The Disparate One

Eyes glued to the door, Ray stood, peeking from the bedroom, as his ears listened to the scream echoing through the space between him and the metal door.

The vibrations moving through the thick metal door sent shivers down his spine. Stupidly, he decided to investigate by pressing his body against the cold surface, listening to the muffled commotions.

The girl’s voice was barely audible now that a few new voices joined, this time males. He could easily tell it was the guards just from the sounds of it being so artificial. The moment escalated when all voices began shouting accompanied by someone being banged on the floor or the wall.

His breathing deepened when he started hearing footsteps while the noises became louder and clearer. He pressed himself even more on the surface as if he would go through it.

“I swear to fucking god I’m going to put a bullet into this girl’s head!” stated the first guard who stood on the other side of the door, grasping the girl by her neck.

“You’re a moaner aren’t you?” teased the second guard, tilting his head to get a better look at her breasts.

“You have only two choices, little girl. Which one will it be?” the first guard lifted the girl inches from the floor, staring straight into her trembling eyes, begging for mercy.

“Get your fucking hands off of me!!” the girl responded, kicking the first guard’s metal body, bumping on the door, frightening Ray.

“I guess we already know what she chose, let’s go,” grumbled the second guard, gesturing to the other to bring the girl to somewhere else where no one could hear her screams.

Back on the other side of the metal door was Ray already retreating to his bedroom where he slid under the cover in the corner, he was curled like a snail hiding in its shell.

He already had a nightmare to begin with and now he had to deal with the fact he just heard someone getting abused. The energy from his spine had scattered throughout his body, resulting in his fingers shaking.

What the hell is this place?! he talked to himself as a way to relax.

But it barely did any help, leaving him awake for the rest of the hours, staring at the bedroom door, hoping to not hear the metal door creak open to be the next victim.

Kilometers away, Chap was inserting the microscope slide under the lens sandwiching a drop of Ray’s blood. He breathed in heavily while he placed his eyes into the ocular lens. His right hand moved up and reached for the dial, turning it until he got the sight he wanted.

“Fascinating…” uttered the scientist when his right hand locked the dial in place while talking to the tablet, dictating everything he found for now.

Yep… your blood type will remain ‘unknown’, thought Chap, imagining he was speaking to either Oxford or Ray.

He brought another digital microscope and placed it next to the other, he did the same thing, however, he inserted his drop of blood for comparison. The word “fascinating” remained in his mind. He brought a third one, this time with random blood from a donor from the surface.

He switched on the three monitors and placed them side by side. His left hand moved under his chin as he stared at the staggering difference of Ray’s blood between the two. Unlike Chap’s and the donor’s blood which both had red cells, white cells, and other types of cells, Ray’s blood only had one; it was even bigger, twice the size.

Chap brought out his phone and snapped a photo of it, uploading it into the cloud and inserting it on the document shared to Oxford.

Chap was speechless on his discovery. He had never been this excited as his first day on his work. He could tell it was true when he found himself jumping on his heel. He hurried back to the cold cabinet where he retrieved Ray’s syringe and carried it safely with both hands into a different machine.

After seeing the differences, an urge of cutting the unknown cell in half grew from within Chap’s mind.

He spent at least an hour or so sitting next to the machine, carefully cutting his cells first. As expected, his cells’ response was apoptosis. He did the identical procedure on the donor’s cells, the response was the same, apoptosis. At last, he moved on to cutting Ray’s cell.

Chap jerked away from the monitor, he squinted at what was being displayed on the large, vivid screen. He blinked several times, even pinching himself and recalling what he had consumed before he commenced his experiments.

He leaned back to the machine and cut another Ray’s cell.

“What. The. Fuck?” he whispered, turning one of the dials near his right hand to zoom closer into those tiny particles flooding out of the other half of the cell.

He had been reading a lot of sci-fi novels in his life to the point where seeing those particles made him assume that they weren’t completely natural. He had never seen anything like it, and he was confident so did the facility. The inner geekiness of him began to escape his calm state. A smile grew across his face when he slid away and grabbed the nearest magnet he could find.

The one he found was a typical fridge magnet.

This is enough, he said as he strolled back to the digital microscope that had Ray’s sample.

He moved the magnet slowly closer to the microscope slide while locking his eyes at the monitor above. The large cells weren’t showing any movements at all until the magnet was inches away.

The large cell on the farthest right twitched and soon began sliding towards the magnet. One by one, more cells followed and were now wedging themselves on the right side where the magnet was.

“Holy. Shit.”

“Wh- H- Cha- Hang on!” Oxford intervened Chap’s sudden burst of words at the first few seconds of answering the call.

He had just finished his meeting with the other seniors regarding the current annual growth of the facility’s profits. He was already on his way back to Ray’s cell when he got the call.

Chap managed to calm himself down by breathing slowly, but as soon as he moved his eyes back at the monitors that were displaying screenshots of Ray’s cells, his heart was quickly refilled with adrenaline.

“What are you trying to say?” asked Oxford calmly when he boarded the elevator.

“Ray’s artificially made,” Chap simply replied, tapping his fingers on the table.

Oxford took a moment to register his colleague’s statement. The tone of Chap’s voice sounded like a child discovering for the first time that mitochondria were the powerhouse of the cell or lighting up a bulb using potatoes.

Either way, they had been working together for years without having a single doubt for each other. Though, right now was the first for Oxford to have this feeling.

“Elaborate it, simply,” ordered Oxford.

Chap explained that Ray’s blood cells were made up of billions of miniature, complex robots; he figured some were roaming around Ray’s body, preventing any diseases or even cancer or age! His calm voice gradually picked up speed and pitch which irritated Oxford’s ears.

You have read too many sci-fi novels, thought Oxford.

“How can you be so sure?” Oxford took the opportunity when Chap had to gasp for air.

“I’m just assuming… but…” Chap paused, staring back at the images this time with a different look, a concerned yet curious one, “...you don’t think we made him, right?”

Oxford thought the same thing. Hearing Chap geeking about something or someone’s existence usually always had advanced technologies involved. This, however, was too advanced for the two.

“I am not aware that this facility can produce such a thing…” was the only thing Oxford could say.

Chap sighed, clicking his tongue while staring at the magnet. He had to contain his excitement. He only touched the blood sample. Looking at the trolley that had all of Ray’s samples made him grin.

If his blood contains robots, would the rest of the samples have them too? he asked himself.

He was daydreaming of discovering more about Ray’s structure. His skin, his eyelashes, hair, saliva, semen, all must be made out of microscopic robots. Chap shook his head when he heard Oxford stopped talking. He wasn’t even listening.

“I might visit Ony and Sion later to ask them about it, oh wait-” Chap remembered that Oxford planned to visit them later, so maybe he could forward his questions regarding Ray’s blood or existence to Oxford, but he had already been beaten.

“I am planning to introduce the rest of us to Ray soon; in fact, I’m already on my way to his cell. Would you like me to ask them about it?” Oxford stepped out of the elevator, stumbling on two guards holding a girl who was bruised from head to toe.

Chap thought about it for a second. It would be a convenience not having to leave his lab in exchange for conducting more experiments on Ray’s samples. He agreed to Oxford’s proposition and thanked him.

Seconds later, Oxford’s tablet pinged; Chap added the images of Ray’s blood cells into the document.

Ending the call, Oxford slid out his keycard and tapped it on the scanner. The door heavily swung open, letting in light from the hallway to pour into the dark quarter. Oxford’s shadow stretched across the floor and stopped in front of the bedroom door. He stepped into the gloomy quarter where he stood near the bedroom door. He knocked on it, no answer.

Oxford huffed as he straightened his tie, he figured Ray was still asleep, traumatized by the curious hands of Chap.

Without hesitating, he turned the knob and pushed the door inward. He found Ray in the corner of the bed, wrapped in a blanket like a burrito coming out from a psychiatric hospital.

“You alright?” Oxford asked, taking a step forward with a brow raised.

Ray slid the sheet down, enough to reveal his trembling white irides. He explained to Oxford about his dream, which at first went over Oxford’s head. Then, the arrow of him explaining about the screaming girl landed straight to his head.

He felt bad for his test subject to experience such a horrible thing. He wanted to show empathy, however, he said this instead:

“That’s what you get for not following the rules.”