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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Audrik" data-source="post: 6591103" data-attributes="member: 73653">Fuel of the Gods - Session 1bThe drive was a short one, and the agents arrived at the Froson residence just before noon. The house was a small, two-story building with a one car garage and a yard bordered by a white fence. The yard was littered with children’s toys, and it was patrolled by a small, furry dog who pretended to be ferocious.ROSE knocked on the door, and it was answered by a girl of about ten years of age. The girl canted her head with an inquisitive look, and so ROSE introduced herself as Agent ROSE from the FBI. She flashed her badge and gestured at REDOX indicating that he was her partner.“Is your mommy home, sweety?”The girl nodded and closed the door. A moment later, it reopened, and Peggy Froson invited them in. She was obviously very distraught, and she was hoping for news about her husband. ROSE told her that’s what they were looking into. The agents asked pretty standard questions about Mr. Froson’s work, his health, his mental state, and the state of their marriage.Mrs. Froson told them that Peter was the perfect family man. He loved their two daughters and their son very much, and though he travelled for work – he set up computer systems for FOST – the family spent almost every minute together when he was home.He returned home a few weeks ago, and he seemed anxious the last few days that he was home. He kept looking out at the driveway where his car was parked, would go off in his car for no reason – sometimes in the middle of the night, and talked to her more than once about moving - usually to the city. Then, one night about a week and a half ago, he left and never came back. She also mentioned that he emptied out his private bank account sometime during that night, taking about six thousand dollars with him. Their joint account was untouched.ROSE asked if they could speak with Sally, the girl who had answered the door, and Mrs. Froson called her. Sally told the agents she was awakened by the front door slamming the night her father fled. She went to the window and saw her father get into his car and drive away. She also noticed that he approached the car strangely, walking up to it and then jerking away, then moving closer, then farther, and finally jumping in as if he were afraid of the car.The agents thanked the girl, and then REDOX turned his attention back to the girl’s mother. He asked to see the garage, and Mrs. Froson was happy to show him. The walls were lined with tools, and a table was covered in spare computer hardware, but the center of the garage was empty. REDOX could smell something foul and acidic, and so he followed his nose to a dark corner of the garage where he found a yellow plastic gasoline can.He opened the cap and was immediately assaulted by the smell of gasoline, but there was more to it; the overall effect was maybe fifty times worse than the worst thing he’d ever smelled, and he was an environmental scientist. He asked Mrs. Froson to open the garage door to ventilate the room, and she did so.Returning to the can and covering his mouth and nose, REDOX looked inside. The can was empty except for a few drops of a pinkish-grey fluid and a filmy sheen. What little liquid was left seemed to fizz and reminded him of Pop Rocks. He quickly replaced the cap and asked to be allowed to take the can. Mrs. Froson was only too happy to be rid of it.While her partner was checking the garage, ROSE asked Sally to show her Mr. Froson’s home office. She ran a quick search of the computer but found nothing out of the ordinary, and so she met REDOX back in the living room. The agents thanked the family for their time and promised to do all they could to bring Peter home.REDOX was quite interested to get to work on the sample of the fuel code-named ‘orange’, and so they headed to the FBI lab in New York City. With a full lab at his disposal, he ran every test he could think of with intriguing and somewhat disturbing results.He was able to determine that the gasoline did indeed burn hotter and much longer than he would have thought possible. Its spectroscopy looked like nothing he’d ever seen, reflecting an organic chemical formulation of incredible complexity involving some amazingly heavy, intricate molecules that were possibly unique to that fuel. Under the microscope, the pinkish-grey substance fizzed with bubbles that were more green than clear.He also determined that the material had characteristics of both animal and vegetable organics, and what really shocked him, it appeared to retain some kind of inherent metabolic process even in that state. It was almost as if this fuel was some sort of living thing, though one would have to radically stretch the definition of “life”.While REDOX was “science-ing”, as he put it, Agent ROSE made a few phone calls. First, she had an All-Points Bulletin put out for the three vehicles in their respective regions. Then she called Ms. Bronski’s supervisor in California who was less than cooperative even in the face of the threat of obstruction charges. He made it perfectly clear that if the FBI wanted a single word out of him, they were welcome to produce a warrant.The mechanic in Colorado, Brian Stewart, didn’t answer his phone, but ROSE left a message for him to call at his earliest convenience. Okay, so the phone route wasn’t working as hoped, but REDOX had a way for ROSE to make herself useful.She could find a pet store, and bring him two rats with cages and water bottles. He was moving on to the animal testing phase. ROSE wasn’t too happy about it, but it gave her an excuse to get out of the lab for a bit. Besides, she could look at the puppies, kittens, rabbits, ferrets, and whatever else the store had before she grabbed a couple rodents for the scientist.An hour or so later, she returned to the FBI lab with two small rats, each in its own cage. She introduced one as Joey, and the other as Rachel.“Yeah, yeah. Give me Joey’s water. I’m gonna feed him this stuff and see what happens.”“That’s horrible! What about Rachel?”“She can watch.”</blockquote>

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