Lauren hummed tunelessly in unasked for affirmation of the proper dilation of the pupils of the eyes she was currently shining a very bright penlight into. "You're fine," she said in a needlessly conversational tone, it's not like the subject could actually have a conversation with her. "Take a couple aspirin if your head hurts though and come see me tomorrow, okay?" she sighed as her patient repeated 'I'll come see you tomorrow' and sat stone-faced on the examination table, waiting for instruction and showing no real indication that the massive bruise forming on his jaw was even there. This was all so stupid.
"You may go." She said, stepping back to give him room to slide off the table, which he did immediately with a nod of his head, almost half marching out of the exam room. The blonde doctor flopped unceremoniously down onto the rolling chair next to a low counter and let her head fall to the laminated top with a painless thunk. She hated her job. Job. What a word. It implied she'd chosen this profession… that she was making mindless soldiers for the government of her own volition. She didn't have a choice, not a good one anyways. Do the work or what? Be tortured horribly until she did the work anyways? She liked to think of herself as a brave person, but she wasn't that brave, not when she knew the kind of 'persuasion' methods available to the people who basically owned her.
If only she weren't brilliant. It was a fleeting immodest thought though one she had a lot considering her circumstances. If she'd never had a head for science, for bioengineering, for artificial evolutionary development maybe she wouldn't have spent the last six years implanting designer microbes that made ultimate soldiers. Maybe no one would have even invented the process without her. She shut her eyes against the bright lights overhead that were bouncing off the pale grey laminate of the countertop and sighed heavily. Stupid government agencies and getting their fat fingers into everything in the pursuit of better war machines.
"Doctor Lewis?"
Lauren's head snapped up at the intrusion into her thoughts and she found one of the lab techs standing at the exam room door. The lab techs weren't subject to the mind-controlling microbes like the soldiers were, but they may as well have been for all their lack of humor and personality. She blinked heavily against the light flooding her eyes again, waiting for the tech who'd called her name to continue which he did after shooting her a reprimanding look for taking a break.
"Subject 6C is awake and ready for preliminary testing."
Subject six? When had they started the hundred-person cycle over again? She couldn't remember the first five of the C series. How many times had they been through the alphabet in the last six years? Three? Ten? A hundred? Did it even matter? She shook her head; the lab tech was looking at her expectantly.
"I'll be there in a minute." She supplied, picking up her clipboard that had been lying on the counter. The tech nodded, telling her the subject was in exam room 7-H before slipping away from the door and back to whatever it was he'd been doing before he'd gotten there. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she squeezed her eyes shut and massaged the skin under her fingertips hard for a moment before dropping her hand and striding out of the exam room, putting on an air of confidence she didn't feel, had never felt.
Still, the faux poise she projected did its job of having her underlings scatter before her as she moved through the hallways of the compound towards the H block of exam rooms. She hated preliminary examinations. The microbes were injected at the base of the neck every day, thrice a day for a week until the little manufactured pathogens had enough numbers and strength to override a person's base functions making them compliant to authority and wooden in personality.
After the final injection, minor surgery was needed to outfit them with a tiny electronic device that not only fed them their orders but served as a tracking mechanism and was capable of being detonated should they be compromised for any reason, destroying them and the device in the process. The preliminary exam was to make sure they were properly compliant. There were two parts to it, the first part was performed by the lab techs to make sure that the subjects weren't compliant to just anyone and the second Lauren herself had to do on every subject since she was the only one in the medical field that the subjects were engineered to be mildly compliant towards.
It was just enough to get the tests done, but not enough to get her out of this stupid hellhole. Every test just reminded her of another person she'd basically erased from existence, another cog added to the war machine. She entered the H block and slowed her pace as she neared the exam room, trying to remember subject six. It hit her several doors down from her destination and she stopped in her tracks. Tamsin. Of course, how could she have forgotten the statuesque blonde? It had taken six people to subdue her for her injections, the soldiers were often about as enthusiastic about the injections as Lauren was giving them but Tamsin had been noteworthy because it had taken so many people to keep her still. It was going to be a shame that she'd be reduced to a two-dimensional personality though she'd be a physically enhanced warrior.
Lauren opened the exam room door without knocking, what was the point? The other blonde was still wearing the hospital scrubs she'd been put into for surgery and was staring blankly at the wall across from the table she was sitting on causing the doctor to sigh. "Hi, Tamsin." She started, refusing to refer to the other woman by her subject number. She always called the soldiers by their names when she could remember them and she tried desperately to remember all of them. "How are you feeling?" she asked, completely not expecting an answer but needing to keep up the façade of this being just another check up for a normal patient.
She jumped slightly when Tamsin grunted in response, her tone sounding perturbed. She stared at the other blonde for a long moment but she didn't do anything else and Lauren decided she just imagined the responsive noise. She slapped her clipboard on the countertop and pulled the wheeled stool out from under the counter and sat down across from the other woman, blocking her vacant glare at the wall.
"What is your serial number?" Lauren asked, her tone still conversational.
"34877-6C" Tamsin replied and Lauren could swear she almost sounded bored. She shook her head; that was impossible.
"Touch your right index finger to the tip of your nose three times."
This time she was sure she saw that eye roll and heard her mutter 'are you serious?' before Tamsin complied with the command. She saw her lips move. Even if the other woman hadn't said anything out loud, her lips shouldn't have been moving after a command like that. She practically jumped out of her chair and gripped Tamsin's chin between her fingers while pulling out her penlight with the other hand to shine a light in her eyes. She didn't imagine the other blonde's head try and jerk out of her grasp and she dropped her penlight in the excitement.
"You're not fully under." Lauren whispered excitedly, whipping her head to the side to make sure she had indeed closed the door to the exam room. "The microbes didn't take all the way."
"Will you get a grip?" Tamsin demanded, jerking her head back again and out of Lauren's light grasp. "If you think I'mma let you assholes poke me again you-"
"Do you know what this means?" Lauren interrupted, gripping the other woman's arm hard and feeling her stomach flip.
Tamsin looked down at Lauren's hand on her arm and then back up to the doctor's face. For the first time, she looked worried. "Look, maybe just don't tell anyone." She started, her voice quiet. "I don't wanna be like those goons out there, doc." She let out a puff of air like she was defeated and her plea came out barely above a whisper. "Help me."
Lauren knew she should report this. She knew she should call the techs in to subdue Tamsin and they should start the treatment all over again. She knew Tamsin had to be studied; no one had ever come out of the other side of the treatment unchanged before. She knew all these things but she also knew that Tamsin must have faked her way through the beginning tests, that for whatever reason, she was trusting her to help, trusting her in a way that was deadly serious with the fact that the microbes hadn't taken all the way. Lauren saw that Tamsin could be her way out, they could maybe get out of this together. She barely felt herself nod.
"I'll help." She whispered back shakily. "Just take me with you."
Tamsin's worried look dissolved and she grinned in a way that Lauren would describe as more of a smirk. "Let's ditch this place, then." She said, sliding off the table.
Maybe this was suicide. This was definitely the dumbest thing Lauren had ever even entertained the idea of doing but she nodded. They were going to get out of there. Together.