(I apologize for the lack of content as I have been busy with work. After this I will be cooking up the plot for The Journey, sequel to my Survival of the Foal-ist story. So it will be some time before I post anything related to it. In the meantime I hope you all enjoy the conclusion to Lab Rats.)
“Finally!”
Gary said as he put the last fluffy in its cage. Jacob stood off to the side with a water bottle in hand.
“It took us 3 hours to get these fluffies caged up.”
“Feels like a lot longer than that.” Gary said as he stood up and brushed himself off.
The sketti traps worked better than they anticipated. It only took the better part of five minutes for all the loose fluffies to get caught as the smell of their favorite thing in existence was too much to resist. All that was left was to put the fluffies into secure cages until they could figure out what to do with them as Gary anticipated that this project would now be over thanks to what happened with Chris, but Chris was the last thing on Gary’s mind as he wanted to get everything cleaned up before morning.
“Every last one of them is accounted for, save for the ones that died…”
He looked over to the one fluffy that helped them get the sketti bait in the first place whom they gave the name Cyan since she didn’t have a name to begin with.
“And the cops should be here in a couple minutes to take care of that asshole Chris.”
Gary nodded with satisfaction as he double-checked all the fluffies. As Jacob watched, Cyan stood on the box next to him, watching them both. Then the doorknob started to rattle.
“What the…?” Gary said surprised.
“The cops shouldn’t be here yet.” Jacob said as he slowly drew his revolver. He approached the door, ready to swing the door open, almost expecting Chris on the other side.
Jacob paused and glanced in Gary’s direction. “Be ready for anything.”
Gary went and grabbed a stool, holding it like he was a lion tamer as Jacob grabbed the door handle. He then rapidly swung it open…
“EEEEEP!!!” …only to find Rebecca standing there.
“Oh thank god.” Jacob said, lowering his gun.
“Rebecca?” She was the last person Gary expected at this hour of the day. “What are you doing here?!”
It took a moment for Rebecca to answer. “I wanted to come to pick up my things, and there were a bunch of cops outside wanting to get in so…”
She was interrupted by a series of footfalls, which then manifested into two police officers.
“Good morning gentlemen.” The first officer said.
“Would you two like to explain what happened here?”
Jacob and Gary looked at each other. Gary spoke first. “Might want to make yourselves comfortable, It’ll take a while.”
For the next couple of hours, Gary and Jacob took turns explaining what had happened in the lab over the course of the night. Cyan just sat and listened as they gave the cops their testimony. Rebecca stood outside listening as two other officers carried away a still-unconscious Chris, dragging his feet as they took him to their car.
One officer stood listening while the other sat taking notes as Gary and Jacob told their story. “Okay so let me make sure I heard you correctly… Your colleague made an attempt on your lives, and in the scuffle, you accidentally released all these… fluffies… out of their cages… then you knocked your attacker unconscious and spent the rest of the night getting all the fluffies back under containment. Is that correct?”
Jacob nodded. “That’s correct, officer.”
The officer nodded before moving on with his questioning.
“Right before your scuffle, you had a confrontation with your colleague who, in your terms, was conducting illegal experiments on the fluffies in full defiance of state ordinances. Is that correct?”
Gary nodded. “Correct, officer.”
The officer nodded as he looked over his notes. “Before we go, do any of you have anything else to declare, or is that everything?”
Gary and Jacob looked at each other and then shook their heads.
“Alright then, I guess that’s-”
“Actually…” Rebecca interjected. “I have something to declare.” Gary had a wide-eyed look on his face while Jacob looked with raised eyebrow out of surprise.
The officer gave a slight shrug. “Alright ma’am. Let’s hear it.”
Rebecca cleared her throat. “I know where Chris was doing his experiments.” All four of them had wide-eyed looks on their faces.
Moments later, Rebecca is leading the two officers and Jacob and Gary to a red door down the hall, the door was wide open, but the lights were out, and nothing could be seen inside.
“Do have anything on what kind of experiments your colleague was conducting?”
Gary shrugged. “I only know that he was conducting his experiments without our knowledge, and without the approval of our project lead. I have no clue as to what exactly he was doing in there.”
One cop entered the room with Gary by his side as Rebecca looked over his shoulder. Gary flipped the switch… they were NOT prepared for what they saw.
“Oh… my… god.”
As the lights flickered on, there was blood and gore everywhere, a dissected fluffy sat held together only with pins. There were several jars filled with fluffy testicles with small plugged tubes sticking out. There was a chair in the middle toward the back large enough for a person with restraints where the neck, wrists, and ankles would be and a pair of stirrups. The leather in the chair was stained with sweat, urine… and a little bit of blood.
“Oh god.” Jacob said as he caught a whiff of the room. It stunk of feces, urine, dried blood, and vomit all at once.
The worst was yet to come, as there were three large cages with fluffy sheddings on the floor. All three were wide open… and unoccupied. Gary and Jacob walked up to one table with another dissected fluffy on it. It was horrifically disfigured both from birth-born mutations and various surgical experiments; held in place by pins and restraints.
“What the hell was he doing in here?” Gary said. Jacob cautiously poked the seemingly dead fluffy. Rebecca stood beside them watching. She stood with tears starting to stream down her eyes as she saw the fluffies expression of pure horror and unmeasurable pain.
“hewwwwwp…”
Until it came back to life with a hoarse voice, its vocal cords wrecked from what could’ve been endless screaming. Rebecca screamed out in terror.
“Oh god!” Gary was about to vomit… Jacob had the most drastic reaction.
“JESUS CHRIST!!!” He yelled as he immediately drew his magnum and fired a shot at the fluffy point-blank.
The shot rang out and the two officers drew their own sidearms.
“What the hell is going on?!!” One of the officers demanded.
Upon inspection, the fluffy survived the shot, even though the bullet penetrated right through its spine and punched a hole in the tray and the table beneath it. The fluffy breathed as best as it could from its ruptured lungs, unable to move its lower legs.
“…mum…mah…hewp… babbeh…uhhhhh”
It gave off one last hoarse breath before it went limp. The officer started at the now definitely dead fluffy. Had the fluffy been well and healthy, Jacob would’ve gotten an abuse charge as prescribed by Illinois’ Fluffy Rights Act of 2021. But in this case, the cop decided to let it slide as a mercy killing. Plus most cops didn’t even enforce it in most cases anyway.
“Good work, sir.” One of the cops said.
“Thanks.” Jacob said as he slide his gun back into his holster.
“Next time,” The other cop began. “Take better control of your reflexes, sir. You can’t just wipe that thing out when under stress, or someone could get hurt. You understand?”
Jacob initially wanted to tell the cop off, but in a split second thought back to Johnny when he wiped his gun out at that party while drunk. Jacob now realized he was doing that himself while sober. He didn’t want to end up like Johnny.
He shook his head in agreement and turned to the cops. “I… I’ll do that.” That was all he said and the cops nodded.
Hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!
Gary was busy vomiting into a trash can by the side.
The two cops looked to each other. “We need to seal this place off. Get the biohazards team in here.” The second cop nodded in agreement.
Later, there was yellow and black striped tape blocking entry to Chris’s secret lab as men and women in hazmat suits gathered up all the items on the tables as evidence while they prepared everything else for disposal.
Outside in the parking lot, Jacob, Gary, and Rebecca stood waiting incase the cops had any further questions. It was close to five in the afternoon when the investigator in charge came out of the building and walked over to them.
“I don’t think we’ll need anything else from you guys now. You’re all free to go.”
Gary sighed. “Thanks.”
“Although I’m sure they might ask you all to testify before a judge with that Chris fellow, but that’ll probably be weeks away.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
The three of them walked over to their cars, which were conveniently right next to each other. Cyan sat in Jacob’s car watching everything go down, alone for hours, even though Jacob let her out now and again to use the bathroom.
“I guess this means the project is over, huh?” Jacob asked.
“Yep.” Gary said with a sigh of resignation.
“I don’t know what’ll happen with me. My internship is effectively over. I don’t know if it’ll count for my doctorate now.” Rebecca said.
“I honestly don’t know either, Rebecca. I can’t get ahold of Dr. Kritzer. This might be the end of my science career as I know it when word about all of this gets out.”
“Well.” Jacob started. “I definitely know I’ll have to get a new job… again. So I better start looking right away.”
Gary ran his hand across his face. “Until Chris’s trial, I guess this is goodbye.”
Jacob nodded. “Yeah.” Jacob said nothing for a moment. “Goodbye, Gary… Rebecca.” Jacob climbed into his car.
“Goodbye, Rebecca. I’m sure I’ll see you at the courthouse soon.”
Rebecca didn’t say anything, only nod as Gary climbed into his car before she climbed into hers.
Jacob watched them disappear into their vehicles before starting the ignition. Cyan climbed up between him and the right front seat.
“Wewe we guin?” She asked.
Jacob was so exhausted and demoralized he could only mutter one word.
“Home.”
Rebecca and Gary drove out first, then Jacob. Even though It was only a twenty-some minute drive, it felt like hours before Jacob and Cyan got home. Jacob, carrying Cyan in his arm, opened the front door to the sight of Vasily dancing on the table in the living room to Hardbass.
“Hey! Prevet my friend! You been gone for over a day. What happened?”
Jacob took one look at Vasily and his mood was completely shot.
“Jacob… what happened?” Vasily repeated, this time with worry in his voice.
Jacob still didn’t answer.
“Jacob… what… the blyat happened?!”
fin