Ch. 2
Matt woke up some time later.
Before opening his eyes, he took note of his surroundings.
There was a beeping sound. Similar to a pulse ox machine that one might find in a hospital.
Something was attached to his finger. A pulse ox monitor? And he was on a bed.
And he was handcuffed to it. No, he was being held down by something else. Not handcuffs, but some type of metal restraints. His arms, legs and chest were restrained.
Worse of all, his mask was off. In fact, his whole suit had been removed. He could feel the cloth of what seemed like a hospital gown against his skin.
"Good evening," an accented voice greeted him. "I know you're awake, so why don't we get right to the point?"
00
"Who are you?" Matt asked.
"I am a physician."
"You worked with Nobu." Matt struggled against his restraints, trying to find a way out. How had he been so stupid? How could he let this happen?
"You were easy to trap," the man said, as if reading Matt's mind. "All it took was a distraction. The sound of something falling. We released the CO at the same time that I dropped the tray. Funny, I thought you would be harder to capture."
Matt didn't respond. He continued to work at freeing himself.
The man chuckled.
"You're not going to get out of that."
Matt growled.
"What do you want with me?"
"We didn't want anything to do with you. You came to us. We were hoping that you'd avoid us, actually. We did not want the trouble of it. But now that you're here and we've given you a proper examination, that has changed. You meet our criteria perfectly."
"What criteria?"
Matt was starting to panic. He couldn't help it. He was truly unable to escape.
The doctor sighed.
"It is hard to explain. I can tell you that if all goes well, you will fully recover."
"What are you talking about?!" Matt tried to control his breathing. Calm down, he had to calm down.
"Yes. We don't want to harm you, if that is any consolation. We want you to live."
"I heard screaming -"
"Yes, some of our test subjects aren't particularly pleased to be here. But it must be done. Now, I'm going to inject you twice. Fair warning - second needle is rather large."
Matt started to squirm again. He could hear the doctor moving around, then begin calling out in Japanese. Footsteps sounded in the room. More people had arrived. The doctor said something to one of them. A second later, Matt felt something swabbing his skin with something cold. Antiseptic. Had to be. He could smell it. Then he felt a needle plunge into his neck.
Whatever was in it was calming. He began to relax. He didn't want to relax, but he had no choice. The voice in his head told him that everything was okay. He would figure a way out later. For now, he could rest.
Matt stopped moving. He felt someone push the fabric of the gown covering him away and clean his skin again.
He had sensed that the doctor was being truthful about him wanting to survive. This proved it. Why disinfect injection sites if they wanted him dead?
"Here we go," the doctor said.
Matt whimpered as he felt a massive needle enter his femoral artery. Whatever he was being injected with burned horribly. Matt felt like he was being destroyed from the inside out.
Then, almost as quickly as it started, it was over. Matt's body couldn't handle it, though. He passed out once again.