Psychosis

[Jimbo san]

Pain. He woke and felt pain. It seared through his brain as if a red-hot steel rod had been stuck in his head. Flashes of light burst in front of his eyes, and he winced, barely able to see through the pain induced hallucinations. He shook his head to clear it, grimacing as he did so and looked down at his arms through the haze of pain. He was manacled to a chair.

Screaming in fury, he reached out with his mind and tore the steel manacles off the chair, releasing him. He stood up and saw that he was in a small hexagonal mirrored room. He saw his reflection in the mirror and realised he was a boy, and a naked one at that. He fingered his scalp and saw that the source of his pain was a hole drilled into the side of his head, with a docking device for syringes attached to it. Donning a surgical gown in the corner of the room, he surveyed the lock. Steel again. He grunted with the effort but tore the lock apart with his mind, the twisted remnants falling to the steel floor with a clang. He stepped out warily into the corridor.

A guard was sleeping outside the room, sitting in a comfortable swivel chair at a desk, and the boy tapped him on the shoulder. The man woke up and screamed upon seeing the boy. He reached out with a hand to the alarm panel, but there was a gristly cracking noise and the hand bent backwards at an alarming angle under the pressure of the boy’s mind. The man went white and dropped to the floor.

‘Who am I?’ asked the boy.

‘I don’t know!’ wailed the stricken guard.

‘Who am I?’ the boy asked, more menacing this time.

‘I really don’t… aaaaagh!’ shrieked the man, as his right arm broke in three places.

‘Who am I?’ insisted the boy.

‘Find doctor Hashimo! He’ll know! I don’t know who you are! Please, don’t hurt me any more!’ blubbered the guard, clasping the boy’s knees.

‘You are of no use to me. I will leave now.’ stated the boy, leaving the man in his own private universe of pain.

*

The guard crawled along the floor, and pulled himself into his chair before slamming his left hand on the alarm button, but it was already too late.

*

The boy walked along the steel corridors as the sirens went off all around him. Two men ran out of a room in front of him and pointed guns at him. He raised a hand, and the guns flew out of their hands, swinging around to point at their owners. The men screamed and fled down the hallway, away from the boy.

*

General Masahito looked up from his paperwork at the sound of the alarm. He tutted and sighed, opening his desk drawer. In it on a black felt cushion lay a Desert Eagle handgun, gleaming in the harsh, clinical lighting. It had been a gift from his superiors when he took over the running of this secret base. He had kept it well maintained and oiled and he took it out of the drawer. He removed the clip lying next to the gun and slowly pushed it into the gun until he heard a click. He turned the safety off. Now was the time for decisiveness, he thought. And with that he raised the gun to his right temple and pulled the trigger.

*

Doctor Hashimo was tending to the organic cultures when the alarm went off. He ran through a sealed blast door protecting the more delicate samples and breathed a sigh of relief. Not even a missile could penetrate the nu-steel blast door. He was safe.

*

The boy had been walking for about five minutes when he came across a door that read “Hashimo�. He pushed it gently open and walked in on silent feet.

*

Hashimo’s eyes widened in terror as he saw the boy approach and he cowered down out of sight. Unfortunately for him he knocked the table behind him, causing a glass test tube to fall off it and shatter on the floor.

*

The boy’s eyes turned and fixed on the direction of the sound. He walked over to the window and saw doctor Hashimo cowering, trying to hide in a cupboard. He took a step backwards and focused his mind. The blast door was torn in two and buckled back to allow him entry.

Hashimo’s eyes were almost rolled back completely in their sockets out of terror as the boy stood over him.

‘Who am I?’ he asked.

‘Please don’t kill me!’ wailed Hashimo.

‘Who am I? I was told you know.’ said the boy.

‘Look on your right arm.’ said the trembling doctor.

The boy looked and saw a tattoo. Fifteen. That’s all there was. No name.

‘There is no name,’ said the boy, ‘just a tattoo that reads “fifteen�.’

‘Uh… That’s all I know. You’re specimen number fifteen then.’ said the doctor.

‘Where are the others? Take me to them.’ said the boy.

He helped the doctor up and they left the organic cultures lab together.

*

‘We’re in a world of shit, sir. The general’s dead. You’re in command now,’ said Lieutenant Oda, ‘so, what’re we going to do sir?’

Acting-General Natsuko did not know. To be fair, he was quite new to the facility. He had graduated from University on a military scholarship and had been promoted very quickly, and sent here. He had been amazed to find such a vast facility underneath Tokyo. There were miles of tunnels and hundreds of soldiers posted down there. It was in these tunnels that the military performed tests that were not considered strictly legal.
Testing on animals to find the effects of biological and chemical agents was good up to a point, but there is no way of being absolutely sure a human being can survive these things if they are not tested on humans.

He had been told to think of it as sacrificing a few lives to save the lives of thousands, but it was cold comfort. He knew that some of the test “specimens� suffered horribly before dying. The lucky ones died straight away. The less lucky ones survived to be tested on again and again until their minds were destroyed. He also knew that a third of the base had been off limits even to him, the second in command, and only General Masahito had the keys to go there. Sector C. He had heard rumours about that part, and none of them were good.

And now the alert was coming from within that sector. He came to a decision.

‘Lieutenant, take three squads down to Sector C. Do not engage any hostiles. I want you to reconnoitre, see what’s happening. Find any survivors and bring them to me. Move out, Lieutenant!’ he barked.

‘Sir, yes sir!’ responded the Lieutenant, who rushed off, relieved to finally have some orders.

*

The boy walked ahead of doctor Hashimo, and soon they reached a door guarded by two panicking security guards. They saw the boy and started banging on the door, screaming for their fellows on the other side to open it. When the boy got close to them, they pulled out their pistols and fired at him.

The bullets stopped about a centimetre out of the barrels of the guns and dropped to the floor. The guns flew out of the men’s hands and then pointed at the floor, repeatedly firing until both were empty. Then the boy let them fall to the floor. One of the men ran at him with a taser. The boy swung his arm around and the man found himself running on the spot in the air. Then he was repeatedly smashed against the wall as hard as the boy could manage, and the other guard cowered in the corner, listening to the screaming and the cracking of breaking bones. Finally the boy let the man fall to the floor. He was only just alive, with most of his bones broken, including his jaw, so he could only moan nonsensically as blood dribbled out of his mouth through shattered teeth.

The boy tore the door open with his mind and walked through the wreckage, taking no notice of the other guard.

*

Squads A, B and C all assembled for inspection. Lieutenant Oda was impressed. The men had kept their equipment in good condition and their uniforms were neat.

‘Alright, you know the drill! Go down, avoid contact with any hostiles you may find and get anyone you find out to this sector. We will seal the door behind you but we will keep in radio contact. Move out!’ he commanded.

The men saluted smartly and headed through the blast door.

*

The boy walked on, with the terrified doctor following behind him. Several more guards tried to stop the boy on their way to the main chamber. They would live, but they would need wheelchairs, and they may never regain the use of certain limbs.

They moved on.

*

Squad A was following in the boy’s wake. They had hacked into the security cameras using a laptop and were watching his progress with horrified fascination. Nothing stopped him. Even blast doors were merely a temporary inconvenience.

*

Finally the boy and doctor Hashimo arrived at the entrance to the main chamber. Hashimo swiped his card, but the door would not open.

‘Sorry, it’s the security alert. The doors all automatically lock down while the alarms are on.’ he told the boy.

‘It is of no moment.’ said the boy.

He waved an arm at the door and tore it off its hinges. They proceeded through and the boy saw them.

Rows and rows of glass tubes, housing children suspended in a clear fluid. Sensors were attached to their bodies and they breathed through oxygen masks strapped to their faces. He walked up to the nearest one and tapped on the glass. No response, no indication that the occupant was even aware of him. Then it dawned on him. He could see that his reflection in the glass and the occupant’s face were exactly the same. He ran on to the next one. Also the same as him. The next one was a girl. The one after was like him, and the final tube was another copy of the girl in the earlier tube.

He rounded on the doctor, anger in his eyes.

‘What… have… you… done?’ he asked, his voice a mixture of fear and hatred.

‘It’s classified! I can’t tell you!’ yelped the doctor, backing into a corner.

A scalpel flew through the air and hovered a few feet from doctor Hashimo’s face. Cables from behind him wrapped themselves around him, binding him to the wall.

‘Tell me.’ said the boy.

‘I can’t! They’ll kill me!’ he shrieked, his gaze fixed upon the scalpel floating in front of his face.

The scalpel inched closer to his face until it was only a mere centimetre from his left eye. The doctor had ceased all movement; he was paralysed by fear.

‘Tell me.’ the boy urged.

‘I can’t! They’ve got surveillance cameras in here! If I tell you, they’ll kill me anyway!’ he gibbered.

The scalpel pierced the skin around the eyeball; neatly cutting away both eyelids and the connecting muscle. The doctor tried to move his head but found an invisible force holding him still. The eyeball itself was pulled out by the same invisible force and was turned to look back at his face. The pain was immense and his breath was coming hard and fast. Sweat stood out on his forehead. The optic nerve was still attached to his eyeball, so he had the disorienting sensation of looking forwards and backwards at the same time. He shut his right eye and could just see, through the fog of pain, his bloodied face, the socket dripping blood onto the floor.

‘Tell me.’ the boy demanded.

‘It’s a cloning project!’ he cried ‘A few years ago the military stumbled across a boy who had psychic powers. The boy didn’t want to be taken by the military and they were forced to kill him. Using his remains they tried to clone him. You have been the most successful specimen so far. Your power is strong, and still developing. There are many others, but none are anywhere near as powerful as you.’

‘What about the girls?’ he asked.

‘They were part of the cloning project as well. Some of the clones were born with defects, some were born dead. It took a lot of cloning to create you. You resemble the boy in many ways. Some of the clones were born female, and some of them had psychic talent. We kept those ones. Of course we had to “dispose� of the ones that didn’t.’ said the scientist, who was on the verge of passing out due to the pain.

‘Thank you.’ said the boy.

He made a gesture and the eyeball flew across the room, tearing out the optic nerve. The doctor passed out from the pain, and the boy lost interest in him and started looking for a way out.

*

Private Hayamoto threw up behind Corporal Sansuko. Nobody deserved to be tortured like that. Corporal Sansuko turned to his men.

‘Men, I know this is against orders, but we’re going in there. We can’t let him die!’ he ordered. His men prepared themselves for breaching the door.

*

The boy was inspecting one of the glass tubes, staring at the perfect copy of his own form. Doctor Hashimo was lying in the corner, his face pale and twitching in the throes of an unconscious spasm. He had decided that he needed a name. Because of the tattoo marked on his arm he decided that he would call himself Fifteen. As he was mulling this name over, testing it in his mouth, the door opened and two flashbangs flew into the room, bouncing along the floor.

As Fifteen turned both flashbangs went off, filling the room with light and sound and smoke. Ten men burst in, wielding assault rifles with laser sights. The men switched on their heatvision mode on their helmet visors and searched for the boy.

As they scanned the room, they found nothing. The only trace of heat on their visors was each other. As the smoke cleared, they turned the heatvision off, and saw the boy standing in front of them. They pointed guns at him, backing slowly away. Two of the men picked up the doctor and hurried out of the door. The other soldiers moved to follow, but the door hissed shut, sealing them in. The only other way out would be past the boy. Then they made the last mistake they would ever make. They pointed their guns at him again.

*

Some time later, Fifteen walked out of the room, splattered from head to toe in gore. His power was increasing. He moved on.

*

‘Where are the others?’ asked Acting-General Natsuko.

The two men who had returned with the doctor replied that the door had closed behind them and wouldn’t open again. Then they had fled with Hashimo.

‘Lieutenant, get me a security camera feed. I want to know what we’re dealing with here!’ he demanded.

Oda was a skilled computer technician as well as a meticulous Lieutenant and a good soldier. He soon called up the relevant camera and set back the time by the required amount. Then he fell off his chair in horror.

The soldiers watched, appalled. The feed started with the soldiers threatening a boy with their assault rifles. Then they suddenly dropped their weapons and set upon one another with bare hands. They killed one another with their hands. One man tore his comrade’s head off with his hands, before the headless corpse disembowelled him, both showered with gore. The camera also showed a man with no legs savaging chunks out of the Corporal’s leg with his teeth while the Corporal smashed a man’s head in with the butt of a rifle. None of the faces showed any kind of humanity or comprehension. After five minutes there was little left of the men, with blood splattered all over the walls, entrails and pink and purple tubes spread around the floor, some still writhing, the occasional twitching limb on the floor. The boy then casually walked out of the door.

‘Lieutenant, what are we dealing with here?’ he asked.

Oda called up some files on the computer system. The screen came up with a “classified� message, demanding the General’s passcode. Acting-General Natsuko now knew what this was, so he put the code in. The screen went blank, then came up with a ream of files.

*

Fifteen walked along the corridor, leaving bloody footprints with his bare feet. He marvelled at the design of the base. He had found a computer terminal and using his psychic gift had hacked into the computer systems. He was about half a mile below the Earth’s surface, in the tightly secured Sector C.

*

The General had a plan.

‘Lieutenant, get your best men. We’re going to stop him before he gets out of Sector C.’ said Natsuko.

*

The men quickly assembled in front of Lieutenant Oda. Both the Lieutenant and the General were going with them, so morale was high.

They split into two squads of twenty men apiece and went through the blast door and down into Sector C.

*

Fifteen was walking down a corridor, clenching and unclenching his fists. He could feel power coursing through his body. He was ready to burst; as he walked he tensed his power and punched holes in the steel walls with it, practising.

Then the door in front opened and he saw soldiers pour through, firing at him. He held up a hand, causing all the bullets to fall to the floor with a rhythmic rattle. He turned while staving off the gunfire from that end of the corridor and saw just in time another squad at the other end of the corridor as they began to fire at him. He held up his other hand keeping the bullets away, causing them to veer off to smash into the steel walls.

There he stood, holding both hands out down both directions of the corridor, protecting himself from the bullets. They showered him with lead and he fended it off with his powers, none of the bullets getting within ten feet of him.

Then Fifteen clenched one of his fists. Down that direction of the corridor, one of the soldiers imploded, showering his fellows with gore. Within a second he had been turned inside out and all that was left was a quivering mass of tubes and torn flesh lying in a pool of blood. The boy screamed loudly, a noise to defy sound itself and quite a few of the soldiers fell to the floor, bleeding from their eardrums. He clenched both fists and suddenly several of the soldiers clutched their eyes and fell to their knees. The boy squeezed tighter and the pressure around their eyeballs increased. Then he clenched his fist as hard as he could and the guttural cries from the soldiers resounded throughout the corridor as their eyeballs burst, spraying the inside of their own visors with blood.

*

‘NOW!’ shouted Acting-General Natsuko.

He and Lieutenant Oda leaned out of the ventilation shafts in the ceiling and fired at Fifteen. The boy could not contend with fire from so many directions. He backed away and left through the only door available in the corridor.

The Acting-General and Lieutenant dropped down into the corridor and the Lieutenant pushed a button. A red light on the door suddenly became green. Then they relaxed and surveyed the carnage around them. A full half of the men had been either killed or injured in the conflict. Acting-General Natsuko went through the door after Fifteen.

*

The boy was in a white room, quite large but empty. When he saw the Acting-General walk in, he tensed his psychic abilities.

‘Go ahead, boy.’ said Natsuko.

The boy released his power at the man, but nothing happened. He stared at his hands.

‘You are in a room with a psy-dampening field. Your, ahem “abilities� will not work here.’

Natsuko turned around and left the room. Then he engaged the electronic lock.

‘Lieutenant, get these men cleaned up.’ he said to Oda.

*

Fifteen raged in his cell, beating his fists against the wall. He had been thwarted in his escape attempt. He realised that rage would do nothing to aid him, so he sat down and plotted a terrible vengeance.

*

An hour later, the corpses had all been removed and the corridors washed down. The devastation caused by the boy would have to wait until later to be repaired. Doctor Hashimo would live, so the doctors told him. He went to the Operations room to turn the alarm off with his key.

He pushed it in and turned it in the lock. The alarm kept going.

‘Lieutenant, didn’t I ask you to send someone down to shut fifteen’s door?’ he asked Oda.

‘Yes, sir. He did.’ Oda replied.

‘Then why is the alarm still going off?’ asked Acting-General Natsuko.

‘I’ll call it up on the screen, sir.’ said Oda.

The Lieutenant quickly set about finding the cause of the alert. He finally tracked it down.

‘Oh shit.’ he exclaimed.

‘What is it, Lieutenant?’ demanded Acting-General Natsuko.

Natsuko leaned over Oda’s shoulder and saw what had upset the Lieutenant. Six of the glass tubes had been opened, their occupants nowhere to be seen.

‘Sir, the cameras can’t find them anywhere sir. They’re not in this compound at all, sir.’ said Lieutenant Oda.

‘Oh shit.’ said Acting-General Natsuko.

*

In his white walled prison, Fifteen smiled.