Refraction | Part 1 | Darwin's Steroids
22) Orbits
So I am starting to get an idea of what the hell is going on around here. After my morning exercise of being shot and thrown face first into steel walls, I am escorted back to my room and sedated. When I awake there is a steaming plate of food waiting for me. A steak, an actual steak, made from an actual cow. I haven’t seen a piece of meat like this for two decades. It is accompanied by garden fresh vegetables. Wherever I am they have access to agricultural facilities that few people in the world have access to. The food and the sleep give me a chance to slow down and clear my head. I go through my normal routine, take a look at my intel. My rooms, my access to the rest of the facility, the smells, pressures, the sounds, haven’t changed. The new and very interesting thing is my body. My newly impervious to fatal calamity, I woke up a superhero, with fucking bullet-proof space suit for a body.
I take a deep breath. Relax.
I lift away the bandages on my chest to check my wound, my .45 caliber bullet wound to the sternum. A bullet that should have left gaping holes in both my back and my chest, a bullet that should have killed me on the spot, a death blow, only left me gasping for breath.
The wound is not there. No stitches, no staples, no iodine stain from emergency invasive procedures. The skin is pink and smooth, like the fresh skin beneath a blister. It is hairless and ugly, but it doesn’t hurt. It is not even tender to the touch.
In the course of one morning I survived at least three events that should have left me dead. A point-blank bullet wound to the chest from a high caliber weapon, a devastating cranial blow, and if I’m not mistaken, about ten minutes in total vacuum, which in itself should have killed me about six different ways. The only result was a serious case of the munchies. I review everything that has happened to me since that fateful night I went to the E.R. with Chuck. (Chuck my friend, where are you now?) The bizarro underground hospital room, the torturous injections, floating sensations, insane physical tests, the eternity that I later found out was tank time. After careful consideration I can come up with only one answer.
I have been rebuilt.
I have been made stronger, I have been made faster.
I am the six million dollar man.
Or the six billion dollar man, whatever.
Also and much more problematically, I am off planet. Took me long enough to figure that one out. And it’s going to be a bitch to get worked out.
What has happened is becoming clear, how and why it happened, not so much. My only hope is to play along with these maniacs. Observe, listen and collect information. I need to know my limitations, and the extent of my new abilities (or at least some of them?). Not to mention I need to find out exactly where the fuck I am. Luna? One of the UW installations? Some private rock? I need to be able to move about this place with some freedom, to access a computer. I need to squeeze the Head Usher’s skull for a while and see what squirts out his ears. Above all I need to find a way to escape. Because people don’t do things like this. People don’t use illegal tech, off planet, to create supermen. Not unless they have some very nasty business planned for someone else, and I retired from that business a long time ago.
Not to say I won’t employ my skills to defend myself. I decide to have a little talk with the H. U. of T.
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