I Am Aqueous

I Am Aqueous - Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Once in the air, Dr. Ried explained our next stop, which I was glad to hear. We were going to the Body Headquarters in London, England. Despite my hidden enthusiasm, there was something troubling him. I wanted to ask him about what he was feeling and about Mr. Rutherford and the whole legal issue with the project, but I knew that he would either get mad or suspicious if I said anything. So I did what I best at doing when I was with him, speak only when spoken to.
We landed after a four hour flight from Cuba. It was strange. Normally he would brief me in the helicopter, but he told me only to get inside the two suitcases he had. He had “parked” at what seemed to be a parking lot for flying vehicles that only the rich owned. We parked outside a very large hotel, mind you every other building was tall. 60 stories must have been standard in London. The hotel was only as wide as an average skyscraper, but it truly did scrape the sky. I learned later that the hotel was 214 stories high. A bag boy came and grabbed the suitcases, containing clothes, files and assorted top secret liquid based experiments. I couldn’t see any of this, but some sounds were familiar, like the ring of an elevator door opening. It seemed Dr. Ried had this all planned out, since we didn’t need to check in. The bag boy explained that we would be staying in one of the two floor 212 suites. The elevator ride was only four seconds and the physics behind that fast elevator, not squashing the passengers like pancakes, didn’t apply to me, because I latched tentacles inside each bag so that I didn’t rip through the bottom of the bags! The bell rang again and I was carried off into room 212-A, according to the bag boy. He asked if Dr. Ried wanted him to open his bags, but Dr. Ried strictly said no. With no tip, the boy was off and Dr. Ried was opening the bags after he turned on the “Do not disturb” sign.
He opened my bag and he looked at me, turned into a perfect rectangle, molded by the suitcase. I formed my eyes and I looked at him look at me. I was expecting a smile, but instead he dumped me on the floor like garbage with an annoyed face. I slowly reformed; looking a little scared, while he walked over to the desk that was there. He grabbed one of his suitcases and put a few clothes and pens in their appropriate drawers. He pulled out the large, maybe leather, swivel chair. He opened some books and took out a clipboard. He started working.
After a few minutes of watching him, I asked, “Dr. Ried?”
He stopped working.
I continued, “What am I supposed to do? Are we leaving soon?”
He answered, “No.” He swung around and explained, “We’ll be here for a few days.”
I jumped a little, “A few days? Why aren’t we going in and then straight out, like we’ve been doing?”
He continued, “My ally explained to me that the military might be on to us. Their satellites are very suspicious of the lone radio signal, your transmitter and the helicopter flights. So I figure that if we stay here for a while, then they may think that we’re just on a harmless road trip.”
I nodded slowly. I asked, “So what are we doing until then?”
“I’m doing research that you don’t need to see. We’ll go tomorrow night and then stay for two more days.”
“What am I going to do?”
He stood up and told me, “You could stay here, but I fear that the military is on to us a lot more than my ally believes. So I giving you a new transmitter with a different frequency and I’m letting you loose.”
I jumped again, “Loose? Like as in, me free… for a while?”
He raised his eyebrow. He handed me the new transmitter and I gave him the old one. He said, “Maybe you can think that. But I don’t want you leaving the city, especially near the east exit.”
I asked, “Why not the east exit? Are the police there or something?”
He explained, “That’s where the Body headquarters is located. This is the most well known top-secret research facility in the world. There’s definitely one of our enemies there, just waiting to capture you or at least sample and recreate you. You may think it would help me if you did some covert scouting, but I can’t risk any advantage to my enemies. I’m sure you understand.”
I nodded. I started to move, but asked, “So you’re just going to be here then?”
He nodded and went back to his work. I looked at the door and though about how I could get outside. I could’ve gone down the elevator, but I decided to take another route to get to the bottom. I opened the window. Dr. Ried gave me one last instruction, “Tell no one we’re here.” I nodded and jumped out the window.
That surely was the largest fall I had ever experienced. I was moving so fast that when I finally hit the ground, I was no more than raindrops. I was glad that happened, because there was people walking around and they only looked up and shook their heads. They didn’t notice the droplets sliding off their clothes and moving into an alley.
I reformed in the alley and took a look around. Although the walls faded into the sky, they were so large, I still remembered the safe feeling of enclosing walls around me. I jumped and kicked off the wall of the building that wasn’t the hotel. Then I cometted off the hotel and then again off the building, I continued cometting until I reached the top of the second skyscraper.
The second building wasn’t as tall, so I ran and jumped off the top of the building. I soared and then splashed on top of another roof. Then artistically shifting the momentum I turned left and leapt off that building and about 100 stories later I hit the opposing sidewalk. I splashed all over this one woman when I landed. She shrieked a little and then a lot more when all the drops on her clothes and her face cometted towards the forming mass of liquid which was I. I waved at her and ran down the sidewalk. Since I’ve had practice, I was running full speed down the sidewalk, dodging people, leaping over intersections and even running along the sides of buildings for a few seconds at a time.
It was great fun running around the normal people as fast as I could go. It made me feel proud and confident that I could do all these things that no one could ever do. I did feel a little selfish, because I was probably bragging, making some jealous or scared. It was like I was driving full speed in a beautiful new sports car; ones that only the richest of the rich could afford, except in my case, the feeling was multiplied an infinite number of times and my luck and fortunateness was just as high. I knew how some people would feel if they didn’t only see a watery blur; exactly like me. Most would fear me, out of ignorance or from knowledge of Gun, but I knew that if I were standing there, watching this outsider from the mess human society has become, I would envy that being. Despite the world being on my shoulders, enemies wanting to destroy and/or copy me, billions of souls begging me for salvation of their planet, even though no one knew, the pressure was against me and I’d be there to confront it; and I couldn’t be happier.
I was already more free than anybody on Earth. I was free from fatigue, starvation, decay and death. I was free from the stress of pointless service and consumerism, free from the busy, long days of work. I was free from laws, citizenship, the days of the week, weather. I was free from light and dark. I was free from time. I was free from the inevitability of nature. I was free from space and enclosure. I was free from anything I wanted. How perfect my life could be.
But I was prisoner of only two things: the problems, created by the people who created my freedom, and friendship. I obviously had a tough road ahead of me, but friendship had the greatest toll on my freedom. Friendship has two extremes, love and hate. Friendship is the force of a bond between two people, whether this force is attractive or repulsive, can only be controlled by the two people. Even if I make friends, they can become my enemy and that will hurt. Also, I will be emitting the force of friendship for a long time and those who will respond to that force won’t live forever. They will die and I will not. This one prison, these last four walls, are of equal weight to all the pros of my life. No life can be perfect, but every life is balanced in some way. My scale has been set and so has everybody else’s. By preventing the project from ever restarting, I’ll take a con off their lives. Even thought the bad will return in a new form, at least everybody won’t die. I guess that’s my goal.
My curiosity took over when I saw a sign along the road reading, “East Exit.” I knew Dr. Ried prohibited me from venturing there, but I decided, “Just to take a look.” I would stay far from it and only look from cover. I moved over onto the magnetic highway, as if I were a vehicle myself and changed lanes. The cars weren’t quite moving as fast as commercial jetliners, but were a close second. As I was running I felt the wind blowing hard and soft against me at different points. When it was soft, I felt that I could run faster and I soon realized that there was practically no wind at all right behind the cars. So when a car blasted by, I rushed behind it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t accelerate fast enough to get behind it, so I watched it fade into the horizon quite quickly. So I tried again with another car. I didn’t make it still. However, I noticed that from the little time that I was a behind car, I would get a little faster, but then quickly slow down. Then I also noticed that if I looked close enough in infrared, I could see the path of the hot air. The air would split, hit, spiral and then spread. I even if I got close, I’d still have to break through the part where the wind hit and spiraled with each other.
None the less, I kept trying to get behind cars and I slowly gained speed and worked my way. Eventually after a few more cars, I reached the spiral and when I did, I cometted over it. I landed behind a car going probably 400km/h and since there was no wind directly behind it, I was running that fast too! I was impressing myself to about five whole new levels of concentration skill. My legs couldn’t be seen and I couldn’t even see then with infrared either. I my arms were behind me, not moving. I was bent over and my face was probably a little higher than a foot about the ground!
But before I could actually look around at how fast I was going compared to other objects, I saw a sign on my right that read: “Tenor Research” and then there was an arrow to say it was the next exit. I cometted to my right so I could land on the onramp, but I underestimated the speed at which I was going. So as soon as I leapt, I thankfully was concentrating enough so I didn’t explode, but I ended up flying about 100 meters past the on ramp and then I landed with huge splash, that spread myself across a block and all the streets on it.
After I recollected myself, I ran up to a higher vantage point, on top of a warehouse. I looked saw that the whole lab seemed to be a tourist attraction, like Concentration Camps. There were flocks of people and I guess they distracted anyone who might notice me. I felt secure to look around from the outside, but I didn’t dare go any closer. Dr. Ried probably had some sort of radar that could see how close I was to the facility and would push that accursed button, if I got too close. So I hopped around buildings within the same radius of the lab and looked for ways to sneak in, other than cutting through the wall like Gun would.
After a few minutes of scouting though, my radio turned on and a strange voice, it said, “Aqueous, can you hear me?”
I turned it on and replied, “Yes. Who is this?”
The strange, deep voice answered, “I cannot tell you. Just trust me and meet me at the back of that green restaurant to you’re left.”
I looked to my left and saw a large restaurant, painted green. I was concerned and asked, “How’d you know that? Can you see me? Where are you?”
It simply ended with, “I’ll wait for five minutes.”
It was gone. I had a small crisis on my hands. I was caught! I should have listened to Dr. Ried, but I didn’t. Now someone probably has me in their sniper scope with more of those rounds that solidify me. I thought about that maybe it was an ally, but it was most likely an ambush of some sort. I pondered and questioned even though I knew the right choice was to run away right then, but I decided to think of a new approach. Maybe I could kill the evil scientists and maybe that would make both Dr. Ried and myself happier and a little closer to our ultimate goals.
So I leapt off the small building I was sitting on and I landed on the ground. I dashed over to the restaurant, using the random light posts and trashcans as cover. I eventually reached the back of the restaurant. I looked around and saw no one.
But then I heard a noise behind me and I saw a vague heat figure. I was going to turn around, but the voice stopped me. It said, “If you turn around, you are swearing your allegiance to me and you will betray whomever you’re working for. If not, turn and run away.”
After only a small hesitation I turned around and saw a woman. Not only was she holding a voice disguising microphone, she was smiling. It was Rachael! She was wearing a large trench coat and had a hood covering her head, but otherwise it was her beautiful self. She joked, without using the microphone, “Not too eager to stay with Dr. Ried I see.” She came over and hugged me and I was no slower hugger her back. Our hug wasn’t as strong as our last one, so I didn’t get strained through her arms, I being separated and mutilated with love.
I finished the hug and I quietly cheered, “You’re here Rachael! I can’t believe I found you!”
She corrected me, “That’s always great to hear. I was afraid that you would have been brainwashed to work for Dr. Ried’s cause.”
I sighed, “I’ve done too many regretful things to enjoy working for him.” I changed the subject, “How did you find me?”
She took off the backpack I didn’t notice her wearing and opened it up. She pulled out a few devices and then put the back in. She explained, “I’m using some very illegal tracking tools.”
I asked, “What do you mean?”
She put her finger on her nose and hushed me. She said, “Be quiet! We can’t talk about it here.”
I immediately silenced and awaited her instructions. I asked, “Where should we go then?”
She pulled out a crumpled duffel bag and opened it up. She explained to me, “We’re going inside the lab. I’m going to help you out, big time!”
I stopped her, “Wait! He has a sensor in me. He doesn’t want me going there.”
She looked puzzled about how to deal with this. She suggested, “You could risk it.”
I shook my head. But after a short while I quickly asked her, “Could you track this thing with those devices?”
She was uncertain why I was asking that, but she nodded. “Yes.”
I held up a finger as if to tell her I’ll only be a minute. I ran to the back door of the restaurant. I opened the door slightly and I shifted the transmitter into my finger and then I made a tentacle from it. I snaked it along the floor, so it looked like spilling water. I traveled out of the kitchen and then into the restaurant and planted it in a customer’s coat. I quickly brought my tentacle back to its finger size.
I walked back to Rachael and explained, “I planted the transmitter on a person there, so when he leaves, it will look like I’m walking around for Dr. Ried. He only sees me on radar or something through that sensor. Now I’m supposedly just walking around. When we’re done, you can just track the sensor and I’ll get it back!”
Rachael nodded with her arms crossed, “Very impressive. Where’d you learn something like that?”
I shrugged. Then I asked, “What’s the bag for?”
She smiled and pointed to it. She explained, “Get into it.”
It didn’t take me long to realize how I would get in. I turned puddle form and slipped inside. Unfortunately, not all of my liquid could get in. Rachael didn’t seem distressed though. She took off her coat and pointed to a hole in the back. She explained, “I took out the insulation, so help keep me warm.”
I put my other half inside her coat and spread myself evenly through out it. Rachael put her coat and me on. She grunted a little and complained that I was pretty heavy. She left her backpack of tracking devices at the back of the restaurant. She said that the metal detector at the entrance would detect them. She zipped the zipper of the bag and hauled me off to the lab.
I didn’t see what was going on, the heat was quite skewed through both the duffel bag and the coat. But I heard some dialogue. “Hello Miss.”
“You can’t tour the labs with that bag, you’ll have to put it in the coat room.”
“We’re closing in an hour, so enjoy the tour.”
Then after a few minutes I was dropped and opened. Then I was hung up and I leaked out. My two halves merged again and I saw Rachael looking straight at me. She spoke quietly, “We’re in the locker room here.” She pointed upwards to a vent cover. She explained, “The only way to the Body Lab floor is through the ventilation system. I need your help with this.”
I asked, “Why? You were a spy, didn’t you do a bunch of this stuff before?”
She nodded, but explained, “This system is different. Not only does the alarm go off if the air is slowed down, by say, people moving in it, it also goes off if heavy objects pound against it, like my elbows and knees.”
I asked, “So you can’t come, is that what you’re saying?”
She shook her head, “No. You’ll need me, definitely!” She took off some of her clothes so she was in a tank top and tight, knee-length shorts. She explained, “I’ll need to ‘ride’ on you.”
I raised an eyebrow, “Ride?”
She laughed a little, “Hard to explain. You need to carry me. I’ll stay flat and you’ll flow to where we want to go, with me riding on top of your surface.”
I gave another example of what she could mean, “Like I’ll be fast moving water and you’ll be the boat?”
She pointed at me, “Exactly!”
I nodded, “I think I could do that.”
She looked up again, “It’ll be hard for both of us. Obviously it’ll be hard for you to keep me moving the same speed as the air and keep me balanced, but it’ll be hard for me too. It’ll get complicated up there and the main part… is that it will tickle, I can’t laugh.”
I laughed a little, “I’ll try not to do anything funny!”
Rachael explained again, “Privacy acts have bean put into the law; there are no cameras watching us. Pull down the cover.” I reached with a tentacle and pulled down the vent cover. She gave more instructions, “Now lift my face first pointing toward the wall there.” I grabbed her legs and lifted her above my head. She grabbed onto the edge, but still needed about a meter more to get inside, so I extended my legs. Soon enough she was in. She spoke in whispers now, “Now get up here and get under me.” I latched myself onto the edge and flowed all my liquid up the bridge I created. I flowed under Rachael and lifted her up. She ordered, “Close the vent cover.” I extended a tentacle behind me and wrapped it around the grates and pulled it up.
Now that we were in, I felt rather strange. First of all I was in a very unique position and form and was lifting a woman up, so I was using most of my concentration keeping the form and strength. Secondly the vent was very cold and Rachael was very warm, so that had an awkward diffusing of heat through out me. I started to move. Rachael giggled a little, but quickly made herself focussed. The process of moving with her reminded me of a tank. She rested on the body of the tank and I had liquid rolling or flowing to keep us moving. After some first off difficulties, I soon mastered the form and we were moving at the same speed of the air without a sound.
We continued straight for a while and then Rachael whispered to turn left when the system met a four-way junction. She rolled on her side and bent forward in order to slip around the tight corner in such a narrow distance. After the turn we continued forward a little more. Then we reached another ventilation cover, but Rachael whispered not to stop. So I lifted the middle of my mass over the grated cover and kept my sides flowing. We were perfectly fine and nothing seemed to stop us.
Then we ran into a dead end and the only way to go was a vertical drop many floors to the bottom. With no room to turn, I tickled Rachael with the air bubbles of my voice, as I asked, “What do we do now? We’re trapped.”
Rachael explained in a serious, but quiet tone, “This is where I’ll need you the most. At the bottom of this fall, there is a huge fan and right beside it is the ventilation shaft we need to go down, in order to reach the Body lab.”
I questioned a little, “So what are you trying to do?”
She giggled, “Talk through me next time, your bubbles are tickling me.”
I oozed some liquid into her ear and whispered through her body, “Ok, sorry.”
After I let her go, she explained, “We need to fall down there.”
I gasped, “Fall?”
She commanded, “I will fall head first and you will catch me.”
I made Rachael’s voice scream as I yelled, “What? That’s suicide!”
Rachael ordered that I be quiet. She continued, “Most of you will slide down the shaft and land on the fan, but obviously not in the fan. The rest of you will slide me down the shaft and I will land headfirst into you. I will hold my breath and you’ll have to reposition me and set me up for further travelling down the ventilation system.”
I begged, “I can’t do that! You can’t do that! It… it… it is too dangerous. Why’d we have to go this way? We can’t get out now! You just killed yourself! Why couldn’t we have barged in there like Gun did at the other places!”
Rachael, very eager to finally use her own mouth again, explained, “We couldn’t use force. They’re expecting you and they have many men posted around anyway inside, but this one. They have traps and EPPs and some sort of special bullet that is supposed to solidify you. The whole is one floor and completely sealed off from the outside, so sneaking in through this way buys us lots of time and sanctuary.”
I got mad, “Sanctuary? You’ll die either of starvation or by being splattered and minced by the fall!”
“I won’t die. You’ll catch me and we’ll both be fine.”
“I can’t do this!”
Rachael calmly stated, “I believe in you.”
I paused. I asked again, “I don’t… I can’t… what do you mean?”
She explained again, “I knew the risks and I’m even going down here to help you to you stop the Project. I know you can save the world by preventing this disaster and I know that you can catch me and save my life.”
I begged, “But what if I can’t stay strong enough to catch you? What if I can’t stop Dr. Ried?”
She said, “You won’t. You will save my life and many others. That is what you were made for!”
Rachael must have thought that I had aged 20 years inside those canisters. She must have thought I was fully grown and ready to fulfil my destiny, but she didn’t know that I was still 12 years old inside. I explained to Rachael, “I’m only 12.”
She shook her head, “You’re any age you think you are, Ozzy.”
I was confused. “No. I’m 12, nothing else.”
She explained, “Those 12 years of your ‘life’ didn’t exist. They were only a prewritten memory and so you’re not 12. You could be 20, from those years in the canister. You could be 80, because you have 80 years of memories do you not?”
I muttered, “Well, yeah…”
She finished, “Age, time and memory for you is just one confusing mess. You can sit down and try and decipher its useless meaning or you can start clean and say whatever you want to say, be whatever you want to be. You and I both know, you’re far from being only 12. Look and listen to how wise you are. You talk as though you were full grown and you’re just as brave. So now forget these doubts and do us all a favour! Drop me!”
I knew that she was right. I knew that there was no clear; no absolute or accurate age for myself. I decided on an age that moment. I told Rachael, “Fine. I’m 21!”
She got worried, “I’d love to ask you more, but we really should stop stalling. You can catch me. I know you can, and you will!”
I agreed and started our crazy little stunt. I dropped most of my liquid down the shaft. I landed it all around the outside of the fan; none went into the fan. Rachael said to go, so I pushed her headfirst down the vent. He eyes were closed and her breath was held. It was as if she lost her entire body and left it all to me. I caught her and with the perfect shock absorption, not hard enough to break her neck and no soft enough to get her chopped into pieces by the fan. Once the rest of my liquid fell, I quickly repositioned Rachael, headfirst into the new shaft and I turned liquid underneath her.
I said, “It’s safe now.”
She wiped some liquid off her eyes and took a deep breath of relief. She smiled and said, “I knew you could do it.”
I asked, “Are you hurt at all?”
She shook her head, “Move forward. Well, maybe a little. It was something a human was never supposed to experience.”
I laughed and continued with Rachael down the vent until she told me to open this one vent cover. I opened it and noticed the very far drop to the bottom. Rachael explained again that she trusted me with her life. So I held onto her with all my concentration, for the long descent to the bottom. By the end, I couldn’t hold onto her, with all the weight and all the bubbles weakening my hold, but thankfully the remaining drop might have only hurt a baby. Most of my liquid splashed down with her, so the rest fell to the ground. I reformed and stood beside Rachael.
The place was dead. There wasn’t a single light and every door and elevator door was completely sealed up. Every security camera was broken or missing and every bit of security was broken as well. There wasn’t a single source of light. I could make out most of everything through infrared, but Rachael didn’t have that luxury. I grabbed her hand; she appreciated the help. The air was very, very cold and dry; years of cool air conditioning cleansing the air that no would breathe created a sense of purity, but yet at the same time, a sense of corruption. This was the place my liquid was created.
I asked Rachael, “Are you OK? Can you see alright?”
She answered, “I’m fine, but I can’t see a thing.” She looked at me while I was looking around and then asked, “Can you see?”
I nodded, “I can see the very cold forms of everything here.” I looked at her and then again around the cold floor. I asked, “So what are we here for? You never actually told me.”
She explained, “I still want to keep it a surprise for a little longer.”
I whined, “Aww come on! Please! Tell me.”
She told me, “Let’s find the emergency generator. It’s a very large energy storage device, used in power outages. It should still be working after all these years. We should be able to juice this place up!”
I asked, “What’s it look like?”
She explained, “It’s behind some walls, but we’d have to find the switch for it.”
I noticed a peculiar object in the distance, which was hotter than the rest of everything. As Rachael was going to explain something, I interrupted her and announced, “I think I might know.” I raced over to the object and it was indeed a switch. I called across the room and asked, “It the switch very wide and made of metal?”
She called back, “Maybe, if nothing happens then it isn’t the switch. Go ahead and flip it.”
It wasn’t going to be a flip, because the switch was half stuck. So I pulled with both hands and jumped up and down. The switch finally flipped with a very loud clunk at the end. I waited a moment. Then I heard high pitched noises and some moving parts from behind the wall. Then I heard small crack and then the whole wall exploded into a frenzy of fire, electricity and wall shrapnel. I exploded milliseconds after. I reformed and laughed while the lights came on.
“There must have been a lot of rust and dust in around all the wires, but it seems like everything is fine now.” Rachael laughed with me.
I asked, “So can you tell me now? What’s the big surprise?”
She smiled, “Do you remember when I promised I’d do something about that third solute in you back in Chile?”
I thought for a second and then nodded. “Are you going to get rid of it?”
She nodded back, “Yepper!”
I wagged my tail and jumped for joy. I did a little dance, which involved lots of exploding and reforming. I was finally going to be free of Dr. Ried’s control. I could completely disobey his orders and he couldn’t do anything to stop me. I was a free man and I had the freedom to choose now. I could end all my problems sooner than I thought. I could kill Dr. Ried. I could grab him by his old, bony, fleshy body and I could maybe kill him. I could stab him or maybe I could crush his bones! Just the thought of destroying everything evil and the cause of everybody’s pain was tingling through my entire body. I told Rachael my plan, “I’ll kill him!”
I expected applause, but I got Rachael very angry. She warned, “Don’t jeopardize the mission!”
I complained, “But this is the mission.” I pounded my fists together and jabbed my sharpened tail into the cement, tiled floor. “Killing him is the finish line. When he’s dead, it’s all over. I can actually stop him now, instead of risking until the end when he can still kill me!”
She shook her head, “No. You can’t do that. You’ll bring more risks if you kill him.”
I yelled, “How?”
She yelled back, “Do you even remember why you’re following him around?”
I remembered and saw her point, “I need to follow his lead, in order to destroy all the information in every facility.” I stopped pounding my appendages into each other and the ground and finished, “So that Project Sol can never revive.”
She added, “So why’s it wrong to kill now and not at the final moment?”
“Because I won’t know the location of the facilities.”
“Very good, Ozzy.” She led me over to some sort of contraption in the far corner. The device was a giant computer, but it was hooked up to some sort of blanket attached to a metal platform. She instructed me to stand on the separation sheet, which was thew blanket-like thing. She then asked for a small sample of my liquid on top of a microscope slide. She put the slide into the computer and did some very advanced computer work. After a few minutes she got the slide out of the computer and gave the liquid back to me. She then explained that I was going to be filtered.
I asked, “Do I have to do anything?”
She shook her head, “No. All you have to do is completely let go of the control of your liquid. I want you as liquid as possible. Can you do that?”
I nodded, “Yes. I’ll let go now.” I stopped controlling my body and headed to Gun; I might as well talk to him while I wait.
Gun wasn’t happy to see me. He crossed his arms and whipped his tail to the ground. He was obviously angry that I was in control and not him. He screamed, “Look who finally comes down to look at the prisoner!”
I tried to cheer him up, “Hey, cheer up! Rachael’s getting rid of that solute thing that can kill us. We’re free!”
He raised his voice and pointed at me, “You’re free! You’re free, not me!”
I knew that this was turning sour and fast. I tried to comfort him, “Maybe it’ll work out for both of us.”
He yelled again, “I’m a damn prisoner and I don’t see a PHD in chemistry on your list of expertise. You can’t help me at all. Help me by dying.”
I got angry as well, “Well, excuse me! I’m trying to be nice and tell you some good news, but you take it all the wrong way.”
“How would you feel being trapped in here all alone, not being able to do anything and watching as your only competition is stealing all the glory before your eyes?”
“I don’t need to imagine it! You brought this punishment on yourself!”
“Myself!”
“Yeah, you heartless murderer!”
“You’ve killed your share of people too. You’re no different!”
I screamed back, “It’s a lot different! The people you killed were innocent and stood no chance against you!”
He replied, “They stood no chance against you either! We’re no different!”
“I stand for good!”
“You stand for the people that will never love you! You stand for the people that don’t deserve a hero.”
“Shut up!”
“They’re all your enemy! They’ll kill you the first chance they get. Then they’ll kill each other in useless wars and destroy the planet.”
“I hate you!”
“I hate you too; what are you going to do about it?”
I swiped and stabbed at his ghostly image in our minds. “I’ll kill you! You don’t deserve to live! Why are you so evil!”
His image attacked back, “Why are you so blind from the truth! It is my destiny and you’re only here to slow me down!”
“I want to stop you forever!” I started to take control of my body again. “I hate you Gun!”
Gun saw me take control of the body and he almost screamed to the point that he had no liquid to shape and move the air bubbles; they were so loud and vicious! He exploded, “I can’t wait to get my hands around your entire body and crush you and kill your corpse over and over again! Stop doing this to me! Stop being my counter part! Ozzy! Aqueous! Get your useless mind back here! Ozzy!”
Fortunately when I took control, I was underneath the filter. I waited a little and the filter was rolled up into a ball. I climbed out of the small tank I filtered into and I looked at Rachael, who was looking at something in the filter.
I walked over to her and looked inside. There was but a mere handful white powder sitting at the bottom of the filter. I asked, “Is that it?”
She nodded with a smile, “Yes, every last molecule of it.”
I asked, “What is this machine?”
She explained, “Supplies were limited, so we developed a machine that could alter the shape of the holes of a specially designed filter, i.e. this here. We used it to strain out any prototype solutes that could enhance or give life to the liquid.”
I asked, “Is that all we came for?”
She replied, “If you’re coming here later under Dr. Ried’s watch, then we should leave now.” She started walking to the vent and commented, “Getting up should be a lot less suicidal.”
I laughed. Before I hoisted her up I asked, “So you’ll help me find that guy I planted the radio on?”
She nodded and then was lifted into the vent. The ventilation system was easier to get out of than in. Before I knew it, we were in the locker room and I was hiding in her duffel bag and trench coat. She casually walked out of the locker room and noticed a security guard locking the door. She rushed over to the door shouting, “Wait! Wait! I’m still in here!” The guard apologized and warned her not to take that long again. Rachael acted out some nagging and told him that she’d never come back, because they almost locked her in.
We went behind the restaurant and Rachael retrieved her spy devices. She punched in a few numbers and read the data. She explained, “He’s in his dark green 2018 Honda Civic, license plate number: TYI6 3B1 FS. He’s driving along North Exit road. According to his GPS system, he’ll go to the Hellan Apartments floor 74, room 74-12, which is right off the eighth on ramp from the highway merge.” By the time she was finished reading, I was already gone.
I didn’t bother with all the directions; I just ran to the highway and followed a few signs to find out where North Exit was. So I repeated my technique and ran behind cars. I even sling shot myself from car to car, if they weren’t very far away that is. I checked every license plate I saw. I was having no luck. I also counted the off ramps to my right and saw that I had passed the 7th one. Quickly, I looked ahead and saw a dark green car drive down the ramp. I made a better prediction about when I should jump and I landed not too far behind the car. I followed it and when it finally stopped, it was in an underground garage. I raced to the man and stopped in front of him. “I’ll be needing this.” I grabbed the transmitter from his coat pocket and I raced off. The man blinked a few times, shook his head, then shrugged and walked on.
I ran up the side of the hotel that we were staying in. I made my toes suction cup-like and I raced up the side and knocked on our window. Dr. Ried wasn’t there, but it was our room. I decided to do some sneaking. I carved a small hole in the corner of the window, one small enough for the transmitter to get through and I slipped through. I looked at his desk and memorized how it looked. I pulled open a drawer and saw a hard cover book. The book was the shape of a novel, a diary even! It was very thin, despite the fact of his very wide spine. Most of the pages had been torn out. The first page was dated, February 19, 2003. I read from there:

Feb. 19, 03

They finally found his body. It took them so long. Rutherford had it coming. He held back the Project so much. Why did he choose those simple and meaningless goals? The Project should’ve been set for my goals! We wasted so much time. I’m glad I killed him. I snuck into his bedroom, at night and stabbed him and mutilated his body until they would only have a finger to ID the body. Sound asleep, not a muscle moving. My only regret was not hearing his scream. Oh well. The Project is mine! This is great!

I read the next one:

Feb. 22, 03

I read through his entire diary. I thought I’d find his motives and plans, maybe even something about his life, but there was nothing. He put down what he did that day. He obviously didn’t know the difference between a diary and a log! I could’ve looked in the progress files on the computers. For more than 20 years has that man been bossing me around. No matter. The project’s mine; I have to fine tune my plan.

Mar 29, 03

I hoped this wouldn’t happen. The government finally clued in about Rutherford’s death. We’ll be getting no more funds. Then it’ll only be matter of time before they find us and shut us down. Rutherford was a genius I tell you. He managed to get blackmail money from the President, the Minister of Defense and numerous other multi-millionaires. I don’t know how he found out information, serious enough to put all these peoples’ money and power in jeopardy, but he did. He was getting 40 million a week from the President alone. I need to find out what he knew.

June 4, 03

This diary is only slowing me down. The prototypes have been fine tuned and we’ve learned from the failures. Project Body is a complete success and I must say the final shape was quite an interesting piece of sculpture. Now all I can do is wait for Project Soul to finish their part.

Sept 9, 03

The government is after us and Project Sol is so near completion. The beta AI still is having trouble in the simulations. We need to hurry!

Sept 12, 03

The government has found us. They’re giving us three days to surrender everything to their departments. I can’t let them do this. Project Sol has so much more potential then sitting in Area 51. I need to find out what Rutherford was blackmailing them for. I need them to go away or my life’s work is ruined. We’re so close!

Sept 13, 03

I found nothing! I found dick all! I searched every darn piece of data inside out and backwards and I found nothing. But I did find something else about him, which raised my eyebrows. “Rutherford’s special request” it was called. A smaller and even more secret operation existing inside the Project. This explains his lack of attendance days prior to his murder. Now I realize that I should have stuck with Rutherford until the end and then betray him until the very end. That brain had so many dark secrets and motives. If only I hadn’t stabbed it repeatedly. The government is stalling with the attack. I only trust that the emergency solute will help us out. I have to leave tonight. They’ll want to interrogate me first. As long as I’m alive, then project can restart. It’s all up here.
Before I could read another I saw the door open behind me. I frantically opened the drawer and put the diary in the desk and shut it. I morphed my face towards Dr. Ried and said nothing.
He asked, “What are you doing?”
I stuttered, “Nothing.”
He got frighteningly suspicious of me, “You were looking at my diary, weren’t you.”
I explained, “I opened the drawer because I was bored. I saw nothing.”
He yelled, “It’s bad enough to look at someone’s diary, but to read mine! You have betrayed my trust. What did you see?”
I jumped off the chair and waved my hands in front of my face and pleaded, “Nothing. I saw nothing. I saw some paper and a pencil and maybe a book. It was a quarter second peek. Nothing more!”
He pounded his finger towards me, “You lie! You’re a terrible liar.”
I screamed, “I swear.”
By habit, I was freaking out when I saw him reach into his coat pocket and pull out the small button. He warned, “I’ll press it.”
“Please don’t.”
“Tell me what you saw! I’ll press it and you’ll die!”
“I didn’t even touch it!”
“I’m giving you 3 seconds. 1.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
“2.”
“Please no!”
“3.”
I huddled up and screamed. I knew that the button wouldn’t hurt me, but I needed to act this way as suicidal as I could, to show that I didn’t look at his diary. Dr. Ried had pressed the button and I wasn’t dead. I knew then that he must know that I had been filtered and was working against him. He must know that I was going to kill him soon. But to my surprise, he didn’t think that. He opened the remote and saw that there were no batteries. He explained, “You must be telling the truth, I pressed the button and you didn’t tell me anything. Lucky for you I forgot to replace the batteries.”
I sighed and pretended to gasp. I thanked him for believing me. If there were batteries and I hadn’t of seen Rachael I would have been a dead man. “So what now?”
He explained, “You got close to the lab and probably spied on it, but you were a good distance from it. You can go back there tomorrow night and search for information.”
I asked, “What do I do until then?”
He waved me away, “Just leave me alone. Check in every few hours.”
I left out the window again and toured the city again.