Escape From Geo Lab

Disclaimer: As with my other story, this was written for an "Iron Author" contest, in which the goal was to write the worst possible story within certain rules! So, the quality is... exceptional, and critique on this is silly. (Though silly critiques might fit in nicely.) If editors deem it inappropriate for Shifti, I'll understand.

"Escape From Geo Lab" by Thundara Skunkbabe

• 1. The Adventure Begins!

Bright shadows filled the tiny lab! Another flicker of the vast machine equiepment and the the newest expermental subject, a fox, pawed in the glassite chamber. Its steel grey fur had transmuted to gray metal of sleek machinery, of silicon perfection just as Doctor Snow and Doctor Malise had predicted so many years ago.

"Exactly as I said," said the scientist. "There's no need any longer to claim raw meat as the source of human intelligence. We will demonstrate to those liberals who persist in believing in the immaterial, soul, that the body is truly a machine. Especially when we turn it into one."

"Yes," said Doctor Malise. "But the Project is more important than both of us, than this crusade of yours against superstition. Even a man like you cannot put such an arduous journey ahead of... relaxation."

"Steady, girl. We can't put our own ahead of the great task before us. Ready the next subject."

"What should we do with the old." asked Malise of him.

"The fox?" Snow stood akimbo in presentation before the metalicized fox. "Put it into the holding chamber for next week's Congressional hearing. Just wait till the politicians see how we can make life without living flesh."

"They they'll never vote for the Official Religion Act that would force a cross into every courthouse, textbook, and schoolchild in the nation. Well, lets do the next test run."

With the fox safely stewed in its compartment Snow produced another creature, this one spangled vertically across its night-hued hide with twin white tripes of fur and a dense, bushy tail.

Suddenly the lab's machines flared to life as if on their own Accord!

"No, don't go!" cried Sister Malise.

Snow whelped forward towards the shkmmering instrumentation, heedless of danger, humming warning flares of decreased coolant, orgone conduits, burgeoning radiation and other omens. The machines shook and even the vary dials turned burning-hot. Snow cursed, "Get out while you can and I'll handle this!"

If Sister Malise should run away from the machines, turn to <a href="story.html#c3">Chapter 2</a>. If She should stay, turn to <a href="story.html#c3">Chapter 3</a>.

• 2.

Malise threw all her might into her sprint through the endless corridors of the laboratory. Racks and rows of equipment barred her paths at every turn and rendered escape impossible. She cried out and tried a leap, a shove, a rending blow with her fists, but they came away bruised only. "Oh, why was I born a human?" she said. "I'm so weak and vulnerable I can't leap of even a tiny obstacle! If only I were some kind of furry creature I could smell my way out."

She struggled long with the machinery, hearing Snow negotiating with the malfunction behind her. She passed the first row of equipment but there were more, and the safety shower pitted the ground with electrified water from a broken cable, and there were sharp fixtures of lightglobes dangling and swinging from the ceiling. An impossible obstacle course for someone so weak as her!

The ceiling began to collapse as the builing shook around Marlise. "Wait!" someone said. "I can help you!"

Go to Chapter 4.

• 3.

Malise shook her head, tossing her wonderous mane of chestnut hair inthe firelight of the darkened lab. "I cant leave you behind

"Get out while you can and I'll handle this!"

Malise instead burst forward to the ignition chamber where Snow struggles with the machines. "Wait, don't throw that switch!"

"We have to reverse the polarity of the field!"

"But that will overload the conduits!"

"Never mind that! The Project data must be saved!"

Malise saw Snow fling a massive switch to modulate the output in the nick of time. Or was it?

If Malise should try to help reverse the polarity, turn to Chapter 5. If Malise should focus on saving the project Data, go to Chapter 6.

• 4.

A voice echoed in the shattering warehouse. "Wait, I can help you!" Marlise said, "Where are you?"

The smoke billowed black and white from a side corridor and standing there was a beautiful creature with deep eyes set in a furry face. The creature had lugubrious black fur that coruscated down her sides and back with a vast-striped tail of white. "I am here," the creature said, "to save you."

Marlise found her heart racing, even though there was no way she could possibly be enamored of such a creature as this one in front of her right now. "Oh, help me whoever you are!"

The creature stared at the furniture rubble of the room around them, crossed her arms, and said, "I see there are huge racks here. We'll need to grab them and push them hard. Together. Do you see the pattern over there?"

Marlise furtively glanced at the arrangement of furniture. "But how is there enough room to push them to form a path leading to the exit? And there are at least eight levels between here and the surface. If the lab's walls rupture the Atlantic Ocean will pour in here!"

"We'll take the levels one at a time. Come on!"

Marlise helped the strange creature to her feet and began surveying the obstacles, helping her clear a path to the stairway up. "But wait, Marlise said when they encountered a trio of identical crates labeled One, Two, and three. "Should we push this middle crate first, or the two on the sides?"

If Marlise should push the middle crate-first, turn to Chapter 7. If Marlise should push the One and Three crate-first, turn to Chapter 8.

• Episode 5.

Marlise hurled herself at the switch. "With this lever in point position we'll have unlimited energy to short-circuit the malfunction!"

But tis was not to be! Marlise slipped in the shimmering water of the floor, this area being to close to the base's underwater entrance. She yelped as the electricity from the lights evaporated in her spine, sending endless waves of pain through her. A voice called out something and she knew no more.

Turn to Chapter 9.

• 6.

Marlise nearly hurled herself at the switch,.but the entire base was suddenly caught in the edge of a passing hurricane that made it lose altitude, nearly crashing into the farmland and oceans far below.

She had been afraid of heights for many years, and now gasped to find a solution. Many years ago she'd also been deathly afraid of many things: heights, blood, and scorpions. One time her family stayed in a hotel in th desert and there were scorpions, little scorpions in the bathroom on the walls on the ceiling on the toilet. She was the one to find them and her family made her take a shower there anyway because they wouldn't beleiver and there were little scorpion stingers everywhere stinging her and she cried out from the pain as the shower water dropped down, and afterwards they took her out of there and the hotel assured them it was scorpion season and they'd be gone soon. And what was worse there were no stinger marks on her so nobody believed her when she said so. They all called her a liar so she worked very hard in school to become a naturalist scientist who could identify inseccs. She had good grades until one day when she was recruited by the Project to create the super-race of humans and stop the Official Religion Bill. That was why she burned with passion to eradicate all human weaknesses. If only she were a furry creature instead!

Marlise shook her head and leveled her hand at the computer system. UPLOADING DATA, it said when she hit the button. It was at one percent, then ten, then thirty, then fifty, and the ceiling was billowing. The computer was at sixty gigs copied to the disc.

"Snow," she called over her shoulder. "Where are you?"

There was a burst of white and-black smoke...

Marlise now has the Computer Data Disc! Turn to Chapter 4.

• 7.

No! hissed the beauty beside her! "You've trapped us! The middle crate is supposed to be pushed sideways and last!"

"I'm sorry," said Doctor Malise. "Can we pull it back?"

"I... I'm afraid we can't." The heat of the fire was beginning to melt the room so that the furniture was too hot to manipulate further. "There is no way out."

Go to Chapter 11.

• 8.

"Great! Tha's the right sequence. You push the two outer crates one space forward, then the middle one sideways."

"How'd you know that?" said Marlise.

"I don't know," said the creature. "I feel as thogh this change has made me smarter somehow, more are of my environment. I feel a closeness to Nature even in this place thath elps me solve this puzzle before us."

"What change"" said Marlise.

"What, don't you recognize me I'm --" the fur stood silent for a nonce, thinking it would be too embarassing to admit the incredible sensations of the malfunction of the machines in the moment Marlise wasn't there to see. The whole world seemed different now from when he was just a human scientist, and it would be right to recognize that. Wait, that calculation has taken only a tiny fraction of the second! The creature must truly be superintelligent as well as having the superstrength and speed to escape the lab! A peal of lightning sounded in the air from exploding generators on the roof and the fur said, "You should call me... Thundara Skunkbabe."

Marlise stood in awe of the skunk-creature there. "Truly, you're more incrediblelooking than even the works of Ursula Vernon or Diana Harlan Stein. I never thought I would ever see a real furry. I can't believe it. The experiment was more successful than the Project was going to be even when we were going to go on to human test subjects."

"I'm embarassed," Thundara said, "so I can't tell you where I came from."

"Oh, that doesn't mater now. Let's escape from here before the laboratory crashed into the ocean! Let's get to the scape pods~!"

"Not so fast," said a deep and thrilling voice. Go to Chapter 10

• 9.

Marlise woke to the sound of bells. She was in a vast church being cared for by a strange soft hand. The hand had brown fur and little claws pulsing in and out as she woke. "Aah!" Marlise said. "Who are you?"

The face attached to the and was a cat-face with whiskers and a little nose. "I'm Erma Felna, EDF. We picked you up You're deep in ILR terrotory; how did a human get here? And what are you, anway?" Marlise had heard of Erma Felna, everyone had since they made the movie with Michelle Pfeiffer and. "But you're not real!"

"OK, you must need more rest." Felna gave her and injection and Marlise slept again. She felt dissatisfied because she didn't know where she was and felt as though she'd failed to save her comrade in science and escape from the lab.

Bad Ending. But maybe it was just a dream. Go to Chapter 1.

• 10.

The voice called out "Stop right there!" Suddenly there were nine uniformed guards, like Secret Service guards only wearing dark red instead of black. They had energy swords.

"What?" said Thundara and Marlise together. "We need to escape, the building could blow at any second?"

"Hand over the furson! We can't let er escape."

"Er?" said Thundara and MArlise. "Get out of our way!"

"No! No furries can be allowed to see the general public, they'd cause a panic! We're going to dissect er for our alien research program."

"Out of our way!" said Thundara, pointing lawfully at the sheaf of guards! A billow of energy sang forth from her outstretched fists and smote all twelve human guards with one blow! They boweled to the ground smacking against the walls and ceiling before coming to rest. "Wow, I didn't know I could do that!"

"You should saver your energy so you don't run out! let's keep moving and not worry about that!"

Soon they were all the way to the escape pods that would plunge them safely from orbit, back to the safety of the laboratory. They leaped into the last escape submarine just in time as a container exploded behind them. Marlise fell down since she was only human but Thndara sized her wrist and pulled her to safety as vacuum rushed into the shuttle bay. "Oh, thank you Thundara! Are we safe now?"

"Hell yes," Thundara said. "But we can't put our quest ahead of... relaxation."

The shuttle roared away into the open sky, free of the exploding station. Marlise loved the view of the sky, but gasped at Thundara's bountiful expression. "But that -- it would be wrong I can't --"

Turn to Chapter 11.

• 11.

Thundara smiled. "I just realized from staring at you why the heathens back there called me "shi" instead of "she." You see, I must have been turned not only into a skunk but into a hermaphroditic skunk with energy powers and super speed."

"Oh, that's all right then," Marlise said, and they took the stairs joyously together.

It was in the middle of a tremendous yiff that Marlise cried out, "What about the Project data?"

If Marlise has not the Project disc, turn to Chapter11a. If Marlise has the Project disc, turn to Chapter11b.

• 11a.

"That's all right," said Thundara, pushing them closer together again. "We'll start over again. Or better yet, we'll start a new society of skunk-people who can live in peace."

Go to #11c.

• 11B.

"Oh good, you found it! Now we can continue the Project. But now we've got to hide out from the humans who want to kill me and kill you for not turning me over."

Go to #11c.

• 11c.

First you save me, then you forgive me with the data! I love you, so much."

Their screeching and churring went on for hours. But then Thundara sat up with a many heaving bosoms. "I think there's something you can't do for me."

"What's that, love," said Marlise.

The fur told her. "Oh, my," rasped Marlise. "I couldn't smell your pheremoans, I'm just a human. And I'm not a hermaphrodite myself."

"Well then, we'll just have to pick through the ruins of the lab after it's re-entry and find a way to transform you too!"

"All right, another adventure! And we'll bring other people to transform them too!"

"But for now, said the skunkbabe, "Let's do everything we can."

"Now I know why they call you Thundara!"

Go to Chapter 11.