The Runaway Experiment

Making Plans

"Sir, the vans are all loaded and ready to go, all we need now are the locations of the posts and your signal to move out." Mike told his boss as he quickly, but cautiously, walked into the dim room.

The last time he was there, his boss gave him orders to get some vans ready for a widespread search. That was also when some other scientists were cleaning up several large puddles of dark red blood that was on the floor. If Mike had to guess what they were from, then he'd say they were from Grant when his boss killed him for bringing bad news. Even though the scientists have done a good job of cleaning it up, there were still dark splotches on the floor where the blood used to be. That and the room still smelled like death and decay.

Mike's boss looked up at Mike from a computer screen that sat on a large desk in front of him; several other computer screens crowded the desk, and nodded. "Good, you and the others will leave at dawn." Mike's boss told Mike. His boss took a sheet of paper off the desk that was next to the computer his boss was using and held it out to Mike. "The locations of all the posts are on here."

Mike cautiously took the sheet of paper and nodded, sneaking a quick look at the sheet of paper. "Yes sir." He said before starting to walk out of the room.

"Oh, and Mike." Mike's boss said again, making Mike stop dead in his tracks.

Mike quickly turned around to face his boss. "Yes sir?" He said.

His boss lowered his head slightly, glaring at Mike a little. "Don't fail me like your brother did, or you'll end up exactly like him." He told Mike, a threatening tone in his voice.

Mike's eyes widened in fear as he stared at his boss, trying not to tremble in fear. His boss's face was emotionless as he watched Mike. His boss didn't care for him or the other scientists that worked with him one bit, only getting experiment 817 and torturing her again was all he cared for. Mike clenched his fists tightly, but he made sure his boss couldn't see it. He and several other scientists despised their boss, but if they tried to stand up to him, he would kill them in the blink of an eye without a second thought. Another reason why Mike didn't like his boss was because of the way he treated experiment 817. Mike didn't know if any of the other scientists felt the same, but if any of them did, they didn't say or show it.

"Well? Are you just going to stand there all day like an idiot or are you going to give everyone their orders!?" Mike's boss snapped impatiently, snapping Mike out of his thoughts and back into reality.

Mike looked up at his boss again and nodded. "Yes sir, forgive me. I'll give everyone their orders right away." Mike quickly told his boss before hurrying out of the room, his heart racing from when his boss had yelled at him. Once he was out of the room, the large door automatically closed behind him.

When Mike thought he was far enough from his boss's room, he leaned his back against the wall and started breathing heavily from fear of being in the same room as his boss for so long. He held onto the sheet of paper his boss gave him tightly in his hands as he tried to calm himself down. Now what was he gonna do? He didn't want to hurt experiment 817, but if he didn't do what he was told then he would be killed on the spot, and he did not want to die. Mike exhaled slowly and looked at the sheet of paper with the locations, small red dots were spread out everywhere on a map that was printed onto the paper, some in cities, some in forests, mountains, and several other places. There were even some in the middle of the ocean! He gulped quietly and neatly folded the paper before putting it in his lab coat's pocket.

He looked up at the ceiling with a sad look on his face. "Guess I have no choice..." He said to himself quietly before straightening up and quickly walking down the hall to the room where the vans, and dozens of scientists, waited. Once he opened the heavy metal door, several scientists turned to face him, but, by the way they looked, you couldn't even tell that they were scientists, more like businessmen or some kind of secret agents. All the scientists in the room, except Mike, wore pitch black suits, a black tie, white undershirts, some wore black sunglasses, and they all had a small, practically invisible earpiece in one of their ears. Each of the scientists were in groups of four, each group standing, or sitting, next to a large dark grey van. They were going to use tomorrow to get to their chosen locations and then keep watch for experiment 817 once each group got to their post. It was going to be a 24/7 search so two scientists in one group would rest while the other two kept a lookout for a certain amount of time before they would switch shifts.

A female scientist that was on Mike's team walked up to him. "What did he say?" She asked him quietly.

Mike looked at her for a moment before taking the folded sheet of paper out of his pocket and handing it to her. "I'll tell you in a minute Katie. Can you make copies of this then pass them out to everyone please?" He told Katie.

Katie took the sheet of paper and unfolded it to see what it was. "What is it?" She asked him as she looked at it curiously.

"It's a map showing all the locations where the boss wants us to look." He replied.

Katie looked up from the paper and at him. "Oh... I'll get this copied right away then. How many copies do you want?"

"Enough to give at least one to each group."

Katie nodded as she folded the paper back up and put it in her pocket. "Got it, I'll be right back." She said as she hurried to the other side of the large room where a small break room was. Behind the break room was another room that had a fax machine, printers, several computers, and a few other machines.

Instead of starting to tell everyone what the plan was right away, Mike waited for Katie to be done, she had to know what they were going to be doing since she was part of the search too. Mike had already planned out how he was going to explain everything beforehand so he wouldn't freeze in the middle of a sentence thinking of what to say next. He had already chosen the location he and his team would take when he had looked at the map earlier, so all the other groups could pick any location they wanted, except for the one Mike chose. After several minutes of waiting, Katie finally came back with a stack of papers in one hand, and another sheet of paper in her other hand. Once she approached him, she handed him the one sheet of paper but held onto the rest, she would pass the copies out in a minute.

"Alright, everyone listen up. The boss wants us all to go to different locations to search for experiment 817." Mike started, talking loudly so all the scientists in the rooms could hear him. Katie waved at someone in the back that had a projector and a picture of the map suddenly appeared on the wall behind Mike after a couple of seconds. Mike pointed at it from behind him, making every scientist turn their attention to it, the map had several large red circles scattered everywhere on it. "The boss has given me this map to show us where the locations are. I'm going to go ask each group, one at a time that is, which location they want. Katie will give each group at least one map, and when your group decides which location you want, be sure to let me know when I come to you, also be sure to circle the location you want on your map so you don't forget."

"How will we all know which areas have or haven't been taken already?" A scientist from a group in the middle of the room asked.

Mike motioned at the large image of the map on the wall behind him. "Every time a group picks a location, an X will appear on that location so each group that still wants to pick will know what is and isn't available. I have already picked the location for my group, so we will cross it out now." He pointed at one of the red circles that was near the top of the map on the wall in the middle. Several large mountains, rivers, and what looked like a forest surrounded the red circle. "My group and I will go here to keep watch for experiment 817. And before I forget, the coordinates for the locations are on the maps next to each of the circles, so you should all be able to get to your chosen location without having to guess where to go. So, Katie will start passing the maps out and once she starts, I'll start asking each group with a map which location they want until every group has picked one."

Mike looked at Katie and nodded as if to signal her to start passing the maps out. She nodded back at him before passing the maps out to the groups, giving one to each like Mike had said. Once the first few groups had their map, Mike started asking each group with a map which location they wanted to take, it took several hours to go through all the groups. After the last location was taken by the last group, Mike told them all to get some rest and to get ready to move out at dawn. Once everyone left the room, Mike sighed heavily and went to his room that was just down the hallway (yes, all the scientists live in the laboratory) and plopped down on his bed, exhausted. Hopefully experiment 817 was nowhere near the locations on the map his boss had given him, but if he returned empty-handed, he would definitely be killed. Mike sighed slowly again and rolled onto his side, he would just sleep in his work clothes tonight, there wasn't really any point in changing if he was going to put the same clothes on the next morning. Mike closed his eyes, letting his mind wander, and before he knew it, he drifted off to sleep.