• A white padded cell.

    He sat up, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. His eyelids felt heavy, but he could not remember for how long they had been that way.

    Recall.

    He sifted through his memory, trying to recollect the events that placed him in this icy prison. Teeth chattering, he blew at his fingers. His mind came up blank.

    His hand trembled. Curious, he opened it, to find a small slip of paper resting in his palm. Smoothing it out with his thin fingers, his eyes darted to read the words.

    "..... Erhard Muller."

    His own voice sounded strange against the cold walls of his cell.

    A loud knock on the metal door shook him out of it. The solid chunk of metal creaked as the cold air tried to slip past the widening gap, streaming off into the corridor in puffs of white mist. In the doorway stood a statue of a man, his head obscured by the helmet and visor, whatever distinguishing characteristics he had hidden away under the blue uniform and bulletproof jacket. What he could tell, though, was that the man was smiling.

    "Well, well. What have we here?"

    The guard walked over to the prisoner, covering the length of the cell in just three steps. With an arm his grabbed the younger man by his forearm, yanking him into a standing position.

    "Looks like someone's getting a job."

    The guard rifled through the clipboard in his hand, then snorted and threw it at the prisoner’s feet. The clatter of wood upon concrete echoed for at least a minute or so.

    "Enjoy it. You're gonna be working this sentence off."

    ---

    Overwatch Clearance Granted.

    Project Infinitum - Project Briefing 001 - Date: 19/03/2089

    Subject is a fourteen-year-old female, assign number 27701. Subject, from past records, has displayed ‘absurd theories given normal day-to-day situations’ in terms of handwritten essays, as collected from her past records (See Attachment 021 cool . People that have come into contact with Subject 27701 have cited her as ‘a bright, active girl with an overpowered imagination’, ‘constantly rambling about highly improbable or outright impossible situations’. All persons that have or had past relations to Subject 27701 are to be administered with Amnesiac Type C before the start of the project.

    Subject 27701 is to be kept in CR Cell 01. On no account is Subject 27701 allowed to leave the premises, except for conducting of designated experiments.

    Experimentation is to be carried out at intervals in accordance to the mood of the subject. Subject 27701 is to be escorted to a nearby writing desk equipped with a laptop with a word processor or a stack of foolscap papers and a pen. At any point in time during the experiment, should Subject 27701 request for any other objects, personnel are to relay requests to the Head-of-Research in charge of Project Infinitum in accordance with Policy 2093-A. If at any time Subject 27701 stops writing, personnel are to escort her back to Cell 01, and the log and product of the experiment submitted to the Head-of-Research for further analysis.

    ---

    “Erhard! Going out for dinner later?”

    The youth in question looked up at the older man in the doorway.

    “Er... No. I have work to do. A lot of it.”

    “Sheesh. You’re always working. Take some time off, it’ll probably do that huge brain of yours good.”

    “No thank you, sir.”

    He listened in silence as his mentor sighed and walked off down the corridor, the clack-clack of his shoes echoing down the wooden floor.

    In a blink of an eye, three months had already passed. Using the name he had found in his hand, he had somehow managed to get into a school. A medical school, too. The possibility of someone with no prior background getting into a medical school? Next to none, until he figured out that somehow, there was already a spot reserved for him there. No application forms, no admission tests, nothing.

    Just go in, sit down, and learn.

    The teachers were okay, a little dry. The students were what he could probably describe as ‘normal teenagers’. And then there was his personal mentor.

    The man was not young. He gauged him to be around his forties, fifties at most. He was a patient man, ready to teach his eager student all he knew about... Well. Anything, really. There was not a question that he could not ask his mentor about without leaving with at least an answer, or more likely, another question.

    Another thing.

    He seemed to be picking up the subjects quickly, as how his mentor would have described it: “Like a baby learning the alphabet”. Anything and everything that the teachers threw at him, his mentor threw at him, he picked up from the library, he would learn. Learn until the teachers got fed up with him. Made him sit at the back of the class all day, ignoring him whenever he put up his hand.

    That he decided not to learn, though. He never submitted to the glares of the students wishing that the bell would ring sooner.

    ---

    Project Infinitum - Test Log 001 - 29/03/2089

    (Subject 27701 is in captivity after three days without input. Interview executed and recorded as per Overwatch command.)

    Interviewer: “Subject 27701?”

    Subject: “Hmm...?” (Subject was sleeping prior to interview.)

    Interviewer: “Subject 27701. You are required to respond to any questions that are asked, and I warn you that I will not hesitate to use force if you do not cooperate.”

    Subject: “Ah... Is this about the writing? I’m sorry, but I just don’t have anything to write about at the moment.”

    Interviewer: “You do remember that your inputs are necessary for the Project to proceed?”

    Subject: “Oh, of course I do! You people remind me about it all the time. But really, I have nothing else for my dearie to do. It’s just sit and learn every day.”

    Interviewer: “You were selected as a test subject for Infinitum because of your essays, in which you described fantastic things. Why don’t you write some of that down?”

    Subject: “You don’t understand. The teachers always failed me whenever I wrote things like that. Why can’t essays be stories, just like all the people who write books do. Their teachers don’t scold or fail them for it. I don’t see why I get the fail grade.”

    Interviewer: “Your reason for not writing any more of those ‘stories’ is because?”

    Subject: “Wait, what are you doing with my work, anyway? I hope it isn’t going to a teacher for her to laugh at and fail just for fun.”

    Interviewer: “Rest assured we are not doing that.”

    Subject: “Speaking of which, doctor. Do you like that sweater much?”

    Interviewer: “Sweater? This one I’m wearing?”

    Subject: “Yeah. It’s quite cool. I mean, none of the other doctors here wears a blue sweater like that.”

    Interviewer: “My mum knitted thi -- Ahem. Anyway. On with our interview?”

    Subject: “Stop the recorder! I’ve just had the most brilliant idea!”

    Interviewer: “Y-You have? Very well. Pause the recording, and take Subject 27701 to her writing table at once.”

    (End of Log)

    ---

    Christmas.

    Most of the students have gone home for the holidays. The school was deserted, the cool winter air pervading its corridors, now devoid of most human noise.

    Perfect time for studying. It was so quiet.

    Erhard sighed, watching his breath escape his lips in a small white puff of air. Much like the air from his cell nearly a year ago.

    A rather fruitful year in terms of knowledge. Over the holidays he had finished every book in the library from cover to cover, grilled the teachers enough for them to learn to scurry quickly to their offices and cower in fear there, lest he catch them and fry their knowledge on whatever particular question he had on his mind. The students all tried to keep clear of him as well, but he could feel, each and every one of their awe-struck gazes as he walked down the corridors, books strapped tightly to his arms. Was it in hormone-induced attraction or a genuine envy for his appetite for knowledge, he never bothered to find out.

    Such a trivial matter. Does it matter who he was to everyone else, when he did not know himself?

    ‘Erhard Muller’ frowned. That one question that kept him pining for information, made him terrorize all who dared to step into his dormitory with a barrage of questions, seemed to love throwing its answer just out of sight.

    “Honestly. Staying cooped up in here isn’t good for you.”

    His mentor was at it again. Every term the old man tried to get his study-bug student to ‘go outside, see the world’, and not once had he succeeded.

    “Professor, I’d rather stay in. The temperature outside is below zero degrees Celsius. I’ll freeze out there.”

    “Which is why my Christmas present should come in handy.”

    Present?

    Intrigued, he turned to face his mentor, and got a box shoved into his arms for the trouble. His mentor was grinning away, as if the whole thing was some kind of joke which only he knew the punchline to.

    “Open it, Erhard. You’ll like it alot.”

    The student sighed, then proceeded to peel off the pieces of scotch tape that held down the foil wrapping. A crease here, an unfold there, soon enough he managed to remove the wrapping in its original rectangular sheet. He held it out proudly to his mentor.

    Who responded with a slap to his own forehead.

    “Really. Can’t you open it like anyone else would? Tear the paper and everything?”

    “What is the point of following the example of others, professor, when it has not long-term benefits for me?”

    That managed to shut him up. Erhard smiled, and continued with his present.

    “That sharp tongue of yours would get you into trouble one day.”

    “If my mind doesn’t make it present all the ideas I have to the world first.”

    The lid he pried off, and inside the little cardboard box was a light blue sweater, a large white hand-stitched star sewn onto one corner, similar to the pattern on the red scarf around his mentor’s neck. Erhard poked it with a finger.

    “It’s a sweater, professor.”

    “Should get you warmed enough to go out for lunch now, shouldn’t it?”

    “I... I don’t know what to say.”

    “Come on. It’ll be fun. You get to see some actual snow for once, instead of experiencing it through that cell of yours.”

    His mentor smiled. The old man just loved to crack jokes about his amnesiac jailbird.

    The student sighed, then pulled the sweater over his head. Smoothing it out, he pushed aside all the books stacked around his chair and stood up.

    “Shall we then, professor? Maybe a little bit of hot chocolate would warm me up.”

    ---

    Project Infinitum - Test Log 004 - 18/05/2089

    (Subject 27701 has shown marked interest in items researchers have brought into the vicinity of the subject. Request to experiment with assorted objects to alter the subject’s output filed.)

    (Request denied. Reason is stated quite clearly in the following Test Log.)

    Interviewer: “Ah. Is this thing on again? Okay. Good.”

    Subject: “Are we going through another interview?”

    Interviewer: “Yes. It concerns your latest product, 27701.”

    Subject: “You read it already?”

    Interviewer: “It has come to my attention that you have depicted a rather...” (Interviewer pauses.)

    Subject: “You aren’t wearing your sweater today, doctor?”

    Interviewer: “As of a month ago, my sweater disappeared from my closet, as well as a few other things that other researchers have brought in. All have been found to be depicted in your work.”

    Subject: “Well, I thought they were nice things, so I would write them down.”

    Interviewer: “This project is not about writing down the objects that researchers may carry on their person, 27701.”

    Subject: “Aww. I liked your sweater.”

    Interviewer: “That still does not condone your actions. If necessary we will request for an editor to screen your work for any objects that may be related to other researchers.”

    Subject: “But then where would I get things to write about?”

    Interviewer: “Judging from your past outputs, I suggest you think up something big. Put that imagination of yours to use.”

    Subject: “Don’t you have some of your own to throw around as well? I mean, don’t you think of all the things like fairies and monsters and dreams and nightmares also?”

    Interviewer: “Which I can explain it with science. These are merely projections of the human mind, trying to explain phenomena away by dedicating it to something unknown. Science has proved the workings behind these.”

    (At this point, Subject falls silent and requests that the interview be stopped.)

    ---

    Erhard had the strangest dream.

    Sitting up in his cell, which he had been sent back to while awaiting his admission to a local hospital to complete his residence, he shivered for the first time in ages.

    Clutching his sweater closer to his body, he crammed his eyes shut and tried to grasp at the last few threads of the visions that presented themselves so clearly just moments ago.

    Stacks of paper blown about the room, inked black on both sides with printed words, fluttering around the biggest rose he had ever seen, blooming in the emptiness. A young man and a little girl, huddled together in the folds of the rose’s scarlet petals, watching as the white paper doves flew.

    And with that, his mind snapped him back to reality. The dream was gone.

    “....”

    The chill nipped his fingers, for the first time since he had come back to his cell. Maybe staying out in school really did a number on his physical fitness. He never recalled feeling cold when he first woke up.

    Although his amnesia still had not cured itself, nor had he gained any memories from before that point.

    He rolled out of the concrete slab that served as his bed, landing on the floor with an empty thump.

    The guards would not let him have anything to read. Nor let his mentor visit him. He wondered if the old man had forgotten him by now.

    Speaking of which. The guards at least had let him keep the sweater. That was nice of them. Were they supposed to be this nice under requirement, or did they really have emotion under those bulletproof hearts?

    Something clattered outside his door.

    Sitting up, he slid over slowly, dragging his legs behind him as a seal upon land would do. He pressed his head against the metal slap, trying to listen for any more noise.

    The corridor was silent. He could hear his own heart pounding away.

    Maybe it was just the wind. Except that his cell was quite shut away from any outside weather, save for the small window near the top of one wall. Which was the wall opposite the door anyway. If a weird sound should reach his ears, it should have come from there instead.

    No matter. The heavy footsteps down the corridor might find out what that sound is anyway.

    There was a knock.

    Surprised, he pulled himself away from the door just as it opened, revealing a guard holding a box. Who threw said box at his head.

    It didn’t hurt, not in the least, but he was annoyed, for sure, and that made the guard laugh. Picking up the box that had bounced onto the floor, he held it up.

    “What’s this?”

    “Your mail, convict. Gonna open it or not?”

    Strange. Life was just one present after another, was it not?

    He frowned as he peeled away the wrappings, prying off the lid of the box and shaking out the papers that it contained. One immediately caught his eye, and he snatched it out of the air, scanning through the words printed on it as fast as he could.

    “I.... I got accepted?”

    Great. No more jail time.

    His attention shot to the rest of the papers, which he read through with his heart slamming itself against his chest, enough to make his choke on his own tongue.

    “Lie still, beating heart.”

    The rest of the papers were something.... Research papers. On a chemical he had seen a couple of times in class, but only in the theoretical questions. The papers detailed enough about it, even how to synthesize enough of it to use in medicine.

    Its use? Accelerated healing of minor cuts, wounds and also as disinfectant. To him, it sounded almost like something out from a science fiction game.

    “Where... Where did you get this?”

    “How would I know?” retorted the nonchalant guard. “Was dropped at the front desk yesterday, clerk wouldn’t remember who sent it, and it had your name on it. Sent it for a scan, nothing wrong turned up, sent it here. You happy?”

    Erhard’s burning questions all suddenly fell to frozen ashes.

    “..... no.”

    “Good.”

    The guard left him to his ice-cold thoughts.

    ---

    Project Infinitum - Test Log 009 - 15/07/2089

    Subject has been exhibiting frequent bouts of writing, requesting to be taken to the worktable as much as six times per day. Further investigation warranted.

    The narrative outputs that Subject 27701 have been producing are of reasonable writing quality, but have so far yet to exhibit any anomalous situations other than an abnormal amount of presents as written in said narratives (which 27701 has been informed and warned about). Attempts to trace where ‘presents’ have been sent to or sent from have been fruitless.

    Objects removed from personnel usage include:

    Cardboard box - 5
    Coffee mug - 1
    An Introduction to Medicinal Physiology, Issue #3 - 1 copy
    Plastic comb - 3
    Hairbrush - 1
    Reading spectacles - 1 pair
    Hand-knitted sweater - 1
    Regarding Project Trauma: Research Report #01 - #42 - 1 set

    As noted of Incident ST-1LE5, Subject 27701 has attempted to describe a research report brought to her attention by one of the junior researchers assigned to Project Trauma, resulting in the loss of 1 set(s) of Trauma research reports. Subject 27701 is not to be exposed to any other objects that may compromise other concurrently running projects, and also any personal objects that researchers would like to keep on hand. Attempts to question 27701 on the whereabouts of the research reports, as well as other items, have resulted in 27701 giving the same, vague answer (Consult Incident Log ST-1LE5).

    Narrative output is to go through at least Level 4 screening before being allowed use in Project Infinitum.

    ADDENDUM: Whoever let that kid get hold of Trauma’s report is going to have to retype all of it; I am not going to recompile all of that data and wait for the printer to choke itself on paper while trying to print all forty-two parts of that damned thing! - Dr. Sellers

    ---

    Three years. That was all it took to get it through the patenting system.

    A first achievement for his persona. Finally, something solid embedded into history. Something tangible enough to hold onto. Something to prove that he existed.

    The bottle of antibiotics in his hand glimmered under the clinical light of his cell.

    Sure, he was still confined to his cell, but in a few days, he was also going to be free. Free to work as a doctor, albeit still under surveillance, but he had done something that his previous self could possibly have done, or maybe not. He would not find out, either way.

    Whoever he was previously still mattered to him, though. A sift through the records never brought up his adopted name, or any else to his mind.

    Now here was the strange thing.

    His cell was empty, right up to the day that he woke up. Almost as if he had never existed until that point.

    But.

    Erhard Muller exists.

    A doctor now. And also ‘inventor of the modern antibiotic’.

    The bottle crashed against the wall, sending shards of glass flying everywhere, the greenish gel arcing through the air in their wake. The broken bottle slid to the ground, covered in its own fluid, the green pool spreading out ever so slightly on the white ground.

    What was the use? That bottle was not even his work. The report he had found belonged to someone else. It was not his work anyway. He was surprised it had not already been patented, though. A report that detailed should have been of something that was invented already.

    The door slammed open, a guard yelled at him, a few people came in to clean up the mess. He ignored them, just staring straight ahead at the grey wall before him.

    He should be happy. After all, his ‘discovery’ had led to a breakthrough in his home field: medicine. People no longer needed to wait a few days for a cut to heal. Just a little dab of the gel and it would seal itself up, nice and neat, scabs fall off in a few hours. Society was celebrating the fact that these minor scrapes they got into were no longer a hindrance.

    He felt wrong.

    It was someone else’s work. He was sure of it. Why did he even send it in?

    Maybe it was the fact that he would report it to the authorities. Then came the fact that he did not know that the compound did not, in fact, exist. Until he tried synthesizing some himself in the hospital. It worked. And the rest of the story came tumbling in.

    Whose was it, then? Did it belong to his past self? Maybe that was how it managed to fall into his hands.

    That made him feel better. Almost as if he was supposed to have discovered it in the first place. Almost as if he was merely continuing on with whatever his past self was doing. Medicine.

    He heard the cell door slam behind him once more. Never mind, he would see the last of this cell in a month or so. They had decided to release him on account of good behavior, he was getting a stable job at the local hospital, and he so wanted to see his mentor again, that old man.

    The slightest twinge of a smile curled his lips upwards. Maybe he should just walk on.

    ---

    Project Infinitum - Test Log 035 - 23/04/2090

    (Subject has just finished another writing session, and has been escorted back to her cell.)

    Interviewer: “This thing is on? Good? Let’s begin.”

    Interviewer: “Now, it has come to my attention that you have decided to--”

    Subject: “About last year’s writing, I suppose?”

    Interviewer: “… I request that you not interrupt me while I am speaking.”

    Subject: “Fine by me.”

    Interviewer: “As in one of your previous narratives, you wrote about ‘the modern antibiotic’. Did you know what the implications were?”

    Subject: “I do.”

    Interviewer: “And you wrote it regardless?”

    Subject: “Of course! You said you wanted something interesting, so I did just that..”

    Interviewer: “You caused a premature termination of Project Trauma. That was not interesting.”

    Subject: “Oh yes it was! You should have seen the faces of those doctors, they were running every and screaming that someone else had stolen their idea, their equipment, their reports, all of it! That was the most fun I’ve had in months.”

    Interviewer: “And because of that, we have suffered a tremendous loss in both budget and equipment, not to mention the loss of the Head-of-Research for Trauma.”

    Subject: “Dr. Sellers? But he was such a nice man. What happened to him?”

    (Interview paused for off-record information.)

    Subject: “Aww. That’s a shame, really. I liked the guy. Had the cutest glasses too. Did you like him too, doctor?”

    Interviewer: “He was a good colleague of mine, yes. I enjoyed working with him.”

    Subject: “Would you like him back?”

    Interviewer: “…. Subject 27701, Dr. Sellers’ funeral was a few months ago, shortly after the patenting of Trauma’s product.”

    Subject: “You guys buried him already? I didn’t even get to say bye.”

    (Subject pauses at this point to look at the clock on the wall.)

    Subject: “Speaking of which, he celebrated my birthday with me before I got to work on that piece of manuscript. Had a birthday cake and everything. His assistant came in later to give me a present.”

    Interviewer: “Which was the report?”

    Subject: “Maybe Dr. Sellers would have celebrated New Year’s with me too, if he was still alive. Hm.”

    (Interviewer then requests for the interview to be stopped.)