Chapter 291: Planning to Get Out of the Truly Scary Lab

Saturday, February 11 to Friday, February 17, 2006

On the seventh day of my Fort Dodge imprisonment, I woke with a new skullcap on. It had roughly ten times as many electrodes, about two or three hundred now. They weren't patches glued to my skin, but short needles that poked into the bone of my skull - I REALLY hoped not all the way through to my brain! I was REALLY pissed off! This got me angrier than anything they'd done before, even more than electrocuting my cock. That'd been part of a coercion game that I understood. The new skullcap, including drugging me to fit it, was very different. They weren't treating me as a human being but as one of their experimental animals, and I'd seen how those always ended up.

After anger, my next emotion was fear. What was this new cap capable of? I could still think, my minds could still talk to each other, and I'd already tried a sight blob so my special abilities seemed okay, but maybe the baddies could stop me with the flick of a switch. Would the next upgrade allow them to remotely control me? I was SERIOUSLY fucked if they could stop my special abilities, either now or after the next upgrade. And what was worse, human civilization was potentially seriously fucked too. But there was exactly zero I could say about the new cap. There was no point in my complaining, and less than no point in making threats to rip it off - that still appeared possible - because I knew they'd reattach it in a way that made it impossible to remove - they treat their animals with total disregard.

Out of fear I gave the new cap a very close inspection. As best I could tell, the very thin electrode needles were also very short, only just long enough to penetrate my skin, the thin layer of flesh and to reach my skull. A quick sight blob check elsewhere in the facility told me the date and time, and nowhere near enough time had passed for them to have drilled this number of tiny holes through my skull. My fear eased a little, but only because the situation wasn't YET as bad as I first thought. The "yet" was still very worrying.

With ten times as many electrodes as the previous version, it naturally had ten times as many wires running down the back of my head. They were bound together like a ponytail, which then plugged into a new machine. The cable was heavy and was going to be a pain in the neck to live with.

With so many electrodes, and presumably with them getting better reception by being into my skull rather than on my skin, they'd be learning even more about my brain's working. They must've liked what they already had learned to upgrade the equipment like this, so what would they be getting now?

I had to keep using sight blobs and NP-points because I'd never get out of here otherwise. Both those actions would doubtless show up on the new equipment even better than the old, further increasing my fear. I'd already created a sight blob to check out the new skullcap, and now I sent it into the anteroom to check the display. It was off. The anteroom wasn't monitored by a camera, so I took a small risk by using NP to turn the display on. It showed nothing. The cabling looked fine, so I guessed the new machine wasn't sending its data to this room. I turned the display off again, annoyed that I wouldn't know how much better their information was, not that I could do anything about it.

I felt an itchy spot behind my ear and moved my hand to scratch it.

{Click}. "Don't scratch that!"

"Why not? It's itchy."

"You might pull the plug out."

#3: <I do NOT like the sound of that! What sort of plug? Don't tell me they can plug our head into a computer now; that's freaky SCARY!>

"What sort of plug?"

"An ordinary plug. Like a cork."

"Why on Earth would I have a cork in my head?"

"To block the hole. Don't pull it out or your cerebral fluid will drain out."

"WHAT! Why the FUCK do I have a hole in my head?"

"Just leave it alone, or else!" {Click}.

I sent the sight blob to have a look, lifting the skullcap so it could see clearly. That got me a torrent of abuse and orders to leave it alone from the speaker, which I ignored. Under the skullcap there was a half-inch square Band-Aid stuck to my recently re-shaved skull, located just behind my left ear and up a bit. In the middle of the Band-Aid was a small bulge.

I grasped the corner of the Band-Aid, yelling, "Tell me what the hell you've done, or I'll pull this crap off to find out for myself."

{Click}. "Leave it alone or you'll lose your next meal."

#6: <I vote for ripping the Band-Aid off. I want to know what the fuckers have done, ESPECIALLY because he doesn't want to tell us.>

#All: <Agreed.>

I ripped the Band-Aid off, holding it in my hand in case I had to hurriedly put it back on (I hadn't liked the sound of "your cerebral fluid will drain out"). My sight blob damn well did show a cork stuck in my skull. It looked like it was made of white plastic rather than cork, but it was doing the same job. I couldn't see clearly, but there was a circular hole in my skin that clearly went a great deal deeper than my skin. The fuckers had drilled a sizeable hole in my skull! My anger at having the skullcap fitted faded into insignificance compared to this!

There was a great deal of yelling back and forth, during which he stated - as if it justified their actions - "We took a brain sample."

#8: <Rather than yelling at him, let's shut up and think about this. Preferably while we've still got enough brain left to think with. First question, did they put anything into our head? God knows what, but maybe they're into brain control too, or maybe a GPS, or who the fuck knows. Can we send a sight blob in there to have a look?>

#5: <Good idea. And if we find anything in there, we crush it.>

#1: <Having sharp pieces of metal floating around our brain might be bad news. How about we pull the cork out and remove it out the hole. We could probably pretend to be so upset we fell to the floor and rolled around crying. Get our head out of sight under the bed and get the device out of us.>

#2: <Let's see if there's anything in there first.>

Looking through my own cerebral fluid had only short-range visibility but was surprisingly easy, and very weird. I could see the lumps on the outside of my own brain! I found the hole, and had the strange experience of looking up it from the inside. It was empty, and there was nothing embedded in my brain beneath the hole.

There was a very small hole in my brain matter where - if they were telling the truth - the probe would've penetrated to get its sample. Alternatively where they could've deposited something. I sent the sight blob slowly down the 'borehole' into my brain, all the way to the end, which was about half an inch in. I couldn't see any details, just a gray blur (apparently it's called "gray matter" for good reason), but a piece of technology should show up when the sight blob started overlapping it. I found nothing. The borehole was probably clean.

If they'd dropped anything small into the cerebral fluid, it could've washed anywhere around my brain, so I spent a couple of minutes searching the inside of my skull. It gave me time for my hot anger to turn into cold anger. I didn't find anything, including no indication that any of the many electrode needles penetrated my skull. Apparently the fuckers had just done what they'd said: taken a sample of my brain.

I sat there, not saying anything. Not even saying much to each other. We were too angry for conversation.

The nurse arrived and applied a fresh Band-Aid.

I caught her eye and told her, "You are very, very bad people."

If this was a James Bond movie, she'd be a gorgeous nurse who'd feel instant remorse, would fall in love with me, would help me escape, and we'd make love in some fantastic location while M was telling me to come back to work. What's the chance that someone working in a biochem weapons' development lab is capable of feeling remorse? This plain looking nurse certainly didn't. Her only emotion seemed to be annoyance at having to come put another Band-Aid on me. She performed the task efficiently, gave me a dirty look as a warning to leave it alone, then left.

#1: <How did they put us to sleep? We didn't eat or drink anything before bedtime. Could they be gassing us?>

#3: <Or it could be simpler. They know when we're sound asleep because of the damned helmet, so they could come in and squirt a small amount of liquid into our mouth. We'd swallow it without waking. I'm not so worried about the how, as what their doing it implies. If they were going to release us, our having a hole in our head would surely be very bad press for them. Drilling a hole in someone's head is WAY more seriously than making people get naked and form pyramids (a reference to Abu Ghraib, in case you've forgotten about that). I think they just confirmed that they won't be letting us go.>

#7: <Yeah, and I bet our families have no idea where we are, or even that the CIA has us. The only way anyone's going to find us is if the CIA tells them where we are, and that's not looking too likely.>

#1: <No. They'll easily be able to stall for months if they want to, and we're not going to last for months. Sooner or later they're going to start asking serious questions, and they're going to insist on real answers.>

#8: <I don't think EEGs can tell whether someone's telling the truth or not, can they?>

#1: <I don't think so.>

#5: <Guys, we HAVE to end this! These fuckers are EVIL and they're not going to fucking stop. Sooner or later they're going to learn too much about us, both the Destroy Civilization secret and about our special abilities. They'll put a bomb in our head, or drug us into compliance, or probably analyze the data they've already gotten from the helmets and build something that totally scrambles our brain the moment we disobey or start to use a ki ability in a way they don't want. I bet they'd have no compunction at all about turning us into their robot to be used for God knows what evil. And there's FAR too much chance they'll ruin our families' lives too. It'll probably take them four or five years until they've merged enough of their own people that they don't need us anymore, and then they'd kill us. Perhaps much faster than that if they find a way to make déjà vu's happen whenever they want. These people are very smart and fucking evil. We've been SERIOUSLY underestimating both of those aspects. We'd better get our shit together and stop sitting here passively, or we're going to be horrendously screwed. Quite frankly, even dying in the attempt is better than letting them keep learning about us.>

#1: <I don't want to try an escape we think has got fuck all chance of succeeding. Unless something wonderful happens, the only way we have a decent shot of escaping is by taking the next merge.>

#5: <Forget the "something wonderful happens" possibility. Even if it's wonderful enough that it lets us walk out the front door, it isn't good enough for us. We have to be able to STAY away. Even if they let us go, they're certain to want us back some time in the future. You've seen how fascinated so many of them are in the results they're getting from us, so sooner or later one of them is going to get a boss to okay grabbing us again. I think there's fuck all chance of them letting us out, so ignoring that and assuming we escape, they'll easily recapture us. The CIA is EXPERT at that stuff. Whether our chance of getting out is 5% or 100% doesn't matter, because if we do get out, we've got 0% chance of staying out. When we're in their clutches again, they're going to put us somewhere that's been built to keep people secure, and I doubt we'd ever get out of a place like that. I'd almost guarantee that they'll put a helmet on us that screws-up our ability to do ki stuff. That'd stop us having déjà vu's too, because you saw how much that affected our EEG. They could easily scramble our brain to stop déjà vu's. With a helmet like that preventing all our special abilities, we are absolutely totally fucked and they're certain to discover the Big Secret. They don't even need to be smart; merely inject us and ask us to tell them all our secrets.>

#8: <So what are you suggesting?>

#5: <Let me avoid answering that for the moment, and come at it in another way. I think we've been focusing on the wrong problem, that of getting out of here. I think the main problem is how to stay out of their clutches AFTER we get out. If we get recaptured, then what was the point of escaping in the first place? The question is how to ensure we have a life after we get out. We can't live as Mark Anderson. Even if the CIA was bizarrely willing to let us walk free, then one of these scientists will go to work for a big, greedy company one day, and he'll get them interested in Mark Anderson. Not that I believe that possibility will matter, because the CIA sure as shit isn't going to let us go. The key point is that when we get out, Mark Anderson has to disappear. Ideally they think Mark Anderson is dead, but at least he has to disappear never to be seen again.>

#3: <What about our families?>

#5: <I have good news and bad news about that. I want to us to go back to living with our families, we just can't do it as Mark Anderson. We know our body is adaptable, and the more we merged, the more adaptable it became. I want us to turn into as opposite of what we are now as possible. I suggest a ten-fingered, short, Negro.>

#All: <What!>

#5: <Haha. Yeah, the baddies should think the same too. If we had ten fingers, were several inches shorter than we are now, and were Black, it'd be pretty unlikely the baddies would think we were Mark Anderson. So far they've got no idea we can do things like that.>

#7: <I don't think we CAN do things like that. That's too much even for us.>

#5: <Remember that I said our goal has to be our being able to live our life. We can't do that unless we're TOTALLY safe from being identified as Mark Anderson, so we need to be ten-fingered, short, and Black. I even thought about us becoming female, but there'd be a crazy amount of internal change for that and I think it'd upset our wives. I suggest we spend from now until the next déjà vu trying to find out whether we can disguise ourselves sufficiently. Sneaky tests obviously, because we have to keep the changes hidden from them. If we can't prove our ability to change enough by the next déjà vu, then we merge and we keep trying. And if necessary we merge again on the next déjà vu three days later. Theoretically we'll keep merging until our body is adaptable enough, but we won't hang around here while that's happening. Presuming the usual progression in ability increases continue, after two merges we'll have something like 5,000 kg of force which we could apply on a fingertip one-sixteenth of an inch across, so escape should be trivially easy. We could bust into an elevator shaft and fly straight up. Anything in our way gets moved out of the way. We could blow right through whatever the building is above us and simply fly away. We'd want to be a great deal more subtle than that, but escaping becomes easy.>

#6: <But what about our families? The ones we leave behind? Two merges means three-quarters of them never see us again.>

#5: <Yeah, that's the bad news part. I'm not happy about it, but think about it this way: Of the three ways out of here, I don't think getting released is possible any longer, and even if it was, I think we'd be recaptured again. If not by the CIA, then maybe by the KGB - or whatever the Russian spy agency is called these days - because someone sold our secrets to them, or maybe the DHS again, or God knows who. If they were smart, they'd kidnap our family too, to guarantee our cooperation. In other words, regardless of how we get out of here, Mark Anderson can't go anywhere near his families ever again, so NONE of our families, in EVERY dimension, will ever see us again. They might get a postcard to let them know we're alive, but that's the best we could do. Personally, I'm sure that Mark Anderson would be quickly recaptured because the professionals are far too good at finding people. So it's absolutely essential we change our appearance totally. If we can do that without merging, AND we can find a 100% sure escape method, then all of our families will have a Black Mark come into their lives, but I doubt we can change our body that much or find the escape either. That means at least one merge is necessary. If one merge lets us change our body and 100% escape, then half our families will very soon become friendly with a nice Black boy. That's a lot better than zero of our families... >

#7: <I get it. You're thinking of everything from the future back to now, rather than from now forward, and I think you're right. The last déjà vu was four days ago, so the next is probably a whole week away. By then we could be in serious trouble, and they'd be sure to know a great deal more about us. If we escape then without being able to change our appearance, they're going to be extraordinarily eager to find us again, and we'll lose everything.>

#5: <Yeah. We can save a proportion of "everything", rather than losing it all, if we merge enough times to control our appearance and to have a 100% chance of escaping... >

#1: <We've already "lost everything". That happened when the Government got interested in us. It was the DHS and CIA that took everything away from us, and us away from all of our families. Even if we escape, we won't get any of that back for more than a very brief time. But if we get enough power, 50% or 25% of our families won't suffer as much.>

#5: <Yeah. A couple of other thoughts: If we get powerful enough to do it, I'd like to pay a visit to their computer center and find out where their backups are kept. If they're somewhere here, in a fireproof safe or something, then we destroy them and then destroy the whole place. Our heat blobs will be wonderfully effective fire-starters by then. If the backups are somewhere else, we destroy that place next. With a bit of luck, all the knowledge they've gained about us will be lost. I think we should also pay a visit to Kyler Wright, and see who knows we were handed over to the CIA and what records were kept. Some tidying up there, and maybe with Robert Moran too, and our nice Government might have no idea that there was anything special about Mark Anderson. I wouldn't rely on it, so we should stay in our new body, but it should make everyone much safer.>

#8: <You're talking about killing a LOT of people.>

#5: <They're not "people" any longer; they've sold their souls. Or to put it less dramatically, the people who've been dealing with us know our life is being destroyed. They're willing to destroy lives, so that morality no longer applies to them. They chose the rules they live by. That applies to everyone in this building.>

#1: <We've gone from cleaning up the jocks at school to cleaning out biochem weapons labs... >

#8: <Speaking of school, how are we going to construct a life as a Black? What'll our identity be? We obviously won't be able to be a genius like Mark Anderson was, so what'll we do?>

#5: <I didn't bother thinking about it. We'll have sixteen or thirty two minds, an unbelievable amount of power, and we can take the time to establish something suitable. We'll think of something. By the way, you chose to specify "construct a life as a Black", not "as a ten-fingered person" or "as a short person." If you're prejudiced, you're going to have an interesting life.>

#8: <I think my life is going to be so interesting enough to swamp that issue. I know Julia will be happy, as she'll have an excuse to buy us a whole new set of clothes.>

#1: <She'll be able to afford it too, because she'll inherit a third of our money.>

#8: <Yeah, dammit!>

#6: <Leaving our families behind again gets to me. Thank God they're just losing us, and not Prof as well this time.>

#3: <Yeah. They're living together too, so that should give them more support.>

#2: <Even if we merge twice, numerically fewer families will be affected than last time.>

#6: <True, even if there are an infinite number of Earths.>

#1: <When we visit our wrath upon the assholes who got us into this situation, keep in mind the hurt they've caused in the other dimensions.>

#5: <I won't have any trouble making them wish they'd been decent human beings.>

#4: <So we stay here and merge however many times it takes until we're 100% sure we can escape and can stay escaped by changing our body. If the assholes start coming at us with a bottle labeled "Truth Serum", we're not going to be able to wait for 100% certainty are we?>

#5: <Nope. Then we try to escape even if we've got a 0% chance, and we don't let them take us alive either. If we can't get out, we'll break open as many of their vials as we can and go swimming in it to ensure they can't resuscitate us.>

So I had a number of things I had to do:

1. Be prepared to make an escape bid on a moment's notice.

2. Be prepared to die in a way that made sure I stayed dead.

3. Try VERY hard to see if I could get the disguise I wanted.

4. Stay alive at least until the next déjà vu, and preferably longer.

The first point I was doing already, but I did it with increased urgency now.

The second point was especially easy to be ready for. This place manufactured death, so I quickly identified several ways of making sure I stayed dead if I needed to be. Some methods took other people with me, which I considered an advantage.

Much more difficult was the third point. I began testing my current ability to disguise myself by doing my best to grow my missing finger, to shorten the ring finger on my other hand, and to turn one armpit black. The finger-shortening test was to find out whether my body could become shorter. I chose to do that on a finger because it would be an easy change for me to detect by comparing the subject finger to its neighbors, but no one else would notice it happening.

I was highly motivated for these to succeed because that might mean that none of my families (in any dimension) would lose me, although it still left escaping as a very difficult problem. I'd be very happy if my disguise testing was only partially successful, as that would indicate that only one merge should be necessary. I thought I'd have a reasonable shot of escaping after one merge, and it meant that half my families would get their Mark back again, even if in disguise for the rest of my life.