Chapter 7: The Failure of the Project
The Director's office was the only room in the orphanage complex that had real wood. It was a pathetic attempt to simulate power and legitimacy. On the polished mahogany desk, lay a single thick file.
Its edges were sharp. The cover was marked with a single red label, printed in capital letters and austere: SUBJECT SEVEN: FINAL EVALUATION.
Three people were in the room. The Director, a thin man with the eyes of an accountant, was looking at the file. Dr. Lysenko, pale and tense, wrung her hands.
And then there was the Head Instructor, "Scar." He was furious.
"It's uncontrollable," snapped "Cicatriz," his voice a contained growl. His report on the infiltration mission in St. Petersburg had been brief and brutal. "He completed the objective. He planted the device in twelve minutes. 100% efficiency. Then, he violated protocol."
His fist hit the table, causing the file to pop out. "He turned off his communicator and disappeared for six hours. He disobeyed a direct order for exfiltration in a hostile area. He returned on his own, on foot, as if nothing had happened. It's insubordinate and uncontrollable!"
"Psychologically, it's worse than that," Dr. Lysenko chimed in, her voice trembling. The Director looked at her. "It's no longer just resisting indoctrination... they mock him."
He opened the file. "Your 'Flipped Training,' as I called it in my last report... Now I understand. It was never to control himself. It was to control us."
"Explain yourself, Doctor," said the Director coldly.
"He was giving us exactly enough so we wouldn't eliminate him. The shot in the knee. The dislocated shoulder. They were acts of defiance disguised as lethal incompetence. But something changed. The St. Petersburg Mission... access to the real world... it has given him a new external motivation." Their internal apathy, which was our main tool of control, has been overcome. He is no longer just rebelling; it has a goal."
The Director clasped his hands, his face impassive. "So," he summarized, "what we have here is an asset with the assassination potential of a Grandmaster, who now actively hates this organization and possesses its own secret motivations. In short, Subject Seven is a failure as an obedient soldier."
…..
The Head Instructor, "Scar", stepped forward, his shadow covering the desk. "It's a ticking time bomb." His voice was a low, furious growl. "He's too smart and hates this place. It must be eliminated. Now."
The Director did not even look up from the file. "No," he said coldly.
"'No'?" "Scar" was incredulous.
"Eliminating it is wasteful." The Director finally looked up, his accountant's eyes were cold. He pressed a button on his intercom. "Activate the monitor in cell Seven."
A screen on the wall came to life, showing a grainy image of Jonathan's confinement cell. The fifteen-year-old was sitting on the cement floor, meditating quietly. His face was serene, his breathing was deep and controlled. He looked like a monk, not a prisoner.
"He's a failure as an obedient soldier," the Director said, his voice soft. "But look at it. It is a resounding success... as a living weapon."
"It's a weapon that we can't fire," replied "Cicatriz."
"We don't," corrected the Director, with the hint of a smile. "We can't control it. But we don't have to."
With a click of his mouse, he opened a secure digital file on his personal monitor. "There are buyers in the market who don't want a soldier. They don't care about obedience. They want a monster." He paused. "They pay for pure genetics. They pay for innate potential. And we have the best specimen in the world."
Two logos appeared on the Director's screen, visible only to him. One was a complex and shadowy ideogram representing the Yami organization. The other was the emblem of a family, that of the Kure Clan.
"Both have expressed significant interest," the Director continued, "since the research at the East facility seven years ago. They're looking for the person who did it, and they think he's affiliated with us. How fortunate that the asset they are looking for is the same one we need to liquidate."
"Scar" he understood. This was not a disciplinary problem; it was a transaction.
The Director closed the file. "We'll sell it." "We will auction it quietly to the highest bidder. It will be the most profitable asset this Orphanage has ever produced. Doctor, prepare Subject Seven for cryogenic transfer. 'Scar', prepare the containment team. I don't want mistakes."
He leaned back in his chair. "Prepare it for transference."
…..
Jonathan was in his usual cell, meditating on the cold floor. But something was wrong. His senses, honed by years of hypervigilance, detected a subtle change. It wasn't a sound. It was a smell. Weak, metallic... ozone. The smell of freshly charged high-power electronics.
Before he could fully process the implication, the door to his cell opened with a hissing sound.
It was not "Scar". They were not the usual caregivers.
They were six men, dressed in heavy black riot gear, with opaque visors. Over their armor, they wore sterile white medical coats. The juxtaposition was grotesque. Four carried electric batons; two were carrying gas rifles.
The instant the door opened, Jonathan's killer instinct exploded.
CRITICAL THREAT!
His mind calculated at an inhuman speed: Six objectives. High threat. The leader, in front, 98 kg, his left knee is weak, poorly healed. The one on the right, wheezing, asthmatic. I can take the leader first, use his body as a shield, take his weapon...
PSSSHHHH!
He didn't have time. The man with the gas rifle fired a canister at his feet. A dense, gray smoke filled the cell. Jonathan held his breath instantly, his years of "Flipped Training" giving him perfect lung control.
But it didn't matter.
He felt a tingling in his skin. The gas was contact.
His muscles, which had tightened up for battle, suddenly felt heavy, as if they were filled with wet lead. His peripheral vision began to darken.
"No...!" he growled.
He tried to fight. He forced his body to move. He lunged toward the leader, aiming at the "seam" of his weak knee. But his kick was slow, heavy... Pathetic. The man easily deflected it with his shield.
Jonathan staggered. His "Reverse Training" focused on control, but he couldn't control the chemistry of his own blood. The containment team pounced on him, his movements efficient and brutal. They pinned him to the ground.
He felt a sharp, cold pain in his neck. A needle.
The world dissolved into fragments...
... Fluorescent lights of the hallway moving over it... the screech of metal wheels...
"... Subject Seven insured...".
... darkness...
"... preparing for transfer to the Cryogenic Sub-Section...".
... the voice of "Cicatriz", distant...
"... Yami's customer arrives in 48 hours. Don't damage it."
... cold. A terrible cold.
He was rudely awakened. He was thrown from the gurney, his limbs still numb and heavy from the drug. It landed a frozen metal floor.
CLANG!
The door closed. A dull, heavy, final blow.
Jonathan raised his head with difficulty. This was not his cell. It was a bunker. Four solid metal walls, no windows, no bed, just a drain in the center of the floor. It was in a box.
…..
Jonathan lay on the icy metal floor, the darkness of the cell was total. The hangover from the drug was a stabbing pain behind his eyes, a chemical mist that tried to suffocate his mind. He was fifteen years old.
Slowly, he sat down. Her instincts, dulled but not broken, began to evaluate.
This cell was new. Four solid metal walls, riveted. No bed. No toilet. Just a drain in the center of the floor. The air was cold, filtered, and smelled of ozone.
This was not a training cell. It was not for living. It was for containment. It was the box in which a product is shipped.
And then, the truth hit him. A truth as cold and hard as the ground beneath him.
Their "Flipped Training". Their silent rebellion. The shots to the knee, the dislocated shoulders, the spoon on the wall...
It had all been a failure.
He thought he was winning. He thought he was playing a smarter game than they were. He thought his refusal to kill was an act of superior defiance.
But to them, he had never been a person. It had always been a thing. An asset.
His rebellion had not set him free. He had simply changed his label. He had gone from being a "failed soldier" to being a "valuable genetic asset to be sold." His refusal to obey didn't matter to them, as long as they could sell him to someone else.
It was still a property.
He realized the fundamental truth: you cannot peacefully rebel against a system that only understands violence. You cannot show control to those who only value obedience.
To be truly free, he could no longer contain his murderous instinct.
I had to use it.
The innocent smile he had worn like a mask for twelve years faded from his face. His eyes, normally calm and analytical, now burned with a cold, crystalline purpose.
"They wanted a murderer," Jonathan whispered in the dark cell. His voice was rough, no longer that of a child. "They wanted a gun."
He stood, his body still sore from the drug, but his mind clear as steel. "Good."
His gaze was fixed on the cell's only feature besides the drain: the high-security electronic lock on the door.
His instinct, the whisper he had spent a decade suppressing, kicked in. But this time, it wasn't a cry of rage that needed to be quelled. It was a cold and precise tool.
Seams.
He saw the fluctuation of energy in the panel, the same one that had detected "Scar". He saw the faint weld on the top hinge. He saw the wiring behind the wall.
It was no longer something to be suppressed. It was the key to his cage.
"But I will," he muttered, his eyes glowing in the darkness, "on my own terms."
A/N
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Mike.
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