A/N: This is for you, Tk.T! salutes

Chapter 4
Untitled

"Miss ice lady? That's redundant." Erica huffed, frowning angrily at Tom. "Now, shall we stand here bickering all day or will Bernard kindly hurry up and unlock the arena before more of our scientists come and think something's up?"

"I'm on it." Bernard said. He walked to the end of the dead end and rasied an eyebrow at them. "Hey, you guys coming or what? Or have you forgotten how to get in?"

"Stop it Bernard, we're coming." Brian replied, pushing Brennan along to the end of the hall. Brennan raised a critical eyebrow, eyeing the blank white wall suspiciously. He moved towards it, looking around in confusion.

Tom chuckled. "Move over Bren, you're standing on the door."

Brennan quickly scrambled to the side, blushing lightly in embarrassment. Bernard grinned and moved over to where Brennan had been standing, flipping up a cover cunningly disguised as a power outlet. He noted that the cover was inscribed with 'this outlet is not grounded,' as most of the lab equipment was too valuable to be plugged into an ungrounded outlet and the plug would mostly be ignored. Instead of an outlet, however, Bernard had uncovered a large knob, like a door knob, with a keyhole in it. Into this he inserted the key, turning it to the left, jiggling it, and turning it more. He then grabbed the knob and pulled, lifting a large, wide trapdoor in the floor, leading into a dusty, slightly grimy hallway accessible by a metal ladder. From what they could see of it, as the lights down below were not turned on, the tunnel was identical to the rest of the halls in the syndicate, albeit a little dirtier.

"Wh- what is this?" Brennan asked confusedly.

"Let's get down there quick. Shall you go first or shall I?" Bernard asked, bending into a mock bow.

"I'll lead the way, since little rookie looks too stunned to move." Brian joked, crouching down and carefully lowering himself down the metal ladder. It squeaked and groaned as he went down.

"Ehh, you sure this is safe?" Erica asked nervously.

"Aw, it's not that far to fall. Who's next?" Tom replied cheerfully.

"You are." Erica said angrily, pushing him forwards.

"Aw, I'm touched." Tom said cheekily, grinning as he walked down the ladder. "See? Not that bad. Now, does the lady need help coming down the stairs?"

"Don't taunt me." Erica said sharply. She let herself down. "Let Brennan go next. It would be a pity if the ladder fell after all of us got down here and I'd be stuck with you."

"Such daunting words only strengthen the affection I have for you." Tom replied dramatically, grabbing her shoulder.

She swatted him away. "Shut up. Who'd fall for a hopeless guy like you?"

"You're just playing hard to get."

"All right lovebirds, spot him. He's coming down." Bernard interrupted.

Ignoring Erica's indignant protests and walking just below the ladder, Tom grinned and looked up, hands on hips.

"Bren, if you go any slower murphy's law will strike here and now."

"What's that mean?" Brennan asked, hopping off at the bottom.

"He's just trying to sound smart." Erica said dismissively.

Tom winced. "Ouch. You know Erica, I want to see if you can go one day without injuring my poor abused heart."

"You try going one day without doing something stupid and I'll consider it."

Brennan reached the bottom, eagerly hopping off the end of the ladder and very relieved to have his feet on solid ground. He wasn't usually afraid of heights, but climbing down a rusted, creaking ladder into a dingy, underused hallway was not his idea of a good time.

Bernard came down quickly, and they were just closing the door when a frantic shout came from above.

"Keep the door closed!"

"Is that the geezer?" Tom asked loudly, climbing halfway up the ladder and poking his head out. A booted foot landed on his head and he quickly ducked down, swinging perilously from one hand on the ladder a moment before steadying himself. "Hey, watch it old man!"

A disheveled head quickly followed the boot as its owner started climbing down the ladder, ignoring Tom, who hung precariously from the sidebar. The ladder groaned loudly, on the verge of snapping under his extra weight. Tom let go and fell over when his feet hit the ground, wallowing on the dusty floor in a passible imitation of Jeremiah cast into the dungeon (A/N: I do not own Jeremiah. oo; (Bloody disclaimers)) "Oh me! My poor weak limbs have brokeneth!"

"Stop making a fool of yourself Tom. Join a theatre troop or something." Erica said haughtily, starting down the hallway.

"Oh my dear belle is walking away! Away..." His voice trailed off and he did his best dying imitation before springing up and following everyone as they walked away.

"Do you have my keys youngster?" Wily William asked in his usual loud, screechy voice. Brennan flushed and digged around in his pockets, coming up with the key and handing it to the old man.

"Thanks, they were a big help." He offered the white-haired scientist a small smile. The very image of a mad scientist, rumors had it that William was only in his sixties. He looked like he'd been around since the neolithic. His fuzzy, grey-shot hair looked like he'd plugged himself into a socket daily, and he wore a pair of old, slightly foggy pince-nez. Under his lab coat, he sported a large plaid button up shirt- unbuttoned and showing the white t-shirt proudly displaying the company logo, a pair of curving golden lines, embroidered into the shirt, with smaller arcs coming off of its base before it hooked over in graceful 's' shapes facing away from each other. It gave the weird impression of a pair of skeletal wings and was superimposed over a crimson circle. (A/N: I'll stop it with the Author's notes after this one. This logo is actually the one that I have behind all of my character sketches (and drawn on the inside of my assignment book cover under a black rose... like you really care ) so if you want to know what it looks like go to my homepage, click on the 'Artwork' link, then scroll down and choose any of my characters' names (Arya, Cysne, Asme, or Iris, though on Cysne you can't see it as well)) His image practically screamed nerd. The old man was on the receiving end of many jokes around the syndicate, and he didn't seem to mind at all. In fact, he encouraged them.

"Ehh don't thank me youngster. Is this your first tournament?" Without waiting for an answer he started patting Brennan on the back, walking easily with everyone else and continued. "You're in for a big treat. Big treat. I remember the first time I saw a fight..."

"Fight?" Brennan asked, nervousness kicking in. He'd never been one for brawls, and the tussles he'd witnessed at the University had never had any appeal to him. He started wondering what kind of 'tournament' was getting his coworkers so riled up.

"It's magnificent. Magnificent. Don't worry kid." William replied, nodding his old head assuringly. His pouffy white hair bobbed with the action.

"Hey Willy, don't go spoiling the surprise." Bernard scolded, grinning as he linked arms with the old scientist.

"Lucky though. Very lucky. Isn't this the last fight for 0-2?" Willy William replied eagerly.

Bernard laughed in good humor, taking the bait and returning the gossip. "That's the idea." He replied. "After that last incident, we gave her one more go and then when the syndicate decided to keep her, we took the chance, but it's likely we can't risk this again." Brennan cocked his head in interest, though he didn't interrupt for fear of Bernard clamping up on him before he let any other interesting information slip. 0-2? Surely they didn't mean their project did they? He remembered her over bright eyes staring at at the security camera when he'd visited earlier and shivered.

"Oh? Well who's the lucky contender?" Erica asked, joining the conversation.

Bernard smirked. "That jerk Jacques is putting forward a pretty good opponent. I only allowed it because he's been such a cocky-" He glanced quickly at Brennan. "-idiot lately. You heard about he explosion in the chemistry rooms right?" Erica shook her head. "That man has a huge chip on his shoulder and I don't know why the syndicate keeps him around." Brennan scowled. He was all of twenty, for heaven's sake! Only the youngest by five years, and they still treated him like he was ten years younger.

"Tell me about it. Him and his three evil friends." Bernard replied.

"So, who is going up against our lovely 0-2?" William pressed.

Bernard laughed. "Cool it old man. You'll find out quick enough." He winked. "It promises to be interesting though. Only fitting for Iris' final tournament."

"0-2 is our test assignment, right?" Brennan asked, his anxieties mounting.

The other scientists briefly looked at each other. "Well yes, but she also has a virtually unbeatable record in the ring." Brian said. "Erica's gonna be picking up some info on her physique as we're watching, and after this we're going to take some blood samples- a few of the documents salvaged from the wreck said something about changing blood compositions. Creepy really."

"A wreck?" Brennan asked in interest. The hallway seemed to go on forever. Bernard was carrying an electric lantern. They passed a heavy set of metal doors, welded shut like the ones he'd seen above ground, the sign on the front scratched and slightly chipped and the tiny reinforced glass window caulked tightly around the edges. He longed to go look inside to see why such high security was necessary, but limited himself to following the group.

"Yeah. You weren't told? Of course we're not the first ones to do an investigation into this case, but 0-2 is one heck of an enigma. Somebody like her shouldn't be able to exist, scientifically speaking. Research was cut off on her case after some issues popped up. The history of that should be in your files. But since then there was an accidental fire that burnt up all of the information on her and nearly took out the whole records vault. The freak who did that was immediately hustled out, but now we have to start practically from scratch. Was quite a while ago so computer logs were rare, but little scraps of information were salvaged from files from this one scientist's computer. Not much to go on." Finishing his tale, Tom scratched his chin thoughtfully.

Tk.T: Yay! Glad you likes! YAY! Tk.T Likes my story!! Cool! I'll check up my formatting. I love your stories... dang, I need to finish Uoy. :P This chapter is for you!!
Ancamna: Thanks!! I love your constructive reviews! Love ya Ancamna! hugs gives out cookiesEagle Seance: Ehehe thanks, I hope this chapter clears a few things up. I really didn't have a plot in mind when I wrote the first chapter, and I'm sorry if I confused you... Thanks for reviewing!
Mei-Mei the SciFi Junkie: Still love your name I hope this chappie helps a little...
Spoonvonstup: Love ya spoonie! I'll ask you about DNA later, I confess I know almost nothing, but I thought this would be a great way to make it look like I'm studying for Physics (it's not like my parents know what physics is about anyways :P). Whee! Thanks for reviewing!
EclipseMystic: Wow! I've had this chappie rotting on my HD for a while now- I never realized I didn't post it until now. Thanks for making me look! :D