Time became a meaningless abstraction, measured only in the steady, settling rhythm of his own heartbeat and the slow dissipation of the forge-fire agony in his veins. Raymond lay on the bed, not sleeping, but existing in a state of hyper-aware stillness. He was a string on a violin, plucked by a god, and now he was feeling the aftermath of the note—a vibration that seemed to stretch into infinity.
The man—his captor, his savior, his architect—had not returned. The white, windowless wall remained impassive. But Raymond's perception of the room had been fundamentally altered. The omnipresent hum was no longer a single sound; it was a symphony. He could isolate the deep bass thrum of the primary power generator, several levels below. He could hear the higher-pitched whine of the climate control systems, the almost imperceptible flicker of the lighting elements, and the faint, digital whisper of the hidden camera lens in the ceiling, transmitting his every twitch to some unseen observer.
He could feel the pressure differentials in the air, subtle currents that hinted at the flow of ventilation. He could see, now that he focused, the impossibly fine hairline seams in the walls, places where panels met with nanometer precision. His old self would have seen a seamless, sterile prison. His new eyes saw architecture. And all architecture had weaknesses.
The decision to escape was not a dramatic, fist-clenched resolution. It was a quiet, inevitable conclusion, as natural as breathing. He would not stay here to be observed, measured, and cataloged like a specimen. He would not be this man's masterpiece, his pet project. The gift had been given, but the giver was a monster wearing a savior's mask. Raymond would take the power and make it his own.
He sat up, the movement fluid and silent. His body felt like a perfectly tuned engine, every muscle fiber responding with instantaneous, precise control. The lingering ache was gone, replaced by a thrumming potential energy. He held his hands out in front of him, turning them over. They looked the same, yet he knew with absolute certainty that the bones were denser, the tendons stronger, the neural pathways to his fingertips blazingly fast.
He focused on the wall where the man's window had appeared. He remembered the exact location. He walked over to it and placed his palm flat against the cool, smooth surface. He closed his eyes, not to block out the world, but to focus on the new data streaming into his brain from his fingertips.
He could feel the faintest vibration—a different frequency from the room's hum. It was the vibration of electronics. A current flowing behind the panel. He pressed his ear to the wall, filtering out the ambient noise, focusing only on that specific point. He heard it—a barely audible, high-frequency buzz. A display, or a sensor array, on standby.
Okay, he thought, the process in his mind clear and logical, devoid of the panic that would have crippled him days ago. The panel is not a solid wall. It's a screen or a one-way transparency that can be opaqued. That means there's a mechanism. And mechanisms require power.
His eyes scanned the room, his new vision absorbing every minute detail. The light from the ceiling was uniform, but his enhanced perception could detect the faintest variations in intensity. There, near the center of the ceiling, just to the left of the camera lens, was a section that was infinitesimally brighter. A maintenance access point, perhaps? A conduit for wiring?
He needed a tool. Something sharp, something hard. His gaze fell on the bed. It was a single, seamless unit, the gel-padding and the frame molded together. But the sheet… the thin, crisp sheet he had been covered with. It was made of a strong, synthetic material.
In a flash of inspiration, he ripped a long strip from the edge of the sheet. He then twisted it, using a technique he'd seen in a survival documentary, twisting it tighter and tighter until it became a hard, cord-like rope. It was crude, but it would have to do.
He stood on the bed, his movements balanced and sure. He reached up, his arm extending to its full length. He was still a few inches short of the ceiling. He judged the distance, the spring in his calves. He had never been particularly athletic, but his body now felt capable of things he couldn't imagine. He took a deep breath and jumped.
It wasn't a normal jump. It was an explosion of controlled power. He propelled himself upward with a force that shocked him, his head nearly brushing the twelve-foot-high ceiling. For a suspended moment, he was airborne, his focus absolute. He drove the twisted end of the sheet-rope upward, aiming for the slightly brighter panel.
The tip, hardened by the twist, hit the seam. He put the full force of his enhanced musculature behind it. There was a sharp crack, not loud, but deafening in the quiet room. A fine web of fractures appeared in the ceiling panel. He landed back on the bed without a sound, his knees absorbing the impact effortlessly.
He looked up. The fractured panel was now visibly different. A tiny sliver of it had dislodged, hanging down. Through the gap, he could see a tangle of colored wires and the glint of metal.
A sense of triumph, cold and sharp, flooded him. It's working.
He jumped again, higher this time, more controlled. He snagged the hanging sliver of composite and pulled. With a brittle snapping sound, a larger piece of the ceiling panel came away in his hand. He dropped it on the bed and looked up into the cavity. It was a narrow space, filled with bundles of fiber-optic cables, power conduits, and the complex guts of the environmental systems.
The camera lens swiveled slightly, focusing on him. They knew what he was doing.
No time to waste.
He reached into the cavity, his fingers navigating the maze of wires with an instinctual understanding. He wasn't an electrician, but his mind seemed to grasp the fundamental principles of the system. He could see the flow of energy, could identify the high-voltage lines and the low-data streams. He was looking for one thing: the power conduit for the door mechanism.
He found it. A thick, shielded cable, humming with a distinct, powerful current. He didn't have wire cutters. He had his hands.
He grabbed the cable in both fists. The insulation was tough, designed to withstand years of wear. He took another breath, focusing the strange, new strength that thrummed in his shoulders and back. He pulled.
The muscles in his arms and back corded, straining. For a second, nothing happened. Then, with a sound of tearing plastic and straining metal, the cable sheared in two.
A shower of bright, blue-white sparks erupted from the severed ends, filling the cavity with a staccato light show. The smell of burnt ozone and melting plastic filled the air. At the same time, the uniform lighting in the room flickered violently and died, plunging him into absolute blackness. The hum of the climate control ceased. The only sound was the sizzle of the live wires above him.
His new eyes adjusted instantly. The blackness became a landscape of subtle grays and thermal signatures. The severed ends of the cable glowed a bright, angry orange in his thermal vision. The room was now a ghost of itself, silent and dead.
He turned to the wall where the door was. Without power, the magnetic locks and the opaque screen would be disabled. He walked over to it and pushed. It didn't budge. It was still mechanically sealed.
He placed his hands on the seam he had identified earlier. He focused, pouring his enhanced strength into his palms and fingers. He dug his fingertips into the infinitesimal gap. The composite material was incredibly strong, but it had a tolerance. He could feel it flex under the immense pressure. He pushed, his feet braced against the floor, his entire body becoming a lever.
A low, groaning sound filled the silent room. A hairline crack appeared in the seam, then widened. With a final, grating shriek of tortured material, the entire panel burst outward, swinging open on heavy hinges that were now manually forced.
He stood in the doorway, breathing heavily, not from exertion, but from adrenaline. He was out.
The corridor outside was as featureless and white as his room, but it was now lit only by dim, red emergency lighting strips along the baseboards. The air was still, the silence profound without the background hum. His thermal vision showed the cold signatures of the walls and the warmer floor. It was a tomb.
He had no map, no plan other than up. He had to find a way to the surface. He moved down the corridor, his footsteps silent on the cool floor. His senses were on high alert, painting a detailed picture of his environment. He could hear the faint drip of water from a pipe somewhere, the scuttling of insects in the walls, the frantic beating of his own heart—a steady, powerful drum now, not the frightened rabbit's thump of before.
He came to an intersection. Two identical corridors branched off left and right. He closed his eyes, listening, feeling. To the right, he felt a very slight draft, a whisper of moving air that carried the faint, almost undetectable scent of… dust. And something else. The distant, muffled sound of city traffic.
That way.
He moved with a predator's grace, his body coiled and ready. He passed other sealed doors, identical to his own. Were there others in here? Other experiments? He pushed the thought away. He couldn't save anyone. He could barely save himself.
The corridor ended at a heavy, reinforced door, unlike the seamless panels. This was a bulkhead. And it was sealed shut. A keypad, dark and dead, was set into the wall beside it.
He was about to try and force it when he heard it. The sound of booted feet. Multiple pairs. Moving quickly, with purpose. They were coming from the way he had come.
They were coming for him.
Panic, the old, familiar enemy, tried to rise. He crushed it. His mind, operating at lightning speed, assessed the situation. He couldn't go back. The bulkhead was impassable without tools. There was a ventilation grate high up on the wall to his left.
He didn't hesitate. He took two running steps and leaped, his feet finding purchase on the smooth wall for a single, impossible moment before he pushed off again, his hands closing around the grate. He ripped it from its housing with a single, brutal pull, the screws tearing free like they were made of soft clay. He hauled himself up and into the dark, narrow duct, pulling the grate mostly back into place behind him just as the security team rounded the corner.
He lay perfectly still in the absolute darkness of the duct, his breathing controlled and silent. He could hear them below.
"—complete power failure on B-Level. The subject has breached containment."
"Scan for heat signatures."
"Emergency lighting only,sir. Thermal is patchy. He can't have gotten far."
Raymond willed his body temperature to drop, a trick he didn't know he could perform, but his subconscious, guided by the nanites, seemed to understand the necessity. His thermal signature faded, blending with the cool metal of the duct.
"Nothing. He must have doubled back. Fan out. Check every corridor."
The boots moved away. He waited, counting the seconds, until the sound faded completely. Then he began to crawl. The duct was a tight, claustrophobic maze, but his new spatial awareness allowed him to map it in his head as he moved. He followed the draft, the scent of the city growing stronger. It smelled of exhaust fumes, wet concrete, and the distant, greasy aroma of food from a thousand kitchens. It smelled like freedom.
After what felt like an hour of navigating the pitch-black, metallic labyrinth, he saw a pinprick of light ahead. A vent cover. He crawled towards it, his heart pounding with a hope so fierce it was painful.
The vent opened onto a alleyway, high up on the side of a nondescript, concrete building that looked like a forgotten warehouse. It was night. Rain was falling, a fine, cold mist that felt like heaven on his skin. He took a deep, shuddering breath, filling his lungs with the dirty, real, beautiful air of Meridian City.
He dropped the twenty feet to the ground, landing in a silent crouch on the wet asphalt. He was out. He was free.
He stood and looked back at the building. It gave no hint of the terrifying, advanced facility hidden within its guts. It was just another anonymous block in the industrial district. He turned and ran, not looking back, melting into the shadows of the city.
---
The journey home was a sensory overload. Every headlight was a miniature sun, forcing him to squint. The sound of car horns, sirens, and snippets of conversation from passing pedestrians felt like physical assaults. He could hear a couple arguing three stories up in an apartment building, their words as clear as if they were standing next to him. He could smell the unique composition of the rain on each street—the oil and rubber of the main thoroughfares, the damp earth and rotting wood of the older neighborhoods.
He felt like an alien, newly landed on a planet that was both familiar and terrifyingly strange. The world was too bright, too loud, too much. He pulled the hood of his thin, seamless garment up over his head, trying to block it out.
When he finally turned onto his own street, a wave of dissonance so powerful it nearly brought him to his knees washed over him. The peeling blue paint of his house, the creaky porch swing, the warm, yellow light glowing from the living room window—it was a scene from a past life. A life that belonged to someone else.
He stood across the street, hidden in the shadows between two houses, and just watched. He saw his mother's silhouette moving behind the curtains. She was pacing. He could hear the frantic rhythm of her heartbeat even from here, could sense the cloud of anxiety that surrounded her. She was worried. About him.
Guilt, sharp and acidic, burned in his throat. He had put that look on her face. He had caused that frantic pace.
But how could he go in there? How could he sit at the kitchen table and eat leftover meatloaf and talk about his day? What would he say? "Hey Mom, got kidnapped by a mad scientist who turned me into a superhuman. Then I broke out of his lab. Pass the peas?"
He was a stranger to this place now. A wolf come to the door of the sheepfold.
But he had nowhere else to go.
He crossed the street, his footsteps silent on the wet pavement. He climbed the porch steps, avoiding the one that always creaked out of long habit. He reached for the doorknob, then stopped. He didn't have his keys. They were in the pocket of the jeans he'd been wearing in Kingsley Square, probably incinerated as evidence or filed away in the man's laboratory.
He would have to ring the bell.
He took a deep breath, steeling himself, and pressed the button.
The chime echoed inside the house. He heard his mother's footsteps hurrying to the door. A pause as she looked through the peephole. Then the sound of multiple locks being disengaged with frantic haste.
The door flew open.
"RAYMOND!"
His mother stood there, her face a mask of tear-streaked relief and terror. She looked like she had aged ten years in three days. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, her hair was a mess.
She threw her arms around him, pulling him into a crushing hug. "Oh my god, Raymond! Where have you been? I've been out of my mind! I called the police, I called the hospitals… I thought… I thought…" She broke down, sobbing into his shoulder.
He stood stiffly in her embrace, his arms at his sides. Her hug felt… different. He could feel the individual fibers of her sweater against his skin. He could hear the rush of blood through her carotid artery, the wet catch in her throat as she cried. He could smell the salt of her tears, the faint scent of her vanilla perfume, and underneath it, the sharp, acrid odor of pure, adrenalized fear.
This was his mother. The woman who had raised him, loved him, worried over him. And he was analyzing her like a specimen.
"I'm okay, Mom," he said, his voice sounding flat and alien to his own ears. He forced his arms to come up and return the hug, trying to mimic the warmth he no longer felt.
She pulled back, holding him at arm's length, her eyes scanning him up and down. "What happened to you? Your face… the police report said you were involved in an assault in Kingsley Square. They said you were badly hurt. But you… you look…" She trailed off, her brow furrowed in confusion.
He looked fine. Better than fine. The injuries that should have taken weeks to heal were completely gone. There wasn't a bruise, a cut, or even a hint of swelling.
"It… it wasn't as bad as it looked," he lied, the words feeling like stones in his mouth. "I just… I needed to get away. I went camping. I needed to think."
"Camping?" she repeated, her voice shrill with disbelief. "For three days? Without your phone? Without telling anyone? Raymond, you don't camp! You get anxious if the Wi-Fi goes out!"
It was a feeble, transparent lie, and they both knew it. But the alternative was unthinkable.
"I'm sorry, Mom," he said, looking down at his feet. "I just… I couldn't be here. After Iris and Jayden. I just lost it."
The mention of his friends was a low blow, but an effective one. Her expression softened from anger and confusion to a deep, weary pity. She pulled him inside, closing and locking the door behind him.
"Oh, honey," she sighed, leading him into the living room. The familiar space felt like a museum diorama. The grandfather clock tick-tocked with a maddening, slow precision he could now count in milliseconds. The floral pattern on the sofa was a riot of unnecessary detail. "I know it's been hard. But you can't just disappear like that. You scared me to death."
"I know. I'm sorry," he repeated, sitting on the edge of the sofa, his posture rigid.
"Are you hungry? I can make you something." She was hovering, her hands fluttering nervously.
"No. I'm just… really tired. I think I just need to sleep."
"Of course, of course." She nodded, her eyes still wide with concern. "Your room is just how you left it."
He stood and walked towards the stairs, feeling her worried gaze on his back the entire way. He climbed the steps, each one a mile high. He entered his room and closed the door, leaning against it with a sigh of relief. The silence in here was almost as profound as in the laboratory, but it was a familiar silence, filled with the ghosts of his old life.
He walked to his desk and picked up the framed photo of him, Iris, and Jayden. Their smiling, carefree faces seemed to mock him. He looked at his own face in the photo, then turned to look at his reflection in the dark window pane.
The boy in the reflection was him, but… sharper. His eyes, which had always been a soft, unremarkable brown, now seemed to have more depth, as if he could see the faint, shimmering pattern of the window glass's molecular structure superimposed over his own image. His cheekbones seemed more defined, his jawline stronger. It wasn't a dramatic change, but it was there. The zero was being overwritten.
He needed proof. Tangible, undeniable proof that he wasn't going insane.
He went into his connected bathroom and turned on the light. The fluorescent bulb flickered to life with a buzz that grated on his nerves. He opened the medicine cabinet and found a pair of fingernail clippers. He took one of the sharp, metal files attached to it.
He held out his left forearm. Taking a deep breath, he pressed the point of the file into his skin and dragged it downwards.
A sharp, clean line of pain blossomed on his arm. A thin red line appeared, welling up with beads of blood. He watched, his heart thudding in his chest.
He didn't need to watch for long.
Within seconds, the bleeding stopped. The red line darkened, then began to fade. Before a full minute had passed, the cut was gone. Completely. Not even a pink mark remained on his skin. It was as if it had never happened.
He stared at the unblemished skin, a cold thrill of awe and terror coursing through him. It was real. All of it was real.
He looked up, meeting his own gaze in the mirror. The eyes that stared back were not the eyes of a powerless boy. They were the eyes of a predator. They were the eyes of someone who had walked through fire and been forged into something new.
He was home. But he would never be the same.
The zero was gone. What remained was a question mark, burning with a cold, new light.