Another day at the lab, the professor thought as he looked up from his cold metal work desk, the other two are late again. He was referring to his other “research partners,” the colonel and the doctor, who stumbled in through the automatic sliding door. He said nothing as usual and pretended not to mind the stink of their breath that wafted through the air. Thousands of years of scientific advancement and we still can’t seem to get over alcohol, he thought. Suddenly, a voice on the intercom registered the presence of the three and signaled the start of the work day. He continued his work as the other two slumped into their chairs.
After the day had gone well on its way, a buzzing noise rang at one of the rectangular glass windows inside the lab across from the table where the professor was working. Looking through the window, the professor was reminded of the fact that on the other side of the glass was not towering skyscrapers like the outside with which he was familiar. Rather than that familiar skyline, there was a conveyor belt, in a blindingly white room, smoothly churning out something. Above the conveyor belt hung some painful looking tools whose purpose seemed to be to mold, carve and gouge an organic form. The professor was saddened that it was his job to know their purpose. “I wonder what this one did,” said the colonel, with the same gleam in his eye that a sadistic child would get when burning an ant with glass. “I do too,” the doctor agreed as he scoffed with a different kind of gleam in his eyes, “but it doesn’t really matter, everyone turns into money in the end.” The professor wondered what this one did as well but he was silent and resigned hoping that the result would not be as unsettling as he knew it was going to be.
A human being was spat out of the plastic flaps, struggling and writhing in panic against the metal bonds that fastened him to the conveyor belt. He was registered on the screen as a criminal but his offence was unknown. Nearly anyone could be picked up on any charge, limited only by the governments creativity, provided the scientists needed a research subject. And they always needed a research subject. There was a clamp over the face of the restrained man and, attached and unseen from the outside, there was a smaller device attached onto his tongue preventing him from speaking. Without it, he would be screaming and calling from help. We learn from experience, the professor thought. The eyes on this man saw the sympathetic look on the professor’s face and they swiveled towards him, pleading visually for help. There is nothing I can do. The lab is practically running itself, the professor thought mournfully and looked at the restrained man as if he was already looking at a corpse. The man strapped to the conveyor belt saw the professor’s eyes and the man’s own went dead and lost their shine of resistance. He stopped struggling against his restraints as if he really was dead. The professor knew, however, that the anti-sedatives in the man made it nearly impossible for the man to die from shock this soon.
“Tsk tsk. Giving up so soon? You might not wanna do that. You’re gonna be here for awhile…. Oh well. Time to get to work,” said the colonel over the intercom, with a small, warped smile on his rugged, war-torn face. He always does this, the professor thought, He seems to enjoy it. “You have a disgusting look on your face, colonel,” said the doctor, laughing. The colonel laughed as well and seemed to accept this, “Well anyways, on to the patient: name: eh, who cares, sex: male, age: 28 years, height: 185 centimeters, weight: 68 kilograms, and now what I was most curious about… Oh my. You got into this rather unfortunate mess because you were caught plagiarizing from someone else's work. Uh oh, so sad, that’s one of the most awful crimes you can commit!” The colonel sarcastically mourned for his latest victim. He knew that in the science driven society that they lived in, plagiarists can be capital offenders. “Well…we’ll take great care of you in your time here” The sadistic grin on the colonel’s face spread as he laughed as if to cut his face in two with his lips. At these words the patient resumed struggling. “That’s more like it,” laughed the colonel, “time to implant the brain chip, make you a bit more obedient.” A long thick needle detached from the ceiling and began moving towards the patient’s eye.
Several hours later, the colonel pressed a large button with a sticker of a white cartoon skull pasted on top of it. The limp body of the now dead patient, with a noticeable hole in his eye other than the pupil, was picked up by a large set of metal arms and removed through a door to an unseen location deeper into the lab. “Great, just great. Another goddamn failure!” the colonel swore as he slammed his prosthetic arm against the dashboard. “What does it take to get this fucking chip to work?” The doctor patted his back and consoled him, “There, there. You and I both know that this is a very complex procedure that could take years to implement. I mean, you made it. What’s a couple more criminals, right?”
As time went on, each scientist went back to their inventions to try and make them ready for clinical and experimental use. The colonel was trying to make the currently failing brain chip more compatible with human cells. It was a highly complex microchip that melded with the brain to control not only the mind, but also each and every cell in the human body. It could move each to where it wants, make each produce any chemical one could think of. Every feature, every part of a human could be micromanaged, even after they had already been born. It even had a self- defense prioritising AI, top-of-the-line military grade of course.
The doctor went to his bio-variable fluid. It was a complex chemical made entirely of compounds that the human body can easily produce. It looked like glass but it could change its state with a specific electrical impulse. It could become solid or liquid or gas at a moments notice and it could even change shape and structure too. He shocked the fluid in a small dish and watched as it spiked and twisted in complex shapes, as if it were alive. The doctor did not know how to use it or make it, so all he could do was sit and play with it. This was because it was not the invention of the doctor. It was, in fact, the professor's invention. The professor could only report plagiarism to the colonel but with the friendship of his two coworkers, he doubted that it would go anywhere. He tolerated the injustice because he knew he could do nothing about it.
The professor went to his only acknowledged invention: his secondary circulatory system. This was a large network of veins even greater and more extensive than the one in the regular human body. It included an optional replacement of organs as well. The organs could be used to produce medicine or to hold it while waiting to be distributed. The only problem with this was the incredible pain that the operation would induce and that the patient must be awake for the veins and organs to sync with his nerves. The blueprints showed two large fleshy openings near the shoulder blades and smaller ones all across the body so one could fill up the storage, expel large amounts of impurities or attach them to a larger machine almost as if to fill an automobile. The professor understood that the possibilities were endless with this invention. It could distribute medicine and nano-bots throughout the human body. It could store extra blood reserves. It could provide a separate easy-to-access point to look directly into the body, without using radiation or invasive surgery. But when his work was nearly completed, it was noticed by the other two.
One day, his coworkers were on time. This was the first time since they had joined this laboratory. Neither of them were drunk either. This is odd, thought the professor. After he thought that, his coworkers looked briefly at each other and both tried to suppress a smirk. Something’s wrong here, thought the professor as he tried to get up off of his chair. The other two men rushed over quickly and grabbed both of his arms. “Hey!” yelled the professor, this was the first time he had spoken to either of them in quite a while, as he typically wished to interact as little as possible. “What on earth are you doing?” He yelled again.
“You are wanted on crime of plagiarizing. Do not resist. Plagiarized work was entitled ‘The Benefits and Implementation of a Secondary Circulatory System.’ Taken from the two coworkers currently restraining you. The penalty is human experimentation until dead or useful. Further science with your remaining life.” A metallic voice rang out from past the door and two metal police drones armed with stun guns and restraints marched in, still speaking in unison.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“What about a hearing? I demand representation!” he screamed as a last resort. “Denied. Denial came from command. Denied on the grounds that it was stolen from leading government officials,” the droids replied in unison. “Hehe, I put in a good word or two with command for you but I guess it must not have worked,” said the colonel in a voice saturated with sarcasm. “Goodbye~” said the doctor waving his hand with a drippingly cheery voice as the droids dragged the professor away.
The professor woke up with a sharp pain in his neck and darkness enveloping him. He was lying horizontally with restraints on his limbs and mouth. He recognized his state of mind. Anti-sedatives, he thought and remembered that the police droids had sentenced him to experimentation. Until dead or useful, He thought, detached, still not completely realizing his situation.
The ground he was clamped to began moving with a mechanical whir. He realized, to his dismay, that he knew exactly where it was moving. His situation really started to sink in after that. His eyes that were half closed and dazed sprung open. He began to struggle and he tried to scream but the restraint didn’t allow even a muffled scream to come out. The professor could feel his own voice trying to escape the confines of his mouth. Suddenly, a bright light flashed on and he was exactly where he thought he was. He was on the other side of the glass.
As he was struggling, he looked through the window from a side he had never looked and saw his former “colleagues,” both with mocking faces looking down on him. The loudspeaker came on and the doctor’s voice echoed throughout the experiment room. “Well, well, well. What do we have here? An infamous plagiarist.” The doctor continued, “don’t worry, with your… excuse me… my research, I will finally be known to the world without being confined to a small lab. I will have my dreams fulfilled and if the price for that is you, well, so be it.”
The doctor had a solemn look on his face as he looked into the distance while the colonel said to him, “Now, now, doctor, it would be dishonest to claim the achievement as your own. It was a group effort. It should be claimed as our research.” The professor shook at their words both in anger and in fear of what would come next. The platform underneath him slowed to a stop. “Back to business! We have a new and improved test for you today,” the colonel took over the one sided conversation mockingly, “We decided that our inventions would be best utilized combined. Imagine, bio-variable fluid flowing through the circulatory system instead of the medicine you once envisioned. The fluid will be created and controlled using my AI chip and that chip will be controlled by ME! It will course throughout the veins and spear and twist through whatever gets in its way. You are no longer a professor. You are a subject, and thus I am your king!” His fist was level to his nose, shaking and clenched, his eyes burning with ambition, as the colonel’s lips twisted into a smile. The subject understood what was needed for this experiment.
First, he would have a microchip installed into his brain via his eye. Then, the chip will synchronize with his DNA and spread its metallic tendrils throughout his nervous system. Following this, he would have a leech-shaped flexible drill hollow him out like a mole digging out its den. It would make room for implants by taking away unnecessary organs. His own secondary circulatory system would then be installed. He would be pumped full of the bio-variable fluid and it would combine and mesh with his cells. These cells would then have the capability to produce the fluid as well, flooding his system. Provided the test was successful, he would become exactly the ideal of the colonel. He would become a machine trapped in his own body as the variable structure fluid was controlled by the chip inside him to shoot out and attack or defend him. A work of genius indeed. It seemed to him that in this case, he would be both useful and dead.
The needle drew close to the subject’s eye and he could only feel a blinding white pain that wished to escape from every orifice of his body. It would be a mercy to let him bite his own tongue or to scream out because it would take him away from this miserable hell with its pristine white walls and perfection. The subject felt cold metallic worms crawling and bulging beneath his skin. He could no longer see because of the crimson pouring out of his eyes. The worms and the needles eventually receded and what he last heard before he lost himself was “Dammit! The idiot survived” but he could no longer tell exactly who had said it.
The subject felt like he was drifting in a black ocean in his own head, not quite drowning but certainly not swimming either. He had long ago lost most his senses. In fact, saying he felt anything at all would be a hopeful statement save for a single strand of consciousness. He felt that on the edge of his consciousness he could feel burning fire and hear high pitched screams. He thought he could see fields swathed in crimson and smell burning rubber. Or perhaps the taste of ash. But he was never quite sure quite what he had felt because it did not seem like it was him that was feeling it. It felt like something was telling him that this was being felt and he just had to take its word. He saw wings, clear and sharp, cutting and drilling through obstacles. He saw spears and bullets formed from his own clear blood. He did not know how long he stayed like this because time seemed immaterial in the dark place. The only thing that kept him holding on to the last thin strand of his sanity was the thought that his former colleagues would win if he drowned.
As if a flash of lightning, his senses suddenly returned to the face of the familiar colonel directly in front of his own. The colonel’s face looked much older than it had but more hardened and scarred. His recognizable bloodthirsty eyes were still there even if he hid it with his actions. “Hello,” He said, “Have a nice sleep?” The subject’s eyes glinted as he screamed “I’M STILL DROWNING!? HOW LONG WAS I IN THERE!? WHa…..” At this point, the colonel had pressed a button on his wrist causing a piercing headache to go through the subject’s skull with so much pain he was unable to even speak. “Easy now, I am your commanding officer after all,” said the colonel waving his hands in front of his torso, “As for your question, you were in that state of mind for a few years, nothin’ much. You helped out quite a bit. Those rebels and insurgents didn’t know what hit ‘em. Shame none of the other of your kind survived. I guess the original is always the best. We have unified the continent thanks to you and you aren’t really needed for now.”
The subject could not believe what he was hearing. He went through all of that to be simply discarded at the end of it all. “I can see the worry on your face but it isn’t needed,” said the colonel with a feeble attempt to comfort his subject, “We might still need you in the future. You were a very useful tool. We’ll simply stick you in cryo-freeze until the next war. Trust me, if I have anything to do with it, that won’t be very long.” At his last words his eyes gleamed as if they were burning and he turned around and left, hunched and scarred, through the heavy metal door. It was then that the subject noticed that one of the colonel’s legs was jerkily moving around and clanking and one of his hands had a metallic gleam. He seemed to be a bit pitiful as he walked but then, the subject remembered the burning eyes.
After the colonel had left, the subject took in his immediate surroundings. He was in a metal tube restrained to the inside. It looked like a late model cryogenics chamber but some things were just not the same. More advanced. Just how much time is “a few years” he asked himself. He wasn’t quite sure of his own mental state. It was the first time he had one at all for however long he was gone.
As he was taking it in, the door once again hissed open but this time it was the doctor. He looked more thin and greasy than he did when the subject last remembered him. The doctor pushed up his glasses on his thin pointy nose and chuckled. “I thought you might have wanted to know how the experiments continued when you were, shall we say, gone. Well, long story short, according to what we were sure were your wishes, we tested many more of the criminals that we picked up off of the streets. I must say, you are one lucky subject. The same test that you were in had a success rate of 1/10,000. The national average of automated laboratory testing is much higher than that so I’m sure that it is appropriate to be considered lucky.”
“Eventually, we had to change our methods,” the doctor said, “we tested many more enhancements as you can see.” At this, the doctor gestured around him and the subject could see that he was placed in the middle of a large room, filled completely with rows of capsules very similar to his own. “But you were by far the most powerful, that is why you get the best seat in the house,” the doctor patted the capsule, “this one here is protected in the event of an emergency. I’m sure that the colonel agrees that you should be well preserved.” The doctor seemed to have become more outspoken in the time that the subject had been gone. “Goodbye, useful test subject,” the doctor smirked at the hunched over body of the subject and shut the door of the capsule he was in.
The restraints released but there was no space to move in the capsule. The subject looked up at the receding figure of the doctor. The window of the capsule frosted over as the subject’s view turned icy blue and the sweat froze to his face. He was blinded as his eyes froze completely. That was the last he ever saw of anyone.