Classified Ministry of Defense Research Facility, Rangerville Crater, Sunday, May 16, 2021, 5:15PM
"Ready to see what's behind Door Number One, Obi-Wan?" Molly asked, trying to hide her nerves. "If this works at all."
Eccentric Erwin has been thrilled with the dossier, practically giggling with excitement over the evidence they'd collected. He'd assured them that his mysterious contacts would be equally impressed and told them to come back the next day for the security card.
Molly had, once again, wondered whether asking a guy who wore kitchenware and holiday lights as a hat had really been her very best idea. Lucius, however, had been absolutely confident that Eccentric Erwin would fulfill his end of the bargain. Molly had wondered what Lucius's Luxurious Hair would look like under a colander. Of course, since this had been her idea in the first place, maybe she'd need a colander hat of her own.
Still, less than an hour ago, Eccentric Erwin had handed them a card with the confident assurance that it would work.
"I have every faith that the card will work," Lucius said calmly. "Whether we're ready for what is behind this door, I am less certain of."
"Terrific," Molly muttered.
The door beeped, an oddly cheerful sound in the ruins of the abandoned secret lab. Then it announced, in a calm, recorded voice, "Access granted. Welcome, Major Duchovny."
With a smooth hiss of well-oiled machinery, the doors slid open. A wave of cool, wet air rolled out of the open door, carrying with it a perfumed smell that reminded Molly of a flower shop.
"Oh, just terrific," she coughed as the sickly-sweet air caught in her throat.
Beyond the door, stairs descended into perfumed darkness.
At the bottom of the stairs, they found themselves in a dimly lit empty room with two corridors stretching deeper into the darkness. Down one, Molly could see distant light. Down the other...
"What do you think that is?" Molly asked.
Thick purple fog filled the passageway, hiding whatever was beyond.
"Here be dragons," Lucius said softly.
"Yeah," Molly sighed. "Wait, you don't think there are actual dragons down there... do you?"
With a wry smile, Lucius pulled what Molly could only think was a magic wand from his belt.
"Let's see, shall we," he said.
He spoke again in those musical Words that sent a chill down Molly's spine. Motes of light, like conjured stars, spilled from the wand as he waved it in graceful arc.
Molly held her breath, waiting.
Finally, she said, "OK... what happened?"
"Nothing," Lucius said, almost cheerfully. "Absolutely nothing. I am accounted the greatest weather witch alive today, and my magic cannot touch that fog. Which is very interesting."
"OK, what does that mean?" Molly asked. "You said before that you couldn't magic the strange plants, or the zombies, because you didn't know their Name. So, the fog has a Name you don't know?"
"Precisely," Lucius smiled. "Which means we are definitely on the right track. I believe they are all parts of the same whole... the Mother."
"OK, I take it that's a good thing," Molly said. "Just, you seem really happy about it."
"Molly, I've been doing this kind of thing for a very long time," Lucius said. "I haven't encountered a truly novel and unexpected challenge like this since the Dark Ages."
"OK, yeah... I get that," Molly nodded. "I enjoy a good challenge too. Just, this a little bigger than missing a project deadline and losing my bonus."
"Agreed," Lucius said. "I suggest we try the other passage first. I don't relish breathing in a mysterious fog. In my experience, that ends badly."
"Yeah, right there with you," Molly nodded. "Let's try Door Number Three."
Door Number Three, and the corridor beyond it, led to a well-appointed laboratory. White walls and tiled floor gleamed, and somewhere a humming ventilation system breathed cool, dry air - finally clean of the perfumed smell that had dominated the lower level. Computer towers and display screens lined the nearest wall and in the center of it all, a glass-enclosed clean room contained chemical analysis stations.
"OK, feeling more in my element now," Molly said.
"I imagine so," Lucius replied, wandering around the room.
"Woah, this is interesting," Molly said. "They've definitely been studying those strange plants. I'm guessing this is like a life cycle... the ones we've seen might be an early stage."
"So I see," Lucius said from across the room.
"It looks like they were growing these before the explosion," Molly said, examining the data on the screens. "They tried to cultivate the plants... and they succeeded. If I'm reading this right, the plants reached maturity and started releasing some kind of spores... as well as growing those strange fruit."
"They have certainly cultivated these plants," Lucius said mildly. "Or at least attempted to. These don't look healthy."
"These... ?" Molly asked, coming around the clean room to join Lucius. "Holy crap... those are the containment units Dylan and I found blueprints for."
"I believe so," Lucius nodded. "I credit your MoD for trying to take precautions, but I expect their experiment moved out of their control. It may be that once the plants reached maturity, they could no longer be contained."
"These look pretty contained," Molly said.
"Yes, but as I said, these don't look healthy," Lucius pointed out. "There may be another lab, like this one, down the other corridor..."
"Which might have had a better crop and be what caused the explosion," Molly said. "Once that happened, they abandoned the lab... but the spores got out. You know, Biobro Brian's crop is probably FutureTech trying to pick up on the MoD's work here after they abandoned this lab."
"Because making the same mistakes again is always productive," Lucius said.
"Except, Biobro Brian isn't using these containment modules," Molly said. "So, no explosion."
"Just more spores," Lucius pointed out.
"Right, that's bad," Molly said. "They'll contaminate everyth... Wait. Contaminate. Son of bitch! The sensor module. The project I got called in on... a sensor module to detect and analyze biological contaminants! They've got the same problem you do! They don't understand the plants or their spores... so they can't fight them... or guard against them! The hazmat filter team... they're waiting on specs from MoD for a new filter... to filter out the spores. They're trying to go down that corridor... back into the original lab."
"We need to get to that lab," Lucius said earnestly.
"Which means we need hazmat suits with upgraded filters," Molly said. "Which means we need an analysis of the spores. For that, we need a working sensor module."
"Do you have one?" Lucius asked.
"The prototype is in testing," Molly said, "but I have all the components I need back at FutureTech. I can build us one. Let's go!"
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