The Laboratory

The Laboratory
Gabriel sat down in the uncomfortable chair on the opposite side of his boss’ desk, “You wanted to see me Mr. Bergstrom?”
“Yes,” Mr. Bergstrom said very drawn out as he shuffled through a pile of paper covering his desk. “Would you know anything about one of our customers? The GBC firm or something like that?”
“Yes, GBC was one of my first contracts when I started working here. They’re good people and from what I know we’ve never had and problems with them paying their loan payments on time, in fact they usually pay a bit extra than what they’re suppose to if I remember right.”
“They’ve missed the past three months. They’re not answering any of the phone calls we give them and we’ve sent them mail, but there has been no response. They’ve been good customers for a long time now, but if they’re not willing to pay, they might be in for some trouble.” Mr. Bergstrom hunted through some more papers on his desk and still seemed not to find the folder he was looking for. “I thought that because you have a personal connection with Mr. . . .” he continued to hunt around for the information about the deal, unable to remember the manager of GBC’s name.
“Mr. Adams. His name is Mr. Adams,” Gabriel said remembering the chunky man and how he looked.
“Yes, Mr. Adams. As I was saying, you know Mr. Adams and you also know what his company needs so I would like it if you went out to GCE.”
“GBC,” Gabriel simply said correcting Mr. Bergstrom.
“Yes, GBC, and talked with them to see how things are going. Talk with them; see if you can cut a new deal or anything like that. Like you said, they’re loyal customers and I don’t want to loose them for some small reason.”
“Their building is a few miles out of town; can I use the company car to go out there?”
“Just remember to not get it dirty and to bring it back in one piece.”
“I can do that. Is there anything else that you need?”
“Be back in time for that meeting, those people seem to like you, so we’ll need you there if we’re going to be doing business with them.”
“I’ll see you tonight then,” Gabriel stood up and headed out towards the parking garage with a smile on his face. Not only was he about to get paid for going out and talking with some old friends, but he was going to make the trip in the company’s Cadillac. The car had all of the bells and whistles known to man, the only things it was missing was the passenger ejection seat, the oil slick coming out of the muffler, and the guns in the tail lights. The day was finally starting to look up.
After an hour and a half ride in luxury Gabriel took the turn off form the freeway that led to GBC. Officially the turn off was for a small tiny village called Mora but no one even knew that there was a town there. GBC was the reason that Mora even existed and was also bigger than the entire ‘down town’ Mora.
As Gabriel took the turn off he could see GBC instantly with its three buildings poking out above the rest of Lima’s one story sky line. The buildings were covered in glass which made GBC look like a sparkling gem compared to the mom and pop stores that surrounded it. By the time Gabriel made it to the parking lot all four buildings of GBC were glimmering in the sun. The four buildings were arranged in a square, each building making up one of the corners. Between the buildings there were hallways connecting to the buildings to each side.
The front building was just the reception and administration building and was only one story height; however the other three wings were three stories high.
While driving through the full parking lot in front of GBC Gabriel tried to remember everything he could about GBC so when he walked in, he wouldn’t look like a complete idiot not knowing what was going on. All that he could remember from the first time he met with Mr. Adams, over ten years before, was that GBC was some sort of research company. He couldn’t remember what exactly GBC researched but he planned to ask Mr. Adams simply ‘how’s the research going?’ and then act interested in whatever he said.
Gabriel finally found a visitors parking spot, parked his car, and doubled checked how he looked in the rear view mirror. Everything looked okay and so he got out and headed towards the first building.
Gabriel opened up the glass door and headed into the main reception area. He thought it was a little weird that no one was there, but with a quick glance at his watch he noticed that it was already lunch time. He decided to be polite and wait for the secretaries to come back. He sat down in the couch that was there and picked up a copy of Fish and Wildlife that looked like it hadn’t been read by a person in months. After sitting in the sun and reading the old magazine Gabriel started to realize why no one had read that magazine, it had only been a few minutes but he was already starting to feel a little sleepy and was about to take a nap.
He fought the urge, stood up, and went to the front desk one more time, “Hello? Is anyone here?”
He peeked over the counter to see if there were any messages or signs saying when people would be back. The only thing he saw was the classic Windows flower box screen saver bouncing and changing across the secretary’s computer screen.
Gabriel mumbled to himself as if the empty room could somehow hear him, “Where did everyone go?”
After a bit more of looking around Gabriel gave one more shout for help and then announced that he was going behind the counter and when no one answered he walked behind it and headed towards Mr. Adams’ office in hopes for an answer of what was going on.
His memory was working on old information and a few things were moved around but Gabriel finally made it to the closed door that had the name on it, Steven Adams. Gabriel gave it a light nock and then waited for an answer that never came. He knocked harder, and still no response came from the closed office door.
Gabriel grabbed the door knob, looked around just to make sure that no one was around and then opened the door. The office was empty. The room had a large glass window that pointed towards the center of the four buildings which lit up the desk and the rest of the room, but there wasn’t a single person there.
Gabriel, out of habit, closed the door behind him as soon as he came into the office. As soon as the door was closed the computer at Mr. Adams’ desk started to whir to life. Gabriel took a few steps forward towards the desk to get a good look at the screen. As he got closer the metallic blinds from outside began to roll over the window, making the glare of the sun a little les. By the time the window was covered, the monitor crackled to life and a face that Gabriel had never seen before showed up on the screen.
“Hello Steven. By this time, I’d like to say, welcome to your casket. The room that you spent all your time in, will be the room you die in. You dared to pull off your little trick that made my entire team become infected, this is what you deserve. I’ll see you in Hell.”
Gabriel didn’t know what was going on but didn’t like the sound of it. He ran over to the door and tried it but it didn’t budge, it was locked. The windows were covered in sheets of metal and the only light came from the tiny pin holes in the metal sheets that covered the window.
Gabriel was stuck. Someone set a trap for someone else and instead of hitting its target, Gabriel got sucked into the conflict without even knowing what was going on. He felt like a person in the middle of a war without knowing why there was a war. He tried the phone, and all he heard was static. The computer wasn’t working any more because the energy was turned off, to what seemed to be the entire facility. Gabriel had no clue what to do, he didn’t have a cell phone, there was no food in the room, and his boss wouldn’t realize that he had not come back until the weekend was over giving Gabriel at least three days until someone would start to try to find him. He sat down in the large chair behind the desk and tried to put the puzzle pieces that he had together. Gabriel started the list in his head at first, but then moved to talking out loud just to break the silence that was covering the room. “I know that GBC was a good customer for about ten years, but now they’re not. Something obviously happened from the inside with different people plotting against each other. I know that they’re researching something, but I don’t know if that has anything to do with the rest of this. I know that I’m stuck in this office, but I know that no one will miss me for at least three days, meaning that I have to find my way out of here before then or at least find something to eat before hen. Let’s see if there’s anything in here.”
“Gabriel started to look around the room for anything. A bit of food, a way out, or even a little information was on his search list. He wasn’t able to find any food, but thanks to the large wooden bookshelf on the office wall Gabriel did find some reading material, the only bad news was the he wasn’t able to read any of the reports because the room was so dark and dreary.
After about an hour of pacing around what then seemed like a small cage Gabriel had, had it with his prison. He wanted out of there and was willing to go to any length to see daylight again.