VEGETABLE
088 lay there, his muscles still twitching from the residual electricity of the ACD. He stared up at the sallow, skeletal face of the head researcher, his chest heaving as he fought to reconcile the clinical reality of the lab with the lingering memories of his mother and the void.
The head researcher didn't offer a word of comfort. He didn't even acknowledge the boy was conscious. He simply turned his back. "Run the physicals. Now. I want to know exactly what we've manufactured."
The subordinates moved in, their hands shaking as they unfastened the carbon-fiber restraints just enough to attach the biometric sensors. They forced 088 through a series of rapid-fire physical tests while he was still pinned to the slab—measuring muscle contraction, bone density, and forced reflex response.
After twenty minutes of frantic data-crunching, the head researcher loomed over the console. "Well? Give me the numbers."
The subordinate in charge of the briefing stared at his tablet, his face paling. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple. He shifted his weight, looking anywhere but at his superior.
"The results are... in, sir," the subordinate began, his voice thin. "Subject 088 shows significant physical improvement. His muscle fibers have condensed. In terms of pure raw strength, he's roughly equivalent to an elite, top-tier bodybuilder. His recovery time is also halved."
The head researcher's expression didn't change, but a vein began to throb in his temple. "That is a baseline improvement. A side effect of the sediment. Are there any signs of zombification didn't spend four years and millions of credits for a 'bodybuilder.'
but his questioning was met with a non-affirmative answer. This made his disappointments gradually aggravate into anger. After calming down he asked again,
"I want the status of his Awakening. What is his Ability?"
The subordinate swallowed hard, his hand shyly rising as if to shield himself, though he was the only one speaking.
"What's the matter?" the head researcher barked, his irritation snapping through the room like a whip.
"He... he did not awaken, sir," the subordinate stammered, his voice dropping into a meek, pathetic whisper. "The diagnostics are conclusive. He is... he is a normal person."
The silence that followed was deafening. Then, the head researcher flew into a blind rage. He slammed his fist into the reinforced console, the sound echoing like a gunshot.
"A normal person?!" he roared, his sallow face flushing a deep, angry purple. "Do you take me for a fool? A normal person in a coma does not produce brain activity that glows white-hot on a monitor! Only Awakeners show that kind of neural firing when they enter their mental space! You are telling me the 'Grain' of my project is a mundane failure?"
The subordinate cringed, his voice trembling as he tried to explain. "Sir, please... the data doesn't lie. While it is incredibly rare, there are recorded cases of 'Null-Awakeners.' People who fail the integration but whose brains still undergo the neural expansion. They can enter their mental space, they can see the void, but... but there is no power at the end of it. They have the mind of an Awakener in the body of a human."
The head researcher turned slowly to look at 088, who was still gasping for air on the slab. The look of "predatory hunger" in the man's watery blue eyes had vanished, replaced by a cold, murderous contempt.
088 lay perfectly still, his muscles stiff against the cold surface of the slab. He didn't dare to breathe, keeping his chest as shallow as possible, terrified that even a slight movement would draw the head researcher's murderous gaze back toward him. To 088, the man wasn't just a scientist; he was an executioner who had already discarded seventeen of his peers like trash.
As the argument between the researchers raged, 088's mind worked with a desperate, frantic clarity. This was the first time he was hearing the mechanics of the world outside the context of pain and training.
Back in the shelter, his parents had spoken of the "Awakening" as a simple, almost mystical rite of passage: you turn sixteen, and you get a power. That was the extent of his knowledge. He had spent the last four years in this hell assuming that the "Awakening" was a guarantee—a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel that would finally give him the strength to fight back.
Now, he listened to the subordinate's frantic explanations, absorbing every word like a sponge
Being sixteen was only the threshold and not a guarantee. He also came to know that he was part of a rare, "useless" category. He had the hardware—the brain activity and the connection—but none of the "software" or power to show for it and when they mentioned "mental space" he made a connection to the black void where he had sat in silence, the place he thought was death.
He realized that the reddish-purple aura that had tried to engulf him wasn't an after-death hallucination; it was likely the "sediment" or the integration attempt trying to take hold of his mind. And the blue screen... he still didn't know what that was, but he knew enough now to keep it hidden.
If these people thought he was "normal," he might be useless to their project. In a place where "Grain" was harvested and "Chaff" was burned, being "Normal" was a terrifying gamble.
The head researcher's voice dropped into a low, vibrating growl of pure disgust. "So, I have an elite athlete with a broken brain. A subject who can see the door to godhood but lacks the key to open it."
He stepped closer to 088, his shadow falling over the boy's face. 088 kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling, his heart hammering against his ribs, waiting for the sentence to be passed.
"Transfer him to the combat regime," he barked at the technicians. "But not before a deep-cycle brainwashing. I want a blank slate—no family, no shelter, no past. If he can't be a god, he'll at least be a loyal hound."
The heavy door hissed shut, leaving 088 in a cold, ringing silence.
088 lay frozen as the orderlies began unhooking his restraints. Panic flared in his chest, but he forced his body to stay limp. He now knew the truth about his "Null-Awakener" status and his mental space, but the researchers were about to rip those memories away.
As they wheeled his gurney toward the reprogramming wing, his only hope was the mysterious blue screen.
....................................….
As the gurney rattled down the sterile corridor, the looming "Reprogramming" sign felt like a death sentence. Panic clawed at his throat, but he forced his eyes shut. He recalled his parents' hushed stories of the Old World—about people called "authors" who wrote things called novels, that had their main characters having an interface called "systems" where the key to accessing them was always to focus.
He took a huge breath, stilled his racing heart, and narrowed in.
The world vanished as he blacked out, waking instantly in the silence of his mental void; what he saw completlely shocked him. The absolute blackness in the void had been corrupted. The reddish-purple substance was everywhere, woven into the very fabric of the space like a parasitic web.
Terrified, he looked down at his own mental projection. Intricate, glowing reddish-purple lines traced across his pale skin in pulsating, jagged patterns. The sight broke him. 088—the severe, cold "Grain" of the project—let out a high-pitched, hysterical shriek that echoed endlessly in the empty space.
He scrambled backward, pacing frantically through the gloom until the sheer exhaustion of fear forced him to settle. As his breathing slowed, the chaos around him seemed to steady.
That was when he noticed it. Hovering nearby, undisturbed by the purple rot, was the large translucent blue screen. He approached it cautiously, and this time, the blur vanished. The contents were finally sharp, clear, and undeniable.
The blue screen pulsed with a steady, clinical light, cutting through the reddish-purple haze of his mental space. As 088 stepped closer, the characters stopped shimmering and locked into place.
His breath hitched. He wasn't looking at his own name. He wasn't looking at "Subject 088."
[TARGET: BROCK VELAZQUEZ]
[AGE: 16]
[RACE: HALF-HUMAN]
[STATUS: AWAKENED]
He stared at the words, his mind racing to make sense of them. "Brock Velazquez?" he whispered. The name felt heavy and unfamiliar on his tongue. It was the name his parents had given his real name.
The "Half-Human" tag sent a fresh shiver of dread through him, especially as he looked at the purple lines still throbbing on his own skin. It confirmed his worst fears about the Haram experiments—he was no longer just a boy. But it was the final line that truly shocked him.
[STATUS: AWAKENED]
The researchers had just called him a "Null-Awakener." They had seen nothing but a normal human with a bodybuilder's physique. Yet, here in the sanctity of his own mind, the system was telling him a completely different story.
He wasn't a failure. He was a secret.
Outside his mind, the gurney bumped against the frame of the heavy doors. The cold, mechanical hum of the Reprogramming Room grew louder.
He knew that in a few minutes, they would strap him into the chair. They would pump his brain with high-frequency waves and chemical suppressants designed to wipe his slate clean—to turn him into a "loyal hound" with no name and no past.
He turned back to the blue screen, his eyes desperate. Hoping his awakened status will save him from being wiped.
The gurney came to a halt with a heavy thud. Brock felt hands—too many hands—hauling him from the bed and forcing him into a high-backed chair that felt more like a cage.
"Commencing deep-cycle erasure," a muffled voice commanded.
Suddenly, a violent surge of energy forced Brock out of his mental space. He was slammed back into his physical body as a blinding, incandescent yellow light exploded behind the visor. It wasn't just bright; it was physical. It felt like liquid fire being poured directly into his retinas. His eyes burned with a searing, stinging agony, and a high-pitched, discordant ringing began to vibrate through his teeth.
The Reprogramming Chair was a monstrosity of cold steel and tangled wiring. From his perspective, strapped down and unable to move even his jaw, it looked like a mechanical spider poised to feast. Thick, padded leather straps bit into his wrists and ankles, while a heavy, semi-circular visor descended from the ceiling, locking onto his temples with a hiss of pneumatic pressure. Surrounding his head were dozens of thin, glass-tipped needles—electrodes designed to pierce the skin and send pulses directly into his cerebral cortex.
The light pulsed in a rhythmic, sickening pattern, synchronized with electrical shocks that felt like needles of ice stabbing into his memories. He felt the images of the shelter, the smell of woodsmoke, and the warmth of his mother's hand beginning to fray at the edges, dissolving into the yellow glare.
But then, deep within the center of the searing light, a sound cut through the screaming static of the machines.
Ping!
A calm, digital voice echoed in the cavern of his mind, audible only to him.
[WARNING: MENTAL BREACH DETECTED]
[CALCULATING HOST MENTAL DEFENSES...]
[NOTICE: DUE TO HOST RACE AS 'HALF-HUMAN, THE MIND LACKS PURE BIOLOGICAL VULNERABILITY.]
[MENTAL BREACH NULLIFIED. ESTABLISHING MEMORY PARTITION.]
The agony didn't stop, but the memory erasure did. While the yellow light continued to burn his eyes and the electricity continued to jolt his nerves, Brock maintained his sense of self but to the researchers, the data on their screens showed a mind being systematically wiped clean.
After what felt like an eternity, the yellow light faded to a dull hum. The visor retracted with a mechanical clatter, and the straps were unbuckled. Brock slumped forward, his eyes bloodshot and watering, his body shivering from the ordeal.
The head researcher stepped into his line of sight, holding a small penlight. He shined it into Brock's eyes, looking for the tell-tale vacant stare of a blank slate.
"Subject 088," the researcher said, his voice testing the air. "Identify yourself."
Brock looked up knowing that if he showed even a flicker of recognition, he would be royally fucked.
Brock slumped in the chair, his head lolling to the side. His eyes unfocused and wandering aimlessly toward the flickering fluorescent lights above.
"Uuuh... guhh..." he groaned, the sound wet and mindless. Every few seconds, he let out an audible, rhythmic grunt, twitching his hand as if he'd forgotten how to control his own fingers.
Behind the visor, the two researchers stopped monitoring the data and stared at him in horror. The silence in the room was broken only by Brock's convincing, idiotic noises.
"I told you!" the first researcher hissed, his voice rising in a panicked tremolo. "I told you to keep the intensity at a moderate level! Look at him! You've fried his primary motor functions. He's turned into a vegetable!"
"He is a Null-Awakener!" the second one snapped back, though his voice lacked conviction. He was pale, his hands shaking as he adjusted the dials on the console. "People like that have a higher mental capacity because they can access their mental space. I calculated for the extra resistance! Don't blame me for making a logical decision based on the subject's unique brain activity!"
"Logic? You call this logic?" The first researcher began to pace frantically, clutching his head. "Shit... the Head is going to kill us. We are dead men. We were supposed to deliver a 'loyal hound,' not a brain-dead slab of meat. Why did I even listen to you?"
Inside Brock felt a surge of joy. The fear in their voices was the sweetest thing he had heard in four years. If they believed they had made a mistake—if they truly thought they had broken him beyond repair—then their guard would drop.
Being a "vegetable" meant they wouldn't expect him to learn. They wouldn't expect him to watch. And they certainly wouldn't expect him to strike back.