Percy Jackson and Maximum Ride

Chapter Three: White-Coats

Chapter Three: White-Coats

Perseus Jackson

Percy woke up strapped to an examination table in a white medical room. His head was pounding, and the leather restraints that kept his wrists and ankles firmly strapped to the table weren't exactly gentle.

Percy blinked as his eyes adjusted to the bright light, and he craned his neck towards the voices he heard.

"It's conscious!"

"Finally! I can't wait to start testing it!"

"Alright, we already have its basic measurements and a blood sample, but we needed it awake to complete the physical examination." The white-coats, as the girl in the cage had called them, walked into Percy's line of vision and looked down at him with excitement. There were five of them all together, and two or three of them held clipboards with pens at the ready. 

Percy realized with a jolt that they were referring to himself when they said "it", and that made him furious.

"I have a name, you know," Percy said icily. "It's Perseus." He gave them his full name rather than his nickname because he didn't want these people calling me by such a familiar name.

The scientists looked startled by Percy's outburst, and as he gave them his best wolf glare, the white-coats with clipboards starting writing feverishly across their clipboards.

One of them came forward and said to him "Alpha One, if you don't keep quiet and do everything we say, the other speciman that was detained along with you will suffer for your actions."

Percy trained his wolf glare solely on him, and the son of Poseiden saw in his eyes that he had scared him. Good.

Another white-coat stepped forward, and tried to reinforce what his fellow wacko had said. "Do you understand, Alpha One?" As much as Percy hated giving in to them, he didn't want Annabeth to get hurt just for the sake of a few moments of futile rebellion, so he gritted his teeth and forced himself to say yes.

The white-coats nodded in satisfaction, the writers still scribbling on their clipboards.

"We're going to release your restraints now, and you're going to sit up and wait for your next instructions." 

Percy held his silence in response.

They released the straps that were binding him to the table, and Percy slowly sat up. He rotated his wrists and ankles in order to work out the stiffness that came from being strapped to the unforgiving metal of the examining table. He swung his legs over the edge and rubbed his sore wrists as he glared at his captors.

The scientists had Percy trade his swimming trunks for a pair of grey pocket-less sweatpants and decided to leave him topless. Then they took his weight and blood pressure before examining his eyes, ears, and mouth.  Percy likened the examination to an incredibly detailed physical.

When the white-coats were done, they led the demigod to what looked like a high-tech treadmill. They stuck some strange metallic-looking medical stickers onto his bare chest that had wires leading from them to the treadmill, and they told him to start running.

Percy started jogging, but they zapped him with something that looked like a small rod, and told him  to go faster. He picked up the pace and started to run lightly, and they zapped him again. "Faster!" This went on for the next several minutes, until he was running as fast as he possibly could, and every time he tried to slow down to catch his breath, they zapped him with their rod and told me not to slow down.

Percy's muscles were aching, his lungs were burning, and he was gasping for breath. He ran like this for about an hour until he couldn't take it anymore, and the son of Poseidon collapsed onto the white floor. Percy didn't have the strength to pick himself up, even if it meant enduring more shocks from the gods-be-damned white-coats.

Someone forced a straw into Percy's mouth and he sucked greedily at the cool water, which instantly made him feel better.

That, however, was a mixed blessing. The scientists knew about his powers, and they forced Percy back on the treadmill after he drank everything they would allow him.

It was hours later when Percy collapsed for what may well have been the fiftieth time before they finally let him sink into a blessed blackness and he escaped the burning pain of the numerous shocks, and the aching of his sore muscles and lungs.