I'll try to make the sun shine brighter for you
I will even play the fool if it makes you smile
I'll try to make you laugh if there's a tear in your eye
After all is said
After all is doneI'd do anything for you
Come with me, close your eyes
Hold my hand, it'll be alright
Don't be scared, don't be shy
Lift your head it's gonna be alright.
(Phil Collins, Come with Me)
Experiment 188 snarled. He'd lost count of how many times he'd done that today, but he guessed it's number was higher then his own. The room that served as a prison for unmanageable experiments was always boring, but today it was worse than ever. Usually Jumba took him out into the lab and made him show his abilities. Or he'd be strapped to a table and examined like a piece of meat. But today, 188 would gladly have taken one. There was absolutely nothing to do in the glass cage! Of course, he could have a conversation with the experiment in the cage next to him. Or plot ways to torture 147. But he'd already done the latter and chose boredom over the former.
188 finally settled on banging his head against the glass. Just as he was starting to forget his own name, the door to the room opened. Caged experiments began growling.
"Jumba," 188 said to himself.
Sure enough, the four eyed alien scientist entered the room. He was carrying something that he put in the cage next to 188's.
"I'd keep you in a safer place, but these are the only cages open. Don't talk to any of these expiriments-they are in here for a reason," Jumba told the thing. He shot a glance at 188 as he said that. Then he left.
188 peered into the cage. It was an experiment that had the standard body shape but was otherwise completely different. 188 felt a tug at his heart that he hoped was from experimental drugs Jumba gave him.
The new experiment was royal blue with aqua blue stomach fur. Instead of big bat ears, she had light blue fin-crests on either side of her head. Her eyes were sea blue. Instead of four arms, she only had two. In place of the second pair were things 188 almost mistook for wings before he realized they were fins. The creature's feet and paws were webbed. Her tail was of the long, piscean mermaid variety. A jagged light blue ridge ran down her back. Just beneath the fur on her neck she had gills. Only an idiot couldn't see she was made for water. Then she caught sight of 188.
"Oh, hello. Who are you?" Even her voice sounded like water, 188 thought! Water rippling over the stones in a brook, water lapping against the shore on a beach...
'What are you thinking, you imbecile? You don't think about brooks and waves and whatnot! You usually think of ways to blind and torture everyone under this lab's roof!' He struggled to compose himself.
"I'm Experiment 188. What number are you?" he asked, even though he could see it on her collar.
"I'm Experiment 189."
A second later, 188 was rudely yanked out of the world he was in. Literally. A huge hand grabbed the back of his collar and started dragging him out of the cage room. Jumba had returned and 188 mentally smacked himself for not waiting to be sure he was gone. Instead of twisting around and trying to sink his fangs into flesh, he waved sadly to the female experiment in the cage, wondering why Jumba didn't just let him walk out with dignity. He got his answer in the hall.
"189 is my first attempt at a vater fighter. You stay avay from her!"
"Ih..." 188 snarled. Jumba mistook it for the alien word for yes-in reality it was a sound of disgust.
**************************************
188's training that day was harder than ever, the level cranked up to 30. Jumba seemed to be TRYING to get his mind off of 189. It was working...somewhat.
One of the things that made 188 so dangerous (but until a half a year later when an experiment was killed, Jumba didn't know how dangerous) was that he liked blood. It was also making Jumba doubt his successfulness as a tool of war. 188 had no interest in destroying machines. He liked to actually take lives, to feel blood in his mouth, to dye his black fur crimson with it. It was instinctual.
As 188 was killing a simulated alien, he was thinking about that.
"Then why don't I feel it when I look at 189?"
to be continued...