“JACK.”
He forced himself awake, if there was such a thing anymore, and listened.
“JACK.”
Jack tried to quiet his mind so he could focus on listening but that grew more difficult as time went on. His thoughts would race and he seemed helpless to stop them.
“YOU ARE NOT ALONE.”
The voice was loud and Jack wondered if the person was standing right next to him. If he could’ve moved, he would’ve put his hands to his ears.
The door opened and he heard footsteps.
Some nurses were in the room straightening and talking about a riot that had occurred last night at the central precinct. Over thirty inmates had escaped. Some footage of the perps revealed ski masks and military-grade assault rifles. Jack was only mildly interested.
After a while the nurses left and Jack was alone again. He tried to occupy his mind with memories. He would play entire baseball games in his head, pretending he was in the stands watching. Then he would make up episodes of sitcoms he had enjoyed as a child. Slowly, the terror would come back and he would frantically scream and attempt to thrash in the bed, but nothing would happen.
“I AM HERE.”
Jack saw a glimmer of an image and he couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or if it was just in his head. But one thing he was certain of was that it was there. It was a black outline of a man. But not really a man. It turned to him and revealed its face. Black with white triangles over the eyes that glowed a dull green.
“YOU SEE ME.”
Jack wept, though his physical body stayed motionless. He wondered if any tears were rolling down the skin of his cheeks and whether he would feel them if they were.
The voice grew stronger over the coming days. It would speak to Jack, though Jack could never speak to it. In his more lucid moments, Jack understood that it was simply his attempt to alleviate the acute loneliness he felt.
“YOU WILL HAVE VENGEANCE,” the voice said. “YOU WILL DESTROY THOSE THAT HAVE TAKEN FROM YOU.”
I don’t want revenge.
“YOU ARE NOTHING. I AM EVERYTHING.”
The voice suddenly stopped and Jack felt someone else in the room. They were near too, perhaps standing over him. He smelled something: orange blossoms. A bodywash. Probably another nurse. But she didn’t act like a nurse would. She ran her hand over the length of his body. From his forehead, down his face and shoulders, over his ribs and down his legs. He could feel her touch grow dim at the legs and had suspected for a while that they were bound in thick casts or bandages.
The orange blossom fragrance grew strong.
“We’re getting out of here,” a female voice whispered.
He felt himself moving suddenly. He was disconnected to every IV and the machines beeped for only a second more before the woman did something to make them stop. He heard a door open and then felt the bed begin to move. He listened to the sounds of paper shuffling and keys being pushed on a keyboard and was grateful to have something new to listen to.
“Excuse me, Doctor, where are you taking him?” someone said as the bed came to a stop.
“Neurology. Running another CAT scan,” the female voice said. “Make sure Dr. Herald knows where I am in case he needs me.”
Movement again. It was slow and casual at first and then grew to a quick pace. Jack heard an elevator button be pressed and felt the sensation of falling. More jerky movement and suddenly, it grew hot. He knew now he was outside the hospital.
What do you want with me? I’m already dead.
Two doors opened and Jack felt something slip underneath the bed before he was lifted into someplace with shade. Then the doors closed again before an engine started, and movement again.
Jack was left alone somewhere after they had gotten out of what he guessed was a large cargo van with a lift. It was perfectly quiet here except for the occasional sound of an air conditioner. He would listen to it, anticipating its next click, and thought that he had perhaps slept a while, but couldn’t tell. Little difference existed anymore between being awake and asleep.
He was suddenly lifted in the air again but this time lowered into something that felt sticky and wet on his skin. He felt a mask placed over his face. It still allowed him to breathe as he was lowered into what he imagined was goop or slime. He breathed and tried to listen to the air conditioner again, but there was nothing. The world was mute.
He felt the goop on his skin a long time. At one point, he was raised out of it and felt pressure against his back. He heard a cracking sound, like cardboard boxes being crushed, before he was lowered back into it again.
Then, one day, he opened his eyes.
CHAPTER 17
William stood outside the central precinct and stared at the building. He had spent time here when he was a rookie on the motor squad, busting DUIs and speeders. The police tape encircled the building and several uniforms blocked every entrance. A strong media presence was there and the fact that the national wires had picked it up meant that it was about to get stronger.
“Detective,” an officer said from behind him.
“What is it, Hector?”
“It’s…Mandi was in there. She was at the front desk. The paramedics did everything they could but she’d lost too much blood. She’s gone, Detective.”
William nodded. “Thanks, Hector. Ah, let me notify her family, okay? I’ve known them for some years.” The officer didn’t respond and William put his hand on his shoulder. “Hector, we need to stay focused. They want us to be crushed by this.”
“I know. It’s just…I knew most of the people in there. Most of ‘em had kids.”
“I know.”
The men parted and William turned back to the building. He took a deep breath before ducking under the police tape and going in.
A forensic tech stood outside, handing out booties and latex gloves to the detectives. The techs hated nothing more than some detectives screwing up a crime scene by contaminating it. Undoubtedly, when that happened, the techs themselves would be blamed. So now they handed out booties and gloves.
William put on the booties and gloves and stepped inside the building. The windows had all been closed and the air must’ve been turned off because it was hot and muggy. It gave the place a strong stench of blood and cordite, even though the shootings had happened hours ago.
The ME’s Office’s body movers waited for the lead detective on the case to sign off before bagging the bodies and hauling them for autopsy.
William saw several bodies out in the main area. One was a civilian. A woman they had picked up for drunk driving who was getting booked. Another was just a janitor that happened to be clocking out after a shift. In another room, the captain’s office, William saw two detectives sitting with a uniformed officer. The uniform was older and black with white hair at the temples. He had bandages wrapped around his head. William walked over, purposely avoiding looking at the pools of dried blood on the linoleum.
William stood at the doorjambs but didn’t enter the room. He listened as the uniform told his story. He had been running a DUI through the booking process. The ink pad was dry and he began walking to the supply closet to get another when he heard the door crash open and gunshots begin to ring in the air. Instantly, he ducked. It was a reflexive response, he said. He had done two tours in Iraq and that instinct of survival at the sight or sound of something threatening was the only reason he was still alive.
He told them that all the men that came through here had dreadlocks. Though they had shot out the cameras, he could give a detailed description to a sketch artist.
“I’ll help you all I can,” he said. “But right now, I’d really like to get to a hospital.”
The detective nodded. “We’ll get ya outta here, Officer.”
“One sec,” William said. “You telling me you dodged bullets while these officers dropped like flies around you?”
“I’m tellin’ you what happened. You can choose to believe me or not, but that’s what ha
ppened.”
William stared at him a moment and then nodded to the detective, indicating to let him go. William took a deep breath and was left in the room alone with Ruel Glidesburg. He was barely a cop. He’d put in his twenty at an elementary school and transferred to patrol before going detective.
“The video’s useless?” William asked.
Ruel took out a piece of Nicorette gum and stuck it in his mouth. “Yup. All the inmates are gone too.”
William shook his head. “I never in a million years thought—”
“Neither did I.” He stood up and walked over to William, sliding past him. “Tell ya one thing, though: ain’t no cop safe in this town.”
CHAPTER 18
“OPEN YOUR EYES AND SEE.”
The world was a hazy, green gelatin. When he opened his eyes the gelatin seeped into them but didn’t cause pain. It took several minutes for Jack to adjust enough to understand that his eyes were open. That he wasn’t dreaming. The colors were duller. That was the answer to Descartes’s question of how one could possibly know if one was dreaming or awake: the colors in a dream are much brighter. So bright that they almost hurt.
Jack attempted to move his hands and a shock of joy and confusion went through him as he found he was able to. He attempted to move his toes and could too, but the movement felt different than that of his hands. It felt almost like they moved too quickly and easily, with almost no effort on his part.
He turned his head to the left and to the right. He could see through the gelatin. The place was unfamiliar but masses of machines were set up along the bare stone walls. Monitors flickered blue in darkness. Above a door on the far side of the room a red light blinked.
Jack brought his hand up and pushed on the transparent encasement around him. Thick glass. He began pushing more. Then he began striking. Suddenly he felt claustrophobic. Like the gelatin could seep through the oxygen mask that was strapped to his face and fill his lungs. He kicked frantically at the encasement and heard a loud crack. He continued to kick and punch and the sound of glass cracking filled his ears as the lights in the room came on and he saw movement outside.
A tightening pressure came over his lungs as the top of the encasement was removed and he was pulled out and into the air. He ripped off the mask and inhaled air deep into his lungs. The mechanism wrapped around his waist was crushing the air out of him and Jack twisted his body away from it and slipped out. He fell to the floor and lay on his side, coughing.
The smell of orange blossoms filled his nostrils as he heard a soft, female voice say, “Jack, you are just fine. Please relax. I will explain everything to you.”
Jack was helped to his feet and into a chair. As he coughed, he caught glimpses of the room around him. It was clearly a laboratory, but not like any he’d seen. Another container of the green gelatin was across the room and then darkness after that.
A woman in pajamas stood before him, her short black hair perfectly sculpted though it was clear she had been asleep. She handed him a glass of water. His throat felt like it was on fire and he gulped it down.
“Another,” he said, his voice grainy from disuse. He had forgotten what it felt like to speak.
“You probably shouldn’t—”
“Another.”
After three more glasses, his stomach hurt and he vomited the water over the bare cement of the laboratory.
“I was saying you probably shouldn’t drink so fast.” The female sat down on a chair across from him. “How are you feeling?”
“Where…where am I?”
“You’re safe.”
“Where?”
“You’re in Nevada. Inside a military installation.”
“Nevada?” he said, out of breath. “Why am I here?”
“You are here because your so-called family decided that you were to die. I used every favor I had to get you out and bring you here. How do your legs feel?”
“Fi—” He looked down to the unfamiliar clumps of sculpted metal protruding from his knees. They were formed in the shape of human muscle and bone and appeared almost like someone had spray-painted silver and black over a human leg. He lifted one and let it drop. He could feel the bottom of it, but the sound told him it was metal.
“Where are my legs?”
“I couldn’t save them. I’m sorry. Agamemnon crushed them beyond repair and you underwent amputation at the hospital. If, perhaps, I could have brought you here first…but anyway. You’ll find those quite satisfactory. In fact, you may find them superior to your own legs in many ways.”
“I…” He felt the world spin, and then saw the cement from the floor barreling toward him as he fainted and fell off the chair.
CHAPTER 19
Jack felt softness on his back. A strong, pleasant fragrance mingled with the air. He lay quietly a long time and inhaled before opening his eyes.
A doctor in a white coat sat at a computer, filling in some documents on a program.
“I had a weird dream,” Jack said. “That I’d left the hospital and was at a military installation.”
The doctor turned around and was the woman he had seen before. “I’m afraid you’re still in that installation, Jack.”
Jack shook his head. “My legs?”
She nodded.
“What do you people want from me? Where is my sister?”
“No one knows you’re here. For the time being, we have to keep it that way. You know, you don’t have to lie down. Your muscles atrophied. You should get up and use them.”
He sat up in bed and noticed for the first time the muscles that bulged on his legs and arms. Even his chest and forearms were massive; much larger than he remembered. He looked to the woman.
“What the hell did you do to me?”
“I’ll show you.”
They walked out into a corridor, which appeared like it could belong to any hospital in the country. But the elevator was something you’d see in a large factory, one meant for hauling massive weight. They stepped on and the elevator dropped like a brick. Jack felt his stomach flutter and had to grab a handrail.
“You’ll have nausea for quite some time I’m afraid,” the doctor said.
The elevator stopped and they stepped off, back into the laboratory he had been in before. Jack forgot about his legs until he felt the cold cement and it didn’t feel like it should have. He looked down to the metal jutting out of his thighs. They were silent as he moved and smooth. None of the squeaking or jerking one would expect from mechanical legs.
The pain of loss was powerful and he sat down on a chair near the large monitors. One hand was up to his forehead, shielding his eyes from the overhead lights though they weren’t that bright.
“Mr. Kane?” the doctor said softly. “Jack?” She pulled up a chair and sat next to him. “I’m sorry, Jack. I wish…I wish there was more I could do. But what I said before was true. Once you grow accustomed to them, you won’t miss your legs at all.”
“How the hell would you know?”
The doctor was silent a moment and then pulled up her sleeve. She grabbed a small slit on her bicep and pulled, the skin coming down to her forearm and revealing a mass of steel and circuitry. “And I was still able to perform minute surgery on you. I promise you that you will not miss them.” She stood up and held out her hand. “Come on.”
Jack took a deep breath and grabbed her hand. He lifted himself and followed her. The effort he put into standing was only psychological. In reality, he had bounced up with a momentum that he had to control. It was like he was in a new body.
“I feel different,” he said.
“You have been enhanced, Jack. May I show you something?”
He nodded.
She swung her fist at him with a speed he had never seen. He thought she’d struck him but then noticed that his arm had come up and caught her hand. She swung again and kicked and tried to headbutt with the ferocity of a pit-fighter. Jack was able to parry every blow.
“You see?” she sai
d. “When were you ever able to do something like that?” She adjusted her glasses. “Let’s start from the beginning, though.”
They walked to the end of the laboratory and through a steel door that closed behind them. This new room looked like the control room of a submarine. In the center, behind thick glass, was a glowing green tube, no bigger than a hot dog.
“What is that?” he said.
“Ultimately, we don’t really know. It has properties similar to a protein but is much more complex than that. We’ve studied it for fifty years, and we’re still not entirely sure what it is or the full capabilities of what it can do.”
Jack was silent a long while, watching the glowing fluid move slightly in the tube, as if on its own. “Why are you showing me this?”
“That is what saved your life. You were injected with it. The strength you feel right now is a direct result of that. We call it berridium, but only because we have to call it something.”
“The military designed this?”
“No.”
He looked to her. “Then who?”
She was silent a long time. “Whoever it was that crashed on this planet.”
Jack paused. “I’d like to go home now, please.”
The doctor exhaled. “It is difficult to accept, I know. I was as skeptical as you are.”
“I said I’d like to go home.”
“I saved your life when your family was going to starve you to death, Jack. I think I’ve earned five minutes of your time.”
Jack looked back to the glowing fluid. It had a draw to it and he found it difficult to take his eyes off it. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to become superhuman, Mr. Kane.”
CHAPTER 20
Hunger had gripped Jack and the doctor had sensed it without him asking. They took the elevators back up to the hospital and to a cafeteria. No one else was there and the doctor went into the kitchen and began making grilled cheese sandwiches. She brought the sandwiches, bottles of water, and some tomato soup out and placed them in front of him.
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