3- More Tests

When I woke up, I found a little creature waiting for me at the door. It was about a foot tall and had a gray scaly body and red beady eyes.

'Must be a genomorph.' I thought to myself. I sat up in bed and smiled at the little creature. "Hello, little buddy."

Seeing that I was awake, the genomorph's horns lit up in red light. 'Likely reporting that I've woken up.' I decided.

When the genomorph was done with its mission, it hopped up onto my bed, then my shoulder. From there the horns lit up again and I heard a little voice in my head.

'Hello, brother. Lady Eve needs, you, test.' The little guy told me.

I was a little unnerved by the thought of being controlled by them, but I reassured myself with the thought that they wouldn't do it forever.

I remembered that the genomorphs rebelled during the breakout, stopping their control of Superboy.

Anyway, shoving those unnerving thoughts to the back of my mind, I stood up. "All right, lead the way, bud."

Nodding its little head, its horns glowed, implanting directions into my mind. Walking out of my room on what I assume was sub-level 52, I followed the directions to a fairly large room.

The walls of the entire floor had been a sterile white, so imagine my surprise when the room was also white. 'Almost like they want to leave hints to the Light or something.'

Inside the room was a lot of different equipment, some of it looking like stuff for working out.

Sitting on a nearby chair was Eve, surrounded by three other people in white lab coats. They seemed to be talking about me if my newfound superhearing was worth anything.

"Mhm. He is much calmer than his predecessor." One of the men said.

Another spoke up in agreement. "Yes, it was a great idea to add human genes to the mix."

"Not only is he much more stable than Match, but he seems to have innate knowledge," Eve explained, just as I entered the room and looked around.

"Ah, speak of the devil." She stood and walked up to me. "Hello 002, did you sleep well?"

I smiled, nodding at her. "Mhm, this little guy led the way here too so I didn't get lost."

"Ah yes, that is your genomorph. He will follow you around to keep in contact with you at all times." She told me.

"Anyway, did you decide on a name?"

'Oh, forgot about that.' I mentally slapped myself for forgetting. 'Ah, whatever, let's just go with my old name.'

"Jackson."

Eve gave me a big smile, typing on her tablet. "Okay Jackson, let's get on with the tests, yeah?"

I nodded at her eagerly, as I also wanted to know what I could do. She first led me to an oversized treadmill.

"We noted that some of your DNA was slightly damaged, so we want to see what effects it could have," Eve told me, while also directing the rest of the scientists.

"First up is the speed test. All you have to do is run until you can't. This doubles as a stamina test as well." She said.

"Well? Hop on." She gestured at the treadmill.

Not wanting to make her wait, I obliged and stepped onto the machine. Doing so, I took a deep breath and thought about the changes in my body overnight.

Glancing at my status, I could see that my energy had reached its maximum of 80%. I figured that it wasn't 100 because it was artificial energy from the suit and not the sun.

Because of this, I felt much stronger than I did the day before. It felt like I could run to the ends of the Earth and back. Let's test that theory.' I thought, starting to move.

I slowly began speeding up, going from a walk to a trot and then a light jog. Feeling my blood pump through my veins felt good, so I kept speeding up.

Faster and faster I went, and it wasn't long before I reached the top of normal human speeds (around 20-25 mph).

"How do you feel Jack? Any problems so far?" One of the researchers asked me.

I merely smiled at the man. "Feel like I could go a lot faster than this."

And so I upped the speed again, accelerating faster than I had before. Easily reaching and then crossing 50 mph. With a glance, I noticed my energy going to 79 for a moment, before my suit recharged me.

'Let's see how far the suit can keep up with me.' Putting more power into my steps, my speed shot up again, nearly reaching 80 mph.

Now is when I started feeling some strain in my body, having to put in some effort to reach these speeds. But I knew I could go faster.

Soon enough I passed 100 mph, and I noted a burning sensation starting to build up in my legs. 'Damn already? Also aren't I pretty slow, even for a hybrid?' I wondered to myself.

[Your current lacking abilities are because of your damaged DNA.]

'Hmm. Well, I suppose that makes sense.' I thought.

"I'm gonna start running harder now," I told Eve, going up to what I would call around 60% of my speed and rising.

"Impressive, passing 130. A researcher said.

I nodded. "Yeah, but the burning is getting worse."

That caught Eve off guard. "Burning, what burning Jack?"

Still increasing my speed, I answered the question. "My legs have been burning since I crossed around 80 mph and it's getting worse the faster I go."

She fell into thought at my words. "Hmm. Must be the instability."

The pain started when I reached 160 mph. "Ah, it's starting to hurt now." I also put on a strained face.

I figured that if I made it worse than it seemed to be, they'd underestimate me when it was time to escape.

'The pain is bad, but I can probably push it to 200 before I actually have to stop. That should be around what Superboy can do.' I thought.

'Actually, I think he's faster but I don't know.'

Eve seemed worried at my words though, falling for the trick. "We have enough information for now, so go ahead and stop."

Obliging to her advice, I began to slow down... well slowly. I didn't want to break the treadmill after all.

It didn't take very long and soon we moved on to the next test- strength. It was a few different machines this time, one for benching, squatting, and a weird one.

The first two were fairly simple and didn't take long at all, finding that my limits were around the same as my speed, at least when compared to a normal human that is.

The last test for the day was actually about power. The strange machine I saw earlier was actually designed to measure how hard I could hit the plate attached.

"Go ahead, give it all you got." Eve encouraged me.

Nodding, I walked up to the plate and stood within striking distance. 'Now to hold back enough, but also make believeableble.'

I decided to punch at around 70% of my strength, as it wouldn't be weird for my strength to be greater than my speed. I cocked my right hand back, before launching it into the plate.

CREEEAK

The plate that was used to measure my strength ended up bending pretty badly, leaving an imprint of my fist in it.

"It's okay, it managed to get a reading before breaking." One of the researchers said. "Looks like he can punch at around 50,000 psi. Very impressive."

Eve nodded. "Not to mention the fact that he had to hold back because of his damaged DNA."

The scientists talked among themselves for a moment before deciding that that was enough for today.

"Okay Jackson, you can go back to your room now. We've put some books in there for you to look over." Eve said. "Your genomorph will give you an expedited education, but the books will help you familiarize yourself with the information."

I nodded. "Okay Mrs. Eve. I'll see you later!" I gave her a wave as I walked out of the door and headed to my room.

"Now to stall for time until the misfits bail me out...." I muttered to myself.