Operation Runaway Package

The year unknown, the world is at a standstill, and here I am in a lab; my life is not a utopia, my cells regenerating in this glass tube prison I call home and my name Subject 964B00.

I don’t remember anything from who I am to where I’m from; I see flashes, scientists, and all I hear are loud machine beeps. I’m just in this goo, this glass, that’s where I’ve always been, and that’s what I’ve always known. They programmed my sentience from someone else's memories, maybe another subject or perhaps a former self; I don’t know; I live in a distorted simulation to call it a reality.

“Good morning Dr. Ren,” someone said, greeting this man walking into the lab.

“Good morning to you too; how is the subject doing today?” he greeted back and then asked

“The Vitals are still the same, subject 964B00 is doing quite well. I think he is approaching The Maturation stage.”

The other scientist answered; I didn’t know their name, so I called them Dr. Clipboard.

They kept monitoring my vitals and my development as if I needed to be ready for something. All this has been happening for as long as I could remember, and Dr. Ren and Dr. Clipboard have been seeing my progress for some time now, which is ever since my inception.

“That’s great news; soon, they’ll be ready.”

Dr. Ren said as he smiled at my glass tube,

“Do you think this one will do better than Subject Hako?” Dr. Clipboard asked

“It has to,” Dr. Ren answered

“System failure! System failure!”

An alarm came on suddenly, the place started flickering red lights, and everything was chaotic

“What’s going on?” Dr. Ren asked, panicking

“I don’t know, there must be a virus in our servers, but I don’t see how that’s possible. Clipboard answered in confusion

“Well, fix it, doctor!”

“I’m trying to.”

Dr. Ren is confused and panicking and not wanting all he has worked for to be corrupted or ruined by a virus

“Back up everything you can, and let’s go!” he yelled at Dr. Clipboard

“What are you going to do?”

“Save my life’s work” as Dr. Ren disconnects the glass tube and puts a portable mover behind it. They had backed up everything, and they were on their way to the hallway when they saw scientists running for their lives,

“Run!” one scientist said

“Evacuate,” another said, screaming at the top of their lungs

“It’s going to blow,” I heard from one end of the hallway.

It was a new experience; panic was everywhere as papers, reports, files littered everywhere. It was hard moving a glass tube around in this panic, and before you knew it, someone pushed Dr. Ren, and he mistakenly opened my tube. It sent me flying through the hallway, all soaked in this goo; the commotion was so much that they lost track of me and I of them; I was without clothing, and the hard part was walking because this was my first time using these two long things below me that I somehow knew my legs.

I was oblivious, and I just did it; I got up to find some clothing to wear; a patient’s outfit was all I saw; I had no other choice but to wear it, so I got out of that facility.

I turned to look at the place, and people were still running from it. This place was where I was born, but I didn’t want to stay there any longer, so I ran for the first time; I ran as far as these legs could carry me. The first time I’ve breathed natural air, and the first time I was feeling hot. What’s that heat? I looked up to see not one but two suns in the sky; when did this happen? What happened to the world? I looked around; The world destroyed itself; debris was everywhere. What happened to humanity? I walked around for a while, and I came over to a coffee shop that was still functional; I went in and saw a strong muscular man, making coffee; behind him stood a TV, and the news was on.

“The most powerful thing known to man is still missing?” The headline read

The most powerful thing known to man; What could that be, I wonder.

“What’s your name, traveler?”

Wait, is he talking to me? I’m confused; oh right, I’m the only one here. I facepalmed myself so hard as I realized he was talking to me.

“Um…”

“Anytime now,” he said as I was taking too long to answer

“Subject 964B00”

“I asked for your name, not a hexadecimal code.”

“Well, that is my name, sir.”

“Clancy, and that’s not a name.”

“Well, I’m sorry, that’s the only name I know.”

“Well, this is something. “

“Tell me about it, ha-ha,” I said as I chuckled nervously.

“You said 956B00, right?”

“Affirmative”

“Okay, robot, I think I’ll call you Boo.”

Boo, I like it.

“That’s not too bad of a name,” I said, showing my appreciation for the first good thing to happen to me.

“Well, since you’re the second person to walk in through that door in twenty years, then I take it, you’re something special.”

“I wouldn’t say special; I’ll say out of the ordinary. “

“The same thing, you’re out of place, wearing weird clothes, and you’ve got a mixed energy around you.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m special.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean you’re not; you keep trying to take away from yourself; why?”

“I don’t know. It’s just that I’ve always seen myself that way, I guess.”

I’m a thing made in a lab, out of the ordinary yes, special no.

“I just think you don’t want to get your hopes up.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound as bad as you make it out to be”

“Yes but, are you sure you don’t think you’re special.”

It just hit me, the first conversation I’ve had with anyone, the first time I’ve spoken, and the first time someone has spoken to me without checking my vitals.

“Well, I guess there’s something special about this, and you think I’m special.”

“Because you are special, stop thinking less of yourself” Clancy passes me a cup,

“What’s this?” I asked him

“A Clancy specialty,” he answered as he smiled

I took the drink, and I started sipping,

“Who came here before me?” I asked

“Some lady named Hako, she also said her name was the subject, she left that mysterious package over there covered in brown paper, I haven’t touched nor gone near it. She said she’d leave it here for the right owner, whatever Hako meant by that, quite possibly maybe she was talking about you.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know; I told you I didn’t even go near it, let alone open it.”

I finished drinking what Clancy gave me, and it was terrific. It was time to leave with the package on this new journey of mine.

“Where am I going to go?” I asked myself and Clancy

“I can’t answer that for you, Boo, but I know you already know.”

Deep breaths

I walked out, turned back, and looked at Clancy in his coffee shop smiling and waving at me

“Thank you,” I mouthed out to him, and then I left; there was somewhere that was calling to me

Later in the coffee shop, two tall figure men came; they sat at the counter and slid a picture of Boo towards Clancy.

“Have you seen this person?”

They asked him intimidatingly

“No,” Clancy immediately answered, “and if that is all, then I suggest you both leave.”

One of them lifted their voice and slapped the counter

“Listen, buddy; if you know something, then I suggest you start talking now because that thing has something belonging to us, and we don’t have time to play around.”

Clancy looked at him, and then he said with sturdiness in his voice

“I’m sorry for what happened to you, but as I said, I haven’t seen nor heard anything related to this person or whatever they may have taken from you. Also, this isn’t that kind of establishment where you can raise your voice and cause a commotion like that. I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

Clancy stare the man in the eyes intensely for a couple of minutes, and then they both backed off; the man turned and saw the cup Boo had been drinking

“Who was here?”

“A paying customer, and if you’re not going to buy something, I suggest you leave.”

“Let’s go.”

The second man said, “I think the other team has a read on Subject 964B00.”

And with that, they both left

“Stay safe out there, boo,” Clancy whispered intensely to himself as he watched the two men leave to chase after Boo.

Boo had the brown package; they were going to leave the mysterious box alone and find out who this Hako subject was; Boo had this strong urge to go to this place where they felt connected to, an abandoned building called Involuta, on arrival at the entrance, Boo saw people running away, and then managed to catch eyes with someone whom they thought to be Hako.

“No, no, no, no, no, no,” the person screamed out

“Why did you come here? They’re coming as we speak.”

Who is this? Is this Hako?

“I know what you’re thinking; I’m not Hako, Hako is one of our strongest leaders, but she’s out there liberating more subjects like you and me.”

He grabbed on to me and started running

“The name is Subject Duo, but you can call me Ken; Hako left that thing far away from here as possible so it wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands again, they say what’s in the box might be the most powerful or the most destructive thing this world has ever seen, and they plan on destroying it.”

We started hearing sirens, “The Norms are coming,” Ken shouted, “this is bad; if they catch you, they’ll destroy the box and everything in it.”

I shouldn’t have come here, oh what have I done my first day out? Ken cut me off

“Beating yourself up will never change what you did; it’s of no use to us now; it has happened whether you like it or not. The thing that matters now is what we do to move forward from our mistakes. I can tell you haven’t been out of the glass for too long, and there are things so out of your control that you feel overwhelmed, and who can blame you? No one was there to teach you all of this and how to handle it; they just took off your training wheels and threw you into a world beyond your control; if I was you, I’ll feel overwhelmed too but let’s not focus on that right now, what you did or didn’t do doesn’t matter, what matters is what you’re going to do now, right here because this mystery box holds our entire fate. I, for one, don’t want The Norms to have it, so let’s protect it.”

We escaped; Ken took me to their base, gave me new clothes, and went to the room where our fellow subjects waited.

I placed the box in the middle of us all. This mysterious package that Hako had, the most powerful thing or the most dangerous thing on the planet, we may now know for sure.

I had the box, so when I opened it, there was a note filled with instructions. I thought to myself could this be man’s most potent weapon.

“What does it say?” Ken asked and then continued, “Read it out for everyone to hear.”

The most powerful weapon known to man, the instructions were as follows

“Think outside the box.”

The End