What if you could absorb knowledge faster than the speed of thought? What if every question you asked, every mystery you pondered, unraveled before you like the delicate threads of an ancient tapestry? A world where answers were never hidden, only waiting to be discovered, while the very act of questioning became an effort greater than in finding an answer. Imagine a mind so sharp that the boundaries between comprehension and wisdom no longer existed, where understanding flowed as effortlessly as breath, and the deepest secrets of existence lay bare, waiting for you to gaze upon them.
Now, imagine a place where such power was not a gift, but a curse, a secret base buried high in the Himalayas, hidden from the world, where the pursuit of knowledge came at a price. This was the reality of Test Subject 314.
Trapped within glass walls, 314 could devour books in a heartbeat, process information at a speed no human should possess. His mind stretched and expanded with every new page, every new theory he absorbed. Yet his body, his human body, remained shackled, incapable of even the simplest tasks. Crooked hands, slow and trembling, unable to perform the most basic motions.
A man in a lab coat observed from behind a glass window, silently noting down 314's every word, every fragmented idea. "Test subject displays heightened learning capabilities," the man murmured, his voice devoid of hope. "Unfortunately, subject 314 suffers from underdeveloped motor skills, rendering him incapable of performing basic tasks."
The intercom buzzed. "Subject 314, please state what you have learned from the book."
From within the glass room, 314's voice rasped, faint and unsure. "Ah... n-not just motion... no... b-but deformation... n-not time as a line, but... constrained emergent gradient..." His voice stuttered, his thoughts spilling out in a stream of broken, incoherent fragments, barely keeping pace with the ideas rushing through his mind. "The tensor fields... they... they d-don't jus' shift... they fold, fold anisotropically, m-m-m... n-not chaos, not randomness... but structured decoherence, emergent... f-force..."
The man in the lab coat wrote quickly, trying to make sense of 314's disjointed words.
But the test subject's words began to falter as his body betrayed him. His eyes fluttered, muscles seized, and his body fell back with a loud crash, his words devolving into garbled nonsense.
"Get him to the med bay immediately!" The man in the lab coat barked, panic rising in his chest. "We can't lose this asset! He's been the most successful test subject!"
Two guards rushed forward, hoisting 314's spasming form onto a stretcher, rushing him through the sterile hallways toward the med bay. Behind the closed doors, screams erupted, followed by the sickening splatter of blood across the glass windows.
Out stepped Test Subject 314, wearing a guard uniform; his eyes were sharp; no one would have guessed he was the same test subject who couldn't even hold a spoon.
"I've been waiting for this..." A sinister smile crept up on his face.
He carried a lab coat and several vials of chemicals before mixing a perfect concoction and filled a syringe.
314 walked through the corridor, used the doctor's pass to access a maintenance room, stepped inside, and changed clothes into that of a janitor; he mixed some cleaning chemicals together, placed the viscous material on his face, and shaped it for a few minutes until it looked just right, then he bleached his hair.
A few moments later, an old man with a wrinkled face and white hair wheeled a utility cart out of the room and walked up to a security checkpoint.
He grips the mop with shaky hands, hunching his shoulders just enough to suggest a lifetime of drudgery but not enough to seem unnatural. His uniform and hands were stained . He shuffles forward, muttering just loud enough for the guards to hear but not clearly enough to invite too much engagement.
"Tch, 'course they got me cleanin' this sector today… buncha suit-wearin' lab rats trackin' who-knows-what all over the damn place, ain't never seen one o' them pick up a mop, nooo sir. Just leave their mess an' expect ol' Freddy to deal with it. Hmph. An' what d'they even do in there, huh? Betcha they don't even know, prob'ly makin' another flesh meltin' cockroach or some kinda brain readin' fungus, huh? Ain't paid near 'nough for this nonsense…"
He waves an irritated hand, not too much, just enough to sell the grumpy act, like he's too fed up to even look them in the eye. He doesn't stop walking, just slows slightly, forcing them to decide if they actually want to bother with him.
One of the guards shifts, glancing at his partner. Suspicion? Maybe. Or just boredom. The smarter one, Sergeant Mills, as 314 recalls, leans forward slightly.
"Hey, uh… Don't think I seen you 'round this sector before."
He snorts, shaking his head like he doesn't have time for this. Not defensive. Not nervous. Just annoyed.
"'Course y'ain't. Y'think I ask t'come down here? Nooo, but Johnson's out with his sciatica, an' guess who gets saddled with the shift? Yep. Good ol' Freddy. 'Cause ain't nobody else tough 'nough to wanna clean up after you boys. Thought I was done with this side o' the complex. Thought I'd be spendin' my golden years mopin' up the nice floors over in admin, but nooo, guess I pissed someone off, huh?"
He lets out a raspy chuckle, like he's resigned to the cosmic joke that is his miserable life. Then, without giving them time to keep poking at the story, he claps his hand against the mop handle and gestures toward the checkpoint.
"So what's it gonna be, huh? You lettin' me through so I can get this over with, or we all just gonna stand here sniffin' each other's aftershave?"
Mills grunts, exchanging a glance with his partner. Too much talking for a janitor, maybe. But also? Too much attitude for a guy sneaking in. Nervous people avoid attention, not to mention, the place they're guarding is just the break rooms of the staff.
The guard sighs, steps aside.
"Yeah, yeah. Just don't touch nothin' you ain't supposed to, Freddy."
He scoffs, pushing the mop bucket forward.
"Like I wanna? Ain't like you're payin' me extra t'grow a third arm."
And just like that, he's through.
He moves quickly but deliberately, with no hesitation and no wasted movement. The wrinkles and the janitor's uniform are gone, replaced with the assistant's crisp, white coat. A glance at the steel wall's reflection, disheveled enough to look like he's been running errands all morning but not enough to draw concern. He dyed his hair black thanks to his next chemical concoction. The keycard slides through the scanner with a soft beep, and the break room door hisses open.
Inside, just as predicted, the assistant is at the counter, about to prepare a fresh cup of coffee with no hurry. He doesn't even look up, of course not. This is routine. Expected. He's 35 seconds behind schedule, but this is still tolerable.
Perfect.
He exhales through his nose, steps forward, and mutters with just the right mix of urgency and exasperation,
"Dr. Henshaw's already asking where his coffee is."
The assistant flinches slightly, blinking up in surprise. Thrown off balance. Good.
"What? I haven't even started!"
"Yeah, well, you know how he gets. I barely stepped in and he's already griping about the schedule. Said he needs it now, something about critical timing, dunno. Just don't wanna be the one taking the heat for it."
The assistant sighs, rubbing his temple. Just another morning. Just another order from a boss too impatient to wait thirty extra seconds.
"Here, I'll help."
314 got a coffee pod, and his hand moved precisely. From his pocket, the syringe, thin, unobtrusive, preloaded with a very effective dose of a fast metabolizing toxin. The kind that won't raise alarms in an autopsy unless someone's really looking. The things you'll find in the "treatment room" would horrify the average person.
He slips the pod into the machine and the coffee is quickly poured out.
"You taking it to him, or should I?" 314 asks.
The assistant waves a hand, already halfway out the door. Frustrated. Distracted.
"I got it, I got it. Guy's a pain, but it's my job. Just once I'd love for him to make his own damn coffee, y'know?"
The assistant huffs a small chuckle, and hurries off to the doctor.
"Yeah… wouldn't count on that..."
The door slides shut behind the assistant.
He has precisely 43 minutes before the guards do their rounds and notice what happened in the treatment room. 43 minutes before the lockdown protocols kick in. That's 43 minutes to vanish from a facility designed to be inescapable.
Fortunately, "inescapable" wasn't 314's way of describing this facility.
This facility isn't just built in the Himalayas, it's built into them. That means ventilation shafts, waste disposal tunnels, and emergency exhaust systems carved through the rock. No safe human sized exits, of course, but he can make one.
He pulls a mental map of the structure, recalling every detail he's absorbed over the years. The reactor cooling vents, large enough to fit a man if someone was desperate (or smart enough). The issue? They're flooded with nitrogen cooled exhaust, meaning an unprotected delve equals instant asphyxiation and hypothermia.
Solution? Override the facility's environmental controls.
314 moves fast, slipping into a maintenance corridor where he knows security presence is light. His stolen keycard gets him into an auxiliary systems room, a place no one ever checks, because why would they? It's just pipes, wires, and routine calibrations.
His fingers fly across the panel, inputting a sequence as if he's just another technician doing his job. Except this sequence isn't routine, it's a rerouting command, forcing a thermal purge cycle through the cooling vents. This will momentarily raise the temperature, making them survivable for precisely 6 minutes and 32 seconds.
He still needs to survive the mountains, so he needs gear.
His best bet? Emergency storage lockers. Regulations require facilities in extreme climates to stock emergency winter gear and food rations. The problem? They're in Sector 4, past two guarded hallways.
The solution? A fire alarm, but not just any fire alarm.
In the chemical storage bay, he grabs a canister of hydrazine, an unstable compound used in rocket propellant. Carefully, he extracts just six milliliters and drips it onto the heating vent in an empty break room. Within 30 seconds, the rising heat catalyzes a false positive fire signature, triggering an automated evacuation warning for Sector 3.
The guards begin evacuating personel, this will delay the routine rounds they make.
He walks into Sector 3 like he belongs there, swipes his stolen keycard, and within 2 minutes, he has:
Thermal insulated clothing, high-calorie rations, A compact emergency oxygen mask, and a makeshift rope from tearing various fabrics he found and tying then together.
He doesn't waste time. 17 minutes left.
With the vents warmed, the path is open. He moves swiftly, crawling into the reactor exhaust tunnel, feeling the heat still dissipating from his earlier override. The walls are slick with condensed vapor, but he ignores it, his mind already focused on the next challenge.
At the end of the tunnel? A 50 meter drop into an ice cavern. Lethal.
He uses the makeshift rope to descended quickly, not wasting time climbing down, only slowing his descent knowing the fabric would be unable to hold his weight for long.
The drop is brutal, the wind roaring, ice flashing past. As he nears the ground, bleeding just enough speed before impact. He still hits hard, bruises, maybe a cracked rib, but he's alive.
Now, only the mountains stand between him and freedom.