Chapter 290: Staying in the Truly Scary Lab

Tuesday, February 7 to Friday, February 10, 2006

There were really only two things going on:

1. They were trying to find out everything about me while I tried to stop that happening.

2. I was planning my escape.

The first activity was a game in one respect, because the individual pieces of information had no value in the big picture. It was worth my while delaying the forward march of science as much as possible because the more they learned about me, the less inclined they'd be to let me go. For example, if they discovered that my body's healing rate was at least three times faster than normal (I hadn't re-measured it since my last merge) and that I'd not had even a cold for the last two years, then they'd almost certainly get very excited and never let me go. They might also start doing experiments on me that'd make it even harder for me to escape, such as breaking one of my legs to see how fast it healed.

With some tests I could easily get away with hiding my abilities, such as physical skills tests. Other tests I had no control over at all, such as blood tests. Some were just puzzling, like their making me look at a bright strobe light, with the frequency changing every two minutes, for a total of over half an hour. Or getting me to breathe so deeply that I hyperventilated, or do various IQ tasks with my eyes open or shut.

The tests took place in my room whenever possible, so I had a people passing in and out very frequently. If the equipment was too bulky for my fairly small isolation room, the tests were done in my anteroom. As one example, a simple treadmill/ECG/breathing mask setup. The sort of thing any serious sports facility could have, but which was presumably obtained especially to test my physiology when running.

Only very rarely was I taken out of my Isolation Suite, and that was only when the equipment involved was too large to fit through the somewhat wider than normal doorways this place used everywhere except for office doors. I lived in hope that they'd have to take me to the surface to put me into a particularly huge machine, but that never happened. I was only ever taken across my level to the far bank of elevators. One of its cars was particularly large, being used for transporting the animals and large pieces of equipment. The experiment would be set up ready for me near the elevators, I'd be subjected to whatever it was that they wanted to do to me, and then escorted back to my room. The level was always depopulated for my trip, other than my escorts. My skullcap stayed on and my EEG machine followed me. I was very well restrained at these times, which wasn't particularly disappointing as it wasn't getting free on this level that had me stumped, but getting up to the ground level and away from there.

Some tests were problems, such as an IQ test. I had to answer it using only one mind, or eight minds' worth of heavy thinking would've sent the EEG readings through the roof. After they scored the test, I got abused and had my food ration cut in half for the next 24 hours. I was given another test to do, but I had to stick to using only one mind. Going hungry was better than getting them excited about the huge amount of brain activity I could generate when all my minds were thinking hard.

I INSISTED to them that I was doing the tests to the best of my ability, and it should've looked like that in the EEG, but I was VERY hungry for the next two days. Luckily they shelved the IQ tests for the moment. My attention was caught by one statement made during their abuse of me: the abuser mentioned that the IQ scores I was getting were around 147.

#1: <What! How on Earth did I score around 147 each time?>

#5: <I've got two theories. Either our AVERAGE IQ is 105, because your 147 is being offset by #8's IQ... >

#8: <Hey! Why am I always the butt of jokes like that?>

#5: <If the cap fits.>

#8: <We've got the SAME head! My personal reputation to one side, I don't think that's a good explanation. We would've noticed #1 being 40 IQ points smarter than the rest of us.>

#5: <Yeah, Theory A was irresistible but wrong. My money is on Theory B: that we ALL have IQs of 147 now. Remember we decided that our memories improved because our body improves itself, and our brain is part of our body. If our memories improved, why couldn't our IQ have improved too?>

#8: <D'oh! I feel so stupid for not thinking of that earlier.>

#5: <It explains a lot: why everyone else thinks we're highly intelligent, even from our everyday conversations, why our college studies weren't nearly as hard as we thought, and why they got easier after the last merge. We thought that was because we got into the rhythm of studying, but it was probably because we got smarter.>

#2: <That'd be good to know, if we manage to have a life.>

[[Memory is only partially held in the brain, but it's the brain's part of the process that suffers from poor performance (it's the weak link), so improving it improved the entire memory process.]]

Their testing was becoming a major problem:

• It was relentless.

• They had a very hands-on approach, unlike the game-playing S&T crowd. For example, on the fourth day the electrode was reattached to my cock, a toy roulette wheel was put in front of me, and I was shocked whenever the ball fell in the wrong pocket. I was strongly of the opinion that roulette wheels should be numbered all the way up to "2" and no further.

• Their tests were getting results. Not the roulette one obviously, but too many of the others were. I was EXTRAORDINARILY healthy, off the charts in many of their measures, from muscle reaction times (relatively unimportant) through to neuron firing times (much more worrying because I REALLY didn't want them interested in my brain). My over-their-shoulders reading was showing me that they were getting FAR too excited about many of my results. They were suggesting more and more experiments they wanted to run on me. Some of them were long-duration experiments, which was both good news and bad news as I had to be alive for them, but I had to be unreleased for them too. Their mounting excitement meant the chance of their releasing me had to be getting lower all the time. Presuming there was a chance, but I had a feeling it was already at "two-thirds of fuck all" and dropping.

One of the tests they subjected me to was psychiatric. I spent a very long day being interviewed by a psychiatrist. Naturally I told him all about my situation and asked him to contact the authorities, my parents, the press, and even the President, but he wasn't interested. Nor would he answer any of my questions.

I managed to read the summary of his report a couple of days later: "Subject harbors deep-seated resentment against the American way of life and Government", "If released, Subject will most likely feel justified in attempting to exact 'revenge' for his perceived mistreatments", "Subject is extraordinarily intelligent and capable, so represents a considerable threat", etc. In other words, he justified their throwing away the key to my cell.

[[The highly respected, outside expert psychiatrist was contracted by the CIA to consult on dangerous people, the CIA paying very well for his services. Thus it suited him to emphasis how dangerous such people were, to make his services seem more important and to encourage them to hire him more often. On their side, the CIA wanted the justifications and ass-covering he provided, so it was a mutually supportive, happy relationship; just not so good for the subjects.]]

Another thing that scared me was how easy it would be for them to render me totally helpless, either with drugs in my food or while I slept. I kept my sleep to an absolute minimum, by tossing and turning for hours as if trying to sleep. When asked about it, I blamed my fear and suggested they release me and I'd give them a call to let them know how my sleeping pattern improved. They thought not. I did have to sleep for some of the time, which made me feel very vulnerable. I'd hate to wake up one morning to find out they'd injected truth serum into my arm and it was too late for me to stop it working, or some other terrible scenario like that.

Of the three ways I could get out of here (they choose to release me, family lawyer forces my release, or I escape), their choosing to release me voluntarily had surely virtually disappeared as an option. That also meant that they'd fight much harder to prevent the family lawyer succeeding. It wasn't hard for me to decide who was going to win a battle between a family lawyer and a highly motivated CIA. So I was down to only one way out of here: escaping.

Unfortunately, my escape planning was going badly. I had several types of possible plans:

• The Rush. Out of my room, up to the ground level, and away as fast as I could.

• The Sneak. Somehow get out without their knowing I was on the move.

• Fight my way out, possibly using hostages.

• A Multi-Stage approach. Maybe rush out of my room, hide somewhere, sneak to the top then fight out. This option was mostly because I couldn't imagine any of the other options getting me all the way out in one go.

The Rush was the most obvious approach. It's what I would've used in Portland or Washington DC, with every expectation of a fairly easy success at either place. Not here though. I could get out of my room easily enough, while the nurse was entering or leaving for example, but that would instantly set off alarms. The camera covered the room, so the watchers would see me leave it. It'd also be noticed because I'd have to remove the EEG sensor cap. I knew they watched that closely, and would certainly have alarms set to go off if it gave off an unusual, or no, signal.

If I just ran for it, I wouldn't even make it out of my anteroom before the place was in lockdown. I could easily disable my room's camera before I ran, in a way that had me looking innocent at the time, but I was certain they'd react to that very quickly. That they were always watching me intently meant they wouldn't abide with losing video. The hallways and elevator areas were covered by other video cameras, and there was a guard in the hallway too, so I'd have to do some disabling as I went. I was sure that would have the place in lockdown long before I got into an elevator.

I'd read their "Lockdown Procedures Manual", so I knew this place had a hair-trigger lockdown system. That the lockdowns were for responding to contamination disasters didn't stop them being extremely effective in keeping me down here. A lockdown doomed me for several reasons, including that every floor would be immediately hermetically sealed and have its air supply turned off until specifically turned back on. I had to be out of the building by the time the alarms went off, or the baddies could pump sleeping gas or something else debilitating into my level's vents, and then they'd come for me while I was helpless.

To avoid their reacting to my escape, I had to totally hide that I was escaping. That meant I had to do something like create a building-wide power failure. That put the place into lockdown too, but I could disable the emergency power at the same time, which might create opportunities. Both power supplies were vulnerable to me because they had important components within my range, mostly on level 12. I doubted the sabotage I could do would disable the entire building, but I could disable just about everything in more than half the building, which should be enough to cover the start of my escape.

It wasn't nearly as easy as disabling the power and waltzing out of here. There were no staircases out, only the two elevator banks. Riding up in an elevator was too unlikely to work whether or not the power was on. Never mind the reception I might get at the top, the elevators might not move at all if the building didn't 'recognize' who was in the elevator. Even if I got one to move, if it was stopped between floors, it'd instantly become another prison for me.

In the movies, people climb up and down the elevator cables, which was almost certainly the best way for me to go (as it was probably the only way), because I could easily climb up the elevator cables. NP could hold almost all of my weight, and my arm muscles would have me almost flying up the cable. There were three elevator cars in each bank, and it'd be a real bummer if all three of them were positioned to block my path to freedom, so I'd have to check the elevator positions before I knocked the nurse out as she was going through my doorway. I could use NP to press one of the elevator's buttons on a floor below mine to make sure it descended below my level.

The doors into the elevator shaft were a worry because they were strong, very well built, and there were more of them than normal:

• Each elevator car had its own set of two doors that met in the middle, as is usual on elevators. They were stronger and closed more securely than normal, but that didn't worry me because if I was trying to break into the shaft itself, I'd do so where there was no car in the way. Almost none of my possible plans had me breaking into or out of the elevator cars themselves.

• Each lobby had three pairs of doors to cover the three empty holes into the shaft when no car was there, as is always the case. Like the car doors, they were engineered for a bioweapon lab, so strong and hermetically sealed when shut.

• As an additional safety measure, each lobby had a huge sliding door that could seal off the elevator lobby in the case of an emergency. They were positioned only a couple of inches on the lobby side of the previously described doors and kept retracted, only to be used in the case of an emergency. I'd not seen them in use yet, only seen their tracks on the floor and ceiling, and read about them in the Lockdown Procedures Manual, but I had no doubt that they'd be damned hard to open. Even the ordinary lobby doors were extremely strong, and these had to be worse. Each lobby would be sealed by only the one giant door, which would slide all the way across the three elevator entrances and then into a recessed holding area on the other side, so there'd be no join for me to work my physical fingertips into, the way there is with the other types of elevator doors, which are all pairs that meet in the middle. I'd done a test when the lobby doors on level 10 were closing, using ALL my NP force (less the very small amount I lost for having a sight blob active) to try to stop one of them from closing. It had fairly easily pushed my fingertips back. If I couldn't even stop one closing, getting an already closed one to open would be far beyond the ability of my NP force. I MIGHT be able to open them with my muscles and NP combined, but that was doubtful because getting a grip would be virtually impossible.

I might be able to fly something between the doors on my level to stop them from closing, although I was very reluctant to fly things around in front of a video camera. Presuming I somehow kept them open, or my physical strength and NP combined could force the gap open enough for me to get through to the cable, then I'd easily be able to climb to the top, but what then? Those doors were out of my range so I'd be unable to stop them closing. They'd surely be impossible for me to open while dangling from a cable. Plus there was a double set, so I'd have to open the second set while the first set was trying to close on me. Opening the top level's lobby doors from inside the shaft when I was dangling from a cable (there was virtually no ledge to stand on), wasn't believably possible.

Then there was the major problem of what I'd be facing presuming I did manage to open the shaft's doors at ground level. I had NO idea what was up there, except that whatever it was would most likely be taking security as seriously as the rest of this place. Probably more so, considering it was their front door. I would've preferred to go up one more level, bust a window and leap out. I'd seen diagrams of this place that showed that there were three above-ground levels, but all the elevators only went as far as "Ground". I had no idea why they didn't go any higher.

[[The above-ground levels were the public cover story, a very large veterinary pharmaceutical R&D lab and business. There were very good reasons not to have the top-secret biochem lab's elevators opening into areas accessible to the public. The lab's elevators exited at the ground level inside of secured, private rooms, nowhere near the cover business's own elevators.]]

If I could get up to level 3 or above, then I could scout the rest of the way, but I didn't want to have to stop to scout and problem solve in the middle of an escape; I wanted a clear run out. Ideally I wanted my nice captors to transfer me up to level 1 or 2 for a while, but I couldn't think of any way of getting that to happen. I'd seen diagrams that told me that the levels I'd been unable to scout were the computer center, cafeteria (both on level 4) and mostly offices (levels 1, 2 and 3), none of which gave me any ideas for how to get sent to them. The only idea I had was to ask to see the big boss and hope I'd be sent to him rather than him come down to me, both of which I gave a zero chance of happening because they'd hardly let me meet the big boss when they were worried about me having mind control powers.