Chapter 7
The Virus
Rocket woke up,The first thing he noticed was that his shoulder had been relocated. He sat up growling at the pain which spiked across from his shoulder and down to the spot on his back where the Implants were. He felt along the inside of his mouth with his tongue finding he had a few chipped teeth and a missing molar. His head felt as if it had been hit with a hammer, Something which had happened to him before in a bar a long time ago, He stands up forcing the pain to the back of his mind as he looked around the room to analyze the situation. The room was entirely made of some type of metal, It was lit by a single ancient light-bulb. Rocket realized that they built this room using technology that was at least a century old. "Damn, That makes getting out of here difficult." He looked around the room for anything that might help. But, the room was bare, There was a small bed in the corner of the room but that was it. He walked over to the bed and lifted the corner of the mattress. The bed was sitting on a flat, smooth slab of metal. Rocket growls and stomps his footpaw on the floor in frustration. "I'll just wait here then." he sits down on the bed and waits.
After what seems like forever the door opens and a man wearing a white suit walks in. He is followed by two Badoon in combat gear. One of them glares at Rocket and hisses. Rocket snarls back, staring right, in its eyes, knowing that since the Badoon considered themselves to be above most mammalian species, it was offensive to look at one unless you were of some importance. The other Badoon carried a chair which he set down across from Rocket. The man in the suit sat down and looked at Rocket before speaking. "You're hurt... We can't have that. I'll send someone along to patch you up."
Rocket stared at the man. "Why I'm I here?"
The man laughed. "You'll see." and with that, he stood up and left. The two Badoon followed him out of the room.
Rocket sat there wondering what would happen to him, he paced around the room running through the various scenarios in his head.
He didn't have to wait for very long about twenty minuets. The door opened and the same two Badoon walked in. The one in the front had a collar. He approached Rocket and tried to force the collar on him. Rocket looked at the Badoon,"Zha'gh!, Ilidajh'Xa Nardû!" (Stop! wait I'll come quietly.) he yelled.
The Badoon soldier looked at him and grinned showing its many needle- like teeth.
"D'wa Utleax ti'gei laugna trati raccoon, Grina aeta'xi cadreis D'wa, Xa'li gadriess." (You know our tongue little raccoon, That will not save you, I am sorry.) Rocket growled at the two Badoon as they approached. The one in front held out his hands.
"Sä D'wa krædulu Xë'na trati Tah, Grïne cadreis Ilida be'ga." (If you fight us little one, things will not go well.)
Rocket growled loudly, his tail swishing rapidly behind him. He snarled and jumped right at the Badoon He climbed, raking both sets of claws down its scaled face leaving eight gashes thin gashes behind. He jumped at the other one. The other Badoon lashed out and caught him by the throat then twisted and slammed him to the ground. He let out a choked yelp of pain as his back connected with the floor. Shards of pain radiated out from the implants on his back they traveled across and through his entire body. He clawed at the arm which held him down to the floor. But, that only made things worse. The Badoon screeched at him and lifted him up holding him by the neck and began repeatedly slamming him against the ground.
Rocket was barely conscious when the Badoon lifted him off the ground and held him by the throat at arms length. It watched him struggle for breath, weakly trying to pry its hand off. It tightened its grip, it wanted to end this pitifully weak creature. Rocket weakly tried to kick the Badoon in the gut.
The other Badoon stood up, Green blood dripping down its face. It saw Rocket dangling limply still weakly trying to kick at the one holding him. It wiped the blood away from its eyes and swiftly punched its co-worker in the face knocking him out. It watched Rocket drop to the ground, it bent down and checked his pulse. It sighed, "Xa Foulte D'wa trati Tah"(I warned you little one.) then picked him up gently and carried out of the room.
Rocket woke up the first thing he saw were the white lights illuminating the entire room leaving nowhere for darkness. Rocket sat up, He was sitting on an examination table in an off-white room, He was dressed in one of those papery hospital gowns. He began to panic, When suddenly there was a loud beeping sound in his right ear. It startled him, he turned quickly to see where the noise was coming from, He lost his balance and fell backwards off the table and onto the floor. He jumped up and turned trying to find the source of that annoyingly loud single tone beep. When suddenly it changed, A female voice, one he recognized as the unknown sponsor who funded Halfworld, spoke.
" Subject 89P13 your tracking implant has been activated. Soldiers are on the way to your position. Any resistance will be met with deadly force."
The voice stopped and the beep continued then the voice came back on repeating the same message. Rocket gritted his teeth as the same message was repeating over and over in his head. He felt overwhelmed by all that had happened in the last few... He couldn't even tell how long it had been. He crawled to the corner of the room and curled up on the ground with his knees drawn up to his chest and, with the message constantly repeating over and over in his head, he started crying softly his back and neck hurt badly. And the soft sobbing didn't help but he couldn't stop no matter how painful it was, He had never felt so alone, lost and broken.
After quite a while, the door to the room opened and in walked three Badoon dressed in surgical outfits. They saw Rocket sitting there on the floor sobbing quietly they grabbed him by the arms and roughly stripped him of the gown, then carried him over to the operating table, He didn't fight cause he didn't care. He was broken, they won...
The surgeons strapped his arms and legs down to the table another strap was used to hold his head in place. He felt a scalpel being dragged across the skin above his right ear, he screamed and thrashed in the restraints. He heard the drill before he felt it. He felt it touch him there was a brief flash of pain then.. Nothing, no pain besides the faint throbbing of where the drill was. He heard the drill shut off and get set down. He felt another flash of pain but nothing else but a faint tingling sensation. He realized with horror that they were digging around in his brain! The voice in his head shut off he, saw one of them walking off holding a small metal object in his hand Rocket shuddered as he realized it was a part of him. He closed his eyes, enjoying the silence. He felt them bandage the side of his head then, open the restraints. They picked him up gently and carried him through the hallways. He tried to track the hallways as they went, but soon gave up, he was too tired to think straight. They went through a door and into a room. There were Bio-tanks lining the walls, they were made of some form of clear glass-like material. They were filled with a blue gel that bubbled slowly. There were lights installed on the bottom of the tanks. The Doctors placed a breather mask, That had been designed to fit his muzzle, on him and lowered him into the tank. The liquid was cold, he felt the familiar numbing itch as the gel healed his injuries. He felt himself drifting off to sleep, he hadn't slept in... He couldn't remember how long it had been. He watched the Doctors leave the room the door automatically locking behind them. He told himself that he needed to escape, but he just felt so tired..
There was a loud hissing sound as the liquid was drained from the tank. Rocket woke up slowly the glass-like casing to the tank lifted up and he stepped off the platform his legs were weak causing him to fall to the ground. He stood back up using the wall to support himself. In the room, two of the scientists were standing there one of them approached and handed him a towel, then removed the bandage that was wrapped around his head. He wordlessly took the towel and began to dry his fur. The Scientists motioned for him to follow them, Rocket wrapped the towel around his body covering up the scars on his back. "If I can learn the layout of the ship.. Then I can escape." He thought as he started taking notice of all the corridors and creating a map in his head as he went.
They came to a room with a single table set up in the center of the room. At the other end and flanked by two Badoon sat the man in the suit. He smiled, It was the same false smile that made Rocket think of the large reptilian animals on some unnamed swamp world, and gestured to the empty seat. Rocket reluctantly sat down in the chair.
"There's a button on the arm rest you can use to raise it to the correct height."
The man said there was a hint of amusement in his voice. Rocket bites back a rather rude comment and raises the seat. He glares at the man as he slowly raises up to eye level. "That's better." the man said, "I never told you my name, My name is Rāvak Trēdti, I own and operate the Crimson Sun. We-."
"D'wa Xashi D'wadi!" Rocket yelled at Rāvak, The man looked at him. "I wanted to avoid this."
He pressed a button on his armrest and four restraints closed down on Rocket's wrists and ankles. He walked over to Rocket who was struggling, trying to slip out of the restraints. He smacked Rocket across the face with the palm of his hand.
"You will listen to me! You won't interrupt me again. Is that understood?"
Rocket sat there glaring at him. Rāvak nodded and returned to his seat.
"As I was saying, We first heard about you during the first week of your creation. We knew there was money in making things like you. But, no one had actually done it and getting funding from the governments was a hard thing to do. We had tried, But Dr. Quore had beat us to it. We tried for a long time to locate the research. But, we never found it finally, we had a breakthrough. One of our agents was tasked with running a diagnostic program on your implants. He found that the instructions to create, you have been heavily encoded in your implants themselves. We tried to get you, but you had escaped at the same time we attacked. We lost track of you for a long while and Halfworld went underground for the longest time. Then we heard that Halfworld was being rebuilt So, naturally we investigated, we found out that Dr. Quore had found and captured you. We assembled the ships that were still in the Quadrant and came to get you. We were planning on removing a minor implant, but someone activated the tracking unit in your audio receiver so we had to remove that we scanned it and found that yes the code was there but it was a small piece so we copied it then we ejected the implant into space to put off anyone who might want you back."
He paused and took a sip from the glass in front of him.
"You know you represent the single most important scientific advancement of our time, I mean, transforming a Terran animal of all things into what basically is a living weapon. Do you realize what that means? We thought the knowledge had been lost But now we have a way to get it back. Unfortunately, in order for us to have the complete instructions, all of your implants must be removed then the code extracted and reassembled. By that time you will be dead."
Rocket felt the last bit of hope drain out of him with those words. He was left with the same deep despair that had hit him after Groot died. He stared at Rāvak, his despair turning to a deep anger. He snarled at the man and cursed him loudly in multiple languages. Rāvak sat there, watching him swear and curse until he ran out of breath, with an amused expression on his face. "You have quite a mouth on you. I counted four languages... How many do you know?"
Rocket glared at him, but kept silent.
"Ah, well, we'll soon find out."
The Badoon in the room walked over to Rocket One of them placed a hand on his muzzle holding his jaws together. He growled at them as they lifted his head and placed a collar on him. They pressed a button on the side Rocket heard a slight humming sound coming from the collar.
"That collar is fitted with a GTS unit. That's Galactic. Tracking. System, if you don't know. We will be able to find you wherever you go. If the collar is tampered with in anyway, it will send an EMP throughout your body that will put you in a lot of pain. Not as much as you will feel, but enough to incapacitate you for about an hour. As you can see... There is no escaping us. We are everywhere and we will find you, if you leave."
Rāvak pressed the button on the arm rest. And the restraints retracted. He motioned to the Badoon. "Take him to the main operating room. Tell them to prep for extraction of minor implant Alpha."
Three Badoon grab him and roughly drag him out of the room. Rocket starts yelling and struggling trying to break free. They take him into another white room and drop him onto the table. Two of them strap him face down. He screeches insults at them in Badoon one of then winces and leaves the room. Rocket keeps on yelling not caring what would happen to him. It was the only thing he could do.
After sometime of just sitting there yelling at the empty room. The sound of the door being slammed open startled him. One of the Badoon approach him. "Lissten to me." It said, speaking in Xandarian "Your sscared, I can ssee that. I can help you esscape but, you have to trusst me."
Rocket glared at the Badoon. "Why would I trust a Flarknard like you?"
"You don't have any reasson to. That'ss the thing about trusst it workss both wayss. If I let you free how do I know you won't kill me?"
Rocket thought about that for a minute "Why do ya want to help me?"
The Badoon looked at him. "We are an aggresssive sspeciess, But we are not without, What'ss the word? ", The Badoon sighed, " Edr'vach." (Compassion)
"I don't like sseeing you tortured," The Badoon continued, "It'ss wrong, even for uss."
The Badoon's communicator beeped. He grabbed the receiver "What?"
"We need you to administer the paralytic. The surgical team have reviewed the known data and are ready to proceed with the extraction."
The Badoon looked at Rocket. "I'll be done by the time they arrive."
"Good."
The Badoon sighed, "My name'ss Hiral. By the way I have mixed a little bit of anessthetic in the paralytic, It won't completely kill the pain but, it will dull it to manageable levelss."
Hiral took a syringe and filled it with a pale green liquid. Rocket felt a bit of panic building up in him as Hiral lowered the syringe, bringing the needle to his arm.
Hiral noticing his discomfort, quickly pressed the needle into a vein on his arm and injected him with the liquid. Then he set the syringe down, "Lissten the paralytic takess affect insstantly. Right now you cannot move, The anessthetic will take effect in about twelve minutess. After the extraction I will come and get you I don't know what they have planned for you, but I will try and help you asss besst asss I can."
Hiral leaves the room the door clanging shut behind him.
Rocket sat there unable to move, his whole body was numb, It was uncomfortable to say the least but, he had been through much worse. He heard the door open again and watched three Badoon enter the room. They looked at him muttering amongst themselves, He felt one of them approach and gently run its hand through the fur on the back of his neck. He growled, The Badoon laughed at him. He heard the sound of an electric razor then felt it being dragged through his neck-fur the blades snagging on it pulling it painfully. About two minutes later all the fur on the back of his neck had been removed. The air was cold on his bare neck. He heard the clinking sound of metal objects he felt the scalpel touch him dragging through his skin. There was no real pain only a small amount of pressure where the scalpel was. He realized that the Badoon must have calculated a minor dosage for one of his own. Rocket felt light, almost as if he was floating. It was strange for him, Being awake during an augmentation and not writhing in agony. His vision flickered slightly in his right eye. He figured it was a side effect of the anesthetic, But when a flare of pain stabbed into his head he knew something was wrong. The pain grew flaring with every beat of his heart he was unable to move, scream or do anything. The pain grew in intensity a voice in his head spoke: "Virus activated, Time to deactivation: 02:04:15:00:00." The pain suddenly grew worse Rocket gasped then blacked out.
Author's Place To Say What He Want's:
Thank you for the comment's and everything it means a lot to me. Now, the language that the Badoon speak is my creation, That's part of the reason why this chapter took so long for me to write... It's a pain being a geek sometimes, As usual comments are loved and suggestions on how I can improve are always wanted.
Thanks
~RocketRaccoon18
