From Leo's diary
Leo: I was told you found out what caused the intoxication of those people at the club, is it true?
Lab Technician: Well, you sort of noticed it already, their blood samples all contained traces of a neurotoxin similar to the one found in the spore samples you brought us from Strangerville.
Leo: Yet I don't think any of them any chance to be contaminated by those spores, they've never come close to that place.
Lab Technician: There were traces of other known psychoactive substances in their blood too. If I can venture a guess, I think someone has been adding the active ingredient of those spores to one of the drugs on the market. Most likely, those people you brought to the hospital yesterday night were having an overdose reaction.
Leo: ...
I had thought about such a hypothesis too, but there were still too many things that didn't quite fit the scheme. That molecule caused convulsions and loss of reason, who could ever use it to produce "recreational drugs"? And where did they get the spores they needed to produce it?
We had interrogated the owner of that strange souvenir stand in Strangerville for days, even using telepathy, but it turned out to be a dead end. That nutcase had caused the accident hoping to attract tourists and increase his profits, but he didn't seem to know anything about drugs or anything else.
Someone must have taken advantage of the chaos ranging around Strangerville to stock up spores without being noticed, most likely someone with experience in the field. Perhaps, after all, the trail that brought me to Strangerville to investigate about the connections with the local drug dealers gang wasn't completely wrong...
Speaking of Strangerville, my brother Orion is still busy with the consequences of the accident, tonight we are planning to meet to exchange as much information as we can. After all, the neurotoxic spores ultimately came from the very lab he works in, for sure he knew the spores neurotoxin much better than we do.
Leo: Do you think that cloud is going to remain there forever?
Orion: They told me that it was there already before the accident, according to the old people living here that is normal.
Leo: Well, if they say so...
At least it no longer looked purple and saturated with spores. Even along the road I took to get there I had not seen any of those strange plants or people wandering around under the influence of the neurotoxin, finally that place seemed a completely normal town.
Orion: So that it's just the two of us today, we could also give the hamburgers a try. Everyone in town says they are a blast.
Leo: Ok, fine for me.
Waitress: (a bit confused) Two hamburgers, well noted...
Leo: Did something happen to her? She seemed a bit... upset.
Orion: Well, before the accident we were always showing up with a disguise on, being "the aliens who came from Sixam to do strange experiments at the crater lab" looked a bit suspicious, you know? But then we got an official warning, and we were forced to quit disguised completely.
I didn't say it out loud, but my expression still clearly stated a: "What did I tell you?"
Orion: So let's say that Holly, the waitress, hasn't gotten used to seeing me in all my blue magnificence yet.
Leo: C'mon...
Orion was joking about it, as usual, but I couldn't help noticing that the people in town continued to look at us aliens with suspicion, in a even more evident way than what we usually experience in Windenburg. More or less consciously. I'm afraid that the people of Strangerville are blaming us for the accident.
Orion: Anyway, didn't you say you had important things to be talking about?
Leo: Yes. Apparently, a drug made using the toxin contained in those spores is starting to circulate in Windenburg. Does it seem plausible to you?
Orion: (thoughtfully) In principle, yes.
Leo: Do you think there really are people who might want to be contaminated on purpose by that stuff?
He was the only person I knew well who was contaminated, after all.
Orion: Well, I would not suggest the same dose I took to anyone, but I can't exclude that at lower doses the effect could be different.
Leo: I see...
Leo: Where do they get enough toxin to produce all that drug, then?
Orion: Well... I'm not an expert, but I don't think they can synthesize it. The molecule is tremendously complex, and they don't have our matter recomposer. They probably extract it somewhere else.
Leo: And from where, then?
Orion: Maybe I shouldn't say that, the Ministry of Defence... (Bitter) well, who cares about them, thinking about it they don't care at all about this story, they only want to prevent other Nations from getting their hands on Sixam's arsenal before the Sim Nation does.
My brother was really angry with those at the Ministry of Defense, he always says that we worked better when they were still financed by the Ministry for Technological Development, the one Claire led for many years. Probably they didn't want any top secret information to be shared outside of their offices, but Orion didn't show any loyalty to them.
Leo: What did you find out?
Orion: It seems that those plants which were growing all over the place produced fruits, and that by planting them it is relatively easy to obtain other plants. And those plants spread quite a lot of neurotoxic spores, remember?
Leo: So, in your opinion, someone took advantage of the chaos caused by the accident to get their hand on some of those fruits, started growing those plants in some hidden place, and now would be able to produce tons of those spores?
Orion: It's just a hypothesis, but it seems to work pretty well, isn't it?
It works even too well, actually...
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In those days Claire was at least as exhausted from work as I was. She is in full electoral campaign mode at this point, meaning that she is trying to spend as much time as she can among the local citizens to expose them the aims of her party, and what they plan to do if they manage to get enough votes to obtain parliamentary sits or, even, to become the next President.
She knows it won't be easy, her party has never been very popular, but she hasn't given up yet.
I never doubted she would have put so much effort in this difficult task, I know her way too well to underestimate the importance her job has to her. However we can't avoid sharing her worries, how can she expect to win if (almost) only aliens are showing any support for her?
Leo: So, how was your day?
Claire: I'm so tired, humans are so stubborn when it comes to alien politics! Current pools show that we could expect to obtain just the 19% of votes, it's so frustrating!
Which wasn't much, but still enough to get into Parliament and start proposing some changes in the laws...
Our thoughts got interrupted by Luke, he had just taken the mail and threw a few letters on the table.
Luke: We got a lot of mail today!
And then he left, probably for continuing reading the book Orion gave him for his birthday, or for studying.
Claire: Anything interesting in that mail pile?
Leo: Bill, ad, another bill... (surprised) Wait, this is...
Claire: What happened?
Leo: (surprised) Well, it looks like Aster and Roberta are getting married.
Claire: What!?
Aster and Roberta had lived for so long with their large family to make everyone forget about the fact they weren't married yet. They had decided to prioritize buying a house and raising their children, but later they admitted they had always dreamed of a wedding worthy of this name. It took longer than they anticipated, but they had finally saved up the money they needed and started planning their big day.
They invited all the family and their friends to a large villa just out of town, for sure it was a memorable day for everyone.
If possible, their children enjoyed it even more than they did. They are a very united family, no one could deny it.
Orion: Aster, congratulation!
Leo: It's a fantastic party, congratulations.
Aster: We should do it more often. Spending a nice day altogether, I mean.
Aster: Actually, the two of you are spending a lot of time together already, I'm almost envious!
Leo: Well...
Aster: (joking) But then I remember that you are together to do very dangerous stuff, like burning giant plants with laser guns, and I realize I'm not doing bad at all, staying safe at home and everything.
Orion: It was just concentrated herbicide, actually.
And we all burst out laughing. My brothers and I are very different, yet we always understand each other. Aster is right, we should spend time together more often.
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From the following day, everyone resumed the usual routine.
Samuel: Didn't Luke come?
Lyra: No, he says he has to study again, bah...
Lyra continues to spend a lot of time playing with her cousins, especially with Ariana who is now, according to her, "her best friend forever".
Lyra: That girl's hair is so cool! But mum would never let me grow hair like that...
Ariana: my parents would also say no... What a pity though!
Luke instead spends a lot of time in the library, he's continuing to study that book about the history of Sixam that Orion brought him. By now he must have read it more than once, yet he keeps leafing through it in search of details, ideas and so on. He also started scribbling something, even though he still hasn't wanted to tell us what it is about...
At the library he also spends a lot of time studying, he really cares about his school grades.
He is very competitive, and doesn't spend much time with his schoolmates. Claire and I have tried to talk to him more than once about this, trying to encourage him to find some friend to spend some time with, but he continues claiming he prefers staying alone instead.
Aster warned us, when saying it would have become more complicated to understand him and communicate once he entered adolescence, but we didn't expect it to be this hard.
Were we like that at his age too? Um, come to think of we could have hidden way worse secrets to our parents, actually... Maybe we shouldn't worry too much, if he really likes to study this much and he is okay being alone, good for him.
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