Refraction | Part 1 | Darwin's Steroids
15) Observation B
General Wanamaker followed the little yellow rat/cat through a side door into a secondary observation chamber, similar to, but half the size of the last. The glass was thick enough to create optical confusion because of the high degree of refraction. There were several small pits on the far side, and the General understood immediately that this was a ballistics testing facility. He wondered how many condemned men and women had been put to death in the space beyond the glass barrier.
Dr. Fook had moved to the control panel against the wall opposite the viewing chamber, and spoke rapidly into a old-style microphone that jutted up put of the center of the console. Dr. Fook, although more than willing to test his inventions and innovations on others, was reticent to have any augmentations made to himself. The idea of doing anything that might improve his pathetic physical state (in the General's opinion) was apparently anathema to the twisted and (let's be honest) demented little researcher.
The lights came up in the room beyond the glass revealing a scene that the General had witnessed altogether too many times in his long military career. The man from the isolation tank stood blinking and disoriented in the small cell. He was now dressed in light blue hospital scrubs the color of which reminded the General of the sky in summer when he was still young. He supposed that in some places on the planet those skies still existed, but it had been decades since he had last seen them unobscured by the myriad deadly particulates that now littered the earth's atmosphere.
A hiss and a pop as speakers in the observation room suddenly came to life. The General could now hear the man in the blue scrubs breathing. A deep slow pulling through one nostril while exhaling from the other. Samanu, a yoga pranayama, a difficult and effective technique that the General had also been taught. A way to focus the mind and body, cleansing stress and fear from the emotional spectrum. This was no ordinary criminal, practicing a skill it took years to perfect, requiring the sort of patience and discipline not often encountered among murderers and rapists.
The General stepped forward to the glass and stood directly before the man, the itch of recognition like a word on the tip of his tongue. For a moment the General thought he had placed the memory, but it withdrew from his mind. This could not possibly be the man he thought of, that soldier from so long ago. No, that man would be pushing 90 years of age, and at any rate had disappeared during the attempted coup d'etat that had fractured the former United States and snuffed the light out of so many, many lives. The attempted coup d'etat that destroyed the country's infrastructure so thoroughly it had to be rebuilt from the ground up. The attempted coup d'etat that had helped project the General toward the top ranking position he now held.
The man's breathing now began to sound strained, and a flash of panic that transformed itself into a snarl of hate settled across his face. He was obviously struggling to remain conscious, his chest heaving now with the effort to find oxygen.
"We are evacuating the air from the chamber" announced the doctor.
"You've brought me here to watch the explosive decompression of a criminal? No offense doctor, but I have seen this before, and I am not, as you suggested, pleasantly surprised."
"Watch!" Snapped the doctor, his ugly face curling into a feral grin,"Watch, my General, and learn. The man you see before you is now in total vacuum."
Beyond the glass the man in the blue scrubs had fallen to floor and gone into a spastic fit. The General waited for the inevitable foaming blood from the mouth. The rupturing of vessels that occurs when 10 pints of blood suddenly attempt to sublime their way out of the body. Nothing happened. The man's seizure had ceased, and his eyes popped open. He lay quiet for a moment, staring at the ceiling, and then sat up. His chest no longer showed the familiar rise and fall of respiration. He slowly placed his right hand on his breast, frowned, moved it slightly, and frowned again.
"His cardiovascular system has all but stopped, his heart will beat only once a minute, roughly. The augments we have made to this man will keep him alive in a total vacuum, for close to six hours, if his physical activity is limited. Strenuous activity will cut ability of exposure approximately in half by our estimates."
The General stood in stunned silence, watching the man in the chamber come to the realization that he was the first person in history to survive longer than a few short seconds in the merciless grip of vacuum. The man stood and clapped his hands, no sound emitted from the speakers. His face broke into a grin, and he laughed, a silent and disturbing performance to watch, contorted through the thick glass of that deadly chamber.
"We could fill the chamber now with poison gas," continued the doctor, "Or place him under a water column five miles deep. The nanocytes that have slowed his systems and protect the constitution of his cell structure will protect him in either situation."
"Well, Hanso, as you say, it's intriguing, but I am not involved in the space exploration and expansion effort. The Mars Group will certainly be pleased, but..." The General shrugged, shaking his head. He was a soldier, and survivability of his command was paramount in his thinking, but there was no fighting in space, or beneath five miles of water.
Dr. Fook sighed as if irritated by the General's apparent stupidity.
"Please, my general, have patience and faith, and I will reward you with what you seek. There is a reason, as you will soon see, for these tests to be held in a ballistics chamber."
With that the doctor turned back to his microphone.
"Refill the chamber," he said into the anachronistic device, "And alert Mr. Yu and Sgt. Ivanov that we are ready to begin phase 2."
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