Chapter 95: The Connection Between the Laboratory and Ruby

Chapter 95: Chapter 95: The Connection Between the Laboratory and Ruby

The decor below resembled a laboratory straight out of a science fiction movie. Several large vats were lined up against the stark white wall opposite the main door, but they didn’t contain people. Instead, they held creatures Frank Keller had never seen before.

In the far-left corner stood a massive table. A middle-aged man in a white lab coat was holding a test tube, carefully adding a drop of something to it.

To the right was a large, open area where dozens of people were either lying or sitting.

They were all crammed together, with seemingly no space to spare.

Frank Keller recognized some of them. They were friends he’d made shortly after arriving at the sanatorium.

There were fellow international students from his own country, blond and blue-eyed Caucasians, and powerfully built black men.

The man from the bed across from his was there, too.

Two armed guards stood in front of the group. If anyone so much as moved, one of the guards would step forward and kick them.

Just as Frank Keller reached the entrance, he saw two men carrying out a lifeless body. They tossed it into an incinerator across the way.

"Ah, a new one. Perfect timing," the masked, middle-aged man said, holding out a test tube filled with an oddly colored liquid. "This is a new potion I just concocted. Let’s see how it works on him."

The man who brought Frank Keller down took the tube, expertly pried open his jaw, and poured the contents down his throat.

Then he shoved Frank aside and watched for the drug’s effects.

Intense pain caused Frank Keller to break out in a cold sweat, but with his mouth gagged, he couldn’t make a sound.

When the pain became unbearable, Frank Keller even considered smashing his head against the wall.

But they had clearly anticipated this. The surrounding walls were covered with padded panels, making Frank Keller’s struggles completely futile.

Frank Keller didn’t know what happened next. He only knew that he had passed out from the pain. When he came to, he was back in his own bed.

This process was repeated several times. Frank Keller’s memories began to fracture until, slowly, he became the man Zoe Sawyer and the others had found.

A flicker of guilt crossed Evan Keller’s eyes. He checked the dates. Around the time Frank Keller was enduring all this, he, as his twin, had sensed something was off. But back then, he’d just assumed Frank was having a relapse. On top of that, he was buried in work and hadn’t given it much thought.

He never imagined his brother was suffering such inhuman abuse.

’If I had only found out sooner, could this have been prevented?’

Frank Keller didn’t notice his brother’s emotional shift. He felt like he was forgetting something.

But he couldn’t recall what it was just then.

The harder he tried to grasp it, the more it eluded him.

Frank Keller instinctively raised a hand to hit his head in frustration, but Evan Keller and Lynn Grant, who were beside him, stopped him.

The group spoke for a while longer, but seeing that Frank Keller looked drained, they all filed out of the room to let him get some proper rest.

Due to work commitments, Zoe Sawyer and the others couldn’t stay. Evan Keller arranged with the hospital to find a trustworthy caregiver to watch over his brother twenty-four hours a day.

Once everything was settled, the team drove back to the station.

On the way, Evan Keller gave it some thought. He looked at Heath Hale in the passenger seat and asked, "What are your thoughts on this? That lab... you think it could be related to the news about those escaped monkeys?"

Evan Keller didn’t spell it out, but everyone in the car, except for Beau, understood his meaning.

News reports about monkeys escaping from official laboratories were common in the country where Frank Keller was studying. Combined with his recent descriptions, it was easy to connect the dots.

"Impossible," Heath Hale said, rejecting Evan’s idea without hesitation. "If it were an official government lab, Frank Keller would have never gotten out. That sanatorium must be the private turf of some mad scientist."

The fact that Frank Keller only saw cameras in the hallways already makes that unlikely.

Not to mention, the sanatorium was well-known in the area. People regularly brought their relatives there.

If it were an official facility, none of this would be happening out in the open.

Hearing this, Evan Keller nodded. ’He’s right, I was too hasty.’

Back at the station, the chief didn’t ask where they had been, simply assigning them their duties as usual.

The next day, it was business as usual for Zoe Sawyer’s team—training for those who needed it, fieldwork for the others.

The chief even brought in a retired forensic sketch artist to teach Beau the basics.

Back at the hospital, however, things were far from peaceful.

Once the caregiver made sure Frank Keller was asleep, he quietly closed the door to step out for some fresh air and use the restroom.

At that moment, Frank Keller was pulled back into a nightmare.

He dreamed again of the days he was forced to swallow the unknown concoctions. Lying on the floor, his fading vision fixed on the middle-aged man’s face.

In the quiet underground laboratory, the only sounds were the hum of equipment and the middle-aged man’s voice.

The man was on the phone. He had a plain, average face—the kind you’d see on the street and forget in an instant.

A stream of words poured from his mouth, his tone solicitous and his expression sycophantic.

"Mr. Lynch... in the middle of experiments... drug’s efficacy..."

"Can’t get in touch... could you please trouble... Ruby..."

"Just wait for my good news..."

Frank Keller’s eyes snapped open. He sat bolt upright, gasping for air.

’I remember!’

’The thing I couldn’t remember this morning—I remember it now!’

The matter was urgent. With no time to waste, Frank Keller glanced at his nightstand and saw a brand-new phone.

One of Evan Keller’s team members had dropped it off at noon, already fitted with his spare SIM card.

Frank Keller dialed the number he knew by heart.

It was answered on the first ring.

"What is it?" Evan Keller’s voice came through the line.

Frank Keller rushed to tell Evan everything he’d remembered. "Evan! I remember!

While they were forcing the drug down my throat, I saw the face of the man in charge of the lab, and I heard him on the phone with someone.

I didn’t hear the whole thing, but he was telling some guy, a Mr. Lynch, that the potion was still experimental, the effects were unstable and prone to complications, and that he needed to run a lot more tests to get more data.

He also said he couldn’t get in touch with someone named Ruby, and that he was running out of test subjects. He asked Mr. Lynch to help send more over."

After hearing Frank’s story, Evan Keller lowered his voice, his tone growing heavy. "Are you sure? The name Ruby—you’re positive you heard it right?

Is anyone with you? Where’s the caregiver?"

"I’m sure. I heard it clearly. There’s no one around, and the caregiver is gone," Frank Keller replied succinctly.

He sensed that his brother was particularly sensitive to that name.

Before Frank Keller could ask any more questions, he heard Evan say, "Alright, you stay put at the hospital. Don’t say a word of this to anyone. I’m on my way now."

After hanging up, Evan Keller wasted no time in reporting to the chief.

"Chief, I need to head to the hospital. Frank might have intel on Ruby—the one we arrested in connection with the human skin case."