Reggie was staring at the ceiling in his room, trying to think of how to stop the next test of the machine. So far, not a single idea has been proposed by anyone. The alcohol probably didn't help. No one was in much of a talking mood last night. The solemn atmosphere continued for some time without much chitchat. Nel took his bottle of wine to a chair in the living room and finished it off. Tegan finished her first bottle and brought another for Nel who gladly accepted it. He passed out in the chair before he opened it. Tegan continued her drinking on the couch. Even Reggie and Hyacinth ended up drinking. Turns out Hyacinth loves the same beer as Reggie, which they bonded over. Tegan and Hyacinth eventually passed out on the couch and Reggie went to bed. He was staring at the ceiling because his head was pounding. Even thinking seemed to hurt.

After a while, Reggie got up and headed downstairs. After finding some pain meds, he took a couple and then got to work cleaning up from the previous night. The coffee table was covered in empty bottles and cans. Hyacinth came downstairs as he was finishing up. "Last night is a little fuzzy. How did I get to my room?"

"After you passed out in Tegan's lap, I carried you up to your room." Reggie took her up when he went to bed and dropped her off in her room. It was at that point that Reggie couldn't recall where he put her in the bedroom.

"Umm, why was I on the floor?" Reggie's eyes went wide as the memory returned. Being pretty drunk himself, Reggie carried Hyacinth up to her room and was going to drop her in her bed, but misjudged how close to the bed he was. She fell straight to the floor with a loud thump.

"Crap, I may have dropped you on the floor thinking I was next to the bed. I am so sorry."

"Next to the bed!? I woke up almost 5 feet from the bed, idiot." Hyacinth started out loud but quickly got quieter as she held her head. Reggie was sure she was also nursing a headache. She drank at least as much as he did. "Next time just leave me on the couch."

Reggie acknowledged her request and went back to work. He took out all the garbage and came back in to find Hyacinth was making breakfast. He tried to help but she shooed him away saying she didn't need him cooking all the time. Reggie grabbed a sports drink and sat at the table hoping for his headache to go away or for a swift death. He was happy to receive either. Tegan came downstairs and made tea. She handed a cup to Reggie before joining him at the table.

"I didn't realize Nel was such a drinker. Guess you take after your father more than you thought." Reggie teased Tegan to distract himself from the headache. She sipped her tea but glared daggers at him.

"Not funny at all, Sunshine." Tegan continued glaring but with a faint smile. "I have actually never seen him drink more than a glass or two. He finished that bottle of wine like a champ."

"I will take that as a compliment coming from you." Tegan nearly did a spit take with her tea when Nel responded to her praise. Reggie laughed a little. "I don't normally drink that much. Just seemed like the occasion called for it."

Reggie nodded in agreement with Nel. "Anyone come up with any ideas?" Everyone shook their heads at once. We could introduce a virus into the server and have it delete all the data about the project. Or at least we could if any of us knew how to do that. Reggie had decent computer skills but no clue how to make or even use a virus. He continued thinking about ways to stop the test. Even delaying it would be good, though only a temporary solution. A scene showing a government organization shutting down production lines due to safety violations was playing through his head. It was from a movie he remembered from years ago. That's when the idea came to him.

"What if we could get them shut down using regulations or safety codes?" Reggie looked around at the group but it seemed they didn't understand. They all had confused looks. "Labs and other facilities are regulated by government departments for things like keeping workers safe and stopping companies from doing things that could be dangerous like dumping chemicals into a river and stuff like that." The confused looks changed to ones of understanding.

"The residual magic is the only thing I can think of but I doubt it would do more than make someone feel a little sick." Nel chimed in first. The leftover magic seemed inconsequential to him.

"That's exactly the kind of thing that could be used. Though I have no clue how to report it." Reggie went back to thinking about regulations. His old boss used to rant about regulations all the time. He was surprisingly big on maintaining a safe work environment. Reggie once heard that his boss used to run a department that got shut down due to safety issues and got him reassigned to the office where Reggie worked. It was before Reggie started there, but was the best explanation for why his boss was so mad all the time. "We could report some sort of violation to the proper department but to shut them down, I am sure we would need some sort of proof."

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Tegan was looking at Reggie as though there was something obvious he was missing. "We can use magic, dummy. We don't need proof, we can just make people sick." Reggie wasn't sure about how effective that would be.

"It would have to make a lot of people sick at the same time. If just a few get sick, it wouldn't get connected to the project."

"That's easy. We cast a spell that will affect the entire lab. Almost everyone present will get sick before the end of the day."

"Why almost everyone?"

"Magic isn't perfectly effective. Some people have a natural resistance to it, even on worlds without magic." Tegan's explanation made sense to Reggie. Everyone's body was different so the effects would have to vary from person to person. Just take the flu for example. The same virus has different effects on different people. Some can even be so resistant that they don't even realize they have the virus.

"This will definitely buy us time. I don't know how long an investigation would take but I doubt it would be quick. Bureaucracy slows everything down." Reggie knew from experience that it could potentially buy them months depending on how busy the department handling the inspection is at the time. He worked at a small restaurant briefly that got shut down for health code issues. It took so long for the new inspection to happen that the restaurant went out of business. Shortly after, he got the job at the pizza place. He only heard about it later from a friend who knew the family that owned the restaurant. "Ok, let's do it. What do we need? Anything special or just have to cast the magic?"

"There are a few minor things we need but I should have all of them on hand." Reggie, Tegan, and Hyacinth all looked at Nel with varying degrees of shock on their faces. Reggie thought for sure Nel might have issues with the plan. Reggie said as such and Nel told him it was nothing compared to the amount of danger the machine poses. When compared, the machine was undoubtedly the most awful.

They spent the morning discussing methods of using the spell so that it would be as widespread as possible. Reggie remembered seeing vents throughout the lab that were likely for the air conditioning and/or heating systems. It was pointed out that if the ventilation was used, the spell would also affect people outside the lab. A large portion of the building would likely be involved.

"That's actually great. I was thinking about how to make sure that the problem is reported since it would only be the people in the lab affected. Using a wider area would almost guarantee that the incident is reported." The bigger the disaster, the greater the reaction from the agencies involved. Reggie hoped it would also increase the amount of time they would have to come up with a more permanent solution.

Once the method of deployment had been worked out, the rest of the planning went smoothly. Reggie made sure to confirm that the spell used wouldn't accidentally kill anyone. Tegan assured him that at worst, they would end up in the hospital a day or two but everyone would fully recover. This eased his mind some. The whole point of this was to save lives. He didn't want to have to sacrifice even one if he could avoid it. The words 'the needs of the many' came to mind but Reggie wasn't a fan. He recalled it being a famous line from a work of science fiction but Reggie didn't accept that. Having to sacrifice someone was an unacceptable outcome and Reggie vowed to make sure it never happened.