The doctor in front of him was a young skinny man with glasses who had short black hair and cleanly shaven. He wore a lab coat you'd normally see doctor wear in a hospital.
"Now tell me, boy." The doctor asked as he looked straight into Victor's eyes. "What's your name."
Victor paused as he looked at the doctor carefully, he was the same person who had put all those children to sleep. Trust wasn't a word he would even place next to this man.
"I could I ask to know your name first, doctor," Victor said as he looked around the room. "You are a doctor… right?"
"Yes, of course, and yes I am a licensed doctor. You may refer to me as Dr. Olson, so may I know your name now, boy?"
Victor got off the bed to stretch his legs, they were wobbly at first, but he managed to start up right. He stretched his tired neck and body as he thought of a reply.
"Dr. Olson, am I still in Xen Labs? If so can I see Dr. Matthews? I would like to know where my parents are." Victor said as he stared at Dr. Olson.
Dr. Olson sighed as he replied: "Boy, do you know where you are and what happened to you before?"
"Well...yes. I was at Xen Labs where my parents had paid for me to be placed into a Cryotube to arrive in the future. I think it was because they said the future was going to be better than what it was at the present. So I assume I'm in the future yes?." Victor said as he checked his clothes, he was still wearing the swimsuit like suit given to him by Dr. Matthew. "And could I please get some clothes to change into?
Dr. Olson frowned as he sighed: "I'll get you some new clothes, just stay put." He stood up from the chair he was sitting on and walked out of the room. This made Victor wonder, why didn't this doctor call Dr. Matthew but instead called for a captain when he talked into his wrist? Was it some kind of smartwatch? If so who was this captain?
The first thought that came to his mind was the fate of the three children, but they were kept in a cell with no human contact unlike him. But before thinking so far ahead he needed to know where he was, and why was he not in the cryotube. He had no recollection of leaving the cryotube. Did they pull him out? If so where were his parents?
But as Victor studied his situation, the doctor came back with a female assistant with a brand new set of clothes. Victor had hoped the female assistant was a Ms. Jacklyn, but it was someone else.
"I've brought you a new set of clothing; you should wear it before seeing the captain." Dr. Olson said as he gestured his assistant to hand the clothes to Victor. "The captain can be quite strict on how you behave so please do behave when you meet him."
Victor took the clothes and asked: "This captain of yours, what kind of captain is he?"
"A military captain, above the station of a lieutenant and below a major. I believe that you have some understanding of military ranks right?" Dr. Olson asked.
When Dr. Olson had mentioned the captain being one of the militaries it struck Victor as odd. Why would a military captain want to meet him and did he ever see any military at Xen Labs? Or was the place he was in right now not Xen Labs?
"If you don't mind me asking again, what is your name. It'll be much easier for us to refer to you than just boy." Dr. Olson asked again.
"Victor. Victor Smith." Victor replied
"Victor, do you feel anything strange with your body after you awoke?" Dr. Olson asked.
"Other than a splitting headache and feeling tired I feel fine, why do you ask Dr. Olson?"
"Then it proves it was a success!" Dr. Olson exclaimed with joy.
"Success? What was a success?" Victor tried to ask the elated doctor, but he was interrupted by a voice entering the room.
"By success he means you." A tall man with broad shoulders entered the room, he was wearing a black tailored suit with badges decorating it, and he wore a black beret hat on his head with a badge of a Lion on it. "You are the success."
"I'm a success? By which do you mean me exiting the cryotube?" Victor replied.
" Surviving your time in the cryotube is quite impressive, but it's not what we are talking about. What we mean when we succeeded we mean that you have survived Project: A.I!" Dr. Olson explained.
"Project: A.I? I don't understand." Victor said in confusion.
"I'll debrief you on what's happening, Victor. You are the last surviving subject of a practice called cryogenics. We found you in an abandoned facility that was most likely a lab before. We took you out of a cryotube which was luckily in working order and shipped you back to our base where we made sure you stayed alive."
"So you saved me from being trapped in Xen Labs…" Victor said as he realized that he had been abandoned "I thank you for that. But you still haven't mentioned about this Project: A.I."
"To put it simply, in exchange for saving your life we decided to use you in an experiment which was called Project: A.I. I believe Dr. Olson can explain the project in detail for you." The captain said as he looked to the doctor.
"Yes, Project: A.I was a project aimed to fuse AI with humans to improve a human's cognitive skills. Improving their information processing times, their memories, and their reflexes. We believed that this would lead to a new evolution for humankind. We are already able to fuse human and robotics allowing a human to control artificial body parts as well as adding features to their senses such as their ability for sight and hearing."
"We, however, have been unable to improve the brains of humans. We have tried many different methods, but none had been successful. But this project aimed to use an unstable A.I, one that could evolve to fuse with a human mind. Dangerous by itself but if it were to link with a human host, we believe that it would evolve to have human morality. So we sought to find a suitable host for the A.I."
"We tried three vastly different subjects to test the project out on, to see if our theories were correct. Their lives were already at their natural end, so we felt that it was morally fine to carry out our experiments on them. And as we predicted none of them survived the fusion, so we decided to go through with the plan of using a pre-war patient. You."
"Based on our findings we determined that you were a suitable candidate for the A.I. It was lucky that we found your file deep inside our archives and managed to dig you out before the nuclear power supply in the abandoned facility failed. We needed a host that was not affected by the toxins emitted after the war as hosts with the toxins in their blood made the sensitive materials of the A.I chip malfunction. Hence with you, there were no issues as you were from before the war. A perfectly clean host."
"We did the procedure on you with no mistakes after we shipped you here and you seemed to have recovered fine. Captain, would you like to take over?" Dr. Olson said as he finished his explanation.
"And as Dr. Olson explained you are now carrying an A.I Chip in your brain right now. We will activate it shortly as you get used to your new reality. This is not the world you once knew. This is the year 2113, 94 years after you were frozen in your cryotube. I know this must be very confusing as of now, but I can assure you that you are safe here. Welcome to Military Base Delta. This will be your new home foreseeable future."
Victor was frozen in shock, 94 years, a test subject, pre-war, and an A.I Chip in his head. 'What kind of sick joke is this?' Victor thought as he tried to absorb the information in. He had expected that he was in the future but, 94 years. Everyone he knew would be dead by this point.
"Dr. Olson, tell your assistant to accompany the subject for now until his condition stabilizes. There are still things I need to discuss with you." The captain said as he exited the room with Dr. Olson following close behind.
"Have a seat, Victor. I'll get you some tea." The female assistant said as she helped Victor back onto the bed before fetching some tea.
Victor watched the assistant leaving the room before closing his eyes. He had to accept his current situation, the voice at the back of his mind told him. He had to move on, he needed to be focused on the present. But his heart ached as he shook his body forward and backward.
"But my family is gone. My friends are gone. The whole fucking world is GONE!" Victor screamed out as he let his emotions go. His whole body shook vigorously as he tried to calm himself.
"I want to go home, I want to go home damn it…" He whimpers as tears fell down his face. No one is going to save him from this place, he was alone, and he knew it.