The steady metallic hum pulsed heavily through my blood. It was a constant physical reminder of the foreign substance locked permanently inside my bones. I lay completely flat on the cold steel table. My wrists and ankles strained against the thick leather cuffs.
The two doctors had retreated to the far corners of the bright room. They typed nervously on their digital monitors. Their hands shook. They refused to look directly at me. Two armed guards stood perfectly still by the closed steel door. They wore the dark heavy armor of Alpha Division. Their rifles were held tightly against their chests.
A low chuckle broke the dead silence.
It was a dry sound. It did not belong in this sterile medical ward. It lacked the strict military discipline that governed every other person in the room.
"So the rumors are true."
I turned my head slowly. A man leaned casually against the far white wall. He did not wear the crisp uniform of the soldiers. He did not wear the clean white coat of the medical staff. He wore a worn brown leather jacket. The heavy material was scuffed and faded at the elbows. The sleeves were rolled up exposing his tanned forearms.
A dense network of pale scars covered his skin. Some looked like clean blade cuts. Others looked like old irregular burns. They were the physical markers of a violently chaotic life.
His dark hair had distinct streaks of gray at the temples. He looked around thirty years old but his eyes held a heavy exhaustion. They were sharp and highly observant. He watched me with the intense quiet focus of a predator evaluating a completely new threat.
He pushed off the wall and walked slowly toward the center of the room. His boots made almost no sound on the pristine floor.
"I did not think I would get a front row seat," he said. He smiled. It was a crooked casual expression. "You put on quite a show kid."
I stared at him. The thick restraints chafed my skin raw. My throat was completely parched. Every muscle in my body felt dense and unnaturally heavy with the new strength the EquiV had given me.
"Who are you?" I forced the words out. My voice was a harsh raspy whisper. It scraped painfully against my dry throat.
"Maxim Collins," he said. He stopped a few feet from the edge of the metal table. "Max. I heard the loud whispers going around the compound. I read the boring technical reports. But seeing you wake up is much better than reading paperwork."
The two armed guards at the door shifted their weight. Their hands gripped their black rifles tighter. But they did not step forward. They did not stop him. They seemed entirely uncertain of his actual authority in this facility.
Max leaned over the metal table. He looked down at my face.
"You have a lot of spirit," Max said. His voice was low and conversational. "Most people strapped to this specific table look completely dead. They look empty. You still look alive."
I did not answer him. My mind struggled to process his strange presence. He was completely relaxed. He possessed a casual deep arrogance that proved he was not bound by the strict military rules governing the doctors and the guards.
"Why are you here?" I asked. I gathered a small fraction of my new strength to speak louder.
"Curiosity," Max said. He shrugged his shoulders. "Opportunity. Entertainment."
He glanced over his shoulder at the two tense guards. "Relax boys. If he wanted me dead I would already be lying on the floor."
The guards glared at him but they kept their weapons lowered. They clearly did not like him but they were not willing to challenge him directly.
Max looked back down at me. The crooked smile returned to his mouth. "You have everyone in this facility completely spooked. Half of them think you are an absolute miracle. The other half think you are a bomb waiting to detonate."
I swallowed hard. The massive weight of their extreme expectations and their deep fears pressed down heavily on my chest. I thought about the shattered lab where Zack had found me. I thought about the armored corpses scattered across the concrete floor. I still did not know if I was the one who killed them.
"What do you think?" I asked.
Max stared directly into my eyes. The casual amusement vanished entirely from his face. A cold calculating intensity replaced it. He studied me in complete silence for a long moment. He evaluated the tension in my jaw and the steady rhythm of my breathing.
"Both," he said.
The single word hung heavily in the cold air. It was a blunt honest assessment. He recognized my potential and he recognized the immense danger I posed.
Max reached his hand slowly inside his leather jacket.
The two soldiers instantly raised their rifles. The metal barrels pointed directly at his chest.
Max froze. He raised one eyebrow. "Easy. I am not suicidal."
He slowly pulled a dented metal flask from his inside pocket. He twisted the cap off and took a long drink. He sighed quietly and then offered the open flask toward my face.
"Water," Max said. "Not poison. I promise."
I blinked in surprise. "They will not let you."
Max grinned broadly. He looked at the nearest armed soldier. "Will you shoot me for giving the kid a drink of water?"
The young soldier kept his jaw completely tight. He stared straight ahead and refused to answer the question.
Max leaned down. He tilted the metal flask just enough to let a thin steady stream of water spill into my mouth. The water was lukewarm and tasted faintly of old iron. But it was the best thing I had ever tasted. It soothed the raw burning sensation in my throat perfectly. I swallowed it greedily.
Max pulled the flask back and screwed the cap on tightly. He patted my chest twice.
"See?" Max said. "Not everything in this building wants to kill you."
For the first time since I woke up in the lab someone had actually spoken directly to me. They had not spoken about me like a broken machine or a scientific specimen. It was a very small act. But it made a massive difference to my fractured mind.
It also made me highly suspicious.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked. I narrowed my eyes.
Max laughed quietly. He shook his head. "I am not a nice guy kid. I just hate watching people get treated like tools. It reminds me of things I would rather forget."
A dark shadow crossed his face. For a single second his sharp eyes revealed a deep old pain. It was a brief flash of pure vulnerability. Then the confident smirk returned to his mouth masking it completely.
"Besides," Max added. "If you are half as dangerous as the doctors claim it is a smart idea to have you owe me a favor."
We sat in complete silence for a full minute. The medical monitors beeped their steady rhythm. The low hum of the EquiV substance vibrated gently in my blood matching the slow beat of my heart.
Max stood up straight. He rolled his shoulders. The playful energy vanished from his posture.
"So tell me Ashen," Max said quietly. "Do you actually believe you are just an innocent victim in all this or is that just a convenient blank slate your mind created to protect you?"
My muscles locked tight. The cold heavy hum in my veins spiked sharply. The machine inside my head stirred in the dark.
"What?" I stammered. My heart slammed violently against my ribs.
Max tapped the side of his head with two fingers. "Do not look so shocked. You mumble constantly in your sleep. You talked about glass shattering. You mumbled about fighting a mirror. You kept repeating something about a man in a red coat." He leaned closer until his face was only inches from mine. "But let us be completely honest right now. Do you even know how many bodies they pulled out of that destroyed lab with you?"
My throat closed up. My chest seized.
The fragmented memories flooded my mind instantly. The deafening sound of gunfire. The cold pressure at the base of my skull demanding violence. My hands slick with warm blood. The tall man in the vivid red coat standing silently while the world broke apart around me.
They were terrifyingly clear. I could remember the exact smell of the gunpowder. I could remember the exact weight of the rifle I had tried to grab from Zack.
But beneath the clarity there was a dark hollow void. I still did not know who I was before the lab.
A feeling arose. It wanted to erase the panic. It wanted to silence the confusing guilt and return my mind to a state of absolute tactical clarity.
I fought it back. I gripped the sides of the metal table tightly.
I could not answer him. I could not form a single word.
Max watched my face closely. His sharp eyes read the absolute panic rising in my chest. He saw the violent internal struggle playing out behind my eyes. His expression softened into something resembling actual sympathy.
"That is exactly what I thought," Max said.
He tapped the metal table twice. "It does not matter kid. Innocent or not if those blank spaces keep you sane you hold onto them tightly. Do not let these people force you to be a monster before you are ready."
"Why?" I whispered. My voice shook badly.
"Because hope is a very powerful thing," Max said. "I have seen dead men crawl out of the dirt chasing it. Just do not mistake it for the actual truth."
The heavy steel door slid open with a loud mechanical hiss.
The two guards immediately stood at strict attention.
Zack walked into the room. His dark tactical armor absorbed the harsh white light. His posture was perfectly rigid. His gray eyes swept the room and instantly locked onto Max.
"Collins," Zack said. His voice was completely flat and totally devoid of emotion. "You are not authorized to be inside this ward."
Max raised both of his hands in mock surrender. His confident smile never wavered. "Relax Zack. I am just checking on the new golden project. I did not touch a single machine. I only gave him a sip of water. Do not write a report about me."
Zack tightened his jaw. He did not reply. He simply rested his right hand directly on his holstered pistol. It was a silent but absolute threat.
Max smiled wider. He was completely unfazed by the weapon.
"I will take that as my cue to leave," Max said. He stepped back from the medical table and tucked the metal flask deep into his leather jacket. He looked down at me one last time.
"Do not go dying on me Ashen," Max said. "You are way too interesting for that."
Max offered a lazy salute. He turned around and strolled casually out the open door.
The tension he left behind hung heavily in the air. Zack watched the empty doorway for a long moment before turning his cold gray eyes back to me.
I lay flat on the table and stared up at the bright ceiling lights. My heart was racing. My mind was spinning violently.
Maxim Collins.
I did not know if he was a friend or an enemy. His true intentions were completely hidden behind his casual charm and his cynical jokes.
But as the steady hum of the machines pressed down on me, I realized something important. For the first time since this terrible nightmare began, I felt slightly less like a scientific object.
I felt like a person.