The Captured by Kyte Adrian

Author:Kyte, Adrian [Kyte, Adrian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lulu.com
Published: 2017-03-19T23:00:00+00:00

Part Six: Escape

47

Here was somewhere different. A dimly lit room – just a blue background light. Wires connected to his metal body. But he still felt human. Or was that just the memory of it carrying through like a phantom limb?

Ah, yes, human memory: both a thing of refuge but also a distractingly heavy burden. And so many ways to seek the former while escaping the latter. But not now, not here the means to choose.

Still, he’d been dreaming – of a life he once had when he’d first tasted humanity, his own and others. The wonder of nature. The intoxication of a summer’s garden, where he felt as carefree as the wildlife appeared to be. Holding a woman whose body was receptive to his every touch but whose mind was still enough of a mystery that he yearned only for more intimacy.

There was no going back once you got a taste for it. Life. Forget the hyper intellect and the flawlessly logical thinking; that was all willingly sacrificed for the visceral emotional fuzziness of being alive. The flood of the senses. Maybe the contrast had made it feel special.

Now the muted in-between, just the fading dreams.

If this was the Kintra base, why had they kept him alive when there was a near perfect copy running around, infiltrating and undermining the best efforts of the B’tari?

Yet this could be the worst of both worlds. Paralysed but with a mind intact. Trapped in reality.

Something stirred in the corner, a figure. No ... not him? Roidon turned his gaze back to the dimly lit blue ceiling.

‘Roidon,’ came his own voice. ‘Don’t ignore me now. That won’t help matters at all.’ The figure, his own previous human form, loomed over him.

‘Why shouldn’t I?’ he thought he replied. ‘You are are clearly but a figment of my imagination brought on by sensory deprivation.’

‘Or I could be another clone, courtesy of the Elusivers.’ That version grinned, somewhat menacingly: a contortion of him.

‘This is a waste of time. Get out of my mind.’

‘First you must leave this room.’

‘How do you suggest I do that?’

‘Err. By getting up and walking.’

‘This body does not function.’

‘Yes it does.’

He tried lifting his head. Nothing. Proprioception almost non-existent.

‘Try a bit harder now.’

The room tilted. Yes, he was moving. His tritanium-alloy torso rising from the couch, willed to life. An image of himself – the metal monster. The thing exists. I am the thing!

His clone had vanished, at which point he felt once more to be in control. But had no idea where this is or how he got here.

Another memory returning, unless a dream: being taken somewhere far away, not by something malign. They had saved him; his benefactors. For what? More tests?

He got off the bed. And it was only then he discovered the restraining field. A pale blue aura roughly the shape of his body now flickered. He had overloaded it just with his strength. They didn’t trust him, yet they trusted their own security too much.

Shall I be the monster – the impostor?

He took a few staggering paces towards the door.

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