Episode 5: Bunnies in Black
Part 5
Pearl ducked behind a corner as two giggling girls walked down the corridor. Rather than worry that they’d almost caught her, she fumed that they were probably also Bunnies but got to wear shorts instead of these ridiculous costumes. No wonder the men at the Mansion wouldn’t leave them alone long enough to do their mission! Gritting her teeth, she gripped the cylindrical device in her hand. She, Jay, and K would need to have a lengthy conversation later about outfits for undercover work.
Luckily, this mission was also a perfect place to field test her newest prototype. Pearl smirked as she stared at the sleek, metallic remote she’d conveniently borrowed from Shazam’s television; she’d stayed up all night, but it came out perfectly. If she could modify a working remote control, she could easily create the Playstation decoder she’d promised Nick.
Once the giggling girls disappeared down the endless hall, she skulked through it again, searching for any heavily secured door. A regular locked door wouldn’t be any fun. Lavish door after door stretched down the hall, but at the end, she spied a door fitted with a number keypad.
“Gotcha,” Pearl whispered to herself as a wide grin spread across her face.
After a furtive glance over her shoulder, she crept toward the door, wondering what salacious secrets Hef kept locked behind it. Pearl pressed the power button on the remote, then pulled a small cord from the battery compartment and plugged it into the keypad. Once secure, she pressed a code into the remote, followed by the enter key. All the number buttons flashed through various colors as the decoder scanned the lock. The colors disappeared, then the four-digit code flashed green. 8008. Pearl groaned. Of course, that would be the code. After disconnecting and powering off the decoder, she slipped a glove on her hand and keyed in the code. The door clicked open, and she slowly pushed it open.
Unfortunately, the sight that met her wasn’t what she hoped. Floor to ceiling banker’s boxes lined the massive shelves on the walls. Pearl pulled one down and began examining its contents, which, even more disappointingly, contained catering bills and weekly food costs.
“They spend how much on champagne?!” Pearl hissed incredulously.
After groaning quietly, she ran her hand down her face, then stared at the remote in her hand. What a waste of my prototype, she thought to herself. If only she could be in her lab, working on her newest creations, instead of stuck here in a ridiculous outfit staring at financial records. She sighed. It wouldn’t hurt to take one tiny peek at her lab, just to see how everything was back home. She fiddled with the amulet she wore around her neck. The large, Celtic charm was actually a hologram with a hidden video screen in its center and a border of delicate pearls that acted as buttons for her secret communicator back to HimTak.
Just one tiny peek…
***
Nick smirked as the mission played before his eyes. Yeah, he was stuck here, and yeah, this was the perfect mission to be forced to sit out on. But the fact that his Carter Girls were all at the Playboy Mansion in revealing outfits that displayed their sleek bodies, toned from years of training, about killed him.
Still, things could be worse for him. If he had to monitor the video feeds, at least he could focus on the girls. Shazam was on a mission now as well, but Nick couldn’t care less about that at the moment. Truly, the only other downer was the fact that the Southern CIA officer who had quickly become a thorn in his side was on the mission with the girls, too. He was sure Brian would eventually take over the mission, and with what was involved, the government would come in and execute a cover-up. He bet his life on that one. That one simple fact was what really made his skin crawl.
“Heh, at least Emerald’s having ‘fun time’ with Hefner,” he commented with a snicker as he stood, bored at the lack of action. Here he was in Pearl’s laboratory; surely, he could find something to interest him more. His eyes scanned the various screens, displaying all the 00-ranking missions of the moment. If he wanted, he could pull up lower agent assignments as well, but they were probably even less interesting. He grinned; there could be worse things he could be doing then. “And the angels are lovely as always…”
Nick paced around the lab, humming a tune to himself before he started to sing on a whim. “My beautiful woman… B is for beautiful as the sunshine…” He eyed a fedora. It had to be a weapon for Jay. The man practically slept with a hat on. “E tells me everything’s feeling alright…” Nick continued to sing as he pored over a table of more intricate items. He picked up a diamond ring to examine it. “A-” A laser shot from the “diamond.” “-Aaah!” He dropped it back on the table. “A goes to U and me, swinging in time.”
That was when he spotted it: a bra. But not just any bra — a fully automated bra Pearl had been rumored to be creating. He grinned as he picked it up. A D-cup. It had to be for Diamond; who else could it be for? Because of the weaponry, the bra was firm even without actual breasts filling it.
He quickly glanced around. “T is two… I want you!” He put it on over his shirt, laughing at his reflection on the shiny surface of the stainless steel table. “Uuuuuuu’ve got me acting like a fooooooooo-” He danced to the beat in his head. No one could see him anyway.
As he rubbed the bra, flashing lights began to go off. Small, tubular devices emerged from where the nipples would be and began firing a round of bullets. “-ooo-SHIIIIIIIIIT! Shit! Shitty shitballs! Okay… um… okay, fuck, how the hell do I turn this thing off!?” He aimed his new chest to the other side of the room, away from the computers. If he accidentally destroyed any of those, Pearl would slaughter him. “Fucky fuck. Fuck a duck!” The bullets began bouncing off the metal walls, ricocheting back toward him and lodging in anything that could absorb them. One ripped through the fedora. Another bounced off the ring and melted when it triggered the laser. One hit a picture frame, shattering the glass into thousands of pieces. One grazed the computer desk, missing the computer by millimeters. Nick knelt down, hoping the floor could take it.
“Niiiick… oh my… down!” He hadn’t heard Lancy enter the room, but there was no mistaking his secretary’s voice.
“What in the hell’s blazes is going on down here, Carter?!” he heard his superior yell as K, too, dove for the floor to avoid being shot by the unfinished weapon. Nick was no longer in control of the bra; all he could do was try to minimize the damage and pray it didn’t kill anyone while he waited for it to run out of ammo.
A few more shots rang out before smoke filtered from the ejected revolver-styled bra nipples, and the device finally shut down. Nick pulled it off and threw it on the floor, ignoring the damage he had just caused. “Nothing, K, just an incident, but I, um… handled it.”
His secretary just grinned widely. “Cross-dressing looks fabulous on you.”
“Nick… how… why…?” K shook his head in disgust. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
“K–”
“I never knew you were the type, Nicky.”
Nick rolled his eyes at Lancy. This… looked bad. K was going to have him killed one of these days. The younger agent was willing to bet again that it would be one of the Kentucky cousins who did him in in the end rather than Drums.
“There’s an explanation for this, K, and–”
“I DON’T want to know. Somehow, someway, clean this mess up and monitor the cameras like you were assigned to! And if you don’t, then I will NOT hold Pearl responsible for what she does to you because of this.” K stormed out, confused as to why Nick had even tried on the bra to begin with. 008 was one of the best agents he had, but times like this made him question if the blond was worth the trouble that always seemed to follow him.
Nick glanced at Lancy, who had picked up the bra to examine it. “Wow, original design taken from Victoria’s Secret — not just smart, but lovely fashion sense.” He sat down next to Nick, whose heart was still thumping crazily. “Ooh, who ya spying on? Squee! Diamond! I’m so watching for you. Oooh, look at that hottie near the grotto. Le sigh, I soooo need a vacay, Nicky.”
Nick just sighed as he turned his attention back to the screen. It was getting interesting again. He could clean the lab later. Pearl couldn’t get too mad, right?
As if on cue, Pearl’s face appeared on the main screen a moment later. Nick watched her play with her necklace. She gazed into it and saw Nick standing there, looking extremely sheepish, with Lancybassy beside him. Both were trying to block her view of the wrecked lab behind them, but they couldn’t. Already frustrated by an assignment that had pulled her away from her gadgets, Professor Pearl finally snapped. “What… the… hell… did you DO TO MY LAB?!”
“Now, Kit…” Nick used an old pet name for her, one from before her alias. He definitely had caused whatever had happened. “I can explain…”
“NICK! You know how much my lab, my creative space, my haven, means to me. K has you down in there, I’m betting to watch the feed, and THIS is what happens?!”
“Nick was cross-dressing!” snickered Lancy, who hoped to calm down the top scientist with humor. Nick elbowed him, flashing him an icy blue stare.
Her eyes narrowed. “You did not do what I think you did.”
“You still love me…”
“You’re pushing it.”
“Come on, Pearl!”
“Are you kidding me?! I almost had all the kinks out of the bra, and you just put me back on square one, PLUS almost destroyed my lab, my sanctuary!”
He could see her eyes narrow further with anger, frustration clearly written on her face. Nick hadn’t seen her that angry or upset since her first mission with Shazam. “I’m sorry, really, really sorry. I’ll have it clean before you get back-”
“I can’t believe you did this!”
“Now, Professor, Nicky did do it by accident. Who could blame him for cross-dressing?”
“Stay out of it, Lancy.”
The flamboyant secretary fell silent at the sight of the fuming scientist.
“You… are so dead, Nick.” She sounded serious and looked furious, but he could see the amusement in her eyes and the smile she was trying so hard to hide. Despite her anger, she found it funny deep down. She’d always had a soft spot for him.
“I dare you to try and prank me again. But I’m sorry, Pearl. Glad you still love me.”
She sighed. “You’re very lucky. So, any idea what that symbol Emerald sent you was?”
“Not yet.”
“Alright.” The blonde scientist turned her head as something else attracted her attention. “I need to go. I think I hear someone. Bye… 00Dead Meat.” She flashed him an impish smile and disappeared from his screen.
Nick looked around the disaster of a lab and groaned. He was so going to get it for this.
***
“C’mon, Muffin, I just want a little snack…” The doorman cooed from around the corner.
Red slipped into an open door, quietly shut it, and surveyed the scene. Another empty bedroom filled with gaudy furniture that had probably filled the pages of Hef’s Playboys many times. Red buried her head in her hands. With the doorman following her around the Mansion, she wasn’t much help on this mission. And, frustratingly, she had only found bedroom after bedroom inside the cavernous halls. This was one of the times she wished she’d had training that more closely resembled an agent’s training like Pearl had. They probably taught them the types of things to look for in investigations. She would absolutely be helpful if it was some sort of infection, but that required lab work, not fieldwork. If only they’d been able to take blood samples from Jim before they sent him on his way. Then they would know what to look for.
As the sound of footsteps faded, Red silently opened the door and peered into the corridor. She needed to find a room that could have hidden secrets, somewhere other than the hundreds of carbon copy bedrooms. A smile spread on her face when she spied a slightly ajar door at the end of the hall with a keypad lock. That could have some secrets.
Silently, Red slid out of the bedroom, shutting the door behind her, and tiptoed toward the door. Someone had either accidentally left it open or was still inside. No matter what, she had to be ready. She pulled the door gently, peeking in before she entered. Thankfully, rather than any stranger who would find her suspicious, Pearl sat on the floor, glowering at her amulet and a bound stack of papers as she held them.
“Pearl?” Red asked, ducking into the room and quietly closing the door.
“You just missed all the action back at HQ,” said Pearl, looking up with an exasperated expression as Red entered the room.
Red was instantly curious. “Yeah? So what’d I miss?”
“Oh, just 00Carter running amok with my prototype of Diamond’s new machine gun bra and completely destroying my laboratory.”
Red gasped, her mouth falling open before twitching a little at the corners. “Are you serious?”
“Wish I wasn’t. No wonder they used to call him Kaos.”
Red giggled. “That I would like to have seen.”
“Me too. I only witnessed the aftermath. You can watch the camera footage with me when we’re back if you want.”
“Aw… sorry about your lab,” Red offered. She was sympathetic, but not as much as she was amused by the idea of Nick wreaking havoc in an armed bra.
“Help me clean up?” Pearl asked, gesturing to the banker’s box. “It’s just financial records.”
The two women quickly cleaned up the papers strewn on the floor and set the box back on the shelf. Afterward, Pearl sighed and muttered to herself, “What a waste. If I was back in my lab…”
“No luck here, huh?” Red asked.
“Just a bunch of horny people not wearing costumes,” Pearl grumbled as they exited the room. “You?”
“I’ve spent most of my time playing hide and seek with the doorman.” Red sighed. “Hopefully, Emerald and Diamond are having better luck… We should probably split up again.”
Pearl held up the door decoder. “Plenty of other locked doors, right?”
Red laughed. “If you open them all, we’ll get back home sooner.”
With a grin, Pearl wiped the door handle with her glove as she shut it, then tore it off and shoved it back in the chest of the Bunny outfit. “See you.” She waved and turned down another hallway.
Red waved back, then sighed once Pearl had disappeared out of sight.
Wondering what else had been going on at HimTak while she had been playing her new role as “Muffin” at the Playboy Mansion, Red soon retreated to the privacy of one of the lavish bathrooms. As she stared into the mirror, she held her right hand in front of her face. On her middle finger was a platinum ring set with what appeared to be a large ruby. All she had to do was slip the ring off, tap a tiny button hidden on the inside of the band, and the stone became a communicator. Everything was tinted red as she squinted into the center of the smooth gem, but she could still see the headquarters. A careful twist of the ring toggled her view to that of the surveillance camera mounted in her infirmary.
She felt an unexpected rush of emotions as she peered through the scarlet stone at the familiar quarters, empty without her there. First, there was longing… the wishful hope that she could finish her business here and return to Nevada soon. She wasn’t cut out for missions that involved her prancing around in corsets and bunny ears; she much preferred scrubs. But then, there was dread… the frightful memory of the blood-spattered scrubs she’d donned last and the turmoil that had surrounded the empty table the camera focused upon. Its stainless steel surface had been scrubbed clean and sterilized so that it gleamed in the fluorescent light. But she would never forget the body that had last lain upon it… nor what had come out of it.
The mission had successfully distracted her, but now, she let her mind run away with its recollection of the nightmarish incident that had brought them here.
Bree wailed as the next contraction came. Red urged, “Push!” and looked between the laboring woman’s legs as the crown of a head appeared. She was thankful it wasn’t breech. The fetus slid out a little at a time, its smooth scalp coated with blood and vernix. The skin beneath appeared bluish-gray, and Red felt a rush of concern that it was suffocating. “One more big push, Bree,” she coached.
The mother screamed as she put the last of her strength into expelling the fetus, and her offspring slid out into Red Jewel’s gloved hands. When the red-haired doctor looked down at what she was holding, her mouth fell open.
Then she, too, began to scream.
The skin was dusky blue, almost purple, and slimy with the contents of its placenta. There was no hair on its body, not even lanugo; its slick scalp was perfectly bald. It was that smooth head that horrified her the most, to the point where she nearly dropped it out of shock.
The massively oversized cranium was shaped like a light bulb, more malformed and disproportionate than that of any baby she’d delivered. Hydrocephalus, she might have guessed if it were a normal baby. This was not a normal baby. Not by any means. It might have passed for one at first — a hydrocephalus baby suffering from oxygen deprivation — had it not been for the face.
That face would haunt her for the rest of her life.
There were no eyebrows, no lashes, only eyes — large, bulging, slanted eyes with lids that flickered open and shut horizontally rather than vertically. When they opened, they looked like two convex pools of liquid black without the slightest trace of white sclera or colored iris. The corneas formed a translucent film, like a puddle of oil with faint swirls of color on top. She could see her reflection when she gazed into them; her own eyes were wide, her face ashen.
Below the eyes were two mere slits — nostrils, though there was no protruding nose. A small, lipless mouth gaped open below those and uttered a frightful cry. Not the sharp wail of a newborn baby, but a sound more like that of a hissing cat mixed with a shrill screech for which she had no comparison. She’d heard nothing like it before. It was not of this world.
In her arms, the creature writhed and stretched its limbs: two arms, two legs, but with only three digits per hand and three webbed toes attached to the feet.
Within her, Red’s instincts were fighting each other. Fear gave her the compulsion to fling the slimy, unearthly creature away from her like she might a giant slug. Yet, oddly enough, from somewhere deep inside her, maternal instincts tugged at her heart and compelled her to hold onto it. In the moment, she wasn’t capable of rational thought. Later, she would realize that it was the way the creature reached up to her with its floppy limbs, crying, that kept her hands cupped beneath its bulbous head. It was not a human baby… but, somehow, a baby just the same.
It felt like she’d been holding it for minutes, but her mind was in warp speed; really, it had only been a few seconds. Dimly, she became aware of the reactions of the others in the background. Gasps. Then screams. Loudest of all was a male scream from the husband, Jim.
His scream triggered the others into action. Jay pushed the husband down into a chair before he could pass out; Jim’s knees buckled as he collapsed into it, but still, he was hysterical. Emerald pulled on a pair of latex gloves and took the creature from Red’s arms. “The mother,” she said in a low voice that was still sharp enough to divert Red’s attention.
Red wondered where she was going to take the creature, what she was going to do with it. She wondered what it even was, though somewhere in the back of her mind, she already knew. But there was no time for such questions. On the stainless steel table before her, the mother was fading fast.
“Jim? What’s wrong? What’s… what’s wrong with my baby? Is my… baby alright?” She’d been asking the questions for as long as Jim had been screaming, but no one had been able to answer. Only now did Red hear how breathy her voice was and realize she was going downhill.
The rush of adrenaline coursing through Red’s bloodstream allowed her doctor’s instincts to take over. She sprang into action again, pulling her stethoscope from her shoulders to listen to the young woman’s chest. Just as she had suspected, the breath sounds were weak; the woman’s lungs were suddenly filling with fluid.
There had not been time to set up monitors when she’d brought Bree in, but now, she hurried to clip a pulse ox monitor to the index finger of one of the woman’s hands, which were shaking uncontrollably with shock. She attached leads to her heaving chest, only to watch as the EKG waves measuring her heartbeat peaked and plummeted erratically.
The woman began to hemorrhage, expelling what was left of the placenta in a surge of blood. Red nearly slipped in the fresh puddle on the tiled floor as she fumbled for her surgical tools. At the head of the table, Bree’s eyes rolled back into her head, exposing only the blank stares of their whites. The blips of the heart monitor increased in their frequency, sounding with such lightning speed that, to the human ear, they seemed to merge into a single tone. And then, they did become one, a piercing, endless whine, as the new mother’s heartbeat accelerated to a rate beyond its limit and suddenly stopped. Red looked up in dismay to see the heart monitor flatline.
The cardiac arrest eased the blood gushing from Bree’s body, but it was too late to save her. Already, nearly half of her blood volume was on the floor. Red suctioned and sutured and tried to resuscitate, but the effort was in vain.
At a quarter till midnight, she pronounced Breanna Kimble dead and stripped the blood-soaked gloves from her quivering hands. Then, leaving Jay to deal with the distraught husband and Emerald, the offspring, she retreated to her office, barricaded the door, and broke down into hysterical sobs.
The memory of that night left Red tremulous, her eyes filled with fresh tears. She had lost patients in med school and witnessed plenty of odd cases during her time at HimTak, but she would never get over what she had seen that night. The only bit of relief she could find in it was that the mother, Bree, had not seen what she’d given birth to before she crashed and that her widowed husband, Jim, would not remember. Only Jay and Emerald remained witnesses to the traumatic birth of the extraterrestrial.
Red, like they, had given her statement to the FBI agents who had arrived two days later to observe the live specimen and autopsy the mother. They were not just any FBI agents, she quickly realized, but members of a special department, a secret sector of the government, reserved for the unexplainable. They investigated unsolved mysteries, paranormal activity, events beyond the civilian realm of understanding. They told her very little besides that, but she deduced that K had been right to bring them onto the case, along with his charming CIA cousin. Agents Mulder and Scully seemed to know what they were talking about; they appeared to understand far more than she did, that was for sure.
She felt she had no business being in LA on this mission, but although she had protested along with the other girls, a part of her was glad she had been sent along. It was a welcomed reprieve from the medical wing she looked in on at HimTak, where the sight of the alien baby, the smell of the mother’s blood on the floor, and the sounds of her husband’s screams would haunt her for a long time to come.
***