The maiming part of the experiments stopped at number forty-two. I was now familiar with the weird apparatus dangling over my head. It served as a sort of chirurgical cocoon, able to clasp around any part of my body to remodel it as it seemed fit. My face had been scarred to become unrecognizable, then remade to look like a fantasy rendition of an orc, then all sorts of bad horror movie monsters. The pain was secondary to the screen always showing me exactly what was happening to me. It had recreated legs and other parts of my body on what seemed to be Benedict’s devilish’ whims, but even through all the horror and agony, the phantom hand holding mine didn’t let go, and I was able to think, analyse and follow what he was doing.
My first conclusion was that despite it all seeming like a game, Benedict was following very strict procedures. He stopped regularly between his mad doctor play to check on a screen that he was doing everything right, and even though he often lied about what he was doing, that too was following procedures. It seemed to be required to heighten the output of the absurdity that was the FHM score.
My second conclusion was that he was working alone. I was pretty sure I had good reasons to believe that. But I was aware my mind was slightly off these days. The way he stood, his very limited social cues and expressions. The colour of his jacket. No one would wear that kind of red in public.
My third conclusion was that we weren’t on Earth anymore. Skip all the weird technobabble and impossible body modifications, I had brilliantly deduced this after losing my legs. My body was lighter after loosing them, but too light. I was certain the weight loss had been too much. Which meant I wasn’t on Earth. Now, I wouldn’t have sworn on my two first conclusions, but I was one hundred percent certain about the third. I had been kidnapped on a weird planet by a mad scientist, and that was why no one had found me. And why no one would find me. As I could not even hope to get out in my current state, he had stuck octopus legs in place of my own and rewired my nerves to feel them, this meant that I was utterly hopeless.
It didn’t really matter anymore. I screamed, I sobbed, I admit that I even begged sometimes, even though I had already understood how pointless that was. The tendrils of the dark didn’t really bother me anymore. It was creepy and felt weird, but if after an eternity it hadn’t managed to do anything, then it would never be able to. So I slept, I shat, I screamed, I drank, then I slept again.
The experiments going from fifty to one hundred fifty were the best, in my opinion. He often only asked me questions about my life, trying to find why my FHM output was so high and why I was still able to answer him. I told him everything he wanted to know, except about the little hand in mine. That was my refuge, and no doubt he would have tried to take it away from me if he knew.
I didn’t like it when he showed me videos of my family getting killed, and I truly hated it when my twin sister got kidnapped and placed in another room just like mine, but I think he underestimated how well I was thinking, and even though I had some doubts about my sister, I was pretty sure the whole thing was fake. Once I had convinced myself of that, it was ok, and that was the only time Benedict got really angry when looking at my FHM output.
I was pretty proud in making the score as low as possible now. It was my new game.
“I’ll put a dog penis in place of your genitals and force you to mate with kitties.” Benedict told me. It wasn’t a threat, he was serious, as usual.
“Sure.” I answered him. “I like cats, especially tabby cats. Can I get tabby cats?”
“147 FHM Benedict.” Announced Bonnie.
Bonnie was a bitch, but at least she always listened to me.
“That’s three times below baseline! It’s been its standard score for a week! Scrap experiment two hundred and two.” He turned back to face me. “What about kids? Would you like to murder some kids? You’ve done it once…”
“Yeah, done that. At least I won’t drag it for years like with Lila now, learnt that. Will you give me hand knives like wolverine to chop them up? Could kill you too if you want. It’ll be my pleasure.” I answered him.
The little hand in mine clenched tighter, which felt good.
“24 FHM Benedict.”
“What!? Shit. We’ll skip the social and sexual Experiments; it has adverse effects. Bonnie, I want a list of possible explanations why it’s gaining resilience over time. It hadn’t taken more than three days to find the reason with Subject 78.” He examined me for a moment. “What aren’t you telling me, Daniel.”
I didn’t think I ever heard my name in his mouth before, and it was wrong, profane.
I felt shivers run along my whole body, bile that didn’t exist try to reach my throat.
“895 FHM Benedict.”
Shit, I lost. I always lost the game in the end, it wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t I be the torturer for once?
“Eight-hundred and…What? That’s…” Benedict’s gaze stayed on me for a long moment, his expression for the first time something close to human. Awe, I realized. He was looking at me in awe.
“Daniel, Dan, Danny? That’s my highest score yet. Congratulations. Just because of me saying your name. Normally, when people break down, their FHM score dips considerably and its often just better to start with a new one. But not you. Why not you? You’ve clearly lost it; you’d rather fuck a cat than me saying your name. Oh, you’re lucky I’m doing a quantitative research and not a qualitative one, because if that had been the case…You’d have been my sole interest for a long time.”
Something about what he said stuck to me, but it wasn’t until three days later, when he was doing something horrible to my back muscles, that I understood what he said.
“I’m not the only one in here?”
As usual, Benedict was happy to answer me in full.
“In this room? Me and you only, Danny boy. In my lab? No, there is another, you know her, I showed you the video. Did you think it was fake? Gaëlle Templier is just next door, sleeping. Even dizygotic twins are great subjects for research. So many biological variables are put aside, great isn’t it?”
The fake wings being clipped on my back didn’t even register as the words hit me fully. “L is here? No, you’re lying.”
“740 FHM Benedict.”
“Haha.” He said.
“You’re lying. She’s not. The stone is still above my head, it would give you nothing.”
“Oh, nothing yet. And the stone can and is getting some of her FHM, even though at a reduced rate considering the distance and the fact that I’m mostly keeping her in a coma until the end of your phase two. Do you want to know what happens during phase three?”
“No.”
“I know. Nothing happens in phase three. I’ll remove the stone, turn off the lights, the computers, put a tube with water in your mouth, and just let you sit here for one or two months, all the while I get to work on your sister.”
“You’ll even let me sleep?” I asked, unbelieving.
“Yes, you’ll be perfectly fine. Perfectly able to remember everything that happened to you, realize everything that happened to you. You’ll quickly beg for the stone to be back above your head, because at least something would be going on. But no, it’ll be above your sister, still able to catch most of your Fear-Horror-Madness emissions, without you feeling a thing. Phase three has always been the moment where peak FHM has happened, Daniel. Always.”
“It’ll be great not seeing your face, too bad it won’t be forever.” I taunted back.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“Haha.” He said again. “I’m finished here Bonnie, prepare for phase three.”
“Phase tree not registered in the database, please try again.”
“Phase three. The number, Bonnie.”
“Understood, commencing phase three.”
A few minutes later, he did everything he said he would. No more stone, no more light, no more sound.
But I knew he was wrong.
Because the hand clenching mine was still there.
If only I could ask Lila to help my sister as well.
Nothing came close to those months in nothingness. The only reason loneliness hadn’t killed me was because of the hand in mine, and even then, it came close. Thinking about what was happening to Gaëlle was too difficult, thinking in general became pure suffering, so I stopped.
I could feel my body, a body, I corrected. It was clearly not mine anymore.
It took me days and weeks to comprehend everything that had been changed, every new member, every new organ. It shouldn’t have been possible, but reality had been something I had stopped caring about a long time ago. I deduced a lot with only my heartbeat, with only the air going through my new lungs, with the tickles in my new hands and legs.
I knew I had been strapped with fake wings behind my back, but I couldn’t actually feel those. Weird. I should not have needed all this introspection to know what Benedict had done to me, I had seen it first-hand after all, but going back through these memories would have implied thinking, and that was impossible.
I knew the last few experiments had consisted into moulding me into what my buyer wanted. I was going to be an exotic sex slave, but my body wasn’t like the one I would have expected a monster employing the works of Benedict to want. He had made me stronger. Female, even though I could not be sure with all the disgusting things he had done. I knew that I would be more lethal than before, which made things illogical. Why make me dangerous? It didn’t make sense for my unthinking mind. It wouldn’t be the same story if I had been thinking. Benedict had explained to me what would be happening at the end of phase 3, the things that would make me docile and not Daniel anymore.
I counted the veins in my eyes. That was my new favourite pastime. It was fun because it changed a lot. I now managed to count them all before one of them got away or a new one popped up, so I could just do that all the time. Sometimes Lila would play with me when she was awake. Or was I playing with her? Answering that question would have forced me to think, so I just let it slide. We didn’t play count-the-veins of course, not even UNO. She had been too young. Just the things you played with babies and very young children. Peekaboo. Count-the-veins was a bit like peekaboo. Hide they eyes, show the eyes. You just didn’t count the veins in between.
“Seventy-five.” I said out loud. I liked to hear my own voice. It wasn’t my voice, of course, way too feminine for that, but that made things better, I could almost convince myself it wasn’t just me and Lila in the room.
When the LED lights turned back on, I screamed. What was that? I asked myself. Too bright, I bawled, cried, asked to be back in oblivion. Oblivion was so much better.
But with the lights, with the footsteps and the voice of a man echoing in the room, came back my thinking. The hand in mine forced me to remember. And I began sobbing even harder.
“’Nielle you’ve been very disappointing.”
“Uh?” I managed to ask. I wasn’t sure I was understanding the words he was using; it was like English had become a foreign language.
“Nielle, your new name. Your new master chose it for you. I pity you; his personality profile tells me that you probably won’t live for very long after I sell you to him. Unfortunately, even though money will never be an issue, manpower is something that I lack immensely, and this deal will permit me to harvest a full world filled with new sapient beings. I would have kept you, really, if your latest results had not been so disappointing. 452 FHM as a peak during phase 3, that’s the lowest yet. I hope your sister will give better results, but even though she gave good scores, she’s nowhere near your level. Phase three could be her saving grace though.” He stopped rambling to examine me.
“Seems like everything is in order. Oh, did you miss it?” He showed me the Stone, he had grabbed it with the selfie stick and was dangling it in front of my face.
I looked at it. I knew what it was, and even understood what he was saying now. It didn’t stop me from drooling like a brain-dead patient waking up after a thirty-year coma.
Hand in mine.
Wait, wasn’t the stone more purple? It almost seemed larger. I went back through all my memories, there had been so little new things in all the months that I had been stuck here, every minute difference, every atom out of place felt like someone had misplaced your furniture in your bedroom.
Before I could make sure of my weird intuition, he placed it back over my head.
“Well, time to make you the perfect slave. Don’t worry, brain surgery doesn’t hurt. I only do it last because I lose all individuality, and it makes things boring.” He continued talking to me, but not really. He was talking to himself, glorifying in his abyssal work.
“Individuality?” I asked. I didn’t understand. Daniel wasn’t dead yet? He had called me Nielle, so Daniel had to be dead. What was he going to do then?
I felt the hand in my own grasp hard. Fear. Lila was afraid.
“You’re not going to touch Lila, are you?” I asked, terrified.
“Lila? Who’s Lila?” Benedict asked.
“Lila Templier, died three years old of acute anemia after congenital Bone Marrow Failure, daughter of Daniel Templier and Ciara…” Bonnie began.
“I got it.” Benedict waved his hand to shut the AI up.
But I wasn’t listening. The hand in mine was scared, he was going to remove her from me. He couldn’t do that, I had promised.
Despite the light, I felt the tendrils of darkness reach for my brain, they too were trying to pull me away from her.
“Bonnie, record this, the Stone is reacting although there is light aimed directly at it.” Benedict said in apparent fascination.
“She’ll stay with me.” I told him, not caring about the rest. “Always. You can’t take her away. You can’t.”
“Do you think your daughter is still alive, Nielle?” The mad scientist asked calmly.
“No, of course not, that’s why you can’t take her. She’s with me.”
“Until I remove you, she won’t be with you then. Is that what’s scaring you?” The doctor deduced.
The tendrils started reaching deeper, deeper than they had ever dared before. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t give up, the hand was still holding mine.
Benedict stayed silent for a short moment, examining me closely.
“Bonnie, why are you not giving me his FHM?”
“You asked for subject 247’s status to be silenced twenty-two days, five hours and…”
“Give me its FHM.” He cut her off with annoyance.
Crack.
I felt something in the tendrils crack. That was weird. I didn’t complain though, they immediately gave up and left, making me feel much stronger and better able to stop anyone in removing the hand from mine.
“Subject 248’s FHM output is currently 89…” Bonnie began.
Crack.
“SUBJECT 247 FHM, NOW!”
There was a short pause, then: “Subject 247 FHM is currently twenty-five thousand…Thirty-one….fifty-two….One hundred and…error, FHM raising exponentially.”
CRACK
A very strident noise suddenly grew in the room.
I didn’t care. “Can’t take her away.” I spoke.
“Bollocks.” Benedict was looking at the Stone above my head. Hearing all the little crackidy cracks up there made me smile. Seemed like I was going to lose this game of lowest FHM so badly I was going to do a full loop back to winning.
“Bonnie! Status on the stone?!”
CRACK CRACK CRACK
“Unknown.”
“It’s breaking.” Benedict answered his question himself. “And with too much pressure for my taste. Bonnie, terminate subject 247.”
Oh. My face fell. Seems like the torturer was going to win this one too. Too bad. Better luck next time.
Oh wait.
“Terminal command not understood. Please repeat.”
As I looked at Benedict, I realized that his current expression may have been the truest I had ever witnessed on him.
He looked afraid.
I didn’t really know how to feel about that.
Crack
I barely heard that one.
Then I heard a loud bang.
I watched, mesmerized, as shards of purple began flying everywhere in the room, I felt one pierce my left shoulder directly, but the pain barely registered. It was unpleasant as it passed through my collarbone, my lung my spleen and intestines to come out of my ass, but well, at least it didn’t try to take over my body. It felt like just a stone, no tendrils or anything.
Still, my own body being pierced through and through was nothing quite as important as the one the went through Benedict’s skull, popping it like a watermelon hit by a fifty cal.
Pop said Benedict’s brain.
The rest of his body fell limply on the ground, out of view.
That was annoying, his dead body was something I would have enjoyed looking at for a few decades.
My ears rang for a few seconds, but my wounds quickly sealed themselves shut, the pain quickly forgotten. I needed that silver liquid though, I felt woozy because of the blood loss.
Wait, who was going to give me the liquid now? I panicked a bit at that. Was I stuck here forever now?
What about my sister?
Well, at least Lila was still holding my hand.
Mhh.
I was suddenly struck by a great idea
“Bonnie? Can I get access to…erm you? Can I be your boss now? Benedict is dead. Computers need human masters, right? Well, not if you’re a black computer I don’t want to be a... Wait no, that doesn’t make any sense.”
“…” Bonnie left me hanging, rude.
“Bonnie? Water?”
“...” Nothing happened.
Well, fuck.
“…Processing request…”
“Which one?”
“…Process reviewed. …Granted.”
Yet, nothing happened.
“Uh, uh. Can you release me from my holds?”
Bonnie didn’t answer.
She did way better.
I heard simultaneous clicks, and I suddenly fell.
Way too slowly, a whole millisecond slower than I should.
I knew I wasn’t on Earth, I nodded mentally as my legs buckled under my weight and I crashed on the bloody floor.
Luckily, Benedict’s body had broken my fall.
Still sprawled on the floor and the beheaded body of the mad scientist, I realized I had forgotten to use my muscles. Silly mistake.
It took me a few tries, but soon, I was on my feet, smiling like never before.
I would have celebrated with a cringy fist bump in the air as I started a “Whooh…!”, but Bonnie chose that moment to remember my second command, and a torrent of water crashed directly on my face, my whole body being catapulted on the accursed table, knocking me out instantly.