"Hello Michael," a smooth voice said, soft as velvet, friendly and welcoming.
Michael turned to face the voice and had nothing to say in response, for the visual that accompanied the vocals was nothing at all like what he'd imagined. An older guy, dressed in purple. What the fuck?
"You may refer to me as Caligula," he said as he took a seat across from the young man, hands clasping on his lap. "We're going to have to choose a new name for you."
Michael's face scrunched a bit in confusion, curious and surprised at this new person. He'd been expecting someone else, someone a bit more... Scientific?
"I'll let you decide what you'd like, though I will say that those of us already playing the game take on monikers that pay homage to the crazy," the older man said, "Real or fictional, doesn't really make a difference. Caligula for me, though I have no idea if you'd be familiar with the man. It's been a long time since I took a history class."
Michael was too confused to respond to the comment, his eyes still taking in the look of the guy. Caligula. Sounded weird, but he supposed it fit. Weird name for a weird guy.
"Are you familiar with Shakespeare? No idea when he's taught in high school, if he even still is. None of that Romeo and Juliet crap either, I'm talking stories of real psychosis here. King Lear. Heard of him?"
Michael narrowed his eyes at the man, his naturally downturned lips pulling back further. "Who are you?" He asked, wondering how this guy could possibly work at McLure. Grey had said nothing about crazy people.
"Caligula," the purple-clad man answered before leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees. "I'm here to extend an offer to you, Michael. Perhaps I should have explained that before making assumptions."
"What kind of offer?" Michael asked, definitely thinking that this guy could not possibly really work for McLure. How had he gotten in, then?
"Have you heard of Nexus Humanus, Michael?" Caligula asked him, and Michael shrugged.
"A bit," he replied, because he did remember overhearing his father and Grey talking about it once. He hadn't heard much, but what he had heard had sounded negative. They were some kind of cult.
"It's an organization devoted to creating a society full of happy people," Caligula started to explain. "I won't bother going into specifics, but to make a long story short – they want to warp the minds of the masses, Michael. They want to turn the human race into a hive culture, like bees. Everyone with the same thoughts, all happy and positive, but with no free will. No choice. You do what you're told with a smile and a nod, and that's life. A hive."
"What?" Michael replied, more confused than he'd been before.
"Confused? Don't worry kid, you're not alone," Caligula replied, before his phone buzzed with a message. "Give me a second," he said, sitting back in his chair and tapping away on his phone. Michael waited patiently, trying to make sense of what he'd been told.
Caligula stopped tapping then and put the phone away, leaning forward again. "Tell me Michael, what's more important? Freedom or happiness?"
That was an easy answer for him, at least. "Freedom."
"And what makes you say that?" Caligula asked with a smile.
"Because I can't feel happiness."
Caligula grinned and nodded, seemingly pleased. "And that is precisely why we want you. You like video games, huh?" He asked, and Michael stared at him blankly. "I hear you're very good at them, you've beaten anyone who takes you on."
Michael nodded, still confused. "Yeah, so?"
"So," Caligula began, "This is all one big video game, what we do. I take it you're familiar with Mr. McLure's biot research?"
Michael's eyes narrowed. So this guy really did work for McLure? He found that hard to believe. "Yeah, somewhat."
"Mr. McLure has been trying to fix your brain for a while now, hasn't he? Have you ever seen how it's done?"
Michael shook his head. He'd heard a vague explanation, about tiny organisms created from human DNA mixed with other things. Grey had, of course, made him sign a confidentiality agreement before he'd told him anything, and he'd only told him because he'd asked. "I just know they were in my head fixing whatever was wrong."
"Yes," Caligula nodded. "Except that they haven't been able to fix you yet. This is all old news to you and I, though, so I'll move on. We have reason to believe that Nexus Humanus is being funded by two men, Charles and Benjamin Armstrong. They own the Armstrong Fancy Gifts Corporation, but it's really just a cover, all those gift shops and snowglobes. They've been developing their own technology, nanobots, that work similarly to McLure's biots, except the nanobots are robots."
Michael nodded, though he was still lost. What exactly was Caligula trying to get at, here?
"These nanobots would be used to re-wire the brains of the people," Caligula said, "They'd be used to control the people. You fancy the idea of someone shuffling around in your head, controlling you? Of course you'd be a terrible recruit for Nexus, given that you can't be happy. But you'd make one hell of a twitcher."
"A what?" Michael asked, wondering if he'd heard right. A twitcher?
"Someone who controls the nanobots," Caligula explained, "someone who goes into the heads of other people and rearranges their thoughts."
Michael was silent at the comment, mostly because he didn't know what to say in response. But suddenly he had an idea. "Is Grey trying to stop them?" He asked, wondering if that was it. Grey had offered him the opportunity to work for him, to work with the biots. Was this it?
"No, not actively," Caligula replied, "Lear is the one bent on stopping them. Grey McLure just funds Lear's research, and his movement."
"Who's Lear?" Michael asked, crossing his arms over his chest. This was getting weirder by the second.
"Rule number one, Michael – don't ask questions about Lear. Not if you want to live," Caligula added with a shrug.
Michael studied the old man's face, wondering again what his purpose was. "Is Lear trying to recruit me?" He asked, feeling that maybe he was on to something.
"Bingo," Caligula replied.
But Michael was still confused. "What does he want from me?"
"He's building up a group, slowly, because this isn't the sort of thing you rush into." Caligula paused then, regarding Michael keenly.
The teenager couldn't take the silence. "Why me?" He asked, curious.
Caligula smiled, and his smile was all teeth, sharp and pointy, and Michael felt wary all of a sudden. "Because you would make the perfect biot soldier, and because you're already against the Nexus Humanus shit. Plus, like I said, this whole biot control thing is like a video game, so gamer kids are the main targets. If we don't recruit you, you can bet your ass the Armstrongs will come for you, and they're not in the business of taking no for an answer."
"Why you over them?" He asked, looking for more of an answer than just "they want to take over the world".
"Because you owe Grey McLure, Michael," Caligula answered, and sat back in his chair.
"He wants me to work for him, do medical research stuff," Michael said, remembering that conversation. "He probably thinks it'll give me a sense of purpose, or something."
"Not probably, Michael, but definitely. But you and I both know, kid, that helping other people won't mean shit to you. You're not a compassionate person."
Michael frowned, because what Caligula said was true. "I don't mean to be this way-"
"But you are. Your talents would be wasted, Michael, fighting disease in the body. But fighting crazy guys intent on turning the world into robots? If they take away your freedom of thought, Michael, what would you have left?" Caligula waited for him to reply, sat still as a stone, not even blinking.
"Nothing," Michael answered, and he knew it was true. Free will iwas/i all he had in life.
"Then you'll join us?" Caligula asked, and Michael nodded. "Good. A word of warning, though. The process is not going to be pleasant."
Michael swallowed hard around the lump in his throat while Caligula grinned. He thought suddenly of Nikki. With Nexus Humanus turning everyone into happy robots, there'd be no more suicide. No more depression.
But there'd be no more freedom. No place for people like him, who couldn't be happy.
Hadn't he thought of killing himself before? What had stopped him? He had nothing to live for. No pleasure. But this, maybe. This could be something to live for. This could be purpose. Like Caligula had said, he wasn't a compassionate person. He wasn't wired that way. But he wasn't callous either, and maybe, just maybe, this could give him something to live for.
This could be interesting. It might not make him happy, but it could keep him interested, and maybe that would be enough.
Maybe.
It was two hours later and he was sitting in one of the labs, an older man in a lab coat preparing a syringe. Caligula had made him watch a video, and he'd explained what would happen, what he'd expect. Michael hadn't been sure if he'd believed all of it, because it still seemed rather farfetched. He mostly couldn't believe that he'd actually be seeing two realities at once through his eyes.
It seemed crazy. Then again...
He fidgeted in his chair, an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach that he wasn't too acquainted with. He wondered if he was nervous. He'd never really felt nervous before, because nerves were usually associated with anxiety and fear, and he'd never really had anything to fear before. When you couldn't feel pleasure, it gave you a rather skewed acceptable level of pain, so much so that unless you were right in the middle of physical torture you'd never know enough to be afraid.
Was he afraid now? Caligula had told him that once he went through with this, there would be no turning back. Once his biots were born, that was it. He had them for life, and if he lost them, he'd go mad.
No maybe. No possibility. Only certainty.
He told him about McLure's first biot tester, a man by the name of Leonard Farmer. He'd lost a biot one time while working on Grey's wife, trying to destroy her brain tumor. He hadn't been the same afterwards, still able to function, but distracted. Not quite himself.
Michael had asked him what had happened to him, because Caligula had stopped then.
"AFGC got him," had been the answer, "Infested him with nanobots and destroyed him, drove him insane."
And now he was in the lab, down to his last minute to back out. His last minute to go back to a normal life, but a life worth nothing. What to do?
"Last chance kid," Caligula said, standing by the door, arms crossed.
Michael said nothing, his eyes on the scientist. What to do?
"You just want to keep on existing, with no purpose, or do you want to do something with your life?"
Yes or no?
"I'll take your silence as a yes. Jab him, Pound."
It was over in a second – but it lasted so much longer. It was just a simple jab to remove a miniscule chunk of flesh, and he stared at the swell of blood afterwards. The stab and pull had been nearly electrifying, a sharp jolt to his mind that he'd never quite felt before.
And it had given him something he'd always craved without being able to put a name to it – the exhiliration of pain. His heart had sped up, his breath had caught in his throat, and suddenly he was wishing that he had tried out Nikki Rutledge's method of coping all those years ago. It was intense and shocking and felt surprisingly good - or at least as close to good as he could imagine.
He stared in open-eyed shock at his arm, watched as the blood welled up and finally broke, sending a tiny rivulet of it down his arm. He watched it with fascinated eyes, surprised at how it had felt. Had he found the real answer? Would he do it again, jab himself and rip chunks of skin away?
"Is it okay if I give him this, Pound?" He heard Caligula ask, though he wasn't about to look and see what the old man was talking about. His eyes remained focused on the blood.
"Sure, just throw it out afterwards, don't bother cleaning it."
Suddenly something was thrust in his lap, and Michael looked up then, up into the smirking face of Caligula, and suddenly that odd feeling in the pit of his stomach came back, the one he'd never really felt before today, and his eyes went from Caligula to the scientist, back to Caligula, then down at the metal bowl in his hands.
"What's this for?" He asked, as the feeling in his stomach intensified.
"How long?" Caligula asked Pound.
"I'd say another ten seconds," Pound replied, turning to face the pair. "5, 4, 3, 2, 1-"
And suddenly Michael pitched forward off his seat, the bowl clattering in front of him into luckily the right position as his stomach hurled its contents up through him, right up his esophagus and out his mouth and into the bowl.
It was the first time in his life that he'd ever thrown up. He'd heard people talk about it before, but he'd never experienced it himself, not until now, and he thought he could see something in the bowl, something that looked oddly like bugs...
"What the fuck?" He said with a shaky voice, feeling the urge to be sick again.
"Finally seeing them, are you?" Caligula asked with a grin.
"You did show him the video and explain the process, didn't you?" Pound asked, and Caligula nodded.
That was enough to remind Michael of what he was seeing. Of what he was seeing - "Oh my god!" He yelled, falling back onto his butt, staring ahead in wide eyed horror. "Holy fuck," he said, "What the fuck is that?" He yelled, even though he knew, because he'd just seen this in the video, Caligula had just explained it to him.
"What you're experiencing is completely normal," Pound said, "It happens to everyone."
"What the fuck!" Michael yelled again, watching as it grew in his eyes, as it formed, as it looked around, as it found its twin – "Holy shit it has my eyes!" He wailed, completely forgetting the bowl and simply leaning to the side, throwing up again.
"You're doing a terrible job Caligula," Pound said, "And I certainly hope you have every intention of cleaning that up, because I sure as hell will not."
"He'll clean it," Caligula said, pulling out his phone. "He made the mess."
"Ever the compassionate soul," Pound said, before crouching down and opening the door to one of the cabinets. He pulled out a roll of paper towl, holding his breath as he walked over to the kid and thrust it at him. "Here," he said, offering the roll.
Michael looked up at the face of the scientist, panting hard now at the sheer horror in his eyes. He was seeing three things at once – the scientist, the creature, and then suddenly a second creature! He tore a few sheets of the paper towel off the roll, wiping at his mouth, feeling bile rise again.
How could they do this to people? It was terrifying! Sure he'd seen the video, he thought he'd been prepared. But this was something entirely different. This was madness.
"They look like me," he whispered, his hands shaking.
"They have your dna," Caligula said, before leaning down and laying a hand on the top of his head. "You'll be fine in a few minutes, Michael. This is all normal, just like I explained."
"I thought that was all bullshit!" Michael yelled, because he had.
"Well, look at that. The kid has the capacity for certain emotions after all," Caligula said with a grin.
And Michael realized with sudden fascination that he was right. He was feeling something, and it was different, unusual. There was no way it could be pleasure, no way it could be happiness. But it was something, and after a lifetime of nothing, he was glad to receive it.
Caligula's phone rang then, and the older man stood up to answer it.
"He's in," was all he said, to which there came only a one word reply.
Good.
"Thank you Pound," Caligula said, "I'll take him from here." He held his hand out, and the scientist placed the crèche in his outstretched palm.
"Don't forget to clean up that mess," Pound said, "I'm serious. I'm not touching it, and I'm not working in here with it either."
Caligula sighed before walking back to Michael, reaching out with his foot to roll the paper towel back to the kid. "Clean up after yourself, would you?"
Michael looked up at him, staring in shock. "What have you done to me?" He asked, even though he knew the answer.
"Clean," Caligula said, "And then we'll get on with your training."
And so Michael reached over to take the paper towel, mechanically wiping up where he'd missed the bowl and been sick on the floor. But he was still focused on his biots, his children as Caligula had jokingly referred to them earlier. The shock was wearing off, and the closest thing he'd ever experienced to excitement was setting in. He had purpose. He had a future.
He had something, finally, after ever only knowing nothing.