Round Robin October 2020

22 October 2020

Okay, so when AD Dr. Milern said she really was trying to recreate AD Dr. Lenox's experiments, Greg thought that for sure they had actually made some progress. Sure, he was horrified that Dr. Milern of all people was who they had to rely on, but he was hoping that the AD Dr. Milern was more responsible...

But, no.

Not only was AD Dr. Milern not actually going to be useful to them, she was definitely going to make things worse. And AD Dr. Lenox was downright frightening. Apparently, the two were engaging in alchemy - more specifically in the theory of human transmutation - and AD Dr. Milern thought the three of them were successful 'creations.'

Just great.

Gregory usually didn't like assuming what others would think, but in this case he was absolutely certain that Em and Samantha would agree with him: this was NOT what any of them had been expecting.

This lab had always been unusual. And weird. And a little creepy. But this? This was a whole new level.

Greg looked over at Em and at the horror and shock on her face. The shaking of her head confused him for a minute, but then he realized, 'This wasn't what she had been working on in their dimension.'

AD Dr. Milern droned on in her excitement while Greg came to the horrifying conclusion that AD Greg might be autopsying him and his two companions to study what made them different. Then Samantha spoke.

"You think you created us? Is this another prank Dr. Milern? You are known for them after all," the young woman spoke confidently.

Dr. Milern froze in shock. Greg parsed the look on her face as... offended?

"I beg your pardon? I have never pulled a prank in my life," condescension dripped from every syllable toward the college student.

"Oh so the Incidents of Isabella aren't a thing here? Darn, I really enjoyed the story about the student fair with the mongooses and the rampaging balloon animals. Yo, prof what's your favorite Isabella Incident?" Samantha directed her question at Em.

Em responded with the story that always gave Greg nightmares after it rose from the repressed parts of his memory.

"The time in undergrad where we dropped items that we shaped or painted into brick-looking things off the top of the tallest building on campus to record what gravity did to the various items."

"What was so bad about that?"

Greg cut in, "Because they almost killed me and two professors because the three amigos forgot to mark the drop area."

AD Dr. Milern interrupted story time with, "I didn't do undergrad with Professors Dlaun and Xoi. I went to Yale."

"Yale?!" Em exclaimed. "You always thought that the Yaleians were stuck-up prigs! What the heck Bella!"

AD Dr. Milern was now looking furious.

And confused.

And furious.

"Give me a moment." She ground out before picking up the office telephone and dialing. "Dr. Lenox," She spoke - or yelled rather - into the receiver, "What did you do?!"

Greg glanced at Em. She nodded. The two professors each hooked an arm around Samantha and bolted for the door, with a furious Dr. Milern hot on their heels.

"Now what?" Samantha asked, shaking the two off and running on her own.

"To the lab!" Em replied hastily. The three ran down the corridor as fast as they humanly could, and Greg hoped, before the creepy black tentacles would start shooting out of Em's forehead in the middle of the university.

Her forehead was already glowing when they dashed through the lab door and shut it in Dr. Milern's face, leaning heavily against it to prevent the mad - in both senses of the word - woman from coming in.

What they hadn't counted on was the sight that awaited them in an alchemy lab dedicated to human transmutation. It was beyond imagination.

AD Dr. Lenox was there and directing the blank-stared students like he was a conductor for a symphony that had a choir with it. Lots of arm-waving and pointing. He didn't even notice the three dimensional travelers slamming the door shut. The students had surrounded a person strapped to a table. Greg barely heard Samantha's broken horrified whisper of "Kyle?" before he could no longer see the lab anymore.

"Where are we?" Em groaned. 'Her recovery time is getting faster.' Greg thought.

Greg looked around after ensuring that only Samantha and Em were in the party. He did not want to travel dimensions with the crazy doctors they were just with. The landscape was sparse but with trees. Trees that seemed familiar somehow....

They were back in Africa! Hopefully they can finish this stupid mark-induced task and go home!

"We are in Africa. We need to figure out the task so we can go home," Greg said confidently.

"And how exactly do we do that?" Em replied, her question serious but her tone was sassy.