Chapter 003 - a new day.
Can you hear me there? Hello? You have to wake up now there… What? Who's speaking? There's so much noise. Where am I? There are so many voices. Only one voice is calm and clear; the rest seem so loud and slightly muffled. The first voice talks again. Wake up. You must open your eyes, before they realise you've awoken; hurry! I open my eyes; I wish I hadn't. My vision is completely different. Everything seems like it's in front of me at once; I can see everything. And the noise, it keeps getting louder and louder; my head feels ready to burst. I hear one voice closer than the others. Is she okay there 001? She looks kinda ill. The first voice resonates in my head; and as far as I can see, it does in the second person's head too. She, I mean, you should be okay there 003. It's just your new eyes and new hearing adjusting. Take some time. Zero, zero trois? Quest ce'que c'est? Je ne comprends pas… This is too much for me; as far as I know this is just some horrible dream or hallucination and all I want to do is wake up back at home. I open my eyes again and try to ignore the things behind the walls; there's a boy my own age with a large nose looking down at me. For what I guess he's not very smart; I can hear a baby gargling somewhere close. But, I can hear everything; the footsteps of two janitors five floors up, the whispered conversation of two cooks as they fry vegetables, even the breathing of two scientists on the floor below me. The boy's heartbeat is thudding in my ears; the heartbeat which I take to be the baby's is a lot slower. I can see the janitors, the cooks, everything; I try to cover my eyes but I see through them. I start to panic. The boy in front of me says something to try and calm me. I'm not listening. I hear the first voice in my head again. Please, calm down 003. You'll end up hurting yourself. I take several deep breaths; then, once everything has stopped spinning, I start talking. Where am I? What's going on? Why do you keep calling me 003? The boy in front of me starts talking but the voice in my head intervenes. Um, 002, why don't you let me take care of this? He scowls and closes his mouth. The other voice begins again. I'm afraid you won't like what I'm saying very much; you're a cyborg now. That's an advanced human with parts that are machine. We are test subjects for a mass organisation called Black Ghost who want to mass produce cyborgs after they have learned as much as they can from testing on us. We've all been given special abilities from our cybernetic parts. I can talk to people I their heads and 002 there can fly and move very fast. It's just too much; I run over to the other side of the room and curl up in a corner. The boy 002 walks over and tries to help me. Within moments I'm screaming at him; I even kick him. He doubles over and begins swearing. I just can't take this. The door to my left opens and some men walk in. one of them starts yelling at 002. What did you do! He retorts with several swearwords and ends up getting knocked over by one of their henchmen and he swears even more. They stand above me and I get hoisted to my feet; I send a kick out at them and then I get knocked to the floor. They leave some food at the edge of the room and walk out; leaving me sobbing and crying and 002 swearing and yelling. After a few minutes 002 stands up and picks the two trays of food up; he leaves one next to me and sits down on his bed. Despite my wish to remain alone I end up eating the food. Once 002 is finished he clears his throat and starts talking. Y'know, I'm on your side there 003. The enemy is those scientists and the organisation they work for. They're like, large scale death merchants. Me and 001 there, we're your friends. I look around. He tilts his head over to the baby in the cot. You can't be serious. I say. Completely. He says. I am the baby. Says the voice, I know it's hard to deal with but you have to take my word for it. We both want to help you; 002? Yeah? Says the other one. There is a moment's pause and then he gets up, somewhat shakily, and carries the baby over to me. It reaches a hand over to me and I take it from 002; I start crying again, thoughts of my brother swim through my mind. He's probably devastated; he'll have the hard job of telling Maman and Pére that I'm missing, presumed dead. I look up and ask them how long I've been out; 002 shrugs and 002 tells me that he thinks it's been about a week and a half since I was last in France.
I must have been crying for some time; the men come back in and walk over to me; they tell me, in my own language, that it's time for the first test; they want to ensure that my 'abilities' are actually going to work. I get marched off and 002 tries to stop them and gets another smack in the face. The test is rather simple; I'm simply in an insulated room that's completely dark and they simply make me say what I see and hear at separate times. It took hours though and I think I passed out at the end of it; tight spaces for a long time make me nervous and I think the stress of finding out such things is another thing. I wake up several hours later in the room with 001 and 002; there's more food on the table and 002 is looking rather worried. I ask him what the problem is. He looks over to me and shakes his head. 001 won't wake up; he fell asleep just after you got taken to your test. That was nine hours ago and he just won't wake up…