(I can’t quite remember how the deal with the sergeant turned out – it was resolved fairly quickly, and a long time ago.)
My education progressed remarkably well. I took classes all throughout the summer terms, and ended up focusing on – remarkably – science!!! I took a large amount of high level science classes on a very wide variety of subjects. My concentration was Xenobiology, the study of alien life. Of course, it was all theoretical, so it was a very wide field.
When the time came to drop PT and take up a sport, I chose tennis, and trained heavily in it. However, I dropped it after a year or two because my instructors were concerned for my health.
When my classes reached a high enough level, I took a job as a “research assistant” to Dr. Wong and Dr. Li, the two scientists in charge of the project on Toto. On the face, they were doing something relatively boring and un-noteworthy. Deep in the secret hallways of Yangtze 4-B Military Academy, they are performing experiments on an alien life-form, trying to figure out how a small purple nerf ball with no micro-structure can possibly be alive, and retaining information. My job as a “research assistant” was to find out little things like it’s information molecule (it turned out to be contained in the macrostructure of the whole organism), and conduct little side experiments of my own.
It was during this time that my course load, including summer classes, in addition to my research began to be too much for me. I began taking lessons in discipline from Dr. Hu and his wife. This included such trials as studying organic chemistry in a tub of icewater, and relaxation methods, and things like that.
After the week break between a summer term and a fall term, I approached the first of a series of secret entrances to the lab, and found that my fingerprint did not work. Frustrated, I waited outside the door for one of the doctors to come out, and demand an explanation. Dr. Li came out after a few hours, and stutter and stumbling, managed to get out that I “wasn’t cleared”. Also, my research assistantship had been transferred to another doctor, who was not involved in top-secret government experimentation.
Bummer.
I tried vainly to get back to work under Li and Wong, but I was thwarted at every turn. After a week or two, Dr. Li asked me to meet him at a snack machine where he normally eats lunch. When I did, he produced a sketch (on paper!) of a squid-like creature I had seen statues of way back in Nagaworld. I told him I recognized it and had seen statues of it. I was about to press for more information when he got a text message presumably from Dr. Wong. He cursed and left briskly towards the lab. I followed him closely, and it is unclear whether he didn’t notice me or didn’t care. When we got to the lab, I saw the squid creature in the flesh, contained in a flexiglass cage. He stared straight at me.
Dr. Wong was apparently uncomfortable with how it was looking at him when he texted Li. As we were speaking, the thing shattered the glass of the cage and began to attack. Dr. Wong left via the elevator, Li tried to remember his military martial arts, and I went to scoop up Toto. Li was quickly losing his battle, and I uselessly threw chunks of glass at it, when Dr. Wong returned with a very large syringe of a dubious liquid. While Li held it back with a chemical spray usually used to put out fires, Wong managed to shove the syringe into its neck and discharge the liquid. Slowly, it passed out. I got a first aid kit to treat Li’s serious wounds. Soon after, I was put under arrest for being in a restricted area without proper clearance, and sedated.
Double bummer.
I awoke once again hooked up to a cerebro-spinal tap, and was questioned by Dr. Hu about the encounter. I was then put under again.
I awoke again in the yellow sector of Batsat 1. An earbud relayed instructions to me from the computer. I was informed that the creature was being contained in a much thicker cell made of glass steel. Apparently, it was a biological impossibility for it to break through the flexiglass, and the conclusion was drawn that the cage had been sabotaged. They informed me that this cell was completely free of sabotage. I was led down there to converse with the creature and find out as much as I could about it. It had been asking for me. It somehow knew that I had seen things like it before.
I arrived in a rather large room, partitioned down the middle by a thick wall of steel glass. The creature was uncooperative, and I arranged a deal that we would take turns asking questions. Neither one of us found out very much, until I speculated that I was most likely the one most responsible for its current state, apart from its race, and contained by us. The next bit sounded something like this:
“BRAINLESS HATCHLING, YOU SEAL YOUR DOOM!”
*crack*
*crash*
Locks unsealing. ETA 120 seconds. Dreadfully sorry.
“No, wait – "
This story is continued in the thread for my new world, entitled
Riddle Me Hiss.