by Jade White
He had been thinking of the young woman he had seen earlier, and despite not knowing her, he wondered how she was and if she was safe. She had suffered more than he had in a failed attempt to make him shift. Ryker hadn’t shifted in two years. He certainly didn’t want to snap in front of people he didn’t know. New York should have been a safe haven of anonymity, and for a single act of kindness, he had been poached, examined, and pushed to the edge, all for a slot in the WereGames.
There was no honor to be had in it. It was a slaughter show. Even if he had hurt and, in rare moments, killed people who had crossed his former boss, he had found justification in that. There was no justification for killing someone one did not know, someone who did not have fault with anyone. The ones he maimed or killed were loan sharks, pedophiles and those who abused women. He heard something hiss. Gas quickly filled the room, and he closed his eyes, knowing there was no way out of it.
*
He woke up, already familiar with the bleeping and hissing of machines coupled with the soft murmurs of the medical staff present. It was a different room this time, and no one else was inside it. He was no longer strapped down; he was placed on the ground. He started to move when he noticed that there were wires connected to his body. Whether suctioned or injected, he didn’t care; all he wanted was to get rid of them. He was wearing hospital pajamas. He slowly looked around and saw someone else in the room, in the far corner. It was the girl from earlier, and she had her back against the wall, her arms hugging her knees.
Alexia looked up to see him awake. She wanted to say something, but she was afraid that he would be another casualty. How lonely it would be if the last thing he heard was her voice.
“Who are you?” he finally croaked.
Alexia felt her heart pound. A stranger was talking to her, another test subject. They almost never did, and when they spoke, it was usually filled with screams of pain or regret. She could count a few test subjects who had acknowledged her presence… she said nothing.
“Where are we?” he asked her, in a louder voice.
He slowly stood up, and he felt the wires move around him as well. He looked around, seeing it was an enclosed room with one-way glass, just like Mr. Toretti’s office in the basement. The room was as large as his cell, around thirty-by-thirty feet, and equally as white. He saw cameras on all corners of the ceiling. The young woman also had wires and probes attached to her head, her back, and her arms. Can’t she talk? he wondered.
“Ryker, I’m going to have to ask you to shift for us,” a voice echoed inside the room.
Ryker stared back at the glass panel in front of him. He didn’t care where they were exactly, but he uttered a few expletives. They weren’t bullying him into this. He didn’t look back at her; she was going to be used, and he didn’t want to see it.
“Who accused me of being a werebeing?” he asked to no one in particular.
Alexia didn’t need to ask. She knew already. There was something in her body that made her recognize who was a werebeing, and the facility was out to exploit everything possible from her, so she said nothing about this, not even to Dr. Delaney.
“We don’t need to accuse you, Ryker. It was all out in the open. From hoodlum to savior of younger werebeings?”
It was clearly Dr. Wallace’s voice taunting him, Alexia knew.
“I saved her because she was being beaten by adults,” Ryker said through gritted teeth. He didn’t want to admit that Alyssa had most probably squealed on him, for whatever minuscule amount of proof she had…
“Alyssa. Alyssa Blake. Her parents were sad to learn of her passing yesterday,” Dr. Wallace said casually.
Ryker’s eyes narrowed. This was another ploy, another method to have him shift. Toying with werebeing emotions was the ticket to shifting.
“Oh, Ryker, why would I lie to you? My reasons to see you shift are sincere.”
A screen appeared on the glass, and Ryker stared at it. It crackled for a moment, and then the video started. It showed soldiers beating her to death, even if she had already shifted into a small werefox.
No, no, no… Ryker thought. This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be real. In the video, there were screams in the background, and then bullets prevailed. The next footage showed Alyssa, bloodied up and in human form, her eyes glassy and wide open. The video stopped.
Ryker’s eyes widened. He felt his heart pound; his blood raced everywhere. He clenched his fists. He took a breath, swallowed saliva, and he found his jaw tightening. He had saved her for nothing; he had saved her for nothing more than to be reduced as a corpse.
“Of course, her parents had to go as well,” Dr. Wallace finished. “We wanted to interrogate them, but they resisted. Turns out, they’re part of these young and disillusioned citizens out to target the administration.”
Ryker’s body began to shake involuntarily, and he dropped, his palms clenching the floor. His eyes began to change color, no matter how he willed them not to. Don’t change, don’t change. He desperately tried to remember his mother’s face and her voice; he desperately tried to remember his father. To shift would mean defeat, to shift would mean that the United States would see another Werebear, and his kind hadn’t been seen in so long.
Dr. Wallace smiled from behind the screen, seeing Ryker about to shift. It was a wondrous thing to see, no matter how excruciating their screams sounded. Every morsel of alteration was art, every bit of deviation was a scientific marvel, no matter how many times they had seen it. No two were alike, despite their classifications.
Ryker began to salivate, and it dripped to the floor. Alexia was frozen in place, staring in horror. It was another werebeing, not the ones she had seen in her lifetime.
“Don’t,” she thought. “Don’t shift…”
Ryker looked back at her, anguish in his eyes as his breathing came in rasps. Don’t shift, her voice magnified in his head. Was she talking to him? Talking to him without actually speaking in person? He stopped shaking altogether, crumbling to the floor.
Dr. Wallace looked at the rest of the medical staff. “What the hell happened? Find out what happened!”
Was the young man’s willpower stronger than they had thought it would be? Dr. Wallace shook his head. He disliked using A129, but knew he had to, seeing X014’s reaction earlier.
“Bartholomew, send a few shocks to A129.”
“You already did that earlier,” Edith said through clenched teeth. “Don’t put her through this again!”
“We’ll triple the antidote dosage. How’s that sound, Dr. Delaney?”
“This won’t sit well with her vitals-” She was cut off by the sound of Alexia screaming and writhing on the floor. She gripped the pen in her lab coat pocket; it was all she could do at the moment.
Inside, Ryker watched in confusion, and then empathy, and then rage.
“Stop it!” he shouted again. “Stop hurting her!”
“Shift, Ryker,” Dr. Wallace intoned. “Shift!”
Ryker closed his eyes, feeling nausea course through him, and then that head-splitting pain came next. His hands shook, and his whole body trembled violently. Stop hurting her, he thought again and again, feeling his teeth about to come off. He was hunched over, his back seemed to grow. Unbearable heat rose in his body’s core, and he felt like he was about to suffocate. He had forgotten how it had felt, and now his body was remembering it -- why he avoided shifting, among other reasons. Ryker groaned, and then he roared, a voice that sounded animal, yet like a human in distress at the same time. Tearing his hospital pajamas apart, Ryker stood, trying to tear his own flesh from his body.
In a split second, it was as if there was never any human inside the room, and standing there instead was a werebear.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Devil incarnate,” Dr. Wallace whispered, seeing the scene unfold before his very eyes. A werebear! A damned werebear! Something he hadn’t seen since the last WereGames from the 1970s. “Are you seeing this, Dr. Delaney?” he whispered. T
he president himself had to know about this. This could revolutionize the military soldier testing.
Edith Delaney said nothing, but she stared in rapt attention. Standing inside that glass aquarium was a werebeing marvel, a werebear. He was an amazing creature to look at, with his dark brown fur, standing well over seven feet tall, with the paws and snarl to match. There was nearly nothing human left in him, except for his eyes. Dr. Delaney zoomed in on his eyes. They were still an icy blue, despite being tinged with yellow. She took another deep breath, wondering what was going to happen next.
Bartholomew had quickly stopped the electroshocks, and A129 was now prostrate on the floor.
“Is she still alive?” Dr. Delaney asked no one in particular. There were murmurs behind her.
“She’s still alive. Heart rate erratic. Currently at 45 beats per minute. Kidneys have damage.”
Dr. Delaney’s eyes glowered at Dr. Wallace.
Dr. Wallace didn’t look back at his peer. “Yes, Dr. Delaney. This was all for a good cause. Now, we have the first werebear in our hands. This changes everything.”
“This changes nothing. He’s still going to be sent to the games; he could still die.”
“He looks like a tough one to crack, Doctor,” Dr. Wallace said mildly. “It was reported that he had no records, that he was only some two-bit crook working under a mafia man. This test subject, and soon to be participant, was actually a boy we’ve been searching for, for more than ten years. Ryker Locklear, adopted by a Native American Indian couple in Oregon. He was last seen escaping from a supposed easy retrieval, as there had been growing concerns that a werebear was among a population of werewolves and werefoxes. My, my, how the fates have conspired against our escapee.”
Dr. Wallace smiled at the memory of hunting the little boy down. He hadn’t killed the boy’s adoptive parents personally, but he had seen everything that had transpired that night and how they set off a yearlong manhunt for a kid. It had cost the government millions of dollars, and it was as if he had disappeared off the grid for good, (or permanently turned into a bear cub, the other scientists joked). He had been pining for the day that he would actually see a werebear once more, and not just on television.
“Congratulations,” Dr. Delaney said drily.
“Finally, we can get that well-deserved leave,” Dr. Wallace told them, smiling.
He was texting on his phone, and Dr. Delaney wasn’t sure who it was, but she knew it was a report. The rest of the staff were feverishly making reports, recording every inch of data they could. Subject X014 was currently slamming his body against the glass walls, and they shuddered from his impact. Those were reinforced glass walls, but it looked like they couldn’t withstand his constant banging. He roared, angry at being imprisoned, ignoring the fact that there was another person inside.
Suddenly, Ryker shifted, and he turned to see the girl. She was still unconscious. His eyes blazed, and Dr. Delaney realized what was happening.
“Get her out! Get A129 out!” Dr. Delaney shouted.
Dr. Wallace looked at Edith. “Your problem now.”
Bastard, Dr. Delaney thought, her nerves racing against time. X014 was walking slowly toward Alexia, its paws gently lumbering on the floor. A machine quickly placed a portable gas mask over Alexia’s nose and mouth.
“Releasing halothane,” another announced.
Immediately, the room was filled with the clear and near odorless anesthetic gas, but X014 still walked straight for Alexia, using its hind legs. This filled Dr. Delaney with trepidation. He wasn’t crashing down, and the gas was potent enough to knock out twenty men in seconds.
“What’s going on?” Delaney demanded.
“His vital signs are stable, Doctor,” one informed her.
“Well, then why isn’t he knocked out by now?” Delaney snapped. “Get the artillery ready.”
“Artillery?” Dr. Wallace repeated. “You are not touching that test subject.”
“And that test subject is not touching my test subject!” Delaney seethed.
Just as she looked back, she saw Ryker’s steps slowing down, as if he was dragging his body with difficulty.
“You have little faith in our research, Edith,” Dr. Wallace told her as Ryker collapsed from the effects of the fumes.
He watched as Ryker closed his eyes. With the loss of consciousness, any werebeing reverted to his or her human form. The fur completely disappeared, and in its place was a naked test subject, covered in scratch marks that he had afflicted on himself.
“And he’s out,” Dr. Wallace finished. “This will make for an interesting WereGames, don’t you think?”
Edith stared at Dr. Wallace as he slowly paraded out of the room in high spirits. She had almost collapsed in fear of seeing Alexia threatened beyond her control.
Some of the medical staff had already begun procedures of retrieving Alexia first, and then dousing the aquarium with another batch of halothane just to make sure. The fact that it had taken so long for the werebear to succumb to the anesthesia was groundbreaking. He had a higher threshold than most werebeings put together. Most of them broke after mere interrogation. The animal in them couldn’t be contained for long.
She had thought of cross-examining Ryker just before the WereGames began. The boy had an interesting psyche. She planned on going through his files later on, whatever she could get her hands on. This werebear was going to be famous, whether he wanted to be or not.
*
“A werebear,” the man with graying hair repeated. He was seated on his desk, reading through files, dressed in a bespoke, black satin suit. His shoes were polished to perfection. He had an aura of old-world dignity around him, with his gray eyes and patrician nose. He spoke in a chilling tone, and there was no kindness in it. “A werebear, you say?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Dr. Wallace repeated. He stood beside the two other generals who facilitated the program.
“I haven’t heard of one in years…” President Caledon murmured. Then he gave a brief smile. “I guess we’re truly in for a show this year, aren’t we?”
“Yes, sir,” Dr. Wallace responded. “We do have some concerns about a few tests-”
“Which I know you can handle better than I can. I only ask that you produce the best soldiers for me, whoever wins the tournament. These werewolves have a pack mentality, and sad to say, a few exercises overseas failed to produce the results I wanted.”
Dr. Wallace nearly winced at the president’s words, and so did the generals with him. It was still fresh in their minds, the disaster off the coast of Somalia. Each country used werebeings to the best of their ability, and they (the recent government) had claimed they were the forerunners of genetically engineered soldiers who were far more proficient than the rest of the nations combined. These men weren’t completely dispensable, yet. Cloning produced mediocre results and skills, so the project was scrapped for a while. The games were meant to be a show for the world to see that their country was handling the werebeing phenomena in the best way possible.
Ask not what you can do for your country… Wallace thought. “Do we save the werebear, in the event he won’t make it?”
“By all means. Werebears are the most uncontrollable of all, are they not? And the most blood thirsty,” Caledon said, pressing on the intercom. “Tea, please.”
A uniformed butler came in the room, pushing a gilded cart with a fine china tea set on the tray. He placed these on a round table adjacent to the president’s rectangular office table. He left thereafter.
President Caledon stood up. “Tea, gentlemen?”
Dr. Wallace was a coffee person, but he nodded.
“Tea and coffee. These are choices we must make, just like how we must make choices that benefit the populace,” President Caledon said.
The men said nothing as President Caledon poured them tea. He beckoned for them to sit down. The men sat down and took their teacups, sipping the fresh brew quietly.
“I personally love oolong,”
President Caledon began. “You know how oolong leaves get their withering look? It’s oxidized and placed under the heat of the sun, the strongest rays, I assume. Then the best tea makers roast it. Roast to obtain the bitterness and strength that oolong is known for. And this, gentlemen, is what you’re drinking today.”
There was something chilling about the way he explained how tea was made. It was matter-of-factly said, but it meant something more than that.
“Now, I understand that there have been failures with the program. It’s costly and, more importantly, it shows our weakness,” President Caledon said, “and that’s something we can’t afford.”
“We’ve been doing our best-” one general began.
“Yes, doing your best. It’s an utter failure,” President Caledon interrupted him. “How many years have you been serving the government, General Laxly?”
“Twenty-two, Mr. President,” Laxly replied.
“And in those twenty-two years of loyal service, has it ever occurred to you that my patience is running thin?”
“We’ll make sure the next phase goes well,” the other general said.
Caledon looked at each of them with his frosted gaze. “But of course. This is for the people, after all.”
CHAPTER NINE
Two weeks later…
Sunlight hit his eyes, and for a moment, he was blinded. He was alone; there was no one else around him. He had been taught that the worlds the games made were harsh, and each one harsher than the last. He couldn’t believe it. He was actually inside the jungle, where mere moments ago, he was sitting inside a jet carrier. It was a drop off point, he had been told. No drop off points were near to each other. It gave them time to collect their senses and provisions.
He saw no dome surrounding the skies. It seemed like an untouched rain forest. Was he still in America? He began to sweat, the humidity clung onto him like a leech. Perhaps, there were leeches here, too. It did not help that he wore all black and what seemed like dry-fit material. It was the standard uniform. He didn’t get to see his opponents personally; no one had told him who they were and what they were like.