The LAB

Chapter 7

            Seventeen arenas, over 3,000 holding cells, twenty alteration centers, six exam rooms, and a separate bay for those vehicles literally bred for more test subjects; this LAB was growing to be a mini nation. There were several layers to this maze of a complex, all underground, unable to be detected by any device. Trucks came by every month to drop off vehicles imprisoned and on the death sentence, but it only took a few days for them to run out of these vehicles with all the experiments they held. One room was hidden from most, the one that held a teleportation device. Things like that had been just myth, but they had not only made a working one, but also had stolen real people and animals from an alternate dimension to use for their tests. One of Devan's favorite activities was rounding up humans and letting them run through the Maze of a LAB he had built, and sending hounds after them with small cameras mounted on their necks. He'd have some workers place bets as a form of entertainment. Other beasts within cells would sometimes reach out and snag humans, devouring them before the hounds did. That was his favorite part, the element of surprise. This place was the start of his army, and the start of his own rebirth.

The Honda was well over 80 years of age and nobody knew, all from the mass of alterations he had done to himself.

"I will live on forever, and this place will be the start of my army." Devan ran his tongue over his fangs, enjoying the feel of a smaller set behind his usual fangs.

"Yessss, this world will be mine for the taking. For once in my life, a few years will not matter." He chuckled as he shuffled through some papers keeping the legal authorities away from the place.

"Good thing we got the generators going, if not we'd be paying too much for power bills. HAH!" The Accord went back to his work with the papers, content with the kingdom he had created.

A hound lay on its side on the floor of the arena, wheezing and for once, in panic. A loud growl silenced the beast before silvered fangs struck into its face, silencing the room. A loud buzzer sounded as workers noted down the results while the beast was left to do as it wished. The fanged Blazer stood tall on her tires, her brown eyes looking down at the defeated hound in sorrow. They were forced to hunt and kill each other, and the loser was their next meal. She hated fighting, the tests, the fact you had to eat the loser or go hungry for the next few days, and everything else in here. Her body was covered in scars, her bio-mechanical body was metallic skin over metallic bone and it showed. What little muscle she had was all that powered her, and no matter how much she hated it, her stomach growled louder than her anger. Reluctantly, and for the sake of survival, while watched by a dozen workers, she slowly began to tear into the now dead hound and eat as much as she could of it.

"It's been so many years and yet this still sickens me," was all she could think as she continued to fill up.

Metal clanked, cells locked and beasts growled and howled, as chains shut the blazer's jaws and wrapped around her body and axles, while Humvees casually dragged her back to her cell. For a powerful and rather small Blazer, she gave no fight, it was useless after all. They roughly threw her into a cell, removed the chains with insults and locked her away once more. Opening the cell blocks next to her as a reward, some sort of social interaction. The beaten up Blazer was met with the smile of a brown furred and large fanged Humvee, and both vehicles rushed each other with nuzzles and purrs. A Mustang crawled over to the two slowly, being barely half the size of the already smaller-than-usual SUVs made them all seem like true monsters. The Mustang wheezed, weak and on the edge of death from a nasty wound he had gotten from his last battle, but happily squeaking at the nuzzle from the Blazer.

"Can't believe you made it back! You were up against an Alpha Hound from what I heard!" the Humvee spoke, carefully licking at the Blazer's wounds. She just chuckled at him, "Please, those stupid things have nothing on me." She paused, turning her front away from the Mustang nipping at her fender, but eventually, like a well organized wolf pack mother, she backed up slightly to spit out the meat she had stored in a secondary stomach just for the dying beast she had taken under her wing.

"Cunner I hate it when you make me do this," was all she could groan out as the Humvee finished cleaning her wounds the best he could.

"At least he's still alive right now," was the Humvee's only retort as he took a place to lay down in a corner of the cell.

"And you are still an ass, Cougar," the Blazer snorted, taking a moment to clean her claws and fangs.

"Aww, thanks Jaslo!" he smirked and went back to mindlessly chewing on what was left of a shackle on his axle. All three vehicles jumped at the sound of a chuckle from the left of them.

"You kids sure do love those names huh?" The three youngsters excitedly bounded over to the bars with overly excited whines and a few wheezes while the blind old Mustang slowly rolled over to calmly stroke them all on the hood.

"Easy now you three, don't strain yourselves just for me," Larry chuckled, amused by these kids and their actions.

"Haven't heard from you in so long! I was worried," the Blazer whined out, being silenced by a calm tire to her hood.

"I'm not going to leave you guys that easy, don't worry." Larry eventually took his spot, laying against the bars while the three younger vehicles went about their usual routine of self grooming and endless boredom. He would never tell them on why he had given them such names, but for now, they were still his to protect until he couldn't take another breath.

"Sir!" A Ford Fusion stood in pure terror as his boss of a Honda drove over.

"That's insane! You can't be serious?!" The Honda just smiled and with a growl in its voice it spoke...

"Add the Flight Enabling Strain to the subject 312. I want to see if we can break that error we call X04. No matter what happens, we're going to have one hell of a party."