Mary and Beth first met at a local Dungeons and Dragons event. They were both nervous because of the predominantly male ensemble, but that just helped them hit it off and soon enough they were enjoying their geeky interests together, being able to finally be free of men judging them.
Eventually Mary found an "amazing old building" that was a relic from the past. The building itself was old but they abandoned it almost 2 decades ago. Apparently it'd all been covered up, since there was nothing on the papers that were released at the time, and all discussions she'd found were forums online from people who claimed, under anonymity, that they knew people who worked there. There were reports of people disappearing but no one seemed interested in sharing much more than that, probably to protect their identities.
Luckily the building was local, so the girls would just need to take the train to visit.
One week later they were in front of the building. There were a lot of signs saying things like "FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY, KEEP OUT". Instead of deterring the two friends, it just made them fired up to keep going.
The building had obvious signs of being neglected. There was rust all over the metallic structures supporting the building and the front doors, which in past must have looked impressive, were all overrun with weeds and oxidation. The chains holding the door shut were so fragile from the rust that they almost broke apart at Mary's touch. The doors opened slowly, with a creak straight out of a horror movie.
Growing more and more excited, the duo entered. They were met with an entrance hall that opened up to a set of office cubicles. After looking through the, finding boring finance reports, Beth started to become disappointed and wanted to leave, since the building was giving her a very creepy vibe.
However Mary wanted to push on, they still had the upstairs floor to check out. Reluctantly, Beth conceded.
As they reached the second floor, a sign saying "prototype room - - authorised personnel ONLY was written in bold red letters. Patting herself in the back, Mary gave a smug smile to Beth, who in turn looked exasperated, wanting to just get on with it.
A heavy duty metallic door was guarding the prototype room, looking like an old submarine door. This was some post apocalyptic stuff right here, the friends agreed. The security system seemed to be disabled from years of disuse, so the door offered little in the way of resistance; a few pulls and it opened, revealing a dark corridor.
They really did not want anyone snooping around. If this place was still operational, it wasn't hard to picture the scrutiny of security checks that'd happen here, had there been any guards posted still. Metal detectors, now disengaged, could be seen adorning the corridor. On both sides of the corridor you could see glass panes, separating the corridor from the rooms where the scientists would most likely run tests for whatever they were developing. Turning on their flashlights, The friends looked at the walls of the rooms on the other side of the windows.
Now feeling like the girls had found some sort of military secret, they kept moving against their better judgment, fueled by morbid curiosity above anything else.
At the far end of the corridor, they came across a room with a single computer terminal in the middle, still on. The green light coming out of the monitor was the only source of illumination excepting the girls' flashlights. It gave the room a really unsettling ambiance.
The girls carefully approached the monitor until they saw the splash screen, which seemed to have been created with fancy ASCII art: "CHRONIVAC COPYRIGHT 1999 - 2002 DO NOT DISTRIBUTE"
The splash clears showing a blinking bar, indicating this was a command line of some sort:
>/
Suddenly text appears on its own
>/ Welcome test subects
>/ We have been expecting you for ERROR days. As per your contract you are now going to be subject to a number of experiments to test the Chronivac capabilities. In this session we will be experimenting with more permanent changes, you will be able to reside in our top notch facilities for a whole year, before being changed back and allowed to leave. We thank you for your service for this country. God bless you and your loved ones.
A wave of concerned washed over the women as they realised they were stuck to the spot. It was now up to the computer to decide what happened next.