The Boston Experiment

Seven

Dear Journal,

Another Day of Release! Today is March 10, 2005, and it is the eighteenth birthday of Tuukka Rask (Experiment G0340). He will be flown back to his hometown today, along with his girlfriend Anja.

If you are wondering how the process works, I will write it down here. First, he will be carefully removed from the tank that is currently his home. I will clean him off very quickly with soap and water. After that, I will give him a medication that will make his coma wear off. He will gain full consciousness once he is in the car that will take him to the airport.

I'm giving him a memory in which he spent the week before his birthday in Boston so that he is not suspicious when he wakes up here instead of in Savonlinna. Of course, I will also be giving this memory to Anja.

My last Day of Release was November 3, 2000. I sent Pekka Rinne, my first ever goalie experiment, off to "Finland" to play hockey there. He was taken in the NHL Entry Draft by the Nashville Predators just last year. Pekka was a late pick—eighth round, 258th overall, to be exact—but I have a feeling that he will shine in the NHL.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic. I must go give the memories I created especially for this occasion to Tuukka Rask and Anja Heikkenen.

...Alright, that took a while, but I am back. The whole thing was a success, and Tuukka and Anja are on their way back to Oslo. I saw them for the last time as they were walking towards their ride to the airport. Let me tell you, it was weird. I hadn't seen Anja move in six years, and I hadn't seen Tuukka move since he was a baby.

Tuukka has grown into a remarkably tall young man. He is six feet and three inches tall, compared to last year's height of five-foot-ten and a very petite five-foot-one at age twelve. It is good that he is a tall person, since it will make being a goaltender much easier. It would be very difficult for him to be a goalie if he couldn't even cover the whole net!

He looks exactly like a younger version of Kalle Rask, his father. Tuukka has dark brown hair that curls tightly and matches his serious gray-hazel eyes perfectly. He has high cheekbones and a slender build that is perfect for an NHL goaltender. He actually made a fantastic "glove save" when Anja almost dropped her cell phone earlier, so I got to see my experiment in action before he left. How cool!

Anja is a pretty young woman with long black hair and bright green eyes. Her height is five-foot-eleven, which is quite tall for a lady. She loves Tuukka and everything—well, mostly everything—that he does, which is great. Thank goodness their relationship, which I had to direct by hand, worked out.

I had a chip implanted in Tuukka's brain by a good friend of mine. This good friend is also one of the top surgeons at MassGen, so the surgery was a definite success.

The chip will tell me what Tuukka is doing at all times. It seems like stalking, but I can assure you that I am just trying to keep the young man safe. I probably won't pay attention to the chip at all unless it alerts me that something has gone wrong.

Oh, I also had one implanted in Anja's brain. She's not a goalie, but she is one of my favorite experiments. Plus, Tuukka really loves her. I want her to stay by his side for the rest of their lives. She is certainly allowed to do whatever she wants with her life, but I would feel terrible if my first relationship experiment failed.

I don't see this happening, though. Tuukka and Anja are good kids with bright futures ahead of them. Tuukka's goalie skills will help him have an outstanding NHL career, and Anja's intelligence will get her into any good college.

They aren't troublemakers, either. I've set up scenarios in which they were offered drugs or alcohol. They always declined due to the fact that they're underage. The two of them will soon be old enough to drink and use legal drugs like marijuana, but I do trust them to do these things at a level where they are not harmed or killed.

Rosie cried when she saw Tuukka and Anja walk away. I must confess that I let more than a few tears fall myself when I saw the two young Norwegians for the last time. I have known about these experiments since 1986 (Tuukka) and 1999 (Anja). Today, though, they graduated.

They are no longer experiments. They are people.

My computer just told me that Tuukka and Anja have boarded their flight. It will make one stop in London before flying the rest of the way to "Tampere". Once they are there, Tuukka's parents will drive them a few hours south to their homes in "Savonlinna" (Oslo).

This will take quite a long time, so I will not be writing in this journal when they arrive in Finland. Therefore, I will say this right now: I wish both of them the best of luck in their future lives. I know they are not my biological children, but I did technically raise them, so I hope they make me proud. I will miss looking after them every day in my laboratory in the basement of FleetCenter.

Putting Tuukka and Anja's tanks away was a challenge. I remember the very first time I put Tuukka in a tank. March 10, 1987...what a day. It's the same way for March 10, 1999, the day Tuukka met Anja, the love of his life.

Anyway, I went downstairs to the lab shortly after watching my two experiments "graduate." Rosie and her husband Thomas followed me. I walked into the lab and looked at the last tanks that Tuukka and Anja lived in. That activity brought tears to my eyes.

I hope those kids make me proud.

Sincerely, BOBBY ORR.