"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the second annual Columbia University Science Expo. If you were here last year, you'll notice that there a far greater number of exhibits this year. Quest Aerospace has generously donated several million dollars to fund the various projects that you will be learning about today, as well as the research facility we're in right now", announced a well-dressed woman standing on a small podium.
Having no interest in the speaker's speech, Alexia looked at the people around her.
Many of the attendants were what she had expected; middle-aged men wearing Star Trek tee-shirts, high-school students on a field trip, and professors from various universities. Alexia was probably the only university student in the whole building.
The woman started introducing the scientists who worked in the labs, each one taking a turn explaining their area expertise. Like many of the high-school students were doing, Alexia started to wander away towards the exhibits themselves.
Pretty soon, she realized that none of the exhibits interested her, and she debated whether she should just leave. It wasn't as if she had wasted any money by coming here.
As Alexia started toward the door, she saw something out of the corner of her eye that made her stop. A man was standing near a door marked 'Authorized Personnel Only', looking around nervously. Alexia watched as the man pulled out a key card and inserted it into the slot beside the door, and then pulled out two small metal instruments. It took a moment for Alexia to register what she was seeing; the man was holding a set of lock picks, and was clearly about to use them to break into the research facility.
Alexia moved a bit closer to him, hidden from his view by a glass case containing genetically engineered reptiles, and continued to watch as the man picked the lock on the door. She waited as the man unlocked it and started to go inside, looking around for a security guard.
She couldn't see any, and hesitated a moment before deciding what to do. Using a trick she'd seen in movies before, she opened her purse as the man disappeared inside the labs, pulling out a round case of lip gloss. She crouched down and rolled the lip gloss toward the door. As the door closed, the lip gloss became wedged between it and the doorway, keeping it open. Alexia crept to the door and peeked inside to make sure the man wouldn't see her go in, and stepped inside.
She was standing in a narrow, brightly-lit corridor. The glare off of the white walls from the lights assaulted her eyes. Alexia walked to the end of the corridor and turned left, looking for any open doors that might lead to a security guard. She walked down a few more hallways, stopping as she realized that all of them were the same. She started to turn back, but couldn't remember which turns she had taken. She was lost.
Then she heard a noise coming from a nearby room, like glass hitting metal.
'Please be a security guard', Alexia thought. She rounded the corner and spotted a room with its door slightly ajar.
"Hello?", Alexia asked as she nudged the door open, hoping to see someone there. In the middle of the room was a long steel table like those used in morgues, on which sat an array of tubes and scientific instruments. There was a desk in one corner of the room with a computer and a stack of CD-ROMs. The desk chair was turned away from the desk, as though someone had left in a hurry.
Alexia started to walk toward the desk, when suddenly, someone tackled her from behind. They both hit the ground. Alexia grabbed the man's head and bashed it against the steel table, trying to stand up. The man grabbed her legs and sent her tumbling back down, dragging her back toward him. She kicked out with both legs, hitting him in the chest. It knocked the breath out of him, forcing him to release her. But before she could get up, the man reached up, grabbing onto the side of the table, searching for something to hit her with.
In the next few moments, Alexia couldn't think past the pain to defend herself as the man jabbed her with something. It felt as though she'd been stabbed with a knife, but she didn't see any blood. The man looked down at her, deciding whether to finish her off, or leave while there was still a chance to escape undetected. Fortunately for Alexia, he chose the latter option, disappearing out the door.
It took a minute to ride out the pain enough to find the source of her sudden immobilization: a large syringe had been plunged into her arm. She winced as she pulled it out, looking though hazy vision at the label: Latrodectus Mactans.
'Gee, that's a lot of help', Alexia thought, dragging herself to her feet. Using the table for support, she took a few steps toward the door. At least she could still walk. She tossed the syringe into a biohazard container as she left.
Alexia barely remembered finding her way out of the research facility, feeling dizzy and disoriented. A wave of nausea overcame her. She tried her best to look less unfocused as she asked someone where the bath room was. She half-walked, half-ran toward the woman's restroom. By the time she reached the door, she felt as though she were walking under water. Black and red dots danced across her vision as she stumbled into a stall, where she passed out on the floor.
