“Professor!? What’s happening?”

Kaleb kept his mouth shut as the pink mist continued to fill the room. He tried not to breathe and looked around for any other way out. But there was none. The large windows facing south were blocked by the emergency shudders and an equally heavy-looking door barred his path back into the hallway. Not that he’d want to go that way, anyway. The robots were still pounding on the security door like a pack of pushy salesmen.

Careful not to inhale, Kaleb tried to talk to Farrah. “Security. Locked in. Office.”

“You’re coming in stilted. Is everything alright?”

“Gas. Need to. Shut it. Off.”

“Gas?! Shit! Find the offices terminal and see if there’s some kind of override then!”

Kaleb nearly slapped his forehead as the answered seemed so obvious. Instead, he hurried over to the desk of CFO Phinbar Delacey. But the terminal was locked and waiting for a password. He groaned as his vision swam and he was forced to take a quick breath. Some of the pink mist entered his lungs, and he felt himself sway on the spot. But a swift punch to his face and Kaleb was back in the game. He just wished he hadn’t used his robot hand.

He searched the desk for any signs of a password. He ripped out drawers and pushed all the nick-knacks on top of the desk to the floor. But there was very little in the way of paper or sticky notes. Even the drawers just held stacks of data-pads. All of which were also locked and filed away carefully. Kaleb threw the last of the drawers to the floor and feebly searched inside the desk itself. But nothing stuck out to him as helpful. Instead, the pink mist was growing thicker, and he was sure his next breath would probably knock him out. That’s when he spotted the picture on Phinbar’s desk.

It was of a humanoid alien with a pale blue skinned tone. He was standing outside the TekNik building and smiling happily at the camera. But what stuck out to Kaleb was the fact that the man wasn’t wearing a suit. Instead, the alien had chosen a more casual look. He was in a beige shirt and black slacks, with some comfortable-looking black shoes. But over his beige shirt was a purple and gold letterman jacket. It looked old, like it had been from the guy’s college days or something.

For the first time, Kaleb glanced around the room. Behind him and the desk was a wall of shelves filled with books and pictures. The wall opposite was also full of various pictures. Some contained bland landscapes and starry skies. But a great deal more were of Mr. Delacey and his storied football career. The schmuck had even enshrined his photo of his college’s championship team dead center on the wall across from his desk. So he would always be looking at it.

Going with his gut, Kaleb rushed over to the ensconced photo and looked it over. Phinbar was there, front and center. Smiling for the camera, his letterman jacket tossed casually over his shoulder as his purple and gold uniform clashed horribly with his pale blue skin. His name and team number were writ large across the back of his jacket.

“P. Delacey 98. Oh, please be a fucking idiot.” Kaleb fervently wished as he leapt over the desk and quickly typed in the password.

The terminal whirred for a little less than a second before it spat out that he was wrong. Kaleb cursed internally as his lungs burned and pink filled his vision. Looking around the room again, Kaleb spotted another shrine to Phinbar’s awesomeness just behind his desk. It was on a shelf about at eye level to anyone looking at Delacey head on while he was at his desk. That way, they’d all know that Phinbar did, indeed, graduate from college. His college diploma was in a sealed shadow box and lit up with soft white lighting, drawing the viewers’ eye directly to Phinbar’s accomplishment.

“Graduating class, 3132. Okay, so PDelacey32?”

Kaleb rubbed his eyes as they watered, and then quickly typed in his next guess at the password. The little icon spun in circles for slightly longer this time, and Kaleb was about to pass out when the terminal’s bright screen jarred him back to himself. With a renewed burst of vigor, he quickly found and disabled the office’s security features. The software for the office security was right on Delacey’s home screen and easy to operate. Although he was careful to keep the K-Tech branded Aegis-level security door engaged.

The vents in the room immediately started sucking up the pink mist around him. Taking a risk, Kaleb fell to the floor and gulped in a lungful of air. He was hoping the vents at the top of the walls were taking in the soporific fast enough that he wouldn’t be harmed. And he was in luck. All he got was a slight headache as fresh oxygen hit his lungs and he coughed gratefully.

“Professor?”

“I’m back! Let’s hear it for lazy IT security mandates. Yay!”

“What happened?”

“Tried to sneak into the C-suite offices. Got spotted. Had to run for my life. I made it to the CFO’s office and closed the door just before a pair of security robots could grab me. Then the room’s personal security system went live and tried to knock me out.”

“Personal security system?”

“Yeah. Some kind of enhanced lockdown combined with a soporific gas. It nearly got me, but I’m smarter than the average lizard. And ol’ Phinbar’s a dumbass.”

There was a moment of silence over Kaleb’s ear comm, which he used to take another breath and sit up. The gas was almost gone now, but he enjoyed the feeling of the office’s carpet as he ran his hands through it. He briefly made a note to get a good carpet for the workshop. Then he worried that going so long without air might have damaged his brain.

“Professor, there were no work orders made for the CFO’s office since the construction of the building. Whatever secondary security was in that room was done on under the table.”

“Making Phinbar a naughty little blue devil, huh?” Kaleb chuckled.

“… What?”

“Sorry! Ignore me. Just lost a few brain cells. They’ll be back… maybe. So you think Phinbar was hiding something?”

“Most likely. Since you're already there, you might as well take a look. The Police mages are here and they are getting started on the building’s defenses. They should be down quickly.”

“Right-O, chief. I’ll just get to my feet and look through Delacey’s computer terminal.”

Kaleb nodded to himself and looked at Delacey’s comfortable swivel chair. He could just imagine how comfortable that chair would be to sit in. He wondered if he should steal it for the workshop, too. And the carpet. He could probably tear up and roll the carpet before the police broke down the door.

SMACK!

Kaleb smashed his face with both his hands. His mind was wandering, and he needed to get to work. Dragging himself off the floor, Kaleb threw himself into Delacey’s comfortable office chair and scooted closer to the desk’s terminal. Taking a deep breath, Kaleb started digging through the various files on the terminal’s main screen. But everything on the home screen was dedicated to Delacey’s job. Invoices, balance sheets, employee records, project viability assessments, and his digital mail. Kaleb read through a few of Phinbar’s most recent correspondences. But found that it was mostly about the office fantasy football league. The alien spent more time talking about football with his friends than he worked. His emails about football were lengthy, unedited spiels about the latest game or his league. But the ones for work were clipped, precise responses to other departments. Kaleb was sure the guy had just clicked auto-respond on a few emails.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

He was doing his best to copy the CFO’s financial folder onto his small datapad when the vents clicked close. Apparently, the last of the pink mist had been sucked away and the security system had shut the vents. As soon as the metallic clicked finished echoing in his ears, a notification popped up on Delacey’s terminal. It was accompanied by the robotic voice that had almost sealed Kaleb’s doom when he entered the office.

“The air in your office has been cleansed, Mr. Delacey. Would you like to tag the body for recycling or experimentation?”

Kaleb’s eye-ridge rose as he listened to the automated voice ask a rather alarming question. The terminal in front of him had two flashing prompts waiting for his choice. But Kaleb was too gobsmacked to do anything.

“Recycling? What the hell does recycling mean?”

“Professor? It means that something is broken down into its base parts and then…”

“I know what the word means, Farrah! I mean, in the context I was just given! Apparently, the room’s security wants me to either recycle the intruder or send them for experimentation.”

“Intruder?”

“Me, Farrah! The system is asking what it should do with me! I don’t think it knows I’m not Delacey, but is just asking whoever is here what to do with the body.”

“Didn’t you say the room was filling with a soporific before? Doesn’t that mean that any intruders would be asleep?”

“Yeah, probably all the way until they got mulched and turned into whatever.”

“Or they would awake in some kind of lab somewhere. Which one did you choose?”

“Neither. Both options freak me out, frankly, and I at least want to wait for the file download to finish. It shouldn’t take too long now. Delacey doesn’t save old financial data on this terminal. Just the newest stuff.”

Static screamed through Kaleb’s ear and he rolled his eyes as Farrah pretended to have not heard him again. Apparently, copying and stealing financial data from a tech company was a big no-no. Kaleb waited for the files to finish downloading before he unplugged his datapad and placed it in an inside pocket of his lab coat. Now all he had to do was choose one of two horrible options. Recycling was clearly out. He didn’t want to be dropped straight into an incinerator or something. But he also didn’t know where Experimentation would lead him. Would it drop him into a lab or a cell?

Taking the lesser of two evils, Kaleb clicked Experimentation and nearly leapt out of his seat in surprise. Delacey’s desk lurched forward with a mechanical whirring noise. The sound was almost loud enough to drown out the two robots still punching away at his office door. Once the desk was in the middle of the room, a loud metallic clack echoed in the room and Kaleb was sure the desk wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. With the desk locked in place at the center of the room, the floor in front of Kaleb opened up like a pair of automatic doors. He pushed his swivel chair back as two round openings appeared in the floor.

They were a pair of short, round slides. Each one ended about two feet below the floor as red and blue swirling vortexes sat at the bottom of the slides. The red one was blocked off, a big red R emblazoned on the metal grate on top of the slide. The blue was wide open and ready for a body to be tossed down into it. Looking at the blue and red colors, Kaleb was glad he went with Experimentation. Recycling looked like it led down into hell.

“Farrah, I’ve got two portals in front of me now. One is for Recycling, and the other is Experimentation.”

“Portals?”

“Blue and red vortexes of magic that probably lead to somewhere far away. So I might lose contact with you when I jump in.”

“Cause of course you’re going to be jumping in.”

“It’s what a hero would do. What if there are innocent people trapped in some weird TekNik black site?”

“And the fact that you won’t have to deal with the local police department if you’re not there is just a bonus?”

“Krrsh! What?! Krrsh! Farrah, I can’t hear you! Krrsh! I’m going through a tunnel!”

Kaleb could feel Farrah’s eye-roll as he leapt feet-first into the blue slide. His feet came into contact with the metal slope just in time to be pulled down into the swirling blue magic. Holding his breath, Kaleb passed through the swirling vortex and found himself sliding down a metal tube. The ride was fast and short, but he couldn’t see a damn thing as his feet slammed into a hard metal floor. His knees popped loudly as he tried to get a sense of where he was. The portal had thrown him into a pitch black room. Kaleb thought he could make out a doorway or something straight ahead of him and he crept forward.

He blindly swept his arm in front of him as he walked, eventually finding a wall and following it to the edge of a door. The doorway was slightly off from where he thought he had seen it, but his night vision was getting better. Kaleb glanced around the door frame, using his hands to guide him. But it was pointless. Outside, the door was just as dark as the room he was in. So instead, he kept his right hand against the wall and left the room. As he walked, he moved his hand up and down along the wall, hoping for a light switch or equivalent.

He traveled like that, his right hand leading him for another five minutes until he hit a wall. By now, his vision was decent enough that he could make out dark shapes. Using his hands and limited vision, he recognized the elevator built into the wall. He tapped the buttons beside the elevator, but nothing happened. So he was forced to continue his journey back the way he came. This time following the wall opposite his original one.

As Kaleb walked, he tried multiple times to get in contact with Farrah. But his comms weren’t working. He wasn’t even getting static. The line was just dead. Which meant that whatever place he was in had some decent shielding or was underground. Kaleb guessed the latter, but the feeling of the thick metal wall under his fingers made him think the former was possible, too. But he kept trying just in case they could hear him, but he couldn’t hear them.

He was beating himself up about not grabbing a flashlight again when his fingers hit another door. A quick examination showed that it was a normal metal door, and it was locked. A keypad hung on the left-hand side of the door, but it didn’t have any power. Sighing to himself, Kaleb reached down to his holster and brought out his Cybar. A quick blast and the stench of melted metal hit his nostrils. The small square of metal and plastic that had been the keypad sparked in the darkness of the hallway, and Kaleb tried the handle again. But it was still locked. So he fired on the door handle instead. It took a few blasts and the energy from his weapon made the door itself glow as it got hotter and hotter. But eventually, the metal door was blasted inward. Swinging open on its hinges. The stench of formaldehyde hit Kaleb’s nose as he walked in.

Kaleb’s stomach lurched at the thought of what the smell was covering, but he quickly dashed into the room. His right hand lashed out against the wall near the door and immediately came into contact with a light switch. When he flicked it into the on position, there was an explosion of sound. Like a generator sputtering to life and then the room was lit up in bright white light. Kaleb squinted in annoyance as the light burned his eyes, but he saw a pale blue glow around the room as his eyes adjusted. The sound of a nearby generator fell to a steady hum as Kaleb’s eyes got used to their new environment. Behind him, the hallway was still cast in shadow, but that didn’t distract him from the horror of what he was seeing.

Six glass tubes sat in the middle of the room. They were filled with a clear blue liquid with hoses and terminal attached to the outside. Floating within each large pod, suspended in the blue liquid, were people, or more specifically, aliens. Six members of six completely different alien races were floating in giant test tubes. But Kaleb didn’t think they were alive. Not with the pieces missing off each of them. Some were missing a limb or two, while others had entire sections of their skin cut away.

Kaleb’s anger and revulsion of what he was seeing only doubled when he remembered the Delacey’s soporific trap. If these aliens were not volunteers, that meant that they were knocked out and brought here by Delacey’s trap. Did that mean they were alive when they were chopped up or did whoever was down here kill them first? Kaleb took a few more steps into the room, curious about what exactly had been done to these people.