Subject Three

He didn't know where he was.

Even before he opened his eyes, he was sure of it. The sound of the place, the smell of the air, the feel of the bed beneath him--all wrong, all unfamiliar. He felt very foggy, nothing seeming to quite line up. A dull ache throbbed behind his eyes. There were voices, he realized, as his brain slowly caught up. People were speaking--no, shouting. Panicking.

"Where the hell am I?"

"What's happening?"

"Who are you people?"

The cacophony of voices piled onto itself, echoing strangely and making it all but impossible to follow what anyone was actually saying. He finally dragged his eyes open, and found himself looking at a plain concrete ceiling, featureless save for the occasional wire-caged lightbulb. The brightness made him want to close his eyes again, but he forced himself to turn his head and look around anyway.

He was in a rectangular concrete room made up like a minimalist hospital ward, with two rows of narrow beds against either wall, five beds to a side. He was in the middle bed on his side, and other people were in or near the others. Most of them, he noticed, were still shouting. None of them seemed to be dressed, which struck him as odd, but then, they were in bed, so wouldn't it be more odd if they were?

He shook his head. His brain was still way too cloudy.

"Quiet! QUIET!" someone bellowed, and the tumult died down. The speaker was a young man--they all were, he realized, everyone in the room was male and looked around twenty--with Asian features, pale skin, a shock of midnight-black hair, and the kind of lean muscularity only found among serious athletes.

"Screaming at each other isn't going to help anything," the young man went on in a more reasonable tone, once silence fell. "Calm down and think. Does anyone know where we are? Does anyone remember how we got here?" The speaker paused, a strange expression passing over his face, like something was on the tip of his tongue but he couldn't quite seize it. "Does anyone remember...anything?"

What a strange question,

he thought, in his bed across the room.

Why wouldn't we remember...?

But he didn't. He didn't remember coming to this strange place. He didn't remember how he got here or why he came. He didn't remember any of these other young men.

He didn't remember anything at all.

Not his home, not his family, not even his own name. Nothing, save the last few seconds in this room, existed in his memory. No wonder the bed and setting were so unfamiliar when he'd awoken; literally anything would have been. The others were coming to the same realization around him, and the shouting and panicking had started up again, whatever the Asian guy tried.

"Hey."

He almost missed the gentle voice in the chaos, but he found himself turning toward it. Another of his fellow...residents? Captives? He didn't know what term applied...walked over and sat on the bed next to his, looking concernedly over at him. This one had a lean swimmer's build and the olive-skinned good looks of the Mediterranean, all wavy black hair and liquid dark eyes.

"I'd ask if you're okay, but, well..." the newcomer said, a touch of humor, of all things, in his voice. "You kind of look like you're losing it."

"Yeah," the first replied, his voice a bit croaky. "How do you tell if you're having an existential crisis or just a panic attack?"

The other guy smiled, eyes twinkling. "Who said you have to choose?" Suddenly he leaned forward, expression turning intent. "What you need is to take some control over your situation. That should help get control of yourself. Names," he decided. "We need names."

"But...we can't remember our names. That's sort of the key to the whole existential crisis and/or panic attack thing."

"Exactly! Which is why claiming new ones for ourselves will help. Me, for example. You can call me Five."

That earned a blink. "Five?"

Five nodded firmly. "I'm Five, and you're Three."

"Why am I Three? Where are these numbers coming from?"

Five tapped himself on the chest. He was clad only in underwear--white boxers, specifically. Everyone, Three--if that was to be his name--realized, wore only identical pairs of white boxers. And they all had one additional thing in common: on the flat of the left pectoral muscle, writ large in blocky, stenciled letters as though painted, was a strange alphanumeric sequence. On Five, it read "5B-05." Glancing down, he saw his own was similar: 5B-03. At least that explained the idea for their names. A quick look around the room showed that all the young men shared the 5B prefix, followed by a number from one to ten. So did the beds, he noticed, each bed had a matching number--presumably where each of them had been deposited. Ten beds, ten people, each numbered...but why?

Three stared at his own chest for a moment, bewildered, then turned back to Five. "What the hell is that?"

Five shrugged. "No idea!" he said cheerfully. "But at least it gives us somewhere to start."

Across the room, the assertive Asian guy--his chest read 5B-07, so Three decided to think of him as Seven--had regained some control of the conversation.

"Clearly we all have had our memories wiped, or at least suppressed. How doesn't matter for now--drugs or something, probably, who knows--but what does matter is getting out of here. Let's find out what's behind those doors; maybe there's a way out." He nodded toward one end of the rectangular room, where three closed doors were visible. One in each wall, left and right, and one in the center.

"Who put you in charge?" demanded one of the others. Three couldn't see his number, as he was facing partially away, but the speaker was blond, pale, and looked like a fashion model, appearing to be primarily composed of abs and cheekbones. He managed to make his plain white boxers--identical to everyone else's--seem like a fashion statement, standing as if trying to strike a pose. He had a sneering, haughty manner, and Three was instantly sure he was going to be a problem.

Seven was unimpressed. "No one. If you'd like to stay here, be my guest." He and several others started toward the far end of the long room, toward the doors, leaving the blond guy spluttering behind him. One of the guys with Seven opened a door on the right wall, sticking his head through to look around.

"It's a gym," he said, turning back toward Seven and the others. "Bunch of exercise equipment. Treadmills, bench press, all sorts of things. No other doors, though." As he returned, Three saw the number on his chest: 5B-02. He--Two, using Five's naming convention--looked to be of mixed African/Caucasian descent, with café au lait skin and hair shorn close to his scalp.

On the other side, Three's left, one of the others had already opened the door there. He was lean and fit--as everyone here was, Three was realizing--and was probably Latino, with bronze skin and shaggy, dark chocolate hair. Three caught a glimpse of his chest, which read 5B-06.

"Bathroom," called Six over his shoulder. "Toilets, sinks, big open shower block like a locker room. No doors."

Nodding thanks to both, Seven himself opened the third door, the one in the middle of the wall at the end of the room. Once he turned to announce his findings, Three could see past him, and spied a long, low table with attached benches.

"It's a cafeteria or something," Seven called out. "Big table, a couple of water fountains straight out of a public school hallway, and a bunch of crates labeled 'MREs.' At least we won't starve. Still no other doors, though. Damn."

"What on earth is an MRE?" demanded the blond guy, still posing dramatically in the middle of the room, apparently oblivious to the fact that no one was paying attention to him.

"It stands for 'meal ready to eat,' I believe," supplied Five from beside Three. "It's military jargon. They can be stored for ages without going bad, and you don't need to cook them or anything, just open and eat, thus the name." The blond whirled to face them, so Three could finally put a name--or rather, a number--to him: 5B-01.

Of course he's number one,

Three thought sourly.

"How do you know that?" One asked, still in that demanding tone.

"I...I'm not sure," Five said haltingly. "I just...do?"

"Do you have your memories? Are you in on it?" One jabbed an accusatory finger at Five's face, his voice rising into a shriek. "What's going on here? Why did you do this to us?"

Seven, appearing beside One, slapped his jabbing finger down, the sheer audacity of which seemed to astonish One into silence. "First, calm the hell down. Throwing paranoid accusations around isn't going to help. Second, I recognized the acronym too, but I also don't know how I know. That's how amnesia works, you idiot."

One recovered from his shock and started inflating like an aggrieved toad. "If I'm the idiot, why haven't you found the exit yet?"

Seven just snorted. "I have. It's right there," he said, and pointed past One to the far wall, opposite the three doors. Everybody--even One--turned to look. For a moment, Three didn't understand; that end of the room looked like another wall, a featureless expanse of gray concrete. Then something clicked in his brain, and he heard Five's soft gasp as he noticed too.

The far wall was, in fact, a door, but one on a scale that had defied Three's notice. It was a vast slab of concrete that would have given a bank vault an inferiority complex, so huge Three's mind hadn't registered it as anything but another wall. Now that he looked carefully, there were barely visible seams that suggested mobility--though no hinges or controls of any kind were visible.

"What is this place, some kind of bomb shelter? That looks like something the military would build under a mountain," someone said. Three didn't see the speaker, he was still focused on the colossal door.

"Could be," Six replied, moving forward to examine the door with Seven and a few others. "Sometimes, when the military decommissions places like that, they sell them to rich weirdos. Supervillains have to get their lairs somewhere."

Three could feel Seven rolling his eyes from across the room. "This is not a supervillain's lair."

"Oh no? Who else kidnaps a bunch of innocent young men, who were presumably just sitting around being handsome and minding their own business, and imprisons them in underground bunker fortresses?"

"How do you know we're underground?"

"It's a supervillain's lair, of course we're underground. Where else do you put a secret lair?"

"...Sorry I asked. Does anyone see a way to get this thing open?" Seven and the others were going over the door and nearby walls, but they all shook their heads.

"Well of course not," said Six, "What self-respecting supervillain would leave his prisoners an obvious escape route?"

"We can all agree it's not a supervillain's secret lair," Two interjected, before Seven could fire back. He glanced at Six. "Well, most of us can, anyway, but if it's not that--which, again, probably not--what is this? Why are we here?"

"That much," replied Seven, "seems clear enough. We're here to be experimented on."

The tumult that followed that pronouncement took several minutes to die down.

"You're going to need to explain that," said Ten, in a slow, deep voice with a drawling Southern accent. His skin was so dark that his 5B-10 label had been done in white, instead of black like everyone else, and he stood like a pillar, muscular arms folded across his broad chest.

Seven just shrugged. "Like I said, it seems clear enough. Look around. Ten of us, all numbered. I'd say we're all within a year or so in age, and probably all within two inches and ten pounds of each other. We clearly all take fitness seriously--"

"You noticed all the six-packs too, huh?" snickered Six. He wasn't wrong; Three had noticed the same thing. There wasn't enough fat between the ten of them to grease a pan.

"--Which means," Seven went on, clearly resigned to speaking around Six's color commentary, "that we probably all take health in general seriously too. I'll bet we're all free of chronic health issues like diabetes or asthma or anything like that as well. No medications or other issues like drug abuse to complicate their data."

"Data?" Ten asked.

"Whatever they want to do to us, they're controlling variables. That's the first thing you do with experimental research: control as many variables as possible to make sure the only things that change are the things you change on purpose. You want your subjects to be as similar as you can get."

"Say you're right," said Two, slowly. "And this is some kind of experiment. But if that's the case, there aren't enough of us. Ten data points isn't enough for real statistical analysis." He paused, looking surprised at his own knowledge.

A lot of that going around,

thought Three.

"That part seems obvious too," said Five, joining the conversation. "We're all wearing the proof." He tapped the stenciled number on his chest. "Clearly we're subjects one through ten of group 5B. But if there's a group 5B, then, logically..."

"There's probably a 5A," finished Ten, nodding. "And if there's a group five, there's probably groups one to four, each with subgroups A, B, maybe C and D or more, who knows. There's no telling how big this place is, there could be dozens of groups like us down here. "

"So you admit we're underground!" Six cried triumphantly, thrusting a finger into the air. Everyone ignored him.

"All of this begs another question," said Two, "What kind of experiment is this? What are they going to do to us?"

"Something psychological is possible; wipe our memories, lock us in here and see what happens. See how crazy we go, and how fast. But my guess is pharmaceuticals," said Seven, grimly rejoining the discussion. "Someone wants to do human trials but doesn't have permission, so they decided to make their own."

"Very astute observations!" came a new voice, making them all jump. It hadn't come from any of the young men in the room, but crackled like an intercom, though none of them could see the speakers. "And largely correct. It may interest you all to know that while you were grouped for physiological similarity, as you deduced, you were chosen for your records of academic prowess as well as physical excellence. I wanted the very best and brightest for my program, prime physical specimens who were also intellectually gifted; and it seems clear that I've chosen well!"

It was hard to determine much about the voice, distorted as it was, but it was definitely male, and sounded older. He sounded well-educated--though since he was clearly a scientist of some kind, that much seemed obvious--and his accent was...Northeast, perhaps? Not Boston or New York, exactly, but somewhere in there.

"I demand you release us right now!" One shouted at the ceiling. "You can't just kidnap people and wipe their memories! Undo whatever you've done to us and let us out of here! Open this door!" Several other voices joined him, shouting imprecations at the walls.

"Ah, yes, I suppose I should address the manner in which you were collected. A...regrettable necessity," came the crackling voice, when the yelling died down. "I'd have preferred volunteers, of course, but the quality of the voluntary subjects was just not up to my standards. Dreadful stock, really, hardly useful at all," the voice trailed off in irritated mutters for a moment before returning. "But that's neither here nor there. Regarding your memories...I'm afraid I cannot restore what has been taken from you.

Tabula rasa

, and all that; a clean slate for what's ahead. The world is about to change, my young friends, change mightily, and you will be at the forefront! A new era of humanity is about to unfold! Can't have you being held back by the baggage of your pasts when you have a whole new future to look forward to, now can we?"

"Still think he's not a supervillain?" Six muttered.

"The mad scientist vibes are strong," Five agreed.

One, meanwhile, had reached the end of his rope. "And what, you think we're just going to lie down and let you experiment on us, you sick freak?" he screamed at the ceiling. "As soon as you open that door, we're going to take you down. Just let us go, and nobody gets hurt!"

"Come now," came the voice of their captor, dripping with condescension so thick it was apparent even through the distortion of the intercom. "Didn't I just say I wanted intelligent subjects? Don't ruin it now. Do you really imagine I'd have left you all unrestrained if I didn't mean to?" A cold feeling shivered up Three's spine. He suspected he knew why they weren't confined, and his fears were confirmed with the next words that crackled into the room. "It's already done. Your treatment was administered while you were all still unconscious. You have all taken your first steps upon the path to ascension already. Do speak up if you start to experience any...symptoms."

With an audible click, the voice went silent, and did not return however they yelled at the walls. No one could determine how they were being observed, though it was obvious they were; there were no visible cameras. Eventually, they gave up trying to either get the attention of their concealed watchers or find out how they were watching. The men of group 5B started drifting away in ones and twos, some trying out the gym to work off their frustration, some heading for the mess hall in search of food, and some just flopping on their beds to talk--or complain--at varying volumes.

Three and Five, laying sideways on Three's bed, amused themselves for a while looking for spaces in the walls and ceiling where surveillance devices might be concealed, but more for something to do than in hopes of actually succeeding. Two and Eight--a tanned guy with curly blond hair who made Three think of surfers--sat on Two's bed next to them, discussing methods of getting the door open with similar futility.

Gradually, Three became more and more aware of Five's close proximity; the heat of his skin, the sound of his steady breathing, the smell of him. That scent in particular started to occupy more and more of Three's attention. The room in general was quite sterile, with a vaguely antiseptic smell hanging over everything, but the clean sweat and warm musk of the man right beside him overpowered the chemical scent more by the minute. Three's head was swimming with it until he could hardly pay attention to their anemic conversation any longer.

It seemed the most natural thing in the world, therefore, when Three reached over the scant few inches between them and lightly ran his fingers up Five's bare thigh. He heard Five's breath catch, but there was no resistance, no objection, so Three kept going. There was a tiny, distant voice in the back of his mind saying something was wrong, that he shouldn't do this, but it was easy to ignore and was rapidly getting drowned out by the roaring in his ears and the pounding of his heart.

Five's answering touch, feather light, had goosebumps rising on Three's arms. Five's fingers wandered up the back of Three's hand, tracing the tendons to his wrist, and then ever so gently skimming up the length of his arm. There was something inexplicably intimate about it, just that barest caress, and Three's heart rate seemed to double as Five moved back down Three's arm until their fingers tangled together.

Moving Three's hand with his own, Five drew them both up his own leg, under the hem of his shapeless white boxers, to the soft skin of his inner thigh. The skin of his outer leg had been relatively cool, but now the heat was intense. Three followed the heat, reaching upward into the warmth, and soon found its source. Five's cock was half hard already, but it stiffened swiftly in Three's hand as he gave it a gentle tug. Five's hand tightened on Three's, his sharp intake of breath not quite a gasp.