Guardian #3 - Subject PSI (Connor Lamb)

Subject Psi
By Connor Lamb

Subject Psi crouched in the shadows of the Inhuman Project’s compound,
the exit straight ahead. This place used to be called the Pentagon, the center of the
human's military command. Now it was under the Immortals' control, being used for
all manner of horrible experiments. Among these were the guards he now fled from,
Project HYDRA. They were the latest in a series of super-soldier programs designed
to eliminate any potential weakness of an Immortal soldier. Psi had been part of
a previous attempt, which was canceled after one of the subjects went rogue. But
there would be enough time to reflect later. The guards had just changed, meaning it
was time for Psi to make his escape.

Just as he was about to reach the walls, a guard spotted the runner and
sounded an alarm, tipping every Hydra in the compound off to his location. [pistol]
The guard closest to him took a bullet to the head. [knife] Next one off, stabbed
through the eye. [grenade] Another five down, bleeding out not too far away. Turns
out leaving them alive was a mistake. One of the wounded HYDRAs stood up and
tossed a few fireballs in his direction, Psi barely managing to dodge them before
countering. [rock shard] The Hydras lived up to their name. Just when you thought
you'd killed one, they come back, twice as dangerous. Killing them right off was easy,
but they had the advantage of numbers. No one could hold them off for long.

They were getting closer. More and more of them were being unlocked, and
Psi was running out of time. One last-ditch effort. [pipe bomb] Three...two...one.
Nothing happened. No explosion. Then he saw the girl. She was small, at least five
years younger than him, but she seemed to radiate authority or fear, as the Hydras
all backed down the second she came into view. One of the Hydras held the broken
explosive in his hands. The girl walked up to Psi and stared at him. "What are you
doing?"
"Well, I was leaving, in case you didn't notice." Right, because now is definitely
time for sarcasm.
"I'm sorry, but my dad wouldn't like that."
"Your dad?” He recognized the girl too late. “Wait, Sarah? What are yo--"
He didn't have time to finish that sentence, because at that moment a Hydra
punched him at the base of his spine, sending him crumpled to the ground. The last
thing he saw was several Hydras gathered around him, and as he blacked out he
could have sworn that he had killed at least half of them.
_________________________________
Psi woke with a jolt as he was thrown back into his cell. Once his eyes
flickered open, he looked outside the transparent energy field that served as a
door to see the girl from before, now accompanied by another soldier, but this one
seemed... different. Not just physically, even though that was obvious with his seven
foot height and the bloody red horns growing out of his forehead. He seemed more
reserved than the HYDRAs, like he was defective or something. Psi walked up the
limits of his cage, his eyes locked on the girl. "Okay Sarah, why put me back in the
cage? I'm just going to try this again, and then the cycle continues. Even with more
of your daddy's little clone army-"

"My father has created the greatest fighting force yet discovered. One of you
freaks isn't much of a problem."
Sarah turned around to leave, the giant man following her. At this point, Psi
noticed the weapon slung across his back, some freakish hybrid of a claymore and a
shotgun. He made a mental note to avoid him in the future.
The cell block where the subjects from Psi's project was a long, narrow
hallway, with twelve cells on each side, each marked with a Greek letter
corresponding to their code name. He was at the far end, with two empty cells
separating him from the wall. Chi was Sarah's cell, back when she was still being
tested. Omega was empty, and as far as anyone knew, had never been occupied since
the original Omega escaped. The cell across from his, and the only one for which the
shield was still transparent, was the first in the series, Subject Alpha. The first in the
project line stepped up to the field, glaring at the former fugitive. "You know every
time you try to escape, they increase security in here. You know you aren't strong
enough."
"So why don't you try it, or Beta? I know you guys could."
"I think you know as well as I do. You can use your powers anywhere. Beta
and I, along with most of us, are limited to using our weapons, which, I'm not sure if
you've noticed, we don't have anymore."
"Still, why not the others? The ones who don't need a focus?"
"They suck compared to us. Some of them compared to you, even."
"So now what?"
"Now, we wait for the next breakout attempt."
_______________________________________
He’d been in this cell for hours now. Everyone else had shut their lights off,
meaning Psi was the only one left awake. All he could do now was think. He looked
over at the two empty cells, their previous occupants long since free. Sarah used to
be Subject Chi, which while it ended well, never made any sense to Psi. True, she
was one of the more powerful subjects, but she was just a little girl, and the project
leader’s daughter at that. Regardless of if she wanted this, what kind of person
would do that to their own child?
Omega was different. He was the last addition to the project, but he escaped
almost immediately. Every attempt to track him down failed, but he came back
every time a new subject came in. There didn’t seem to be any point to his “visits”
other than picking fights with the new guys. As far as they knew, he never lost a fight
to anyone. The masked man they called Omega never lost, and every time he won,
he would give a different name and then cripple his opponent so they couldn’t fight
back.
“Red Eye” snapped Alpha’s staff in two and gave him a concussion that lasted
for weeks.
“Darkfire” broke Beta’s jaw and ripped out his teeth to keep him from eating
anything in defense.
He told Psi his name was Chaos right before breaking every bone in his
writing hand.
Every name was accurate, every act of torture cruel in the victims’ eyes.
_______________________________

Omega returned later that week. Delta had died a few days earlier, so while
the subjects were released for their daily exercise period, no one was surprised
when the wall burst into flames, as the man with the black mask walked through
unfazed.
“Where’s the new kid?” he said. No one moved. “I said. Where. Is. He.” Each
word was punctuated with a fireball tossed into the crowd.
Everyone moved away from the child who now went by Delta. Omega
leaned down so they were face to face, and he smiled. The kind of smile worn by a
murderer before the kill. “So kid, what exactly can you do? What sort of ‘magical gift’
have our kind creators bestowed upon you?”
Delta didn’t say anything. He was too afraid. He’d heard the stories.
“Hmph. Quiet type, huh? Okay then. I can do this the hard way if you want.”
His hand burst into flames and held it at arm’s length away from the boy. “Last
chance, kid. What are you?” Delta only retreated inward more.
“Fine then.” The fireball flew toward the child, who suddenly wasn’t there.
He’d run to the other side of the room in the time it took the fireball to travel a
few feet. “Oh, one of the fast ones. Figures.” Omega began a volley of flame in all
directions, trying to hit the boy and sending everyone else into a panic.
Psi immediately wondered where the guards were. They’d just run off when
Omega showed up, like—Oh hell no. They wanted him here, for whatever reason.

Suddenly, the fire stopped. In the center of the room, Omega was there,
holding the boy by his throat and whispering in his ear. No doubt his new alias.
Crippling him would be next. Why was everyone just letting him do this? Did they
just not care? No, that wasn’t it. Alpha said most of them were powerless. Psi wasn’t
though. He brought his finger to his mouth, and he bit down until he tasted blood. He
began to write on the walls. S
Omega stopped talking and held the boy out by his neck. W, O.
He dropped the boy to the ground and took hold of his leg at the knee and
ankle. R.
He raised Delta up and stuck his knee out under him. D.

Before the boy’s leg could be broken, a jagged blade caught Omega’s side,
ripping a huge gash below his ribs and causing him to drop Delta. He screamed in
pain and turned to face his attacker. “Who the f-“ Another slash, this time to the arm,
cut him off. He was now bleeding profusely from his left side, but he hadn’t gone
down yet. “What the hell, man?” he yelled.
“Seriously?” Psi raised an eyebrow. “You walk in here, start beating the crap
out of a kid, and just expect us to not react, and you ask me ‘what the hell?’”
Omega smiled, and he started laughing a bit. “I’ve been waiting so long for
that.” The laughing got louder. “Six years, I’ve been doing this! And I FINALLY get
one of you to stand up and fight me!” By this time he was laughing like a complete
psycho. Psi was understandably confused, along with everyone else.

Eventually, Omega’s laughing died down, and he stood up. Psi tightened his
grip on the sword, but he just knocked it out of his hands. Omega put his hand on
Psi’s shoulder, and Psi moved to retrieve the sword. Omega stopped him. “Hey, I’m
not gonna stop you if you wanna kill me. I hate this damn place anyway. Just listen to
me, and I’ll leave you guys alone, okay?
Psi backed up, but was clearly intrigued. “Go on…”
“I’m not going to come back here, as long as once I leave, you put on this
mask and break out of here.”
“I’ve tried breaking out. I can’t.”
“That’s why you get the mask, dumbass.” He put both hands to the sides of
his mask, and started to pull it away from his face. Burn marks were visible around
the inside edges. “I’ve seen what you can do. When I leave, or die, or whatever, stop
writing, start telling stories. Get out of here.” He handed Psi the mask, and for the
first time, one could see that his eyes were solid red, with a single black circle in
the center. “Just take it off every once in a while.” As Psi looked at the mask, Omega
limped out of the room, trailing blood behind him.

The room was silent for a few minutes, until sirens began blaring through the
facility. Psi looked around at the other subjects, still holding Omega’s mask. “Well?
You heard him, let’s get out of here!” He put the mask on, and everything went black.
Then everything was red. “And so the writer became a narrator.”

Licensed under Creative Commons, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.