Chapter 3 - The test

As the acidic smell of my vomit filled the sunlit room, the guardian squeezed my neck and lifted me up on my feet. He held his grip on my throat, and I began wheezing, violently scratching his arm.

“Enough” roared Father.

With a disappointed look in his eyes, the guardian finally loosened his hold on me and walked away.

I gulped as much air as I could, but it took a while for me to stabilize my erratic heartbeat.

That oversized gorilla wanted to kill me! I was scared, tired and absolutely fuming.

I’ve had enough of this. I needed to get out of here. As a plan began to form in my mind, I turned my gaze towards Father.

“Father, give me one last chance before I follow your wish and accept this honorable task you’ve given me. One last chance to prove to you that I’m not useless, that you did waste your resources on me.”

Father observed me curiously. Almost nobody dared to counteroffer his commands and those who did mostly end up buried six feet underground. His curious look was, however, quickly replaced by an annoyed one. I was useless, the only one in the entire lab with all my stats equal to 0 despite the hundreds of thousands of hours of training. Probably the only one in the entire world with these stats at my age.

And to make matters worse, I was absolutely and utterly talentless. No “Hard Muscles” or “Snake Flexibility” for me. Not even “King of Sleep”. And I was pretty damn good at sleeping. No. Where the talents and skills should have been, I only had a black stripe with a lock on it. What it meant exactly, nobody knew. The only thing we did know was that it rendered me as a worthless piece of trash.

“So, how exactly are you going to prove your worth to me after all these exasperatingly disappointing years?” asked Father, his voice laced with irony.

“Easy. Make me go through the capabilities test. One last time.”

As I watched Father ponder about his decision, I inclined my head once again, standing straight, hands linked behind my back. Finally, he let out a long sigh and said,

“Fine. That’s the last gift I can give you before you start paying off your dept. I hope for you that this will not be a waste of my time,” he added sternly. I just smiled.

“Go, be ready in half an hour. I’ll wait for you at the training grounds.”

And with that he turned his chair around, taking in the beautiful view from the only window in the lab. “Trees” they called them in the videos. And “flowers” of every kind. I could recognize daisies and poppies, anemones and wild roses and dozens of others the names of which I didn’t know. But before I had the time to fully admire the view, the guardian pushed me outside Father’s office and closed the double doors behind us.

Right, concentrate. You have half an hour to prepare. You can do this. As these thoughts ran through my mind, the guardian took me to the canteen where I could find most of my peers eating breakfast. As soon as I stepped into the large room, he turned around without looking back, mumbling under his breath “Good riddance”. Likewise.

I looked around, making sure the adults were either too busy serving food to the children or too occupied with something else to pay attention to me. I then began tapping on the floor, following a precise pattern. A code we, the useless ones, invented in order to be able to communicate even when we were imprisoned in our cells.

My message wasn’t long. Three quick taps followed by four long ones. Meeting between the big kids. Tonight. Diner. I needed their help if my plan was

going to work.

...-._.-._.-...

Half an hour later I was standing in front of the training grounds. The LED lights were blinding, even more so given the fact that the training grounds were white from top to bottom. Their walls, their ceiling, their floor…everything was white. It was easier this way to simulate different scenarios to be able to measure your stats and maybe even cause the emergence of new talents and skills.

Not that it ever helped me.

I walked towards one of the corners of the room, where the weapons lay. Father hadn’t arrived yet. I was in luck.

One and maybe the only good thing about this place was that the resources it provided were top-notch.

Titanium plaques able to take single hits from high-caliber bullets (if you are trying to reinforce your defense), bows and arrows if you want to hone your concentration and precision skills, whips and swords to train your strength and agility, hammers and daggers, bats and spears, hidden weapons and guns. Everything your heart desired.

And I had tried using every. single. one. of. them. Obviously enough without a single result.

But I wasn’t here to improve my non-existing stats today. I took a titanium plaque and a dagger from the mountain of weapons before me.

“I see you’re ready to start the test 14999.” I whirled around, my heart frantically jumping in my chest. Father.

“Without further ado, tell me what you want to work on today.” I showed him the titanium plaque and the dagger.

“Ah I see. Let’s test your defense skills first then, shall we?”

He slowly approached the weapons arsenal and took the most powerful rifle of our collection. He wanted to kill me. The titanium plaque was able to block only high-caliber bullets, not a goddamn rifle!!

“Let the test begin”

Without any warning, Father began shooting at me with the rifle, straight to my heart. I ducked and held the titanium plaque before me, trying to prepare for the impact. But I had no strength in my arms and the pressure of the bullets against my so-called shield sent me flying across the room, pieces of titanium flying along with me.

Father had completely obliterated my plaque. My head was pounding as I tried to lift myself up. Bastard. I couldn’t feel my legs.

As I remained on the ground, Father turned around to prepare for the next round and I used that moment to take two pieces of titanium, hiding them in my sleeves.

The feminine voice of the artificial intelligence who measured your stats rang in the room. “Strength: 0, Intelligence: 0, Luck: 0”

Why thank you very much miss. It’s always a pleasure when someone tells you so straightforwardly that you’re the dumbest being on Earth.

With a tired grunt, I finally managed to get back up. But as soon as I put my left foot down, a sharp pain made me yelp. I lowered my hand on the side of my left leg. It came back bloody. A bullet had scraped my thigh. Great.

And Father was already waiting for me, dagger in hand. Let’s get this over quickly, I thought.

This was far from my priority anyway.

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