Red and Black tie sat in uncomfortable silence as they reviewed the video footage taken that day of the young Six. Over the past few weeks the boy had experienced a drastic personality change. While before he had been quite a cooperative child, willing to do as he was told and more than happy to read the books given, or watch the films on a projected image on a wall, now a days he didn't seem... well. Interested in anything. He had now taken to the habit of laughing at inappropriate moments, as if he had heard a joke. Naturally, this was impossible given the fact he was alone for most of the time.
"I just can't understand it." Red Tie said as he ran a thumb over his bottom lip before giving his nail a little bit of a nibble, a habit he did out of nerves. "Do you think the introduction of the fish caused all this?"
"I don't see how learning a fish you knew for a mere few days as a child would result in these kinds of behavioural pattern changes." Black Tie replied, picking up his mug of coffee and taking a sip. "Just look, look at the little shit here."
On the screen, the blue skinned child was reading a book while sitting on his bed. The book was about unsolved mathematical problems; a subject he was more then adapt at tackling. Half way through reading he suddenly laughed; shutting his eyes as he giggled in glee at something only he could truly understand.
"What's so funny about the Sierpinski or Riesel numbers?" Black asked.
"Don't ask me, I'm not a mathematician, I'm a scientist." Red Tie replied with an annoyed tinge to his voice. "I know enough maths to see me through the day."
Not only were they concerned about the alien childs' unusual behaviour, things had been happening around the room. Despite replacing the burnt out monitors, it seemed as though as soon as they replaced one another three blew out. And just last week four of the eight cameras in Six's room stopped working at the same time. At first it was believed to be an over-heating problem, but if that was the case why hadn't this kind of thing happened before? Six had been constantly monitored since his arrival in the underground facility, so why would cameras choose now to break?
The lights had also become a problem. Globes would literally explode, once again happening in the monitoring rooms. Key card readers would refuse to work, locking men and women out of rooms and hallways and even Six's room in one occasion.
"Is it the boy doing it?" Apple finally asked one day whilst at the oval table sitting in relative darkness with the other two women.
"He doesn't appear to be causing it," Grape said as she read over a report. "For one if it was him, it's estimated that he would need to be concentrating or at least looking at what he was doing. Here, he's either sleeping, reading, or eating when these phenomena take place. Here, it's as if he's a bystander."
"What do the read outs say on his cerebrospinal fluids say?" Peach asked, reaching for a report.
"While there have been slight changes to the structure that's mostly due to his aging. He's still growing, after all. Once he reaches maturity we'll be able to really read into his brains activity and deduct a complete report and see if there are truly strong changes. As of this point though, we can't really rely on these things." Apple replied, which made the mother inside of her glower with disgust. So they had been inserting needles to extract CSF from a childs brain for no good reason? Six always cried during the procedures, despite the doctors repeated attempts at calming him, or informing him that he actually couldn't feel anything.
Once again that was just guessing, though. Their research had revealed just how touch sensitive his skin was, what's not to say he could feel internal pain just as, if not more so, powerfully then outwards? That was another theory, one of thousands that orbited the boy from morning till nightfall. When he hit puberty, how would that change his body? Would he grow hair in places he did not have hair now, or would he remain smooth and sleek, the only hair appearing on his body being that on his face? The idea of him being suddenly capable of growing underarm hair, pubic hair, or even hair on his chin was alarming. If he did, that meant he had testosterone; where in his body was that held? Naturally in his brain, but where else would it be possible for he had no scrotum to speak of.
Maybe that too would grow in once he reached maturity, but who could say when that was? He had mentally developed faster then any of them could ever dream possible, so what did that say of his body? Would it evolve slower, or just as quick? Naturally the boy's height was measured every month, along with his weight, to see if there were any changes. So far, no such thing. But the doctors in their white lab coats hoped that once he reached puberty, whenever that would be, they would see some electrifying changes.
But what had been happening lately, at least personality wise and the technical glitches around the facility, already were raising a few eyebrows. One of the psychiatrists, named Lens, was already insisting on having another session with Six despite him not being booked for one for at least another month.
Her excuse was basically due to the idiotic actions of Red Tie and Black Tie, exposing the child to the other dead alien, that Six needed it. This won over the 'boss' who gave clearance.
"Sir, somebody's coming down the hall. It's that Lens woman." Minion said as he hovered half in the door, half out of it.
Six, back to the door and writing another report, stopped and lifted his head. That can't be right; he wasn't supposed to see Lens for at least another few weeks. While he had no calendars, or representation of time within these walls, Six always had a good grasp of time, at least with days and months. Hours, he knew little to nothing about. But he knew the woman who wore glasses, Lens, only showed up to speak to him every few months. This was earlier.
He said nothing to Minion but gave a nod of his head; he was well aware of being watched and he didn't want people probing and poking at him for speaking to 'himself'. Minion seemed to understand that, sometimes, his fish even seemed capable of reading his mind at times. This didn't scare Six despite a small quiet part of his mind asking questions as to how, or why, this was happening. It was a very small part, and was easily suffocated to silence by the warmth and friendship he felt when the fish was in the room with him. Which was all the time.
The door to his room opened and in walked the woman in a grey business suit with matching skirt, her hair done in a short bob around her fairly thin face. Her glasses made her eyes seem twice their size, a trait, which had always disturbed Six, a little bit. "Six." her accent was English, upper class. It made him feel the need to sit up straighter in her presence normally but not today.
Six turned his gaze from his book to the woman who was carrying a chair for her to sit on. His chair was naturally far too small for anyone but himself to make themselves comfortable on. No doubt a woman of her stature would look stupid sitting on a childs chair. "Hello Lens." he said, shutting the book as he got off the bed. Minion was floating by her head, examining her like a person would a strange animal.
"Lens isn't her name at all, Sir." Minion scoffed, before swimming around her head and returning to Six's side. "They lie so much in here, it's not right at all. Who do they think they are?"
"How are you?" Lens asked as she set down her chair and sat down on it, waiting for Six to make his way to his own chair by his table. The young alien made no effort to move.
"Fine." Six replied, lifting a hand to scratch at his earlobe.
"Now we know that's not true, Six." she replied, watching as the boy stood in his spot, not moving. "Don't you want to sit down?" Lens asked.
"Not really, no." the little boy sniffed before looking down at the book in his hands. "I just want to read today."
"Yeah so leave him alone!" Minion piped up, glaring at the woman.
"Well, you can read later. Look I want to talk to you about what happened with Ace. You know you hurt him pretty bad, right? Why did you do that?" she asked, getting out the usual note pad she made her notes on. Six hated that note pad. She wrote in it no matter what he said, or did, even when he did nothing.
"He tried to take Minion from me." Six said quietly. "I didn't want Minion to go away again."
"And Minion is...?" Lens asked, pen already writing across the lined paper.
"My fish. My parents gave me Minion to take care of me and when I came here they took him away from me, and when I asked where he was Ace brought me Minion but he, he was dead and not alive. I didn't want to say good-bye again but Ace was trying to take him away from me so I bit him so he would hurt like I was hurting. I'm glad he bled."
Lens was notorious at wearing a 'poker face' at times like this, so despite the alarm bells in her mind going off that the child was actually happy he made Ace bleed was like having a fire alarm go off right next to your sleeping head. This alarmed her, greatly. Six had never exhibited violent tendencies before. Had the reveal of his dead fish companion brought all of this on? She made a note on he paper to ask Black Tie and Red Tie just what the Hell they were thinking to do this to a young child.
The session continued for a little while longer, the woman asking him questions about how he's feeling, how he should feel bad for hurting Ace the way he did, and that it was nobody's fault that Minion had died when he did. Death, after all, was a part of life. Six was told he should learn to accept that, Minion was gone and he had to just learn that now, because death will no doubt play a role in his life later on.
All the while Minion rolled his eyes and muttered about English women having no real intelligence. This almost made Six laugh a few times, but luckily he held his laughter in. When the woman finally left, Minion snorted and hovered at the door way and even vanished half way through it.
"Your name isn't even Lens, it's Estella!" he called out before floating back towards Six, who was now sitting at this table.
"How do you know that?" asked Six, mentally of course since speaking in words to Minion would no doubt bring more people like Lens into his space and he was beginning to dislike having people 'pop in' on him with no previous warning.
"Because that's her name." Minion replied in a matter of fact way before floating over to the table and settled on top of it.
Six watched his friend for a moment then smiled, and went back to his writing. While he knew the people were watching him through all those 'hidden' cameras in his room, he also knew how important it was to keep hush hush over what was happening inside this little room. The way Minion kept guard at the door when Six slept made him feel much more calmer then he had in years. And when the doctors came with their needles and their promises of 'this won't hurt a bit' Minion was there, whispering and scaring away the fear; reminding him that it would be all over soon and these doctors would be far away from him again.
But it all still hurt, naturally.
"Minion, I have a question." Six turned the page on his book and lined up a new page in order to continue his report on the book he had been reading before being so rudely interrupted.
"Fire away, sir." Minion replied chirpily.
"What is outside?" he asked.
The little fish's fins moved slowly, and those golden brown eyes blinked. Turning himself around the fish stared up at the ceiling. "Well Sir, just outside your door is the hallway. Down the hallway in either directions are lots and lots of rooms. At the end of the corridors, there are elevators which go straight up. Beyond there, I don't know sir." he explained before turning back to his master. "I could go and find out, if you want me to!"
Six shook his head. While he was naturally curious about what lay beyond the world he knew, he didn't want Minion experiencing it alone. He wanted to go with him, to step outside the white walls and into the wide, blue world. How large was it? What did the sun feel like? What did grass feel like, beneath bared feet? How large could the clouds get? Would there be birds flying overhead? Just where on Earth were they, anyway? While he knew every country on the globe, he didn't know where he himself was. Now, he knew he had landed in Metro City which was in America, but who was to say he hadn't been shipped around when he was a baby? Was he in Europe? Asia? Australia? Somewhere so remote nobody would ever find him if he ran away?
...That last thought almost sent thrills up his spine. Running away... getting away from the lessons, the tests, the doctors, the needles, the pain and the white walls and just... being his own boss for once. It was thrilling, and exciting, the possible danger he may encounter out there. He could get some money or he could take some! It seemed easy enough. He would get a car, and drive. Drive, and drive, and drive! It seemed easy enough in the novels he read which had little to nothing to do on science or mathematics or physics. Those books were far and few between though, since no doubt those doctors in charge didn't want him getting too curious about the outside world. Little did they know by their presence alone, whenever a human being walked into Six's room, made him curious about the outside world.
So he read the books on the environment, about evolution, about how man had descended from primates and all sorts of interesting things. This made him wonder, what kind of environment was it like up there now? He had seen so little of Metro City as a baby he had no memory of it. Were there still trees everywhere? Forests? Deserts? Or was it all white, cold, and unfeeling like his room? He hoped it wasn't. Six dreamed of colors beyond his door. Bright, murky, dark, cold, light colors. All colors of the rainbow and even more then that, all of them for him to experience for himself and Minion.
It seemed as though Six and Minion were well versed in the act of not being discovered, their friendship secret and almost forbidden amongst the cold room that was Six's only home. While Six would think to his little friend, Minion was always talkative and friendly, no matter what the situation. The little fish even entertained him by making lights tun off by flipping the switches, or breaking the sneakily hidden cameras to give them a break from being watched. Naturally these incidents resulted in repairmen coming in to fix the problem not too long after they had happened, and Six ended up watching them work from the safety of his bed. How daring it would be to run at the door and slip past them when the door was being opened...! But he knew he wouldn't get far. The men in white coats who had no name would be upon him in seconds, drugging him, and dragging him back to his room to 'think about what he'd done'. No, he didn't need that headache at all.
But as time passed, he learned just how good Minion was at affecting things around him. In those spare moments they had whenever they would break the cameras and bugs, Minion would amaze his friend by moving physical objects despite he himself seeming invisible to everyone around him. He would grip a book in his teeth and bring it to Six. This was all done in secrecy, and when the men came to fix the cameras there would be Six sitting on his bed reading his books and acting ever so innocent.
Such electrical problems did not go unnoticed, though. The men in charge were beginning to suspect there was more to this then just power burnouts. What if the child was doing this? What if, for example, Six was developing powers that they had scrutinized about back when he was a baby? It would explain the cameras breaking... he was harnessing his powers. And if he could do things electrically, if it was he, what was stopping him from doing something more physical? Six could ultimately become a danger to everyone around him, if his scope and reach with his powers was too large. And that brain of his had certainly aged with him, now at only fifteen years old his head was twice the size of a normal adult brain.
And oh, how he had changed. The complacent, helpful little boy had vanished over the years, especially as his body had matured around him. His testosterone levels had grown, he now had the beginnings of a tiny beard beneath his bottom lip, yet no hair anywhere else. Of course when he had begun to truly change there had been experiments and blood taking, scans and reports, practically every day. Yet still they couldn't ascertain just how his species had reproduced. Between his legs was nothing, it was smooth, hairless. The name 'Ken' was thrown around a lot by the doctors in jest, yet they still scratched their heads. Would his sexual appetite explode one day? What if he was with Lens at the time? Would he push himself on her?
All these worries kept many of the doctors on pins and needles when they watched the teenager every time on their monitors.
"What if..." spoke up one of the doctors, "What if we just sedate him and investigate ourselves? Just work out what's going on in there."
"What, you mean cut him open and see where his parts are?" asked another.
"Pretty much." replied the man with the plan, whose name was Knives. "Cut all this bull shit of waiting and hoping he get a boner for something, because as far as I can tell despite giving him magazines of women he shows little to no interest."
"And men." pointed out his co-worker, and they all grunted and nodded. Despite the 'stimuli' material they had issued the alien, he showed no interest in men or women.
"I still say it's because they aren't his species. Look at him, and then look at us. He has no nipples, no pubic hair, blue skin... he's as different as possible yet still somehow appearing similar. Now, would you get tuned on by images of him appearing sexy?" asked Scissors.
"Ugh. No." Knives shuddered.
"My point exactly. No, no no..." Scissors rubbed his forehead in thought. "He wouldn't be aroused by any of it... I hate to say it Knives but I almost think your idea is a good one."
"Gee, so sorry to hear that." Knives rolled his eyes before leaning forward, putting his hand on the desk. "This will give us a clear, definite understanding of his species reproductive methods. He could be like any number creatures on this Earth, or he could be so totally different we've never even contemplating it before."
Scissors removed his glasses and rubbed at his forehead, feeling a headache coming along. He knew the importance of studying this alien, how great it was to know absolutely everything about him and what his kind was capable of. Was this pushing it, though? Cutting him open to try and find a ball sack that might not even exist? And just how would their tools work against his corrosive blood? It seemed like too big a risk but...
"We'll have to clear it with the guys in charge of course. You know they don't want anything bad happening to Six." he pointed out.
"Of course, naturally. I'll work on the pitch right now." Knives said as he gathered up the paperwork he had set before the older man. Scissors watched as the younger man left the room, and reached down into his desk drawers to get a drink. He certainly felt like he needed it.
Meanwhile, down in Six's room, Minions golden brown eyes snapped open. He had been just resting a moment while Six toyed with a rubik's cube absently at the foot of his bed.
"Something bad's going to happen." Minion whispered. "Something really bad."
Six lifted his head, and looked at his companion.
"What?" he asked mentally, hands still flicking and twisting the cube in his hands.
"Operations. They're going to cut you open, Sir. You're becoming an adult, and they want to know everything." the fish added, eyes wide in disgust and fear. "Oh it's horrible sir, simply horrible...!"
The blue teenager narrowed his green eyes, and looked back down at the cube in his hands. So it had come to this, had it? They had grown tired of the resource of his amazing intellect and were now going to go for his physical body? Why was it so important to know what he had happening internally? It wasn't a threat to them at all. It was his mind that was a threat to them, no doubt about that. All those chemicals they had introduced to his system, testosterone to help him 'bulk up' had done nothing but awaken more of his mind to what he was capable of. What he had once only dreamed of.
Six calmly set the cube down, and got up off the bed. He walked over to his bookshelf and knelt in front of it, and pulled out a book at random to appear busy, to appear that his mind wasn't working over time.
It was the moment he and Minion had been waiting for. The day all the dreaming, planning, and scheming would come to fruition. They thought they could just run his life forever? To keep probing, poking, until he was little more then a pin cushion? Well they were wrong. All of them were wrong. This was it, this was finally it.
They thought they were so safe in those white coats, their needles, and their fake names. What would they do if they knew what he knew? Six knew all of their names, and their addresses, and just how many children they had and what age they were. This information would lead to all of them, outside in the real world. And just how did he come across this information? Why, his faithful companion Minion. His fish knew everything there was to know about the people inside the facility. He knew their names, and would whisper them to his boss, who had a memory like a safe. Any and everything that entered it, stayed there, and was easy to locate. And these names... these names would serve their purpose.
Opening the book he came to a stop on a black hole, an artists interpretation of what it would look like sucking a planet into it. Memories of his parents flashed in his mind, their hope that their child would reach a nice, safe planet to grow and be loved on. Little they had known that their son had ended up in Hell on Earth. Where any bodily fluids were extracted and tested. Where his IQ was challenged every week in tests he cared little for. That his physical body pushed to its limits against chemicals that would normally burn and scar a normal human beings. They had even began to come to him, posing as 'imagination studies' to think up weaponry. Did they think he was an idiot? Did they honestly think he would let them steal his ideas to win wars?
The weaponry he had in mind was only going to benefit two people, himself and Minion.
"We're getting out." Six finally spoke, his voice no longer the high, cute squeak of a prepubescent child. It was deeper, and spoke of yearning and a lust of respect and freedom.
"We are, Sir?" Minion asked, eyes wide with wonder and fear.
Six nodded his head once, before going back to his bed and looking at the book without really reading it. He would allow them to enter the room, he wouldn't put up a fight at first... things would appear normal. But the second that needle would come out, it would never meet his blue skin.
Not this time.
Never again.