Post by mrman on Oct 6, 2005 23:31:34 GMT -5
Chapter One
He awoke in his cage of horror to the sounds of his fellow experiments moaning. ‘They must have just come back from testing rooms…’ he thought to himself. ’They’re going to be comin’ for my cage any minute…’ the two hideous Erasers waltzed up to him in such a gleeful manner he was already sickened by them before they spoke. He wished Teddy was there to retrieve him instead of these to low-life goons.
“Hi there little fella.” Spoke one as he leaned over sideways to peer into the cage.
“Its ok little guy… were not going to hurt you…” Spoke the other as he lowered his face to the bars as he unlocked the doggy crate.
“BS” he spoke firmly with power.
“No, were not kidding… Ya see… WE’RE not going to hurt you. The ‘dreaded white coats’ are…” He put too much emphasis on the, ’we’re, and put the sad girly sounds to the ‘Dreaded white coats’. It could creep out even the toughest varsity football player.
He was dragged to a relatively large room and told to ‘avoid danger’ as best he could. The young Erasers were released from their cages to sick their prey which to his unfortunate had been in the same procedures everyday with Erasers. The Erasers understood now if they tried to overtake their victim by just charging they would lose the advance and be put on the defensive. They circled the poor boy; now, the boys had not the fortune of the Erasers performing in group operations. So unknown what to expect he was ambushed by one side as a distraction while the rest took his tuned back. Blow after blow came as well as the sharp claws and—
“Magic! Get of me!” I sat up in bed, sweating his head off from the nightmare.
“Bloody cat… why does she need to stab me in the middle of the night with her claws…”
I logged on to my computer and signed right onto the Maximum Ride Forum. My discovery of the Maximum Ride books By James Patterson led me to join the forum and enjoy the wonderful people there. I posted on the RP’s for a while and then started a topic on the General Discussion: Assorted Topics. “I had this really weird nightmare….” And I wrote on and on about what happened. It’s like I was really there… Sort of like a premonition…*bring!!!* A little window appeared on my screen. A personal message. I opened it not even realizing how it was about to change my insignificant life.
“Hey there Mr.Man!!! My name is Teddy and I thought I’d bother you as you seem to like to help people. See, I’m a little new here and I thought yo could show me around so to speak…” the message went on and on.
It didn’t take long for me to become friends with Teddy. He was a really nice kid. He understood anything I told him. He lived somewhere in Colorado and we hope some day years down the road to meet. I kept up to par with the forum and I got to see everything that went on there. As was my job I helped the newbie’s in adjusting to the site and I kept spirits high. Teddy had grown fond of the site and became well liked in the site. One day I go the news of my life.
“Hey Man!!! Guess what! My dad has a business trip to where you’re at and he told me I could come along so I could meet you in person!!!”
It was too good to be true. My good friend coming to California to see me! I told him my excitement and he told me to meet him at my local community center and I gave him the directions to get there.
I sat at the bench with my cell phone and ipod mini waiting for him to arrive. He told me he was going to be arriving in a white van his dad’s company uses. However he neglected to tell me who his dad worked for so I had a very rough time every time a white van went by and it didn’t stop. After the 20th or so van and after 20 instant adrenaline rushes a white van stopped at the curb. My heart did a back flip in anticipation to meet him face to face. Out walked a tall boy a little taller than me with black hair, brown eyes, and standing at around 6’.
“Hey, are you William?”
“And you must be Teddy?”
“Wow! It’s so nice to meet you in person…”
“Indeed, I’ve waited a very long time to meet you.”
“Likewise… Er… William?”
“Yes.”
“I have a little confession to make…”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“You see, my ‘dad’ wanted to meet you long ago… I tried to leave you messages in code so you would understand to forget me but you didn’t…”
“Teddy?... What are you saying?...”
“I- I’m a recruiter… I’m sorry William…”
“A recruiter for what? I don’t understand…”
“Maximum Ride. I go make accounts and log on to make good friends with people to abduct from the site to use in The School.”
“What?”
“William, the book Maximum Ride is real. There really is a School. And I’m sorry… your on the ‘Scholarship’ list…”
“So…”
“Yea. The more I got to talk to you the more I really started to like you as a friend. I tried to save you from this but it didn’t work… I’m really sorry to do this to you William…” He pulled out a hypodermic needle out and injected me with some clear fluid. I felt all woozy and I could still here Teddy saying, ‘I’m so sorry, William’, as darkness consumed me…
Chapter 2
I awoke to a bunch of really bright lights shinning on me. I felt really warm. There must have been at least four doctors crowded around me using really complicated words and stuff. I got some of it from biology. The pancreas… the liver… Why were they talking about internally organs? One of the doctors noticed I had woken up and leaned towards my face.
“Can you feel anything?”
“No” I replied weekly. Like it was difficult to draw in breath. But that was before I noticed the hose attached to my neck. It was breathing for me!
“What are you doing to me…” I was starting to panic, I lifted my head and looked down the table at my self and at the other doctors. They started to panic and tried to re sedate me and restrain me. But not before I got a good look at my present condition. To put it in layman’s terms I had been flayed like a fish. I could see everything from my lungs down to my lower intestines. I nearly threw up. Nobody should be allowed to view their own organs… I slipped back into dreamland with the poke of another needle.
I awoke to find myself in a tiny cage on my back. I nearly fit in the bloody thing. I sat up a little and looked back at my stomach. I confronted a sharp pain and layed back down. But luckily I saw enough. I had been re sewn up. I could no longer see my beating heart. What a relief. Some one walked up to my tinny cage and put a hose threw the bars and pushed it towards my lips. I refused.
“Its food. Come on. Take it. You won’t heal if you don’t eat.”
I reluctantly took the tube and drank the meal threw the straw. It tasted like plastic. Another person opened the cage and put a needle in my arm. I felt woozy again and soon fell asleep.
I awoke again on the operating table. I quickly noticed the same doctors as before were operating on me as looked down to see the horrors of what they were doing to me know. Nothing. I was restrained, but uncut. I have IV’s running to me and a few thingamabobs, but no incisions. As I was looking I heard Teddy behind me.
“William? Are you awake?”
“Mmm…Yup.” I replied in a drugged/high tone.
“Ok, here’s what they did to you they-”
“Do I really wanna know…”
“Yes. And no. They did an exploratory surgery. To see how your body was structured for their own eyes. They also, er… ‘altered’ a few major points of your skeleton, nervous system and various other systems… ”
“So… Now I’m a super freak?” I must have sounded so funny to him being so drugged.
“Er… Not yet… You see those funny looking colored IV bags have chemicals which will break down your nucleus in you cells and allow other chemicals along with new DNA to enter and mutate your body. I’m so sorry William. This process will not be pleasant and it will take a while to work.”
“…” I soon felt the effects of the chemicals and I was lucky the pain kept me in a state of unconsciousness. The pain is unimaginable…
Chapter 3
I woke up less than eight hours later and I felt like someone had dumped me in a giant vat of oil and lit me on fire. I mean, WOW! If you’ve ever been by a candle, you ain’t felt NOTHIN’. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see my flesh melting of my bones. But as I moved so painfully to see I was still in one piece, I felt a hand on my shoulder and a smooth motion of an injection into my arm. I didn’t feel the shot or understand what the blurry figure was saying to me. It was a soothing voice which came from what I believed to be a male. As my eyes slowly took back to focus I could see it was Teddy who was speaking to me. Boy, I hated his guts for what he’s put me threw. Lied to me, abducted me, and now he was injecting me with foreign liquids! The hatred that was slowly filling me was also slowly beginning to block out the pain. I just need a little more strength and I’ll be able to wring this little turds neck and stick him with his own needle. But alas… I’m slowly beginning to black out… My last glimpse of him is a sad look on his face and he is trying to tell me something…
Over the course of my next few wake-ups and passing-outs I received the same treatment. Stick with needles… Can’t see jack… Can’t understand anything being said… and the weirdest thing is only teddy is the one giving me the shots. I haven’t seen any other doctors in the room at the times for my ‘daily dosage’. Well, maybe others might have been there at other times of my injections. I seemed to have developed a memory laps during my drugged time in my new home. Luckily the pain began to go away after the 15th wakeup. Or is it the 25 wake up… I can’t remember to good… Stupid drugs…
“William? Can you hear me? William…”
This wakeup call was different. I had perfect vision and I could hear Teddy’s voice perfectly.
“I can hear ya… What do you want…”
I gave him the cold shoulder.
“William, please understand what I’ve been doing to you for these past few weeks was completely in your interest. If I hadn’t come in here every other day or so to inject you with morphine you would have been in a world of pain.”
“Oh really… Why have I been needing morphine”
“Something tells me I gave you too much… Your DNA has been completely modified. THAT’S why you needed morphine.”
“Like what kind of modifying did you do…”
“Er… It’s hard for me to say what they did to you… I don’t get to know the details… I let you see for your self…”
Teddy slowly stood up and I tried to stand up to go with him, but I quickly found myself to be in a confined space of about no bigger than me… I also seemed to have a small buffer between me and the roof of the cage… But the strangest thing was I could feel the buffer like it was apart of me… I instinctively ran my hand up to my back to inspect my surroundings and my hand came to rest on a soft textured cloth like material on my back. I grabbed where the joint appeared to be and I tried to pull the object towards my face. I had some difficulty with the small space, but I had even more trouble with trying to concentrate bringing it into the light and not losing my cool as what I was doing I could feel the whole way. All I can say is the feeling was much more different than one could expect. As I pulled the material into the light I could see the feathers and the shape of the wing. I freaked. I went berserk in the cage flailing trying to get out of the cage. Claustrophobia never was my friend. I could feel the new wings on my back hitting the roof of the cage. It didn’t feel so great. Neither did the injection Teddy gave me to cool me down.
“I was afraid he would do this…”
Chapter 4
I awoke in the same tinny cage to, surprisingly, my own internal clock. I haven’t slept normally in the longest time. Now how did I fall asleep… Oh yea… I moved my hand up my back until I could feel the curvature of the wings. They were surprisingly soft compared to the way one would think they would feel. I would have almost been enjoying the moment if I wasn’t in a tiny cage and unable to stretch them out to full span. I mean. I didn’t even know what they looked like. So as careful as can be I took a firm grip on the base of one of the LE (leading edge) feathers and I pulled hard and fast like you would if you were pulling out a hair (actually feathers are a more complex form of hair) cause my parents always said,”If your gonna do sumthing stupid, do it quick.”.
“OW!”
That hurt like you wouldn’t believe. I rubbed the spot where I pulled the feather from with one hand while I pulled the feather into view with my other hand. I stared at it like I did earlier. It had a nice pattern to it. It reminded me of the falcons I saw in the park next to my house. They could hover by flapping their wings rapidly and shortly. It was really nifty…
A creaking door brought me back to reality. I day-dream WAY too much…
“William? Are you awake? It’s Teddy…”
“Yea…” I spoke with an achy tone to my voice. ”I’m up… sorta.”
“Heh… Do you want me to change that for a while?”
“Am I going to feel more pain?”
“Ha, ha, ha… no, no, no… I’m going to let you out to stretch your wings. I can tell you want to.”
“Yes I do, I would like that very much.”
“k, one sec…”
He opened my cage with the turn of a little key. I heard a little pop and the door to my cage slowly opened.
“Wow… I never thought I’d be glad to see you again…”
I slowly crawled out of my cage and stood up. My back must have popped at least eight times.
“Careful, Will. Don’t hurt yourself.”
“I know, I know…”
I stretched my shoulders back and slowly unfurled my wings. If you’ve ever felt awkward at parties and stuff from just looking weird, you know sorta how I felt. Except there was kinda a warm fuzzy feeling, like the ones you get after you get out of a car after driving for 3 hours non stop. It feels REALLY good. I looked at my wings and for the first time at full span and I could see their colors. They were like that of a falcon. I couldn’t place my finger on the species though… I really thought the speckles of brown, red, and black made a really cool illusion.
“Ah… That feels good… Will they let me fly here Teddy?”
“I’m sorry to say, no they won’t. I’m not even to have supposed to have let you out of your cage… your one of the lucky ones…”
“I see…” I was still looking amazed at my right wing. I kept twitching my feathers. Because of my previous talents of flying R/C airplanes I could figure out different mixes with the positioning of my feathers. Flaps… CROW … Faperons… elevons… ailerons… spoilers… (For the non-pilots, Flaps is when the control surfaces at the back of the wing go down, CROW is a glider programmable mixes where the ailerons (controls roll on that plane) go up while the flaps (the control surfaces before the ailerons which create more lift at slower speeds) go down. The effect is an air break in speed and elevation at the same time (You have to slow a plane down before applying flaps or else you get undesired amounts of lift.) Elevons are when the elevation controls and the roll control surfaces are combined into two surfaces. Flaperons… I can’t remember those to good…) I was so intrigued by them that I didn’t even realize what Teddy was telling me about what was going to happen to me in the next few days. I’ll probably be glad I wasn’t listening.
“Will! Crap! Get back in your cage! Their coming!!! The other Erasers! Their coming to bring you to your first tests!!! Quick, back in your cage!!”
I hurly and un happily got back into the cramped little box. It’s not fun when some one lets you out to stretch and then they force you back into a tinny space. But I complied hoping Teddy would be able to come back to me at a later date and let me out again…
Chapter 5
Anyone ever been in the center of one of those classic fight scenes in movies? Ya know, the ones where the poor kid gets the living daylights beat out of him? Ya. That’s how I felt. One the first training exercise they tried to test my endurance and stuff. I got stuck right in the middle against an Eraser who won. Badly. But not only that, the rest of the Erasers wanted a piece of me. The most depressing part was the White Coats didn’t even bat an eyelid… They just told the Erasers to make sure they didn’t break anything important. Latter that night I was happy to find Teddy entering my room with a tray of food.
“Hey… Will?”
“Yesh…” I had a fat lip from a kick in the mouth. It’s a miracle I didn’t break any teeth.
“Ew… You don’t sound too good… I’m glad I brought you soup instead of solids…”
“Heh, so am I…” I drank the straw threw a soup- Wait. Pardon me… I got kicked one too many times I think... I drank the soup threw a straw and I cherished its flavor for all it was worth.
“Will… I’m still really sorry I let this happen to you… I swear-“
I stopped him mid-sentence. And smiled at him with my sore and bruised face.
“Don’t swear. A promise is good enough.”
“Alright… I promise you I will never let these people use me to capture more kids to torture as they do you now…”
I was still smiling. Teddy still hadn’t changed from the way he sounded on the net. An all-around good hearted guy. I just prayed I’d either die fast or escape soon from this wretched place…
“’eddy…”
“Hum?”
“Am I ever goin’ to ee able to leaf this place...”
“I… I don’t know… I honestly don’t know…”
“Mm… ok…” I was still thinking my life was going to be a living Hell for the next life time when my little light bulb went off.”
“Teddy? I have sorta… a personal question to ask you…”
“Um… shoot.” He smiled to me with an understanding that by answering me he would make me feel better.
“What are the weak points of an Eraser? Like in the body structure?” He gave me a blank stare like, ”What is he up to…” but he soon concluded the reason for my question.
“Ah… you want more of a fair fight when they pit you against the Erasers?”
“Yesh.” My lisp from my fat lip was really starting to bug me. Almost as bad as the smell of the cage bugged me, but not quite.
“Ok, gimme a second…”
He stood up and transformed into his Wolf-man form. He look considerably better than the rest of the Erasers. He also quickly explained why.
“The reason I look better than the Erasers you fight against, is I was an experiment as you are. A prototype. I wasn’t intimidating enough for them. I also have no real drive to fight. I’m useless to them for training, but I still have the ability to coax people. So that’s why I have the job of ‘fetching‘ people.”
He chuckled to himself over the pun. I, however, got up and took a closer look at this puppyish looking Eraser. I’d almost say he was a dark brown dog who was wearing clothes and walking erect. He just kinda looked at me wondering what was going threw my head as he got up as well and explained briefly about the points of fatality on the Eraser’s body. I watched everything and made mental notes of where to plant my blows. In an hours time and a long lecture later I felt safer knowing how to defend myself against my foes.
“Alright William, your going to have to get back into your cage now…”
“Alright…” I spoke gloomily. “But can I see one thing first?”
He rolled his eyes and said “Sure…” with a chuckle.
I walked up to him and scratched his little puppyish ears.
“Thanks Teddy… I owe you one for this…”
“Ah… that feels really good… huh? Oh… no… you don’t owe me anything… I brought you here remember….”
“True” I was still rubbing his ears. “But you helped me to the best you could. Thru all events now I think we are even.”
“Emm… as you wish…”
He locked me back in my cage shortly after I finished rubbing his ears and we parted until tomorrow…
He awoke in his cage of horror to the sounds of his fellow experiments moaning. ‘They must have just come back from testing rooms…’ he thought to himself. ’They’re going to be comin’ for my cage any minute…’ the two hideous Erasers waltzed up to him in such a gleeful manner he was already sickened by them before they spoke. He wished Teddy was there to retrieve him instead of these to low-life goons.
“Hi there little fella.” Spoke one as he leaned over sideways to peer into the cage.
“Its ok little guy… were not going to hurt you…” Spoke the other as he lowered his face to the bars as he unlocked the doggy crate.
“BS” he spoke firmly with power.
“No, were not kidding… Ya see… WE’RE not going to hurt you. The ‘dreaded white coats’ are…” He put too much emphasis on the, ’we’re, and put the sad girly sounds to the ‘Dreaded white coats’. It could creep out even the toughest varsity football player.
He was dragged to a relatively large room and told to ‘avoid danger’ as best he could. The young Erasers were released from their cages to sick their prey which to his unfortunate had been in the same procedures everyday with Erasers. The Erasers understood now if they tried to overtake their victim by just charging they would lose the advance and be put on the defensive. They circled the poor boy; now, the boys had not the fortune of the Erasers performing in group operations. So unknown what to expect he was ambushed by one side as a distraction while the rest took his tuned back. Blow after blow came as well as the sharp claws and—
“Magic! Get of me!” I sat up in bed, sweating his head off from the nightmare.
“Bloody cat… why does she need to stab me in the middle of the night with her claws…”
I logged on to my computer and signed right onto the Maximum Ride Forum. My discovery of the Maximum Ride books By James Patterson led me to join the forum and enjoy the wonderful people there. I posted on the RP’s for a while and then started a topic on the General Discussion: Assorted Topics. “I had this really weird nightmare….” And I wrote on and on about what happened. It’s like I was really there… Sort of like a premonition…*bring!!!* A little window appeared on my screen. A personal message. I opened it not even realizing how it was about to change my insignificant life.
“Hey there Mr.Man!!! My name is Teddy and I thought I’d bother you as you seem to like to help people. See, I’m a little new here and I thought yo could show me around so to speak…” the message went on and on.
It didn’t take long for me to become friends with Teddy. He was a really nice kid. He understood anything I told him. He lived somewhere in Colorado and we hope some day years down the road to meet. I kept up to par with the forum and I got to see everything that went on there. As was my job I helped the newbie’s in adjusting to the site and I kept spirits high. Teddy had grown fond of the site and became well liked in the site. One day I go the news of my life.
“Hey Man!!! Guess what! My dad has a business trip to where you’re at and he told me I could come along so I could meet you in person!!!”
It was too good to be true. My good friend coming to California to see me! I told him my excitement and he told me to meet him at my local community center and I gave him the directions to get there.
I sat at the bench with my cell phone and ipod mini waiting for him to arrive. He told me he was going to be arriving in a white van his dad’s company uses. However he neglected to tell me who his dad worked for so I had a very rough time every time a white van went by and it didn’t stop. After the 20th or so van and after 20 instant adrenaline rushes a white van stopped at the curb. My heart did a back flip in anticipation to meet him face to face. Out walked a tall boy a little taller than me with black hair, brown eyes, and standing at around 6’.
“Hey, are you William?”
“And you must be Teddy?”
“Wow! It’s so nice to meet you in person…”
“Indeed, I’ve waited a very long time to meet you.”
“Likewise… Er… William?”
“Yes.”
“I have a little confession to make…”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“You see, my ‘dad’ wanted to meet you long ago… I tried to leave you messages in code so you would understand to forget me but you didn’t…”
“Teddy?... What are you saying?...”
“I- I’m a recruiter… I’m sorry William…”
“A recruiter for what? I don’t understand…”
“Maximum Ride. I go make accounts and log on to make good friends with people to abduct from the site to use in The School.”
“What?”
“William, the book Maximum Ride is real. There really is a School. And I’m sorry… your on the ‘Scholarship’ list…”
“So…”
“Yea. The more I got to talk to you the more I really started to like you as a friend. I tried to save you from this but it didn’t work… I’m really sorry to do this to you William…” He pulled out a hypodermic needle out and injected me with some clear fluid. I felt all woozy and I could still here Teddy saying, ‘I’m so sorry, William’, as darkness consumed me…
Chapter 2
I awoke to a bunch of really bright lights shinning on me. I felt really warm. There must have been at least four doctors crowded around me using really complicated words and stuff. I got some of it from biology. The pancreas… the liver… Why were they talking about internally organs? One of the doctors noticed I had woken up and leaned towards my face.
“Can you feel anything?”
“No” I replied weekly. Like it was difficult to draw in breath. But that was before I noticed the hose attached to my neck. It was breathing for me!
“What are you doing to me…” I was starting to panic, I lifted my head and looked down the table at my self and at the other doctors. They started to panic and tried to re sedate me and restrain me. But not before I got a good look at my present condition. To put it in layman’s terms I had been flayed like a fish. I could see everything from my lungs down to my lower intestines. I nearly threw up. Nobody should be allowed to view their own organs… I slipped back into dreamland with the poke of another needle.
I awoke to find myself in a tiny cage on my back. I nearly fit in the bloody thing. I sat up a little and looked back at my stomach. I confronted a sharp pain and layed back down. But luckily I saw enough. I had been re sewn up. I could no longer see my beating heart. What a relief. Some one walked up to my tinny cage and put a hose threw the bars and pushed it towards my lips. I refused.
“Its food. Come on. Take it. You won’t heal if you don’t eat.”
I reluctantly took the tube and drank the meal threw the straw. It tasted like plastic. Another person opened the cage and put a needle in my arm. I felt woozy again and soon fell asleep.
I awoke again on the operating table. I quickly noticed the same doctors as before were operating on me as looked down to see the horrors of what they were doing to me know. Nothing. I was restrained, but uncut. I have IV’s running to me and a few thingamabobs, but no incisions. As I was looking I heard Teddy behind me.
“William? Are you awake?”
“Mmm…Yup.” I replied in a drugged/high tone.
“Ok, here’s what they did to you they-”
“Do I really wanna know…”
“Yes. And no. They did an exploratory surgery. To see how your body was structured for their own eyes. They also, er… ‘altered’ a few major points of your skeleton, nervous system and various other systems… ”
“So… Now I’m a super freak?” I must have sounded so funny to him being so drugged.
“Er… Not yet… You see those funny looking colored IV bags have chemicals which will break down your nucleus in you cells and allow other chemicals along with new DNA to enter and mutate your body. I’m so sorry William. This process will not be pleasant and it will take a while to work.”
“…” I soon felt the effects of the chemicals and I was lucky the pain kept me in a state of unconsciousness. The pain is unimaginable…
Chapter 3
I woke up less than eight hours later and I felt like someone had dumped me in a giant vat of oil and lit me on fire. I mean, WOW! If you’ve ever been by a candle, you ain’t felt NOTHIN’. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see my flesh melting of my bones. But as I moved so painfully to see I was still in one piece, I felt a hand on my shoulder and a smooth motion of an injection into my arm. I didn’t feel the shot or understand what the blurry figure was saying to me. It was a soothing voice which came from what I believed to be a male. As my eyes slowly took back to focus I could see it was Teddy who was speaking to me. Boy, I hated his guts for what he’s put me threw. Lied to me, abducted me, and now he was injecting me with foreign liquids! The hatred that was slowly filling me was also slowly beginning to block out the pain. I just need a little more strength and I’ll be able to wring this little turds neck and stick him with his own needle. But alas… I’m slowly beginning to black out… My last glimpse of him is a sad look on his face and he is trying to tell me something…
Over the course of my next few wake-ups and passing-outs I received the same treatment. Stick with needles… Can’t see jack… Can’t understand anything being said… and the weirdest thing is only teddy is the one giving me the shots. I haven’t seen any other doctors in the room at the times for my ‘daily dosage’. Well, maybe others might have been there at other times of my injections. I seemed to have developed a memory laps during my drugged time in my new home. Luckily the pain began to go away after the 15th wakeup. Or is it the 25 wake up… I can’t remember to good… Stupid drugs…
“William? Can you hear me? William…”
This wakeup call was different. I had perfect vision and I could hear Teddy’s voice perfectly.
“I can hear ya… What do you want…”
I gave him the cold shoulder.
“William, please understand what I’ve been doing to you for these past few weeks was completely in your interest. If I hadn’t come in here every other day or so to inject you with morphine you would have been in a world of pain.”
“Oh really… Why have I been needing morphine”
“Something tells me I gave you too much… Your DNA has been completely modified. THAT’S why you needed morphine.”
“Like what kind of modifying did you do…”
“Er… It’s hard for me to say what they did to you… I don’t get to know the details… I let you see for your self…”
Teddy slowly stood up and I tried to stand up to go with him, but I quickly found myself to be in a confined space of about no bigger than me… I also seemed to have a small buffer between me and the roof of the cage… But the strangest thing was I could feel the buffer like it was apart of me… I instinctively ran my hand up to my back to inspect my surroundings and my hand came to rest on a soft textured cloth like material on my back. I grabbed where the joint appeared to be and I tried to pull the object towards my face. I had some difficulty with the small space, but I had even more trouble with trying to concentrate bringing it into the light and not losing my cool as what I was doing I could feel the whole way. All I can say is the feeling was much more different than one could expect. As I pulled the material into the light I could see the feathers and the shape of the wing. I freaked. I went berserk in the cage flailing trying to get out of the cage. Claustrophobia never was my friend. I could feel the new wings on my back hitting the roof of the cage. It didn’t feel so great. Neither did the injection Teddy gave me to cool me down.
“I was afraid he would do this…”
Chapter 4
I awoke in the same tinny cage to, surprisingly, my own internal clock. I haven’t slept normally in the longest time. Now how did I fall asleep… Oh yea… I moved my hand up my back until I could feel the curvature of the wings. They were surprisingly soft compared to the way one would think they would feel. I would have almost been enjoying the moment if I wasn’t in a tiny cage and unable to stretch them out to full span. I mean. I didn’t even know what they looked like. So as careful as can be I took a firm grip on the base of one of the LE (leading edge) feathers and I pulled hard and fast like you would if you were pulling out a hair (actually feathers are a more complex form of hair) cause my parents always said,”If your gonna do sumthing stupid, do it quick.”.
“OW!”
That hurt like you wouldn’t believe. I rubbed the spot where I pulled the feather from with one hand while I pulled the feather into view with my other hand. I stared at it like I did earlier. It had a nice pattern to it. It reminded me of the falcons I saw in the park next to my house. They could hover by flapping their wings rapidly and shortly. It was really nifty…
A creaking door brought me back to reality. I day-dream WAY too much…
“William? Are you awake? It’s Teddy…”
“Yea…” I spoke with an achy tone to my voice. ”I’m up… sorta.”
“Heh… Do you want me to change that for a while?”
“Am I going to feel more pain?”
“Ha, ha, ha… no, no, no… I’m going to let you out to stretch your wings. I can tell you want to.”
“Yes I do, I would like that very much.”
“k, one sec…”
He opened my cage with the turn of a little key. I heard a little pop and the door to my cage slowly opened.
“Wow… I never thought I’d be glad to see you again…”
I slowly crawled out of my cage and stood up. My back must have popped at least eight times.
“Careful, Will. Don’t hurt yourself.”
“I know, I know…”
I stretched my shoulders back and slowly unfurled my wings. If you’ve ever felt awkward at parties and stuff from just looking weird, you know sorta how I felt. Except there was kinda a warm fuzzy feeling, like the ones you get after you get out of a car after driving for 3 hours non stop. It feels REALLY good. I looked at my wings and for the first time at full span and I could see their colors. They were like that of a falcon. I couldn’t place my finger on the species though… I really thought the speckles of brown, red, and black made a really cool illusion.
“Ah… That feels good… Will they let me fly here Teddy?”
“I’m sorry to say, no they won’t. I’m not even to have supposed to have let you out of your cage… your one of the lucky ones…”
“I see…” I was still looking amazed at my right wing. I kept twitching my feathers. Because of my previous talents of flying R/C airplanes I could figure out different mixes with the positioning of my feathers. Flaps… CROW … Faperons… elevons… ailerons… spoilers… (For the non-pilots, Flaps is when the control surfaces at the back of the wing go down, CROW is a glider programmable mixes where the ailerons (controls roll on that plane) go up while the flaps (the control surfaces before the ailerons which create more lift at slower speeds) go down. The effect is an air break in speed and elevation at the same time (You have to slow a plane down before applying flaps or else you get undesired amounts of lift.) Elevons are when the elevation controls and the roll control surfaces are combined into two surfaces. Flaperons… I can’t remember those to good…) I was so intrigued by them that I didn’t even realize what Teddy was telling me about what was going to happen to me in the next few days. I’ll probably be glad I wasn’t listening.
“Will! Crap! Get back in your cage! Their coming!!! The other Erasers! Their coming to bring you to your first tests!!! Quick, back in your cage!!”
I hurly and un happily got back into the cramped little box. It’s not fun when some one lets you out to stretch and then they force you back into a tinny space. But I complied hoping Teddy would be able to come back to me at a later date and let me out again…
Chapter 5
Anyone ever been in the center of one of those classic fight scenes in movies? Ya know, the ones where the poor kid gets the living daylights beat out of him? Ya. That’s how I felt. One the first training exercise they tried to test my endurance and stuff. I got stuck right in the middle against an Eraser who won. Badly. But not only that, the rest of the Erasers wanted a piece of me. The most depressing part was the White Coats didn’t even bat an eyelid… They just told the Erasers to make sure they didn’t break anything important. Latter that night I was happy to find Teddy entering my room with a tray of food.
“Hey… Will?”
“Yesh…” I had a fat lip from a kick in the mouth. It’s a miracle I didn’t break any teeth.
“Ew… You don’t sound too good… I’m glad I brought you soup instead of solids…”
“Heh, so am I…” I drank the straw threw a soup- Wait. Pardon me… I got kicked one too many times I think... I drank the soup threw a straw and I cherished its flavor for all it was worth.
“Will… I’m still really sorry I let this happen to you… I swear-“
I stopped him mid-sentence. And smiled at him with my sore and bruised face.
“Don’t swear. A promise is good enough.”
“Alright… I promise you I will never let these people use me to capture more kids to torture as they do you now…”
I was still smiling. Teddy still hadn’t changed from the way he sounded on the net. An all-around good hearted guy. I just prayed I’d either die fast or escape soon from this wretched place…
“’eddy…”
“Hum?”
“Am I ever goin’ to ee able to leaf this place...”
“I… I don’t know… I honestly don’t know…”
“Mm… ok…” I was still thinking my life was going to be a living Hell for the next life time when my little light bulb went off.”
“Teddy? I have sorta… a personal question to ask you…”
“Um… shoot.” He smiled to me with an understanding that by answering me he would make me feel better.
“What are the weak points of an Eraser? Like in the body structure?” He gave me a blank stare like, ”What is he up to…” but he soon concluded the reason for my question.
“Ah… you want more of a fair fight when they pit you against the Erasers?”
“Yesh.” My lisp from my fat lip was really starting to bug me. Almost as bad as the smell of the cage bugged me, but not quite.
“Ok, gimme a second…”
He stood up and transformed into his Wolf-man form. He look considerably better than the rest of the Erasers. He also quickly explained why.
“The reason I look better than the Erasers you fight against, is I was an experiment as you are. A prototype. I wasn’t intimidating enough for them. I also have no real drive to fight. I’m useless to them for training, but I still have the ability to coax people. So that’s why I have the job of ‘fetching‘ people.”
He chuckled to himself over the pun. I, however, got up and took a closer look at this puppyish looking Eraser. I’d almost say he was a dark brown dog who was wearing clothes and walking erect. He just kinda looked at me wondering what was going threw my head as he got up as well and explained briefly about the points of fatality on the Eraser’s body. I watched everything and made mental notes of where to plant my blows. In an hours time and a long lecture later I felt safer knowing how to defend myself against my foes.
“Alright William, your going to have to get back into your cage now…”
“Alright…” I spoke gloomily. “But can I see one thing first?”
He rolled his eyes and said “Sure…” with a chuckle.
I walked up to him and scratched his little puppyish ears.
“Thanks Teddy… I owe you one for this…”
“Ah… that feels really good… huh? Oh… no… you don’t owe me anything… I brought you here remember….”
“True” I was still rubbing his ears. “But you helped me to the best you could. Thru all events now I think we are even.”
“Emm… as you wish…”
He locked me back in my cage shortly after I finished rubbing his ears and we parted until tomorrow…