Special Defence Unit Chapter 1: Exploding microwaves

Contains a few swears!

The front page of the newspaper displayed the same headline it had been blaring for the past several issues: “VILLAIN THREATENING NATIONAL SAFETY DEFEATED.”

Under the bolded lettering were a few mug shots of some random lady, and larger, to the left, a photo of Shift and Blur grinning and posing, partially blocking a large pile of rubble. The Yellow Orchid was in the background of the shot, talking to some officials.
“Looks like they took out that random villain that came up last week.” I said to myself, skimming over the title of the article, attempting to blindly shove a spoonful of cereal into my mouth.

Ever since the organisation first started up a few years ago, countless villains and criminal organisations had had their covers blown, much to the delight of news agencies countrywide. With every other week came another magazine featuring an exclusive interview with one of the members, a tabloid stirring up rumours of an alleged dating scandal, a report on the latest victory. With the sudden influx of super-villain related feature articles, I had lost track of enemy aliases and numbers of arrests long ago. There wasn’t much need to remember, anyway; often the bad guys were forgotten as quickly as they had the limelight. had the country’s crime rate under control. As soon as something alarming came up, it was quashed in record-breaking time. The media loved it. Tabloids and magazines often referred to them as “The Guardians of the Country” and quickly launched them into celebrity status after their debut. It wasn’t very surprising if you saw posters and billboards of Shift holding up a can of an energy drink, or Blur posing in some sports gear, or some “Yellow Orchid approved” vitamin supplement or... whatever, when you were out and about. Although I thought the media’s idolisation of these three in particular was somewhat ridiculous, they were right about one thing: The Special Defences Unit was damn good at what they did. My hand slipped and the spoon clattered onto the benchtop. I sighed and stood up, picking the eating utensil up as I trawled to the kitchen sink.

What  the Special Defences Unit did didn’t really affect me. They did their jobs so regular citizens like me could do our jobs. I glanced up to the wall clock that hung above my apartment door, and suddenly felt more awake. One thing that these superheroes couldn’t do, however, was prevent me from being late.

“Come on, come on…” I jumped from foot to foot as my parking ticket slowly slid out from the pay and display meter. Snatching it just as it plopped out into the slot, I slapped it on my car windshield. Sprinting, I turned the corner and crossed the street to the Institute. The stairs that lead up to the main building were scaled three steps at a time. The sliding doors of the entry almost caught the ends of my coat as I slipped inside. Pausing for a moment to assess the situation, I weaved through the waves of administrators, lab coat clad adults and schools of field trip children, to make my way to the elevators. My ID card made a loud slap as I smacked it onto the reader. It glowed green, and the metallic doors slid open. Stepping inside, I allowed myself to catch my breath. I made it. The relaxing elevator music did not cover the sound of my ragged panting, however, as my lungs tried to make the most out of the stale air that circulated the confined space. After a few moments, a chime sounded, indicating that my ride was over. Looking up into the corners of the box, I acknowledged the security cameras with a grin, before stepping out.

My three coworkers were already at their stations, busily working. They all looked up as entered.
“Hey guys, sorry I’m kinda late...I’m just glad that login didn’t lock me out.” I said, shedding my coat and hanging it up on a wall hook.
“No worries, we only just got started anyway.” One of them said as they handed me a clipboard. “You need to be more careful, though, because you’re going to get caught out one of these days,” She giggled.
“Thanks for your concern, Lily, but I think these early morning sprints are the only way I’m going to get any exercise in.” I replied, looking over the task sheet.
“That sure is a great way to get your miles, Ami. Risk your job every morning. Sounds amazing. I must try it out.”  A voice piped up from the opposite end of the room. I rolled my eyes.
“Shut up, Sam.”
This Saturday morning, so far, was progressing as usual. Barely making it in time, I would be the last student intern out of the group to make it into lab B3. There would be some conversation, and then we would work until five. We would then all argue about what to have for dinner, usually eating out together or just settling on digging up something to microwave.
The four of us were almost inseparable, despite our clashing opinions on food.

“Alright. Here’s what we have,” Hamid said, nose deep in the fridge that was normally used to chill chemicals and other samples. “Pizza...Hot Pockets...Mixed vegetables?”
“That was me, sorry.” Lily called out.
“I’m voting for Hot Pockets” Sam said.
“I was thinking we could order Chinese.” I suggested, fiddling with some faulty clamp stands.
“We had Chinese last week though.” He replied.
“True… But I’m kind of sick of Hot Pockets. What about Thai?”
“Ew, no.”
“What? Are you serious Sam? You don’t like Tha-”
“Why don’t you just paper scissors rock it. ” Hamid interrupted. “Hot Pockets or Chinese.” Sam grunted in agreement, and rolled up his lab coat sleeves. I did the same. He taunted at me from across the room, beckoning with one hand to “Bring it on.”
I threw scissors. He threw rock.
“YES. I win, Ami.” He grinned. I rolled my eyes in reply and returned to fixing the clamps.
“Hot Pockets it is, then.” Hamid said, unboxing the package and slamming it into the microwave. After he pushed the start button, we all returned to our work.
Holding flasks and test tubes filled will rather dangerous chemicals in the crook of one elbow, I kept on twisting the knobs of the clamp stands to tighten their grip, but nothing was happening. Giving up, the flasks were placed upon the benchtop and forgotten as I moseyed on over to check on the hot pockets. They were rotating on the dish, still covered in the tin foil packaging. I turned to address my friend as he sat in the corner of the room with a laptop.
“Uh, Hamid, you’re supposed to remove the foil before you put them in-” A bright light caused me to whip back around in surprise.The microwave emitted bright sparks, crackling dangerously. There was a smell of burnt plastic in the air. Before I could react, the machine exploded, spraying flaming chunks of pizza sauce and microwave across the lab. Bracing myself, I watched, rooted to the ground by shock as a piece of marinara covered shrapnel flew in a perfect arc straight towards my workbench, and subsequently straight into a conical flask filled with an unlabeled liquid. The thing went up in flames. The flask fell over. The flaming liquid spread everywhere.
“HOLY S**T!” I dashed toward the bench. Staring at the flaming chemicals, I floundered. The safety procedures flew out of mind. I couldn’t think of anything to do, except stare. The others came up behind me, Hamid carrying a fire extinguisher. He pushed the nozzle. There was a small fizzing sound as nothing but gas leaked out. His face took on an unusual expression of desperation.
“Oh, god.”

Author's Note

ignore grammar problems