S.M.A.R.T. (The Subject of Mind Altering Research and Testing)

Chapter Twelve

A month and a half had gone by, Michael still white-washing the effects of the pill, deluding the examiners into thinking the has wasn't feeling a reaction to the drug. The General grew furious, and after the fourth week, he was no where to be seen during most of the tests. Michael had wondered where he was, the first time he didn't see him enter the room behind the glass, but figured it out as soon as he walked back into his corridor.
He had returned from the test early, as he had planned it out, so his mind would still be working fast, and his nose picked up the lingering scent in the air. He recognized the musk at once. It was the General's sweaty aroma. He had searched Michael's room.

Michael had seen the search coming, and had made a hiding spot for his journals. He made it into the back of an old television, that he had found in the storage room. He carefully took it apart, and built a compartment in the back of it, making sure that the television still worked, just incase the General checked it to make sure. A useless television would be a dead giveaway. He kept the TV on a side-table, right beside his desk. He placed stack of movies that he didn't watch beside it, and hooked a dvd player up to it, for good measure. Sometimes the best hiding spots are in plain sight. Nobody expects that. Michael knew the General hadn't found the hiding place. When Michael was on the pill, he remembered the exact position that he left everything in, and could recognize the General's foreign fingerprints on the places he had searched. None were on his books.

The General was getting more and more suspicious of the results showing nothing at the testing. He started springing surprise visits on Michael to keep better tabs on what he was doing. Michael knew that the General suspected there was something wasn't right. He knew the man thought there was something Michael's his room that would expose and incriminate him for tampering with the test results. Michael loved watching the man scan the room, fruitlessly. He had always heard him coming and had time to hide his journals, or at least tuck them under his covers.

When the visits starting getting more unpredictable, Michael put a mirror on his room door, and another small one in the hall, conveniently placed so that he could see the General coming, whenever he would. The General kept trying to sneak up to Michael's room and look in, before saying anything. Michael found it humorous that he never noticed the mirrors. The man is good, but not as good as me.

Michael worried about him finding his writings. Part of him wanted to burn them, or flush them down the toilet, but he told himself that if the General hadn't found them yet, it was unlikely that he would. Michael worried more for Blanco's safety than anything else while he wasn't there. If the General knew how much Michael actually liked his pet rat, he was liable to take him away, or kill the poor creature, just out of spite and hatred for him ruining the testing. Michael had to admit the man was clever to assume something was wrong. He didn't know why the man seemed to hate him so much, he couldn't recall anything he personally had done to him.

When the General came, he would harass Michael with interrogations about the tests. He constantly threatened to kill him if he was lying about the effects, but Michael knew he wouldn't find out, so long as he didn't slip up and get caught writing his journals. He tried to tell Michael they were considering changing the whole formula of the pill, and getting another test subject, but Michael called his bluff. He knew he wouldn't have given Michael warning if it were true, so he figured it must just be a scare-tactic. Not to mention, they would have to start the animal trials all over again, and that would take a while. He couldn't imagine why, with the corruption in this place, that they even did animal trials in the first place. He had started to see that the General didn't really call the shots here, he was a whipping dog of people who had more invested, and he questioned whether they were aware of how the General was running things.

His brain was becoming even more responsive to the drug now, and his writings were piling up. Every time he took it he tried out a new part of his mind, and his control, and he wrote about it until exhaustion forced him to sleep.