I am Max: The Alternate Universe, #1

By C. Lancaster

Earth is a slow-dying planet. The climate is changing, resources are dwindling, and people are suffering.

 

The corporations that rule the world have no regard for human life beyond the profit they offer. They manipulate the governments, control the media, and exploit the masses. 

 

They also conduct secret experiments on humans, creating and spreading diseases and cures, and testing the limits of biotechnology.

One of their victims was born and raised in a white cell, where he was subjected to cruel and painful experiments by the Bureau of Advanced Biogenics, the seat of what has become the new government. 

 

He has no name, no identity, no memories of his past. He is a mere number. 

 

Then, he escapes. 

 

He runs for his life, only to be shot down inches away from freedom. He is about to die, when a mysterious woman named Ara saves him. 

He undergoes a radical transformation and discovers a whole new universe, where humanity is not welcome yet, but tolerated. But his past haunts him even in the new world.

 

Then, a select few of humanity are chosen to join the cosmic community without the government's knowledge. They are the representatives of Earth, the ambassadors of humanity, the pioneers of the future. But they are also arrogant, and prejudiced. 

 

They need a mentor, a guide to see them through the murky depths of space. They just weren't bargaining on it being a cyborg.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. Lancaster
• Release date: Nov 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223459637

C. Lancaster

Hello! I'm Camilla, a country girl who's always had a passion for writing. I love coffee, cats and chocolate and going on long walks to let my imagination run free. My writing is inspired by my experiences and the world around me, and I'm always looking for new ways to tell stories. Thank you for taking the time to read my work!

Book preview

Chapter 1

Pain. It was the one thing he could always rely on, day after day, week after week. It was his unyielding companion, a twisted friend that was always present, never leaving his side. The only solace he found within the confines of these four white walls was the agony that surrounded him, like a thick fog that obscured his vision and stifled all sounds.

Pain was the one thing that allowed him to escape the harsh reality, to lose himself in the depths of his own suffering. It was the only thing that provided him with a sense of comfort, something he could be certain of and control to a degree. Surely, the loss of awareness that pain provided was the only thing that could shield him from the cacophony of screams that echoed down the hall and from the cell next to his own.

The girl in the cell next to his wouldn’t be screaming for much longer anyway. He’d seen them give her the blue vial, and the ones who got the blue vial never made it past forty-eight hours. Except for him, it seemed. He was always the exception, unfortunately.

He was now past his fiftieth hour. The pain had reached its pinnacle, seizing every inch of his body like the talons of a brutal beast. He was an unwilling passenger on its wild ride, convulsing with shudders and cold sweat. His saliva dribbled out of his mouth, and he had lost control over his muscles. In the midst of it all, he lost control of his bladder and wet the paper gown he was made to wear.

But he did not scream. Not once. Screaming only made everything worse, and so he kept his mouth clamped shut. When it began to recede, he was left panting on the cold metal table, drenched in sweat and his own bodily fluids. Yet, he was still alive, unfortunately for him.

The men in their biohazard white suits appeared then, standing menacingly at his cell door. He didn’t attempt an escape. No one ever did. They unstrapped him from the table and tossed him on the floor. He landed with a thud, his body trembling with the effort of holding back, keeping his agony locked inside of him. They hosed him down with icy water like he was some old filthy piece of scrap that nobody wanted to touch.

He was now slumped against the wall on the floor, his knees drawn tight to his chest, still freezing even though he was now dry. An hour after the cleansing ordeal, they had at least the decency to dress him in a fresh frock. He allowed them to do as they pleased, too exhausted to resist or to put it on himself. And the random, degrading comments about everything from his balls to his butt weren’t so bad.

There were worse ways to be humiliated in this place. Besides, humiliation was just another form of pain. And he liked pain—some kinds of it, at least. It was the only thing that made him feel alive in this place. It was the only sensation that penetrated the numbness that had settled over him.

He recalled an insult they slewed at him. They didn’t know—he understood every word they said. He couldn’t speak himself. He hadn’t quite figured out how exactly to get his voice to work, but he wasn’t really as dumb as he pretended to be. He and the others communicated with gestures — the ones who survived long enough to learn them. It was a new thing. They’d only been doing it for something like a year or two. And, regrettably, he who has been there since he was a baby, wasn’t the one who came up with the idea.

But being in a room of four white walls with a metal table in the center of it tended to deprive one’s creativity after nearly nineteen years in captivity. He didn’t even realize he was imprisoned until they started bringing children in from the outside.

A sharp pain pierced through his head from behind his eyes, and with it came a wave of nausea. He dropped his head between his knees and clasped his fingers behind his head. Breathe, he told himself. Just the side effects, the last side effects. It was wearing off.

But there was always another vial of poison he had to overcome. He hoped the next one would be the last one. By the time the nausea had passed and he lifted his head again, he noticed that there were no more screams in the next cell.

He heard the door open minutes later, heard heavy feet being dragged over the floor and into the next room where there was a metal table, and some genetically modified dogs in cages who hadn’t had a meal in two weeks.

This was always the hardest, he thought as he shut his eyes to beat the tears back down. Oh, he thought. Tears. I thought I’d run out. He’d seen what had happened to them, how they were sliced open like animals, disemboweled, studied for scientific gain, and then tossed on the heap, or in this case, to the dogs because there were budget cuts and they couldn’t afford to buy the dogs meat.

May I have the honor one day. He shook his head, which hurt. Wishful thinking, ’152. You’ll be here until you’re ninety. And because that thought made his heart pound in panic, he banged his head repeatedly, hard, against the cushioned wall so the pain would distract him from his thoughts. The sting that was already there intensified monumentally. He winced, but he was satisfied.

The men in white suits stormed into his cell. He sat as he was, on his knees with his hands on the cushioned wall. And behind them, the one in the suit. The tall one with the gray hair and the petrifying eyes. K7-152 heard his shoes on the floor. They sounded different from the biohazard boots. He knew he had to stop looking so poised — the Boss would see that as a provocation.

But he found it interesting that he was seen as a biohazard when the deadliest diseases on Earth couldn’t even put him down. I’m sort of invincible, he thought solemnly.

He was yanked around by his arms like a floppy rag doll. The Boss carefully kneeled in front of him. K7-152 didn’t break eye contact. He thought of the girl who’d just died next door. It sat like a heavy block of concrete on his heart. He didn’t care about himself; he was born inside. But she came from the outside.

And some of the kids, who were brave enough to communicate with him when he was brought out for five minutes of mandatory fresh air, had told him that they had families beyond the walls. And even told him what families were. She must’ve had one. And like them, she was taken from hers. Or bought from them.

The thought made his heart ache, and his face and ears heat up. He didn’t understand the feeling. It felt like choking, his hands would tremble and feel the need to squeeze flesh, his heart would ache and pound against his ribs, and he felt hot all over. It made him feel like he needed to control himself. Or there would be consequences.

On days like these, when the one next to his cell died, and he didn’t, he took pleasure in the idea of surrendering control. What would happen if he did? They wouldn’t kill him, he didn’t think. He was too valuable.

The Boss sneered at him. K7-152 kept his expression indifferent. Look what I have, The Boss said as he held up a jet injector with some purple fluid. Such a strong one you are. You know what that means, don’t you?

K7-152 blinked slowly, like he was in a dream. Yeah. He knew what it meant. A stronger dosage. More dosages. With any luck, an overdose.

But an overdose required the subject to actually have a limit.

The purple vial wasn’t a disease, it was just agony wrapped in an ampoule. At least when he was being injected with a virus or a disease, it had a purpose. His body had to become immune so they could take his blood. But the purple vial was just unadulterated pain. He looked down at his forearm, patterned with nicely placed needle holes all the way up to his elbows, like some sick form of artwork.

It’s your birthday today. We have a present for you. To his surprise, the Boss left the jet injector with one of the men in white and left his cell. That was unusual, and K7-152 didn’t like it. The Boss normally administered that vial himself. K7-152 glanced between the two men. It felt like a fist was clenched around his stomach.

He was used to a routine. He got the feeding tube every few hours. He slept when the bell rang. He was hauled out for his mandatory five minutes of outside oxygen. The pain. Every day was the same. Exactly the same. Except for that one time when he was ten...he swallowed bile as he remembered that day.

The men in white grasped him firmly by the arms and hoisted him onto the cold, metallic table. He didn’t resist, hoping that it might sway their decision. He had a slender build and lacked the strength to put up a fight anyway. They turned him over onto his stomach and secured his wrists and ankles with the table’s restraints. Terror clawed like tendrils through his body and choked him.

They lifted up his frock, revealing his naked body, and one of the men in white came closer and opened the fly of the suit. He didn’t have to be able to see to know what the man took out of his pants. This time, K7-152 did scream when he penetrated him. He showed no mercy and rode him like a ram in rut. They injected the purple vial of liquid pain after both the men in white had their way with him so that he would remember every sobering detail of it.

He wanted to die. The problem was his body didn’t seem to want to, even though he could feel it weaken by the day. Why did it have to drag on so long? He wanted to end it; he would do anything to end it. And, he feared, there was only one way to do it. Escape. It was the only thing that he could do that would push them to pull a trigger, or several.

He’d thought about it all day, every day since his last birthday. He struggled to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. His body ached something terrible. But it wasn’t from any injection he’d gotten.

The pain was different this time. It was his own. He could barely press on his skin, and his skin was turning a strange color of yellow with tinges of blue. How would he muster the strength to escape feeling like this? Especially with what he was planning.

He wasn’t just going to walk out the door. There was going to be a spectacle for all those that died before him. If he was going to be the only one to attempt escape, he was going to make it good. He didn’t know why he bothered, but there was a reckless streak in him that made him feel powerful when he indulged it.

Might as well do it now. Why wait?

He lifted himself up, slowly. He thought of the boy that had been skinned alive in the cell next to his just a day ago. It had been done without anesthetic, as usual. And his cries made his head hurt, as it hurt now. It gave him that feeling of heat. And that feeling gave him energy. He looked down at the IV needle in his arm. He didn’t care what it was, he wasn’t feeling it anyway.

He pulled out the needle, gritting his teeth. Blood dripped from his arm onto the metal table that he slept on. Deep red drops against polished steel.

He carefully got to his feet, gripping the table. His legs were weak. He half-stumbled over to the electronic door. Then jammed the long needle into the locking device. Electric sparks flew as the device disengaged and the door hissed open.

He stood there for a moment, with his heart hammering in his ears, his feet aching. Everything aching. Too late to turn back now. He gripped the needle firmly and walked into the laboratory. The cell next to his was empty now, but it hadn’t been cleaned yet. He peered through the window. The floor was smeared with blood and something that looked like vomit and excrement.

What the hell? Might as well get it over with before dinnertime.

As he moved, his stumbling became more balanced, but he was weak enough that anyone could knock him off his feet with a single blow. He passed through the corridor with all the crazies just outside the K7 lab. Grossly mutated, screaming, shrieking children clawed at him through the cell bars. Children that had gone mad with agony and confinement. He regretted that he kept his sanity. He didn’t feel an ounce of fear at the sight of them. Only pity.

The K7 section was reserved for the most extreme experiments and diseases, but he knew there were six other less intense sections. He never got to see those children. He was a biohazard, after all.

Around the corner, he saw the first guard. And since he was shoeless, the guard didn’t even notice him. He jumped on his back and jammed the needle into the jugular artery in his neck, sending blood spewing out like a fountain. The screaming children behind him fell silent. K7-152 gawked at the dead guard for a moment, trying to decide how to feel, then took his rifle and continued ahead without giving the mutated children a second glance. He didn’t want their faces to be the last thing he remembered, but he probably would anyway.

He glanced down at the rifle. He’d seen the guards use them before and knew he had to compose himself when he fired. Three more guards stood around the corner. When they saw him, they looked puzzled for a moment, as though it should have been impossible for him to be standing there with a semi-automated weapon in his hands.

When reality sunk in, they prepared themselves. He raised the rifle, steeled himself, and launched multiple shots into each one, but not before one tripped the Red Alert alarm.

Ah, now it starts, he thought to himself. He continued on. When guards came, he shot them down before they could react. He took a new rifle from the bodies when he ran out of ammo. Something in his gut propelled him to walk faster. Perhaps it was because he himself didn’t think he could get this far. He was nearly out of the gates.

He must’ve killed at least twenty by now. And hell, he didn’t even feel bad about it. In fact, he got a thrill out of it. It made him feel alive, just like the pain did. It was almost like a game now, to see who got shot down first. They must really have enjoyed their lives, he mused, as he watched two more he just exterminated die with fear and regret in their eyes. Lucky for them, that life was so wonderful to them.

He was outside now, and for the first time, something light was blooming in his belly - hope. He began to run now. He had to climb the fence and then flee into the woods. He had no idea where the hell to, but he figured he’d tackle that problem when he got there. His body was heavily protesting all the movement. And he knew he had a dozen men behind him. His rifle was empty, and he threw it away.

He drew in a breath and began scaling the fence. The rolled wire at the top had jagged edges, but a few cuts and scrapes were hardly going to slow him down. He’d been through worse. He jumped off the other side and broke into a sprint. He heard men shouting behind him, and bullets whirling by his head.

Then he felt a sharp sting in his back that took his breath away. But he kept running. Another sting, in the right leg this time, and he just lost use of it and face-planted on the ground. He crawled. Finish it, he thought, finish it. Another two shots in the back. He couldn’t draw in breath. His eyes swam. Why won’t you give up? He cursed his own body.

Pain clouded his senses. He felt himself being dragged by the leg, not too far, then he was released. And a man in a suit appeared above him. The Boss studied him. K7-152 saw three of him, but he hoped to God there was only one living. He barely felt the needle of the jet injector go into his neck through the sting of the gunshot wounds.

White-hot pain blinded him. His breath hitched. Then he heard the whirring of an electric saw nearby, felt its vibration come to his leg. He screamed as it tore through his living flesh. He couldn’t help it. When the saw shredded through the bone, everything went black.

Chapter 2

Death was tranquil . Quiet. But he wasn’t there yet. He could feel himself slipping deeper and deeper into the void of silent darkness, but he could still hear the sounds of what went on around him. They sounded so very far away. He couldn’t feel or move his body, too tired. He didn’t want to think either. Much too tired.

It was nice to lie in the murkiness without hurt. Until some unwelcome memories and thoughts started surfacing. Recollections he wasn’t ready to face. He didn’t want to see them. But he couldn’t turn them away, and the silence became unbearable then. He willed himself to sink faster, to where there were no more thoughts, no more sensations at all.

He saw the men who raped him on his nineteenth birthday, then he witnessed the saw coming to his leg. The image recreated the pain. He tried to run from it, but he was too exhausted to move. To even think of anything else.

Then, out of nowhere appeared a strange glowing thread in the darkness. It was a luminescent blue color. He’d never seen anything like it before. It seemed like it was moving. Closer, then further again. The man in white came for him. He ran towards the blue thread as though it were his lifeline. He still had his arms and legs in his mind, but he was sluggish. The void was drawing his legs in, and he toiled to get closer to the mysterious glowing rope.

In a rare moment, it was close, so close he could almost touch it. He jumped at it, gripped and gave one hard, desperate yank. It froze in place as if it were shocked that he had snatched at it so violently.

The darkness consumed him, pulling him further down. He lacked the energy to climb back up. He had used up all his strength. In the depths of the void, the Boss’s smug laughter echoed, bringing back memories he didn’t want to relive. The thought of revisiting all his past experiences before ultimately dying scared him. The thread came closer to him. And he sank deeper. But the glowing rope was faster than the pulling of the void of death.

He felt a searing sting, but he didn’t pay it much mind. Then he heard some thumping. It grew louder, faster. Each thud felt like it lifted him. He realized he was hearing his own heartbeat. He kept surfacing, faster and faster. The muffled sounds he was hearing became louder, more distinguished.

He opened pasty eyes, in his body now. Pain. Hell. The smell of rotting flesh, the heat, flies everywhere. And a strange girl above him wearing a silver helmet with blue lights around her face. He