CHAPTER 8: The Crystal

Alex hastily entered the room, and sat down onto the white table with a machine encircling its upper half, stripped to his pants. He laid himself out on his back and shivered because the cold, metallic table sapped up heat from his body almost like how jumping into a pool without wading first would. He had to admit, he was pretty damn nervous. Thankfully, the hormones would somewhat lessen its effect soon. Alex loved this new body. He had been given the freedom of testing his body in the forest today while Maxwell was setting up the NC implantment procedure, so long as no one saw him. The very first thing he tried was sprinting full force. He was surprised when his legs felt like feathers as he ran past the trees, seeing them in the same way you would see trees while traveling in a car, albeit at a much faster rate of perception. It was a great experience. He even had Peter check him with a speed detector while he was on his break. It read an astonishing fifty-five miles an hour. Alex's jaw dropped when he saw the number. The next test was jumping and throwing. He could jump a good two-point-five meters, although he did trip off of the rock he jumped onto because he wasn't used to it. As he threw palm-sized rocks, they entered the trees and the ground like a bullet would, completely lodged inside. Alex realized the potential and power of this, and he noted to use them when they were available and practical. He tried chucking a large tree branch, and it flew through the forest, some of its parts snapping off due to the force of the throw. He scaled it up with a tree trunk and chucked it, tumbling over in the process. He wasn't some superhero, physics still applied to him. Though he had gained a hefty amount of weight since he had awakened, he was still only around two-hundred pounds. Pretty heavy for a teen, but Maxwell told him that once properly fed and trained, he would reach three hundred to three hundred and fifty pounds of mostly dense muscle. He would still need to be careful about the opposite forces enacting on him as he fought. One method of using his full strength was directing attacks upwards, using the ground to anchor yourself down and to distribute the force into. A solid method of combat included grabbing onto the attacker, should they be close, and choking them, blinding them(their eyes were still soft), or simply shooting them with the special weapons created by The Brotherhood(only guns 50 cal or heavier could do damage to the soft tissue. The bones are even tougher). Alex would be given a gun when he arrived. Both side's soldiers also had the latest Graphene coated armor, which had very little weak points, covering them from head to toe. The guns were good, but they took at least three shots in the same general area for the next one to break through the plating with a slowed momentum. Thankfully, Maxwell also said that this wouldn't be a problem for him. He would have a good gun, yes, but also the power of his X enigma. They had finally revealed to him the abilities of the mysterious object. It had two base functions: To cast a particle shield only a few molecules thick around the user, which granted decent protection from physical damage, combined with near-total immunity to heat transfer from the outside environment. The same unnamed forces keeping the particles locked in place floating a few millimeters from the skin were also keeping the particles vibrating at the same temperature as its host's, which creates a controlled climate around the body. The only problem with this is that casting the shield out completely makes it air-tight, and one's body heat becomes trapped, leading to a potential overheat if on for too long. Thankfully, the shield can extend to fit any shape the user wants, as long as it's close enough to the surface of the body. This allows the user to put on a suit with its own air supply and cooling systems and still have the ability to extend the shield over it, as long as the NC itself remains exposed. This means the suit will have to leave a small gap in its back, which the suit will have to fit around perfectly to remain airtight so that Alex wouldn't have to deploy his shield, should poison gas, water, or even a vacuum be present. Alex also had the option to open vents in his helmet piece if he wanted to breathe normally. The second function of the NC is that it can emit pure thermal radiation from any part of the external shield without emitting too high a frequency of electromagnetic radiation(and therefore penetrating the shield and harming the user). The device itself runs off of Fission power, as small as it is. It could "devour"(as Maxwell put it to Alex) up to ten kilograms of Uranium at a time, condensing it and then using it, converting the nuclear energy directly into another form of easy-access nuclear energy inside of its small, potent battery, giving it an energy yield of 90% instead of the regular 30% of normal fission reactors. Though the battery could hold one hundred and fifty kilograms worth of uranium in energy, its energy yield made it actually worth four hundred and fifty kilograms, roughly the power of SEVEN little boy nuclear warheads, the ones dropped on Hiroshima(with sixty-four kilograms of enriched uranium per bomb). The enigma could even use different types of nuclear fuel, including another isotope of uranium and also plutonium. Summed up, his X enigma gave him a particle shield, as well as the power to create heat(not to be mistaken for fire powers). For such a small contraption, it did a lot of very complex things. Alex tried to wrap his head around such a device, and how the honest hell he would be able to control the thing. After all, what mental processes go into activating that device? He guessed it would only be a matter of time before he found his answers. Maxwell also told him that he would only be as temperature resistant as a normal GMH when his shield isn't active and that he needed to be aware of that. The final piece of information that Alex had received was that his shield would not protect him from a fraction of any light waves with a frequency equal to or greater than gamma rays, as they have a much stronger penetrating power. The association had figured out all of these things through tests with the previous hosts, over the months they had them. Alex wondered if he would be the next to die by the device's hands. Not that the fear of death by this machine fazed him anymore. Inside the room, he admired the complexity of the machine as his upper body slid inside. It looked similar to an MRI machine, but with a gap under his neck and back, where the NC would ascend up, attach itself, and sprout its roots. The very thought of that disgusted Alex intensely, and made him squirmish. The researchers were brutally honest with him. It was a fast procedure, but an intense pain would last for a week as the NC grew its own nervous system up into his brain, giving him feedback and mental command over it, both consciously and subconsciously. He thought about the aliens that invented this thing, and wondered why they were such masochists. The machine suddenly fired up the lights from under him, the visible light casting a shadow of his neck onto the arc above him, and the invisible light was unseen but also present. He felt a searing heat radiating from below his neck. Both Exhibitor and Inhibitor waves fired in precise amounts. The opaque crystal glowed with reflected light as it opened itself, ready to receive its next host. A piston raised the small object up to Alex's neck until it made contact, the crystal easily embedding itself into his flesh. Once it was pushed in enough, the crystal shot its root-like tentacles into Alex's neck, and Alex's entire body tensed and thrashed as the pain spread like needles and thorns throughout his body. Thick metal clasps held his arms, legs, and head down as he desperately attempted to claw at his neck. He wanted to jump out of his skin. After a minute or two, his thrashing died down, and they released his cuffs. He sat up, leaned to his side, and vomited all over the floor. He had barely managed to keep that in for as long as he did. After all, he was fearful that he would inhale the vomit had he thrown up while he was laying down with his head held down. He chuckled weakly. That was more painful than a hard kick to the balls. Alex thought. Though the initial spike of pain was gone, continuous, tenacious pains would still plague him for a week. He wondered if he could hold out.

He sloppily leaped off the table and suggested that he go to sleep immediately. Maxwell stared at him blankly for a second before giving him the nod of approval, and said that he could assist him. Maxwell dragged the stumbling body down the hall to Alex's room, and Maxwell opened the door, one hand still gripping Alex's arm while it was over his neck. Dang, this man is heavy Maxwell thought. Maxwell laid the nauseous Alex on the bed and sat down in the chair. Alex spoke in a slurred, loud voice.

"Max, you can leave now. I'll be fine."

"You know I can't do that Alex. Don't worry about me, worry about yourself. I'll stay and monitor your condition. Just… take it easy."

"Thanks, Max." Alex's voice weakened as he dozed off.

"No problem, that's what friends are for." Maxwell said gently.