Locked in a lab with an attractive pregnant doctor
This is a story about a young man trapped together with an older married woman.
Lab lockdown
If it hadn't happened to me, I'd have said it sounded like the plot of a bad science fiction movie, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
My name is Patrick and I'm 20. All my life, if you'd asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have given you the same answer. I wanted to be a scientist, wearing a white lab coat. So I studied and got straight A* in my 'A' levels in maths and all the sciences. Now I'm studying physics and chemistry at one of the country's top universities. In addition, I'm studying engineering in my limited spare time. What can I say? I'm a nerd and rarely socialise.
My professor had encouraged me and arranged for a tour of a local research laboratory, something the general-public would never get to see. So, after signing an alarming number of waivers and handing over my phone, because no electronic devices were allowed inside, I was introduced to Doctor Nia Patel.
Instantly, I was tongue-tied. I struggle around girls in the first place and it gets worse the more attractive they are. Despite her name, she wasn't Indian or Pakistani, but some blend that left her with perfect features. Mocha coloured skin and a hint of an African component in her tight, curly black hair.
Fortunately, as she talked about science, my brain finally kicked into gear and I could avoid sounding like a bumbling idiot. Science was one thing I could always talk about.
She explained how the laboratory was split into different levels of safety protocols. Starting with level one, which was the lowest level of isolation, all the way up to level five. These contained deadly toxins, radioactive materials and the nastiest of viruses.
As we toured the facility, we paused outside a level three laboratories and she explained this was where she used to work, until she got pregnant. She placed her hand on her belly and explained she was three months pregnant. Because of the potential dangers, she was forced to do admin work out of the laboratories, such as give me a tour.
On the way to show me the outside of a level five lab, she detoured into an empty level two lab to show me how it worked. One entire wall was glass, and we had to enter via an airlock into the negative air pressure laboratory. Sensors measured the pressure to ensure there could be no leak from the lab. It caused a little discomfort until I forced my ears to pop to equalise the pressure.
Nia seemed to think that was amusing, but all humour vanished as alarms went off all over the building. Lights started strobing in the hallways and we stared at the door as we heard locks sealing us in. For a moment, I wondered if this was some prank. Something to scare the crap out of a visitor and any second, a gang of scientists would appear and laugh at us trapped in the lab.
However, Nia's expression revealed she was as shocked as me. The alarms were nearly painfully loud, and she moved to a control box on the wall and flicked a switch. It shut off the alarms within the lab, and the alarms outside were partially muted by the multiple layers of glass.
Grabbing a phone on the wall, she dialled an extension and put it on speaker. We waited for several minutes before it was answered.
"Hello?" a man's voice asked.
"Tim? Is that you?"
"Nia? Please tell me you're not in the office today."
"Unfortunately, yes, I'm stuck in lab 7."
"Shit. Are you alone?"
"No, I was giving a tour when the alarms went off."
"A tour? What the hell. You know we can't..."
"Not my idea. Professor Gardener set it up."
"Fuck! He treats this place like his private property."
"I know, but he's on the board of directors and pushes a lot of work our way. What's going on?"
"I don't have all the details yet. There was a flash fire and explosion."
"Shit! Anyone hurt."
"Unfortunately yes. At least one fatality, but that's not the worst part."
"What do you mean?"
"It was in a level four lab dealing with category D compounds."
"Oh, my god did it breach containment. And what was it?"
"I can answer the first question, yes it did. However, I cannot tell you exactly what it is with a civilian in the room with you. Give me a moment and I'll check the risk log."
Nia looked at me and I could see her searching for some words to reassure me. However, she came up short and looked back at the window, wondering what pathogen was floating in the air outside our lab.
"Nia? Are you still there?"
"Where else am I going to go?" she snapped back.
"Yeah right. Please tell me you have full hazmat suits in that lab?"
She turned to me and pointed at a cupboard in the corner. I opened it to find it empty.
"Fuck! No, this lab is not being used at the moment, so it's not fully equipped."
"Damn. In which case, you're going to be stuck in there for quite a while."
"Why?"
"Because I've checked the details on the compound. I don't know what your attitudes to carcinoma are, but this stuff is terrible for a foetus."
"Oh, my god!" She pressed her free hand over her belly.
"Yeah, so we're going to take no chances of keeping you all safe. I do not know how long it will be, but be prepared for it to be days..."
"Fuck!" Nia's swearing matched my thoughts exactly.
"Make an inventory of what you have, and I'll call you back as soon as I've got news."
Nia slammed the phone down with unnecessary force.
We had a full range of standard lab equipment. Bunsen burners, flasks, pipettes and so on. A selection of measuring equipment and the regular chemical reagents. There were enough rubber gloves to re-enact the movie up, and for some reason we had miles of paper towels. Fortunately, there was a fridge containing dozens of bottles of water and a half-empty box of snack bars.
"This must have been Doctor Taub's lab. He eats those things all the time and they give him terrible wind." Nia comments.
"If this is all we have to eat, you'll need someone to check if it has enough nutrients for the baby." I suggest, and she nods, making a note on one of the many notepads.
The other most notable thing apart from the missing hazmat suits was a lack of a bathroom. The jumbo Coke I'd drank before coming here, I now realised, had been a mistake.
"What do we do about going to the toilet?" I ask the doctor, embarrassed.
She smiled before replying. "After graduating from university, I visited my ancestral village in Africa for several months. Out there, you went out to the fields night or day and did it in a ditch. That's not going to work here. Let's try this." She pointed to a metal bin a little over knee high, with a hazard label on the side and a lockable lid.
"Seriously? I don't think I could, not in front of you."
"I don't see any other options. Damn it! Now you've mentioned it, I need to go. Look, it's no good getting bent out of shape over this. We all need to pee and poop. In Africa, they don't have our hang-ups. We're grownups in a difficult situation. Let's not make it worse by getting overly worked up about it."
Nia reached down and pulled her skirt up part way, then reached under it and wriggled out of her panties. I was blushing as she slipped them into her lab coat pocket. Moving to semi squat over the bin, she pulled her skirt higher. I got a flash of tight black curly pubic hair as she rested on the edge of the bin.
"You could at least look the other way." She admonished.
