Chap. 4

The next day, only a few minutes after Bob woke him up, Ryan asked him a question.

“Bob, is there any chance I could get a ruler?”

“I could probably get you one. What do you need it for?” He asked back.

“I’m getting out of here.” As Bob went out the door to get the ruler, Ryan went to one of the books Dr. Sara had given him. It was about how birds fly. He also checked a book on human anatomy, which was the thickest book there was.

When Bob finally arrived with the ruler, Ryan had his whole plan laid out in front of him. Taking the ruler, and measuring a wing, he turned to Bob.

“Hey, can you go get me that book on human anatomy?” Bob walked over and picked up the book, handing it over.

“Bob, I’m sorry.” Ryan swung the book as hard as he could, and it slammed into Bob’s right temple. He fell like a load of bricks. Ryan picked up the key ring that was on Bob’s belt. Ryan quietly closed the door behind him.

Ryan started by running in the direction that the gymnasium was in. He didn’t know what he would do when he got there, but he believed it was the way out. Taking the myriad of turns Bob had taken to get Ryan there, he soon found the double doors. Ryan pushed through them without thinking. If the scientists were there for Ryan’s soldier training, than there would be no need for them to be there now.

Pushing open the doors, Ryan encountered a room much darker than it normally was. He couldn’t have been more wrong about the scientists not having a reason to be there. The room was completely different, if it was the same room at all. Instead of being empty except for the desk at which the scientists sat, the room was filled with equipment. Lab tables covered with microscopes, vials, and small flames upon which a multitude of different fluids boiled. At the far end was a field of tubes, reaching from the ceiling to the floor. A score of the tubes were empty, over half, but the others were filled with a blue liquid, in which things floated. Ryan ran over to these, they would provide more cover if anyone saw him.

Leaning against one of the tubes, Ryan stared into the one across from his, trying to catch his breath. The thing floating in the liquid looked terrifying. It was merely a human baby, it was breathing, so the liquid must have had some sort of oxygen, but it had claws growing from both hands. As Ryan stared, the baby opened its eyes and stared at him. Even considering the claws, the creature’s eyes were its most terrifying feature. It had slit pupils, like a cat’s. They were a cold, icy blue. The baby stared at him for a few more minutes, than closed its eyes again.

Ryan took one more look at the baby in the tube, than took off running, past rows and rows of the tubes. Each one, if it wasn’t empty, held a creature that was different from the rest: Like snowflakes…Ryan thought to himself. The baby wasn’t the only thing that had claws, but it was the only one that was part human. Another thing he noticed while he was running, the farther along he went, the more the experiments looked like weapons.

There was another person, though this one looked older than Ryan. It was in a tube, with its arms folded across its chest. Though the eyes were closed, its mouth was open in a horrible smile. Ryan could see pointed teeth.

They made an angel and a vampire…Ryan stopped and leaned against another tank. He was surrounded by empty tanks, which made him happy, because if they weren’t, he’d have been staring at more of the things that were a crime against nature.

“ESCAPE! ALPHA TRIPLE OH, HUMAN/AVIAN TRANSFER HAS ESCAPED! REPEAT, ALPHA TRIPLE OH, HUMAN/AVIAN TRANSFER HAS ESCAPED! CHECK ALL AREAS!” An alarm sounded from somewhere along the wall. Ryan didn’t know how far he’d run, but the room had to end sometime, if it was the same room he had been in. He took off running, getting a third wind from the alarm. The first thing that the people would check would be the other experiments. So he kept running.

The floor started to angle downwards, worrying Ryan. He wanted to go up, if his room had a basement window, than he would want to go up.

“It’s too late to turn back, so I might as well go with it…” Ryan said to himself and started to speed up. He was thinking about trying to fly, but came up with three good reasons not to. One, his feathers had been clipped. Two, he was sure there wasn’t enough room to flap with all the containers. Three, he had no idea how. With that in mind, he kept running. He passed rows and rows of empty and full tubes, though he didn’t dare to look inside any of the full ones.

After five minutes of running, Ryan started to see an end of the containers that grew like trees from the floor. This made him run even faster. As he cleared the last of the tubes, he saw a solitary tube standing away from the others, directly in front him. Ryan couldn’t help it; he ran over to see what made the scientists set it apart from the others.

It looked just like the others; only the liquid was a transparent red. Floating in the exact middle was a person; they looked to be Ryan’s age. The person had sandy-blonde hair, but Ryan couldn’t see the eyes, the person looked to be asleep. The thing that first caught Ryan’s eye was the back of the boy. It was just like Ryan himself, after he had arrived here. The person had wings. Not like Ryan’s, which were white, the boy’s were black.

“Quite amazing, is he not?” the voice startled Ryan. He whirled around, expecting a fight, but instead came face to face with Dr. Baker, “He is more your brother than anyone you will meet. I constructed him myself; out of DNA we took from you during the operation to receive the chip. He is a clone of you, only better. He is Ryan, version 2.0.”

“And how did you manage that?” Ryan asked, looking for an escape route.

“We specifically designed his body for flight. He has hollow bones, raptor like vision, air sacs, specially designed lungs that allow him to go off of the smallest amount of oxygen.”

“Wow, next you’ll tell me he can walk on water…” Ryan said sarcastically, choosing the best idea on how to get out, “He sounds quite amazing, but, can he do this?” Ryan snapped out his wings, startling the doctor. Ryan rushed forward, hitting Dr. Baker in the back of the neck. The man was instantly unconscious.

“Thank you, Dr. Phull, you kidnapping freak.” Ryan said to himself, folding his wings back in and running at the same time. He passed many of the lab tables that had microscopes, and boxes that looked like space age microwaves. Just as he was reaching the far end of the room, Ryan heard a noise behind him.

“I’ve located subject Alpha Triple Oh. He is headink towards zhe Control Room. Do I have permission to exterminate? How about detour? Okay, sir. He vill be subdued before you get here.”

Ryan looked behind him as he ran, and saw Dr. Evans standing there looking at him. The doctor smiled, and pulled out a gun. It looked sort of like a shotgun, only with what looked kind of like a scope, only that was underneath the barrel, by the trigger.

“Zis, my winged friend, is zhe most powerful gun on the face of zhe Earth, and zhere is only von in existence, zis von. Now, hold still.” Ryan dived to the side, and luckily collided with a door, which swung open. He slammed the door behind him, looking for some kind of lock. The only thing he could find was a number pad.

Usually if you type in the wrong number, it creates a lockdown…He thought to himself, than slammed his palm onto the pad. It let out a whining cry, than a voice sounded on the intercom, “LOCKDOWN INITIATED! LOCKDOWN INITIATED! GET AWAY FROM ALL DOORS!” Ryan stepped back as a heavy metal blast door slammed down over the door. He smiled to himself as he heard something slam into the door.

Ryan looked around the small room he now found himself in. It was smaller than the bathroom he had had in the room, but it was brighter. There was a huge control panel in front of him, and the control panel was in front of a large window.

If my flight feathers are clipped, does that mean I can glide, or that I can’t use my wings at all? Ryan asked himself. He smiled to himself again. He picked up the chair in front of the control panel.

He turned to the window, “I hope you aren’t safety glass…” He muttered to himself, than threw the chair, and jumped as it crashed through, sailing out into the silent night. Ryan jumped onto the control panel, and his foot pushed in some of the buttons, but he didn’t really care what they did.

He took one look down, and saw that the drop was only thirty feet from the edge of the window to the ground. Than when he landed, it was only a forty foot run to a set of trees, after that, Ryan couldn’t see, but he didn’t care. Backing up as far as he could on the panel, Ryan ran forward, and jumped into the air, his wings flying out.

At first, Ryan just floated there, like in cartoons when the character walks off of the edge of a cliff. Than, he started to fall, fast. His wings were trailing behind him, uselessly. Ryan only had a few seconds, and he would hit the ground. Gathering all of the energy he could, Ryan forced the wings down, and almost instantly they caught the wind, slowing his descent. He still wasn’t going nearly as slow as he wanted, and the air pulling his wings back made him wince in pain, but the feeling of air moving through his feathers, made him feel free.

Somewhere in his mind, Ryan remembered wanting to feel speed, because it made him feel free, but this was more than freedom. This was…Ryan couldn’t think of a word to describe the feeling. It was more than freedom, way more. Ryan tried to flap, but the wings would just let the air past, and he fell even faster, so he just kept his wings out.

Ryan looked down, only to see the ground was still coming at him at an alarming rate. He only just thought this that he slammed into the ground. The impact jarred Ryan’s bones, but nothing broke. He figured that if a normal person had done that, they wouldn’t be walking anymore. He looked up, and took off running towards the woods.

Every few minutes he would look around, then dive to the ground, afraid someone was following him. By the time he reached the woods, Ryan was covered in dirt and grass.

Trees…what kind of trees are those? Looks like oak. I’m on a continent; if they were palm trees I’d be worried. This was the thought that kept running through his mind.

Just as Ryan reached the tree line, he felt a sting in his leg, than a jarring pain that ran through his body. In under a minute, he was unconscious.

Inside the lab, all hell was braking loose. The buttons that Ryan had hit when he jumped out of the window, drained the fluid out of the containers, and released all of the experiments. At the moment Dr. Evans was surrounded by a pile of unconscious genetic misfits, due to the gun he had hoped to use on Alpha Triple Oh. The only experiments that he was missing were a man sized one, showing the signs of vampirism and the other was the only one he was worried about. It was Alpha Oh One. The only experiment they had made that had the power of flight.

He was wrong not to fear the vampire. Because at that moment it appeared at the top of the pile with blood dripping from its mouth. Dr. Evans smiled. He aimed the gun, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He had used all of the shots he had brought with him to subdue Alpha Triple Oh. The vampire smiled, stood, and jumped at the doctor.

A few hours after the incident, Ryan groggily shook his head. He felt like a truck had hit him.

“Vake up!” Ryan heard someone shout. He vaguely remembered it was Dr. Evans, “I said vake up!” A bolt of fiery pain raked Ryan’s body.

He popped his eyes open, to see Dr. Evans standing in front him, badly bruised and cut, holding a cattle prod.

“I hope I didn’t hurt you zhat bad! Do you see vhut happened? You released all of the life forms ve made! I almost got killed, and you don’t have a scratch on you!” He shoved the end of the cow prod into Ryan’s ribs again. He flinched as the electricity passed through him, and found out he was chained to the bed by his leg, “You made us loose Alpha Oh One! Vithout him, you are zhe only flight capable experiment ve have!” The cattle prod found a place in Ryan’s leg.

So, my clone lived, hopefully he got farther than I did…the thought was broken by another zap of the prod. Dr. Evans was pushing the cattle prod at him again, when Ryan sat up and pulled it out of the doctor’s hands. Before he could get away, Ryan stabbed the doctor in the leg, hard enough that the prod stayed in place without Ryan holding it. The scientist was twisting in pain.

“Let me tell you something. I’m glad you almost got killed. I’m glad that my clone got out of here, because this place is the embodiment of Hell itself,” Ryan twisted the cattle prod, “And I’m not going to be here much longer, either. So, have fun.” Ryan pulled the cattle prod out, and smacked the doctor across the back, before cracking it in half over his knee, “Now, get out of here before I actually come after you!” Ryan yelled at the top of his lungs.

Dr. Evans, though Ryan was sure he was only barely conscious, pulled himself out of the room, and closed the door, leaving the broken cattle prod in the room.

“What was that about?” Ryan asked himself. Even though he only had memories of the prison he found himself in, beside the image of Chelle, Ryan had thought he was a calm person.

He did deserve it…a small voice said in his head.

He didn’t deserve all that! Ryan argued, then thought to himself, Great, I’m crazy enough to be arguing with myself…

Ryan shook his head to disperse the thoughts, then looked at the chain around his ankle. It looked thick, with no loose or rusty points, so no way of escape there. From the looks of the room, Ryan was exactly where he had been when he first awoke in the compound. He looked around the room, trying to find anything he could use to cut the chain. But, the only thing there was, besides the bed, was the broken cattle prod. He picked up the two pieces, being careful in case he didn’t break the wires, and there was an electric current going through. Ryan was just being paranoid, though. The electric current had been completely broken.

Ryan picked up the chain. It looked like it was made out of iron.

Wow, these people have enough technology to make me like this, but yet they can’t get something better than a chain…He looked at the broken edges of the cattle prod. They were sharp, and serrated, like the edge of a knife. Ryan smiled to himself. He turned the jagged edge towards the chains, and started moving it back and forth in a sawing motion.

The cattle prod was made out of a hard plastic, so it wasn’t making much of a cut in the chain, but it was Ryan’s only hope. He got through a forth of the chain, before the half of the rod that Ryan was using became too dull to cut through anymore of the chain. He threw the half across the room, and stared down at his hands. Even though he hadn’t been working for that long, his hands were showing the signs that would soon turn into blisters. Ryan touched one, and grimaced as a stinging erupted from his hand. Ryan didn’t stop for long. He picked up the other half of the prod, and started sawing again. The pain should have slowed him down, but instead it made Ryan speed up. Soon he was through another forth of the chain. A few more minutes, and he would have been free.

Instead, the door swung open and Dr. Phull walked in.

“I see you’ve been busy, though I didn’t expect you to stay still, seeing what you did to Dr. Evans. I must say, good job, though. I’m sorry for this, but all of Ragnarök has decided, that you are going too punished, and I’m to take extreme caution in getting you there.” Ryan noticed that the doctor was staying just out of reach.

“That’s the second time I’ve heard it. What is Ragnarök?”

“The eight scientists that you saw, they call themselves Ragnarök. The name comes from Scandinavian mythology. It is the end of the world, the final battle between good and evil.”

“Of course. I figured you’d name it something like, ‘Group of Psychopaths With Nothing Better to do Than Torture the Things They Make’.”

“Yes, that was on the list when they discussed the name, I think. I’m sorry for this, but don’t worry, things are going to get a lot worse after it goes away.” The doctor pulled out a gun, and shot a needle into Ryan’s arm. At first he thought it was a tranquilizer dart. When heart-stopping pain ripped through his body, he knew he was wrong.

Dr. Phull walked over, and picked Ryan up, using a fireman’s carry to take him out the door, and into the gymnasium like room. The doctor roughly dropped Ryan on the ground, and pulled out the pin. If Ryan hadn’t been writhing in the aftermath of the pain, he probably would have tried to get away.

“So, you can’t find your own way here when you’re actually invited, how sad.” Someone said, as Ryan stood up shakily. He looked around, and saw that the Ragnarök scientists were seated around the top of the room, like it was a coliseum. It was Dr. Sara who had spoken.

“Dr. Phull, would you please let in the first competitor?” Dr. Baker called from the top of the room. Dr. Phull walked over to a set of doors, and opened them, standing far to the side.

At first all Ryan could see through the doors was darkness. Than, in almost the blink of an eye, a giant person walked in. It had two-foot long claws, and cold eyes, with a pupil like a cat’s.

“If you guys had a grown up version, why would you make a baby?” Ryan called up, as the creature wailed.

“That is the baby. The fluid was a version of cryo-stasis, which kept it from growing. When you let all the experiments out, it was allowed to grow. The growth rate was exponential.” Dr. Phull said from the doors. From somewhere, Ryan had no idea where, he had drawn a pistol like gun.

“Since we can’t put some of the experiments back, we are going to test their physical attributes, against yours. Have fun.” One of the female doctors spoke. Dr. Phull pulled the trigger on the gun, and something shot out, digging into the back of the creature. It wailed, and ran at Ryan. The first blow caught him while he was still in shock.

How many of these do I have to fight? He asked himself, jumping to his feet, as the creature turned and started running at him again.

Next Chapter: Chapter 5