swirled in the beaker slowly becoming clear. “Wow. This may be the first student to completely purify their given substances.”

“Ah…yeah nice, I’ll take your word for it. It’s nice to see you put commitment into your cover job.” Eason took another mouthful of saki.

Roe responded while keeping his eye contact on his experiment, “This is not a cover job, merely a second. And all the data and information I obtain as a professor is utilized and applied to my work with Jagmohan and vice-versa. My affiliations with Jagmohan are merely top secret. Sigh, seems I’m going to be up the for the rest of the night with this. It’s obvious you will be residing here for the night. My bed is vacant” Roe placed the solution down as he walked to the other end of the long table while bending a stream of boiling water from the central cauldron, guiding it into a mini steel funnel, which would be fed into the whole glass system. Roe returned to his work.

“Well thank you Roe, don’t mind if I do.” Eason had already left the bottle and cup of saki on the floor. Eason stood over Roe’s bed with lazy eyes most likely because of his tiredness, and the frequent swigs of saki. He dropped himself over the bed But before hitting the, a firm breeze puffed upward, breaking his fall, gently landing onto the covers.