Watching From Afar

There was pain. So much pain. It didn’t seem possible that there could be that much of it.

But it was possible. Because the pain was real. Horrifyingly real.

On a cold metal table was a man and the horrible agony belonged solely to him. He was screaming so loudly he lost his voice and his body was thrashing and convulsing. Wires spilled out of him in a thick cascade. They fell to the floor and then rose into and around the entire room, making it difficult for the men in pale green scrubs and masks to move around.

The loud buzzing of a bonesaw suddenly filled the room which intensified harshly a second later as it grinded into flesh and bone.

The man on the table screamed even louder as his right arm was severed from his body. It now ended just past his elbow and the stump was bleeding. He felt his blood pour out of him, taking his strength with it. It soaked the cold table he was lying on.

One of the doctors, if they could even be called that, now hovered over the man’s torso. He carefully made a deep cut and then grabbed a silver object that a nurse handed him. He placed the object into the cut and used it to spread the skin and muscle apart. There was a lot of blood, but it was being carefully suctioned and monitored. Then the doctor took a small, matte black cube from a table next to him and placed it inside the abdominal cavity. As soon as he took his fingers off it, the cube started twitching. A second later, slender wires that looked more like questing tentacles burst out of it. They slithered through tissue and muscle and anchored themselves into the nervous system.

The doctor repeated the process again at least half a dozen times with several other cubes. Each one was placed inside the patient’s body in very specific spots. One cube’s wires exploded out and stabbed into the patient’s still beating heart. Then they wrapped around it until the heart was entirely encased. Soon after that, it started glowing with green light that pulsed in time to the heart’s beats.

Every time one of the cube’s wires exploded out and quested into the man’s body, he would jerk and twist in pain.

When the doctor was finished, he slid out of his blood-soaked, latex gloves and took up a glowing tablet. On it was a representation of the man on the table. The image was exact, showing his vascular and muscular systems as well as his neurological systems in perfect detail. There were several little squares on the figure, each one glowing in a spot where he had placed one of the cubes. He looked at the man on the table for a second and then pressed his finger to one of the glowing squares.

The man’s body immediately arched in renewed agony and his skin rippled and pulsed. The doctor didn’t hesitate. He pushed his finger to the rest of the glowing squares. The reaction was…hard to watch. The pulsing in the skin became more pronounced, like something was squirming beneath the surface trying to get out. The already well-developed muscles of the patient’s body contorted and swelled grotesquely. They doubled and then tripled in size before smoothing out.

Up by the man’s head, his bright green eyes bulged. They were filled with terror. He had no idea what was happening. He had no idea where he was or why these people were hurting him. The only thing he knew was pain and it was too much for him. He wanted it to be over. He wanted to die. Despite the blood he felt flowing freely from his broken body, he didn’t lose consciousness. He didn’t die, even though he should’ve. There was no escape.

The pain shattered his mind. It broke him.

That was the point.

After he was broken, they broke him some more. They popped out his left eyeball (which made a disgusting squelchy sound as it came free of its socket). When there was nothing but a raw, red hole, they fitted a bionic eye into it. It looked like a simple, silver ball. When it was inside and secure, the thing moved on its own, swirling with dizzying speed. It would stop at certain points, focusing on random spots inside the room.

Suddenly, the doors to the operating room opened and a woman in a sleek, grey pantsuit strode forward. She had beautiful features with slate grey eyes and blonde hair that was pulled up into a tight bun. Her stark cheekbones showed up clearly in the harsh lighting of the room and her bright red lips were pressed firmly together as she surveyed the horrific scene in front of her. Those cold, grey eyes didn’t even flinch at the sight. There was no remorse or pity. She was completely emotionless.

In her right hand was a metal briefcase. The top of it was fitted with a state-of-the-art security system. The only way it would unlock was with a genetic key that was coded to the woman’s DNA. She placed it on a table to one side and quietly opened it. Inside was another piece of biomech technology. It was about the length of a grown man’s forearm. Two shiny, metallic rings were positioned on either end and between them was a cylinder made of metal. Four protuberances filled with bluish-green liquid sprouted off the central tube with each protuberance ending in a wide barrel. The metal ring on one end had elongated spikes coming off it. They were obviously meant to be drilled into whatever they encircled. The other end resembled something like the barrel of a large laser cannon, but four slender needles (which closely resembled the legs of an insect) sprouted off the end. They were each about six inches long and looked extremely deadly.

The woman picked up the complex biomech machine with infinite care and handed it to one of the doctors milling around.

The doctor brought it over to the man’s severed arm and rammed it onto the raw, bleeding flesh.

The man let out a loud, pain-filled scream.

The doctor didn’t even blink at the sound. Instead, he just turned back to his tablet. The biomech cannon showed up on his screen now. The doctor touched his finger to the icon and a high-pitched, whirring sound filled the room. He turned back to the patient and watched as the spikes inside the cannon drilled themselves into the flesh of the severed arm. Then they buried and anchored themselves into the reinforced bone matrix of the patient’s residual limb. There was yet another wailing sound of pain, but nobody in that room cared at all. None of them cared about the man’s agony.

The doctors operating on him barely batted an eye. To them, he was just another Augment in an endless supply of them. Another for the Collection.

The agony went on as more and more of the man’s humanity was ripped away from him.

A mech-chip was implanted onto the base of the man’s skull and a micro-tracking chip was affixed directly beneath the other so that the ones in control could keep a careful eye on their tool. They drilled into his spine and implanted another piece of biomech that altered the molecular structure of the skin so that it changed his weak flesh to something as hard and impenetrable as titanium.

They outfitted him with all kinds of scary upgrades and enhancements, all of them meant to do harm in the most horrifying fashion imaginable. When the augmentation process was over, they let him finally sink into a blissful, unconscious oblivion.

He woke up sometime later. The pain was still enormous.

[You serve the Collection. You obey the Collection,] a voice said in his mind. It was loud, and he thrust his remaining hand up to his head.

“NO!” he yelled. Tears streamed down his eye. The silver one just swirled inside its socket. The sensation was slightly sickening and made him feel nauseous. He turned his head to the side, causing several bursts of pain to ravage his damaged body, and threw up. He had time to wipe his hand across his mouth and then there was a pulsing shockwave that ripped into him from some unknown source. He jerked and convulsed wildly.

[You serve the Collection.] The voice was insistent and extremely loud. It felt like his head was vibrating from its intensity.

“NO!” he screamed back, putting all his defiance and rage into it.

There was another shockwave of electric-like pain that emanated from his bionic eyeball. He tried to fight it but ended up flopping around until he fell off the bed and hit the floor. His body exploded with more pain. The only thing he could do was whimper and cry. He curled himself into a fetal position as he did and just laid on the bare, cold tiles.

[You obey the Collection.] More flaring pain. He flinched slightly, but it was weak and feeble.

He wanted to fight against it. Every fiber inside him demanded that, but the pain was too much. The pain was too intense.

“I obey the Collection,” he said, his voice quiet and harsh. “I serve the Collection.”

Two Years Later

He stood in a block of fifty other Augments of the Collection, his mind shut down. For all intents and purposes, they were all in sleep mode, although they didn’t sleep nor were they awake. They were assimilating. Each one was downloading specific missions via the data-jack they had all been surgically implanted with.

The information sped across the left field of his vision. This time the target was a woman. Her name was Fiona Rosburg, age twenty-five. A picture of her showed a woman of outstanding health. Her lean frame spoke of raw power and strength. She looked like a highly trained fighter. She had a beautiful, rounded face, with short-cut brown hair and bright green eyes. There was a long, thin scar traveling the length of her left cheek.

Fiona Rosburg.

Something about her made him feel…he didn’t quite know what he felt. The unknown emotion boiled up from a place that had forgotten how to feel. He blinked, studying the picture of her some more. She felt…familiar. It felt…good?…to see her face. He was confused. Unsure.

[She is your target,] a voice whispered in his mind.

[She is a…friend?] he asked, confused. The swirling feelings rushing up from that forgotten part of himself made it hard to think.

[She is your target,] the voice insisted, followed by a brief surge of pain.

[She is my target,] he answered quickly. It was far easier to obey that voice than it was to contradict it in any way. Sometimes the pain was really bad. He didn’t like it when they made him hurt like that.

Fiona Rosburg.

He would find her. And he would kill her.

[Augments. Disembark on your missions. Terminate your targets. Report here when you have completed your assignments.]

There was no need to answer. The voice never expected any. The block of fifty Augments, including himself, began marching at the same time. Their feet fell at precisely the same instant. Everything about them was (even down to their breathing) synchronized.

As they approached a large, hangar-style door, it split down the middle and rumbled on its tracks. It let the Augments into the outside world to so they could deal death to the unlucky people that crossed the Collection.

As soon as they were all outside, everyone broke off from the main body. Some bounded over the earth like leaping frogs. Others just raced across it, swifter than a running cheetah. He was the only one that walked. He wasn’t in any particular rush, and truth be told, the familiarity of his target made him want to procrastinate as much as possible anyway.

Rain pelted him out of a dreary, steel grey sky. In a couple of seconds, he was drenched. His black hair hung in ropy tendrils across his face. He didn’t bother brushing it aside. There was no need.

He came to the gate that encircled the perimeter of their compound and jumped over it with ease. Once he was on the other side, he made his way up the muddy dirt road. It was an uphill walk and the mud made his footing treacherous. His balance, however, was on a level far surpassing normal humans and he didn’t so much as slip.