THE ART OF THE DEAL part 1

"Ok, this is interesting," muttered Xu Qing. He and Louis are looking through the files on Dr Sterling's phone.

"Here's a schematic for a kind of microorganism." he said, projecting the image onto the 3D projector. 

"Doc, we need you here," called Santos, exasperated at the image that was handwritten by Dr Sterling on a tablet, the words are illegible.

Phineas walked over, reading off the notes and appendixes.

"Can you translate that from bullsh*t to English?" asked James. 

Phineas chuckled. 

"To summarise, this microorganism is designed to interfere with brain expressions, as well as re-wiring neural pathways." 

Phineas asked Louis to screen more of the information. "Looking at the lab records, it appears that the subjects that were administered this microorganism experienced the following symptoms depending on the sub-variants: decreased rationality, increased aggression, amnesia, sensory deprivation, hallucination, loss of sense of self, memory alteration..." 

"Why would Vanguard want something like this?" asked Ariel. 

"Well, it screws with your brain and turn you into maniacs, if I was a terrorist I would want to use it, it's the perfect chaos spreading tool, and a good torture device," said Nanami. "Why water board someone when you can just sensory deprive him?" 

"But what does this have to do with Archangel and the Asclepius phage?" asked Sean. "You don't need advanced DNA targeting to drive someone insane with a microorganism that f***s with your brain. Didn't the intel brief we got before going to London say that the samples we recovered in Spain are essentially crude weaponised versions of the Asclepius phage?" 

"Perhaps," analysed Xiao Tian. "What Dr Sterling was working on was merely a part of the scheme. Or, there are concurrent projects going on." 

"Oh, look at this," exclaimed Xu Qing, projecting another document, in the form of an email that was carbon copied to Dr Sterling. "In summary, it's an order from Archangel to Vanguard, asking them to provide the necessary bio-materials. Vanguard then linked them up with smuggling rings and black market vendors to buy the necessary stuff." 

"Makes sense, when you are working with terrorist organisations, you would want to keep the dealings in the black market," commented Louis. 

"And it's very recent, just 2 days before we caught him in Jerusalem," added Xu Qing. He got to work decrypting the coordinates embedded in the message for the trade details. 

Upon seeing the final result, Xu Qing snickered. "Oh, what are the odds? The Dragon Palace Bazzar! The dealer is called "Sirena"." 

He then opened up a sample image of the good, revealing a small box of test tubes filled with a pink solution. 

"That's a kind of growth accelerator for microorganisms," recognised Phineas. "It's a controlled substance of the WHO, because its production involve the use of fresh tissue of the subject you intend to use the microorganism on, and that includes humans and Sellardraxians. You need a permit to, make, use and trade them, and the sourcing of tissue material must be done through legal means."

"The fact that Archangel is smuggling this means that their operations are exceeding their yearly WHO quotas," analysed Phineas. 

"The dealer's name is the same as the name of the Filipino mythology equivalent of the mermaid," said Nanami. "The dealer is from the Philippines?" 

"There are thousands of smugglers there, how are we gonna find our guy?" asked James. 

"Wait a second," said Sean, turning to Xiao Tian. "That guy," he said, remembering something that happened this morning when he and Xiao Tian went to the Dragon Palace Bazzar to buy supplies. 

"Isn't that the same set of test tubes?" 

(Flashback, morning of the same day)

"Are you f***ing kidding me?" exclaimed Sean in Chinese. "You are charging 1000 Chinese yuan for these canned meat? You might as well rob me." 

The obese man with receding hairline turned to his fellow smuggler, saying something in the Wu dialect of Chinese, snickering. 

"That's just rude," said Sean in fluent Wu dialect, knowing that the smugglers essentially just called him a moron. 

The 2 smugglers paused, surprised that this Sellardraxian boy in front of them can speak their dialect. 

"Sorry boy, this is the market price now, you won't find a cheaper supplier. How about I give you a slight discount, 950 yuan? I am barely making a profit here," said the smuggler, now talking in a more friendly tone, knowing that he cannot fight against a Draco subspecies if he were to piss him off. 

Sean breathed, trying to quell his fury. Had Xiao Tian not reminded him beforehand to keep a low profile and just go along with the smugglers if the price is not TOO nonsensical, he is seriously contemplating pulling out his FN 5-7 pistol or giving the smugglers a fireball. 

"Here," he said, taking out his phone to make the payment, while cussing under his breath in the Hunan dialect of Chinese. 

The smugglers received the money, and started loading boxes onto Sean's automated trolley behind him. Once Sean checked the contents, he left, going over to find Xiao Tian, who is leaving a shady looking "pharmacy". 

Just as the 2 were leaving, they bumped into a man sporting a blue Mohawk haircut. 

"Sorry," he apologised profusely, raising Sean and Xiao Tian's interests, after all, their experiences as special operators are telling them that this guy is a psychopath, the kind that will violently maul a person to death for the slightest offence, yet he is acting all meekly around the 2 of them, like a child that is scared of his parents who caught him being awake after bed time. 

Sean's eyes darted to the bag he is holding. It's a specialised bag designed to carry bio-hazardous materials. Through the bag, he could see the silhouette of a small box of test tubes that are filled up. 

Seeing that the 2 of them did not say another word, the man hurriedly left, not wanting to stay for a extra second. He disappeared into another vendor next to the "pharmacy". 

Sean's internal alarms are blaring, his erratic behaviour can only be explained if the bag has something extremely important that he cannot afford to delay, hence choosing to not stir up trouble, and letting things slide. 

Hence, curiosity and Sean's sense of duty got the better of him, he started to follow after the man, only to be stopped by a hand gripping his shoulder tightly. 

Xiao Tian is holding onto Sean's shoulder, with a disapproving frown. 

"I know what you are thinking," he said, sighing. "But we are not UNSSD operators now, we are fugitives." 

Sean nodded slowly, leaving with Xiao Tian, heading back to the midget submarine. 

(Current time) 

"Even if it's the exact same set of test tubes, which I highly doubt so," said Santos. "Vanguard and Archangel should have rearranged the trade details by now as Dr Sterling's capture and death will expose the operation sooner or later." 

"I disagree," said Nanami. "They don't know that we have access to his phone, judging by how Dr Sterling's email account still remained active until 5 days ago, that was already after the events of the Palestine region. To rearrange a black market network of this scale is costly, not to mention the fact that their options are already limited after we busted the Witch Doctor/ Mr T and screwed their network." 

Xu Qing frowned. "Even still, the trade is over by now, what purpose does it serve to pursue this lead?" 

"If we can control the Mohawk dude and his fellow smugglers, we can find out who was the one from Archangel or Vanguard that made the deal with with the smugglers as the middle man. That will be a big step forward in our investigation," said Sean. 

Xiao Tian concurred, making up plans for an operation to catch the smugglers and get the intel they need.