Compared to the physical tests that Lewis performed earlier that day, the cognitive function tests are a breeze. He has always been more of an academic rather than an athlete or sporty type anyway. Despite being imprisoned here, Lewis finds himself enjoying the reaction time tests, abstract thinking tests, critical thinking and problem solving tests as well as the general knowledge tests that Denman has been giving him. He hates himself for this, but his scientific curiosity and inquisitive part of his mind outweigh his desire to hate and internally recoil at anything Denman forces him to do. As the well known saying goes, curiosity does indeed kill the cat.
Once Lewis finishes off the last section of the reaction time experiment, he lets out a satisfied sigh and leans back in his chair, the chair feeling cool and smooth against Lewis' back. The merman stretches out his blue, scaly tail out as much as he can while stuck in this sitting upright position in the chair, watching with fascination as he slowly curls and uncurls his fins. He knows that the results from these cognitive tests are going to be good. Lewis takes pride in his intellect and his urge to absorb as much knowledge about the world around him as possible, and hopes that it'll reflect in his results, both human and merman. Lewis' athletic abilities on the other hand, certainly leaves something to be desired. Hearing the sounds of footsteps from behind him, Lewis glances over his shoulder and watches Linda walk over to his desk with a smug expression on her face. She stands in front of Lewis, placing her hands on her hips as she stares down at him.
"You had fun with those experiments, huh?" Doctor Denman states, her voice dripping with a mocking and condescending tone.
"Well, they were certainly better than the physical tests that you made me do. I swear that my body was going to just fall apart." Lewis grumbles, reluctantly telling Linda the truth. There's no point in lying, anyhow. It's not like it's going to change his fate.
"Try not to fall apart just yet. We have plenty more tests to do." Linda says with a smile, gesturing for Frank and Troy to come forwards so that they can hoist Lewis out of his chair and begin drying him off. Lewis sighs as he watches the two men walk over to him, knowing that they aren't exactly going to be careful when picking him up or drying him off.
"Great..." Lewis mutters sarcastically, rolling his eyes in annoyance. Despite his frustration, Lewis resigns himself to his fate and doesn't resist as the two burly guards roughly hoist him up by the arms and drag him onto the cold, dusty concrete floor, Lewis' tail flopping about uselessly. Lewis glances up at Doctor Denman with a hard glare, trying not to wince as the two guards begin to aggressively dry him off with some crusty old towels.
"And what exactly are we doing next? How long have we been doing all of this experiment stuff, anyway?" Lewis tiredly asks the Doctor standing above him with an unreadable expression on her face. Lewis is genuinely losing track of time now, his body and mind wracked with exhaustion. For all he knows, he could have been doing these experiments for almost 24 hours. It's not like Lewis has any way to tell otherwise. For a fleeting moment, Lewis misses the quiet solitude that his prison cell provided him. That, and the fact that his body and mind weren't being pushed past breaking point in there. Well, at least not in the same way as they are now, anyway.
"It's only been six hours, four of which were dedicated to the physical exertion tests. We still have at least a couple more hours to go, and that's just for today." Linda replies with a kind smile, which just causes Lewis to scowl at her in return, hating that these people seem to be getting a kick out of torturing him to exhaustion. Will any of these tests even give them much helpful insight into why Lewis is the way he is? In Lewis' experience, science has never been able to outsmart magic. He wonders if Doctor Denman will deal with the same thing, but that would of course mean more hardship for Lewis, as Denman is not one to give up on finding the answers that she wants.
"Ow! Mind the scales, pal!" Lewis hisses and flinches away from Troy, who has just almost pulled out a couple of Lewis' scales as he rubs the towel the wrong way. As an extra warning, Lewis flicks his fins upwards, managing to clip Troy's arm with the right fin.
"Watch it, kid!" Troy snaps back as he pulls his arm away, shocked at how much Lewis' fin actually stung as it flicked him.
"Don't pull out all of my scales with that crusty towel, then!" Lewis growls in annoyance.
"Cool it, both of you! We still have lots of work to do! Hurry up and get the subject dry! I would like to go home at some point tonight!" Linda interrupts exasperatedly, rolling her eyes in annoyance.
"I will be in the medical examination room. I expect you three to be there within five minutes." Linda adds with an air of finality before gathering up her laptop and several clipboards of data, exiting the room, not bothering to close the door behind her. With Linda gone, Troy and Frank get back to furiously drying off Lewis, ignoring his pained grunts of complaints. Eventually after another half a minute of furious scrubbing, Lewis magically transforms back into his human form in a swirl of water and bubbles. The teenager glares between the two men hovering on each side of him with annoyance.
"There. Happy now?" Lewis spits out whilst glaring between Denman's two lackeys.
"Get up." Troy grunts as he and Frank both get to their feet. Lewis sighs and reluctantly does as he's told, allowing his two guards to lead him out of the room and down a small maze of corridors. Lewis vaguely wonders if this place somehow just goes on forever, as there seem to be too many damn corridors in this underground building. Perhaps these used to be underground tunnels during war times? It would sort of explain why this place is so big and seemingly endless. Or maybe whoever is funding Linda's research project is richer than Lewis had originally thought. Either way, Lewis doubts that there are any sort of underground tunnels, bunkers or buildings anywhere on the Gold Coast or even close to it, but who is to say that Lewis is even on the Gold Coast anymore? It would have to be a very risky move on Linda's part to keep him on the coast, considering that his friends and the police would almost certainly try and search every nook and cranny of the Gold Coast to try and find Lewis. For all he knows, this underground research facility could be anywhere in the world. Any fleeting hope that Lewis had about possibly finding a way out of this place quickly fades away once again.
Once Lewis, Frank and Troy arrive at the medical examination room, they quickly spot Doctor Denman already setting up a long row of needles of all different sizes, scalpels, syringes and test tubes. Lewis also notices there are a few vials labelled 'Iodine-based contrast materials' and 'gadolinium', which he knows are injected into a vein and are used to enhance x-ray and CT images and MR images respectively. Typically, the contrast materials are used to enhance the internal organs, soft tissues and veins of the body, including vessels in the brain, neck, chest, abdomen, pelvis and legs. As Lewis examines the room further, it is clear that Lewis will be required to at least have some CT scans and MRIs. The reasoning for this conclusion is the presence of contrast materials, but also because of the MRI and CT machines that are situated in small, separate rooms towards the back of the main medical ward area.
"Good to see that you were punctual, gentlemen." Linda smiles as she places the last needle down on the trolley in front of her before she walks over towards the new arrivals.
"It's not like there is anywhere else to go…" Lewis grumbles bitterly under his breath. Linda gives Lewis a hard, pointed look for a second before continuing to speak.
"Anyway. I would like to start off with the transformation tests, as they don't require any prep work. Strap the subject down to the operation table and we can get to work." Linda instructs her two assistants. Frank and Troy nod in understanding and begin to pull Lewis over towards the table in the center of the room.
"You don't have to strip me down to my underwear again, do you?" Lewis asks tiredly as he jumps up onto the table without the help of his two guards.
"That won't be necessary, no. We'll just spray your arms with different amounts of water and see what happens." Linda replies, walking off to the side of the room and grabbing a trolley full of different spray bottles that contain different liquid mixtures inside of them, all containing a varying amount of water. Meanwhile, Frank and Troy get to work on strapping Lewis' wrists down onto the table by the leather straps that are connected to it.
"What? You're not going to restrain my legs as well?" Lewis asks, raising an eyebrow as a sign of challenge.
"That wouldn't work very well when your legs turn into a tail, now would it? Either when your tail appears, it would break the cuffs, or the cuffs will cut through your tail and do some serious damage. I don't think you'd want that." Linda pipes up from somewhere over to Lewis' right side. Within a matter of seconds, she appears in his line of vision, staring down at him like he's some sort of cell underneath a microscope. Lewis shifts uncomfortably on the cold metal table, glancing away from the marine biologist.
"It doesn't sound ideal, no…" Lewis mumbles in agreement.
"Right. Now that we have that sorted, let's get on with the experiment, shall we? I'm going to start with the bottle containing 100% water and nothing else, and we will work our way down from there." Doctor Denman says firmly. Her two colleagues nod in acknowledgement and step back from the table to let Linda work, and Lewis doesn't have a smart response to retaliate with, so Linda takes it as a sign that she should get started. Just as Linda grabs the correct spray bottle, the medical examination room door opens loudly.
Everyone turns to glance over at the door with surprise, particularly Lewis, as he definitely hadn't expected anyone else to be coming. He kind of figured that Doctor Denman, Troy and Frank were the only people he was going to ever see in this wretched place. Not that extra scientists is necessarily a good thing for Lewis, though. It just means more prodding and poking, becoming a lab rat to yet another person.
Lewis and the others all watch as a man with curly black hair, presumably in his late twenties or early thirties, walks into the room with a lab coat on and an apologetic expression on his face.
"Sorry I'm late, Doctor Denman. Bad traffic." The stranger announces as he walks over to the group.
"Great. And who are you supposed to be, huh?" Lewis remarks snarkily while continuing to lie helplessly on the table.
"This must be the creature that you have been talking about?" The mystery man asks as he glances over to Linda.
The blonde marine biologist nods, "Yes, this is Subject A, the merman."
"Hey, I do have an actual name, you know!" Lewis protests indignantly.
"According to your files that Linda has sent me, the name is Lewis, right?" The man with the curly black hair says as he glances down at Lewis, his eyes scanning over the teenager with curiosity.
"Well, his name was Lewis. He's Subject A now." Linda replies, quickly correcting the man, who gives a small nod of understanding.
"Can someone please explain to me who the hell this new guy is?!" Lewis asks with exasperation, glaring around at the four people standing around the table all looking down at the teenager.
"Of course. This is Doctor Adrian Mitchell. Before you and your friends destroyed my reputation and credibility amongst the scientific community, Adrian was the head of my research team in the South Pacific, studying the local marine life and the ocean environment. We got back in touch recently, and we got to talking about my studies that got discredited for no evidence. Turns out, he actually believed me and didn't think that I was a laughing stock. So, I invited him to come and help me with this project. Wilson was on board with the idea," Linda introduces the stranger to Lewis in such a casual manner, as if she were reacquainting Lewis with an old friend.
"I just had to see for myself if merpeople really existed," Adrian adds, still staring down at Lewis with curiosity and fascination.
"Well, congratulations. You found me. I hope you weren't expecting a medal or anything, because you will be extremely disappointed." Lewis retorts, his voice practically oozing with sarcasm. The four scientists in the room all choose to ignore Lewis' comment, focusing back onto the experiment at hand.
Linda raises the spray bottle above Lewis' arm and squirts it a couple of times, a mist of water landing on the teenager's arm. Linda glances down at her watch and begins the 10 second countdown, and sure enough, after the 10 seconds have passed, Lewis feels the familiar tingling sensation run down his body, turning into water for a moment as his legs fuse together. In the next second, Lewis finds himself lying on the table in his merman form; his legs and clothes nowhere to be seen as the end of his blue and silver scaly tail hangs over the edge of the table. Lewis gives it a small, unenthusiastic flick, causing Adrian to jump back a little in surprise.
"Fascinating… how is this even possible?" Adrian mumbles in astonishment.
"As if I would tell you guys anything," Lewis scoffs while rolling his eyes.
"You won't need to. These experiments are going to tell us more about your biology than you would even know about yourself." Linda says, placing the spray bottle down and gestures for her associates to start scrubbing the merman dry. Without wasting time, the four scientists get to work on drying Lewis off by scrubbing furiously with towels. Lewis winces and hisses once in a while as one of them starts to scrub too hard, irritating his skin as the towels rake across it, and the teenager is sure that his skin will turn a shade of red once they are finished with the transformation experiments. Within only a couple of minutes, Lewis is dried off again and is back in his human form, but he knows that it won't last long.
"As expected and seen previously, pure H₂O caused the transformation. But we do need an official record of it, of course." Linda comments to herself with a slow nod, picking up her clipboard and pen and starts to scribble something down onto the paper that Lewis assumes must be her observations of the experiment.
"Doctor Mitchell, would you like to do the honours with the 95% water content bottle?" Denman asks as she glances up from her notes.
"Of course." Adrian replies eagerly as he picks up the spray bottle that contains 95% water content and quickly proceeds to spray Lewis' arms.
"Here we go again…" Lewis sighs quietly, awaiting for his tail to appear once more.
45 minutes later, every spray bottle has been tested on the subject, and Doctor Denman is satisfied with the results; it will give her a lot to hypothesise about later on when she analyses all of her results at the end of the day. She almost wants to perform all of the varying water contents tests again, but it is clear that Lewis is exhausted, barely able to keep his eyes open. He looks like he is about to pass out. Obviously the merman transformation takes more energy than Linda would have thought, but then again, she supposes that she has been pushing the half-fish creature very hard today. With all things considered, her test subject is actually doing quite well.
"Okay, I think we're done for now. We will proceed with the blood tests, MRI and CT scans in two hours. In the meantime, how about you take the subject back to his room, Adrian?" Linda announces to the group as she begins organising her note correctly on her clipboard and makes sure that the bottles of liquid have all been placed back onto the trolley.
"Do you want us to go with him, Doctor?" Frank frowns in confusion.
"I think Adrian will be fine on his own. The merman knows the consequences if he tries to cause trouble. Besides, he looks like he is about to pass out; I don't think he is going to try and escape. Plus, you and Troy have been working so much overtime, wouldn't you guys want a break?" Linda raises an eyebrow at Frank quizzically.
"Linda's right. You two deserve to take a break. I'm sure that I can handle a teenage boy on my own. Besides, I didn't come all the way from the South Pacific to just watch everyone else do the work." Adrian adds with a chuckle. Frank and Troy exchange a hesitant look with each other before reluctantly agreeing and help finish packing up before following Linda out of the room, leaving Lewis and Adrian alone. Adrian watches as his fellow scientists walk down the hallway until they're out of sight, with Frank casting glances back at Adrian every so often. If Adrian didn't know any better, it's as if neither Frank nor Troy trust him for some reason. 'That's rich, coming from two basically glorified lackeys,' Adrian thinks smugly to himself. The scientist then turns his attention back to the boy lying on the table, his wrists still strapped down.
"Well, Lewis. Guess we gotta get you back to your room, huh?" Adrian says with a small attempt at a smile as he walks over to the table and quickly begins to free Lewis' hands from the restraints.
"I don't think you're supposed to call me that," Lewis points out with a heavy sigh, trying not to let too much sadness seep into his voice, but it unfortunately doesn't go unnoticed by Adrian, whose smile quickly falters and fades away.
"Oh… right." Adrian mutters as he loosens the last strap and helps the young merman into an upright sitting position. Before Adrian can do anything else, the blond teenager quickly jumps down from the table and attempts to run forwards, but he doesn't make it very far. Adrian watches as Lewis stumbles after only a couple of steps and falls onto the ground in front of him, grunting in surprise and pain. Adrian sighs before moving forwards and helping Lewis back up to his feet and guides him out of the medical examination room. The pair walk along in silence for a few minutes, making their way through the maze of corridors back towards Lewis' room.
"Why did you believe Denman's original research on merfolk when there was no proof at the time?" Lewis asks, eventually breaking the silence.
"That's not really any of your business," Adrian snaps back quickly.
"Oh, come on. It's not like I have anyone to tell. Plus, I'm a merman myself, remember? I don't think normal people would just instantly believe someone that's rattling on about merfolk with no evidence." Lewis points out with a roll of his eyes.
"You're saying that I'm not normal?"
"Just answer the damn question."
"Alright! Fine!" Adrian groans, sensing that Lewis isn't going to let the subject go. Adrian can see Lewis glancing at him expectantly from the corner of his eye.
"I thought I saw a mermaid at the beach when I was five. I was out playing on the rocks when I saw something in the water. I went to have a closer look, and I swear that just under the water was a mermaid with a golden tail. No one ever believed me of course, thinking I just had a good imagination. Hell, even I started to believe that I had imagined it. That is, until I read Doctor Denman's research papers. I knew I had to find out more, and so I got into contact with Doctor Denman and began working for her. The rest is history." Adrian explains with a shrug, and the two of them continue walking on in silence again.
Several minutes later, Adrian and Lewis arrive outside the door labelled with the number 25; Lewis' prison cell room number. Adrian walks up to the door, grabs out a key and unlocks it, opening up the door to reveal the all too horrifyingly familiar dimly lit room, a foul rotting smell already hitting Lewis' nose. Adrian glances over his shoulder, eying the exhausted teenager expectantly. Lewis sighs defeatedly and shuffles forwards into the room, immediately making his way over to the rotting mattress and flops down on it, the last of his energy completely zapped. He doesn't feel like he will be able to move ever again.
"I'll come back in two hours to collect you for the tests, okay?" Adrian states as he starts to close the door. Lewis manages to look up from the bed weakly, glancing over to the marine biologist.
"Do you really think that you're doing the right thing by keeping me here and helping in torturing me?" The merman asks tiredly, causing Adrian to stop in his tracks and hesitate for a moment as he considers Lewis' question. A couple of seconds go past. Then several seconds.
Without turning back towards the creature, Adrian eventually replies, "I know you won't understand this, but all of this research is for humanity's long term benefit. We need to know what you are. Any scientist would be doing the same thing that I am."
Adrian then quickly exits the room, closing and locking the door behind him without another thought on the matter.