They kept with the group, though at this point they weren't paying attention to anything more than where the group was moving around the hub as Dr. Reed continued explaining the basics about the central labs. Conveniently the path went directly next to the station where the targeted scientist was working, sitting on a stool, hunched over a microscope while writing on a digital notepad.
As they approached, he spotted her badge, clipped to a lower pocket on the left side of her unbuttoned lab coat. Adam walked ahead and past her and stepped over far enough to brush against the table and knock over some small items. The scientist sat up and glared over at Adam, who acted surprised and apologized as he tried to pick up what he knocked over. Lance deftly unclipped the woman's badge right as she looked over and slipped past as well, pocketing the key in his jacket. He stopped and helped pick up the rest of the clutter, keeping his head down, handing it to Adam, then continued walking.
Adam apologized once more and then caught up with the group.
"All set?" he asked.
Lance nodded.
"We just need to find an entrance."
Their guide continued down the long hallway while describing each of the different labs and what they specialized in.
"Now, in this lab, we are studying plant enzyme's cellular structure and how we can apply it to modern technology. For instance: imagine, if you will, a car that is completely designed from plant proteins that is not only green for the environment but also reduces carbon emissions and is biodegradable so that it doesn't take space in landfills damaging the Earth. Fortunately, we have made great strides in recent years in applied green technology, however, we hope to go even further. Moving on, we have a lot to show you!"
The guide kept walking and eventually passed by a corridor that looked like it was under construction with floor-to-ceiling tarps that covered the entrance. Through the tarps, the students could vaguely see metasteel supports, tubing, and bright floodlights that made it hard to see what else was inside. The guide kept walking not even mentioning what was going on in this unfinished section of the lab.
Lance caught wind of this and pulled Adam to the side.
"Did you see that?"
"See what?"
"Dr. Reed just walked past without saying anything about it. He has said something about every lab that we've walked past and he just "forgets" to tell us what's under construction? Either they are building something top secret..."
“...or hiding something top secret..." finished Adam as the discovery dawned on him.
“And what better way to hide advanced cryptid genetics in a lab that only authorized personnel can go into."
“Let’s try to slip out of the group and investigate.”
They intentionally slowed their pace and gradually created distance between themselves and the tour group.
“Wait… what are we supposed to do with these visitor passes? Won’t they alert the locals that we are snooping around? Do we just chuck them in the trash or something?”
“That would be easy, but what about when we need them back?” noted Lance.
He pulled his wallet out of his side pocket.
“While most use digital currency these days, sometimes one is still never without an old-fashioned wallet… a wallet with RFID blocking to safeguard from such detection.”
They snuck into the mysterious corridor and slipped their passes into their respective wallets. Once they were certain the coast was clear, they proceeded past the staged building materials and came to a badge-locked door.
“Bingo.”
After scanning the acquired badge, the duo snuck through the sliding doors, walking through the buffer chamber quickly before they closed behind them and avoiding the direct line of sight or exposure to any visible cameras. Most of what they passed by initially looked like the hub: research stations with all manners of equipment to study the various projects that went in and out of the lab.
"For a secret lab, this isn't as impressive as I anticipated…" stated Adam as they quietly turned a corner.
As the words left his mouth, a vast array of screens detailing information with pictures of the creatures they had encountered came into view in the next room. Lance gave Adam a sideways glance.
"You were saying?" he asked as he approached the computer station.
He began reading the cycling readouts as they came up.
"This looks... This is… more than we bargained for when we signed up for this…" said Adam in a hushed tone.
"And this is just barely scratching the surface," said Lance.
"It is probably safe to assume there are more projects underway, never mind improving on the last ones."
He pointed at the lower left screen.
"'Recent subjects show improved muscle and bone densities in comparison to previous attempts... continued supplement regime recommended…'" he read.
"They must have been at this for a while… how long do you think it takes to grow a monster?" asked Adam.
"Depends on the biology… if you could even call it that…"
Lance keyed the system to cycle the information until a diagram of a formula compound showed on the screen.
"I think this may be our missing secret ingredient…" he announced.
"They called it 'zeta compound'..."
"Wow… secret lab, scary monster creations, a secret formula named after a letter of the Greek alphabet…" jested Adam.
"Super cliche villain stuff guys… good job."
"I need to get this info before someone shows up," notes Lance as he plugged his device into the console.
"A special place like this shouldn't have too many firewalls…" he said sarcastically.
His system connected and gave him a reading of the computer network.
"Or it could have all of the firewalls… this might take a few minutes that we don't have…"
He ran the hacking program and managed to bypass the security after several agonizing minutes while Adam kept an eye out for other people.
"I need to get a wireless plug-in for this… wired is just so much quicker…" stated Lance as he started sifting through the files.
"How long do you need?"
"Depends on how big this project actually is…"
Lance's eyebrows went up in surprise when he found the Zeta Labs files.
"It's massive…. I'm going to have to prioritize…"
He selected the folders for what was likely of the zeta compound, readouts for the creatures they had encountered, and a log from Mythos himself just as the sound of mechanized doors opened and closed around the corner.
"Out of time…" whispered Adam as he attempted to take a glance around the corner.
Coming down the hall was a man who was engrossed in whatever he was reading on a digital tablet. The scientist glanced up just before Adam pulled back.
"Excuse me?" he called out.
"Busted…" sighed Adam. "E.T.A. of those files?"
"Now," replied Lance as he ended the program and unplugged.
"As much as we could use more, I'm not risking it. "
The two were just about to go back the way they came when the scientist briskly walked around the corner.
"Excuse me! Who are you and what are you doing here?" he demanded.
"Show me your security clearance!"
"I'll show you some clearance…" muttered Lance.
He bounded over to the wall and pulled the fire alarm, then pushed past the man, keeping his head low to avoid his profile being as visible. Adam followed shortly behind, and the two made a mad dash back to the main hub.
Between the fire alarms blaring, lights flashing, and the confusion of everyone trying to exit the building provided more than adequate cover for the two to make their escape. To top it off, the alarm triggered a security override which allowed them to go through corridors that were previously locked down, facilitating them even further. They received a few awkward glances from several of the employees, but due to the "emergency," no one questioned them and kept them moving to the exits. Once they reached the exterior of the building, they seamlessly assimilated back into their group.
The two thought they were in the clear when they happened to brush past Noel and Scott.
"THERE you are!" stated Noel. "Where have you two been?"
"We got a bit... sidetracked at one of the lab stations…" answered Adam with some hesitation.
"We ran into a few of the scientists along the way."
"Nerds… go figure. We were almost at the end of the tour when the alarms went off and I noticed that I didn't notice you two around…" she said.
"Never mind that you left Melody alone…"
"Wasn't she with you well before that?" questioned Lance.
"That's beside the point…"
Lance rolled his eyes.
“Fine, I’ll talk to her later.”
The emergency response teams arrived on the scene to deal with the situation. After several long minutes, the people were given the all-clear to reenter the facility and several people were asked to give statements as to what had occurred. Most of the stories were the same: people going about their normal routines, the alarms went off, they exited the building, they were now talking to the officers. Dr. Mythos himself was also questioned, though quite annoyed by the entire situation. A few of the students had been spoken with, along with the professors from N.A.U. who tagged along to head the group, then they were given leave to call it a day and return to the campus.
All along the way there was plenty of chatter and theories thrown around as to what had happened, up to and including some convoluted spiel about monster outbreaks. Lance and Adam exchanged knowing glances with each other but kept their opinions mostly to themselves with the intent of debriefing the situation later when they examined the files they retrieved.
Everyone having returned to campus, then went their separate ways, Adam and Lance went to Lance’s apartment.
"That could've gone better…" huffed Adam as he plopped down on the one lounge chair in the room.
"Could have gone worse, too," noted Lance as he started brewing a series of espresso shots at his workbench.
"We could have been caught in the act and not escaped."
"Well let's hope it never comes to that," Adam sighed.
"Never mind that recon without a significant disguise is dangerous. What are the chances that we recovered anything valuable?"
"Well… considering that the server was in a hidden and heavily restricted area of the facility, we should at least have a small piece of something worth noting," Lance stated. "Especially with what we saw on the displays."
“Should we be brushing up on our mythological creatures? I don’t think that we covered those in history or biology,” laughed Adam.
“Wouldn’t be a bad idea, though I imagine we would need to cross reference every iteration to try piecing something together. I can set up to compile everything out there and we’ll go over it later,” Lance noted as he opened his portable console and typed in a string of codes.
There was a moment of silence as Lance typed away on his digital keyboard to set up the search.
“So what DID we find?” asked Adam.
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