Terra barely had times to register the time lapse when the old scientist bombarded her. It wasn’t just him this time either, there seemed to have formed a cluster of grey lab coats in front of her all staring at her with wide eyes and open mouths.
“Try it out!” The old man said cheerfully.
She wanted to curse him out for turning her off and scream at the group, but she noticed that she was standing eye-level with the head roboticist. Tentatively to not raise her spirits, she glanced down and almost fell down in shock from the scientist keeping his promise; she had a body.
Lifting a hand to her face, she wiggled her fingers and then shifted from side to side on her new legs to see just how stable the body was. A clamor of excited shouts rose from in front of her and she remembered she had an audience.
“Do you like it?” The face she recognized asked.
Not finding the words to express her joy at being able to move around she nodded vigorously.
“Aren’t you afraid of me running off or beating the crap out of you?” Terra finally asked when she found her voice.
“We obviously have backdoor trigger words in case you get out of control, but we’re all too interested in finding out how to you came to be and your capabilities than what harm you could do. Nothing without a risk is worth reaching for. Anywho, I did promise you a body if you cooperated, and you did, so I had to follow through on my word. You may have had a negative experience initially meeting some of my colleagues, but we’re not all like that. And this may be very late in the game, but my name is Doctor Neiman. This lovely lady to my right is Yola, the one next to her is Irdis, behind him is Reytoib. Those three are the ones that created the body you’re in. The man to my left is Creedus, the girl next to him is Pil, and the guy next to her is Frez; they’re the main research team figuring out what you are.”
Neiman allowed the younger scientists around him to step forward and properly introduce themselves to Terra before continuing his monologue.
“The last time you were conscious was three days ago. In that time we’ve finished up the prototype body, as you can see, and would like to run some tests to see what capabilities you can draw from it. We've already ran our own tests on the body itself but would like to see if adding a conscious mind will affect the results somehow. With your permission of course.”
Terra was floored by the fact that he was actually asking for her approval before running whatever tests they were going to administer.
“Since you asked so nicely I’ll contact my secretary and clear my schedule.” She agreed snidely, not wanting to let the newfound kept promises deter her from the fact that she had been taken against her will to this laboratory.
“Please follow me then,” Yola spoke up, a smile lighting her face.
Yola lead Terra through a door that led to a large room with markings and colored tape on the floor.
“Stand on that red X. The first test we’re going to run is a field test. The metal alloy we used in your frame is Illicon and can withstand over two thousand megapascals of force in six hundred degrees Kelvin over a square centimeter, so we know it can withstand incredible forces. Considering it is still a prototype metal and body, we don’t know if anything will malfunction when it needs to be put to use. Because this is going to be the next Combatant model, we need to be sure it won’t fail because it could be someone’s life on the line. We will send in one Combatant at a time until the integrity of the body is compromised, so please don’t hold back. We’ll all be observing you and gaining data in that room back there.”
Yola pointed to a glass pane separating the testing room and the observation room where the six others were already waiting for the test to begin. When Yola began her walk to join the others, Terra took the time to admire her new body. She hadn’t expected Neiman to actually follow through on his promise and was too caught up the moment to take a closer look at the body he had given her.
No wires were exposed anywhere as a dark grey metal covered every inch of her body. She was about a foot taller than the perspective she was used to, her new height rising up six feet in the air. A spark of pride rose in her chest when she thought about never being looked down on again unless her opponent was a giant.
“We’re beginning the first test now. Combatant number one entering the field.”
Yola’s voice echoed in the testing room and a metal panel slid aside on the opposite side of the observing room revealing another robot. The Combatant was a slightly different model than Terra had seen before, but it made no difference; she needed to let off some steam.
Before the Combatant could even turn in her direction, Terra sprinted forward at a breathtaking speed and plunged her fist into its head, watching in satisfaction as its body dangled from her outstretched arm.
“Uh, I think that might be enough.” Yola’s shaky voice spoke over the comms.
“Why?” Terra yelled, spinning around in a blur--she needed at least a hundred more Combatants to destroy to let her pent-up frustration run its course.
“At this point, the Combatants don’t have a fast enough CPU to handle combat with you and we’ll be losing perfectly good robots for nothing. We’ll run the test when we’ve added better programs to the Combatants. Please exit the training and we’ll debrief on you on what we’ve uncovered about what you are.”
Terra stared at the Combatant that was still attached to her fist and considered her very few options. She could book it and hope Neiman was bluffing about the verbal fail-safes, but she knew that he probably wasn’t. Indo had stopped her with two words back when she was in the Efficiency model and she hated the feeling of her body not following her directions, so she didn’t want to even chance it in this situation. Her body was incredibly fast, however, so there was the chance that she could get out from wherever she was before anyone could say anything, but she wasn’t even sure where she was. Plus, she was incredibly curious about how the mask was allowing her to jump from body to body and if these people could offer her some answers she wasn’t going to object. Without Alter, Terra was completely in the dark in this world.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Terra removed the limp Combatant body from her arm and exited the room, eager to get some answers. The group was already waiting for her, a mix of fear and awe painted on their faces.
“We noticed that your older body reacted the last time we spoke. Yes, I did notice.” Neiman began. “To the naked eye, the Efficiency looks completely normal, old but normal. It wasn’t until we started taking apart the metal itself that we noticed something out of the ordinary. A strange black metal had eaten the core of the metal and its surroundings, leaving only the exterior untouched so it seemed like the original. Under the electron microscope, the metal had a crystal-like composition identical to the one the mask is made of. These past few days the research team had been painstakingly removing every foreign metal piece in the Efficiency and putting it in a vacuum chamber.”
Neiman led Terra and the rest of the group to a large machine in the back of the lab.
“Things got really weird!” Creedus chimed in, his enthusiasm getting the better of him. “We got nearly 3,200 grams of it from the Efficiency and figured we might as well run some tests since the robot people were having their own fun. Keep in mind this is a vacuum chamber, so there’s nothing else but the black crystals in it so it’s a foolproof method of getting proper results. Anyways, we thought we should test the melting point since its pretty standard, but it refused to melt at six million degrees Kelvin. We don’t have the proper equipment here to raise the temperature even higher so we had to give up for the moment until we get permission to use the nuclear team’s vacuum chamber.
“So we figured let’s run a stress test on it, right? Turns out that black stuff can withstand forces of over three thousand megapascals without so much as a crack. At this point we had just accumulated a bunch of black powder and had it separated and were testing it a few grams at a time, but one of us,” Creedus shot a dirty look at an embarrassed Pil, “accidentally left open a few canisters of the black crystal and they sort of all just...flew together. It was as if they were magnetically attracted to each other.
“We had to run away with the rest of the samples since the larger the crystal got, the bigger the attraction to the other samples and the black crystals would break through the metal container to form a larger mass. It got to 1600 grams by the time we got the pieces separated enough so they wouldn’t all create a mass. We tried cutting it with a laser but that wouldn’t make a dent in it, but when we coated a scalpel with black powder we could chip away at the crystal. It’s seriously the trippiest thing ever!
“And that wasn’t even the end of it. We figured we should keep testing our remaining samples in the vacuum chamber to see if it was conductive or not. As soon as we ran a current through our first sample, it turned into a liquid! When we stopped, it returned back to its solid state, so we ran the current through it again and there was no effect. Keep in mind, this is a vacuum chamber so there’s nothing that could affect the samples besides what we do. We ran about fifty tests and it ended up being fifty-fifty when it became a liquid and when it would remain crystallized.”
“Which is why it wasn’t until your contribution that we couldn’t figure out what was going on with the crystals,” Neiman added.
“What do you mean?” Terra asked; she didn’t recall saying anything of importance the last time they’d talked.
“You told me that you’ve been to other dimensions. I was completely convinced you were delusional at first but thought about how little we know about the universe. I can’t pretend to know everything about the world, so I shouldn’t doubt your words no matter how far-fetched they sound.” Neiman confessed.
“Which is how he came up with the theory that the black crystals might be a version of dark matter we haven’t discovered yet!” Frez inputted, beating his bosses to the punch line. “I mean, what else could it be?”
“Dark matter?” Terra questioned, having absolutely no idea what they were talking about.
“Yeah. Do you seriously not know what it is?” Frez inquired with wide-eyes and Terra felt as if her intelligence was being questioned.
“Have you ever wondered what space is made out of?” Neiman piped up. “Using satellites we’ve taken images of space in order to get a better understanding of our position, but ended up getting more questions than anything else; the biggest being why the empty space between stars and planets is black. Exactly what is giving space its darkness since space is a vacuum? So we’ve called that space ‘dark matter’ and practically everything we can’t explain falls under that category, including whatever your mask is made of. We’ll run more tests once we get access to the nuclear division’s better equipment so we’ll give you a definitive answer once that happens, so, for now, we’ll just put you back to sleep and wake you when we have more answers.”
“Wait!” Terra exclaimed, not wanting to be put back down. “Why did you even need me today? You said you already ran tests on the capabilities of this body, so why did you wake me today?”
“Well, we did want to see if the body worked with you in control and had planned on sending in about ten Combatants to face you on the testing grounds, but after what you did to the first one it was just going to be a waste. I also believe that you are a human trapped in that body and wanted to offer you the courtesy of telling you all we know so far about how you came to be.”
Terra didn’t know how to respond. Neiman actually thought she was human? She studied his face to see if he was lying but couldn’t tell. His face did contort when something dawned on him.
“Oh my god! We’ve all introduced ourselves, but we don’t know your name!” Neiman looked horrified at his sudden realization. Terra laughed, temporarily forgetting about her grudge against the people that shot Petri and took her and Indo captive.
“My name is Terra.”
“Well, Terra, it’s a pleasure to meet you and we hope that we can benefit from each other in the future. If you would please step towards that table we need to turn you off so we can run more tests.”
“Can’t you just run the tests with me awake? I don’t like falling ‘asleep’.” Terra pleaded. She hated not knowing when the next time she’d wake up would be. She hated not being in control.
“I’m sorry my dear, but we can’t allow that,” Neiman said regretfully, and Terra found it hard not to feel as if he was being sincere. But she wasn’t going to be put to sleep again, especially now that she had a body.
Before anyone could stop her, she sprinted across the room to the door that didn’t lead to the training hall and grabbed the handle.
“Ambrosia!”
Terra’s arms fell limply to her sides and her legs locked in place. She stared angrily at the handle to freedom as her arms refused to budge, practically tasting her freedom and yet it was so far away. It seemed that Neiman wasn’t a bluffing man, so she’d have to either escape without him around or wait a few months in the hopes of gaining control over the trigger word like she had with Indo in her Efficiency body.
Terra heard footsteps walking towards her and she suspected with was Neiman going to gloat in front of her about stopping her attempt at escape, but the footsteps stopped when he was still out of her peripheral vision.
“I’m truly sorry about what you’ve been through, but I’m only trying to help. Sleep, Terra, and when you wake things will change.”
She heard a click and those words clung to the air as she fell into the darkness.