Blur...

The restraints were cutting into his wrists. Again.

The facemask killed his vision. Again. Plus, it stank of sweat and morning breath.

They'd even replaced the earplugs. Funny. What difference would that make?

He wanted to scream. To let them know that he was angry, frightened, hungry, lonely, whatever. He knew, though, that it wouldn't matter. He'd shouted himself hoarse more than once. No one ever responded.

This was life. All he'd ever known...yet something didn't feel right. They'd decreased the pictures; he wasn't being forced to sit for endless hours viewing images of mangled bodies, explosions, emaciated children, and the like. Oh, they still made him look, yes, but only for an hour or so a day. A good chunk of the rest of his day was spent like this: blinded, restrained, and alone. It was punishment. Punishment for his disobedience.

His stomach began to growl, then to clench a bit. He felt the gurgling deep in the pit of his gut. He was starving. They'd had him running at least six hours yesterday, and no meal yet today. Of course, like this, he had no idea what time it was. Nor could he ask. Born deaf, he'd never learned to speak...and none of the men in the coats had ever bothered to try and learn to communicate. Even the reality of his punishment was something he was only guessing at...but he was fairly sure the red faces and arm-waving and the wide open mouths were a pretty good indicator that he was in deep trouble.

He hadn't meant to disobey. It was the exercises. Day in, day out, the same thing. The half-mile track the facility maintained. Lap. Lap again. And again. And again. He just ran. Ran and ran and ran. He was fast. How fast, he wasn't sure, but apparently, it made him special. He hadn't seen anyone else on the tracks, so either he was the only one, or they didn't want other people like him crashing headlong into each other. The track never changed--it was an 's' shape within an 'o' shape--he did one lap around the 'o,' then switched for a lap around the 's' from both directions, then repeated. He'd grown so tired...so bored...he just wanted to do something different.

A bead of sweat began to trace its way down his temple, then his cheek. It itched, but he couldn't reach up to scratch it. A single tear of frustration crept from the corner of his eye, joining the path of perspiration already there.

He hadn't meant to disobey...

* * * * * * * *

"Dr. Kirksen?" The voice was timid, quiet. Perhaps even a bit fearful. Kirksen smiled to himself before turning in his chair and letting his gaze settle on the waifish intern. She was perhaps eighteen, nineteen years old, very pretty, and obviously out of her depth.

She could just as easily have been on the other side of this project, he thought to himself. His eyes traveled the length of her body quickly. Not that he couldn't have taken his time; she was so busy staring at her feet that he could have been drooling and she'd just as likely not noticed. He made a mental note: Easily manipulated. Good.

His split-second assessment of her complete, Heinrich Kirksen let a smile break out upon his face. "Yes, my dear..."

"J-Jenks," the young girl stammered.

"Miss Jenks," he repeated, "what brings you to my office?"

Jenks finally raised her eyes and met his own. Her demeanor softened as she saw the warmth in his eyes--a warmth that was carefully calculated to achieve a specific effect. It did not disappoint. It never did. The intern relaxed visibly, then spoke. "Sir, it appears there've been some strange fluctuations in subject 653's biosigns. The monitors think you might want to look."

With a sigh, Kirksen pushed himself away from the desk. He drew himself to his lanky 6'4" height and stepped around to join Jenks, dwarfing her petite 5' 4" frame. Placing an arm on her shoulder, he said brightly, "lead the way!"

Thirty seconds later, they entered the primary monitoring station for Subject 653. Kirksen peered through the glass into the containment chamber. "Alright, people...what am I looking at?"

"Doctor?" One of the techs responded, his face comically quizzical. "I'm not sure I follow--"

Kirksen silenced him with a glare that could have flash-frozen the clueless technician. "I said, 'what am I looking at?' Is that a confusing question for you, young man?"

The technician backpedaled, stammering, "N-n-no sir...it's just that you're already aware--"

The doctor smiled, this one nothing like the warm, accomodating grin that he'd recently given Miss Jenks. "Yes, lab-monkey, I am already aware. What I want to know is...are you? Do you know what's in that room? Does your tiny, feeble mind have any inkling of what we have bound in there?"

The deer-in-the-headlights expression the young tech was now wearing was priceless. Dr. Kirksen grinned, sincerely...yet the effect was more disturbing than anything else. The young man nodded. "Yes, s-s-sir..." he began, "I'm aw--"

"Then start talking!" bellowed Kirksen.

The lab tech paled, then began to relate the information. "Subject 653 is a 15-year-old male, of mixed heritage. We believe his mother to have been caucasian and his father to have been African-American. The initial experimentation unlocked a latent ability to move at speeds undetectable to the human eye and all but the most sophisticated tracking and security measures." He paused, "they've also--"

"The point, lab-monkey. Get to the point. What is going on now?" Dr. Kirksen's face was a mask of apathy. "Why was I pulled from my office?"

A woman--another doctor, judging by the stethoscope around her neck and her lack of fear of Kirksen--cleared her throat. Both men looked at her. She grinned thinly. "The subject is agitated, Doctor," she said plainly. His pulserate has leapt, perspiration is increased, and the adrenals have been engaged."

"Anger?" Kirksen asked.

The woman, whose name badge identified her as Marion Broche, shook her head. "We don't believe so. It's fear."

"Fear?" Dr. Kirksen laughed. "Ridiculous. 653 can't feel fear."

* * * * * * * * *

Subject 653 could feel the tears, but he was powerless to stop them. He wasn't sure why the white-coat men were angry. He didn't know what he'd done wrong, and no one was going to explain it to him--that much was certain. The "punishment" had been going on for two weeks already, as nearly as he could estimate. And it showed no sign of ending soon.

The thought of remaining like this indefinitely was more than 653 could handle. A fresh wave of sorrow overcame him, and he began to weep. It hurt to cry. His body wanted to curl up and couldn't. The sobs tightened his stomach muscles, but he couldn't bend to alleviate the tension. It hurt to cry.

But he couldn't stop.

A mechanical whoosh, however, took his mind off the tears. He felt the facemask beginning to lift, and closed his eyes tightly against the sudden inflow of light. The recirculated air in the containment chamber brushed against his skin, its icy fingers a welcome reprieve from the sweat-filled stagnance of the mask. After a few seconds, he slowly opened his eyes, allowing them time to acclimate to the room. Its pristine walls, in stark lab-white, amplified the light coming from the two flourescent panels fifteen feet above his head. He looked around, his eyes drinking in the emptiness of the room as if it were priceless art.

Directly in front of him, he saw himself. The two-foot by six foot glass pane was reflecting his image back at him. He could see his own short-buzzed hair, and just make out the intense green of his eyes. The steel restraints that bound his shoulders and chest, ribs, waist, and legs shone beneath the light. He knew, somehow, that they were watching him behind that glass.

And they were still angry. Angry because he'd almost--

* * * * * * *

"Sir, has he been...crying?" This monitor, a twenty-something college student with auburn hair and green eyes, looked at Kirksen incredulously. "Th-that's not possible, is it? I thought their isolation was to ensure that no real emotional ability developed?"

Kirksen eyed her, one brow raised, a smile playing across his lips. "Problem, miss? Rethinking your career choice? Sudden attack of conscience?"

She shook her head slowly. "No sir...it's just worrisome. If they really are going to develop the same mental and emotional weaknesses as standard soldiers--"

A raised hand silenced her. Kirksen was no longer interested in what she might have to say. He was studying the specimen on the other side of the glass. What are you doing, he thought to himself, the anxious redhead's right. This shouldn't even be in your emotional repertoire. You've never experienced joy...why would you experience sadness?

Better yet, thought the doctor, why does it matter? So long as the programming holds, I could care less what "feelings" they experience for now. Clearing his throat, he turned back to the first technician he'd accosted upon arriving in the room. "You, boy."

The tech turned to face him, apparently attempting to prepare himself for another tirade. "Yessir?"

"Has there been any shift in his biomass?" Kirksten asked.

"I beg your pardon?"

"What," hissed the doctor, "are you daft as well as useless? Has. There. Been. Any. Shift. In. Biomass? Is that confusing? Has his weight shifted noticeably since the agitation began?"

The tech's lips quivered. "No sir, nothing that would regist--"

At that moment, everything went red. The instrument panels began to flicker, and a steady wail issued from somewhere deep within the compound.

"Sir...something very strange is happening with 653."

The doctor rolled his eyes. "Yeah? No sh--"

* * * * * * *

635 felt it before anyone else. Slight. Imperceptible. But there.

Vibrations. His deafness made sound irrelevant to him, but certain frequencies affected his physiology enough to be noticeable, and the lack of auditory stimuli made his other senses stronger. Vibrations, even the most subtle, were as clear to him as words spoken usually are to the rest of humanity.

When the resonance first began, it was so faint he nearly overlooked it...then he caught the pattern...

...pop-pop-pop...pop-pop-pop-pop...

...and then, suddenly...BOOM.

His hand pressed against the cold metal of the table on which he was restrained, 653 felt the vibrations rush through the room. An icy realization gripped him, though he had no idea what it meant: it's over. A new fear tore at his heart and mind and with each successive--

--BOOM--

--it became harder and harder to ignore. His body now covered in a thin layer of persperation, 653 felt his shirt beginning to stick to his skin. Even though he could see the space around him, his breathing became more and more ragged as he began to feel closed in. Trapped, even beyond his restraints.

--BOOM--

The door to the chamber opened. On the other side, everything seemed red. 653 watched the man who'd locked him onto the table as he slowly walked around the boy, occasionally rubbing his chin or his temple, a dark smile clouding his face. 653 disliked him intently...but never so much as when his face looked like this. The man reached for his face, and 653 tried to pull away. Cruel fingers gripped his cheeks and forced his head back around. His gaze met the dark man's, and for just a moment, revulsion swept over 653 so strongly that it caused him to physically shudder. That made the dark man smile even more broadly.

--BOOM--BOOM-- Vibrations so powerful they startled 653. So very close.

Suddenly the room went black. The grip on his face was gone. A moment later, watery green light flooded the room. The dark man was already opening the door to the chamber. He stepped outside the room and gestured wildly to someone else out of sight. 653 thought, he doesn't look happy, just before someone in a coat like the dark man's stepped into his view, gave him one last look, then shut the door.

Everything was quiet, except for the occasional

--BOOM--

from somewhere. Time passed. The vibrations kept sweeping through the room...sometimes gaining intensity, other times losing it...but always every few seconds. 653 kept his hands against the table, feeling the pulse...again. Again. Boom. Boom. Boom.

The flickering of the sickly green lights caused his eyes to fly open. He looked around the room, startled. Apparently the vibrations had lulled him to sleep. He pressed palm to table, and felt the now-comforting boom...immediately followed by a single, cacophanous BOOM that literally shook the table on which he lay. The lights flickered madly for a split second, and then the room was once again shrouded in darkness.

This time, however, they never came back on.

Musings...

Okay, so initially, this was going to be a blog about a very specific singular project...well, in the 3 weeks since I last posted (or first posted, depending on whether you have a half-full/half-empty mentality), two other projects have come into my world, with a third being revitalized somewhat.

Needing somewhere to put my thoughts together, I've decided to turn this blog into a basic spot where I can brainstorm about any of the projects I'm working on. I'll use the blog tags to ensure that if you're wanting to keep up with a specific project, you can access those specific posts.