198 [BT]  A Mouldy Clue...

[Before Transition] 

I am currently walking through the halls of Empire State University which usually wouldn't be that weird since I actually attend here going to various classes throughout the week but unlike my usual trips to these academic grounds it is actually night right now and I am prowling though these halls in the dark since I broke into here and quite easily as well since all I had to do was wait for all the students to leave the building and go wherever they want and the staff members to leave as well and then with all the security guards going to sleep with a minimal few hooking up with some students I managed to easily walk into the grounds and through the doors because security is so incredibly lax because I suppose who would want to be breaking into a place of learning though I suppose that will be changing in the future when bigger and better scientist start teaching here and bringing all of their crazy wacky inventions into work which will spark a string of villains attacking to steal said inventions which will definitely boost the security, luckily for me right now there aren't many scientists here with enough fame or clout or even inventions to steal but I suppose that is because the scientists aren't having many results yet such as Doctor Curt Conners and his currently failing animal splicing and Doctor Miles Warren and his cloning which I am here to check on right now, I am here for one very specific reason and that is because it is time to investigate a certain creepy professor and unveil all of his secrets lurking in his shady closet and I know for a fact that a scientist usually has clues and stuff in his lab as that where all my research is and I remember from the comics that Miles Warren had some sort of secret lab or something in his office so that is where I am going and if I don't find anything then I suppose I'm just going to have to look harder and start getting really invasive. 

Stalking through the halls I am constantly paying attention to room numbers and halls while looking at those map things put up on the wall to help direct people around and so I manage to make my way to the science section of the campus and I manage to finally find the door upon which read 'Dr Miles Warren' and so without further ado I stretch my hand out and twist the door knob but the door is locked and not wanting to bust the door open with my strength and leave any evidence of my presence I crouch down and pull out the lock picks I brought with me which Earl taught me to use a while ago when he was still teaching me stuff but he is much too old now so I am not exactly an expert at this and I am a bit rusty but I am going to be relying on my super powers to bridge the gap and help me open this door hopefully without scratching it or leaving any evidence since I don't want to give that old pervert man with a sick deluded genius mind any hints that someone is closing in on him as that might make him more of a wild card and unpredictive, using my powers I thread my picklocks through the keyhole with a steady hand which doesn't shake in the slightest which is one of the benefits of my superpowers and so I take extra measure to do this as carefully as possible even if it will take longer and so I strain my hearing to pay attention to all the locks and mechanisms in it and using my picklocks I twist, turn, lever and pull until finally the door unlocks and I'm proud of myself for unlocking the door without leaving any evidence even if it did take me about ten minutes during which anybody could have snuck up and found me since all my focus was on the lock but you live and you learn. 

Slowly opening the door I peek my head inside and after a cursory glance I open the door just enough to slip my body inside before closing the door behind me silently and only then letting go of the handle after which I begin to look around the room for anything suspicious making sure to pay attention to each and every object with an absurd amount of scrutiny but I find nothing suspicious and I go and search through quite a filing cabinets and documents but there is nothing suspicious there either and so I finally make my way to the computer and after a good fifteen minutes I finally manage to break into his account and start to devour anything and everything in there but no matter where I look or how deep I search I find not even an iota of evidence that would support the fact that this man is a creepy psychopath who is obsessed with Gwendolyn Stacey with everything in his office being squeaky clean and neat but if anything that just raises my suspicion even more since this place is too clean cut and neat and so there must be somewhere else that he is hiding his secrets research and depravity with it most likely being in his home or some garage which means I will have to leave and start a more in depth investigation into him and start stalking him to make sure that Gwen is safe from this creep, moving to leave I look down at the ground depressed that I had found nothing and had no proof that this guy was too dangerous to be around Gwen and so I move across the room to the door but as I do my attention is brought to a corner of the room next to the bin in his office which I had already searched but I specifically look to the corner of the room where I can see some small bits of debris and rubbish that must have been swept in the corner and whil most of it is just little crumbs and stuff there is one thing there which is particularly garnering my interest giving the fact that it is some kind of black substance which stands out from the rest of the things there. 

Crouching down I get a closer looks at the black substance and after a cursory examination with my eyes which makes sure it isn't anything dangerous or something I begin to poke it and finger it with my fingers confused about what it is and assured that it isn't too dangerous I pick some of it up and rub it between my fingers to try and get some clues as to what it is and I even give it a sniff which just results in me sneezing and getting a bit of a cough along with some irritation in my eyes and a headache which while unpleasant actually clues me into exactly what this is and it turns out it is actually stachybotrys chartarum which is also known as black mold or toxic black mold which just gave me the symptoms I just mentioned and it is a variety of micro fungus that produces its conidia in slime heads and it is sometimes found in soil and grain but in the city like this the mold is most often detected in cellulose-rich building materials from damp or water-damaged buildings, for it to be in Miles Warren's office like this it must have been tracked in by someone and for there to be such an amount swept into the corner like this that person must have visited this office quite frequently and the good doctor doesn't seem like the type to have that many friends or people who would visit him in his office that frequently so I can only assume that it has been tracked in by him which means he must be going to some damp mouldy place which could be anywhere such as his house or even a storage lot but given the fact that he tracked this stuff in on his shoes there must be a lot of mold on the floor which means it must be very damp and the fact that it came all the way from the location to here means that it can't be too far away as it would have been wiped away before he got here and so I can only conclude that he has been visiting somewhere very damp close by. 

Given the fact that all of these buildings are pretty new with some of the ones around the outskirts but those are too far away to track the black mold all the way here in such amounts and so it must be closer but the buildings around here are relatively newer with the science building being especially cutting edge where I would most suspect his hideout would be since it would have all of the equipment and tools he would need for his research but that building is the newest out of them all and so it is definitely unlikely to be there and it is most likely to be in the building I am currently in which house Doctor Miles Warren's office since it would provide easy access for him and so it must be in this building or at least this building is the first place I will search and since I am looking for a damp dark place which would allow black mold to grow in intense amount I will be heading for the basement since the rest of the buildings are regularly maintained but I know that the basements are usually neglected since not a lot of people go down there and so it is my suspect number one, getting back to my feet  I quickly and silently leave through the office door but once outside I realise that I no longer have a way to lock the door and while I didn't leave any actual evidence I know someone as detail oriented and psychotic as Miles Warren would become suspicious about this and so I re-enter the room and grabbing the spare key I found earlier while rifling through the room I lock the door and return the spare key to its place before unlocking a window (which he is much less likely to be suspicious of as we are on the third floor and exit through that using my wall crawling making sure to close it behind me and then I was off heading towards the entrance I used a while ago to get into the building and once inside instead of going up like last time this time I looked for a map and after getting some directions I finally managed to find the door to the basement. 

Walking up to the door to the basement I reach out my hand and grasp the doorknob at which point I tense and hesitate to turn it worrying just what kind of monstrosities are awaiting me down there that this deluded crazy fool created in his fits of insanity and just what kind of wack caricatures of Gwen are awaiting me down there, eventually I can no longer hold myself back no matter what I might expose my eyes to and so in one quick movement I twist the doorknob and thrust the door open allowing me to see down into the depths of the basement... 

________________________________________________

<AN> I now have a Pa treon up and running and when a chapter is ready it will go up on Pa treon first so please take a look. Some support from you guys would be appreciated and motivate me.

Currently 34+ Chapters.

(www.pa treon.com/GutsyRipper)

A special thank you to my patrons Stormrall, Turtle, Matthew Laird, Sage Honos, Darth Bane, Marcus Lane, frank ivkovich, Alex, Jermaine Koster, Ethan Fuentes, Shane Town, Hisham and Eric Baker. Thank you for the support.