by Jade White
A129 was already in the room, and she looked drowsy as she lay on the table. Dr. Delaney greeted Bartholomew crisply.
“Has he given you any trouble?” she asked him as the soldier and other medical staff began to strap Ryker down onto a solidly built medical table.
There were reinforced straps on his head, arms, and legs. He was fully naked and still unconscious.
“No, doctor,” Bartholomew replied.
“Good. Any changes in his stats since he got here?”
“He hasn’t shifted yet,” he told her.
“Well, let’s get this moving. We have just days to go before the games,” Delaney sighed.
“Yes, doctor.”
Delaney tapped on a microphone to make sure it was working. “Test subject X014, alias Ryker. First exploratory trial will commence. Currently injecting radioactive dye and nanonites into test subject.”
Nano machines were a vital part of their research, and their radioactive dye had hundreds of these tiny probes that circulated any test subject’s body for a couple of hours. These reported any changes in the body. They had had run-ins before with rogue werebeings who were thought to be complacent but had actually turned out to be violent and oftentimes bloodthirsty.
Werebeings were known to eat humans as well, and recorded data showed that it did not slow them down when they did. The problem with these werebeings was that no one knew what kind of werebeings they were until they actually shifted. X014 was going to be tested for that in a few, to prepare him for that glorified bloody competition.
Ryker’s eyes slowly opened, exactly twenty minutes after being gassed in his own quarters.
“He’s up,” someone murmured.
“Ryker. Ryker, is it?” Dr. Delaney began, approaching him on the slab.
Ryker wildly looked around, disoriented and in shock. “Where in the hell-?” he murmured, blinking again and again.
“No need to be alarmed,” Dr. Delaney said in a soothing voice. “We’re just doing a couple of tests to make sure you’ll be well prepared for the WereGames.”
“I didn’t sign up for that,” Ryker said, closing his eyes, feeling his brain about to split from the discomfort. He was gritting his teeth by now.
“Are you shifting?” Delaney asked him, speaking closely to his ear.
“No,” he grunted. I’m not shifting in front of you; I’m not shifting in front of any of you…
He felt his blood boil and his knuckles burning. His body wanted to shift, and his eyes began to show it. He knew people were waiting for him to shift; they wanted to see him turn into the animal that he truly was. He was not giving them that pleasure.
He thrashed on the table, realizing that he was held down by reinforced straps. Those would never hold him when he shifted. His teeth gnashed, the pressure in his brain becoming too much.
“Get me out of this!” he said to no one in particular.
“We can’t do that,” another said. “It’s an honor to be a representative of the games, Ryker.”
“Get me out of here!” Ryker shouted louder this time, his eyeballs moving to the direction of the voice. He saw a congenial looking, rather thin man with silvery eyes, who had wisps of gray in his hair. He wore the quintessential eyeglasses and looked every inch a proper gentleman, despite wearing a pristine lab coat.
“Hello, Ryker,” the man said in a quiet voice. “I’m Dr. Wallace.”
“Hello, Dr. Wallace. I want out,” Ryker said, his eyes squeezing shut to stop them from changing color.
“Why don’t you show us who you truly are,” Dr. Wallace continued. “We won’t judge you for shifting, Ryker. We’re here to ensure you get the best available attention, to prepare you for the games.”
“I don’t want to be part of your damned games!” Ryker shouted, seeing that other scientists were moving in closer to him, carrying god knows what in their hands. Then he noticed that there was another operating table across from him, with someone strapped onto it. He saw her hair, saw her profile, and in that briefest moment, he saw her looking at him, with that unruffled look in her eyes.
“Any changes?” Dr. Wallace asked from behind him.
“Blood pressure elevated, 280/190, dilated pupils with minimal change in color-” one recited.
Dr. Wallace looked Ryker straight in the eye. “So, you’re trying to control the shifting, aren’t you, young man?”
“Stop it!” he gurgled through gritted teeth.
“But we must get you ready. You’re the 14th participant, the final one. If you please, kindly show the animal in you.” Dr. Wallace then smiled a tiny smile, one that was unnoticeable, but Ryker saw the animal in him; he saw the sadistic man behind those spectacles. He enjoyed his patient’s suffering.
Everyone waited in silence; the pressure in the air was mounting. How could Dr. Wallace and Dr. Delaney stay so calm, Bartholomew thought? Had they been so hardened with the goings on inside the facility that human cries meant nothing? He remained silent. In a few moments, this would all be over, and they would begin a different round of tests.
Ryker felt tears blurring his vision. They wanted this, and he wasn’t giving them the satisfaction. He looked at the young woman opposite him, and he saw she was drifting to sleep. Had they given her something, too?
Dr. Wallace followed Ryker’s eyes and saw he was looking at A129. This should make things easier then, he thought. “Bartholomew, I think A129 deserves some ECT now.”
“ECT?” Bartholomew repeated in a small voice.
“Yes, ECT,” Dr. Wallace said mildly.
“Dr. Wallace, A129 isn’t ready for something like this. This isn’t part of today’s routine-” Dr. Delaney was cut off with Dr. Wallace raising a hand.
“ECT, Bartholomew. How about 500 volts?” he ordered.
Electrodes were quickly attached to her head by machines, and Dr. Wallace saw the look of realization on subject X014’s eyes. He smiled.
“No!” Ryker shouted, flailing in vain.
He would never be able to escape if he didn’t shift, although escape was a far-off thought for now. The young woman across from him turned to face up, breathing in quickly.
Alexia took a deep breath, knowing full well how painful 500 volts was going to be, even if it was only for a few seconds. She closed her eyes, readying herself.
“Five, four-” Dr. Wallace began.
“Stop it! Don’t hurt her!” Ryker inexplicably cried out.
“Shift, Ryker. Three, two-!”
“No! She doesn’t deserve-”
“One,” Dr. Wallace finished with a smile.
Ryker stared in horror, his neck craning to see what was happening to the young woman. Why was she even here? Who the hell was she?
“Stop it,” he whispered in defeat.
He heard the tiniest thud from her body against the table and saw her convulsing, and then she spasmed, thrashing about, and no one tried to stop it. It was over in seconds, but to Ryker, it felt like hours. Whoever she was, she was innocent. And still, he did not shift.
He saw she was unconscious, heard her vitals read aloud by the other scientists. She was alive, and he felt relief flood through him.
“No changes,” Dr. Wallace murmured. “We’re going to have to crack you, one way or another. The games are in less than two weeks, and we have to present you to the public.” He turned to face A129. “Once she wakes up, we continue the tests with X014.”
Dr. Delaney took a breath. “With all due respect, Dr. Wallace, that convulsive shock means she’ll be useless for the rest of the day. You gave her 500 volts, and it went beyond-“
“Edith, don’t make it seem like you care for a test subject, lest you want them to investigate you. I’d hate to lose a brilliant scientist.”
Dr. Delaney bit her lower lip and shook her head. “She needs rest.”
“Are the nanonites still inside her, Bartholomew?” Dr. Wallace asked the younger doctor.
“Still functional, sir,” Bartholomew replied, cle
aring his throat in the process.
Dr. Wallace sighed. “Alright, then. Let’s give this a couple of hours. We resume at 1300 hours.”
Dr. Delaney hid her sigh of relief. “You heard Dr. Wallace; we resume at 1300 hours.” She looked at the monitors displaying Alexia’s vital signs. Alexia would most likely forget the recent events again, poor girl. “Get her a good dose of vitamins later,” she told another female doctor.
Dr. Wallace left the room with a few lieutenants in tow. Dr. Delaney approached Ryker, who was still held down.
“If you have any decency left in you as a human, please shift once we commence.”
Ryker ignored her as he continued to look straight at the ceiling. I’m not going to shift.
The girl’s face never left his mind.
CHAPTER SIX
It had been another dream, she thought. She wasn’t in the lab; she was back in her quarters. Alexia groggily looked around, not noticing someone beside her.
“How are you feeling?” Dr. Delaney asked her.
She looked at her hands. “So, it wasn’t a dream?”
Dr. Delaney shook her head. “The new test subject was uncooperative, and Dr. Wallace thought it best that…” her voice trailed off.
Alexia nodded. She had been used as bait, and still, the subject had refused to help her. It wasn’t that bad, was it? One hand slowly made its way to her head, and she felt sore as she touched certain parts of her scalp.
“It burned you a little; nothing we can’t fix,” Dr. Delaney assured her. “Let’s just hope the hair grows back quickly.”
Funny, Alexia couldn’t smell her singed hair, but there seemed to be painful indentations on her head.
“How long do I have to keep persuading him to shift?” she asked.
Dr. Delaney held her breath. She wanted to tell Alexia that it wasn’t her fault, that she was no more than a puppet, and Dr. Wallace had played with that split second of vulnerability and pity he saw in test subject X014’s eyes when he had looked at Alexia. He wasn’t nicknamed the “Angel of Death” for nothing.
“He’ll crack,” Dr. Delaney whispered with self-doubt. “We’ll begin testing in two hours, and I want you better,” she said in a louder voice.
The door to her quarters hissed open, and they both looked up to see two aides walk in with a tray in tow. Alexia eyed the array of injections neatly arranged on it. She looked at Dr. Delaney, and Dr. Delaney nodded back. Vitamins. Alexia knew them by color, except she didn’t know what cocktails were mixed in them. All she knew was that they made her feel better after.
She had defied this once, the injections, and she had been hosed down with icy cold water from the dam above them. She had never refused these again. Dr. Delaney had risked a possible insubordination case filed against her just to have Alexia pulled out from being constantly hosed down for over twenty-four hours. Alexia had never seen Dr. Delaney that distressed in all her years of being a test subject.
One doctor held up the syringe, checking to see if any air was trapped in it. Alexia held out her arm, with her veins straining against her almost translucent skin. She saw the needle prick her skin, and she didn’t feel any pain. Perhaps she was too used to this. Perhaps she was used to more pain than this. The injections were done in less than five minutes, with the aides saying nothing to her.
They left her and Dr. Delaney once more.
“I can’t stay long,” Dr. Delaney said. “There’s a lot of things to do.”
“But you waited for me,” Alexia replied, resting her head against the cold, white-washed concrete wall behind her.
“I wanted to see if your cognitive functions were still alright,” Dr. Delaney told her.
“You know they are.”
Dr. Delaney nodded. “You have a new book. I know you haven’t had one in a while.”
Alexia’s gaze slowly shifted toward the bookstand that was still half-empty.
“Your vision’s still good,” Dr. Delaney remarked. “Enjoy the book.” Then she stood up, and the doors hissed open and then closed after her identification band had been scanned.
Alexia was alone once more. She wanted to stand, but she knew she had to let the ‘vitamins’ take their course, so she waited and laid down again.
Test subjects (especially those that weren’t volunteers) almost always defied orders. They refused to shift with people ogling at them. It was a painful, nearly embarrassing process of clothes and skin ripping off -- and god knows what else they felt. She had seen it happen countless times, and she had been used as bait countless times. Dr. Wallace’s methods won in the end, whatever methods they were, and these methods were always the brutal ones.
She had two hours to go before the next battery of tests, tests that were sure to drain her, if not make her forget. Perhaps it was a good thing that she forgot about most of it, although her body did not. Bruises and bleeding occurred at different times of the day; sometimes she bled spontaneously in her sleep, prompting the need for coagulants and blood bags.
They were watching her. She had a microchip implanted somewhere in her wrist that monitored her vital statistics twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There was no escaping them, the people who had made her a test subject day and night. The tests had become more feverish as of late, with the games coming up. Even she was no stranger to the games. She had watched a few scenarios and then stopped, unable to come to terms with the fact that there were some of the participants who used her blood as a ‘steroid’ of sorts. She was basically a walking drug as long as she lived and breathed. She had toyed with the idea of suicide for a while now, since she had turned fourteen. Fourteen, was it? At least that was what Dr. Delaney told her, and she had no records of her birth date. If she summed it up, she had been a test subject for over ten years now. She was about to turn eighteen in a few months, with the supposed birth date she had.
Alexia didn’t want to reach eighteen. She didn’t want to linger another moment longer in that laboratory and in this room, and yet, she hung on. For what? Hope? Hope was taught in books, but she had never seen hope manifested in real life.
It was relief she felt most of the time. Dr. Delaney had given her a psychology book once, the basics. It was as if Dr. Delaney was preparing her for something else that did not involve invasive laboratory tests on her.
There was no mirror in the bedroom, as many years before Alexia was placed in the facility, another test subject had broken the mirror in his room to slit his own throat, unable to stand the experiments any longer. When she passed by window panes with reflective glass, she would gaze at her reflection, if only for a few seconds.
Those were the only moments she saw her face, and every time she saw it, she was surprised. Weren’t normal people supposed to look happy? They certainly seemed happy in the books she was reading. There was one story, one likened to Cinderella, of this female character finding her Prince Charming in the capital. Dr. Delaney told her it had been a best-selling book for weeks, obviously filled with adulations for the regime. In that book, everyone was happy in the end.
Alexia did her best to remain in good spirits, but when she saw her eyes, she saw someone who looked like she had gone through a war. There was a pale, thin little girl across from her, staring back at her. It was a war, in some ways. She fought to survive. She fought to maintain her sense of self, to keep her thoughts intact. It was why Dr. Delaney asked her questions after tests, no matter how exhausted she was. A distraction, and distractions were understood to be temporary.
Ah, that’s what you get for reading a book on human behavior. She couldn’t fathom being unkind to even the lowest ranking worker in the facility. There was that innate kindness in her that she didn’t even realize. Perhaps, it was that kindness that gave her that extra push to survive the day to day trials.
These human trials bested human character; she had seen people curse the doctors and technicians to hell, seen people bleed to death, seen bodies being taken away and called ‘failed experiments,
’ and she had seen the effects these trials had on her health.
Was that why no one would actually engage in a decent conversation with her? She was as good as dead, and maybe people saw that, but it took her a while to realize she was a walking corpse. She looked like one, anyway, with the lusterless hair that fell down her back in dry tendrils and the bony arms and legs she had. She did get haircuts once a year, if they remembered. It was usually Dr. Delaney who did...
Alexia slowly sat up again, ready to grab the new book that was on the bookshelf. In books, she could be herself; in books, she could use her imagination, and it was, oddly enough, her source of strength. The book was hardbound, a bit old, judging by the frayed edges. It read “National Geographic” on the second page.
Her eyes widened as soon as she opened it. It was a picture book. She traced an image of the ‘Grand Canyon’ with her fingertips. Where was the Grand Canyon? And why was it so beautiful? The book had no shortage of breathtaking images, one after another. The Great Barrier Reef, the rice paddies in Southeast Asia, the deserts of the African continent…
These were places she had never seen before, and she devoured these images. It was her first full colored picture book, even if her other books had illustrations in them. She had enjoyed Beatrix Potter a lot as a little girl, even now. This book was on another level, and she felt happiness rush through her, and it made her feel like she could take on anything they were going to inject into her later.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ryker was in solitary confinement. It looked like a padded cell due to its white walls, and it seemed as if it was ready to take on the brunt of his shifting. Had no one else been inside? The place looked too pristine, and eerily similar to his previous quarters. Were there gassing devices inside here as well?
He had been calculating his means of escape since he had woken up. It was obviously underground -- how far, he didn’t know. That was a problem. Security was also tight, and every corner had a closed circuit camera. He had seen the insignia of the government, and he knew that was going to be an even bigger problem. The WereGames were not in his interest, but interest or not, he had no say in the matter. Someone had outed him, and no one in this city even knew him.