200 hundred years

Elliot opened his eyes. Looking down at him was a beautiful woman with pink skin, and three wolf-faced men. He sat up and said, "Whoa, sorry. I was a little light headed there. Maybe it was the adrenaline come down," he said. He rubbed his head in embarrassment, but inside he was thinking, '200 freaking years. That's just not possible'.

He didn't have time to panic, he had to appear normal and try to process everything he was learning. 'I cannot let them know anything about me, I'm the most valuable piece of information in the lab now,' he thought. He'd already displayed too much strength. 'How can I explain what I did to that hybrid mutant rat? Why are the animals here all mutated, and the people all gene edited?' he had a lot of questions.

"Did you bump your head?" Serenitee said, her elfin features pinched together in a look of concern. She looked around the lab space again, seeing how many experiments were running. 'Are they all food related?' she wondered. "How long have you been here Elliot?" she asked. "Maybe that should have been our first question. Have you been trapped for months?"

Elliot laughed and said, "Oh it feels like I've been here forever. I think I've been here a few years though," he said, then rubbed his head as if he was in pain. "Honestly, I had kind of resigned myself to never seeing the outside world again. You can't understand how grateful I am that you arrived and were able to open that door! It was completely impenetrable from the inside."

"Ah, that's why you were so upset when we went to seal it again," Rem piped in. He had gone back to the table and was snacking on some of Elliot's fruit cultures.

"Now that you're here, I'm happy to help you take whatever you want from this lab space. I guess some of the equipment that I've been using to feed myself are probably antiques, but there wasn't any interesting research material or experiments happening. When I got here the lab looked like it had never been used."

Serenitee and the lupines could see most of the lab space was devoted to growing cultures that looked like steak paste, various vials of goo, and a small lab counter top garden. 'Like a science kitchen. Who is this guy that he was able to set all this up?' she wondered. Then she noticed all of the mice in cages.

"Are you doing experiments on mice here?" she said with surprise.

Elliott looked over at the cages and laughed again, "This is embarrassing, but after my supplies ran out, and I ate everything else edible here, I had to get creative. The lab had cryogenically frozen fertilized mice colonies..." he coughed into his hand. "I'm not proud of it, but, as the weeks stretched into months, mice started to sound tasty." Elliot hoped he didn't have any experimental tools out that would make them question his story.

"So what do we do," Wilfrend said, talking to Serenitee, but keeping his eyes on Elliot.

"It's simple. Figure out what is worth anything in here, and how we're going to get past those monsters outside," she said.

"Monsters?" Elliott said.

"Yeah that rat mutant was just the last thing that we had to deal with. Outside of the building is a small army of mutated monkeys and gorillas," Rom said, also eating some of Elliot's food. "We took out a whole bunch of the damn monkeys, but two gorilla monsters took down two of our squad, right before we made it inside." Rom looked haunted, maybe by the memory of his fallen comrades.

"Our photon weapons had no effect on them. I don't suppose you know another way out of this building that isn't through front lobby?" Wilfrend asked.

"There are other exits, but there weren't any mutated primates when I came here. I'm not sure if the back door is any safer," Elliot replied.

"Ok, I don't want to spend another minute in this crumbling building. Rem, Rom, you both guard the entrance. Make sure nothing sneaks up on us. Serenitee, Elliott and I will gather what is out worth salvaging from this place." Wilfrend looked over at Elliot. "If you don't mind helping out that is. I think it would be a waste of our time to try and go through it all when you when you're intimately aware of everything in the lab right?"

"That makes perfect sense," Elliott said. "Do you mind if I gather my personal things before I give you the tour? I wasn't expecting company, or to be leaving today."

Serenity laughed, "Not that we care about seeing your underwear, but yeah go ahead. Wilf and I will set up the portable mag-lev we brought to carry the things out."

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Elliott didn't actually have a lot of sensitive research, or underwear, lying around. What he had discovered over these, apparently, centuries was incalculably valuable and he needed to make sure no one could access it. 'Centuries, Jesus,' he thought, even as he surreptitiously copied all of his data and custom programs onto a mini usb drive. Then he selected the emergency hard drive format protocol, and put the laptop in the hidden wall drawers at his desk. Then he carefully put the thumb drive in the secret compartment on his necklace. It didn't look out of place, as the necklace had a number of odd charms on it, including a key, a rock with a hole in it, a few shark teeth, and a fairly large black pearl.

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They ransacked the lab. It was impressive how many things they were able to pack onto the mag-lev systems. They had over a tonne of electron microscopes and and Cryo-genetic tools carefully packed and stored.

"They are antiques," Serenitee had said. "Plus, they came from Dr. Ceres' lab, so they would be worth a fortune even if they were rusted and broken."

Elliot was struggling with the fact that his backstabbing lab assistant managed to take credit for all of his innovations. If he thought about it he started to get angry, but they had more immediate concerns. 'Luckily they never discovered the secret cabinets. The laptop is there, but also there are a few pictures that clearly show me at the opening of this new lab. How would I even begin to explain that?'

"This was definitely worth the trip. This is museum quality equipment, and in unbelievably good condition. This lab is like a time capsule," Wilfrend said.

Serenity nodded, "I can't believe our luck. Even splitting five ways, we're all rich."

"So this equipment isn't used in labs anymore?" Elliot asked. They all looked at him like he was crazy, so he laughed and said, "I guess I'm not up on all the latest science tools."

"How are we going to get past all of those mutated creatures outside," Rom asked.

"You made it all the way to the lab fighting through the creatures, so will leaving be harder?" Elliot asked.

"It's the gorilla mutants. They killed two of our team without trying, and were unaffected by our weapons," Wilfrend said.

"I'm sorry for your loss, you've gone through a lot too."

"Yes, well, now I'm focused on getting the rest of us home alive. I'm not sure if the Gorilla's are stronger than the Rat monster you took care of, but there are at least two of them out there." Wilfrend looked Elliot up and down. He took in the youthful appearance, the wide shoulders, and the large biceps. It was almost rare to see a stock human these days. Generations of gene editing meant your children inherited your custom traits. "You managed to deal with that monster quite easily Elliot. I'd love to know what sort of gene edits allowed you to get through its armour."

"It must have been the adrenaline. I couldn't let anything ruin my chance to escape with the door finally open," Elliot.

Wilfrend did not look convinced. Rem chimed in then, "Man, you saved our bacon that's for sure," and slapped Elliot on the back in thanks.

"If you're worried about monsters, then we should leave through the delivery doors at the back of the building. Those doors are closer to this lab. We just need to take the service stairs up, since I imagine the lifts are no longer working." Elliot looked up, clearly thinking. "The loading area wasn't that big for a building like, but it should be heavily locked and not easily accessible to animals. Or whatever creatures are out there,"Elliot said.

"Sounds like a plan. Let's get out of this place," Serenitee said.

----------

It wasn't easy to transport all the equipment they had, but the maglev systems were very forgiving. The delivery garage was totally dark and seemed empty but they weren't taking any chances, the three lupines went first, using their rifle lights to scan the area. They ran to the large bay door. Despite its obvious age, it seemed solid.

Wilfrend said, "We'll use an explosive to get this open. It's thick and seized shut". He looked at them all. "The noise is going to draw attention here though. So we're going to have to scramble as soon as the doors down."

Wilf was right, the explosive he used was much bigger than they one they used on the lab door. After the boom of the explosion, there was the crash of the large door hitting the broken asphalt outside.

"Go, go, go," Wilfrend said. They burst out into the sunshine, weapons drawn. The parking lot was empty, except for a few rusted heaps that might have been vehicles before, and two 10 foot tall, armour plated gorillas.