immediately removed them from Dr. Rao’s care. Over the years he overheard his techs whisper about secret experiments with these dogs where they were trained to hunt down prey and rip them to pieces by teleporting sections away. He paid those rumors no mind, but in hindsight he wished he had. Maybe then he would’ve discovered the two secret levels earlier where his work was being used to experiment on humans.
He shuddered again and took one more quick look around the lab. There was nothing left. He had succeeded in erasing all of his research and knew that his assistant had followed his instructions to the letter.
“What a damn fool I have been!” he again cursed himself.
He foolishly believed that the Company was funding his research purely for the benefit of research. That delusion came crashing down earlier in the evening when his assistant quietly but urgently informed him that she had discovered some abnormalities with the facility schematics. A quick but thorough check by him revealed two hidden levels below his and a quick jump with Marley, his favorite blink! dog uncovered the existence of a virtual chamber of horrors.
Miles of hallways lined with cells occupied with what could only be the unsuccessful results of his work done on human patients. Humans! Grotesque failed experiments whimpering pitifully for help, grasping at bars that kept them contained. He wandered for what felt like an eternity, gazing into each and every cell before he began to recognize a pattern. The occupants in each cell were vaguely human; some had missing body parts, some had extra body parts, some seemed to be turned inside out, and some seemed to be half human and half animal. He began to notice that the further down the hallway he went, the younger the occupants in each cell became. His horror grew as it became evident his research was used on patients as young as 15, 14…he walked on and saw hideously deformed human children as young as 5 and 6 crying piteously out of mouths filled with sharks’ teeth, or as in one cell, of a child crying out of the seven different mouths that appeared all over his head.
Marley whined loudly beside him, anxious to get away from there, but Dr. Rao continued. He came to the end of the hallway, to a door marked Nursery and swallowed. He couldn’t come to bring himself to believe what he had seen, yet knew behind this door would be a much larger tragedy. Would the Company go as far as experimenting on babies? He slowly opened the door, and anger now beginning to replace his horror, he stormed into the room to confront…..no one?
He entered a brightly lit hospital nursery ward with no technicians in sight. Before him were two neat rows of four incubators each, covered with colorful sheets. He quickly looked around and inched up to the first incubator, leery about looking inside, but knowing he had too. The horrors in the hallway got worse the younger the occupants inside each cell became, and he believed that once he saw what hideous experiments lay below those sheets, his descent into insanity would be complete. He grabbed the end of the sheet and hesitated. Steeling his resolve, his heart beating furiously, he yanked off the first sheet, a cry of revulsion ready to spring forth from his lips as he looked down onto a …beautiful baby boy? He gasped, and scurried around the room flinging off the coverings from each incubator. Inside each one lay a perfectly formed human child. No grotesque appendages, no deformities, absolutely perfect.
“My god,” muttered Dr. Rao. “They must not have been experimented on yet.” He looked to Marley. “What are we going to do?”
“Woof!” replied Marley.
“You’re right!” exclaimed Dr. Rao. “We have no time to waste!” He crouched down beside Marley and grabbed his big head and gazed deeply into his eyes. “Listen boy, you have to help me get these babies away from here!”
“Woof! Woof!” replied Marley, shaking his head up and down, understanding exactly what Dr. Rao was asking of him.
They quickly set to work. One at a time, Dr. Rao laid one of the babies on the ground and watched as Marley gently placed a paw on its chest. With a loud blink!, Marley teleported away back to Dr. Rao’s personal lab, taking the child with him. Before long, they had retrieved all 8 children, and when Marley teleported back with Dr. Rao, he quickly assembled the rest of his research team and informed them of what he had discovered. Among shouts of protests and cries of outrage, Dr. Rao quickly set to work. He tasked his lab techs with ensuring all projects currently being worked on would be discontinued and all of the research destroyed. As they set out on their task, he pulled his personal assistant, Dr. Yagamuchi, to the side.
“Karen,” he said looking at his assistant, “you must get the babies out of here.”
“I can be more help to you here!” she disagreed. “You know that when the Company finds out-“
“Hush,” he said fondly placing a finger on her lips and looking deeply into her eyes. “It has to be you. I must make sure all of our research here is destroyed so that this can never happen again.”
“Send someone else. I know all of the same protocols you do and together we can erase the security tapes and…”
“No, Karen, we can’t. We were only able to loop the security footage for several minutes. Right now they are back online and they have begun to notice the purging in the computers. They will be here soon to investigate. You have to get the children out of here before then. We helped cause this; we must bring it to an end. I must bring it to an end and make sure this never happens again.” He walked over the main computer and began to enter a long string of code.
“Is that what I think it is?” Karen asked looking over his shoulder.
“It’s the only way to be sure,” he replied as he entered in the last few numbers. Immediately red lights began flashing and a loud mechanical voice came over the loudspeakers.
“Warning! Warning! Self-destruct sequence initiated. Total facility annihilation in 20 minutes and counting. All personnel: please evacuate!”
Karen looked at Dr. Rao then hugged him tight. They remained that way for a full minute, and then slowly pulled apart. She nodded her head.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“Marley is my strongest blink! dog. Being a golden retriever, he has the farthest teleportation distance and endurance of any of the other dogs. Use him to get the babies out of the facility. Find somewhere safe for them. I don’t know where…”
“I know of an orphanage 2 counties over. Can he make it?” Karen asked.
“No, that’s too far. He would have to make too many trips. He’s never done something like that before.” Dr. Rao ran his hands through his hair trying to think of a way. Marley trotted over to him and whined and licked his hand. Dr. Rao looked at him. “No Marley, I can’t ask you to do that. It’s too much teleporting.”
“Woof! Woof!” Marley jumped up and placed his paws on Dr. Rao’s shoulders. He gazed intently into his eyes and licked his face. He trotted over to Dr. Yagamuchi and placed himself below her hand.
“It will be cutting it close Karen,” Dr. Rao said while gazing lovingly at Marley, “but he is willing to try. You will have to go with him first so he will know where to return to and then send him back for the babies individually. Now go, quickly!”
With a loud blink!, Marley teleported Karen away. Dr. Rao quickly got to work. Every few seconds Marley would teleport back into the lab to retrieve another baby. Dr. Rao tried not to notice, but each time Marley returned, more and more bald patches began to appear around his body as the effects of the massive teleportation effort began to take its toll. By the time he returned for the last baby, he was practically hairless, tongue lolling out, and limping badly. He gazed sadly at Dr. Rao as he shakily placed his paw on the chest of the last baby. Dr. Rao crouched down and patted Marley on his head.
“Good boy, Marley. Good boy,” he said as tears ran down his face over the condition of his favorite dog. Marley woofed slightly and teleported away.
That was several minutes ago. Looking around his lab, watching the fire in the trashcan devour the last of his notes, gazing at his computer screens as the uploaded virus deleted years of research,