Chapter 276: Test Dummy

Where is this heading? Does the man-in-the-machine have some bigger plan for me?

While happy to get a chance to work out in an exoskeleton again, I didn’t quite like that it was in front of an audience.

At least I’m not the only Guinea pig strapped into an exoskeleton.

I turned out to be the easiest to get into the exoskeleton. So easy that the staff helped me get back out of it to help the seven girls and three boys into the ones they were going to be demonstrating. All ten were recovering from some form of brain or spinal injury. I recognized the latest generation of custom spinal brace screwed directly into the vertebrae of each kid. It became clear why they wanted me to help. None of the staff, who weren’t androids, really understood how to adjust the braces, much less how to give these kids at least the smallest amount of modesty. All ten kids were naked because the people here to get them into the exoskeletons couldn’t figure out how to deal with the spinal brace and clothes.

Not rocket science people.

I quickly saw there was plenty of soft cotton fabric and scissors off to the side. I never fit bathing suits on boys bigger than three, but I doubt they will mind wearing what amounts to a loincloth to at least cover their junk.

I quickly looked over each of the kids to get a good idea of waist size. Bottoms for the were relatively simple, except that I had to work around the spinal brace. That seemed like it would become a problem until I realized that if cut two narrow strips of fabric that I could thread those between the screws in the braces and tie them to use as belts. A piece of soft material, slit in the back to have a gap for the spinal brace, pulled over the belt to give them a partial modesty panel.

For the girls who were self-conscious about their chests, I used strips that I tied between their tits.

Based on the tan lines, the fabric covers more than their bikini tops. Would all the girls go bottomless if their breasts had something over them?

Because each patient could only remain standing for a short period, I had to work fast to get them into their exoskeletons. When I saw they had body support straps that went over their breasts and ones between their legs, I went to make the cotton tops for the rest of the girls. By design, the body supports connected to lock onto “knobs” on the spinal brace to fully integrate it with the exoskeleton. I felt the surge of energy that unlocked every section of the spinal brace each time I finished locking a kid into it.

“If I knew anything about how to make boys feel good between their legs, I would do that for you. My kitty got rubbed raw the last time I got into one of these things,” a girl around ten said. “It burned for days and days. I had to be very careful when patting myself dry after going to the bathroom.”

You aren’t going to learn what you want from me or with my dick.

I got the ten of them locked into their exoskeletons, and the checks showed that their exoskeletons were fully functional.

The people here helped me get into mine, just in time, it seems.

I wonder if this looks anything like the movie about a dying cop turned into a robot? That scene where the monster robot comes out with the big guns and then shoots up the place?

“Instead of marketing hype and theoretical discussions, here we have a combination of the traumatic spine and head injury patients. Each of the patients directs their exoskeletons movement through the movement of their limbs and bodies. Their spinal braces are unlocked when in the exoskeletons but limit them to motion that is half of that which would put their spinal cord at risk of damage,” a voice said from somewhere. “As the patient’s muscles recover, the exoskeletons are adjusted to provide resistance in a similar way done slowly in physical therapy with weights. The patients begin rebuilding muscle tone at a faster pace. Instead of six months to a year or 2 of therapy required to return them to a post-injury level of movement and muscle mass, they reach that point in under a month. As the patient’s stamina increases, the patients will be in their exoskeleton whenever they are awake. These models do not possess the ability to allow the users to wear the suit while urinating or having a bowel movement on a toilet. With each patient dressed for modesty, feel free to examine them and their range of motion.”

Once that dog and pony show was over, the ten went back to where they got into their exoskeletons while the person on stage droned on, “We were very fortunate to have the test subject who aided us in testing our initial prototype. This male subject was at the point in his physical development where his hormone levels indicated the approach of a growth spurt. Unlike the ten patients, he was completely healthy without any physical impairments other than being clumsy.”

That got a laugh from them.

“Initially, the juvenile male’s exoskeleton functioned to assist his movement due to the weight,” the man said. “Staff pediatricians changed his diet to a high protein, vitamin-infused, calcium-rich shakes. They monitored the levels of nutrients in his blood to ensure his meals provided what his body needed to continue his development. If you observer the time-lapse videos closely, you can see the male building muscle as he approaches the maximum height of the initial prototype.”

He went through using medical jargon to explain the changes in me when wearing the next prototype exoskeleton, how I built muscle rapidly when fighting against the resistance, and then showing when I began breaking the parts on the second prototype. They then showed footage of the next iterations of prototypes showing my growing in height, building muscle, and then my breaking each exoskeleton when my strength exceeded the maximum resistance in that suit design. The remainder of the exoskeleton suits got beefier, with more durable components, but I broke each one. On the screen, it showed where the parts failed and how the failures were never in the same locations as the previous prototypes.

The scientist then started the next video and explained, “The juvenile test subject began doing katas for different disciplines of martial arts, attempting to do them as quickly as possible. Successive generations of exoskeleton prototypes provided invaluable data regarding the stresses his martial arts training placed on the chassis. Today he is wearing the latest generation. This model contains no electromechanical assistance, and we configured it to the maximum resistance. For those who doubt the integrity of the videos showing his martial arts speed in the exoskeleton, he will now go through a full set of katas for you to observe with your own eyes.”

I hope I don’t break this suit. It doesn’t seem any more durable than the last one I used.

After centering myself, I began going through the basic katas Annie and Crystal’s dojos that I must know to pass the fourth level rank advancement. I had done them so many times at the dojo, before their accident, that it was pure muscle memory. The suit did provide a noticeable amount of resistance, but that only required me to push my body harder to do them as fast as I could. I moved through the various other disciplines as I felt my muscles having to work hard to overcome the resistance from the exoskeleton.

I’m getting a bit tired, that is new. I like this, but how much bigger will it make me if I keep using these suits until I break them? Do I want to be any bigger?

“To provide a comparison, we have a grandmaster in multiple styles of martial arts in the same model of the exoskeleton as the juvenile male. Our test data provided permitted us to adjust the grand master’s exoskeleton to provide the resistances based on his strength compared to the juvenile male. We also have a professional weight trainer in an exoskeleton set to the maximum resistance as the juvenile male.”

For the next two hours, I went through the same katas as the grandmaster, as fast as I could while he did the same.

They then had me run, lift, and do various strength tests against the all-around athlete. It wasn’t a fair comparison. By my best guess, I was ten times stronger and three times faster than when we both wore the exoskeleton. The strength tests showed I was three times stronger than him, but about evenly matched with him not having to fight the resistance and mechanical assistance that offset the weight of the exoskeleton.

One of the people in the audience requested that I spar with the grandmaster when not wearing the exoskeleton. They wanted to have undeniable proof that the suit wasn’t augmenting me in any way.

Hmm. Is that a look of fear showing in the corner of the grandmaster’s eyes?

What the people in the audience didn’t know was that the scientists showing off the exoskeletons anticipated a request like this, so they had fourteen grandmasters waiting to spar with me simultaneously. Then there was the fact they had six of the ten thousand frames per second high-speed cameras.

The fact that the fifteen grandmasters were in full pads didn’t escape those in the audience who knew that was very unusual. These men only wore pads when testing the equivalent of eighth-degree black-belts or higher. Even then, it was rare.

Does this mean it is safe to go all out, or at least not hold back my attacks or counter-attacks?

Once assembled around me, I turned to bow to each of the grandmasters in turn. Two made arrogant comments, failed to return my bow, and felt that it was wise to try to launch a sneak attack when I bowed to the next grandmaster. Both found out quickly that I found it very disrespectful to attack me when I was giving a show of respect to each grandmaster.

Well, they did once they regained consciousness, and the short-term paralysis of their arms and legs wore off. At least the man that asked for me to spar with the grandmaster understood why the grandmasters were in pads.

The remaining thirteen grandmasters must have trained together or competed against each other at some point. I noticed the small movements they used to coordinate their attacks on me, not that it did them much good. I felt like I was cheating with the ease I landed a hit on the next grandmaster to attack me before the previous one hit the mat. Sometimes before two or three of them hit the floor. Unlike the two assholes, I didn’t knock any of them out or cause them any permanent physical damage. That doesn’t mean I didn’t injure their pride a bit.

When the last grandmaster stepped back from the sparring area, I noticed that my body only had a light sheen of sweat on it, which made sense as I hadn’t needed to exert myself when sparring. The two assholes had looks of respect in their eyes when I bowed to all fifteen at once.

As the video played, the man went through the explanations slowed the video to show that we didn’t fake the sparring session. The speed I gained by training to do the katas faster than a set speed, the exoskeleton resistance increased.

“Master,” one of the humbled dicks said to get my attention. “Please forgive my arrogance. I’ve not faced defeat in nearly a decade. I am the United States’ grand champion in my discipline and champion of multiple mixed-discipline martial arts competitions. You are only a child, not even halfway to earning your blackbelt. Being required to don pads to face a child is an insult.”

I smiled at him as I told him, “You have nothing for which to apologize. As you already know, I do not have the years of training or have completed the rank advancements in the two disciplines taught at my dojos. I defeated you with strength, speed, and muscle memory from practicing hundreds of katas repeatedly when that was all I had to do while I stood by my friends. Repetition is no replacement for training an life experience.”

That seemed to humble him more than my kicking his ass. He has no clue that my katas were to develop the muscle memory so that I could use a large amount of martial arts knowledge downloaded into my brain.

Now that the adrenaline had worn off, I felt hungry and exhausted. The exoskeleton had seriously worked my muscles, and now they were beginning to feel sore. I could see, with the place in my head, that my muscles needed protein and other nutrients. My shield would only provide me energy if I’m in danger.

For the first time since I got here, I didn’t have the energy to do more than help some of the kids get food. I made suggestions to them on how to get their towels and soaps to their room, without dropping them, while using their cane to make higher arcs to find objects or obstacles in their path. The food helped give me back some energy, but that turned out only to be enough to drag my butt back to my room and fall into my bed. I didn’t even have the energy to take a piss first.

In the morning, I found I had company. They may have checked out my piss boner, but that wasn’t why they were here. No one had been able to get me to do more than use the bathroom. On my own, I had gotten myself to the cafeteria, using a cane I got from somewhere and not opening my eyes, to eat nearly non-stop until full. I didn’t exactly ignore the kids having trouble but didn’t exactly help them learn to do things themselves either. Never once opening my eyes or saying anything to them, I ran their fingers over the labels of the non-nasty foods before putting it on their plates. I did this for over a week, and many patients were worried about me even though the staff said it wasn’t odd for me.

“You did start to cause a bit of an uproar the first time you took seven boys and six girls, between ten and fifteen, to a small shower area,” a girl said. “Completely blind, you stripped them and pushed them all into the showers together. You’ve made a mental map of the entire clinic because you walked backward so you could use your cane to correct their tapping. I was following you to make sure you didn’t hurt yourself. It was a very tight fit to have thirteen kids in a shower with only four showerheads and you. I doubt you will tell any of us how you knew none of them would get aroused as they moved their soapy bodies around trying to ensure every hole, every strand of hair, and even every penis was completely clean. Boys had their fingers washing girls between the legs as girls used their soapy hands to ensure the dicks were washed just as well.”

A boy interrupted her with his laughing, and then finally said, “I was part of a group made to use that exact shower after nine days of not bathing and only drinking water when I was on the angry blind kid’s ward. There is only one showerhead that has hot water, but the other three only have cold water. The hot water moves between shower heads randomly. Some of those kids probably did start to get horny during the five to ten seconds that the showerhead nearest them had hot water. I just learned how to jack off back then. After being in that shower for over an hour, the idea of my dick getting hard reminded me of fifty-five-degree water. It took me over a week of taking showers, alone, to get a boner without losing it as soon as I touched it.”

“So that explains that. Those kids stunk,” one of the girls told me.

Another boy told me, “The day before yesterday, you didn’t even give them the chance to bathe themselves or figure out how to carry their shower supplies. You stripped them in the cafeteria, prodded them with your cane to the nearest ward for someone in that group, and then took them to the closest patient’s room. There you washed them from head to toe, very thoroughly, dried them, and grabbed the next one. You did the most amazing things with the girl’s hair, even though they couldn’t see what you did. Once finished with one group of smelly kids, you grabbed all the smelly kids on that ward, washed them, and then poked them down to the cafeteria, after getting them dressed in pajamas. Each time you went to the cafeteria, you tried to clean it out before taking another group to their ward to wash them and then all the other kids that were still feeling sorry for themselves.”

“I’m not supposed to let any kids on the very angry blind kid wards know this, but the nasty little skin bashing robots now keep away from you. You walked right tough them without a care. Who knows how many you broke doing that,” a girl said, “What the fuck happened to you anyway?”

Reaching out to pull her onto the bed beside me and rub my hand up and down her arm, I said, “I helped a company refine these exoskeletons they made to help coma patients, who had major spinal injuries and brain trauma. I broke a lot of them as I got taller and stronger. The last one I used didn’t do anything to slow me down or give any resistance to my movements at all. When it broke, they didn’t have anything that could hold up to the strain I put on it. Before I became a helpful, blind zombie, they had me use the latest model to demonstrate it to whoever they were showing it. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t overcome all of the resistance. I haven’t felt the muscles in my body hurt like that or felt so tired in a long time.”

“The staff did complain a bit when we took turns watching over you instead of doing what they had scheduled for us,” said the girl whose arm I was rubbing. “No doctors or nurses came even once to check on you. Normally I doubt any of us would give a shit about anyone other than ourselves. You sleep-helping the kids that needed your help the most really touched us all. All the other times I saw you do that before the day you wouldn’t wake up, I thought you were some sort of pervert that they let get away with messing around with the kids you took back to their ward, stripped, and washed. The kids were always so determined to do better after that. If I hadn’t been there watching you wash patients on the angry blind kid wards, from seven to seventeen, like they were your young toddler, I wouldn’t have believed it. You are something else. No wonder not a single staff member on the wards cared one bit when you walked through like you owned the place.”