no-name-district - Tumblr blog

no-name-district · 25 days

Text

here's a little snippet of 621's time in CIT before he was put into stasis... the time is not fun, as a forewarning, and it gives a bit of info about the other assets. Not really spoilers for APV since the other assets will never come up in any detail... so enjoy!

"Asset 04's performance is finally starting to slip. Pretty impressive it took this long."

Jack didn't look up at his coworker's observation, too busy carefully adjusting the parameters for the simulation's next run. Blinking in the top right corner of the screen, the numbers 36:26:10 proclaimed how long the simulation's session had run.

It was inhumane, he knew. Simulations were used extensively to train baseline and augmented humans alike, and their safe useage was strictly regulated because of how ubiquitous of a training tool it was. Baseline humans were recommended to spend only an hour at a time in the simulations, whereas augmented humans could push it to three.

Asset 04 had been in there for over thirty-six hours non-stop.

There was a reason for it - there was always a reason for CIT's cruel acts - but Jack still had his misgivings about it all. He was a new hire, though, came recommended by the UEG to help CIT with their hush-hush augmented human project - walked into a carnival of horrors instead. He knew some lines had to be crossed for the overall advancement of the human race but... god. The things he saw, the things he had to do...

But work was work, and legally the Assets weren't considered humans anyway. Labrats, at most, with the government approving of their medical and experimental torture so long as it gave them useful results for their various projects and what not. There'd be no point in whistleblowing, in trying to do anything to reverse these monstrous acts - Jack would just die, and he liked living, so he just kept quiet and kept turning the dial.

Literally and figurative. He finished the simulation adjustments and finally turned to his coworker - Aiden.

"The next course run is ready but, should we keep increasing the difficulty? As you say, Asset 04 is starting to struggle with exhaustion. I don't feel like we'd get any valuable data continuing like this."

Aiden just gave him a half-shrug. "Well, the bosses like us testing them to failure. They specifically want 04 pushed to its physical limits in the simulations before its taken for examination, anyways."

"If they want to observe his body's response to physical and mental distress, there's a more efficient way of doing it," Jack muttered, but he knew he was edging a bit too close to belligerent, so began the simulation.

Asset 04 was in the observation room over, situated in a pod with a glass cover that simulated his cockpit within his Symbiotic Core (SC, for short). Jack couldn't see the asset's face, the glass reflected a lot and he wore a protective helmet with an opaque black visor, but he could still see the asset's body twitch slightly as the simulation renewed.

Jack remembered how uneasy he had felt when he had laid eyes on Asset 04 for the first time. With the later assets it was easier, because they had been augmented as adults and the procedures were less invasive and horrifying (not by CIT's choice, but the galactic Coral shortage had them rationing out that miracle substances), but Assets 00 to 05 were...

Asset 00 barely looked older than ten, their physical development permanently halted by their experimental Coral augmentations. Asset 00 was also basically brain-dead, barely able to perform basic tasks and had to have a minder 24/7. A failure, but the "biological immortality" of their augmentations interested CIT. Jack had only seen them once, and only in brief passing - understandably, Asset 00 wasn't trained as an SC pilot or used in the same experiments and taskings as the other Assets. They were too valuable, research wise.

Asset 01 was far more comfortable to deal with, as he had aged normally and acted like any resentful child soldier all grown up. He jumped when ordered to, and he didn't bite, but Jack could see it in his eyes every time they ran experiments - Asset 01 wanted to rip them limb from limb with his bare hands, and there was always a taut undercurrent to his 'understood' and 'yessir'. If any of the Assets were going to snap and go on a murderous rampage, Jack would put his money on Asset 01 (and honestly, he wouldn't blame him).

Asset 02, Jack had only seen twice, and she had filled him with an aimless sort of sadness. Her aging was slower than most and she looked like a young adult. But she was mentally shattered, susceptible to periods of dissociation and unable to really care for herself at times. She could still pilot an SC, and she did so very well as one of CIT's 'procurement agents' (kidnapper/assassin), but she had to be dragged into her cockpit and strapped down, prone to simply going limp and being as uncooperative as possible. She reminded him of a captive animal that had given up and was simply waiting to die - or someone who realised that the only way she could protest her treatment was to simply not engage at all. CIT were routinely frustrated and annoyed at her actions, he knew that. Maybe it vindicated her.

Asset 03, Jack had never seen but had heard about. Youthful looking and 'somewhat stable', she was 'on loan' to Arquebus, a potential partner in future collaboration in augmentation. Jack had heard that particular avenue of research was promising some interesting things, and CIT were very closely scrutinising the 'Coral Supplement' that Arquebus was developing 'thanks to Asset 03's contributions'. Jack tried not to think too deeply about how Asset 03 contributed to that scientific breakthrough.

Asset 05 was who Jack dealt with the most, aside from Asset 04, and that was because Asset 05 occupied a very strange position within CIT. If rumours were to be believed, Asset 05 was the offspring of one of the CIT's leadership, offered up as a sacrificial lamb on a gamble that had miraculously paid off. Asset 05 was remarkably stable and has integrated well with his Coral augmentations, showing no sign of mental trauma, illness or any other 'unseemly defects'. Asset 05 was also incredibly intimidating in ways Jack couldn't really articulate, because even when Asset 05 was strapped down to an operating table completely naked utterly emotionless, Jack felt an oppressive sort of pressure on the back of his neck, like he had a snarling beast just inches away from snapping his head off.

Needless to say, none of the researchers liked handling Asset 05.

Then, there was Asset 04: the golden child fallen from grace.

Jack came after the 'Incident', but he understood that Asset 04 was a terrible tragdy. Much like Asset 05, he'd been a very stable prototype with very interesting qualities that had demanded further investigation and research. CIT had even trotted him out as an advertisement tool to the UEG leadership, a template of 'look, look, this is what all of you can have in a few decades, if you keep funding us!' Asset 04 had all of the benefits and none of the drawbacks: extraordinarily long-lived but youthful, a near perfect immune system, a stunning intellect, amazingly well-socialised and emotionally intelligent, sweet-tempered...

Then the Incident happened, Asset 04 suffered from debilitating injuries that had given him irreversible brain damage, fried a good chunk of his neural implants, and rendered him amnesiac and mute. Jack had been brought in when Asset 04 was relearning basic things like 'walking' and potty training.

Maybe that was why he was always so conflicted and unnerved when it came to Asset 04, then. He looked young, was small and slight, and his wide, guileless eyes and soft face made him look younger still. Jack didn't have kids, but he had a younger nephew with a passing similarity to Asset 04. Teaching him to walk, watching him 'grow up' in a compressed timeline all while strapping him down and tormenting him in senseless experiments like this...

Jack didn't believe in heaven or hell, but some days he wondered. He knew he'd never sleep well for the rest of his days, at least.

He was drawn from his brooding thoughts by the simulation indicating another course finish. He examined the results, and felt disappointed that Asset 04-

"Another success," Aiden whistled. "This is nuts. It really is a killing machine."

"I think he's just terrified of failure. You'll be surprised how much fear can motivate a person," Jack said unthinkingly, and studiously ignored the look Aiden gave him. "We should probably break here. He 'passed' but his performance was abysmal. It's technically a failure for him."

"You're such a bleeding heart, Jack. That won't get you anywhere in CIT," Aiden sighed. "But... yeah, I'm getting bored just watching these print outs. He isn't even doing anything in the pod."

No. Asset 04 was very still. Jack would've been worried his heart had given out from exhaustion if it weren't for his vitals on the screen still going strong. Pulse elevated, oxygen levels up, heartrate going fucking crazy - but still very much alive.

"I'll handle clean up and return Asset 04 to his enclosure," Jack said, officially concluding the simulation. He'll likely get a smack on the wrist for it, but he'll just use Aiden's excuse: it was boring and not giving them anything new in terms of results. That tended to sway CIT leadership more than basic humanity. "If you compile the reports."

"Sure. The report's'll be easy to do." Aiden pushed himself up out of his chair. "Have fun cleaning up the labrat."

Jack said nothing. He waited for Aiden to leave the control room before releasing a loud and heavy sigh, his mouth twisted into an uncomfortable grimace. A bleeding heart...

He wasn't. If he really was a bleeding heart, he would've done something to stop the madness happening in CIT's labs. Their brutal experimentations on their assets had no real rhyme or reason - not any that Jack could divine, anyways - and they routinely crossed every single moral line in existence to pursue this human perfection. That was CIT's mission statement, after all: the perfection of the human race.

What that perfection was, and who was going to benefit from said perfection, Jack didn't know. At this point he felt like he didn't want to know.

"Don't think there's a hole deep enough in hell for us," Jack murmured, and shook his head. Well, he can grouch and brood all he liked, but here he was, willingly perpetuating it, because he was in too deep now. He's seen too much. Done too much.

The Assets will continue to suffer, and Jack will continue to standby and simply watch it - continue to participate in it. He may not want to see this perfection CIT claimed to pursue, but he was still curious about how far these augmentations could improve mankind - desperately hoping that it'd be worth it, that later he can say "well, we made a small handful of people suffer horribly, but it resulted in medical science that saved millions", because that would be worth it, won't it?

Was it an equal exchange? Their suffering for humanity's progress? Maybe.

Was it excuseable?

Hah.

Definitely not.

11 notes · View notes

no-name-district · 1 month

Note

I liked your rambling awhile back on Pater? Do you have any rambling thoughts about Maeterlinck?

I DO HAVE SOME RAMBLING THOUGHTS ABOUT MAETERLINCK.

So, I feel like she's someone who's comfortable succeeding in the middle of the pack, as it were. She doesn't want to stand out, especially in a group like the Vespers, because standing out there would mean getting targeted.

Freud. Snail. Rusty. These are the most well-known Vespers and they're continuously getting targeted by rival corporate mercs or even independent mercs looking to make a name for themselves or to settle grudges. True, it means they feature more in Arquebus's relentless merchendise campaign for the Vespers and even get a cut, but Maeterlinck is content with her current salary if it meant she didn't invite more attention and/or danger upon herself.

She's here to do a job. That job is managing the administrative day-to-day of the Vespers and handling problems that require more finesse than the fuck-off cannons that were the Big Three. Sending Freud in to handle a bunch of MT pilots under their command selling off fuel or ammunition for extra scratch would be like trying to kill a cockroach with a howitzer. Like, yeah, you'd kill the cockroach, but at what cost?

She's got the right temperament for it. She disliked active confrontation and she's not a risk-taker. She prefers taking things slow and careful, and as a result, Arquebus trusts her to handle things discreetly. They know Maeterlinck will never 'rock the boat' or cause a public scandal, and in a way she kind of does have the most corporate trust out of all the Vespers. Snail's too much of an ambitious ladder climber, Freud is Freud, and the rest of the Vespers are viewed as lackeys that would rob the corporation the moment they turned a blind eye to them. Maeterlinck, however, is loyal, discreet and, more importantly, sane and normal.

It does mean she works a little more closely with O'Keeffe than Snail, and their relationship could be summed up as: painfully professional. Maeterlinck has some gripes about how O'Keeffe runs his intelligence ship, but she respects his seniority and wealth of experience. However, she has noticed that there's something off between O'Keeffe and Rusty - but she's not stupid enough to go digging into that because she knows for a fact O'Keeffe could easily vanish her, and she's not risking her life just to learn that O'Keeffe and Rusty are fraternising or something dumb like that. She's just thankful they're more discreet than Hawkins and Pater...

In short, she's the type of coworker who blends into the background, and is neutral enough that she gets along reasonably well with everyone for the most part. She also knows all the gossip and has a keen sense of how to navigate office politics to avoid the worst of it. She adheres strongly to the hierarchy of the corporation and is loyal, but she's mostly just clocking in to earn her paycheck and work towards her promised retirement package.

She doesn't like Arquebus's foray onto Rubicon, in fact. She felt it was way too reckless and brash, and that the Vespers don't have a stable enough foothold to work effectively on the planet. But she kept her doubts to herself bc the corporation ordered them here and they have a job to do. Just shut up and do it, and hopefully she'll get out of this alive with a hefty bonus as consolation...

10 notes · View notes