Chapter Text
“Agent-1955!”
Maine—or alternatively, Agent-1955—jolted to her feet, practically falling off the bunk she had been sitting on in the process.
“Sir!” she barked, saluting sharply, more out of workplace-survival reflex than actual acknowledgement. Her mind was still a bit fuzzy from having just woken up; she was sure she wasn’t supposed to be reporting anywhere for at least another hour that day. It’s like five in the goddamn morning, what does this guy want?
The lens of the soldat’s eyepiece glinted as they eyed her, somehow managing to look cold despite its heavily oversaturated red glow. “You’re needed in the research wing. Follow me,” they ordered, voice tinged with annoyance, before immediately turning to leave without waiting for an answer.
Maine couldn’t do much but follow obediently. At least she’d already gotten dressed. She fidgeted anxiously with the scarlet tie at the collar of her suit jacket, dress shoes clicking against polished linoleum floors as she followed the soldat to her destination—the research wing, apparently. That… wasn’t a good sign. It was a very bad sign, actually. She wasn’t exactly privy to the things that go on in that part of the facility, but they couldn’t be good.
Especially considering they’d been calling agents down there from the barracks for weeks now, and she hadn’t seen a single one of them come back.
Not that that really mattered right now, she supposed. It wasn’t like she could just tap the soldat on the shoulder and politely ask, Hey, I changed my mind, could you please go and snatch some other poor bastard from their bunk to mysteriously disappear instead of me? Pretty please? Because that would definitely just end up with her certain death, skewered on the blade of one of those wickedly sharp speclights the guy was carrying. Her odds were also not improved by the fact that they were apparently in a bad mood already, considering their earlier tone and their current walking speed that was just a bit too fast. And the horribly early hour probably didn’t help, either. So, being calmly and quietly escorted to her possible-but-probably-certain death it is.
I guess it’s a step up from just certain death.
You gotta look on the bright side, sometimes.
Maine continued to follow as the soldat rounded a corner helpfully labeled “Nexus Core Science Division, Research & Development Wing” before making a beeline for the elevators across the room. The bored-looking receptionist at the center desk barely spared them a glance as they passed, but Maine could’ve sworn she caught a minute shake of their head and flicker of expression of what might’ve been exasperation.
The soldat entered a vacant elevator, punching in a number with a little more force than necessary as the agent stepped into place behind them. She kept her posture and expression a carefully crafted mask of stoicism despite her building anxiety, which was not soothed in the slightest by the soulless elevator music that filled the tiny room as it lurched downwards. She glanced at the control panel, dread only growing further when she noticed that the selected floor—Floor B9—was the bottom one.
This particular Nexus facility wasn’t nearly the largest in the city, but it still went down a concerning number of floors; floors that, logically, would get concerningly more classified with each meter of solid rock they were hidden away under. That seemed to be the general trend, anyway, but again, she wasn’t ranked high enough to actually know what happened down there. Agents were basically the bottom of the barrel in the Nexus Core’s roster of units, after all.
Now that she thought about it, it was kind of weird that they sent a soldat to bring back a single agent. Usually the fetch-quest orders were reserved for whatever scout or engineer happened to be on hand, not what were essentially the highest-ranking soldiers the Nexus had available.
…What the hell is on this floor?
Luckily—or perhaps more unluckily—for her, she was clearly about to find out. The elevator doors slid open with an unassuming ding to reveal a relatively normal looking science lab, albeit lacking any identifying signs and notably empty of people. Only a handful of scientists populated the nearly featureless room, most of which were tapping away at keyboards with what looked like great concentration, light from glaring computer monitors reflecting off electric blue visors.
One of them, however, was currently striding purposefully towards the newly arrived duo at the elevator. “Agent…” They glanced down briefly at the tablet in their hands. “...1955, yes?” they questioned, looking back up at her. They sounded bored, but professional.
“Yes,” she replied, simply. Years of trial-and-error working for the Nexus taught her it was generally best to only say what was necessary in these sorts of situations, especially when being shadowed by a presumably grouchy soldat.
“Right,” the scientist responded, equally as simply. “Follow me, please,” they added, turning on their heels and starting down the hallway connecting to the room on the right. The soldat stayed planted at the side of the elevator as she left them behind, trailing after yet another escort further into the unknown depths of the facility.
…Maybe she should’ve taken her chances with the speclights.
Too late now. The scientist led her down the hall past several identical closed doors, all of which were marked with faintly glowing red lights signifying they were locked. They stopped at one that was, as far as the agent could tell, indiscernible from the rest, before swiping a keycard produced from a pocket in their lab coat. After a digital confirmation beep sounded, they slipped off one of their heavily reinforced gloves—the hell were those protecting from?—and placed their hand on what was presumably some sort of scanner. The door chimed in response, sliding open with a shhrk to let the two of them into the room.
It was… surprisingly normal, again. Honestly, she was kind of expecting to have been faced with some sort of heinous affront to Nevada at this point, not a bunch of stuffy science labs. This one was a bit different, at least; instead of simple computer monitors, row upon row of what looked like unlabeled metal lockers lined the walls, broken up by only a few computers and various pieces of unidentifiable electronic and lab equipment. It wasn’t a very large room, but was completely devoid of life besides its two new occupants. The scent of sterile antiseptic filled the stagnant air, which vibrated with a strange droning hum as they entered. She eventually attributed the noise to the lockers actually being refrigeration units of some kind, glancing at the tiny digital screens displaying what were presumably the internal temperatures of each unit. Along with a bunch of other continuously changing numbers she had literally no idea the meaning of. She wasn’t a scientist.
Meanwhile, her escort strode over to one of the units at the far end of the room and began opening what was frankly a ridiculous number of locks on the door. They glanced over at her and waved a hand dismissively towards a single strange-looking chair she hadn’t noticed off to the side. “Have a seat, please,” they said, not faltering for a moment in their lock-undoing, cycling through keyrings, combinations, and keycards with the clear muscle memory of someone who had obviously done this countless times before.
Maine did as she was told, sitting in the chair between the odd, curved bars sticking out and slightly forward to either side, mind continuing to buzz with anxiety. Now that it was just her and this guy alone, she dared to voice the one burning question on her mind. “If I may ask—” the scientist hummed disinterestedly, “—why am I here?”
They sighed a bit, but apparently decided to humor the agent, whose nervous confusion was visible as she let her behavioral mask slip a bit. “New research project. Straight from the director, actually. Been needing quite a few test subjects to really get anything done,” they informed her, heavily armored hands clicking open the last of the locks coating the refrigeration unit door. “Hate to be the bearer of bad news, kid, but you happen to be one of ‘em.”
Despite not really clearing anything up, her heart sank even further with dread as she took in the information. So all those agents getting called down here really were test subjects for some new Nexus project. One that was apparently ordered by the director himself, in fact. She had honestly thought that everything the Nexus does happened by his orders, but the scientist had implied that this was a special case… which was an even worse sign for her, considering literally everything about the dictatorial, power-crazed, egotistical maniac that was Director Phobos. Not that she’d ever say that out loud, of course, since she rather valued her life. Anyway, any project he ordered couldn’t be good.
Her attention was abruptly torn away from her thoughts as the scientist turned away from the storage unit holding… something. Her facial cross scrunched up, squinting in a mixture of confusion and mounting horror through her shades as she tried to get a good look at the small object in their hand, but it was like her sight refused to focus on it. Her gaze kept trying to snap away or skip over that area of her vision, which just looked inexplicably blank in her peripherals, as if obscured by an incomprehensible blind spot. The edges of her entire field of view somehow seemed to stutter and flicker as her head faced it. Whatever that thing was, it was horribly, terribly wrong.
And they were bringing it towards her.
Maine suddenly had a mind to flee the room as fast as possible—Nexus be damned, consequences be damned, every cell in her body screamed at her to get the hell out of there NOW.
The protruding bars on the chair snapped shut, molding to her body and locking around her with a hiss of mechanical pressure.
She couldn’t move.
She couldn’t fucking move.
Her mind instantly flooded with raw, primal terror. While her main body was utterly immobilized, her disembodied hands still flailed wildly, grabbing fruitlessly at her constraints, desperately trying to do something, anything, to get her out of there, get her out get the fuck AWAY FROM—
Something pricked the left side of her neck.
She froze.
Slowly, incredibly slowly, she turned her head towards the scientist backing away from her that her panicking mind had managed to completely tune out.
They were holding a syringe.
An empty syringe.
Fuck.
Fuck.
They were just… staring at her. Expectantly, almost. Like something was supposed to be happening. And maybe it was.
She stared back, too utterly terrified to move a muscle.
The room hummed.
They stared.
She stared back.
…
The scientist hmph-ed in mild, yet genuine surprise after a short eternity of agonizingly still silence. “Well, congrats, agent. You’re our lucky winner,” they declared anticlimactically, capping the emptied syringe and turning back around to slot it into the refrigeration unit…
…which was filled with countless other identical, empty syringes.
“Wh…” she started, voice choking weakly as her mind still hopelessly floundered after the incomprehensible series of events that had just happened to her. She swallowed thickly. “…What the fuck did you j-just put in me?”
“Language, agent,” the scientist scolded lightly, now in a notably more upbeat mood than before. They slid the door of the storage unit shut and began tediously closing up every lock on its cold metal surface. “Sorry, but I’m being honest when I say that you’re not at liberty to know that. Looks like you shouldn’t have to worry about it too much for now, anyway. Told him that the anchor stabilization matrix was the issue…” they trailed off, fiddling with a particularly stubborn lock as it jammed defiantly.
She just sat there in shock, still unable—and unwilling—to process her situation. She remained motionless and uncomprehending as the scientist finished locking up the unit and pressed a button on the communications device on their belt. They looked at her through the blue-tinted glass of their visor, a faint expression almost like guilt on their cross, before it vanished with a light shake of their head.
They turned as the door across the room slid open to reveal the soldat, who actually visibly startled when they saw the agent still in the chair. She looked up as they approached, vision struggling to focus. Her mind remained similarly incoherent, stuttering a bit in shock as the bars of the chair suddenly swung back outwards, whirring mechanically as they released her. Still, she didn’t move.
The scientist turned their attention to their tablet, tapping at it as they spoke, which she barely caught through the heavy haze in her brain. “You’re free to continue your duties to the Nexus Core as usual. Be prepared to return for routine checkups every week.” They looked back up and gave a nod to the soldat, who hadn’t stopped staring at the motionless agent. “That should be all.”
After a pause, the agent flinched as the soldat snapped their fingers directly in front of her face. “Let’s go, agent. Move it.”
She immediately stood, commanded solely by her ingrained survival instinct as an agent to always obey Nexus superiors. Mindlessly, she trailed behind the soldat on autopilot as she was led back through the lab, into the elevator. She didn’t catch the receptionist’s double take as they passed. Down the winding halls of the facility. Dress shoes clicking on polished linoleum floors. Hands hanging lifelessly at her sides.
They left her at the door of the barracks without a word. Either that, or she didn’t have the cognitive awareness to hear whatever it was they might’ve said.
The other agents still milling about the bunk room paid Maine no mind as she slunk over to her designated bunk. She lingered there idly for both forever and an instant, before they were all summoned to their various assignments for the day.
Today, it turned out that she was on janitorial duty. She usually hated these days.
Today, though?
Today, what little portion of her mind that was still cognitive was more than content to get lost in the monotony of swiping a mop on linoleum.
She didn’t dream that night.