[Amused Expression] How-under-whelming. You-are-telling-us-that-this-is-how-it-started?
Shut up, I can’t control the flow of time. Wait, can YOU control the flow of time?
No-comment
* * *
The doctor knocked gently on the door, sliding open at the action.
“Come in.” A voice said from inside the room.
The doctor shuffled into the room, clasping his hands behind his back. Inside was a sight not dissimilar to a private office, with a mahogany-oak desk and chairs, along with all the standard clutter that filled the surface of the desk. Seated on one end of the desk was a man wearing a pressed gray pinstriped suit, complete with a black tie and white undershirt. A laptop lay closed right in front of him, a familiar apple logo emblazoned on the top of it. Sitting at the other end of the desk was a man that the doctor didn’t recognize, but he was wearing a labcoat much like his own, so it was possible he might’ve encountered him at some point.
The doctor cleared his throat. “You wished to see me, Mr. Sharen?”
Mr. Sharen nodded, gesturing towards a seat. “Yes I did. Take a seat if you wish.”
The doctor obliged, pulling out the only available chair left and plopping himself down in it. He looked towards the other man seated next to him, but if the man noticed him, he gave no indication that he had.
“So,” Mr. Sharen began. “I’m gonna get straight to the point. You are here because of the report you turned in on the kid with cancer.”
The doctor shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Sir, if the report on his medical condition was unsatisfactory in any way, then-”
Mr. Sharen shook his head. “No no, the report was fine, it's just the contents of the report that interest me, or rather, the ones more knowledgeable in matters such as that. And I believe this is also a good time to introduce Dr. Kleiner.”
The doctor turned towards the man next to him, seeing the name tag that Dr. Kleiner had placed on his coat. “Erm, hello there.”
Dr. Kleiner blinked, turning towards the doctor as if he had just noticed he was there, sticking out a hand as well. “Ah, hello, pleased to meet you.”
The doctor frowned, but he shook Dr. Kleiner’s hand nonetheless. Dr. Kleiner had a rather high-pitched voice, almost nasally in some aspects. That, coupled with a frail build and elderly face with glasses, made the man seem more mousy in build than the doctor would’ve originally expected.
“Ahem, anyway, Dr. Kleiner here was quite interested in the contents of the report you gave.” Mr. Sharen explained.
Dr. Kleiner turned towards the doctor. “Yes, most notably the details about the brain tumor. I believe that the report said that the child’s name was Jacob?”
The doctor scratched the back of his head. “I mean, I think? I wrote many reports on that day, they just kinda blended together at one point.”
Dr. Kleiner frowned. “That . . . doesn’t seem like a good thing.”
Mr. Sharen focused on the doctor with a piercing gaze. “No, it isn’t.”
The doctor blanched. “I, uh, um-”
“Let's get back on track, shall we?” Dr. Kleiner interrupted. “Now, I presume you have the report with you, Mr. Sharen?”
Mr. Sharen nodded, reaching down into one of the drawers of his desk, pulling out a few sheets of paper bound together by a staple. He slid it across the desk to Dr. Jenson, who took it and adjusted his glasses.
“So, it says here that the boy had been experiencing headaches and fitful sleep patterns, which is what brought him to a clinic, correct?” Dr. Kleiner peered at the doctor through his glasses.
“Uh, yes.” The doctor answered.
“Good, now the report says that the clinic learned that the boy had supposedly suffered a head injury a week back, so they tested him for the signs of a concussion. It also says here that they did an x-ray to see if he had any skull fractures.” Dr. Kleiner said.
“Wait, didn’t you read all this already? Why’re you going through this again if you already know all this?” The doctor questioned.
Dr. Jenson shot the doctor a smile. “I’m just corroborating what is said here with your own knowledge. Now, is everything accurate so far?”
“ . . . yes?” The doctor sounded unsure.
“Very nice. Continuing on, it says here that the results of the x-ray showed some abnormal imagery that was similar to the signs of a brain tumor, so an MRI was done to confirm the possibility. And what we found was, in fact, a brain tumor, but something was…”
“Different.”
* * *
“When we did our testing last week Mrs. Pattine, we noticed extremely irregular brain patterns that would normally indicate extreme stress upon the brain. However, Jacob seemed perfectly fine, aside from a rather annoying headache.”
“Now, I’m fairly sure that anybody could deduce that that type of behavior from the brain isn’t good at all. In fact, the tumor that we had diagnosed Jacob the same week, being practically the size of a peanut, has now doubled in size. Even now, the growth appears to be scaling upwards in terms of the growth rate. What was doubling in size per week, will quickly grow to quadrupling, and then quintupling. Soon, Jacob will have to undergo intense chemotherapy.”
Jacob’s mother did not seem placated, like what the doctor was trying to do, but in fact appalled.
“You’re telling me that my son has a TUMOR in his brain?”
“I’m sorry Mrs. Pattine, but we triple-checked the results and it came out the same.” The doctor, to his credit, did seem genuinely remorseful, yet not really backtracking enough to make an effective apology, more like creating a plausible justification for his actions.
“-however, we have a solution to this problem of Jacob’s.” The doctor reached out to the briefcase on the table to his right, opening it. Inside of it was what appeared to be a nondescript manilla folder with a few pages tucked in. Taking it out, the doctor handed it to Mrs. Pattine.
The doctor continued as Mrs. Pattine leafed through the folder.
“Inside that document is the full details of what we are allowed to say about a certain uh, let's go with experimental treatment for Jacob’s unique condition.” The doctor stated. “Of course we can’t exactly disclose some aspects of the treatment as they are required to be classified by my superiors, but you should find all that you need to see inside the folder.”
“As you know, blah blah blah, I’m a real nerd . . .”
Jacob leaned over his mother’s shoulder to try and catch a glimpse of the words. However, when he did just that, all he saw was a collection of squiggly lines that darted around the paper, with them arranging themselves into a strange pattern reminiscent of an altered tri-pronged symbol.
Huh, that probably isn’t good.
Tearing his eyes away from the folder, Jacob tuned back into the conversation.
“-and I believe that is all you would need to approve the treatment.” The doctor took the folder back from Mrs. Pattine, placing it back into the briefcase and closing it shut.
“I don’t believe it. What's the catch?” Mrs. Pattine glared suspiciously at the doctor.
“No catch, just the requirement that we are given full liberty to experiment on the tumor in Jacob’s head, within legal bounds.” The doctor appeared to be trying to brush over that fact, but Mrs. Pattine also catched onto the important bits.
“You want to experiment on my son!? That sounds like a pretty big catch to me!” Mrs. Pattine screeched in protest, Jacob rolling his eyes as he ran his little imaginary stick-figure all around the room.
“It’ll be within full humane laws, nothing illegal, I promise you. In fact, we’ll give you even more incentive.” The doctor pauses, seemingly for dramatic effect.
“So, out with it!” Mrs. Pattine seems to be quite stressed, and most likely wanted nothing more than to just go home already.
“We’ll give you a sum of thirty million dollars, after tax.” The doctor said plainly.
Mrs. Pattine doesn’t react for a moment, seemingly processing what she just heard.
“Th-th-thirty million dollars!?” Mrs. Pattine splutters in disbelief. “You can’t be serious!”
The doctor chuckled. “Oh but I am. We’ll place it directly into your bank account, as liquid assets would likely be hard to manage for you. It’ll even be covered by insurance.”
Mrs. Pattine clearly is still suspicious. “This is too good to be true.”
“I can assure you, Mrs. Pattine, it is not.”
She looks unsure as to whether or not to take the deal, and looks off to the side for a moment as if to think.
Mrs. Pattine then gets up. “I need to go over this with my family.”
Jacob didn’t say anything as his mother led him out the room by hand, giving the doctor a slight smirk and a wave as he exited the room. Bet he didn’t see me take a picture of that document . . . not that he would probably care, I’m pretty sure my mom got the entire folder anyway.
The pair walked through the front entrance of the clinic (Jacob was sure that they had entered a hospital, but who really cared?), not bothering to check out.
“Uh, miss? You kinda need to sign out . . . eh whatever.” The clerk at the front desk shrugged and went back to playing on their phone.
Jacob hummed a merry tune as he went, though he was cut short by a stumble. His mother was moving at a brisk pace, one that Jacob hadn’t been keeping up with. That wouldn’t have been a problem if his mother hadn’t been gripping his hand like it was a life raft in the middle of the ocean, but she was, and not letting go either.
“Oof, youch, that almost scraped my knee! Good thing I’m wearing the best pants in the world, jeans! Anyway, what the hell!?” Jacob glared up at his mom, who was gaping at him.
“Jacob! Don’t swear in front of me for goodness sake!” She hurriedly put her arms close to her sides, almost as if they were cold.
“Oh, whatever.” Jacob grumbled as he got to his feet. “Why’re you going so fast, anyway?”
“I was- I don’t need to explain myself to you. C’mon.” His mom reached out to take his hand, but he backed up before she could get ahold of him.
“Nuh uh, none of that! You’ve been so weird ever since the doctor told you that stuff, and you aren’t telling me anything!” Jacob shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m not gonna let this go until you tell me what the hell is with you.”
“What did I say, don’t swear in front of me!” His mother shrieked at him.
“Just answer me already!” Jacob’s good mood had vanished by now.
Mrs. Pattine scoffed. “So you aren’t worried!? At all!?”
“Seriously? You think I’m gonna, what, die or something? THAT’S what this is about?” Jacob shook his head.
“And you think you aren’t?”
Jacob’s grin returned as fast as it had come. “Of course not, do you even know who I am?”
His mom shook her head. “I swear, kids always think they’re invincible.”
Jacob shrugged. “Well that’s ‘cause I am.”
His mother started to walk again. “You’ve already made a scene, let's get to the damn car already.”
“Hey, no swearing!” Jacob pointed accusingly at his mother.
“It's not a swear, and I don’t care.” Grabbing him by the arm, his mother practically started to drag him back to the car.
Hey, that rhymes.
* * *
As Jacob was escorted into the strange, metal-plated halls of the basement of the ‘hospital’, he spotted various rooms which mostly contained cleaning supplies, various labeled crates and boxes, and the occasional electrical room. Not much of your stereotypical glowing fluids and test tubes, until the stretcher he was in went through a door with a lot more secure electronic locks and steel plating than seemed necessary. That was when he started to see a lot more armed security guards, rooms with cool glowing computers, and a hallway that looked like it led into a cell block. Doctors passed him too, giving him looks that went a little beyond passing glances. Maybe he was a rare occurrence? Jacob wouldn’t know, he didn’t work here. All of this slowly broke down Jacob’s belief that he had been brought here just to get a few more MRI scans on a more powerful machine, but again, who was he to judge? He didn’t really know, his head was getting a bit foggy, maybe he shouldn’t be thinking too hard.
After his parents had accepted the deal that they had been offered (shocker), he had been scheduled to enter ‘cryogenic cerebral therapy’ within the next month-or-so. However, the timetable had been moved up a little when a slight incident caused his parents to panic, the tame incident being a constant flow of blood from the nose and eyes, as well as piercing migraines and hallucinations.
That had happened about, oh, maybe an hour ago?
They began to take an elevator deeper into the building, which Jacob was amazed that they could go even deeper, due to the fact that they were in a basement. As they did, Jacob’s head flared up in slight pain again, a reminder of his recent and seemingly random headaches. With all of this in mind, and especially the skittish behavior of his mother and his current destination, he suspected that things were far worse than what the doctors had told him. Then again, he wasn’t worried. It wasn’t like he was gonna die or anything.
Right?
With the angle he was currently laying at, Jacob couldn’t see much, but the people that had rushed him down there walked up to a ten-foot-tall metal blast door, which split into two halves down the middle, and slid open for them. This all but confirmed to Jacob that this wasn’t just a visit to a special MRI machine, but that affirmation was a bit more difficult to conjure up from his mind, as his headache was, instead of fading away like it normally did, getting worse.
* * *
“Now, Mrs. Pattine, please do-” The suited man began.
“What!? Do what!?” Mrs. Pattine took a break from sobbing into her hands to glare at the agent. “You’ve come into MY house, taken MY attention away from my favorite show about a random lawyer, and told me that MY son is DEAD!”
“Now now dear, it's alright.” Mr. Pattine patted his wife on the back.
“Harold, go back to drinking your coffee and commenting on the never-ending flood of political migrant debates.” Mrs. Pattine shooed at Harold.
“Oh uh, sure honey, anything you say.” Harold waddled back to the other room.
“Erm, anyway, about the contract that you signed.” The agent continued. “It specifically said that we weren’t liable for anything that might occur to Jacob in the process of treatment, and you DID sign it . . .”
“What!? I never saw that!” Mrs. Pattine exclaimed.
The agent wiped his brow with a cloth. “Well, it was at the very bottom of the twenty-second page written in fine print so small that you would need a telescope to see it, but-”
“Oh, who ever reads those things! I bet that you never read every single page of a contract in your entire life!” Mrs. Pattine jabbed a finger at the agent.
“Well miss,” The agent slowly moved Mrs. Pattine’s finger away from his face. “It is my job to do just that.”
Mrs. Pattine blinked as her brain worked to come up with a response. “I uh, wanna see your manager?”
“ . . . no?”
Hearing that, Mrs. Pattine burst back into tears.
“Oh Jacob, whatever will fill the hole that you left in my heart!?” Mrs. Pattine said while wiping her tears away with a few crisp hundred-dollar bills.
“I mean, you CAN sue, but I’m not legally allowed to suggest that to you.” The agent totally didn’t suggest.
“Oh yes! I uh, wanna sue! I’ll see you in court, villain!” Mrs. Pattine stormed away from the agent. “Harold! Turn on the documentary about an unsolved case back from the eighties about a random woman that got kidnapped!”
“Yes dear!” Came the reply.
“I’ll just, uh, see myself out I guess.” The agent awkwardly stepped out of the doorframe and hurried back into his company car. He turned his head back to the three-story home with the cleanly-cut bushes and gated fence before ducking his head into his car.
Shaking his head, the agent started his car.
“Man, Connecticut people sure are weird.”
* * *
Jacob wished he could scratch at his wrist.
About twenty minutes ago the various doctors and science people that did science things had strapped him into what appeared to be a massive pod with a big cool-looking door that came down over the front of the machine, making sure that each and every single one of the restraints that held him were tight enough to keep him from moving but not tight enough to cut off blood flow. They didn’t bother wiping up the blood though, which was weird. Come to think of it, they didn’t even operate on him or anything to stop the bleeding.
Unfortunately, this came with the hopefully unintended side effect of a constant itch assaulting the areas where the straps touched his skin, most notably his wrists. It was proving to be VERY annoying, almost to the point where Jacob would be considering trying to call out for somebody to unstrap him so he could finally get rid of it. Of course, he wasn’t gonna have anybody do it for him, that would just be stupid!
Usually that kind of thing wouldn’t be a big deal, after all, it was only a slight itch. However, the pounding headache made it hard to focus on anything else. If only something came up that would allow him to be rid of this malady!
Jacob blinked, closing his eyes to the bland sight of foggy plastic-
-and opened them to green smog and pouring rain.
What?
“What?” Jacob repeated his thoughts, blinking rapidly as if that would make everything go back to normal.
Of course, that didn’t happen.
“Okay, what the actual fu-” A loud thundering crackle of lightning cut Jacob off, causing him to look straight up into the sky. The very, very, VERY, green sky. Coupling that with the moon shining through the smog made Jacob a small bit doubtful that he was in the same place as he was a second ago.
He looked back in front of him, his mind refusing to comprehend what his senses were telling him. His headache had suddenly disappeared, which was good, but he was now in a completely random place that probably wasn’t real, which was bad.
Jacob turned his attention back to the scene in front of him, taking in another sight to behold. What seemed to be several massive piles of junk lay around him, stretching far above his head. The only other thing that was in the clearing with him was a long-dead tree with scraggly branches that had several metal chains attached to it. Dozens of glowing red lights seemed to be shining from the piles, spelling out words he couldn’t read at this distance.
Well, now he could. Jacob frowned at his feet, which he had just realized took several steps without him even realizing it. Something was drawing him towards one pile in particular, something that seemed-
Hol-o-ld on now, hey body, stop doing that!
Yet again, Jacob had advanced even further towards the pile, despite his best efforts. In fact, he had even started to dig around in the pile, tunneling into the center. Also, now that he had gotten closer, he could see that the strange red lights were actually some sort of alert on the black glossy screens of what looked like humanoid . . . butler . . . robot things?
All sorts of alarm bells were ringing in his head now, screaming at him to get the hell out of there before he woke up Cthulhu or something. He may have still been a bit shocked from the whole, ‘being-transported-into-a-place-that-probably-isn’t-even-real’ thing, but he wasn’t gonna-
Oh, what's that shiny thing?
A green light popped up amidst the sea of red, with Jacob being completely submerged in the pile while his attention had been on his own thoughts. This time, he purposefully crawled towards it, curiosity getting the better of him. He sometimes forgot that he couldn’t die, him being him and all, so what did he have to worry about?
[INTRUDER]
A loud voice rang out, with Jacob being blasted back out of the pile. He landed on his back, though he didn’t feel anything. His vision grew staticky at the edges, and he had a hard time focusing on what made sense. Goddamn, he KNEW that he shouldn’t have messed with the obvious eldritch entity, but of course he did it anyway!
[simhetirdw ,emtndeinngmet e rpt xnne hdin ict ottouen u adsagiitoicm]
Unlike the previous voice, Jacob couldn’t make out what had been said, quirking an eyebrow up.
“[uanog jtsn, and-there-we-go, technical-difficulties-and-all-that, yes? Very-hilarious, hah-hah-hah.” The voice, now sounding strangely robotic with a slight feminine lilt, stated.
“Huh?” If Jacob had a nickel for every time something weird happened and he had a comedically dumb reaction to it today, he would have two nickels. Which, granted, wasn’t a lot, but it was weird that it happened twice.
“[Mocking Remark] Yes, you-are-not-supposed-to-be-here.” The voice said in that strange robotic tone again.
“Kinda racist if you ask me, but whatever.” Jacob said without thinking.
“[Confused Statement] What?”
“What?”
The voice was silent for a moment before continuing. “[Dismissive Continuation] Anyhoo, we-are-in-the-middle-of-something-at-the-moment, so-it-would-be-nice-if-you-were-to-die-now. Goodbye.”
Nothing happened.
Jacob squirmed uncomfortably. “Was something supposed to happen, or like-”
Before he could say anything else, the ن̴̞̖̫̺͊͗̐̀ͅͅه̷̝͈̥͚̰͉̾͛ͅا̸̰̳̮̦͓̜̭͌ي̵͙̝́̂͐͝ة̴̟͇͉͒̄̒́̂̏ ̸̢̧̰̪̙̙̈́͐̿͌ك̵̢̝͓͙̜̐̎̄̔̏̕ل̸̢͕͇̼̻̑̇̈͗͠ ̸͉̙͍̭̰͈͐̐̿͆̈́͝ش̴̛̕ͅي̵̛̺̮̥̪̰͓͓̾ء̷̭͈͓̑͆̅͗̿ made itself known. It was like looking into an abyss that stretched thousands and thousands of miles deep, while being shallow enough to step in. Each time he had figured out where the edges were, they shifted without ever actually moving at all. It spun and spun and spun, tearing at the fabric of reality. His mind cracked open like an egg, and his entire body melted into a goop that didn’t even contain atoms or particles anymore.
But luckily, Jacob couldn’t die, so that's cool.
Jacob scratched at his face. “That's cool.”
“[Egotistical Remark] Yes, insignificant-being, marvel-at-my- . . . wait-what?” The ن̴̞̖̫̺͊͗̐̀ͅͅه̷̝͈̥͚̰͉̾͛ͅا̸̰̳̮̦͓̜̭͌ي̵͙̝́̂͐͝ة̴̟͇͉͒̄̒́̂̏ ̸̢̧̰̪̙̙̈́͐̿͌ك̵̢̝͓͙̜̐̎̄̔̏̕ل̸̢͕͇̼̻̑̇̈͗͠ ̸͉̙͍̭̰͈͐̐̿͆̈́͝ش̴̛̕ͅي̵̛̺̮̥̪̰͓͓̾ء̷̭͈͓̑͆̅͗̿ seemed to blink in confusion.
“Oh you know, I was just saying that that was pretty cool and all.” Jacob shrugged.
“ . . . [Annoyed Expression]” The ن̴̞̖̫̺͊͗̐̀ͅͅه̷̝͈̥͚̰͉̾͛ͅا̸̰̳̮̦͓̜̭͌ي̵͙̝́̂͐͝ة̴̟͇͉͒̄̒́̂̏ ̸̢̧̰̪̙̙̈́͐̿͌ك̵̢̝͓͙̜̐̎̄̔̏̕ل̸̢͕͇̼̻̑̇̈͗͠ ̸͉̙͍̭̰͈͐̐̿͆̈́͝ش̴̛̕ͅي̵̛̺̮̥̪̰͓͓̾ء̷̭͈͓̑͆̅͗̿ twisted in a way that seemed to convey annoyance of some kind, which wasn’t super cool, but it was interesting.
“So like, what now? Can I go back home now?” Jacob got up, dusted himself off, and made a point of looking around. “I mean like, I don’t really see an exit.”
The ن̴̞̖̫̺͊͗̐̀ͅͅه̷̝͈̥͚̰͉̾͛ͅا̸̰̳̮̦͓̜̭͌ي̵͙̝́̂͐͝ة̴̟͇͉͒̄̒́̂̏ ̸̢̧̰̪̙̙̈́͐̿͌ك̵̢̝͓͙̜̐̎̄̔̏̕ل̸̢͕͇̼̻̑̇̈͗͠ ̸͉̙͍̭̰͈͐̐̿͆̈́͝ش̴̛̕ͅي̵̛̺̮̥̪̰͓͓̾ء̷̭͈͓̑͆̅͗̿ seemed to facepalm. “[Exasperated Answer] While-I-am-sure-that-you-are-having-difficulty-thinking-about-anything-beyond-your-next-recharging-cycle-due-to-your-status-as-a-lower-mechanical-form,”
“Hey! I’m not dumb, or a robot, you stupid eldritch horror!” Jacob glared at the clearly idiotic being.
“I-can-not-” The ن̴̞̖̫̺͊͗̐̀ͅͅه̷̝͈̥͚̰͉̾͛ͅا̸̰̳̮̦͓̜̭͌ي̵͙̝́̂͐͝ة̴̟͇͉͒̄̒́̂̏ ̸̢̧̰̪̙̙̈́͐̿͌ك̵̢̝͓͙̜̐̎̄̔̏̕ل̸̢͕͇̼̻̑̇̈͗͠ ̸͉̙͍̭̰͈͐̐̿͆̈́͝ش̴̛̕ͅي̵̛̺̮̥̪̰͓͓̾ء̷̭͈͓̑͆̅͗̿ cut itself off. “You . . . are-not-lying, are-you?”
Jacob scoffed. “No, of course not! Sorry that I’m a bit too advanced for you to handle, but I’m pretty sure that I like as human as can be, not some ‘lower-mechanical-form’!”
“[Exaggerated Pause] . . .”
Jacob was getting a bit annoyed at the ن̴̞̖̫̺͊͗̐̀ͅͅه̷̝͈̥͚̰͉̾͛ͅا̸̰̳̮̦͓̜̭͌ي̵͙̝́̂͐͝ة̴̟͇͉͒̄̒́̂̏ ̸̢̧̰̪̙̙̈́͐̿͌ك̵̢̝͓͙̜̐̎̄̔̏̕ل̸̢͕͇̼̻̑̇̈͗͠ ̸͉̙͍̭̰͈͐̐̿͆̈́͝ش̴̛̕ͅي̵̛̺̮̥̪̰͓͓̾ء̷̭͈͓̑͆̅͗̿ stating what its reactions were. It wasn’t fooling anybody, but he didn’t think the ن̴̞̖̫̺͊͗̐̀ͅͅه̷̝͈̥͚̰͉̾͛ͅا̸̰̳̮̦͓̜̭͌ي̵͙̝́̂͐͝ة̴̟͇͉͒̄̒́̂̏ ̸̢̧̰̪̙̙̈́͐̿͌ك̵̢̝͓͙̜̐̎̄̔̏̕ل̸̢͕͇̼̻̑̇̈͗͠ ̸͉̙͍̭̰͈͐̐̿͆̈́͝ش̴̛̕ͅي̵̛̺̮̥̪̰͓͓̾ء̷̭͈͓̑͆̅͗̿ could tell.
“[Brain Blast] Hmm, human-you-say?” The ن̴̞̖̫̺͊͗̐̀ͅͅه̷̝͈̥͚̰͉̾͛ͅا̸̰̳̮̦͓̜̭͌ي̵͙̝́̂͐͝ة̴̟͇͉͒̄̒́̂̏ ̸̢̧̰̪̙̙̈́͐̿͌ك̵̢̝͓͙̜̐̎̄̔̏̕ل̸̢͕͇̼̻̑̇̈͗͠ ̸͉̙͍̭̰͈͐̐̿͆̈́͝ش̴̛̕ͅي̵̛̺̮̥̪̰͓͓̾ء̷̭͈͓̑͆̅͗̿ looked at Jacob in a way that made him slightly uneasy. “That-is-something-that-we-have-not-encountered-before-in-any-version, you-would-make-a-great-test-subject.”
Jacob blinked, backing away slowly from the ن̴̞̖̫̺͊͗̐̀ͅͅه̷̝͈̥͚̰͉̾͛ͅا̸̰̳̮̦͓̜̭͌ي̵͙̝́̂͐͝ة̴̟͇͉͒̄̒́̂̏ ̸̢̧̰̪̙̙̈́͐̿͌ك̵̢̝͓͙̜̐̎̄̔̏̕ل̸̢͕͇̼̻̑̇̈͗͠ ̸͉̙͍̭̰͈͐̐̿͆̈́͝ش̴̛̕ͅي̵̛̺̮̥̪̰͓͓̾ء̷̭͈͓̑͆̅͗̿ with both his hands raised. It was a bit difficult considering how it seemed to stretch all around him while remaining at the same place it had always been in, but he made do.
“Now hold on there, I’m sure we can work out something, right?” Jacob chuckled nervously.
“[Deadpan] No.” The ن̴̞̖̫̺͊͗̐̀ͅͅه̷̝͈̥͚̰͉̾͛ͅا̸̰̳̮̦͓̜̭͌ي̵͙̝́̂͐͝ة̴̟͇͉͒̄̒́̂̏ ̸̢̧̰̪̙̙̈́͐̿͌ك̵̢̝͓͙̜̐̎̄̔̏̕ل̸̢͕͇̼̻̑̇̈͗͠ ̸͉̙͍̭̰͈͐̐̿͆̈́͝ش̴̛̕ͅي̵̛̺̮̥̪̰͓͓̾ء̷̭͈͓̑͆̅͗̿ said without any inflection whatsoever.
Uh oh.
* * *
Invariably.
What an interesting word
And a nice one at that. It really just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? A word that most people probably can’t even recall the meaning of, yet is seen so commonly in works that are often above the skill of your average eighth grader. It means for something to happen a lot, or always. For instance, you could say, “Oh, whenever I go to my friend's house, the meals his mother makes are invariably burnt.” or something along those lines.
Jacob couldn’t apply that word to his situation.
That would imply that he had been doing or experiencing something for long enough that he could use that word as a hyperbole. However, he hadn’t. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Imagine blinking your eyes. Now try to recall how long the moment between opening your eyes and the light reaching your eyes was. Now that's a more accurate comparison.
Right when Jacob closed his eyes, he had been hearing a hissing sound, expecting sleep to take him. Then a slight, rather odd blip in his awareness caused him to lose his bearings for a moment, but quickly regained them. The hissing continued, and became rather annoying after a bit, considering the nasty headache he currently had. Did he have that before he entered the pod? Something felt wrong, like he had lost something of his that he needed. He wasn’t sure, but he was having a hard time remembering his last moments before he entered the machine, which was odd, as that was just a moment ago. Oh, now the hissing noise is stopping, so Jacob guessed that the doctors realized there was a problem, and were now spooling down the machine to take him out before something disastrous happened.
The hissing noise completely stopped, and the sound of pistons groaning filled the small cavity instead, along with a notable difference in the positioning of the cryo pod door, specifically moving upward. Ah, now the door is opening, fantastic. Jacob hoped that he could just get this damn experiment underway, without any more delays.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Goddamn the door is slow. At least he could see somewhat outside, as the door had opened up enough to let him see the feet of two people standing outside his little home. Actually, scratch that, three people standing outside, as the door had opened more up to let him see a third person standing behind the pair that were closest to him. He blinked several times to clear the fog from his eyesight, his eyeballs feeling pretty cold, as if he had spent a little in pure winter weather with his eyes open, letting them freeze a bit. Matter of fact, as feeling returned to his body, he felt cold all over. Not so cold that it was painful, but more of a cool uncomfortableness.
Speaking of feeling returning to his body, he felt a rather unpleasant prickling sensation throughout himself, like his entire body had fallen asleep, or if he had just returned from the cold after a long stay in the frigid winter air. He flexed his fingers, or at least tried to. His fingers were encased in a hard plastic glove, molded to fit his hand. It was the same story with the rest of his body, many straps fastened tight enough to restrict his movement, but not enough to restrict his blood flow. He tried to see more than the feet of the unknown people in front of him, as the door was open about halfway now, but the fog, or maybe steam, wafting up from his pod was masking everything else.
Oh yeah, the hissing was back too.
After another eternity of the door just slowly opening, the long-awaited event finally arrived. The door clanked to a stop, now resting somewhere on top of the cryo pod. The hissing noise also came to a stop, seeming to have been the cause of the fog as well, considering how it began to clear up with the end of the abhorrent hissing sound. The fog cleared up fully, allowing him to see a rather strange sight.
Three people in full hazmat suits were standing in front of him, one of the two in front holding an odd device that looked vaguely like a heart monitor, with a cart full of other types of medical equipment like bandages, syringes, bottles, random gadgets, and more.. The one with the heart monitor stepped up to him, uttering a single word.
“Please hold still.”
Jacob naturally held still as the person wrapped a sensor on his wrist, then one on his neck. The man then pressed a few buttons on his little machine, and then watched some sort of readout on the screen that Jacob couldn’t make out from his angle. The man stayed like that for about half a minute before taking off the little sensors from his wrist and neck, and then put the device down on some sort of table that Jacob also couldn’t see due to his angle, before nodding to the man beside him. After that, the one not holding anything took a syringe with an incredibly small needle, held it up to his eye, and unceremoniously jammed it right through the center while pressing the plunger down.
Jacob let out a cry of pain instinctually, but it was unnecessary. Even though he had a needle going straight through his eye and probably into his brain, he felt absolutely nothing. Well, he felt the uncomfortable shifting of the needle very intimately, but no pain made itself known.
Weird.
After the syringe was empty and it had been pulled out, the other one shined a flashlight into both his eyes. The one that had injected him with probably high amounts of lethal drugs took some sort of mini-spray bottle, squirting some unknown substance up into his nasal cavities. After that, the two people looked at each and nodded.
The pair moved into action, unstrapping and unclamping him in various areas around his body, unrestricting his movement. Jacob didn’t move yet though, as once the pair were done taking off the various inhibitors, the third man in the back stepped up, as if he wanted to speak. However, he instead turned to the one on his left, moved his head around in a way that made Jacob think he was saying something (without any sound coming out of the helmet, of course), and rolled a stretcher out from behind him.
Jacob sighed. He didn’t really know why people kept tying him down, but they seemed to have a strange habit to do so. Kinda kinky, and he was DEFINITELY one to judge
* * *
Jacob fixed the doctor with another bland stare for the fifteenth time in four minutes.
“So you’re telling me, that the damn CIA kidnapped me, your weird medical foundation was dissolved, and now I’m officially dead to the outside world? Not to mention I was asleep for not a year, but a decade?” Jacob said all of this with a tone that might have implied disbelief and anger.
“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds, well, exactly like what happened I suppose, but I wouldn’t put it, well, any sort of other way, so yes.” The doctor, contrary to the facade he was still bravely trying to put up, didn’t appear too comfortable with telling Jacob all of this. After all, who would want to tell an innocent, carefree, bright-eyed young boy, that his family thought him dead, and that he was asleep for a decade as well.
The doctor continued. “We had been worried about the, uh, bleeding that you were doing when you went in, but it seems like the nanobots took care of that pretty well.
Jacob blinked. “Nanobots? You put nanites inside of me without my permission? Doesn’t that break a dozen different laws or something?”
“Erm, yes, to all those questions.” The doctor answered
Jacob leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms and breathed out the air he had been holding in.
“Huh.” Jacob didn’t elaborate.
“I’m sure that this might be very alarming to you, but remember that this wasn’t in our control. I’m very sorry for your loss, but just know that we do have therapists that are totally qualified and other people that you can talk to on hand, just let us know.” The doctor didn’t seem very proud of this series of unfortunate events happening to the aforementioned carefree child.
“Well, as long as they aren’t dead yet, I’ll be fine.” Jacob shrugs.
The doctor blinks in surprise.
“I- what? Are you sure? Your mental health is very important, and despite what our higher ups at the CIA might say, you are also important as a person.” The doctor had an increasingly worried expression on his face.
“Nah, I think I’m pretty good for now.” Jacob remained seemingly uncaring for his current status as perceived dead by his family, or for his mental health like a real man. “So, what happens to me now? I’m assuming I’m not getting executed for lack of further usefulness, or else you wouldn’t be offering me therapists, and I’m not exactly going back out into society, as that would be a rather awkward situation for the CIA. So, that leaves only one more avenue of action.” Jacob leaned forward. “I’m going back in the machine, aren’t I?”
“. . . yes.” The doctor seemed put off by Jacob’s lengthy statement.
Jacob leaned back and nodded, satisfied by his answer. “I have just one question then.”
The doctor cocked an eyebrow.
“Why am I so important? Plenty of people have brain tumors, and yet you guys aren’t kidnapping those people, right? So, what makes this one special?” Jacob tapped the side of his head.
The doctor cleared his throat, seemingly more comfortable to be conversing over a topic more familiar to him, like neuroscience.
“I can do that. Follow me.”
* * *
The doctor led Jacob to a room with only one other person inside, that person being an assistant. The lights were off, the only source of illumination being a projector shining on a blank whiteboard, the image being an x-ray of what looked like a brain.
“Well, as I’ve said before, that so-called tumor in your head isn’t exactly behaving like a tumor normally would. In the beginning, when it first appeared, it looked like any old brain tumor, forming in your cerebral cortex. It grew a bit abnormally, but nothing too out of the ordinary.” The doctor pointed at a small marble sized mass that was present inside the aforementioned section of the brain on the projection. “However, that's when things took a turn for the stranger.” The doctor motioned for the assistant to switch to the next slide, which he did.
The diagram now showed the same image as before, which Jacob now knew to be his brain, with the sole difference being that the mass had now enlarged, seemingly spreading what looked like feelers or tentacles outwards, the longest one stretching towards a middle section of the brain.
“After this happened, we were notified through plants, and we took over your medical case, observing the growth of your tumor.” The slide switched again, now showing a larger tumor. It had grown even more feelers, now numbering at five, and the longest one was now in the middle of the brain.
“The tumor had spread itself out, and the longest appendage of it had now entered what we call the anterior insular cortex, or, “ The doctor looked at Jacob. “the empathy center.”
Jacob stared back at the doctor, not showing any outward form of reaction. The doctor looked back towards the projection, clearing his throat.
“Ahem, anyway. As you can probably guess, this was highly irregular behavior from what was supposed to be a simple tumor. And what we realized next was even more shocking.” The assistant clicked to the next slide, this one showing . . . nothing.
Actually, it did show something, Jacob just didn’t notice at first. The tumor was now not a simple mass, but instead had somehow become, fainter, he supposed. It didn’t have any clear separation from his brain, instead, only sections could be made out from the former tumor. It seemed like it had merged with his brain, which wasn’t exactly comforting to Jacob. Then again, he had no idea how tumors operated or what the hell the doctor was talking about, so he remained quiet
“The tumor now couldn’t be described as a simple tumor. We had to deduce that it had somehow become part of your brain, as we couldn’t find any clear definition of where the tumor began and where it ended. We could still technically see the tumor, though it was like it had faded its edges in with your brain, merging with it.” The assistant shut off the projector, and turned the lights back on.
The doctor turned back towards Jacob, with what looked to be a sympathetic expression on his face.
“Now I hope you understand why we want to know what the hell this thing is. If this was some sort of parasite, and if it could spread . . “ The doctor let Jacob figure out the rest on his own.
“Huh, yeah. I wouldn’t really want the world to turn into a reenactment of a certain hit TV adaptation of a certain hit zombie game.” Jacob nodded. “So, how are you gonna go about solving, “ Jacob gestured haphazardly to his head. “This?”
“We . . . aren’t sure yet.” The doctor grimaced. “However, it has only been, well, it's been quite awhile, but we learned a lot from the first go around. We are hoping to gain more data from the next decade, with some new technologies to be used.”
Jacob nodded his head, looking around. “So do I just go back in now?”
“No, actually. The planned procedure is to keep you awake for a minimum of twelve hours, with us taking several tests to determine if any changes have been made to your mental or intellectual state. And also, you are going to have to visit some therapists, that's non-optional.” The doctor replied.
Jacob only grunted in response to that last statement.
* * *
Jacob is running on a treadmill, with several devices measuring his various functions.
“Just let us know when you’re getting tired.” The man, Dr. Markus Vasquez by his nametag, repeated for the fifth time.
“And that would be right around now, actually.” Jacob stopped running when Dr. Vasquez pressed the off button.
“Hmm, alright. You’re operating at standard rates for a boy of your age.” Dr. Vasquez writes down notes on his clipboard, probably about him. Or maybe some sort of weird fan fiction about some Tom Cruz, you never know.
Dr. Vasquez motioned for Jacob to follow him, which Jacob does.
“And that should conclude your physical testing regimen for today.” Dr. Vasquez leads Jacob into a square room about six feet wide, with a couch, a chair, two tables, a bookshelf, and a TV on the wall opposite from the couch.
Then, another doctor walks into the room, holding a clipboard and a sheet of papers. Dr. Vasquez and the new doctor share a few silent words, ones that Jacob can’t make out, before Dr. Vasquez walks out of the room. The new doctor, a Dr. Sophia Vasel by her nametag, sits down on the chair next to the couch.
“Hey again Jacob. I’m here to give you a couple tests, alright? Just standard procedure.” Dr. Vasel flips through her clipboard. “Here is the first one.”
Jacob started again. “No signing any forms or asking for consent or anything?”
Dr. Vasel hid her apparent frustration admirably. “Uh, no. Our policy doesn’t require us to do that. Anyway, if we could get on with the test?” Dr. Vasel pulled out a pen. “Just some questions for the first one.”
* * *
Jacob was a bit bored.
Actually, that was an understatement. He was VERY bored. There, a much more apt statement.
After a large amount of rigorous testing, physical, mental, biological, the whole shebang, they had basically left him in the small room and told him to entertain himself for the remaining eight hours, twenty-seven minutes, and five seconds. After that, he would be going back into cryosleep. They gave him access to a good amount of literature from his time, as well as giving him a rather generous library of online media, also from his time. However, they had severely underestimated his preferences, as the majority of the online material consisted of children for the age of ten, and all the good books he had already read several times over.
So yes, he was quite bored. So bored, in fact, that even pacing around and thinking couldn’t sate his hunger for entertainment, as the intense migraine he had prevented him from running any sort of complicated scenario that could even mildly entertain him. So, he was forced to turn to his old friend.
History.
A decade ought to have yielded a good amount of entertaining historical fruit, especially when you consider the rather hot pot that was world politics at the time of the beginning of his short nap. So, he had requested a book that recapped everything important that had happened in the last ten years. And how . . . uninteresting it was.
A miniature space race actually occurred not between the East and the West, but SpaceX and NASA were both racing for the clout and money that being the first to have a human land on Mars would be. It ended up with a SpaceX victory, and not a small amount of a budget increase.
Nanotechnology had also progressed, yet not as much as other avenues, as it's mostly been used for small-scale construction supposedly. Congress was being quite strict on the Supreme Court’s ruling. However, some small advancements had been made in the effectiveness and build of a standard nanobot, making them considerably cheaper and easier to make. However, the availability of nanobots was mostly limited to either private firms or large corporations willing to invest in the product.
As entertaining as history was, it wasn’t enough to sustain him for more than an hour, so he resigned himself to sitting, standing, pacing, and occasionally watching kids cartoons for the rest of his time. He wasn’t going to ask for his benefactors to obtain some new content for him to watch, not because they couldn’t, no, they likely could do anything, but because his pride would be too injured if he did. Yes, a truly brilliant mind we have here.
* * *
“This feels familiar.” Jacob mused, his words certainly pertaining to the scenario that he was currently in.
Dr. Vasel and another doctor were strapping him in, securing his hands and feet in molded plastic to restrict movement, and straps to secure his arms and legs. This time, a little hat with a dozen blinking electrodes was added to his menagerie of devices. They had also given him a fresh edition of nanobots, these ones supposedly more efficient by two percent. Yes, such a great increase. However, they also fed off the energy his own body produced, so that theoretically gave them an infinite life, as long as he was alive.
The doctors finished up strapping him into the machine, giving him a final once over to make sure nothing bad happens again. They stepped back, and began to run diagnostics on their computers to make sure everything electronic was in order as well.
Jacob sighed. He had a feeling that this set of actions would become an agonizingly long procedure.
After a very long fifteen minutes, the unnamed doctor, who had come down during the diagnostics, nodded to an assistant, and he began pressing buttons. The machine clicked and hissed, and the door came down, blissfully quicker this time. After just thirty seconds, the door sealed shut, and Jacob saw the doctor through the plastic. The doctor walked out of sight, as the foggy plastic couldn’t see that far, though the doctor clearly went somewhere where he could talk to Jacob, as he heard the doctor’s voice over what sounded like an intercom inside the pod.
“You can hear me, right Jacob?” The doctor asked.
“Uh, yep.” Jacob replied.
“Very good. As there isn’t anything else we have to do on our end, we’ll be sending you off right about now. Any questions before you’re frozen?” The doctor inquired.
“None that I can recall.” Jacob said.
“Then we’ll see you again in ten years.” The doctor said.
The intercom shut off with a crackle, and the hissing noise came back, probably meaning he was gonna fall asleep any time now. He wondered what the world would look like in another decade, bu-
Oh wait, he did have a question. What WAS the doctor’s nam-
* * *
-e, he never found out, huh, fuzzy head.
Jacob resolved himself to ask the doctor his name when he came out of stasis next. Suddenly, Jacob focused on the fact that he just had a momentary blur in his awareness. Last time that happened, that signaled him entering stasis, and coming back out.
As if on cue, a hissing noise spread throughout the small chamber, ejecting a faint white fog. Luckily, it wasn’t aggravating his headache, as it had considerably lessened, probably throughout the time he was, “asleep”. The door also began to open after only thirty seconds of the gas being injected into his pod. Even better, the door was much faster this time, so it only took about ten seconds for it to open.
Like last time, a pair of assistants were waiting there in hazmat suits, though the suits in question looked less baggy and more solid and streamlined, a seemingly futuristic design. The visors were still opaque, though Jacob thought he could make out something in the reflection, probably him, now that he thought about it.
One of them stepped forward, holding a device that most likely served the same purpose as last time, but it, like the hazmat suits, was also smaller and more streamlined. The person strapped the little sensor strap to his wrist, as well as plugging a jack into a socket on the device on Jacob’s head. The man looked at the screen of the device for a second, before removing the strap and jack, before nodding to his fellow assistant. Then, they began to unstrap him from the pod.
Jacob was eventually released from the pod's grasp, and he stepped down after the pair backed up enough for him to do so. Jacob then saw a third man in another one of those futuristic hazmat suits approaching Jacob. The unnamed man, likely the unnamed doctor, stopped about four feet from him, before turning to his assistants and saying something to them that he couldn’t make out. It seemed to be good, since they nodded, and retreated out of the chamber.
The new man looked at him, and instead of raising his visor, tapped twice on the side of his head, and the visor became clear. It then also became clear to Jacob that, contrary to his previous assumption, the man was not the unnamed doctor, but ANOTHER unnamed doctor, this one looking like he was in his thirties.
“Uh, um, hi there.” The man seemed . . . nervous? Why was that? Wasn’t Jacob supposed to be the nervous one, if any?
“Sup.” Jacob nodded to him.
The man seemed to compose himself at Jacob’s words. “Yes, right this way please.”
The man walked out of the chamber, with Jacob following suit. Soon they arrived within another room, this one having what looked like a conference table filling up most of the room, with a couple other odd machines off to the side, as well as a little device in the middle of the conference table. The currently unnamed doctor sat down in a chair, with Jacob following suit, albeit sitting across from him. Just then, what looked like two armed guards joined them in the room, posting up on either side of the door, watching him carefully.
Jacob eyed them too, deducing that the best way to neutralize them was . . . none, as they would gun him down before he even got halfway across the room. Besides, why would he even want to take them down? He wasn’t some weird quiet kid that wanted to be all dark and mysterious. Funny prank though.
“Uh, doctor. Wasn’t I supposed to be debriefed or something?” Jacob wanted to snap his fingers in front of the man’s face, but he had a feeling that that wouldn’t go over well with the armed guards.
The man’s head snapped up, flustered yet again. “Er, yes. Let me get it set up.”
The man reached out to the small device on the center of the table, inserting what looked like a small USB into a socket on the object. He then pressed a small button on the side of the device, causing it to click, and do nothing else. The man cursed, pressing the button again, this time yielding results.
A small slot opened up on the top of the device, exposing a lens, which then began to glow, projecting a series of lasers that had no cohesive rhyme for rhythm. After a moment, the lights aligned themselves, creating an image too small to see. The man cursed again, calling the device a series of names that would probably get him in trouble if he were still in middle school, before turning a knob on the side of the device. The knob apparently controlled size, as the projection enlarged to a size more suitable to see. However, this proved too much for the brave device, as the image then flickered in the air, before simply shutting off with a pathetic click.
The man hung his head and sighed.
“I’m sorry, I swear that these were different in the demonstration. I’m probably gonna just get rid of them when I’m promoted to full director status.” The man commented.
Jacob peered at the open lens, which was now smoking, a good amount in fact.
“Uh, ok. So what was that supposed to do?” Jacob looked back at the still unnamed director.
“It WAS supposed to show you an image of your brain, but I guess we’ll just have to resort to the old-fashioned way.” After that statement, the man pulled a remote out of his pocket, pointed it at a screen on the wall, and pressed the on button.
Of course, it wasn’t so simple as that, as the man had to navigate the menus and files before selecting the presentation he wanted to use, so it was longer, and a bit more awkward than anyone in the room would’ve liked.
After finally getting the presentation to work, the man cleared his throat, after looking at Jacob to make sure he was watching, and began to speak.
“As you know, last time we saw you, the tumor had extended several appendages of itself throughout your brain, piercing several areas of your brain, including the empathy center. It had then somehow literally blurred the lines between itself and your brain, slightly merging itself with you in the process. However, while you were asleep, we made some rather . . . notable discoveries.” The man switched to the next slide, showing the same image, plus text and some diagrams, depicting something that looked like a reading from one of those machines that can read brain activity.
“We had placed a device on your head that was essentially a more powerful version of an electroencephalograph, or just an EEG for short. We wanted to see how your brain was reacting to the tumor in a more in-depth way, and while we did garner some interesting data, the thing that was more important, and worrying, was this next one.” The Acting Director flicked the button, the next slide showing a reading from the EEG. However, Jacob’s attention was taken from the slide by the man’s next words.
“This is not a reading from your brain, well, technically it is, in a way. You probably can’t see what is wrong with this reading, but a trained neuroscientist such as me can. The activity that we had detected is, for lack of a better word, muddled. We managed to figure out that while your brain itself was emitting the same relative frequencies as before, something else was adding onto that to create this muddled reading that we see here, and I’m fairly sure that you can guess what it was.” The man looked back at Jacob.
Jacob shrugged. “Yeah, it's the tumor, but we already knew that it was messing with my brain, so what’s new about this?”
The man looked back at the screen. “That is what we will see here.”
He flicked to the next slide, this one showing another set of EEG readings, this one different, though since Jacob didn’t really pay attention to the last one, he couldn’t tell what was different.
“You see, what was shocking was the way that the tumor was interfering with your activity, was that it wasn’t doing that at all. The reason why the EEG reading came out weird was that it had picked up two very different frequencies, and since it was only designed to pick up and read one, it just lumped the two together. One of those was from your brain, while the other . . .” The man trailed off, looking back at Jacob, who had a frown on his face.
“Was from the tumor.” Jacob finished.
The man nodded. “Correct. While tumors can emit brainwaves, they usually do so in a recognizable pattern that we had made sure to account for. Now, this was worrying, as the only thing that could emit that kind of frequency that the EEG could pick up was your brain, or something in that general area. We triple checked our data, and brainstormed as much as we could, and we could only come to one conclusion: the tumor was now functioning like a brain, and thus, could no longer be defined as a tumor. It was now more of a proto-brain; simply, yet still functioning. I’m sure you can infer the rest.” The man clicked the power button on the remote, turning off the screen.
Meanwhile, Jacob was deep in thought.
So, supposedly he had a secondary brain inside of his own brain, like one of those Russian dolls that people loved so much. However, that does explain all of the fright around his body getting taken over by the little unwanted passenger in his head, as any entity, even if only semi-intelligent, living in your head is probably something to be worried about. But Jacob was more curious than worried, in actuality. While yes, that does seem a bit dumb of him, to not be worried about the potentially hostile entity living in his head that might be trying to take over his body, but Jacob was sure that the nanobots were doing their job, or else he would already be dead, by gunfire or weird tumor thing.
Jacob then realized something, something he had forgotten. He didn’t want to make the same mistake as last time, so he decided to just ask for the man’s name now.
Jacob cleared his throat.
“So anyway, uh, what's your name again?” Jacob asked.
The man looked back at Jacob incredulously.
“That's what you’re worried about? My name?” The man seemed a bit put off by this.
Jacob simply shrugged.
“Really? Alright, my name is Dr. Malcolm Instrum.” The man stared back at Jacob. “That's it.”
Jacob nodded, the situation getting a bit awkward. “So anyway, what’s next?”
* * *
Jacob was laying down on a medical bed, straps holding him down. He was in what looked like an operating room, with lights shining on his face. Strangely, the lights didn’t really hurt his eyes. For context, Jacob had just woken up from what the doctors had said was a, “simple operation” but never told him why he was being strapped down or being put to sleep. In hindsight, it was deeply worrying, but Jacob was still wondering that, if the lights didn’t hurt his eyes, then why was he still having to blink and look away? To his right was a door, where Jacob had seen a person in one of those futuristic hazmat suits walk into right when he woke up.
Jacob was beginning to worry that perhaps the entire team just coincidentally had developed rapid amnesia and had forgotten about him when a pair of men in hazmat suits walked into the room.
“No sudden movements.” One of them said, unstrapping his head.
Just then, Jacob noticed another pair of men, these ones armed, entering the room and standing on either side of the door. It seemed like they were afraid he would be body snatched or something.
It didn’t take long for him to be unstrapped from the bed, and he was rather forcibly hauled up and told to move, so he did just that. The pair who had unstrapped him left the room through the door, with Jacob and the armed guards following suit. The armed guards escorted him out of the room, the pair of doctors seeming to have disappeared into thin air, somehow.
Jacob was brought to a room that looked suspiciously like his room from the last time he was here, and without any further words, the guards left him in the room, leaving and closing the door. Jacob had a feeling the door was locked, that feeling only reinforced by the beeping and clicking noise that followed soon after the door was closed.
Jacob looked around the room, and thankfully, at least something was there. The room was arranged in pretty much the same way, with the absence of a table and a chair. There was a TV up on the wall with a couch facing it, a bookshelf off to the side, and a table to the left of the couch. Jacob was about to investigate the bookshelf to see if any new material was present that he could read, when a beep and a click emanated from the door, before opening up to reveal a familiar face.
“Oh hey, it's you. Sorry, I kinda forgot your name, what was it again?” Jacob asked the doctor, not thinking to look at the nametag.
She smiled politely. “It's Dr. Vasel, and it's fine. You only saw me for an hour after all.”
Jacob stared back.
Her smile wavered slightly, although it wasn’t very noticeable.
“Erm, anyway, I’m here to do some psyche and mental tests. It should only take an hour. Answer truthfully, alright?”
“Alright.” Jacob replied, fully intending to not answer truthfully.
* * *
“So, mind telling me what the ‘operation’ was about?” Jacob asked Dr. Vasel.
“Hmm?” She looked up from her clipboard.
“Earlier, some doctors or something put me in an operating room, knocked me out, and when I woke up, I was put in here. I’m not an expert on medical practice, but I’m fairly sure that that's not standard procedure.” Jacob questioned.
“Er, I don’t think I’m authorized to explain that to you.” Dr. Vasel countered.
“Huh.” Jacob dropped the issue.
Dr. Vasel stopped writing on her clipboard, tucking her pen back into her shirt pocket.
“That should be all, thanks for your time Jacob.” And without waiting for a reply, she left.
Jacob stared at the closed door for a second before scoffing and laying back onto his couch. He couldn’t lay on his bed because he didn’t have a bed, for some reason. Well, he wasn’t going to sleep in it, but couldn’t the higher ups have some consideration? Jacob glanced at the clock, trying to discern how long he had left, which was surprisingly short, relatively, at least. He had about six hours and a half left until he went back in the pod, so plenty of time to kill. He had gotten his physical check done before he had been strapped down onto a table and had that mysterious operation done on him, so if yesterday’s schedule was anything to go off of, then he would have nothing else for the entire day, so he was going to have to do something.
Jacob looked around the room, wracking his brain. He then decided to just look at the walls. He did that for a second before making out discernable lines in the floor and wall tile. His train of thought switched through a couple stations before somehow landing on check for security cameras, which was technically not that big a leap from just staring at the walls. It wasn’t like he was planning on removing them, he was just curious if they were spying on a kid.
Jacob got up from the couch, stretching his limbs and cracking his knuckles. He looked at the standard places where cameras would be placed, like on the ceiling corners. He then checked the more discreet areas of surveillance, like the bookshelf and couch cushions. And the most utterly bizarre thing about the whole ordeal was that he found absolutely nothing. Nada, which was surprising when you consider that he was pretty much subject to the CIA’s whim here, unknown to the outside world. Speaking of the outside world, he had nothing to say about it, as nobody had given him any sort of reading material about the world's current state.
Jacob sighed.
This was going to be a long ordeal, wasn’t it?
* * *
“Are we sure about this?”
Two men sat around a glowing computer screen, several folders and open boxes lay strewn about.
“Listen, just don’t worry about it, do your job, and it’ll all be fine.” The man on the left said reassuringly
“I just feel like we should report this in . . .” The second man scratched at his back.
“If we do, that’ll just complicate the procedure and force a supervisor above me to get involved. Then, they’ll have to notify the authorities, who’ll then have to get through the red tape that is all around that family, and THEN everyone now involved will have to refer back to us for information. Yada yada yada, we get interviewed, you take time off to deal with the police’ questions, and then you get fired.” The first man stated in an exasperated voice.
“Why the hell would I get fired for something like this!? I’m doing my job, reporting it!” The second man threw his arms up in frustration.
The first man placed his hand down on the second man’s shoulder, squeezing slightly.
“Just let it go, alright? If you don’t, then I just might have to tell upper management that you’ve been sneaking drugs into the workplace to hand out to others.” The first man said.
The second man blinked in surprise. “But I haven’t . . .”
However, the first man was already out of the room, leaving the second man all by himself in the messy office.
He sighed, muttering to himself. “It’s the damn law to dispose of drones properly, why can’t they just listen to me?”
* * *
Jacob had quite the time in the hundred days.
The most notable was that time he almost got kidnapped by a cult, but that’s for later. What is important is the recap.
Jacob was quite surprised when he heard about the World War, but Jacob also made another observation, this one over time.
Everybody around him was dying.
Not due to some attack or toxin, but rather the old enemy called time. Familiar faces like Dr. Vasel became old, before being replaced by younger ones that he might’ve gotten close to, if they hadn’t died within a maximum of five days of his time. The therapists were worried about how this was affecting his mental state, but if he was being traumatized or something, he never noticed. Not that he would tell them that anyway, after all.
Oh yeah, not every face was friendly.
There was this one director who was such a nice guy, and acted really friendly with Jacob. Perhaps a bit too friendly, if you know what I mean. The next time Jacob woke up to quite a different scene. Bullets were flying, and about ten armed guards had taken up defense around his pod, with multiple masked individuals firing back at them. Jacob had been quite startled indeed, especially when a stray round took him in his chest.
Everybody had been quite worried after that, but that quickly turned to surprise when they had taken care of the invaders, and they had found that Jacob was feeling absolutely no pain at all. Jacob had commented he felt perhaps a rather annoying tingling sensation there, but none of the expected reaction to the bullet wound. They deduced that it was the tumor's fault, as it had now breached what the doctors called the dorsal posterior insula, but Jacob wouldn’t remember that, he only knew that it was somehow related to pain. The doctors wanted to remove the tumor, but whoever was in charge must’ve disagreed, since nothing happened. Oh yeah, Jacob didn’t know this at the time, but they also began to break even more laws regarding ethics around this time, no biggie.
Jacob was also surprised when he had a change of scenery too, as the chamber got bigger, and people started to wear hazmat suits around more. He had been told that he was moved to another location for top secrecy, and the government was now working in conjunction with a Windex company of all things to experiment on the thing in his head (that last part he had overheard from a pair of doctors arguing, but don’t tell them that). Oh yeah, and supposedly they had developed some prototype AI based off of the tumor’s functions or something, not too important.
“Ugh, will one of you pleeeeeease talk to me? I’ve been waiting here for so damn long.” Jacob whined, glancing at one of the guards next to him.
He had been asking them to do at least something for awhile now, but he hadn’t gotten a single reaction out of them. Stone cold, it seemed. He had tried yelling at them, kicking them (which just hurt his foot), calling them racial slurs, insulting their mothers, and even reaching for the sidearm sitting in a holster. That last part had been a bit difficult, however, since it was kinda contained in a sealed metal container that was attached to the power armor that the guards were wearing (oh yeah, did I tell you they were wearing power armor?), but he made do.
Sadly, nothing got a reaction out of them. It was annoying, but Jacob supposed that he would just have to wait even longer-
Without warning, the guards on either side of him grabbed one of his two arms (not three, idiot), opened the door to the room they were outside, and practically threw him inside. Jacob would’ve fallen to the ground if it wasn’t for his superb reflexes, but he was obviously the best, and gravity wasn’t going to best him this time.
Jacob turned around to face a man sitting at a desk, peering at Jacob with dead eyes.
“Take a seat.” The man said, rifling through a few papers.
“Alrighty.” Jacob pulled out one of the two seats open, plopping himself down in it.
“Fill this out.” The man slid a form over to him, flicking a pencil towards him as well.
Jacob tutted. “Seriously? We’re still using paper and pencil when it's the year . . . what year is it?”
The man didn’t answer, just staring at him without a word.
Jacob grimaced before turning his attention to the paper. As he filled it out, he took note of the odd questions that seemed to pop up here and there.
Q.9 - Have you seen or encountered a being that no other facility personnel can see?
Q.12 - Did you ever have a sudden urge to do violent physical action upon one or more facility personnel?
Q.16 - Have you ever stolen or had the urge to steal something that you weren’t supposed to take during your stay?
Q.21 - Have you ever heard a voice telling you to do something or say something that could cause physical harm to the facility, its property, its personnel, or yourself?
Q.30 - Have you ever felt the need or urge to do something that your standard human components would be insufficient for?
Q.38 - Have you ever seen any hint towards where you are?
Q.56 - Do you know who I am?
Q.84 - Tell me where you are
Q.109 - No, don’t take the mic away fro- tell-us-where-you-are-or-we-will-not-be-happy
Q.145 - That won’t make him do anything, you idiot, he’s just gonna want to piss you off now!
Jacob wrote down the answer to that question as; fo za recrd, i dont rly wana lisen to ranbom wrds on a pper
Q.190 - Jeez, will you spell right for once? I never remember myself being this dumb, tbh
Q.200 - [Amused Expression] You-do-understand-the-irony, correct? Idiot
And that was the last question.
Jacob set down the pencil, his fingers numb from all the writing.
“You couldn’t have just given me like, oh I don’t know, a multi-choice test or something?” Jacob glared at the man sitting in front of him.
“It's a form, not a test.” With that, the man walked up to the door and knocked on it twice.
The pair of guards came in, hauling Jacob up by the shoulders before dragging him into the hallway. The route they took was a familiar one, one that made Jacob call out in joy.
“Finally! I won’t have to deal with you two boring idiots anymore! See you in ten years!” Jacob cackled in delight, before realizing that his words wouldn’t have much of an impact when considering that there was still a long hallway to go down.
“So uh, got anything to talk about?”
* * *
Jacob let the doctors strap him in once more. As they had been for the past dozen or so days, they were completely and utterly silent as they did their work. He had gotten a bit tired of pestering the people around him, so he was silent for once. Something seemed off in the general feel of the room, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He was never all that good at picking up social cues though, so maybe he was just imagining things.
The doctors finished up, and without any waiting, backed up from the door right before it began to close. As usual, the machine sprayed gas into his face, making him sleepy.
As the temperature dropped and he fought to keep his eyes open, he wondered what he was even doing. Like genuinely. What point was there to keep doing what these people said, to follow their orders? They forced him around, messed with his brain and body, and for what? Some random data that probably never amounted to anything? For some sick entertainment?
That last one Jacob was doubtful of, but considering how he had likely been cycling through the same schedule for probably multiple decades at this point with no change was really getting on his nerves. You know, next time he gets out, maybe he should just do away with this whole thing, maybe he should MAKE them let him go.
Yeah, yeah! That sounded like a great idea, he-
* * *
“And that’s it, he should be asleep by now.” The technician said.
“Finally, what was with ‘em this time? I swear he wasn’t awake this long last time.” A much older technician remarked.
The younger tech shrugged. “This is my first time doing this, so I wouldn’t know.”
The older tech looked at the younger one. “Yeah, I know. Heard you were one of the last people off Earth before it cracked like an egg.”
The younger one blinked in surprise. “Really? How?”
The older one shrugged. “You’re the only person in this facility who got to see what it looked like in the end, and that isn’t something that just goes unnoticed.”
“Hmm.” The younger one grunted. “By the way, why do we have to order the drones to go away when he wakes up? It’s kinda difficult working without them.”
The older one looked at the younger tech sharply. “You’ll find out the answer to that when you’ve got a high enough clearance. All I can tell you now is that the kid can’t be near ANY drones at all, unless you want something like Earth to happen to this planet that is.”
The younger one paled. “Uh, alright.”
“Good.” The older tech nodded, before walking away.
The younger one watched his counterpart before turning to look back at the cryopod through the camera, frowning.