Chapter 6: The Clovers Lab

As the door creaks open after having been picked by Stina, it opens onto a dark hallway, illuminated by nothing but some flickering lights. There are doors to both sides and after a good couple of meters, the hallway splits in three. You can estimate that the way to the right from there would lead to the front entrance of the facility while the left way and the one forward lead deeper into the facility.

Between you and that crossway, a woman is standing, a flashlight in her hand as she faces you and the door. She must have been alerted by Henry's previous attempt to get the door open. She's wearing what looks like janitor overalls over a turtleneck sweater that reveals nothing but the very tip of a black tattoo on her neck. You haven't seen her before but she's definitely not one of the prophets from Rektor Järnek's photo.
"What are you doing here?", the woman asks in a hushed voice. "Don't you realize this place is dangerous? You wouldn't want to interrupt Dr. Sundgren's experiments!"

You do recognize the name Dr. Sundgren. She is one of the prophets, the tall beautiful woman that Dr. Liv Himmelshöjd, the woman who created the machine fetus, seemed to admire in the photo you found.

"That's exactly what we want." Sabine corrects the woman. "Dr. Sundren's experiments are altering our world and making our family and friends vanish. If we don't interrupt, all of us..and you too are in danger of being non-existent. That woman's crazy..."

"It sounds like you’d have a problem with that." Henry pushes into the space as he stuffs his break-in kit into his pocket, frustrated.

"What is she doing here?"

Mikael stands back, ready to help push inside the building if needed.

The woman looks uncertain between your group, unsure if she'd be able to hold you back.
"She's just trying to help!", the woman says. She glances over her shoulder uneasily. "There are these children, they're not supposed to be here. They're... I know this sounds ridiculous, but they're from another universe. She just wants to send them back home!"

Stina feels a surge of hope within her, hearing the woman's words. Children... will you be there among them, Max? Please, be there... she thinks, her brother's face looking at her in her mind.

"Children have disappeared from OUR universe. We are looking for them. We know things, about them. Maybe we can help. Or prevent a bigger catastrophe. Take us to Doctor Sundren. Whatever she is doing... it is changing reality. Please..."

"No, you don't understand," the woman argues. She tries to position herself firmly in the middle of the hallway to block your way. "Elisabeth is trying to fix everything. And she can't be disturbed. By anyone!" She tries a reassuring smile that falls flat a bit, however, considering the circumstances. "Just go home. Everything will be fine, I promise."

"I’m sorry." the scruffy boys says, reaching for inside his coat. He feels his weapons there.

"We can’t do that. Please, let us by…"

He holds the hammer, not yet revealing it.

"Please."

"Max! Is there a six-year-old child named Max? I must see him, he's my little brother!" she says, stepping up to the woman and tugging at her arm. "Let us help! Let us through!!"

Sabine rushes the door with ball bat in hand. If the woman continues to be stupid and not have heard a word she said or those of her friends, she is going to use the bat and knock this woman down.

'Morons and fanatics. I'm sick of them.'

The woman's face softens a bit at Stina's mention of her brother. "No," she replies. "They're all older than that. Younger than you, but older than six for certain." Then she shakes her head. "I can't let you pass. Elisabeth told me not to let anyone through to her. And I trust her that she's doing the right thing!"

As clueless lackey woman opens her mouth again, Sabine rushes and Smack! hits her with the ball bat and the force of her body pushing into the space beyond the door.

Sabine smacks the woman with her bat and then immediately rams into her with her full weight. The woman lets out a pained scream and stumbles backwards, collapsing against the wall on the right side of the hallway. She looks up at you. "Don't interrupt her!", she begs. "Please. Elisabeth is doing good! That's what she said!"

The woman won't be able to stop you from going past her anymore.

As the group files by the downed woman, Henry stops up for a moment.

"Sorry. But we have to stop this. I know you only want to help. You should get away from here, if you can. And quick. Sorry, again."

He does feel bad for the useful idiot they just barged through, but he didn’t know how things were going to go next, and he didn’t want the woman to be a casualty either…

The kids here are older than Max... must be Mette's friends... but where are you, Max?? she thinks, while she steps past the fallen woman after the others.

"That Vile woman and her sick-o fellow Prophets are NOT doing good, you dense airhead." Sabine seethes, as she continues past the fallen woman. "They are destroying our world..."

You head past the woman and down the corridor until you reach the point where it splits in four. As you expected, the right just leads to the main door and outside. Ahead, the corridor looks just like the one you've passed so far. Closed office doors on both sides.
It's the left way that catches your attention.
The left side of that corridor also consists of nothing but doors but the right has windows that seem to lead into some sort of larger room. You see light spill from those windows but from your angle, you can't make out what's going on inside. Eventually, the corridor turns to the right and out of your sight.

"Wait, wait, wait." Henry says, as he catches up with the others. "Let me…" he checks if everything looks clear "… take a quick look. Could be security in there…"

Henry sneaks ahead of the group and glances through the first of the two windows. Behind it, he finds a large open room. In the middle of the room is a huge machine and attached to that are what at first glance looks like a number of dentist chairs. On closer inspection, the chairs are heavily modified however. Pins on the backs and the armrests that look long and pointy enough to penetrate deep into anyone sitting on them have been built into them, as well as a number of computers and machines to monitor something on them. Those needles look like they could have been what caused the weird lines of puncture marks on Mette's arms that you noticed when visiting her.

Oh, and also, two of those four chairs are occupied. There are two boys sitting on them. They look to be unconscious, their heads drooping to the side and their eyes open but looking at nothing. He also spots a third boy, younger than these two, trapped behind glass to the side of the room and trying without success to break the glass keeping him in. A tall and broad-shouldered woman is moving swiftly and with purpose between the chairs. Her hair is white like it should belong to a much older woman. She's wearing a dress shirt that is only buttoned halfway up and whose arms are rolled up to just above her elbows. Every bit of skin that is exposed below her neck is covered in tattoos of what appears to be complex mathematical formulas. Henry doesn't get a good look at her face but he's pretty sure she is Dr. Elisabeth Sundgren, the third of the Prophets who hasn't been seen in ten years.
She's so absorbed by her work that she doesn't notice the boy peeking in through the window.

Sliding past the doorway with the others, Mikael looks at the woman on the ground and shakes his head before continuing forward. He waits while Henry checks out the situation ahead.