Broken Window Theory

“You know, you’d think these so-called super-genius villains would employ better lab technique and safety procedures. I mean, this is the third one this month to get himself smeared across his own lab by his creation.”

Recording from a Police Body Camera in Detroit.

They headed back to the antechamber and took the left door into a tube through the jungle. Lisa stopped looking up at a snake lounging on top of the tunnel. The morning rain started tinkering on the clear path. “Seriously who ever set this up for him was a genius “

"The mechanics of it, definitely, and then he was just as smart with the eco system. I'm betting he chose every species that's out there to balance this little micro-ecosystem." Carl said, zooming in on the snake. It yawned, and happily he noted a lack of fangs in the terrifying, weird ass snake mouth.

The foursome passed through the airlock door, and then the next circular door into the next dome. Ryan scanned the area with both his 9mm and heavy flashlight, seeking any threats. “Looks like it’s clear.” He said, not seeing any movement.

"This is definitely the lab." Carl said softly. The lab equipment was all old, almost antiquated, with a very early personal computer barely recognizable for what it was to the twenty-somethings. Microscopes, beakers, and other lab equipment dominated the center area on steel tables, with several tanks in one area far from the door on either end. Unsettlingly, one of the pods glass windows was shattered, the unsettling green liquid staining the metal floor. "I think I know where whatever's moving around came from."

Lisa shuddered. “Okay, if there is a face hugger here. I am going to make Hannah pay for the booze cruise it’s going g to take to wipe my mind. That pod wasn’t small… how big do you think it is?”

"Anything up to about six feet long or tall." Ryan suggested. “If it’s lightly built maybe taller or longer, but less dangerous, hopefully.”

Carl scanned the room, his camera pausing to focus here and there, he approached the pods carefully, Emilia right with him. "This looks like it was a snake." he said softly, the tube having obviously failed. The skeleton was a long, undulating mass in the liquid, a filter apparently still struggling to work despite its subject being long dead. "Maybe the one that broke out is the only one to survive."

Lisa shuddered. “Here is hoping. She said as Ryan looked at the third pod with some sort of lizard with blue and green scales. Suddenly the glass shattered and a shoulder high dinosaur that looked halfway between a raptor and a tyrannosaurus launched itself at the young man. White fangs reaching for his head.

"Holy shit!" Ryan yelled as he threw himself back, grunting as a claw came slamming down, drawing a thick pair of furrows down his chest plate with dark claws, busting off the flashlight he had hung on the plate.

"Fuck!" Emilia yelled, the cry followed quickly by a stomp kick into the side of the raging dinosaur, the heavy boot shifting it away as Emilia reacted instinctively to get her and Carl space by pushing the beast away. The animal was all dense muscle, but small enough that her enhanced strength sent it sliding across the steel floor, scrambling for purchase.

Ryan grabbed Lisa, pulling her behind him, bringing his Glock up. He cursed, the equipment and tables blocking his view of the beast, not wanting to risk missing, or a ricochet, especially without knowing what might happen to the dome if he did.

The Staurikosaurus growled. It’s head low as it stalked its prey. It didn’t smell the good food, but it was hungry, and these creatures would sate its hunger. It swayed its head back and forth on its long neck, wanting to take out the smaller weaker one first. If it killed that one the bigger ones should flee and leave it to its meal, the smallest one was behind a bigger one, but the second smallest one was on its own. It leapt again this time at Emily.

Emilia saw the moment the huge lizard decided to attack her, and she dove to the side, rolling over a steel table, sending two microscopes to the ground with the sound of shattering plastic and glass. her sword cleared its scabbard, and she swung it as she slid over the table, clipping the shoulder of the creature as it slid by where she'd been standing an instant before.

It let out a high-pitched shriek that made Lisa grab her ears in pain. Juicy jumped upon Ryan’s shoulders hissing her tail twitching in rage. The dino shook its head shrieking again looking for a target

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

The redhead didn't give it a chance, flipping to her feet and jumping at the beast, bringing her sword down, a diagonal slice through its neck, the blade, super sharp and amazingly strong thanks to the Tailor she lived with cutting through muscle and bone with laser ease, sending the creature to the floor in a spray of arterial blood.

Lisa was white as she watched the dinosaur crumple and die. Her knees were weak as noodles, her eyes watching red spread out over the floor. “Oh god.”

“Is it dead? Carl asked the camera still up as he hid behind the door of a standing freezer. Inside the freezer were eggs, lots of eggs, a bit larger than the palm of a grown man’s hand.

"If it's not dead, Mister Lizard was a better splicer than any I've ever heard of." Ryan said calmly. "Carl, take Lisa back to the living room. I think we need to take a sit. Emilia, you need help getting out of there without getting covered by the mess?"

“I’m good, she said looking for something to wipe down her blade. She used the creature’s body to vault clear of the blood. Carl helped the white-faced real estate agent back out of the hall, recognizing she was a bit shocky from the attack.

Ryan followed his girl out of the lab, checking behind them as they moved. He relaxed a bit once they reached the very orange living space once again and slumped in the cushions with the others. "Okay, so that went badly."

“It could have been worse." Carl said. He was sitting next to Lisa, rubbing the slightly shocky Agents back. "None of us were hurt,” he looked down at Ryan’s scraped-up armor, Their leader’s finger trailing the gouges in the ballistic plastic.

"Thanks to Cassidy.” Emilia sat next to Ryan her sword cleaned and sheathed. "He's right. And that wasn't a trap, it was left over experiment. We now have an idea of what to keep an eye out for. Apparently, Mister Lizard was making dinosaurs."

"The first tank was a snake, so we can't be certain, but it does seem like he was working on some sort of new living weapon." Ryan agreed. "It would have been too much to hope that he was working on another project like Juicy."

"He was a Black Cape Splicer." Emilia said, "It's honestly been surprising to me we haven't hit any monsters or traps yet. This whole place felt more...Grey to me until we found the dino."

"This is before the eighties, remember." Carl said. "Public awareness of gray capes wasn't really there. The media in particular wanted you to be all a good guy or all a bad guy, black or white."

"He's right, this guy was scrapping with heroes and villains, so he might have gone either way in the now. Back in the sixties and seventies, his methods mattered more than his goals, thus villain."

"Do you think, there are a lot more of those dinosaurs?" Lisa asked rubbing her arms. She'd never seen anything bigger than a mouse killed before and it had shaken her a lot.

"I haven't seen any in the dome, and they'd be hunting those birds." Emilia said after a moment of thinking. "Then there were all those eggs in the cooler. I'm willing to bet that was a new project he never got around to finishing. The snake and whatever else was in there were probably the same, something new for the home range, or as a war beast."

"That does make sense. So, we only have to worry about whatever was in that second...pod. What do we do with the dead dino? We can’t just...leave it on the floor, it will make a huge mess and start to stink." She didn't want to think of a rotting smell getting into all that orange shag. And focusing on her job made it easier to NOT think about being attacked by a freaking dinosaur.

"Why don't you stay here. Carl, let's go see if there's a disposal method in the lab."

"The way it was set up, I'd bet on either an incinerator, or a way to drop something into the habitat to be delt with by scavengers."

"Leave the camera, though. This isn't something we can use on a video." Ryan ordered.

"Huh? Oh okay." Carl set down his rig and stood following Ryan back towards the lab. "Well, that was new. first time for dinosaurs" he said as they walked through the glassed-in path.

"For you, maybe." Ryan griped. At the other man’s odd look, he shrugged. "One of the idiots who 'borrowed' father’s recruits used robotic raptors sometimes. He turned on pops, so his guards had to deal with them. On the plus side, I had an awesome set of toy dino’s. I was eight when that happened, I think?"

"Ya know, you are so normal, I forget sometimes how messed up your dad is. They went into the lab and a large pool of blood was inching across the floor. " Man, this is a weird looking beast. You think it's a custom?" he asked

"Who the hell knows." Ryan admitted. He took a picture with his phone. "We can look it up when we get out. I feel like it might be him trying to recreate something, but Utah Raptors weren't found till well after he died, so it's not that."

Carl began opening cabinets looking for an incinerator or garbage shoot. "Dude...I found like ALL the cocaine, at least that's what I'm assuming this of white powder is." There was a bin with an open bag of powder with a spoon in it.

"We'll toss the trash too. One less thing for Lisa to worry about. Does cocaine go bad?" He asked absently. “Oh, doesn’t matter. We don’t exactly want to keep it. There we are. Looks like you drop stuff in, lock it down, and it gets ground then gets dumped into the habitat."

Carl pulled the bag out of the drawer, laughing at as a hole in the bottom of the bag dusted him in Columbian white as he tossed it in the disposal, then he helped Ryan push the reptile into the disposal "Man this thing is solid. I got some good shots of Em with her sword."

"Yeah, that'll do good on the Patreon." He shut and locked the door and hit the start button. The sound was just as disturbing as he thought it would be. "Good lord, someone's going to find us down here because of this. Let's leave, since there's just a start button, it should dump automatically after, um, processing.”