A small, scrawny man walked out of the building. He stood about five and a half feet tall, which was a solid five or six inches shorter than me. He had thin black hair swept to the side, and eyes to match, staring at me from behind a pair of thin glasses. He had tanned skin and a broad, gleaming smile. The man wore a white lab coat over black pants. He offered his hand as he walked down the front steps.
"Ivory Gale?" he asked as I gripped his hand.
"I honestly prefer just Dr. Gale, if you don't mind," I said in the nicest way possible. As much as I tried to avoid it, I always came off as pretentious. I just hated my first name with a passion.
"Ivory?" the mean guard said with a snort.
"Oh, now talking is okay," I grumbled.
"Not a problem, Dr. Gale!" the scientist said and released my hand to try to wrap his arms around me in a surprise hug.
I pulled away and held up a hand to stop him.
"Um, sorry. I'm not much of a hugger," I said and kept my hand raised to prevent another surprise hug attempt.
"Hugger? Didn't take you for a hard r kind of guy," the man said and shook my hand with renewed enthusiasm.
"Wh-what?!" My whole body started to shake from his excited grip, so I released his hand and pulled away.
"It's a pleasure...uh," I said, realizing I didn't know his name. It was probably in the report I had skimmed through on the plane. I needed to be more thorough, but most of the stuff I had to read was so damn boring.
"I am Dr. Kale. Head of this fine cloning facility," he said with another beaming smile. I felt a jolt of stupidity as I saw a name tag on Dr. Kale's lab coat that read "Hi my name is" and had "Dr. Kale" scribbled beneath in sloppy handwriting. In all my training in medical school and through the many years of schooling required to achieve my Ph.D., reading name-tags must have been a class I skipped over.
The mean guard snorted and said, "Your names rhyme. It's kind of cute."
"Like the disgusting food," I said with a forced smile, ignoring the guard. It dawned on me that I preferred the mean guard to Dr. Kale; happy people aren't to be trusted. The same with morning people, they're unnatural.
He let out a high-pitched laugh, which made everyone else visibly uncomfortable. It didn't seem to bother him, or he didn't notice. The laugh was uncomfortable in a way like when a coworker gets way too close to your face to whisper something and you feel their patchy beard scratching against your cheek… and the coworker is a woman. That type of uncomfortable.
No judgement from me though.
"Yes, like the disgusting food. I assume Justin and Darren were pleasant on the drive over from the airport? Darren loves driving around the island," Dr. Kale said and motioned for us to come inside.
Airport? That's what you want to call that dirt path of death?
"I think Justin and I are the best of friends," I said and followed him, swapping my fancy sunglasses for my boring, regular black-rimmed glasses as we went inside. Justin grumbled something unintelligible behind me. Dr. Kale pulled a spare lab coat from just inside the facility doors. I slipped it on over my boring white button-up shirt and khaki pants.
The inside of the building was beyond beautiful. The walls and floors were made of green-tinted glass; I could see into each room on this floor, the sun shining down on the island, and the scientists working on the floor below me. The ceiling was tinted dark blue, and the sunlight spread the color all over the building. Dozens of people were typing away at computers or combining colorful liquids in different glass beakers.
"I think I'm having a science-gasm," I said aloud without thinking.
"Happens to me all the time, my friend," Dr. Kale said and winked at me. "The trick is to double up on underwear."
"Alright, well that's something I'll try to forget," I said and shook my head, attempting to hold back the shudder that his wink sent spiraling through me. "Do you have a conference room?"
"Yes, follow me!" he said and took off at a brisk pace.
I had to jog a few steps to catch up, but then I was able to match his speed. My legs were longer than his, but I still struggled to maintain the pace that Dr. Kale had set. Justin and Darren split off on their own as I followed Dr. Kale. In a brisk walk, we sped through all the various rooms on this floor of the facility. My eyes were having a field day, jumping all over the place and lingering no more than a few seconds on each individual room. There was so much happening in each room and plenty to take in. I had a difficult time believing that so many people worked in this facility. I suppose cloning extinct animals would be a pretty massive group effort.
"If this is the only building on the island, where does everyone sleep? I was unaware there was such a large number of people working here."
"Right around one hundred!" Dr. Kale said and stuck out his chest in pride. "This might be the only building on the island, but I could fit groups much larger than this! There are several floors just for living. Not to mention the floors dedicated to recreational activities and workout rooms." He gave me a thoughtful look. "You know, it's kind of like living in college dorms."
"But without all the drinking," I said with a gentle laugh.
"...sure," he said, avoiding eye contact. He turned away from me and I could hear him exhale into his hand and sniff.
We kept straight until we hit a large room; it had a large oak table in the center. Placed in the middle of the table was a glass box, at least three feet wide and close to four feet long. The glass case contained what seemed to be a basket of giant eggs. They were about the size of ostrich eggs, but a bright white color and freckled with black spots. There was a heating lamp inside the case and several wires that led from the case to a medical monitor. The monitor was on, but it wasn't registering any activity.
"Now, normally I would save the main event for a little later after your arrival, once you got some rest and whatnot. But--but this is too exciting," Dr. Kale said as we entered the room. He was wringing his hands, and I'm pretty positive he was salivating with excitement. A little drool was slipping out of the corner of his mouth and sliding down his chin. I had never seen a man give anything as powerful as the lustful look Dr. Kale was giving these eggs. I was starting to get a bad vibe about this guy on top of my wariness about this trip.
"Do these eggs hold the woolly mammoth? They didn't lay eggs; is this some cloning thing?" I asked as I smushed my face against the glass case.
"No, no, we're nowhere near ready to produce a live woolly mammoth. These are a much grander discovery," Dr. Kale said, his eyes wide as he looked down at the eggs. "Let me tell you all about these beautiful monsters."