Marise clocked the door as they passed it.
Kathleen’s lab.
They kept moving, Lena rattling off routines—what she cleaned, what she avoided, where the bins went. Marise tried to remain engaged, nodding, making the occasional note on her clipboard, but her patience was wearing thin.
She didn’t need to know how often the hallway sinks got wiped down. She needed to get inside that room.
Finally, after Lena finished spraying down the last corridor door handle, she gestured back toward 4C. “This one gives me the creeps.”
Marise’s interest sharpened. “Why is that?”
Lena huffed and swiped her badge. The door beeped and opened with a mechanical hiss.
“You’ll see.”
They stepped into the mutely lit lab and Marise stopped cold.
The centre of the room was dominated by two rectangular tanks, waist-high and framed in chrome. Each was filled with water so clear it might’ve been glass, except for the soft electric-blue glow pulsing from within. Floating inside were enormous plants—four in each tank. Their leaves were broad and translucent, gently rippling without current, like jellyfish made of foliage. Their stems didn’t touch any soil or base. They simply hovered in place, suspended in the liquid.
But it wasn’t only the visual impact that startled her. The moment Marise entered, she had the unnerving sensation of being observed.
One of the plants slowly tilted, its wide, glowing pad turning in her direction.
Then another.
Marise took a small step forward and the entire left tank subtly shifted. Not physically, but in posture. As if the plants were aligning themselves to face her.
“What the hell,” she murmured.
Lena crossed her arms and stayed near the door. “I told you they were creepy.”
“They’re following me.”
“Yeah. It’s not you.” Lena sniffed. “I swear, they can hear and maybe even see. That one on the end always watches when I mop under the bench.”
Marise circled the nearest tank slowly. The bioluminescence inside was steady, a calm rhythmic glow that pulsed every few seconds like a breath. There were no wires, no visible monitoring equipment, no roots or anchor points. Only water and eight massive sentient-looking leaves.
She had to fight the urge to reach out and touch the glass.
Lena nodded toward a high shelf lined with journals and sealed notebooks. “I’ve heard Dr Knowles and her assistant are the only ones who come in here.”
Marise’s mind whirled.
This was no algae that produced oil. Kathleen had engineered something uncanny.
She crouched near the base of one tank, inspecting the locking seals. They were reinforced, double-gasketed, more like aquarium vaults than anything lab standard.
“How long have these been here?” she asked.
“They were here when I started this site six months ago, but much smaller. Freaky little suckers.”
Marise straightened and slowly turned, letting her gaze sweep across the rest of the lab.
Shelves were lined with vials, nutrient data scrawled in coded shorthand, and a digital whiteboard with simulations of rootless growth algorithms.
She had no idea what the plants did, and doubted Darlene Hunt had a clue either. It was all supposition and speculation.
Marise looked at Lena. “Can you give me ten minutes alone to document the safety procedures?”
