Post by Vector on Aug 25, 2005 18:39:51 GMT -6
Chapter 1
I awoke slowly to a bright light shining down into my vision. I had to turn away for a moment and squint my eyes to allow them to adjust. I looked around slowly, observing the place I was in. It was a pure white room, the only thing not white being a long window on the wall to my right. It was obviously only for viewing the room that I was in because it was tinted far too dark for me to see through. Actually, there was one other thing that wasn’t white. It was the large metal slab that I was laying on. Did something... happen to me? Is this some kind of hospital bed or something? For some reason, I had a strong feeling that whatever was going on had nothing to do with medical care.
“Finally... You’re awake,” I heard a man’s voice say. He seemed to be middle aged by the sound of his voice. He sounded well-spoken and very articulate, but despite this, I immediately hated him. I sat up slowly, bringing my legs around to slide off of the slab and hang above the smooth white tile floor. My knees were stiff, and I had to swing my shins back and forth a bit before my legs felt comfortable. It was then that I noticed what I was wearing, starting with my legs. It was a tight black suit seemingly made of some sort of rubber. I followed a small silver zipper up the outfit, the same black style continuing throughout to finally end at the centimeter tall turtleneck collar snugly hugging my neck. There were no sleeves on the suit at all, but there was a small patch sewn into the left breast. It was a small gray circle with two yellow letters embroiled into it: “O.L.”. I looked down at my feet, which were covered with black boots seeming to be much like combat boots, but not quite. I turned my foot a bit to look at the bottom as the curiosity of a child emerged from within me. The sole of the shoes seemed to be a thin layer of metal - most likely steel due to the same material being used for steel-toed boots. I finally broke my attention away from my current dress and looked around and then above me, finding a circle of small holes in the ceiling: the speaker the man was using to talk to me, most likely from the other side of the window. I heard a soft chuckle and then the voice came through the small holes once again. “Subject codename Z. I am very pleased to see that you have awakened,” the voice said.
He said “Z” like it was my name... Come to think of it... I can’t really remember my name... Or... anything else about me for that matter... Come on, think... What is my name? Or how about where I live? All right, maybe I can remember where I am now... or... how I got here? What about my age, my family or friends, even my favorite color? ...Dang... I can’t remember a thing... It’s as if every last fact about me has disappeared from my mind completely... Or the way things are starting to seem... Maybe.... they were erased...
“Wh-Where am I? Who am I? What’s going on?” I asked, my voice faltering a bit as I tried to speak. It was almost as if I hadn’t done it in forever. Just as when I hadn’t recited the lyrics of a particular song for a long period of time and they became hazy to me.
Apparently, the speaker was actually a P.A. system, because the voice spoke again, answering me back. “You are cyborg subject codename Z. You are in... well... somewhere you will soon come to call ‘home’. As for any other information... it will all come in time...”
Did... he just say “cyborg subject”? Has this guy been reading too much science fiction or something? His brain must have skipped a few decades if he expects me to believe something like that is possible... The man must have seen the skepticism on my face, because the next thing he said was, “Go ahead. Touch your face... Or your arms perhaps. Or any other part of your body. You will understand soon enough...” At this I began to feel anxiety and fear grow within me slowly. The man sounded far too confident... I hesitated, but slowly raised my hands to my face to touch... cold... My skin... it was cool instead of warm like I knew it should be. I gasped and paused, then quickly grabbed my left forearm. It was cool as well. I exhaled slowly as my breathing became a bit more difficult and my eyes grew wide. I felt as though tears should be forming to roll down my cheeks, but... they never came...
I looked down as I continued trying to let myself cry, then trying to force myself to. Nothing I did changed a thing. I never even felt a single tear well up in either eye. The longer my face remained dry, the more I could feel my sadness slowly turning to anger. I finally spoke – calmly, but it was obvious that I was upset. “What... did you do to me...?” I heard a chuckle come from the same voice as before, and the anger swiftly grew within me. “We improved you,” he then said. At this, I exploded with anger, quickly moving to stand solidly on the floor. My legs felt a bit weak at first as if I hadn’t stood or walked in a while, but I didn’t care. My anger forced them to stand strongly on the floor before I charged at the window and smashed my fist against it. I had hit is just about as hard as I felt I could. I even felt a bit of recoil pain in my clenched hand after the impact. However, there was not so much as a crack in the window showing as I slowly moved my hand away from it, and my fist gradually relaxed and opened once again. Despite my hand relaxing, I was still not nearly calm as of yet. “What did you do!?” I heard another chuckle, this time louder and longer. Obviously this was entertaining to him. I began to loathe this man more and more by the second.
“I think this is an excellent opportunity to channel all of that anger into something a bit more constructive... Like your first test...”
Test? I barely finished thinking the word before a majority of the far wall began to rise slowly, revealing complete darkness. I watched the wall rise until it stopped, the whole of it now in the ceiling somewhere above the room. I stared into the darkness for a second and then looked back at the window. I paused for a moment, contemplating, before I finally turned and walked slowly towards the opening.
I stopped at the entrance and peered inside. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the lack of light, but they wouldn’t. “Improved, my ass,” I muttered. I mouthed a couple profanities and finally stepped into the black. Almost as soon as the shadow of darkness passed over my face, the room seemed to brighten until it seemed well lit. I was a bit surprised, but looked around the formerly pitch black room nonetheless. This one was about twice as large as the previous room I had been in. As far as I could see, the only contents in the room were two large metal boxes, each about half as tall as me. I noticed a tiny red light in one corner of the room near the ceiling. I looked closer and saw that it was a small camera. Another speaker was installed in the ceiling near it.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw something moving. I turned my head to look and found both boxes rising up and unfolding into humanoid robots. “What the... hell?” I said, quite stunned by what I was seeing. My jaw slowly lowered as I watched the boxes unfold to gain torsos, arms, legs, and heads. The machines stood there motionless for a few seconds as tension and suspense built up within me. Then... all of a sudden, a single red light lit up in the center of each of their faces. I instinctively moved into some sort of defensive fighting position. The question of how I knew this position slipped into my mind, but I quickly forced it out as to focus on what I knew was coming: a fight.
The robot on the right lunged forward with his left shoulder closest and his right fist behind him, obviously about to shoot forward towards me for a punch. I leapt sideways to the right as my attacker passed me by. I quickly turned around to the left and winked with my left eye for some reason. When my eye opened back up, there were crosshairs in my line of sight. I then lifted my right arm and clenched my fist as it pointed at the back side of the machine. I gripped the bottom of the forearm with my left hand and suddenly the skin on the upper side of the arm split down the middle and opened to their sides like automatic doors. A smooth metal barrel rose from the opening, and then the crosshairs began to move as I moved my head and arm. I aligned the crosshairs quickly and just as the robot was turned to face me once again, I tightened my fist. A flurry of automatic shots flew from the literal firearm. The bullets left small holes in the plating of the metal man’s torso as his body jerked backwards a little at each shot’s impact. The red light on his face flickered a bit and then dimmed out as the machine fell backwards in a loud crash.
I lowered my arms and looked down at the right one as the barrel lowered back inside and the skin resealed seamlessly. I stood there shocked, unable to believe what I just did and unable to move due to it. That is, until I was knocked to the ground by a powerful blow to the back of my neck. I winced from the strike and slammed my fist into the ground in anger from the cheap shot. I stood up quickly and turned towards the other hunk of scrap metal programmed to fight me. As he came into my line of sight, I could see his right leg already swinging towards my head. I swiftly raised my right hand and caught it at what must have been less than an inch from my face. I lunged my body towards the machine and raised my left hand, clenching it tightly into a fist. I thrust my fist into the droid’s face, the metal twisting around my hand to stop at my wrist. I noticed a strange yellow light coming from behind its head and pulled my arm back, allowing the metal corpse to fall to the floor in another loud crash. I looked at my left arm and found the source of the yellow light. Emerging from my left wrist was some sort of blade made of light or energy, reaching out at least a foot long. It glowed a whitish yellow and actually inspired a feeling of beauty inside of me as I stared at it. However, my admiration of it was cut short as the blade seemed to shorten and retract into my wrist, disappearing.
I stood there stunned as I stared at the palms of my now open hands with wide eyes. I could hear a single man applauding my performance over the speaker, but paid it no attention. What has happened to me? How did I do all those things? How did I even get here? What has this place done to me? These and many other questions darted around in my mind, one after another shooting through my brain faster than the bullets I had fired from my arm not long ago. I could then hear the man’s voice laughing at me through the speaker, cackling at my obvious mental anguish. I forced myself to block the sound from my mind as my thoughts continued to run through my head, taking me over. This is impossible. We don’t have the technology to do things like this! What is going on? This is impossible! It’s only 2005, right? ...Right!?
I awoke slowly to a bright light shining down into my vision. I had to turn away for a moment and squint my eyes to allow them to adjust. I looked around slowly, observing the place I was in. It was a pure white room, the only thing not white being a long window on the wall to my right. It was obviously only for viewing the room that I was in because it was tinted far too dark for me to see through. Actually, there was one other thing that wasn’t white. It was the large metal slab that I was laying on. Did something... happen to me? Is this some kind of hospital bed or something? For some reason, I had a strong feeling that whatever was going on had nothing to do with medical care.
“Finally... You’re awake,” I heard a man’s voice say. He seemed to be middle aged by the sound of his voice. He sounded well-spoken and very articulate, but despite this, I immediately hated him. I sat up slowly, bringing my legs around to slide off of the slab and hang above the smooth white tile floor. My knees were stiff, and I had to swing my shins back and forth a bit before my legs felt comfortable. It was then that I noticed what I was wearing, starting with my legs. It was a tight black suit seemingly made of some sort of rubber. I followed a small silver zipper up the outfit, the same black style continuing throughout to finally end at the centimeter tall turtleneck collar snugly hugging my neck. There were no sleeves on the suit at all, but there was a small patch sewn into the left breast. It was a small gray circle with two yellow letters embroiled into it: “O.L.”. I looked down at my feet, which were covered with black boots seeming to be much like combat boots, but not quite. I turned my foot a bit to look at the bottom as the curiosity of a child emerged from within me. The sole of the shoes seemed to be a thin layer of metal - most likely steel due to the same material being used for steel-toed boots. I finally broke my attention away from my current dress and looked around and then above me, finding a circle of small holes in the ceiling: the speaker the man was using to talk to me, most likely from the other side of the window. I heard a soft chuckle and then the voice came through the small holes once again. “Subject codename Z. I am very pleased to see that you have awakened,” the voice said.
He said “Z” like it was my name... Come to think of it... I can’t really remember my name... Or... anything else about me for that matter... Come on, think... What is my name? Or how about where I live? All right, maybe I can remember where I am now... or... how I got here? What about my age, my family or friends, even my favorite color? ...Dang... I can’t remember a thing... It’s as if every last fact about me has disappeared from my mind completely... Or the way things are starting to seem... Maybe.... they were erased...
“Wh-Where am I? Who am I? What’s going on?” I asked, my voice faltering a bit as I tried to speak. It was almost as if I hadn’t done it in forever. Just as when I hadn’t recited the lyrics of a particular song for a long period of time and they became hazy to me.
Apparently, the speaker was actually a P.A. system, because the voice spoke again, answering me back. “You are cyborg subject codename Z. You are in... well... somewhere you will soon come to call ‘home’. As for any other information... it will all come in time...”
Did... he just say “cyborg subject”? Has this guy been reading too much science fiction or something? His brain must have skipped a few decades if he expects me to believe something like that is possible... The man must have seen the skepticism on my face, because the next thing he said was, “Go ahead. Touch your face... Or your arms perhaps. Or any other part of your body. You will understand soon enough...” At this I began to feel anxiety and fear grow within me slowly. The man sounded far too confident... I hesitated, but slowly raised my hands to my face to touch... cold... My skin... it was cool instead of warm like I knew it should be. I gasped and paused, then quickly grabbed my left forearm. It was cool as well. I exhaled slowly as my breathing became a bit more difficult and my eyes grew wide. I felt as though tears should be forming to roll down my cheeks, but... they never came...
I looked down as I continued trying to let myself cry, then trying to force myself to. Nothing I did changed a thing. I never even felt a single tear well up in either eye. The longer my face remained dry, the more I could feel my sadness slowly turning to anger. I finally spoke – calmly, but it was obvious that I was upset. “What... did you do to me...?” I heard a chuckle come from the same voice as before, and the anger swiftly grew within me. “We improved you,” he then said. At this, I exploded with anger, quickly moving to stand solidly on the floor. My legs felt a bit weak at first as if I hadn’t stood or walked in a while, but I didn’t care. My anger forced them to stand strongly on the floor before I charged at the window and smashed my fist against it. I had hit is just about as hard as I felt I could. I even felt a bit of recoil pain in my clenched hand after the impact. However, there was not so much as a crack in the window showing as I slowly moved my hand away from it, and my fist gradually relaxed and opened once again. Despite my hand relaxing, I was still not nearly calm as of yet. “What did you do!?” I heard another chuckle, this time louder and longer. Obviously this was entertaining to him. I began to loathe this man more and more by the second.
“I think this is an excellent opportunity to channel all of that anger into something a bit more constructive... Like your first test...”
Test? I barely finished thinking the word before a majority of the far wall began to rise slowly, revealing complete darkness. I watched the wall rise until it stopped, the whole of it now in the ceiling somewhere above the room. I stared into the darkness for a second and then looked back at the window. I paused for a moment, contemplating, before I finally turned and walked slowly towards the opening.
I stopped at the entrance and peered inside. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the lack of light, but they wouldn’t. “Improved, my ass,” I muttered. I mouthed a couple profanities and finally stepped into the black. Almost as soon as the shadow of darkness passed over my face, the room seemed to brighten until it seemed well lit. I was a bit surprised, but looked around the formerly pitch black room nonetheless. This one was about twice as large as the previous room I had been in. As far as I could see, the only contents in the room were two large metal boxes, each about half as tall as me. I noticed a tiny red light in one corner of the room near the ceiling. I looked closer and saw that it was a small camera. Another speaker was installed in the ceiling near it.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw something moving. I turned my head to look and found both boxes rising up and unfolding into humanoid robots. “What the... hell?” I said, quite stunned by what I was seeing. My jaw slowly lowered as I watched the boxes unfold to gain torsos, arms, legs, and heads. The machines stood there motionless for a few seconds as tension and suspense built up within me. Then... all of a sudden, a single red light lit up in the center of each of their faces. I instinctively moved into some sort of defensive fighting position. The question of how I knew this position slipped into my mind, but I quickly forced it out as to focus on what I knew was coming: a fight.
The robot on the right lunged forward with his left shoulder closest and his right fist behind him, obviously about to shoot forward towards me for a punch. I leapt sideways to the right as my attacker passed me by. I quickly turned around to the left and winked with my left eye for some reason. When my eye opened back up, there were crosshairs in my line of sight. I then lifted my right arm and clenched my fist as it pointed at the back side of the machine. I gripped the bottom of the forearm with my left hand and suddenly the skin on the upper side of the arm split down the middle and opened to their sides like automatic doors. A smooth metal barrel rose from the opening, and then the crosshairs began to move as I moved my head and arm. I aligned the crosshairs quickly and just as the robot was turned to face me once again, I tightened my fist. A flurry of automatic shots flew from the literal firearm. The bullets left small holes in the plating of the metal man’s torso as his body jerked backwards a little at each shot’s impact. The red light on his face flickered a bit and then dimmed out as the machine fell backwards in a loud crash.
I lowered my arms and looked down at the right one as the barrel lowered back inside and the skin resealed seamlessly. I stood there shocked, unable to believe what I just did and unable to move due to it. That is, until I was knocked to the ground by a powerful blow to the back of my neck. I winced from the strike and slammed my fist into the ground in anger from the cheap shot. I stood up quickly and turned towards the other hunk of scrap metal programmed to fight me. As he came into my line of sight, I could see his right leg already swinging towards my head. I swiftly raised my right hand and caught it at what must have been less than an inch from my face. I lunged my body towards the machine and raised my left hand, clenching it tightly into a fist. I thrust my fist into the droid’s face, the metal twisting around my hand to stop at my wrist. I noticed a strange yellow light coming from behind its head and pulled my arm back, allowing the metal corpse to fall to the floor in another loud crash. I looked at my left arm and found the source of the yellow light. Emerging from my left wrist was some sort of blade made of light or energy, reaching out at least a foot long. It glowed a whitish yellow and actually inspired a feeling of beauty inside of me as I stared at it. However, my admiration of it was cut short as the blade seemed to shorten and retract into my wrist, disappearing.
I stood there stunned as I stared at the palms of my now open hands with wide eyes. I could hear a single man applauding my performance over the speaker, but paid it no attention. What has happened to me? How did I do all those things? How did I even get here? What has this place done to me? These and many other questions darted around in my mind, one after another shooting through my brain faster than the bullets I had fired from my arm not long ago. I could then hear the man’s voice laughing at me through the speaker, cackling at my obvious mental anguish. I forced myself to block the sound from my mind as my thoughts continued to run through my head, taking me over. This is impossible. We don’t have the technology to do things like this! What is going on? This is impossible! It’s only 2005, right? ...Right!?
