crucible
"Gentlemen. Your final assessment, then?"
"The results indicate advancement. The subject has shown very positive results in the last four months, under series Delta and Epsilon. As you are aware, there are marked exponential increases in synaptic response, prana musculature response and bindic suppression. His reactions to the biologic insertions are well under control now, and the conversion of his neuron delay-return seems to have peaked. Based on these results, we feel we are ready to proceed with Omega."
"Omega."
"Yes, sir."
He doesn't qualify his statement, doesn't offer any more reasons. He doesn't have to. The amount of paper spread on my desk is so very small in comparison to the weight of his words. The few pages describe only the end results of the last six years of intensive research. Research. Say instead, experimentation. Speculation. Inquisition.
The first series of 'biologic insertions' put him flat on his back for three weeks, wracked with convulsions we hadn't predicted and could barely control. Everything we had then to keep him stable until they took. Everything we had to keep him alive.
And it only got worse from there.
Omega. They recommend proceeding to Omega.
The three of them wait patiently as I lower my head, read once again the few pages that comprise every success, every failure in this program. There is no room for error, or at least no error that we can't quantify, reduce, push into a box named acceptable margin. Nightmares even now, seeing his body nearly break itself across of the bone of rejection.
Four pages, three men and six years. I read every word there, one more time, tally them in columns against the numbers in my head. I never want to face myself in the mirror without seeing these words engraved in my eyes. I never want to look in the mirror and see his eyes accusing me of not understanding what I asked.
Equations burn like crosses on the paper, with black words to frame them and describe their function. When I look up the light from the window streaks across my glasses, a pretense of blindness. There are no disguises here though, nothing to hide behind. Time moves like a river and can't be stopped. I can't stop this moment. I dare not even try.
"Gentlemen. I accept your recommendation. Proceed with Omega."
He bows his acknowledgement, leaves the papers on my desk. There isn't even any secret victory on his face because this was inevitable. This isn't a game where he wins, where I lose. He gives me the numbers and I... I pass judgement.
"We will prepare the subject for the next stage."
They've long gone, their voices and echoes stilled in the corners my office before I can find the courage to move again. I'm empty save for the white, white leaves of necessity still lying in front of me. They don't accuse me even with my hands on them. Square fingers, nails blunt cut resting on the paper that condemns him to more than a man can be expected to bear.
If he lives through Omega, then the others will start Delta. If he dies... we will start them again at Alpha.
There is no choice any more. All that is left is judgements of when.
"His name is Ken." It's only a whisper, the only affirmation I have left open to me. "Not 'the subject'... his name is Ken."
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Seventy five, seventy six, seventy seven.
There's a couple of more of them in the fishbowl now. I can see them, my peripheral vision is that good but without turning I can't identify who it is. Wonder briefly if I should look but the truth of the matter is that I need this workout more than I need to know who's watching me.
Me watching them watching me watching them. It might be funny but somehow I don't feel like laughing. Joe would laugh. He'd probably finger the guys in the fishbowl too while he was at it.
Joe.
Eighty three, eighty four.
I'm most of the way through my routine and the iron cross is a brutal strain on the arms. The secret, such as it is, is smooth, controlled movement. No stopping at the apex, no stopping at the nadir, just an easy translation of direction and vector. I can feel strain burning a brand across my back, threatening to cut off my air because my head wants to hang forward. Remind myself again to get my hair cut with sweat stinging my eyes.
Eighty five.
Joe. Hope to God he stays the hell away from me for the rest of the day. Just what did he think he was doing? Middle of the hallway, white coats everywhere and he wants to go toe to toe over the run scores. Like it's my fault he got hung up on the last three targets.
If he wants to fight that bad, he can go find a wall to take it out on. I'm not his damned punching bag and I've got better things to do than babysit his temper.
Or mine. Realise I've lost the rhythm of motion with anger tingling in my hands, hanging that crucial second too long on the extension.
Iron cross. This was probably some sort of torture back in the forgotten days. Where they'd set you up and you couldn't let go.
I've stopped, hung up on that damn bar at full distension and my arms are already starting to tremble with near spasm release. Damn it.
"Ken." The com crackles first, a half second of barely audible warning. "Enough for today."
There's nothing but blood in my ears and I can't seem to suck enough wind. Down off this bar sounds pretty damned good.
"Ken." Impatient today, are we? "Ken, it's time to come down. Dr. Inaka is here to see you."
Raise my head, stare at the opposite wall. Don't turn, don't look at the fishbowl. Don't want to see him standing there, my very own apparition of nightmare.
An ice wind runs a coy finger down my spine. A bead of sweat shivers on my eyelash, blocking vision.
Ninety. Two.
"Ken."
Ninety. Three.
My heart is a hammer, trying to beat itself out of my chest. One after the other, exruciatingly slow, feeling the burn become fire, become conflagration.
Dr. Inaka who personally supervises the major project benchmarks.
Needles full of perdition, needles of nepenthe. Dr. Inaka of the cold coat and silently dead eyes, who watches and measures and reports back to Hakase that I've managed to survive. That I still survive. That I continue to survive.
Ninety six.
Ninety seven.
They've stopped paging me, although whether its for courtesy or frustration is hard to tell. Look down, blind with sweat and cramping muscle. Reach inside for the switch that they never told me I could find, reach for that last little bit that will take me the rest of the way.
Lean forward as the center of balance shifts, back muscles howling in distress as I pull it in and send it out, pure lift. Legs rising behind me until I'm crucified on the bar, looking straight down. A true cross, horizontal to the floor and the world is a symphony of pain, an intimacy that pools between my legs, wraps wires around my lungs.
Ninety eight. Ninety nine.
What do they have planned for me now?
One hundred.
The drop is nothing more than sweet reflex, solid ground shocking beneath the balls of my feet. Pass a hand over my eyes and pretend I'm just wiping the sweat away. Once the shaking is under something that passes for control, I find the towel and press my face into its rough folds.
"Ken. Call it done for the day." Is there a fraction of hesitation there? Approval? Maybe. Maybe not. "Dr. Inaka will see you in conference room twelve."
There is nothing that can be said to that. Turn to the window and bow, acknowledge the command-not-request. The good doctor will see me in conference room twelve, hai sir, right away sir.
Rub the towel through my hair and turn to the showers. If I'm lucky I can wash the fear smell away.
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You'd think they'd at least have warmed up the electrodes.
Maybe it's just me, maybe they're not little chips of ice stuck to my skin. Maybe I'm just a little warm and overreacting. Or maybe they really did stick them in the freezer to make sure they got the most accurate reading during use.
I've long since learned not to be modest as they fuss around me like a swarm of demented white moths. Stand as quietly as I can until their monitors register whatever it is that they're supposed to register, baselines established against pattern norms, things checked, things double checked, things calibrated. Eventually though a final few plastic circles are tug-tested for adhesion and the last of them flits away. Leaving me alone in the center of a room large enough to qualify as a decent sized mausoleum.
Alone is a relative term. The technicians watch the monitors, Dr. Inaka watches the technicians and Hakase... Hakase watches some point just above my head.
Try and read his expression, his posture, anything that will give me an idea which way this is going to go. I'm standing, not strapped down and that makes it both easier and harder. Flex my fingers without dislodging any crucial instrumentation. Harder because I'm the one that has to hold myself still. Easier because if they strapped me down I don't know if I could.
Even now I wake up in the middle of the night, slick upright with terror. Straps and pain and no way out.
Jun knows. She just... knows somehow and she moves through the security that can't keep us anymore, to hold me and tell me by the comfort of her arms and neck that I'm here. That she is, that we all are and that we'll get through. All those words without words, until I sleep again if I can. She slips out before they find us together but I know that Hakase knows. It's there in his eyes the next day, an equally wordless understanding. More distant than her arms around me, more remote than the touch of her lips in my hair, but acknowledgement all the same.
Hakase gives nothing away today though, no reaction to the fact that I'm trussed up like the christmas turkey with all the trimmings. Watch the motion in the corners of my eyes, the flurry of things that are not me and my mouth is dry for all the meditation I'm trying to call on. Inaka and Hakase. Whatever it is, I have to be ready. I can't fail now.
One technician murmurs something, then a second and then its a round of quiet agreement. They're ready. God, I hope I am.
"Dr. Nambu. We are ready to commence Omega."
"Ken. G1." The fear that runs down my spine is chased and swallowed by the shudder of foresight. The sudden air pressure makes it hard to think, timpani in my ears. G1. "Are you ready?"
Hakase's quiet voice, his quiet eyes measuring me in my bare flesh, my bare intentions. Am I ready? As if there could there be any other answer than God, yes. All of my life to earn this, be worthy of this. Everything I am to be worthy of this.
"Hai, Hakase. I am ready."
And as easily as that he comes forward, stepping carefully over the wires and traces and his eyes are still opaque when they reach mine. If there are shadows I blame them on the room because there is only a crazed exultation in my veins. Omega. Omega.
It's translated as the last, but the truth is its the beginning.
He holds out his hand and for a second I can't figure out what he's giving me. Slim and brief, pale colors merge against his skin. It resolves itself finally into a bracelet of some kind, dully quiescent in his open palm. Look at him with questions I can't find the proper, delicate words for.
"Put it on your left wrist, G1." He doesn't offer to do it for me so I have to reach out and take the thing from him, place it awkwardly against my chilled flesh. There's a ridge but there doesn't seem to be a way to fasten it and for a moment I'm at a loss. It's cold as well, colder than the plastic recording devices, colder than standing here while they all watch screens instead of me. Did they put this thing in the freezer too?
Yet against my skin it warms. I'm not sure but it almost looks like it has more color now too, not as pale as it was. Press the two edges together, hoping to find a hidden catch and suddenly it seals. Blink at it, raise it to my eyes to look. Definitely there's color to it now, muted blues in the band, a sheen of gold across the faceplate and its more than solid on my wrist. Shake my hand tentatively but it doesn't come off.
Look at Hakase for instruction and for a instant something shifts in his eyes, gone before I can identify it. He nods abruptly and retreats. Deliberately he moves, no faster or slower than he was on approach but still I have an odd sensation that he's running. Back across the wires, back behind the rough circle of authority and machinery. Only when he is safe there does he clasp hands behind his back and faces me again. Yet there is no yielding in his voice when he speaks.
"Ken Washio. G1 of the Kagaku Ninjatai, are you ready?"
"Hai, Hakase!" It feels like a bird torn from my throat, tosses my head back. Oxygen rushes deep in my lungs. "I am ready!" There's a prickle of sweat on my shoulders and my arms remember the pain of the bar.
"The command is Bird Go."
What?
Yet there is suddenly such terrible expectation in his face, like a light shining behind storm clouds. I don't understand. Look at him in confusion, at the technicians, at Dr. Inaka. I think that I hate him, yet that truth is only that he brings me that which makes me stronger.
Think. Raise the bracelet to my face. Solid, heavier than it seems it ought to be, color chases itself across the surface. If it was cold, its warm now and getting warmer. Responding to me? A key to something? Look across the distance that separate us and watch the light that tries not to burn under Hakase's face.
There are no prayers for this.
"Bird go."
For a terrible, heart lurching moment there is nothing. Nobody moves, nothing breathes, least of all me and I have time for a sudden, sick feeling that I've failed. That something has gone wrong and whatever it is is not going to work. Incoherently think that I've done something wrong.
Then the world explodes into agony.
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I can't see anything.
My eyes are wide open and there's nothing but tornado light. Blinding me, ripping me apart. Tearing me away.
Like fire, pain lives; eats, breathes. Runs curious fingers through muscle and sinew, through bone and blood until there is nothing but pain. The boundaries of self defined only by where it exists.
I've been here enough times to know the landscape. To know when its permissible to breathe between the waves. How much effort to waste on life, doling it out like coins to a keeper. Or when life is the last thing to worry about in the need to simply withstand.
Yet strength fades, and there's a threshold where flesh fails. Shuts down, shuts off, shuts itself away from what can no longer be tolerated, from pain which can't be endured or ignored. I've been there before too, feet on the edge of the abyss and a cold wind that says I can't hold anymore. There is darkness then, a long falling into oblivion and finally silence. A place to find courage, until the pain beats itself to death on the refusal to surrender.
This is nothing like that.
I can feel something devouring me, severing me from myself a cell at a time in a cascading frenzy of hunger. No relief, no darkness. No chance to find any strength at all. I can feel everything as I come apart and all I can do is scream.
I think I'm screaming. I hope to God I'm screaming myself raw. It hurts so much.
Teeth gnaw at my heart, chewing red and fat and voracious. Lightning rides my vision, incinerating skin, boiling blood to steam. Cyclone fury rips through me, and I'm not even sure I have a throat anymore to scream with. I can't see anything at all.
I'm dying. I'm dying out there where my body is and Hakase is going to stand there and watch. Watch and record.
The bracelet. The bracelet.
Fumble with my wrist, not even sure if I know where it is, where I am.
"No, Ken!"
Ken is someone else. Ken is someone with a name and a body and a world that doesn't convulse over knives of agony. I think I have my wrist in my other hand. It's so hard to know. Envision blood in a fountain, cold and colder still, quench this fire that destroys me. Blood; until I can find the abyss to fall in and away. Silence.
"Accept it, Ken! Accept! G1, stand fast!"
Hakase. Hakase. Stand fast.
It's eating my heart.
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In this pyre, I understand. Although the words mean nothing there is memory, burned deep into my bones of other trials, other destructions. Jun's kiss in my hair that tells me that we are together. Struggle to find the balance, find the way between gravity and will. A place where one pain can cancel another. Stand fast.
Reach desperately to where strength is only spirit and desire. There is no thought, no image of anything but the need to hold on. I will not be defeated by this. I will not submit. Scrape air into lungs that scald with the effort. Once. Again.
There is an instant of stillness, center struck. The flesh is blackening on my bones but still, a fracture of time in which to realise that this is a choice.
I can accept it. Or I can die.
Pain is only pain. Death is under everything, all the time, with each breath I take, waking or sleeping. Even here. Even now.
I accept this. I permit this. But I do not have to submit.
Something... wakes. Blood-fused and dancing, fueled by heat and strength and need. Takes the cyclone and twists it somehow, absorbs it and returns it threefold, pulls it through me and out of me and back inside again. I can feel things changing. Rearranging themselves in their smallest parts and the pain sweetens. No less than it was but my hair whirls with it, pleasure explodes in my mouth.
Something lives in this place.
I hear myself screaming now, distantly, a howl of need, of release. Block by block, I am rebuilt, readjusted into a more pleasing configuration. Terror, torment and rapture in the same moment, tasting like copper and ozone as my body breaks apart and reforms. I permit this. I permit this. This is mine to withstand.
Then its over.
Shake my head. Finally, there is silence. Overwhelming, indescribable silence. The absence of pain hurts, my body trembles still with heart rage. Gulp air like water, like I'm drowning.
Discover distantly that I'm actually seeing something, hazed in blue and silver. My hands. My hands on the floor. I don't understand. I don't have hands anymore.
Yet... flex my fingers. A shock of sweetness as they scrape over the hard surface, bound in blue armor. I'm alive. Those are my hands.
Lift my head to realise that I'm on one knee, vision washed to blue and so clear that its like the surfaces of everything have been stripped away. The corners of things are so sharp that they bring tears to my eyes.
Something moves, or maybe its only the intention of movement. A lifted hand, a twitch of fingers. A shocked breath.
Speed explodes on my tongue, thrust backwards, away. Across the room in a heartbeat, on my feet and there's something hard in my hand. Everything is so clear.
Warmth settles at my back. The floor is uneven beneath me, small imperfections in surface distract me, call my attention. Hakase raises his hands, so slowly its like watching him struggle against treacle. He is the only thing moving. Turns his palms towards me.
Watch his lips move, shape sound and I admire the hard edges of it, the way it slices through the air. I am alive.
Perception gradually resolves itself, assembles into understanding. 'Ken'. That should mean something to me. That word means something to me.
Recognition eludes me. My attention wanders the room, seeing everything without its usual skin. Clean white coats flash, grouped apart from me as they huddle over clusters of metal and wire. Instruments, I remember. Control panels. It's all so infinitely fascinating, but so is the weight of breath in my lungs. The hot rush of liquid in my veins. The shimmer of dust in the air is so beautifully complex.
"Ken," he says again and takes a step forward. The world starts to speed up and reply trembles through my body. The body twists, curves itself into response and the answer is in my hand, metal and quivering.
"Ken. G1!"
That means something too. That means something infinitely important. Hesitate, wanting nothing more than to move, to feel.... then memory sorts itself out of this insane clarity, slides itself together and my arm lowers, shaking. Even that sparks crazy pleasure, the feel of muscle releasing. I almost... I almost...
Look around again, to see that Dr. Inaka is studying me with his impassive expression but I know now that he hides both fear and delight. Hakase still has his hands out to me in a gesture of placation. The electrodes gleam on the floor and I look down without thinking about it.
White and red. Blue. Blood and oceans. I'm clothed, covered. Turn my hand over and metal laughs at me in a curve. My hand tightens and I feel the killing edge sink in.
I'm alive.
Hakase moves, a single step and I flare, wings spread. I tense to spring, to get away.
The light on his face moves out from behind its clouds, strikes me with the force of his gaze.
In the shadow of this blue clarity, I see what I never saw before. Perhaps it was always there. Or perhaps I could not have seen it until now.
And it shakes me to the core.
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Joe is waiting for me.
Leaning against the wall, arms folded. He looks boneless, standing there, like nothing could move him save the hand of God and even then only if he felt like compliance.
A million years ago I would have reprimanded him. Lights out, I would have said, get to quarters. He wouldn't have gone but I'd have told him anyways. That's who we are to each other.
A million years ago I told him to get the hell out of my face and went to go work out.
The clarity is gone, but still I see when he looks at me, a gleam of eyes gone dark under lashes. And as easily as that he moves, unfolds himself from the wall to shove hands into his pockets.
"Nice clothes."
Look down, I can't help it and I'm covered in blood.
Blink the vision away because it's just a shirt. A shirt that's now as much a part of me as the color of my eyes.
Look up and he's watching me. Watching me watching him. And it clicks into place.
"You knew. You picked a fight with me because you knew."
My forearm is in his throat before I have a chance to think about it, reaction so fast its like there's no time for me to even catch up. He grunts in pain and his hands fly up too late to do anything about it. The grin is out of place though even as his fingers dig into my skin.
"Yeah. Hakase really needs to change the security on his office."
"Joe!"
He shrugs, not easily. Fingers search, find, dig themselves into the joint of my elbow and my fingers spasm. It feels good, that shock of pain. I can taste it in my mouth again, heat and light and in a second its going to turn into something else.
I've let him go, horrified at what I feel and he slumps, comes down off the balls of his feet. One hand rubs his throat, but the cocksure smile never wavers. My fingers tingle from the nerve strike.
"Yeah." The words hang in the air. "Yeah, I knew."
"Shit, Joe, you should have said..."
"What?" He cuts me off with an impatient stare. His fingers hook themselves again over his pockets, like he can't stand any other way. "Said what, Ken? Have a great day and oh, by the way, don't go anywhere with Dr. Inaka? They're going to stick you full of something and I bet it's going to hurt like hell?"
Something tells me there's not enough air in the hallway. His eyes accuse me but I don't even know what I'm guilty of. For being the first? For proving it's possible?
Glare back at him, listening to the rush of warmth and thunder in my ears. "They didn't stick me full of anything."
"Yeah? So how come I can't see the color of your eyes? You look really fucked up, Ken."
Glance into a window, startled, but I can't see my reflection. I feel fine. Better than fine, actually.
"Not drugs." His eyes burn on my skin, draws my attention back. "Not this time."
"Doesn't matter. You made it, so we're starting Delta series tomorrow."
The sudden shift of conversation throws me out of understanding. "Delta?" Then; "Who's we?"
A grin like lightning streaks across his face. "Me. Ryu. Jun won't start for another three weeks, Jinpei's after that. Metabolism, you see. Body weight makes a difference."
I'm cold, right down to the pit of my stomach. That's where they strap you down, injection after careful injection, measured between the convulsions. I have a sick feeling that I know now what they were putting in my blood. Something that takes time to multiply, to saturate. Something that takes time to mature.
What can I say to that? Delta. Nothing can be said to that save get out.
Yet...."Why? Why'd you try and pick a fight, Joe?" It's barely a whisper but I know he hears me.
He shrugs and for an aching moment I don't think he's going to answer. Then; "Bruises are a bitch. They take a long time to heal."
His eyes slide away though, refuse to meet mine and he leaves, brushing by my shoulder with his angry stride. The heat of his presence is still burned into my eyes though and they water.