“That’s a goddamn lie.”
“To look at, I mean. When it comes to between the sheets ballroom dancing, hardcore anal banging never gets old.”
Alyx giggled as she gave her butt a poke with her outstretched index finger. “And with a badonkadonk the likes of mine, how could I blame you for never getting sick of it. Now kick that door down and let’s get going on the magical journey to becoming rich little bitches.”
Gavin lifted a foot and pressed it against the smoking steel doors of the elevator. With a horrendous screech of metal on metal, the heavy door tipped forward before slamming to the ground. The smoky interior of the elevator cleared out, replaced by an odd earthy aroma. The two thieves looked out into the murky hallway beyond. With the power off, the secret lab had an ominous atmosphere. Gavin knelt down to dig through his duffle bag of gear and came out with a couple of flashlights. He handed one off to Alyx and kept the other for himself. Flicking the light on, he shined the beam down the hallway. His eyes widened as he got his first good look at the state of the lab.
“Holy shit.”
Alyx got her flashlight on and added her beam to Gavin’s. Her face scrunched up in disgust. “So untold riches and the most sought after knowledge in the world is in there? Looks like an abandoned set from a German porn flick. And those stocks have been going down the shitter for months.”
“I don’t know,” Gavin replied. “How about I climb back up the big ass shaft we just came down and ask the neighbors if there are any other top secret labs buried underneath the ground anywhere near here.” He rolled his eyes. “This is the place. Who knows? Maybe this is why they shut the place down.” He eyed the flaky black growth spreading across the floors and walls of the hallway. “Yeast infection from hell.”
“Bitch, you don’t even know what a yeast infection is.”
“If it looks anything like this hallway, I don’t want to know.”
Alyx sighed. “Let’s just trudge our way through this shit hole and get the goods.”
* * *
They found the control room at the end of the hallway. But with the power off, accessing the terminal would be tricky. “So what’s the plan, techie girl?” Gavin asked Alyx, turning away from the darkened bank of monitors to look at his girlfriend. “I’ve done my part of this operation. Time for you to shine.”
“Considering your part of the operation involved banging some sex-starved middle aged slut and mine involves powering up and hacking into a nefarious corporation’s top secret research lab without raising any alarms, I’m starting to think I got the short end of this stick.”
“Yea, but I also had to spend six months driving around the most boring fucks in the universe. One night of carnal pleasure totally doesn’t make up for that. Besides, it wasn’t like she was even all that hot. When a chick’s so desperate for a bang she’ll let you pour syrup over her to lick it off, it’s really more sadly pathetic than arousing.”
Alyx’s brow scrunched up. “Wait, I’ve let you do that to me.”
Gavin gave her a feigned look of innocence. “Yea, but when you do it, it’s totally sexy, baby.”
She let out a scoffing laugh. “Just hand me the fucking bag, bitch.”
Gavin handed over the duffle bag. “You got this? I wanna go check the rest of this place for anything that might be of use.”
Alyx sighed as she dropped the bag at her feet and began to pull out the gear she needed; a portable mini-generator, a screw gun, and a set of flash drives, among other things. “Sure, go browse. I got this shit.”
* * *
Alyx got the mini-generator powered up and hooked into the central computer. She popped some ear bud headphones in and started up some music to listen to. The deathly silent atmosphere of the lab gave her the creeps in a big way, especially now that Gavin had wandered out to go exploring the rest of the place. The thumping bass lines and electronic wails helped ease her nerves and allowed her to focus on her task. The mini-generator wasn’t powerful, but it was good enough to get the computer working for the short period of time it would take to download the files. Better than that, it wouldn’t give off a high enough electrical signature to trigger any tampering alarms.
The tampering alarms were the reason why she couldn’t just crack the computer open and yank out the hard drive. Because the lab’s power grid wasn’t dead, it was just dormant. She’d had to spend a good two hours hacking into the system above ground before they even began their decent down the elevator shaft. And that was with the security codes Gavin swiped off that whore, she thought. He could have at least banged someone with a higher clearance rating.
Not that it really mattered. She wasn’t jealous of Gavin’s one night bang session. It was all part of the job. He hadn’t gotten weird about it when she’d had to seduce the nerdy IT manager of the nano-tech developers they’d swindled a year back. Of course, that might’ve had something to do with me being willing to describe our encounter in intimate detail and the IT manager being a tattooed up alt girl.
Sliding the computer tower around to get at the back end of it, she unplugged the power cable and replaced it with the one coming from the mini-generator. The computer whirred to life. Alyx’s hands moved quickly, snatching up two of her flash drives and slipping them into a pair of open USB ports. One of the drives would hijack the computer’s boot-up processes, skipping past any security protocols hardwired into the system. Once that was done, the second flash drive would take over, sucking up every juicy bit of knowledge held within the computer’s hard drive. The plan was to do a straight up snatch and dash. They could sort out the gold from the shit when they got home. If the rumors Gavin had heard on the market were true, the stuff CyberWolfe had been up to in the lab was real game changer material.
But the matter of whose name graced which headlines for whatever reasons wasn’t any of Alyx’s concern. You didn’t get into the whole corporate espionage gig for the fame. Typically, the money was what played into it. The cold hard cash was certainly the reason why Gavin signed up to do the dirty job of sniffing middle aged panties for corporate big wig secrets. But as nice as the money was, it wasn’t the primary reason why Alyx did it. Regardless of how lame a reason Gavin told her it was, she got off on the thrill of it. Not just the excitement of breaking into a secret lab to steal computer data, but the whole damn thing. Staying up until four in the morning, systematically tapping at keys until she cracked some top of the line anti-hacking software. Manipulating unknowing dunces into giving her free reign access to their systems for as little as a quick dose of hand stuff in the supply closet. The best were the times when she was able to leave a wireless cam in her wake, so she could watch – in real time – as the people she’d tricked found out about her deception and – worse – just how badly she’d screwed them.
Because, as far as Alyx was concerned, if it didn’t get her blood pumping and her panties wet, then what was the fucking point of risking a lifetime in prison?
Or spending my Saturday night in a creepy ass tomb of a lab, she thought, glancing around at the control room. The black growth was even more thickly grown in there than it had been in the hallway. What the hell is it? This place hasn’t been shut down long enough to let nature invade, she thought as she dragged a finger across the top of the computer tower, leaving a clear line through the gunk. She held it up to her eye, giving it a good look. And what the hell kind of nature is there down this far in the earth to invade anyway?
It looked like mold, but the air was far too dry for mold. At least, as far as Alyx knew. It wasn’t as if she was some sort of mold specialist or anything. I wonder what they call mold specialists, she thought as she wiped her finger clean on her pants. Didn’t Gavin say something about that bitch he banged being some kinda mold specialist? Before she could ponder the eerie growth any longer, the data flash drive gave off a soft beep, signaling to Alyx that the transfer was complete. She popped the data drive free and replaced it with a third flash drive. This one would scrub the
system for any trace digital fingerprints she’d left. As soon as that self-contained program finished running, she could unhook her gear, pack up, and go see if Gavin had discovered anything of any worth they could bring back with them that wasn’t of a digital nature.
In the meantime, Alyx decided to zone out on her tunes and do her best to ignore the high tech horror house around her.
* * *
“Gavin!”
Alyx was getting increasingly annoyed and more than a little freaked out by her boyfriend’s lack of response to her calls. Her logical sense told her that he was fucking with her. That he was hiding in a supply closet somewhere, waiting for her to walk by so he could jump out and yell ‘boo!’ But even though she was almost a hundred percent certain that was the case, the increasing disarray of the darkened lab had her head filled with all sorts of nasty things.
Maybe he triggered some rudimentary security system which carved him to bits with lasers. Maybe he stumbled onto a containment room where they locked away the research scientists down here. They’ve all gone insane from isolation and hunger and ripped him to shreds for a quick, bloody meal. Maybe he found a vending machine and tipped it over onto himself while trying to shimmy out a Snickers bar.
Or maybe the mold got him.
Alyx had meant for the mental wanderings to be so ridiculous it would ease her nerves. The mold getting him being the most absurd of the bunch. But for some reason, that one stuck with her. And it worried her. She found her way into what looked to be a small mess hall area. Emphasis on the mess, she thought as she took it in. It looked as if there’d been a circle jerk of projectile vomiting. I guess somebody didn’t like the cornbread. But the fucked up thing about the dried splatters were how they seemed localized to one of the tables in particular. The rest had a light covering of the dark mold, but the one was drenched in the darkness. Although the place had been abandoned for months, it was still moist. It dripped from the edges of the tabletop in long, stringy lines to ooze into obsidian pools spreading across the floor.
She had no idea what the hell it was, but she didn’t like it. “Gavin!” she called out. “Enough fucking around! I got the shit and I’ve had it with this goddamn house of horrors! If you’ve got any plans of sharing a post-mission rub down with happy ending, you better get your ass out here right fucking now!”
No response.
Looking at the soggy cafeteria table, Alyx’s stomach lurched and she felt a wave of nausea wash over her. She turned away from the messy mess hall and strode out of it as quickly as she could while maintaining some semblance of a badass chick who wasn’t afraid of any mold. It was a lot harder than it should have been, especially with the hollow plops of the thick sludge dripping to the floor creeping after her.
* * *
Alyx found her way into a storage area. The place looked as if it had been ransacked by rabid badgers. Packages of freeze dried food torn open and scattered about. Jugs of laundry detergent slashed through and spilled out to blend with the fuzzy black mold on the floor. Then there was the hazmat suit, lying across the hall as if it had been yanked from the closet and tossed aside. That may have been due to the mold growth covering it. But if it was, that would have to mean that the growth had started when there were still people down there. Is this some fucked up science experiment gone horribly awry?
Alyx’s fear bumped up a few notches as it was joined by a spark of anger. “Goddammit, Gavin, what the fuck did you get us into down here?” she hissed as she stepped over the hazmat suit.
As her foot passed it, the suit jerked. Alyx let out a shriek of terror as one of the gloved hands snatched hold of her ankle. She tried to yank her foot free, but the grip was iron tight. Her balance shifted and she toppled down, landing hard on her curvaceous behind. Alyx’s hands flailed about, reaching for anything she could use as a weapon. She flung sputtering food packets and half-empty jugs of detergent at the suited abomination crawling towards her. Its hands traveled up her body, forcibly pinning her to the floor. Alyx smacked and kicked at it as its hands moved higher, landing on her breasts and gripping them tightly. Its thumbs pressed down against her stiffly erect nipples, sending jolts of unwanted pleasure shooting through her.
Alyx yanked herself away from the suited horror and instinctively snapped her foot up between the thing’s legs. She let out a gasp of surprise as she heard a cry of pain from behind the leering gas mask. The suited figure rolled off of her, hands going down to cradle his bruised junk. “Fucking shit, Alyx,” the suit hissed through the gas mask. “Why the balls?”
Alyx’s eyes widened with revelatory rage. “Gavin?!” She kicked him again, harder, in the arm before scrambling back to her feet. “What the fuck are you doing?!”
Gavin groaned with pain and laughter as he pulled the gas mask off and tossed it aside. “I was just fucking around. Damn.” He looked up at his pissed off girlfriend from his place on the floor. “You should have seen your face. I thought you were going to piss yourself you were so scared.”
“You goddamn child!” she hissed, giving him another kick. She wiped at the residual mold fuzzies that had gotten onto her from the scuffle. “Take that fucking thing off, you idiot. Do you even know what that shit growing on it is?”
Gavin sat up and got back to his feet, unzipping the hazmat suit and pulling it off. “Who the hell cares? It can’t be anything too dangerous. You really think they’d leave something contagious growing down here for someone to stumble on? That’d be a class action lawsuit just waiting to happen.”
“When it’s this deep down and sealed up in an airtight environment, why the hell not? We’re not exactly supposed to be down here. As far as we know, no one was ever supposed to come down here again. Maybe this shit is toxic. Have you seen the cafeteria? It looks like some seriously fucked up shit went down in there.”
Gavin kicked the discarded hazmat suit away. “You’re fucking paranoid.”
“Don’t knock paranoia, bitch. That shit’s kept me breathing more times than once.” With her nerves even more frazzled than before, Alyx’s hand reached for her pocket. She worked out her pack of smokes and lighter and had a cigarette between her lips before stopping herself. She glanced up to the ceiling to spot the smoke detector. “Shit,” she muttered, pulling the cigarette out of her mouth and tucking it back away. “Case in point,” she said to Gavin, pointing to the smoke detector. “There’s a good chance that thing’s as dead as the rest of this lab, but paranoia tells me it’s just waiting for that first delicious puff of smoke to waft up there. Then it triggers and our little breaking and entering shindig gets cut short real goddamn quick.” She shoved the pack of smokes back into her pocket. “So I resist the nicotine craving crawling up the back of my spine. Why? Because I’m a fucking professional with a healthy slice of paranoia.”
There was a moment of silence before Gavin spoke back up. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It was a stupid thing to do.” He tried reaching for Alyx, but she yanked away. He sighed. “Did you get the shit off the computer?”
“Yea, I got it. That’s why I came looking for your ass. Can we get outta here now, or do you wanna start licking the walls or something else equally idiotic?”
“Yea, we can go. I already checked the labs. Somebody smashed em up pretty good. The only shit worth taking is too damn heavy to carry back, so it can rot down here as far as I’m concerned.” He started back the way they’d come, towards the elevator shaft. “We should check those personal bunks on the way out, though. Maybe somebody left something of value behind. The medical center, too. Might be some top shelf drugs in there.”
* * *
“See, this. This is what I was talking about. Why is it so goddamn squishy?”
Alyx stood at the doorway to the medical center, unwilling to step foot inside. Gavin wasn’t as squeamish. He stepped around the gooier puddles of black gunk to get at the goods. He checked vials and pill bottles, tossing some aside while pocketing others. The whole place was a mess, but – like th
e cafeteria – the bulk of the slimy sludge seemed to be focused on one of the medical gurneys. If Alyx tilted her head, squinted, and let the more fucked up bits of her imagination take over, she could almost make out a humanoid outline; as if someone had been melted down over the gurney, transformed into the pitch black gunk.
“Gavin, you’ve got enough drugs to keep yourself high as balls for the next two hundred goddamn years. Let’s fucking go already.”
“Babe, these drugs are worth a small fortune on the street. Even with Falcone’s cut taken out, we’ll be rich off of this alone.” He kept tossing bottles into his open duffle, boots squishing through the gunk on the floor.
Alyx gritted her teeth in anger. “If the stuff off that computer is half as valuable as you bragged it would be, we’ll have more money than we know what to do with. The prospect of earning a few more grand via Falcone’s scuzzy, drug peddling ass is not worth spending another five minutes in this hell hole.”
Snatching up a few more bottles of pills, Gavin finally turned away from the rummaged medicine cabinet. “Alright, alright,” he said. “A quick check of the bunks and we’re out of here, okay? There might be handwritten notes on what they were doing down here. There weren’t any in the labs, but they could be in the bunks.” He stepped his way back through the splotchy black mess on the floor and wiped his boots mostly clean on a clear area before moving past Alyx and back into the hall.
***
Alyx agreed to help check the bunks, if only to get the searching done faster. The compact personal rooms were even darker than the rest of the lab. She shone her flashlight beam across the interior, not seeing anything of interest until she looked towards the small cot. Is that a fucking dildo? The object certainly looked like a sex toy. It was just hard to tell with a thick layer of the black goo covering it. Morbid disgusted curiosity beat out Alyx’s growing unease of the lab. She stepped closer to the cot and knelt down to examine the thing. She looked around for something to prod at it with, maybe wipe away some of the goo. She didn’t see anything off-hand and it didn’t take long for her better sense to assert itself. “Fuck this,” she muttered, standing up and turning away from the cot.
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