The Lab

The Lab

“Shit, what did I touch?” I exclaimed as a series of hovering alien symbols began cycling in front of me.

“Hold on,” Marie replied, punching commands into her own virtual data pad. “I’m not sure you really touched anything.” She peered into the illuminated screen, studying the numbers from the algorithm that was able to loosely translate the crooked icons into English. “It looks like a countdown.”

“A countdown to what?” I wondered.

“I’m not sure but this is the most amount of data we’ve ever been able to get from these systems. Its progressing down through a series and my programming is associating these symbols to specific numbers and correlating them to words.” Then, a new alien message paused in front of us.

“What does it say?”

“It says…‘sending’” she explained and the countdown resumed.

"Well, what the hell is it sending and to whom?” I asked, the message flashing again as the alien numbers continued cycling down.

“Honestly, I just don’t know,” she explained, typing data into her computer as fast as new information would come in. “We’ve been studying this site for a generation and have never been able to get this much at once.”

“So, this is how you choose to spend your vacation?” I joked.

“Hey, it’s better than sitting in a lab,” she replied. “Besides, someone’s got to do it. I mean, a place like this is so heavily classified that we’re not exactly overflowing with xenomathematicians. There’s maybe a half dozen people in the whole world who could even remotely decipher the code here.”

“I get it. But you passed up a two week paid vacation to Olympus Mons to sit in a dusty old cave in Peru and stare into a datapad. I mean, this old underground city’s probably thousands of years old. It’s not going anywhere.”

“Millions actually,” she clarified, never taking her gaze away from the streams of information. I knew she was in her own zone because she suddenly clammed up, focusing wide-eyed on the data surging across her display.

“So what is this place?” I wondered and she ignored me. “Um, hello?”

“Huh? What?” she finally replied and smirked. “Lieutenant, you’re here to defend the facility, not ask questions.”

“Blah…blah,” I mocked. “I’ll let my men worry about that.”

Marie looked up from her screen, if just to act the part of the professor. “We’re not exactly sure. All we know is it’s alien…and extremely advanced. Way more sophisticated technologically than we are now.”

“This place is huge. Why’s it underground?” I asked.

“I have a theory,” she said. “I actually submitted it to the Agency but never heard back.”

“Yeah? So what’s the deal?” I ran my hand along one of the dusty panels.

“I think it was some sort of hidden lab,” she said. “I mean, we’ve discovered all sorts of things…examination tables, clean rooms, refrigeration chambers, scanners, dissection equipment…”

“Wait a minute,” I suddenly stopped her with some concern. “What the hell were they dissecting?”

“Who knows!” she said with an excited chuckle. “This place hasn’t been used in over a million years!”

Suddenly, the alien display froze and an alarm sounded on her datapad. “What’s happening?”

“The countdown…it’s stopped.” She punched commands into the interface, studying the readings feverishly. “It says, message received.”

“What does that mean?” I asked and systems all around us began to activate, jumping to life. Old dormant consoles flashed alive with otherworldly symbols and charts and diagrams displayed all over the room, a lightshow of information. A display of the Earth materialized and alien coordinates pinpointed locations around the globe.

Marie marveled at the information pouring in nonstop. “There are dozens of facilities like this one hidden all over the world.”

Then, from an emitter in the center of the room, we found a familiar image circling on its long axis. It was obviously a human form, standing in anatomical position, alien icons and pointers scrolled over the body as layer upon layer of its structure was removed before the image would cycle back and begin again. “What are we looking at here?” I wondered but she didn’t answer. “Well?”

“I…I,” she looked up from her screen but was obviously shaken.

“Spit it out!” I demanded.

“You…you didn’t touch anything. The countdown started externally.”

“How?”

Marie paused before answering, terrified by a new discovery. “We must have hit ten billion people.”

“What does that mean?”

“This place isn’t a lab,” she explained. “It’s a slaughterhouse.”


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