Bobby woke up suddenly, gasping for breath. He felt like he had just woken from a terrible nightmare. And even after he opened his eyes and sat up, he still couldn't shake the feeling that the nightmare wasn't over. Something was wrong. He felt... different. Like there was something in his body that didn't belong there. The back of his neck felt strange- in fact, it felt downright itchy. But the itch seemed to be coming from under the skin, where he couldn't scratch it.

Suddenly Bobby realized that he had no idea how he'd gotten into this room. The last thing he remembered was Darien and Arnaud arguing, and Arnaud sticking needles into him. He sat up in his bed, wondering what had happened. Oh crap, he thought, did they already do that surgery thing? He'd known they'd do it of course, but he had thought they'd tell him first.

He felt a familiar rush of fear and paranoia, and immediately wondered when the last time he'd taken his medication had been. As far as he could remember, it was right after he'd gotten out of prison. It had only been a few hours drive to the complex, but who knew how long he'd been unconscious? For all he knew, it could have been weeks.

Bobby glanced around the room in confusion and spotted a mirror on one wall. He walked over to it and looked at himself in the mirror. He rubbed the back of his head, trying to locate the source of the strange itchy feeling. He moved his hand, trying to see his head and the back of his neck. It looked normal, but he still couldn't shake the sensation that something was different. Then he noticed a small scar on the back of his head. Hey, he thought, that wasn't there before... He reached up and felt the scar. It was close to the source of the itching. A cold feeling began to settle in the pit of his stomach. Just what had they done to him?

A loud sound echoed through the room. Bobby jumped in surprise and whirled around. The person in front of him was wearing a doctor's outfit and a mask. He was holding a scalpel in one hand. He stepped forward menacingly. Bobby paled and took a step backward. He began frantically looking around for the exit, but the man was blocking the only way out of the room.

The man charged toward Bobby. Bobby let out a loud yelp and jumped out of the way, managing to avoid being stabbed. He dashed past the man and ran to the door, ramming into it in his haste to get out. However, the impact nearly knocked him over backwards. He rattled the doorknob frantically, but it was no use; the door was locked.

Bobby turned around just in time to see the man charging at him again, yelling loudly and aiming the scalpel toward his head. Bobby fell to the ground, trying to pull himself up into a ball so it would be harder for the man to stab him. He was terrified; his heart was beating a mile a minute, and he could feel sweat pouring out all over his body. But when he looked down at his hands, he saw they were covered with a strange silver liquid. Then it began to disappear from sight- taking his hands with it.

"Oh crap, oh my God..." Bobby looked at where his hands had been moments before in shock. Within moments the rest of his body had disappeared as well, and instead of seeing in the normal color spectrum, he was seeing only in hues of black, white, and gray. Bobby realized he had completely forgotten the man with the scalpel and looked up at him, half expecting him to be poised to kill. But the man was no longer acting in an aggressive fashion; in fact, he looked nearly as scared as Bobby was.

**********

Bobby's hands shook as he tried to open the bottle with his pills in it. Kevin was standing nearby, trying to explain why Bobby had disappeared from sight. He gestured at a rat in a cage nearby and said, "We fit this rat's brain with a gland like the one we put into yours. Watch this." He motioned to Arnaud, who was standing nearby. Arnaud immediately yelled something at the rat very loudly in French. Bobby jumped in surprise. The rat did more than jump; the silver liquid began covering its body, and it started to disappear from sight.

"Fear gets his adrenaline going," Kevin said, "Just like when that man came after you with the scalpel. That jumpstarts the gland, which then secretes a synthetic hormone I call quicksilver." Bobby finally managed to get his pill bottle open. He shook one out, putting it in his mouth and swallowing hard. He was trying to pay attention to what Kevin was saying, but between the shock of disappearing and being chased by what had appeared to him to be a homicidal maniac at the time, he was having a hard time grasping it. Kevin continued speaking. "The quicksilver solidifies and seals over the skin like cellophane. You with me?"

Bobby had no idea what Kevin was talking about, but he popped another pill in his mouth, nodded his head, and repeated, "Cellophane."

Kevin continued with his lecture. "Now think the only reason we see an object is because light reflects off it. You see me, but not the wall behind me because the light hits my body first, and then bounces back to your eyes. Now, watch what happens when an object is covered in quicksilver." Kevin pointed toward the rat, which by this time was almost completely gone from sight. Bobby stood up and walked over to the rat cage to get a better look.

"The rat's invisible- not because we see through him, but because we see around him." Kevin looked at Arnaud and said, "Okay." Arnaud said something soothing to the rat in French. The rat abruptly reappeared, looking much more calm than it had when it disappeared from sight. Bobby stepped back, a little unnerved by the whole process. Kevin continued. "When Philippe calms, the quicksilver dissolves and the subject is visible again." He laughed. "This making sense yet?"

Bobby gave Kevin a disbelieving look. "You put a gland in my brain?"

Arnaud began to speak. "Well, Monsieur Hobbes-"

Before Arnaud could say any more Bobby whirled around, grabbed Arnaud by his tie, and slammed him against the wall. "I got plenty of glands here, buddy. I don't need any more, and I sure don't want one that squirts this sicksilver thing."

"Quicksilver," Arnaud corrected.

"Whatever!" Bobby yelled. Then he turned to Kevin and said, in a voice that, while quieter in tone, was much more menacing, "You take this thing out of my head right now."

"Okay, we will," Kevin said, trying to calm Bobby down. "We need to perform some tests first, though..."

"No! No tests. I want it out now."

Kevin motioned for Arnaud to leave the room. Arnaud left, but right after he walked out the door, Darien walked into the room. "Hey Kev-" Before he could say any more Bobby had slammed him into the nearest wall.

Bobby looked up into Darien's face and said in an eerily calm tone, "Why did you let someone try to kill me with a scalpel?"

Darien looked at Bobby as if he was insane. "What are you talking about?"

"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about! You couldn't have missed him; he was a big guy, wearing a mask, holding a scalpel. He was trying to kill me! Come on, you're the chief of security around here, don't tell me you didn't know!"

But Darien didn't look like he knew. In fact, he looked more confused than before. "I don't know what you're talking about- have you been taking your meds?"

Bobby paused for a second, trying to assimilate this new information. "You don't know?"

"Know what?" Darien asked, looking utterly confused and frustrated.

Bobby let go of Darien and turned back toward Kevin. "But you knew," he said, advancing on Kevin with an angry look on his face.

Kevin began to back away nervously. "It wasn't a real scalpel," he said, "It wasn't even remotely dangerous. Don't look at me like that!"

"Oh yeah, then how am I supposed to look at you? You nearly scared me to death!"

"Look, it wasn't my idea. And if you think you were scared, that man who was pretending to attack you was even more terrified."

Bobby calmed down a bit, remembering the man's reaction. Now that he thought about it, the man had indeed seemed terrified. But, even though Bobby stopped advancing on Kevin, he crossed his arms and frowned. He wasn't done speaking yet. "Why didn't you tell me about this thing you put in my head?"

"I was given specific instructions not to tell anyone who wasn't a member of the project. You weren't a project member yet."

Darien interrupted, looking down at Bobby. "Hey, wait a second. What are you talking about? They performed surgery on your HEAD?" Bobby nodded. Darien looked at him in shock, and then turned to Kevin. "You never said anything about messing with his brain. It's already messed up enough without you groping around in there! What did you do to him?"

Kevin shook his head. "Darien, you know I can't tell you. That's need-to-know information, I can only tell it to someone with the proper authorization."

"I'm the chief of security around here, I'd better have proper authorization!" Darien growled. "I can't do my job if I don't know what's going on around here. You'd better tell me about this, right now, or I will personally see to it that this project is aborted."

Kevin sighed. "You'd better sit down..."

**********

Darien shook his head, looking back and forth between Bobby and Kevin. "I don't believe it."

Bobby ran a hand over his face. "Believe it."

Darien leaned forward in his chair and began massaging his temples. "I need a drink..."

Bobby pulled his chair next to Darien's, sat down, and muttered, "You and me both." He glanced pleadingly up at Kevin. "Take this thing out of my head. Please."

Kevin sighed. "I'm afraid I can't do that. These tests need to be run and-"

"I don't care about the stinkin' tests! I want this thing out of my head. I want to be me again, not some freako science experiment."

"Yes, but think of all the good you could do with this gland. Robert, it's a gift!"

"A pretty dangerous gift, if you ask me. I could do anything with this. Break into a bank, steal anything I wanted..."

"Yes, but there's so much good you could do with it too! You could save countless lives."

"Or I could kill people. With this gland in my head, what's to stop me from committing murder? No one would see me, so they'd have no proof that I actually did it."

Darien looked over at Bobby. "Come on Hobbes, you wouldn't do something like that. You may be a con and a thief, but you're not a killer."

Bobby glared angrily at Darien. "How do you know? You knew me for all of two months before you sent me to jail."

"It was enough time to get to know you pretty well. I know you'd never do something like that."

"Yeah, but what if, oh, say Saddam Hussein got his own gland? Just think of what could happen then."

Kevin smiled. "Not a chance. There are only two places where the designs for the gland are stored; the base computer and up here." He gestured toward his head. "There's no way a criminal could get near them."

Bobby gestured angrily toward his own head. "Hello, wake up call!"

Kevin sighed exasperatedly. "Look, I've already told you, it's just for a few weeks! After that the gland comes out, and you're free to do as you please."

"Look, I'm telling you, get somebody else. Someone you can trust."

Kevin placed a hand on Darien's shoulder. "My brother seems to think you're trustworthy."

Darien pushed Kevin's hand off his shoulder. "Look, don't bring me into this!"

Kevin turned back to Bobby. "I've been working for this all my life. It's my baby."

Bobby gave Kevin a sarcastic look and said, "Hello, Daddy."

Kevin rolled his eyes, but continued speaking. "The point is, I think we can make this work. If you want it out, I'll take it out, but you'll probably end up back in prison somewhere. If you help me though, we could make this perfect. And you'd be free."

Bobby sighed. Kevin was right, this was his only chance. Yeah, it meant he'd have to be a human lab rat for a couple of weeks, but there wasn't much he could do about that at this point. He took a deep breath, then looked up at Kevin and said, "What do I need to do?"

***********

Bobby sighed and flopped down on his bed. He was exhausted. For the past several days, Kevin and the other scientists had been performing countless tests on the quicksilver gland and what Bobby could do with it. The results had seemed promising from what Bobby could gather, but he was getting tired of being stared at like he was on display. Being able to disappear was fun, but he was getting tired of it real fast. He just wanted to get this over with and get on with his life.

Suddenly he felt something in the back of his head. It wasn't pain exactly, it was more like that itchy feeling he'd had when the gland was first put in, only magnified a hundred times over. Bobby got out of bed and walked into the bathroom connected to his bedroom, looking into the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot, streaked with red. He stared at them for a moment, unsure of what to think.

He hurriedly picked his pill bottle up off of its resting place beside the sink and opened it, shaking out a pill and swallowing it immediately. He looked back in the mirror; his eyes looked normal. He stared at his reflection suspiciously. He wasn't sure whether he had just imagined the way his eyes had looked in the mirror a moment ago or not. He made a mental note to tell Kevin in the morning.

**********

Bobby was sitting on a lab table, trying to practice his quicksilvering techniques. He had been having trouble all morning, and both he and Kevin were getting a little irritated. Bobby took a deep breath and tried to quicksilver his arm. Nothing happened. He swore in frustration. "I thought I had this under control by now!" He stood up, rubbing the back of his neck. That itchy feeling was still there, not as bad as last night, but persistently pounding at the back of his head. He was rapidly developing a world-class headache.

Kevin put a hand on Bobby's shoulder and said something that was probably supposed to be soothing, but Bobby wasn't listening to him. He rubbed the back of his neck. The itchy feeling was getting worse... Suddenly the back of his head exploded in a wash of pain. Bobby collapsed to the ground, unable to keep from crying out at the agony that was pounding through his head and echoing through every other part of his body.

Then the pain stopped. And in the calm after the storm, Bobby suddenly felt a strange lightening sensation, as if some huge burden had been lifted off of his shoulders. He also felt very, very angry.

Bobby looked up at Kevin, who was staring at Bobby's eyes and yelling something about the infirmary. Bobby threw him out of the way and charged out of the room, feeling the cold rush of the quicksilver covering his body as he ran. He had to get out of here. He wasn't going to be these scientists' pet experiment any longer. He was going to be free.

Bobby nearly crashed into a man walking down the hallway. He pushed the man out of his way and started to run down the corridor again, but stopped and looked back. A cold rush of anger filled him. This was the man who had attacked him with the fake scalpel, the man he had thought was trying to kill him. Bobby smiled nastily and began walking back in the direction he had come from. He'd teach this man a lesson he wouldn't soon forget.

Bobby walked up to the man and grabbed him by the collar, slamming him against the wall. The man paled in fright; as far as he could see, he was being held against the wall, nearly two inches above the floor, by nothing more than very cold air. Then he felt invisible hands beginning to choke him, their icy grip freezing his skin. He tried to scream, but couldn't; all that came out of his throat were gasps for air and choking sounds. His eyes began to roll back in his head as he struggled for air. Bobby reappeared, a look of cruel satisfaction on his face as he continued to choke the life out of the security guard.

Suddenly someone grabbed Bobby from behind, forcing him to drop the guard and hurling him across the hall. Bobby turned around and saw that the man who had pushed him away was Darien Fawkes, who was busy trying to help the battered security guard to his feet. Bobby snarled; Darien had stopped him from teaching that man a lesson. Now he was going to pay.

Bobby charged at Darien from behind, knocking him to the ground. However, Darien did some sort of karate or judo move, and Bobby ended up on the floor right beside him. The two of them struggled with each other, each one trying to pin the other to the floor. Finally Bobby managed to get the upper hand, holding Darien facedown to the floor with his hands pulled behind his back. Darien struggled, but he couldn't break loose. Bobby laughed and began to push his knee against the small of Darien's back, causing Darien to cry out in pain.

Suddenly someone stuck a needle into the back of Bobby's neck. Bobby jerked up and whirled around. Kevin was standing there, holding the now empty syringe. Bobby fell to the ground, struggling to keep awake, to keep from passing out. However, he soon lost the battle and slipped into drugged oblivion.