Chapter 5: White Coats

    When Mike arrived at work, there were two police cars outside in addition to his employees.  They all looked a little baffled.  "What's going on?" asked Mike.  "Someone has robbed us.  Almost all of the plants are gone."  "What do you mean gone?" asked Mike.  But Mike didn't wait for their reply, he stomped off toward the front door.  The first thing Mike noticed was that the glass was broken on both doors, and the doors were still locked.  Upon entry, Mike saw that all of the planters were still there, and the larger bushes and trees that were in the back had their gunnysack that covers the rootball cut or torn away.  Everything still seemed to be there other than the plants, and something was strange about how they disappeared.

    "No one stole these plants."  said a man in a white coat.  The man had entered while Mike was looking around, and everything about him was suspicious.  His hair was slicked back, and pulled into a small pony tail in the back, he had thick eyebrows and his glasses were mirrored so there was no way to see his eyes.  He was only about 5'6", and he was a bit heavy in the midsection.  "A team is on the way to clean this up.  We will replace all of your plants, and fix the door.  There is nothing for you to worry about."  Mike approached the man, and noticed a badge on the right side of the man's coat.  "Jack Sperino" "Lead Scientist" it read.  "You work for 'Mother Nature' right?" questioned Mike.  "Tell me something, if these plants were not stolen, what did happen to them?"  "You should know,"  replied Jack.  "You used the fertilizer on them after all." 

    "The fertilizer was created to accelerate plant growth, just as any other fertilizer would be."  Jack explained.  "But for this product, we engineered an additive that accelerated plants to five times their normal growth rate.  That wasn't enough though, our CEO wanted more from this product.  She told us that we needed to improve it further.  Something was different when we experimented with various amino acid and DNA alterations."  Just then, Mike felt something poke into his neck, and he immediately began to feel nauseous and tired.  Just before he fell asleep, he reached back, removed the dart from his neck, and asked "What was different?"  Jack kneeled down over Mike's unconscious body, smiled and whispered, "After today it won't matter."

--Hope you all enjoyed this chapter--

--More to come soon!--