Chapter 2

"Oh, come on!"

It was only Shadow, Felicia's black cat. He had knocked over a glass fishbowl onto the carpet, and was currently devouring said fish.

"You're the reason why I can't have nice things." After cleaning up the pieces of glass, she grabbed a bath towel and placed it over the wet spot on the carpet, then cleaned up the remains of the Betta fish.

"Rest in peace, little guy." She murmured. "Have fun in that great big fishbowl in the sky."

Shadow weaved between her legs, meowing loudly and showing absolutely no remorse for what he had done.

"You just had a fat fish, you couldn't possibly be hungry."

Shadow continued meowing and whining, causing Felicia to look down at her feline in exasperation. "You know, sometimes you're more trouble than you're worth, you know that?"

Shadow trailed behind her as Felicia walked into the kitchen, grabbing a can of wet cat food from a cabinet, gagging as she opened it. "I don't know how you're able to eat this stuff."

She dumped it into Shadow's food bowl before grabbing her Chinese food from the fridge, popping it into the microwave. The smell of mai fun and chicken filled the room, causing Felicia's stomach to growl loudly.

Pouring herself a glass of wine, she took her food out of the microwave and retreated into the living room, flicking through the channels on the television until she reached the local news channel. Settling in on her couch, she wrapped a blanket around herself before digging into her food.

"In other news, rabies in felines seems to be on the rise." The news anchor was saying. "In dogs, there has been a ten percent increase, but there has almost been a twenty-five percent increase in cats. The ASPCA is advising that all owners keep an eye on their pets, especially when they are outdoors."

Shadow jumped up onto the back of the couch, letting out a small meow as he got himself situated.

"Good thing that you're not an outdoor cat, the last thing I want is for you to get rabies." Reaching up, Felicia scratched underneath Shadow's chin, smiling as she heard the midnight-colored feline purring loudly. "Who needs to go out when I have a best friend like you."

Letting out a yawn, she placed the remainder of her food on the maple coffee table that was in front of the couch. She took a large sip of her wine before getting comfortable on the couch. Shadow moved from the back of the couch to Felicia's lap, and she stroked his head until she felt her eyes starting to close, and she sank into a deep oblivion.

~

The next morning, Felicia yawned as she made her way into the lab.

"Rough night?" Hank teased her.

"I just fell asleep on the couch again is all."

"Did you at least not spill anything on yourself this time?"

It wasn't an oddity for Felicia to fall asleep on the couch after work, but she wasn't always the most careful. One time she had fallen asleep with a plate of spaghetti on her lap, and when she woke up, it was all over both herself and the couch.

"Oh, shut up, Hank, you're acting like you've never fallen asleep on the couch before."

"I've never woken up with my face covered in food before."

Felicia flipped him off before laughing. "Has Kirk brought up those samples, by any chance?"

"Yeah, I think that he put them on your desk."

"Perfect." Felicia went over to her desk, where three vials sat."

"What are those even from, anyway?" Hank queried.

"I guess that there was some disease or something found in alligators in the swamps of Florida. As far as I'm concerned, those gators had better stay right where they are. Anyway, I guess they think that this disease is mutating their genes or something. It's like the gators are…evolving. Or going back, I don't know. From what I heard from Sabine, the mutation is causing them to go back into what I guess you could call a dinosaur state."

Hank shuddered. "And here I was thinking that they were scary enough. At least all that we have to worry about here is the rabies outbreak that's going on. Even though I have a fenced-in yard, Brutus is going to be on a leash at all times when he's outside for the foreseeable future."

Brutus was Hank's three-year-old Great Dane. Despite what people might think due to his name, Brutus was actually a sweetheart, and thought that he was a giant lap dog.

Felicia poured a bit of the first vial into a petri dish, then focused the microscope over the dish. "The main thing that Sabine wants me to do is figure out if this is viral or bacterial or what. From there we can work on trying to find a cure, before people try and use these creatures for their own purposes."

"I feel like anyone that got anywhere close to these beasts would wind up being gator chow."

"You never know with people these days. Some loon might have watched Jurassic Park one too many times and would try to recreate it with gators. All I know is that if we can't find a cure for this, then the people in the Florida swamps are going to be in a load of trouble. Along with them deferring back into this state, it means that they're going to be more aggressive too. Alligators don't normally attack people unless they feel threatened, but now they might start attacking just because you look at them the wrong way."

Felicia studied the samples until her lunch break, and she had just drizzled thousand island dressing over her garden salad when Sabine came into the break room, opening up a bag of pita chips as she sat across from Felicia.

"Are you getting anything from those samples?" Sabine asked."

"Well, I was able to figure out that it's bacterial in nature, but that's all that I've been able to figure out so far, other then it's very hardy. I've conducted quite a few tests, and it almost seems like nothing can kill it."

"Well, I'm sure that you'll figure it out eventually," Sabine told her. "But try and make eventually get here fast, the Tallahassee division is riding my ass about this."

"And they aren't trying to figure this out themselves why?"

"Because no one there knows what they're doing."

Felicia scoffed. "Clearly. They're a bunch of rednecks over there, then?"

"Pretty much. I met a few of them at a conference last year. Don't get me wrong, they're nice enough, but a lot of them are new to the field, not like you and I."

Sabine had been in the science field for what seemed ages, she had been twenty-one when she had first started working for the CDC, quickly working her way up in the ranks. She had higher aspirations still, hoping to one day work for the World Health Organization.

Felicia didn't see herself anywhere near Sabine's level, she had been around the same age as Kirk when she had been offered a position with the Center for Disease Control.

"I mean, I wouldn't hold myself in the same regard as you," Felicia stated.

"Nonesense. You're a good scientist, Felicia, one of the best that I've ever seen."

Felicia blushed darkly at the compliment.

"Who knows, perhaps one day we will work for the WHO together." Sabine finished up the rest of her food before standing up. "Back to work for the both of us. You keep working on those samples, and I'll try and keep the people in Florida from completely freaking out."

~

By the end of that workday, Felicia was no closer to finding a cure than she had been when she had first started studying the samples. Sitting back, she rubbed her eyes. "Every time I blink, all I see are little dots of bacteria."

"Pretty sure that's your brain telling you to quit," Hank replied.

Felicia clicked on a few things on her computer, sending info to her home computer so that she could continue to study the samples after she left.

"Seriously?" Hank arched an eyebrow at her. "You've been here since eight this morning, and it's going on seven now, you're really going to bring your work home with you?"

"This is kind of important, Hank. I need to try and figure out a cure, while at the same time making sure that this disease or mutation or whatever it is, can't be spread to other animals, or God forbid, people. Besides, I've got the day off tomorrow, which is a good thing, because my pantry is in a desperate need of a restock. I'll see you Friday morning Hank, have a good night."

~

No one working in the large factory of Pet Provisions, INC. paid much attention to the trio of rodents that scurried through the factory floor. For the most part, the creatures went unnoticed, everyone else more occupied with meeting their daily quota of products than they were with the rats that provided a health hazard. The company was very lax in terms of safety and hygiene, the underpaid and overworked employees more concerned about getting enough products made to be put on the next truck, knowing that if they didn't meet their quota by the end of the shift, then there was a very likely chance that they would be fired.

In the middle of the factory floor, there was a large machine, grinding up the ingredients that went into the pet food. The rats made their way up said machine, their noses leading their emaciated bodies towards said ingredients.

One by one, their extremely sensitive noses lead them to their certain deaths. No one heard the screaming of the creatures going through the grinder due to how loud the machine was. Although no one knew it at the time, this was only the beginning of the trouble that would soon plague Los Angeles.