"Hey Shelbs." Cyd looked up from her computer thoughtfully as she spoke. A few days ago they had gone on their second purposeful trip to the future lab. Ever since then, Cyd had been making more of an effort towards doing her homework; it was a slow process of doing all her homework, but it was a start.
"What's up?" Shelby asked.
"I was thinking; the past times we've gone to the future lab we've gone out through the main door that leads to the rest of the building. What if we tried going out through the air conditioning vents."
"You think it'd work?"
"Why not; it always works on TV shows."
"That's a completely different—never mind," Shelby stopped herself. "What's the worst that could happen? We've gotten back to the present all the other times we've gone to the future lab. I guess I'm up for it."
"Cool," Cyd replied.
The girls got off their beds and went to grab the scissors they needed to take with them to get out of their restraints in the future lab. They high fived and instantly found themselves strapped to the tables. They had cutting themselves free down to a science and were free in seconds. The vent in the room was on the floor, all they had to do was crawl in. At first, they thought they were going to have to go back to get screwdrivers, but they somehow managed to get the vent's cover off with their hands. They crawled in and got it replaced right as the door to the Pelican Ball Room opened and the man in the suit entered. They quickly went down the vent and out of sight.
They hadn't made it very far when alarms began to blare and the speaker system in the building was dominated by Janet Smythe's voice, demanding that the girls be found and returned to her immediately. She also noted to her employees that force was okay to use so long as they were still alive when they were brought to her. That wasn't very reassuring to Cyd and Shelby so they continued through the vents as quickly as they could without creating too much noise.
"Why'd we think the vents would be less confusing than the halls," Shelby spoke after ten minutes of aimlessly crawling through the vents to the sounds of alarms and occasionally Janet's threatening voice as she threatened her employees.
"I dunno. I was hoping they'd make more sense. I was wrong."
"Hey, wait, I see light," Shelby caught Cyd's attention. From what they could see, the area below them was deserted. They didn't know exactly where it was, but they were willing to take their chances with it. They moved the vent's cover out of the way and jumped down from the ceiling.
When they got to the ground, the alarms only grew louder, but as they had expected, no one was in sight. They found an exit a minute later and had escaped to freedom. They made a break for it. Trees surrounded the building and they ducked into them for more cover. However, they soon heard other footsteps behind them.
They dared a glance behind them and saw people in all black suits coming up behind them. "How'd they find us?" Cyd asked rhetorically.
"I dunno," Shelby replied, slowing down as she became out of breath. She doubled over with her hands on her knees, Cyd stopped a few feet in front of her. She looked towards the building and saw cameras, which she pointed out to Cyd. Before they could even think again, they had been caught. They weren't able to get back to each other right away, and the next thing either of them knew, they were back and strapped to the tables once again.
"I was sure that was going to work," Cyd said, staring up at the white ceiling.
"Yeah," Shelby agreed.
"Our little time travelers escaped using these." Janet Smythe appeared in the doorway holding the scissors the girls had been using to free themselves in their trips to the future lab. "How'd you get them in here? We check you for any weapons before we brought you in here."
"You see, the thing about being time travelers is that we can get out of any bad situation we end up in," Cyd began to explain.
"What?" Janet asked.
"Like this one," Shelby finished, reaching her hand out to Cyd's. They left a confused Janet Smythe behind, but with any luck, that would never be their reality. "That wasn't much of a success," Shelby spoke once they were safely back in their room.
"At least we know that won't work," Cyd offered optimistically.
"Yeah, I guess at least we know that just trying to make a run for it will just land us back in the lab," Shelby agreed, laughing.
"We need to be more clever," Cyd said. She began to pace the room, her hand under her chin thoughtfully. "If we make a run for it still dressed in a way they expect, they're going get us, but if we dressed wearing something they didn't expect us to be wearing they might not be able to recognize us," Cyd continued, doing her thinking out loud as she paced.
Shelby sat on her bed, listening to Cyd thoughtfully. "So what if we brought wigs or something with us and maybe a change of clothes."
"Yeah, something like that," Cyd agreed.
"Next time?"
"Yeah. We need to find wigs and good disguises so in a few weeks, we can try again."
"Sounds like a plan." Shelby got up from her bed and went over to high-five Cyd for their new plan for their next trip to the future lab.
"Not again!" they exclaimed, finding themselves strapped to the tables for the third time 'that day'.
"Not again what?" asked the voice of Janet Smythe.
"Where'd you come from?"
"It's my lab," she replied with an annoyed tone.
"We must have jumped farther into the future than normal this time," Cyd said.
"Yeah," Shelby agreed.
"What?" Janet asked.
'Course she never heard the answer to that question as Cyd and Shelby reached for each other's hands and were back in their room in a flash of yellow light.
"We really need to stop doing that," Shelby said, out of breath from the unexpected trip to the future.
"Yeah," Cyd agreed, drawing the word out slowly.
"Well, I guess that's that," Shelby spoke again after a few minutes of silence. "But I guess we know we need disguises if we're going to try and make a run for it."
"We should start working on them this weekend," Cyd said.
"All right," Shelby agreed. They got back to their work, once again assured that they'd find a way out of this.
A/N: I hope you liked the next instalment of this. I have a few more chapters but the entire story won't end up being all that long, maybe 10,000 words at most.
Anyway, review and let me know what you liked and didn't like to help me improve my craft. Thanks for the continued reviews and reading in the first place,
-CrazyHayniac