The more Ray looked at Brooklyn, he seemed more awake rather than groggy. Brooklyn saw the way he was looking at him from this distance.
"What do you want from me?" Brooklyn demanded again.
"The sedative from yesterday seems to be gone. You're not wobbling about as most other creatures would be after waking up and standing for the first time." Ray explained.
"My stone sleep made it go away." Brooklyn replied.
"Really. Tell me more about your stone sleep, what it does, please. I would like to know." Ray stated. "It sounds like it does wonders for you."
"Why should I tell you anything about me or my kind? You kidnapped me!" Brooklyn snapped.
"Unless you want to do things the hard way, but of course, I can examine pieces of the stone skin that came off of you over in the other room, to see what its properties are." Ray stated. "I bet it's a different kind of stone compared to real rocks."
"I can't tell much about my stone sleep anyway. I don't know much about it." Brooklyn declared.
"Oh, you must know something about it. Curious minds want to know more about why gargoyles turn to stone and no other creature does." Ray insisted.
"I just know we turn to stone at sunrise and awaken at sunset. That's all I know. It's been a part of me since I was born." Brooklyn explained.
"And just what is your age? You look rather young to me." Ray stated.
"That's something I don't have to tell." Brooklyn glared.
"If you're going to be that way, you won't get any food tonight. You will tell me what I want to know." Ray was getting annoyed at Brooklyn's avoidance of his questions.
"I don't want to eat any of your food anyway! For all I know, you will poison it!" Brooklyn snarled, eyes glowing.
Ray snarled as he gave up and his minions followed him out of the room. Brooklyn watched them go.
Brooklyn breathed a sigh of relief, but with a touch of sadness. He wasn't hungry at the moment but was thinking more along the lines of what was going to become of him. He didn't know where he was, other than Nevada. He knew where it was on a map, but just the state. But what town was he near? He had to get out of here before things got worse for him. Starvation could be one of them.
He didn't know how much power 2,000 volts was, but he certainly didn't want to try it. He had experienced being electrified many times in his life since coming to this time period and didn't really want it to happen anytime too soon.
Brooklyn caped his wings around his shoulders and put his arms over each other. He sat down on the hard floor sadly, his tail curled close to him on the right side. He had a long night ahead of him and he didn't know what he was going to do.
He sat there thinking for a while, then decided he would try to get that door open that he had come through on the table he had been tied to formerly. Or he would try the wall. His talons were able to break through some forms of walls.
He went over to the exit and he tried to get his talons into the wall if it was made of steel. But the wall wouldn't budge. He didn't know what the wall was made up of, but it was strong enough to resist a gargoyle's talons. It wasn't steel; it was something stronger.
If he couldn't get out of here by tearing down the wall, then he would have to wait for the right moment to get out whenever the door was opening again. He would have to bide his time.
….
Ray went into the other room and was going to do what he said: he picked up some stone fragments and would study it under a microscope to see what the nutrients and other useful information was about it. Surely, it was different from real stone.
"Ray, surely you can't deny him food and water." Melina spoke up.
"For one night, I can and I will." Ray replied. "I will do as I please, Melina." He was headed to the lab when suddenly, he had an idea and turned back to her. "Melina."
She looked at him, "Yes?"
"This just came to me. Perhaps you could talk to him? He might respond better to a gentler, feminine touch." Ray suggested.
"Well, I would love to talk to him. He fascinates me a great deal, Boss." Melina replied with a smile.
"Good. But the punishment still stands tonight. We will watch him and see what he does on camera." Ray said.
The cameras were turned on and they saw that Brooklyn was walking around, examining the walls for a weakness. "Are they strong enough to hold him?" Melina asked.
"Yes. They are made of a mix of steel and titanium. Of course, we don't know how strong his claws are yet, but we will find out." Ray declared.
"What are you wanting to do with him?"
"We are going to do all sorts of tests with him, to see what he's capable of. We need to learn about a gargoyle's capabilities. There is virtually nothing known about them other than that they look like monsters. So many have said that, and it's true, but we can't base everything on looks. As they say, 'Don't judge a book by its Cover.' I know I got flustered with him out there, but he was being stubborn and just wanted some simple answers." Ray explained.
"Well, you gotta admit, he's just scared right now, Ray. I'll be happy to attend to him. Given time, he might cooperate if you try to be gentle with him." Melina suggested.
"I do want to be gentle with him, but if he leaves me no choice in certain matters, I will force things to happen too, like if he keeps refusing to eat, he will have to be force fed for his own good." Ray declared. "But we will start you on dealing with him tomorrow night. Tonight, he will learn to accept his new living arrangements."
"Perhaps we could get another of his clan for company?" Melina suggested.
"From what I saw, he seemed lonely even while having his clan in his life. No. He will remain alone. And besides, I wouldn't know where to look for them." Ray replied.
"Are there going to be any tests performed tomorrow, Boss?" One of the men asked.
"To see if Melina can get him to cooperate, to give us information on his species." Ray stated. "To see if he responds better to a woman talking to him."
Melina was the only woman on their team so she was going to be depended on to get the gargoyle to cooperate on most matters. She was looking forward to working with the red creature.
…..
Brooklyn spent the rest of the night thinking about his home and his clan. He had tried to get out of the cage through every wall that wasn't made of the bars. He had found a stray rock on the floor and he threw it at the bars, where it electrified, answering the high electrical question. He didn't want to burn his hands or his body.
He didn't see a clock anywhere so he would have no idea when sunrise would be. He eventually went to try out the bed in the cell. He sat down on it and tried it for comfort. It was rather soft and comfortable. It had beige blankets on it and two white pillows. It was a king-sized bed.
Gargoyles didn't generally sleep in beds, but in times of injury or something, perhaps any tests these humans did to him would make him have to use this bed while he was waiting for stone sleep to heal any injuries. He didn't want to reveal that to this obviously crazy man who had kidnapped him. If he wanted to be a friend, he could have at least let him stay in New York and he could have talked to him there. He could also let him go home and not cage him up. This was stuff that Sevarius would do. But then, was this Ray working with Sevarius?
That thought brought the shivers down Brooklyn's spine. It made his breathing pick up again. Or he could have worked with that lunatic at one time or another and was doing his master's former work. Brooklyn shuddered at the idea that more clones could be made from his DNA, or something far worse: a test subject to test out products on; poisons, cosmetics, dissection! No!
That made Brooklyn panic and he instantly ran to the bars to try to break out. He was so panicked that he forgot about the bars being electrified. He grabbed onto them and tried to get out. He cried out in pain when his hands instantly were burned from the electricity. He backed away from them, rubbing his hands. They had some burns on them now.
He had tears in his eyes from the pain and from the thought of not being able to see his clan again. He went back to the bed and sat down. His hands hurt but they would heal with stone sleep. Though he had no idea when he would turn to stone.
On camera, the humans had seen him try to get out of the bars and they saw what happened.
"Are we going to treat the burns?" One man spoke.
"Let him learn the lesson the hard way." Ray said.
Melina thought that her boss was being too hard on Brooklyn. Injuries such as burns needed treatment. "Please, let me treat his burns." She tried to persuade him.
"Alright, fine. But you will have two men accompany you." Ray decreed.
"Thank you." Melina said. She went to get the first aid kit.
…..
Brooklyn was holding himself on the bed when suddenly, the door to the room lifted. Now was a good chance. He started to get up when two men stepped in first, aiming guns on him.
"Don't make us shoot you." One warned.
Brooklyn didn't want to be shot. He sat down. What did they want? Then, in walked a redheaded woman with something white in her hands.
"What do you want?" Brooklyn snapped.
"To treat those burns, of course." Melina replied. "Please, Brooklyn. We don't want them to get infected."
"They're nothing." Brooklyn declared.
"Oh really? You can't even put them on the bed." Melina said sarcastically.
Brooklyn went to do so and he instantly winced and hissed at the touch. "See?" Melina said. "Now, if you could just cooperate with me, I promise I'm just going to treat the burns gently."
There was something in her voice that was comforting enough that it let him calm down enough to reply, "Alright." he said.
Melina went over to him and kneeled on the floor, putting the box on the floor. Brooklyn saw it was a first aid kit. The lady took out some bandages and medicine.
Brooklyn cooperated as he showed her his hands. She looked at the degree of the burns. Very light, but she would treat them as something severe. She applied some liquid burn medicine, making him wince. Then she applied some gauze around his hands, tying it off with some medical tape.
"Now you know not to go trying to go through the bars." Melina said.
"I want to go home, but your boss doesn't seem to understand that." Brooklyn retorted.
"I'm sorry that this upsets you so, Brooklyn. I get that. But we could help your kind out by finding out certain things if we knew more. We just want to study your kind by just learning about you, that's all. We just want to know more about you. Would you be willing to help us?" Melina asked. "Practically nothing is known about gargoyles. It might even bring an end to the hatred in New York."
Her words made him hold still for a moment. Well, she did have a point. Not much really was known for sure about his kind, at least not in the books anywhere.
"What is it that is wanted to be known?" Brooklyn asked.
Melina smiled at him. "About everything."
"I'm not the biggest expert on everything about my kind." Brook said.
"Just say what you know." Melina stated. "What do you know about your stone sleep?"
"It happens at sunrise and we can't wake up till sunset. Nothing stops it from happening except magic. It's a liability in a battle as we can be shattered. If there's any damage done to us, it could kill us while we are asleep. Its our main form of sleeping. We don't age while stone. I was stone for one thousand years because of a sleep spell. The same went for my surviving clan members, all the current living males. Our stone sleep does have one advantage: it heals our injuries most of the time." Brooklyn explained to her.
Melina was surprised by what he had told her. Ray was also baffled. Here was a gargoyle who had lived over a thousand years ago! In the tenth century!
"So, you are immortal?" Melina asked Brook.
"No. It would almost seem like it, wouldn't it?"
"Do you breathe while being stone?" she asked.
"No. Everything freezes. It's like we are real statues like on churches or cathedrals." He replied.
"Can I ask what your age really is if you don't actually age in stone sleep?" she asked.
"Gargoyles age half as fast as humans do. Prior to coming to New York, or rather brought over here to the US, I was 36 years old." Brooklyn explained. "It's been a few years now. I'm now 39."
"That would mean you are more like really 19 and a half. No wonder you look so young." Melina declared.
"Yeah. Young adult."
Ray was glad that Melina had gotten him to admit how old he was. Well then, he was an adult at least old enough to be away from his parents and old enough to be a parent, Ray decided. He had also been shocked at what the stone sleep did, but he still wanted to analyze the stone pieces under a microscope to see what it was really made of.
He went on to do that. Under the microscope, the piece he was using was rather fascinating. It wasn't quite like real rock material. It was something different, but similar. It was a form of calcification, not just pure stone formation. It would be hard to tell how it formed without watching and having a device on the inside of his body to 'feel' it.
Anyhow, Melina had helped to bring out some of the aspects of stone sleep facts. Now Ray could concentrate on other things to learn about the gargoyle.
Sunrise soon came and it had a delayed effect on Brooklyn but he still turned to stone. The bandages didn't turn to stone with him. That was amazing and given the loincloth had.
Melina and the men left the cell now that Brooklyn wasn't going anywhere.
Ray was going to plan a breeding way for Brooklyn, but since he didn't know there was a female in the clan and didn't want to go back to New York to look for any others, he was planning to get a baby gargoyle too, to study. It would be interesting to see one created and raised. But he first had to get more genetic material from Brooklyn. He was thinking of a special way of doing it. And while certain cells would be formulating his plan, the tests could go on, or getting the information by cooperative talking.