And here we go.  I thought as my friend and boss led a group of people around the bed in the hallway towards me.  Time for a show.  Of sorts anyway.

“Right this way ladies and gentlemen.”  Dave muttered, a professional smile plastered on his face.  I had to work to keep the smirk off my face at the sight of it.  He looked so annoyed at having to deal with this group of folks, like he was desperate to be anywhere else, do anything else!

Me though?  I just had to stand at the door and look serious.  Not hard to do, considering.

“This would be our tactical security expert, Nicholas Frost.”  He gestured at me as the group slowly walked up to my station.  “AKA Jack Frost, for how coldly he deals with situations.”

Wow.  I thought, keeping my head still and straight at that remark.  He’s laying it on thick this time!

I mean, I knew that was part of the deal we made, but even so, that was a bit much.  And Jack Frost?  Seriously?  That was cringy as hell!

No wonder he hadn’t told me about it before hand.

“Passes please.”  I stated calmly, gesturing to the little card reader on a pedestal in front of me.  If it weren’t for the fact that I was standing there in body armor, guns, gear, and looked like a modern heavy infantry soldier getting ready for a CQB breach, it’d be no different than any other security station in an office building.

Which was the point.

Oh, and the full helmet and face plate covering with tinted ballistic plexiglass also helped.  The whole scary, faceless soldier with the spooky helmet thing.  Popular in movies, tv shows, and occasionally in real life.

“Why does his helmet look like that space fantasy character my kids love?”  One of the older men in a white coat asked, staring at me.  “The one with the floating green alien in it?”

“We ordered it from a ballistics armor company that was trying to get an army contract.”  Dave smoothly answered as he offered up his own pass in the little sterile hallway we were in.  “They were inspired by that show, and made a real life combat version of it.  We offered to give it some testing.”

Now I did smirk at them, which was hidden behind my full face covered helmet.  It was all true, but that wasn’t the real reason he’d reached out and gotten it.

Staying in character, which, when covered in armor and weapons, meant very still movements and as little talking as possible, I glanced at the crowd in front of me again.  Some were eyeing my various weapons and equipment with frowns or outright lines of worry.  Others were all grinning and looking fascinated.

“Passes please.”  I said again, in monotone, gesturing to the pad as Dave walked forward.  The doors behind me split open, down the middle, with some blasts of C02 shooting from the movement.  All very dramatic and Hollywood Sci-fi like.

“Well?”  He asked, gesturing to the crowd of coats and suits.  “We hired this man to do a job, and do it well.  Your passes, so we can get on with the tour.”

“Is it really necessary for him to have over three types of guns, knives, and whatever else he has on him?”  An old lady, again in a lab coat, asked, eyeing me with a frown.  “And an assault rifle?  Isn’t that dangerous?”

“My dear professor,” Dave sighed, struggling to look serious and not annoyed.  “There is no such thing as an ‘assault’ rifle.  It’s a made up term for politics and media.  A buzz phrase.  That is a semi automatic rifle, which is legal, safe, and absolutely necessary for the physical defense of what we’re doing here.”

“And all the other weapons he has?”  The old biddy snapped, clearly not willing to let it go, even as others ignored me, scanned their passes, and entered the chamber.  It was a two part decontamination system, so everyone would go in, get sprayed down with special gasses; and then move on to the facility proper.

“The work we’re doing here is ground breaking, and valuable.”  Dave replied coldly, eyeing her back without backing down.  “Never mind other countries, industrial espionage is big business.  To the tune as of last year, close to half a trillion a year.  Yes, you heard that right; trillion with a T.  So, yes, they’re necessary.”

He gestured as everyone else filed past me, eyeing me with various degrees of interest, intimidation, awe, fear, so on.  “Now, are you coming?”

She glared at him, then at me, then swiped her card and all but stomped into the little decontamination room.  The doors shut, and I heard the sounds of gasses being shot out to clean them, and then the opening of the second doors.

And with that, I knew their little tour was continuing on to the control room for todays little test.

I stood in the empty, sterile hall on gangplank floors and white florescent lights in the ceiling, and just started laughing.

“What a pack of idiots!”  I laughed out loud, struggling not to fall over laughing, since with all the weight of the gear and weapons I was wearing, as that would suck.

Even so, I couldn’t stop laughing for a few minutes, marveling at the situation.

All those PHD holders, all those expensive suits or white coat lab professors.  And none of them had caught it.  In fact, it looked like they’d all gotten excited by it all!

The little hallway I was in, the doors, the decontamination room, me and all my weapons and gear which were all top quality and expensive.  All of it; was a total sham!

I still couldn’t believe the confluence of events that had brought me here, to what was, for me, the best and easiest job ever!

My friend Dave was an honest to God mad scientist, who had gotten some grant money secured for a big project.  Something about creating artificial wormholes, or inter-dimensional portals, or some kind of big, sci-fi nonsense project like that.  Problem was, he had to routinely show investors and grant inspectors and the like around his research site.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

However, said research site was in an old, massive industrial production plant out in a mostly dead town in the middle of nowhere Missouri.  

He’d explained to me how none of that actually affected his research project, or the building of a lab to handle all of it.  The place was fine structurally, had access to reliable power, water, and once an air conditioner had been installed, was almost pleasant.  Problem was it looked terrible.  

And since he had to show around people who never left the nice, clean facilities of rich colleges or multi-billion dollar research labs, the optics for him and his project were a major problem.

So, he decided to just cheat.

He’d hired some local builders and convention nerds to make this hallway, wire it up with a pass code machine, and toss in a bunch of CO-2 gas canisters from paintball stores to give it a real, Hollywood movie super-secret lab feeling.

Then, he’d hired me for physical security.

He’d then demanded a wishlist for gear, weapons and the like, which I’d given him, just for the hell of it.  Didn’t think much would come of it.  He got me all of it and some extra’s.

I was the true selling point for him.

He couldn’t get a big security group, since they might leak that all this extra stuff was just for looks.  So instead he’d opted for ludicrous quality over quantity.  Which meant I was the only security guy on staff.

Suited me just fine.

And I got tons of cool gear out of it, with a reason to stay in great shape.

I also got paid a lot.

Dave’s project was very real, even if I didn’t understand any of it, but all the security stuff and the special rooms and sliding doors?  All of that was just for looks inspired by old, or bad, or lazy, or cheap science fiction shows.  And from the looks of things, these rich academic idiots had bought it all, hook line and sinker!

The absurdity of it was just hilarious.

Still, I had a job to do, so I eventually calmed down and got back into focus.

Fortunately, thanks to my awesome helmet and specialized gear, I could turn on an audible book to listen to while I stood in the silly little Hollywood-style secret research lab hallway, and not be bored out of my skull staring at a wall.

I had actual rounds and real security work to do, on other days, when the stupid money people weren’t being shown around for a test.  On days like this, I had to stand around and look like scary background art.  In a useless hallway that served no purpose other than the rule-of-cool for rich nitwits.

Oh well.  I thought as my book started up.  At least I’m getting paid pretty well.

And I had quite the library of books and music to enjoy downloaded on my phone.  So there was that.  And of course, being a professional, I never played it loud enough to not hear any calls or alarms or the like.

Good thing to as it turned out a few minutes later, as an alert suddenly went out!

I turned off my book as Dave called me up on my radio.  “Get in here!”

“Where?”  I asked, turning and opening a side door that let me bypass the useless decontamination room entirely, and move into the lab proper almost immediately.

“Main floor, in the portal chamber.”  Dave replied tersely, sounding both alarmed and excited beyond belief.  “The test has gone off fine, but something strange happened, and I need you to secure the chamber.  There’s something in it!”

“Moving now!”  I replied, bring my modified rifle up, cocking it and flicking off the safety.  “Animal or person?”  I asked as I came into the main open floor of the converted factory.

A mixture of old industrial building and modern day super-tech greeted me as I scanned the room.  The portal generator was some kind of bubble looking device suspended in the middle of the room, with a circular cone below it that was where the thing supposedly generated a bubble-portal to God only knows where.  Above me and behind me I knew Dave had set up his little control room with lots of windows, and I figured everyone was plastered to them.

“Some kind of biped, but I don’t think it’s a person.”  Dave said as I moved towards the chamber that was now full of smoke or fog of some kind.

Damn Dave and his theatrics for these fools!  I couldn’t help but think, annoyed.  I saw some kind of shadowy figure moving around, and I focused on it while approached the door to the glass cone.

“Then what is it?”  I asked, annoyed.  “A robot?  Or did you summon up an honest to God alien?”  

“Actually, I think all I did was open up a lock.”  Dave replied, sounding a bit hazy as I reached the door.  “It was like someone else pushed it open with a portal of their own!  Can you imagine!”  

“Focus Mad Lad!”  I snapped at him with the old nickname as I stopped at the door.  “Now, what do you want me to do?  Should we be worried about this thing breaching the portal room?  Cause until that smoke clears and I can see it, I’m not going in there.”

“I honestly don’t know!”  Dave all but crowed, sounding thrilled like he was on a roller coaster.  “It could have weapons, but then again, it could not!”

“Great.”  I muttered, looking around for a more defensive position than standing next to a glass wall.  Before I could move however, there was a blast against the door, followed by a small explosion that shot it off it’s hinges!

It wasn’t a massive explosion, or grenade blast, but rather very concentrated, but I still jerked back.  The hell?!  I thought, just as what looked like a robot came stomping out.

It wasn’t like a human looking body except in its most basic details.  It had long, backwards knee’s legs, a central boxy torso, some arms that looked more like a gun and box of missiles, and a small little head that looked mostly like a bunch of small cameras in a little glass helmet.  Even with the long legs, I could tell it only came up to about my upper chest or neck, putting it around five feet tall or so.

Even as I catalogued this, it was all automatic as I just stared in shock at the thing.  It looked like a robot out of a video game, an old video game, at best.

However, the gun and what I assumed were missile launchers certainly looked real enough, and then I had no more time for thinking.

Its camera head swiveled around, and then it turned it’s whole body, brining its guns to bear on me.

“Ah hell!”  I snapped firing even as a I started running towards the only cover I had: the portal room with all the smoke and glass walls.

My shots were soft lead, but point blank 5.56 rifle rounds on something balancing on two legs was nothing to be so easily shrugged off, and I succeeded in knocking the thing back, throwing off its aim.

Even so it still opened fire, blasting the glass walls as I rolled into the smoke, which was still lingering around for some reason.

“Nick!”  Dave shouted in sudden terror just as I came to a stop.  “It’s turning its guns on us!  Help us!”

“Working on it!”  I snapped, quickly switching out my current mag of regular rounds for a different one.  I had a few on me in one of my pouches there were armor piercing rounds, mostly just cause I was able to get Dave to buy them since…why not?

Thank God I had too, as it turned out. 

In just a few seconds, I’d switched mags, racked, and was taking aim.  The robot fortunately hadn’t moved very far, and even in the smoky haze, I could still see it.  It was lining up the missile box on the control room, and I knew I had no more time.

I quickly opened fire on it, dumping the whole mag into it!

Twenty-nine armor piercing rifle rounds, at barely twenty feet away, tore into the thing in barely three seconds.

I quickly ejected the spent mag, and reloaded as I eyed the robot, which stood there, wobbling, like it was confused.  I’d just finished racking and aiming when the thing toppled over.  

I stared at it for a second, just trying to catch my breath and return my focus, half giggling at the absurdity of what had just happened, when Dave started shouting over the radio.

“Get out of there!”  He yelled, sounding shocked.  “The portal generators spinning up again!  I think it’s whoever sent that thing!  You’re in the room for it!  Get out!”  

I blinked for a minute, caught flat footed as I tried to process what he meant, before it all clicked, and I desperately lurched into a run to the door.

A blue light flared overhead, and then all around me as I sprinted towards the door, and I knew that I was too late.

Well, it was fun at least!  I couldn’t help but think as the light grew instantly more intense, before suddenly everything looked like it was under water, then darkness, and I knew no more.