Chapter 6: A Day For Buck
Time lost its shape. The sterile lights never dimmed, the hum never ceased. Buck’s world narrowed to the metal slab, the unforgiving restraints, and the cycle of people who came to see him.
They arrived in teams, clad in white coats or camouflaged fatigues, their faces obscured behind clear visors. They spoke in low, technical murmurs he wasn’t meant to understand. “Subject Prime’s dermal density is off the charts.” “Observe the capillary structure in this biopsy.” “Adrenaline and cortisol levels are elevated but stable, considering.”
Needles, long and thick as knitting needles, pricked his arms, his thighs, the thick padding of his gut. They drew vial after vial of dark blood. They used diamond-tipped drills to extract slivers of bone from his iliac crest, the sound a high, grinding whine that vibrated in his teeth. They attached suction cups and electrodes to his chest, his temples, even his groin, mapping the electrical storms within him. The pain was a sharp, intrusive guest, but it was the humiliation that lingered. He was a thing on a table.
Through it all, his mind was elsewhere. It was a movie reel playing behind his eyes on a constant, desperate loop.
He pictured Jesse, sitting on the cold floor of a cell, knees hugged to his chest, silently freaking out. Jesse needed routine, needed his books, needed to know the rules. This would be shredding him. Buck imagined his gentle eyes wide behind his smudged glasses, and a helpless rage simmered in Buck’s guts.
He saw Tommy, trying to keep up the brave face, that killer smile strained to breaking as he cracked jokes to keep the other two from panicking. Tommy would be trying to be the rock, but Buck knew the fear that would be hiding just beneath the surface, the worry for all of them that Tommy would never voice.
And Finn. God, Finn. Buck could almost hear the running commentary. The insults aimed at the decor, the dramatic sighs, the scathing assessments of the soldiers’ haircuts. But he could also feel the silence that would eventually fall over him, the tangible fear when the bravado ran out. Finn felt everything at eleven; his terror would be a physical thing in that concrete box.
“Are they eating?” he rumbled once to a young technician taking his blood pressure. The cuff was a tourniquet around his massive bicep.
The tech flinched, nearly dropping his tablet. “I… I don’t have that information, sir. Subject.”
“Their names are Finn, Tommy, and Jesse. Are they safe?”
No answer. The tech finished his reading and scurried away.
The days bled together until a different noise announced a new phase: the grinding of a heavy motor. A section of the high catwalk unfolded, extending a broad metal ramp like a mechanical tongue until its end hovered just over Buck’s chest. Four soldiers marched down, faces hard, carrying a large gray trough between them. With a coordinated heave, they dumped its contents onto the slab beside him.
It was a slop of unidentifiable meat chunks, steamed vegetables turned to mush, and a paste-like substance that might have been potatoes. The portion was vast by human standards—maybe fifty pounds of food. To Buck, whose metabolism now roared like a blast furnace, it looked like a side salad.
One of the soldiers slapped the now-empty trough. “Feeding time, big guy. Bon appétit.”
They retreated back up the ramp. Buck, straining against the chest restraint, managed to twist his head and shoulder enough to lean over and eat. He didn’t use his hands; they were pinned. He ate like an animal, gulping the lukewarm, bland mass directly off the cool metal. It was gone in six swallows. The gnawing emptiness in his stomach remained, sharp and urgent.
“That’s it?” his voice echoed off the walls.
The Colonel appeared on the main catwalk, observing. “For now. We’re monitoring your caloric intake versus energy expenditure. Baseline data is crucial.”
“I’m still hungry,” Buck said, the statement simple and profound.
The Colonel looked him over, his gaze clinical and dismissive. “Subject Prime, you have significant mass. You could stand to lose some weight. Consider it a dietary adjustment.”
The words landed not as an insult, but as a spark on dry tinder. Buck went very still. The constant hum of the facility faded. He looked at the small, crisp man on the walkway. In his mind’s eye, it was not a catwalk. It was the floor. And the Colonel was standing on it. And Buck was lowering himself, with deliberate, tectonic slowness, his entire immense weight—the weight of his worry, his humiliation, his trapped power—centering on that one spot. He imagined the crisp uniform wrinkling, the posture collapsing, the breath leaving in a final, silent puff. He visualized the visceral, crushing detail, the ultimate silencing of that voice.
A full-body shudder racked him, making the restraints clank against their anchors. He blinked, breathing hard, the fantasy dissolving into the sterile, gray reality. He turned his head away from the Colonel, his beard scraping metal.
“Noted,” Buck muttered, his voice thick.
More days. More tests. Sonic pulses that made his teeth ache. Lasers scanned his eyes. They injected him with tracer dyes and watched his giant heart pump it through his system on massive overhead screens. He was a galaxy of strange biology, and they were cartographers.
After a particularly long session where they had painfully flexed and measured every individual finger on his hands, Buck had had enough. The Colonel was making his usual end-of-day observations.
“When do I see them?” Buck asked, cutting him off.
“See who?”
“Don’t,” Buck warned, a low growl underpinning the word. “My guys. Finn, Tommy, Jesse. When?”
The Colonel clasped his hands behind his back. “That depends entirely on you, beast. Perform. Cooperate. Show us you can follow commands. Do exactly as I say, and perhaps you can score some time with them. A little reward for good behavior.”
The phrase “score some time” lit a new kind of fuse. It reduced them to a treat, a dog biscuit for an obedient pet.
Buck’s patience, worn to a filament over days of poking and hunger and fear, snapped. “I’m tired of being a lab rat,” he boomed. The sound waves seemed to physically press against the walls. The scientists on the far side of the room flinched. “I’ve been poked, drilled, and starved. I want to see my boys. And I want to see them now.”
He didn’t just shout. His voice filled the chamber, a bass note of pure, frustrated authority. It vibrated in the Colonel’s ribcage, made the railing under his hands tremble. For the first time, the Colonel’s expression of detached control wavered. He didn’t show fear, but a sharp, keen interest. He felt the anger radiating off Buck in waves, like heat from a furnace door thrown open.
The Colonel’s eyes narrowed slightly. He wondered, idly and with professional curiosity, how far he could push this man before that anger became action again. What were the precise limits of his control? He filed the question away, a mental note for a future experiment.
He offered no answer to Buck’s demand. Instead, he simply turned and walked toward the sealed door. As it hissed open, he glanced back over his shoulder, not at Buck’s face, but at his clenched, mountain-sized fist straining against the dark alloy. A small, sinister grin touched the Colonel’s lips. Then he was gone, and the door sealed shut, leaving Buck alone with the echo of his own fury and the relentless, mocking hum.