"I have no words for what I just witnessed. That was a lot to process," I said when my normal vision returned and I was standing in the hallway with Becca and Dr. Kale once again.
"It was quite the sacrifice to bring the eggs to this facility," Becca said and smiled at me. At least, I think she smiled.
"Well, thank you for showing me," I told her. She gave a polite nod and popped back beside Dr. Kale.
"Any update on the egg or the room?" I asked him. He had been pacing in a small line and muttering to himself. He stopped the pacing and stood silent for a few seconds when I spoke to him.
"We'll head up to the camera station and see what happened. Don't worry," Dr. Kale said and gestured with a nod for me to follow him. He brought the walkie-talkie back toward his face and told the guy on the other end, "I'll let you know what we find out."
He slipped the walkie-talkie back into his lab coat pocket and gave me what he thought was a reassuring smile. It was closer to murderous and psychotic than reassuring.
"Yeah, why wouldn't I worry? I wasn't just assaulted by a fake spider in a cramped room and now have found out someone potentially stole an egg for whatever reasons. No reason to worry at all. This is all good news. The only reason an egg would go missing wouldn't be a bad reason. I have a wonderful feeling about this," I said, talking to myself, but not realizing that I announced everything out loud. My wife just had to remind me about my failures against spiders. If one of these things hatched…no, I can't even finish that thought.
"You, uh, you aren't alright in the head, are you?" Dr. Kale asked with his stupid voice and annoying smile.
"That, coming from the guy who wants to resurrect monster spiders that were so dangerous they murdered their food supply and forced themselves into extinction?" I said. The job sometimes got in my head a bit. I had a tendency to get nervous and talk a lot, mostly nonsense. My wife found it hilarious, especially since I was never more nervous than during my first few times out with her. She could be intimidating in many ways, but she was great. A little out there and wild, but great.
"Come on, one of the eggs probably just hatched," Dr. Kale said, followed by a high-pitched squeal of a laugh and nudged my side with his elbow again.
I rubbed my side and glared at him. This guy.
As we walked down the hallway back to the elevator, the lights in the ceiling flickered and popped off for a moment, then turned back on. I came to a complete stop and grabbed Dr. Kale to make him stop with me.
"What was that?" I asked Dr. Kale.
"Those stupid island-native-monkeys keep frying themselves on our electric walls; it drains a lot of power," he said in a dark tone. "It was funny to watch at first, but it shoots up our electric bill. Sometimes we lose power for a few seconds if a particularly big monkey cooks himself, but nothing more than flickers now and then."
"This place seems less and less wonderful with every passing moment," I said.
"Oh, please, this is a majestic utopia!" Dr. Kale said with a bright grin that lit up his face.
So the guy with a hard-on for spiders liked to watch adorable little monkeys cook themselves on his overpowered electric fence. Yeah, I was super comfortable staying here. I would bet money he had cameras in all the rooms, or at least the bathrooms.
Especially the bathrooms.
"The good news is that the security office is right past the mammoth machine, so two birds and one stone. All that jazz," he said with a half-hearted shrug as the elevator raised us toward the sky.
"Do you know of someone who would benefit from stealing one of these eggs?" I asked. The walls turned from metal back to the glass as we left the living floors and were now rising past the working floors.
"Who wouldn't?" Dr. Kale said with a shrug. "No one besides my friend who discovered them, the workers here, and you, knows they even exist. Discoveries like this can make a career or, at least, garner a paycheck large enough to retire off of."
"So you think it's probably a money thing? Not a 'bring these creatures back to life' thing?" I asked the question that was really bothering me. I did not want these things wandering around. The little ones I found wandering around my house were bad enough; I would never sleep again if I knew something like this was out and about in the world.
"These eggs are almost guaranteed past the point of being revived, but the best chance of bringing them back is this facility here. Stealing one would be the worst thing to do in regards to giving life to the specimen. So if the eggs were stolen, it would not be for scientific reasons."
"Maybe someone got smart and realized destroying the eggs is the best thing for this world," I said under my breath but loud enough for Dr. Kale to hear me.
"ANYWAYS, no one is sneaking off the island without our knowledge; if someone took it, we'll find them," he said, increasing the volume of his voice to talk over mine. He was ignoring what I said, but was unable to keep from flashing me an offended look.
We rode the rest of the elevator ride in awkward silence. The only sound was the quiet hum of the elevator as it lifted us out of the residential area of the building and back to the working floors where glass made up the building. I would take this silence over his whistling with a smile.
The smooth ride and soft hum would almost be relaxing if an extinct spider egg wasn't missing. These glass walls almost seemed to glitter with beautiful mockery in the setting sun, taunting me as if they knew something I did not. The light danced around between the dozens of different glass walls, creating a light show that captured my attention for much of the ride before my mind began to wander. The images of giant spiders running free throughout the world and their violent slaughtering of thousands of people with ease kept playing on repeat in my imagination.
We should have just destroyed the remaining eggs to ensure none of these creatures' eight legs ever touched the face of the earth.
A loud "ding!" signaled our arrival. I jumped at the sound; I was very deep in my thoughts and had forgotten where we were. In unison, we stepped off the elevator, and Dr. Kale led us back into the room where he kept the eggs. As I had feared, there were only thirteen eggs left.
"Well, something certainly happened since we were in here a few hours ago," I said.
Dr. Kale scratched his chin as he looked into the nest of eggs. "Let's go look at the video starting from when we left until now. We can view the video from the mammoth room. Two birds, one mammoth."
Sounds like a terrible British porno.
"Why don't you have this room, or at least the eggs, locked up? The eggs should have at least been moved to a secure location," I said while staring at the remaining eggs with a frown.
"Well, normally I would reply to your question by saying it's not like someone is going to steal them. At the very least, I can tell you that no one will steal an egg and get off the island, so it's not a real risk to leave them out. Besides, the eggs need the sunlight," he said.
"What's that?" I said and pointed at a pool of red on the floor on the other side of the table. "Is that blood?"
"Oh, the scientist that alerted us to the missing egg always gets these nervous nose bleeds. I'm sure it is nothing," Dr. Kale said.
"That is a lot of blood, that's no nose bleed," I said.
Dr. Kale shrugged and took off in a swift walk out of the room, catching me off guard. Again. I spun around and had to run to catch up. All this running was wearing away at me; why the hell could he not walk off like a normal person? Or maybe give voice to the fact he was about to leave the room. Something other than all this random speeding off.
We continued walking past several offices. I noticed there was no one around on this level. Sure, it was hours later than when I got here, but I still expected some people to be around. This floor, and from what I could see through the glass into the other floors, was empty outside of Dr. Kale and myself. The emptiness and stillness of the many rooms raised the creepy level up quite a bit.
"Where is everyone?" I asked.
"Probably on the lower levels, either relaxing or getting something to eat. We live where we work, so it's unusual to put in long hours daily. People work every day, so it is important to try and take some time for themselves. Otherwise, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed, trapped, become claustrophobic, and go a bit crazy," Dr. Kale said. "Personally, I spend much of my free time on the Internet; there are some truly amazing things on there. The best perk of working in a place like this, unlimited access to the fastest of Wi-Fi. No buffering when conducting 'research.'"
He used finger quotes when he said "research." This guy was just something special.
"I feel like you're the kind of guy to venture into the dark depths of 4chan for fun," I said.
"Yes. Like I said, some truly amazing things."
I tried not to imagine what he considered amazing. He took me around a corner and up a few stairs. The glass was growing thicker and darker as we went; it wasn't long before I could no longer see what was around the corner of the next hallway.
In his excitement, Dr. Kale leaned into his fast-paced walk and broke into a jog. I was eager to join him; the closer we got to the mammoth, the more I could feel the excitement bubbling up inside me. Sure, we had to deal with the missing egg situation first, but that mammoth moment was coming.
I thought cloning, in general, was a terrible idea, and what was happening in this building was a direct insult to God, but I couldn't help but be totally enthralled by all of this. Dr. Kale kept pushing our pace around another corner and then came to a sudden stop. I came to a halt, almost crashing into Dr. Kale, and looked up in awe as we faced a gargantuan metal wall. Dr. Kale went up to the small door, swiped his card, and pushed the door open.
"Follow me, please," Dr. Kale said with a cocky, and somewhat unnerving, smile.