Junebug

Chapter 13

The stale air of the lab was quickly pierced by the shrill alarm Professor Jones implemented for a scenario exactly like this.

The woman immediately perked up from grading her students' essays, eyes locking with Ben who had similarly been sitting nonchalantly with a cup of noodles.

The cup of noodles had now been haphazardly placed on the table as both blondes rushed over to the small control panel.

"What's going on?" Ben questioned as the Professor's eyes darted over the screens, taking in the readings and trying to make sense of it herself.

Her eyes flicked between the student in the testing chamber and the control panel, biting her lip as she took a step back.

"Something's interfering with the microwaves." She assessed quickly, moving to the microphone.

"Hey, kid, whatever you're doing in there is messing with the game's processing. You need to stop." She urged, her eyes fixed on the testing chamber as she waited for a response.

Admittedly, any time the audio log was running, no one in the lab really paid attention to what was going on unless it seemed like juicy gossip or something to be concerned about; the speaker that emitted the audio feed was placed on the control panel, and was typically only in earshot of Professor Jones and whoever had sat in the small radius of the whole panel.

In short, she had no fucking clue what that kid was dealing with in there.

The guilt was palpable.

She called out the name of the kid who'd been pretty much the perfect little lab rat for the past week and a half, slight disdain in her voice.

"Hey, get your head outta the game!" She called into the mic with more volume, hoping to make enough noise to catch attention.

The flashing alarm didn't cease as more silence came from the other side of the comms, earning a spike of anxiety in the Professor's chest.

"Professor, the system's going to crash!" Ben's voice pulled Professor Jones from her momentarily distracted headspace, her eyes darting down to the warning screen that was beginning to fill with various mentions of 'shutdown imminent' that were more than intimidating.

"Turn it off, now!" Professor Jones barked, a bit more harsh than she meant, and Ben stared back at her with wide eyes for a moment before nodding and starting the shutdown process.

Professor Jones sighed, running a hand through her hair as she watched her apprentice type away furiously before trying to shut off the system.

Then, the alarms turned off and a pop-up window appeared on the warning screen.

'User disconnected'

"Professor, what does that mean?"

She felt fucking sick.

She stared at the pop-up for what felt like hours before she took a step back, collapsing her weight into the roller chair sat a foot from the control panel.

A defeated look was on her face as she brought a hand up, placing a head on her temple.

"The kid's stuck in there."

"What?" alarm laced Ben's tone, looking at his professor with disbelief. "How? She's right here, can't we pull her out?"

Professor Jones paused.

"Not safely, Ben. Something...something fucked up real bad. If we tried, it would scramble her head." She breathed, clearly trying to hold back a reservoir of tears as her voice cracked. "Whatever interfered with it, the microwaves...it completely severed the connection we had to her consciousness. She's...We can't get her out without–" She froze, an idea crossing into her mind.