"Rise and shine Kirchoff," a voice said. "You have a busy day ahead of you."
No… I don't want to... he thought. He was too sleepy to wake up anyways.
"Wake up!" A rough hand slapped his face, startling him into consciousness. His eyes tried to focus, but his head was spinning so hard it was impossible.
"What is… going on?" he mumbled, a bit louder this time.
"Oh good, you're alive." the voice said. "We weren't sure if we got the dosage of gas right. Good thing too." It sounded vaguely familiar, but his mind was so foggy that he couldn't put his finger on it. He felt hands running across his head and arms, strapping small things to his arms and head. Kirchoff tried to raise his head and see what they were doing, but his head was strapped down. He wriggled his arms and legs experimentally and found that they were also bound. Kirchoff struggled weakly against his restraints, but it was futile.
"Help…" he whispered. "Someone… help me…"
"Do you know why you are here, doctor?" The voice asked.
What? Why am I here? He tried to respond, but his mouth felt like it was filling with cotton and all that came out was a faint moan.
"Since I highly doubt that I'll ever have the displeasure of seeing you again, I'll spell it out for you." Whoever the voice belonged to clicked on a flashlight and shone it directly into his eyes.
"We need to evoke a strong, negative, hostile emotional response from VS-223, since that is the only thing that you have not, and most likely are not, willing or able to do."
A sharp stab in his arm made him wince, then the fuzzy feeling he was trying to fight off returned, stronger than before, dragging him back down towards unconsciousness.
Before he slipped off again, he heard the voice again. "And now we're going to use you to get it. I just thought you should know."
"And you're sure this will work?" She asked the wiry man sitting across from her in her personal lab.
"Yeah, it should," He explained. "I wired you directly into the A\V feed, and I installed the same program on your computer that we use to record A\V coming out of the labs. Just type in the ID code of the lab you want and bingo, the computer does the rest."
"Thank you," Dr. Nigel reached into her desk and pulled out two very thick wads of bills.
"This is for your services." She handed him one of the wads.
"And this," She waved the second wad. "Is to make sure that you understand that no one must ever know that you did this, or that you were ever here." She placed it on top of the first stack of money.
"Thank you doctor, I understand completely." The man tipped his grey cap to her and walked out of the room. One nice thing about being the head of a research division on an isolated research base on a backwater planet far from Earth, was that it was significantly easier to obtain clandestine services for cheap, provided you knew who to ask.
The loud siren roused Valen from his position on the floor. He scrambled and flailed on the floor, preparing to fight off an invader before he realized what was going on. Just as quickly as it had started, the siren cut out, leaving the whitewashed room eerily silent. Valen rolled over and tried to haul himself upright, but as soon as he tried to stand, his head spun and the world around him blurred. The next thing he knew he was lying sprawled out on his front on the floor.
W… What… What…? He tried to think, to speak, but he couldn't get the words out. The world was spinning too fast and his head was too fuzzy. He just closed his eyes and waited for his mind to clear.
As time went on, the fog in his mind began to clear, and the world stopped rocking around enough for him to get a good look at his surroundings. The bleached white walls and floor indicated that he was still in his cell, although whether or not that was a good thing was debatable. It appeared to be the same as always. White walls, white floor, white ceiling. Kirchoff was probably in the other room already and... Kirchoff!
Valen sprang to his feet and quickly scanned the cell. Nothing. Kirchoff was gone.
No! No no no! This can't be happening! He started to panic. He reached out, scanning as far as he could for the familiar flicker of his mind. His heart pounded and his breathing became shallow and rapid. Just when he thought everything was getting better, it had all collapsed. Kirchoff was gone to who knows where. Probably locked up in an asylum somewhere. And he was all alone.
Kirchoff… Where have they taken you… He heaved a sigh. The brief moment of panic he had felt had evaporated and hopelessness had come to take its place. The other humans could be doing any number of things to him right now and there was nothing he could do about it. Valen flopped back down and stared at the wall, wallowing in misery.
That was when he noticed something odd about the wall, or rather all the walls. They seemed to be much closer together, and suspiciously free of scratches and gouge marks. He got up and inspected the walls closer. Not a single mark or scuff, and they were completely free of discoloration.
Odd, Valen thought. He had no idea how long he had been out, but it didn't feel long enough for his cell to be completely cleaned and repaired. While he was still inside no less. They must have moved me somewhere else.
Out of nowhere, another siren blared out, forcing Valen to cover his ears with his clawed hands and curl up into a ball until it ceased. When it stopped, Valen saw that one of the walls had turned transparent, and what he saw on the other side shocked him. In a chair on the other side of the wall was Kirchoff. His arms and legs were bound with a series of metal restraints and a single strap restrained his head up against a metal headrest. His eyes were closed but Valen could see his mouth was moving ever so slightly. Valen pressed his head against the section of wall closest to Kirchoff.
Kirchoff! Valen shouted mentally. Kirchoff, can you hear me?
"Ah Valen, I see you're awake," a familiar voice said over the hidden speakers. A plain, tall figure walked into the room. Valen hissed at Julianne as she walked over to Kirchoff's chair and stood beside him.
"How are you doing?" she asked. "The accommodations are more than adequate I trust."
Valen hissed viciously in response. He raked the wall with his claws and smashed his tail against the floor as a sign of aggression. The woman only tutted and shook her head.
"Now, now, Valen, don't worry. You aren't at risk of any harm." Valen stopped attacking the room, but kept up a low hissing. He wasn't going to let his guard down completely.
"However your friend Kirchoff here," She patted Kirchoff on the cheek. "Isn't so lucky."
Valen's hissing petered out as the meaning of her words registered. If he wasn't going to be hurt, that meant that Kirchoff…
The woman calmly and deliberately reached behind herself and revealed a small rectangular object with a series of small buttons on its surface. She stood back from Kirchoff's chair and pressed a button. Kirchoff jerked and shouted as electricity sparked from the metal bands on his body. Valen let out a screech of desperation. He clawed at the transparent wall, slashed at it with his tail and even tried to climb it. In a final act of desperation, Valen reached out with his mind into Kirchoff's. He only made a brief contact before he shrieked in agony. The pain Kirchoff felt was so intense that he couldn't keep the connection going. He could do nothing but watch helplessly as Kirchoff was electrocuted, writhing and thrashing in his restraints.
The woman, who was watching the whole scene with a look of bland amusement, pressed another button on her remote, and the electricity ceased. Kirchoff slumped against his restraints. His hair was smoking slightly and his breathing was shallow, but he was still alive.
"That was only the lowest setting," the woman said to Valen. He was pressing his head against the glass, trying desperately to talk with Kirchoff. All he got out of him was a faint feeling of recognition.
"I admire your efforts, but it would be futile to try and communicate with him in this state. He'll be incapacitated for hours." She put her remote in her pocket and pulled out a syringe from another pocket on her sweater. It was empty, but the woman pulled out a vial from the same pocket as the syringe. The woman held it up to the light and peered at it's contents.
"This chemical will not kill Kirchoff," she said. "But it does cause unbearable pain for hours after administration."
No! No no no nononono! Valen clawed desperately at the wall separating them, gouging it with his claws in an attempt to shred it apart.
Julianne ignored Dr. Nigel and faced Kirchoff who was still lying limp in his chair. His chest rose and fell in short, fluttering bursts. Julianne took the needle, jabbed it into Kirchoff's arm and depressed the plunger. Kirchoff writhed and moaned weakly as the drug worked its way into his system. Valen could feel it, the tingling in Kirchoff's body slowly intensifying until it felt like his blood was made from a raging fire. He writhed and moaned and cried out in his chair, incoherent from the pain.
Valen turned his gaze to the woman. His whole body trembled. It was one thing to torture him, he was strong, he could handle it, no matter how intense.
But to harm Kirchoff was unforgivable.
He opened his mouth and poured all the pent up hatred and anger he felt for Kirchoff's tormentor into a deafening, bloodcurdling scream.
Dr. Nigel dashed her headphones from her ears. She could see everything that was happening on the monitor of her computer. As she watched, the view in the monitor wavered, then the lens in the hidden camera shattered, giving the room a distorted, fractured appearance. She took a step back from the monitors and rubbed her temples to try and get rid of the sudden headache caused by the terrible noise Valen had made. Even though she had only heard the muffled version produced by her headphones, the sound he had pierced her eardrums like a pair of hot irons.
While Nigel rubbed her ears she looked down at a table strewn with various papers, audio logs on recorders, and half eaten lunches. Scattered all over this table was the cumulative effort of almost three years of tedious research, all focused on one particular objective. To determine the nature of Valen's unique telepathic ability in a massive experiment that she had been in direct control of up until yesterday. This was the pinnacle of her career, the project that would revolutionize the human understanding of the Xenomorph mind.
And then Gavin had to come along with and fuck it all up. She clenched her fists and tried not to scream curses at the man. He had been trying to interfere with her project since day one. He saw the potential uses of her project beyond simple knowledge. Namely developing weapons designed to kill Xenomorphs.
Dr. Gavin had started off as a weapons designer for Weyland-Yutani, then he transferred to the Bernard Research Station to develop more advanced forms of killing. Toxic gas, high explosives powerful enough to rip apart a solid steel box several meters thick, venoms extracted from the local wildlife, purified and synthesized into lethal and pain inducing drugs. The man held a deep burning hatred for the Xenomorphs and wanted nothing more than to see them eradicated from the universe. She hadn't known until now how far the man would go to get his way until now.
Dr. Nigel let out a sigh. Fucking Julius.
It was terrible that Kirchoff had to be tortured like this. She genuinely liked the man, both as a colleague and as a scientist. Despite that, she had to let it happen if she wanted to keep herself, and by extension, Kirchoff and Valen, alive. She hoped.
She turned her attention back to the fractured view of the room through the monitor and could vaguely make out Julianne holding the vial of pain serum in one hand and the used needle in the other, watching as Valen screamed and Kirchoff moaned.
That was it, that was proof enough for her. She held a headphone close to her ear to check if Valen was still screaming, but he had thankfully stopped. She halted the recording and removed a data stick from the computer. She looked at it, and hoped that her plan would work. She hastily ran out of the room, heading for the top level of the facility as quickly as she could.
Valen had stopped screaming and was grinding his claws against the wall while glaring at the woman with all the concentrated hatred he could muster. He had tried to reach out to her mind and rip it to shreds, but as always, he just couldn't find her. Her synthetic mind was invisible to him. All he could do was glare and knead his claws into the reinforced material of the floor. She was still standing next to Kirchoff with the vial in one hand and the needle in the other.
Julianne, on the other hand, looked pleased with herself. It was the first time Valen had seen her express any sort of emotion.
"I think we have more than enough data." With a nod, she took out her remote and pressed another button. The restraints on Kirchoff's body retracted into the chair and he slumped onto the floor. She nodded and walked over to a wall, where a panel slid open to a long, white hallway. Just before she left, she pressed another button on the remote over her shoulder. The invisible wall that separated Valen from the other side of the room began to slide silently down into the floor.
Unwilling to wait for the wall to fully lower, Valen backed up and took a running leap at the wall. He didn't manage to jump over it, but he latched onto the lip of the wall with his claws and vaulted himself over. He landed next to Kirchoff who was groaning weakly in a ball on the floor. Not wanting to cause Kirchoff any more discomfort, Valen gently dragged Kirchoff away from the chair with his tail and curled himself around him. He pressed his forehead into Kirchoff's hair, trying to be as close to him as possible, to comfort him as best he could as the liquid pain burned through his veins.
Dr. Gavin was sitting at his desk, reviewing the results of the test he had ordered, when he heard a knock on his door.
"Julius, it's me," He heard Ursula say. "Let me in."
Of course it was Ursula. He sighed. "Come on in."
She slammed the door open with a bang loud enough to make him wince. "Was that really necessary?"
"Yes," She said. She walked over to his desk and tossed a brown paper envelope onto the desk.
"What is this?" He asked her.
"Open it and find out." Gavin plucked the letter knife from his desk and used it to slice the envelope open. Inside were a single sheet of paper and a data stick. "What is this?" He asked her again.
She motioned to the paper in his hands. He read it, his eyes growing wide with anger. He looked at the data stick, then up to Ursula.
"You set me up." He fumed.
"No, I merely took advantage of a situation that you put yourself in," She told him.
He pointed the paper he held in his hand at her. "You ratted me out to the Ethics Board! You showed them the experiment I performed on your precious little Xenomorph pet and his little friend!" He seethed. He'd been buttering up those doddering assholes for years, but now that Ursula had shown them direct evidence of him torturing someone, he doubted even the fattest of bribes would get him off without repercussions.
"We don't torture people Julius. Those days are behind us now. What you did to me, and to them, is unforgivable. Consider this payback for being such an asshole."
He stood up to his full height and towered over the little brown woman in front of him. To her credit, she didn't even blink. "This says I'm only on suspension pending review, Ursula. When I come back, I will make you pay for this."
Dr. Nigel shrugged. "Maybe you will, maybe you won't. Either way, I got what I wanted."
Dr. Gavin picked up the data stick and threw it in Dr. Nigel's face.
"You'll regret crossing me," He seethed, then stomped on the little data stick, crushing it.
"I've heard enough," She stood to the side and two burly security officers stepped into the office. "Please escort Dr. Gavin to his quarters, and make sure that he does not leave until he is authorized to do so."
The two men grabbed Dr. Gavin by his arms and led him out of the room. The last thing he saw in his office was Dr. Nigel, smirking at him.