Half Life

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

            I sit on the makeshift bed for a few minutes before moving. The scientist….the Dr. Geniva? The guy who made this….stuff? Who created almost half of me?

            I decide that now is not the time to ponder. I’m stuck in a crazy lab with a mad scientist, no clue WHERE in the world it’s located, and a little over half of my own body and no clue how to use the other half. Great. Time to experiment.

            I swivel my arm around, examining it from all angles. It’s so ugly. It looks so out of place. I can feel hot tears forming. And there’s more of this inside me. Given the circumstances, I guess it’s better than dying. If I hadn’t been injected with the alloy, would I have still lived? The scientist said my left lung is made of it….does that mean….?

            I have so many more questions, but I’m trapped like a mouse. A half robotic freakazoid mouse.

            I take a deep breath and stand up for the first time in who knows when. My legs feel like Jell-O, except for the knees, but it’s not like I don’t know why. I am afraid to look.

            I take another breath, actually feeling my left lung expand more than the other. I reach down towards the end of the weird silver gown I have on and pull up the hem. I gasp. My knees look normal! I run my hand (my real one) over the cap skin. It feels slightly off, like when you sunburn and the skin starts to peel. I shiver. It’s so wrong, so out of place. I don’t care what kind of tricks I can perform with these things, I hate them.

            So technically, I hate myself.

            I release my gown thing, wishing I had never even looked. It’s time to find a way out of here.

            Considering that anything is possible, I try the doorknob. Of course it’s locked. Why wouldn’t it be? I heard the click and everything.

            Feeling slightly stupid, I scan the room for anything even remotely helpful. Cotton swabs, paper towels, syringe disposal (yeesh), a bucket of pencils, a chart….a chart? Seems promising.  Maybe it contains better descriptions of what I am at this point. I snatch it up from the countertop and unclip the papers from the clipboard. Most of the scrawl is illegible, and made up of lots of medical jargon. I can’t make out any words except my name at the top in bold, printed letters.

ST. LAW, RENNAH J.

            Yay! Now if I could just learn Gibberish, I could read this.

            No sooner than I think this, things get creepy yet extremely cool.

            I feel the whirring sensation again, and I know my eye is about to do something crazy. It auto-focuses on the first unreadable words and begins to scan the page. This is sort of unnerving, since it does it by itself. I feel it dashing from left to right as it follows the information on the page, taking it in much faster than I could ever hope to read. Seriously weird considering it’s only one eye doing it.

            Just as I think I’m starting to get dizzy, the movements stop as abruptly as they began. My head continues whirring, and, don’t think me crazy, I hear a voice in my head.

            DATA COLLECTED.

            Well dang.

            All at once, text scrolls across my vision again, this time green. I start reading at the top.

            ST. LAW, RENNAH J.

            SHOWS NO SIGN OF REJECTION OF ALLOY. BODY IS COPING WELL. 

            So i can translate terrible handwriting? Maybe the only thing I like so far.

            STIRRED AT 14:00.  RECEIVED SEDATIVE.

            BRAIN ACTIVITY HEIGHTENED AT 17:30.

            SUBCONSCIOUS MISFIRE OF ARM MISSILE AT 20:00. PROGRAMMING CHECKED.

            My eyes widen. Arm missile? And I fired it? In my SLEEP?

            I’m armed and dangerous, I think. Literally.

            I set the papers back atop the counter, taking it all in. What else can my arm and eye do, and what other parts of me can perform like this? Now seems as good a time as any to do some experimenting of my own. I point my right limb towards the door, willing some kind of laser or missile or SOMETHING to come forth. Nothing. I squint. Still nothing. I stare at the door with all of my strength, even mentally. Absolute nothingness.

            If I can do it subconsciously, I sure as anything should be able to do it awake.

            I put my arm back down. How am I supposed to work myself? I shake my hand around. I even pull my own fingers. I’m stuck. Again.

            Frustrated, I slam it against the wall. (It’s metal. I feel no pain.) Suddenly, a small, bright blue light flashes on from the underside of my wrist. The hand folds back onto the rest of the appendage. Parts of the framework lift off, revealing complex inner workings and wires. At the end of the machine, where the hand used to be, I sense the material heating up on the inside, and a barrel forms out of the body. It looks like some sort of giant high-tech Gatling gun.

            Well that was ever so convenient.

            I point it at the door again, this time fully confident in the weapon. I can somehow sense where I need to send a nerve message to. I concentrate on a spot within the wires and gears. The heart of the machinery aimed at the locked door. Immediately, heat begins to rise inside it, and a light starts building up. Charging. The whirring in my head is now magnified, and many parts lock into place inside the mechanism. I can feel my whole body wrack with vibrations. The light is almost blinding now…

            The blast nearly throws me backwards. Sudden, pure light bursts from the missile fire and takes up the whole room before instantly disappearing. The noise is like a bomb going off in an enclosed area, and sparks sizzle around my head. I get light-headed, probably from inhaling the smoke and debris. When the fog clears (from my surroundings and from my head), I can see that I have nearly demolished the door. I’m pretty sure I just alerted everyone in the building that I was loose. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, or even if these people are good or bad, but I don’t plan on sticking around. I hate this place, and they should know not to leave a dangerous half-robot unattended. So it’s not like I have a choice.

            I seize the chance and dart through the still searing hole in the wall.  I can hear a voice over the intercom, but I have no clue what they’re saying. Most likely something about the freak cyborg escaping. Footsteps echo from somewhere down the hallway, but I have no idea how close they are or which side they’re coming from. I have to make a decision, fast. Left or right?

            My answer is clear once I see white-coated people approaching from both directions. Forward it is! I raise my missile launcher toward the wall in front of me and focus on the point that will open fire.