Author's note: From here on out I'm gonna be experimenting with different perspectives and tenses for each chapter, so I hope it doesn't confuse you!
TW: needles, drugging, dissociation, hallucination, light gore
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Mark's feeling cocky this morning, as yesterday's interrogation session was almost underwhelming. Almost too easy. Dr Li had called it a “control”, whatever that meant. It was probably nothing important, he reassures himself.
Too bad today will be different, Dr. Li ponders. He calmly observes Mark through the one-way mirror into the grungy examination room. Subject 1468 is noticeably on edge, as one should be whilst strapped to a bloodstained medical chair in a dimly lit cell.
“Yesterday's questioning didn't work out too well, huh?” Mark jokes dryly, trying to break the tension.
“Sure, we'll go with that. That was our control group-” Dr. Li notices the confusion and elaborates. “-a baseline test, so we can see how much more effective our new special treatment is!” He can't help but smirk as the dread visibly blooms beneath his victim's confident facade.
“Oh, don't tell me you forgot about your injections!” he pouts mockingly. “Our staff has been hard at work on our latest truth serum. Isn't that right, Haruka?”
Dr. Osogami materializes from the shadows of the dimly lit room, wielding a menacing syringe in her shiny latex gloved hands. He jumps a little in surprise, to which she flashes a venomous grin. Something else glints back at him from her sleek, dark outfit - the shiny handles of more syringes and a few throwing knives.
Mark shudders at the thought of being perforated by flying blades and needles. “Why can't you just get all you want out of your double agent here?” He tries to sound confident, but she laughs as his voice wobbles.
“I wasn't there for all of it,” she smirks. “After all, you were a very private person. Good on you for keeping a secret - though, I'm sure we'll have plenty of fun ripping it out of ya!” She advances, lazily twirling the syringe.
Dr. Li leans idly in the corner, clutching an old style cassette recorder. “Don't wanna miss the main event!” He presses the record button, but Mark doesn't notice as he's captivated by the swirling blue liquid in the syringe.
“Th-that's for me and the next guy to share, right?” he falters. It's so cute to watch his confidence crumble in real time. Dr. Li is going to clip that morsel from the CCTV feed and play it on repeat when he gets back to his office.
“Nope! You get it all to yourself, 1468. We even brought spares should it wear off too fast. It tends to increase heart rate to the point of failure as a side affect, though.” Dr Li points to a splash of dried blood and viscera dessicated on the ceiling above. “We wouldn't want that again, right?”
Mark's busy visualizing that horrible fountain of guts when a sharp prick in his neck sends fire racing through his veins. Dr. Osogami chuckles as his back arches in agony. “Wow, the new compound is so fast acting. That caught me off guard!” He can barely register her laugh as reality tears itself apart. Her crooked smile is swirling into something inhuman. A monster, even more fearsome than the evil that lurks within the person he used to call a friend.
“Are you scared?” she laughs.
Of course anyone would be scared, strapped to a doctor's chair in a dingy bloodstained cell with two creeps raring to dismantle you, Mark reasons. But I can't give it away--
His train of thought is cut off by her sharp manic laugh. “Oh, but you just did. Gotta watch your mouth a little more closely, hm?”
Shit, it's like they can hear my every thought. Am I saying all that unconsciously!? All that torture resistance training, gone to waste from a single syringe. At least it'd be over soon, right?
“Ah, I love this serum. It's like burrowing inside their brain. Minus the blood and gore, of course!” Dr. Osogami sighs contently.
“Well, not to say the latter wouldn't be enjoyable. Though, it'd be unfortunate to lose them so early on.” Dr. Li laments. “Anyways, plenty of time for violence later. Let's move on: What were you doing in the northern exclusion zone last June?”
His heart stops. How did they know he was there!? It's not like he left anything behind.
Right?
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Mark and Kaitlyn, another Insurgency agent, creep through a hole they'd discreetly cut into the energized fence, connection bridged with jumper cables. 30 minutes, they nod. The radiation detector would tell them when to leave.
Several abandoned office blocks loom in the dark forest ahead. The hairs on his neck prickle at the incessant feeling that he's being watched. His body screams at him to run, but they can't afford to abort this mission. They press on in silence.
Inside, loose papers marked with the old Xenokore Industries logo rustle in the decrepit hallways. They'd been tipped off that some of these papers contained concrete examples of the company's gruesome human experiments. Evidence that could turn the masses against Xenokore and the oppressive Federation government in its grasp. A revolution was well within sight, it just needed a spark.
Something's off, though. He immediately finds a binder labeled Project Aletheia, the rumored truth serum program, right on top of a pile of papers. Other incriminating evidence is also lying out conspicuously. As if they were planted there by someone who knew they were coming.
He whips around to tell Kaitlyn he'd found the papers, but he's greeted with silence. “Kaitlyn?” He calls softly, bile pooling in his throat. Instead, a man's voice trails out of a lighted doorway down another hall.
“T plus one five minutes. Extraction proceeding well, but serum starting to wear off.” Mark follows the disembodied voice, now alone in the windswept hallway of the facility. Kaitlyn was just here! He rounds the doorway but slips on a piece of paper on the linoleum floor and… falls back into the operating chair, those two sick doctors circling him with hungry eyes.
“Give her back to me! You fucking psychos!” he grits out. His muscles spasm uncontrollably as they fight the effects of the serum.
Another prick sends his tumbling back into the foggy haze. He's busy regaining his bearings in the increasingly windy maze and ignores the muffled yelling in the background.
“What the hell did you do that for!? Are you crazy!?” Dr. Li sounds concerned, possibly for the first time ever.
“C'mon! We were just getting to the good part!
“Really? You and I both know that second dose is gonna make his heart explode!”
“And you and I both know he'll develop an immunity immediately after the drug leaves his system. Best to prolong it to get as much out of him as we can.”
“Ohhhkaaayyyy fiiiine. But this one's on you if Aletheia gets cut for being too dangerous.”
The same name as what's on the papers. How ironic, now a victim of the same program he tried to expose, he chuckles in despair as he loses his grip on reality.
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He's out of time. By now the wind of the approaching storm has accelerated to a deafening roar. He plugs the speaker on his radiation detector when it begins to alarm, as flashlights draw closer outside, beams sweeping over the tattered curtains. A backpack of various papers and an unknown bloodstained VHS tape are all he can stuff in his backpack. He watches, dissociated from his own body, as his figure beelines for the stairwell.
In the absence of his past self, he's suddenly more attuned to his surroundings. The distant yells of military personnel are closing in, but so is a second nearby sound. A viscous dripping that wasn't there before is coming from a darkened room to his right. A lump grows in his throat when he steps in the dark crimson pooling in the doorway. The doctors’ frantic bickering fades into the background as the rhythmic rush of blood in his ears crescendos to a cacophony of howling wind.
He gingerly walks towards the sound as his frenzied heartbeat pounds his head, but kicks something in the doorway and everything goes eerily quiet. Looking down, he finds a pale human leg, sock and shoe still attached. Frozen with dread, there's only one thing he can do.
Let me know if you'd like to join the list so you get notified when a new chapter comes out! I'm not very consistent lol so it could be a few weeks or a few months later....
This is a little poem I scribbled down at about 1 in the morning after re-watching the finale of Wolf Hall. Inspired entirely by Anne Boleyn’s last speech.
Xenokore Industries Intro Series - Part 2! I can't believe it, it's finally here!
Part 1 (it's been months so please read it first if you forgot what's going on)
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EP 2: Orientation
Mark had been standing uncomfortably in the dark cinderblock hallway for what felt like ages, staring blankly at an office door. The only signs of life were tendrils of a strange, acrid smoke oozing out from under the door. He tried to ignore the two gas masked guards flanking him, who had violently wrenched him from his sleep moments prior. The sharp clang of the cell door slamming open still rung in his cloudy consciousness, muddled by the events last night. He took the brief respite to contemplate how it'd all gone wrong so suddenly, from Resistance leader to legally dead in mere hours.
His thoughts were interrupted by a cheerful "Come in!" as the door opened to reveal a wood-paneled office filled with a thick haze. Before he could react, a boot firmly planted in his back sent him sprawling into the room, nearly smashing his face on the desk in front of him. Only then did he notice the intricate mechanical prosthetic arm grotesquely writing about on a test stand mounted to the table. Upon closer inspection, the device appeared to be following the movements of the same scar faced man from yesterday.
"Welcome in!" He smiled and stood up from the desk, revealing flecks of fresh crimson decorating his labcoat. "I'm Dr. Li, if you don't remember me from our rather... informal meeting yesterday. Glad to see you." He reached out to shake Mark's hand.
"Oh oops, I totally forgot you're restrained," he laughed. "Don't want crazies like you to spoil the fun here." He reached out a gloved hand and ruffled Mark's hair, eliciting a shudder. "As you can see, I was a little distracted with my work earlier." He gestured to the prosthetic, its metal skin rippling like the scales on a fish. A soldering iron - likely the source of the haze - smoldered away next to it.
Mark wanted to reply, 'aren't you the insane one here?' but the guard clapped a hand over his open mouth. The same hands then forced him into a chair as the doctor returned to his desk too.
"I'd like to give you a little orientation about your 'afterlife', so to speak, but before we can do that, I just need a little info from ya. Tell me the truth and we can make this nice and easy, how does that sound?" Mark only scowled in response. He'd make this as hard as possible for that sicko.
"Alright," Dr. Li sighed, pushing aside the prosthetic and soldering iron. "Let's get started with the simple stuff. We should both know the answers already, but it's company policy so I have to ask. What's your full name and birth date?"
"Wouldn't you like to know? How 'bout you ask your backstabbing friend from last night?" Mark retorted, before the guard's glove could smother him again.
Wrong answer.
Mark's neck seized and his vision whited out. He arched back into a scream, paralyzed by the pain continously coursing through his flesh. Once it subsided he slumped forward in his chair panting, his senses now consumed by a sickening hot sensation wetting the base of his neck and running down his back.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" Dr. Li giggled. He walked behind Mark and creepily caressed the warm flow with a latex-gloved hand. "Got a little too excited there. Maybe you noticed some soreness in your neck this morning."
Mark froze. "Your good friend Dr. Osogami implanted our latest Remote Monitoring Unit directly into your spinal cord while you were out last night." He tapped something hard plastic back there. Dread rose in Mark's stomach. "It tracks your location and gives us the opportunity to shock you when you misbehave, if you couldn't tell. Still manually activated, though we're working on an automated version that'll use implanted sensors." He waved a controller around in Mark's peripheral.
"Shouldn't have turned up the voltage so high though, since you haven't had time to heal up yet. That's on me," he said casually, as if hurting Mark was all a game. Mark looked up just in time to watch him lick the glistening dark red off his shiny black latex glove. He flashed a sinister smile, blood coating his teeth as he spoke. "Though, I suppose we could cauterize it right here and now. It'd keep my floor clean," he dangerously eyed the soldering iron, still trailing a thin wisp of smoke. His victim sat wordlessly, paralyzed by fear.
Dr Li sat back down to absentmindedly toy with the iron. "Well? Are you going to tell me?" Mark desperately tried to look away from the monster in front of him but still caught a glimpse of its bloodstained grin.
"Hey, eyes on me. You can dissociate in your cell later. You'll have plenty of time to look elsewhere when we're done with you." He broke into a laugh, gesturing at the jars lining his upper shelves.
Eyes. Tens of pairs of eyes stared back at Mark through layers of formaldehyde and glass. He retched at the visceral sight.
Then it clicked. That's why Dr. Li looked so familiar, he thought. But no, it couldn't be.
The Snake Eyes Slasher. The notorious serial killer from 10-ish years ago who evaded capture in a gruesomely artistic escape that stunned the nation? A case that Mark himself had covered as a green reporter for the local news. No way had the killer taken up host as the sadistic head scientist of the Xenokore Industries cybernetics team, right?
Well, people change, especially since the killer didn't have a huge scar back then. But this pattern of displaying victim's eyes stuck, if the coincidence was to be believed.
His thoughts were cut short by a sudden alarm in the hall. Dr. Li's eyes widened, then narrowed as he looked at something on his phone. His radio crackled to life as a female voice - Dr. Osogami's voice - instructed: "Dr. Justin Li, please report to Prison Hall 4." He said something unintelligible into the mic and received a reply that made him sigh before perking back up.
"Looks like we got ourselves an impromptu lesson in prison discipline! C'mon, this could be a once in a lifetime experience!" he laughed delightedly. "Sorry you never had a fair chance to answer my question, but it's not like I cared about your answer anyways. Enough wasting time, let's get going, shall we?" He nearly skipped out the door.
Mark was hauled to his feet and once again found himself paralyzed with dread, but a gun to his ribcage encouraged him out the door. As manic laughter echoed off the cinderblock walls, he couldn't help but wonder what more atrocities he'd witness on his first day in hell.
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Due to popular demand, I'm starting a taglist for Xenokore Industries stories! Let me know if you'd like to be included.
AWH! Mark Ruffalo was so cute when he lost best supporting actor, because they announced “Mark Ryland” and he thought it was going to be him!
Same Mark Ruffalo, same.
