Seven days had evaporated into a hazy smear of sterile white lights and scheduled blood draws. The heavy leather restraints were finally gone. I traced the raw ring of chafed skin left behind on my wrist. The new freedom was a cosmetic illusion. Two soldiers flanked the sealed steel door. Their visors reflected the fluorescent tubes above. Their index fingers rested rigid against the trigger guards of their rifles.
The door hissed along its pneumatic track.
Zack stepped inside. The heel to toe rhythm of his boots measured the exact dimensions of the room. Maxim Collins trailed behind him. Max dragged his boots. He kept his hands buried deep in the pockets of a battered brown leather jacket. The polished cap of a silver flask peeked over the denim hem of his inner pocket.
Zack kept his posture squared to the wall. He cut his eyes toward Max. "You do not belong in this ward."
Max flashed a wide grin. "Funny. The doors keep letting me in."
"Not for long," Zack said.
"Relax soldier boy. I am not here to break your precious protocols. I just want to see how our golden boy is holding up." Max closed the distance to the metal table. He left the armed guards completely in his peripheral vision. "Morning Ashen. How is the head?"
I worked my jaw. The inside of my cheeks felt like dry sand. "Which one?"
Max barked a loud laugh. "Good answer."
The guards squeezed the black grips of their rifles. Max crouched down near the edge of the mattress. He rested his forearms across his knees. He looked directly at my pupils. He did not scan me like a broken toy or a volatile monster.
"You had them completely terrified," Max said. His voice dropped the theatrical volume. "The way you tore those leather cuffs right out of the steel table? Beautiful. I wish I had a camera."
The sharp shrill of the facility alarms echoed in the back of my skull. The auditory memory forced a violent shudder through my shoulders.
Max watched the tremor travel down my arms. His smile stayed anchored. "Do not worry kid. You pulled it back. That is what counts. Most people let the beast win."
"And you do not?" My throat rasped.
The corners of his mouth flattened. The amusement drained completely from his expression. "I made peace with my beast a long time ago."
"That is enough," Zack ordered.
Max kept his gaze on me. "I am not giving him state secrets Zack."
"You are giving him poison."
Max tilted his head. "The funny thing about poison is that it can be medicine in the exact right dose."
Zack dropped his right hand toward the holster on his thigh. Max smirked at the black polymer grip.
"Five minutes," Zack said. He stepped into the far corner and crossed his arms over his tactical vest.
Max lowered his voice to a low murmur. "Here is a survival tip Ashen. Do not mistake silence for loyalty. Half the people in this building would put a bullet in your head if the order came down. Some would not even wait for the order."
The muscles in my stomach contracted. "And you?"
"I do not use bullets unless I absolutely have to. It is a waste of good lead." He stood up and brushed invisible dust off his leather sleeve. "Here is another tip. Trust is exactly like glass. It is pretty and useful but it is incredibly fragile. Once it cracks it will never be the same again. Think very hard before you start handing it out."
The steel door hissed open. Max strolled out into the corridor. He whistled a slow melodic tune that faded down the hall.
The soldiers lowered their rifle barrels a fraction of an inch. I sat upright. The deep tissue in my shoulders ached but the torn muscle fibers were knitting together at a rapid unnatural pace. The skin along my forearms vibrated with a constant microscopic hum.
Zack maintained his post by the door.
The pneumatic hiss announced two officers. They wore dark pristine uniforms. Polished brass insignia caught the overhead glare. The older woman had deep lines carved into her cheeks. Her eyes tracked over my healing wounds with cold calculation. The younger man beside her held a stiff jaw and a sharp ambitious gaze.
"Subject is stable," the medic recited from the corner. "Recovery is progressing. No organ failure. But we lost an entire bottle of the EquiV compound."
The older woman stared at the rapidly closing lacerations on my chest.
Zack took one measured step forward. "With respect ma'am I recommend we double the containment protocols. He is volatile. If he loses control again we will have casualties."
"That is exactly why he is valuable," the younger officer interrupted. His voice carried the tension of sharp wire. "The energy output recorded during his violent break could level an entire battalion. We would be absolute idiots not to harness it."
My fingers curled into tight fists beneath the white cotton sheets. They debated the raw data of my anatomy while standing three feet away.
The door mechanism clicked. Max strolled back into the ward. "Am I late? It is very hard to tell time in a place with no windows."
The younger officer flushed a dark red. "Collins. This is not your briefing."
"Briefing?" Max spread his hands. "I thought this was show and tell. You have your miracle project awake. Let him enjoy the spotlight."
The older woman narrowed her eyes. "Why is he here?"
"I have been asking the same question," Zack stated.
Max ignored the brass. He looked down at the white sheets. "You look much better. Less like a corpse and more like a kid. I will take all the credit."
The younger officer slammed a heavy manila folder onto the metal desk. The sharp crack echoed off the tiles. "This is a military asset Collins. This is not a toy for your amusement."
The playful energy vanished from Max. His eyes glinted with sudden danger. "Funny. He looks exactly like a person to me." He spread his arms wide. "Then again what do I know? I am just the guy you keep around when things get extremely messy. And trust me things are going to get messy."
Absolute silence filled the room. The older woman turned her sharp profile to Zack.
"Containment is your total responsibility," she ordered. "Keep him alive. Keep him usable. And if that fails you know exactly what to do."
The two officers pivoted and marched out. Their boots struck the floor in perfect unison.
Max stretched his arms toward the ceiling. "Friendly bunch. You must feel warm and fuzzy knowing they will gut you the very second you stop being useful."
I kept my jaw locked.
Max stepped closer. "Remember what I told you. Everything in this place is already cracked." He patted my shoulder once and followed the officers out the door.
Zack lingered. He offered one long unreadable stare before exiting. The heavy locks engaged with a solid metallic thud.
The low hum of the medical machines filled the empty space. I closed my eyes. The exhaustion finally dragged my consciousness under.
The rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor slowed. The sound stretched and warped until it blended into the steady squeak of chalk against a slate blackboard. The harsh sterile glare of the fluorescent tubes softened melting into the warm golden hue of afternoon sunlight pouring across the back of my neck. I smelled the distinct dry dust of chalk and aged textbook paper.
My fingers gripped the smooth varnished edges of a wooden desk. George leaned over from the next row. His signature crooked grin pushed his freckles higher on his cheeks.
"You are zoning out again Ashen," George whispered. "You are lucky she has not called on you yet."
Across the aisle Mia tilted her head. The sunlight caught the loose strands of her hair. "Do not listen to him," she said softly. "At least you look awake today."
The wooden desk the warm light the soft voices. I scanned the room. The school did not exist. My friends did not exist. Max had shattered the glass of this illusion completely. But the golden light felt undeniably real against my skin. I sat completely still. I let the false warmth soak into my shoulders for one final minute.
Then the muscles in my hand began to spasm.
The plastic pen caught between my fingers trembled violently against the lined notebook paper. Blood rushed past my eardrums in a heavy frantic pulse. I squeezed the plastic casing to force the shaking to stop.
The pen snapped in half. Black ink ruptured from the plastic tube and spilled across my palm. The dark liquid pooled in the creases of my skin. It looked exactly like thick blood.
George kept smiling his crooked smile. Mia kept staring intently at the chalkboard. Neither of them blinked at the loud crack of the plastic. They did not notice the ink dripping onto the desk. Their mouths moved in perfect synchronization but the classroom was completely devoid of sound.
The plaster walls split open down the center. The wooden desks twisted violently reshaping into cold steel medical frames. The golden sunlight fractured shattering into a blinding white glare. George and Mia dissolved into a flurry of dead gray static and vanished from the room.
I pushed backward. The wooden chair crashed against the floorboards.
The shattered classroom was completely empty except for one figure standing at the very back of the room.
He wore the exact same clothes as me. His hands were stained with the exact same dark ink. He wore my face. But the eyes were wrong. They burned with a cold silver luminescence. He stood in a loose perfectly balanced combat stance. The posture radiated an absolute lethal certainty.
He did not utter a single word. He did not smile.
He simply moved.
He crossed the distance of the room in a blur of displaced air. A straight brutal punch aimed directly at the center of my chest. Muscle memory triggered. I raised both forearms and absorbed the strike. The kinetic force rattled the teeth in my skull and sent the soles of my shoes sliding backward across the smooth floor.
He did not pause to reset his stance. He unleashed a flurry of precise kinetic strikes. Every pivot and extension was mathematically flawless. He was me stripped of all hesitation. He was me operating without the anchor of fear or guilt.
I planted my back foot and fought back. I blocked a rising knee strike and threw a heavy right hook aimed at his jaw. He caught my closed fist in his open palm. His grip locked around my knuckles like a solid iron vice. He twisted my wrist sharply and used my own momentum to throw me completely across the room.
My shoulder hit the floor. Wood splinters and steel screws rained down around me.
He walked slowly toward my position. The silver eyes scanned the broken angles of my posture. He calculated the most efficient vector to end my life.
The warm metallic taste of blood flooded my mouth. I planted my hands and pushed upward from the debris. The muscles in my legs shook violently but I locked my knees and refused to stay on the ground.
He lunged.
I dropped my center of gravity and ducked under a heavy sweeping strike. I spun on my heel and drove the sole of my shoe directly into the side of his knee. The joint buckled a fraction of an inch. I seized the microscopic opening. I grabbed the fabric at his shoulders and drove my own knee straight upward into his face.
"This is my life," I roared.
The entire constructed world shattered into raining shards of sharp glass.
I gasped dragging in massive amounts of oxygen. The blinding halogen lights of the Alpha Division medical bay seared my retinas. My chest heaved violently against my ribcage. The muscle fibers in my arms and legs burned with total metabolic exhaustion.
I was not strapped to the leather cuffs. I stood upright in the exact center of the room.
The medical bay was a complete ruin. Heavy digital monitors lay smashed into jagged pieces of plastic and glass. The reinforced steel table was severely dented and overturned on its side. Masked handlers lay scattered across the pristine floor tiles. Their limbs were bent at unnatural broken angles. None of the bodies drew breath.
Thick warm blood coated both of my hands.
I stared at the red liquid dripping from my palms. The acidic bile of nausea rose in the back of my throat. I scanned the carnage.
The deafening silence of the room broke under a slow rhythmic sound.
Somebody was clapping.
I spun around. Max stood perfectly relaxed in the ruined doorway. His brown leather jacket was completely free of dust and blood. He looked at the broken bodies littering the floor and then shifted his sharp gaze directly to my face. A predator's grin stretched wide across his jaw.
He brought his hands together for one more loud clap.
"Bravo Ashen," Max said. "It looks like you are finally waking up."