The Gummy Bear Case Study, Part 9

An Apple Slice Short Story by Apple | Content Warnings

In the brief moment since Cheery had jumped through the elevator doors, she’d gone from thinking the man beside her was a chill, nice dude that let her use his keycard to realizing he was in fact pure, desensitized evil. 

She caught sight of his name as he clipped his keycard back onto the front of his pocket.

L. Apathetic, Ph.D.

“Friends call me Appy,“ he said when he noticed her staring.

Cheery wondered how many people mistakenly heard Happy. “Sorry. I was just thinking that I should know that already. Since we’re coworkers and everything.”

“Nah, they keep us pretty separate on purpose. You know how it is. People talk.”

Cheery laughed nervously. “Yeah, definitely.” She had to stop this guy. Snack time, he’d said earlier—talking about the gummy bears eating people. Cheery gave him a subtle once-over. Tall, scrawny, dark circles, days past a five o’clock shadow.

She could take him in a fight for sure. The AC vent could probably knock him over at this point. How many hours had he even been here for work? She needed to stop thinking about it before she got distracted and started helping the bad guys unionize.

Her hands tightened into fists, preparing for a showdown, right as the elevator dinged and the doors began to slide open.

Neither of them had pressed the button for this floor, so that meant someone outside must have.

Just how many people was Cheery going to have to fight? How many could she?

Luckily, she didn’t have to find out.

“Doc!” Cheery yelled at the sight of her.

“Cheery?” the doc said, a bruise and a rowdy looking knot forming above her brow that Cheery was definitely not responsible for, given she hadn’t swung yet.

“When I said run,” the doc whisper-shouted, “I meant away from here.”

Dr. Appy looked between the two of them. He sighed. “I haven’t had enough coffee for this.”

The doc was a picture of nonchalance as she very casually reached out and tased him.

Appy flopped to the floor, made a small attempt to push himself back up, and then seemed to decide against it. “Sure, I was due for a nap,” he muttered before his head dropped, cradled in the crook of his elbow.

“Where did you get that?” Cheery asked the doc as she nudged Appy with her foot. He didn’t move.

“Security break room on the seventh floor. They also had rainbow bagels.”

“Well, now I want rainbow bagels,” Cheery said. She crouched to grab Appy’s keycard, clipping it to her own borrowed lab coat pocket instead.

“Later. We need to get to the basement before they let the gummies out. They thought they could force me into helping them, but I made an antidote instead. They haven’t caught on yet, but we still need to hurry.”

“Got it. Basement, then bagels.”

The doc leaned over with a keycard she’d gotten who knows how and pressed the button for the basement that was labeled parking garage. “It’s actually more like a sedative than an antidote. I was in a rush. But once this is over and I have more time, I should be able to return the gummies to their original state.”

“Yay! So they’ll go back to recycling instead of, like, going on murder sprees.”

“Exactly,” the doc said.

The elevator dropped slowly toward the lower levels. Cheery’s eyes slid from the changing floor numbers to the doc. The doc who was right next to her, in one piece, tasing bad guys.

Cheery ducked her head, but she couldn’t hide the relieved smile that spread across her face or contain the way she bounced on her heels.

The doc looked over and rolled her eyes. She seemed to brace herself as she opened her arms wide. “Go ahead,” she told Cheery.

Cheery launched herself into the doc’s embrace. 

“Oof,” the doc wheezed, followed by, “Careful. Watch the taser.”

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Cheery mumbled. She felt two awkward pats against her back in reply and laughed as she stepped over Appy’s legs to return to her side of the elevator. “Well, mostly okay.” Cheery winced just looking at the knot on the doc’s forehead. “We should get some ice for that.”

“How bad is it?” The doc reached up but didn’t touch the wound, which, knowing her, was probably for sanitary reasons.

“Well… Uh…” Cheery said, gesturing vaguely. “It’s not that bad?” She didn’t wanna freak her out. Did the doc even get freaked out?

The doc’s raised brow told Cheery to get to the point.

“Golf ball sized? A bit purple. Kinda bloody.”

The doc nodded. “I’ll live. Remind me to tase the guys that grabbed me from my apartment, though.”

“Sure thing,” Cheery chimed. “Unless I get to them first.”

“How did you even get in here?”

“I might have… driven a hover-truck through the front gate…”

“What was that?”

Cheery huffed. “I drove through the front gate.”

Cheery spotted a tiny, proud gleam in the doc’s eye. “I told you,” the doc said.

“I know, I know. It was a last resort.” Just because she was cheery didn’t mean she was also optimistic. She preferred to limit the risk-taking to herself.

“What’s with the sunglasses?”

“Oh, these? Roman sent them. They’re—”

A sharp, staticky screech echoed through the elevator.

“Paging Dr. Somber,” said a voice from the speaker next to the emergency call button.

Cheery’s heart was in her throat as she and the doc shared a look.

The doc flexed her grip on the taser.

“Paging Dr. Somber,” the voice repeated. “Did you really think you could get away?”