Night 49: Equipment/Chemical Storage

[doneinthree]

[from here]...Or not. After Kirk shook off the sudden disorientation (a side effect of the creature? But it hadn't touched his skin), he felt first the distinct lack of rain on his hood, and then opened his eyes to... a room. "What the-?" He brought his flashlight up, illuminating wall-to-wall cabinets and forbidding warning labels, and feeling a

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[sewenteen_sir]

Saying Chekov was mildly disoriented was an understatement. Expecting the outdoors and rain, he'd been met with a quieter, more sterile environment, along with a strange feeling as though he'd been spun around a few times. His eyes darted around the room, as though making absolutely sure he wasn't where he had expected to be. Signs pointed to yes.

While Captain Kirk and Roxas were wondering aloud, Chekov shone his flashlight on the map of the first floor. He had been absolutely certain that door would lead outside--so had Captain Kirk--so why were they someplace so clearly different from the field?

He took stock of the cabinets and their contents. Some sort of storage room, obviously, for what appeared to be chemicals and equipment relevant to a laboratory. Chekov took a moment to read over the map on his arm and, finding nothing on the first floor that remotely hinted at chemicals, began looking at the second floor map on his other arm. A small crease formed between his eyebrows.

"It certainly is not," Chekov agreed. "We are on ze second floor," he said. "Zat is, if we are in ze storege area marked as being outside of a laboratory. If not..." If not, then Chekov had no idea where they were. He went back to the map of the first floor to confirm. "Ze door we went through--it was positively ze correct door to ze outside. Somehow, walking through ze door downstairs has brought us to ze second floor of ze building." That was the extent of his analysis for the time being. He highly doubted they'd been beamed here, and without more data he couldn't make many more observations besides the fact that they should be outside, but weren't.

[doneinthree]

While Chekov reviewed his maps, Kirk shifted his flashlight to his left hand and began pulling open cabinets. If this was an illusion, it was a good one: the doors were cold to the touch, and solid under his fingers. The labelled yellow ones clearly contained chemicals, while the blue cabinets appeared to contain the sort of supplies he'd directed Bones and Spock to gather tonight. No doubt antiquated by twenty-third-century standards, but the medical equipment appeared clean and usable and real.

"The second floor," Kirk repeated. He knew the bare bones of the science behind the transporter: his molecules pulled apart and transmitted across space, rematerializing a second later. Bones thought the whole thing was disturbingly unnatural, but Kirk had run through it enough times by now that any discomfort hardly even registered anymore. While stepping through that door had been just as near-instantaneous, it had felt different. No light, no buzzing in his ear, no slight adjustment of the ground underneath his feet. Just... one second, they were headed outside, then suddenly, this storage room.

At least he wasn't crazy, if both Roxas and Chekov agreed that this wasn't there they were supposed to be. Not that Kirk doubted his sanity or anything, but still, it was good to know. It wasn't as if he was in any position to call something impossible, anyway, not with some of the things he'd seen in the last couple of weeks.

Well, there was only one way to find out what the hell was going on.

Kirk slid a scalpel into the sleeve of his coat (it wasn't much of a replacement for his broom, but it would do), and marched past the two young men to the door again. "You said this place leads out into a laboratory, right?" he asked over his shoulder, already pushing the door open.

[to here]