____________________________________
Reina sat in the cafeteria, endlessly stirring her soup. A cold soup she couldn’t eat.
Mind, she’d tried to eat it, but it had repulsed her to the point of gagging. Especially since she was plagued by the memories of those around her.
See, mutation was different than magic, and therefore wasn’t restricted by the dampeners.
And since her magic closer resembles mutation than magic itself, it works just fine.
…should probably check the Archives again…
…did I ever finish those reports?...
…take forever to find that particular variant…
Thoughts like those, normal TVA thoughts that invaded her ear and headspace were normal. They weren’t the ones she was singling out.
…dodge, weave, jump, strike. Don’t let him hit you. Shit, don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall! Stay away from that corner, his left ankle’s weak. Strike…now. He’s down, maybe…pinned! I win…
This particular voice was baffling to her. His voice was masculine, and his mind was concerning to her.
She often heard him chanting the same words over and over, and sometimes his head was just full of white noise.
The most concerning was when all she heard was screaming. Raw, loud, screaming that didn’t end for hours.
Even more concerning; if she ever looked directly into his mind, she saw Sylvie.
This man, with his constant screams and vivid pain, had Reina’s new friend embedded into his mind and memory.
…no. another mistake. I’ve made too many today. Yeah, that’s what I thought. Don’t cry, don’t cry-wait, what am I telling myself? I couldn’t cry if I wanted to. That’s the thing, isn’t it? They took away all the humanity I ever had. And now they’re taking more…
Reina dropped her spoon. She wanted to stop listening. She did. Because she knew this was the part where he started screaming.
And yet she kept listening, not because she enjoyed it.
But because he relied on it.
She was the only one who knew he was there. And if his thoughts let slip his location in the TVA office, she could help him. She could find him, get him out, and see why he has Sylvie in his memories.
She could be his hero unlike all those other people she’d interacted with.
When she was in the Red Room.
She had heard his thoughts since his first day there. She knew he had no memories, and that they (whoever they were) had corrupted his mind, leaving him broken on the inside. Unable to think for himself, believe in himself.
Unable to do anything except obey orders.
She could sympathize to a point. The Red Room had done something similar to her. She could still remember the pain. And though she had no idea who he was, she knew what it felt like to be under someone else’s control. To have everything inside ripped out and replaced by something worse. To have no one who could hear your voice, your screams.
To be silenced and trained to do nothing but kill.
So, she feels some kind of sick, twisted, chaotic, and generally useless kinship toward him. Even though she had no idea who he was.
…take the cup and drink, 2924, you idiot. No point in fighting now…
Reina lifted her head from the table. She sat forward on her elbows and focused harder on his voice, trying to make out more than just a few snippets.
…the lashings are nothing compared to this. But you will not break. Break, and you risk dying. They’ll kill you. They will. You have to keep being strong, staying useful, oh, make it stop. Stop. Stopstopstopstop. STOP! It hurts…
The tears flowed freely as the words turned into thoughtless screams. That was all she could hear now. The horrible shrieking sounds of a man in pain and anguish. Followed by the sounds of glass shattering.
He was screaming so loud that the glass in his environment was breaking.
How did no one hear him? How could no one know he was suffering?
And how could a person be cruel enough to do this to someone?
Did “They” have no compassion? No empathy?
Reina’s tears turned to sobs, and her head fell into her hands, his screams filling her ears.
She didn’t even notice Sylvie gently setting down in front of her.
“Reina?” Sylvie asked, voice clearly concerned. “What’s wrong?”
…MAKE IT STOP PLEASE! JUST MAKE IT STOP! I NEED IT TO STOP IT HURTS…
“There is someone here in the TVA,” Reina said. “I can hear his thoughts most days.”
“But magic doesn’t work here,” Sylvie sounded confused.
“Mutants don’t have magic, it’s different,” Reina uttered through sobs. “I can hear him.”
“What does he say?” Sylvie asked.
…this is punishment for my failure. I never should’ve shown my weakness. I got what I deserved. Soldiers don’t falter in battle. So neither do commanders. I’m a commander so this is what I get…
“I’ve been hearing him for about a year,” Reina finally looked up her hands. “He’s been experimented on, tortured, and trained to believe he’s nothing. He calls himself expendable, weak, broken, the works. Sometimes the words in his thoughts turn into screams. And they stay that way for hours. He screams for hours, because they’re hurting him. Someone where he is did that to him. They hurt him every day.”
Sylvie’s normally severe expression hardened into rage. Pure, unaltered rage.
“He mentions lashings, knives, a chamber where it’s just pure pain,” Reina continued. “They use it as his punishment, if he falters in training. He fights others to train, so he’s never not in pain. A few months ago…there was a glitch. Some of the others like him started to kill the doctors, and he killed them all. Twelve of them.”
Sylvie’s face now dissolved into horror, as if fear had penetrated all the way to her core.
“But as he laid in the blood and corpses, he just felt like a monster,” Reina started crying again. She could remember his words even now. “And then…that motherfucking Breeding Program.”
Her voice cracked as she recalled the torturous words he’d thought, forcing himself to control the instincts they had forced on him in the presence of those helpless girls. The disgust when he’d realized what they wanted him to do, and the pain when he refused.
“That fucking program,” Reina forced out. “They wanted him to hurt those girls, and when he refused, they tortured him even more than usual. And even now, he suffers. He suffers so much and his thoughts are more screams than words these days.”
“What?” Sylvie’s voice cracked, her eyes now glimmering with unshed tears.
…if only she could see me now. If I did really ever know her. What would she think of me now? What am I even asking. She’d hate me. Anyone would. No one wants someone like me…
“And there’s more,” Reina said, her memory jogged by his comments. “He knows you.”
“That’s not possible,” Sylvie stood rapidly. “There’s no way. Everyone I know here is safe. I see them every day.”
“He knew you,” Reina insisted, knowing what she’d been hearing for the last year. “He dreams of you. Every night, Sylvie. He’s haunted by you. All the time.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sylvie’s face turned back to horror.
“He dreams of you, Sylvie,” Reina said, voice lowering as the implications sink in. “He dreams of you every night, but he has no memory of knowing you before.”
“What does he look like?” Sylvie’s voice turned panicked. “Do you know?”
“No,” an inevitable sadness pierced Reina’s heart. “I can only hear his thoughts, and he never describes himself.”
Sylvie went quiet. Reina concluded from her face that she was pondering possibilities.
“But I do know what he sounds like,” Reina said quietly. “And his voice? I could recognize it anywhere. And that’s all we need at this point.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Reina paced in front of B-15’s office. Sylvie was inside, explaining the situation. Reina had chosen to stay outside, hoping to get more information about 2924. Anything else.
Anything they could use to get him out.
…I hate this place so badly. If only I could get out and see the rest of the building. This can’t be all there is, the food comes from somewhere. I just have to—SHIT. Nonononononononononononononono! Turn it off turn it off turn it off! Control panel, red wire, don’t get caught—too late. Act normal. You idiot. You should have known the door had a combination lock and alarm system…
…come on, you’ve broken into worse. Protection spells are so much harder to bypass…
…WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?????...
…ah, I forgot. You don’t remember…
Reina’s head shot up out of her hands.
He has split personalities.
…I’m you. But older. They took me out and put you in. Naturally, they didn’t know they did it, our seidr is at fault. It protected me from experiencing this, and made you…
…so, what does that mean?...
…it means you’re not alone in this. I know who we are, and if you let me, I think I can get us out…
…I have a plan. I can’t really explain it, but you should be able to hear it in my thoughts, hopefully, I don’t really know how this works. But all you have to do is keep being exactly what you’ve been, do what you’ve been doing, and let me take control exactly when I tell you to…
…do you really think it’ll work?…
…do you have a better plan? Either we get out or they kill us…
…or they decide to torture us more…
…and then we’re alive to try again. Either way, we’re getting out of this place…
…you never told me our name…
“Reina, come on in,” B-15 called from the office.
“MOTHERFUCKING SHIT!!!” Reina screamed out. “I was this close!”
She shoved her fingers in B-15’s face, showing how close she’d put them together.
“I was THIS CLOSE to finding out who he is!” Reina continued.
Reina didn’t care. She had been on the edge of knowing his name, who he was, and now she’d missed that opportunity.
“I have information for you,” Reina said, sitting down on the chair next to Sylvie’s.
“Fire away,” B-15 set down a recording device.
“He has two personalities,” Reina began.
She saw Sylvie turn to look at her from her peripheral vision, but didn’t dare look at her companion’s expression.
“One is older,” Reina continued. “He still has the memories of the life he led before. He was just about to say the name when you called me in.”
B-15 moved to interject, likely with another apology, but Reina held up her hand, silencing her.
“He mentioned seidr,” Reina continued. “He said that was why the second personality was made, to protect the original from experiencing the experiments. And if he mentioned seidr, then he’s likely Asgardian. Or at least familiar with Asgardian magic. He’s worked with it in the past, he mentioned he’s broken into areas with protection spells, so he’s been in proximity to other magic before.”
B-15’s gaze lowered to the table, brow furrowed as she thought through this information.
“And the best part?” Reina leaned further forward. “He has a plan to break out. I don’t know what it is, but he’s going to get out. He has a plan, an ally in his own mind, and all the materials he needs. We can use that to our advantage. We can use that to find him.”
“How often can you hear him?” B-15 asked.
“Anytime I wish,” Reina responded, furthering her point by doing so.
She sifted through the cacophony of the millions of voices in the TVA, and focused on his. She knew what he sounded like, so it was relatively easy. Even though his thoughts were unusually quiet.
The new personality was much louder, so that helped.
…I thought I told you to let me take care of it…
…I only just found out you existed; you really expect me to trust you?...
…I gave you a way out, didn’t I?...
…you have no idea how often I’ve been told to do that…
…what, shut up? Good, then you should know how to do it…
…I do know how, but that doesn’t mean I like to do so…
…you really like to hear yourself talk…
…I’ve been told that too…
…is there anything I can tell you that you haven’t already been told?...
…when you live as long as I have…not really, no…
…bloody hell, you’re just as pretentious as you are chatty…
…I’ll take that as a compliment, even though I know it’s not…
Reina snorted, and got a dirty look from B-15.
“Sorry, were you saying something?” Reina immediately started panicking. “I was listening to him—well, I guess it’s them now. I was listening to them. Their bickering is utterly hilarious.”
“How long do you think it will take to get him out of there?” B-15 asked.
“It depends,” Reina said, still listening to 2924’s thoughts. “They seem to have a plan, and I can continue to listen for more. Any information he lets slip.”
…by the way, I can sense someone here in the TVA with abilities…
…what kind of abilities? And what the fuck is the TVA?...
…I forgot that you don’t know anything…
…hey! Rude! I’ve kept us alive this long, haven’t I?...
…I can sense magic, and someone here, in this building called the TVA, is using it, which is odd, because magic doesn’t work here. I wonder how they’re getting away with it…
“He can sense me!” Reina gasped, interrupting B-15 again.
“What?” Sylvie’s head whipped to her, expression written with confusion.
“One of the personalities, he can sense me using my abilities to hear them,” Reina put her fingertips to her head and continued listening.
…anyway, point is. Give me–seventy-two hours or so, and I’ll have us out of here…
…what do I have to do?...
…when they take us for injections, we need to break out of the containment chamber, then you need to let me take control of the body, and I will find us a way out. They work here, so there has to be a TemPad somewhere, or I can hotwire the elevators—that works too…
…if it involves wires, metal, and motherboards, I can do anything with it. Hack it, hotwire it, design it, build it, fix it. I’m your guy…
…so your plan is to fight and nerd your way out?...
…not if I can get my hands on a knife to cut out the computer chips in our neck. They restrict our memories and magic. With them out, we’ll be able to do anything we need to…
…you’re distracting me! We’re going to get punished for that…
…oh, piss off! At least I have a plan! You seem perfectly satisfied sucking up the bureaucrats who stole everything from us! Our life, our humanity, our agency, our home, our purpose, our voice! They made it so we don’t even matter, and you don’t even seem to want to get out from under it! You’re pathetic…
…and you’re going to get us killed!...
…WE CAN’T DIE YOU IDIOT! PEOPLE HAVE TRIED TO KILL US SEVERAL TIMES, IT NEVER WORKS! DON’T YOU KNOW THAT? OF COURSE NOT! YOU NEVER QUESTIONED THEIR WORDS! YOU BELIEVED EVERYTHING THEY SAID AND NEVER EVEN STOPPED TO CONSIDER THAT THEY MAY BE LYING TO YOU! YOU BENT OVER BACKWARDS OUT OF A FEAR OF PAIN! PAIN WILL BE THE LEAST OF OUR PROBLEMS IF WE DON’T GET OUT! DO YOU REMEMBER HOW IT FELT WHEN YOU KILLED THE OTHERS? HOW YOU FELT LIKE A MONSTER, COATED IN THE BLOOD OF THOSE YOU SLAUGHTERED? DO YOU WANT THEM TO FORCE YOU TO DO THAT TO INNOCENT PEOPLE? CHILDREN? PEOPLE WHO NEVER DID ANYTHING WRONG? DO YOU WANT TO BE THEIR LAPDOG? THEIR PET? THEIR SOLDIER? THE MONSTER THEY SAY YOU ARE? DO YOU WANT TO HAVE TO DO THAT OVER AND OVER AND OVER EVERY DAY FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE? BECAUSE IF YOU DON’T YOU NEED TO TRUST ME!...
…do you really think this will work?...
…if it doesn’t, I will take control of the body and suffer in your place. You won’t have to feel that pain ever again…
…from the core of Yggdrasil…
…then we’d better get to work…
“He says he needs seventy-two hours to escape,” Reina said, looking up at B-15. “His plan will take seventy-two hours at most, and then he’ll be out.”
“Then we’d better prepare,” B-15 stood up.
Reina couldn’t agree more.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Naturally, Reina knew exactly what was going on when the alarms started going off.
CODE RED! CODE RED! ESCAPED PRISONER IS LOOSE IN THE TVA! CODE RED! Called the voice of Miss Minutes, encouraging everyone to follow protocol and stay put until the escapee was caught.
Wonderfully, Reina had orders from the top to do the exact opposite.
With her headphones in, she bolted down the hallways to find 2924. She raced down staircases, across catwalks, and through corridor after corridor.
…come on, come on, COME ON! Why is it so hard to find a scalpel in a lab?...
…are you sure you know what you’re doing?...
…please. Knives of any kind are my specialty. I just have to – aha!...
She finally arrived where the tracking beacon had led her.
Sublevel 19, three floors below O.B’s workshop, corridor nine.
In front of the sleek white door to a lab.
She stopped for a second, and held her hand to the cold metal. The purple energy she knew all too well expanded until it covered the surface, showing her the interior of the room.
He was definitely in there.
She slowly edged open the door, gold sword held out in front of her.
And was immediately struck by the metallic stench of blood.
Stepping into the room, the scene awaiting her was gruesome.
There were bodies all over the floor, covered in blood and gore. Some of them had been violently ripped open, so their internal organs littered the floor around them. Others had melted, boiled skin, from the acid that had seemingly been thrown onto their faces. There were several broken bones, some crushed skulls.
One had a scalpel embedded in their eyeball.
And all of them were wearing the shredded remains of white lab coats, stained red with their own blood.
Reina felt the bile rise in her throat, threatening to release everything she had ever eaten.
She had been on dozens of battlefields throughout her long life, had killed her own fair share of people.
But never in her life had she seen something this morbid and grisly.
She’d seen mass graves with three times this many corpses.
But she’d never seen bodies this mangled, all spread out so their insides came out and leached on the pristine, sterile floor.
This was something else entirely.
She knew better than to check for pulses. They were all dead. No one could survive something like that.
She made her way across the room, slipping in the blood, and trying not to notice the squelching as she stepped on someone’s innards. She was trying not to look at her feet.
The scene was filthy enough without her own vomit in the mix.
She finally reached the only body still breathing.
A male, around six feet in height based on the way he was lying, with short, ragged black hair that had been badly and hastily cut, sharp features, and a long chiseled jawline enhanced by the sunken cheekbones.
He looked half-starved, with his ribs visible through his loose, light mint…scrubs? That’s what they looked like, at least. His entire body was riddled with scars, so many that there didn’t seem to be an inch of skin that wasn’t coated in them.
Including a fresh one over his left eye.
But he wasn’t wearing a lab coat, or shoes like the corpses. And he seemed uninjured.
Except the long, jagged slice down the back of his neck, and the blood soaking his hands all the way up to his mid-forearms.
The same mix of iron, plasma, and cells that had splattered over his clothes and painted the walls and floor.
Both of his fists were clenched, one wrapped around a blood-stained scalpel, and the other clutching something too small for Reina to see, hidden in his closed palm.
She didn’t have to hear his thoughts to know it was him.
Before she could convince herself to do otherwise, she took her right hand and pried open his left eye.
A sea-green iris stared back at her, before it shifted to a deep ocean blue, and then a brilliant emerald-green.
“Reina!” Sylvie’s voice sounded far away, and Reina turned around.
Her eyes found the doorway just as Sylvie slid into it. Reina watched Sylvie take in the scene, face rapidly turning to disgust and horror.
Sylvie convulsed, starting in her abdomen, and clamped her hand over her mouth. She then turned to the side and gagged.
She turned back to Reina once she finished retching.
“What did you do?” she asked.
A temporary pang of hurt laced Reina’s bones. She didn’t blame Sylvie for thinking she’d done it, though. Sylvie couldn’t see that 2924, lying in front of Reina, was coated in blood he had spilled.
In response, Reina held up her hands and sword, showcasing the significant lack of blood.
She watched the realization dawn on Sylvie’s face.
“I didn’t,” Reina stood up, and moved to the side, revealing 2924 to Sylvie. “He did.”
“Oh my gods…” Sylvie trailed off. “Is that really him?”
“It’d have to be,” Reina looked back at the man at her feet. “There were no other survivors.”
“Is he injured?” Sylvie stepped forward, but immediately retreated, convulsing again with the need to vomit.
“I think he cut open the back of his neck,” Reina said, examining the jagged opening.
He had clearly been in a hurry, and whyever he did it, he seemed to have accomplished his mission.
“We need to get a medic in here,” Reina called out, now using her fingers to hold the wound closed.
Reina whirled around to face the new voice.
Analyst Mobius stood in the doorway for two seconds, before ducking out of view.
Reina could hear him spitting up his salad, even from across the room.
“We need to get a medic in here for 2924,” Reina continued. “Don’t bother for the doctors. They’re all dead.”
“I’d hope so!” Sylvie’s eyes scanned the carnage, observing Reina’s conclusion that not a single victim had non-lethal injuries.
The medics were there in a matter of minutes, pulling 2924 onto a stretcher and wheeling him away for medical attention. Reina made sure to warn them that he was an experimentally enhanced individual, and that “regular” lab results may not apply to him.
Sylvie and Mobius’s eyes lingered on his form, and Reina knew better than to dismiss the brief flicker of recognition in their eyes.
But she also knew better than to listen to their thoughts, so she didn’t try to understand it.
Instead, she focused on hacking the lab computer.
Within minutes, she had pulled up 2924’s medical history and lab statistics. She printed a copy and gave it to the remaining medic, who promised to take it to the doctors.
Reina had been right, his statistics were a far cry from “normal”, in fact, not a single aspect of his body fit standard levels.
But by then, she didn’t care. She couldn’t wait to find out who he was, and talk to him properly.
But first, she was going to collapse onto her bed.
Before she left the room, however, she took one last look at the butchery littering the once-white tiled floor.
How can one person be trained to do all this? Was the only thought in her mind.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
“Beautiful isn’t it?” he turned to look at her from the top of the hill.
“Only you would say that about your own work,” Reina shook her head as she laughed, joining him at the precipice.
The green hill turned into a jagged cliff of rock, dropping hundreds of feet down the mountainside, giving way to a gorgeous green valley riddled with mahogany trails.
Trails that all led to the glittering golden city encased in an orange dome, in the middle of the valley, surrounded by tens of mountains in a ring in every direction.
“Queen, you of all people would know that I didn’t build it,” he joked, looking at her. “I only designed the buildings. Drew the blueprints. I didn’t even expect them to use them.”
“Still your handiwork, Keys,” she bumped his shoulder.
Well, it was more like his side, since she was a good foot shorter.
“I can’t wait for Set to see it,” his glowing emerald eyes glimmered with pride.
“She’ll be proud of you,” Reina responded.
Suddenly, a cloud passed over his face. His brow furrowed in confusion as he examined her. His lips parted as he struggled for words.
“Reina?” he spluttered out, taking several steps back.
“Yeah, dumbass,” Reina responded. “Who did you think—”
She raked her eyes over his form.
Ragged black hair, more tame than she saw it five seconds ago. Glowing emerald-green eyes, shifting to ocean blue. Dozens of scars, the one on his eye far more healed than it was.
She glanced down at his right arm.
“2924?” she looked back up, and saw the panic lace his bones.
“Reina, how are you alive?” he took a step toward her, and she retreated in response.
“How do you know my name?” Reina was confused now. “We’ve never spoken.”
“Why did you call me 2924?” he asked. “You know who I am.”
He took another step forward, and she retreated again. Pain and hurt flickered across his face. Panic swelled in her chest.
“Reina, it’s me,” he whispered. “It’s me. I’m so sorry. Please, don’t hold it against me. I lost control. Please, Reina. Forgive me. I never meant to hurt you…I never meant to kill—”
A horn blared in the distance. His head whipped to it, face frozen in momentary horror.
“They’re back,” he muttered. “Holy fucking shit. They were supposed to stay away for another week! The wards made sure of it…”
“2924, what is going on?” Reina screeched.
“Reina, listen to me,” he gripped her shoulders. “Sylvie. You need to tell Sylvie.”
“Tell her my name is Loki Odinson,” his eyes pierced hers, and she froze.
She knew that name. Everyone knew that name. But which Loki variant was it?
“Tell her that what makes a Loki a Loki is that we don’t die,” he continues. “We survive. Tell her that, she’ll know what it means.”
“Wait, 2924!” Reina called.
But it was too late, her vision blurred and faded to black.
Reina sat upright in bed, shaking in the aftershocks of the dream.
She took a few minutes to recalibrate, before standing up and wrenching open the door to her room and bolting to the infirmary.
“Sylvie!” she burst through the door, and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw her friend standing in the room. “Hallelujah to Valhalla, you’re here!”
“Reina, what’s wrong?” Sylvie’s face voiced confusion.
“2924 spoke to me in a dream,” Reina came to stand in front of Sylvie. “I think it was in the future.”
“What did he say?” Sylvie was paying attention now.
“That his name is Loki Odinson,” Reina started.
Sylvie let out a bark of laughter.
“He could be any Loki variant from anywhere in the multiverse, Reina,” She said.
“He told me to tell you, ‘that what makes a Loki a Loki is that we don’t die,’” Reina kept going. Sylvie’s face paled significantly. “‘We survive.’”
Sylvie took several steps backward; eyes now trained on the unconscious form of EESS 2924. Her back hit the wall; eyes glazed over with apparent panic.
“It’s him,” she whispered so quiet that Reina barely heard. “How can it be him?”
“Who?” Reina demanded, now thoroughly confused.
“Our Loki,” Sylvie muttered. “THE Loki.”
“The Ttjyngmredjeck,” Reina whispered. “The Multiverse Master.”
________________________________________________________________
bum ba da da dum!!!!! Chapter four and the shenanigans begin!
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