Path of Ranger: Volume 1 (26 page)

“Changes? What changes?”

“I don’t think you’re going to like it, but I’m afraid there was not much of a choice. Your body will never be as it was before. After I had hooked up this life support system, I noticed that the weight of gibsonium inside was lowering with the time. Your organism is absorbing it. It enhanced your healing ability. I had to increase the supply of carbohydrate and protein enormously to satisfy your body's need.”

“Is it just me, or you’re not telling me something?” JB suspected.

“Well, there also were several brain surgeries to enhance your sensibility, and reflexes…”

“Da fuck?”

“What? I have been working on this research for years. I needed a test subject. You weren’t likely to live anyway…” Doc tried to excuse himself. “I did test it on monkeys before.”

“Oh, like that makes it better!”

“Man, just… Okay?”

JB wasn’t that pissed, actually. He just felt bad about how those major decisions had been made without him.

“I do feel betta, yo. The pain in my chest is lowered. But it ain’t no reason for you to mess with my brain! Literally!”

“That’s what I’m talking about. The regeneration is much more advanced now. That’s a good thing, right?”

“I guess so,” JB shrugged. “You did save my life, Doc. Let’s say we’re square. But no more experimenting on me, man.”

“Deal,” Gibson felt much better. “Now, JB, a whole new world is opened to you. Just imagine the possibilities.”

With those words being said Mark stood up, JB heard the creak of the chair. Then the sound of steps led to the door.

“Hey, Doc! Where are you going? When am I walking out of here?”

“It’s too soon, you need rest. Just a few more days.”

“Then at least do something with my eyes. I can’t take off the bandage, the light is killing me. What the fuck is that? Am I turning into a vampire?”

“I’m sorry, JB. But the receptors aren’t finished transforming yet. It was the most complicated of all of the procedures that you went through. The bandage stays on for a few more weeks. Get some rest.” When walking through the hallway, Gibson kept mumbling to himself. “Seven billion people out there and gibsonium picked ‘that one.' Unbelievable.”

The conversation left an impression for JB that Gibson was not his enemy. An ally more likely. Bridgers made peace with all those things that he had to go through. A second chance. In his honest opinion, it was already more than he deserved.

The next three days JB spent in a long sleep. Only after the full stock of gibsonium was spent the doctor took off the life support system from the newly made mutant. Jerry finally stood up out of the bed. Slight vertigo and disorientation were more or less bearable. But JB went for the bathroom so fast that he completely forgot about his blindfold, or about how he was naked. Ten minutes after being alone in the bathroom, he looked out from behind the door to ask for some cover from the doctor. Gibson was already standing there with a pack of clean clothes for his patient.

The blinded mutant walked around the building mostly on touch and using his intuition. He was bumping into walls, doors, equipment, stumbling on stuff. By the time when JB got accustomed to the blindness, the lab was messed up. Nevertheless, Gibson showed quite a bit of interest in it, he observed JB and even had harmless chuckles over it from time to time.

The doctor mentioned enhanced hearing as one of the results of mutation. He told JB to embrace that in his adaptation, that it was supposed to help him adjust to space. But sound waves reflecting the objects or a visual sonar map stayed only in JB’s impressions from the movies. There was nothing, just some sounds. The reason of the mutant’s fast adjustment was different, JB knew it. Yet, he didn’t tell Gibson about it. He gave straight answers to the doctor’s questions, just what he wanted to hear. The big guy decided that it was too soon for a full disclosure.

A half day later, when JB had his share of fun, moving around, Gibson took him to the central lab. It was time to continue the research.

JB found himself sitting in a medical seat, just like the dentists had. A set of bright lamps held above him. His bare torso was covered in markers and sensors with a bunch of wires connected to the computer. A broad rim lay over his head with even more wires connected to it. Gibson stayed near, using several old computers for analyzing the data.

“Hm… That’s interesting…” he mumbled.

“Sup, Doc?”

“Your organs are getting the stability back, it means soon you’re going to have a hell of an appetite. But I’m concerned about the temperature,” Gibson never even glanced at JB, his eyes glued to the screen.

“A fever? I feel fine.”

“I measured your temperature in the morning, it was about thirty degrees by Celsius. I thought that it was a sensor issue, but now it shows twenty-four degrees and keeps going down.”

“Yo! Look at ya tech,” JB heard a load key clatter, a fan noise, so he supposed that it was an old lab indeed. “Are you a junker? What do you have there? Some trash from the previous century?”

“That’s funny?” Mark got the skepticism. “May we get back to your hypothermia? Do you mind?”

“So, sup with dat, Doc?”

“I’m not sure. I suppose gibsonium could partially take a power supply function on itself, which was fulfilled by the chemical process in muscles before. If so, your body wouldn’t need a regular thirty-six point six degrees to function. This low temperature may be some kind of power safety mode of yours. But that’s just a theory. It’s very interesting, anyway.”

“Are you sure that I ain’t no vampire?”

“The mutants aren’t vampires,” the doctor responded.

“Have you seen a vampire?”

“No.”

“So how can you be sure?!” JB’s play got so far that he started believing in that himself.

“I won’t dignify that with an answer.”

The doctor finally left the computer to check the patient’s temperature himself. JB’s skin was cold as stone.

“So, is that good or what?” the mutant asked.

“Well, if you feel fine, and we won’t find any major failures while experimenting, then… I guess so…” Mark said thoughtfully. “Let’s check your pulse and pressure now.”

After holding JB’s wrist for some time, Gibson felt a discomfort: his fingers got cold, he went dizzy, and overall weakness flashed through the body. The mutant’s skin gained a reddish incandescence in the place he touched. Gibson recognized it as gibsonium’s glow. The one when it was absorbing energy. Then Mark released JB’s hand to get back to the computer. He typed in something. The cuff of the sphygmomanometer went inflating. It felt unpleasant, JB hated visiting doctors.

As for Gibson, he was feeling worse and worse. At some point, he almost fell down from exhaustion. The drowsiness got on him. Telling nothing to his patient, he tried to cheer up and kept going.

The next task for the mutant was to do some simple exercise; sit-ups, lean-downs, jumps, et cetera. He did everything that the doctor told him.

“Let’s see… Everything looks fine, except the temperature and heart rate. Your heart grew a bit in mass, it caused a decrease in pulse frequency. Not much, about ten beats per minute.”

“How could my heart change? Did you do that?” right after saying that JB teased Gibson with his own saying. “Hm… Interesting…”

The doctor noted the joke. His new comrade was maliciously smirking. So Doc skipped that ‘hm’ even though he was going to say it.

“Most of your physiology changed. The bones got denser. Perhaps, its chemical compound changed. We need to make a biopsy, to be sure,” Gibson’s voice was calm and confident, and it brought JB a peace of mind. “Get up. Let’s go to the next room.”

“Why?”

“More tests.”

“More? Haven’t we done enough already?”

“Oh, man. You have no idea,” this time the doctor smirked.

They both entered the next room. That one was much bigger. It had the size of a hangar. There were lots of heavy machinery inside. A centrifuge, an altitude chamber, hyperbaric chamber, a gigantic glass pool and many others. It looked like a space flight training center.

“Man, this place is loaded!” JB said under excitement. His head was spinning around exploring out the room. That’s where Gibson started to suspect the mutant had some kind of alternative vision. “Even I used to have less stuff in my dungeon!”

“In the dungeon?” Doc wondered.

“The dungeon, dude!” JB smiled.

Even if the upcoming bump on a shoulder from the big guy was another sign for Mark how much he and JB were different, they both felt that it was a start of a real friendship.

JB’s healing had finished. It was time for Gibson to play with his new project, as he saw it. The process of experimenting in that field got to him so deep, he forgot about anything else. The only thing that bothered him was that he didn’t know his patient as a person very well. The first impression from talking to JB appeared fine, but there were other clues, which couldn’t be ignored. All those cruel tattoos, scars, an overall attitude of arrogance. JB had confessed himself that he was a criminal and Mark wouldn’t doubt it for a minute, the question rose if he was dangerous for him.

As a scientist, Gibson might never have such chance to explore the possibilities of gibsonium. Perhaps the most valuable element on Earth. Yet, his primary concern was not to give it to the ‘wrong hands.’

On the other side, JB wasn’t sure either if he could fully trust Gibson. Of course, the man saved his life, gave him a shelter, and left an impression of a great guy. But, the voice of suspicion, which had been developed over the years, didn’t fade easily. The first thing JB had to learn on the streets not to trust anyone. Especially those who were expecting it. Nevertheless, they were stuck together, at least for a while. They both needed to get to know each other better.

A new day came, it was time to get to work. Gibson brought JB outside for the first time. He planned to start physical training with an exercise on the research center’s playground. A workout to record some data about the mutant’s stamina capabilities. Plus, the doctor wanted JB to feel the fresh air and sunlight after that long stay inside. Unfortunately, it was cloudy, as before. One thing Gibson was glad about, that JB’s eyes were still covered so he wouldn’t be downed by the weather as Doc was.

The mutant walked through the building almost without bumping into the walls and doorways. The doctor talked to him all the time to provide direction clues with his voice.

When they came to the playground, Gibson showed JB where the training units were; a horizontal bar, a climbing wall, and many others. The playground was surrounded by a quarter mile track. Most of that whole area had buildings on its sides, but one side was open to the jungle. JB stared in that direction for a while, after he got to the first exercise spot.

“Is that safe, Doc?” he asked.

“What? The jungle?” Gibson asked when setting up the height of the bar. “Yes. Monsters can’t get here. There is a fence outside.”

“It’s kinda strange.”

“A fence?”

“No. How you call them ‘monsters.' It’s like you have nothing to do with their creation…”

“Who? Me?” Mark froze for a second. “Wait, did you think this whole time that I’ve made them?”

“Well, you’ve made me what I am.”

“Huh, there’s a misunderstanding here. I wasn’t the only bioengineer here. I have nothing to do with creating those creatures. I hate them.”

Hearing that, JB felt bad for misjudging Gibson.

“Okay, please, accept my apologies then.”

“Well-well. And I thought that you’re not physically capable of being nice.” Mark smiled. “I guess I’ve misjudged you too.”

“We probably have a lot to learn about each other.”

“Yeah…” Doc lingered for a second in his thoughts. Then he stepped away from the bar to give JB more space. “Let’s start with limbering up. I need to set up data sensors on you. Take off your shirt.”

The mutant removed the black t-shirt, which Mark had given him, to reveal the old tattoos and some new scars left by the monster. His muscle weight was as massive as before, but it got softer, weaker. The week of motionless lying showed. Gibson started placing sensors on.

“I have bad news for you,” the doctor said. “A part of your tattoo was damaged by the cuts. The scars are to heal with time, but the ink is ruined.”

“That’s cool. When they are out, I’ll have more space for the new ones.”

“Actually, I find those images quite interesting. A phoenix bird with a writing ‘Burn in fire, rise from ashes,' a ‘Dr. Evil’ projection, ‘Nothing but a G thang,' a blood stain, the number twenty-two, your blood type,” Gibson was listing everything he looked at preparing for the next question. “By the way, thanks for the blood type. It saved me some time while treating you.”

“That’s what it is there for,” JB replied. “I’ve seen it once on a soldier’s dog tags. It seemed like a good idea.”

Gibson smiled.

“So why so much violence in that ink?”

“I was younger, I thought I knew better,” JB shrugged. “It took some time for me to start putting sense in them.”

“The blood stain?”

“Yeah, like that one.”

“What does it stand for?”

“Just a history mark. About four years ago I made a mistake, lots of people died because of it. I lived. When I was running away from the crime scene, a street camera took a picture of me. We extracted those records. A blood stain just like that was on me when I got out from that slaughter.”

“And the hands prints?”

“In memory of the two who were with me that night. No one is untouchable.”

When the sensors were put on, Gibson put a recorder on JB’s belt and fixed the wires with duct tape to his skin. The big guy put on the t-shirt and started limbering up.

“It’s a cruel world we live in,” Mark added to everything said before.

“We are cruel creatures, Doc. And the whole world is our twilight zone.”

“Isn’t that one of the tattoos of yours?” Gibson noted. “What does that one mean?”

“Whatcha mean?” JB was surprised. “Haven’t you seen the show?”

JB finished the warm-up so Mark gave him a new task.

“Get on the bar and do pull ups. Start with twenty, then add five to each round.”

“Okay, now we play ‘ladder,'” JB smiled.

“So what’s up with that ‘Twilight Zone’?”

“I can’t believe that you haven’t heard about it,” JB continued right while doing an exercise. “This is a TV-show, the first generation aired back in nineteen fifty-eight. It’s kinda about that place, another dimension, where people encounter the outgoings of their own being.”

“You mean, like a dark side of ourselves?”

“Dark side, light side, anything that is imbalanced. It’s kinda enlightening.”

The thought seemed still blurry in the scientist’s eyes, but it had some sense in it.

“And you think that the world is a one big ‘Twilight Zone’?”

“Ain’t the world, Doc. Our world. It’s personal for everyone. Just people can get there. And a dog… Once…” JB finished the round. “Let’s take me as an example. All I did most of my conscious life was seek power. An endless game of the gangsters. And once I had a chance to take it, I saw a pile of big nothing. After all those times being the on edge of death or getting busted. After all those people who died in the process… Where have I ended? I gained no power, just emptiness. And there was nothing ever after. It is my twilight zone.”

“Hm… Interesting…”

“Now, let’s take you,” JB continued. “You live here, cut out from the world, as a prisoner of the consequences of your own work. Here is your twilight zone.”

Perhaps Doc might even be offended by the conclusions of his patient, considering how little he knew. But something that had been said distracted him.

“Wait,” Gibson said. JB froze half way into a pull-up. “No, go on exercising.” JB went on. “Los Angeles. The gangster named JB. That’s right, I remember now! It was you, wasn’t it?”

“What was I?” the mutant asked back. He jumped on the ground after the round.

“I didn’t recognize you at once. A year ago, the Los Angeles accident. One of the gangs committed a terrorist attack, dispersing a cocaine cloud above the city. One of the suspects was a gang member of the JB gangster guy. It was you!”

“What? Terrorist attack? That is bullshit!” JB protested. “Those terrorist bitches blow up self-made bombs and shit. They hijack planes and shoot at crowds. Those are terrorist attacks. What happened in LA back then was one asshole misclicked a button on the control panel. That cocaine was supposed to be destroyed in the neutral zone.”

“How much did it cost?”

“About eight hundred mill for the batch. Give or take…”

The mutant had restored his strength. He got back to the bar.

“Eight hundred million…” Gibson looked shocked. “What kind of criminal are you?”

“I’ve told you, Doc. There is no way back from the twilight zone.”

“Stop bullshitting me,” the doctor smirked. “Better tell me what actually happened to you.”

When another round was finished, JB stepped on solid ground to come close to the scientist. Mark had to look up to see his comrade’s face.

“Well, fine, Doc. I’m gonna tell you my story. The whole thing, no cuts, no avoiding. And in return you’re gonna tell me about this island and the research that is going on here. Because all that we’ve been doing up to now is treating each other as fools. It’s time for us to cooperate…”

“You’re not as simple as you seem, right,” Gibson took a fresh look at JB. “Deal.”

The recorder on JB’s belt beeped indicating the heart rate drop. Doc checked his watch.

“Go to the bars now. Let’s start with thirty per round.”

For the eight hours of non-stop training, Doc exhausted his mutant. By that time Jerry told Mark most of his life, they came to the period what interested Gibson the most. When it was time for dinner, JB was narrating about what could be the most important years of his life.

“So, as you know by now, I was carelessly living on the back side of the gun, waiting for an enemy's bullet to hit me. Life itself didn’t concern me much,” JB was saying while chewing a sandwich.

“Did it concern you after?”

The young mutant was having a fourth serving of his meal by that time. The doctor mixed various substances from several plastic bags into one large glass container. He measured the proportions along the way, occasionally tried it on taste, wrinkling out of disgust.

“It happened few years ago. The Boss was killed. The time came to decide who would be the new king of Los Angeles crime world. Our clan was the largest one, so it had to be me, or Big Dog. I was twenty. And I was greedy, arrogant and very cruel. Then it happened…”

“That accident that you mentioned?”

“We were up to a job. Myself, Big Dog, Tyris, and Joalim, the most retarded criminal there was. The job was a piece of cake. A robbery. Some ‘white collars’ in a car. They were researchers or something. We had to steal the wheels and then sell what it carried on the black market. Everything was going fine until one of the eggheads tried to run. I chased him. He wanted to save some suitcase with an injector inside. The rumble started. Short story: in the process, I got injected with that very needle. Till this day, I don’t know what was inside. All I know is that things had changed after.”

When Mark noticed that JB was out of food, he refilled his thermos with another serving of the pale green liquid which he was cooking.

“Changed, you say? How changed?”

“The first three days were the real hell for me. I couldn’t breathe, stand, sit. The dizziness was so hard that I lost consciousness. And the worst part was a headache. I was sure that I was going to die. At some point, I kinda wished for that. Anything to stop the pain. But after a while it passed. And I started seeing things.”

“What things?”

“The stuff that I hadn’t noticed before. The connections between objects, events, happenings. Everything surrounded me, began to make sense. It was like an endless motion of ongoing processes, and all of us were like microparticles in it. I dropped the clan. Then the war for the throne started. The clan split. Each newly appeared gang took its piece of territory. The world of crime degraded into madness. The chaos thrived in the city.”

“And you were staying aside?”

“When D-Kay’s crew attacked us on the first night, I led my people against them. It was then that I noticed the change in me. I froze before killing the enemy, for the first time in my life. The light of the life seemed so precious to me, I just couldn’t shoot. The next second he fired at me with semi-automatic. I got off easy, with a scratch on the neck,” JB leaned his head to show the scar. “But three of my men, who stayed with me, were killed.”

JB was telling it like it was happening to him right before his eyes, yet, his face remained emotionless. He snapped back for a second to look around in search of the meal. Gibson handed him a thermos. The mutant took a deep sip.

“Gross! What is it?” he asked.

“It’s a nutritionally balanced mix for enhanced muscle growth. The main ingredient is a unique species of local worms, with some other supplements,” Mark explained. “Don’t be such a princess. I’ve tried it. It’s not that bad.”

“Yeah-yeah… You are saying. I’ve seen you wrinkling from it like Eddie Murphy in every show.”

Then JB looked inside to make sure that there were no pieces of worms floating inside.

“Well, still better than McDonald’s,” with that been said he went drinking on to empty the container in one go.

After the meal had been finished, JB took a glass of water to wash off that disgusting taste.