Chapter 27: Test Drive

The light came through the curtains and lit the room like headlights freezing a deer in the woods. His first impulse was to shield his eyes from the sun, but his thoughts all woke at the same time and distracted him from that. Tim Murphy realized he must have finished the nanite protocol’s time for rejuvenation. He was anxious to see how he looked.

Sitting up, he moved to throw the bed sheets off but, after a few tugs, they would only go so far. He looked down and realized they were not bed sheets but the clothes he was wearing when he went to sleep. A small smile became a bigger one when he glanced again and saw his favorite tool standing up straight, tenting his clothes.

“Good afternoon, sir.” The greeting came as the closed captioning he was all but used to seeing every day since first receiving the nanites, soon after he first won his position as a guard for the government.

“Good afternoon. Is everything okay? Were there any problems?”

“None whatsoever, sir. No interruptions and all systems are functioning within newly created parameters. We can also report that all systems are fully functional, and the wear and tear we have been monitoring since your incarceration is also repaired.”

“That’s great news!”

“Yes, we had time to make repairs to ourselves as well. We replicated an entirely new strain of nanites which can provide backup for our own needs.”

“I didn’t know you were able to do that.” Tim was a little worried since he had been told the nanites he received were base models, unable to do more than their programming. “Is there anything new I need to know about the new body?”

“Actually, yes, but we believe food would be of more importance at this time. We can update you while you eat. We suggest you finish as much food as you can. To borrow a phrase ... we have been busy.” A brief pause. “End of message.”

“Good. Then we can get to work.”

Tim did his normal roll to the side so he could use his arms in helping him sit up then use the bed as a fulcrum to help him stand up. The move was a learned technique he had needed to move his large stomach off from the top of his body so, with a momentum roll, he could swing his legs over the edge of the bed. Finally, with all the strength he could muster, he would use his arms at his side to help him stand, the backs of his legs pressed up against the bed itself. He had learned that, if he did not have his legs propped up on the floor next to the bed at the start of standing, the pressure in his body would cause him to lose his equilibrium, momentarily, and fall to the floor. However, with the first moments of standing, using the bed as a fulcrum, he could keep his balance and begin walking toward his morning ablutions. If he felt his equilibrium giving way, he could readjust himself to stop himself from falling or just fall back onto the bed. This learned, daily requirement, aided him in using the cell’s sturdy bed frame welded into the cell wall during his recent imprisonment.

Yet, now, when he first moved to roll over, his legs simply fell over the side of the bed, and Tim stood. No pre-programmed motions -- he just stood up! The lower back pain and the stinging in his right knee were not there. The smile on his face flashed wide. He sat back down on the bed and stood again. Tim realized he did not need to use the bed to help him stand. Still no pain. He decided to go ahead and see what his nanites had done. He shed his now grossly-oversized shirt and made his way to the bathroom and its full-sized mirror on the bathroom door.

The sight in the bathroom mirror almost made him look around for others in the room with him. He had trouble acknowledging it was, in fact, himself he was looking at in the reflection. The six-pack of muscles bulging from his waist was definitely different than what he’d seen when he had showered the day before.

Then he noticed his arms. They were actually about the same size they were before, but this time they were rippling with muscles. His posing was almost childish but, then again, he was playing with a new toy! He instantly remembered his favorite ‘toy’ growing up and untied the drawstring on the shorts that were hanging off his body. The sight gave his smile intensity. No longer a turtle’s head occasionally poking out from its shell, he had a baby’s arm carrying an apple – a smallish apple, but still an apple.

He shed the rest of his clothing and jumped into the shower to wash the sheen of sweat from his body, but also to give his new ‘equipment’ a trial. The new proportions also produced a prodigious amount of seed, as evidenced by how hard it was to wash off the wall of the shower.

“Well, at least I do have something to play with while I’m all alone,” he said out loud to no one in particular.

Tim stepped out of the shower and began combing his once-again full head of hair. It was thick but not that long. It was also just above his shoulders and jet black, now, not the dark auburn he’d had before, this time his hair color could be described as black on blue.

He didn’t know how he wanted to style but, rather than worry about it now, he just slicked it back and stared at himself in the mirror. That brought memories of the old Highlander TV show and how he had wanted his hair to be slicked back and held in a pony tail like the main character. The clothes the man wore were also heavily European styles since the show was filmed in Paris for a while, which Tim admired.

“I don’t think I’ll go that far, but definitely no more ‘same t-shirt for a couple of days.’ Now, I will pay attention to how I look since I have something I’d like to show off.”

Tim continued styling his hair and could not help but try a couple of different styles, but he kept coming back to the slicked-back with pony tail idea.

“We can make your hair grow a little longer to make it easier for you to pull it back in a pony tail if you’d wish.” A brief pause. “End of message.”

“Yes, please, just another half to an inch longer. No need for anyone to think I might be a girl.” He watched in amazement as his hair grew a half an inch longer and then tried to pull it into the pony tail. The hair just was not long enough.

“Okay, go ahead and add an entire extra inch.” The hair grew once more and was now easily pulled into a pony tail. Tim used a small rubber band he had purchased earlier. The nanites previously told him they were going to fix his hair, and that was when he first remembered being so much a fan of that show and how the main character looked.

Tim was lost in a memory when he heard the first gunshot. That was quickly followed by two more. The shots seemed to be on the other side of the complex. The walls were thin but not that thin. It was the first time he could remember hearing anything from any of the nearby rooms since he had been there.

“Did I hear that gunshot because of increased hearing capability?” he asked while he was ducking and making his way toward the bed.

“Yes. Your hearing has been upgraded but not to the highest possible standards.”

“Why didn’t you go to the fullest extent possible?”

“It would take several days of work to reach humanity’s highest potential of hearing. We were under the impression expedience was a driving force in choosing what was upgraded and when. Were we incorrect in our assumptions?”

“No. You were correct to wait for full implementation.”

Tim took a breath and, with no more gunshots or interruptions, got to the important matters before him. He was hungry, so he went to the mini-kitchen and retrieved the fixings for sandwiches. He used the entire loaf of bread and all the cold cuts he had to make as many sandwiches as he could. He then opened the first of many Gatorade bottles to wash them down.

“Can I assume you did this with several different parts of my body?”

“Yes. In fact, we only minimally increased your hearing and sight as they were already both well above average for a man of your age. We have reinforced them, though, to stay at that level even as you age further.”

“Well, at least there is that. Please continue.”

“We have fully upgraded your strength and fitness too, as requested, Olympic athlete levels. The same is true for your dexterity and reflexes. We also upgraded your muscle memory for your personal protection styles. Your muscles will all work as well as they did before but now with your improved speed and strength.

“We decreased several deposits of fat choking synapses in your brain and increased blood flow to your brain. That should give you much improved critical thinking and strategy as well as memory. What you read, you will remember.”

“Wow! Incredible job! Anything else I should kn...” Tim stopped, mid-word, with agonizing stomach cramps. He quickly made his way back to the bathroom and sat on the toilet, just in time for the inevitable explosion of excess fat being expelled from his body.

“Shit! I almost forgot about that part when they gave us the nanites in the first place.”

He reached for the door and pulled it shut in an attempt to keep the stench in the bathroom. From the toilet, Tim was also able to reach the fan switch right next to the light switch and, with a quick flick, the sound of a fan above the shower started pulling the stink away from the rest of the room. Tim was very shocked to find how well the fan worked.

“Christ almighty, guys, you could have warned me before I started eating.”

The only answer was a smiley emoji followed by “end of message.”

Tim rolled his eyes but couldn’t stay mad. He started laughing as well.

Morale was noticeably low among the CID-SI. Col. Price was looking over the faces of his men in the conference room. He remembered something his father used to say, “They look sad enough to bring a tear to a glass eye.”

He figured he needed to do something about it and quickly. “Okay, fellas, meeting is postponed. Sergeant Thomas, see if we can reserve the rifle range for a couple of hours. I know I feel like shooting something!” The smiles were sudden because, if there was one thing all these men could say they enjoyed, it was shooting guns at inanimate objects. The only thing they liked more was shooting guns at animate objects.

The sound of the colonel’s pistol reverberated throughout the gun range. “I just don’t understand how in the hell he got out of his shackles and handcuffs. I saw you put those things on, Sarge, and saw you check they were secure around the man’s wrists.”

Sergeant Thomas was in the stall next to the colonel. Other members of the CID-SI were spread out in the stalls, firing away at paper targets. The colonel and the sergeant were sticking with their standard sidearms, but the other men had taken advantage of the opportunity and pulled out the large, automatic rifles for practice.

The colonel replaced his spent clip with a new, full clip of bullets. “Shit! I even remember smiling a little when you pulled that initial beat-down on him, and the son-of-a-bitch jerked and gave you the evil eye.”

The men were enjoying burning off a little stress and killing a few targets for fun and to maintain their sharpness. The colonel had arranged for the squad to have full run of the range for the morning. With the loss of their guest, the squad had nothing to do but attempt to find their escapee or wait for another command assignment -- one that used their set of skills more appropriately rather than interrogation and guarding prisoners. Colonel Price’s men were the best infiltration squad in all the US military, and many considered them the best in the world.

The guys finished up their last rounds of the morning, and everyone piled back into the three SUVs to ferry themselves back to the office. While on the road, the sarge called the other SUVs and told them to go straight back to the office as the colonel was going buy lunch for everyone. The colonel’s SUV made a burger run before returning to the office. He was thanking them for good work so far and wanted them to know that no one was blaming them for losing the prisoner.

With the remnants of the burger combinations disposed of in the trash, the colonel restarted the meeting from the morning. “Guys, first of all, I just wanna say good work over the past few months and also good work trying to track down the fat fuck, as Sarge loves to call him.”

The polite laughs finished quickly, and Col. Price was able to get back on schedule with why he wanted to talk to his men away from the office. “Now, officially, we are awaiting reassignment for our next challenge, but I have it on good authority we are already getting passed up for some stuff we should have been assigned to first.”

That did not go over well with the group, and it took a few seconds for the yelling and profanity to come under control. “Now, again, officially, we didn’t do anything wrong, and the higher-ups feel we did the best anyone could have done, given the situation. We were forced to use the lab’s current security men. Now, they are good, but we all know we might have had a better shot of getting the man to talk if we could have gone at him twenty-four/seven, without interruptions of daily tacos from the greasy spoon up the block.”

The yelling and anger brewed again from the men, and the colonel let them get it out of their systems momentarily, but a quick glance to the sergeant got the men back under control with a bark of, “Quiet!”

“I’m feeling the exact same way, guys.” He looked at the faces of his men and made a decision. “We came into a situation that was so fouled up from the get go, we had almost no chance, and then the ‘mall security guards’ fucked up and got their faces handed to them and lost the fucker.”

“So, since they don’t know where to send us next, I think we can find something better to do with our lives than just twiddling our thumbs and waiting for the chance to kill some asshole in a desert or a monkey swinging from a tree in the jungle. Now, we can’t go nuclear and shoot our way to finding the asshole, but we are gonna turn over every rock we can find and get that fat fuck back in control. We’ll win back our respect as the baddest motherfuckin’ team in the whole US military, and then we’ll tie up that fat fuck, stick an apple in his mouth, and serve him up on a silver platter. Whaddaya say???”

The yells of testosterone-enhanced applause were accented with appropriate profanity and varying sound effects from the members of the squad. The colonel also joined in with the guys for a moment but soon brought the meeting back into focus. “Okay, men. Now we need to think of how did the asshole get away.”

Silence ... but their faces were full of questions, and all the men were engaged.

“I’m not talking about how he busted up the ‘guards’.” Col. Price used ‘air quotes’ when he said guards. “We know how he did that. He kicked ass and took the man’s wheels.”

Still, silence dominated, but Col. Price could see it in the eyes of his men. They were thinking about the escape in a different light now. No longer were their heads in the guillotine. They were found ‘not at fault’ for the escape. Now they could look at the escape with a free conscience. Earlier, shroud of punishment and blame hovered over each man’s head, and the men just went on autopilot while searching for the man in the immediate aftermath.

He stole a car from the hospital, and there is a gate right in front of the hospital. He must have used that way to get out. So, follow-the-leader saw the CID-SI headed for the hospital gate ... and moving the wrong way down the highway. Thinking proactively and like a newly escaped prisoner, especially one who broke into one of the most secure facilities in the country, the colonel surmised he probably would not use the most expedient escape route. More than likely, he would double back and, rather than rushing to get off the base, he would take his time yet not too much time.

They were on the right track.

“Tell ya what, men. Why don’t we change perspectives, and look at it from the fat fuck’s point of view.” A few snickers erupted with smiles all around, but they were all now actively attempting to look at the escape through the eyes of the prisoner.

“Rather than flying out the hospital gate as quickly as possible, he doubled back, and exited through a less busy gate at a leisurely pace.” Heads were nodding up and down as the colonel talked. “Along the way, he was smart enough to change cars. He knew, sooner or later, we would have the missing car description to all the exit gates on the base.”

“He must have had help,” said a corporal seated in the middle of the group.

“Why do you think that?” the colonel asked.

“Well, he used the guard’s van to go further into the base. He actually backtracked his way to just outside our back door and stole a car from the church parking lot next door.” The corporal was now standing and looking his teammates in the eyes. The nodding from them continued. “But how did he know where we were bringing him every day? Did he know about the tunnel system ahead of time? Did someone tell him?”

“Yeah,” Sgt. Thomas answered. He looked over to the colonel and continued, “Remember, in the initial reports, Johnson said something about the way he was walking around the lab? It was like he knew where he was. He already knew the layout. Now, how did he know where we were, since ... correct me if I’m wrong ... but they dug the new tunnel to us, just for us, right?” he finished.

The sergeant pulled out his ever-present tablet computer and, with a few swipes across the face of the tablet, he confirmed the report. “Yeah. Says here Johnson first noted on his report, the first night this guy appeared in the lab, he did not need to be told where to turn while they were walking him to the security cell. After about a month of seeing it for themselves, the interrogators stopped trying to walk him in circles to confuse him. They just started moving him from one place to another as quickly as possible.”

Another of the men spoke up, “So he knew the layout of the lab ahead of time. It goes along with what the initial interrogators reported of his story.”

A different corporal in the group raised his hand, looking at the colonel. The colonel pointed at him. “So did the initial interrogators have a theory for how he got into the lab in the first place? Did you, sir, have a theory about that?”

Tim was enjoying the view of himself in the mirror. He studied every part of his ‘new’ body. Some parts were foreign to him since he had never actually seen them before. He was still having problems realizing there was no more back pain from the spare tire that used to be his waist.

Tim was eating his fourth sandwich and simultaneously preparing to get rid of his full trash can. Behind the front door was a small map of where to get rid of your trash. Either you emptied your own trash, or the establishment would do it for you, for a small fee. The fee looked to be about fifty percent of the nightly room price.

He grabbed a pair of blue jeans and one of the t-shirts from the pack of plain, white t-shirts and finished his ensemble with the white socks and no-name tennis shoes. Once he finished dressing, he opened up his wallet to check his cash reserves. He was down to just under fifty dollars. “Shit. That ain’t exactly a lot. I guess I’ll need to visit the other drop sites for more cash.”