"I can't wait for this job to be over!" Hills shouted.
"Don't get your hopes up. We still have to get these specimens back to home base," Peck said. He reached forward and pressed the button to open the door.
"God, this place is a mess," Hills exclaimed.
"You know the general, such a packrat!"
"Let's just find what we need and get out of here." Hills said.
"It's over this way," Peck said and he moved off to the right.
Hills continued moving forward, examining all of the stuff. "Hey Peck! Come check this out!"
"What is it?"
"It looks like an old hypersleep chamber."
Peck walked up and bent down to examine the chamber more closely. "It looks to be around two hundred years old."
"Why would the general want something from two hundred years ago? Is he crazy?"
"Does it really matter? Let's just get what we need and get out," Peck said and he stepped away.
Hills remained in front of the chamber. "This sure is a lot of dust." He brushed his hand over the surface and four inches of dust wiped clear to reveal the contents within. "Shit!"
"What is it?" Peck asked.
"Man, you gotta come see this!" Hills exclaimed.
"What is it?" Peck said as he walked up, "Come on, man, this better not be a fucking joke—," he stopped when he caught sight of the sleep chamber. "Shit!"
A young girl, probably around the age of nine or ten, was lying inside the chamber. Her eyes were closed and her head was tilted slightly to the side. There was the peaceful calm about her that usually surrounded all hypersleepers. Her black hair was tangled and messy but her striking features made up for the disarray. Her hands were folded gently across her chest, revealing long, black nails.
"Check out these gouges," Hills said. He was examining five perfectly parallel scratches in the surface of the chamber, "It looks like they were made on the inside. How long do you think this girl was in here?"
"I would guess that she has been in there for around two hundred years. Shit, this can't be real."
They were so absorbed in the girl inside the sleep chamber that they didn't hear the faint sounds of a siren starting up. Or the male voice saying that there were unauthorized openings of certain cages.
"Hey, check this out," Hills said. He traced a red label that had been stuck to the sleep chamber. The warning message was writing in a thick, black marker: Do not open. Dangerous.
"What do you think that means?" Hills asked.
"Don't know, don't care. It's none of our business. Let's just get out of here."
Peck moved off again. Hills remained fascinated by the sleep chamber, "Why would the general want to keep a girl in hypersleep?"
He heard a loud hiss behind him and he turned sharply. One of the specimens the scientists had been creating was standing behind him. Its glittering, smooth black head was inches from his face. Saliva dipped off the creature's teeth as it opened its mouth to expose the smaller mouth within. With a screech it shot the second mouth through Hill's head; spraying the sleep chamber with blood.
"Hills! What the hell--?" Peck said as he rounded the corner.
He yelled and jumped back behind a stack of books. The alien didn't seem to have noticed him; it was focused more on the sleep chamber. The alien crouched down to the blinking lights at the base of the chamber. Its second mouth shot out and hit the controls. There was a spark and the lights turned off as the lid of the sleep chamber opened up with a hiss. The alien stepped back and waited as the lid rose slowly until it couldn't go any further. A hand appeared and the young girl sat up in the chamber.