“I would lose my job if I did.”
She cleared her throat and spoke into the microphone. “Rust, we are going to turn up the temperature.”
“Go right ahead,” he said. “See if I care.”
His green eyes raked her face, and she felt a shiver.
Stan said, “Going up to fifty-five degrees. We stopped at fifty last time.”
He turned up a dial. The ceiling of the glass chamber glowed red.
The display on the glass chamber crept up slowly from twenty-two to thirty. Then thirty-five. Forty. Fifty.
Fifty-five.
Beads of sweat dotted on Rust’s forehead although he did not physically flinch.
“It’s a sauna in there,” Stan said.
“Turn it up,” she said.
The display went up to sixty. Then sixty-five.
It was about to become an oven.
“Don’t cook him,” she added.
Rust’s vital signs were accelerating. His pulse rate and respiration rose. His neural activity was muted.
Seventy.
His pulse rate rose to a hundred beats per minute.
“Shall I go higher?” the enforcer said.
After deliberation, she said. “Yes.”
Seventy-five.
Rust’s skin was very flushed. His face was awash with sweat.
“OK. That’s it,” she said. “No more.”
“No transformation.”
“Wait a few minutes more.”
She was on pins and needles. Angst even. It was hot in there. Really hot.
Rust’s eyes were shut. He was withstanding it. Hating her for doing it to him, probably.
Now why did that make her feel regret?
She said, “Heat doesn’t do it then. Turn down the dial.”
Stan turned the dial the other way. The temperature gauge crept lower. Seventy. Then sixty.
Fifty.
Rust clenched his fists, visibly relieved. His sweat pooled and dripped off his chin.
Forty.
Thirty.
“He’s dehydrated,” Stan said. “Shall we get him out?”
“No. Not yet. Turn the temperature down.”
Twenty.
“Lower.”
Rust relaxed.
The display crept to ten.
Five.
Then zero.
Rust was turning pale now. Conserving heat. His shivering mechanism had not kicked in yet. But his hairs on his forearms all stood on end.
“His heart rate is slowing down,” the enforcer said. “Shall I go below zero?”
The stress on his body must be tremendous, Alyssa thought.
“Yes,” she said.
Minus five.
Rust began to shiver in earnest. The glass began to mist from the inside.
“Lower.”
Minus ten.
“He’s having bradycardia. His heart rate has dropped to less than sixty beats per minute.”
She hesitated.
How much could he take? She could kill him. She could give him frostbite and permanent damage.
“His neural activity has gone down again. I don’t think he’s going to shift,” said one of the professors.
She made a decision.
“Turn the temperature up.”
Slowly, the glass chamber began to heat up. Up, up and up went the gauge.
When it went up to twenty, Rust snapped, “You done torturing me already? Or do you have to check ‘extreme pain’ off your list?”
His voice broke a little, and she acknowledged that his body had gone under extreme duress.
“We’ll let you rest today,” she said.
“No.” He clenched his fists. “I’m right here. So let’s do it. Let’s get it over with.”
She wondered what was going through his mind. Did he want to get through with this as quickly as possible to spare his parents the gorier aspects of being a lab rat? Or in this case, a lab shifter?
“It’s your call,” Stan said to her.
She gazed into Rust’s potent green eyes. He stared back at her. Belligerently. Watchfully. She wondered how he would react beyond this if she pushed the button, so to speak.
“We did 10 miliAmperes the other day. What do you want to do now?” Stan said.
“Push it up to 20,” she said.
She knew that would cause extreme pain.
“20 it is.”
“And give him a mouth guard.”
A guard opened the door to the glass chamber and inserted a mouth guard in Rust’s mouth so that he would not bite his tongue.
“Are you ready?” she asked Rust once the chamber was sealed again.
He nodded once, although his eyes spat hate.
The enforcer pushed another dial forward, and the electrical current flowed from Rust’s armbands to his flesh, jolting him.
Rust gritted his teeth.
“Arrrrr!” he let loose.
“His pulse rate is a hundred and twenty.”
“Push it to 30.”
Up went the dial. This time, Rust’s body jerked forward and backward in obvious electrocution shock.
“He’s still not transforming,” Stan observed.