Back to the Gridiron: The Trials of PDU-070 - 2
Act 2 — The Red Infection
Scene 1 — The First Burn
The red drop reached the end of the tube.
For a fraction of a second it clung there, thick and glossy inside the clear plastic line.
Then gravity won.
The bright red goo slid into the catheter.
And into Maximus’ bloodstream.
The reaction was immediate.
Maximus’ entire body jolted violently against the hospital bed.
A strangled gasp tore from his throat as his back arched upward.
Pain exploded through his arm.
Not the dull ache of injury.
Not even the sharp bite of a needle.
This was different.
It felt like liquid fire racing through his veins.
Maximus’ eyes snapped open.
“—AH—!”
The shout ripped out of him before he could stop it. His arm jerked violently, muscles locking as the burning sensation surged up from the IV site toward his shoulder.
The heart monitor beside the bed erupted into frantic beeping.
The doctor lunged forward immediately.
“Stay still!” he barked, grabbing Maximus’ forearm and forcing it back toward the mattress. “You have to stay still!”
Maximus barely heard him.
The burning was spreading.
It crawled through the veins of his arm like molten metal, pushing upward into his chest. His muscles tightened painfully as the heat followed the pathways of his bloodstream.
“What—” he gasped, struggling against the doctor’s grip. “What the hell—”
Another surge hit.
His body spasmed again, fingers curling involuntarily as the burning spread across his shoulders and down his ribs.
For a moment it felt like his entire circulatory system had been set on fire.
Maximus’ vision swam.
The sedative still clung to the edges of his thoughts, dulling his reactions just enough that everything felt slightly delayed. His brain struggled to catch up with what his body was screaming.
Bad reaction.
That had to be it.
Some kind of reaction to the infusion.
“Easy!” the doctor said again, trying to pin Maximus’ arm down as the muscles continued to twitch violently. “It’s just the medication—”
Maximus turned his head sharply toward the IV stand.
And froze.
The bag hanging above him was filled with bright red liquid.
Not tinted.
Not slightly pink.
Red.
Thick and glossy as it crept through the clear tubing toward his arm.
Recognition hit instantly.
Red.
Everyone in the Golden Army knew that color.
A memory surfaced behind the pain.
A simulation chamber.
PDU-073 standing across from him while the scenario unfolded step by step.
Red entering the bloodstream.
The body beginning to restructure.
And the calm explanation that followed.
“If the conversion stabilizes, the original body is gone.”
Maximus’ stomach dropped.
This wasn’t just an attack.
The process had already started.
“…What the fuck is that?” he breathed.
Another pulse of burning surged through his veins.
This time it didn’t stop in his chest.
It spread.
Down his spine.
Into his abdomen.
Across his back.
Maximus sucked in a sharp breath as his muscles tightened again, a violent tremor running through his body.
Something was moving inside him.
Not the flow of blood.
Something thicker.
Something wrong.
The skin along his forearm suddenly flushed deep red for a brief instant.
Then faded.
The vaccine inside his system reacted instantly, pushing back.
The burning stalled.
For a moment the pressure eased.
Maximus sucked in a shaky breath.
Then the next surge hit.
Harder.
The heat blasted through his chest and down both arms simultaneously, forcing a low groan from his throat as every muscle tightened again.
His fingers curled against the bedsheet.
The red goo continued sliding through the IV line.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Scene 2 — The Observer
Across the room, the door opened quietly.
Neither Maximus nor the doctor noticed at first. The heart monitor was still screaming in frantic bursts as another wave of burning rolled through Maximus’ body.
His muscles seized again.
The doctor struggled to keep his arm pinned to the mattress.
“Hold still!” he snapped. “You’re going to tear the line out!”
Footsteps entered the room.
Slow.
Measured.
“Well now… that’s unusual.”
The voice was calm.
Almost conversational.
The doctor froze.
Maximus forced his head toward the doorway through the haze of pain.
A man stood there with his hands clasped behind his back, studying the scene like a coach evaluating a drill gone wrong.
Red mirrored sunglasses caught the hospital lights.
The Red Coach.
Maximus’ pulse hammered harder.
The Coach stepped closer, his gaze moving over the struggling defender on the bed.
The spasming muscles.
The faint red flashes surfacing beneath the skin.
The IV line feeding the conversion into his bloodstream.
Then he nodded slightly.
“Vaccinated,” he said. “That explains the delay.”
The doctor swallowed.
“You— you shouldn’t be here—”
The Red Coach didn’t even glance at him.
His attention remained fixed on Maximus.
Another wave surged through Maximus’ body. His fingers curled violently against the bedsheet as heat spread up his spine and across his shoulders.
The skin along his bicep flushed red again.
This time the sheen lingered.
The Coach noticed immediately.
“Still fighting,” he murmured.
He began pacing slowly around the bed, the movement eerily reminiscent of a coach circling the sideline during a game.
Evaluating.
Assessing.
Maximus forced himself upright despite the doctor’s grip, eyes locked on the man moving around him.
“You…” he rasped.
The Coach tilted his head slightly.
Recognition flickered behind the red lenses.
“Ah,” he said. “Maximus.”
Another pulse of burning tore through his chest.
Maximus forced the words out through clenched teeth.
“You did this.”
The Coach considered that calmly.
“Yes.”
No denial.
No anger.
Just acknowledgment.
He stopped beside the bed, studying the shifting red patches forming along Maximus’ forearm where the skin kept trying to change.
“You’re lasting longer than most,” he observed.
Another surge hit.
Maximus’ muscles seized again as heat flared through his chest and down both arms.
The Coach watched carefully.
Curious.
Interested.
“You know what’s happening to you,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
Maximus spat the words through gritted teeth.
“Go to hell.”
The Red Coach smiled faintly.
“You’d feel a lot less pain if you stopped resisting.”
Maximus’ fingers dug into the mattress.
“Not… happening.”
Another pulse of heat rolled through his veins.
The red sheen crept another inch along his forearm before fading again as the vaccine fought back.
The Coach’s head tilted slightly as he observed the unstable transformation.
“Such determination,” he said quietly.
He leaned closer, inspecting the glossy patch of red forming along Maximus’ arm.
“You’d make a magnificent alpha.”
Maximus forced out a hoarse laugh.
“Yeah?”
His eyes burned with defiance.
“Not joining your pack.”
The Coach straightened slowly.
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” he said calmly.
Another surge of heat tore through Maximus’ body.
The red sheen spread further along his arm.
The Coach watched the change with quiet fascination.
“The Red has a way of settling arguments like this.”
The IV line continued feeding the bright red goo into Maximus’ bloodstream.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Scene 3 — The War in the Flesh
The next surge didn’t come like the others.
It detonated.
Maximus’ entire body convulsed violently against the bed as a wave of heat blasted through his veins, far stronger than before. His back arched upward with a strangled cry as every muscle in his torso seized at once.
“—AAH—!”
The sound tore out of him before he could stop it.
The burning wasn’t just in his blood anymore.
It was inside the muscles.
Inside the bones.
Something was forcing its way deeper into him, pushing through every layer of tissue like molten metal seeking new pathways.
The doctor’s grip slipped as Maximus’ arm jerked violently.
“Damn—!” the man swore, trying to hold him down. “Hold still!”
Maximus couldn’t.
Another pulse ripped through him.
The red sheen across his forearm didn’t fade this time.
Instead it spread.
Slowly.
Like liquid lacquer crawling across the skin.
Maximus stared at it in disbelief as the surface of his arm tightened, the flesh taking on a faint glossy sheen beneath the hospital lights.
“Not… happening…” he rasped.
The vaccine inside him fought back.
The red sheen stalled.
For a moment the color receded.
Then the next surge hit.
Harder.
Maximus’ fingers clenched violently against the bedsheet.
But they didn’t unclench.
The tendons along his forearms tightened visibly beneath the skin as his fingers began curling inward, joints locking at unnatural angles.
Like paws trying to form.
“—No—!”
Maximus tried to force his hand open.
The muscles resisted him.
The glossy red surface surged again along his arm, thickening as the skin tightened into something smoother… denser… almost rubber-like.
For a moment the entire limb looked wrong.
Then the vaccine struck back.
The red sheen flickered and cracked apart in patches, flesh reasserting itself as the immune response forced the invading structure to destabilize.
Maximus sucked in a ragged breath.
His entire body trembled.
Heat surged through one set of veins while icy pressure pushed back through another as the two forces fought for control of his flesh.
Another wave slammed into him.
This one drove a guttural sound from his throat as the heat blasted up his spine and across his shoulders.
Across the room, the Red Coach watched quietly.
He had stopped pacing.
Now he stood beside the bed with his hands clasped behind his back, studying the unstable conversion with focused attention.
“Fascinating,” he murmured.
Maximus barely heard him.
Pain was swallowing everything else.
Another surge rolled through his body.
The glossy red patch surged again along his arm, spreading nearly to the elbow before flickering violently as the vaccine pushed back.
His fingers were still locked in that half-curled shape, tendons trembling as his body struggled to decide whether they belonged to a human hand or something else entirely.
Then the heat surged higher.
Up his neck.
Maximus’ head snapped back as pressure built beneath his scalp.
At first he thought sweat had soaked his hair flat.
Then the strands began to collapse together.
His eyes widened.
His hair was dissolving.
Dark strands fused and thickened, sliding into glossy red threads as the Red began reworking the surface of his skull. Thin lines of fluid slipped down the sides of his head as the transformation tried to stabilize.
His jaw tightened involuntarily.
Bones along his face shifted slightly beneath the skin.
Not enough to change the shape fully.
Just enough to send a sharp pressure through his cheekbones before the vaccine forced the process to stall.
The shape almost settled.
Almost.
Then snapped back.
Maximus gasped through clenched teeth as his skull throbbed with the aborted restructuring.
The IV line continued feeding the bright red goo into his bloodstream.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Maximus’ breath came in ragged gasps.
His entire body felt like a battlefield.
And the war inside him was escalating.
The Red was starting to win.
Scene 4 — The Siege of the Mind
The assault on his body was only half of it.
Maximus realized that too late.
At first it felt like pressure.
A distant weight pressing at the back of his thoughts while the burning raged through his veins.
Then the pressure sharpened.
And pushed inward.
His vision flickered as another wave of pain tore through his body, but something else was happening now—something colder, more precise.
His thoughts stumbled.
For a moment he forgot where he was.
Then memory snapped back.
Hospital.
Red goo.
The Coach.
Conversion.
Fight it.
The command was instinctive.
Maximus focused on the thought the way he had been trained—tightening his mind around it like a fist.
Drone discipline.
Breath control.
Mental anchors.
It held.
For a second.
Then something hit back.
Not a voice.
Not words.
A force.
It slammed into his thoughts like a battering ram.
OBEY.
Maximus’ entire mind jolted.
The command wasn’t heard.
It was imposed.
A block of intention forced into his consciousness with crushing weight.
His thoughts scattered under the impact.
“No…” he whispered hoarsely.
The pressure increased immediately.
OBEY.
His muscles jerked on the bed as the word drove deeper into his head, pushing against every fragment of thought he tried to form.
Maximus clenched his teeth.
Not happening.
He locked onto the thought the way a drone locks onto a command structure.
Identity.
Name.
Team.
Maximus.
Golden Army.
The words steadied him for a moment.
The pressure recoiled.
Then returned harder.
PACK.
The concept forced its way into his mind with brutal clarity.
Unity.
Submission.
Hierarchy.
The structure of the Red pack unfolded inside his thoughts like a blueprint being hammered into place.
Maximus shoved back with everything he had.
No.
His mind burned almost as fiercely as his body.
Memories flashed through his head—training drills, teammates, the roar of the stadium.
The Red force crashed into them.
Not trying to reason.
Not trying to convince.
Just pushing them aside.
Thoughts scattered like debris under a wave.
Maximus’ breathing became ragged as he fought to hold onto anything solid.
Maximus.
Defender.
Brother.
The pressure surged again.
RED.
The word struck like a hammer.
His thoughts faltered.
Somewhere outside his head his body convulsed again, another surge of physical transformation tearing through him.
His skull throbbed.
Something was happening along his scalp.
His hair—
But the thought dissolved before it could finish forming.
The pressure in his mind spiked violently.
UNIT.
Maximus gasped.
His concentration shattered for a split second.
The Red force shoved forward instantly, driving deeper into the neural pathways the vaccine hadn’t yet sealed.
Thoughts blurred.
Fragments of memory flickered and collapsed.
For a terrifying moment he couldn’t remember his own name.
Panic surged through him.
Maximus.
The name returned like a lifeline.
He grabbed it with desperate focus.
“I’m… not…” he rasped weakly.
The Red pressure slammed down again.
OBEY.
His thoughts fractured.
The command forced itself deeper, pushing against the fragile network of identity he was struggling to maintain.
Maximus felt it happening.
Felt parts of himself slipping.
Not erased cleanly.
Crushed.
Pushed aside.
Like files being overwritten one sector at a time.
His discipline fought back.
Drone conditioning activated instinctively—mental routines built to resist intrusive signals.
It slowed the assault.
But only barely.
The Red pressure adapted instantly, bearing down harder.
PACK.
RED.
OBEY.
Each command struck like a hammer.
Maximus’ defenses trembled.
His memories flickered again.
Training.
Brotherhood.
Golden armor.
The stadium lights.
The Red pressure surged.
And the memories began to blur.
Somewhere far away, his body convulsed again as the transformation climbed higher along his skull.
The physical war was reaching his brain.
The mental assault intensified instantly.
Maximus screamed.
Not from the pain.
From the realization.
The Red wasn’t just trying to change his body.
It was trying to replace him.
His grip on himself slipped.
Thoughts slowed.
Identity thinned under the crushing weight forcing its way through his mind.
Memories flickered like failing lights.
Training drills.
The locker room.
The roar of the stadium.
Faces of teammates.
Each one dimmed as the Red pressure pushed deeper, grinding through the fragile architecture of his mind.
He tried to hold onto something—anything.
His name.
Maximus.
The word felt suddenly distant.
Fragile.
Like something that could break.
The Red pressure surged again.
And for a terrible instant—
he felt the structure of his own mind coming apart.
Not submission.
Not surrender.
Extinction.
The horrifying awareness that the thing called Maximus—his memories, his choices, his will—was being pushed aside piece by piece, overwritten by something that did not think, did not doubt, did not remember.
Only obeyed.
Only served.
Maximus tried to fight.
Tried to hold the fragments of himself together.
But the pressure kept growing.
And somewhere deep in the collapsing storm of his thoughts—
Maximus felt himself teetering on the edge of ceasing to be.
Scene 5 — Detection
SERVE-425 (@serve-425) halted.
A Red signal spiked across its sensors.
Unstable.
Surging.
The drone focused.
Biometric data resolved.
PDU-070.
Maximus.
Conversion in progress.
Irreversible threshold approaching.
Intervention required.
Destination locked.
SERVE-425 moved.
Fast.
