The Test

The Test

I hate dreaming. What is the use of it? It is just successions of images, ideas, emotions and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. I know they are not real, but why do I cry so much when I wake up? Is it because in the truth, I shall never be free like I am in my dreams? Feeling the warm tingling of the sun on my skin, or the cool, icy coldness of the rain? My heart yearns for these things and I don’t know why. GLADIS says it’s because I am human, and humans always want what they cannot have. When I was younger, I believed her, but now I know that I can have it and I want it. I know how to escape this sterile box prison of mine. I know how to escape so they can no longer experiment on me.

I know how to get out.

My name is Tes, that’s short for Test Evaluation Subject 20. What happened to the other test subjects, I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I also don’t know where I came from or who my biological parents are, all I know is that I hold the key for science to grow, or that’s what Le Docture says. And what that key is I have no clue. If you haven’t already guessed I am in a science research laboratory where the goons here use humans as guinea pigs for physical tests, radiation tests and mental examinations. From what I can gather from my Virtual Identification Card up on GLADIS, I have long brownish blond hair; pale porcelain skin and deep blue eyes. I asked GLADIS once why my skin was so white, she said that my pale skin was from not having been touched by the suns UV lights which is why my skin has never had to protect itself by forming a so called tan, whatever one of those is. Where I eat, sleep and practically live is something like a cell. A big glass box like the ones people on the outside world use to cage in animals, or so I have read in my books. Everything is blinding white; the sheets; the little armchair; even the book cases, but you get used to it after a while. My room has to be kept sterile in case any germs or infections get in and kill me, which to me is absurd because if my body can stand over 100 x-rays a month then surely it can handle a measly cold? Also from what I can gather, the outside world does not know what is happening down here. They are oblivious to the amount of operations, extractions and implants I have to go through each week for the progress of theirscience. But I don’t hate them, I pity them. I pity them because they will never know that the paracetamol tablet they are taking or even the chemo therapy they are having, were somewhere along the line tested on me.

7:00am is when GLADIS wakes me up in a morning.

“Test evaluation subject 20, time to wake up” she says in her usual female robotic voice that eliminates all feeling.

“Please GLADIS, how many times do I have to tell you? It’s Tes. I don’t call you Generated Longanimity Artificial Device Intelligence do I?” I asked

Pause.

“Negative. You use an acronym. Request for acronym to be used on Test Evaluation Subject 20 logged for administrator.”

“Right then” I say swinging my legs over the side of my bed. Any minute now Le Docture, or as he is actually called Michael Bordeaux will come in and take his daily vial of blood from me or announce that I have an operation today,  otherwise it will be  physical examination on the treadmill to see how the carbon fibre they graphed onto my bones was working.  However He seemed to be a little late today. Good. This gave me time to plan my escape, I have it all figured out you see, GLADIS normally shuts off monitoring  for a system reboot at 6:00pm around about the same time a science geek comes in to give me some new sleeping pills they are testing. All I have do is nick a card key from the science geek, dispose of him and get out before GLADIS starts up again at 7:00pm. That gave me 1 hour, and I have no idea what ground level I am on, all I know is that the scientists come down in a big elevator at the end of a corridor a couple of minutes away. Along with lots of different corridors that could lead up anywhere, but I shall worry about that later. At that moment Le Docture burst into the room.