Post by Azzie! on Nov 16, 2010 19:19:29 GMT -5
“This is the place where change is made. This is the place where the great minds of our age all think as one. This is the place where we serve our country.
This is the place where discoveries are made and the arts of war are improved, and the things we have created, create, and will create will change the world. You should be proud to be here, this is an honour. Remember, knowledge will make us all free now, just as in the past 'Arbeit macht frei' did the same.
This was what the first Military Overseer told me when I sat in front of his desk five years ago, when I first came here. There's nothing about the military outpost overhead that would give this away. Nothing but maybe the little inscription that reads 'scientia' over the main entrance.
Serve my country. What did my country ever do for me? I've been here since I was eighteen, and at first I jumped at a chance to get out, to learn, to live, to put my past behind me, and with an executive pardon I was granted the chance to do so. But of course, it came with its price. I don't even know where this place is, I don't think anyone really does. We're surrounded on all sides by a frozen wasteland, and we live a mile beneath it in the permafrost. A compound big enough to support hundreds of beings, human, and nonhuman alike. This place doesn't exist, but they call it the Facility.
I don't exist either. I suppose I fit right in here.
My name is Raston Wolfe. I'm twenty-three years old. I have no birthday, no social-security number and no identity. The only place I exist is on my ID tag. And the only place that exists is within the Facility. That was one of the conditions, you see?
We are not scientists, we are butchers.
We are not doctors, we are murderers.
And this place is nothing but the Devil's playground.”
The tape jerked to a stop, and Raston stopped as well. His gaze rested heavily on the recorder before her turned it off. The cassette clicked off its port easily and he twisted it in between long, pale fingers. He bent it, he twisted it until its chassis tore, the plastic snapped and the recording tape hung out in a tangled mess like so many silver-black intestines. The tape fell to the floor, and in the silence it made a loud noise that fell on deafened ears.
He did not blink. He stared straight ahead.
Enough days without sleep and everything becomes a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy... the voice echoed monotonously into infinity in his head and he shook several small pills onto his palm. He chewed them up and downed the bitter powder dry. The chant faded to a hum, and his eyes flicked back to reality. The fluorescent lights managed to glimmer through the heavy curtains he kept drawn over the glass walls of his office. He didn't want to see them more than he had to. Idly, he traced his fingertips across the surface of his desk, disturbing dust, rifling papers, gliding along long-cold cups of coffee and stroking delicately a scalpel.
The clock on the wall laughed at him in neon letters.
9:01
He was late.
He rose fluidly from his chair and slid his arms through the sleeves of his white canvas lab coat, he fumbled for the glasses in his pocket and put them on. The right lens was cracked, but that barely bothered him. The Kevlar he wore under his clothing was also uncomfortable, but that didn't bother him either.
His ID tag was clipped to his lapel. Raston Wolfe. He had insisted on it saying that.
He keyed in the code that opened the door of his office and the dissection area to the holding gallery. It moved aside in a hiss of steel and hydraulics. Four inch thick glass.
And Raston Wolfe stared into the jungle of everything that hated him the most in the world.
They're only beasts. Remember that. Just animals. It's a good thing we do this. Progress. Science. People are nothing but beasts in human skin. This is not a transformation but a regression. Here, everything shows its true face. His own mental voice was calm, just as his eyes were expressionless and his pale face emotionless.
The holding gallery was brightly lit, but the fluorescent lights flickered and hummed. It was cold here, and Raston's breath fogged as it hit the air, and the white concrete walls were slick and perspiring with moisture, from the heat and breath and life of so many bodies. But the most impressive things were the cages. Cages lined up in neat rows, each one opened with a code and an ID scan. Cages from which puffs of visible breath issued and growls and snarls and sobs and moans were heard. Cages that stood out, dark and glittering among the white tile and the white walls and the white lights and the white scientist who seemed to leach out into the surroundings. The only darkness belonged to the cages and Raston's eyes, sunken into his face, permanent bruises etched into the skin under them.
In the far corners of the gallery he fancied he could hear the slow and steady whispering that moss made when it grew. And the green was the only true living thing in this place. The only thing that was not created, moulded, and engineered.
This was all for a good cause, he told himself. This was so he could protect his country, and the baby brother he left behind when they took him away. This would help with the war. They shouldn't hate him, he was helping them. He was helping them become more like the goddamn animals they really were. Filthy, disgusting, murderous animals.
He closed his eyes momentarily, and in his passion, they had burned bright, bright enough to see that they were a light blue green, anti-freeze green. His unkempt hair fell into his face, blond, and he took a deep breath. The cold dried his throat and lungs and nose and the air was stagnant and smelled of blood and bleach and medicine.
He faced the cages, he faced the beasts.
Just another day. Time had no meaning here.
Raston Wolfe smiled. He smiled, but his eyes were dead.
//Okay guys, I've posted first, I've set the mood, jump in whenever you feel like it. Nothing better than character driven stuff to lighten (or darken) the mood between intense pokemon battles. Enjoy this bastard child of my psyche.//
This is the place where discoveries are made and the arts of war are improved, and the things we have created, create, and will create will change the world. You should be proud to be here, this is an honour. Remember, knowledge will make us all free now, just as in the past 'Arbeit macht frei' did the same.
This was what the first Military Overseer told me when I sat in front of his desk five years ago, when I first came here. There's nothing about the military outpost overhead that would give this away. Nothing but maybe the little inscription that reads 'scientia' over the main entrance.
Serve my country. What did my country ever do for me? I've been here since I was eighteen, and at first I jumped at a chance to get out, to learn, to live, to put my past behind me, and with an executive pardon I was granted the chance to do so. But of course, it came with its price. I don't even know where this place is, I don't think anyone really does. We're surrounded on all sides by a frozen wasteland, and we live a mile beneath it in the permafrost. A compound big enough to support hundreds of beings, human, and nonhuman alike. This place doesn't exist, but they call it the Facility.
I don't exist either. I suppose I fit right in here.
My name is Raston Wolfe. I'm twenty-three years old. I have no birthday, no social-security number and no identity. The only place I exist is on my ID tag. And the only place that exists is within the Facility. That was one of the conditions, you see?
We are not scientists, we are butchers.
We are not doctors, we are murderers.
And this place is nothing but the Devil's playground.”
The tape jerked to a stop, and Raston stopped as well. His gaze rested heavily on the recorder before her turned it off. The cassette clicked off its port easily and he twisted it in between long, pale fingers. He bent it, he twisted it until its chassis tore, the plastic snapped and the recording tape hung out in a tangled mess like so many silver-black intestines. The tape fell to the floor, and in the silence it made a loud noise that fell on deafened ears.
He did not blink. He stared straight ahead.
Enough days without sleep and everything becomes a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy... the voice echoed monotonously into infinity in his head and he shook several small pills onto his palm. He chewed them up and downed the bitter powder dry. The chant faded to a hum, and his eyes flicked back to reality. The fluorescent lights managed to glimmer through the heavy curtains he kept drawn over the glass walls of his office. He didn't want to see them more than he had to. Idly, he traced his fingertips across the surface of his desk, disturbing dust, rifling papers, gliding along long-cold cups of coffee and stroking delicately a scalpel.
The clock on the wall laughed at him in neon letters.
9:01
He was late.
He rose fluidly from his chair and slid his arms through the sleeves of his white canvas lab coat, he fumbled for the glasses in his pocket and put them on. The right lens was cracked, but that barely bothered him. The Kevlar he wore under his clothing was also uncomfortable, but that didn't bother him either.
His ID tag was clipped to his lapel. Raston Wolfe. He had insisted on it saying that.
He keyed in the code that opened the door of his office and the dissection area to the holding gallery. It moved aside in a hiss of steel and hydraulics. Four inch thick glass.
And Raston Wolfe stared into the jungle of everything that hated him the most in the world.
They're only beasts. Remember that. Just animals. It's a good thing we do this. Progress. Science. People are nothing but beasts in human skin. This is not a transformation but a regression. Here, everything shows its true face. His own mental voice was calm, just as his eyes were expressionless and his pale face emotionless.
The holding gallery was brightly lit, but the fluorescent lights flickered and hummed. It was cold here, and Raston's breath fogged as it hit the air, and the white concrete walls were slick and perspiring with moisture, from the heat and breath and life of so many bodies. But the most impressive things were the cages. Cages lined up in neat rows, each one opened with a code and an ID scan. Cages from which puffs of visible breath issued and growls and snarls and sobs and moans were heard. Cages that stood out, dark and glittering among the white tile and the white walls and the white lights and the white scientist who seemed to leach out into the surroundings. The only darkness belonged to the cages and Raston's eyes, sunken into his face, permanent bruises etched into the skin under them.
In the far corners of the gallery he fancied he could hear the slow and steady whispering that moss made when it grew. And the green was the only true living thing in this place. The only thing that was not created, moulded, and engineered.
This was all for a good cause, he told himself. This was so he could protect his country, and the baby brother he left behind when they took him away. This would help with the war. They shouldn't hate him, he was helping them. He was helping them become more like the goddamn animals they really were. Filthy, disgusting, murderous animals.
He closed his eyes momentarily, and in his passion, they had burned bright, bright enough to see that they were a light blue green, anti-freeze green. His unkempt hair fell into his face, blond, and he took a deep breath. The cold dried his throat and lungs and nose and the air was stagnant and smelled of blood and bleach and medicine.
He faced the cages, he faced the beasts.
Just another day. Time had no meaning here.
Raston Wolfe smiled. He smiled, but his eyes were dead.
//Okay guys, I've posted first, I've set the mood, jump in whenever you feel like it. Nothing better than character driven stuff to lighten (or darken) the mood between intense pokemon battles. Enjoy this bastard child of my psyche.//