A/N: Welcome to Life is Abominable Episode Two: Breakout! It feels so good getting to episode two of this five part series. And just so you know, I am NOT splitting this story into separate parts. I am placing all five episodes into one story. I'm so happy those of you who are reading are enjoying this story so far. Max and Chloe's journey is about to continue! So, let's dive right into episode 2 right now! Enjoy!
Previously on Life is Abominable...
The captive creature causing Max's visions has just given her a new one, this time showing it being tortured by it's captors in first person perspective, and leaving a burn mark on Max's stomach after the creature was electrocuted in the exact same area in the vision. Chloe has also revealed that Dr. Zara isn't really British at all, but originally from Arcadia Bay, Oregon. She was also revealed to be a mentally unstable and obsessed stalker to Chloe's old girlfriend, Rachel Amber. Given how Max now shares a telepathic link with the beast, she decides it's suffered enough and is going to break it out of the Burnish compound tonight, along with Chloe's help. After two years, in order to avoid being detected and captured, Max decides the time is right to start using her gift to rewind time once again...
Shanghai, China. 11:58 PM
"Max... Max. Psst! Hey, Max!" a whispering voice called into Max's ear. This caused Max to wake up emitting a quiet gasp before launching herself upwards.
"Jeebus, Chloe. What's with you scaring the crap out of me?" Max said while rubbing her eyes to help her feel more awake. She turned her head to the side to see Chloe donning all black, including a black hoodie that was zipped up all the way to the bottom of her collarbone, black skinny jeans, and a black beanie covering her blue hair.
"Sorry, Max. But we have to get going remember?" Chloe reminded her.
"Oh yeah, right. The breakout mission. Is that why you're wearing all black?" asked Max as she got up from the bed and stretched her arms out.
"Well, yeah. If we're gonna pull a hella awesome heist that would put "Oceans Eleven" to shame, you gotta dress like you're gonna pull off a hella awesome heist right?" Chloe pointed out with her hands on her hips, which made Max chuckle and shake her head.
"Guess you have a point" Max said before going into her bag to select her "Heist Outfit" and changing out of her pajamas before swapping them out. After a few minutes, Max now donned a pair of black skinny jeans, and a hooded sweatshirt with no zipper from Buckle, and her favorite pair of converse.
"How do I look?" Max asked.
"Like a friggin ninja, dude. Max Caulfield: Super-Spy, coming soon to a theater near you" Chloe complimented while making a little joke which was appropriate given what they were about to do.
"I highly doubt that movie would sell a single ticket" Max said as she placed her hood over her head.
"You never know. You could be the next James Bond, Max" Chloe replied as she donned her own hood over her head as well.
"Okay, James Bond WISHES he was me" Max whispered as she opened up the door as quietly as possible to avoid waking anybody else up. Chloe followed closely behind her trying her best to not make a single sound. After Max shut the door, the two of them quietly walked to the front door to exit the apartment. Chloe opened the door this time, allowing Max to go through first and then shutting the door behind her and following her down the concrete stairway. After a few flights of stairs, they were finally at ground level and exited the building.
"That was so close. I was so worried we were gonna wake someone up" Max said.
"I know. My heart's still racing" Chloe said with her hand over her heart. Max then began walking across the street, and Chloe followed right behind her.
"Alright, Max. You know where this place is, tell me where we're going" Chloe said.
"We're just going to keep going straight for fifteen blocks or so. Then we make a right and then we're going to go another six blocks and then we should be there" Max explained. Chloe only nodded and continued to follow her brunette friend down the street. There weren't many people walking this late at night, but there were a lot of cars on the street. After fifteen blocks, they were ready to turn to the right and the building was right in front of them in the distance.
"Damn, those light towers make it look like some kind of prison" Chloe commented as she stared at the building.
"To whatever that thing is, it IS a prison" said Max as she began walking across the street with Chloe.
"And the warden's that sadist stalker POS Zara. I owe her a punch to the mouth for everything she did back in Arcadia Bay. And an elbow to the nose for good measure" said Chloe, still angry at everything the redheaded woman pretending to be British did while Rachel was still alive and attending Blackwell alongside her.
"I understand you're angry, but our main goal here's not to get caught. However, if we run into her at some point after this... go for it. I think she deserves it" Max said as they now stood in front of the building.
"Thanks. So, now that we're here, what's your plan?" Chloe asked.
"We'll go in through the back. There's a hole in the fence wiring that makes for a pretty good back door. It was how I managed to sneak in and took those photos last time" Max said before taking Chloe's hand and leading her down the street and around the corner to the back of the compound. Once they got up to the fence, Max lifted the loose fencing up and allowing Chloe to go in first before she followed behind her.
"Okay, that was the easy part. The hard part's finding a way inside the actual building" Chloe said while the two hid in the darkness to blend in and keep out of anyone's vision. Max then stared at the back loading dock where she watched them take the creature in before, and saw a large truck parked in the back.
"Alright, once we get that thing out of wherever it's being held, we'll load it on board that truck and drive it out of the compound to avoid suspicion. You think you can hot-wire it, Chloe?" Max asked.
"You know it, Maximus. Security looks pretty tight though, look at all those guys. It's going to be impossible getting in without being recognized. Especially in these outfits" said Chloe as she watched a group of armed goons unload some things out of the back of the truck's loading dock. After a few seconds of analyzing the guards, Max had an idea.
"I think I may have a solution on how we can avoid that problem. You remember that scene in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope? where Han and Luke knocked out those Imperial Stormtroopers and took their uniforms?" asked Max. Chloe got a smirk on her face.
"I like where this is going" She said before following Max towards the truck. The two friends climbed into the shotgun seat, and saw a door leading to the back where the crates were being unloaded. After a brief waiting period, a majority of the guards left but only two remained. Now, Max and Chloe entered the back of the truck without anyone noticing them. Max then peeked her head out from behind some boxes and called out to the guards.
"Hey you guys!" she called out. The two guards then looked behind them to see her.
"Can you give us a hand with this?" Max asked before hiding back behind the crates. She also saw Chloe managed to find a monkey wrench in the truck's build-in tool-box and was holding it like a baseball bat. When the two guards entered the truck and approached Max, Chloe knocked one guard out by swinging the wrench across his jaw. Max pounced on the other one, pinning them to the floor and punched him repeatedly in the face until he stopped struggling to get back up onto his feet.
"Nice. You were right, James Bond DOES wish he was you. Now let's get these guys out of their uniforms and put them on" Chloe said as she dragged the guard out of the truck. Max nodded in agreement and began to drag the guard she just knocked out too.
Now, Max and Chloe were dressed exactly like the guards they just knocked out. They had their helmets on and visors down so that their faces couldn't be seen by anybody else. They also had taken their guns, so they could keep themselves protected. The two then exited the truck and walked into the compound through the door. The hallway was pretty empty, so they considered themselves lucky nobody was around.
"Alright we're in. This has been pretty easy so far" Chloe said as she walked side by side with Max down the hall.
"Don't jinx it. Besides, we still need to find out where in the building that poor thing's being held" Max said.
"I suggest we try the surveillance room. Holding cells in prisons and jails usually have cameras in them. We may be able to find out where it is on one of the cameras" Chloe suggested.
"Good idea. Where do you think we'd find it?" Max asked. The two stopped where they stood when they watched one guard exit one room and left the door halfway cracked open. Max could make out several different computer screens mounted on the wall and one gigantic keyboard on the desk, the keys glowing light blue.
"That was easy" Chloe whispered as she watched Max approach the door with caution. After quickly peeking inside the room, Max told Chloe to come inside with her. Once the blue-haired girl was inside, the two of them took off their helmets and set them on the desk before they began watching every monitor in the room.
"Jackpot. This shows the live feed of every camera inside and outside the building" Max said as she took a look at one of the screens to show the front parking lot of the building, and another screen showing the employee break room to show three guards enjoying a late night dinner together.
"Woah, you were right. I can see pretty much everything on these monitors" Chloe said while staring deeply into one of the other monitors that showed the administration office security camera footage.
"Now, all we gotta do is find out where the holding cells are" Max said as she tapped on the right arrow key and changed the screen to footage of another room. She then began to keep on pressing down on the key like she was channel surfing on the TV.
"Geez, how many cameras can one single-story facility have? This building isn't even that large" said Max as she was getting frustrated her search wasn't getting results so far.
"This is what happens when one person has too much money. Buying a butt-ton of crap they don't need but THINK they do" Chloe commented. The two friends heard the door opening behind them and they got up to see the security guard that left the room before.
"Who are you? You're not employees here!" the guard demanded to know. Before Max or Chloe could explain themselves, he ran for a red button on the wall that was programmed to activate the security alarm.
"NO!" Max shouted before holding out her right arm and opening up her hand, just moments before the button was about to be pressed. Max then focused as hard as she could and then rewound time to before the guard walked in on them. After going back in time for a few additional minutes, she stopped and everything began moving like normal again.
"Chloe?" Max said, catching her friend's attention.
"Yeah?" Chloe replied.
"That guard who was here before's gonna come back and set off the alarm once he's caught us. You think you can stand by the door and take care of him once he shows up?" asked Max. Chloe was confused at how Max knew that was going to happen for a minute, but then she smirked and placed her hands on her hips.
"You used your rewind, didn't you?" Chloe asked.
"Guilty as charged, Ms. Price" Max replied before sitting back down at the desk and began flipping through the monitors again. This made Chloe smile, knowing Max was using her powers again, made it feel like October 2013 where they reunited and began using her gift to have fun and solve the mystery of Rachel's disappearance before the storm.
"Great to have you back, Super-Max. I'll take care of him, don't worry" Chloe said as she walked over to the side of the door and held her gun like a battering ram. Max kept on flipping through the monitors until she finally managed to see what she was looking for, the poor white furred monster looking sad and softly sobbing in the middle of a cold metal cell with no windows.
"Gotcha. Don't cry, buddy. We're coming to get ya" Max said before hearing the door behind her open. That could only mean the guard that caught them before she used her rewind again had come back.
"Lights out, Sergeant stupid!" Chloe said before butting the end of her gun directly into the guard's face. The goon fell to the ground and Chloe kicked him in the side of the head to make sure he stayed knocked out.
"Forget Max Caulfield: Super-Spy. Super-Max Returns would make a much better movie" said Chloe as she dragged the unconscious armed guard into a metal locker in the other end of the room and locked him inside.
"Still wouldn't sell enough tickets though" Max replied jokingly.
"You find our furry new friend?" asked Chloe.
"Yeah. It's right down the hall and to the left. But the only problem is, it's right next door to the science lab. And our redheaded psycho stalker friend is talking on the phone with somebody in there" Max said, pointing to one of the monitors. Chloe took a look and saw she was right, Zara was there.
"How are we going to get her out?" Max asked. Chloe then walked over to the desk and noticed a landline telephone plugged into the wall. There was also a note-pad with phone numbers on them, the place or name of whoever they belonged to was above the numbers themselves. Chloe looked back at the screen to see Zara hanging up the phone and writing down some notes before looking back down at the book in her hands and then back to Max.
"You up for some prank calls, Mad-Max?" Chloe asked as she took the notepad into her hands.
"Heck yeah. It's gonna be just like when we were kids. Look around for the digits for the science lab" said Max while she held her hand over the phone, prepared to pick it up and dial the number once Chloe found it.
"Bingo. Found it" Chloe said before taking a yellow highlighter pen off the desk and highlighted the number she was looking for. Max then looked to her left as Chloe set the notepad back down and point her index finger at the highlighted number.
"There it is. I have the perfect idea for this" Max whispered as she picked the phone up and dialed the number before pressing the 'Call' button and held the phone up to her ear. Chloe began attempting to hold back some laughs, even covering her mouth with both her hands. Chloe then saw on the floor that the name-tag belonging to the guard she just knocked out was still there. She picked it up and placed it next to Max.
"Just in case she asks who's speaking. Go with the name of the guy who almost set the alarm on our butts before you used your rewind to stop him" Chloe told her.
"Thanks" she whispered before looking down at the name-tag itself. Max then watched on the monitor as Zara picked up the phone and answered it.
"Burnish Industries science labs, this is Dr. Zara" she answered.
"Dr. Zara, this is Bolin in the surveillance room" Max said, doing her best to disguise her voice to make it sound like the guard's voice.
"Oh, yes. Can I help you with something then, Bolin?" Zara asked.
"I was watching the cameras down in the ground level parking garage and I noticed that one of our staff who just clocked out just backed their car into yours" said Max, still pretending to be Bolin. On the monitor, Zara jumped out of her seat and her eyes going wide.
"WHAT!?" she exclaimed into the phone. Max and Chloe did their best not to laugh. The two got flashbacks to when they were younger and played prank calls together on the neighborhood back when they were preteens in Arcadia Bay.
"W-Who did it?" asked Zara on the other line.
"I believe it was the janitor. Keep forgetting his name though, uh..." Max said, struggling to think of a name for her story to make Zara leave the lab.
"Was it Jerry?" Zara asked.
"Jerry! Yeah, yeah. That's who it was. It was Jerry" Max replied. The two watched with wide grins as Zara went wide-eyes and began breathing through her nose very slowly.
"Can you hold for just one moment, please?" Zara asked before pressing a button on her own landline phone and hung the phone up before standing up and letting out a loud yell.
"I'M GONNA KILL YOU, JERRY!" she screamed furiously. Max and Chloe snickered at how loud her yelling was. They could hear it all the way from where they were right now.
"Oh my God that was loud. I could hear it echo all the way out here" Chloe said while trying her best to contain her laughter. Zara then sat back down and picked the phone back up.
"Forgive me. Before I go down there, please tell me something. How bad's the damage?" Dr. Zara asked.
"Pretty bad. The entire front of the car has been trashed. The hood's all dented up, the grill as well. One of the headlights popped out and hanging by the wires too. A few cracks are in the windshield too" Max told her.
"What was going through his mind when he was doing this!? Is he blind!?" Zara exclaimed into the phone.
"I think he might actually be drunk" Max answered.
"Jerry? Drinking on the job? Oh I am so going to have him fired after this! And to think he's been with us for five years!? I'm going to give that drunk schmuck a piece of my mind! Where is he now?" Zara asked.
"Still in the parking garage. He just got out his car and is stumbling. He looks like he can barely walk a straight line" replied Max.
"Thank you so much for telling me this, Bolin. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to march down there, grill Jerry and question where he keeps his liquor in this building. Goodbye" said Zara before hanging up. Now Max and Chloe snickered and giggled at how successful and funny their prank call turned out.
"Alright. She's just leaving the lab. We should make our way over to the cell before she makes it to the elevator" said Max as she picked up her helmet and placed it back over her head.
"Good idea. It'll give us plenty of time before she comes back" Chloe said as she put her own helmet back on and handed Max her gun. Once Chloe picked her weapon back up, they both left the surveillance room and walked down the hall to get to the creature's holding cell. Halfway down the hall, Zara walked right past them, muttering spite-filled swear words as she walked with a fiery rage in her eyes. Max and Chloe kept on walking past her to avoid suspicion, but looked back once she turned to the right and continued walking down the hall.
"Jeebus, I don't even think I've seen my mom that mad" Max whispered before the two friends continued walking. They turned to the left and kept on walking until they got to a large metal armored door. The door itself looked like doors on Military aircraft carrier ships like the Midway, combined with a bank vault door.
"Bingo, this is it. Now all we gotta do is figure out how to unlock it" Max whispered as she stared at the door through her helmet's visor.
"Might not be as easy as you think, Max. Look" Chloe said while pointing to the left side of the door. A keypad wired into the wall containing only numbers was all that kept the door locked and secure. Max groaned in annoyance once she saw that, this only meant a four-digit Digi-Code could unlock the door.
"Damn. Guess I didn't really expect that" Max swore out loud.
"I kinda wish this was "National Treasure" right now so we could wave a UV-light over this thing and see which keys to press" Chloe said as she stared at the pad. Max then saw that Zara left the science lab unlocked and there was an open cabinet containing lots of chemicals and supplies that someone would usually find in a high school chemistry classroom. Max then took her phone out from her pocket and read through her old texts with her classmate, Warren Graham and found what she was looking for.
"What's that?" Chloe asked when she noticed Max scrolling through her texts.
"Helpful chemistry hints from Warren. I asked on some help on how to make a makeshift bomb when we were trying to break into Principal Wells' office. It worked but the alarms went off after the explosion, so I used my rewind and found another way in. I think the blast will be strong enough to destroy the keypad if we make another one" explained Max before she crept over to the science lab.
"I'll keep watch. Good luck, Max" said Chloe as she laid her back against the door to act like she was guarding the cell to avoid anyone asking questions or getting suspicious. Now, Max was raiding the drawers looking for everything she needed to make a makeshift bomb. On the list there were sugar, a soda can, duct tape, and sodium chlorate. Max saw that Zara had an unopened can of Monster Energy Drink sitting on her desk and it was one of the tall cans, so she took that instead of buying a soda from the vending machine. Max also found duct tape on Zara's desk right next to it, so she took that after seeing sugar and sodium chlorate in the cabinet.
"Okay. Now we're cooking" Max whispered as she walked out the lab with all the items in her arms. Once she returned, Max opened the energy drink and then poured the sugar and sodium chlorate into it before duct taping it to the keypad. Max had also taken some string from the lab to make a makeshift fuse.
"Alright, Chloe. Care to light us up?" she asked.
"No problem at all, MacGyver" Chloe replied before taking out a cigarette lighter and setting the string ablaze once the flame was strong.
"Quick. Hide in the lab for cover!" Max said before grabbing Chloe's wrist and running back into the lab, hiding behind one of the walls close to the lab door. After a loud BOOM! the two went back outside and saw that the makeshift bomb did the trick, the keypad was blown to smithereens and the door was creaked halfway open. Max went inside first and saw the creature shaking in the corner and whimpering.
"Crap. The explosion must have scared him" Chloe said as she looked at how scared the poor thing was. Both girls took their helmets off to reveal their faces to the creature to show that they were not really guards. When Max took off her helmet, the creature stopped looking scared and instead calmly approached her. Max held her left arm up with her palm open, nervous as to what it was doing. Instead of attacking her, the creature gently hummed and allowed Max's hand to touch it's face, right in between it's blue eyes.
"Max, I think... I think it recognizes you" said Chloe, who was in awe at what she was seeing. She expected it to attack her best friend, but instead it was almost acting like a puppy who only wanted affection from it's owner.
"You may be right. I think it recognizes me as the one they've been sending their cries for help to" Max whispered as she began to pet the beast gently, which made it smile.
"Hey buddy. We're here to break you outta here. You wanna come with us?" Max asked. The beast then did something she didn't expect, it nodded with a large grin on it's face. Chloe's eyes went wide and her hands covered her mouth in shock.
"It just replied to you. Like it understood you. Max, this is the single coolest thing I've ever seen in my life" Chloe said in absolute amazement.
"Glad to see I still surprise you. Now we better get out of here and get back into that truck before Zara finds out we lied" said Max. Chloe only nodded and the two put their helmets back on. Max held out her hand, and the creature let it hold onto one of it's massive fingers. Chloe went ahead holding her gun as if she was ready to open fire on something or someone. The easy part of the plan was over, now it was time for the hard part... breaking back out without being noticed.
A/N: Phew, part one of episode two is finally complete. It legit took me four whole days to complete this update, and I'm happy I took the time with it too. Now the mysterious monster has been rescued from it's cell, but can they get out without being spotted by the sadist Zara and the other guards in the Burnish compound. You'll find all that out in Episode two part two! Please review, thanks!