General Monroe found herself walking halls again, followed by her usual swarm of assistants. It was a government-funded research facility this time, somewhere downtown. This was where they'd taken the "divine creature" for analysis and investigation.
Out of all the people around her, there was usually one she could tolerate the most. Last time it was President Liedenberg. Monroe had a great deal of respect for the man; even though the man was far from perfect. She was fond of him still. This time, it was Professor Iceberough. No perfect either, though much prettier than Liedenberg; a twig of a woman, 5.6, pleasant enough for chitchat. General enjoyed her company, whenever the two had a chance to talk; sympathized with her even. Though Iceberough wasn't the kind of woman who could make a lasting impression on Monroe (she was easily forgettable whenever Monroe wasn't around her), when the two were together, Monroe enjoyed spending time with her. And, it seemed, Iceberough felt the same way about the General.
"Specimen-689, we call him," she said, walking alongside Monroe towards the laboratory. "Perfect condition! Great physical shape! Amazing specimen altogether!"
"No internal damage?" Monroe asked, surprised. It was hard to believe Specimen-689 was in any kind of shape–other than meat stuffing–after the fall he'd endured.
"No," Iceberough concurred. "His body is totally fine. Better than fine actually. It's as if…as if it were brand-new, for the lack of a better word. The strangest thing, for his estimated age of twenty-three years old, he looks like he was born yesterday. Should have had signs of salt deposition, cholesterol, tissue augmentation, but there's none. It's almost as if…he was a newborn. We put him in the restoration chamber, just in case. Though he hardly needed it. He's resting now."
"Good," General said, holding her judgment until she'd seen Specimen-689 in action; which was her general policy for the new recruits. Never failed her too. No matter what the lab technicians told her.
"His mental faculties are still in question though. We haven't been able to get him to communicate. He doesn't talk," Iceberough said. That would have been something to be concerned with if a brain injury had taken place, but there was no injury. He was fine, brain and all. He was presumed to be hyper-intelligent too, judging by his data file, but he wasn't showing it on the scans. The CT scan was normal for a human. And the kicker was, other than the circumstances of his arrival, 689 was nothing but a human. A regular person, from the looks of it.
They entered a laboratory and it was a large round room, with golden tinfoil for walls; something about gold being a superconductor. It was already crowded when Monroe and Iceberough walked in with all of Monroe's assistants. The two swarms merged with each other, doubling the buzz.
Monroe took a hard look at the restoration capsule that sat square in the middle of all the tinfoil, taking up most of the central space. Wires and hoses were coming out of it from all sides, making it look like a giant fat-legged spider. All around it were the control boards.
It was giving Monroe the creeps just looking at it. She couldn't imagine what it must have been like to be inside it. She was wildly claustrophobic, so she'd never been. Whoever invented the thing, she wouldn't have shaken their hand if she met them. Iceberough welcomed Monroe to the controls, sensing her discomfort and trying to sway her attention elsewhere. At the dashboard, men in white overcoats supervised the regenerative process. At the moment, the retractable shield covered the entire capsule on the outside and cameras on the inside were showing static.
"Right now it's filled with an opaque gas mixture," Iceberough explained. "In a few moments, the gas will be sucked out and we'll have visibility."
"Wonderful," Monroe commented. She couldn't wait to be done with it.
"Stage six, ready at my command," Iceberough said and the men around her started working the buttons. The metal shield retracted, folding away. And as the gas cleared, the specimen began to come out of sedation. His eyes fluttered open and he flailed his limbs. All eyes in the room were on him now.
If Loo was dazed before, he was becoming very alert now. Only his limbs felt heavy, and whenever he tried to move, his body disobeyed. He couldn't recognize the place. Just a moment ago–it seemed–he was in Corby's apartment…And now this. It reminded him of when he was born, though he wasn't born so much as he was made, created. He felt as disoriented back then as he did now. But then the wheels started turning in his head, and he remembered everything.
"Specimen conscious," said the technician, and more buttons were pushed.
Regaining control over his body, Loo tried to rise to his feet, but all he did was bump his head against something.
"Ouch! The specimen appears agitated," the technician said.
"I'd be too if I were in his place," said Monroe.
"He'll be fine," Iceberough hurried to reassure her. "His vitals are okay. He'll regain control over his limbs in a minute. He's all yours, General."
Monroe cautiously approached the glass. The capsule in front of her, now without a shield, had a prolonged glass body. The hum of whatever machinery was making it work was loud, unnervingly so. Because of it, Monroe could no longer hear Iceberough, or not very clearly. She no longer had the comfort of her voice. Sweat broke out on Monroe's forehead, and she wasn't easily frightened. But, somehow, it was suddenly hard to breathe. She found herself alone with the capsule suddenly, even with a crowd of scientists (and whatnot) standing behind. But she could no longer see or hear any of them; she was as good as on her own in this. Her eyes were on the fifth element, and his eyes were on her.
Having stretched her hand hesitantly towards the glass, she touched it and the boy inside touched it too. The way he looked at her at that moment, her skin broke out in goosebumps. He really wasn't human, was he? She had beads of cold sweat on her forehead now the size of peas–just from looking at him. She was a 6.2 woman and she wasn't afraid of much in this life, but she was afraid of the boy. It was a very visceral feeling. She made a career out of not being afraid of men but he wasn't a man, she could tell.
There was no point in trying to deny that she was afraid of him, no point in lying to herself. It was fear and she knew it. Something about the boy frightened her, to the point that the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and she didn't know what it was. They said the boy was a weapon, and he must have been because she knew a weapon when she saw one. And maybe that was the cause of her fear. On the other hand…he looked so perfectly human. She shook her head dismissively, knowing damn well that human was not what he was.
All the while, the boy was studying her–as much as she was him–from inside the capsule. His eyes never flinched looking at her and his hand was still on the glass, opposite hers. She figured it was as good a time as any to start a conversation.
"We're gonna let you out," she said earnestly. "But first you're gonna have to learn those communication skills. So we can talk to you. Get to know you better. Alright?"
He was looking at her, listening. She wondered if he understood at all what she said.
"For our safety," she added.
The boy shifted, looking at her from under his eyebrows now. Didn't seem like he liked the idea, so she tried again. "You need to learn our language, if you want to cooperate. And you want to cooperate, don't you?"
He cocked his head to the side.
"Learn…" she mouthed.
"Leeaarn…" he repeated.
"See, you're getting it," she said, happy. "But we're gonna have to do it faster than that, I'm afraid. We're running out of time."
"Tyyyme…" he repeated.
"Yes, time," she said. "And we're running out of it."
If the boy was a weapon, it was unfortunate that he didn't come with an English manual. She gave Iceberough a glance over her shoulder, signaling that it was time to get started.
"We're gonna help you learn, okay?" she said, turning to the boy again. "Just stay calm. Relax. Let us handle this."
The expression on the boy's face softened; Monroe thought she was beginning to gain his trust. She didn't want to ruin this.
"We're starting in three, two…" Iceberough said. "One!"
For a few moments, nothing happened but then the boy's face suddenly contorted as if he was in pain. He put his hands over his ears, apparently trying to block whatever he was hearing. Monroe couldn't hear anything, so she looked back at Iceberough, puzzled.
Iceberough gave her a thumbs-up. "This is perfectly normal. He's gonna get used to it in a second. He'll be fine."
Monroe wasn't so sure though. The sounds seemed to be causing him pain. She saw him scream inside the capsule even though she couldn't hear him. He started to fling himself against the arched glass walls.
"Is that glass solid?" Monroe asked, disturbed. It looked like the boy was going to break it any second now and hurt himself against the shards.
"It's unbreakable," Iceberough assured her. "Just a few more minutes and we're done. This is all we need. He can handle this."
Monroe huddled her eyebrows disapprovingly, but she thought while inside the capsule he was probably fine. In it, they healed people. They needed him to learn English; they were majorly running out of time. It was now or never, so he was just going to have to hold on a little longer.
Inside the capsule though, Loo wasn't doing so well. Sped up a thousand times, he was being fed an English dictionary over the speakers. It sounded like a million nails scraped on chalkboard; it was insufferable despite what Professor Iceberough said. It was an accelerated course and it was a nightmare! His brain was supposed to be able to handle this, and any other human's brain would have, but it wasn't working on him. It was causing more pain than knowledge.
Despite his vigorous attempts to break out of the capsule, he failed. So he stopped suddenly, coming to understand the futility of his actions. He couldn't break the glass; it was too strong. Iceberough was right about that one. He focused on Monroe then, his gaze growing very still.
"He's taking it. Told you, he'll be fine," said Iceberough, pleased with herself. Monroe had doubts. The way he was looking at her, he didn't seem fine. He was in pain and pissed. He seemed real angry with all of them.
It didn't occur to Monroe right away that he wasn't staring through the glass, he was staring at the glass. And there, where his gaze focused on the glass, it suddenly started to melt.
Done trying to break the glass, the boy considered other options. The glass seemed to be melting under his gaze, where in actuality it was being turned into water. And it was now pouring down the side of the capsule onto the floor, creating a big puddle.
Through the newly-opened hole in the glass, the sounds of the accelerated course erupted outside. And once they did, reaching the ears of those in the room, made them double over. For once in their life the scientists in the room got a taste of their own medicine, and it tasted bitter. And they all screamed.
They screamed all in unison, for a couple of agonizing minutes, Iceberough most of all, before somebody–finally–shut it down. The sounds stopped and everyone stopped screaming.
General Monroe's eardrums popped but then the noises stopped, it was all suddenly okay again. It took her a couple of seconds to regain her bearings. Everyone in the room was left with an expanded vocabulary after this coupled with disorientation. She watched helplessly as the boy, their Specimen-689, climbed out of the capsule. Stepping barefoot onto the cold tiles, he stretched his extremities freely; he'd developed quite a distaste for confined spaces.
Thermobandages covered the most vulnerable parts of his body; he was as good as naked other than that. Not that he was aware of his appearance at all. Not that it bothered him. He was bothered by the walls in the room. He wanted to get out. Intuitively, he knew there was a big world out there, and he wanted to see it. He was done with chambers and rooms; he had enough of that, now he wanted to break free.
A squad of security guards arrived just as he was eyeing the tinfoil walls. They all looked at him, having little idea what they were dealing with. They were no scientists, just guards. Turning to them, he sized them up. They had plastic armor on their chests and limbs. In their hands, they had stun guns. He didn't know what they were but figured they presented a problem.
For a minute, they all just stared at each other. There was confusion as they all tried to figure each other out. The boy had little interest in fighting them; he was just looking for ways to escape. An idea came to his flummoxed mind, and he turned and bolted for the tinfoil wall–
Before anyone could do anything, he jumped full speed into the wall. And as he did, tinfoil and everything around and behind it was suddenly liquefied. He plunged into a newly-created vertical pool of water and disappeared before everyone's eyes. A splash of water doused Monroe, Iceberough, and some of the scientists and guards. They stood with their mouths open.
"Whoa…" Monroe mouthed.