Breaking Point

Chapter 1

Deception

After I was informed upon my promise, I was taken back to my cave of darkness and locked away. Testing would begin. I was somewhat relieved when the scientists provided me with plenty of food and water, but that was for the following experiments. I was taken to a room and placed on a vital signs monitor. The room looked the same as your average hospital room. White walls, tile floors, people running about in laboratory coats, carts of medical things being taken about, it was all there. Unfortunately, their concern was not my well-being. They parched me and noted my health as I was dehydrated. My health declined, of course, but it declined less drastically than the health of anyone else. That is what my designers gave me. I already started from a very healthy person, but they decided to enhance me even more.

I hated the test for water even more than the cruel test of famine. Water is even more crucial to good health than food is. Food provides the body with energy, materials, buttered mashed potatoes and doughnuts. Water, however, is direly needed. Water is the solvent of the body. Food consumption, digestion, absorption; all of these need water. Water carries blood. Metabolism speeds up with water. Water fills cells. Water dissolves ions. Water helps remove waste. The body is three-fourths, or 75 percent water! This crucial component was taken from me, and I remember my barbaric urge to drink anything I could.

I eventually wanted to drink my own blood, but I knew that drawing my own blood would make me loose water more than I would gain. Drawing my own blood would cause pain. Finally, the water I would get from my own blood would return to where it started. Besides, absorbing the blood would take more energy. I urinated less and less. My body is set up to endure water loss. I urinate less than the average person, but the same rules apply for me that do for all. Less water in the body means the less clear urine is. My urine was sampled every time I went, and every time I went, the scientists would make me exercise. My urine started nearly clear. Then it became more yellow, and then it was dark yellow. I soon had small volumes of urine that were a filthy brownish yellow color. Most other people would have yellow urine. They would lose more water.

Two more tests of this nature would follow; a test without food but with water, and a test of no food or water. My 'food' was not cake, ice cream and salad. My 'food' was a tan block that had all of the nutrients I needed. All of the vitamins and minerals were in it. It tasted bland, like flour. The 'food' was a dried powdered mixture of such and such. I was not fond of the block, but I needed it to live.

I could have let my anger out then, but I wanted to help Grandpa. All I knew was that he would use the ARK to destroy mankind. I was loosely monitored, so I could escape to find Professor Gerald. There he showed me what was in the nose of the colony. On this hemisphere, the middle of the flat side had a nose. The nose was just a conical spire that had something inside of it. At the bottom of the nose is a weapon that uses Chaos Crystals to harness energy. With all seven of the Crystals, the weapon would be capable of fragmenting an entire planet. Scientists know that the pieces would collect together again, but the purpose is not the destruction of the planet, but the destruction of the biosphere. Destroying a planet completely is practically impossible.

If the weapon was destroyed or disabled, Gerald would program the colony to collide with the planet. The only way I knew of would be simple impact. The collision of the ARK into the planet would be equal to the strike of a meteor nine kilometers wide. It would leave a crater 322 kilometers across. The impact would cause literally millions of deaths and the dust from the impact would starve many more by darkening the planet in nuclear winter. The Biolizard would attach itself to the nose of the colony and use its own energy to propel the colony forward and into the Earth.