Well, there they go. Without me, of course, because I was to scared to go with them. Damn claustrophobia!
Dot watched as the glass hoods of the tubes came down, sealing the tubes. A strange green fluid filled the tubes, but Dot's friends were already asleep, or 'in stasis' as the assistants called it. All kinds of strange lights started glowing, she heard things bleeping and other strange noises emanating from all sides. She felt uncomfortable with all this strange stuff around. But she wasn't the only one who was ill at ease. The stern-looking woman didn't seem to be comfortable either.
All of a sudden, there was a very strange sound coming from one of the machines. And the tubes started shaking slightly. Mr.Sinjohn looked at his colleague.
' Esmeralda, what's going on?' he asked. The stern looking woman, or should I say Esmeralda, shook her head.
' I don't know.' She answered. She started checking the machines, but apparently couldn't find anything. One of the assistants came running to her, and showed her some paper which was full of calculations. They talked for a while. Then they turned to the machines, and started calibrating all kinds of new data into them. Dot became a bit scared, everybody seemed to be confused. Then the shaking stopped. The tension lifted. Esmeralda turned towards the tubes, looked then over a bit and pushed one of the red buttons on the side. On the inside of the dome, there were now four screens, each on a different side of the wall. Three were filled with darkness, number four was the inside of one of the tubes. So, we're gonna sneak into their brains, Dot thought to her self. Monitoring what they do. Then she remembered something.
' Excuse me, madam?' Dot said to Esmeralda.
' Yes, young woman?'
' Ehm, if time passes faster for them than it does for us, how will we monitor what happens, without having to watch some sort of fast forward thing?'
Esmeralda thought about this, then answered.
' we only watch things that stand out for them. When their emotions go off the scale. And we're taping it, so we can watch it later and slow it down a bit.'
Dot nodded. That made sense. She swallowed, then asked another question.
' What just happened, with everything shaking and going nuts?'
' The machines were calibrated for four, but there were only three tubes occupied. We forgot to re-calibrate the machines.' Esmeralda answered.
Dot felt horrible. Because of her, something might have gone wrong. Someone might have got hurt. Her musings were disrupted by Mr.Sinjohn, who was having a very animated conversation with Esmeralda. She looked concerned, and Dot felt even worse when she heard flares of what was going on.
'… think something is wrong. They're not where they are supposed to be…Antoinette in Lord of the Rings… in Hellsing, Janet in Gundam Wing… call it off.'
Esmeralda looked angry. When she spoke, her voice sounded restrained.
' … will continue, just a variable… doesn't really matter… data important for this research.'
Dot couldn't see how, since everyone got mixed up, and wouldn't lust at all, probably. But Esmeralda seemed to be in charge, and her will was law around here. So the experiment comtinued.
Dot watched the screens anxiously for information about her friends' whereabouts.
