89P13

Somehow, remarkably you live. Nova Corps officers pull you from the wreckage of the collapsed building. You are promptly arrested for illegal genetic and cybernetic experimentation on lower life forms. That is what the officer says to you as they transport you to a Xandarian prison to await trial. You do not know if your data files or log entries survived the blast. You wait, patiently in your cell, declining to speak to anyone or engage in any fights with the other prisoners. You think about 89P13. Did it too die in the blast? All your hard work blown to bits? Or did it somehow manage to escape the compound? If it did, was it still somewhere on Halfworld, roaming the forests alone? Did it make it off the planet? You try to ask one of the Officers when they escort you to the trial, but they do not know. There has been no sign of 89P13 since the initial catastrophe.  During the trial they make you re-watch the salvaged video footage. The tests, the puzzles, every beating, every cry. You know what they are doing. They are trying to stir within you some inexorable guilt. They will not succeed for you have done nothing wrong. You watch these clips thinking about all the possibilities, the missed opportunities. You are unanimously found guilty. You stay in your cell for the most part, only leaving to get meals and use the bathroom. You stay in that place for a number of years. You do not know the exact time. One day you hear talk of a Kree fanatic, an imminent attack on Xandar. A few days later you hear that a group of five were able to defeat the accuser and save the planet. You do not know anymore then that. You remain in your cell, stewing in fantasies of what you could have accomplished. You wonder if 89P13 is out there somewhere. When you see one of the guards beating or torturing a fellow prisoner you imagine that prisoner is 89P13 and you are the one holding the rod.

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When the snap happens, you are spared. The judge who sentenced you is not. While the rest of the prisoners flee in the chaos you remain. You know it will be better to stay and get out later on good behavior if you remain calm and unassuming and stay where you are. You are right. When those who were snapped out of existence return those who broke out of the Klyn are found and thrown back in this time with no hope of leaving. You however are let out on good behavior. Though you are never allowed to receive funding for research or ever find employment at any laboratories across the galaxy. Even the ravagers with whom you once traded units for equipment and subjects refuse to deal with you. You find a quiet place to live on one of the Xandarian sister planets. You live a small life. Holden up in your living room trying to copy all the work that was destroyed. Your sense of time begins to slip from your consciousness. You sometimes go for a walk in the nearby park or to get food but not very often. You hardly eat anyway, or sleep. The loss of all your progress, your life’s work consumes you. You furiously recall notes you made, experiments you did, the results, the lack thereof and you feverishly write them down in journals, when you run out of journals you write on the walls.  You live this way for years, they fade into nothing in your mind. 

You come home late from the store. Had to get bread and some onions and broth. It’s been three weeks since you last left your home. It is dark when you enter your apartment. You turn your back to lock the door behind you and turn around to pick up your bag, shuffling in forward towards the kitchen. You stop short. There is a draft. You feel the cold fresh air glide across the living room prickling your skin with nervous anticipation. You always keep the windows locked. You grimace but continue walking to the kitchen and…. those eyes. Your heart lurches, stomach dropping. It can’t be. Something behind you creeks, you cry out as something sharp and rough seizes both of your wrists and winds around your torso. You try to wriggle free, but the long-healed wounds in each of your legs still causes driving arching pain. You try to angle your head enough to see that which has grabbed you and your jaw drops. A flora colossus. You’ve never seen a live one. Only read about them, only worked on samples. Its large hands easily pin your arms to your side, its flexible but though vines threatening to squeeze the air from your lungs. Such power. To think, with a subject like this… you could do so much. Infinite possibilities. With the right equipment you could…something hard and metallic is wedged into your mouth. You try to gulp at the air as you turn and nearly choke.