Strange Silhouette

Seriously, Luke has been stuck in that lab for a very long time.  I think it's about time to get him out of there. Something strange happened last time we saw Luke.  If you don't remember then you will have to go back and read, The "Event".  It was the last post and it was a long time ago.  Sorry about that.  I got a new job and focused my time on training for that and then just became a procrastinator.  I'm putting an end to that now.  I'm going to try and post at least once a week.  Luke is probably ready to move along.  So, here we go:

The last thing Luke can remember is glancing back as he was being rolled out of the room and trying to make out what was on the floor looking back at him.  He could only make out a red blur with large white eyes staring at him and panting.  There was chaos in the room as the scientists all scattered and were trying to get away.  The pain in his side was unbearable.  Then, there was darkness.

Luke still has nightmares about the whole experience.  However, when he asked he father about it, he always gets the same answer; “you were having a bad reaction to the treatment.  What you saw, was a hallucination.”  There was no evidence of any wound on his side, where he clearly remembers the intense pain and warm liquid that he was sure was blood.

His father has become even more distant than he already was.  Luke, however, is slightly relieved because they have not subjected him to any more experiment since that last one.  That was nearly two weeks ago.  There is still a lot of activity around the lab though.  Luke constantly catches glimpses of people as they run by his window.  They hardly even stop to look at him anymore.  Sometimes, he hears loud yelling and commotion echoing through the hallways, but no one stops by long enough for him to ask what is going on.

One night, Luke wakes up violently from a nightmare about the last experiment.  He sits upright and lets his eyes adjust to the darkness of his room.  The light in the hallway is still on and makes the window a giant fluorescent light until his eyes adjust.  He looks out the window to see a figure standing there with a hand pressed against the glass.  Through his sleepy, adjusting eyes, he can only see the silhouette.  The person looks bald and is about the same size as he is; shorter than everyone else in the lab.  He rubs his eyes and opens them again to see a fleeting silhouette run away from the window.

The questions that Luke already had have now doubled.  He is ready for some answers.  

The "Event"

Luke's body is changing rapidly.  He is maturing.  He now has the appearance of a boy in his teens.  However, is pale, almost transparent complexion is still the same.  No one can explain why he is maturing at such a fast rate.  The men in black suits appear more and more often as he sits in his ever-shrinking white room.  His toys have been replaced with books. 

"They are there to teach you, son," his father tells him.

Luke, however, is only interested in learning one thing; why is he still trapped in this prison?  He stays glued to the TV now.  The World News Network (WNN) is more appealing to him now than the American History Channel (AHC).  However, his burning desire to see the grandeur of Washington D.C. is still very much alive inside of him.

While watching the WNN one day, he is startled to see a story about his father.  The lady narrating the story talks about how Dr. Leonard Emia was accused of playing God.  Luke wants to know more.  What is God and why was his father accused of playing it?  The lady goes on to state that the entire experiment was geared towards curing something called cancer...

As Luke listens, his mind starts to put things together.  However, he is distracted by a knocking at his window.  His father is standing there with several other people, including some of the men in black suits and Dr. Anders.  Luke's stomach turns.

Now, lying on his back in the testing room and looking into the bright light above him, he feels something happening.  A massive, sharp pain shoots down his right side all the way from the top of his head to the bottom of his foot.  It happens again and again.  Warm liquid runs over his body, but he can't move his head.  In fact, he can't move his body at all.  He can hear the scientist panicking all around him, but he can only stare into the bright light above him.

Suddenly, the pain intensifies even more and he feels as though something is sliding out of his body down the entire length of his right side.  He tries to scream out in pain but nothing will come out.  He's not even sure that his mouth moved.  He wants to cry.  He wants his father to come in and stop whatever is happening to him.

Someone screams to his right.  It sounds like a woman.  As Luke is on the verge of blacking out, the pain stops and he hears something hit the floor to his right.  Then, there is darkness.  He feels himself being rolled out of the room on the bed.  He opens his eyes again and sees a blurred image of something kneeling on the floor panting heavily and covered in blood.  It looks human.  Its bright, white eyes are looking directly at him. 

Then, there is darkness again...

The Testing Gets Worse!!

After the heartbreaking failure that Luke has to endure when it seemed that he was finally going to be free to leave the underground labs, the testing that is done on him intensifies.  Dr. Anders is more obsessed than ever with finding the cure.  Luke's father, Dr. Emia, can no longer look Luke in the eye.  He played God, and is now stuck with his creation and can do nothing to improve its wretched life.  He is the Victor Frankenstein of the modern age.  However, the mob chasing after him is going to be carrying more than pitchforks and shovels...

Luke seems to be growing.  His body is maturing and he is feeling more and more confined in the living quarters in which he is imprisoned.  His father has given him books to read that are suppose to teach him everything he could ever want to know.  Luke absorbs the knowledge, but feels like something is being kept from him.  Despite his constant pleading, no one has ever told him a clear answer as to why he is trapped there.  All they ever say is that he's sick and must be cured.  Health seems to be a big deal around the lab, but Dr. Emia will not give him any books about health or explain it to him.

The mood in the labs is getting intense.  Luke sees arguments breaking out randomly between other scientists when he is being transported to his next testing sessions.  Strange men in black suits have been frequenting the labs and Luke is often startled when they appear at his window.  However, they never take him to the labs to do tests.  They simply observe him for a short while and then leave.  Luke senses that something is happening, but his estranged father will no longer speak more than a few words to him.  When he does talk to him, his words are slurred and a strange smell is on his breath.

Then, Dr. Emia has an epiphany of sorts and thinks he has found the way to finally find the cure.  This whole time, they have been creating possible cures and testing them on Luke, practically hoping to kill him.  However, Dr. Emia realizes that, when he created Luke, he created the carrier of that which they are trying to cure.  Therefore, Luke is the cure.  However, Luke's maturing body is changing and as they get closer to extracting the cure from him, something amazing and completely unexpected happens...

What they don't know, however, is that this seemingly small event, is the first of a series of events that will plunge the country into war and chaos...

A Possible Cure

They may have done it!!  Dr. Emia and Dr. Anders are ecstatic and puzzled all at the same time at the outcome of the experiment.  It seems, as of right now, that they have achieved Phase 3 of the 'Luke Experiment,' and found the cure they were looking for.  However, something is wrong with the outcome.  Luke is still alive.  When he was created, Luke's cells were human and cancerous.  There was no way to kill one part of those cells without killing the other part.  Luke, though changes drastically in appearance, is not dead.  Still, it seems as though it worked, but only the blood tests will tell for sure, and that may take a while.

Meanwhile, Luke, still weak from the test that nearly killed him, is still locked in his cold, white living quarters and still getting no more attention that he did before.  His skin is now flesh colored and hair is starting to grow all over his body; especially thick on his head.  He looks human, yet he is still treated like scum.  His father has a new happiness about him though.  He talks about Luke finally being able to leave the lab and go out and see the world.  Luke's excitement grows each time he hears that.  He longs, more than anything else, to see other people and play with other children and see his nation's capitol, which he has learned so much about from the television.

As they await the results from the blood work, Dr. Emia and Luke spend countless hours together.  Dr. Emia teaches Luke as much as he can about the outside world and Luke asks so many questions about- well- everything.  For once, Luke is happy and excited about something.  Dr. Emia's shame in keeping him locked up like a lab rat is starting to fade at the thought of being able to make it up to him.  He decides he will retire when Luke is finally freed and spend the rest of his days with his son; showing him every part of the world that he can.

Then, Luke wakes up one morning and rushes to the mirror like a child rushes to the tree on Christmas morning.  He examines his face closely and his dreams and hopes of escaping this place all but vanish.  On the right side of his neck, a large pale patch of skin has appeared...

Lab Testing...

Luke's arch-nemesis, Dr. Anders, and a group of scientist that Luke doesn't know have showed up to do some more testing and experimenting on him.  Luke's father, Dr. Emia, tried to calm him down, but Luke is too panicked.  Any time that Dr. Anders shows up, he knows he is going to have a bad day.

He is in a daze on the white lab table surrounded by Dr. Anders and four unknown people. They are all wearing white lab coats and staring at him as though they can't believe their eyes.  Thick leather straps have his arms and legs pinned to the cold table.  Directly above him, there is a bright, round light with reflective sides.  He can see part of his pale, nearly transparent face.  Suddenly, a sharp pain shoots through his body as whatever the scientists injected into his body starts to take affect.  Luke writhes in pain and he loses control of his body.  His muscles contract on their own accord and he can't even control his own voice.  He wants to scream, but nothing comes out.  A sudden wave of heat envelopes him and his eyes begin to water.  Now there is a sudden chill followed by another wave of heat.  His body contracts so hard that he can feel his back up off of the table.  The cold and the heat continue their cycle.

The four scientists back away from the table, but Dr. Anders remains at his side.  He is staring at a monitor just behind Luke’s head.  It has been beeping loudly for several minutes now.  Luke looks up and sees his face again; however, it is not his face.  The face he sees now has regular, human color to it instead of its usual paleness.  His bright green eyes seem to be turning blue.  Then another wave of cold takes him over and his usual complexion returns and his eyes glow bright green again.  This happens several more times before the pain becomes too much.  Luke feels his muscles contract and jerk around, but his mind no longer cares as he drifts in and out of awareness.  He looks at his reflection again and sees it change a few more times before his eyes finally close and he loses consciousness.


There is just a taste of what Luke has to go through nearly every day.  No matter how much he pleads with his father, he is still forced to endure the torturing tests that the scientists continue to put him through.  The changing of his skin tone is a new phenomenon, however, and the scientists know that they are closer to getting rid of the tainted part of Luke's body.  That means, the testing will only become more frequent and more agonizingly insufferable...

Underground Labs

By constantly denying that it exists, the U.S. Government has successfully covered up one of the biggest, and most lucrative, research and experimenting facilities in the world.  The underground labs at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. do not exist.  The scientists that practically live in those labs do not exist.  The experiments that are performed in those labs do not actually happen.  The vast underground network that lay only about twenty feet under the National Mall is simply a large storage facility that houses the thousands of museum displays that did not make the cut to show up in the actual museums. 

That is what the government would like the people to believe.  In fact, the scientists employed at the Smithsonian Institute laboratories are sworn to secrecy before they are allowed to enter the facility.  Those fortunate enough to escape the labs long enough to have families are not even allowed to tell their spouses about the labs.  There story is that they are just regular workers at one of the museums that make up the Smithsonian. 

Of course, there has to be some way to enforce this secrecy.  Therefore, those scientists are under constant surveillance even when they are not in the labs.  If the secret slips, then they are... 'dealt with' accordingly.  In an effort to reduce the need for these extreme measures of enforcing secrecy, the labs have been designed to make the scientist feel at home.  Each scientist is given their own private living quarter and bigger living quarters are available for those scientist that decide to get involved with another scientist.  The living quarters come complete with their own bathroom and kitchen.  Stores are available to purchase anything they may need so that they never have to go up to the surface.  The less people they have returning to the surface, the less chance there is that one of them will slip up and have to be dealt with.

Dr. Emia is one of those scientists that practically live in the underground facility.  He used to live in a nice home with his family, however... things changed.  His family was ripped apart and he left his home and his wife and moved down into the labs.  Sometimes he longed to see his wife again and apologize for what he did to her, but she was probably not living there any more.  He wished to hold his son again and tell him that he loved him, but that was impossible now, for he is gone, taken by Dr. Emia arch-nemesis.  His death is what drove Dr. Emia and his wife apart.  Cancer took him, and now, he has devoted his life to curing the horrible disease that ruined his family.

The underground lab is where he has been working on his 3-phase experiment.  In Phase 1, he created a single cell by splicing a human cell with a cancer cell.  In Phase 2, he made that cell go through the process of mitosis and divide into more identical cells.  The result of phase two is now imprisoned deep within the maze of hallways and labs that is the underground research facility.  By playing God, Dr. Emia created a being with both human and cancerous traits.  Now, his created son, Luke lives in prison-like conditions and is growing very tired of the endless testing and experimenting that is being done on him.

As Dr. Emia grows closer to achieving Phase 3 of his experiment, he grows more and more guilty and ashamed of what he has put Luke through.  The government's big secret is about to be unveiled and the country it on the verge of turmoil.

The Experiment...

Ok.  I'm back to writing after a nice long holiday weekend.  I'm pretty pumped up about this book and am ready for it to be done because I want to know how it ends, too.  But, I suppose I will just have to wait and see how it works itself out.  So far, I have read/ written the prologue and have begun Part 1, Chapter 1.

My main character is taking shape, literally.  His name is Luke and he is the creation of Dr. Leonard Emia (ee.mee.ah).  He considers Dr. Emia to be his father.  Dr. Emia took a human cell and spliced it together with a cancer cell to create a single cell.  That was phase one of the experiment.  Phase two was to make that single cell go through the process of mitosis (split into an identical cell).  In other words, his goal was to create a living being out of the spliced cell.  As you could imagine, he got some bad publicity for this because he was 'playing God,' and there will always be those people are going to overreact to things such as this regardless of the overall goal of the project, which is revealed in phase three. 

Luke has the appearance of a ten-year-old boy, however, he has only been alive for 3 years.  He lives under constant surveillance of the dozens of scientists that perform frequent tests and experiments on him in hope of achieving phase three of the overall experiment started by Dr. Emia.  Most of the testing is painful and leaves Luke feeling sick.  Unfortunately for Luke, electricity is one of the scientists' favorite tool to use when performing tests on him.  When he is not in the lab being 'tortured,' Luke is in his living quarters, which is simply an old lab room that was converted.  The coldness in the room, however was not converted.  The walls are white, the ceiling and floor are white, the sheets on the small bed are white and even the clothes that Luke wears are white.  The bright fluorescent lights only add to the brightness and coldness of the room.

There is a single, large window that looks out into the hallway from his room.  Scientists frequent the window and stare at him with expressionless faces.  He recognized most of them.  However, when a new person appears that Luke doesn't recognized, he know right away that he is about to go through a new round of testing.  One scientist in particular makes Luke's stomach turn when he appears at he window.  Dr. Anders always leaves Luke feeling the worst when he does his testing.  Luke is certain that Dr. Anders enjoys torturing him.  Now, whenever Dr. Anders shows up in the window, Luke makes sure that he knows that he is not welcome whether it is by throwing objects at the window or spitting at him.  Dr. Anders is his arch-nemesis who always seems to come out on top.

Luke's only escape from the coldness of his living quarters and the torture in the labs is a small, white television in the corner of his room.  There are only two channels that he can watch, the World News Network and the American History Channel.  He doesn't care much for the talking heads that seem to infest in the WNN, however, he watches the AHC as often as he can.  His father told him that Luke lives in Washington D.C., the nation's capitol.  Since then, he has tried to learn everything he can about his home.  He longs to see the monuments and the fancy architecture that make of the D.C. mall area.  Little does he know, he is going to see those soon enough and they will be nothing like they look on the TV. 

So, there is a little intro. to the book and its main character.  As of now, Luke is still stuck in the lab being forced to undergo horrible testing and experimenting and not knowing why.  With every day that passes and every test that he is forced to endure, he longs even more to get out and see the world.