Chapter 5 - The Experiment on B-4
Down in the subterranean vault of Sub-Level B-4, the blaring alarms from upstairs sounded like a distant, muffled heartbeat.
I sat strapped into the carbon-fiber chair, my heart hammering against my ribs as the gurney holding the deceased man—Subject 14—was wheeled right up beside me.
Arthur Carter stood behind a massive glass control console, his hands resting on a sleek mahogany desk covered in biometric monitors, neural interface pads, and heavy copper cables.
“Don't do this!” I screamed, straining against the leather cuffs until my wrists burned with raw friction. “My mom died because of you! If you do this to me, I’ll die too!”
“Your mother didn't die in vain, Ethan, and neither will you,” Arthur said smoothly, his voice projected through the room’s overhead speakers. “You are advancing medical science by centuries. Think of the millions of lives we can save—or rather, the billions of dollars we can generate by curing mortality itself. Death is just a software bug, Ethan. And you are the patch.”
He pressed a glowing red execution switch on the console.
Instantly, a heavy, articulated mechanical arm descended from the ceiling, its tip fitted with a cluster of fine, needle-like silver electrodes. With terrifying precision, the arm lowered itself directly toward my chest, hovering just above my heart.
“Hold him stable,” Arthur commanded.
Two technicians in heavy radiation suits stepped forward, clamping a metallic stabilization ring around my forehead to prevent me from turning my head.
“Grandpa!” I cried out, looking over at Walter, who was struggling desperately against his own restraints, his face purple with exhaustion and rage.
“Ethan, listen to me!” Walter shouted over the hum of the machinery. “Don't let them take your light! When they bridge the circuit, push back! Do you hear me? Push back with everything you have!”
“Shut that old fool’s mic off!” Arthur snapped.
A technician hit a switch, and Walter’s voice was instantly cut off, though his mouth continued to move in silent, frantic screams.
The mechanical arm dropped the final few inches. The silver electrodes pressed hard against my skin, right over my chest.
A jolt of high-voltage bio-current surged through the cables.
My back arched off the chair in an unnatural, agonizing bow. A blinding flash of white light exploded behind my eyelids, and a scream tore from my throat that felt like it was ripping my vocal cords to shreds. Every nerve ending in my body felt like it was being dipped in liquid fire.
Through the roaring sound of blood rushing in my ears, I heard Arthur’s voice over the intercom, calm and clinical.
“Neural resonance bridging at forty percent... apply the synaptic stimulus to Subject 14.”
Across the room, twin defibrillator paddles built into the gurney’s mattress slammed against the dead man’s chest, delivering a massive 360-joule shock to a heart that had been stopped for over an hour.
Subject 14’s body jerked violently from the electric jolt.
And then—nothing. The flatline on the monitor remained a flat, unbroken green line.
“Amplitude too low,” Arthur muttered, his fingers flying across the console keyboard. “Increase bio-feedback loop to eighty percent. Route the current directly through the boy’s synaptic center.”
A second wave of electricity hit me. This one was twice as strong.
My vision shattered into a million burning shards of red and black. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. The pain was so absolute, so total, that my mind began to detach from my physical body. I felt myself slipping away, floating up toward the cold concrete ceiling, looking down at the small, ten-year-old boy strapped to a chair in the dark.
Is this how my mom felt? I thought. Is this how she died?
Suddenly, in the middle of the agony, a memory flashed through my mind—not of the pain, not of the lab, but of the little boy upstairs.
Noah Carter. The baby who had just been declared dead. The baby whose tiny fingers had twitched when I said one word: Come back.
I hadn't saved him with science. I hadn't saved him with machines. I had saved him because I refused to let another innocent life be stolen by the monsters in this building.
A sudden, fierce wave of heat rushed from my chest, pushing back against the cold, artificial electricity of Arthur’s machines.
Down on the gurney beside me, Subject 14’s fingers suddenly twitched.
The flatline on the monitor flickered. Once. Twice.
Then, a jagged, sharp green spike leapt across the screen.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
A steady pulse.
In the observation booth, Arthur Carter dropped his pen. His eyes widened in absolute, stunned disbelief as he stared at the resurrected man on the gurney.
“It worked,” Arthur breathed, a mad, ecstatic smile spreading across his face. “It actually worked... the infinite loop is real!”
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He reached out and slammed his hand down on the master recording switch.
“Max out the current! Extract everything! I want his entire neural matrix downloaded into our servers before the night is over!”
