“Oh, good. I see you’ve woken.”

The cold voice of the doctor pulled me from my haze as I woke. I glared at him and I tried to get my bearings. I would have had some choice words for him if he hadn’t gagged me. I struggled against my restraints, but my muscles still felt like they were made of jelly. His amusement at my struggles was clear from the slight smirk at the corners of his thin lips.

“No use struggling, my boy. Those are designed to hold a man six times your strength. I can’t have anyone getting away before testing is complete. You can keep struggling if you like, but you’ll only wear yourself out and make it easier for me in the end. So, how about you settle down and we’ll get this over with? If you behave I might even give you that sandwich back. How’s that sound? Never know when your next meal might be, eh?”

I glared at him silently, trying to decide on my next move. Play along with this psycho and hope he would let me go or try to make a break for it? I looked around for anything to help me get free. This wasn’t the first time I’d been tied down against my will.

It wasn’t always against your will.

It was no use. The doctor had been too smart to leave anything within my reach. It almost seemed like he had measured my arms to ensure that nothing was within reach even if my hands were freed. I hate smart bad guys.

I sighed in a resigned way and sat back, glaring daggers at him, but nodded slightly.

He smiled before turning back to his lab table. “Very good. I would hate for this to be harder than it truly needs to be. Now, I will need a few samples and then we can begin the question and answer portion of our experiment.”

After removing what I feel was an excessive amount of blood, hair, and skin samples, the mad scientist rolled his metal stool in front of me and took out his notebook again, clicking his pen three times.

“Now, before I take off your gag, I will answer your most likely first question of why you’re here. Simply put, you are to be a sapient test subject in an experiment that could bring Humans, Elves, and Dwarves to the next level of evolution. If my hypothesis is correct, it could change the world forever.

The only issue is that the ethics board is a bit...hesitant to allow me sapient testing due to the unstable results animal testing has produced. I have tried to assure them this is merely because most animals do not possess the appropriate genetic markers for the experiment to have more positive results, but the bleeding hearts on that board have lost sight of the fact that progress has always come at the expense of life. So, if you wish to be angry at someone for your current predicament, direct it at the board. They forced my hand.”

I’d never been held captive by someone who delivered a monologue before. I wondered for a moment if I was dreaming, but the ache from my bruised wrists told me I had somehow landed myself in a real-life supervillain’s lab.

He pushed his glasses up and coughed, seeming to realize he’d begun ranting slightly. “Anyway, I’m going to remove your gag and I need you to answer some questions for me. Simple ones. Can you handle that, kiddo?” I glared at him but nodded slowly. “Very good.”

He removed the gag from my mouth and I smacked my lips to try to wet them. “Thanks, Doc. I haven’t had dry mouth this bad since I smoked that stuff my dealer had me test out for him and then tried to eat chips. You got some water?” He wheeled his stool back over to his table and brought me a bottle of water with a straw in it. “You’re kidding, right? Just let my hands-free and you won’t be over here every five seconds.”

He stared at me blankly. “You’re kidding, right? Do you think me fool enough to release your hands with me so close? I think not. Appreciate that I’m giving you water at all.”

I begrudgingly sipped the drink before he placed it on the table and brought over some kind of form.

“Now, what name would you prefer I put down? I don’t care if it’s yours. It won’t matter.” I blinked at him.

“Wait, is that a consent form? The irony of this can't’ be lost on you, right, Doc?”

He chuckled quietly. “Oh, it isn’t, I assure you. Just because I’m doing this illegally doesn’t mean paperwork doesn’t need doing. Besides, this is less a consent form and more just a profile I’ll be submitting to my financier. Apparently even black market science requires paperwork. Who knew? Name.”

“Niko.”

“Niko what?”

“Just Niko.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I cannot just put Niko. I need a last name, boy.”

I shrugged slightly. “I don’t have one. I’m like one of those pop singers with only one name. Still trying to come up with my own fancy symbol. I was thinking of a middle finger with devil horns. Could you put that down instead?” He didn’t look amused at my joke and I huffed. “Tough crowd.”

He rolled his eyes as he wrote down my name. “Fine, we’ll come back to that. Age and occupation?”

“Nineteen, but I’m turning Twenty in about a week. I mean, if I make it that long. As for what I do for money? A little bit of everything. I like to think of myself as a Jack of all trades. I’m no expert at anything, but I’m sure useful in a wide variety of situations. I’ve been called a ‘problem solver’ before if that title fits your fancy better.” He scrawled notes on the page with a nod, but I couldn’t see what he’d written.

One of the machines behind him got his attention with a small chime. He rolled his stool over and took the paper that came out of it. He looked over whatever was printed on it with a raised eyebrow. “Interesting.”

“What’s the word, Doc? Will I ever play the piano again?”

He gave me an unamused look over his glasses. “I can’t imagine you can play the piano in the first place. Not that these results would tell me that. No, you are interesting because you have markers that I haven’t seen before. You’re a whole new breed from the sapients I’ve had before. You have so many more markers than most of the others as well. Niko, you may be exactly the subject I have been looking for. Maybe you won’t die a horrible screaming death after all.”

I stared at him, hoping he would crack a smile, but it became clear the horrible screaming death part hadn’t been a joke. I laid my head back and stared up at the ceiling. “Comforting, Doc. Anyone ever tell you that your bedside manner could use some work?”

“Many times. It is why I wasn’t invited back to the hospital I was training in. That and the missing corpses, but it wasn’t like those people were using their bodies anymore.” Again, not even the hint of a smile. What kind of psychopath had I found myself with?

“Anyway, I’ve really got all I need here in these results. I’ve even come up with a last name for you. How does Dominez sound to you?”

I raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “Sure, whatever gets your rocks off, Doc. Any reason? What are those results telling you, anyway? I got some kind of disease?”

He laughed as he stood and walked toward the door. “We’ll go over your results when I’ve gotten a chance to talk to my assistant. Sadly, she’s gone home for the night, so we’ll begin again in the morning.” He turned off the lights as he opened the door, his dark form backlit by the hall lights.

“Hey, whoa! What about my sandwich?” I struggled in vain against my restraints again.

He smirked back at me. “I said if you behaved you might get it. Smart-ass comments don’t count as behaving. Sleep well, Mr. Dominez. You’ll need it.”

With that, he closed the door and left me in the pitch-black lab, my only companions the flickering lights and whirring parts of his machinery.

What have you gotten yourself into, Niko?

“That’s a damn good question, brain voice.”