New World Order (TNE) [Original]

Chapter 7 - Cogs and Gears

The man in the black lab coat walked around the lab, it was small and brown with windows illuminating the outside with an overwhelming glow. The beige tiles had paint that never seemed to settle no matter how much time it was given and all the scientists would get it all over their shoes. This sparked a program where free lab shoes would be given out before you entered the facility as not to constantly ruin the shoes. This man was completely human no developments, no exposure to the toxin, the world really had become a testing ground and he was one of the puppet masters. This man's name was Francis and he had been working on the transformation toxin for the past 3 years although it had felt like centuries. Of course, he had people helping him but he was always the most passionate about it. What he hadn't realized is that it would be exposed to more than the botanist's club.

"All government officials and those who signed up for the serum creation program please report to meeting room 3A," the speaker sparked up with a calming blue light and breathed through into Francis' ears. What amazing news, a chance to discuss how the experiment is going with the rest of his peers. He had gone to the 3A meeting room more times than he could count but he couldn't recall being passionate or interested in any of the past meetings, until now of course. He jolted off and out of his private laboratory down the hallways and accidentally bumped into Jasmine one of the advisors for the city's chief.

"Heading to the meeting too Francis," she hissed at him in a likely unintentionally demeaning way. He wasn't deaf but he often pretended not to hear people because he wasn't sure what they wanted to hear from him so she had fabricated the idea that he had a hearing problem. Getting all these facts wrong and leading other employees to believe those same facts really hurt their relationship as coworkers.

"Of course," Francis whimpered quickly and efficiently. Yet to Jasmine it was almost a surprise he said anything at all. Francis and Jasmine reached the end of the hallway and collectively opened the red doors in front of them. The doors had always had a certain metallic glaze on them that made them heavier so they had to push together to open them. Jasmine's much more comfortable red dress and light T-shirt made Francis always long to take off his lab coat. Deep down he felt like nobody would even recognize him without his lab coat or ginger hair.

Meeting room 3A was a long room with a table nearly as long. At either head of the table was the chief or at least that's how it appeared from how the mirrors projected his appearance. Francis and Jasmine each got a seat but let one person divide them to avoid any more awkward conversation. That dividing person was one of Francis's best friends and a fellow scientist for the government. Although that scientist had also made one of the dumbest choices, the likes of Francis had never heard of to this point. That scientist had injected the serum into himself as he felt like he was the only truly reliable one to report the results of the experiment. Luckily enough though the serum was far enough along that he survived and became a grey creature with numerous tentacles and nigh unmatched strength. But, even that wasn't enough for him he had to go into the field and observe the lab rats with his new transformation.

"As chief I would now like to commence this meeting," chief yelled. It didn't need to yell for everybody to pay attention but it seemed to enjoy yelling more than anything. Chief was a creature certainly unfamiliar to the above grounders it had it's spine in the front and 6 arms, even calling chief a monster underplayed monsters. It was truly an evolution above the likes of anything else on Earth. Although in truth chief's most formidable power was intimidation and manipulation. If not for chief this whole experiment would've never happened.

"As an advisor I forward this motion," Jasmine commented too afraid to even look at chief. She simply stared ahead and slipped a piece of blue paper onto the middle of the table so that everyone could see it. Working around chief had desensitized the whole workforce to the idea of monsterizing the city. Yet Francis still felt reluctant to ever even touch the serum or gas whichever state it was in.

"So, what is this meeting about exact-" Francis began

"You are all most likely wondering what this meeting I called you to is all about. Well, to answer your question it is a way for us to analyze the data gathered by stage 2 of the transformation gas," Chief interrupted while staring directly at Francis, not with anger but with neutrality. Deep down Francis was a mere speck to it.

"Yes, the data was quite surprising, society seems to have already fallen," a coworker near the back corner of the room explained in a completely monotone voice. It felt louder than it logically could've been as if it was coming from the back of your head and seeping into your ears as a surprise attack. Francis had never spent the effort to figure out what that coworkers name was or even their gender but it always felt like they were right next to him when they talked.

"Now that we have that out of the way, it's time to talk about the metaphorical elephant in the room," Chief continued as if the coworker had all been an extension of it. The coworker seemed to slouch down further into their chair after realizing this and continued listening to chief but with less interest. "That is the fact that we had one of our scientists who created the gas consume some, sparking a sort of in-house transformation."

Hearing this sparked Francis's friend to look directly at chief with one of his many eyes. He was clearly above most of the monster transformations found from the gas, but braving up enough to look directly at chief was still inspirational to Francis. Francis tried it for a second but wimped out and looked away again. Now, you may have noticed that I never gave this monsterized scientist a name, that is because they are simply known as The Unknown by their peers. That seemed like it would've been a lot more difficult to explain in my head but writing it down, it actually just seems like a strange name and nothing more; carry on.

"What about him," The Unknown replied. What The Unknown had not noticed was that when they bent over to look at chief more closely and directly he had activated the speaker system for the room. This system would send out anything that anybody said in the room to the botanist's club and many of the public alert systems around town. Immediately turning the meeting into a public spectacle. Well, I say spectacle but it was really more of a podcast as you weren't seeing anything.