LOCKED (7 page)

“There he is! C’mon, I’ll
show you.” Eddy hurried me along to the far end of the room where the mech
laid. As we walked along, I couldn’t help but notice the neat geometric pattern
of gray tiles on the ground. Upon closer inspection through the somewhat
translucent material, each tile was filled to the brim with circuits, like a
treasure chest of electronics in plain sight. We soon reached the end of the
room, and I was in awe of the mech.

It probably stood around ten
feet tall, although it was hard to tell by the sitting position it was in. Its
right arm had a menacing drill instead of a hand like the other arm did. Its
body was wide and thick with metal plates and strong titanium; not a single
scratch was on it. Its composition was rigid. Very few curves adorned it except
for the chest, where there were more plates attached. Finally, at the top was a
very square and squat head, practically hiding behind its impenetrable fortress
of metal on the chest. The entire frame gleamed with a reflective silver. It
had two very small light bulbs in place of eyes, but they were inactive at the
time.

“Meet Tank.” Eddy let out a
long, proud sigh, once again with his hands on his hips.

“Tank?”

“
Mhm
.
Built him myself. Practically from scratch.”

“
From scratch? This?
”
I asked in an incredulous tone.

“
Mhm
!”
He smacked my back in a good-hearted manner. He went over to a small control
panel on the wall beside the mech. He typed in a few numbers once more, and I
looked around the room when I heard a very low mechanical drone, slowly
decreasing in pitch. It sounded like a computer of some sort was shutting down.
Eddy went over to the mech and started pulling the wires and cables off of it a
few at a time. Once they all were in a bundled heap on the ground, the
mechanized beast’s eyes lit up red. I stepped back, startled, but Eddy held up
a hand to tell me it was alright. It spoke with the sound of thousands of
grinding gears, language refined for electronic ears. After it was done
regurgitating computer commands and outputs, it slowly rose; I could hear
hundreds of little zips and zaps from the circuitry inside. It stood up
perfectly straight, as if it was a soldier in the military; the only difference
was that this machine would rank far, far higher than any mere grunt man.

“What’s it…what’s it used
for?” I asked in awe. Eddy walked around this machine, this “Tank” and stood by
my side.

“Mostly defense, sometimes
other things. When we need someone to go scouting an’ it’s too dangerous for
one of our guys, we send Tank in. HE’S not getting blown to bits anytime soon.”
Eddy grinned, showing his shining white teeth once more.

“Yep…” Eddy walked up to
Tank once more. “Steel platting six inches deep. Can see in every mode of
light. Infrared, X-Ray, normal you-and-me vision, you got it. Sees for two hundred-fifty
miles in fine, fine detail. ” Eddy put a cautious hand onto Tank’s drill, the
one it (he?) had in place of a right arm.

“THIS, this can drill
through just about any material. Can go for hours without
breakin
’
an oil sweat. Oh, and he’s quick as hell!” Eddy laughed. Eddy stepped back, and
pulled on my arm. He led us to a pillar that was quite far away from Tank,
maybe twenty-five feet.

“
Electrifyin
’.”
Eddy smiled. He pressed a few buttons that were integrated into the pillar, and
Tank was immediately alive. Tiny drones fell from the ceiling, hovering a few
feet above the ground. They were simple metallic spheres with a tiny gun built
into themselves, and an even smaller white “eye” on the front. It didn’t even
take five seconds for Tank to dispose of half a dozen of them. He put his drill
to good use, scrambling in mere milliseconds the small robotic brains that the
drones had. With his free hand, he smashed the others to bits, slamming them
into the ground. The entire time, Tank was a symphony of spinning gears, a
whirring drill, and twisting pieces. Only moments later, spare parts, oil, and
small fires were all over the place. Of course, for good measure, Tank used the
tiny extinguisher in the compartment in his shoulder to put out any fires that were
created.

"He's a Swiss Army
Knife too?" I sarcastically asked. Eddy beamed once again.

"Yep! He's got a Geiger
counter, flashlight, compass, visual and audio recorders, and a self-repair
mechanism."

"And this thing is
built to
defend
?"

"Basically." he
shrugged when he replied. I was too afraid to ask what Eddy could come up with
if he wanted a machine for advancing on an enemy in true war, an all-or-nothing
battle, the very kind that was simply waiting to happen in the powder keg we
lived in. However, there was one thing I wasn't too afraid to ask.

"NOW can we get back to
Danni?" I begged. Eddy sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, alright.
Gimme
a sec." Eddy went over to Tank, guided him to
the wall, pressed a few more switches there, and he was lifeless once more.
Eddy plugged all the necessary cables back into Tank, and we were off back down
the hallway. We went through the labyrinth doused in red once more, opened the
gate to the room we were previously in and found Danni again.

"Good timing, Ed. We just
finished up a minute ago." the lab worker reported. He looked over to
Danni and me, and clasped his hands together. He was now wearing a white lab
coat, very closely matching his skin tone. He had short, wispy white hair, a
white mustache, and large horn-rimmed glasses. He looked like a man raised by
hazardous, prismatic chemicals and taught by an endless stream of books filled
with equations and formulas until they were ready to burst.

“"Well...for those of
you who don't know, I'm Doctor
Beich
. I've been
working for U.S.P.L. for quite some time, doing research in general science,
medicine, and recently, the disease in Europe.” He held his hands together and
created an awkward silence. Each person in the room knew he was done, so we
silently resumed our tasks.

 As Eddy went over to
discuss the results with
Beich
, I took the
opportunity to get Danni to explain to me her own situation here. We walked
into a corner of the room so we could have a little privacy in our chat.

"Danni, what the hell?
What are you doing here, and why didn't you ever tell me you had a photographic
memory?" I asked.

"Hey, it’s been a
nightmare for me too. When I was just going to go visit you earlier in the new
prison... well, what
was
the new prison…I had no idea what it was like
inside. I saw you wandering around, and how relaxed everyone was. The guard
looked like he was drunk, high, or both, so I took the opportunity. I
dunno
what I was thinking; I just wanted you out of there,
especially since I wasn’t able to see you when you were in the hospital. So I
got you out, and I must've seen the helicopter before you. We got split up from
there... after that—"

"Wait, when was I in a
hospital?!"

"You were there for
weeks after the case! The security
in those places
was tight; I could
only get a quick glimpse at you. In the hospital, they basically just threw you
in a glass box with some tubes and crap. You're lucky you didn't die. When I
heard about you being taken out of the hospital and being thrown in jail, I
just assumed that you were better again. I never even found out what exactly
happened to you until the doctor filled me in on everything..." she threw
her arms around me once more.

"Believe me; you don't
wanna
know... it was hell. It's behind me now. But...
photographic memory...?" I smiled gently, just to try and change the
subject. She groaned in an irritated tone.

"In a minute! Anyway,
tell me your end of the story. How you got here. Then I'll tell you mine."
she bargained.

"Alright. Well, I got
chased by that helicopter... It started firing on me, I got
sho
—OH
GOD, MY LEG!" I had just remembered! I quickly turned around and grabbed
the one that had been shot, and... it was just fine. I was astonished that the
thought had escaped me in between all the events that happened since that
moment. All eyes in the room were on me.

"What is it?!"
Danni asked shakily, eyes wide open. My own eyes were open wider, and I tried
to run every thought from the past few days through my head. Eddy and
Beich
walked over to me to find out what I was screaming
about.

"I ran into the subway,
the helicopter tried shooting at me... I got hit a few times but it didn't hurt
or anything... and now it's fine..." I whispered to myself, but loud
enough for Danni to hear. Just a second later, we snapped our heads from my leg
to each other's eyes.

"MILLER'S DRUG."
we said in unison. We looked over to Eddy and
Beich
,
and they just looked at me as though the concept of bullet wounds healing themselves
in a few hours was abnormal. The two looked at each other, and back to me.

"You're coming with
me."
Beich
somehow commanded non-threateningly.
Eddy and Danni tagged along as I was led out of the room, down the
claustrophobic corridors, and into a slightly larger room which basically was
the same as the one Danni was being tested in except for the single rotten cot
in the middle of the room.

"Alright, hop in.” he
pointed to the cot. I did as he told, and laid back. The fibers underneath me
felt like spider webs, ready to break at any moment. I watched him the entire
time, which I did have a bad habit of doing with nurses, dentists, and now
doctors I found in a factory. He ruffled through some boxes underneath the cot
for a moment.

"Ok, this'll hurt for
just a second..."
Beich
muttered as he pulled my
pants leg up a bit, and prepared a needle that he got from the little box. He
rubbed it lightly with alcohol, its burning smell filling the room.

"AH, GOD!" I
screamed out when I felt the needle shoved right into the back of my leg, even
after I realized I hadn't really FELT its sting, just the needle going in.

“Calm down, you’re fine,
you’re fine... don’t act like a child…" he groaned as he turned away,
thinking I couldn't hear him.  

"Eddy."
Beich
held out his hand, and Eddy threw his hand into his
own pocket for a moment before pulling out the familiar little black device
he'd been using every so often.
Beich
took it from
Eddy, and held it over the needle for a second.

"Not bad." I
commented. So far, the little device was a messenger and a medical sampler. The
screen on the device showed several graphs and blurry images of what I guessed
were blood cells or something of the sort.

Beich
gasped quietly. I tried to shoot right up out of the bed and just ask him what
was wrong with me, but he quickly subdued me with a gentle push back onto the
bed and I came to the conclusion that he knew what he was doing. He slid his
fingers over the graphs and quickly reviewed any and all statistics that came
up with startling speed.

"So... it really
does
look like your wounds repair themselves literally in seconds." he
gulped. This time, I really did shoot straight up.

"Leo, I think this is a
side effect of either the original medication Miller gave you, or the shot that
supposedly fixed what the first did." the doctor tried to explain in the
most down-to-earth way possible without using terminology he knew I wouldn't
understand. He showed me a visual display on the little black device he was
using. It had two videos side by side, one was my own blood cells and the other
video featured normal blood cells. My own seemed to be moving around much more
erratically; jumping, running, jerking much faster than the other.
Beich
pulled out a small scalpel from underneath the cot,
and held the device in his other hand.

"This won't hurt a bit.
And this time, I actually mean it." he chuckled sadistically. He made a
small incision, so minute that I couldn't even feel it. He quickly put the
scalpel aside, pressed the touch screen on the device a few times, and held it
up to the microscopic cut he had just made. 

"Hmm... I'm going to be
perfectly honest; I've never seen anything like it. I saw that cut mend itself
before my eyes. And there's morphine in it too! You won't feel pain!" the
doctor let out a deep breath with wide eyes.

"I hope you don't
mind..." he mumbled before shoving the wicked needle right back into my
leg, taking a blood sample, and slipping it right back out. The lab worker
walked over to a machine on the other side of the room to store the new found
"magic" blood. I turned back to Danni.

"So... photographic
memory?" I grinned from ear to ear, hoping that she'd finally explain. She
sighed and smiled at the same time, and sat down next to me.

"Yep, I've got it. I
just never really wanted to talk about it because... well, think about it! You
remember EVERYTHING. I never wanted you to think any differently of me for
having a little quirk. I remember the weather on this date three years ago. I
remember page thirty-six of my math book when I was eight (it was on PEMDAS). I
remember when I thought I wouldn’t be able to save you..." she exhaled and
blushed. Her frustration grew the more she explained, clearly uncomfortable
that I wasn't the only member of the audience of her explanation. Thankfully,
the awkwardness was cleansed from the room when the lab worker found something
to say.