The group filed into the laboratory, following the lead of one intrigued Arnaud Vasquez. In came behind him Raquel, Gawn, Hauser, and Scythe. The laboratory was not the kind we as Wild ARMs fans have come to expect. It wasn't dirty, forgotten, filled with monsters, adult mags, Wild ARMS, prisoners, card keys, informative memos, elevators, puzzles, riddles, dead scientists, holmcrosses, samples, Hojo, Flashy wall panels, demons, green men, or abused children. Instead, the place was full of scientist in white coats and sterilized latex gloves, computers computing, super computers super computing, dates, numbers, and eggs! The group of inquisitive paleontologists (and a chaotician) surrounded the egg incubator. It was large, round, and made of sticks and branches.
Scythe tapped a pen to his lip as he looked to Hauser. "So these people are auto…automail?"
"Automail? That's something completely different!" Arnaud glanced to Scythe. "It's Autorotica!"
Gawn shook his head. "No, not that, it's uh, it's uh, uh, what's the word I'm looking for, um," Gawn snapped his fingers. "Penguins, ice, cold tea, plantations, menial labor, robots, animatronics!"
Hauser eyed the lot. "What are you people stupid!" Hauser was about to break free from this emotional shell he had put over himself, but then decided it was not in the best ideas to do just that. "No Scythe, we don't have animatronics here. These are the real miracle workers of Filgaia Park." Just then, another scientist rode in on a giant motorcycle, honking at the other scientists in his wake. He was a young man with brown hair that covered one brown eye, wearing blue uniform and white pants underneath his white lab coat. His rode up to the incubator and parked, stepping off the motorized vehicle and slipping out a clipboard from underneath his coat. Hauser extended an arm to the man, who reluctantly shook it back. "Ah, this Dr. Ahtreide."
"Hi, Dr. Ahtreide!" The remaining members of the party waved.
"Hey…" Kresnik shook his hair so it flipped into place. He didn't seem rather excited about what he was doing. "My conviction wont let me leave these eggs unattended when we all hop onto the boat, but in the end we all die, you know what I mean, heh." He then took out a cigarette and gave a puff.
"Are… you allowed to smoke in here?" Raquel raised an eyebrow.
"Hey, I ain't no conformist, man. I do what I want, which is sulk In this uncaring world." Kresnik sighed.
"Right, so how are those surveys coming along?" Hauser coughed.
"I dunno, I'm too busy creating my play list of AFI, My Chemical Romance, The Used. When I feel like my heart is about to die a cold black death or if I'm going to slit my wrists because I'm tired of these gray skies that constantly haunt my soul, I listen to them and forget about my problems." Kresnik did that flippy hair thing and applied some mascara.
"Anyway…" Arnaud looked to Hauser. "What temperature do the eggs need to be? How do they keep warm?"
"Well duh, there sitting in a big pile of sticks!" Gawn pointed out. "It must be EGGstreamly comfortable in there, bad um chu!"
"Everything is taken care of dude." Kresnik replied. One of the eggs began to crack. Small noises came from the inside as the egg began to move about. "Looks like one of them is about to enter this hell on Earth."
"Oh I hoped they'd all hatch before the crew left." Hauser kneeled so his massive body was level to that off the hatching egg. "I'm happy to say I've been present for the birth of every creature on this island."
"Just how fast do these things grow anyway?" Arnaud crossed his arms. "That Grudiev out there was like a hundred feet tall."
"Come on! Push! Push! Push! Breathe, just breath! Now relax. Do it as we practiced in lamaz, push!" Hauser talked to the egg. A tiny purple snout emerged from the fractured egg shell. Hauser did his best to take off pieces of egg shell as the rest looked on in horror. Hauser then picked up a small bloody purple wolf creature, who squealed in return.
"Mazeltave!" Gawn replied.
"What's its body temperature? High eighties?" Arnaud asked Kresnik.
"Well aren't you Mr. Questions today?" Kresnik replied. "Life is pointless."
Raquel coughed. "Hauser, you said earlier you've been present for the birth of all the creatures here. What about the ones in the wild?"
"Oh, they can't breed." Kresnik replied as Hauser looked up, passing Arnaud the baby guardian. Arnaud squealed in joy.
"Why not?" Raquel replied.
"All the animals in the park are female, you get me. They can't get it on." Kresnik said.
"Well how do you know?" Gawn chewed on his frozen noodle. "Do you check all the guardians for either purses or wallets? What if, what if one of them, uh, has a tote bag! What then?"
"Do you listen to yourself when you talk?" Scythe rolled his eyes.
"You don't …neuter them do you?" Arnaud was hesitant to ask.
"No scissors involved." Kresnik ran a hand through his hair. "When they're developing, we keep the temperature at a certain degree so that they all develop as females. We can do that. It's almost…godly, man."
"So if my Mom had the AC on a little higher, I could have been a man." Raquel placed a hand to her chin.
"I'm afraid it's not the same with human beings." Hauser stood up. "There is no unauthorized breeding in Filgaia Park!"
"Just look at this place, the lack of respect for mother nature." Gawn grumbled. "Hatching wolves from eggs, determining the gender of the creatures for your selves. Life doesn't need this, life doesn't need you! Life will take its bags, march out the door, and go back to Moms house, but eventually, uh, life will find a way!"
The baby purple spiked wolf nipped at Arnaud's thumb, causing his wince. He handed the creature back to Kresnik. "What species is this anyway?"
"Uh, definatly Lucied, bro." Kresnik replied as he received the creature.
"You're hatching Lucieds?" Arnaud repeated.
"That's what he said." Raquel retorted.
"Yup! Isn't it great!" Hauser shrugged.
--- ---
A howl interrupted the mid day heat, unnerving all within the vicinity. Not far from the Visitor Center was a heavily fortified pen, walls made out of concrete fifteen feet high and a roof construed of high voltage electrical cables. A catwalk encircled the opening at the top, allowing viewers to witness whatever horror was hidden within the foliage inside. Arnaud was standing in the clearing before the pen, listening to the terrible howls of whatever creature lurked within.
"Hey Dr. Vasquez! Lunch is being served and your missing it!" Hauser bellowed as he and the rest of the group caught up with them. "Our cook made something delicious, I'm sure!"
Mechanical sounds began to resonate throughout the jungle. A crane appeared out of the pen, carrying within its grasp a young maiden dressed in a pink gown with long blonde hair. Altacea, an elegant yet somewhat empty-headed woman with no real point in the game except to serve lunch and become a human sacrifice to the Kuiper Belt didn't bother so much as to squirm, but simply sighed. Arnaud placed a hand over his green eyes. "What are they doing?"
Hauser looked up to the woman and titled his head. "Feeding them."
Arnaud and the gang climbed the staircase and walked upon the catwalk, following the crane with the ill fated woman. The crane stopped over the pen's canopy, allowing whatever inside time to salivate over their next meal. The group peered into the pen, and thanks to clever camera work, the only way we'll ever know what's inside is thanks to the facial expressions upon their faces as Altaciea was dropped in, letting out her last scream between the snarls of the beasts.
"They should all be destroyed! I got my chainsaw right here, let me at 'em!" A giant of a man in tight khaki shorts and a safari shirt walked up to them, smoking a cigar.
"Ah, this is our game warden, Balgaine, he's a specialist in big game." Hauser introduced the sunglassed man to the party.
"You name it, I killed it, but these, these fuggers ain't human." Balgain spat.
The group sweat dropped. Arnaud sighed. "These Lucied's, what are thery're running speeds? Fast for a biped?"
"Well, they're quadrapeds for one." Balgaine chewed on his cigar. "Ya dumb shit. Second, Grow Apple speed, 60-70 miles an hour if they ever got out into the open. They're astonishing jumpers too. You erect a mother fuggin' fifteen foot tall fence and they'll jump it like it as fugggin' leap frog!"
"Yes, yes, that's why we're taking extreme precautions with these! Rest assured, every security is being taken care of, now bla bla bla bla bla…" Hauser went on to have a pointless discussion with Raquel and Scythe as Arnaud conversed with Balgaine. Gawn simply peered into the pen and wondered if he'd get shocked if he spat onto the wiring.
"How fast do they grow? Are they like Shaq?" Arnaud asked.
"What are you, some kind of God Damn Mr. Questions? They're lethal at 15 weeks and I do mean lethal!" This brought the rest of the party's attention back to him. Balgaine liked this and switched on a flashlight right under his face. "We originally bred eight of them, but her…" Balgaine glanced into the pen, tapping the cigar so that the embers fell into the foliage. "Him, it, whatever the hell it is, took over the pride and killed all but two of the others. We feed them like this because she had them attacking the fences whenever the feeders would come through."
"You can't forget about what that one Lucied did in Twilight Venom! They're nasty!" Gawn pointed out.
"Shut up ya dumb shit!" Balgaine growled. "You see, she had them systematically testing the fences for weak spots. They remember…"
The mechanical whizzing of the crane once again came into effect. The group turned to witness the carnage left over from the feeding frenzy. The torn tarp and dangling bits of metal rose from the greenery and then carried away. The majority of the group gulped.
"Well, who's hungry?" Hauser asked.
--- ---
The room was small and dark, centering around a round table. Along the walls of the room, various planned projects were being projected and beautiful plants grew out of vases along the sides. The group sat around this table, enjoying their lunch of easily attainable snack items. Hauser kept blabbing on about the future of the park and the rides and things that weren't very interesting. "None of these rides are open yet, but we'll open the park with the tour your about to go on!"
"Wait, you're gonna open a park with no housing or accommodations half way around the world that only has an automated tour that's just an hour long?" Scythe asked. "Sounds great to me! We'll be rich!"
"Oh what's so great about it?" Gawn continued to grumble. "Should be called Filoser park to me. Get it? Filoser, LOSER?"
"That's hardly fair, Gawn, because youre an idiot and don't know anything!" Scythe replied.
"Oh really!" Gawn growled.
"Ja Really!" Scythe retorted.
"No Wai!" Gawn was surprised.
"Look, we can charge people whatever we want! A million a day, two million a day, and they'll pay it! We can finally afford to synthesize things in Halim!" Scythe sat back in his chair.
"No way! This facility is for everyone! Even the Hobo who represents Slayheim can come." Hauser crossed his massive arms.
"Sure we'll have a coupon day." Scythe twirled a finger around his ear.
"Oh, I'm so sure your coupon for 10 off a million gella will send the crowds flocking." Gawn murmured.
"Hey, shut up over there, noodle face!" Scythe barked.
"Calm down!" Hauser bellowed. "I want to hear his side too. Not really, but I have to maintain my professional image."
"The lack of humility in this room is staggering! You know what the problem is! You didn't get this for yourself, you stole someone's lunchbox! And there you go! You stole their lunch box!" Gawn shouted.
Hauser sat back in disbelief. "Elw! Elw are on the verge of extinction! If I decided to make a bunch of Elw on this island, what would you say!"
"I'd say make mine a hottie with double D's!" Arnaud received Raquel's elbow to the gut.
"Oh no, we're not uh, we're not talking about a creature that was obliterated thanks to demons, or Holmcrosses, or even pollution! Guardians had their shot, and the game developers decided they weren't good enough! You're playing Game Developer here, Hauser, and it frightens me!" Gawn ranted.
"You're a scientist! Wait, not really! They're scientists!" Hauser pointed to Raquel and Arnaud. "How can we stand in the light of discovery and not act!"
"If that light is an ARM." Arnaud whispered.
"Yea Hauser, but you were too preoccupied with whether or not you could you didn't stop to think if you should!" Gawn leaned back and gave Hauser the "I'm watching you" hand gesture.
"Well, what do you guys think!" Hauser motioned to the other side of the table.
"Well," Raquel glanced up from her pop tarts. "How can you possibly know what an extinct ecosystem is like? I study the stuff and just bullshit my way through the meetings! We have no idea what's going on, so how can you expect to care for them?"
"Gimme your pop tarts" Gawn stealthily whispered as he snuck raquels pop tarts.
"What about you Arnaud. Got something witty and clever to say with your brilliant mind?" Hauser looked to the blonde boy.
"Mmmmphmmph." Arnaud replied as he chewed peanut butter crackers.
"I don't believe this." Hauser laughed. "The only one on my side is the blood sucking lawyer you were supposed to defend me against!"
"That's blood sucking legal representative!" Scythe cleared his throat.
Just then, a soldier walked into the room and whispered into Hausers ear, then laughing manically before he left. Hauser stood up and wiped himself off. "They're here."
-------- -------