The Illumination Query (The Speed of Darkness book-1)

Ronald Carpenter (the narrator) is a zookeeper that gets help from a company called The Eclipse when he needs to recapture some escaped animals. The company takes a shine to him and lures him into working for them. They are keeping a zoo of animals that they use for medical testing and are happy to have his expertise in accommodating them. To prove his loyalty they have him come along to take the scientist Nigel hunter captive. Ronald and Nigel come to find out that the creatures kept by The Eclipse are supernatural animals that the average person would not consider real. The Eclipse is keeping ‘fantasy’ creatures for testing because they have no legal protections and many of them, like werewolves, are nearly human. Now the story is from Nigel’s point of view and the time is set back to a little before he was taken captive. Nigel Hunter was working for a lab owned by The Eclipse, but his test animals were rats and he is unaware of the supernatural testing. After an accident, he decides to test a procedure that allows great speed on himself. The rats with the increased speed begin to die off. The Eclipse higher ups decide that Nigel is as good as a test animal and get Ronald to take him captive. Being held with the test creatures, Nigel becomes friends with the beings he is kept among as he is basically tortured by Eclipse folk who want to see the impossible speed. He and friend creatures decide that he is fast enough to possibly escape and get help to stand against The Eclipse.

Things I Need To Do Record 1 (Urban Harvest) Nigel seems a little amused to have me gathering this story of his adventure, but he doesn’t seem to object. In all truth I think that the idea makes him somewhat proud, though he’d never admit it. I, Joel Shine, don’t even enter into the story myself until after events recorded here. I’ve been making something of a record to nail down everyone else’s explanation. If nothing else, why such strange events occurred should make a good story. Because it fits, I’ve been calling these files ‘The Speed of Darkness’. If you can get far enough through my writing, I won’t need to tell you why. Let me warn you, I never trained to be a writer. My most advanced English class was in a public high-school. The course was such a joke that I think my teacher might have slept through it. These first two parts of what I think you’d need to know are close to how I received them. I tried to correct obvious errors, yet I don’t claim to have caught everything. The Story of Ronald Carpenter is what I copied to paper one evening while listening to my recording. I made the recording while Ronald was giving his excuse for why the others first saw him as so evil. Ronald wanted the recording made when he saw that I could do so. I suppose he wanted to the reasons for his actions to be common knowledge. That way, Nigel’s little notebook recount wouldn’t be our only way to think of Ronald’s past. It might have been meant as proof of apology, but that tape worked well to encourage my writing. I’m not sure Dr. Hunter forgives Ronald, but the doctor seems to at least believe that he is telling the truth here. Chapter 1 Why I Joined The Hunt To regard bats as evil is silly, or so I’d always thought. However, when I came upon that dark shrieking, flapping cloud of shadows, the parts of my life that I’m most ashamed of started. Before I ever got into business with The Eclipse, most people who saw me at work would say I was a zookeeper. I worked at The Central Park Zoo, in New York City. I might not have ever studied as a vet, but I probably do know some less ordinary bits of animal care that are slightly beyond what is needed for your everyday pets. I suppose some would have no qualms with calling me a trainer, but I didn’t really train anything. That sounds to me more like what you would call someone who is putting together circus or theme-park shows. I have actually heard some people say that using animals in such a way is cruel, but those performance animals are generally