Meh, I think the descriptions in this chapter could be a lot smoother.
WARNINGS: This chapter contains physical and psychological child abuse, metaphorical rape, torture, detailed threats, sociopathic doctors, and bad jokes.
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Sides
of the Same Coin
Interlude:
Destiny Alteration
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The technician—his promotion had been too recent for him to call himself "Sorcerer"—sat ready at his station, checking and re-checking the dials on his console. All the readouts were within the acceptable margins, all the valves were in their correct positions, all the tubing and cords were firmly attached and free of kinks. Everything was in place. He had gone over every inch of the equipment so many times that it would have to be, unless super-intelligent rats had sabotaged it in the past minute. Which, he mused, was a slim possibility. The lab rodents were kept in another wing of the building.
The subject was late. The technician had been told that the procedure would begin half an hour ago, and no one had even come to tell him the reason for the delay or how soon it would be over. He doubted that the procedure would be cancelled. This particular program had been in the works for over three years, and the Emperor leaned ever more heavily on his Sorcerous staff to produce fast results. At most, there would be a short postponement while whatever problems that had interfered with tonight's session were rectified. Even if the current subject was lost, there were plenty more candidates.
Although, the man reflected, this particular subject was above and beyond the best they had seen. Raised in privilege, the girl was physically very healthy and resilient. Raised to be a lady, she was sweet and naïve, if a bit troublesome at times. The technician had often wondered where she had come from. The children of Zaibach were too often weak and malnourished. Either that, or the pressures of life forced them to become adults, effectively robbing their psyches of their childhood malleability.
Maybe this terrible experiment wouldn't be such a moral failure, he hoped. Maybe the results would help secure a better future for the people of Zaibach. Surely if many children were no longer hungry, the sacrifice of one girl would be a small thing.
Looking at the door for the fifteenth time, the technician sighed. He didn't even have the superior, consumed expression of the lead Sorcerer to keep him company. The head of the project had left the room after the first five minutes, gone to see for himself what was keeping the girl. The technician pitied whoever it was.
He turned his gaze to the central feature of the room: the slab. It was a favorite of the Sorcerers. For this particular occasion, the stainless steel table had been rotated on its axis into a nearly vertical standing position, and another flat piece of metal had been attached perpendicularly across the bottom of the slab about a foot and a half from the end. Strapped to the cold hard surface as always, the subject now would be standing on her own but within easy reach of the adult Sorcerers. The slab faced the empty end of the room, which waited like any good theater to be filled. The girl was to have the front-row seat.
In contrast to the stark empty space in front of the slab—bare metal walls interrupted only by rivets—the space behind the slab and to its sides contained the most impressive array of equipment the technician had yet to see. Immediately surrounding the slab was a system of fine tubes nearly arboreal in complexity and number, which ended in tiny clear cups that, like flowers, contained a single, needle-pointed stamen in the center. Flowing backwards from the slab, the tubes were roped together in increasingly larger bundles, reaching back to their source like veins. Six waist-high cylinders ranged across the back of the room to the technician's left. The tubes sprung forth from the tops of the cylinders, whose iron-encased glassy surface allowed one to monitor the interior liquid. Each contained the same thing: a bubbling chalky whiteness.
From behind the cylinders, electrical cords fed into their bases. These in turn were heaped in bundles and connected to several sockets in the wall. There were dials on the cylinders, but the technician had only checked them to make sure they matched the dials on his console, which was connected to the cylinders by yet more cords. The entire apparatus took up the better part of fifty square yards, and this was the streamlined version. And it was not even all the equipment needed for this procedure.
Destiny alteration required one more essential tool: the serum. Sitting on a small rolling table, just five feet from the slab, was disinfectant, sanitary gloves and a deceptively simple syringe. In an incubator near the door was the serum itself, kept steadily at human body temperature in a small jar. The thermometer above the door and the independent thermometer inside agreed, upon the fifth inspection.
Yes. Everything was ready.
As he was making for his seat for the seventh time that hour, the door opened suddenly, surprising the technician. First strode through the lead Sorcerer, a calm mask belying his furious eyes. He was a gaunt, tall man, with graying hair and permanently stony expression. His long black robes ghosted over the floor as he went immediately to the slab and checked all the restraints. The technician privately hoped that, when he was promoted to full robes, he would look less like a giant bat than his superior.
Two guards struggled through the doorway, carrying a flailing girl of seven between them. They forced her against the slab and held her limbs in place as the Sorcerer buckled the leather straps closed. As soon as the last lock clicked shut and the guards left the room, the girl quit struggling and just hung in her bonds, sobbing quietly with her chin against her chest.
The Sorcerer nodded to the technician, who flicked several switches in succession. The dials of two of the six cylinders lit up, and the liquid within flowed outward through the tubes, pushed onward by a rattling hum and the strangely life-like exhalations of the pumping mechanism. The liquid made the tubes jump to life, as if they too were struggling to escape.
The Sorcerer nodded again and the swarm of flower-ended filaments pushed forward and down, moving to encircle the subject. Their attention frightened her. She began to struggle again, vainly trying to put distance between herself and the curious, undead tentacles.
"Don't be afraid. They won't bite." The Sorcerer nodded again. As the technician smoothly turned a knob, the tubes advanced, resting their smooth, hard cups on the subject's skin: at her temples, her neck, up and down the inside of her arms, her ankles, her stomach. As each flower landed, it gave the girl an uncomfortable sucking kiss, keeping itself firmly in place. Some tubes even insinuated themselves under her loose, tattered clothing, resting their heads far too close to her more vulnerable bones and organs. Now she was trembling on the slab, eyes squeezed shut.
She could see the unfeeling heads burrowing into her, feel them burrow into her, at the same time as the suction made her afraid of being pulled in every direction until her skin ripped off. Every muscle was contracted.
The initiation of the procedure was almost complete. The lead Sorcerer, after inspecting the tubing and cups, turned his back on the girl. He pulled the gloves off the table and onto his hands, and took a disinfectant pad from its immaculate container. Turning back to the trembling subject, he rubbed the pad on inner crook of her left elbow. She flinched at the touch.
Leaving her side, the Sorcerer strode to the incubator and opened the sealed door. Shutting it behind him again, he took the jar of serum in one hand, inverted it, and pierced the membrane with the needle in his other hand. As he pulled the plunger, a strange liquid filled the syringe. At first it seemed colorless, but as there was more and more of it, it became a deeper reddish color. As the Sorcerer set the syringe on the table and the jar back in the incubator, the technician could swear that he saw the color in both containers pulse at the same moment.
At some point the technician hadn't noticed, the girl had opened her eyes, and was staring fearfully at the Sorcerer. As he strode towards her with the prepared syringe, her expression became apprehensive. She had never seen such an apparatus before, but it didn't look pleasant.
The technician watched as the Sorcerer grasped the girl's arm in his left hand, and pressed his thumb down to find a vein. He smoothly pierced her flesh with the needle, ignoring the girl's whimpering and holding her tense arm steady. Her distress noises increased as the liquid was injected into her body.
Removing the syringe from her arm, the Sorcerer looked to the technician. "Lights," he commanded. The man behind the controls nodded, and dimmed the harsh glare of the room to a low, almost blind dusk. As his eyes adjusted, he watched the lights of the cylinders blink steadily in the darkness.
Still whimpering, the girl didn't seem to notice what was now happening to her arm: in the dimness, the technician and Sorcerer both could see a phosphorescent glow begin to spread down her arm from her elbow. It took on the same color as her skin, a pinkish paleness resulting from living indoors this past year.
At first it only lit her veins. The technician watched in rapt fascination as the delicate vessels in her hand and wrist slowly lit up, watched as the light increased bit by bit to extend, split as the veins branched out, and fade to a uniform glow in her fingertips as the veins became too small to differentiate.
Once the hand had lit up, it took a while for there to be any more visible progress. The serum was traveling too deep inside, the technician knew. Once it got to her heart, however, it would spread with amazing rapidity.
During the wait, the Sorcerer went out for coffee and the technician continued to check his equipment.
With no warning, the subject opened her eyes, saw her arm, and gave out a terrified shriek. It startled the technician. It became even more unnerving as the shriek turned to a wail, seemingly without reason. However, just as the technician was going to call his superior, he saw the glow spreading out over the girl's body from the center outward. Her torso lit up first, and then her limbs and neck, finishing with her face, feet and right hand.
She looks like some kind of magical creature, the young man thought. Ethereal, like she's going to disappear. Well, that's appropriate. She is going to disappear.
He pushed the button that would let the Sorcerer know his subject was ready. The man returned, giving quiet instructions to two guards in the hallway. The technician didn't hear what was said, but he had a fairly good idea of what was going to happen.
The Sorcerer closed the door and strode into the room. Kneeling before the subject, he began to speak to her.
"It's not a very nice place to be, is it? I'm sorry we had to do all this, but it's going to help you, and lots of other kids."
"I wanna go home."
"I know, I know, it's scary. But you're a big girl, aren't you? And you're brave and good and smart. You did amazingly well on all the tests, you know."
She sniffed, and looked at the man's face for the first time. "I did?"
"Yes. You scored higher than all the other children we've tested, and they were some of the best kids I've seen. I think you're quite possibly the smartest, strongest and bravest child I've met."
With each honeyed word, the girl's panic quieted, and something else began to happen. The glow emanating from her brightened. It brightened enough to fill the room, turning the wall behind the slab into a grotesque tangle of shadows. The technician was pleased, knowing this was a better result than the Sorcerers had been hoping for from the first try. He moved his hand over a particular button, ready.
"And you're so beautiful. You're normally very pretty, but look how beautiful you've become right now. You're like a little angel, shining with grace."
The Sorcerer's warm smile and warmer words made the girl glow brighter and brighter, almost too intense to look at. When it seemed like there was no brighter the glow could become, the Sorcerer continued smiling beatifically at the subject and said in the same friendly tone,
"Freeze it."
The girl began to frown in confusion, but before a second had gone by the technician had pushed the button, and the dozens of needles that had been nesting peacefully in their tubes jabbed forward. As one, they stabbed the subject's flesh, penetrating her skin to inject the chalky liquid from the cylinders behind her. The girl spasmed, her eyes widened, and her mouth contorted around a long, soundless scream.
For the first time, the pain and fear did not drown out all else. Despite the torture, Celena still retained a sense of herself. From that grew indignation. How could they do this to her? She was the smartest, the strongest, the most beautiful, the best!
After only three seconds, but what had felt like hours, the needles withdrew. The subject glared at the Sorcerer.
"Why are you treating me this way?! I'm the best!"
The man stood and chuckled.
"Think you're so wonderful, do you?" he mocked. "Why are you here, then? If you're so smart, why did you follow us and let yourself be captured?"
The girl's face fell, and the glow began to diminish.
"And while we're at it, if you're really the best, why doesn't your brother love you enough to come rescue you? He hasn't even tried."
At that, the Sorcerer gestured, and the technician pushed another button. A moving image of a blonde teenage boy jumped to life on the wall, showing him practicing with a sword, eating, tending his sick mother at home. The last image was of him laughing happily. The girl's eyes darted back and forth across the images, a look of growing horror on her face. The glow, which had fallen back to its original dimness, began to grow again.
"See how happy he is now that you're gone? He never loved you. You're alone here."
The subject started to breath rapidly and screwed her eyes shut. She shook her head violently from side to side. Now she was shining brightly again.
"No! He's just waiting until the right moment! He still loves me!"
"Poor child. Too arrogant to understand that she's alone," the man continued. Leaning forward until his face was not six inches from hers, he added in a low, menacing tone,
"Alone and never going to be loved again."
She burst out into tears, and was once more glowing too brightly to look at. The Sorcerer smiled.
"Freeze it."
Another push of the button, another injection, another silent scream. Once she could breathe again, the girl sagged in her bonds, sobbing raggedly.
This time, the physical pain floated on top of the deeper, permanent pain of abandonment. Celena could feel her new stubborn pride rise up, try to overtake the pain and fear. She looked up and glared at the Sorcerer.
"I don't care! I'm strong enough to kill you one day! Let me go or I'll kill you!" The glow did not diminish, this time.
The Sorcerer stopped smiling and raised an eyebrow.
"Are you threatening me?"
"Let me go! You couldn't handle me by yourself! That's why you need the guards! One day I'll get a chance and you won't have guards!
"I think you are threatening me." He stepped slowly around to face her. "Let me show you what happens to people who threaten me."
The man stood, and without moving his gaze from the subject's face, called to his assistant. "Call him in."
The technician pushed another button. Unseen and unheard by the three people in the operating room, a buzzer went off down the hall.
"I take threats very seriously," the Sorcerer was saying. "I hope I don't have to do this to you one day, but if I must, I must." He sounded almost sad.
The technician noted that the girl's glow was still as bright as any of the artificial lights used all over the complex. He was surprised. They had all expected the glow to grow and diminish repeatedly, not hold steady like this after just the first psyche freeze. If the procedure continued in this vein, he thought, the results might be even more potent than they had thought.
As the Sorcerer was busy being menacing and the technician contemplating the possible outcomes of the experiment, someone knocked on the door. The metallic sound resonated in the room, and the technician opened the door to see four men escorting a fifth. That man—if you could call him that, the technician mused—was in chains, binding his arms behind his back and hobbling his legs together. His dark fur was matted and bloody in places, and his snout muzzled. The guards ushered him into the room, and as the beastman took in the scene, he growled and threw his weight forward towards the Sorcerer. The good doctor lost his composure for the first time that evening, taking a few steps back before he realized that the beastman was securely held between the four guards.
"Jajuka!" the girl called. She was about to ask him to save her, but she saw how he was chained. She didn't understand why he had let them do that to him. He was always so strong. Even so, she was thrilled to see him, since she knew that Jajuka loved her and would never leave her. He knew she was the best.
"Celena!" he said through his teeth. The muzzle left him no other option. "You evil men! How could you do this to a child?!" the beastman raged, dragging his jailers forward as he once again tried to reach the Sorcerer. This time, however, the man was prepared, and smiled disdainfully at the canine's futile attempts.
"You see here, child? This man threatened to, oh, what was it you said?" he directed this last to the beastman, and the girl could tell that the Sorcerer was not asking because he had forgotten.
The captive obliged him in his theatrics. Straining futilely once more, he screamed louder than Celena had ever heard him. "I TOLD YOU I'D RIP YOUR GUTS OUT WITH MY TEETH IF YOU TOUCHED HER, YOU AMORAL FILTH!"
The Sorcerer sneered at him. "What a barbarian. Guards," he nodded at the men holding the beastman. "Teach him some manners."
The guard closest to the door took the pole he was holding and did something to the handle that made the end crackle and spark. The technician could just make out the two prongs that channeled the force. It was one of Zaibach's best hand-to-hand weapons, all the more fearful for its mysterious power. Even after years of working with the stuff, the young man still marveled at the Sorcerer's ability to harness raw natural force.
Celena watched, frightened and prideful and abandoned. The guard with the pole lowered his weapon, and despite Jajuka's continued struggles, the rest of the guards fell away at the same moment. The man with the pole jabbed it forward, connecting with the beastman's side.
A terrible howl of pain nearly deafened everyone in the room, and stabbed straight to Celena's heart. Jajuka fell to his knees as the guard removed the pole from his side, breathing hard and whimpering.
"Jajuka! JAJUKA!" Celena cried. She threw herself against the shackles, nearly dislocating her shoulders in her efforts to break free and help her friend. "Stop it, stop hurting him!"
"We'll let him decide that, shall we?" The Sorcerer suggested. "So, beastman, what do you have to say? Did that shock any civility into you?"
Jajuka was still panting. He slowly lifted his head, and there was no mistaking the pure hatred that shone from his eyes or the rage in his low voice. "What you do to me doesn't matter. Only Celena. I'll rip you to shreds one day for that."
"I thought so. Watch, child. This is your fault, anyway." And the man gestured once more to the guard, who jabbed the fallen beastman in the neck, this time.
As Jajuka howled and curled in on himself, Celena felt her heart break. It was too much to have the only person who cared about her reduced to such agony and humiliation. She felt her heart break, and gathered up the sharp remains to fling at the Sorcerer.
"STOP IT! STOP IT! IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT WE DO OR SAY, YOU'LL JUST HURT US ANYWAY! STOP HURTING HIM! STOP IT OR I'LL KILL YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!"
As the girl raged, the technician noticed something that no one, not in all of their research and theorizing, had predicted. The pale white glow of the subject's skin seemed to have reached the point, several minutes before, where it could become no more intense. But the girl's emotions were still increasing, and they were not only finding expression in her embittered, mad screams.
As she thrashed and yelled, her eyes began to glow red.
The Sorcerer must have noticed it too. He was staring at the subject as though he had just found gold where he had expected to find copper.
"—HATE YOU HATE YOU HATE YOU! I WILL KILL YOU! ALL OF YOU! I'LL KILL YOU SLOWLY! MAKE YOU SUFFER! I'LL PULL YOUR GUTS OUT WITH MY OWN TEETH, AND CUT YOU INTO TINY BITS! I'LL TIE YOU DOWN TO THIS TABLE AND STAB YOU ALL OVER! I'LL CUT OFF YOUR HANDS! I'LL KILL YOU KILL YOU KILL YOU KILL YOU KILL—"
Still staring at the subject in wonder as she continued detailing her future revenge, the Sorcerer gave the order to complete the procedure. The technician wouldn't have heard it over the child's voice if he hadn't been paying utmost attention.
"Freeze it."