Lab C: Chapter 25 - Need

“So you’re just gonna, smell like that, and look like that huh?” John asks earnestly.

“What else am I supposed to look and smell like?” Christine asks.

“I don’t know,” he shrugs. “This isn’t the kind of place to draw attention to yourself. In fact, a lot of people get a head, just keeping their head down. Why, uh.. stand out?”

She looks at him, “Do you have no idea who I am?”

He shrugs, “Only what you’ve told me Christine.”

She doesn’t know at all if she can believe him. “I don’t buy it. I don’t buy any of it. You don’t submit forms three weeks early. That’s dumb. He just gives you stuff.”

“That, is… ludicrous.” John says. He looks to the guard behind the counter, and he shrugs at him.

The guard behind the counter says, “Oh hi, John. Dr. Grimsen. What’s up?”

“What do you think of her?” John asks.

The guard behind the counter thinks on it, “Well, C-487C,” The C really stings Christine. “I can’t remember her submitting anything ever.”

"Hey dude,” Christine says, “Where do I get the fucking paper?”

The guard behind the counter looked to John. “Dr. Grimsen, where do you get the paper from?”

John shrugs, “It’s in the forms room.”

Christine pinches the bridge of her nose. “Yep. Yeah, and where is that again?”

“I found one near the aquatic containment facility,”

“Which, aquatic containment facility again?”

“Right, It’s the one between…” he thinks for a moment, “The big fucking teeth guy, and the…” one of the merepeople containments.”

“Sure John…” she waits. “So you don’t know which Merepeople containment?”

“Well, it’s the one on the way from my neck of the woods and the cafeteria where they always serve stuff with peanuts to screen for allergies.”

“Am I supposed to get screened for allergies?”

“No, they do that before they get you. That’s all like, written down somewhere already.”

“When did this happen?” she looks at herself and zips up, feeling vulnerable.

“Well, before they grab anyone, they usually spend some time pretending to get to them. Sometimes they just replace one of your friends, not in any meaningful way, but just their voice or their texts or something. And uh, oh what else have we done. Uh…. Oh one time I used a mask to provoke this guy into unleashing this ability we thought he had. It didn’t work that time, but eventually we got to him.”

Christine nods, and tries to say something as she thinks about the time before she got to Lab C.

“However, a lot of the time, we have no time to do that. Because someone was in trouble, so we just acted on what we knew. Considering everything in here, I have not been surprised or felt any sort of way for what we learn. The only goal is to determine whether something is not normal, and you would be surprised what is earnestly normal.”

He holds her gaze.

“I don’t hold onto that shit because at some point,” he takes a deep breath, “you look at yourself. And, if you can, you…” Lily barks a happy bark. John immediately knows whose there. He holds back his smile.

Sabine Ambower comes around the corner.

John finishes, “you forgive yourself. And it becomes a lot easier to forgive other people.”

Sabine pipes up, “Nah, there’s some stuff you never forgive. To have objective data, you need metrics. Dr. Grimsen, I read your report. I’m sorry, but you were told not to kill C-237. You have to stop doing this, and we have to go talk to people.”

John bites lips, squats down, puts the sledge against the back of his know and holds this gangster pose.

“I saved the Lab, Dr. Ambower. What was your goal last time he let loose? Just move everything you thought he wanted to go after and hope he couldn’t find it.”

“It worked.”

“After I made him chase me through those areas, and directed his rage. You literally just cleared the places, I was going.”

“That’s not how I remember it.”

“That’s not how I remember it.”

“Well then I guess we call it even. Can you please come help me with this weird, body thing?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

Christine raises her hand, she has questions about what they’re talking about. John looks at her, “Yes?”

Christine starts, “What is the weird body thing?”

Dr. Ambower raises her hand and stops her, “Dr. Grimsen, she is not allowed to learn about other “C”s.”

“Is that really what you call them? Is that the real name for them? Us? Stuff?” Christine pushes.

“No. No.” She looks at Christine, “That’s just what I call them with this idiot, because he refuses to call them their real name.”

“Which is?” Christine pokes.

“Don’t worry about it.” Dr. Ambower looks back to John whose just rocking back and forth on this feet like a pendulum. “Dr. Grimsen, can you please, stop doing this, and come help me investigate this weird, body thing, I have been having a lot of difficulty with it.”

John thinks about it, “Nope. I broke this. I have to fix this.”

“No John, that’s not your job.”

“I think it is my job.”

She grinds her jaw, Christine raises her hand again. John looks to her, “Yes-”

“-No Dr. Grimsen, she does not get to know more about it. Dr. Grimsen, please. I want your help.”

John takes a deep breath. “I want to talk about finishing the Inky Dude, so I can go back to field research and development. I am tracking down, maybe a sun god.”

“Yeah… That’s cool, Dr. Grimsen, but please stop doing this, I would like you to help me solve this weird body thing. I promise you, the Inky dude is safe.” Christine raises her hand, they both ignore her, “When we figure it out, you can go. No one is trying to keep you here longer than you need to be. I promise.”

CUT TO!: Outside the Inky Dude’s apartment complex

There are tents and production trucks set up awkwardly so as to be as naturally uninviting to anyone who would want to walk through them.

There’s two security guards at either end who sit in deep meditation, unblinking.

A group of kids from out of The Goonies approach them and they come to life with a smile, “Hey there sport, what’s up? Come to see the big ol movie getting shot here?”

The leader says confidently, “Would it be possible for us to watch what’s going on?”

“Ah, I’m sorry there sport, but we’re setting up lights and stuff inside. It’s been rented out for a movie set.”

The kids look over and see there’s no one there. They squint their eyes at the guards. “Yeah? That sounds really cool. Could we see that maybe?”

The guards both stand up and get in the way. “Oh I’m sorry guys, we’ve closed off the whole street. We can’t let anyone in or out, understand? It’s kind of our jobs.”

“It’s your job to keep us out?” Another one of the kids pipes up.

“Yes sir, been doing it about 25 years. It’s pretty fun to hang out on set and talk to the folks. Every days different. Don’t you agree Earl?”

Earl, the other security guard, just grunts in a low grumble.

“Ohhhoh. That Earl. Don’t get him talking about numbers or he’ll never shut up. So anyways kids, did you want to talk to me about being a security guard?”

The kids turn back around, The leader starts “So, we gotta go try and get on that set right?”

The curious one echos it, “Yeah, who just sends a group of guards to intimidate some kids.”

The reasonable one starts, “I think that’s a lot of places. They can be doing some dangerous stuff when making movies. Why would they just let random people come be in that space? They seemed pretty nice about it too.”

The leader stops him, “I’m sorry, did you hear how he said all that? It was like he was reading from a script. He didn’t respond to the words I said at all. He’s just a robot man. You think we’re just gonna listen, to some robot man? ”

The reasonable one cuts him off, “What if they’re literally setting off small explosives.”

The curious one starts, “You don’t want to try and watch small explosives go off? What? We can find a way to watch it and be safe. Duh.”

The reasonable one cuts him off, “Ok, but, what if we don’t know what that means? Like, what if there’s a part that… looks safe but isn’t. I watched an episode of myth busters where the bullet proof glass they set up, didn’t stop a bullet. Someone almost got shot.”

A cool one pipes up, “Bro, they do that in the middle of no where. We’re in a suburban neighbor hood. Literally anything they do, needs to be safe enough that no by standard is in form of danger. It’s literally, legally, required to be safe. We’ll be fine.”

The kids all nod. The reasonable one too. The leader stands up straighter on his bike, “Ok then. It’s safe. It’s fun. Let’s try to-” A dart hits him in the chest. Immediately followed by a dart in everyone else’s back.

People come out of the apartments near by and grab the kids.

They quickly take them to a nearby train track. They arrange them so they be can be seen, holding bottles of alcohol.

A train passes by. One of the boys mother’s is on it and sees them. Her mouth falls open. She questions if she saw it, but it was like there was a flash and she knew exactly what she had seen.

The boys wake up in a park nearby with empty alcohol bottles around them in the middle of the night. They look at each other, the reasonable one starts, “Okay, we have to figure out what is inside that place right? This is wild.”

The cool one pipes up, “Ok, I’m really glad you said that because, honestly, I thought for a minute I drank so much,” he looks to the other guys, “I’ve never had alcohol before. Does drinking alcohol change your memories.”

The reasonable one starts, “It can’t change everyone’s memory to the same thing. So, you remember being at the-”

The leader cuts him off, “No. If you tell us, it will make us think that thought, and we won’t know where it came from. So. Let’s go home, write it down, and then show each other what we wrote tomorrow. Do not. Talk. About it. Just. Write it. Down.”

They all agree, and immediately run home to write down what they remember. Every, single, one of their mothers, is waiting to talk to them about what one of their mom’s had seen.

Back to Lab C:

“Dr. Grimsen, I need your help. With this weird body thing.” At the word need, John stands up and returns his crazy magical hammer to the Guard Behind The Counter.

“This is not a euphemism?” Christine pipes up. John raises his eye brows at this and stoically walks out. Sabine produces a portal and they both walk, shoulder to shoulder

Sabine smiles, “Dr. Grimsen.” she warns him with a smile. “She doesn’t get to know anything else.” Sabine stops and looks back at Christine, “Oh and C-4… hold on let me double check it." Sabine swipes through her tablet.

Christine starts to, very quiet and bashfully, pipe up, “It’s C-478”

“Ah right, C-478C. I am assigning you to this clean up as we speak. Bam! Ok, you need to clean this up now, that is your only duty until it’s done. I am sending you one person to help.”

John is half way through the portal, has a thought, then steps back out. “Make sure to ask lots of questions.” Sabine catches up with him and he syncs up with her again.

“Why did you tell her to do that-” Sabine says as they move through the portal and it disappears.

Christine takes a deep breath, and then scream groans.

She takes in a deep breath, lets it out, and she begins to grow taller and wider. Black, obsidian scales poke out of her skin which turns pearlescent. Her hair turns jet black and a crown of black, rocky spikes pokes out of the back of her head.

Her collar bone, shoulders, hip bones, have rocky, fused spikes lining them. She smiles a very genuine smile. Her clothes expand with her. She looks more relaxed honestly, but the sound of foot steps and whistling make her snap back to her normal form.

Dr. Tesla walks over with all the swagger of a man who got his first decent nights rest in a while.

“Man John, not to be a total copy cat but those breathing techniques I saw you do were amazing. I like, knocked out so well, ok, I believe in you. You’ve got us!”

He has a big dopey grin on his face as he appears from the hall. When he sees her, he doesn’t stop smiling but is curious. “Oh hi. Did John ask you to come?”

Christine smiles widely, which makes him smile wider too. “You’re the guy everyone saw running with John.”

“How did you…”

“Dr. Ambower.”

“Alright! So we’re working on this together huh?” He says with a big smirk, accidentally looking her up and down, the stretch of her hot pink tank top an attention magnet. Though, his absorption begins to fade as he smells the air. “Wait, you smell familiar.”

Christine smiles like she doesn’t know what he’s talking about, sticking her chest out a bit to distract, although she absolutely knows what he’s talking about.