A living, breathing person. Trapped inside of a glass case. 

Like a lab experiment. 

Harlow jumped back, yelping in surprise before quickly covering her mouth. Were they dead? Or were they just sleeping? She couldn’t tell, but hoped for the latter. She looked around the room, hoping for some sort of answer as to why there were people stuck inside of these cases. Then she saw the others. 

Dozens of others. Lined along the wall and sometimes making their own wall, their own corridors and hallways. All entirely made up of people. Upon a better look, Harlow could tell this room they were in was definitely a science lab. But what was the research? It was so different from any other lab she’d been in, and now that she was here, she kind of wished she wasn’t. 

She felt a hand grasp her shoulder and gave out a light shriek again. It was Black Star. Furrowed brows and a small pout on her face, she looked concerned. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Harlow made a noise that she couldn’t really describe as reassuring, more like another shriek mixed with some sort of hum? It told Black Star all she needed to know. 

“Okay, so~ maybe let’s not keeping looking at the floating bodies?” She began to drag her towards the inner room. “ Let’s figure out where we are…maybe we’ll find what we’re looking for?” She stopped abruptly when she heard something crash against the floor. Then someone cursing at themselves, muttering a little and carrying on as if nothing happened. 

Black Star dragged herself and Harlow as close to the wall as she possibly could. She forgot that someone else was in the room with them. Besides the unconscious ones. Harlow tapped on Black Star to let her go, and when she was released, found the wall to support her through some light breathing exercises.  When she was sure she’d suppressed whatever was threatening to climb back up her throat, she finally stood straight up again, looking directly at the test-tube people. 

“There’s so many- are these the…missing people?”  She whispered. Black Star shrugged She kept looking around corners to see if she’d catch their new host, but aside from the occasional yelping from when they dropped something, they never seemed to move from that spot. 

“You think it’s safe to look around?” Harlow asked. She hadn’t really taken her eyes off of Black Star. Mostly due to the shock still settling in her bones, but also because Black Star was actually the one going around and making sure it was safe. She felt bad that she’d left it up to her, but she did agree to help. Even though her reasons are shady at best… she thought to herself. 

“Probably not to galavant through the area…” Black Star started with a smirk, “but why not see what we can find?” Her more playful tone was clear in these words and Harlow just rolled her eyes. 

“Do you think we…we can get anyone out? Of those things…?” Harlow had considered not even asking. But, in the most professional, unattached way she could think of, technically all of these people were probably evidence to whatever was happening. Maybe one of them would know why she got setup to begin with. Again, Black Star shrugged. 

“We don’t have too many options, Harley. We can’t just go back the way we came. Might as well see what we find.” Black Star paused, looking around the area once more. “but, let’s put that on the back burner…who knows what’ll happen if we even can get them out.” Harlow wanted to argue, but unfortunately, she was right. There were a lot of variables to this and what if trying to forcibly take them out hurt them even more? She just nodded and finally pushed herself off the wall. 

“So what should we do? Wait for that scientist to leave and find an ever bigger mess at their door?” Harlow asked, remembering that the entire building was currently in lockdown due to her own actions. Actually, it was interesting that this part of the building wasn’t affected at all. Surely there had to be some sort of warning that the outside world was totally fucked because of some intruders? She peeked to where she knew that scientist last was. 

They were still standing, almost curled over, their desk. They were analyzing something through a microscope, and every so often, they’d pick up some beaker or tube to look at the contents within. There were several shards of glass near their feet, but they didn’t seem to either care or notice. Like the only thing that mattered was their work.

Harlow watched them for a minute before Black Star tapped on her shoulder. Harlow stiffened a bit then looked down at her. 

“I’m gonna look around the top part.” She said, eyes glowing. She carefully flew up to the second floor before Harlow could even say anything. It must have been just an announcement in case she needed her. She shook her head, returning focus to the scientist. They were in a pretty open part of the room, not even caring about the exit-the exits? there must have been more than one. 

Harlow began to carefully move around the area, hiding behind walls that separated the inner part of the room from the exits, and when there were no walls to hide behind, she found a conveniently placed test-tube. While she felt a little bad for the people inside, they surely wouldn’t mind being used as a cover. It was to help them after all. 

Harlow crept her way closer and closer to the scientist, until the only thing separating them was three cases, side-by-side. Harlow wondered what inspired the room layout. Because it felt like a museum, giving ample space to walk to one exhibit to the next. She wondered if that’s what they saw these people as. Exhibits for whatever project they were doing. 

Now that she had a better vantage point of the scientist and her desk, she could see that the area was a complete mess. There were papers everywhere, test sample scattered half-hazardous across the table, which kind of explained all the shattering noises from earlier. For whatever they seemed so engrossed in, they didn’t really care if they lost anything to the floor. How weird…Harlow thought. 

She tried to get closer, maybe to see if she’d find any papers that better explained what was happening in here. She jumped when she heard the scientist shuffle over their desk, taking several objects with them while some more papers fell to the floor. Harlow decided it would be the best time to sneak under the desk. With all those papers underneath, she’d definitely find something. The real question is how do I get Cass’ attention from underneath a desk?

Harlow pushed the question to the back of her mind, and then dropped to the floor as quietly as possible and snuck towards the desk. She’d have a good amount of covering thanks to the two large monitors on top, but there was still a gap. She’d need to be careful. Maybe even tamper with the equipment to force them to leave the room?

Harlow met with the back of the desk a little forcefully. A very solid thud was made when her head hit it, and she had to stop herself from making any noise to indicate she was there. She heard more things roll of the desk and shatter to the ground, which earned their own cursing session. Hearing something vaguely familiar, Harlow’s ears perked. 

The high-pitched shriek, followed by a bunch of nasally curse-words. Almost like the person who said them always had to hold their tongue. Finally, after strained listening, Harlow heard the familiar voice ring out, “Dammit! I’m definitely gonna get in trouble if i keep losing these samples! I’m already in enough trouble as it is…”  they mumbled, shuffling around more objects that she couldn’t see.

Harlow found herself picking up from the ground to try and peer over the top of the desk. She wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but she knew this voice. She knew a lot of the scientist from the research ward, and it wasn’t too far a conclusion to assume several were working with their enemy. Gizzard was, and Beauregard too. 

Harlow could see the top of the desk more closely now. Though most of the papers were upside down, she could still tell they had more than information to help her and Cass. The question was how was she supposed to get it? 

Harlow began to reach across the desk to touch, if she had to choose, one of the monitors. She could force it to shutdown and then while the scientist was distracted, she could take some evidence and leave. It wasn’t foolproof, but it was a decent plan. Her eyes beginning to glow a bright blue, she could almost feel her fingertips against the warm monitors. 

Then she stopped. Because the scientist was now looking directly at her. She must have looked up when she wasn’t looking! Harlow froze. 

The scientist in question had long, curly dark hair. The top part was pulled back in a bun, so she wouldn’t get anything in it. She was wearing thin, circle glasses that were slipping off her face from looking down too much. And they barely hid her brown eyes, or the numerous amounts of freckles that were littered across her face.  Harlow’s eyes widened. 

“Harlow…what are you doing here?” She asked, with the same high-pitched, nasally voice that she’d heard only a couple of days ago.  Harlow felt her throat run dry. That something from before that was caught in her throat had threatened to rise again. 

“…Dr. Gizzard?”