Experiment Number One
CHAPTER NINETEEN

I woke up with my mind set. That was it. No more making excuses or compromising. No more being weak and oblivious. I was going to escape the compound once and for all. I was going to save myself.

When I became conscious in the lab, I was half expecting it to be in the middle of being operated on. The room was empty with an eerie silence. My body was sore, most of the pain rippling from my hip. I assumed that I was previously being operated on, but why did they stop? I couldn’t tell you. It would make the most sense just to kill me and get all the extraction they needed, but they kept me alive. Maybe they expected me to stay knocked out with the anesthesia. Perhaps the bone marrow is more effective when fresh.

I knew the empty room was the gods giving me another chance. My final one.

I looked at my restraints; they were a thick metal band bolted to the table. I might’ve been a mutant, but one thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t have super strength. If I did, all those days I went home with a broken back after working a shift at Beatrice’s Antiques were just a figment of my imagination. I had to think of another way to escape the bounds.

The red light from my bracelet caught my eye. I remember my mother’s words; the bracelet is “nothing.” That had to be a dream, right? There was no way I was actually talking to my mother. She was dead, and I was lying consciously in the lab. But I had the feeling I was really there with my mother. That conversation we had wasn’t just some image my mind created for a movie to play while I laid in wait but instead to give me something I didn’t have before. Knowledge, morals, belief. So I shut my eyes and channeled my powers.

Surprisingly, I pushed it to my palms and felt it rising to the surface. Just like my mother said, the bracelet was just a hoax to make me believe it took away my powers. They placebo’d me.

My hands were engulfed with the blue storm; I was confident I could pull off the escape. I looked at the shackles, thinking I could melt them off, but quickly turned the idea down. I knew nothing about science, but I assumed the iron would have to be really hot to start melting. I didn’t know how high my powers reached in temperature, and I didn’t want to use that as a chance to replace out. I still didn’t know if I was excluded from the wrath of my power but I didn’t want to risk it before I was so close to escaping.

I examined bands and noticed tiny wires coming out between the creases. Looking back, it should have been bluntly obvious. They automatically attached the restraints to me; of course, it was powered by some technology. I knew lightning could shock wires and cause power outages. The plan sprang into my mind.

If I could cause an overload in power, I could get out of the shackles and shut the whole place down. The threat of the Dhasl will keep the guards busy, and I could make a run for it. I thought I’d even have time to replace Lieutenant Wallace, but then I remembered I had no way of saving him.

I spotted a fuse box across the lab slightly to my left. I would hit my target if I could aim accurately with my wrist bound. With the training I just did with Ren Clash, it should’ve been easy.

I tried to aim toward the fuse box, but the shackles on my wrist didn’t give me much leeway. I was charring through the wall around the box rather than the object itself. I groaned in frustration on my fifth try of it. If I didn’t hit the box soon, someone would come waltzing in there, seeing I was awake and using my powers. Then guess what. It would be over. I had to focus and put all of my energy into trying to hit that fuse box.

I closed my eyes and took deep breaths. I steadied my pulse in an attempt to calm my unrelenting nerves. When I opened my eyes, my palm followed, and I aimed towards the target. At first, my power beam hit the wall slightly to the right. After much straining to my wrist and gritting my teeth, I finally hit the box! I held the beam there with much persistence despite my wrist trembling. In no time, the power broke through the cover of the fuse box and immediately latched onto the wires. Sparks flied, and I was in the dark.

Then the emergency generator popped on just a few seconds later. I wasn’t surprised Doctor Taylor did have some backup plan. The restraints were unlatched when the power went out but I was smart enough to remove the bands before the back up power popped on and trapped me once more.

All I had left to do was escape.

The hard part was trying to replace a way out. All my time at the compound, I never saw an exit but I had an idea of where one might be. Before I could take off, the doors of the lab flung open.

Out of instinct, I threw myself off the table and crawled on the floor. The thing about Doctor Taylor’s lab is that it was very crowded with different machines and supplies. I honestly don’t know how she didn’t go crazy working there. If I were her, I’d bump into stuff all the time. Anyway, I found a hiding place inside the big cylinder machine. I tried quietly pulling the door close, but it was much more complicated than it looked. I swear that door weighed like a thousand pounds. I got it shut enough that only a crack the size of my fingers remained.

Whoever came into the room started to yell, “Where is she?”

“Does it look like I know?”

“We have to replace her now. Taylor is going to be pissed.”

“Let’s just… look around. There is no way she got that far.”

I heard heavy footsteps circling around the room, and I prayed that they were stupid enough not to open the door to the machine. The footsteps stopped in front of my hiding spot, and a flashlight shone into the machine. I pressed myself against the door and squeezed my eyes shut. I counted the seconds. One… two… three… the light was gone. The footsteps faded away.

“Did you replace anything?”

“No. She must be somewhere in the facility.”

“Well, let’s go look for her before they replace out she’s gone!”

They ran out of the room.

I waited a few moments after the pair left before I emerged from my space in the machine. I took cautious steps, afraid someone else would come running through the doors. No one came, I was out of the woods for the time being.

I knew I had to replace something to protect me, both from the guards and the Infected. If a guard happened to stumble upon me running around like a chicken with no head because the layout of the compound was so confusing, they would’ve shot me dead before I even noticed them. If I encountered an Infected, well, any protection is good protection.

I looked around the lab to replace anything that could help me. My eyes immediately fell on the guard uniform Ren Clash removed before the operation. It stuck out like a sore thumb in the white of the lab. I ran over and put it on.

The armor was heavy and weighed down against my shoulders. I really struggled to put my pants on; once I lifted the leg that was operated on, I went tumbling backward, knocking into a locker on the wall. It fell off its post, and everything inside came tumbling onto the floor. I cursed out loud and prepared for someone to run in at any moment, alerted to the loud noise. I heard no one, so I continued to put on the uniform, using the wall as a stabilizer. I reached down to the floor to grab the helmet when the outfit was on. While doing so, I noticed a tiny vial filled with a blue substance beside my boot. I picked it up and brought the glass to my face, the printed label told me what it was. Serum M–Trial.

Right there in my hands, I was holding the scientific revolution of the century. That small vial of liquid was what was going to end the world. It was like I struck a mine of gold.

It meant that I could save Lieutenant Wallace.