DISCLAIMER AND LEGAL STUFF: Digimon: Digital Monsters and its universes are not mine; they are the property of Toei, Saban and Bandai. I've simply distorted them for my own evilishly evil designs, (bwa ha ha ha haaa! Ahem.) Also, this fic is AU, so be warned. I hope peeps like it. I like it, but then, I'm slightly biased, aren't I?
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February 2003
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"Fate and Destiny" By Scribbler
Chapter Three ~ "When Questions Are Asked"
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"Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing." -- Engineer's Motto
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A grey mist rolled across the landscape. Thick and nebulous, it enveloped everything in its path. Light and dark were one and the same behind this dense, indefinable fog. All it touched became naught but hazy, vague shapes - some recognisable, others totally alien to anything conceivable by mere human imagine.
There was nothing but fog. It swathed everything. It *was* everything. The entire universe was nothing but an opaque, dreary miasma....
//I'm coming//
What was that? A voice?
//I'm coming//
It *was* a voice. Disconnected and androgynous, yet close at hand all the same. But how could a voice be here? How could he hear it through this cloying mist?
//Don't give up hope//
Unfamiliar. Strange. Who was it?
//Never lose hope//
"Who are you?"
//You know//
"I know you? How? Where am I? What is this place?"
//Help approaches....//
"Please, tell me. Who are you?"
//You know.... inside//
It was fading. Waning away into soft nothingness. Then, he was falling. Panic! He didn't want to fall! He wanted that strange, sweet voice to speak more. To whisper gentle utterances of comfort into his diaphanous ear for eternity and longer.
"Wait! Come back! Don't leave me here, please. I have to know!" He yelled desperately.
//But.... you already know.... inside//
Falling, falling, into the abyss, where no light ever shines and nothing can ever live. Down, down into the dark void that swallows souls ripped from their earthly bodies like some hellish beast of legend.
"Please...."
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Izzy returned to consciousness with a groan. His body ached all over, but especially in the little hollow at the base of his skull. Invisible needles lanced through his nervous system as he twitched his head in response to the pain, and he immediately froze lest he cause himself more damage that way.
Memories floated haphazardly around his fuggy brain, still disorientated from its induced slumber, and the boy struggled to latch onto one of them. Images of laying on his back whilst looking up at the starry night sky filled his mind, then darkness as intense pain flared inside his cranium from.... from.... a blow. A hit on his head. Recollections peppered his muddled psyche in no distinguishable order, and Izzy strained to understand at least some of what he saw, with little discernable success.
Relinquishing his throbbing and disorderly memories for a moment, Izzy decided to take stock of his current predicament instead. He was lying on his back again, that much was certain even with his eyes closed, yet he had the distinct impression that he wasn't lying *down* as such, just.... lying. Cool steel pressed against his spine, and the red haired youth realised with a jolt that he had no shirt on. The air hung unpleasantly cold around him, giving rise to quivering gooseflesh along his arms. Izzy attempted to wrap his stiff upper limbs around his body to preserve some semblance of warmth, but his arms refused to cooperate, remaining forcibly where they were - stretched out above his head - wrists touching strange metal manacles when he tried to lift them. With an odd sinking feeling deep in his gut Izzy attempted the same manoeuvre with his legs, achieving much the same result. A pair of metal cuffs adorned his ankles, and two more around his waist and neck completed the outlandish set of jewellery, essentially pinning him to the flat surface his skin was now pressed against.
All this he gleaned from touch alone, still too disorientated to open his eyes. A faint swish abruptly hummed through the static space, followed by hollow tapping like heels on metal flooring. The sinking feeling transformed into a sizable lump of dread, and Izzy at last forced his aching eyelids open.
At once, his pupils were assaulted with a flash of light so bright that he was blinded for several seconds and couldn't be sure whether he'd shut his eyes again. Gradually, though, this sightlessness resided, leaving only greenish spots, which danced across his vision like unruly fireflies trapped within his pounding eyeballs. Izzy blinked several times, but these lucid artistes refused to dissipate from their preferred stage.
A harsh sound suddenly cut through the air, eliciting a change in the atmosphere to one of palpable trepidation as it echoed off the - presumably metal - walls. Caught somewhere between a laugh and a growl, the noise ricocheted into the boy's ears and resonated around the inside of his brain like a bullet, which didn't help his aching skull one little bit.
The tapping drew closer, and then halted a few feet away. Through the fog of glowing dots Izzy distinguished a pair of feet in his peripheral vision. Feet clad in smart black shoes - designer probably. They stood apart at an angle which immediately denoted the confidence of the owner's stance, and the dark-eyed youth raised his rapidly clearing gaze to look upon the proprietor of this fashionable footwear.
His line of sight slowly travelled up the acutely creased dark trousers, noting the well-ironed white lab coat that hung from the newcomer's gaunt frame. A scientist then, or someone to that effect. The coat was buttoned at the chest, which itself was wide and bordered by broad shoulders. The newcomer's hands were thrust deep into the coat's pockets, and his thick neck rose confidently from out of the pale collar. Izzy raised his sight once more, and found himself staring into eyes as dark as his own - which was unusual since his eye-colour was the result of an irreversible genetic defect that made the irises exactly the same colour as the pupils. His parents had taken him for many tests when he was younger to correct this imperfection, but the doctors hadn't been able to do a thing without perhaps blinding him. Cosmetic surgery had improved over the years, but not by that much.
The eyes Izzy now gazed into - albeit rather dazedly - were as black as black could be, and set in leathery skin of a ghastly grey pallor. Lengthy locks of equally black hair framed this ashen face, several long strands residing idly across the wan pelt as if blown there by a gentle breeze, despite the fact that there was no draught anywhere in this stark room. Izzy watched as the slit-like mouth curled into a smile, and the same tainted noise rang out again from his lips. The individual was chuckling, but to the squirming boy it seemed as if his very eardrums were being beaten with a pickaxe covered in sharp porcupine needles. He wriggled ineffectively against his stern bonds.
The voice ceased its horrific giggling, and for a few precious seconds silence reigned. Then the tall man in the white coat broke the refreshing quiescence and spoke. His voice was like brittle leaves on an Autumn zephyr, yet tinged with a profundity and depth that made him seem more tangible than those insubstantial wisps of nature could ever be.
"Awake now?"
It was a rhetorical question, but Izzy couldn't have answered even if he'd wanted to. His tongue felt fuzzy and thick against the roof of his mouth, and flopped about like a beached whale rather than do what he asked it to, so instead, he simply stared at the anomalous looking man who smiled and yet made him feel so uncomfortable. The red haired youth wished that he could turn away from that penetrating gaze, but his body was locked into position against what he now realised was a vertical metal table of some description, and his only solace was that he could avert his eyes.
This seemed to amuse the man, and a short burst of harsh laughter exited his mouth before he barked out ostentatiously; "Is it the one?"
Another, shorter man who Izzy hadn't noticed before, disconnected himself from the shadows of a computer terminal on the far side of what the boy now perceived to be a spacious, clinical room almost entirely made from metal. The walls, the floor, even the ceiling were all, if not constructed from it, then at least coated in strange alloys whose constitutions were undecipherable by sight alone. This other man also bore a white lab coat, although his was unbuttoned to reveal a red-checked shirt and faded jeans - not what one would expect a scientist to wear. His fair head was bent over a computer printout clutched in his hands, and he answered without looking up.
"Yes, sir."
"Wonderful."
Izzy's foggy brain struggled to comprehend what they were saying, but their dialogue was so sparse he had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. One thing was clear, however. These were the people who'd - although not themselves physically - kidnapped him and brought him to this strange place. The red haired youth forced his rebellious tongue to respond, and half grated, half coughed the words burning inside his fervent mind.
"Wha.... what's going on?"
The taller man turned to face him, a cruel smile hovering about his thin lips.
"It can talk already? Quite a little trooper, I gave it enough sedative to lay out an elephant for a week."
'It'? Why did the man call him 'it'?
"Brain activity's increasing by the second." The checked-shirt guy stated, peering closely at his readout. "According to these readings, it should be fully conscious and functional in about twenty minutes. Until then it'll be a little woozy, so be warned."
'It' again? What was he, a piece of meat? Why didn't they answer him? Izzy compelled his tongue to obey him once more.
"Where am ....:: cough ::.... I?"
The lofty man finally addressed his captive, voice stately and bass as it boomed from his throat. "Where? Why, home of course."
"Home?" Izzy repeated, not quite understanding what he heard. This wasn't his home; he'd been stolen from outside his home. Or at least his present residence at any rate. His questions were silenced, however, when the man added a careless comment that gave founding to several more muted queries.
"Well, your place of birth, anyway."
"This is a... a hospital?"
This elicited another surge of laughter. "I suppose you could look at it that way. But we're so much more than a simple hospital. We rebuild broken lives as well as broken bodies, you see. Miracle-makers, that's what they call us."
"I don't understand."
"No, well, you wouldn't, would you." The expression on the man's face twisted into a wry sneer. "You haven't been here for so long. It took us quite a while to track you down, actually, thanks to that fool. He messed up everything, but we'll soon set things right, especially since you're back in the fold now."
Izzy hardly understood a word of what was said. At least, he understood them, but their deeper meaning was lost on him. Messed up everything? Back in the fold? Track him down? The knot of dread tightened in his gut, and his throat began to constrict slightly as panic slowly seeped unbidden into his system. Who was this strange man, and what was this place he'd supposedly been born in? He wanted answers, but at the same time, he shrank from what he might learn should he receive them. Finally, beating down the feeling of foreboding, Izzy opened his mouth again and squeezed out what he wished to know.
"Who are you?"
"You don't know?" came the incredulous reply. "I must have done a better job hiding myself from the media then I thought. But why do you wish to know *my* identity? You'd be better off asking yourself about your own."
"My.... my own?"
"Yes." Those black eyes sparkled callously in the company of withheld knowledge, which Izzy so desperately sought to possess. "You think of yourself as the boy known as Izzy Izumi, don't you. But what if I was to tell you that you're not him, that you've been deceived all your life? What if I were to say that you don't really exist at all?"
Izzy simply gawped for a moment. Didn't exist? But how....? He found his tongue. "That's absurd! Of course I exist, I'm right here, living and breathing!"
"True, you exist in that sense," the man acknowledged with a curt nod, "But officially, you were never born."
"What?" exploded Izzy, immediately regretting the outburst as it caused his head to spin. Never born? But.... but that was impossible! He had a birthday, and knew the very hospital where he'd entered into the world sixteen years ago!
"If you'd ever investigated, you'd have found that there is no record of an Izzy Izumi at the medical institute you were told of," the man went on, seemingly uncaring about the veritable bombshell he'd just dropped on the red haired boy's world.
The fuzziness in Izzy's psyche prevented him from thinking clearly, and in its befuddled state; his mind clamped onto this titbit of information and held it fast until it echoed like a knell around his cranium. Never been born. He'd never been born? But then, how....? An idea niggled at the back of his brain, and he reluctantly recognized its cries. It couldn't be, could it? All those rumours, all those stories, could they hold a core of truth after all? Was this place....? Was this man before him....?
Dubiously, yet with a growing suspicion embedded deep in his stomach, Izzy wheezed only two words. "Oikawa Monato?"
"So you *do* recognise me?" the longhaired man riposted, ostensibly enjoying the youth's patent distress. Izzy's mind reeled at this flippant confirmation.
"Then this is.... MRC Headquarters." It was a statement, not a question, but the tall man now identified as the mysterious Doctor Oikawa Monato, director of MRC himself, supplied further commentary anyway.
"Yes, little one. This *is* Headquarters, and this *is* the site of your creation."
Creation? Didn't he mean birth? Izzy struggled to come to terms with what he was hearing. There had been so many rumours concerning the research giant that he'd lost track of which were fact and which were just idle gossip. Tales of genetically manufactured monsters coupled with breaking medical research swarmed through his brain leaving a trail of disrupted thought in their wake until, finally, in his already confused condition, Izzy's usually incisive mind simply gave up trying to grasp these images and his head flopped forward onto his bare chest.
"Did you get the sample?" Oikawa swivelled his attention back to his contemporary.
"Several," the fair-headed man replied. "It's quite a specimen. Output was off the chart even when it was unconscious, and the blood tests looked promising."
"But did you get enough? Can we continue with the next stage?" Oikawa's tone had switched to one of exigency, blatantly obvious beneath his cool exterior.
"Only a few more samples, that should be enough to grow new cells and still have some tissue left over for back-up. Then you can go onto the specimen-anatomy-analysis level."
"Good. We're making progress. This is long overdue, it was never meant to mature at all. Dissection was supposed to occur immediately after manufacture. Things would have been so much easier then, but that idiot had to go and mess things up! Still, I suppose we'll have to make do."
Izzy's brain was bleary, but not completely shut down, and it locked onto one utterance like a homing missile. Dissection? Didn't that mean....? Oh God, they wanted to cut him open to see what made him tick!
Part of his brain lurched up a feeble argument against this information. They couldn't do that, he was a human being, he had rights, to do that they'd have to.... to.... to kill him ....
To do that.... they'd have to kill him.
Kill him.
They were going to kill him.
A faint tingling set up in the back of Izzy's mind as this sentence sank in. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him, it seemed to whisper, whirling around his psyche like some deranged mantra. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. It covered his wits and tried to pull him under into its eddying current of panic.
Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.
They were going to murder him. In cold blood, slice him open and lay his internal organs for the world to see.
Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.
The back of Izzy's cranium began to prickle slightly as he mentally yanked himself from the sticky tar this panic was encasing him in, but the trickle was fast becoming a deluge, and even his usual common sense - hindered by the wooziness already affecting his thinking - wasn't enough to extricate him from this hideous mental gloop.
Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.
He needed to get out of here, away from this place where truths and lies were spun together into an impenetrable mesh that enveloped his being and suffocated his thoughts.
Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.
The tingling in his brain increased, he could almost *feel* the mesh wrapping around his head like a tangible net, garrotting him until he could barely breathe. Strands of fear laced across his throat, constricting the airway until his breath came in short, sharp gasps that heaved his ribcage and hurt his chest.
Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.
He could nearly *touch* the net encasing his head and filling his psyche with nothing but horror at the designs Oikawa and his associate had on him.
No, not on him, just on his body. His dead body.
Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.
No! The tingling in Izzy's brain increased slightly as his sentience made one last desperate attempt to escape the cloying lattice threatening to overtake him completely. It couldn't end like this. He wouldn't let it end like this! How dare these people decide his future for him! Who were they to determine when his existence should end? Who were they to mete out life and death?
Slender fibres of the youth's belligerent consciousness began to force their way through the harsh mesh around his wits, stretching slim diaphanous fingers through their invisible prison until a small hole appeared in the blind fear sheathing his soul.
And through this hole, Izzy screamed.
His mind shrieked, screeched its terror in a bold, indiscernible wave. Mixed with this came its struggles to meet with the other part of his brain, to unite with his intelligence and formulate a plan of action to remove him from this unspeakable place. To leave this supposed site of his formation.
Izzy was barely aware of his physical body; such was the turmoil raging within his skull. Yet vague sounds still perforated his mental battle. Voices, high and indistinct, tinctured with their own brand of panic.
"Sir, look! The readings! They're.... they're going haywire!"
"What? But how can that be?"
"I don't know, sir. But if we don't do something fast - "
"Damn! It must've progressed more then we realised as it matured! Quick, prepare a sedative!"
Muffled noises. Izzy ignored them, concentrating on the mêlée within, until a sharp prick in his arm alerted his floundering attention to the outside world once more. Quickly, a burning sensation crept up his constrained limb, spreading throughout his body and forcing him back into the psychological stupor he fought so hard to flee from. No! He couldn't go back! He wouldn't go back! To go back was to return to a slumber from which there was no waking. A sleep those people would take advantage of, and slit his gizzard as he lay helpless before them!
But the drug injected into his bloodstream completed its job with infallible precision, and there was nothing the red haired teenager could do prevent it short of stopping his own life-juice from flowing around his veins. Listlessly, pallid eyelids dragged darkness down over his fearful eyes, sheltering those staring irises with pale flaps of corporeal siesta. He was going under, surrendering under duress into an unnatural oblivion, and there wasn't anything he could do about it.... nothing.... nothing at all....
Slowly, even the hazy sounds of the world started to fade, and Izzy found himself floating on an ocean of induced sleep, half in and half out of the reality as the invading linctus dug its way into every last chink of being it could reach.
The waning boy couldn't see it, but in front of him, Oikawa was smiling. The self-satisfied smile that has graced the features of both tyrants and geniuses since the dawn of society itself. The same smile that always accompanies the prospect of new knowledge and challenges overcome. The smile that is not truly a smile at all.
Oikawa turned to his fair-haired companion, long hair swishing loudly in the silence and a victorious comment poised upon his emaciated lips. Triumph oozed from every pore of his ashen skin, and he opened his mouth to voice the penultimate order on his specimen's existence.
Suddenly, in a flash of blinding iridescence, the studded metal door to the stark room quite literally exploded. With a creak of rending steel, this metallic behemoth - specially designed to keep everyone and everything out unless specifically allowed to enter - blew off its enforced hinges and flew across the room with all the resistance of a feather to strike against the wall in a shower of glittering sparks. Both men whirled around, only to find themselves choking on a cloud of smoke that billowed into the space through the roughly hewn aperture. Swells of greyish smog leaked through the door, catching in the throats of all who inhaled it and causing coughing fits to inadvertently wrack their bodies.
As the pair of scientists laboured for breath, a figure stepped into the room. A tall individual clad from head to toe in black fabric reminiscent of ninjas of old, barely a sliver of skin showing anywhere. This person glanced fleetingly at the two men gasping in front of it, before sliding its eyes - hidden behind a thin film of gauze - over the computer terminal - damaged where the door had caught it - and across the smoky space to rest upon the vertical table on the far side of the room and its unconscious bounty. For a moment it cocked its head, as if listening to something nobody else could hear. Then, without further hesitation, it sprang forward, leaping past the wheezing form of the blonde assistant to land, cat like, next to the trussed red haired boy.
Whipping a small, almost key-like object from its belt, the mysterious character proceeded to insert it into the small control panel erstwhile concealed behind the perpendicular metal slab. Its gloved hand jerked once and retracted this miniscule tool. A short burst of flickering sparkles followed, incongruously pretty in the smoke-filled laboratory, and with a hollow clack each and every metal loop holding Izzy's body captive abruptly swung open. Released from his incarceration, yet once again subject to the whims of gravity, Izzy toppled forward - straight into the arms of the inexplicable stranger. Strong limbs gathered up the incapacitated youth, and the clandestine figure turned to bound across the room once more, ostensibly having retrieved what it came to that place for.
Halfway across the room, however, the pair of escapees were halted as a stalwart hand suddenly emerged as if from nowhere and ensnared the stranger's slim ankle in an iron-like grip. The dark figure stumbled slightly, swivelling its head round to fix its gaze on the pasty man holding it. Oikawa's expression was one of ill-concealed rage, and he positively growled like an infuriated beast at this unfamiliar person who dared to rob him of his prize.
If the enigmatic individual was intimidated by the gasping scientist then it didn't show it. Instead, it kicked him away with a strength incongruous to its slender limbs, using the force of the blow to twirl round, yank out a round article from its belt and hurl it against the floor in one fluid, graceful movement. The object exploded upon contact, sending forth yet more plumes of greyish smoke to merge with those already present from its departed brother, and provide adequate cover for the stranger to escape with its accolade.
Oikawa yelled his frustration and pain, clutching his forearm where the stranger's foot had struck him, and gagging somewhat on the curls of smog seeping into his mouth. Across the room, the blonde assistant wobbled upright and stood shakily among the clouds of haze. But instead of giving chase, he turned to the smashed computer. Beside the broken console sat a large red button - thankfully unharmed - and the fair-haired man brought his fist down hard on it. At once sirens began to blare, and all across the MRC nerve centre, a deep electronic voice boomed through the tannoy.
"Intruder alert! Intruder Alert!"
Everywhere, MRC employees immediately dropped what they were doing and sprang into action like a well-oiled machine. Exits were blocked and corridors filled as hundreds of loyal workers spewed out to dutifully catch the alien amongst them. Nobody knew quite who this person was, or how the trespasser had gained access to the highly guarded compound, but all united in their quest to find this interloper as quickly as possible.
A multitude of voices clamoured the length of the narrow halls, but the stranger remained unfound, and after many minutes the search still continued, ostensibly ineffectively. Fruitlessly the employees searched, but when the mysterious gatecrasher nonetheless remained unfound, many murmurings commenced as to whether they'd failed in their task and he'd escaped, or whether this was merely a false alarm and there *was* no intruder.
Yet in truth, their quarry was always close by. So close it was completely invisible. In all the commotion, a faint clanking above the heads of those fervent pursuers went completely unnoticed, lost amongst the racket. If any of them had thought to look up, they probably would have guessed at the refuge their prey had taken in its flight.
Silent as the wind and twice as fast, Izzy's mysterious rescuer travelled with him through the ventilation system embedded in the ceiling. It was almost inhuman how speedily they travelled, and where there appeared to be no room to pass, the stranger somehow found a way through. In all probability, even if they had been detected by one of the flurrying hunters below, they could never have been caught anyway thanks to their incredible pace and apparently flawless sense of direction.
Eventually they reached their intended destination. A roughly hewn aperture through both the side of the shaft and the brick wall beyond served as their exit, and a rope attached to the fringe of the self-made opening their escape route. With seamless grace and unfathomable suppleness in the enclosed space, the stranger heaved Izzy's unconscious body across its shoulders in a fireman's lift and grabbed the rope tightly in one hand. With a quick shove of its long legs they were launched out of the hole and into the open air beyond.
Izzy had never been particularly fond of heights, so perhaps it was kinder that he couldn't see what was going on at that moment. From where the boy was perched, his closed eyes held a perfect view of the side of the wall his liberator now proceeded to stylishly abseil down - all twenty stories of it.
But the stranger was undaunted, and in the blink of an eye the two had arrived at the bottom. The masked individual then showed a partiality for planning, as it whipped an insignificant cigarette lighter from that marvellous belt and ignited it beneath the rope. With a faint 'whoosh', the rope burst into flames as its kerosene-soaked hide caught fire.
This burst of brightness obviously attracted attention very quickly, and a veritable army appeared on the scene in minutes. But when they did, all they found were the smouldering remains of their quarry's escape method. The gathered men and women exchanged puzzled glances, but the roar of an engine behind them signalled where the seemingly invisible pair had gone. The sight of a jaggedly snipped hole in the wire perimeter fence and a motorbike speeding away across the desolate tract surrounding the compound confirmed this suspicion, and as one, the assembled hunters let out a defeated sigh. They knew they couldn't hope to catch the duo on foot, and no doubt units were already being despatched to follow across the wasteland that stretched for miles in every direction.
A single communal thought hung in the air - unvoiced yet loud enough in each person's mind to merit someone having shouted it. They had failed in their responsibility. The intruder had escaped.
The crowd of beaten employees quietly filed back into the building, whilst nearby, several jeeps and other assorted vehicles were released from their garages to rocket away in chase of the prey their land-based counterparts had failed to apprehend and retrieve. No one spoke a word as they entered into their workplace, the warning siren still resounding ineffectually through the disheartened ambience.
In the distance, the snarl of engines echoed across the barren landscape, and a nebulous dust cloud was the only indication that anything was abroad that night. Even as one watched, this too disappeared. Swallowed into the darkness to play out its drama unwatched by curious eyes.
The siren at length ceased, the doors were closed, and all became silent once more.
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*To Be Continued...*
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February 2003
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"Fate and Destiny" By Scribbler
Chapter Three ~ "When Questions Are Asked"
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"Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing." -- Engineer's Motto
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A grey mist rolled across the landscape. Thick and nebulous, it enveloped everything in its path. Light and dark were one and the same behind this dense, indefinable fog. All it touched became naught but hazy, vague shapes - some recognisable, others totally alien to anything conceivable by mere human imagine.
There was nothing but fog. It swathed everything. It *was* everything. The entire universe was nothing but an opaque, dreary miasma....
//I'm coming//
What was that? A voice?
//I'm coming//
It *was* a voice. Disconnected and androgynous, yet close at hand all the same. But how could a voice be here? How could he hear it through this cloying mist?
//Don't give up hope//
Unfamiliar. Strange. Who was it?
//Never lose hope//
"Who are you?"
//You know//
"I know you? How? Where am I? What is this place?"
//Help approaches....//
"Please, tell me. Who are you?"
//You know.... inside//
It was fading. Waning away into soft nothingness. Then, he was falling. Panic! He didn't want to fall! He wanted that strange, sweet voice to speak more. To whisper gentle utterances of comfort into his diaphanous ear for eternity and longer.
"Wait! Come back! Don't leave me here, please. I have to know!" He yelled desperately.
//But.... you already know.... inside//
Falling, falling, into the abyss, where no light ever shines and nothing can ever live. Down, down into the dark void that swallows souls ripped from their earthly bodies like some hellish beast of legend.
"Please...."
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Izzy returned to consciousness with a groan. His body ached all over, but especially in the little hollow at the base of his skull. Invisible needles lanced through his nervous system as he twitched his head in response to the pain, and he immediately froze lest he cause himself more damage that way.
Memories floated haphazardly around his fuggy brain, still disorientated from its induced slumber, and the boy struggled to latch onto one of them. Images of laying on his back whilst looking up at the starry night sky filled his mind, then darkness as intense pain flared inside his cranium from.... from.... a blow. A hit on his head. Recollections peppered his muddled psyche in no distinguishable order, and Izzy strained to understand at least some of what he saw, with little discernable success.
Relinquishing his throbbing and disorderly memories for a moment, Izzy decided to take stock of his current predicament instead. He was lying on his back again, that much was certain even with his eyes closed, yet he had the distinct impression that he wasn't lying *down* as such, just.... lying. Cool steel pressed against his spine, and the red haired youth realised with a jolt that he had no shirt on. The air hung unpleasantly cold around him, giving rise to quivering gooseflesh along his arms. Izzy attempted to wrap his stiff upper limbs around his body to preserve some semblance of warmth, but his arms refused to cooperate, remaining forcibly where they were - stretched out above his head - wrists touching strange metal manacles when he tried to lift them. With an odd sinking feeling deep in his gut Izzy attempted the same manoeuvre with his legs, achieving much the same result. A pair of metal cuffs adorned his ankles, and two more around his waist and neck completed the outlandish set of jewellery, essentially pinning him to the flat surface his skin was now pressed against.
All this he gleaned from touch alone, still too disorientated to open his eyes. A faint swish abruptly hummed through the static space, followed by hollow tapping like heels on metal flooring. The sinking feeling transformed into a sizable lump of dread, and Izzy at last forced his aching eyelids open.
At once, his pupils were assaulted with a flash of light so bright that he was blinded for several seconds and couldn't be sure whether he'd shut his eyes again. Gradually, though, this sightlessness resided, leaving only greenish spots, which danced across his vision like unruly fireflies trapped within his pounding eyeballs. Izzy blinked several times, but these lucid artistes refused to dissipate from their preferred stage.
A harsh sound suddenly cut through the air, eliciting a change in the atmosphere to one of palpable trepidation as it echoed off the - presumably metal - walls. Caught somewhere between a laugh and a growl, the noise ricocheted into the boy's ears and resonated around the inside of his brain like a bullet, which didn't help his aching skull one little bit.
The tapping drew closer, and then halted a few feet away. Through the fog of glowing dots Izzy distinguished a pair of feet in his peripheral vision. Feet clad in smart black shoes - designer probably. They stood apart at an angle which immediately denoted the confidence of the owner's stance, and the dark-eyed youth raised his rapidly clearing gaze to look upon the proprietor of this fashionable footwear.
His line of sight slowly travelled up the acutely creased dark trousers, noting the well-ironed white lab coat that hung from the newcomer's gaunt frame. A scientist then, or someone to that effect. The coat was buttoned at the chest, which itself was wide and bordered by broad shoulders. The newcomer's hands were thrust deep into the coat's pockets, and his thick neck rose confidently from out of the pale collar. Izzy raised his sight once more, and found himself staring into eyes as dark as his own - which was unusual since his eye-colour was the result of an irreversible genetic defect that made the irises exactly the same colour as the pupils. His parents had taken him for many tests when he was younger to correct this imperfection, but the doctors hadn't been able to do a thing without perhaps blinding him. Cosmetic surgery had improved over the years, but not by that much.
The eyes Izzy now gazed into - albeit rather dazedly - were as black as black could be, and set in leathery skin of a ghastly grey pallor. Lengthy locks of equally black hair framed this ashen face, several long strands residing idly across the wan pelt as if blown there by a gentle breeze, despite the fact that there was no draught anywhere in this stark room. Izzy watched as the slit-like mouth curled into a smile, and the same tainted noise rang out again from his lips. The individual was chuckling, but to the squirming boy it seemed as if his very eardrums were being beaten with a pickaxe covered in sharp porcupine needles. He wriggled ineffectively against his stern bonds.
The voice ceased its horrific giggling, and for a few precious seconds silence reigned. Then the tall man in the white coat broke the refreshing quiescence and spoke. His voice was like brittle leaves on an Autumn zephyr, yet tinged with a profundity and depth that made him seem more tangible than those insubstantial wisps of nature could ever be.
"Awake now?"
It was a rhetorical question, but Izzy couldn't have answered even if he'd wanted to. His tongue felt fuzzy and thick against the roof of his mouth, and flopped about like a beached whale rather than do what he asked it to, so instead, he simply stared at the anomalous looking man who smiled and yet made him feel so uncomfortable. The red haired youth wished that he could turn away from that penetrating gaze, but his body was locked into position against what he now realised was a vertical metal table of some description, and his only solace was that he could avert his eyes.
This seemed to amuse the man, and a short burst of harsh laughter exited his mouth before he barked out ostentatiously; "Is it the one?"
Another, shorter man who Izzy hadn't noticed before, disconnected himself from the shadows of a computer terminal on the far side of what the boy now perceived to be a spacious, clinical room almost entirely made from metal. The walls, the floor, even the ceiling were all, if not constructed from it, then at least coated in strange alloys whose constitutions were undecipherable by sight alone. This other man also bore a white lab coat, although his was unbuttoned to reveal a red-checked shirt and faded jeans - not what one would expect a scientist to wear. His fair head was bent over a computer printout clutched in his hands, and he answered without looking up.
"Yes, sir."
"Wonderful."
Izzy's foggy brain struggled to comprehend what they were saying, but their dialogue was so sparse he had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. One thing was clear, however. These were the people who'd - although not themselves physically - kidnapped him and brought him to this strange place. The red haired youth forced his rebellious tongue to respond, and half grated, half coughed the words burning inside his fervent mind.
"Wha.... what's going on?"
The taller man turned to face him, a cruel smile hovering about his thin lips.
"It can talk already? Quite a little trooper, I gave it enough sedative to lay out an elephant for a week."
'It'? Why did the man call him 'it'?
"Brain activity's increasing by the second." The checked-shirt guy stated, peering closely at his readout. "According to these readings, it should be fully conscious and functional in about twenty minutes. Until then it'll be a little woozy, so be warned."
'It' again? What was he, a piece of meat? Why didn't they answer him? Izzy compelled his tongue to obey him once more.
"Where am ....:: cough ::.... I?"
The lofty man finally addressed his captive, voice stately and bass as it boomed from his throat. "Where? Why, home of course."
"Home?" Izzy repeated, not quite understanding what he heard. This wasn't his home; he'd been stolen from outside his home. Or at least his present residence at any rate. His questions were silenced, however, when the man added a careless comment that gave founding to several more muted queries.
"Well, your place of birth, anyway."
"This is a... a hospital?"
This elicited another surge of laughter. "I suppose you could look at it that way. But we're so much more than a simple hospital. We rebuild broken lives as well as broken bodies, you see. Miracle-makers, that's what they call us."
"I don't understand."
"No, well, you wouldn't, would you." The expression on the man's face twisted into a wry sneer. "You haven't been here for so long. It took us quite a while to track you down, actually, thanks to that fool. He messed up everything, but we'll soon set things right, especially since you're back in the fold now."
Izzy hardly understood a word of what was said. At least, he understood them, but their deeper meaning was lost on him. Messed up everything? Back in the fold? Track him down? The knot of dread tightened in his gut, and his throat began to constrict slightly as panic slowly seeped unbidden into his system. Who was this strange man, and what was this place he'd supposedly been born in? He wanted answers, but at the same time, he shrank from what he might learn should he receive them. Finally, beating down the feeling of foreboding, Izzy opened his mouth again and squeezed out what he wished to know.
"Who are you?"
"You don't know?" came the incredulous reply. "I must have done a better job hiding myself from the media then I thought. But why do you wish to know *my* identity? You'd be better off asking yourself about your own."
"My.... my own?"
"Yes." Those black eyes sparkled callously in the company of withheld knowledge, which Izzy so desperately sought to possess. "You think of yourself as the boy known as Izzy Izumi, don't you. But what if I was to tell you that you're not him, that you've been deceived all your life? What if I were to say that you don't really exist at all?"
Izzy simply gawped for a moment. Didn't exist? But how....? He found his tongue. "That's absurd! Of course I exist, I'm right here, living and breathing!"
"True, you exist in that sense," the man acknowledged with a curt nod, "But officially, you were never born."
"What?" exploded Izzy, immediately regretting the outburst as it caused his head to spin. Never born? But.... but that was impossible! He had a birthday, and knew the very hospital where he'd entered into the world sixteen years ago!
"If you'd ever investigated, you'd have found that there is no record of an Izzy Izumi at the medical institute you were told of," the man went on, seemingly uncaring about the veritable bombshell he'd just dropped on the red haired boy's world.
The fuzziness in Izzy's psyche prevented him from thinking clearly, and in its befuddled state; his mind clamped onto this titbit of information and held it fast until it echoed like a knell around his cranium. Never been born. He'd never been born? But then, how....? An idea niggled at the back of his brain, and he reluctantly recognized its cries. It couldn't be, could it? All those rumours, all those stories, could they hold a core of truth after all? Was this place....? Was this man before him....?
Dubiously, yet with a growing suspicion embedded deep in his stomach, Izzy wheezed only two words. "Oikawa Monato?"
"So you *do* recognise me?" the longhaired man riposted, ostensibly enjoying the youth's patent distress. Izzy's mind reeled at this flippant confirmation.
"Then this is.... MRC Headquarters." It was a statement, not a question, but the tall man now identified as the mysterious Doctor Oikawa Monato, director of MRC himself, supplied further commentary anyway.
"Yes, little one. This *is* Headquarters, and this *is* the site of your creation."
Creation? Didn't he mean birth? Izzy struggled to come to terms with what he was hearing. There had been so many rumours concerning the research giant that he'd lost track of which were fact and which were just idle gossip. Tales of genetically manufactured monsters coupled with breaking medical research swarmed through his brain leaving a trail of disrupted thought in their wake until, finally, in his already confused condition, Izzy's usually incisive mind simply gave up trying to grasp these images and his head flopped forward onto his bare chest.
"Did you get the sample?" Oikawa swivelled his attention back to his contemporary.
"Several," the fair-headed man replied. "It's quite a specimen. Output was off the chart even when it was unconscious, and the blood tests looked promising."
"But did you get enough? Can we continue with the next stage?" Oikawa's tone had switched to one of exigency, blatantly obvious beneath his cool exterior.
"Only a few more samples, that should be enough to grow new cells and still have some tissue left over for back-up. Then you can go onto the specimen-anatomy-analysis level."
"Good. We're making progress. This is long overdue, it was never meant to mature at all. Dissection was supposed to occur immediately after manufacture. Things would have been so much easier then, but that idiot had to go and mess things up! Still, I suppose we'll have to make do."
Izzy's brain was bleary, but not completely shut down, and it locked onto one utterance like a homing missile. Dissection? Didn't that mean....? Oh God, they wanted to cut him open to see what made him tick!
Part of his brain lurched up a feeble argument against this information. They couldn't do that, he was a human being, he had rights, to do that they'd have to.... to.... to kill him ....
To do that.... they'd have to kill him.
Kill him.
They were going to kill him.
A faint tingling set up in the back of Izzy's mind as this sentence sank in. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him, it seemed to whisper, whirling around his psyche like some deranged mantra. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. It covered his wits and tried to pull him under into its eddying current of panic.
Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.
They were going to murder him. In cold blood, slice him open and lay his internal organs for the world to see.
Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.
The back of Izzy's cranium began to prickle slightly as he mentally yanked himself from the sticky tar this panic was encasing him in, but the trickle was fast becoming a deluge, and even his usual common sense - hindered by the wooziness already affecting his thinking - wasn't enough to extricate him from this hideous mental gloop.
Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.
He needed to get out of here, away from this place where truths and lies were spun together into an impenetrable mesh that enveloped his being and suffocated his thoughts.
Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.
The tingling in his brain increased, he could almost *feel* the mesh wrapping around his head like a tangible net, garrotting him until he could barely breathe. Strands of fear laced across his throat, constricting the airway until his breath came in short, sharp gasps that heaved his ribcage and hurt his chest.
Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.
He could nearly *touch* the net encasing his head and filling his psyche with nothing but horror at the designs Oikawa and his associate had on him.
No, not on him, just on his body. His dead body.
Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.
No! The tingling in Izzy's brain increased slightly as his sentience made one last desperate attempt to escape the cloying lattice threatening to overtake him completely. It couldn't end like this. He wouldn't let it end like this! How dare these people decide his future for him! Who were they to determine when his existence should end? Who were they to mete out life and death?
Slender fibres of the youth's belligerent consciousness began to force their way through the harsh mesh around his wits, stretching slim diaphanous fingers through their invisible prison until a small hole appeared in the blind fear sheathing his soul.
And through this hole, Izzy screamed.
His mind shrieked, screeched its terror in a bold, indiscernible wave. Mixed with this came its struggles to meet with the other part of his brain, to unite with his intelligence and formulate a plan of action to remove him from this unspeakable place. To leave this supposed site of his formation.
Izzy was barely aware of his physical body; such was the turmoil raging within his skull. Yet vague sounds still perforated his mental battle. Voices, high and indistinct, tinctured with their own brand of panic.
"Sir, look! The readings! They're.... they're going haywire!"
"What? But how can that be?"
"I don't know, sir. But if we don't do something fast - "
"Damn! It must've progressed more then we realised as it matured! Quick, prepare a sedative!"
Muffled noises. Izzy ignored them, concentrating on the mêlée within, until a sharp prick in his arm alerted his floundering attention to the outside world once more. Quickly, a burning sensation crept up his constrained limb, spreading throughout his body and forcing him back into the psychological stupor he fought so hard to flee from. No! He couldn't go back! He wouldn't go back! To go back was to return to a slumber from which there was no waking. A sleep those people would take advantage of, and slit his gizzard as he lay helpless before them!
But the drug injected into his bloodstream completed its job with infallible precision, and there was nothing the red haired teenager could do prevent it short of stopping his own life-juice from flowing around his veins. Listlessly, pallid eyelids dragged darkness down over his fearful eyes, sheltering those staring irises with pale flaps of corporeal siesta. He was going under, surrendering under duress into an unnatural oblivion, and there wasn't anything he could do about it.... nothing.... nothing at all....
Slowly, even the hazy sounds of the world started to fade, and Izzy found himself floating on an ocean of induced sleep, half in and half out of the reality as the invading linctus dug its way into every last chink of being it could reach.
The waning boy couldn't see it, but in front of him, Oikawa was smiling. The self-satisfied smile that has graced the features of both tyrants and geniuses since the dawn of society itself. The same smile that always accompanies the prospect of new knowledge and challenges overcome. The smile that is not truly a smile at all.
Oikawa turned to his fair-haired companion, long hair swishing loudly in the silence and a victorious comment poised upon his emaciated lips. Triumph oozed from every pore of his ashen skin, and he opened his mouth to voice the penultimate order on his specimen's existence.
Suddenly, in a flash of blinding iridescence, the studded metal door to the stark room quite literally exploded. With a creak of rending steel, this metallic behemoth - specially designed to keep everyone and everything out unless specifically allowed to enter - blew off its enforced hinges and flew across the room with all the resistance of a feather to strike against the wall in a shower of glittering sparks. Both men whirled around, only to find themselves choking on a cloud of smoke that billowed into the space through the roughly hewn aperture. Swells of greyish smog leaked through the door, catching in the throats of all who inhaled it and causing coughing fits to inadvertently wrack their bodies.
As the pair of scientists laboured for breath, a figure stepped into the room. A tall individual clad from head to toe in black fabric reminiscent of ninjas of old, barely a sliver of skin showing anywhere. This person glanced fleetingly at the two men gasping in front of it, before sliding its eyes - hidden behind a thin film of gauze - over the computer terminal - damaged where the door had caught it - and across the smoky space to rest upon the vertical table on the far side of the room and its unconscious bounty. For a moment it cocked its head, as if listening to something nobody else could hear. Then, without further hesitation, it sprang forward, leaping past the wheezing form of the blonde assistant to land, cat like, next to the trussed red haired boy.
Whipping a small, almost key-like object from its belt, the mysterious character proceeded to insert it into the small control panel erstwhile concealed behind the perpendicular metal slab. Its gloved hand jerked once and retracted this miniscule tool. A short burst of flickering sparkles followed, incongruously pretty in the smoke-filled laboratory, and with a hollow clack each and every metal loop holding Izzy's body captive abruptly swung open. Released from his incarceration, yet once again subject to the whims of gravity, Izzy toppled forward - straight into the arms of the inexplicable stranger. Strong limbs gathered up the incapacitated youth, and the clandestine figure turned to bound across the room once more, ostensibly having retrieved what it came to that place for.
Halfway across the room, however, the pair of escapees were halted as a stalwart hand suddenly emerged as if from nowhere and ensnared the stranger's slim ankle in an iron-like grip. The dark figure stumbled slightly, swivelling its head round to fix its gaze on the pasty man holding it. Oikawa's expression was one of ill-concealed rage, and he positively growled like an infuriated beast at this unfamiliar person who dared to rob him of his prize.
If the enigmatic individual was intimidated by the gasping scientist then it didn't show it. Instead, it kicked him away with a strength incongruous to its slender limbs, using the force of the blow to twirl round, yank out a round article from its belt and hurl it against the floor in one fluid, graceful movement. The object exploded upon contact, sending forth yet more plumes of greyish smoke to merge with those already present from its departed brother, and provide adequate cover for the stranger to escape with its accolade.
Oikawa yelled his frustration and pain, clutching his forearm where the stranger's foot had struck him, and gagging somewhat on the curls of smog seeping into his mouth. Across the room, the blonde assistant wobbled upright and stood shakily among the clouds of haze. But instead of giving chase, he turned to the smashed computer. Beside the broken console sat a large red button - thankfully unharmed - and the fair-haired man brought his fist down hard on it. At once sirens began to blare, and all across the MRC nerve centre, a deep electronic voice boomed through the tannoy.
"Intruder alert! Intruder Alert!"
Everywhere, MRC employees immediately dropped what they were doing and sprang into action like a well-oiled machine. Exits were blocked and corridors filled as hundreds of loyal workers spewed out to dutifully catch the alien amongst them. Nobody knew quite who this person was, or how the trespasser had gained access to the highly guarded compound, but all united in their quest to find this interloper as quickly as possible.
A multitude of voices clamoured the length of the narrow halls, but the stranger remained unfound, and after many minutes the search still continued, ostensibly ineffectively. Fruitlessly the employees searched, but when the mysterious gatecrasher nonetheless remained unfound, many murmurings commenced as to whether they'd failed in their task and he'd escaped, or whether this was merely a false alarm and there *was* no intruder.
Yet in truth, their quarry was always close by. So close it was completely invisible. In all the commotion, a faint clanking above the heads of those fervent pursuers went completely unnoticed, lost amongst the racket. If any of them had thought to look up, they probably would have guessed at the refuge their prey had taken in its flight.
Silent as the wind and twice as fast, Izzy's mysterious rescuer travelled with him through the ventilation system embedded in the ceiling. It was almost inhuman how speedily they travelled, and where there appeared to be no room to pass, the stranger somehow found a way through. In all probability, even if they had been detected by one of the flurrying hunters below, they could never have been caught anyway thanks to their incredible pace and apparently flawless sense of direction.
Eventually they reached their intended destination. A roughly hewn aperture through both the side of the shaft and the brick wall beyond served as their exit, and a rope attached to the fringe of the self-made opening their escape route. With seamless grace and unfathomable suppleness in the enclosed space, the stranger heaved Izzy's unconscious body across its shoulders in a fireman's lift and grabbed the rope tightly in one hand. With a quick shove of its long legs they were launched out of the hole and into the open air beyond.
Izzy had never been particularly fond of heights, so perhaps it was kinder that he couldn't see what was going on at that moment. From where the boy was perched, his closed eyes held a perfect view of the side of the wall his liberator now proceeded to stylishly abseil down - all twenty stories of it.
But the stranger was undaunted, and in the blink of an eye the two had arrived at the bottom. The masked individual then showed a partiality for planning, as it whipped an insignificant cigarette lighter from that marvellous belt and ignited it beneath the rope. With a faint 'whoosh', the rope burst into flames as its kerosene-soaked hide caught fire.
This burst of brightness obviously attracted attention very quickly, and a veritable army appeared on the scene in minutes. But when they did, all they found were the smouldering remains of their quarry's escape method. The gathered men and women exchanged puzzled glances, but the roar of an engine behind them signalled where the seemingly invisible pair had gone. The sight of a jaggedly snipped hole in the wire perimeter fence and a motorbike speeding away across the desolate tract surrounding the compound confirmed this suspicion, and as one, the assembled hunters let out a defeated sigh. They knew they couldn't hope to catch the duo on foot, and no doubt units were already being despatched to follow across the wasteland that stretched for miles in every direction.
A single communal thought hung in the air - unvoiced yet loud enough in each person's mind to merit someone having shouted it. They had failed in their responsibility. The intruder had escaped.
The crowd of beaten employees quietly filed back into the building, whilst nearby, several jeeps and other assorted vehicles were released from their garages to rocket away in chase of the prey their land-based counterparts had failed to apprehend and retrieve. No one spoke a word as they entered into their workplace, the warning siren still resounding ineffectually through the disheartened ambience.
In the distance, the snarl of engines echoed across the barren landscape, and a nebulous dust cloud was the only indication that anything was abroad that night. Even as one watched, this too disappeared. Swallowed into the darkness to play out its drama unwatched by curious eyes.
The siren at length ceased, the doors were closed, and all became silent once more.
___________________
*To Be Continued...*