Numbered

Numbered Chapter 2

~Chapter Two~

~Subject 0133~

0133 knew he’d never coming back. How many people had he seen taken through those sliding doors strapped down to hospital beds never to be seen again? Too many. He had stopped counting when he had turned ten. Seven years later he knew how things worked at the Paradise Genetics Facility. Every day the Crazers would come into the barracks and cart away another of their unwilling “saviors” strapped to beds in the names of peace and science. But no one ever came back through the doors that led into the Genetics Lab. Families were broken by brothers, sisters, and parents that were taken and disappeared. After a few days the mourning families would wander around as if they were zombies, devoid of all emotion and hope.

Now, 0133 grimaced as the masked nurse above him slid a needle into the vein in his arm and he imagined his own family wandering around, shells of the people they had once been. He stared at them now, his mother and little sister, trying his best to burn the images of their faces onto his brain. He had promised to protect them, to save them and take them away from this damned place, but in the end he couldn’t even save himself. He felt the heat of tears warm his eyes and his vision blurred before a Crazer security guard shoved a black hood over his head and a nurse pushed his bed towards the lab.

0133’s brain dared him to move, to fight back, to escape! But deep within himself he knew they would fill his back full of bullets before he could run two steps. As the edges of his consciousness began to blur and drowsiness made his eyelids heavy, 0133 swore he would escape. He swore he’d come back to his family. He would save them. He had to.

*****

When the black hood was taken off of his head and 0133 came to, his head spun and his throat was sore. He tried to move but he found that his hands were strapped down to the arms of a steel chair. He looked around and saw that he was in a small dark room under a single large florescent bulb.  It was bare aside from a small machine that hummed softly with whirring lights and an array of wires connected to an array of small pads that had been stuck to his now bare chest. A small tap above his head made him look up.

The ceiling was a large pane of glass. Staring down at him was a middle aged man in glasses in a white lab coat and two assistants. Two assistants were both holding clipboards preparing to take notes. The man peered over the edge of his glasses studying 0133 as if he were a strange and foreign creature he had never seen before. 0133 was in an observation room and he was the test subject. The man leaned forward and spoke into a microphone.

“Subject 0133 can you hear me clearly?” The man’s voice blared from speakers installed somewhere over 0133’s head. His tone was cold and metallic, an automaton devoid of all emotion. His dark green eyes stared down at him with a mixture of disgust and hatred that 0133 prayed he would never feel in his lifetime. “Nod your head for yes and shake it for no.” 0133 stared at him with blatant defiance in his eyes. He refused to give this man the satisfaction of an answer. The man stared at him for a moment before the edge of his lips curled in a nasty smirk. 0133 heard a click and the machine beside him buzzed as waves of electricity coursed through his body. He felt as if his entire body had been set on fire from within and 0133 howled as his body writhed in pain. After a few seconds the volts ebbed leaving him sweating and gasping for air.

The man smiled down at him his eyes twinkling as if he were a demented fanatic.

“Now.” he said into the microphone. “Let’s try this again. Can you hear me Subject 0133? Nod your head for yes and shake it for no.” Again 0133 refused to answer, but when he saw the man raise his hand again he nodded his body warning him not to disobey the mad man in the white lab coat. The man smiled flashing a set of perfect white teeth. “Excellent”.