"Well, hello there," a gorgeous man said to Serenitee, who was laying on her back inside a well lit, but very busy looking space.
"Uhhh," was all she managed to say. The difference between the dark, cramped hall with a scary monster in it, and this bright room with an angelic looking man, knocked the sense right out of her.
"Hmmm, you're an interesting looking specimen, aren't you? What has happened out there?" the man said. He was so calm, while Serenitee was still afraid for her life.
"The door opened! Fall back," she yelled as loud as she could. Sitting up, she could see the 3 lupines in the dark hall, illuminated by the flash of their energy weapons. Wilfrend looked back, shock on his face briefly. Then he ran forward, a laser lined blade in his hand. He shouted something over his shoulder that Serenitee didn't catch, but Rem and Rom fell back into the open doorway.
"Woah. You guys are exotic. Have you been spliced with wolf DNA, or is some sort of hybridization happened over the years?" the man said, though he seemed to be talking to himself.
Serenitee watched as Wilfrend closed the distance to the armour plated monster. She could hear his yell of rage and fear as he swung his blade at it. A tear rolled down her cheek, but she didn't move to wipe. So she was surprised when a gentle finger brushed it away.
"A friend of yours, I take it?" the man said, nodding towards the open doorway. She just dumbly nodded.
'I guess now we have time to close the door and think of our next move. I'm sorry Wilf,' she thought.
She watched the man approach the door. His hair was long, but clean, and he wore strange clothing that seemed somehow primitive and elegant. His feet were bare, but he walked to the open door with rubble at the threshold without pause. 'He'll close it now. Whoever he is, he's probably been hiding from the mutant monsters in here for a while,' Serenitee thought.
Then the man disappeared. One moment he was at the door, and the next it was empty but for a cloud of dust.
"What the hell," Rem said, seeing the disapearing trick too. They all stared, then heard a grating scream that cut off abruptly. The silence after that scream seemed thick around them.
"Should we go out, or close the door," Rom said.
"Lets see if Wilf is ok, cover me," Rem said, heading back to the opening. Except Wilfrend walked in first, supported by the strange man.
They walked in a few more feet, Wilfrend was bleeding a little from his side. The man's right hand was covered in black goo.
Serenitee and Rem moved to close the door, fearing the monster rushing in.
"Don't. Touch. That. Door," the man said. His tone was so frosty and different than his earlier speech, that Serenitee froze immediately. Rem was a little too focused on the door, and the monster beyond, so he ignored him.
Rem was knocked back from the door, so hard his feet left the ground and he landed in a heap on the floor, 10 metres away.
"Please, don't touch the door. I'm forever in your debt that you managed to open, so let's not all get trapped in here. Ok?" the man said, more calmly now.
"Don't worry guys, that bastard outside won't be bothering us. This guy killed it. With his bare hands," Wilfrend said. His tone told them all that they should pay attention, that he considered this unarmed man dangerous.
"Well, I couldn't let my first guests, and saviors, be harmed. Right? Don't worry, I'll have Dino and Baby keep an eye on the entryway." As if from thin air, two very large chimpanzees walked out of the lab and towards the door. One had a face nearly like a human, hairless and with bright blue eyes, but still clearly a lower order of primate. The other was more conventional except for the big beautiful frill on its head, like a mohawk.
"Holy shit, more of them," Serenitee was so jumpy, and so worried these were like the monsters outside, that she raised her rifle. Immediately the muzzle was pushed down, as the man had materialized beside her.
"We are all a little stressed here. Come inside, lets have some tea. I have a lot of questions, and I bet you do as well."
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Elliot stared at his four strange guests from across his lab bench slash dining table. 'They have all been heavily gene modified. Hybrid wolf people would not be this intelligent. What the hell has happened while I've been trapped,' he thought. 'Clearly my early discoveries lived on, but fuck, how long have I been in here?'
Time had become something of an abstract concept for him while he was here. Cut off completely from the universe, with no sun and moon or any observers, he had entered into a state of timelessness. He couldn't even measure time based on how old he was getting, since he had experimented on himself quite heavily. After the first experiment, he had gotten bolder, and, possibly, reckless with the augmentations he discovered through his singleminded research.
'A day in the lab might have been an hour or a month in the outside world. Without outside observation, time is meaningless. Clearly though, for advanced editing to be at this level, a lot of time has passed. Decades maybe?' he wondered to himself. 'I need to be careful, I don't know what the world is like anymore, and I know some dangerous science now. This lab could save or destroy whatever passes for humanity now.'
They all drank his simple green leaf tea, looking around at the complicated space that was part immaculate science lab, and part gardening experiment. There were a lot of vials, tubes and equipment that all seemed dedicated to plant and food production.
'How long has this guy been trapped here?' Serenitee wondered. Then she said, "How long have you been here, Mr...?"
"Oh! How rude. You can call me Elliot. Those are my lab assistants, Dino and Baby," Elliot said, gesturing towards the chimps at the opening. "Honestly, I have no idea how long I've been in here. It feels like forever though. May I ask, did you come here to rescue me?"
The four team members looked at each other, and then the lupines all looked at Serenitee. 'Thanks guys,' she thought.
"Well, this lab is famous, that's why we came. Truly, we didn't know another scavenger had found it already and gotten trapped though." She looked at Wilfrend, who nodded that she could continue with the lead. "Since you were here first, and must know everything that would be valuable here, we'd be happy to do an even split of the haul with you. 20% each, plus, you know, we let you out," she said with a smile. She had actually just greatly modified the deal she'd made with Wilfrend, it was a 60/40 split in her favour before. Considering how much they had sacrificed, she was happy to give more to his team, and share with this guy. 'He killed that rat monster too,' she remembered, still a little surprised by that.
"Really? Not too much was produced in this lab before it was sealed. I'm happy to hear that the McMahon Genome Research Lab is famous still though," Elliot said, a big smile on his face.
"McMahon?" said Rom. He turned to Serenitee, "Aren't we hear for the most famous lab in Earth's history? The Cerses Lab."
"Yeah. It's true, the great Dr. Cerses didn't really get to do much work in this lab before the calamity. He always referenced it as where his ground breaking gene editing technology was born though," Serenitee answered.
"I'm sorry. Did you say 'the great Dr. Cerses' and his gene editing technology?" Elliot said. He looked like someone had hit him in the face. 'That little shit, Steve. I knew he would stab me in the back as soon as he got the chance. This just proves how quiet I have to be about my discoveries, these people are here for intellectual property I guess.'
"Yes, Dr. Cerses, the father of humanity 2.0. His institute and family ushered in humanity 3.0 and 4.0 as well. The market has diversified a little in the last generation, but they are still the biggest gene editing company out there." she paused and continued. "I had my own genes edited to an elfin variant a decade ago by Cerses Group. An argument with my parents that went extreme," she laughed, and the lupines chuckled knowingly.
"Sorry again. Did you say 'last generation'? Just when did he, Dr. Cerses, abandon this lab?" Elliot's head was swimming. Things had changed even more than he thought. Maybe he shouldn't be so surprised by these modified people. After all, he'd accomplished a lot in a very short time, and he was working by himself.
"Oh, you must know? The calamity was just over 200 years ago. Right guys," she said, looking at the lupines for confirmation.
"200 years," Elliot said, as he fell out of his seat.