18 May 2012
// Harder. Better. Faster. Stronger. //
I awoke in another large, concrete room lying on a cushioned table and blinking up at the fluorescent lights. Suddenly realizing where I was, I jerked upright, surprised to see that no one restricted me. The dark man from the lab sat on a chair facing me with a grave expression, elbows resting over his knees and hands clasped together. He wore a sleek, black suit unlike his white lab coat from before. "Elizabeth," he said, boring into me with his serious eyes. His knowledge of my real name startled me. "Do you know why you're here?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. I nodded. I knew exactly why I was there. It had been all over the news for the past month. It was the government's new hope for survival, and it was supposedly our new hope for survival as well. "Let me brief you in," he said. "May 19th of last year, extra terrestrial activity was discovered within a fifteen mile distance from the earth's atmosphere. We didn't release this to the press at first, but now the issue has grown to an uncontrollable scale. We're picking up massive signals of gamma radiation that is being emitted into our atmosphere, and you've probably seen these..." he fumbled through his jacket and revealed a small electronic devise about the size of a baseball that resembled a spider. I'd seen them in trees or in dark corners of the city, sitting deadly silent and then scurrying to a new location. I always found them odd, but no one else seemed to notice them. "Can you see what I'm holding?" he asked, eagerly watching my reaction as the spider uncurled itself. I nodded. "Ahh. There's the catch. No one else can. You've probably wondered why you're the only one who can see these. We're wondering the same thing. You see, these small probes are used as scouts. For them." I gulped. I really didn't want to know who "they" were. "We call them skitters. They're programed to be invisible to the naked human eye. But there's a glitch. Your ability to see these has to do with your age as well as keen vision, similar to the way dolphins can pick up supersonic sounds while we can't." Here, he paused, letting the skitter twist its way up his arm. This information seemed to hit me like a brick wall. The "extra terrestrial activity" he mentioned gave me a sickening inkling. "So why am I able to see them?" I asked, speaking intelligently for the first time since I'd been confined in the lab. The man looked up at me, meeting my gaze. "It's a combination of contributing factors. We've been analyzing your test results while you've been out and we've come to the conclusion that there are three possible factors. One: you are at such a point in your youth that your growth hormones balance out those of instinctive childlike impulses. A child too young does not have the vision necessary to see a skitter, nor does an adult, we believe, above the age of twenty - one. Therefore, you are not the only one who can see these. Anyone who maintains healthy diet and exercise between the ideal ages of thirteen and twenty - one should have a vague awareness of the spider, not being able to make them out completely but having a small indication of a shadow. You can see them perfectly well because we've fixed you." Again, he paused, waiting for my reaction. He spoke to quickly for me to process his words. "Fix me...?" I asked, now growing quite terrified of what they had done. "Oh yes," he replied, leaning back in his chair looking quite smug. "We've been tracking you for weeks. You know you should have died from the gamma radiation emitted into Barlow County before the evacuation. You some how survived, so naturally we were curious. You've got abilities we need for research, so we helped you out a tad bit. You've been injected with a substance that would have killed a normal human, but not you. This injection triggers your brain to detect supersonic activity, thus allowing you a clear vision in this skitter." he smiled fondly at the robotic creature who skittered happily over his shoulders and down his arm. I was petrified. "You can help us. We'll make you Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger."
ET { Harder } • Opuss № I