Like Drinking Acid

[Syn V'Angoth]

The orange and brown sludge slowly stirred and shifted as a small figure tried to attempt to free itself from the stench and suffocating trash. Unknowningly wasting its last amounts of strength, it struggled to free one arm, one small hand to reach out from its prison.

Why was He here? Where was She? What had the Bad Men done with Her? She screamed and screamed for her baby but they never gave It to Her. They hurt Him over and over again. And then They made Him drink the Bad Water. It burned and burned and burned. He screamed and screamed and screamed. Then They screamed and She screamed and it went black.

His face slowly pushed out of the sludge and through bruised eyes he could see the dulled haze of a sky before him. The stars. She had said there were real stars beyond the plates. And a sky. And space. Where He had gone to get away from the Bad Men. The small hand strained to touch whatever was beyond the metal plates, one of the many upper levels of Coruscant and the only sky the boy had known. But this was the extent of his strength and his body began to fail him.

A pale four fingered hand suddenly grasped the boy's outstretched arm.

"A live one?"

[Syn V'Angoth]

Pale blue eyes slowly opened towards the ceiling. The dim lights of the labratory struck the pupils and they refocused as Syn felt his body stir to match his awakening senses. He pulled the thin sheet from his body as he turned to sit up. He was still on the operating table and his body was still connected to several monitoring machines. Syn felt weak and fatigued; there was no possible way he could determine how long he had been under and not moving. Mostly though, he was hungry.

Syn slowly began removing the monitoring devices, each small holoscreen flickering before turning off as the needles and aparatus were set on a small pan to the side. The room was at a near freezing temperature and Syn slowly glanced to his locker on the other side of the room, the Doctor would be arriving soon. He stood slowly with stiff effort and stretched, taking deep breaths through his nose; the mist of his breath rising before his face. The locker opened with ease and within it was Syn's familiar morphing underarmor, pressure locks, and environsuit. The underarmor slid onto his body with ease, settling against his skin and molding to the form of his body. The nanite technology worked into it was the Doctor's design and it provided temperature control and some collision absorption against most surfaces. It also had a basic program in the nanites to repair itself from cuts and tears over time making it highly durable. He slowly slid the pieces of the environsuit next. Adjusting them to a snug fit, they all locked together under the pressure locks which all together provided gear classified somewhere between a pilot suit and padded armor. All of this was routine until he caught a glance of his face in the mirror.

"I couldn't just do all the work and then not leave my signature."

[Syn V'Angoth]

Syn examined the mark below his left eye before slowly turning his gaze to the Doctor with a questioning look. Syn had been well educated by the Doctor throughout his life on the galaxy and the mark below his eye had no origins from anywhere familiar. He could only place it as actually be a design of the Doctor's.

The Doctor was an Arkanian from the Unknown Sector. Some planet with a colony not worth a real name and merely designated under some nondescript serial number. The Doctor's indepth history was unknown to Syn but Arkanians were known for their race's mad scientist history and high interest in genetic engineering. The Doctor fit that role perfectly. What history Syn did know involved the Doctor leaving the Unknown Sector and working for the Imperials under genetic testing before he left there as well under bad circumstances. He hid away from them right beneath their noses and had been there for sometime from what Syn had gathered.

The lab was well established deep beneath Coruscant's many layers and the Doctor had remained there undisturbed. He continued to delve into genetic engineering, using the unsuspecting citizens of the slums of Coruscant that are assured to not have anyone to come looking for them. He uses them and the dead bodies that never fail to appear in the junkyards. That was how he had found Syn 18 standard years ago. And how lucky the Doctor had been to find a dependent child who could be molded to a willing test subject.

"I normally leave my signature on the deformed corpses of my failures that make their way to the junk heap but I decided this time that I would mark a success."

Syn's eyes focused on the Doctor's blank stare with intensity, his gloved hand running slowly over the embedded grooves of the mark.

"Yes, so far all tests conclude that the genetic splicing and engineering process was successful. My most complex masterpiece yet. Your enzymes go critical once your adrenaline hits a specific point and your body will mutate. Under certain circumstances, this will be an obstacle for you to overcome until you can properly control yourself. I believe you have the reserved will power to take the reigns of such responsibility though but failure on your part is not to be excluded of course."

Syn's eyes drift to the ground for a moment; the Doctor was always sure to calculate organic error into his predictions.

"We still need to do field tests. You've been under an induced coma for several months now. So you need to prepare, your body has atrophied even though I supplied it with the necessary nutrients. Go eat something, clean yourself, and then prepare for a field test. Go. Go prepare."

Syn could tell the Doctor hadn't said everything. He had begun to ramble after boasting about his "masterpiece". Syn was never sure how much the Doctor actually meant to say out loud and how much was meant to be heard. And even then.

The Doctor had been using Syn as the final test subject of his research and most of it had worked so far. Drawbacks appeared here and there to the direct genetic engineering but it was nothing Syn couldn't handle in his present circumstances.

Basic enhancements had been the first tests and all those had resulted in temporary drawbacks of an increased metabolism and easy exhaustion. Once Syn had grown into them though, the drawbacks had receded and the Doctor began indepth training and educating as it was hard to genetically engineer a growing adolescent. Once the Doctor decided that Syn had matured enough to not do any damage to his growth patterns, the Doctor began the Faust Project. All previous testing that had proved successful on other subjects was applied to Syn by the time he reached the age of 18. Syn's hair had turned a platinum gray and his eyes had seemed to dull without any reflection. Those were the only apparent physical effects from any one who might have noticed him. But the Doctor had made an ornate and elaborate puzzle out of his DNA.

[Syn V'Angoth]

It had been an awkward walk to the bathing unit, his legs still weak from atrophy. Syn sighed slowly as he began to undo the gear he had just finished adjusting on his body before the Doctor had arrived. The suit and underarmor fell in a pile beside the unit as Syn stepped into the running cold water.

His feet seemed to slip from beneath him as soon as he closed the door. His knees hit the ground and his mouth opened with silent pain. Everything felt differently. Syn had thought it at first to be an effect of the long term drugs but now he knew that it was his own nervous system that was reacting irregularly. It was not just a sense of difference, but... awareness. The water splashing down his back was an overload of information. Every drop, the impact on his pale skin and the rivulets running down his spine.

He slowly pushed himself up so he could stand as he managed to adapt to something as simple as a shower. It was more humiliating than anything else to know that he was having a hard time enduring a shower of all things. It wasn't necessarily painful, but like when your skin reacts to touching hot metal. His heart was pounding from the initial shock of it and he could feel his muscles writhing. What was wrong with him? His body was spasming slowly and uncontrollably and his heart rate was only increasing as he became more confused yet aware of the "success" of the Doctor's experiments.

He remembered the Doctor mentioning control and will power and tried to ignore everything and slowly slip into a meditative state. The Doctor had taught him that if you could not simply act and produce successful results then you must meditate on how to do that and then do it. The process had made little sense to Syn the first time he heard the phrase but over time he had learned the deeper meaning and the Doctor quit forcing him to meditate. Now though, merely the lesson on how to tune out the demands of the flesh if only for a few moments was more than helpful. His breathing slowed and Syn could feel the rush subsiding.

The shower ended and Syn sluggishly clothed himself once more before heading out and down the hallway towards the small cafeteria. He grabbed a small chrome bowl and slid it under the dispenser; dark yellow slime slowly slides into the bowl and stops as soon as the container is full. Syn sits on the bench closest to him, staring at the ground as he cradles the small bowl in his fingers. His stomach growls in protest but he has never enjoyed the sludge he is forced to eat. The substance has the most optimum amount of protein and vitamins and enough calories to support Syn for the rest of the day. Not to mention its in a liquid state which won't damage Syn's fragile digestive system.

He closed his eyes in frustration. His cracked and dried lips pressed against each other painfully. Whoever they had been, the men who had most likely killed his mother and near fatally wounded him, they had poured a burning liquid down his throat which the Doctor later claimed on examination to be a lethal amount of highly corrosive acid. It had severely corroded everything from his lips to his small intestine. He could only take delicate liquids and nothing near complex meals. Thus the sludge he had been eating ever since. The bowl flew across the room, the yellow slime slowly sliding down the wall.

"Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Syn, you really need to eat. I can't have you passing out from starvation."

Within moments Syn had another bowl in his hand that he was slowly sipping out of. The Doctor was sitting beside him, "meditating" as he now called his small naps. The pain was worse with Syn's new awareness; it had always been manageable since Syn could remember but his sensations were so acute. He finished eventually and set the bowl down and placed his hand on the Doctor's shoulder.

"...D..."

The Doctor stirred at Syn's small utterance. Syn's vocal chords had also taken damage and left him nearly a mute. He could barely whisper and the Doctor had made him a device to speak through but Syn enjoyed his own silence and regarded the majority of most speech as useless. Actions always said far more.

"Yes, yes, Syn. You've finished. Let us go."