by P. S. Power
"What were you thinking about?" Mark asked.
Brian ducked his head, feeling incredibly embarrassed. "Um, making out with Karen..."
"You've made out with Karen?" Mark asked, sounding impressed.
"Nah, just thinking about it, you know..."
Nodding Mark had him start again until the light came back, then imagine himself sitting on a beach instead, with Karen, which also worked to get the light going and keep it that way. Less embarrassing too.
He practiced this until bedtime, when Doctor Burrows came and gave him a bunch of shots, not bothering to say what they were again. He had a sneaking idea that Burrows might be using him as an experimental test subject. The shots from her were a lot more extensive than when the other doctors came. The colors were different too. She winked at him and put a hand on his back for about half a minute before leaving. She wore scrubs, but he noticed how they hugged her rear as she walked away, the cuffs draping over her shoes almost to the floor in the back.
He got to bed just before his eyes shut on their own.
The next month went like that, except for the fact that he went to help people at random times, Becky giving him data about what was happening most of the time. Sometimes she showed up and talked to him, seeming almost happy, telling her things that Chris had mentioned to her, which, she pointed out, gave him a lot more information about what was going on than he'd have without her. The eager way that the ghost girl said it made Brian want to laugh.
"Becky... The first time you warned me about what was about to happen when I switched made having you around more than worthwhile, even if you are a hallucination or ghost girl living in my head. You definitely don't have to keep trying to justify your existence to me. You're doing great."
She shrugged and looked pleased, if a little skeptical. Brian wondered if she thought he regretted having her around or something. Then again, if he did, wouldn't she know already, living in his head and all? Then maybe just knowing wouldn't be enough to keep insecurity at bay? That could be a tough one, he knew. That niggling feeling that no matter what you did, how good you were, it was all a sham somehow. That you were a fraud.
Each day he had to fight someone new in practice and normally ended up having at least one real fight, trying to save someone. The incidence of "events" had picked up incredibly for some reason. Dharma gave him info on the real ones at least. She absolutely refused to clue him in on what anyone had in store for him training-wise each day, forcing him to scramble and work things out for him self-consciously, even though she had a direct line to his subconscious mind. It made all the fights seem about twice as hard, but he tried to adapt with good humor to the whole thing. If Becky had a link to his deeper self and wouldn't clue him in, then that meant he had some kind of reason for hiding things from himself, right? The program Jason and the others had developed seemed all about never letting him build a routine or getting used to anything.
The only regular thing was that each morning he got woken up by Karen. Even his meals came at different times of day now, and a few times they just didn't feed him at all. On those days they just worked him non-stop, sometimes making him run, once Marcia just sent person after person after him in the gym, making him fight until his muscles stopped working all together, then letting him rest for a few minutes and starting all over again. Most of team two came after him at least twice that day. The only break he got at all was water about once an hour, thrown to him by Beatdown in a small plastic bottle, sometimes while he grappled with someone. The water spilled more on the mat than into his mouth those times, of course.
Losing track of the days, he eventually got used to not knowing what would happen. Carl, the level fifteen training manger, had him doing things that seemed insane half the time. The climbing wall moved faster than ever, but it changed constantly, even as he worked his way up, climbing as fast as his limbs would move. The hand holds would vanish suddenly, or twist under him as he fought desperately to stay on.
Another device just had a ramp that could be raised or lowered over the floor. It didn't seem impressive, just plastic coated wood in a cream color that he had to climb and jump off at a run, land with a smooth rolling movement and then come around to do it again. It started low, only about three feet off the ground slowly getting higher over the course of days, until he was jumping off it at about twenty feet each time.
Carl walked him straight to it after the climbing wall the next day, Karen looking at him nervously, glaring at the training manager. Brian guessed this meant something fun would be up. Karen always got nervous looking when the others were about to do something that hurt, he'd noticed. The ramp had been lowered, left at about quarter of the height he could do and the floor looked normal, no broken glass or jagged looking spikes at least. Not visible ones. Given the significant glances he figured it had to be something bad or dangerous, tricky at least. He shrugged. All he could do was try to adapt, right?
He leaped from the top carefully, staying relaxed as he'd been taught for the fall itself, but when his blue and white running shoes hit the floor it tilted under them, his normal rolling pattern being too extended for it drove his head into the shifting platform with a sickening crack. It left a taste of copper in his lungs, meaning he'd hit darned hard, if it had engaged the taste receptors in there noticeably. He hadn't even known that people had taste-buds in their lungs until Burrows had mentioned it during his last visit to medical.
Struggling blearily he forced himself up and tried again, with similar results. It took him four tries to get it right, at which point the ramp raised by five feet. That didn't make it harder, just more dangerous if he messed up. They ended at twenty feet again, Carl looking satisfied, but Karen softly crying in the corner, her eyes even more green than usual.
Brian, seeing he was dismissed, went over to her, putting an arm around her shoulders.
"I know... I did pretty bad there. Still, Carl hasn't kicked me off his floor yet, so at least there's that, right?" She laughed for a bit and shook her head.
"It's not that. It's just... this whole floor's where they train people with special physical powers, not regular people like you and me... It's too hard and not fair." She leaned in and held him closely for a while, her body, firm and tight, pressing against his. He gave her a quick squeeze and stepped back before Becky showed up and started berating him for having naughty thoughts about her sister.
"Karen... it's never been about fair. Right now it's about becoming good enough that survival's possible. Until then..." What could he say to her? She felt his pain and how hard it was and couldn't help it. It was hard. That had to happen if he wanted to survive, that was all.
Even that only gave him a little bit of a chance, not a guarantee. Brian didn't go over the whole thing about being dead already in his head, not really, because that would make Dharma pop out and make fun of him, but each day could be his last if he didn't keep things together. Keep himself in control. That meant body and mind.
He got a break in the afternoon and a surprise. A pleasant one for once too. A familiar face stood waiting in the third team's common room near the same table he and Mark used each night for the biofeedback training.
"Jeremy, man, great to see you! How are things?" His college roommate looked like he remembered him, except wearing a suit and a few pounds heavier. A beefy hand reached for his when he walked into the floor nine common area.
"Brian! I knew it was you we were doing this for..." The light brown hair and slightly redder beard tilted toward a couple of small silver metal cases on the round white table to Brian's right, next to a black one with chrome trim that looked familiar. "But I had no idea you'd turned into a bad ass. You look... ripped. What happened to the chubby fifteen-year-old that helped me get through all my math classes?"
Brian smiled and shrugged. "You know... that guy couldn't survive what I have to do... so I had to change to fit the situation."
Jeremy laughed and shook his head a little, his waist over his p
ants a bit, black sports jacket open and a few beads of perspiration on his forehead. He saw that everyone else looked baffled so he explained.
"It was one of the first things I said to Brian when we met. We were both a little homesick and kind of regretting things, but you know, I was a few years older, so I had to look all cool and say something wise. I didn't think you'd remember that. I should have known better, you remember everything. Man it sounds pompous now though." He walked over to the table, talking to Brian directly, but waving to the others to come too.
"So three things for you here. Case number one..." He opened the tiny box for him. "Skin tight flex armor. Interlocking carbon nano particulates. Black side out, gray side in, so you can't get confused. Not that you would. Put it on backwards and you won't be able to move hardly at all. Anything short of tank rounds hitting the black side and you're protected - if it moves fast enough, which is over about four miles per hour, give or take. But it leaves you able to run, punch, kick and all that, about as fast as possible." He held it up and handed the silky-feeling black material to Brian.
To his hand the material didn't seem to have any weight at all. Maybe an ounce.
"It's form fitting. Just climb in through the neck hole, move slow and the whole thing will stretch for you. We don't have gloves or foot coverings yet, there are some things to work out for combat. Spreading the force enough mainly. Same with head protection. It's coming, about six months I'd guess. This is the first field test."
He moved to the other silver box.
"This is... special, but not unique. The flex armor is one of a kind, so don't lose it, all right? This is just... incredibly expensive, but, well, if anyone should have one..."
He opened the case which held a knife, jet black with a thin black rubber handle. Everyone else looked baffled but Brian felt his own eyes go wide.
"You made it? My god, does it work like we thought it would?" He touched it on the flat side with one finger, it felt room temperature.
The chubby scientist grinned and told him it worked almost exactly like they'd projected, being a little more structurally sound, about seven percent.
"I figured Brian should get one, there are only about twenty made to these specs right now, but since he did a lot of the initial calculations used in making it himself..."
Marcia raised an eyebrow and poked Brian with a single finger, prodding him into speech. Her finger was like a steel rod. He grinned at her and resisted rubbing his chest.
"Oh, right... It's a carbon nanotube knife." Brian pointed to it along the outer edge all the way around in a sweeping motion. "Strong as steel, about two hundred times lighter, sharp all along the blade edge, front and back. It also shouldn't get dull, staying about a hundred times sharper than a razor blade all the time, because it's just that thin. It could be light enough to go with me..."
Jeremy nodded.
"The only real problem is the handle. We tried to keep it light, but it doesn't give you a lot to hold on to. It won't let you cut yourself - the handle's thicker and rounded in the principle structure - but that doesn't mean it's going to be comfy in the hand all the time. I'll leave figuring out how to use it to you folks though. My knife fighting expertise ends at opening this box for you."
Marcia nodded and patted Brian on the back. "He can use it."
She made it a simple statement of fact, her voice confident and her brown eyes were warm when they looked at him.
The third box held what Brian both expected and didn't expect it to be at all. His oboe. The one he played for two years before it got left in his dorm room when he quit school. Jeremy smiled and told him how he'd kept it the whole time, on the off chance that they'd meet again. Brian thanked him with a laugh.
"You know, I always hated this thing. Every time I played it I couldn't help but think about how many years I'd wasted on it as a kid. My parents wouldn't even let me play a cool instrument, because they didn't want me to focus on music and figured that if it was too fun I might give up on math. Joke's on them now..."
Jeremy wanted to see him in the flex armor and teased him when he went into his room to change. But only a little. Like he'd have changed in front of everyone? It really wasn't that he worried about Marcia seeing him naked, she had, after ripping his clothes off, in the gym and more than once. Everyone else had seen him then too.
No, it was just that he didn't want Jeremy to see all the scars.
When he came out, Marcia, standing next to Jason, tested it by slamming the side of her left foot into his stomach as hard as she could, without warning, making a sound that filled the room like a thunderclap. Brian flew backwards through the air, his body stiff, but he could move after the first second or so and rolled easily when his feet touched the ground nearly twenty feet back.
It felt fine. The impact shook him, but that kick would have killed him normally and he doubted bruising would even take place this time. When he got up, almost all the way, he had to dodge to the side as Beatdown came after him with a knife. Her natural speed meant she eventually got him, stabbing him in first the stomach and then the leg. The knife just stopped. He felt pressure over a big part of his body, but that was all, not the normal burning pain he'd come to expect from being stabbed.
She pulled back smiling and looking at him closely, she stared at his waist for some reason. He didn't have time to figure out why, because Jason pulled a nine millimeter handgun and shot him three times in the chest and once in the arm, distracting him.
It occurred to him that Marcia had been staring at his junk, which was outlined rather closely in the skintight outfit. Perv. The idea made him smile as Jason shot him again.
At each impact his body stiffened, forcing him to hold the position he was in when the impact knocked him back, but the force felt like it hit the entire front side of his body at once. Much better than being shot or stabbed normally felt. Brian said this out loud getting a grin from Marcia and a slightly horrified look from Jeremy. The idea that he'd been stabbed and shot before probably. Brian had kind of forgotten that normal people didn't have that happen very often at all.
Looking at the scientist, Jason asked if they had to get a new outfit each time it took damage, like with regular armor. Jeremy grinned again.
"Nope! Even if breached, you just need to press the edges back together - it self-heals. Pretty cool, huh? Now, it'll wear out eventually, but you could do what you just did every day for years and not have a problem. By that time we should even be out of the untested prototype stage. Good to know about the spread of force, we weren't sure if it would be enough for some of the things you two just did to him. I mean, we knew our armor would hold... theoretically, but no one was available to test it like that. We, uh, don't have any super-humans around the lab."
Marcia smiled at him, a genuinely happy thing .
"We've got plenty of those here, if you ever need something checked out. Always happy to help out science here at the IPB. Especially if it can lead to things like this."
Jason suggested that they take Jeremy to dinner in the restaurant on level one, since it was about that time of day. Brian kept the armor on and slipped the knife in its box into his closet, setting it next to his oboe. He changed into his nicer clothes, the black fatigues he always wore for TV, trying to hurry, and found Marcia waiting for him with Jeremy and Jason in the hallway ready to go, since none of them had gone to the meeting in sweats like Brian had.
The elevator ride took about two or three minutes, most of that being the time it took to get on and wait for the doors to close. The elevators here were about as fast as most regular people could handle without discomfort, making the trips down feel a little like an amusement park ride to Brian. Bridget had told him that if you jumped right at the beginning you could float for a while until it started to stop. He'd never tried it, but it sounded cool. Possibly lethal too, if you weren't an eighty pound super-girl.
Brian had been to the first level a few times, visiting with Karen, but never eaten ther
e. Everyone said the food was good, but he'd never had a reason to go before. Strictly speaking they were all supposed to eat in their own team's dining facility, but since they could claim Jeremy as a VIP and even say it with a straight face, since he literally was about as big as they come short of the President, today at least, having brought presents, they should be able to get in.
The hostess seated them instantly, not even waiting for an explanation.
The woman was older, efficient and dressed better than anyone in their group by far, a long black evening dress that hugged her body and red high heels, with fishnet stockings that peeked through just a little bit on her left leg as she walked, the slit in the dress letting it show. The stockings should have looked out of place, but the whole thing had the feel of a nineteen twenties or thirties fine restaurant. The interior had wood and leather, real paintings on the walls, and chairs that were at least as comfortable as the one in Brian's room, which he'd spent more than one night dozing in since he'd gotten to the facility.
The seating was open enough that he could see who else was there as they came in, but he tried not to draw attention by looking around overly. They made light conversation while they had drinks, Jeremy asking most of the questions and Marcia answering them.
"This is actually the team one dining facility. They get most of the perks - the best rooms, best food and so on. The idea is that if anyone sneaks in to see them, news people or what have you, they'll always look well cared for. Considering half of them could probably leave and get jobs in the movies or television anyway, it helps to keep them happy too." Beatdown raised her eyebrows at the scientist who looked pretty interested in what she was saying. Or possibly just in her, it was hard to tell. "The reality is a little darker. People donate things to team one hoping they'll get seen in interviews and what not. The other teams are kept away from the cameras by and large - with a few exceptions, like the team leaders, Level and Brian. But Level doesn't do too well with reporters. She gets tongue tied. Popular with kids though."
