The Mind manifests 16


A buzzer sounded, and I rolled over to see the sliding panel on the door opening, taking the tray with the remaining rats away. Before it had a chance to close, I jumped at it, and thrust my arm through. "I demand to speak with the General! You have no right to be keeping us like this! Even the Geneva Convention requires supplying cooked food!"

  My protest was only met by a surge from the shock collar I had forgotten I was wearing. I convulsed, as did Loku, and as soon as my hand retreated from the opening, it slammed shut. Loku shakily got to his feet "Dude, what the hell?"

  "Sorry, that was my fault, I was trying to demand to see the General."
  "Fucking classic, we ask to talk to the man in charge, and get shocked...I actually forgot I was wearing this thing."
  "Yeah, me too."

  A moment later, the door started opening. I got to my feet as quickly as I could, and kept my distance. To my overwhelming relief, I saw Dr. Maxwell, who said, "Yes, that's the one."

  One of his escorts stood next to the door, and said in a gruff voice. "Alright, lizard, get out here."

  I looked back at Loku, then at Maxwell. Loku just smiled, and said, "Go on, I'll be fine."

  I walked out of the cell, and was stopped by the MP, who put a muzzle over my face. I looked over at the Doc and tried to grin, which was likely invisible behind the metal plate and the nylon straps around my snout, and said, "Just like old times, eh?"

  "I'm terribly sorry about this, Daniel, I'll see to it that heads roll for what they did to you, I'm sorry that I couldn't intervene until the test was concluded."
  "What test?"
  "Starvation."
  "Fuck, you mean they were doing that on purpose?"
  "Yes, they wanted to see how long you'd last before resorting to killing and eating with your bare hands."
  "That's just fucking sick as hell, who the fuck...you know what...I don't even care...how long did we last, anyways?"
  "You held out for 89 hours and 16 minutes, Leo held out for another 8 minutes."
  "That's just sick...and were we really in there that long?"
  "Well, that time includes the time since your last meal, but yes, you two were in there for three days before my pleas finally went through and they let you back into my custody."

  I looked at the steel door of the cell I had been in. "What about Leo?"

  "I could only get permission to take you with me, I'm a herpetologist, no one would ever dream of letting me oversee the care of a wolf."

  I looked at Maxwell, then back at the cell, I didn't want to leave him behind, but it didn't seem I had an option, so I just followed my escort.

  I was led through several long hallways and passageways back to Maxwell's lab. I went through the doors, and was immediately tackled by Tealwing, who started licking my face eagerly. "Nice to see you, too."

  I struggled to keep from falling over as he crawled around and back to his place on my back that he loved so much, where he latched on and started purring. Having him there again made me feel so much better.

  Maxwell removed the muzzle, and as he put it on a table, he said, "Sorry, but it wasn't just because I'm a reptile specialist that I got you back, it's because of your unique position, you seem to know a lot about the transformations, and we currently have a dragon who's still changing, and not only that, doesn't have a crystal."

  "How the hell does that work?"
  "No idea, that's why they brought him here, I'm all prepped to start the scan, but I was hoping you could do your dragon whispering thing with him like you did with Tealwing."
  "Oh, so he's bestial, then?"
  "Yes, acting completely feral when he's awake, and he's only awake about one quarter of the time."
  "Could you take me to him?"
  "Of course."

  Maxwell led me to the testing room, and the bed was now sitting in the middle of the room with what looked like the top half of an MRI on rollers next to it. On the bed was an unconscious teenager. His wrists, ankles, and neck were tied down, and his left arm was covered in grey scales all the way up to the shoulder, where there was a slight bulge, the beginnings of a wing.

I looked back over to Maxwell to see two more doctors and an orderly come in, who looked like he could bench press cars. The wall of muscles walked over to me and looked down. "This the lizard you were talking about?"

  I gulped audibly as Tealwing cowered on my back, and Maxwell said, "No no no, the green one is my assistant, the one on the bed is the one you were called for, we only need you in case he becomes violent again."

  I looked over at Maxwell. "Violent?"

  "Yes, when I said feral, I meant it, he attacks anything that comes near when he's awake."

  The orderly went over to the bed as the two doctors went to the machine, and he looked down at him. "This doesn't look like a dragon to me, it looks like a kid."

  "Make no mistake, he's turning into one, just like Daniel here, and he has inhuman strength, don't underestimate him."

  One of the two doctors flipped a few switches, and said, "Okay, we're ready when you are."

  Maxwell nodded and the machine started slowly pulling itself over the bed as red and green lines formed a grid around the teenager, likely showing where the scans were taking place at.

  I looked over at Maxwell, who was already sitting behind a computer, then back at the scanning device, and asked, "What exactly did you need me for, you seem to have this under control."

  "We need you for when he wakes up, you have firsthand knowledge of what he's going through, and so are better suited to calming him down."
  "Yeah, I can see how that would help."

  The scan progressed, and a 3-D image of him appeared on the screen. I paid close attention as it passed his arm "Hey, what are those?"

  I pointed to several white shapes in his arm, surrounded by what looked like scarred tissue, and Maxwell zoomed in on them. "It looks like rocks. I was told to expect shrapnel, the meteorite apparently exploded, and that's how he was exposed in the first place."

  I just watched as the scan kept going, right past one rock that had a perfectly smooth shape. "Hey, what's that?"

  "Hmm...What is that? It's too perfectly shaped to be a piece of stone, and the density is off."

  He clicked a few buttons, and it was isolated from the rest of the image and began slowly spinning in a 3D render "Doc, you do realize what that is, right?"

  "It's a crystal."
  "And if I'm right, it's a green crystal. Doc, I don't know if this is risking it or not, but I observed my own get charged very rapidly in the presence of microwave radiation, if you were to expose him to low level doses, that could simulate sunlight and allow the change to finish."
  "Two things about that, we need to find out exactly how these crystals cause the transformations, and also, microwave radiation could give him cancer."
  "Doc, I've seen these crystals perform very potent advanced healing, look."

  I lifted up my lip, and showed him the tooth half grown in where the other had been knocked out. "I lost that tooth when Leo punched me for slapping him in front of the guards, and it's already growing back. I don't think cancer is any concern with healing like that."

  "I see what you mean, even though there's a chance dragons regenerate teeth anyways. But regardless, our observations are on how the radiant fields assimilate tissue, we can't allow it to progress until we get more data."
  "Fine, but could you at least remove the rest of the shrapnel?"
  "Of course, I already planned on that once the scan was done."

  The scan finished as the machine passed his feet, and the two doctors came over to the computer as the Orderly stood by the teenager.

  I heard the teen grunt and moan a little. I turned around to see him moving slightly, so I inched over, ignoring the tech talk from the doctors.

  I got close, and sniffed at him, I'm not quite sure why. He smelled like you'd expect a human to smell, and by that, I mean slightly sweaty. But there was something else, I sniffed again, and I could faintly smell something, I couldn't place my finger on it. Before I could ponder it more, his eyes shot open and he looked over at me before snarling like an animal and jerking and twisting at his restraints.

  I jumped back and the Orderly held him down so he couldn't hurt himself. "God damn, is this kid on steroids or something?"

  I could tell that even with his bulk, that he was having trouble, so I went over and helped while a doctor ran for sedative. Teal could tell this was a dangerous situation, and he let go of my back, running over to the desk with the computers, and hiding under it.

  I locked eyes with the teenager, and something just hit me, like a mental tidal wave, and it nearly made me lose my grip on him. I shook it off, and the orderly glanced over at me. "You alright there, gecko?"

  "Yeah, yeah, just got dizzy. My last meal disagreed with me."

  I kept holding him down, and took the risk of leaning down as I saw a doctor coming back in with an automatic injection gun. I got as close as I could risk with him actually snapping at me like a dog, and said softly, keeping my eyes locked with his, "We're here to help, but we can't if you keep struggling, you need to calm down."

  He kept struggling, but after a moment, he slowed down a little, relaxing just enough for the doctor to get a grip on his arm and inject the sedative.

  His breathing slowed down after a few moments, and he eventually passed out. As I let go, I sighed. "Damn, what the hell would make him like that? Are some of the others like him?"

  Maxwell nodded, and replied, "He makes the fifth one that just went entirely insane, now do you see why it was protocol for you to have a shock collar?"

  "Yeah."

  I rubbed at my collar, then looked down at him, he was just a kid, like me. A glint of something caught my eye. He was wearing a necklace. I reached down and took it, it was a silver sword and shield. Scratched into the back of it was the name 'Aaron'.

  I looked down at him. "Just who the hell are you?"