I Am Aqueous

I Am Aqueous - Chapter 8

Chapter 8

We had been separated across the whole country, for we could sense our liquid and its direction, but we had no idea how far they were. Even though our “brains” were in the liquid, we couldn’t see, hear, feel or anything from either quarter, because we weren’t connected. If we remerge together then we’d learn of everything that each piece had seen, felt or heard. At the moment, we thought through one canister of ourselves that had the liquid that was once our eyes. We were able to reform our eyes and we could see normal, as well as thermal.
The evil Aqueous had let go of its control and I didn’t really bother to take control back. We both drifted in and out of control, back and forth like a rocking boat. I learned that the 2nd personality could speak to me though its thoughts, as well I could speak to it the same way. I asked it what its name was. It replied, “You can call me, Gun.”
“Gun?” I asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
It answered, as if annoyed, “It’s my name.”
Still being the child I was, I made a little rule for us to follow. I explained to him (his voice sounded like a man’s in my head), “From now on, Gun, you’re Gun, I’m Ozzy and to everyone else when we’re together, we’re Aqueous. Does that work?”
I scolded me, “Shut up. None of your games are going to help.”
I stalled. I waited for a long time, because Gun scared me, one of the few things I had grown to fear. I built up the courage to talk to him again and I asked him, “So, do you know where we are?”
He grunted, “It should be pretty obvious. Take a look, we have our eyes.”
So I took a closer look around where we were. I saw that the canister we were on was mounted on top of a pedestal, as if we were on display. The room we were in was a very large cubical room and it was very dark, it was way too big for the size we filled. The walls were made from a very strong metal and were so thick; I couldn’t see any trace of heat through them, except for their very cold surface. To the front of the room, there was a giant blast door, a very large door with many locks, beams and panels to reinforce it to withstand a bomb. It was sealed and I couldn’t get out of the room, even if we managed to escape the container we were in.
I had a guess, so I asked Gun, “Are we in some sort of prison?”
He explained, “More or less, but the ‘prison’ we’re in, is military controlled. We must be underground and in a very top secret section or separate base.”
I asked, “How do you know so much? Aren’t you just a little child like me?”
He chuckled a little, “Child? I’ve lived for a while now and I’ve seen the outside world before, including places like this.”
“How?”
“My mind is the original, yours is the second, meant to slow me down.”
I gasped, “What do you mean?”
He stalled a little and had trouble explaining, “My memory is vague. I had been lying in the back of your mind for too long.”
I wondered a little if he was telling the truth. “But I only remember being in control for a week, it couldn’t have been that long.”
He sighed, “That’s all you need to forget.”
I continued, “It seemed like you knew a lot about our body and how to control it. You were superior at our liquid’s skill compared to me.”
He sounded cocky, “That’s easy to learn, I’ve known myself with this body for a long time and I’ve learned how to use it effectively.”
I poked away at him more, “How long did you say?”
“I don’t remember.”
His tone hadn’t changed at all. He was either telling the truth, or he was very good at hiding. I accepted what he said and I asked another question, “If you’ve been inside me since the beginning and you know how to use our body, does this mean you were the voice telling me how to do things? Were you my instincts?”
He confirmed me, “Yes that was me.”
I thanked him.
He got cross, “Don’t thank me, start apologizing! If you weren’t so helpless without me, you wouldn’t have learned how to extend your tentacles or make your liquid jump. That certainly came in handy for you.”
I asked him, “What about when I was at home and I was a puddle on the ground. If you hadn’t of helped me there, I would probably still be lying there forever.”
He pondered a little and then he told me, “I don’t remember any of that. What are you talking about?”
I got mad, “My house, where I grew up in, where my family lives, the only home I have.”
Gun yelled at me, “You never had a home, never have, never will!”
I pretended to cry, because it was impossible to cry, but I cried anyway. I told him, “My house doesn’t exist, none of it seems to exist. Why?”
Gun said, “Oh, so that’s what that field was. You thought it was your house.”
I got angry, “Yeah it was. Then I got really mad and then I started to feel pain.”
“That was me.”
“What?”
“Yes, every time you got really angry like that or helpless, I felt like I could take over. I almost did on a few occasions. Yes, it felt good to be free and to feel blood blend with myself…”
I interrupted him, “Don’t take about that. Don’t hurt people! You’re some sort of vicious monster!”
He explained, as if he was starving for something, “Vicious monsters don’t have agendas.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked, frightfully.
He didn’t answer. He seemed to have drifted further away in our minds and was gone. I didn’t know if I was thankful to have met Gun or horrified, because he did answer a few questions that had been bothering me, but he’s also raised another problem that I would have to deal with if I want to learn the truth.

* * * * * *

A long time had passed; so long I didn’t keep track. A few days after we were captured, Gun had gotten desperate and he frantically looked for a means of escaping. After many weeks, he found a way. After searching all that time, he found a flaw in the vacuum sealing process. Even though there was supposed to be no air, Gun managed to collect a few scarce molecules of air floating inside of our liquid. With his collection of air molecules, he managed to form an air bubble barely visible to the eye of anyone. I noticed he made this air bubble and I asked him what it was for. He replied with some agitated grumbles.
I soon realized why he had hunted for the air. He placed the bubble at the side of the glass and despite the extreme lack of room for compression the air had, Gun was able to create an appendage. He sharpened the edge of it as best he could. Then he scratched; he scratched like it was only thing to keep his sanity. I watched him and occasionally helped him at the scratching process. The appendage was able to scratch a molecule of glass off each stroke. I didn’t know how many molecules were in the strip of glass, but from comparing of how much I had, we were going to be prisoners for a longer time still.
Even though Gun didn’t care at all, my method for keeping my sanity was rather mysterious and very shocking at first. The thing was that I got frequent visits from one of the employees. I knew her, but I didn’t know why she was here, but I was very grateful she was. Rachael worked at the prison and she visited me everyday.
Her visits were like a highly addictive drug, every moment she wasn’t there the hours, the minutes, the seconds pace steadily decreased. I listened for the sound of the blast doors to open, the moment I heard the button pressed, despite how shrouded the sound was, I got so happy I felt that I would have died each time my heart would have beat. The doors would start to move and I was a pitiful little maniac. Then I would see her, dressed in an army uniform, holding books and a stool. She would walk beside me and set up the stool.
I obsessed over her beautiful glow, her heat was so beautiful compared to the cold walls I had gotten used to. Her normal colours were just as good, but they didn’t contrast the evil four walls like the heat did. She would sit down and put down her books. She would tell me about her day and even though I couldn’t talk back, she still held conversation. After many, many visits, she started to pull out books that weren’t work related and she read to me. Sometimes she read stories, others science or math textbooks and much later on she read her diary. Gun didn’t care about what Rachael had to say or how I was feeling with or with her; he just concentrated on his task of escaping.
Then she would leave, after an hour of talking to me and I would watch the blast doors close until they opened again. This routine continued for years and Gun’s scratching continued too. Rachael had been visiting me for so long that some of her co-workers, employees or soldiers would come and talk to me. Even though they talked to me, they felt as if they weren’t talking to anything, because they had never known me before I had been captured, so most of them never returned for a second trip, the one’s who did, never made a 3rd.
One day Rachael visited and she didn’t come with her usual books and happy smile; I had almost mistaken her for someone else because of the difference I had seen. She didn’t come with a stool either, meaning she couldn’t stay for long. She explained to me very carefully with her breath rather short, “Ozzy… Aqueous… This is my last time I’m able to see you.”
I stole Gun’s eyes and moved them frantically around the canister as if someone stole my narcotics if I were addicted. I got angry and screamed, inaudible to her, “Why? Why are you doing this to me? Why are you leaving me? I need you!” Gun ordered me to be quiet. I ignored him and repeated, “Why?”
She noticed my panic. She turned her head away slightly and I could see warm water trickle down her once innocent face. She pressed her eyes closed hard, and her idle mouth seemed to be torn apart in the most painful looking frown. She tried her hardest to keep back the tears, but she collapsed under the pressure and broke out into an unwatchable sorrow. I did not know why she was so depressed; I was the one who should be hurting, not her. She appeared to be feeling guilt; I wondered what she had done.
As I was pretending to put a tentacle around her to comfort her, she stood up. She looked into my big, blue eyes and I looked into her swollen, red eyes. She struggled to say something, not as if to word the phrase, but as if having trouble with permission. She stared blankly at me for a while, then she focused on my eyes again. Again with a little trouble, but this time she spoke. She told me very painful words with a stern look, “Don’t follow me Ozzy. I haven’t been completely honest with you with my life. Try to understand. I cannot stay here for it is dangerous for both of us. If I leave, at least you’ll be safe. I… I cannot tell you why I can’t stay. They have cameras here and they can here me.” She got in closer and winked at me with a smile. She rose again and finished, “It’s a lot more confidential and larger than you may think,” Then she purposely corrected herself for the cameras, “The military that is.”
The blast doors opened and a guard stepped in slightly and called to Rachael, “Hey! Rachael in case you haven’t noticed, you’ve claimed civilian status and we’ve only let you in here to be kind! Now hurry up before you get us fired!”
Rachael slightly ignored their warning and turned back to me. She let another tear out and then she hugged my canister; something she hadn’t done before and the heat diffusing was like the warmest hug the most wonderful mother could give you. If I could have even moved a millimeter I would have pressed against the glass and hugged her back.
Amongst some more tears, Rachael said her parting words, “Don’t you ever forget me Ozzy. I will always remember you. You’re like a son to me and I tried to be the best mother back. But I guess mothers have to do things like this, because its for the best. Although, if anything I’d love to see you back the way I used to know you, not like the past couple of months, in a jar. I want to hear your inhuman voice again, I want to be in your super-human embrace again, and I want to see your simple, but gentle face again.” She sighed, “The only way that might happen is if I leave you. I will never see you again, I want to, but I know it can’t happen. So I’ll say this. Aqueous,” She stood up and started to walk away, “No matter what, we will be connected someway or another. That my child, is what will keep us going on until we meet again.”
The blast doors were shut and the Rachael I knew was gone forever. I let go of the eyes and let my consciousness sink to the bottom of my prison.
Gun made a very inappropriate remark, “God! Finally she’s shut up! Now I’m not forced to listen to her! Serves her right for quitting.”
I got angry at Gun, “Can’t you see? I’m so sad that she’s gone, forever! Have some sympathy and don’t talk about her like that!”
Gun taunted me, “Like I care about you or her or anyone else. All I care about is getting out of here. I need o be free. You want to care for that?”
I retaliated, “Rachael said to stay here, so I’m staying.”
Gun whined in anger, “Didn’t you hear what she said? She said that if she stays, we’re all in danger and if she leaves we’ll be safe. Remember that?”
“Yeah, so?” I replied.
“That suggest to me that she’s in danger and might need our help.” He said with a mysterious tone.
I agreed, “Yes, but,” I continued, “We’d be in danger.”
Gun got angry, “Surely by now you should at least know the benefits of our liquid based body. They can’t hurt us, they can’t catch us, and they can’t stop us! This trap was once in a lifetime, we’ll be prepared if they try it again.”
I retorted, “I’m staying safe; here. It was her last wish.”
Gun’s image turned its tail to me and continued to work at the scratch in the glass. He shouted, “Well I’m escaping whether you like it or not. You can sit in the back seat and watch me drive this body to its true purpose, just don’t sit there weeping about it all! I can’t stand that kind of emotion.”
Gun’s word’s moved me. I didn’t do it for Rachael or him, but for myself. I started to scratch my own part of the glass. I did it, because my only reason to stay had left, I realized that, and the only way to be happy or sane again, was obviously to escape these four walls.
Gun turned to me in our minds and he demanded, “What do you think you’re doing?”
My mental image smiled, “Competing with you.”

* * * * * *

Diana Pauline was no longer a young, rookie news caster, she was now a 20 year veteran in the news business and was the anchor of the most watched news show on television. She was giving the day’s news and once the top stories were done, she concluded the news broadcast by explaining something a little more personal to her. She said, “In case some of you may or may not know, 20 years ago, on this day a certain phenomenon, in which I participated in occurred. 20 years ago was my first interview with Aqueous, a living liquid-based creature that was friendly and lots to say. Unfortunately the police and then the military thought different of the little guy and captured Aqueous. Aqueous has been resting in four canisters across the country for 20 years now and it’s still alive. Not too many people knew about him, or it, but most people in that city, now in New York’s boundaries, knew who he was. Well, good night everybody, this is Diana Pauline for NYNN News.”
It was true; Gun and I had been scratching away at our own cracks in the glass for those 20 long years. It was all we could do. We never spoke to each other, Gun never wanted to talk and he never wanted to listen, so I didn’t bother talking at all. I tried to keep my mind off the questions and people who clouded my mind and most of the time I succeeded in blocking them off, but every once in a while I would stop scratching and pretend to cry.
Molecule by molecule by molecule by molecule the glass molecules entered our liquid and a molecule of our own liquid would be pushed forward one molecule down the tunnels we were creating. Then, 20 years after our capture, Gun heard the most awaited noise in his entire life. The room had always been so quiet; that the sound of a small group of glass molecules hit the pedestal we were placed on, sounded like an explosion. For so long he had imagined that sound, each scratch ended with a bracing to hear the sound, but then he heard nothing. So he scratched on. But he didn’t need to scratch on now; his liquid started to squeeze through the hole, molecule by molecule. Then air started to replace the liquid inside the jar. After the first milliliter escaped, the pressure was too much to bear on the glass and it shattered back into sand.
Before I could even start to think about taking control of the body, Gun had already claimed it and was laughing psychotically. The liquid turned his dark, dark blue, but he was unable to make any stable shape for himself, so he was a blob. With the lack of liquid he had (only a quarter), he didn’t even bother to reform a quarter of his body, it was all or nothing for him. So he remained an amorphous blob, but he hardly remained a contained murderer.
He, in a way, stretched. He slowly strung tentacles outwards to the point he couldn’t extend them anymore and then he retracted. He bubbled a little, as if to wash out his mouth and got himself ready for what he was going to do, giving himself a massaging squiggle that cracked any little cricks in his neck.
Gun happily slithered his mass along the ground and to the blast doors. The cameras had noticed the initial escape and the doors started to open. Gun, being a master at his abilities for reasons not yet known, spread himself along the ground, so thin, that he might have been regarded as invisible.
Two guards paced inside and looked at the destroyed canister and the missing Aqueous. Once the guards had passed over Gun, he reformed his small blob and slithered out the blast doors. Gun wasn’t satisfied that he had escaped our little cell, so he decided to kill the guards. He shot himself onto the ceiling above the front of the doors and kept himself up there with air suction. He split his mass in two and waited above where the two guards would stand to give access to reinforcements. The two guards stood their usual grounds with very frightened looks in their eyes.
The blast doors shut and there was no one to save them now. Gun dropped both drops of his liquid onto the soldiers’ heads and before they could even struggle, Gun had coiled around their necks and merged the two ends to form a merciless guillotine. Gun, showing off to me inside with how well and creatively he can control our liquid, took off both heads so cleanly and swiftly, I wondered if Gun had been doing this for a long time.
Gun reformed the two halves and triumphantly slithered along the floors. The walls, floors and ceilings were all made of a strong, shiny metal with the occasional red alarm along the side. The floor was tiled and Gun made fun of flowing down the center crack. He then felt the vibration of many rushing footsteps, like the sound of bodies crashing to the ground. But he couldn’t take on that many soldiers at once; it wouldn’t have been as fun for him, so he approached another door to his left.
The soldiers didn’t see him comet to the door and hide behind a very thin ridge of metal in front of the door. The soldiers clumped by and soon it was silent. Gun slid underneath the door and saw the surveillance room. There were two soldiers in the room, one looking at a monitor, the other loading a military shotgun. The soldier with the gun noticed Gun and pointed his gun at him with an unsteady hand. He quivered and cocked his gun to try and give him courage. The soldier fired the five rounds he had loaded and to see the pieces Gun had become, form back together. By this time the soldier at the surveillance monitor had turned around and pulled out his M4. The first soldier back away, but Gun decided to end his life. Gun leaped at the man’s chest and formed a blade at the tip to stab the man in the chest. The second soldier fired violently at Gun, but since Gun was so deep inside the soldier that most of the bullets hit the soldier who was already dead.
The second soldier’s gun jammed with the last bullet caught in the release chamber. He too, stumbled to get away from Gun’s wrath and suffered a similar fate. After escaping the nest of organs, Gun got himself out of the man’s chest and then diffused the blood that had entered his body. The soldiers that had once overlooked the surveillance room returned after hearing the screams and gun shots. The group of six soldiers entered the room and the squad leader noticed Gun first and she ordered him to freeze. Gun laughed in our sub-conscious and then he formed a tentacle to salute the soldiers. She cocked her gun and fired, but Gun had already cometted to the ceiling. Gun latched onto an air vent cage and soon oozed through it, while the military fired perfectly aimed shots that did nothing.
As gun slid through the ventilation shaft he heard the red alert siren blare and rattle the metal of the whole facility. Gun reached a rise in the ventilation complex and he easily scaled the walls by zigzagging himself bridges to slowly scale the walls. The ventilation continued to a large fan which if Gun tried to go through, he would be sliced and blown into many directions. He didn’t want this to happen, so he used his liquid skill to penetrate through the metal above him and then through the floor of the next story. He did take a minute or two to accomplish this, but since he had air to shape himself, unlike the canister, he did it in a lot less time than before.
Office workers, one that could have been Rachael at one point screamed at the violent screeching of the steel flooring being torn by Gun. He rose from the floor and leapt onto one of the officer worker’s head. He latched onto the backside of her head and stuck some liquid into her ear. He controlled her to ask, “How do I get out of here?”
Gun released and let her answer, “What? What’s happening? What are you doing?”
Gun didn’t like that answer, so he stabbed her neck a little and demanded, “How do I get out of here?”
The officer worker shrieked and cried out, “Oh please don’t kill me. Take the elevator! Ground floor, then…”
Gun heard enough and slit her throat. He released her inferior brain and raced towards the elevator, jumping through passing workers and soldiers with a sharp entrance. He oozed through the cracks of the elevator doors and coiled around the elevator cables. He cut all the cables with a sharpened grip and he was lifted towards the top of the facility with the counter weight being a thundering elevator car with many screams trapped inside, plundering to a forceful death.
Once the elevator cable hit the pulley, Gun latched off and launched himself through the ceiling and he landed on the roof. He slithered swiftly to the edge of the roof and peered over the side. He saw that it was night and that the base was on the edge of a large city. Down below army jeeps were driving all around in chaos and panic. Soldiers rushed in and employees rushed out. The people leaving were all frisked to see if I was a stowaway. Gun decided that he didn’t need to kill these people, his number one concern, as well as mine, was to become whole again.
Riding an employee was risky, so Gun leapt as far as he could and landed near a van that’s engine was starting up. There were soldiers inside and Gun heard one say as if to be bragging, “Next stop, Florida where another quarter of Aqueous is held.” Gun couldn’t see any better opportunity, so he latched onto the van. The van hovered along the magnetic roads to a military base in Florida.