tthhee oddiissee Chapter 10

“R has shown clear progress, having regained strength much quicker than expected. He’s yet to show any negative side-effects seen in other subjects. Whatever concerns may have arisen from his extended period of quote-unquote ‘off-gassing’ have been shown to be non-factors.

“Of note, the anti-mutagen appears to have reacted differently than in other subjects. R’s mass has reduced significantly, but it seems unlikely he was originally 250 cm tall. R has not verbally expressed this, but he seems to be struggling with his size in a way that indicates an absence of muscle memory. My colleagues and I have come up with competing theories, but testing is inconclusive. We had hoped that R would tell us himself, but he has refused to speak despite our scans showing that he is perfectly able to do so. My colleagues seem to think that he doesn’t understand our language or that he is lacking in intelligence, but I’ve yet to see evidence of that. More observation is needed, before finding the proper conclusion.” Mitra ended her recording, and put it on the desk in front of her.

She looked out at Ro across from her, in his double-walled glass cell. He was sitting in the corner, staring daggers at her (though he couldn’t know exactly where she was with the one-way mirror in place). He seemed to always be in that one corner of the padded floor, sitting with his knees pulled in, his long black hair obscuring most of his features, aside from the blood-red scrubs he wore. She pulled out another voice recorder from her lab coat, staring at Ro the whole time.

“Personal recording number 15. What am I even doing here anymore? I didn’t sign on to this job to watch over a prisoner. I don’t care how we dress it up, R is a prisoner, and he knows it. He’s keeping quiet because he doesn’t want to risk benefiting us in anyway. If anyone understands the tactical advantage to staying quiet, it’s him.

“We’re not supposed to know R used to be Arro. Dexetrio has been trying to keep it a secret, but there are no other records of any person who has ever matched his size outside of ancient myths, and even then they tend to scale it upward. I know The Mutagen Project didn’t make Arro, despite the assertions of our higher-ups. They wanted to clean up their mistake, and Arro just ended up catching a stray due to some poor business decisions. He doesn’t exist in the genetic database, not even on tether. He did have traces of the mutagen in his DNA, but it seems as if it had mutated before reaching him. They’ve been trying to tell us that what they made isn’t commutable, but I’m not so sure. I think R may have had the genetic structure to be the only person to survive the infection. Why else wouldn’t the antigen work the way it’s supposed to? It’s unlikely that Dexetrio doesn’t know this, hence why so much of the information on this project has been scrubbed from our global database and why we’ve been set up in an unmonitred lab. There’s no mistake if there’s no evidence of it.

“The real goal now is clearly to trot out ‘The Legendary Arro’ after finding a cure for his condition for a nice bit of PR, rehabbed and ready to face the world. I have to appreciate the fact that R is going to let them get away with it. The way he looks at us all…

“God knows what he’ll do if he escapes his cell.”

Mitra switched off the recorder and was careful to stash it back into her lab coat, staring back at Ro who hadn’t stopped glaring at the mirror. Mitra was right, of course. Ro was well aware that he wasn’t being kept for his own good. That’s not to say that he didn’t appreciate being not being (as much of) a giant. He was still tall as hell, but Ro had the feeling he would be able to actually navigate through places made for normal humans with little difficulty. That was assuming he would make it out of the cell he was in.

The cell was surrounded with glass walls, with a small air pocket between them and another set of glass walls. Outside of those was a sea of cubicles, and while he could see people moving around, they all had some sort of device that displayed a digital display with a simplified black-and-white cartoon face in front of their real one. They didn’t want him to be able to identify anyone if he ever escaped. After monitoring his surroundings for a few months, he gathered that the most vulnerable area was the one-way mirror. Every time they shut off the lights, there was a slight delay between that room and his own. He could glimpse it only very briefly, but he could tell there was only one layer of glass between his room and that one.

As he kept staring into it, the mirror opened up and Mitra, Harro (a male scientist) and two beefy orderlies came through. Ro found it somewhat amusing that despite their heft, he still dwarfed even the tallest orderly.

“Hello again, R. I hope you’re doing well today. We’ve got some more tests to take care of,” Mitra told Ro. The Orderlies came over and lifted Ro up to his feet, escorting him out the door.

“I don’t know why you bother talking to him, it’s not like he knows what you’re saying,” Harro said.

“He absolutely does know, he just doesn’t care to let us know,” Mitra shot back. Of the soulless, faceless scientists that oversaw these experiments, Mitra was Ro’s favorite.

They escorted Ro to a sterile, white room with a table, chair, and a series of unidentifiable instruments lining the walls. There was also a strange device on the table that looked like a small half-dome looking device. They sat Ro down on the chair and Mitra got to work swabbing spots on Ro’s body and attaching various stick-on sensors on his head, chest, and back.

Harro addressed the orderlies “Feel free to wait outside.”

The orderlies gave a nod and headed out the door.

“Okay R, we’re going to do something a bit different today,” Mitra told him. She gently guided his hands over to the half dome in front of him. He didn’t notice the indents in the top, but was surprised to find his long, slender hands fit comfortably into it (not that he let on that he was surprised).

“In front of you is a tether. Unlike normal ones you might find in the street, it’s hooked up to an entirely closed network,” Mitra went on. Ro had heard of tether devices before, but had yet to experience it firsthand. He was expecting there to be a screen.

Harro sat across the table with a tablet computer in his hands.

“H will give you some different stimuli, and we’ll measure how you respond. Like all of our tests, there’s no wrong way to respond. As you’re well aware by now, silence is always an option,” Mitra went on to explain.

She also picked up a tablet off the table. “Beginning monitoring. H, are we ready?”

“Whenever you are, M,” Harro responded.

“Start it up,” Mitra said.

Immediately, there was an odd sensation in Ro’s head, like he could feel something sitting on the back of his brain. It wasn’t uncomfortable or painful, it was just a strange weight that he could feel in his head.

“This first program should be simple. You should feel a mildly pleasant tingling throughout you’re body,” Mitra said.

Ro felt a tingling just like Mitra described: first in the arms, but then it spread throughout his entire body. It was a completely foreign feeling, as if his circulatory tract were a neon sign and it had just been lit up for the first time. Ro felt electric, in the best way possible. Mitra continued staring at her tablet.

“Response is normal, if a little more excited than usual. I’m guessing this is R’s first time using a tether,” Mitra spoke into her device.

“Yeah, no shit, look at him,” Harro said.

“Try to be professional, H.”
“No promises, ‘M.’”

Mitra let out a sigh, and the face that was projected over her own rolled its eyes.

“Alright, next it should feel like there’s a soft, plush blanket resting on your left arm.”

Again, it felt exactly like Mitra said it would. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was so strange to feel something without being able to know for a fact that it exists.

“We’re receiving an elevated response, normal for those first feeling a detachment from reality that the tether provides.” Mitra dictated. She turned towards Ro, resting her hand on his arm, still speaking as clinically as possible.

“Don’t worry, R, it’s perfectly safe, I promise.” Ro did calm down a slight bit.

“Subject’s levels are back down to normal responses. Let’s try audiovisual stimulation, H.”

“You got it, Captain M.”

“Now, this is going to be a little more intense, but both H and I will still be right here in this room with you. Try not to worry.”

Ro could see wild grasses start to grow out from the concrete floor along with various wildflowers. The walls fell away, the table disappeared, and even Harro and Mitra were gone. He was then sitting in the same chair in the middle of a beautiful meadow on the side of a mountain accompanied by the sounds of birds and the breeze rushing by.

“R, don’t be frightened, we’re still here, this is just a simulation. Feel free to get up and explore. You won’t actually be moving back in the test chamber, but you’ll feel like it.”

Ro got up out of the chair as it disappeared behind him. It was an odd sensation (in a series of odd sensations), as if there was an anchor where he was sitting and barely attached to it. It wasn’t enough to slow him down, but it was ever present. This must be to make sure I don’t detach from reality completely. He bent down, and ran his hand through the soft grass, twirling some of the blades in his fingers. He got near a columbine flower and took a deep breath; it smelled just like it should.

“Alright, let’s try changing the weather a bit.”

Ro could feel a water droplet come down. A few more hit, and it started to sprinkle, while the sun kept shining. The rain felt cool and refreshing against his skin. Ro had always loved the rain, and was more than happy to feel something resembling being in it for the first time since his imprisonment. He closed his eyes and let it wash all over him.

“You’re doing great, R. Alright, H, load up the amusement park program next.”

Ro was expecting to hear some sort of change, but there was nothing of the sort.

The rain started to fall harder, and the wind picked up. He opened his eyes and saw the sky darkening.

“H, what are you doing? Load up the-” is all Ro heard from Mitra, before getting cut off. He didn’t know what was happening, but he knew it wasn’t right.

“What are you doing, H?” Mitra said, noticing the confusion on Ro’s face.

“Hey, I get to have some input on this experiment, too. I want to test some stimuli he could be more familiar with,” Harro told him.

Mitra turned back to R. “I’ve been informed that H has altered our test, but you should still be safe.”

“He can’t hear you, ‘M.’ I’ve cut him off,” Harro said.

Mitra looked at him in disbelief. “What are you thinking? He clearly hasn’t used a tether before, if you’re not careful you could cause total-”

“Shhh! Look,” Harro interrupted, pointing at Ro, who looked distressed, and was shivering.

Ro was knee deep in snow, a raging blizzard all around him. He could barely see anything out in the distance. It brought back flashbacks of driving to his dead-end job, twenty miles away form where he lived in the a raging storm just like the one he was in now. At least he was in a nice hot car back then.

There was a deep rumbling noise, but Ro couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. He was whipping his head all around, until he saw a large shadow in the distance. It was over twenty feet tall, and about half as wide. There was a deep groan coming from it. Ro had heard it somewhere before, but couldn’t identify what it was. He only knew it meant danger.

“H, stop. You’re pushing him too hard. His stress levels are too high to continue.”

The shadow began to move towards Ro. He couldn’t make out what it was, but it was moving towards him. He tried to turn and run, but he wasn’t equipped for the huge amount of snow. He turned back and could see a metal glint among the large shadow. He finally recognized the shadow, and felt nothing but panic with that revelation. Dear God, it’s me.

It got closer and closer and Ro made even more effort to run away from the figure. He made it only a few feet before falling over, collapsing in the snow.

“Harro, for god’s sake, look at his heartbeat!” Mitra shouted while shoving her tablet towards Harro. “Shut it down!”

In the observation room, Ro had a terrified look on his face, and he was shivering wildly. Ro’s head was upturned, staring at something that was causing the fear in him.

Neither were expecting him to start crying out in long, lingering wails. They weren’t loud, but they were unsettling.

The figure of Ro’s past self loomed over Ro, looking like a wild animal, poised to attack. “Arro” was raising the Silver Star far above him, ready to attack. He held his arms out above him, bracing for impact, trying to look the other way screaming.

“Stop! Stop! Stop it!” Mitra went over to Harro, who got up and away, holding the tablet above him.

“We need to let this play out,” Harro said in a disturbingly calm tone.

Arro brought down the warhammer.

Mitra ripped the device off of Ro’s hands, and suddenly the illusion disappeared entirely. Ro’s hands stayed where they were, unable to move.

“What did you do that for?!”

“Are you insane? You could’ve killed him!”

“These things are perfectly safe, Mitra!”

Mitra turned towards Ro.

“R, let me know you’re okay somehow. I had no idea what H had planned, I swear. I need you to believe that. I’m so sorry.”

Ro slowly withdrew his hands from the table, and dropped his head. There was an uncomfortable silence as both Mitra and Harro observed Ro. He wasn’t moving at all, and his long hair helped hide his face.

“I guess he wasn’t happy to see his old friend,” Harro quipped.

Ro leapt to his feet, dashing towards Harro, and pinning up against the wall by the lapels of his lab coat. He leaned in staring directly into Harro’s eyes, his breath a hot growl, and his dark eyes sharp and full of simmering anger.

Harro was trembling, his eyes wild and panicked (not that the digital display let that on), and he was almost too stunned to do anything.

“H-Help!” Harro was suddenly able to get out.

Ro let out an exhausted groan, his eyes closed involuntarily, and his grip slipped away as he slowly collapsed on the ground. The orderlies made their way into the test room and grabbed Ro off the ground, dragging him away. They both let the digital displays in front of their faces shut off.

After the door slammed shut, Harro let out a sigh of relief.

“I thought I was a goner,” he laughed.

Mitra walked up to him, and took the tablet out of his hand, examining it.

“Got some interesting results, wouldn’t you say? I should’ve put some of his compatriots in there as well. Like, the General or whatever his name was. Really give him a scare.”

Mitra gave Harro a stern, contemptuous look full of disgust. She then slapped him as hard as he could. There was uncomfortable silence as she continued to stare at him.

“I should’ve let him kill you,” she said in a cold, detached voice.

She sat down in the chair Ro was in, resting her head in her hands, elbows on the table.

“What, this is my fault? You were the one who suggested the tether. Don’t blame me for using it to its full capability. I didn’t expect him to freak out like this.”

“You didn’t?!” Mitra screamed at Harro, slamming her hands on the table. “You trapped a man in a blizzard hunted down by his much more fearsome past self, and you expected him to be just fine with it?”

“I wanted to see his fear response.”

“It’s psychological torture, Harro. We don’t do these things anymore.”

Harro let out a disdainful laugh. “Is that what you think? What do you think the mutagen program was to begin with? How about the pain he was in when he was submerged in the decompression tube? Wake up, Mitra. None of this exactly ‘ethical.’ How do you think we even captured this guy in the first place?”

Mitra let out a deep breath. “That wasn’t under my direction or yours. We shouldn’t be allowed to torture someone just because our peers got away with it.”

Mitra got up out of her chair, pacing around the room, still simmering. “R was barely willing to comply with our research as it is. Whatever good will we had —and it wasn’t that fucking much to begin with— is completely gone. We’ll have sedate him any time we want to run any test ever again. You might’ve single-handedly prevented him from ever using a tether in his life.” She let out a heavy sigh and closed her eyes, thinking for a moment.

“You’re off the project. I’ll file the paperwork tomorrow.”

Harro tossed the tablet to the table, and let out a groan. “Look, I’m sorry, okay,” he said passive-aggressively.

“I’m serious, Harro. You’re gone.”

Ro began to stir. He was a little disoriented, but relieved to find himself back in his padded cell, with no feeling of being attached to a tether. I never would’ve thought I’d be happy to be back in jail. He rolled over onto his back, staring at the ceiling. The lights were off, and he knew there would only be an uninterested orderly in the observation room. It became clear that Ro had to get out of here as quick as he could. If only I had the Silver Star, I wouldn’t have ended up here in the first place. Of course, Ro had no idea that he had the ability to summon the Silver Star into his hands, regardless of where he or it was.

Ro sat up, looking around confused. He stretched out his hand in front of him, palm down, unsure of what he was doing. He then flipped his palm over, expecting nothing only to find the Silver Star materializing out of nowhere, resting comfortably in his hand.

Ro brought the warhammer up close to him, in complete disbelief. He then flipped his hand over again, and the Silver Star disappeared. He had no idea how he did that, but it was just the revelation he needed.

What other secrets are you keeping from me?