Bring The Heat

58. Lab Labyrinth (CB ARC 7)

The hallways in the expansive maze of labs that lay hidden beneath the compound seemed to have lives of their own. Maybe it was just Cece and Mariah's nerves, but the lights only seemed to flicker when they passed underneath. Paranoia grew to be thicker than the dust in the air. These labs, this research equipment, it was all something BM had left behind a long time ago.

Every now and then, as the two girls crept through the halls, Mariah would notice Cece gazing longingly, affectionately, through old, aged glass screens at what lay on the other side, but it was only abstract machinery.

"What is it?" she whispered, curious. Cece turned the window, putting a hand on the glass and sighing nostalgically.

"Just... old equipment. All of this stuff, I built it last year. I come down here sometimes when BM's away, just to look at it."

"Sounds like you were a real kid prodigy." Mariah commented sarcastically, but the sarcasm was too subtle for Cece to realize. "What's it for?"

"I don't know, to be honest. BM'd just tell me what needed making, and I'd make it. The way I saw it, I was earning me and Rebound's stay. But we're past that way of thinking now. Well, I am..."

Mariah went and stood next to Cece, looking through the window at the weird mechanisms.

"I don't see how this situation is only raising red flags for me. BM's taking us in for no reason, doing weird shit, has a SECRET LAB, and we're meant to trust him?"

Cece chuckled.

"I know what you mean. But trust me, he's just a little detached. Not just cos, y'know, money, but also he's really smart. Sometimes he forgets that most people need more information than he gives them to reach the right conclusions. But I promise you, he's got good intentions."

Mariah was about to reply, but she noticed something strange.

"Eurgh... that's creepy." she said, pointing.

"What is?" Cece responded, before she saw it too. Suddenly, Cece grabbed Mariah's arm, dragging her to cover under the window and into a nearby doorway nook.

Her hand clasped over Mariah's mouth before she could protest, and it's a good thing it did.

From the room they were just gazing into, loud clacking footsteps rang out. They seemed to get a lot louder abruptly, and Mariah poked her head out silently to see that the man had appeared in the hall, having passed through the window somehow.

The man was wearing a plague doctor mask and a white shawl, which had originally seemed like some weird prop mannequin to Mariah in the darkness.

Slowly, ominously, he crossed to the other side of the hallway, until he reached the opposing wall, and phased straight through it. His footsteps grew abruptly quieter again now that a wall lay between him and the two girls.

"Shit..." Mariah mumbled under her breath, and through Cece's hand.

"We're being hunted..." Cece observed nervously. Shit. She was a caretaker, but dangerous situations like this, where she or her friends could get hurt... they made her feel sick with anxiety.

Mariah could feel the goosebumps on Cece's arm.

"Let's get out of here..."

Cece gulped down her fear and nodded, releasing Mariah as they hastily crept back the way they came.

Back through the maze, back through the labyrinth. Cece's mind rambled on at each turn with the fear that maybe she had forgotten her path from the entrance. Her intention was just to get herself and Mariah far away from the chaos until BM sorted everything out, but now...

Still, the buzzing fluorescent lights above flickered seemingly only when they passed underneath. This place really was a moment from the past.

Cece and Mariah flinched with every step, terrified that the slapping of their shoes on the metal floors would draw the unwanted attention of their attacker. But they couldn't wait to find out, there was no time, so they continued on, never knowing if they were truly moving undetected.

At last, the two reached the hatch.

Both girls felt relief flow over them, but Cece kept her awareness beside her, still afraid of how things could go wrong. As she climbed the ladder and approached the hatch, she could hear a muffled clanging from the other side. It sounded like the room was being ripped apart by wind...

She waited, and the sound persisted - but then she heard it, those same footsteps clopping back towards the main room. Their attacker was drawing ever closer! Whatever was on the other side of the hatch, they'd have to bite the bullet and face it, Cece decided. And with that, she activated her power as she pushed the hatch open.

Right as she did, a tall man in a black jumpsuit careened towards the suddenly opened hatch, tripping into Cece's anti-grav bubble and floating speedily into the edge of the hatch. His legs hit Cece in the face, her bubble deactivating as she fell off the ladder, and the man in the jumpsuit crashed down next to her.

"Do you have any idea how long I've been running into that thing!?-" the man began to ask, before seeing that the person who had opened the hatch was not his colleague, but a target.

Cece leapt to her feet, but wasn't fast enough. Nobody could be... she was thrown violently backwards as Vertigo slammed into her at incredible speeds. Her head and arms lagged behind, seemingly sucked forward im the split-second she and the man had collided.

Limply, her body shot down a hallway, slamming into the back wall and sinking to the floor. Dazed, dizzy, and aching, Cece quickly picked herself back up as he began to dash towards her like a bullet train. There was a noise left in his wake, a tearing sound, like he was ripping through the air itself.

Cece leapt aside at the last moment before she was pummeled against the wall, and Vertigo smashed into it, denting it and falling back. As he rubbed his head, Cece clambered down the hall, gripping her lower right side tightly - she had an intense pain there, the same one she felt when she used her power... but wasn't that supposed to be healed?

She ducked into a large room of desks and experiment equipment, hiding under a table as her attacker quickly caught up. The door was still sliding shut behind her as Vertigo burst through it, cursing.

"Fucking doors! Didn't we cut off the building's power? Do they have a separate damn generator for their basement!? Assholes. Assholes!"

In his rage, he began to dash around the room at incredible speed, his air tunnel tearing everything from the desks and throwing them into the air as he went.

Under the desk, Cece wondered what to do next. She had taken Mariah down here in an attempt to wait everything out, but not only were she and Mariah now stuck down here with two threats, BM should've dealt with this by now! The fact that he hadn't... this seemed far more serious than she had initially thought. Serious enough for the Second Layer Protocol to be brought into action.