by RJ
“Nothing too hard here!” JB responded straight from inside. “I found there a big red button named ‘start’!”
“You got up early!”
“I couldn’t sleep! Your drink is rare filth! I hate it!” With the last words, JB straightened up and rushed to the edge of the platform to get out. “Turn it off, Doc! I’ll be right back!”
That sudden change in behavior confused Mark.
“Where are…” he started to shout but stopped when he saw that JB entered the restroom. “The big red button,” Gibson kept talking on the way to the control panel. “My idea!”
By the time JB got back, Gibson had already prepared the next unit to work with. It was a disk ramp, about ten feet in diameter, made from a blurry white glass. The mutant’s gait gained more confidence, it seemed that the blindness wasn’t an issue for him anymore.
“I removed a blindfold yesterday,” JB said. “The light ain’t hurting me no more.”
“That’s good to hear. And why did you train with those spheres blindly then?” Mark wondered.
“Because, Luke Skywalker did so. Duh,” JB responded skeptically. “By the way, something changed in my vision. Everything is brighter, more saturated. And I can see in the dark better.”
A self-satisfied smile rose on the doctor’s face when he was going through his notes.
“It’s because I’ve implanted an artificial cornea and retina in your eyes,” he said and looked at the mutant. “Let me explain. The result was aimed at increasing the light receiving capacity of your eyes. It lowers the light threshold needed for vision.”
“Wait a sec. So you’re saying that my eyes were fine, there wasn’t a need for surgery? Did you just play Dr. Frankenstein with me?” JB protested.
“First of all, considering the situation, it’s going to be your greatest advantage in fighting those jungle monsters. And, secondly, I’ve been working on that research whole year, and all I had as test subjects were hamsters and frogs. A hamster can’t tell me if it sees better! How else could I find out if that technology was working?!” Doc argued fiercely. “Besides, if an experiment had failed, you would live anyway, and I would have told you that the monster damaged your eyes. It was win-win.”
“For you, Gibson! You damn bastard!” JB called him by name for the first time, as it was a sign of respect. “I like it!”
The break was over. Doc put particular bands on the mutant’s limbs, and then gave him a vest of similar structure.
“This is a gravity enhancement panel, get on it. When I turn it on, you follow the instructions on the screen.” Mark turned on a small TV in front of JB that had a human dummy model in it. The model showed motion examples. “If some of the bands loosen up, tell me. They must sit tight.”
“I can’t see anything,” JB complained.
“Take off the blindfold.”
“Right!”
Revealing his eyes, JB saw a bright light. It was coming from everywhere, blinding him. It didn’t bring pain anymore but still felt uncomfortable.
Besides everything new around him, JB saw Mark for the first time that moment. He appeared to be a white man of average height, a bit shorter, maybe. His face seemed kind and pleasant: a long forehead, wide cheekbones and chin, blue eyes and dark blond hair. Just like JB had imagined, the doctor wore a white robe and thin, frameless glasses. The mutant himself had eyes which had changed quite a bit. They had deep blue coloration, which still remained a surprise for him to explore.
“What does this unit do?” JB wondered.
“It increases the resistance.”
“Resistance to what?”
“To your movements.”
With the last words, Gibson turned the knob on the control panel. A soft hum sounded, and the mutant was instantly snapped to the floor.
“Hm… I guess, it’s not tuned right,” the scientist said thoughtfully. Taking his time he started slowly turning the knob backward until JB was able to get up. “That’s better.”
As soon as the level of artificial gravity became stable JB began an exercise shown on the screen. A tension felt in the muscles. Each bend of the limbs and body was accompanied with resistance against it. It appeared to be much more difficult than Bridgers had imagined.
“Hey, Doc. Why wasn’t a regular barbell good enough?” JB asked while lifting and lowering his arms.
“Our mission is to make a monster killing machine out of you. So we need to train your body properly, the functional muscles, not just visual ones. If you encounter one of those creatures again, and all you can do is a bench press, what are you going to do with it? Give it twenty?”
Hearing how Gibson was teasing him, JB smirked. It wasn’t only the doctor’s sense of humor. As an experienced athlete, Bridgers always got amused by taking a workout advice from the wimpy guys.
“I saw a girl here last night. About twenty-five years old. A thin one, dark hair, average height. She was scared as hell and acted like a wild animal. Kinda reminded me a typical Harry Potter character. Met someone like that around?”
Gibson flinched.
“That’s Lynda. Forget about her!”
“Oh, Lynda…” JB smirked slyly. “The name just suits her. So, you’re familiar?”
“B, I’ve told you, forget about her!” Gibson insisted.
“Hey, Doc, it’s not fair! I’ve told you everything about myself, and you won’t tell me a single interesting story?”
Suddenly, JB saw trouble in the comrade’s eyes. The next moment Mark turned the knob to its maximum. The voltage went up and the mutant got snapped to the panel again. Barely holding on, he managed to stay in sitting position, bulking with his hands against the floor. He thought that in any second his bones might fracture. Then the force became weakening. He stood up.
“Okay, I won’t bug you anymore,” JB agreed to Gibson’s rules. “What’s with all that sensitivity, dude?” he muttered.
The next six weeks of training and trials went hard on JB. His body changed, he felt it. The rebuilding process made him a ‘black hole’ for any nutrition there was. He ate ten times more than before. Doc fed him those shakes of his and nothing else, he was aiming at speeding up the tissue growth by any cost. The train sessions lasted for twelve hours a day. His skin, muscles, and bones became so wiry and dense that JB sometimes forgot about his human limitations. His strength, stamina, sensibility – everything changed, enhanced.
All that time Gibson stayed close, he did to him what couldn’t be done by any scientist before.
Meanwhile, the quantity of the jungle beasts grew, they were becoming more and more aggressive. Every day they took over new land. Watching those changes, at one point, Mark decided that it was time to close all of the projects and to leave the island.
The mutant and doctor were walking through the jungle. The path drawn by Gibson led to the beach, he wanted to show JB where the other survivors were. It was a part of their escape plan.
“We need to hurry. It’s dangerous to wander around here after dusk,” the scientist said.
“Yeah, I know. Tried it,” JB responded. “But the sundown sucks here. It’s like any other time of the day. All grayed out.”
Soon they reached the beach. It happened so suddenly that JB just realized how far they had come from the base. The Gibson’s shortcut proved itself. Coming closer to water the comrades looked around and decided to make a short break. They sat on the nearest log with a good view and relaxed. Mark pulled out chrome thermos with a meal for Jerry and a lush sandwich full of meat, cheese and salad for himself. With a contemptuous look and loving hate, JB took his swill and took off the lid.
“It used to be a beautiful place to watch the sunrise,” Mark said in a nostalgic manner.
“I used to not wish to cut out my tongue,” JB commented on his emotions after taking a sip.
Even though the doctor was a bit tired of those complaints addressed to his protein shake, he got used to it. So he just smiled and took a greedy bite at that fat,
delicious sandwich.
“By the way, this is the exact spot where I saw my team for the last time,” Gibson continued.
“You mean other scientists? What did happen to them? You’ve never told me.”
“I wasn’t ready,” Mark got dimmer. “Remember, you told me how your mistake led to the death of others? Something similar happened to me.” Those words fully occupied the big guy’s attention. He took it seriously. “I told you that we were conducting here a research on drug development. Mostly it concerned painkillers for the armed forces. But some of the guys were busy with their own initiatives. Also, most of us wouldn’t mind trying the products from time to time.”
“Most?”
“Fine… We all did that!” Gibson confessed. “So as I was saying. My buddy, Ronnie, had developed a new breed of marijuana. He convinced us that we had never tried anything like that. So we tried it… Then the day turned strange. I can’t recall everything, but it was sort of funny. At some point, when we were finishing the rest of the batch, someone wondered if we could sail from the island to the big land on a raft. Never! Never say such thoughts out loud if you’re stoned and there is a bunch of researchers around you! A short story – we wanted to try that out. We found a raft, got on it and… Went sailing…”
By that time, JB used all his inner strength to prevent himself from bursting into laughter.
“So, how did you stay?” JB wondered, barely suppressing laughter and tears.
“Someone had to take a picture, so they pushed me out,” the story was finished and Gibson looked far away at the horizon. “Since then there’s just us: me, and Lynda.”
“Sup with Lynda?” JB touched the forbidden topic. “I see her every night. She comes, empties that fridge and disappears.”
“Lynda is a bitch,” Mark got straight to the point. “She was growing her own breeds and never shared with others. That smugness and greed got to her, I guess. I think that at some point, when trying one of the experimental samples her brain jammed. I saw it happen before.”
“So what now? Is she stoned permanently or something?”
“Just her mind. She sleeps and wanders around the jungle during daytime. And in the night she cleans out my fridge.”
“Why do you hate her so much?”
“Well, you know what does she do to my food now, right? Now imagine that at first she had hunger stronger than yours at the beginning of mutation. One night she got into my closet, where she found a cookies stock.”
“Cookies? You hate a sick woman for a cookies vendetta?”
“Hey-hey! You don’t talk to me as you are an icon of conscience and prudence here! You don’t know Lynda! Have you noticed that we are on the island? Do you know what it took me to get those cookies? It’s not like there are palm tree supermarkets everywhere around here, and you may run around with a shopping cart, picking up snacks whenever you like. No, sir! This island is a cruel place, where everyone fights for his own life! And his own cookies!”
Not wanting to get deeper into that pointless discussion JB stopped pushing. He smiled imagining how a bunch of stoned ‘white robes’ would sail away into the ocean.
“To Ronnie… May his bones be fit toothpicks for sharks!” JB toasted raising the thermos of swill and made a sip.
They sat there for just a little bit more. Then it was time to go back to the base. The path was exactly the same, so Gibson had a chance to remind JB the landmarks. The terrain was plain there, the trees were high, lots of various shrubs, but no animals around. Such desertedness called for suspicion.
“Why do you keep this path so precise, Doc?” JB wondered.
“There is a road not far from here. The mercenary patrols use it. I watch them sometimes from here.”
“A patrol? How often do they make their runs?”
“Before dusk, four times a night, and on the first light.”
“Really? So, why don’t they know about the beach camp of others?”
“Sure, they know. I bet they keep an eye on your people.”
“And they let others live here, just like that?” JB’s interest grew.
“Should they care? They are farmers. Product manufacturing is their concern. Three dozen people on the other side of the island aren’t hurting anybody. Besides, the mercenaries are familiar with local fauna not worse than we are. Everyone knows what is going to happen to that camp after ‘heat season’ comes,” Gibson kept explaining. “As soon as the air temperature rises up enough, those creatures will go mad at an entirely new level. Nobody will be safe then.”
“Nobody?”
“If we don’t interfere, then no.”
“And when is ‘heat season’ going to start?” JB wondered carelessly.
“It already did, three days ago.”
The mutant stopped walking.
“And you’re telling me it just now?” Bridgers asked suspiciously. “We need to work on our communication, Doc. Say, couldn’t you just, you know, tell me at breakfast something like... Yo! J! Sup, man! How do you like the weather? By the way, a pack of bloodthirsty monsters is going to go nuts soon. Be ready for it.”
“Can’t you feel how difficult it is to breathe lately?”
“Doc! I have constant hypothermia, I barely breathe!” the mutant reminded him about his condition.
“And, besides…” Gibson took a moment to think. He came up with nothing. “So, now you know. We’ll launch our escape plan tomorrow.”
Once more, an informational bomb was dropped on the mutant.
“Come again? When were you going to enlighten me? If it’s now a secret…” Jerry resented.
“Didn’t I mention it? Hm… Oh, that’s why I had that feeling, you know, when you think that you’ve forgotten something. Right.”
Being ready to throw at Mark the next batch of emotions JB got distracted by a noise, which came from the jungle.
“Freeze,” he whispered.
“What’s wrong?” Gibson asked just as quietly.
“Someone’s coming.”
JB braced himself and took a combat position with the knife in his hand. Mark, on the other side, couldn’t hear anything, straight to the moment when the shrubs swished nearby. A teen girl ran out of them.
“Mia?” JB was surprised.
He almost had thrown that knife at her, but stopped just in time. Mia looked terrible. She was scared and exhausted, as if she had been running from the devil. With the first glance at JB, she rushed to him, just like he was her only beam of hope. She hugged him. He held her in his arms. The girl’s shaking lowered, she almost was ready to say something. But suddenly, a shouting came from the same direction, where she had come from.
“Hey! Get back, you! You little shit!”
The mutant put Mia behind him, passing her under the doctor’s care. As for himself, he got ready to throw that knife. At the last second JB changed his mind. He picked up a rock of a baseball size. He glanced at Mark, he nodded, approving the new plan.
“How many of them are there, Mia?” JB asked, still looking in the same direction.
“One chased me, another one stayed with the car,” she whispered.
The sound of movement went louder, soon the shrubs moved. Just when the closest twigs budged, the mutant launched the rock. Being aware of his enormous strength, he put half of it in that throw. The intention was to knock the stranger out, not to kill him. A whistle of the air sounded, then – the noise of tearing leaves, a hit, and a man falling down.
“Let’s go now,” Gibson said. The other two followed his lead.
On the way back, neither Mark nor JB asked Mia about what had happened to her. The doctor introduced himself and told her where they were going for her to feel safe. It was all of the talking for the time being. She needed her space to calm down.
Back at the research center, Mark prepared a room for Mia, showed her around, and gave her clean clothes. After taking a shower and changing into a fresh outfit, the girl went to sleep. She looked so tired, it see
med that it was her first rest in months.
The next day JB and Mark stayed in the dining room going through dozens of blueprints, maps, schematics and so on. There was a discussion going on about the escape details. A path through the jungle, the farmers’ base, everything had to be planned thoroughly. They had just one shot of getting off the island.
Mia entered the room. The comrades stopped arguing and looked at her. She seemed much better now, compared to when they had found her.
“Hey, you,” JB said. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay,” she responded calmly.
Gibson hustled up to remove the papers from one of the tables and put there a dinner, which was saved for Mia.
“Please, take a seat,” he smiled at her. “The meal got a bit cold, I will heat it up for you if you want me to.”
“That’s fine,” she said and occupied the chair. “What are you doing here?”
JB and Gibson exchanged looks.
“Don’t worry. You can tell me,” she insisted.
“Mia, tell us, please. How did you end up in that forest?” Mark sat next to her.
The girl took a bite of salad and took her time to prepare for narrating her story, which was inevitable anyway.
“My seat was torn out of the plane on its way down. I’ve seen everything. It was terrible. I fell in some pond,” Mia tried to recall those events of the plane crash. “I managed to get out of the water, there were fields everywhere. At least I thought it was a field.”
“The farmers’ fields?” JB looked at Gibson.
“Most likely, yes,” the scientist supposed.
“Then they came,” Mia continued. “That Esteban and his bastards!” she said fiercely. “They blindfolded me and took me as their prisoner. All that time I been held in some barn. They always watched me. Yesterday was my fourth try of getting out of there. If you wouldn’t have showed up, I’m afraid it could’ve been the last one… Thank you.”
“Don’t worry, you’re safe here,” Mark said confidently.
JB seemed a bit uncomfortable when choosing the following words.
