I don't own Cyborg 009, just this fic. This will also end up being an AU of the story! Constructive criticism is always welcomed so I ask you to please enjoy!
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"Professor, I don't think the computers can handle this!" a woman yelled.
Alarms were blaring and the hanging lights were emitting an ominous red led. The light emphasized the copper hair of a woman in a white lab coat. Her lackluster, pale skin was glistening from sweat as she stared at a lanky old man. She moved to the side as a man rushed past her, sheer terror on his face.
"I have to do this!" the old man shouted as he pressed a button on a keyboard. "All my years of research will be meaningless if I don't."
Bree grimaced in response and covered her eyes with an arm as sparks jolted from the surrounding computers. She looked at the old man while the alarms grew increasingly louder. Bree refused to leave him behind. She crept towards him, keeping her arm up to protect her eyes from any sparks.
"Is it worth your life?!" She asked in disbelief. "If you aren't around to see your work proven, what good is it?!"
"You wouldn't understand. You have a whole life ahead of you," He countered as he lifted a lever.
Bree winced as a gust of wind went through the area, causing her hair to whip across her face. She turned her attention towards the source and her light blue eyes widened in awe. A silver orb was in the middle of a ring. She had been the designer of the ring and oversaw its building. Yet, she hadn't known what it was for. She wasn't the one to create the system. Even if her job called for her to design it. She should have known something was happening behind the scenes. The orb grew bigger, sparks flying out of it as the wind picked up.
"Professor…" Bree mumbled; her expression became conflicted.
Things weren't supposed to end this way. She inched closer to the professor. If it came down to it, she'd try to overpower the old man and turn off the ring. Her shaggy hair whipped around and batted against her skin, causing a stinging sensation. She placed a hand on the main console in front of the ring. It felt as though she wasn't walking on the floor. The tile was slippery, that was something the entire division had complained about. Sure, they made it to stop electrical fires, but it was difficult to walk across. Her heels made it even worse. She would reach down and remove them, but the glass surrounding her caused her to ignore that thought.
He was mumbling under his breath and his eyes were wildly moving side to side as he continued to push buttons and type in code. The orb let out a loud crackle, and he turned his attention towards it, a grim smile of satisfaction spreading across his face. It was working, his wonderful machine. He heard a sound. He turned to glance at it and simply raised a brow. It was Bree, the only worker that he became fond of. The girl was too soft-hearted, as much as she tried to hide it. Her eyes were wide. Her focus on the ring as it did what it was supposed to. There was a pain in his chest, and he grimaced, clutching his shirt. There was little time left for him.
"I've wondered, Bree," He started, and the woman gave him her attention, "just which government stationed you here."
She was quiet at that. There wasn't much to say. Bree never cared for politics, yet a series of foolish decisions forced her into them. Hacking into government facilities was one of them, and creating her thesis statements was the other. Her ideals caused her to be where she was, and she regretted it.
"Professor." Bree said, she licked her dry lips before continuing, "It doesn't matter, all that matters now is shutting down the ring. If it blows up, it'll take the entire west coast with it."
"And?" He questioned, fixing her with a sharp expression as the wind grew even stronger, lifting the sickly woman for a few seconds before she tightened her flimsy grip on the console. "What does it matter if that happens? It's already sinking into the ocean."
"That's seventy-six million people that you're condemning to death!" She shouted, keeping her voice clear of the strain she was putting herself through to stay grounded, "Not to mention innocent newborns!"
"Only the ruthless become something." He said, "You won't amount to anything, not with such a soft-hearted view."
He flipped a final switch and the lights overhead burst, sorting out from the sudden influx of electricity. Bree held an arm up to protect herself from the falling glass. She let out a surprised sound as her feet left the ground, her hand slipping from the console. Her grip wasn't strong enough. He was on the ground, staring up at her. Bree narrowed her eyes, squinting to see. She saw there was a strap around his wrist, keeping him in place. When had he grabbed that? She cursed her bad luck and clenched her jaw as she floated higher in the air.
"Bree, you're in for a wild ride," He informed her, and her eyes widened in response.
Bree felt as though she was being pulled through a tube. She found herself in a silver vortex and she closed her eyes for a few seconds as her stomach revolted. She willed herself to keep the last thing she ate down, and reopened her eyes. The vortex surrounded her, and she let out a breath of disbelief. A briefcase and a singular suitcase came towards her, and she brought her hands up to catch them. She hooked the suitcase around her ankle as she studied the briefcase. It had her initials on it. G. A. M. Her birth-name, not the one she had been using to infiltrate the professor's laboratory. Bree let out a grunt when she hit cold concrete out of nowhere. She was going to have one hell of a bruise for the next month. She slowly sat up and looked around in confusion.
A group of men stared at her. Her expression changed quickly as some small part of her mind yelled at her that something was off… that something was wrong. She'd listen to that minor part of her, and wipe her expression clear of her confusion and surprise. One man walked up to her as she got up from the ground and patted down the legs of her… slacks? She hadn't been wearing those before. Where had they come from?
"Are you Doctor Marley?" He asked, and she took notice of his enormous nose and dark sunglasses.
He was a shorter man, and she felt as though he wasn't real. It wasn't because of his stature, but his nose. It wasn't just enormous, like she had previously noted, but it jutted out and was round like a ball. She had the oddest urge to poke it to see if it was real. She kept her curiosity off her face and her hands at her side. Her mind then registered what he had asked her. He had used her actual surname. Bree needed to know if her first name was still the same. She knew what had happened. She just needed time to sit down and fully think.
"Yes, I am," she confirmed, nodding slightly, her voice even and not showing her discomfort.
"You'll be working with me in our cybernetic department," the man informed her, and she nodded her understanding. "Doctor Gamo Wisky will work with us as well."
"A pleasure, sir," she said, giving a curt nod of respect.
Doctor Gamo Wisky was a white-haired man with dark eyes. He narrowed his eyes in distaste and scoffed before looking towards a computer screen. Bree, as she was still going with that name if it turned out that she didn't use her real name for this, almost bristled in response. Sexism wasn't an unusual occurrence in her chosen field, and with her body being weaker than a healthy human's, it was extremely common. It didn't mean that she simply laid down and allowed people to walk all over her. She rose to the challenge and outperformed them in mental capacity. She could outsmart her naysayers.
"Don't mind him," the old man said, getting her attention. "He seems to refuse acknowledging that a woman can do our job just as well as we can, if not better."
"You are the first person I've come across in this field that has said that to me," she admitted, letting a bit of truth out. "Thank you."
"Well, I'll show you around the compound and where we'll be working," the man said with a smile that wasn't unkind.
Bree looked around at the metal walls and welcomed the gentle breeze from the air conditioning. It was a pleasant change from the humid laboratory that the professor had worked in. She wasn't sure that she'd ever want to go back into such a humid climate. That meant that parts of South America were out of the question for future places to live. There was a little good humour in that thought. Bree always wanted to visit to see the ancient ruins of civilisations that have come and gone. She had the suitcase rolling behind her, with the briefcase sitting on top of it. The uniforms that the surrounding soldiers wore reminded her of the original Star Wars movies. She put her free hand into the pocket of her slacks and slightly frowned in thought.
"This compartment here is yours," the old man said. "It's right across from the mess hall, so you won't have a chance of getting lost in the mornings."
"Right," she said with a slight frown.
He left her in her room, promising to show her the rest of the compound in the upcoming days. Bree went inside and closed the door behind her. It was even colder inside, and she felt her shoulders relax. She hadn't realised she had been so tense. She rolled the suitcase towards a small closet and pulled the metal doors open. There were some hangers hanging inside of it and she knelt next to the suitcase and slowly opened it. It was full of clothing that she couldn't possibly see herself wearing. After being forced into office wear for so many years, she had worn clothing that was commonly found in Harajuku fashion. Long-sleeved turtleneck shirts that zipped up and skirts that had straps and barely reached above her knees, yes that was the clothing she found comfortable. She grimaced as she put the dress shoes away. She didn't like the idea of wearing clothes that weren't hers, or if they belonged to her, they weren't her preferred style.
She got up from her kneeling position and slid the suitcase under her bed before picking up the briefcase and sitting down at the desk that had come with the room. It wasn't wood, but glass and metal. She let nothing show on her face, not knowing if she was being watched. She let out a quiet sigh through her nose as she opened her briefcase. Inside were documents, her birth certificate with a date that wasn't what she knew it to be, her diplomas and schematics for the ring. It was all her items that she had brought with her to the laboratory. She brought a hand up to her mouth in thought and wondered why the dates had changed, but not the items themselves. 1978. Why that year in particular? She didn't know the date of the year she had found herself in, but gathered that she was still 23 due to how she looked physically. Just what had the professor done? She looked over the schematics and narrowed her eyes slightly as she noted a small addition to it. A black hole designator? That was experimental technology and shouldn't have been in the ring. How had she missed that? Bree could've called it in and avoided all the strangeness that was happening. She could've had dinner with her older brother and listened to his boy troubles. She noted the schematics had small wet spots appearing on it. Bree moved her hand from her mouth towards her eyes and wiped at the tears that were slowly falling from her eyes.
Her brother probably wouldn't hear about her disappearance, most likely her "employers" would give out the statement saying she was dead. It wasn't much of a stretch because of her physical fragility and heart problems. Bree had been told from an early age that she might not live long. She placed her diploma and birth certificate inside the briefcase and placed it next to the desk before staring at the schematics for the ring. It was quiet for a few seconds before the sound of ripping paper filled the metal room. She had torn the schematics in half before repeating the action. Bree wouldn't dare attempt to recreate the ring, and she wouldn't allow anyone else to do so either. The amount of damage that a black hole designator could create would be too much for her conscious to handle for a second time. She brought her hands up to her shaggy hair and gently tugged on the strands. Earth, as she knew it, had been eradicated. It wouldn't be able to withstand a black hole, especially not one opened on the surface of the planet. A wry smirk appeared on her face for a few seconds. She somehow Isekai'd herself into a different universe without trying to. It made her wonder if this was parallel to her world or exact.
She quietly hummed in thought. No, not exact. Cybernetics were taking off in science, here it seemed to be a staple. That was interesting, and she closed her eyes in thought. She'd never see her family again, though the only ones she had a good relationship with were her older brother and sister. Ezekiel and Mary. That wry smirk appeared on her face once again. Discomfiture, that was what she was feeling. A sense of growing unease that she couldn't truly break, that slowly slipped into awkwardness. Yes, that word stood true to what she felt.
She got up from the desk and plopped down on the hard mattress that was supplied. It was firm, and she knew that her body would end up revolting against her by the end of her tenure, wherever she had ended up. She didn't have any documentation with her that informed her where she was or what she was doing. Seeing as she was called by her title and proper last name, and that she was in the cybernetics department, it had something to do with her life's work. She looked at the metal wall and gently placed her hand against it. It was cold to the touch, and she frowned slightly and brought her hand back.
She had gone into cybernetics with the idea of eventually creating cybernetic organs. Her hand went against her chest, over her heart, and she felt its irregular beating against it. She would gladly test out her creations, just to make sure they worked before releasing them on the world market. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the hard pillow. There went that dream. Bree wouldn't be able to even think about restarting her work without knowing what the cybernetic climate was like. She sighed and rolled onto her side to face the door. She needed sleep more than she needed food. Bree was exhausted.
Her eyes slowly closed, and she stopped her mind from worrying about what was going to end up happening. She couldn't predict what might happen, and she knew better than to continue to focus on it. She drifted off to sleep, not even dreaming.