Chronicle of Nautilus

Chapter 33: The Preparation, Part 4

It was late evening. But there was still a light shining through a window at the fifth floor of a science facility. Cyrus lay on the floor, beneath an immense device. There was no more than a half of meter between his face and a metal frame. He wiped his forehead with a dirty sleeve.

“We are almost done,” he said to the assistant and extended his hand out. “Give me the scanner.”

“Here,” soft female voice replied and put a small flashlight into his hand.

Cyrus awkwardly dragged his hand beneath the device and turned it on. It started projecting beams of green light. He directed it to a metal casing with many screws and it became transparent. Cyrus slowly crawled making small pauses, checking different threads and using a wrench to adjust their tension.

When he was done, he placed both tools into his right hand, extended it and said, “The welder now, please.”

He felt the tools lifted away from his hand and a small gun with a trigger being put into his palm. He dragged the tool slowly over his chest and twisted his hand to target a line between two metal surfaces. Cyrus began welding cases using metal plates that lay close to him, forming a small pile. He added them here and there to cover loose wires and smaller screws.

A minute passed before he spoke again, “Ok I am finished, time to try it out.” He extended his hand with a welding laser in its palm.

Rough hands grabbed him by the wrist, a cold, hoarse voice said, “Let me help, doc.” and Cyrus was forcefully dragged out.

He lay on the ground looking up. An ugly brute smiled at him and said “We came just in time.”

Cyrus turned his head and saw his assistant lying on the ground face down a few meters away from him.

“Don’t worry, she’s fine. We are civilized aren’t we, guys?”

“Ye, of course,” a male voice coming from the direction of the door replied.

The scientist stood up and saw four more individuals standing in his lab. All of them, but one, carried small firearms in their hands. Two dirty thugs held some poor guy by his elbows in front of Cyrus. The scientist reckoned that he had seen the guy somewhere. Perhaps the poor man was a colleague from other science department.

“We came to fix this bastard,” said the large thug that dragged Cyrus. He reeked of alcohol. “We put him into the box you made. You wipe his memory out. We all go home and have a nice evening.”

Cyrus looked at his assistant lying on the floor, trembling in fear and replied, “Not that I have a choice.”

He walked towards the control panel of a gigantic device. There was a large glass tube in its middle - any human could easily fit inside it.

Cyrus walked quickly, gained a bit of distance and managed to shout out three words, “Claire there are—!”, before he was brought down to his knees by a powerful bash to the back.

“What the hell are you doing? There is no one to help you.  Try it again and you won’t get up!”

The scientist stood up and turned to the brute. Malicious smile was all over his face. No big deal, Cyrus thought. His shout had connected a comms device that lay in his pocket to Claire’s and she must have been already listening. It was just a matter of time before the help came. Cyrus began pushing random buttons on the control panel trying to stall time.

“You are doing it too slow!” The brute walked to the lying assistant on the ground and gently kicked her. “Open up the glass, now!”

After Cyrus’s assistant let out a weak moan the glass opened. The two men dragged their captive to the device and pushed him forcefully into the glass bed.

“Erase everything he has in that stupid head of his,” one of the two thugs snickered.

“You are not going to get away with this,” Cyrus said before he began tapping buttons.

The glass case closed and the tube slowly slid down into the frame of device. When the tube reached the bottom, a thick metal door slid from the side to cover it.

The two men who held the engineer were standing behind Cyrus now. He could feel their breath on his neck.

“Push the button,” one of them said.

“Yes, I bet the green one,” the other one added.

Cyrus pressed the button and was pushed away from the device. The two men took Cyrus’s place by the console and started talking.

“The menu looks quite simple don’t you think?”

“Yeah, easy.”

Cyrus watched as one of them grabbed a small wheel, turned it and said “See, here it goes.”

The numbers on the screen started rapidly increasing, some of them turned to red. The roared loudly.

“You will fry him, you idiots!” Cyrus shouted. He came closer and forced himself in between the thugs. He put his arm on the wheel, turned it a little and the red numbers turned to yellow.

“How much longer?” the thug who pointed his gun at the assistant asked.

“It’s enough!” Cyrus shouted and attempted to push the red “off” button but his hand was grabbed midair and pulled to the side by one thug. His other hand was forcefully locked behind his back by another.

“Let’s wait and see what happens,” one of the intruders said.

Cyrus turned to look at his assistant and watched the large man drive a needle to her neck, her muscles relaxed and she no longer did not tremble nor did she make another noise. The minute Cyrus had to endure was long, one of the longest he ever had. He felt for the man inside the device, whose line between life and death thinned with each passing second. Cyrus knew only one thing - the guy was going to be a vegetable after he got out. What were they thinking? Why didn’t they just kill him?

A siren sounded outside and running steps could be heard getting closer to the building in the silent night. The intruders looked at each other and nodded. Three of them including the big one ran out of the room through the main door. Cyrus watched through a large glass at the center of the door as they split to three different directions. One went down the stairway, another to the left and the third to the right. The thug, who still held Cyrus’s hand locked, stayed behind.

The intruder pushed the stop button, the glass tank with the poor man inside lifted up and the glass opened.

Cyrus felt a weak sting. He looked at his shoulder and saw a drug capsule with a small needle stuck deeply into it, no liquid remained in the capsule. He turned to the tank and was left speechless. He felt his knees tremble from the drugs and from the picture he saw - the captive miraculously jumped out of the tank as if nothing had happened, he stretched his arms took a deep breath and got closer to the last thug.

“Good job, soldier,” the captive told to the thug and padded his back. That was the last thing Cyrus heard before falling down and losing his consciousness. “Give it to me,” the man added.

“Here.” The thug threw a belt with many sensors attached to it.

The engineer grabbed the belt. Put it round his waist, ran towards the window and jumped out, he disappeared in the night leaving the thug behind him.

The thug heard many steps coming from stairway. He pushed the start button on the console and jumped into the glass tank, the tank slid down into the device. He would not remember a thing after getting out of it, they would not be able to blame him for anything he had done, and he would be reborn for the second time in his life. The voice would be happy and it was all that mattered.

******

When Cyrus woke up in a hospital he could hardly remember anything - the poor man being dragged to his death, the four thugs, their violent behavior - the fog clouded the last day and as hard as Cyrus tried he did not manage to see through it.