Well, I never thought I would do this, but due to some encouragement from a brilliant English teacher, I'm going to post a bit more of my novel idea. The first paragraph may seem a bit familiar. That's because it is actually the same paragraph as the last one from the last post, I just tweaked it a bit. It needed some editing. So, without further ado, chapitre deux (heh, that rhymes):
The express elevator seemed to crawl up the sixty stories of the sleek Rhinehart building. Built just three years prior, the lower levels of the building were occupied by the Rhinehart engineering corporation. The top five floors were bought from the company for a hefty price, but they were perfect for the research that went on inside. Claymore was almost lulled to sleep from the background noise of the elevator. Thankfully, the Rolling Stones were playing softly on the speakers, and John hummed along with the song to keep himself occupied. The doors opened and Claymore was greeted to not only a fully lit office, but the entire staff had been called in. Strange, on most mornings the office was barren. Claymore walked hurriedly through the halls. Finally, he reached a large wooden door.
“Claymore! Jeeze, I thought you might not come in!” John wished he hadn’t. “Look, I just finished analyzing the data you found in Africa.”
“Wait, wait, you analyzed something?”
“Well, not me per say, I had some assistants do it, but that’s beside the point. Anyway, we discovered something disturbing in the data. We cross referenced the seeds from the Kenyan soil, and we found something.”
Claymore looked deeply into the eyes of the short, bald man he called his boss. Commander Spencer Ross had been heading up the operation Claymore had been involved in for over 25 years. The National Institute for Archeology and World Affairs or NIAWA, was created by Ross so he could fulfill all of his “Indiana Jones” fantasies, and get it federally funded. John Claymore, an ex-marine living off of his pension, heard about the institute through a friend who also used to be in the Corps. He met the Commander a few weeks after hearing about it, and went on a few ventures. Claymore moved out of his old home in Seattle and settled into a nice apartment only a few blocks from NIAWA’s original headquarters on top of an Army recruiting office in downtown Denver. Once the institute moved Claymore had to drive a bit further, but the space fit the growing organization well. Claymore had been on many missions, but his results had never turned up anything like this.
“What do you mean ‘you found something’?” Claymore showed a bit of concern, a rare occurrence.
“The genetic structure of these seeds is unlike any other plant on the planet.” Claymore was utterly confused; the Africa trip was a routine inspection. He was sent by NIAWA to make sure that Kenya had not been using anything illegal in their soil. Traces of pesticides outlawed by international law were left in the dirt and seeds after use. Other chemicals could be traced too, things much more dangerous and much more outlawed. NIAWA had volunteered to take samples from around the world and turn them in to the US government. The most tedious of his missions, Claymore purposefully booked trips to countries with little money or few conflicts. Chemicals had turned up before, some DDT in southern Asia, and some nerve gas in the Middle East, but nothing that ever alerted the institute before. “But hey, don’t take my word for it. Go down to the lab and see what the nerds have to say.”
Claymore headed down a couple floors. The lab was sealed in three airlock type doors; sometimes they were used for sterilization after a scientist used a toxic chemical. After waiting a few minutes for the third door to open, Claymore just about lost his patience. What was so important that the Commander couldn’t tell him? He was about to stop punching in the access code and just turn around when he saw the expectant smile of the worker through the small window on the door. Claymore chuckled whenever he saw the small, round and freckled face behind the stereotypically taped glasses.
“Johnny!” A frail, squeaky voice seemed to sneak through the air-tight doors. It came from NIAWA’s resident chemical specialist, Leroy Archeck. The poor engineer hardly ever left his fluorescently lit lab, but this was by choice. “Boy, do I have some stuff to tell you about.”
Claymore always listened intently to what Leroy had to say, John tried to be a friend to the friendless. Leroy stood about five-foot three-inches, with large, red, curly hair. The poor technician was nearly blind without his glasses, and it showed. The spectacles were about two centimeters thick. Always in his lab coat, Leroy never seemed to leave the office, and that showed too. There were crumbs and stains all up and down his white coat.
“Alright Napoleon,” Claymore used Leroy’s nickname, of course referencing to the cult hit movie Napoleon Dynamite. “Lay it on me, what did you find?”
If you can't tell, I've been influenced, or some might say tainted by the likes of both Clive Cussler and Michael Crichton.
