Laura suddenly became aware of a distant buzzing around her. It sounded like something vibrating but that confused her. What was vibrating? Where was it coming from? She looked around her to try and make sense of what she was hearing. She was walking along the coastline, waves lapping at her bare feet. The sand between her toes felt warm and Laura loved the view of the sun slowly sinking along the horizon. She recognised the place but couldn’t tell where she was. Maki was in the distance ahead of her, frolicking along the shoreline. She loved being by the sea, the fresh, salty air, the seagulls screeching above, the sounds of the water moving across the sand. There were few distractions and being here always soothed her. She felt calm and joyful. The seaside was her happy place and she would always go whenever she could.
The vibrating intensified and Laura’s eyes bolted open. Coming to, she realised she was in her bed and had been asleep. Reaching to her left she scrambled to find her phone on the bedside table, now realising that this was the source of the noise she had been aware of. She picked it up and held it in front of her face, blinking quickly to try and make her eyes work together and focus on what she was looking at. The phone still vibrating in her hand showed Ronny Honks Calling... At that second, everything made sense! It was LexxEducation recording day and she had overslept. She swiped her finger across the screen to answer the call and moved her hand to her ear. “Hello” she squeaked, trying to sound more awake than she actually was.
(Bunsen/Carole)
“Did I wake you?” Ron sounded far too gleeful for Laura’s liking, and she squashed down the urge to tell him to piss off.
“Of course not, I’ve been awake for ages,” she lied, sliding out of bed as silently as possible and searching around for her dressing gown and slippers.
“Are you sure about that?” Ron asked innocently. “Because I would have thought you’d have done something about Maki going off her head by now.”
“Maki going off- what are you talking about?” But even as she said it, Laura became aware of a cacophony of barking downstairs, as though Maki was determined to wake the dead. “Gosh, she’s really going mad, isn’t she? I wonder if she’s seen a giant squirrel or something.”
“Maybe you should go and check, make sure there’s not an intruder trying to get in or anything,” Ron suggested helpfully.
“Why did you have to go and say that, you horrible little boy, you know I’m here by myself at the moment.” Laura crept down the stairs as quietly as she could, until she could glimpse the front door. Sure enough, Maki was there, barking ferociously at a shadowy figure just visible through the opaque glass. Even as Laura watched, there came a heavy knock-knock-knock.
“Hang on, Ron,” Laura whispered as quietly as possible, “I’m going to check who’s at the door.” She slipped the phone into her dressing gown pocket and grabbed hold of Maki’s collar in one hand. With the other hand, she slowly turned the handle and swung the door back, to reveal on the doorstep…
“Ron! Bloody hell! What on earth are you doing here?” Laura demanded, the shock making her sound almost angry. “Why aren’t you in Belgium? Have you and Girlfriend of the Podcast had a fight?”
“Nice to see you too, thanks,” Ron replied amiably. “Now, I’m just going to hazard a very wild guess, but have you by any chance forgotten what today is?”
“What do you mean, what today is? It’s recording day, isn’t it? On zoom?”
“It’s Lexx Education Field Trip Day!”
(Squirrels)
At the look of total confusion from Laura, Ron burst into giggles.
"You really don't have a clue do you! How can you not remember we said we'd do a field trip?"
Laura huffed and glared at him.
"I do remember actually, but we said it would be on the 29th."
Ron's giggling intensified.
"Laura, it is the 29th."
“No it’s not.”
Laura pulled her phone out of her pocket, all ready to wave it in her annoying little brother's face and prove her superiority in calendar management, only to find the traitorous numbers 2 and 9 staring up at her.
"Oh...."
Ron rolled his eyes.
"So I manage to make it all the way from Belgium on time, and you can't even make it out of bed!"
"Oh, look will you just shut up and come in while I get ready.”
Pulling her brother through the door, Laura gave him a shove towards the living room, before racing up the stairs to get dressed in record time.
A couple of hours later and she was wondering why she'd bothered. They were on a tour of a lab researching bio....... something. Chemistry? Technology? Physics? Wait, was biophysics even a thing? She glanced down at the notebook she had long since ceased to write in, hoping for a clue, but found only the words 'Genes', 'Bigger', some indecipherable symbols, and a drawing of a 3-legged cat with 'Lopsided moggy' and a smiley face scribbled underneath. Sighing, she attempted to re-focus on the sciencey tour guide woman at the front, but was quickly distracted by some flasks containing brightly coloured, bubbling liquid on a bench to her right.
They really were very pretty she thought, as she moved closer to get a better look. A little bit like mini lava lamps with the way the bubbles rose and fell, the network of tubing connecting them giving the appearance of a fluorescent spider’s web as the coloured liquid made its way through.
She stared, mesmerised, for a while, until Ron's call of "Laura," cut through her thoughts, making her jump. Embarrassed, she turned quickly back towards the group, but as she did so her bag caught one of the flasks on the bench. Gazing in horror, Laura watched as the whole apparatus began to tilt almost in slow motion, seemed to right itself for a second, then finally submitted to gravity and tipped over. Flasks of fluorescent liquid rolled in all directions, careering off the bench to plummet down and smash into smithereens, covering both the floor, and Laura, in their contents.
(Jenny C)
“Jesus Christ…” hissed Ron, through gritted teeth. Their tour-guide paused, searching for the source of the noise. She focused on Laura’s now dripping t-shirt, scowling over her glasses to read the name badge; “...as ‘Laura’ has so effortlessly demonstrated here, this is a working laboratory, and it is extremely important that you take care not to disturb or contaminate any of the projects. Felix, would you take ‘Laura’ to the staff hub and get her cleaned up? And call IBMC tell them we have a…”
Laura lost track of what the guide was saying, as a bearded lab tech placed a hand on her shoulder and gently led her out through a side door.
As the door swung shut behind them he grinned; “Don’t worry, she set that up on purpose. We’ve had a few near misses in the past, people forget it’s a working lab. This way we get the “accident” out of the way first thing and then everyone’s extra careful once they get inside!”
“And of course, it had to be me didn’t it?!” Laura relaxed, the deep flush of shame had begun to subside; “He’s never gonna let me forget this, that little butt-weasel!”
Felix laughed; “It’ll make for some good content though!”
“Oh my God! You know us?”
“Of course! We’re all big fans!”
As Laura struggled to comprehend the latest bomb-shell of the morning, they rounded a corner and entered what looked like a common room. Between two large sofas stood a low coffee table, strewn with papers and books. Some sort of rolling news channel ran silently across a wall-mounted TV, and a woman gestured towards a door on the far side. Presumably a changing room.
“Jenny’ll get you sorted out. You can borrow some overalls for the day. We’ll get your clothes cleaned ready for when you leave. Enjoy the rest of your visit!” Felix winked as he walked away, leaving a damp, puzzled Laura to shower, change, and re-join the party.
Meanwhile, Ron and the rest of the group were listening to their guide as she introduced the various projects taking place.
“... of course here at Bristol’s Green Lab we place great emphasis on sustainability, we’re currently working on a number of initiatives to either repair or protect the environment: carbon capture, applications of Ideonella sakaiensis to manage PET in landfill, and of course lab-cultured meat.”
Then, Ron felt a sharp poke in his lower back. He yelped and spun around to see Laura, smirking. She pulled a face of mock disgust “Urgh - frankenmeat?! Hope they’ve got another veggie option in the canteen!”
Ron rolled his eyes and smiled back. “Come on then, swampy.” They followed the guide through the doors to the next room.
(Beckie Green)
‘Why are you dressed like a Minion?’ Ron asked, as he sceptically surveyed the ill-fitting blue and yellow overalls Laura was now sporting. ‘Why are you dressed like a smug bellend?’ she retorted, as they entered what appeared to be a warehouse filled from floor to ceiling with illuminated fridge cabinets. ‘Well this isn’t the chocolate river and edible cup wonderland I was expecting’ sulked Laura, ‘I even played Willy Wonka in primary school, in dad’s dressing gown, so was looking forward to joining in with some annoyingly moralistic Oompa Loompa singing….’ Ron wisely shushed her a few words into a misguided improvised version of ‘I’ve Got a Golden Ticket’.
‘This is where we store the different experimental meat products’ the guide explained. ‘Some need to be kept at a very specific temperature, others need to be aged, most require several different processing and treatment stages before they become edible rather than toxic, flammable, and - on two memorable occasions – fully sentient.’ The guide opened one of the fridges and brought out a jar with a suspicious looking brown and pink lump inside. ‘We have been trying to make this one have the taste and texture of barbecued pork. So far, it’s more like a ball of stringy mud that smells a bit of Frazzles but tastes like concentrated disappointment. Which is not what we were aiming for, but if we can make it palatable it could be very useful for pre-conditioning England football fans and X-Factor contestants to be more prepared and realistic about their prospects.’ An explanation then began about the various processes involved including organic compounds, lipids, synthesis, glycerol, and phosphatidic acids, throughout which Ron nodded along sagely, while Laura fiddled with the buttons on her overalls and wondered if there would be novelty fudge for sale once they finally reached the gift shop. After two more jars were brought out and explained, one gnarly and black, the other more like a maroon soupy gunk that appeared to be moaning, the guide finally gestured for everyone to follow her out of the warehouse.
The group were ushered through some sliding doors, seemingly into a poorly lit dead end, and the doors closed behind them. Ron briefly panicked at the prospect of being trapped, before realising it was just a lift and subsequently feeling a bit silly. This was no Great Glass Elevator though, as instead of a myriad of buttons strewn over every inch of wall and ceiling, there was only a single button, emblazoned with one illuminated, blinking, ominous word.
‘DOWN’.
(Mystic)
Of all the words it could have said, why that one?
For that matter, why was a lift showing words at all?
They could understand numbers. There are many friendly numbers. Seven would have been a lovely friendly number to see, as would eleven. Even thirteen would have been acceptable, but no, this lift had a word, and not one that could be considered even slightly amiable. How was Ron going to do his counting now?
The panic started to grow, but before they had the chance to exit an unknown hand pressed the button and the doors slammed shut.
The lift started to descend, and the aural assault of lift music started. Rather than a Hammond organ rendition of Girl from Ipanema, or a recorder ensemble massacring Greensleeves, they were now hearing a sinister organ piece (which nobody recognised, but if they had they would have been thoroughly impressed at the virtuoso performance of Bach’s Passacaglia & Fugue in C Minor that was bombarding their ears).
With a groan the lift came to a halt, the music stopped, and the doors started to gradually slide open.
(Mike)
What they saw was the last thing they expected in the lower levels of the facility. A tall bright room full of glass domes and in every glass dome, what looked like a garden. The tour guide turned to the group and said, “This is a facility to test the sentience of insects and the viability of each species as a meat alternative”.
Laura turned to Ron and exclaimed “yuck I’m never going to eat bugs” Ron replied, “It’d make for an interesting cook along though”.
The tour guide bustled them over to one of the domes containing lots of flowers and showed them in though a two-stage door. In the centre of the dome was a plinth on which lay some tiny balls. These appeared to be moving on their own accord. The tour guide then explained “this is our bumble bee room”. As they approached the plinth Laura could see tiny bumble bees pushing the balls around. “As you can see our bumble bees love to play. This shows that they have sentience”.
Laura heard a buzzing and turned to see that a bumble bee had mistaken her new yellow top as a flower. It was big and had deep black lines. When it realized its mistake, it bumbled off.
They moved on to the next dome which was much longer and smelled very bad. Laura and Ron both shared a look. The tour guide stated, “This is the locust room they are our most viable future food sauce because of the ease at which they breed”.
A buzzing started at the far side of the dome and a cloud of locusts swarmed into the sky descending on the next batch of plants.
As they returned to the elevator another member of staff came out of a side room with a tray and presented a plethora of bugs prepared in a multitude of ways. Laura refused to try some, but Ron tried a honey glazed scorpion (after wiggling it in Laura’s face of course.) and found it to be quite nice a bit crunchy but ok.
(Alex H –Navron 89)
“You’re a horrible little boy!” Laura wrinkled her nose at her brother, who was grinning at her as he licked his fingers.
“It’s not bad,” he replied, “you should try it!”
Laura glared at Ron but before she could respond the tour guide raised her voice and addressed the group.
“Now if you follow me, we will continue the tour,” she moved towards an automatic door which turned out to be another lift.
“Why are you frowning?” Laura asked Ron noticing his expression after they had entered the lift, “is the locust not sitting well in your little tum-tum!”
“The button,” he replied quietly.
“What are you on about?”
“The button by the door, the only button,” he pointed to the offending item, “it’s labelled ‘DOWN 2’!?”
“So?”
“The first lift we went in was labelled ‘DOWN’ and now this one is ‘DOWN 2’. It just feels like a weird coincidence.”
“Maybe it isn’t a coincidence,” Laura suggested, “earlier when I was cleaning up, Felix told me that they are all fans of the podcast here. Maybe they labelled the lifts as a joke when they knew we were coming.”
“Hmm, maybe,” he replied but wasn’t 100% convinced.
Once the lift stopped shaking and the doors opened the group was ushered into a room that was clearly another lab.
“This is the lab where we primarily grow the artificial meat,” the tour guide informed them, “I’m going to invite Bill to tell you a bit more about the process.”
A middle aged man then walked to the front of the group. As he did this, his odd appearance and choice of clothing caused Laura and Ron to take a sharp intake of breath.
“Oh my God, it’s Raggedy!” Laura whispered at Ron who was transfixed by his childhood nightmare made flesh in front of him.
“It’s not Raggedy!” Ron hissed back at her as he slowly recovered from the shock, “he’s not blue!”
“He’s wearing the same clothes and has spiky hair Ron,” Laura replied, “it’s not that far off!”
“Is there a problem?” a voice addressed them breaking them out of their argument. It was Bill.
“No, no, nothing’s wrong,” Ron quickly replied, suppressing a slight shudder, “carry on.”
Bill narrowed his eyes at them but continued with his explanation.
“As I was saying we take a sizable amount of stem cells and use various stimulation tactics to cause the cells to start replicating and growing tissue which become artificial meat. This causes no harm to any animal and as the stem cells aren’t sentient this is a pain and death free way of producing meat.”
“Still feels weird,” Laura told Ron before raising her voice with a question to Bill, “how are you stimulating the cells? Acid? Gamma radiation? Is it possible for you to create The Hulk by accident!?”
Ron pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed deeply, “you really are a swamp brain aren’t you!”
(Jenny O)
Bill smiled and gestured to the room, “you may have noticed that we are subterranean. If we turned off the lights, we would have total darkness. By controlling the light, we can control what you do or do not see. This far underground we have no interference from natural light. This allows us to use a combination of monochromatic and polychromatic light of both visible and invisible wavelengths. Because the gravitational effect over such a short distance is negligible, we can focus photons of energy….” Bill droned. The words continued but Laura would ask Ron for the translation later. It was probably something to do with the moon. Laura had noticed other people in the same overalls that she was wearing. All busy presumably conducting experiments. Something about them was a bit odd. The previously blue and yellow overalls looked different. Like that dress that was blue or gold or something. But this was not dresses it was overalls, overalls worn by scientists underground. Something else that bothered Laura, was there were no women. Strange underground men all dressed the same. Laura had somehow managed to get herself invited on the worst stag do ever. Had Ron got engaged without telling anyone? Love shine a light had started playing on the internal sound system in Laura’s head when she was catapulted back to attention by the phrase, “swamp brain!”
“What?” asked Laura indignantly before she had realised that it was not Ron who had said it.
Bill continued to monotone, “we also call the Lab technicians the Sad Boys but don’t worry; they get to listen to plenty of Bob Dylan.”
Ron and Laura shared a look but neither thought it was the right time to correct Bill.
(Steve)
‘So whenever we instigate the process of formulating a new potential meat product – and our success rate is not especially high, there’s a lot of dubious puddles, corrosive gases, and sometimes relatively edible items that are not remotely meaty, but which we then scoop into buckets for the canteen and they pass off as ratatouille or potato salad – every sample of the various stem cells and stimulants mixtures have to be suspended in a protective viscous preparation which looks a bit like the slime of a narcissistic snail. The process of applying the various processes and light registers then causes this swampy goo to discolour in different ways, so as a by-product we have also been able to develop an extensive range of…..’ Laura and Ron glanced at each other, and excitedly exclaimed, in unison, ‘GEL PENS!!’
Bill was briefly startled by the unexpected ejaculation, but when he then looked over to see where it had come from was not remotely surprised, so continued on with his explanation undeterred. Not that Laura was listening, she was now fully consumed with thoughts of the gift shop and the vast array of colours, thicknesses, and novelty adornments of gel pens she was going to load up with at the end of the tour. She was also thinking that they could stop off at the canteen too, the mention of potato salad having piqued her interest and stomach; she couldn’t help it, it’s just unavoidable when you’re that sort of person.
Suddenly, as Bill was mid-sentence saying something about woodlice, the lights all shut down and, true to the foreshadowed subterranean explanation; the whole room was plunged into complete darkness. Several people yelped in surprise, and then something was heard crashing to the floor. Laura’s voice came from somewhere in the blackness, ‘Ron! What’s going on?’ There wasn’t a reply. ‘Ron! Stop being an arsehole! Did you set this up as a tricko?’ Again, nothing. ‘RON?!?’ she shouted, now in a state of utter panic.
(Mystic)
In the darkness, Laura could hear noises of frantic movement all around her. There was still no sign of Ron but the lab technicians, or sad boys as they were apparently called, seemed to have swarmed out and were now shouting instructions at one another. It all sounded like sciencey gibberish to Laura. An alarm went off and Bill’s voice could be heard from the other side of the room: “Please remain calm everyone. Don’t touch anything and do not stray from the group! Everything is under control; we’re following standard procedures here.” This did not have the desired effect as it was followed by a barely audible “Not another sentient meat incident, come on boys … what do you mean this time it’s different? … Oh shit“. “ROOONN!! Stop it, you horrible little boy! This isn’t funny anymore!” Laura shouted into the room. Even for him, with his youthful mischievousness, this was a step too far. She would be so angry with him once she stopped being scared. “Standard procedures…all under control…” Bill’s voice had faded into the background. There were sounds of broken glass and people running. She was now sitting on the floor, her arms wrapped around her legs. All she wanted was to make a lovely normal podcast with her normal brother Ron and now this!
Without warning, someone grabbed Laura by the arms and dragged her backwards. “Hey! HEY! What do you think you’re doing?” she shrieked. Without a reply, they let her go and a heavy door shut right in front of her. This was a different room and it was brightly lit. The other visitors had already assembled in front of what seemed to be a screen of some sort. Laura huffed, got up, and strode towards it in the manner of a determined but still terrified older sister who would definitely have a word with a certain someone when this was over. Why was everyone so bloody tall and blocking her view? She managed to squeeze through to the front. They were all looking at live CCTV footage. It showed the room they had just left. It was dark but not completely, must be night vision cameras or something. Someone gasped loudly. Others followed. And then Laura saw it too. A huge blob of multi coloured goop was gently rocking back and forth on the floor where Ron had stood only seconds earlier.
(Sandra - SoppyKitten)
“Ron! Ron!” Laura screamed, running right up to the screen. The blob on the screen, a lurid pile of neon green and blue goop that had a glittery tinge not unlike the ink of a gel pen, started moving in waves, rising up until there was a column of goop a few feet tall. A strange hole formed in the side of the column and started moving.
“Laaaa-raaaaa!” The slow word came from the strange hole in the column of goop. Laura and the crowd behind her gasped in unison.
“Oh, not again,” said an almost bored voice from the corner of the room. Laura turned to see a woman in the same overalls she’d seen others wearing, except hers were pink. She had a lanyard around her neck and looked important.
“What do you mean, not again?! What’s happened to my brother?!” Laura yelled at her.
“Don’t worry, I know what to do. I’ll just activate the protocol,” the woman said as if it were a regular occurrence.
(Haley)
And with that, the woman lifted a walkie-talkie to her mouth “Moonbase calling DOB1, come in DOB1, over”.
Laura heard a familiar Irish voice reply: “DOB1 receiving you, over”
“Dara, we have a Level 4 situation here in sector 42, please activate Squishing and Clumping protocol. Over”
“Roger that, squishing and clumping activated. Over and out” Laura, still transfixed watching the CCTV monitor in front of her, saw a door slide open behind the once-Ron-now-giant-goop. Into the room lumbered a three and a half metre tall, hairy, bi-pedal monster. It reached its leathery-palmed hands out and scooped the Ron-goop into its arms. Laura looked on open-mouthed as the gigantopithecus (at least, that’s what she assumed the yeti-esc creature was), gently squeezed, patted and moulded the Ron-goop. Gradually, the squishing and clumping motion started to give the goop a more solid form, a familiar form, a brother-shaped form - Ron was returning!
(Catherine)
A faint gas drifted from the ever Ron-i-fying form which the bi-pedal monster inhaled quickly. Within moments Ron was back, albeit with a slight sheen of goo. Over the sound system Laura heard the monster burp, and then watched as Ron scooped goo off his sleeve and slurped it off his finger loudly.
“Mmmm-mmm-MMM!”, uttered Ron, “That’s, mmm, bloody good!” He went back for seconds.
That’s going to sound great on the recording, thought Laura before horror struck deep. “The recording!” she exclaimed, everyone in the room turning to stare at her. “I left my recorder when I got changed!”
Everyone in the room nodded at her without having a clue what she was meaning and Laura frustratingly recognised that look. She turned on her heels and pushed through the doors back into the dark room with Ron and the Gigantopithecus.
“Ron. Ronny-Honks. Don’t be mad, okay. It’s not my fault…” Laura stopped in the dim light, looking over her shoulder at the room she’d just left and the creases of concern on the scientists’ faces as the door swung shut and the darkness become all consuming.
There was a low growl which Laura hoped dearly was either hers, or Ron’s, stomach. She gulped and very quietly whispered, “Wish we’d just measured how long it took to not get some Paella.”
(Neal – Kaysar)
Another growl this time accompanied by rhythmic beatings. A constant thudding now filled the disorientated darkness. In this moment of living nightmare Laura realised the thumping was her own heartbeat.
“Laura!” the strangled voice in the darkness seemed strange, almost slopping like.
Panic flooded Laura like a tsunami of emotion. No longer immobilised by fear but swept into forward momentum, fumbling in the darkness to what she hoped was Ron.
“Laura,” the voice now clearer and calmer but joined almost immediately by yet another growl.
A terrible silence filled the darkness. Time slowed. Then two things happened.
A ghostly apparition appeared illuminating the centre of the room.
A scream reverberated from seemingly all directions.
“Quickly, get onto the table here.” The ghost like figure shouted.
Laura could see Ron moving towards the table. Another growl came from the shadows and Laura needed no further encouragement to move. Ron and the ghost were already on the table as Laura climbed up.
An incredible whooshing sound filled the darkness and then light.
“You are safe now,” the voice of the ghost said.
Blinded by the sudden brightness both Ron and Laura took a moment to adapt to the new surroundings.
Sat on a desk in a room with several doors one bore the legend, Exit, another, Gift Shop.
“What just happened?” asked Ron dipping a goo filled finger into his mouth, “Why am I gooey? And what was the big monkey doing?
Laura turned and recognised the Ghost.
“Hi, I’m Jenny, I’m afraid I can’t answer all of your questions just now but if you follow me we can get you checked out,” said Jenny as she turned off some kind of halo head torch.
“But how did we get out of the room?” insisted Ron.
“Easy,” said Jenny with a grin, “the table pushed up.”
The three of them left the room by an unsigned door and headed along a corridor. Laura realised that it was Jenny who had been in the changing rooms after the chemical spill which felt like a very long time ago. Opening a door Jenny led them into a room that looked sort of like a hospital ward. Jenny stopped turned to them and smiled,
“Laura, I have your clothes and bag so you can change while we check out Ron.”
“Check me out!” said Ron with a boyish giggle.
“Shut up goo boy,” said Laura as she was ushered into a cubical.
Laura changed delighted to be back in her own clothes. Recording equipment checked and okay.
(Steve)
Leaving the minion overalls neatly folded in the corner, she slipped out of the cubicle and looked around for some indication of where to go next. The room they had entered was extremely long and thin, more like a wide corridor than a room, with floor to ceiling cubicles lining each wall and not a soul to be seen anywhere. Fiddling nervously with the strap of her bag, Laura debated whether she should go and look for someone, or stay put and wait to be fetched. Had Jenny said what to do once she was changed? For the life of her she couldn’t remember. Would they be cross if she wandered off by herself?
Recalling the sinister growls they’d heard in the basement she shivered slightly, and had just decided it would be best to stay put and wait for someone to find her when the sound of concerned murmuring from the far end of the room caught her attention, followed by a loud exclamation of surprise. Laura frowned, that last exclamation had definitely been Ron.
Slowly she made her way down the room, her eyes fixed on the last cubicle where the sound of murmuring had now resumed at a more intense level. Upon drawing level with the cubicle she reached out a hesitant hand towards the curtain, only for it to be suddenly wrenched to one side and a figure to appear just inches from her.
“Shit!” Laura shrieked, stumbling backwards, wide eyed.
“Laura?”
Ron’s voice had come from somewhere within the cubicle, and the figure quickly twisted slightly to pull the curtain closed behind them, before turning back and pulling down the surgical mask hiding their features to reveal it was Jenny.
“Ah, there you are,” she said with her ever present wide smile that Laura was beginning to mistrust - with everything going on round here no-one should be that cheerful.
“I was just coming to see if you would like a cup of tea.”
“I’d rather see my brother thank you,” Laura replied as firmly as she could, craning her neck to try and peer round the figure blocking her way and see through a small gap in the curtain.
The smile on Jenny’s face became slightly fixed.
“About that,” she said slowly, “There’s been a slight..... issue.”
Laura switched her attention away from the gap in the curtain to stare at the woman before her in confusion.
“Issue? What kind of issue? He was fine a moment ago, a bit gooey sure, but basically fine.”
Her voice began to rise slightly in agitation.
“What have you done to him?”
Jenny held out her hands in a placating gesture.
“Now, there’s nothing to be concerned about,” she began, then paused.
“When all the lights went off your brother inadvertently came into contact with some of our stimulant mixtures, leading to the usual results”
“He turned into goo,” interrupted Laura.
“Quite,” nodded Jenny, “But we initiated standard procedure and reformed him.”
“Standard procedure?” interrupted Laura again, “How often do people get goo-ified?”
Jenny waved a hand dismissively, “Oh it’s happened to most of us at one time or another.
(Jenny C)
Laura wasn’t convinced by Jenny’s lacklustre response and started to panic.
“What have you done to my brother? Why won’t you let me see him? I want to see him now!”
Laura was taken aback by how abruptly she spoke but didn’t regret it one bit. Just then Ron appeared from behind the curtain. He looked normal and nothing obvious was untoward about his appearance, apart from the goo that still covered various areas of his clothing.
“That’s it. I’m all done. We can go home now” Ron stated, sounding more tired than Laura expected him to.
Jenny turned to look at Ron who was now standing behind her. “Oh good!” she exclaimed. “Protocol complete, looks like there wasn’t an issue after all. Thanks for visiting today. I hope you got everything you needed for the recording.” She held out a hand to shake Laura’s hand.
Laura threw her hand to her head. “Oh shit! Ron the recording! There is something I have to tell you.”
Ron sighed heavily. “You flaming glob! What have you done? You’re the tech expert for this podcast. It’s been a really long day and I want to head back for a beer and some food now.”
“Well, you know when I had that little accident when we first arrived”, Laura began.
“Oh I think you’ll find everything you need has been completed” Jenny interjected, the smile still present across her face.
“But...What do you mean...I left the...” Laura felt confused and uneasy. She held out the equipment she had put back into her pocket. She inspected it carefully, not exactly sure what she was checking for. Laura saw that the recording programme had indeed recorded something. The timer showed a recording of one hour and forty two minutes.
Ron looked over the screen to see the information. “Good. After editing, that should be enough for an episode. Let’s go home.” He started walking, heading in the direction of the exit. Laura stood with the equipment in her hand, still somewhat bewildered. Jenny placed her hand upon Laura’s shoulder.
“It’s sorted. Thanks again for coming. We hope you loved us. Please contact us should you want to do another episode, we’ll be more than happy to help.”
“Errr, thanks.” Laura replied, still baffled about what had happened. She decided to follow Ron, she needed to know for sure he was ok and no one was helping her here. By the time she caught up with him, Ron was just exiting the building. She jogged the last couple of steps and once close enough, she threw her arms around her brother, stopping him in his tracks just outside the main entrance door.
“Ron, I don’t know why we do this! I have no idea what has happened today, what we’ve recorded or even if the lab rats will ever hear this episode. Are you ok?”
“Honestly, I’m exhausted. I feel a bit drained but I’m ok. Let’s get out of here.”
“You’re Laura squeezed her brother tightly one more time before letting him go then driving him back to Brighton.
However, this was not the last they saw of Jenny, that science lab and Ron was never quite the same again.
(Bunsen/Carole)
