Project Guardian Angel

Survival of the Fittest

I opened my eyes to a quiet beeping in  painfully white room. What happened? "Good morning sleeping beauty." I turned my head to see Cam sitting beside my bed. "You gave us all quite a fright."

"What-" I cleared my throat and tried again. "What happened?"

Cam's smile faltered then dropped. "Lance... he didn't know which venom he injected you with, he chose at random, so he couldn't give you the anti-venom. Your heart stopped for five whole minutes. We were all worried sick. Lance feels terrible."

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes briefly. "It was eastern brown snake, Pseudonaja textilis. The venom is a potent mix of neurotoxins and coagulants." I sighed and opened my eyes to look at Cam. "How am I alive?"

Cam ruffled the hair between his fuzzy ears. "We still don't know. Your heart restarted itself. Leon has a theory though." With a grunt I heaved myself upright. "You should lay back down and rest." Cam tried to get me to cooperate but I slipped my legs out from under the sheet and slung them off the edge of the bed.

"The only person who can make me listen to reason is Melody and she's not here right now." I pulled the heart rate monitor off my finger and the thing flat lined. Maybe six seconds passed before the door was busted down. Two nurses and Professor Leon came bustling into the room. "What's up Doc?" I smiled an waved slightly making one of the nurses faint.

"You're alright!" Rushing forward, Professor Leon checked me over from head to toe.

"Better than alright. I feel fantastic!"  Professor Leon beamed at me seeming quite pleased with something.

"I worked with your mother you know, I was her partner. All of this," He spread his arms in a gesture of the entire facility. "was her brainchild." He dropped his arms and adjusted his glasses. "I think you might have been altered at a very young age. But if you're ready we can continue to testing."

"Wait... altered? You're saying that..." I thought over my life, every little thing that was so normal to me that Melody considered weird. How I never got sick, how rapidly I healed, other little things that when added together did look suspiciously like I was superhuman. I shook my head to dissipate a forming headache. What had my mother done to me? "Yeah sure, let me talk to Lance first."

As if on queue Lance dashed through the door followed closely by Toby and Felix. "We heard a flat line..." They froze in the doorway staring at me.

"Yeah the beeping was getting annoying."

Lance stepped forward and knelt at my feet with his head bowed. "I am so sorry." He murmured.

"Hey its fine, you're totally forgiven. Wait, were you guys keeping tabs on my heartbeat?"

Toby smiled cheerily and piped up. "Yeahaha... We've kinda become attuned to it." I sighed and shook my head.

"Okay whatever." I offered Lance a hand up which he took. "I'm as ready as I'll ever be." He gave my hand a gentle squeeze  before I was lead from the room. The hall was a barren and cold cement tube that angled slightly downward into a room that could have belonged in a gym, a doctor's office, or a mad scientist's laboratory.

"We're going to find your blood type, your I.Q, your max on the weights, and then digitize you." I had no idea what that meant but I sat patiently when directed so that a cheery nurse could draw my blood into tiny vials.

"What does he mean by digitize me?" I asked. Felix plunked himself across my legs and grinned up at me.

"Virtual reality baby!" He crowed. "It's to test what you're made of. You'll go through several simulations of different places or scenarios for you to survive. Wherever you're strongest will determine how they evolve you." Absently I petted his head like I did with Melody and he began to purr.