[AlexFili]

Chapter 1: Scrab Soup

The Intern woke up earlier than usual. He rubbed his eyes and got out of bed. He put on his red baseball cap, reaching for the light switch. He saw that there were pieces of paper on the table, and his yPod. He disconnected the yPod from the wall charger and put it in his pocket. He scrolled to his favorite heavy metal mix and pressed play.

Utter bliss. Nothing like the heavy metal thrashing of the Slig band Yuutoo. He especially liked the main singer, Dondo. They released such popular hits as "Get in yer Pants" and "In the name of Odd". At the moment the Intern was still waking up, drowsy from his late night at the labs. He knew the Vykkers would probably call him in an hour or so, so he decided to make his way to the lunch hall and get some food before they could boss him about.

As he walked along the corridor, he saw a few Sligs. They waved their guns to say 'hi'. The Intern mumbled back to them as he walked by.

He entered the lunch hall, finding the nearby vending machines and metal tables. He took out some moolah, chose something on the vending machine, watching as soup poured into a container. Noodles were then added to the soup, with a few toppings as well. This Intern especially enjoyed the smell, Scrab-tastic! He took his soup, got out his straw and began to eat.

A few minutes later, the Intern's friend came into the lunch hall. He walked over and smiled. "Hey Yan", Yan nodded and ushered him to sit down next to him. As the Intern finished the last of his soup, he faced the other Intern. "What brings you over here, Drew?". "Ah you know, gotta have a break... That Vykker kept me up all night looking after these Fuzzle thingies!".

Yan took his bowl and placed it on the cleaning tray. "So, not got much sleep then?". Drew shook his head, "Nah, I've been up all night. Reminds me of that techno song I listen to sometimes". Yan smiled, "Oh, you mean Faithful right?". Drew nodded.

A few more minutes past, and a pager on Yan's belt was making some noise. "Oh well, that's me then. See you later Drew!". "Bye Yan". Drew headed back to the bunk beds and sat down.

Meanwhile, Yan made his way to the Vykker's office. His boss wasn't too bad. The Vykker let him have a day off every few weeks, and didn't ask him to do much, physically. The Sligs often helped more with training and physical testing of the subjects. Yan's job was more of an assistant.

Yan walked into the room. He mumbled to the Vykker to let him know he was here. "Ah good", the Vykker said happily, "Listen, I need you to go over to the Scrab pens and check their heart-rates and tell me if they seem out of the ordinary. I think they might have been affected by the serum I gave them a few days ago." Yan mumbled and nodded, walking into the next room.

Thankfully he didn't have to press his ear against the Scrabs, the Vykker had already attached heart-rate monitoring devices on each of them. He just had to take the average of each Scrab's heart-rates and write them on a piece of paper.

A few minutes later he returned to the Vykker, handing him the piece of paper and mumbling. "Hmmm, looks like Scrab Number 4 has a higher heart-rate than normal, perhaps I gave it too much.", the Vykker looked at a piece of paper, shrugging, "Well, the dose doesn't seem overly high, maybe it's just reacting in a bad way". Yan nodded and walked to the computer terminal.

= = =

Hope that sounds alright so far. The Interns can only communicate with each other, to all other races it just sounds like they are mumbling. I tried to slip a few little music references in there now and again as well to inject some humor!