Location Three

Thank You for Your Cooperation...

     "Don't press—!"

     The person who yelled this was too late. He reached forward in a failed attempt to stop his friend. The other man, however, had already pressed the play button on the VHS player. Immediately a loud BANG! from the heavy metal door behind him slamming shut vibrated through the room. An alarm sounded as the red lights on the doorframe turned on. The suddenness of the noise as it engulfed the room caused the woman and two men inside of it to panic.

     "Scott!" one of the man's companions yelled over the deafening siren, grabbing onto his arm in an effort to break him from its spell.

     He looked into the woman's startled face, his own pale as his mind tried to comprehend their situation. He glanced over to the television that was now playing a tape. The person from the previous week's tape was on this one as well, but he sounded more... robotic.

     Scott couldn't fully focus on what was being said, except for the words, "...Nelson sends his regards."

     "Nelson"..., Scott thought in a daze. That was when a timer flicked onto the screen in front of him, slowly counting down from five minutes to zero.

     He had almost forgotten that one of his friends was holding onto him until she exclaimed, "Is that what I think it is?!"

     Scott turned his head to see what she was looking at, a dreadful feeling hitting him in the stomach. It was some sort of dispersal device, and hooked to it were vials of red and clear liquids. The red fluid he immediately recognized as what his team was working on: Life's Blood. The other he had no idea what it could be..., but he knew that it must have some sort of effect on the serum that would benefit it.

     The woman next to him let go of his arm, muttering something to herself as she began to pace the room.

     "What is it, Jordan?" Scott asked as he attempted to calm his own nerves.

     "It's—," his companion took a shaky breath, "it's the Pegasus serum. It's what Deb was working on before he demoted her from the project."

     "What does it do?"

     "I'm—I'm not sure... at this point they could have done anything to it. Before her demotion she had barely gotten it to not kill the rats."

     "Then we should try to disable it!" the other man in the room suddenly said to break his silence, reaching out toward the machine.

     Scott immediately went to grab the man's wrist, yelling, "No, Gary! Who knows what would happen if only one of the serums were to leak out?!"

     "Are you suggesting that we just let this happen to us?"

     "It's not like we have much choice...," the brown-haired man said as he looked at the timer on the screen, which had ticked down to zero.

     Beside him the dispersal device hissed, and he stepped away from it fearfully. He watched as the liquid inside of the tubes began to lower as they were mixed together in the machine. The air around the device began to become tinted with a slightly black hue as it dispersed the serum in a vapor. It might have been his mind playing tricks on him, but soon Scott could feel a strange buzz at the base of his skull. His eyes became heavy, however it wasn't due to drowsiness. It felt as if his muscles were dragging him down—like in a dream where one is unable to move—and he could barely stay upright.

     Behind him he heard a gasp and turned to see that Jordan had backed herself into a corner. The woman's eyes darted around frantically in search of a way to escape, and upon finding none she sank to the ground.