Soon, bits of blackness intrude at the edges of my vision. They invade my sight, and specks of darkness swim across the chaos. They grow, merging together into inky fields of nothingness. The world goes dark, and the insane chorus of sounds fade away as well. I try to struggle against the coming darkness, but it sweeps on as implacable as death. All sense of feeling, scent, and sound fade as the light dwindles to a few pin-points, the last stars going out one by one.
I focus everything on that last dwindling star, the only sensation left to me in the universe of darkness. Then it goes out, and I know no more.
* * * * *
Chapter 10
Another dream; another fragment of horror I remembered. I’d sooner forget it all again.
Waking up, I feel better than I have any right to after that beating. I should be in all the pain in the world. Actually, I feel great.
Opening my eyes, I find myself strapped down inside a clear isolation cylinder. Not so great.
A dozen or so different tubes run into me from the cylinder’s machinery, but no combination of drugs should be enough to take away the kind of hurt I should be feeling. I don’t see so much as a mark on my body. I test myself. I can move a bit, but it’s sluggish.
Outside, in the white, sterile room, a door opens, and a man enters wearing a spotless spacesuit. I’ll call him Doc Frankenstein.
“Thanks for patching me up, Doc.” My voice is a bit rough, but I can make myself clear. “I’ll be going now.”
“You are awake, excellent,” he answers in a clipped, precise voice. Frankenstein sounds just like the creep from the dream. “Somehow you have managed to control the symbiont.”
“The symbiont?” Aw, no, it wasn’t just a dream. It’s real. It all really happened. “You mean that monster you injected me with? That thing which turns people into twisted freaks and kills them? That symbiont?”
“Yes.” He leans forward. “So, what were your experiences? How did you survive? How do you control it?”
“Why do you think I’m controlling it? Maybe your monster-mix just doesn’t work on me.”
“Don’t be absurd.” He snorted. “You healed your injuries at an incredible rate. You even expired in testing, and yet, here you are. How?!”
So, that’s what’s been keeping me going. Everything I’ve gone through should have killed me, or at least put me in a hospital. A real hospital that is, not this crazy place.
“How about this? You let all the other prisoners go, and I’ll tell you all about it.” There’s no chance he’ll go for it, but I have to try.
“You are not in any position to negotiate.” He sighs. “We will get the answers one way or another. It will be faster and less strenuous for both of us if you are forthcoming.”
He’s right, of course. They could reprogram those med bots into torture bots, with the added bonus of having them keep me alive the whole time. Everyone has a breaking point, and there was no point in finding mine. Eventually, anyone would break under what they can do to someone. I would not only die, but die badly, begging them to kill me. I’m pretty tough; I could hold out under the worst for hours, maybe days before breaking. That would make sense if a rescue was coming, or if I was buying time for others to get away or something. Since I’m on my own, and no one knows I’m here, there isn’t any point to the agony and degradation.
“Look, Doc, I’m not really sure. I woke up in your body stash downstairs and made my way up here until your goons caught me.”
“But how do you keep the symbiont from killing you? How do you control the growth process? How do you keep it from becoming malignant?”
“This monster inside me?” I turn to look him square in the face. “Doc, listen to me. This thing is malignant. It’s always malignant.” I can feel the monster waking up in me right now. Trying to grow through me; eating me alive from the inside. I force it down with sheer will. “It’s trying to kill me right now. It’ll kill anyone you put it in. It’ll try to kill you, somehow. You can’t make it safe. Get rid of it.”
“We can’t do that, not when we’ve made so much progress.” It’s clear that Doc has no idea what he’s messing with. “Now tell me, how do you control it? How did you order it to grow claws, adapt your lungs, and make changes to your senses? What method do you use?”
“Doc, I honestly don’t know.” I lean my head back. “I refuse to die, and the monster helps keep me alive. I got the boosted senses when I was in the dark and the claws when I tried to climb. It just adapts, and I try to keep the lid on.”
“You must know more,” he insists.
“Doc, I’m not in a position to lie. Besides,” I nod at the forest of wires and tubes coming out of me “you have me hooked up to enough wires to tell if I’m lying.”
He nods slowly. “Yes, that’s true.” He enters a code on his tablet. “Thank you. You and the other subjects may not know it, but you are heroes. What you are doing today will help make a glorious new mankind that will herald in a new golden age. I appreciate your sacrifice.”
“Yeah, Doc; keep telling yourself that you aren’t a mass-murderer. Try to drown out all the evil with that lie.”
The doors slide open, and the carriage holding the tube begins to roll out.
“Doc, tell me this.” I turn to face him as I roll out into the corridor. “This symbiont thing, is it contagious? Can I get anyone else sick with this monster?”
“Of course not,” he answers as I roll past. “What would be the point of such a marvelous enhancement if we were to share it? No, the symbiont has to be injected and will only come alive if initialized.”
As the lights above roll by, I try to turn back. “Why all the spacesuits and barriers and all? Why if it’s not contagious?”
He sighs as he walks along behind. “The usual. Rules, procedures, and the like. We have to maintain certain standards in a facility of this kind, of course.”
“Thanks, Doc.” So. There is a larger organization behind this one they have to answer to. I also learned that when I get out of here, and I will get out of here, I won’t be spreading liquid death to all of Luna. I’ll be able to break free with a clear conscience.
* * * * *
Chapter 11
It’s “Test Room 12” again. My little buddy, Needle-Bot, has a whole new set of attachments. Instead of needles, though, the medical bot now has all manner of cutting attachments on its arms. I think I preferred the needles.
Doc Frankenstein is behind the glass along with the other ghouls, getting ready to watch the show as I wheel in. No one is wearing spacesuits back there, so I can see his face. He doesn’t look like a murderous monster, just a tired old man, with combed back, white hair and sad, brown eyes.
My cylinder rolls into the middle of the room next to the bot, and the doors close behind me. New kinds of drugs start entering my system, making things fuzzy. The monster begins to stir. I can feel my heart-rate increase, and my body grows warm. It’s fighting the drugs. The monster wants to be free too.
The clear part of the isolation cylinder slides back. I test the straps. They tighten as I move against them. No good, the nano-carbon straps are way stronger than steel. I can’t break them. Yet. I feel the monster begin to spread throughout me, and the burning pain begins that will only get worse before this is all over.
“Doc,” I manage, my voice squeezed out. “What are you doing?”
I hear his voice, still calm and detached. “As I said earlier, I intend to discover how you control the symbiont.”
“I already told you I don’t know!”
“It is quite simple, actually,” he replied. The bastard is smiling. “I intend to destroy parts of your brain until you can no longer control it.”
The med-bot rotates its arms over to me, and a large padded hand holds my head in a vise-grip. A high-pitched scream sounds as the cutters power up. There are no real blades to see, just shimmering blurs as they spin too fast. They start moving in my direction.
The monster wants to be
free. I feel it burn through my muscles, nerves, and bones. It’s all I can do to keep it from going wild. Pain; the universe is afire with it. The monster will get loose soon, one way or another. Either I unleash it to escape, or my brain gets cut up, and the mindless monster will rampage freely. It’s not much of a choice.
“Doc,” I gasp, “it doesn’t have to be this way. No one has to die today.”
“I’m afraid your sacrifice is necessary.” He does not sound afraid, though. He should be. “Still, you can die knowing your death has a higher purpose.” The cutters descend toward my head.
“I wasn’t talking about me.” I let the monster loose.
* * * * *
Chapter 12
SNAP!
I raise my arms, and the carbon weave straps break, tearing my skin. One of my hands holds the robot arm attached to my head, while the other grabs the arm with the cutters. I force the cutters through the arm holding me down, and it parts in a shower of sparks and fluids.
The med bot isn’t programmed for combat. Before it can figure out what to do next, I force the cutting arm into the computer behind its sensor cluster. The machine shudders briefly, then it goes still, and a thin trail of smoke comes from where its processor used to be.
I snap the two restraints holding my legs down, making ragged wounds in the process. I feel nothing. Pain will come later.
My flesh boils under my skin, twisting and warping. I’m on fire with this terrible sense of power, while my limbs bend, and my skin threatens to burst open. I struggle with it, fighting against the monster, to force it under control again.
My vision blurs, then snaps back into crystal clarity. I can see the microscopic seams on the robot and walls. The perspiration on the doc’s face shines in a thousand droplets. I can smell each of the five different types of cleaning agents and disinfectants in the air. The air is alive with a mechanistic chorus of air fans, buzzing machinery, and humming wires. Everything begins to move in slow motion.
Behind the window, Doc Frankenstein and his ghoulish docs are freaking out in slow motion. They push controls desperately or run about, pinwheeling their arms, and cluster up at the door. The clear panel on the cylinder around me is closing, so very slowly. It’s easy to slide out to the floor before it closes. I figure the armed guards will be on the other side of the door I came in. Time to use another door.
The door to the observation room is my way out. I’ll need to get through that diamond crystal window first. My new muscles surge with power, but I doubt even they would be capable of shattering that diamond crystal without weakening it first. I wrench at the cutting arm on the dead bot a few times before it comes off. Most bots are designed to be disassembled, after all. The cutter’s edge is a molecule thin; it should be able to cut the crystal of the window.
My leap takes me clear to the window in one bound, and I glance off of it without a scratch. I get up and try again. The cutter makes a high-pitched scream as I draw it across the diamond crystal of the window and then cross hatch it. Doc Frankenstein is staring at me with a gape-mouthed look of utter surprise. Hold that pose, Doc.
I take a deep breath and let the chaos go away for an instant. Total focus, no distractions. I concentrate everything on the point just behind the window and see just how strong and fast I’ve become. I hit the “X” I’ve cut in the window.
The window explodes, sending shards of razor-sharp, glittering diamonds flying into the room beyond. High pitched screaming is everywhere. Blood is everywhere. Doc Frankenstein is holding his hands to the shredded ruins of his face. Between his fingers, I can see the shards jutting out from where his eyes used to be.
I strike the window again and again, widening the hole into a gaping maw lined with diamond fangs. More diamond shrapnel flies into the room. I dive through into the room and crouch on a console mostly free of razor-sharp shards.
The room is filled with the hot coppery scent of blood and the sharp stink of fear. Diamonds rotate and flash as they fall in slow motion to the blood-slick floor. My former captors scramble about blindly, slipping and falling on the sharp slivers scattered across the floor. Over by the door, they cluster and pile upon each other in a desperate frenzy to escape the monster in the room.
* * * * *
Chapter 13
Behind me, the doors open and two unarmored security guards burst in, armed with sleek, black ceramic laser pistols.
I leap off the console just before they fire.
The first shots go wild, and the diamonds still falling slowly scatter it through the room in a blinding flash, burning skin and blackening clothes. Angry red burns flare on one side of my body, and the diamond shards on the floor slash my feet. I’ll feel the pain later. I’m better off than most of the people in the room. It’s filled with blind, burned men in charred clothing.
The second guard fires and hits a man’s outstretched arm trying to ward off me, the gunfire, or both. His hand catches fire and blackens into a skeletal claw of charred flesh while clouds of steam and smoke rise into the air. The room fills with the scent of charred meat and high-pitched screaming.
The two guards pause to take better aim, their pistols now glowing dark red. One steadies the gun with his hand, and screams as his palm sizzles and adheres to the barrel’s heat sink. That’s the problem with lasers; they heat up like ovens. Howling, he tries to pull his cooking hand off, jostling into the other guard and ruining his shot.
One of the panicked docs finally manages to enter the codes to open the doors, and they begin to slide open. I shove them aside as another wild shot bends upward through the window and scorches the ceiling.
Pushing off the walls, I glide down the room’s long, white interior as fast as I can. The floor is slick with my blood, and the diamond shards dig in with each step. I get to the door and out it before the guards can get a clear shot at me.
The first pistol comes into view from the door to Room Twelve, and I knock it away. I elbow the guard in the face, breaking his nose and sending him back, clearing the way to the next guard who still has his hand stuck to his pistol. The room stinks of fried flesh. I tear his gun away by the handle, and he screams as his charred skin tears away and remains sizzling on the heat-sink.
The first guard is getting up, and gets a side kick to the head that will keep him down. Then I grab the second guard by his burned hand and twist his arm behind his back, breaking it. He makes lots of noise.
The laser won’t work; it doesn’t recognize me. I pistol whip the guard over the head, and he slumps in my grip, then I shatter the ceramic gun against the wall.
Rolling down the corridor is a short, rounded, silvery security bot.
I barely manage to swing the unconscious guard in the way of the attack. Stun needles, suppressant gel, and a shock web hit the man straight on. That’s going to hurt in the morning when he wakes up.
A high pitched siren shrieks from the bot, taking away all hearing and messing with my balance. Bright light strobes and flashes blind me and make me want to vomit. I can’t see or hear, and my balance is going crazy.
My feet feel the vibration of the little bot’s treads as it comes for me. I hurl my dance partner at it. He hits it, the little bot gets knocked over in the low gravity, and the larger, heavier man blocks its fields of fire.
Leaping over them, my vision begins to clear. I can hear low sounds again too. That was fast. It should take about a day to recover.
I’m around the corner before it can fire on me, and now I can see figures down the hallway. My sight clears. There are four docs at the elevator, desperately pushing the button again and again as if that would make it go faster.
I glide up as the doors open. They pile in ahead of me, and I make it in just as the doors begin to close. They all manage to pile into one corner, staring at me.
“Going up?” I ask.
* * * * *
Chapter 14
I’ve convinced one of the docs to let me borrow his clothes. I didn’t even have to
insist a lot. The white coat threatens to tear across my chest and the matching pants barely zip. Still, it’s better than running around this insane place naked. I leave my feet bare; the cuts healed after I picked the shards out, and it lets me feel the vibrations in the floor. I finish dressing just as the elevator stops at the security level. The elevator only goes as high as this level. A secured facility like this has a security level before any way out. To escape, I’ll have to make my way through.
I yell for the docs to take cover as I push off from the wall and leap out the doors.
The goons don’t have as much time to get ready for me as they did last time. There are four in armor, visors down and suppression weapons drawn, and a small security bot between them. Down the corridor behind them, I see more men coming.
My leap takes me clear of their fire. The first burst of webbing, gel, shock needles, gas canisters, blinders, and stunners go under me and into the elevator behind me. Sorry, docs.
The bot and the guards track their fire upward, correcting quickly. Needles slam home, but I only feel a sting now as they dump their charge. The suppression gel has a punch like a pit fighter and dumps a chemical cocktail into me that would KO anyone. Gas is all around me, burning my mouth and nose, but my sight only wavers for a moment and remains clear. My blood and lungs burn, and a fever heat rises, but somehow, the monster takes it all, and I stay awake.
I reach out to palm one of the guard’s helmets as I pass overhead. I figure I’ll get a boost down the hall and let him suck up some of the happy gas too. Like lightning, he grabs my wrist. Live current slams into me from the glove, burning my skin, and he swings me toward the floor. I twist, breaking the grip, then block a throat strike but take a straight kick to the gut. I hit the floor. His buddies have pulled out stun batons and move to flank me, while the two from down the hall arrive, blocking my path.
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