Outside Director Stephen's office, James turned to me. "First, we're going to go by the armory and get your weapon checked, for obvious reasons."

I nodded. "Okay, makes sense."

We returned to the first floor, and James led me to one of the doors in the hallway. As expected, the words "ARMORY" were etched on a placard nearby. James unlocked the door and we entered a medium sized room with a barred window at one end.

"Well don't stand around all day lass, get yer tail over here and clear out your pistol so I can inspect the goods," came an accented voice from the other side of the window.

"Uh, hi there," I said, walking across the room. I still couldn't clearly see who was beyond the window as I moved towards the clearing barrel. James observed while I emptied out my Glock, locking the slide back. He gave the armorer a thumbs up. "Clear."

"Ye all are headed down fer the orientation tour, right?"

"You got it," James replied

"Allright then, come on over here lassie, and I'll fix you right up, mah sweet girl."

Now I could see the man behind the window, his face whiskered and his eyes humorous under his balding head.

"Don't pay attention to him," James said dismissively. "I'm more than half convinced he's faking his accent. Right, Scottie?"

"Yeh dirty son of a bitch, ye come in here and ye fuckin say that to me fuckin face an I'll beat a fuckin hole in yer ass!" the man behind the window yelled, shaking his fist at James. Then he looked back at me. "The name's William. But ye call me Willy," he said, his tone going instantaneously from threatening to honeysuckle sweet. "Now then, where's the metal at?"

I handed the blocky gun to him grip first with my telekinesis.

"Aye, you unicorn lassies are right special with the powers of magic," he said softly. "I'll have you out of here in a moment."

"Why did you call him Scottie?" I asked James while we waitied.

"Well, if you've ever seen the original Star Trek, the character 'Scottie' is played by the late James Doohan, who always faked a Scottish accent for the role. The going joke is that Willy here does the same, although he swears up and down it's authentic. Nobody really believes him."

"I can hear you out there spreadin' yer lies," Willy warned from somewhere in the back room. "I'm about to come out there and beat your ass sideways!"

"He sounds mean, but he's really a teddy bear," James continued.

"Nothin' but dirty lies!" came the thick accent again.

"Just hurry up back there, you old troll."

Sputtering and raging, Willy brought my pistol to the window. Again, his demeanor changed entirely as he beckoned to me. "Here you go, lovely lady, and good luck to you down there." He looked pointedly at James. "You could learn a thing or two about manners from a lass like this!"

James rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say, Tollbooth Willy."

"Oh, wait," I interjected before Willy could reply. I could see him winding back from the edge of another blast, like a jet engine spinning down. "Can I get a shotgun too? Like that one James has?"

"Well now lassie, I don't see why not," Willy replied in a kindly tone. "Just come on back here after you're done for the day, and I'll have something set up for you."

"Shouldn't that be 'fer ye?'" James asked sweetly, eliciting another explosion of profanity and rage. James waved cheerfully at Willy as we exited and closed the door, cutting off the expletives mid-flow.

"So, on to the basement?," I said once we were in the hall.

"Yeah, are you ready? That's where things get really ugly."

"I'm a big filly, I can handle myself."

"I don't doubt that."

The trip down to the sublevels was uneventful. I found that this particular zone of operations was composed of six tunnel segments. Armory floor, management-offices-used-as-bedrooms floor, more offices used as offices, as well as the pathetic "gym" which consisted of a room with some weights and machines in it, and the chow hall, which made me expectant to see Cookie sometime soon. Below that was a floor of "safe" laboratories, and the two floors below that were a combination of more dangerous laboratories with live specimens and monster containment. Confused? Yeah, so was I, but after awhile I figured it out. Once we got down to the first floor of laboratories, I noticed that the stairwell to the lower levels had thick bars of metal welded across it.

"James? What is that about?"

"We welded heavy metal over the doors and barred off the stairwells leading down to the levels dealing with monsters. We've created single points of entry for that. Oh, and the freight elevator, but it makes a straight shot to the lowest level, and the doors for that are pretty solid."

"I see." I tried to peek past the bars, but couldn't spy anything except empty stairwell in the small gaps between them.

"We'll get to that next," James said, observing my attempts. "Come on."

We scanned into the first laboratory floor, once again requiring both our wrist bands to do it.

"So what exactly is on this level?" I asked.

"Supposedly harmless stuff," he replied. "I'm not exactly the expert on all of it, but I know there's DNA sequencing, blood tests, personnel medical facilities, a pharmacy, that kind of stuff. A lot of this is actually our infirmary."

"Interesting. And down below?"

"That's where it gets really interesting, and where we are headed next."

He led me to another door right in the middle of the hallway. It was covered in DANGER, BIOHAZARD, and LETHAL FORCE ZONE signs. It seemed to be sectioning off a good portion of the hallway. "Make sure your bracelet is on snugly. There are killer drones past this point."

I nodded, and we opened the holographic lock together. The door hissed open, and I could see it was far heavier than the previous ones. One the inside, I could see two portable automatic turrets standing by, green lights blinking on their control panels.

"If you weren't wearing your bracelet, they'd be aiming at us right now," James informed me. "They are programmed to recognize our biometrics in case you lose your wrist band, but you don't want to mess around with that. When in doubt, that panel will go red, and they will shoot you."

We continued past the turrets. I eyed them with distrust, and was glad to leave them behind as we went through the next door.

On the other side, I started hearing noises again.

"Feeding time," James said.

I shuddered. Seemed like I'd been doing that a lot this day.

We went through the door, and into a wide, brightly lit area dotted with cages of all sizes and various types of lab equipment. There were humans and ponies wandering about, apparently distributing food to the live specimens. The first thing that boggled my mind was the size of the space, the second thing was the awful noises that filled it.

“Wow. This is nothing like the upper levels,” I gasped.

“These were primary conduit access ways,” James replied. “See the cabling beneath those gratings?”

I looked down, and sure enough, cables as big around as my midsection ran beneath the metal floor panels.

“They are offline now, but this was another part of the Oblivion Gate 2 support network.”

“This place is so big. It has to be a hundred feet wide!”

“Additional ventilation space for air cooling. Before we sectioned it off, this place cooled like a wind tunnel, with a constant blast of air running from massive blowers and forcing heat out of the tunnels through vents at the other end.”

“And you said it was feeding time, which explains this awful racket.”

“In a nutshell, yes, although it tends to get noisy in here sometimes anyway. These things love to make an unholy sound during night shift as well. It's almost like the know when most of us are trying to sleep, and raise Cain out of spite.”

My curiosity getting the better of my apprehension, I carefully approached a small cage strapped atop a nearby lab table. Small chirping sounds emanated from it, like baby birds. Reassured by the inoffensive noises, I crept up and peeked carefully.

Inside was a mass of flesh like a single cell, plastered against the back wall of the Plexiglass case. Revolting hairs grew from it to great length, like whiskers. Small pipettes on the surface swelled and shrank, releasing the misleading peeping sounds. Upon sensing my presence, the filthy creature launched gooey tendrils to the front of the box and jerked itself forward on them, flipping midway and trying to bite me. The hard beak underneath the little vermin clacked eagerly but ineffectively against the thick transparent cage wall.

“Oh my gosh,” I choked, shrinking away. “What the hay is that?”

“Hell if I know,” James replied. “The variety of creatures here is outrageous. Looks like they're calling this one a ‘Taffy Puller.’ Charming.”

“It's horrible.”

“Apparently it's only mildly so, this is the ‘relatively harmless’ area. Not that these critters won't bite a piece out of you. Just the stuff down below is really nasty, and these little cuties are tame by comparison.”

Eager to move away from the disgusting thing in the box, I moved towards another large cube, this one sitting on the ground. When I got near, there was very little activity. Several flat furry looking pancakes sat motionless on the bottom of the cage.

"Uh, what are these?" i asked a nearby Equestrian.

"Hello there!" she replied, turning to face me, and I saw she was an Earth pony, devoid of horn or wings.

"Hi," I said. "Can you tell me about these things?"

"Sure! Well first, they're called 'bounce rats.' They're kind of a pest, much like Earth rats are. They don't look like much right now, but watch what happens when I drop a piece of cheese in there." She reached up, and placed a small chunk of cheddar into a small opening. "Hey little guys, check it out!"

The cheese plunged downward, and almost immediately the bounce rats took notice. The flat patties of fur expanded instantly like a puffer fish, flinging them upwards into the air until they were on eye level, where upon they fell in an arc back onto the floor of the cage. Upon impact they instantly turned into pancakes again with a loud squeaking noise, followed by another jump. The impression was several balls bouncing along of their own volition, accompanied by the very ratlike squeaking noises. They descended upon the cheese and immediately began fighting over it, which looked ridiculously like...

"A flapjack fight," I said, squinting at them. "Weird."

"Here, give them another piece," the mare said, handing me a slice of the yellow cheese.

I dropped it on the other side, and watched them eagerly repeat the process, bounding towards it and fighting to devour it first. I giggled at their antics. "They're kind of cute, actually."

"Yeah, I'd rather study them than some of these other things," the Equestrian replied. "Well, have fun, I have more feeding and cleaning to do, not all of it as pleasant as this, I'm sure we will run into each other again."

"Wait, what's your name?"

"Lily Pads. I'm a veterinarian."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Eris."

"Very pleased."

"Well, see you around, then."

She nodded briskly, and began tying off a nearby trash bag. Leaving her to her duties, James and I moved deeper into the containment lab. "Ohh, what's that?" I asked hopefully, seeing a large enclosure with beautiful flowering plants in it, illuminated by an overhead light.

James wrinkled his nose in displeasure. "Oh, I hate those things. They're gross."

"But why? They look rather pretty."

"If you really want to know, you'll find out quickly enough once you take a look at them, but don't say I didn't warn you."

His tone of disgust made me uncertain, and I again moved towards the chamber with caution. I could see the plants inside looked much like large pineapples with big, multicolored flowers on top. On closer inspection, I realized the flowers were moving, although there appeared to be no air currents inside the box. While this worried me, I didn't see anything particularly revolting about them, until on closer inspection I realized there was a red liquid oozing from their fat bodies. As I watched, a researcher dropped several mice into the chamber, who ran about sniffing curiously.

I prepared to be horrified, and horrified I was when one of the pineapples opened, displaying an interior lined with slimy, rotting mice on the inside walls. My horror grew immeasurably when the horribly mangled mice inside the pineapple began moving and squeaking piteously. I jumped when I saw a quick flash of spiked tendrils launch from within the foul creature, shooting out and viciously impaling the unsuspecting new mice.

I turned my head away from their agonized cries. "Oh no. I can't! I just can't!"

James grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me away. "It's okay. I don't want to watch it either. But you learned something, right?"

I nodded, still trying to hold back the urge to vomit. "Don't trust the creepy alien flowers. Don't let innocent appearances lull me into a false sense of security. Just give me a moment, okay?"

James nodded grimly. "It gets worse, you know. Downstairs."

I looked around, at the cages full of furry things, waving tentacles, glowing bioluminescence, twitching leaves.

“I get the point,” I said after a moment. “Look, I'll have plenty of time later to come down and get acquainted with all these nasty specimens. There has to be hundreds of them in here!”

“Yes, you're correct. And we are finding more daily.”

“I see why it's important to at least know a little about each one,” I continued. “But I don't need to be weaned into this. Let's just go right for the worst and get it over with, okay? I'll survive.”

James looked at me, and I felt certain he was genuinely worried. Was that something else in his eyes? Was that pity?

“Look, I'm really fine,” I insisted. “See? It was just a surprise, that's all.” Okay maybe that wasn't strictly true, in my mind I was still hearing and seeing the dreadful plight of those poor mice. One of these days I would very much enjoy finding a reason to take a flamethrower to that demonic plant-thing, but in the meantime, I wanted to get started on my job.

James searched my face, then he grimaced and sighed. "Okay, Eris. No more taking it slow. Let's skip the small fry, and go introduce you to the real monsters."

He led me reluctantly towards the stairs, and I began to wonder if maybe I hadn't been a bit hasty, after all.