Chapter 002 - learning to stand
Wake up… can you hear me? Wake up now… That was the first thing I remembered hearing; out of pure habit I just assume it's my old man and I tell him where he can cram school. It takes me about ten minutes of hearing it to suddenly click that, wait a second, this voice is in my head; then I wake up, I sit up in a flash, completely freaked out. It takes me another five minutes to realise that this ain't the hospital either; I look around. The voice talks again. Don't look so worried there; sit up and I'll explain what's going on. Hmph, easy for you to say there; wait a second. I'm talking back to the voice in my head; this might easily be a nut house and maybe I just totally freaked out over that last job I was on. The voice talks, again. You're not in an institution; however strange this might seem you're not crazy. I decide to physically talk back; maybe then I'll feel a bit saner. Oh yeah, I say, god this feels so dumb. If I was crazy that's exactly what I'd tell myself; or is this this just some sick joke guys? Very funny; but cut the crap and show yourself or I'll tear ya a new one. I'm right here. It tells me. Just look down and to your left. I'm crazy, I actually follow the voice's advice; I see a little baby. Are you shitting me! I say. This little guy can't be you! It just ain't possible. It ain't! It takes a little while for the voice to talk again. But I am; how can I prove it to you then? I think for a moment. If you are the kid, then, wave both your arms in the air and open your mouth. It did. He wasn't shitting me. Crap, I hate it when things are difficult. Are you satisfied now? For a moment all I can do is stare like some slack-jawed hick with my mouth wide open as if I'd never seen something different before; then all I can do is repeat myself several times. It ain't possible, just ain't possible; ain't no way… Then junior butts in on my train of thoughts. Why do you say 'ain't' all the time? It's not natural for you and you keep reminding yourself to say it. Your parents didn't like you saying it; they thought you were ashamed of them. That's half of the reasons why you kept saying it. I think I just blew a gasket somewhere; I never told anyone that and this kid is saying it as though everyone knows it. I completely freak out and begin yelling my ass off at the baby; must be hilarious to see but I'm absolutely losing it. Eventually I take a deep breath, count to ten, swear again a couple of times, take another deep breath and ask the kid how in the hell he knew that. It's the power I have. He says. Power? What the hell? I get the feeling that his is going to lead to another freak-out section so I take a deep breath. I'm a cyborg, so are you. Again another billion questions come out of my mouth and it taken another age for me to calm down. Then, and only then, does the little guy begin to tell me everything. You and I are cyborgs; that means humans that have been altered by machines so we are part machines. It means we have special abilities. We were created by an organisation called Black Ghost. They want to make the best available soldiers out of people by turning them into cyborgs. We're test subjects for the time when cyborgs are mass-produced. Get me so far? Oh by the way, you don't need to talk out loud, I can hear your thoughts; it's my power, I don't know what yours is yet but I'm sure you'll find out. I think so. I ponder this info for a while. Then, out of habit and sheer will, I speak my next question. Why would they do this? They didn't give me a choice. It takes him a minute; I sit up as I listen. They didn't give me a choice either; after all, before this I was a little baby with no way to object. I think they're just going for whoever's available. I know it's utterly disgraceful; we have to get away from here as soon as we can. I am suddenly caught off guard; I was trying to stand up - I saw a sink and tap, I was thirsty as hell, so I tried to go over to it - and my legs simply didn't work. I end up falling flat on my face, which hurts; the little guy finds this rather funny, I don't. I try again to stand up and again, fall flat on my face; I string together every swear word I know then I hear this person coming in the door. The little guy tells me not to mention our little conversation. I just keep trying to get up; I really could go for a drink about now. Then I see a pair of feet right in front of my face; I get hoisted to my feet by this, this, I think I was a robot and placed down rather hard on the bed. Then this boring old fart, the guy who just comes in, starts going on about how my legs haven't been 'activated' yet and how I shouldn't be trying to get up yet; I do what I do with most authoritarian adults and tell him where he can shove it. Then the robot thing smacks me right in the face and I go flying backwards and end up sprawled like some moron on the floor behind my bed with a sore face. The guy walks forward and sticks some thing in my mouth - some piece of electronic equipment - and he tells me to breathe out; I do. It beeps three times and then he sticks some gas mask thing in my face and holds it down; after ten seconds I start coughing and choking like a madman and he stands up. I manage to cough up a few words among the stuff I'm coughing up. What, the, shit, did you, do, to me, you, bastard? I get smacked in the face, again, and he then goes into this ages-long talk about how he just got rid of all the tar in my lungs from all the cigarettes I was smoking before; I blank out, it's a habit. I get hoisted up onto my bed again, still coughing like crazy; the guy shows me my new legs. Man, if I thought I was freaking out before; I go completely nuts. (Which is not a good thing to do if you're choking up tar.) The lower half of my legs are just, gone and there's these two metal things going from just above my knee downwards, no surprise I fell over; I go completely nuts and then I actually manage to kick the robot thing in front of me. Christ, these new legs are heavy. The old guy explains that he's called Kuroda and that despite any other names I've had I'm called 002 now; sounds like something out of superman or something. My god I hate superman; the things he was made to do to America's enemies during the war. My old man never shut up about it when I was going through my superman phase; I burned all my comics in a trashcan just to shut him up. The old guy pulls me out of my thoughts and explains that my new abilities will be tested tomorrow morning and that I should practice walking for now. I throw the nearest thing at him - which happens to be a glass of water (my god, how much am I going to swear today?) - And he walks out. The kid makes some supposedly-humorous comment about it and I try to stand up again. I swear, I go at it and at it for like five hours and by the end I can make it to the other end of the room without wobbling or stumbling; these new legs are so hard to use but I tell you, when I got to that sink I drank so much; and now I'm regretting it 'cos I have no idea where the bathroom is and I'm determined not to ask the kid.
The next morning comes - I found the bathroom (thank god) eventually - and it's time for my test; I ain't gonna go into too much detail but I found out that I have this 'accelerator' thing which makes me go super fast and once my new legs have been run in I should be able to fly. How cool is that? I'm determined to fly before the next cyborg comes in to show me up; the kid told me that there'd be more test cyborgs eventually. It'd be nice to have someone else to talk to rather than 001... But it could take me a while; I wonder if superman ever had this problem. He never seemed to have any problem with his powers; lucky bastard.