Jake and Alice froze, their squabble interrupted as they turned to stare at the stranger on the other side of their cell. He was a rather portly man, tall with brown stubble on his face and long flowing hair that lay behind his back in an untamed mane. Yet this was not what drew their attention. What drew their gaze was the stranger’s state of dress. Rather than look like another prisoner or a guard or even a man employed for any sort of job really, he looked like he was dressed for a day at the beach. He wore a floral print shirt hastily and unevenly buttoned, shorts, and flip-flops. A pair of sunglasses also rested neatly atop his head, buried in his hair.

  His unkempt clothes also showed signs of sweat. They could see perspiration dripping from his face, which looked red and uneven. He looked as if he’d been sprinting earlier. The duo stared at the tropical stranger, expecting something to follow his sudden declaration of presence, yet nothing came. Glancing at each other with equally confused looks on their faces, Alice finally spoke up.

  “Can we… help you with something?”

  “Oh, I certainly hope so!” The man said, a sort of sly cunning in his tone undercut by his clear nervous excitement, “But before all that, let’s start with the basics shall we? Prison detainees: You have been summarily charged with the crimes of Grand Larceny, Grand Theft Auto, and Mass Destruction of Government Property. Your pleas to these crimes do not matter, you have been found guilty and will be detained until further notice as you are further charged or transferred to begin serving your sentence…”

  The man had pulled a flat pad out from under his arm where it had sat tucked, hidden away. Now glancing at it every other second or so he seemed to be reading out a script, voice monotone and steady as he proceeded line by line only pausing occasionally to drag his finger across the pad.

  “Excuse me?” Jake asked, interrupting the man’s monologue as he was busy detailing the millions of dollars of fines that would be leveled upon the two, their next of kin, and their next of kins next of kin.

  “Yes?” The man asked with a smile on his face.

  “Who are you exactly?”

  “Ah yes, in my hurry to get through this…” He said, waving the pad around in the air, “and get one with why I came here, I forgot my manners! Nice to meet you, my name is Simon, an intern.”

  “An intern?” Alice asked, wondering what that could possibly mean.

  “They have an intern handling us?” Jake added on, surprised “From the way you kept listing fines and punishments, I thought we’d be a pretty big deal around… wherever we are.”

  “Oh, you are, believe me. Been a while since someone caused as much damage as you to did so… congrats?” Simon said, shuffling uncomfortably under the annoyed stares the two shot him, “They tasked me with reading your basic sentencing information and restriction of rights because quite honestly, no one in the Justice Sector wanted anything to do with you. They were getting sick of me hounding them so now I’m here… getting to talk to you… directly…”

  “Wait, the Justice Sector? Don’t you intern for the police?” Jake asked, growing worried.

  “Ah, see I guess you wouldn’t really know, would you?” Simon said, his eyes widening as if just remembering something, “See I intern for Lab 458. Government Labs retains the right to request that any prisoners they deem will further their research, so long as they can prove the value of the prisoner to their research goals, be released into their custody as part of their sentencing. My lab, 458 believes you two fit that description to a t. I’m here to prove your worth as quickly as I can so you can be released into our restrictive custody. Hopefully, in the next hour or two, we want to get you out of here by sundown.”

  “A LAB?” Jake screamed out, feeling faint as he did his best to stumble away from Simon.

  “What's wrong?” Alice asked, noticing the clear panic in Jake’s voice.

  “They want to us for lab rats! They're going to experiment on us, cut us open, torture us!”

  “Look please,” Simon said, stepping closer to the barrier separating him from the caged pair, “It’s not that bad I promise you, if you could just calm down we can work this out…”

  “PLEASE!” Alice called out, panicked now to as she forced herself further away from the barrier mimicking Jakes desperate struggle, “PLEASE! Just listen, PLEASE! It was an accident, all an accident really…”

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  “WE ONLY MEANT TO GO AROUND THE GARAGE!” Jake called out, adding to Alice's desperate pleas.

  “He’s right, please you don’t understand! Just stay back…” Tears stung Alice's eyes now as she begged the man who threatened her freedom, threatened her life. Simon just sighed, watching the two struggle desperate to crawl away, their heavy shackles slamming against the metal of the cell.

  “I wanted to do this civilly…” He said after a while, hoping the two might work their panic out of their systems if he waited long enough. Instead, he was only greeted with more frequent bouts of begging. “But I can assume you won't consent to that, yes? All I’d need is a few hairs from each of you. Would only take a moment, less than that probably.”

  “NO!” The duo screamed back, now managing to press themselves as far as possible to the side of the cell. Still, they both pressed further as if hoping to phase through the solid metal surface, terror clear in their eyes. Simon sighed again, before reaching his hand out of sight to the pair toward the wall.

  “Unfortunately, refusal is no longer a right you have.” Suddenly a short click rang out and the duo found their limbs violently pulled to the ground. The pair lay stunned, their arms and legs bruised by how violent the pull of their cuffs had been. Quickly, sense returned to them but no matter how hard they tried they remained stuck fast to the floor, unable to move a muscle. Seeing this, Simon nodded satisfied before pushing another button on the panel built into the side of their cell.

  The opaque barrier disappeared, granting Simon access to the metallic prison. Stepping forward, the intern strolled across the floor till he stood towering above the helpless pair. Bending low, he reached into his pocket and produced two small vials. Twisting the top of the first, he brought the open container forward till it held a small lock of Jake’s overgrown hair. Twisting the top again it snapped shut, cutting the hair and leaving it to lay still in the vial. Turning, he repeated the process for Alice, pausing a second as he caught sight of the scars marring her body.

  “Curious…” He muttered to himself yet said nothing further as he captured his second vial of hair. Standing up straight, he stretched his back out before looking down at the sprawled figures of the helpless criminals.

  “Look…” He began, voice apologetic, “This isn’t how I wanted this to go, I promise you. I hope you can try to remember that. I don’t know how to disengage the maglocks in the cuffs, I can try on my way out but if that doesn’t work I’ll see if someone from the Justice Sector will fix it, though I doubt they’ll bother. Worse comes to worse you shouldn’t be stuck like this for long, I’ll be back in a few hours to collect you.” The two began protesting again, screaming out, but the intern just turned and walked away.

  Stopping at the control panel, he reactivated the opaque barrier before pressing the button he’d used to engage the maglocks. But nothing happened. The button was now greyed out and unresponsive. He sighed, he supposed it made sense. The maglocks were meant as emergency detainment in the event of a riot or mass breakout. It wouldn’t make much sense if escaping prisoners could just turn them off. He’d have to let the guards deal with it. He had bigger issues to deal with.

  Reaching into his other pocket he produced a small handheld device. Slipping one of the two vials of hair he’d gathered into a small round opening at the top of the machine, Simon locked the vial into place and started the machine running. Instantly, readouts and progress reports about the machine's readings began blaring out, rapidly informing Simon about the numerous scans the handheld device was engaging itself in. Simon didn’t particularly care, he didn’t need the machine.

  The portable scanner was designed to test foreign objects to see if they’d breached or not. Simon didn’t need the machine to tell him the captured duo was anomalous. His eyes had done that just fine when he’d found the video recording of the exact spot where the breach was located. The scanner wouldn’t prove much of anything to himself or Dr. Lewis. But it would prove the prisoner’s worth to the Lab if presented to the council. At the very least, it should prove enough to get the prisoners released into the Lab’s custody on a temporary basis.

  Smiling to himself, Simon felt grateful he was smart enough to grab the scanner before leaving the lab. Then turning to sprint away from the cell his steps echoing out through the prison, he scowled to himself wishing he’d instead thought to grab a change of clothes. Dressed as he was now, he looked like an idiot. That could hurt the lab’s chances of getting custody of the duo, or even worse, ruin his already minimal chances at career advancement.

  The cell was quiet now it’s uninvited guest had left, leaving its caged residents silent and unmoving. Locked to the floor, they couldn’t move if they wanted and the shock of their guests visit left them feeling queasy, unwilling to talk.

  “What’s going to happen to us…” Alice finally asked, voice small and shaky.

  “I don’t know…” Jake admitted.

  “In your world, they had these labs too right? What sort of thing happened to ‘Lab Rats?’”

  “Nothing good.”

  “I… I don’t want to die like this Jake. Chained and gutted, locked away underground. Please I just…” She was crying now; she couldn’t help it.

  “We’ll be fine, I promise.” Jake said, voice shaky himself as he tried to reassure Alice, “We just need to wait, wait a little bit longer for sunup. If we can last that long, manage to slip away, we’ll be alright. Plus… I doubt they’ll do anything to us right away. It’ll probably take ages for that guy to come back for us, ages to reach this lab. We have plenty of time…”

  “Your… your probably right…” Alice said, her voice still weak.

  Neither wanted to acknowledge how eager, how desperate Simon had seemed. How fast they heard him sprint away. How certain they were that despite their best attempts to assure themselves, they remained helpless on the floor unable to even reach each other.