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Sir_Psycho
At first sensation gently washes gently over you. A light prickle on your skin, the laboured sound of your own breathing, the slow beat of your heart in your chest. Then it picks you up and rolls you over, starved of oxygen and light and warmth, and cascades down upon you again without respite. The prickle turns to burning across your face, chest and arms, you struggle for breath, your heart skips and flips upside down, beating on your ribcage. The room smells like bacon fried in sweat and the dizzying aroma of fresh paint and the metallic tang of fresh wounds. The room screams at you, as if every molecule tearing about the room at six-thousand kilometers per hour were colliding and hammering into you, tearing their way into your eardrums. The light is blinding even through your eyelids, and a cacophony of voices creep through the white noise emanating from the open door and into your head. Footsteps, wide strides. Heavy yet balanced, suggesting extensive cyber-modification, confidence, and armoured. One pair of expensive boots, and one pair of combat boots.

"Sir!", four metres away, mid-30s, by his tone. About six feet tall, from the point of origin. Upwards inflection and slight vibration suggests stress. Fear.
"At ease, leiutena-Great Gho- Frag! Is he safe? Speak plainly, I don't have the time.", Five metres, about six two, older voice, slight growl suggests some sort of injury to the throat. You can't smell the tell-tale traces of tobacco smoke, so your money is on physical injury or perhaps a reformed smoker. He speaks flatly, without emphasis, the authority of a man who's every word is law. Well spoken, if a little faster than normal, and he regains his composure quickly. Something in you fears and respects this man, like a father with an iron hand and a monomolecular tongue.
"Nakatomi's team spent three days on him, Sir. No discernable kinks. No ware at all. Tox-screening came up negative, nano-analysis came back negative on any harmful substances or ware in his body. The nanite injections noted some non-standard physiology, but no offensive toxins or compounds are being exuded. With all due respect, Sir, it's all in Nakatomi's report."
"I've read the report. Is he restrained adequately?"
"Sir, with all due respect, you can see for yourself. Those are high density plasteel restraints. Eight nine inch bolts are holding the chair in place, which is re-inforced plasteel as well. Of course the room has been stripped of anything that could be used to aid an escape attempt, and as you can see, the maglock outside the room requires two simultaneous authorised biometric scans to open, as well as authorization from your office via a secure line. We've treated the room, it's got full spectrum shielding. It's completely dark electromagnetically, thermographically, and the mages put up a ward before he got here, and I've been told spirit coverage is complete. We've prepared mil-spec jammers throughout the facility. We shift frequencies on the hour. There's no way he's getting out of here. Even if he could get past the security, he's barely moved since we scraped him off the floor at the archives. A few mild seizures and he seems to respond a little when in the presence of our commlinks, but Nakatomi put that down to reservoirs of magnetite in his inner ear. He's a vegetable, sir."
"Wrong attitude. Double the watch. Contact me if anything develops."

The footsteps recede, toe to heel, backing away. The heavy door closes with a pneumatic whirr and the room goes dark. An itch in your left fore-arm becomes apparent, a cold shock of some foreign substance flowing into your veins.

Your eyes are open, a dark mess of hair hanging down over your eyes. The room smells different. The air is stale and you can't hear any ventilation system. Your arms are behind your back, cuffed to a pole in the center of the room. You test them, but even your sinewy arms can't bend them. You become aware of a presence behind you before you hear a pin drop, your eyes darting to catch it skittering past you across the seamless plascrete floor.
"Bonne Chance'' , the voice vibrates and distorts like a kidnapper in a sim. Footsteps and the slam of a thick metal door and you're alone again.
You scan the room, your eyes falling upon a security camera in the corner. The oilslick eye stares at you impassively from within a clear plastic shell. Plastic shell? And then you feel a freezing shock to your feet, water pouring out of the pipe you’re cuffed to, wetting your light cotton pants and spreading quickly across the floor, the bobby pin whisked away, your eyes losing it in the swell.

You twitch into consciousness, tasting wet salt and grime.
"Double the dose.", Voices swimming through the water.
"I'm afraid I can't, it could kill."
"A normal man, perhaps. Double the dose."
That familiar cold sensation runs up your arm again, and you start to twitch again, you feel your eyes rolling back in your head.
"Come on now, stay with me", says the gruff authoritative voice again, before a whoosh and a dull thud as impossibly hard knuckles crash into your jaw, through what feels like a plaster-like shell, sending your neck whipping back before being halted by something stiff around your neck.
"As his physician..." The unfamiliar voice trembles. A light Japanese accent.
"Your objection is noted and ignored, Nakatomi." The gruff one says calmly, "Leave."Your eyes roll down to reveal a harsh halogen lamp, the shine of a perfectly round bald head, three wrinkles across a forehead multiply to seven as your eyes focus and then loosen to four. Bushy grey eyebrows telegraphing a stoic curiosity. His eyes are open wide, revealing brilliant ice blue eyes with a thin black circle framing the iris. The nose is wide and long, a masculine protrusion. His face is so close to yours the tip of his nose has faded out of focus. The mouth is thin and tight lipped, as if he wants to avoid the taste he is subjected to at such close range. A well groomed full beard frames his impressive square jaw, flecked with grey, white and a few patches of fading orange. He stares unblinkingly into your eyes, waiting for something.

"Talk."
Mickle5125
"talk: to reveal information through use of spoken word. This is what he wants... but what information? One and one is two... or eleven... dogs chase cats... orange is a hideous color. Isn't he glad to be almost free of it?" I mumble, still mostly out of it. My eyes wander to the left and right lazily, trying to make sense of this situation. Finally, they slide back to the authoritative old man as my head clears a little more.

"Who the fuck are you, old man?"
Sir_Psycho
The old man smiles with his teeth, not with his eyes.
"Ah, you can talk." He hisses, punctuating his sentence with a lightning fast punch to your solar plexus. "Now listen carefully."
It appears to you, as you struggle for breath, that the man is highly augmented. Definately some form of wires or even a modification to the synapses, although it's high grade - He doesn't twitch as his cyberarm snakes forward, hand outstretched, and grabs you by the jaw.
"I'm the one with a score to settle. I've got the authority and the power to do so. You were the star child, and you performed so well you took my place on the Grand Tour babysitting that little slitch, and instead I got locked in the cradle for six years, guarding the eggheads and freaks. But if you don't tell me what I want to know, you're going to die." He says calmly, demonstrating as you feel his grip tearing your skin and grinding flecks of bone off your jaw, "I would do it myself, but there's due process. There's a whole line of people who want to take care of you, and none of them are as busy as I, so they will take their time. Remember the drill?"

Suddenly his grip fades away and your head droops into your chest. White room. your arms are suspended in a Y above your shoulders, and you hear the gut wrenching tear of a powerful motor sputter into life behind you. You twitch and convulse, spraying blood and viscera from your mouth and nose, and you look down to see the rapidly expanding cone of an industrial drill blooming bloody from your abdomen. The drill quickly spins in reverse, blood flecks, fragments of rib and entrails spraying the pristine walls in front of you with blood red and clot black. Your lungs don't pump, your heart doesn't beat. You feel a sick slop as your internal organs pour out of your back as if from a butchers bucket. You feel your life force fading away as the viscera invades your nostrils and...

...You're back in the room, convulsing in your chair, neck groaning in the man's steely grip. Nausea turns your gut inside out and bile pours uncontrolled down your front.
"You remember." He smiles that same mirthless smirk, "The man who cooked that little gem up is in town. He's having his special equipment shipped. It'll be here tomorrow. Just in time, too. I saw the tapes. Creeper is on your trail. I don't understand why you didn't kill him at the Archives. You had the shot. Anyway, Mitsuhama is breathing down my neck. They want you for their own purposes, and even I don't have enough pull to hold them back forever. You're going to need to die in custody."
The man stops to wipe your vomit from the fore-arm of his cyber-limb with a silken handkerchief. You note "A.K II" monogrammed in the corner, before he drops the cloth to the ground with a wet thud.
"But it's not too late to strike a deal. I'm a businessman now." He ponders wistfully, "So tell me..."

He stares right into your eyes again. "The datasteal at the Archives. Why were you working with Lachesis and her little team? Why would he put you there? Why would he help her get her hands on the list? Surely he knows she went rogue. Some bizarre vengeance play against one of the others. I don't understand it. I know if anyone understands it would be him, so tell me-" He pauses to weight the final question, "What is Prometheus' play?"
Mickle5125
I work up some saliva and swish it in my mouth, wincing in pain before spitting it out in an attempt to clear some of the bile out. "Prometheus... Lachesis..."

I don't know what the hell he's talking about, but to be honest, at the moment I don't care. In any other situation, I have the feeling I'd be showing the old man why it's a bad idea to piss me off, but it seems rather outside of my abilities to hurt him right now. Suppose I'll go for the next best thing.


I laugh, a harsh and painful sound that feels about as good as it sounded. "Maybe if you were a little less ass-ish, I'd be inclined to help solve your problems, but now? I haven't the foggiest as to what you're talkin' about."
Sir_Psycho
The old man stares at you, confused. He stands up straight, and you watch his shoulders heave as he lets out a long sigh. Suddenly, he lets out a scream of rage and pounds his cyber-fist into your restrained fore-arm. Pain shoots through your nerves, but your bones some-how remain strong against the barrage. He continous to slam his fist down on your arm, each blow harder and harder until you feel and hear your arm breaking in several places. As quickly as his rage appeared, it subsides, and he takes another deep breath and a few steps and buzzes the intercom. You register that both your radius and ulna are clean broken as you see your fore-arm bend unnaturally in the middle, and you feel the sharp twinge of shattered bones tearing through your muscles.

As the door swings open to reveal dark body armour and a dirty concrete hallway, the old man turns back.
"I don't know what you really remember. You're a tool. An instrument. It's all you'll ever be. Remember that. Atropos is coming for you, and then you will be his instrument. I escaped that fate, but you were born into it. Sedate the subject."

There is another obedient beep from the machine beside you as the crack of light tightens through the closing door you hear his final words, "Same slave! Different Master!"

You're deprived the chance of the last word, as whatever you say only comes out in hums and bubbles. The familiar camera in it's plastic case still stares at you like a child in an aquarium.you spot the bobby pin, lying idly near the wall, but you might be able to reach it. You grasp the pole and shimmy down to the floor, blowing out the air in your lungs that tries to pull your body to the ceiling as you stretch out to reach the pin. Completely extended, muscles and bones straining, lungs aching, you just can't touch it. It's just an inch to far. You move decisively, bracing one hand against the pole, straining against the tight handcuffs. After a few seconds you feel a shooting pain as your shoulder dislocates, allowing you that last stretch to slide the bobby pin closer, flip it up and catch it in your toes before rolling upside down, legs hooked around the pole as your cuffed hands slide up to grab the bobby pin.

You get to work straight away, bending the pin into an optimal shape and getting to work on the lock. You close your eyes, ignoring the currents of the water, trying to feel out the resistances of the pins. Once you have the general layout of the lock, you start jiggling the pins with one end of the bobby pin. A sharp tap clicks the first pin down, while you keep the other side of the pin flattened hard against the pins to keep them in place. Click. Repeat. Click. Repeat. Click. Done. You turn one end of the bobby pin to the bottom of the lock, keeping the right pressure on the pins while spreading the prongs wide enough to give you the right amount of torsion and...

You feel the lock twist and the cuff swings open lazily in the water. You waste no time congratulating yourself, and swim towards the door, but as you reach the touchpad, your vision goes dark and and air rushes into your nostrils, carrying the smell of... oxidisation? Some sort of metal... possibly aluminium or iron. You open your eyes to the same dim room, the same tingle on your face, the same pain in your jaw, the same throbbing nerves in your awkwardly flopping arm, but you're awake again, and for the first time, you're alone. Or so you think.

There's a sharp sensation in your head. It's not exactly painful, and it's not pleasant, but it's a feeling that keeps you alive. It keeps you awake. But why are you awake? No-one's in the room, and you were under a heavy sedative. Did the drone hit you with another upper to induce consciousness?

Then you hear a noise, two plastic clicks as something falls to the ground behind you. You try to turn your head, cracking the plaster, but your peripheral vision is limited by the mask. That plastic sound again. Rolling this time. The sound stops beneath your chair, slightly to the left. There is a whirr and a hiss, a few seconds silence and then the sound of a drill penetrating plasteel. An assassin drone! Perhaps it's compromising the medical drone at your side to give you a lethal sedative dose. You hear the sound of folding machinery and the rolling starts again. You wait a few seconds and then see it emerge from under your chair. It looks like a mixture between an antique plastic photographic film canister in width and a cigar in length, with a short tracked wheel on either end propelling it forward. It stops a few feet beyond your shackled legs.

You're fearful for a moment. Grimacing as you expect an explosion any second now. But it doesn't come. Instead there is a whirr and a hiss and one of the canisters wheels folds open on a hinge, and something emerges from the darkness inside. You hear it before you see it, a faint clicking noise, organic, inhuman. Tiny skittering feet... A cockroach? Long, whisker-like antennae probe their way out of the canister, then a quick skitter across the floor, still probing, before dissapearing under your chair for a moment and appearing on the left arm of the chair, tickling your skin next to the intravenous cannula attatched to the robotic arm of the medical drone, antennae twitching curiously.
Mickle5125
bad bad badbadbad getawayfromme!

I start thrashing, heedless of the agony shooting up and down my arm and the screams that tore their way out of my throat. I don't want to die.

Don't kill me don't kill me dontkillmedontkillme! ohgodplease STOP!!!
Sir_Psycho
The cockroach is knocked off the chair and dissapears from your field of view. Suddenly, static clouds your vision, a storm of ice and pebbles, until it begins to clear, and suddenly there is a clinically white rectangle suspended in the air in front of you.

Mitsuhama Computer Technologies Prescriptor-IV - Intravenous Assistant
Firmware v. 13.4.8.5.201

\\User Subscribed at 05:10:13 - 1/2/2070 ... Status Report:
...
//Medication Levels: Low
//Wireless cut-off: OVER-RIDDEN at 05:09:48 - 1/2/2070
//Firewall: Inactive.
//Signal Strength: Medium
//Sedative prescription: CANCELLED 04:20:01 - 1/2/2070


You hear footsteps behind you. A white coated figure, slim, high cheeckbones, sensuous lips, short ebony hair slicked back flat. Thick plastic turtle-shell glasses balance precariously on the end of the nose over impossible amber eyes. You are unsure of the gender, but it's quite a striking medical drone icon.

"Good morning, Sir." The whitecoat says in dulcet tones, "How may I help you today?"
Mickle5125
I stare wordlessly at the white coat for a minute. This is weird. But I probably won't get another chance like this. "I don't suppose you can free me from these bonds?"
Sir_Psycho
"I'm afraid that is outside my capabilities as an intravenous assistant.", She says softly, smiling obsequiously. The cannula is drawn out by the spindly robotic arm. Your blood clots quickly once the long, shiny needle retracts, leaving a neat red dot above the vein.
Mickle5125
"Of course not..." I mutter, more to myself than anything. I sit and think for a while, testing my bonds occasionally as I try to figure out what to do now.

"Alright, Doc. What can you show and tell me about my current situation?"
Mickle5125
I listen for a handful of moments to the doc program drone on and on about sedatives and stimulants and users and brain spikes. Finally, I cut off the dissertation and directly inquire about my physical condition.

"I'm afraid that is beyond my capabilities as an intravenous assistant." She (it!) responds softly.

As soon as she (it! It's a drone!) says that, I ignore her and start looking around, trying to find something that can help me. My eyes slowly scan across the room, left to right, taking note of a couple details that seem of import to me. Medical drone (needles and drugs. Let's not drug ourself up anymore yet)... big door... comm(hope they don't call while I'm all tied up!)... cockroachdrone (what is it doing, anyway?)... manacles... doesn't look like an electronic lock ...Deactivated camera (who turns off a camera that's watching a prisoner?)... wait...

needles! I quickly turn my attention to the "intravenous assistant" and attempt a smile (useless. drones don't care.) "Doc, can you move close to my left hand and open your needle storage panel?"

In the other room, I was able to pick the locks to free myself. Maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to do it here, too. If I can get my hands on some good-sized needles...
Mickle5125
As the 'Intravenous Assistant' slowly rolls around to follow my orders, I close my eyes for a moment to try to remember how I picked the locks in the other room (twist, fiddle, click and catch. lather, rinse, repeat. Can't you remember anything, dummy?). Trying to remember, unfortunately, brings nothing more than a jumble of half-complete memories, so I give that up as a bad job and decide to just give it a go. Can't be that hard, can it?

As it turns out, 'Intravenous Assistant' needles really aren't made for picking locks. So yes, it could and was that hard. It takes me a couple minutes to figure out how to make the needles I picked out work as lockpicks, but once I get it, the restraints on my arms fall off in no time. Unfortunately, the restraints on my legs are a different matter. Between the pain of shifting my pulverized right arm so that I can lean over to get to the locks and the awkward positioning of the keyholes, it seems to take me forever to get the locks open. But, slowly one, then the other fell away from my legs, leaving me free for the first time since I woke up.

Having freed myself. I take a moment to catch my breath while glaring at my fairly maimed right arm. Everything would be so much easier if that bastard (A.K. I won't be forgetting that...) hadn't decided my arm was a punching bag.

I put my thoughts of vengeance on the backburner (what does that even mean?) for the time being and try to figure out what I need to do to minimize the suffering my arm will impose on me.(When dealing with a broken bone, make sure the bones don't shift by using a splint and make sure you don't use the arm by using a sl- Hey! pay attention, genius! This could save your life!)

After a few minutes of thinking, tearing, wincing, and jury-rigging, I manage to piece together a workable sling and splint. I'm pretty sure it's not doctor-quality work, but it should hold up long enough for me to A) get out of here and go see a real doctor, or B)die trying.

With that out of the way, I slowly stand up for the first time and wobble. My legs don't seem to be used to supporting my weight. Imagine that. A buzzing sound catches my attention, and at first I fear that I'm about to pass out. However, closer inspection of the sound shows that it's the roachdrone (creepy beasty) trying to catch my attention. I watch it spin and buzz for a while, trying to figure out what it wants. (Pick up the cylinder, moron.)

I slowly, cautiously bend down to pick up the cylinder, gingerly holding it between my thumb and forefinger as I try to figure out what is so important about it.
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