Inner Turmoil- Chapter 14
The night air was cool and the darkness hung around them like a blanket, a feeling of impending doom settling over them like a heavy fog. There was a distinct chill in the air that had never been there before, and if it hadn't been at least eighty degrees that night, then Blossom could have easily dismissed it as a natural occurrence. However, something was nagging at her brain, something that had been for a long time, and she was suddenly reminded of her reoccurring dream.
It was the very same way she always felt after waking up, like there was something in the air that was so familiar, and so deadly, but she couldn't figure out what it was exactly. That made her slightly nervous, because in all honesty they didn't exactly know what they were up against. For all they knew they could be walking right into a former villain's clutches.
No. she thought hastily, shaking her head as if trying to throw those thoughts out of her brain. As she looked out at the complex that stretched out in front of them, dimly lit by low halogen lights, she began to wonder if there was more to this than just a place of their origins. It wasn't like she knew something, but something inside her told her that something really bad was going to happen, something deadly even.
Buttercup shifted anxiously in her crouch, the hood of her black sweater pulled tightly around her face while beads of sweat collected above her lip. Despite the fact that it was the middle of summer, they'd made sure to dress in dark clothing that covered as much of their exposed flesh as possible. Needless to say, it had gotten pretty uncomfortable. They were all wearing various articles of black clothing that had been taken from Buttercup's closet, and despite the fact that it felt just a little silly to be walking around in heavy black sweaters in the middle of summer, it was in fact, for the good of the plan.
"We can slip in through there." Blossom whispered, her voice barely audible to an average ear, but her sisters heard her clearly. She pointed to a stairwell that led somewhere beneath the complex, possibly into some sort of service hallways.
Buttercup eyed the two sentry guards eagerly as they went about their armed patrols. Buttercup was scrutinizing them very carefully from behind their hiding place; a group of very old looking drums full of chemicals that were standing at least 100 feet away from where the guards were keeping watch. She seemed like she was waiting for one of them to trip and fall so she could jump out and pummel them. Buttercup licked her lips expectantly,
"Don't you think its odd that they told me exactly where this was?"
"Yes. And that's why we need to be careful," Blossom said, and she peered around one of the canisters hesitantly, going over the implications of what Buttercup had just said.
It would have been easy enough to find the place on their own, because thanks to their advanced sense of awareness, they would have been able to pinpoint the professor's location and follow the trail. But Buttercup had been quick to inform them that when she'd defied Blossom and went to the Corporation building, the man she'd talked to had hinted to her about a secret lab in the industrial zone of the city. Naturally, that was where they headed first, and the fact that they could almost feel the professor's presence getting stronger as they moved closer only strengthened the belief that they were in the right place.
So now they were far outside of the main city, in a part of town that they normally would have never even thought of visiting on their own time. It was dark, dirty, and just a little unnerving. Almost all the buildings around them were metal and rusted, steam drifting out of the many orifices only to blow away in the gentle summer breeze, but not without leaving a very odd scent in the wind. In fact, if they hadn't known better, they could almost think that they'd dropped into some sort of hellish horror movie, because the factories looked as if they'd been abandoned for years, left to rot and fall apart into crumbled heaps of dusty metal.
Bubbles looked over her shoulder quickly, something that they'd all done a lot in the past half an hour. She was looking at the giant shape of the city baseball stadium, which for some reason was built just outside of the derelict they were now standing in. It was humongous, and its solid black shape against the blood moon sky seemed almost haunting. If not for the sparse streetlights lining the roads it would have covered them in complete darkness, and more than once Blossom swore she saw it move.
Turning back to her sisters, Bubbles whispered suddenly,
"How do we get over there?"
Blossom buried herself in thought for a brief moment, and then she spoke again,
"Well. flying is out of the question. if we can take out that light over there-" and she pointed to the large floodlight that was spilling hot white shine onto the courtyard before them, "-then we can use the darkness to slip in undetected."
"How do we do that without them noticing?" Buttercup whispered eagerly. She was still watching the two guards, who had now started talking to each other.
"I suppose if we do it fast. yes. it might work. but our aim has to be real good." Blossom mumbled, once again checking around her to make sure that nobody was sneaking up from behind.
"Our laser eyes." Bubbles said quickly. Blossom nodded.
"It may not be the easiest way, but right now I'm settling on anything that works."
"Won't that raise some sort of red flags if the flood light just happens to explode?" Buttercup said casually, folding her arms across her knees while she sat in a partial crouch.
"That's true, but I'm sure they already think we're coming anyway."
"What about some sort of diversion?" Buttercup added hopefully, her emerald eyes glittering. Blossom looked at her, alarmed.
"What do you mean?"
"What say I sneak up on those two goons over there-" and she jerked her thumb in the direction of the two men, who appeared to have just lit two cigarettes, the ashes glowing hot orange in the dark space they were standing. "-and I give them the one-two. They won't have a clue-"
"That's dumb." Bubbles said reproachfully. "Someone's bound to notice two beat up guards outside the building. A passerby could even happen see and call the police-"
"Wait," Blossom said quickly, the gears in her head turning. "I think Buttercup is onto something here. that may not be such a bad idea."
"It won't?!" Buttercup and Bubbles both hissed in unison, Bubbles looking slightly hurt and Buttercup puffing her chest out in pride.
"They all ready know what your capable of. and they've already had a run in with you before," Blossom said, nodding her head at Buttercup. "Perhaps it would be sensible for you to act like your breaking in on your own accord, creating a wild distraction in the process. They'll assume that you've come yourself to rescue the professor, or perhaps they'll just think you're here as punishment for them trying to capture you-"
"Ah hah. So meanwhile, you and Bubbles slip in through the basement, undetected, because they're so busy dealing with me." Buttercup said quickly, her excitement growing. Blossom nodded.
"But this has to be done quickly. You can only hold them off for so long before they start to get suspicious. If these people are half as smart as they should be, they should eventually realize that there are in fact three of us, and two of us are missing while the other is going insane on the upper levels."
"Plus, what are the chances that the professor's going to be left unattended?"
"Exactly, Bubbles. which means we may need to split up in case one of us gets caught. That way, we aren't in a big group to be caught all at once-"
"Excellent. Where do I start?" Buttercup said, squirming anxiously where she knelt, eying the two guards with intense interest.
"Well, them I suppose," Blossom said, motioning to the two men by the front of the building. "There is one glaring problem though. we don't have any idea what's waiting for us inside. We've already tried our x-ray scan on the building. That didn't work, because they've taken great care to conceal everything that's inside. we're running in blind, you know."
"Alright, but I'll be too quick for them to really act-"
"That's assuming the only thing they have prepared is hand-held weapons."
The three of them were silent for a while, all of them wondering to themselves if the plan was actually going to work. Blossom watched the men carefully, reading the patterns of their movements as if looking for the best place to strike, but she figured Buttercup would be more than capable of dealing with two scrawny men on her own.
"It's the only plan we've got." Bubbles said carefully, giving Buttercup a concerned stare. "Do you think you'll be okay?"
"Of course, when have I ever let you down?"
"Oh, I can think of numerous times-"
"Don't answer that!" Short silence, then, "I'll give you guys ten minutes. After your time is up you better have the professor, because I'll be outta' there."
Blossom took in a huge breath of air, filling her lungs, then exhaled very slowly, preoccupied in thought.
"We didn't exactly think this through." she whispered, brushing a renegade bang out of her line of vision. "Whenever you're ready, Buttercup."
And Buttercup nodded, gave the both of them one last glance, and disappeared into the shadows to the left of their hiding position. There was a very eerie silence as Blossom lost complete awareness of Buttercup's position, watching the two men carefully as they continued to talk. It seemed like an eternity between the time Buttercup disappeared and the time when something actually happened.
Minutes later there was a very loud shriek from one of the guards, and Blossom saw the distinct outline of her sister in the shadows, moving between the men like a ghost. They were confused and disoriented, not fully aware of what was coming at them in the dark. Then there was the sound of a body falling, closely followed by a loud crack that signaled a broken bone somewhere among the frenzy. The entire scene had taken less than a minute, the guards barely putting up any sort of struggle.
Everything was plunged once again into silence, and despite the fact that the scuffle had been relatively quiet, it had seemed incredibly audible in the gloomy silence. Blossom looked out, saw Buttercup wave to them from the darkness, and she took this as their own cue to move.
Both Blossom and Bubbles moved out into the light, feeling their adrenaline run high as their entire forms became visible. Blossom stole a glance to the front door and peered into the lighted area by the front, but Buttercup had already vanished without so much as a trace. Something nagged at her brain, and she felt hotly bothered to be executing a plan where a million things could go wrong. It was perhaps worry for the professor and for themselves, because his life was in their hands, and if anything went wrong for them. she hated to think of what would happen, but it was reality.
"Blossom!" Bubbles said quickly, grabbing her sister by the shoulder and steering her over to the deep stairwell. She had been so preoccupied with worry that she hadn't been watching where she was going, and had almost careened straight into the bushes past their target.
They crouched down at the top of the stairs, looking down at the concrete structure they led too. There were at least three-dozen steps down, descending into a concrete enclosure that hid the stairs from any passerby on the street. At the very end there was a large steel door that looked strangely ominous in the pale orange light that hung above. It almost made Blossom feel like they were descending into the mouth of hell, which they could have very well been doing for all they knew.
Blossom sighed deeply, feeling her body tremble in the ghostly chill of the air. Something just wasn't right. but she wasn't going to take time listening to her paranoid worries.
"Come on, we're wasting time," she said, trying to ignore Bubbles's concerned glances in her direction. She stood quickly and made her way down the stairs, two at a time, Bubbles following close behind her.
Perhaps she had been half expecting alarms to go off, or perhaps for the door to fly open revealing tons of armed men, but when they made it to the bottom, nothing happened. Without hesitation Blossom grabbed the handle, and to her surprise, the door slid smoothly open.
"You'd think they would lock the door," Bubbles said quietly, looking around. They were in a long deserted corridor, one that looked strangely familiar to Blossom. It was fairly dim in the long stone hall, and there was something in the air that reminded Blossom too much of torture. It was the scent of pain and fear, and Blossom suddenly realized where the place was from.
"My dream." she said softly.
"Huh?"
"This place is in my dream. Maybe not this same corridor. but this is definitely the same building. I don't know what this means. but we need to find the professor fast." She said quickly, making a beeline to a door that was a short distance to their left. Blossom kept checking behind her shoulder, half expecting the murderous assailant from her nightmare to come creeping up behind them. It only strengthened her resolve to get in, and get out as quickly as possible.
Once they made it to the door, it only took a mere brush of Blossom's palm to set the door mechanism in motion. It was hooked to some sort of automatic machine, sort of like the sliding doors of a super market, except these ones actually required some sort of touch before they would slide open. It surprised the both of them, because they weren't quite prepared for whatever was on the other side, if there was anything strange at all.
But there wasn't, at least nothing the two of them noticed right away. From their position it just looked like some sort of laboratory, very bright and cluttered, a drastic change from the hallways they had come from. The room was brightly lit with glowing white lights, and every ounce of the floors and walls seemed to be covered with some sort of steel, glittering in the bright illumination. There were various lab tables lining the walls, operating tables stationed in the center of the room, and at least a dozen different kinds of scientific equipment that Blossom could only speculate their purposes.
But perhaps the strangest thing about the room, was that the machines were operating, each individual mechanism hissing and beeping with some sort of mission. Blossom walked in cautiously, feeling Bubbles enter behind her.
"The professor would have a field day in here." Bubbles mumbled, bringing her hand up to a machine against the wall that was printing out some sort of data readouts, the paper spilling a good six feet out from the machine.
"I don't understand," Blossom said, feeling something creep down her spine. "There's something very familiar about this place." she said, walking over towards a batch of fluid-filled tubes that lined the walls. There was something floating in the tubes, but whatever they were suspended in distorted the shapes, making it hard to make out the actual shapes.
"All these papers look like data tables," Bubbles said, shuffling the long train of printed-paper in her hands. "These readouts are current."
Blossom walked up to one of the tubes and peered inside, screwing her eyes to get a good focus on the object that was suspended there. What she saw made her jump back and shriek in surprise.
Bubbles was at her side almost instantly, trying to get her own look. Blossom had suddenly turned very white, and her hands were covering her mouth, which was opened silently. Bubbles shook her head, unable to see what her sister had seen.
"What is it-" she started to say, but Blossom shook her head fiercely.
"I don't believe it." she mumbled. "We have to turn these machines off. Now." Blossom stated, and then she began walking wildly around the room, looking for something.
"What?"
"We thought they had given up. but they didn't. They're still doing it. even after the accident," Blossom was mumbling, moving between all the computerized screens that lined the walls.
"WHAT?!"
Blossom stopped abruptly and spun on her heels.
"Chemical X experimentation! There are people inside those tubes, Bubbles!"
And Bubbles wheeled around herself, turning back to the stasis tubes as if suddenly the images would be clear. Her face displayed utter revulsion.
"No, it can't be, can it?" she said pitifully, her voice very faint. She was looking at the tubes as if it was something that would physically harm her.
"It is. there's three. boys, I think, in those tubes. we have to stop this, before it's too late. We were lucky, because the professor had been there."
Bubbles turned back to her and met her eyes. For a few scant moments, it was like they were speaking to each other without words, their silent exchange easily understood by each other.
The professor had been there at their birth to take them away from all of this. What if he hadn't been there? What sort of life would they have had to endure? What sort of life would these new subjects have in front of them, if they were to be awoken by none other than White Hazard? And more importantly, what would they be used for?
"They don't deserve that kind of life," Bubbles said quietly. "They didn't ask for it. Yes, we have to set them free."
Blossom hesitated. This was serious stuff. They would practically be killing three human beings, who had no means of defending themselves.
But didn't the end justify the means?
Then-
"We're running out of time!" Blossom suddenly cried, stepping away from the machines towards Bubbles. "We have to find him, now." She said hastily, as if completely dismissing their new find; finding the professor was of course more important.
There was a deafening roar from above them, and the entire building shook as a giant explosion rocked the floors above. The two girls stumbled, and tried to cover themselves as pieces of the ceiling fell in the chaos.
Bubbles looked at Blossom, now considerably dusty. They both knew they had to act fast.
"Look. you take care of this here. I know where the professor is. I'll go find him," she said, and a moment later she had disappeared, slipping into the shadows of the hallway in silence. Blossom stood there for a few scant seconds, racking her brain.
She turned, and took one last fleeting glimpse at the tubes that held the new subjects, a sickening feeling of pity in her stomach. It was hard to tell how old these new beings were, but Blossom knew that wouldn't really have mattered. Most surely they'd never been awake to breath, and most likely they would have never experienced the outside world to even learn the concept of age.
What difference did it make if they'd never experienced life?
Blossom walked back over to one of the tubes and slid her hand along the smooth surface. She could now clearly make out the peaceful serenity that the expression of the boy held. His eyes were closed gently, and his full mouth was expressionless. She even thought she could make out his hair color through the gloom. Red, just like her own? It was hard to tell.
Something caught her attention to the side. There was a flat panel screen that looked as if it was hooked to all three of the tubes. She walked over to it and scanned the text on the screen. It was the life support control.
Her hand hovered over the abort button. It was so close she could feel the energy of the keys meeting the flesh of her fingers.
This place was so familiar; because it was the place they were born in. Blossom could feel the Chemical X in the air, she could smell it, and taste it, and could almost draw it into herself. She dreamed of this place, because it had been so close, calling her back; calling her home. It had been on her sub consciousness, taunting its presence.
But what about her death? The last moments of her life lingered on her thoughts as she watched the computer screen in front of her. It always happened here, but by whom? Who was it that would always end up killing her? Was that person sending her the dream?
She looked back at the stasis tubes and the figures that were lying inside. Could it be them? Could by some chance, they wake up and be ordered by White Hazard to kill her? They were Xantium beings like herself, and would most likely be a formidable enemy-
-But there was only one person she could think of who had always found their way into her brain, and that person was-
-Not now, because something had happened. Something terrible. She had to find the professor and her sisters, quickly, because something had just gone horrible wrong. They needed her; the professor needed her.
Without thinking, Blossom turned from the tubes and darted out of the room. In her haste she had completely forgotten about the three figures suspended in their Xantium bath, and had not pressed the abort key.
The night air was cool and the darkness hung around them like a blanket, a feeling of impending doom settling over them like a heavy fog. There was a distinct chill in the air that had never been there before, and if it hadn't been at least eighty degrees that night, then Blossom could have easily dismissed it as a natural occurrence. However, something was nagging at her brain, something that had been for a long time, and she was suddenly reminded of her reoccurring dream.
It was the very same way she always felt after waking up, like there was something in the air that was so familiar, and so deadly, but she couldn't figure out what it was exactly. That made her slightly nervous, because in all honesty they didn't exactly know what they were up against. For all they knew they could be walking right into a former villain's clutches.
No. she thought hastily, shaking her head as if trying to throw those thoughts out of her brain. As she looked out at the complex that stretched out in front of them, dimly lit by low halogen lights, she began to wonder if there was more to this than just a place of their origins. It wasn't like she knew something, but something inside her told her that something really bad was going to happen, something deadly even.
Buttercup shifted anxiously in her crouch, the hood of her black sweater pulled tightly around her face while beads of sweat collected above her lip. Despite the fact that it was the middle of summer, they'd made sure to dress in dark clothing that covered as much of their exposed flesh as possible. Needless to say, it had gotten pretty uncomfortable. They were all wearing various articles of black clothing that had been taken from Buttercup's closet, and despite the fact that it felt just a little silly to be walking around in heavy black sweaters in the middle of summer, it was in fact, for the good of the plan.
"We can slip in through there." Blossom whispered, her voice barely audible to an average ear, but her sisters heard her clearly. She pointed to a stairwell that led somewhere beneath the complex, possibly into some sort of service hallways.
Buttercup eyed the two sentry guards eagerly as they went about their armed patrols. Buttercup was scrutinizing them very carefully from behind their hiding place; a group of very old looking drums full of chemicals that were standing at least 100 feet away from where the guards were keeping watch. She seemed like she was waiting for one of them to trip and fall so she could jump out and pummel them. Buttercup licked her lips expectantly,
"Don't you think its odd that they told me exactly where this was?"
"Yes. And that's why we need to be careful," Blossom said, and she peered around one of the canisters hesitantly, going over the implications of what Buttercup had just said.
It would have been easy enough to find the place on their own, because thanks to their advanced sense of awareness, they would have been able to pinpoint the professor's location and follow the trail. But Buttercup had been quick to inform them that when she'd defied Blossom and went to the Corporation building, the man she'd talked to had hinted to her about a secret lab in the industrial zone of the city. Naturally, that was where they headed first, and the fact that they could almost feel the professor's presence getting stronger as they moved closer only strengthened the belief that they were in the right place.
So now they were far outside of the main city, in a part of town that they normally would have never even thought of visiting on their own time. It was dark, dirty, and just a little unnerving. Almost all the buildings around them were metal and rusted, steam drifting out of the many orifices only to blow away in the gentle summer breeze, but not without leaving a very odd scent in the wind. In fact, if they hadn't known better, they could almost think that they'd dropped into some sort of hellish horror movie, because the factories looked as if they'd been abandoned for years, left to rot and fall apart into crumbled heaps of dusty metal.
Bubbles looked over her shoulder quickly, something that they'd all done a lot in the past half an hour. She was looking at the giant shape of the city baseball stadium, which for some reason was built just outside of the derelict they were now standing in. It was humongous, and its solid black shape against the blood moon sky seemed almost haunting. If not for the sparse streetlights lining the roads it would have covered them in complete darkness, and more than once Blossom swore she saw it move.
Turning back to her sisters, Bubbles whispered suddenly,
"How do we get over there?"
Blossom buried herself in thought for a brief moment, and then she spoke again,
"Well. flying is out of the question. if we can take out that light over there-" and she pointed to the large floodlight that was spilling hot white shine onto the courtyard before them, "-then we can use the darkness to slip in undetected."
"How do we do that without them noticing?" Buttercup whispered eagerly. She was still watching the two guards, who had now started talking to each other.
"I suppose if we do it fast. yes. it might work. but our aim has to be real good." Blossom mumbled, once again checking around her to make sure that nobody was sneaking up from behind.
"Our laser eyes." Bubbles said quickly. Blossom nodded.
"It may not be the easiest way, but right now I'm settling on anything that works."
"Won't that raise some sort of red flags if the flood light just happens to explode?" Buttercup said casually, folding her arms across her knees while she sat in a partial crouch.
"That's true, but I'm sure they already think we're coming anyway."
"What about some sort of diversion?" Buttercup added hopefully, her emerald eyes glittering. Blossom looked at her, alarmed.
"What do you mean?"
"What say I sneak up on those two goons over there-" and she jerked her thumb in the direction of the two men, who appeared to have just lit two cigarettes, the ashes glowing hot orange in the dark space they were standing. "-and I give them the one-two. They won't have a clue-"
"That's dumb." Bubbles said reproachfully. "Someone's bound to notice two beat up guards outside the building. A passerby could even happen see and call the police-"
"Wait," Blossom said quickly, the gears in her head turning. "I think Buttercup is onto something here. that may not be such a bad idea."
"It won't?!" Buttercup and Bubbles both hissed in unison, Bubbles looking slightly hurt and Buttercup puffing her chest out in pride.
"They all ready know what your capable of. and they've already had a run in with you before," Blossom said, nodding her head at Buttercup. "Perhaps it would be sensible for you to act like your breaking in on your own accord, creating a wild distraction in the process. They'll assume that you've come yourself to rescue the professor, or perhaps they'll just think you're here as punishment for them trying to capture you-"
"Ah hah. So meanwhile, you and Bubbles slip in through the basement, undetected, because they're so busy dealing with me." Buttercup said quickly, her excitement growing. Blossom nodded.
"But this has to be done quickly. You can only hold them off for so long before they start to get suspicious. If these people are half as smart as they should be, they should eventually realize that there are in fact three of us, and two of us are missing while the other is going insane on the upper levels."
"Plus, what are the chances that the professor's going to be left unattended?"
"Exactly, Bubbles. which means we may need to split up in case one of us gets caught. That way, we aren't in a big group to be caught all at once-"
"Excellent. Where do I start?" Buttercup said, squirming anxiously where she knelt, eying the two guards with intense interest.
"Well, them I suppose," Blossom said, motioning to the two men by the front of the building. "There is one glaring problem though. we don't have any idea what's waiting for us inside. We've already tried our x-ray scan on the building. That didn't work, because they've taken great care to conceal everything that's inside. we're running in blind, you know."
"Alright, but I'll be too quick for them to really act-"
"That's assuming the only thing they have prepared is hand-held weapons."
The three of them were silent for a while, all of them wondering to themselves if the plan was actually going to work. Blossom watched the men carefully, reading the patterns of their movements as if looking for the best place to strike, but she figured Buttercup would be more than capable of dealing with two scrawny men on her own.
"It's the only plan we've got." Bubbles said carefully, giving Buttercup a concerned stare. "Do you think you'll be okay?"
"Of course, when have I ever let you down?"
"Oh, I can think of numerous times-"
"Don't answer that!" Short silence, then, "I'll give you guys ten minutes. After your time is up you better have the professor, because I'll be outta' there."
Blossom took in a huge breath of air, filling her lungs, then exhaled very slowly, preoccupied in thought.
"We didn't exactly think this through." she whispered, brushing a renegade bang out of her line of vision. "Whenever you're ready, Buttercup."
And Buttercup nodded, gave the both of them one last glance, and disappeared into the shadows to the left of their hiding position. There was a very eerie silence as Blossom lost complete awareness of Buttercup's position, watching the two men carefully as they continued to talk. It seemed like an eternity between the time Buttercup disappeared and the time when something actually happened.
Minutes later there was a very loud shriek from one of the guards, and Blossom saw the distinct outline of her sister in the shadows, moving between the men like a ghost. They were confused and disoriented, not fully aware of what was coming at them in the dark. Then there was the sound of a body falling, closely followed by a loud crack that signaled a broken bone somewhere among the frenzy. The entire scene had taken less than a minute, the guards barely putting up any sort of struggle.
Everything was plunged once again into silence, and despite the fact that the scuffle had been relatively quiet, it had seemed incredibly audible in the gloomy silence. Blossom looked out, saw Buttercup wave to them from the darkness, and she took this as their own cue to move.
Both Blossom and Bubbles moved out into the light, feeling their adrenaline run high as their entire forms became visible. Blossom stole a glance to the front door and peered into the lighted area by the front, but Buttercup had already vanished without so much as a trace. Something nagged at her brain, and she felt hotly bothered to be executing a plan where a million things could go wrong. It was perhaps worry for the professor and for themselves, because his life was in their hands, and if anything went wrong for them. she hated to think of what would happen, but it was reality.
"Blossom!" Bubbles said quickly, grabbing her sister by the shoulder and steering her over to the deep stairwell. She had been so preoccupied with worry that she hadn't been watching where she was going, and had almost careened straight into the bushes past their target.
They crouched down at the top of the stairs, looking down at the concrete structure they led too. There were at least three-dozen steps down, descending into a concrete enclosure that hid the stairs from any passerby on the street. At the very end there was a large steel door that looked strangely ominous in the pale orange light that hung above. It almost made Blossom feel like they were descending into the mouth of hell, which they could have very well been doing for all they knew.
Blossom sighed deeply, feeling her body tremble in the ghostly chill of the air. Something just wasn't right. but she wasn't going to take time listening to her paranoid worries.
"Come on, we're wasting time," she said, trying to ignore Bubbles's concerned glances in her direction. She stood quickly and made her way down the stairs, two at a time, Bubbles following close behind her.
Perhaps she had been half expecting alarms to go off, or perhaps for the door to fly open revealing tons of armed men, but when they made it to the bottom, nothing happened. Without hesitation Blossom grabbed the handle, and to her surprise, the door slid smoothly open.
"You'd think they would lock the door," Bubbles said quietly, looking around. They were in a long deserted corridor, one that looked strangely familiar to Blossom. It was fairly dim in the long stone hall, and there was something in the air that reminded Blossom too much of torture. It was the scent of pain and fear, and Blossom suddenly realized where the place was from.
"My dream." she said softly.
"Huh?"
"This place is in my dream. Maybe not this same corridor. but this is definitely the same building. I don't know what this means. but we need to find the professor fast." She said quickly, making a beeline to a door that was a short distance to their left. Blossom kept checking behind her shoulder, half expecting the murderous assailant from her nightmare to come creeping up behind them. It only strengthened her resolve to get in, and get out as quickly as possible.
Once they made it to the door, it only took a mere brush of Blossom's palm to set the door mechanism in motion. It was hooked to some sort of automatic machine, sort of like the sliding doors of a super market, except these ones actually required some sort of touch before they would slide open. It surprised the both of them, because they weren't quite prepared for whatever was on the other side, if there was anything strange at all.
But there wasn't, at least nothing the two of them noticed right away. From their position it just looked like some sort of laboratory, very bright and cluttered, a drastic change from the hallways they had come from. The room was brightly lit with glowing white lights, and every ounce of the floors and walls seemed to be covered with some sort of steel, glittering in the bright illumination. There were various lab tables lining the walls, operating tables stationed in the center of the room, and at least a dozen different kinds of scientific equipment that Blossom could only speculate their purposes.
But perhaps the strangest thing about the room, was that the machines were operating, each individual mechanism hissing and beeping with some sort of mission. Blossom walked in cautiously, feeling Bubbles enter behind her.
"The professor would have a field day in here." Bubbles mumbled, bringing her hand up to a machine against the wall that was printing out some sort of data readouts, the paper spilling a good six feet out from the machine.
"I don't understand," Blossom said, feeling something creep down her spine. "There's something very familiar about this place." she said, walking over towards a batch of fluid-filled tubes that lined the walls. There was something floating in the tubes, but whatever they were suspended in distorted the shapes, making it hard to make out the actual shapes.
"All these papers look like data tables," Bubbles said, shuffling the long train of printed-paper in her hands. "These readouts are current."
Blossom walked up to one of the tubes and peered inside, screwing her eyes to get a good focus on the object that was suspended there. What she saw made her jump back and shriek in surprise.
Bubbles was at her side almost instantly, trying to get her own look. Blossom had suddenly turned very white, and her hands were covering her mouth, which was opened silently. Bubbles shook her head, unable to see what her sister had seen.
"What is it-" she started to say, but Blossom shook her head fiercely.
"I don't believe it." she mumbled. "We have to turn these machines off. Now." Blossom stated, and then she began walking wildly around the room, looking for something.
"What?"
"We thought they had given up. but they didn't. They're still doing it. even after the accident," Blossom was mumbling, moving between all the computerized screens that lined the walls.
"WHAT?!"
Blossom stopped abruptly and spun on her heels.
"Chemical X experimentation! There are people inside those tubes, Bubbles!"
And Bubbles wheeled around herself, turning back to the stasis tubes as if suddenly the images would be clear. Her face displayed utter revulsion.
"No, it can't be, can it?" she said pitifully, her voice very faint. She was looking at the tubes as if it was something that would physically harm her.
"It is. there's three. boys, I think, in those tubes. we have to stop this, before it's too late. We were lucky, because the professor had been there."
Bubbles turned back to her and met her eyes. For a few scant moments, it was like they were speaking to each other without words, their silent exchange easily understood by each other.
The professor had been there at their birth to take them away from all of this. What if he hadn't been there? What sort of life would they have had to endure? What sort of life would these new subjects have in front of them, if they were to be awoken by none other than White Hazard? And more importantly, what would they be used for?
"They don't deserve that kind of life," Bubbles said quietly. "They didn't ask for it. Yes, we have to set them free."
Blossom hesitated. This was serious stuff. They would practically be killing three human beings, who had no means of defending themselves.
But didn't the end justify the means?
Then-
"We're running out of time!" Blossom suddenly cried, stepping away from the machines towards Bubbles. "We have to find him, now." She said hastily, as if completely dismissing their new find; finding the professor was of course more important.
There was a deafening roar from above them, and the entire building shook as a giant explosion rocked the floors above. The two girls stumbled, and tried to cover themselves as pieces of the ceiling fell in the chaos.
Bubbles looked at Blossom, now considerably dusty. They both knew they had to act fast.
"Look. you take care of this here. I know where the professor is. I'll go find him," she said, and a moment later she had disappeared, slipping into the shadows of the hallway in silence. Blossom stood there for a few scant seconds, racking her brain.
She turned, and took one last fleeting glimpse at the tubes that held the new subjects, a sickening feeling of pity in her stomach. It was hard to tell how old these new beings were, but Blossom knew that wouldn't really have mattered. Most surely they'd never been awake to breath, and most likely they would have never experienced the outside world to even learn the concept of age.
What difference did it make if they'd never experienced life?
Blossom walked back over to one of the tubes and slid her hand along the smooth surface. She could now clearly make out the peaceful serenity that the expression of the boy held. His eyes were closed gently, and his full mouth was expressionless. She even thought she could make out his hair color through the gloom. Red, just like her own? It was hard to tell.
Something caught her attention to the side. There was a flat panel screen that looked as if it was hooked to all three of the tubes. She walked over to it and scanned the text on the screen. It was the life support control.
Her hand hovered over the abort button. It was so close she could feel the energy of the keys meeting the flesh of her fingers.
This place was so familiar; because it was the place they were born in. Blossom could feel the Chemical X in the air, she could smell it, and taste it, and could almost draw it into herself. She dreamed of this place, because it had been so close, calling her back; calling her home. It had been on her sub consciousness, taunting its presence.
But what about her death? The last moments of her life lingered on her thoughts as she watched the computer screen in front of her. It always happened here, but by whom? Who was it that would always end up killing her? Was that person sending her the dream?
She looked back at the stasis tubes and the figures that were lying inside. Could it be them? Could by some chance, they wake up and be ordered by White Hazard to kill her? They were Xantium beings like herself, and would most likely be a formidable enemy-
-But there was only one person she could think of who had always found their way into her brain, and that person was-
-Not now, because something had happened. Something terrible. She had to find the professor and her sisters, quickly, because something had just gone horrible wrong. They needed her; the professor needed her.
Without thinking, Blossom turned from the tubes and darted out of the room. In her haste she had completely forgotten about the three figures suspended in their Xantium bath, and had not pressed the abort key.