The Human Experiment

by Kevin McLaughlin

  The next morning brought some relief from the pain. John was able to sip more water, and then haul himself bodily into the river to wash away the blood. He was covered with small abrasions and cuts, most of which were already healing over. Some of those came open again in the running water as he brushed away dirt and matted grass where it had packed itself into his wounds.

  The more he scrubbed, the better he felt. His entire right side was blue and purple. That must have been the side he’d landed on. His right shoulder and arm were pretty torn up, and it still hurt to suck in a breath, but it was the injured leg that bothered him the most.

  It would heal. He just needed to give it time. But he couldn’t get around to gather food or do anything if his leg made him want to crumble into a ball every time he moved. Careful to keep his injured limb as still as possible, John dug up some of the long-rooted water plants. He needed something to stabilize his leg, keep it from moving. Those would do.

  Gritting his teeth through the pain, John dragged his body out of the water onto a sandy and gravel shore. He sat and used his arms and good leg to pull himself along, dragging the injured leg. Every bump and jostle sent a new wave of pain through his suffering body, but he persevered. John made his way to the nearby remains of a tree and looked about for broken, but stout branches to brace his leg.

  He found a pair that would work. Using the roots, he tied the branches on either side of his leg. He gasped in pain while tying the first knot. He’d made it tight. It needed to be, or it wouldn’t keep the bones from moving around. Intuitively, John knew that if moving the leg was bringing pain, then keeping it steady would likely help it heal faster.

  John lay there a long time, panting. The pain in his leg faded from overwhelming to something he could manage. He wasn’t sure how long it took. Time seemed to be passing oddly for him. He had to have slipped off to sleep. The sun hadn’t moved that much already, had it?

  A gentle rain began falling, and John shivered. It wasn’t that cold. His world never got cold. But the rain plus the soft breeze were enough to add more to his misery.

  “I’ve had about enough of this,” John said. He slid himself on the ground to the next tree. Then he reached up, taking hold of the trunk. Careful not to put any weight on his bad leg, he levered himself slowly to his feet.

  His leg bumped against the ground as he rose, sending stars across his vision. He closed his eyes and held himself steady with the tree as support. The stars faded.

  “This has not beaten me. I will not let it,” he said. He reached up and took hold of a lower branch about as thick as his thumbs side by side. John pulled, using his weight to rip it free. The branch came lose in his hands, and he stripped the smaller branches and leaves free from it.

  John set the thicker side of the stick down into the ground beside him. It stood about as high as his shoulder. He tested it with some of his weight. It bent a little, but it was green hardwood, and didn’t snap. Using the stick to support part of his weight with each step, John slowly hobbled his way back toward his lean-to.

  “I’ll be sleeping dry tonight, thank you very much,” John said.

  Each step was still painful, but the nearer he got to his home, the better he felt. Impossibly, he’d survived. Despite the injuries he had sustained, he had thought his way through the problem and overcome it. He had food stocks in the shelter. He would rest, heal.

  And then what? John glanced up at the cliff face as he approached the shelter. He shuddered. Not that again. Never that. The idea of climbing any higher than he could safely jump down terrified him. He’d been lucky this time. He couldn’t dare risk that again.

  John lowered himself to the ground and eased his way into the dry security of his lean-to. No, trying to climb the wall was straight out. That way led to death. But he wasn’t willing to give up and accept that his world was all he would ever see, either. There was more out there. He knew there was. He only needed to discover a way to get there.

  It was with those thoughts that John finally drifted off into an exhausted slumber.

  Nineteen

  It was two painful days before John was able to put any weight at all on the injured leg. Even then it hurt. He redid the rough brace holding bones in place, and was able to cut a better crutch so he could get around a little, but walking hurt so he avoided moving about when possible.

  All work on the new house came to a stop. It was all John could do just to keep up with the basic activities of cleaning his injuries, washing himself, and gathering food. He was rundown, exhausted even. But his body was healing. The scratches were beginning to close, and the purple mottled bruises covering the right side of his body were slowly fading.

  He stayed close to his shelter most of the time, resting often. So it wasn’t until the third day after his fall that he realized the deer was absent. He hadn’t seen it since his attempt to scale the cliff. John was certain it had been there on the ground, watching him climb. He recalled standing in the upper branches of the tree, seeing the deer on the ground staring up at him. But where was it now? He’d grown used to the daily companionship, and although his injuries had kept him from feeling the absence, now that he realized the deer was gone, the sense of loss was acute.

  Had something happened to it while he was hurt? Had he startled it into running away? The world was small, but it was big enough that the deer could simply have left for another corner of the forest.

  “Only one way to find out,” John said aloud. His voice echoed hollowly in his ears. The sense that he was again all alone crept in unbidden. He forced the thought away. The deer was out there, somewhere. He grabbed his crutch and pulled himself to his feet, then set out to search.

  John scoured his world as best he could, hobbling along. He fell twice, exhausted from the strain of walking so much, but he got himself back to his feet each time and kept going. There was nothing more important to him than finding his missing friend. Except it wasn’t out there.

  By the end of the day, he had to admit failure. The deer was gone. He’d searched everywhere, circling the world twice, even calling out to the deer in hopes it might hear him. As the sun set, John found himself staring over the edge of the cliff into the ravine below. He’d searched everywhere, which left only the unthinkable.

  Was that where the deer had gone? Had it tried to climb down into the ravine? Worse, had his fall startled it, driven it into a panic that carried it over the edge? Was the deer’s broken body even now laying on the ground somewhere past the mist?

  Or had it fallen and survived, like he did? Had it managed to live through the fall? Was it even now waiting for him, hoping he would follow it?

  John spent a long time staring into the abyss as the darkness deepened around him. Would it be better to jump? To fall? He might live. He’d survived one major fall. He could perhaps survive this one. If the deer was down there, alive, he would have company again. If not? If the fall was enough to kill him, then the deer was probably dead as well, and he was alone again. The crushing empty weight of that thought was almost more than he could bear.

  Was it better to be alive and alone, or dead?

  John sank to his knees and crawled to the very edge of the ravine. He trembled, staring out at the drop that was so close. Then he mustered his resolve and swung his left leg out over the void. He sat on the very edge of the cliff, one foot over the ledge, the other on the solid rock. It felt like he was torn between two worlds. He looked down and felt dizzy, losing his focus quickly in the shifting mist. He looked back to his world and felt a yawning despair of loneliness and hopelessness.

  “No,” John whispered. “No. Those are not the only options I have. I can do more. I might have failed to climb the wall, but while I am alive, there’s still a chance. I’m not going to give up.”

  Not ever, he breathed silently in his mind, the resolution taking root there and feeling right to him. He slid his leg back to the rocky top of the ravine and scooted away from the edge before carefully rising to his
feet.

  “If you’re down there, deer, I wish you the best of luck,” John said into the mist. “But I’m not following you. Not today.”

  He scooped up the crutch. His body was exhausted, but his mind felt lighter than it had all day. The pain in his leg and side were there, but he could bear them as he slowly made his way back to the lean-to so he could rest for the night. There would be time enough to begin work in the morning on whatever he would do next. John wasn’t even certain yet what that would be, but he felt confidence in his ability to figure out something.

  There were more than two options. He would find another way through. John was still convinced there was another world beyond his, but he would make his own way there. A plunge to the death wasn’t what he wanted. Living alone in this world forever wasn’t a solution, either. If going over the cliff had failed, then he would find another way. He’d make another way. Whatever it took, John refused to surrender to despair.

  Twenty

  Felizian nodded, satisfied at what he was watching. As far as he was concerned, this subject was proving to be exceptional. They’d tossed him one problem after another, and the human had found ways to deal with each one. This last challenge—between the severity of the injuries and the sudden onset of once again being alone—was perhaps the greatest, but even this the human had survived.

  “I think we are ready for the next phase with this one,” Felizian said.

  “You might be right,” Kantrobil replied. “We have Experiment 57 we can use as a second subject.”

  “Possible. That one had no apparent issues with isolation, though. Do you think they would mesh well?” Felizian wasn’t sure. It was hard to ascertain some details about this species’ psychology, even after all of their work.

  “No way to tell but to try,” Kantrobil said. “I think we should wait a few more days, though. The nanites are healing the human’s wounds rapidly, but they’re leaving him tired. I’m curious what the subject does once he is more recovered.”

  “You think he’ll try to escape again,” Felizian said.

  “Oh, I’m nearly certain he will. I confess to curiosity about what his next attempt will look like. He’s demonstrated continued ingenuity.”

  Felizian took note of the changes to both of their language. When had he begun referring to this subject as he, instead of it? He couldn’t place the precise timing of the change, but Kantrobil was doing it, as well. Perhaps his partner was right and they had grown too close to this specimen for objectivity. He resolved to do a more significant self-assessment later, when there was more time. It was troubling. His scientific detachment was an important part of what made him good at this job. Losing that would be…problematic.

  “You don’t have any lingering worries about our prior contamination of the subject?” Felizian asked. He hated to say the next words, which made it even more important he say them. If he was emotionally involved, it meant his judgement was impaired. “Perhaps we should euthanize this one to avoid further spread of any contamination.”

  Kantrobil shook his head in response. Another human motion. More evidence that the contamination was not merely one-sided. Felizian thought back over the time he’d spent with the human—many hours, day after day, observing his behavior and assessing his reactions to the various challenges. He’d grown to view the human’s daily antics through a different lens than he was used to seeing with his subjects. There was something admirable about the way the subject rose to every challenge presented.

  “No, I don’t think we need to do that,” Kantrobil said, apparently unaware he had made the head movement.

  Yes, we do, Felizian thought. We should, anyway. Right away, before the contamination sinks any deeper and we find ourselves without the level of detachment our profession demands. Although he made ready to say the words, they stuck in his throat.

  “If you feel that way,” Felizian said instead. “We will continue to maintain separation, though? To prevent further issues.”

  “I agree that would be for the best. Observe, do not interfere. The damage to the experiment seems to be minimal, and I will ensure our reports make that clear,” Kantrobil said.

  Their final report would not be due for years yet, but so much was riding on their results. No experiment of this scale was performed without an expectation of new learning being gained. Their reputations rode on their ability to produce results. If the experiment was contaminated, it would set them back, perhaps too much. But if they minimized the scope of their interactions in the written reports, then the results would not be invalidated.

  It wasn’t like the entire experiment rested on this one subject anyway, Felizian reasoned. They had many others. This one was taking up an undue amount of their time at the moment. But they had plenty of data garnered from other experiments. Taken as a whole, any small wobbles caused by their accidental interference would simply be outliers, lost in the noise of the main data.

  “I’ll prepare number 57 for transfer to his world, then. Will three days be enough time for us to see what he does next?” Felizian asked.

  “Yes, I think so,” Kantrobil replied absently. He was already looking back at one of the monitors, following a video feed. Felizian didn’t have to look to know that he was watching Experiment 42 again, but he moved closer so that he could see, too.

  “What is it doing?” Felizian asked. It took a conscious effort to switch back to calling the subject it again. Calling it he already felt more natural, but he was determined to win back his professional detachment. The human was sitting on the ground nearby its home, fiddling with something in the grass.

  “He’s building something,” Kantrobil said. “Something new. It looks like the human has already decided on a course of action and is following it.”

  “Hopefully whatever it’s doing won’t get it killed this time,” Felizian muttered.

  Kantrobil shook with humor. “We can just step in to prevent death if need be. I want to see what he does. Look at his intensity! He is building that tool like his existence depends on it.”

  It didn’t, of course. The human’s existence depended on them. They supplied his food, the artificial rain which fell on his pen, and even the air he breathed was closely controlled. But he didn’t know any of that, could never have imagined any of it. From his point of view, everything he did mattered. Whatever he was building, he went about it like there would be no tomorrow, chipping away at a flat stone, chiseling bits of it away.

  Felizian settled down next to Kantrobil, as curious as his partner what the human could possibly be up to this time.

  Twenty-One

  John’s fingers were damp with perspiration and more than a little blood from the small cuts he’d given himself. The rock slid in his hand and opened a new wound. Small, but it smarted.

  “Ow! Stupid rock,” he said.

  That was the second new cut in the last few minutes, and he took it as a sign that it was time to take a break. He’d been working at the slab of stone for a while. Right through the time he usually would have had dinner. But the work was paying off. He’d taken a large chunk of slate and hammered off bits of it with another rock, shaping it carefully. What he had now was about the size of his head, but only a bit thicker than his palm. Best of all, he’d managed to retain a bit which stuck out on one side like a handle. It wasn’t enough to hold on to, but he could lash some wood to the thing and it would be a serviceable tool.

  “That’ll be for tomorrow, though. After some rest,” John said. His hands were shaking from a combination of hunger and exhaustion. He was still recovering from his injuries, and it had been days since he’d worked himself this hard. But it felt good to make forward progress on something again.

  John rose with the sun and hurried to find everything he would need. Once his tools were gathered, he ate a full breakfast. He was going to be working hard and knew he’d need all the energy he could get. This wasn’t going to be easy, but he was convinced it would work.

  He tie
d the flat rock to a heavy branch with roots from the river plant, making sure it was as tight as he could manage. Then John made his way back to the wall. He chose a spot close to where his parents’ graves had been. There was a part of him that wondered if they could somehow still see him from there. His mother had said something about his father watching him from wherever he was. It seemed to John like dead was dead, but he liked the comfort that thought gave him.

  The hard stone of the gravesite was a good place to begin the work. There was still topsoil remaining, despite the destruction wrought by the storm. He hoped it would be enough.

  John set down his tools and leaned against the wall with both palms. He looked up the behemoth.

  “It always comes back to you, doesn’t it?” John asked the wall. It couldn’t answer. That didn’t matter. He needed someone to talk to, and with the deer gone, the wall was as good a conversationalist as he was going to get. “The ravine is death. But you? I’ve tried to conquer you more than once. But before, I was trying to go over.”

  He picked up the stone and wood tool and stabbed it into the ground. It bit into the turf with a satisfying sound. He leaned in, pushing it a little deeper, and then levered the clump of sod free.

  “Let’s see if I can get under you, instead,” John said. He lowered the stone back to the soil, dug out another chunk of dirt and threw it aside. Each bit he removed felt like it was bringing him one step closer to freedom.

  John knew it was possible this attempt would fail, as well. For all he knew, the wall went down forever, and he could dig until he died and not reach the bottom of it. Or he might hit rocks too big to move and too sturdy to break.