Kelly Antilles wrote:One question, why do you periodically call Val by his full name (in the same chapter, that is)? Just curious.
Actually, I can't seem to decide how I want to refer to him. I'll flip from first name to last to full inside of a chapter, because I haven't decides what reads easiest and sounds best.
I'm trying to get to the real meal and action of the story, but every time I try to be concise and skip ahead, my brain gets really annoyed at me and insists that I develop the plot and individual characters carefully.
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
Lagmonster wrote:
I'm trying to get to the real meal and action of the story, but every time I try to be concise and skip ahead, my brain gets really annoyed at me and insists that I develop the plot and individual characters carefully.
Val heard the voice almost shouted across the room. He turned his head from the conversation he was having with Talbain to see the octogenarian whose name he had learned was Corrigan Mal-Tel staring down the matronly-looking woman in the jumpsuit.
She looked up at him from her seat by the koi pond, then looked left and right. All eyes were focussed on the scene. “What do you mean? I don’t know who you are.” she replied, somewhat imperiously.
The old man laughed and coughed. “I know you. You’re the wife of that big Happs boss from Vancouver. I’ve seen you on TV. Sandra Baer. You shouldn’t be here.” He shook a finger at her and stared down disapprovingly.
“What do you mean?” Mrs. Baer began to sweat. “My husband let me have this job, one of the most important in the country.” she didn’t sound at all sure of herself. “At least, that’s what I remember.” She trailed off, looking confused. Then she lifted her head and fairly shouted at the old man, “Leave me alone!”
At that, the titan stepped over to where the woman was sobbing into her hands. “Hey! Touchez pas!” He went to reach for the old man, but the soldier stepped in the way and put a calming hand on the titan’s forearm.
“Take it easy, big man. Pops here didn’t mean disrespect, did you?” said the black soldier.
“I just know that she shouldn’t be here.” replied the old man sullenly. Mrs. Baer turned back to the pond and the titan wandered off as if he’d forgotten why he’d gotten up in the first place. The little boy continued to hum quietly by the pond. The young, sexy woman had long since gone back to her room.
Val had moved over to where the soldier stood next to the old woman. “Now what do you suppose that was about?” he asked, staring after the old man.
The soldier shrugged. “Beats me. Funny thing is, I half believe him.”
Val was not quite taken aback. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who could see that this was an abnormal group to get together. “What do you mean?”
The soldier put on a puzzled face and scratched his head. “Well, thing is, I was told this was supposed to be a military project. But none of y’all look like soldiers to me.”
Talbain laughed out loud from his table. “I was a soldier once, lad. Been a long time, though.”
Val interrupted. “You heard this was a military project? So you must have been assigned to this group. But you’re right. I’m an advertising associate. Talbain over there was a techie most recently. Little Timmy there isn’t old enough to be out of matriculation. Corrigan, well, I don’t know about him, but he’s half senile. That young woman looks like a paygirl, not a scientist. And we already know that you’re a soldier.” He turned to the older woman, who had composed herself somewhat. “What about you? Are you really the wife of an executive.”
She looked confused. “Yes, I am. Or, I was. I can’t remember for some reason. All I know is that my husband had...told me, I think, about this job, and that it was important that I do it. Well, I haven’t worked in years, since I married Charlie. But it was sooo important to him that I had to accept. And the last thing I remember is getting drunk in my bedroom with him as we celebrated. Then this morning I woke up here.” She scrunched up her face. “It’s really not like him to just leave me here. I haven’t been able to call him, there are no communications out of this place.”
“Hmm.” Mused Val. He turned to the soldier. “What’s your story, then. You said this is a military project. What do you know about it? Because up to now, I don’t think any of us know anything.”
The soldier looked sceptical of the group. “Well, all I know is that I was drafted when I was eight. I’ve been in training ever since for this specific mission. I’m supposed to help out the Happy Human Labs with a soldier augmentation project. Or so I’ve been told.”
“You’re not augmented?” Talbain asked the soldier. “I thought all the lads were now. I got out just before they started jacking all the soldiers full of artificial gear.”
“I’m not. Private Billy Raymond. I’m 100% natural.” He flexed his thick biceps. “Not like Gargantua over there.” he added, jerking a thumb towards the titanic frenchman named Mann Dal Paris.
Val shook his head. “Soldier augmentation...what the hell kind of testing would a handful of irregular civilians have to do with that?”
Raymond held up his hands. “Look, man, I don’t know more than you do. That’s just what I’ve always been told. If you knew military policy on its special projects, you’d take that with a grain of salt.”
“I know what we’re here for.”
Everyone turned to look at old man Corrigan, sitting by himself. His thin, cracked voice continued. “I know exactly why we’re here.” The old man’s eyes sparkled with unusual clarity. He humphed once, then pushed himself around on his bench to face the group. “They think I’m senile, that I’m an old idiot. Well, I’m not. Not an idiot, at any rate. My mind isn’t what it used to be, I’ll be the first to admit, but that doesn’t mean that people who think I’m too far gone to worry about telling secrets around me are in the right.”
Val stepped over to the old man, sat down next to him. “And what do you know, Mr. Mal-Tel?” he asked, quietly.
The old man half smiled, and reached a hand out to Val’s arm. “Young man, I know one thing. We’re not here to test their products. We’re here for them to test their products on us.” Val’s shocked face caused the old man to raise a finger excitedly and elaborate. “It’s something they’re afraid of. Something new. They’re calling it the Giver, but I don’t know what it is. They say it can make me young again, but that’s not...”
“Mr. Mal-Tel!” A sharp voice interrupted. Val looked to see a pair of Happs ‘negotiators’ emerge from the corridor leading to their rooms. One of them crossed the room with a patient but nonetheless quick stride, and put a hand on Corrigan’s shoulder. “That’s enough, Mr. Mal-Tel. It’s time for you to come get your daily medication.”
Corrigan tried vainly to shrug off the man’s hand. “Get off of me. I don’t want any of your...umph...medication.” he broke off coughing then, winded from the strain. The dark-suited man helped - or pulled - Corrigan to his feet.
“Sorry, ladies and gentlemen. He can be a bit excitable. Please go back to your entertainments.” And with that, the two men escorted the now quiet and sullen Mr. Mal-Tel out of the lounge area and down the corridor to the exit. As the locked force-door opened, Val glanced outside of the hall for the first time. He was not surprised to see the pair of seven-foot Guardian class War Droids standing guard just outside of the complex. Shaking his head, he decided to return to his room to ponder just what he had gotten himself into, and what he was going to do about it.
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
Dr. Batis sternly pressed the freeze-frame button on one of his many floating monitors. The face of Val Tannis paused on the screen, an expression of confusion and anger writ across it.
“Sir?” Coordinator Winters stood nearby, datapad in hand.
Batis waved it away. “It’s of no concern, Winters. They can be as paranoid as they like, they aren’t going anywhere now. However, dear Mr. Mal-Tel’s little outburst has unwittingly decided for us which of them is going to be the preliminary host. Has he been brought to the lab?”
Winters nodded. “Yes, sir. He’s been restrained and is waiting for the initial implantation to begin.”
Batis almost smiled. He rose from his desk, and the floating monitors, keyed to the Doctor’s movements, all deactivated and floated into their storage slots. He and Winters walked from the doctor’s dark, small office, into a large corridor. The ceiling and walls here were covered in naked piping, wiring, and display monitors. A few jumpsuited scientists walked hurriedly here and there, and armed guards were at every corner. Not human or augmented enforcers, but forthright war robots, seven-foot armoured machines on tri-axled treads, with four articulated arms ending in a variety of weaponry and restraint devices. Floating in a curved half-bowl set between the shoulders of each was a spherical pickup, adorned with lights and scopes, which could detach and soar into the air, acting as a spotter for the base and its weapons systems.
Neither men nor machines paid the doctor and his assistant any mind as they strode through the hall, finally turning at a set of wide, thickly-armoured doors which slid open as the pair approached. Inside the room was a huge dome that looked for all the world like a space-launch monitoring room with its array of personnel and huge view monitors. At the heart of the dome was a smaller, transparent but equally well-armoured dome, containing twelve raised platforms surrounded by a small armada of robot surgeons and augmented human surgeons and technicians, some of whom had entire appendages replaced with robotic equipment designed to assist in medical procedures.
As the doctor and his assistant entered, everyone in the room hurried to finish what they were doing, and then took up stations around the room. Dr Batis entered the small dome in the centre of the room, passing through a disinfectant field on the way in. Strapped to one of the twelve tables was a scared-looking old Corrigan Mal-Tel.
Dr. Batis grinned like a demon as he approached. “Hello, Mr. Mal-Tel. Let me be the first to welcome you to your first duty on this project. I regret that you have been anaesthetized, but it will be necessary, as you will see. However, we require that you are awake and conscious so that we can properly access your neural system.”
“Wh...what’re you doin’ to me...?” the old man slurred.
Dr. Batis raised a hand. “Do not be alarmed, Mr. Mal-Tel. As you so clearly pointed out, we are going to give you back your youth. Rest assured that I will explain all to you as we proceed.”
“Stop...stop it!” the old man said, fighting to form words.
Batis made a sour face. “After the many years we have invested in this project, I assure you that we would be going through with this procedure whether you wanted us to or not. However, we honestly would prefer that you agree to work with us rather than fight us. We need to be able to monitor our results carefully, and your cooperation will make it easier for us.”
Batis began to pace around the operating table. “You see, Mr. Mal-Tel, up until now, human augmentation has been a very messy and complicated procedure. As your new co-worker Mr. Paris can no doubt attest to, the results are far from perfect. The very best augmentation procedures we have remove a great deal of the humanity of a person, and leave them looking like, with no offense intended, freaks.” He gestured at the horribly altered medical technicians around the room, with their bulbous and metallic additions. “The other major downside to augmentation is the fact that there is a logical and clear limit to how much can be done to any one human body before the basic human structure and nervous system is unable to cope with all the strain and requirements of too many additional specialized parts. But with one new product, we intend to replace all these unattractive and inflexible systems with one standard, one product, one creation. Our Givers.”
Batis gestured melodramatically towards a long cylinder of grey liquid strapped to the side of Corrigan’s table. He tapped the glass cylinder lovingly. “Robots, Mr. Mal-Tel. Intelligent devices operating at nanoscopic levels!” said Dr. Batis. “Artificial constructs of extraordinary ability! Power generation bordering on the fantastic. The ability to communicate directly with the human brain, coordinating its actions, changing growth patterns. Each colony of the Givers possesses the ability to, within a period of hours, force changes right within their host! Why, they can alter the very structure of the matter within your body!” Batis shouted ceilingward. “Armour. Weapons. The ability to morph one’s own body into any living tool at our command. Channelling energy, rebuilding your very DNA. Keeping you alive where you would otherwise die. That is what the Givers are for!” Batis grasped the side of Corrigan’s table in an exultation of success.
Winters nudged forward and coughed. “Umm, sir?”
Batis shouted, “What?”, angry at being interrupted in his villanesque speech.
Winters coughed politely again. “Umm, the Givers aren’t *quite* that versatile, sir.”
Batis’ shoulders sank. “Could you *please* let me have my moment? Could you? I designed the Givers. I programmed them. I contracted the finest minds in miniaturization, energy-to-matter conversion, power systems, and robotics. I selected and helped the conglomerate guide the social and physical development of our esteemed Receivers. Do you think, perhaps, that you could give me the chance to enjoy my moment of finally revealing my brainchild to its first Reciever?”
Winters shrugged slightly, taken aback. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
Batis waved it away, annoyed. He regarded Corrigan, who had lain quietly for the tirade, listening with equal parts fascination and horror. “Anything to say before we begin on our way to giving you a new and better life, Mr. Mal-Tel?” he asked.
The old man painfully tiled his head up. “Yesh. Just don’ let anyone shay I’m the only one who’sh losht his mind here.”
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
Val awoke late that night to the feeling of a large hand shaking him. He opened his eyes and blinked, finding himself staring up in the dark into the grinning face of Talbain Arsteel.
“Come on, lad.” the big man said. “You’ve gotta see this.”
Reluctantly, Val climbed out of his immensely comfortable bed and stalked after the big man. The corridor was darkened at this time of night in sequence with the rising and setting of the sun. Not a soul was moving in the chamber or lounge area. Talbain tiptoed across the lounge to a series of apartments Val hadn’t investigated before. Unlike their own, a thick window was embedded in the door. Talbain smiled at Val, motioning him to look through the window. Val did, hesitantly.
For a moment he couldn’t make out anything. Which was odd. He should have at least been able to make out subdued lighting on numerous control panels, but this room had none. It was as dark and spartan as a prison cell. Val pressed his face to the glass to get a better look. All of a sudden a fist slammed against the glass right over his nose. The door was armoured to resist far stronger attacks, but still Val recoiled and fell backwards as if he’d literally been struck down. Talbain couldn’t resist it any more and began chuckling out loud.
Val sat up, holding his head. He scowled up at the big man, who was doubled over and laughing in a fit. Pressed against the glass of the door was a face, but a face like Val had never seen. The eyes were strange - one was green and one was brown. There were deep scars around his face, and his nose looked particularly out of place, as if all his body parts had been removed and replaced by others over the course of many years. The man’s mouth was twisted in a sarcastic smile, and you could see him laughing. Val examined the horrible image for a moment, then addressed the giant.
“Who is he, Talbain?” Val asked.
Talbain shrugged, chuckling to himself. “Don’t know, lad. Never met him before. But I’ll bet he’s a convict specimen. One of those guys who are sentenced to be human lab rats for their crimes. Nowadays it’s the only way you can get test subjects legally for anything.”
Val shuddered. The man had a small plate with the words, ‘Seventeen: False’ stitched into his forehead. “I wouldn’t want to be one of those.”
Talbain smirked. “If the old man’s to be believed, we are gonna be. Look, lad, I’ve been doing some thinking. I may be new to this whole conglomerate secrecy thing, but I know a thing or two about special projects. Let me tell you what, lads, don’t you think it’s a bit strange that they still won’t tell us anything about why we’re here? They practically seal us into this luxurious block deep underground, monitor us from who knows what directions, and offer us amazing salaries to sit here, drink gin and do nothing. Now, I don’t know about you, but I feel a tad muchly like a turkey being fattened for the roast.”
Val grimaced, taking his eyes off of the unfortunate, and quiet obviously insane, man in his apartment/cell. He tried for the nth time to contemplate the bizarre and odd sequence of events that had brought him here. He wished fervently for a return to his life of only a few days ago, when he had been employed and happy and not involved in secret, mysterious projects that he knew nothing about, guarded by robots who could have turned him into a small pile of ash in nanoseconds. He shook his head. “What do you make of this, Talbain? I’m...I’m lost.”
The giant shrugged. “I know as much as you do, from listening to our hosts and compatriots here.”
Val paused. “Not...all. There’s something else.” he said. He waited, but the giant said nothing, just regarded him. He sighed. “The day I...accepted this position, I was approached by the Patent Bureau.”
The giant looked interested. “Is that right, lad?”
Val nodded. “It was about this project. They told me that myself and several others were going to be brought together in a project called ‘the Givers’. They didn’t know what it was, but they told me that the Happs had been watching and influencing us, all of us, for years, and were now using their amassed knowledge of us to use us as specimens in one of their keystone projects.”
Talbain’s eyes fairly bugged. “And after that, you came to work for the Happs anyway? What in Hell’s name for?”
Val shook his head as if clearing out mental cobwebs. “I don’t know, Talbain. I really don’t. I ran into Batis’ men, and I guess I got drunk and accepted. Then I woke up down here with a killer hangover and you sponging at my head with a cloth.”
A sudden rustle nearby brought both men around with a curse. “Who’s there?” called out the giant.
A dark shape stepped out of the shadows of an ornamental shrubbery. “Hey, man, it’s me. Raymond.” The familiar form of the soldier came into view.
Talbain relaxed his guard. “Hell, lad. You almost scared Val and me half to death.”
“Sorry. I couldn’t sleep.” The soldier paused, then pointed quizzically back over his shoulder. “Hey, umm, you guys didn’t happen to look into the other one, did you?” he asked.
Val looked puzzled. “The other what?”
“The other cell, over on the other wall.” replied the soldier.
Talbain shrugged. “Not yet. Didn’t get to exploring the brush of the gardens father than our psychotic friend, here.” The giant jerked a thumb towards the now-retreated form of the specimen-man Seventeen: False.
The soldier grinned like he was telling a scary story. “Well, I don’t want to alarm y’all, but we’ve got a real, live celebrity here.”
Val snorted. “You mean, other than that pompous rich twit Sandra?”
The soldier smiled. “Yeah. Over there is, unless I got it wrong, “Pyro” Prince Bastard himself.”
Talbain perked up slightly, crossed his arms. “That right? A lot of psychopaths around here.”
Val looked glum. “I have a bad feeling about this, Talbain.”
The giant patted the squatting Val on the head. “Not to worry about it, then. But your reaction to our caged friend here was priceless. Come on. Let’s all get some sleep. That was, when they go to torture us in the morning, we’ll be ready for it.”
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
Val Tannis woke up from his sleep later that night to an alarming notion: He couldn’t move. He blinked, feeling more tired than he ought. Eventually he was able to focus on his surroundings. He was on a table in a completely unfamiliar and clinically metallic-looking room. He fought to raise his arms but could not seem to get them to respond. With an effort, he managed to raise his head. He couldn’t feel any sensation below his neck. He was just able to make out, through his hazy vision, several other people on identical tables in a circle nearby. Tilting his eyes as far as he could, he noticed a long, grey cylinder connected through a large device. The device had a fast-moving, long, robotic arm coming out of its top, and a series of syringes tipping the arm sped up and down his body, dipping quickly to pierce his skin deeply, then retracting and repositioning for another strike, like some mad tattoo machine.
Val’s mind revolted with the horror of what was happening. So dazed was he that he was unable to realize whether he was having a horrible nightmare or whether he was actually strapped to a table somewhere unknown, numbed from the neck down, while a large robot stuck him hundreds of times per minute with god only knew what. With a gasping sigh, the rest of his energy drained from him and he passed out again.
Batis glanced slightly at Val as his head dipped again, flicked his eyes to the monitor on which Val’s body signs were displayed. Everything normal. He turned his attention back to the prone form of a man with a bright red mohawk haircut. The scrawny man’s entire body was covered head to toe in tattoos of fire; bright red and orange and yellow tongues of flame painted on him head to toe. This was Prince Bastard himself.
“Be careful with that one.” Batis warned a technician nearby. “Make sure that we are ready to take control of the Givers in him the moment we bring them online. I want to make the changes to his neural system instantly. If all goes well, we’ll be able to make something of our prisoners instead of sealing them away. Literally.” The technician nodded, breathing from behind a sealed mask. His left arm was a long, complicated robotic affair with numerous miniature arms and devices projecting from it, and he worked over Prince Bastard’s body with astounding speed, dabbing at the numerous small puncture wounds that covered his body head to toe.
Batis moved to the titanic form of a prone and sleeping Mann Dal Paris. He put a hand on the heaving chest. “This will be a good test.” He noted into a floating camera pickup as he dictated the course of the experiment and recorded it for posterity. “We will see how the Givers interact with people who already have a dangerous level of augmentations in them.”
Batis moved again around the circle of tables. His eyes lingered on the two women. One was the wife of an executive, sent here to keep her quiet. The other was the mistress of the same executive, sent here to keep *her* quiet. He shook his head. He didn’t need them. He hadn’t planned on them. But his superiors had been insistent. So he’d been forced to completely disregard the two specimens he’d spent ten years monitoring in favour of these two women. At least, he thought, he had backups. Shrugging at the thought, the moved on.
Corrigan Mal-Tel was back in his room, asleep. In his dreams, he kept hearing intruding voices, seeing intruders walk through his mind. He twitched as he felt his body under the grip of something he couldn’t see. In his mind, he heard the voices of the others who were here with him:
“I wish I were younger.” The voices came. “I wish I were smarter.” And onwards...”I wish I were beautiful forever.” and more. Corrigan, in his dream, held his head. “I wish I were a superhero!” Came another voice. That would be little Timmy. “I wish...I wish I weren’t here.”
In his dream, Corrigan screamed. Then he woke up. He heard them. He blinked. He was strapped down in his apartment, all alone except for a medical technician watching him stoically.
Corrigan’s face tightened. Mechanically, he lifted his hand against the straining bonds that fought to hold him. The technician looked at the monitor, then at Corrigan. “Hey!” the man called out.
He didn’t have time for more. A burst of blisters erupted on Corrigan’s face, and he called out in pain. A scathing luminescence filled the room, and the technician collapsed, a dessicated and deformed husk of a corpse.
In his sleep, Val Tannis dreamt. In his dream, he was back in the lounge area, except things were different. He could see the others around him. They were speaking...”I wish I were stronger.” “I wish I could see him one last time...” “I wish I could kill them all.”
In his sleep, Val Tannis shook with fear.
Doctor Batis moved nervously from table to table. “Alright.” He called to his technicians. “Bring the woman online.” He winced as she twitched, and then watched the monitor. The billions of Givers in her body began their setup, connecting and interacting with her body as they’d been programmed to. Eventually, they settled in and waited for the doctor to give his first instructions.
He turned his attention to the next. Only Val Tannis, the techie Talbain, and the specimen marked as Seventeen: False were left to bring online. Then he would begin feeding the trial instructions to the Givers and watch how well they did their work.
In her sleep, Sandra Baer dreamt. She felt odd. She was back in her house, in her bedroom. She was watching her husband, as if she were floating over her own bed, making love to a woman whose face she could not see. She did not recognize the scene, but it felt familiar to her. Then, she heard the voices of the others... “I wish I could fly.” “I wish I was faster.” “I wish...I wish...” Then she looked down at her husband in the bed, and despite the chemical changes in her memory, she remembered everything.
In her sleep, Sandra screamed.
Batis set the system to bring Seventeen: False online. He wanted to be careful with this one. He was legitimately insane and the doctor wanted to be absolutely sure he could establish control of the Givers quickly before they tried to interact with the madman’s brain. Batis was sweating, but he didn’t feel nervous. He had had no trouble bringing the mass-murderer online. He started the startup sequence on the Givers.
In his sleep, Prince Bastard dreamt. He felt trapped. He was standing in a ball of fire, looking out at the faces of people he didn’t know. He screamed in the flame, and every time he opened his mouth, a tongue of fire shot out and incinerated hundreds of the strange faces, but they were replaced by thousands more. He screamed and yelled at them, watching them twist and burn and die. Then, they started talking to him. “I wish I was young again.” “I wish I were rich.” “I wish I was in love.” “I wish...”
In his sleep, Prince Bastard slaughtered.
“Something’s wrong, doctor.” Winters spoke over the intercom. He was safely in another chamber, but he could clearly see the specimen’s monitors. “Doctor?”
Batis’s voice responded from the lab. “I see it, Winters.” He ordered the technicians to increase the sedation levels all around. He could see them coming dangerously close to awakening, and that had to be avoided.
“Sir!” Winter’s voice was insistent. “Sir, there’s a problem with...”
He didn’t say another word. A siren broke out above the bed of Seventeen: False. Then Paris. Then Timmy. Batis shrieked. “They’re awakening! The Givers are linking into their conscious minds! Quickly, shut them down, shut THEM DOWN!” he screamed. Batis sprinted from the lab as frantic techs operated controls designed to feed the desires of the lab team directly to the Givers implanted in the specimens’ bodies. They watched, almost helpless, as the Givers, now online, established their links instead with the hosts they lived in, and tapped into their conscious minds, forcing them awake.
It was a programmed instinct, really. The Givers were designed to benefit their hosts. But Batis intended to be the only one able to feed instructions to his creation. He had designed them to accept input from him first. Batis ran to his control terminal in the next room. Winters was there, watching the chaos below as technicians tried to control the unconscious, but twisting and writhing Receivers. Winters calmly pointed to Val and Talbain. “Lucky those two haven’t been brought online yet. We have to shut the other Givers down.”
Batis scowled, typing furiously at his controls. “I know, I know. They will listen to me. First. I designed them to be controlled entirely from here. And if all else fails, we can still kill them before they awake and the Givers start taking orders from their conscious minds.”
Batis struggled with his controls. “There. I’ve started the shutdown. The Givers will commence turning off in a moment.” He breathed a sigh of relief. Why, if his patients had managed to assume mental control of the Givers, had the nanomachines fully linked to their brains and nervous systems...
He didn’t have a second thought. In the lab room, Batis watched on the monitor as a Guardian class War Droid, a ton in weight, flew through the far door, wrecking steel doors and machinery all in one. The machine collapsed, broken and twisted. A hiss of steam and escaping fluids filled the dome as Batis and Winters watched helplessly. Alarms began to sound. Lights began to fail, blinking on and off. Through the wrecked portal walked a young man that the Happs scientist and coordinator in the control booth had never seen before. He wore the suit of Corrigan Mal-Tel, but here was a man some sixty years younger. Luminous scars ran in tattoo-like patterns around his forehead, neck, and hands, to disappear under his jumpsuit. Without a word, Happs personnel and security members ran to stop the grimacing figure that was Corrigan Mal-Tel, but at the same time was not him. Batis watched in horror as Corrigan raised a hand. The luminescent scars on his hand erupted with a long whip of flaming light, and the foremost of his attackers were thrown violently in all directions. The last Batis and Winters saw of the chaos in the lab was a dessicated and charred human body, with various mechanical appendages sticking from it, hurled dead-on into the camera they were watching. Then, their monitors went silent.
Batis licked dry lips. “What has happened...?” he asked. “What...what has happened?” he turned to Winters. “We...we have to get to the surface. We have to get a containment team here immediately! My work...it must be salvaged at all costs.”
Coordinator Winters of the Happy Human Labs shook his head. “No, doctor. ‘We’ don’t.” From under his coat he drew a pistol, levelled it at Batis’ head.
Batis recoiled, eyes bugging out. “But...my work! It was a success! You saw him! He had complete control over his Givers! He had used them to become what we wanted! You can’t...!”
Winters shot the doctor in the head. The magnetically-sealed energy pulse penetrated the skull of the doctor, and burst inside his head. The energy of a burst of napalm vaporized brains, eyes, and skull case from the inside out. The doctor’s corpse fell slowly out of its seat, the head a ruined and charred wreck. Sheathing his weapon, Winters pressed on a communicator built into his wrist. “Tell containment to come to A-3 Lab at once.” He announced. “The project has gone terminal.”
So saying, he turned and ran for the exit elevators which would take him safely to the surface, sprinting past armed and concerned security technicians and guard bots, who rumbled off into the ruined lab room, from which emanated screams and bursts of unnatural light.
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
Hey, anyone else who may have read this so far, I would love the feedback. It's far from done and I'm working on it, but would appreciate knowing what people think thus far.
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
Winters stood in a brightly lit penthouse suite. Only a few hours had passed, and he was already hundreds of miles away from the horror of Happy Human Labs’ Alpha 3 horrors. He sat in a comfortably furnished apartment on the sixty-third floor of the Dhalmer tower in London, regarding a series of holographic figures.
“The Board of Directors acknowledges the commendable speed with which you acted, Mr. Winters.” the lead figure was saying. “Nevertheless, we all had faith in Dr. Batis. It would have been better for the project had you retrieved him alive.”
Winters shrugged in the face of his superiors. “Containment was my primary order, sir. Dr. Batis may have been the originator of the technology, but he lacked the ability to carry out the tests and control them. It was a mistake to let him head the testing team as well as the design team.”
The lead image scowled and wagged a finger at Winters. “We all believed in Batis’ abilities.”
Winters drew his pistol and deposited it on the table in front of him. “You have faith in the engineering and technical abilities of the man who designed and built this gun, too, but you wouldn’t let him cover you with it in a firefight. Batis’ only concern was bringing his project to life. He didn’t implement the proper safeguards. And now those Givers are and controlling, and responding to the demands of, the Receivers.”
The lead figure sank his shoulders. “We are aware of the situation. The labs themselves have been contained from the prying eyes of the authorities, but deep down they are totally destroyed. We are indeed fortunate to have back up information of the project kept elsewhere. Nevertheless, we understand that most of the Receivers escaped our containment crews. You will continue your job for us, that is, to contain this threat to our corporate security. Locate and retrieve the Receivers if you can, but you have our leave to terminate the project entirely if you must. We leave it in your capable hands.” The hologram shivered and faded from the room.
Winters turned at his desk to a small mirror. He reached up to his cheek and pressed. With a whoosh of escaping pressurized air, Winter’s pale, nondescript face parted at the middle. A slight trickle of blood fell down the ruined seam, but underneath the skin was no bone or sinew, but instead cold, gray metal, peppered with wires and subdued lights, which Winters set to prodding at with a small tool.
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
When Val Tannis awoke this time it was slowly, but with none of the former feelings of anxiety and pain. He was no longer strapped into some bizarre medical table, and for a moment he wondered if it had all been some horrible dream. He rose his head to find himself staring over the distance of a clean, white hospital recovery room to the concerned faces of Talbain Arsteel and Agent Ray Delberg of the United States Patent Bureau.
Without another word Val sank backwards. Despite everything he felt he had endured and all the questions he wanted to ask, he somehow did not want to see either of those two men ever again.
The seemingly-nervous agent Delberg rose and came to stand over Val’s bed. “You okay, there?” he asked.
Val kept his eyes closed a moment. Maybe, he thought, if I can’t see them, they’ll go away. Then he sighed, and opened his eyes. Talbain had taken up station on the other side of the bed. His face was covered in small, quickly-healing puncture wounds. At that sight, Val remembered the syringe-covered machine arm and its quick paths over his sedated body. He shuddered, wondering if he looked as odd.
“I’m okay.” Val responded. Surprisingly, he did feel great. Tired, but with none of the pain he thought he ought to be feeling.
Talbain let out a whoosh of breath. “Seems good, lad. You look like you’ve been used as a dart board, though.”
Val smiled. “You’re one to talk.” he pushed himself into a sitting position. He still felt great. He looked at his hands. Dozens of mostly-healed small puncture wounds covered them, but he felt none of it. Apparently modern medical science had done some good for him. “What happened?” Val asked.
“Strange thing.” responded Talbain. “I woke up in the middle of the night after the most awful dream. Twisted things. Well, when I woke up I was being carried down a near-pitch-black corridor in some building somewhere by that massive mountain of a man, Paris. Don’t think he even knew I was awake. A few of the rest of them were all there; Sandra, Miss Manning, Paris, Corrigan, and little Timmy. Didn’t see hide or hair of the soldier fellow or the two psychopaths. Anyway, they were just walking quietly down the corridor. Whole area looked like it had been a mining blast zone. You were being carried by old Corrigan. Well, looked like old Corrigan anyway, if he had grown thirty years younger. I felt beat up pretty bad, so I didn’t say anything. After a minute, they put you and me in an elevator and sent us up a shaft. At the top, we were met by government troops. That’s all I know. Haven’t a clue what happened to the others or how they got out of there. Spookiest thing I ever saw, let me tell you.”
Delberg raised a hand. “I can fill in the rest. We knew the moment you vanished, Mr. Tannis. When the earthquakes started under the Happs labs, we were halfway there. They had containment teams running everywhere. Tried to stop our boys with plastiglue rifles. But we got in and were locking down the ground floor when your elevator chimed and, there you were. We didn’t find the others either, but our superiors called us all back out of their buildings before we could send down a team. I’m guessing someone high up on their side ‘persuaded’ someone high up on our side to call us back, so they could keep their precious secrecy intact.”
Val absorbed all this new info. “I don’t remember very much. Just the lab...a few moments...”
Delberg shook his head solemnly. “Whatever it is they’ve done to you, we won’t let them get away with it. Although a train of high-priced lawyers have tromped in and out of my office for the past day or two brandishing contracts you signed and claiming you belong to their testing division and basically throwing up every legal shazbot in the book, I’ve still been able to keep your whereabouts a secret. Though, it won’t stay that for long. I was this close to ordering a nurse to pump you full of drugs just so we could get you conscious enough to issue a statement we could protect you under.”
Val put a hand to his head, felt the small wounds. “If you’re asking me to swear a complaint against the Happs for illegal product trials or any other number of crimes, you won’t have to ask twice.”
Delberg half-smirked. “If only. They’re covered. Anything you said against them would only get you in trouble with their shark pool of lawyers. The Bureau isn’t interested in a long and drawn out public battle against their sharks. We’re interested in getting to the people at the head of the project.”
Val grimaced. He could assume how this would work. The lawyers were, in reality, only a stalling tactic. Given enough time, any sufficiently funded conglomerate could make anything vanish as though it never was. Even the less easily-removed evidence like people’s memories could be erased if one had the inclination and technology to do so. Meanwhile, the only people who would know anything about what happened to Val and the others would either quietly vanish or would be made to quietly and violently vanish.
Val shifted his weight off the bed, put an arm on the massive Talbain’s shoulder, and pulled himself to a standing position. “I don’t want to waste any more time than you do.” he said, feeling his gut tighten with anticipation of his own words. “If that job’s still open, Agent Delberg, I want it.”
“And me, too.” put in Talbain.
Delberg held up both hands. “Look, guys, no offense, but you two are evidence. We want to get you to the labs and find out exactly what they’ve done to you. Besides, you were supposed to get us inside information and you’ve done it. We can extract all the information we need from you through questioning and memory probes.”
“No offense either, Delberg, but I don’t give a shit what they did to me. I just want it un-done. I may not be able to offer much in the way of help, but I’m sticking to you and your department while you hunt down the Happs responsible.” Val gave Delberg what he hoped was his most intimidating stare.
Talbain smiled down at Val. “Not so necessary, lad. I happen to know that Delberg here’s going to take us along whether he wants to or not.”
Delberg frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Simple. As far as you said, you haven’t found trace of the others yet, right?” Delberg nodded. “But they’re still out there, and you need our help to find them and help them, too. And frankly, you know as well as I do that the Happs are going to be looking for the others in order to keep their happy little labrat family intact.”
Delberg shook his head. “For all we know they didn’t leave the labs. We haven’t been able to get back in there.”
Talbain shook his head. Val winced. For a moment, he thought he heard something. He heard - someone. He looked up to see Talbain grinning down at him, his lion’s mane hair dangling over Val’s head. “You heard it too, didn’t you, Val?” he asked.
Val nodded. “I thought I heard something. It was different than just hearing it, though. It seemed to echo in my ears. That sounds weird.”
Talbain nodded excitedly. “Exactly. ‘Cause that was the one thing I hadn’t mentioned. I could hear the others as they carried me up the hall. Not their voices, but in here.” He tapped the side of his head. “Whatever those Happs bastards did, they did it to all of us. And, if they’re close enough or want it enough, we can all hear each other.”
Delberg took a step backwards. “You mean telepathy?”
Talbain shrugged. “Dunno.”
Val held up both hands. “Wait, wait. I said I could hear something. But it wasn’t one of their voices.”
Talbain nodded. “They’re too far away. If you got close to one of ‘em, though...” he faked a shiver.
Delberg put on a puzzled expression. “I think we really should get you boys to the lab. Then, maybe, we’ll talk about whether we need you or not. But protecting you is our first concern. Something big happened down there and you’re our only link. We don’t know how permanent anything they did to you is. You could drop dead in a minute for all we know.”
That made enough sense to Val. “Okay. Let’s go see your people.”
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
The Patent Bureau’s Product Analysis Division wasn’t content, apparently, to just believe the test results and reports that the conglomerates gave them. Their lab facilities were extensive, and they had the capability to test any kind of product, in any kind of condition.
Their analysts, supervised by Agent Delberg and led by one Doctor Shiva, prodded and poked and jabbed and stung Val and Talbain with all sorts of instruments and devices that they didn’t recognize, stared into all their orifices, and put them under countless scanning devices.
After an hour and a half, Val no longer cared what they did to him. He lay on a table in the middle of a large room filled with no less than thirty people, stark naked, and frankly beyond all notion of concern. He’d become more or less used to being treated like a new scientific plaything.
The blue-dyed hair of Dr. Shiva bobbed up and down as she slowly wandered over to where Val and Talbain lay, reviewing the contents of a datapad as she walked. Finally, she looked up. “Well, we know what they did. We don’t know what it means, but at least we know what they did.”
“Care to enlighten us, lass?” asked the near-giant and frankly impressive form of Talbain Arsteel.
Her eyes tried dutifully not to examine the giant’s solid physique with more than a professional interest as she continued. Her eyes had an understandable tendency to droop, as if weighted down. “Of course, Mr. Arsteel. You’ve been injected with nanoscopic robots. Millions of them. And we’ve identified at least two hundred different designs, including some that seem to exist simply to feed, repair, and modify the other nanobots inside you. To accommodate them, they’ve done some strange things to your body. I’m not quite able to identify all the changes, but there’s more than a few alterations they’ve made to you, specifically your skin, bones, arm and leg muscles, and kidneys. We’re going to need a few hours to isolate them all.”
“What are they doing to us?” asked Val. “I’ve heard of nanoscopic robots, but didn’t think they were practical or possible.”
“They are already used as exploration and fine-operations repair work in the advanced medical community. Nothing like this, though. You’ve been basically made into a colony for them.” responded the doctor. Against his will, Val felt his skin crawl. He very much disliked the thought of millions of tiny robots inside him, doing whatever they wanted to his innards. The doctor continued. “As for why they were put in you, there are any thousands of possible reasons. We won’t know because they aren’t active.”
Talbain scratched his head. “What do you mean?”
“I mean they’re not doing anything. They’re on, and the repair bots are moving, and they’ve integrated themselves into your system, but they aren’t receiving any instructions. I suspect they were never brought online. That may be why you two were left behind while the others escaped. You are obviously part of their ‘group’, but you aren’t undergoing whatever they are.”
“And what are they undergoing?” asked Val, tentatively.
The doctor unhelpfully shrugged. “We don’t know. We don’t know how to bring your nanobots online and we’d be afraid of what would happen if we did. However, we do know that you’re emitting all sorts of signals on various wavelengths. That could explain how Talbain heard the voices of the others in his head. It might be some kind of neural communications relay system.”
Talbain slapped a knee. “I knew it!” he laughed. “Proves what I said is true. Lad, you and I are going with Agent Delberg after all.”
Delberg and Val responded simultaneously: “Wait a minute!”
Talbain wasn’t finished. He smiled down at Val. “Come on. It’s not like I have anything better to do. Working for the Bureau is a step up from what I’m used to.”
Delberg tried to interrupt. “You’re making the assumption that...”
“...that you need me and Val to help you find the others before the Happs do. You didn’t see the carnage. They strolled right through it.” Talbain finished for him.
Delberg looked for a way out. “We don’t need you, Talbain. We can just track the signals you’re receiving.”
Dr. Shiva, following where this conversation was going, piped in. “Not quite. We have identified that they’re projecting and receiving something, but we can’t track what it is. It may be encoded or diverted off of a third source. It might take us weeks to figure out what they’re using, let alone how to isolate it from natural sources and track them down.”
Val had his own ideas. “Look, Talbain, I’m interested in getting to the bastards who did this, but I’m not sure I’m ready to track down the others from our group. They’re the victims here, not who we’re after.”
“One step at a time, lad.” said Talbain. “And anyway, where’s your sense of adventure?”
Val scowled, but Delberg spoke first. “Talbain is right on that count. We need to find the others before we can go after the Happs. We need the evidence, and we need to contain whatever they’ve unleashed. That’s our first responsibility.”
Val scowled, began looking for his pants. “This better be damn well worth it, Delberg.”
“Take heart, Val.” said Talbain. “Just imagine that we’re saving the world.”
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
