WASHINGTON — Dr. Christine Giles, a scientist at the Global Science Research Institute, just ripped a printing document off an antiquated dot-matrix printer, glanced at the text, then immediately ran to a red telephone, according to concerned sources currently trying to listen in to the phone conversation.
“I know it seems pretty serious,” said Dr. Tracy Meyers as Giles frantically spoke into the phone behind her. “But Christine is way too excitable. She pulls this shit if she gets a report that there’s like, a wild bear spotted in a Chicago suburb, or if Taco Bell pulls potatoes from their menu again. I know for a fact that she’s been written up for false alarms at least once before. She needs to learn how to actually judge if something is important enough to justify the red phone.”
“Seriously, there’s a chart by the red phone that we specifically ordered to calm her down,” Dr. Meyers continued. “It breaks down ‘local emergency’ to ‘Omega Event’ so you can make a good decision.”
Toby Howlosky, a fifth-grader from nearby Ross Elementary School who was visiting the laboratory on a school trip, disagreed with Dr. Meyers.
“I’ve been bored out of my fucking mind all day. This place doesn’t have any dinosaur bones, or weird goop for us to stick our hands in. I only saw something cool when I walked through some doors that said ‘No Entry,’” Howlosky said after wandering from the group and tapping on a beaker filled with an unknown fluid. “I saw that science lady grab something off an old-ass printer, whisper ‘my god’ and that’s how I knew some shit was about to go down. I hope it’s like some ‘Tomorrow War’ type stuff or something. It would be sweet if the whole place got locked down. I’d be fine, I brought like five pounds of candy with me.”
Gail Patrick, an expert in laboratory protocol, was inclined to agree with the fifth-grader.
“Scientists never run; they got into science to avoid running. So if this happens, you know it’s bad news,” Patrick said while a television behind her unexpectedly cut to an emergency station. “While Dr. Giles might be prone to falsely reporting emergencies, like they say, a broken clock is right twice a day. And she was already right about that incident in 2004 when she ran into a meeting of the Board of Chiefs and screamed ‘they’re coming!’ before being restrained.”
As of press time, the President of the United States was entering in the classified code that would reactivate Special Agent Zero.