Liberty or Possessions Chapter 11 Meet Your Master
Liberty or Possessions Chapter 11
Meet Your Master
Chapter 11 Song by the Amazing MasterPenguin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnLwHOVXkWE
Warnings: Language, Torture (Physical and Psychological), Violence, Gore, Heavy Drug Use, Minor Character Deaths, Mentions of: Blood Diseases
Mikkel did not moan, did not stir, when he regained consciousness. At first it was slow, like coming out of a dream, but within minutes he was fully awake. Still he kept his eyes closed and his voice silent as he listened and attempted to ascertain exactly where he was. It was a skill he had learned a long time ago, though he could not pinpoint exactly where or when. He assumed it had to do with whatever training he had received while a soldier, and though many of his barriers had collapsed over the last few days, he had no intention of poking around in his own brain to try and find out more.
Laid on his back, Mikkel could feel the bindings keeping him in place. It was not a bed, not even what could be considered a gurney. It was more like a metal cadaver table than anything designed to keep a person restrained comfortably, warmed to his body temperature from prolonged contact. Mikkel could not feel much of his body, almost separated from his kinesthesia, but he assumed that all the parts were still there, though he dared not move them to find out seeing as though it seemed he was completely surrounded.
There were voices, muffled but seemingly close to Mikkel that moved around the space on all sides of him. As he listened he tried to gauge their distance, their tone, and the size of the room given their proximity to him. From their jargon they seemed to be doctors of some sort or another, though they did not hold small talk, all business from behind what sounded to be rebreathers. They were treating Mikkel like the biochemical weapon he was, which left him with the feeling that letting himself detox to the point of becoming a Berserker again would not have been a very smart idea. At best it would have been a dumb move, giving the Government more information on his condition, and downright suicidal on the bad end of the spectrum. If they could not control him, they would kill him, and Mikkel had a lot to accomplish in the short period of time that remained of his life.
"How long do you just plan on laying there?" Came Sinclair's voice through a speaker and Mikkel internally winced. He should have known that pretending to still be under sedation would not have worked, especially with the precautions that they had obviously been taking. "You could probably fool any of these idiots with your act, but the machines don't lie." Slowly Mikkel opened his eyes and got a look at the room. As Sinclair said, there were plenty of machines hooked to him. They did not beep or chime, but remained silent, although under the watchful eyes of the doctors. The displays of various vital signs were a steady rhythm that Mikkel knew corresponded to his heart and lungs. There was very little variation from his sleeping rhythms to his waking ones, but other machines seemed to have given him away.
One monitor, showing various colored lines, was the culprit on that front. They had been watching his brain waves from electrodes that were attached at various points on his forehead. Mikkel was able to school many things in his body, make him appear to be unconscious and incapacitated, but what he could not stop from ramping up was his brain, and it had given him away.
"Probably wondering where you are, aren't you?" Sinclair toned, causing Mikkel to frown. He did not actually care where he was, more concerned with the tubes, which stretched from the ditch of his elbow and out toward a machine. The blood inside was a deep red, deeper than Mikkel had ever seen his own blood, and he had seen it quite often. He wondered just how much Opal had been in his system to make the red almost black.
"Boedker," Sinclair said with just a hint of annoyance in his tone. Slowly Mikkel lolled his head to the other side, looking up toward a raised room where Sinclair stood behind thick glass. He was smarter this time, shielded before Mikkel could do anything. It was not ideal, but also not the worst thing in the world. Mikkel had enough people inside the room to deal with without adding the boisterous man to the situation.
"Actually, was a lot more interested in why I'm here." Mikkel finally responded in an even tone. Sinclair frowned heavily and looked at Mikkel with hard, unwavering eyes. His hands had been shoved deep into his pockets, and though his stance showed nonchalance, his face showed weary aggravation. Mikkel smirked, knowing that he had caused the man to look like that. "Would have thought you'd rather kill me on sight than risk bringing me in again, Sinclair. I've beaten you at every turn, after all."
Silence stretched on after that, Mikkel looking away again in the time in order to attempt to form an escape plan. He flexed his wrists, testing the strength of the ties. They were very serious about keeping him down, and with another moment of searching he found how serious. The bindings were not just on his wrists and ankles, but three over both legs, two over each arm, and three over his torso. Only his head was free to move around, limited only by his restrained body.
"You're here because we're going to retrain you," Sinclair said easily, and Mikkel's attention shot back to the older man, eyes hard and narrow. Retrain only meant one thing, and it was something Mikkel swore he would die before he did again. "Thanks for showing us just how much you can take. The amount of Opal in your system… well, simply put, would kill almost anyone else. Thank you for that data, First Sergeant Boedker. It will be quite helpful." Confusion and alarm blossomed for a moment on Mikkel's face, not missed by Sinclair who sneered with some level of joy that was dark and menacing. Mikkel had only been a sergeant when he was in the military, some branch that had no official title but had been closely related to America's Marine sector. He had not been of a seriously high rank when in the military, so at the seemingly random promotion he had just received, he was lost for words. It was far from the pleasant and yet surprised way many would accept the sudden large increase of personal power, though.
"Did you honestly think you had ever really left us, Boedker?" Sinclair said smoothly, one hand bracing him on the glass as he spoke down to the younger man. "Sure, you slipped out almost unnoticed, but we knew where you were for most of the time. We have men stationed out there, hiding where our AWOL soldiers go, feeding us back information. Our web is large and wide, Boedker, and we get information from everyone with the right leverage." Mikkel's features turned down into a snarl, eyes narrow and glaring as he pieced it all together. It had not been luck that he had met up with Maria. It had not been good fortune that Margie had taken him in. It had all been a plan that Mikkel fell into unknowingly. He pulled on the restraints hard, table shaking slightly, but nothing came from it outside of Sinclair's smug smile growing wider. Finally he had hit Boedker where it hurt.
"And Ekman-Larsson?" Mikkel asked, needing that proven. He needed to know if his instincts that first night had been right, or if everything had been wrong since he had left the base. Sinclair's face fell slightly, not jovial in Mikkel's misery any longer, but thoughtfully skeptic.
"He was… an unforeseeable contingency. Really, still not too sure what to make of him, but no matter, because soon we will get all we need from him as well as all we need from you." So, Mikkel thought, Oliver had been captured. The Church of Plano had been a Hail Mary play, one that apparently had not worked out. However, as Mikkel should have been concerned about his own safety, his own escape or immanent 'retraining', he could only think of Maria. Sinclair had made it seem like she had been part of his plan, but she had not been. No one was that good of an actor. No one would have pulled him from a firefight just because their boss needed him alive. No one would have taken numerous bullets for a false mission. She had been real, and Mikkel had to believe that her faith in Oliver had been real as well. Mikkel knew, with no need to convince himself, that his life and his mission held not even a single candle to what Oliver's life held. He would need to change his focus from revenge to protection, and though his body wanted nothing else than to pull free of the bonds and rip everyone in the room to pieces, he knew it would only get him killed and would do nothing to help Oliver.
"Where is he?" Mikkel asked, voice tight.
"You'll see him soon enough," Sinclair told him, sneering still. He had thought he had won, but Mikkel was not so ready to call it over. "As we're speaking he's getting some reeducation of his own. Soon we'll know everything and then you two, under my command, will become the best soldiers America has ever made. Two walking weapons, ready to kill anyone I tell you to. Poetry, really." Mikkel closed his eyes and laid his head back. He did not know how to feel, tangled up needs and wants that were indistinguishable. The last thing he expected to do, however, was laugh.
It was not a loud laugh, not one that shook his body and echoed through the room. Instead it was a slow one, one that burbled to his lips like a low roll of thunder and dissipated almost immediately. Still it drew the attention of everyone, even the doctors hesitated with uncertainty. It was Sinclair's demanding that made Mikkel speak; words rolling off his tongue that he did not think about; ones that came out as sentences instead of nonsense. They were words that carried a weight that Mikkel had not known any words could.
"He ca not be your weapon, Sinclair, because he's already the weapon of the Presence, and you know they won’t let us take another inch." The room remained tense, eyes glancing between the two men that glared at each other through the glass. Sinclair's hand balled into a fist and then relaxed flat again, though the tension remained.
"We read the book too, Boedker. We know much, and as soon as our translators finish, we will know it all."
"You'd already know it all if you would listen. He's going to either save us or get us killed. You're playing with fire, Sinclair, and this time the burn is going to fucking kill you."
"He is, apparently, a soldier of the Presence, according to your high little whore, but what do you think they are going to do if he's under my control, Boedker? Kill me? No, not when I'm the only one with his cure." Malcolm Sinclair paused, a smile slowly slipping onto his face. He had convinced himself he would survive through whatever the Presence had planned, whatever purge they would create. Mikkel knew he, himself, would not survive, and he also had his doubts that Oliver would be spared. The way the Presence had spoken to him, with harsh disdain, Mikkel believed that they would eradicate humanity without discrimination. Everyone would die including Sinclair and Oliver. They could not be bargained with.
"Actually, Sinclair, I think they're going to kill us all: You, me, the whole fucking lot. Do you really think Oliver will have some safety zone around him?"
"I'm thinking it won’t matter too much when you and he are released out there as Berserkers and you remove the rest of humanity from the globe. Just you two, me, and some select other few. We'll give those things what they want, a stop to the over population rape of this world, and I will be a king for the few left. I will be their master and you two will be my army." Another laugh, this time louder, came from Mikkel's mouth. Sinclair's eyes narrowed more, tiny slits, as he looked down onto Mikkel's immobile form. They both expected him to say something like how Mikkel would never work for him, how Mikkel would find a way to kill himself before ever becoming a soldier again. What came out of Mikkel's mouth, though, shocked both of them.
"Oliver can not be a Berserker, you fool!" As the words left his mouth, Mikkel knew what he was talking about, and it frightened him down to his soul. He was not the one speaking; he was not the one supplying information to his own brain. Someone else was-- someone else, or something else. "He touched my blood and did not change." It had not dawned on Mikkel before, but as the information came rushing to him, he knew it was the truth. The bag, he realized suddenly. That fucking bag that held the Opal had been covered in blood, but it was black and neither of them had seen it. Mikkel had blood on his hands, blood on his back, blood seeping out of every pore and of course it had gotten on the bag. Oliver had touched it, held it, slept on it. There was no way he could not have been exposed, and yet hours had passed and Oliver had not crumbled under the weight of miserable agony. The Berserkers were only in their world, some byproduct of medical tinkering, so of course Oliver would have been immune. Mikkel had probably not been safe enough to venture back to the streets, but Oliver had tested his blood and had not changed. Mikkel felt a small bit of kinship as he mulled it over, really thought about it. He could not hurt Oliver even if he tried.
"Well, what does it matter?" Sinclair left that open ended, pacing slightly in his glass box. There would be no trapping him again, Mikkel knew. Even if he managed to get out of the bonds, even if he managed to get out of that room, Sinclair was still too far removed from him. He would be out of there at the first sign of trouble. He was just an annoyance, not a mark at that moment. He would get his dues, so Mikkel needed to concentrate on Oliver instead. "With your blood, we'll figure out how you control them. We'll keep infecting that boy with more and more strains until one holds. We'll figure out how we made you, and then we'll make him. There's no way out of this one, Boedker, so why do you still fight it?"
"Because you're all I've ever wanted, Sinclair," Mikkel growled, all Mikkel that time. There seemed to be no traces of the Presence in his mind, no images, no thoughts that were not his own. Mikkel lived in the present, lived in the very moment where he knew what needed to be done. Without the memories flooding through him, without the strange words coming from his mouth, Mikkel knew full well that he was alone once again. It was to his benefit, made him more lethal and determined. If he did not let the past weigh him down he would be far better at making decisions and acting upon them. If the Presence would just stay out of his mind, Mikkel could function like the well-oiled machine he always had.
"You will have me then, Boedker, but not in the way you so desperately want right now. When we're done, when you, again, are the soldier you were born to be, you will want me another way. You will want me to give you commands; you will want me to point out your target. You will want to turn everyone to Berserkers to give me my army, and then you will control them because I want you to." Mikkel bit hard against his lip, gathering blood in his mouth and spit. He spit at Sinclair but got nowhere near the glass as the saliva and blood mixture fell harmlessly to the floor. Still, regardless of Mikkel’s now benign disease, some of the doctors stumbled back to get out from under the arch, afraid of the power Mikkel's blood once held. They, apparently, had heard about what had happened to the last group of scientists locked in the same room as him.
"No use fighting, Boedker!" Malcolm Sinclair said with a laugh. "You went ahead and took away the only weapon you had when you dosed up. At least some of the addictions we gave to you soldiers stick around." As Sinclair's words drew to a close, a needle was jammed into Mikkel's neck, hard and fast. For a second Mikkel cried out, but it dipped into a growl as he continued to glare up at the man. Malcolm Sinclair knocked once on the glass with his knuckle, a strange look of pride on his face. Mikkel was unsure if it was for hurting him, or for something he did not know about yet. It seemed unlikely that they would push more Opal into his system when he already had enough to turn his blood almost black, so his money went onto the something else.
"What are you shooting me up with, Sinclair?" Mikkel growled, feeling the effect of whatever was in his system almost immediately. His head swam, lightheaded even though lying down. The room seemed to shift like after a heavy night of drinking, but his stomach did not turn with it. He could not remember the last time he had eaten, and though not generally a good thing, it probably saved Mikkel from a more unpleasant reaction to the drug.
"Prozira. We just got a shipment in from America and were trying to find the right test subject to use it on." Mikkel clenched his eyes shut and wished Malcolm would shut up. His tone, the condescending nature of it, did nothing to help the way the new drug burned through his veins. It was completely unlike the Opal it seemed, starting with being light. There was no weight with it, did not feel sluggish and thick as it pushed through his veins. The Prozira seemed to set every vein on fire, making his heart ignite as it reached it. He wanted to reach up, to put pressure on the organ and hope to god that the pain went away. It felt like a heart attack, but Sinclair would never let him die. Even if his heart seized and stopped, they would restart it and try again. Mikkel wished it would just kill him, good and dead, but he knew the sweet release would never happen.
Fists balled and body pulling hard against the restraints, Mikkel groaned in pain. He thrashed in excruciating torment, but his mind did not seem to want to focus on the problem at hand. Instead it fluttered with thought because something peeked its curiosity. He had heard of Prozira before, but he could not remember where. He thought, tried to remember even though his vision swam and his head spun. He had heard of it before, but where?
When the knowledge came over Mikkel, it was like a wave. As if the drug had not messed with his head enough, whatever dawning realization he had sent him head over heels, reeling in memories. Behind his eyes images flashed, like a video in fast-forward. There was no sound to go with the replaying of his pervious actions, but he knew what they were regardless. It had been after his attack on the ballpark, just a few days prior by that point, but so much had happened since then that it had fallen to the way side. He had purchased Opal, a whole load of it, and with it he had purchased some pills. The dealer had told him they were new, brand new, and Mikkel had not been able to turn that away. He had wanted to find out what they were when he had returned to Molious, but then Molious had been destroyed and Mikkel had devolved to a Berserker. There had been a lot of things that took precedence over that memory, so to get it then, when he had needed it the most, definitely came from an outside source. Mikkel had been pretty sure that whatever divine insight he had gotten from the Presence had been fleeting and momentary. He thought it only had to do with Oliver, but they seemed to still be there, still monitoring and watching over him.
With the images zipping through Mikkel's mind, he remembered what the dealer had told him. She had looked excited about the little bottle of pills, insistent that it was the new hot thing. She said it calmed a person down, slowed them down. It took several seconds with that thought to figure out why the memories were going so fast. They were actually being replayed by the Presence at a normal speed, but his brain could not keep up. The reeling, the excruciating pain, was his body being leveled out. The Opal made him faster, more alert, and the Prozira slowed him, calmed him. Mikkel had not drunk the water in a long time, and the Parepin had some of the same effects. Parepin calmed a person, made them complacent. The Prozira was a stronger, more complete version of it. Mikkel's long since detoxed body would never be able to fight it off.
"I was sure you'd figure it out, Boedker. Almost positive that you'd see what was going on: We've been using you for years, for information, for missions. Unfortunately you're as dim as you are useful, so we have to drag you back, kicking and screaming, to make you useful again." Sinclair paused, eyes hard as they watched the Prozira take over Mikkel. He had never used it himself, not one to get himself dirty with the ugly stuff they gave to the civilian population. "There's nothing left out there for your kind. We've won, we've taken it all over, and your mission is over. Now we have to reassign you, and to do that we need to make you see the truth." He paused again. There was no doubt that Mikkel heard him, but he would need time to process it. He would need hours to understand what words were said to him, and even longer to mentally work through what they meant. Sinclair did not have time, had other things that demanded his attention. Oliver Ekman-Larsson was currently undergoing his own reeducation far away from where Mikkel was held. It would take an hour to get out to the base to monitor the situation there. Mikkel was hardened, and the scientists were under strict orders to not let Mikkel loose or to die. They would do what was needed to see that he became a functioning soldier once more. Ekman-Larsson, however, was a different case entirely.
"We've got big plans for you, Boedker. Remember that." Sinclair said with an air of humor, watching for just one more minute as the Prozira took over the younger man's body. Sinclair hoped that it hurt as much as the studies said it would. He hoped that Mikkel felt unimaginable pain for his transgressions. Turning, Sinclair exited the observation room, moving authoritatively through the halls. He felt excited, for the first time in a long time, for the future.
Everything in Mikkel's mind was shooting through at high speed. The way the scientists and doctors moved was almost inhuman, zipping around the room at paces Mikkel could not follow with his eyes. He pulled lethargically at the bindings, weak and uncoordinated. They had finally done it, finally caught him in their trap. He would never be able to get from under the Prozira, never be able to function fast enough to defend himself even if he managed to get free. His heart thundered in his chest, mixing the drug through his system. It still burned, but it became common, and his brain tried desperately to keep up with everything else and did not even bother to relay to him that he felt like death. There seemed to be no point in being stuck on that very obvious fact when millions of stimuli were sluggishly clogging his mental capacity as it was, fighting for attention.
It could have been hours, could have been days that Mikkel lay there, wishing his heart would just give up the fight. There was no way he would get out, no possibility of surviving the ordeal without bending to the whims of the Government, and he never would chose that over death. There was no choice, though.
It seemed like every minute to Mikkel's slowed brain, the doctors would inject him more. Sometimes it would be Opal, the familiar black liquid pushing heavily into him. He would feel better for a few seconds, but then there would be another dose of the Prozira, submerging him once more into a sea of pain and lethargic groaning. He needed to get out of there, but the bindings held him in place. Fighting had long since been abandoned for simple preservation. He wanted them to stop with the alternating needles, trying to let them think he was dosed up enough so they would move onto something else, whatever was next in their plan.
It was impossible to gauge time, impossible to tell what day it was or how long he lay on the cadaver table, but Mikkel was positive it was too late to save Oliver. The Government was not new to making soldiers, did not need a manual on how to drug a civilian into total submission anymore. They were old pros at it and that meant that Mikkel's mission had failed. Even if he could have gotten out of that room, he never would make it to Oliver before they had destroyed him. It was over, he had lost, and he wanted to convince his heart to give up the fight too. He wanted it to stop beating and give him the sweet release of death. It would not, however. Slowly Mikkel closed his eyes and accepted his fate.
When Mikkel opened his eyes again he staggered with shock. Around him lay the scientists and doctors that had occupied the room, puddles of blood around them like crimson halos. Mikkel's mind still functioned at a slower pace as he turned labouredly and looked around. Aside from the scientists and doctors were soldiers, about twenty of them, all covered in wounds like the others. They were cut up with precision, stab wounds and slashes that hit arteries when possible. Nothing moved save from Mikkel and he was grateful for that. It was not because he would have to attempt to defend himself, but because the otherwise stillness of the room was a relief to him. He did not have to try and keep up with anything anymore.
Taking a step back, Mikkel bumped against the table he had previously lay on. He had no idea how he had gotten free, but with all the bindings minus one slashed open, he had a fairly good idea. Somehow he had gotten his left hand free and armed himself. He cut the remaining bindings and then set to work on the occupants of the room. He had been under heavy guard, more than likely, so at the first sign of trouble soldiers had rushed the room. Mikkel had somehow killed them all, approximately thirty people total, and had not a scratch on him. Shakily his hand dropped the scalpel it had been holding, the metal clinking loudly on the floor. He lifted his hand slowly, seeing it covered in blood. He had definitely killed them all, but his horror had not been because of that. Killing was something Mikkel knew, something he did well. What scared him, what made him shake, was the fact that there could be absolutely no way for him to have done it.
"How the fuck…" He started, but before he got the words out, the memories flooded over him once more. He had all but broken his hand when he pulled it from the bindings, launching quickly to grab the scalpel that someone had left far too close. He cut the ties up his arm with precision and swiftness that his brain could still not comprehend. Before he freed any more of his body, the scientists and doctors had swarmed him, but some how they could not stop him. Mikkel had driven the scalpel into the first one's neck and pulled him close. As others descended on him he shoved the dying one back. He knocked a few of them over, bleeding everywhere as he attempted desperately to cover the wound. More came upon Mikkel, grabbing him, holding him down, and the soldiers had entered by that point. They opened fire without regard for the lives of the scientists and doctors, littering their bodies with bullets that never made it to Mikkel's body. They had inadvertently saved him and Mikkel used those precious seconds to free himself the rest of the way. He slipped off of the table, crouching low to count the boots of the soldiers. After that things got stranger.
Mikkel ran right at the remaining occupants of the room, seemingly dodging their gunfire. He could never dodge bullets, Mikkel knew, and definitely would not have had a fighting chance with the Prozira in his system. Yet Mikkel remembered it clearly, the way he ducked and weaved, not once even being clipped by a bullet. He slashed the soldiers apart, severing tendons first in order to stop their onslaught before returning to finish them off. Then he turned his attention back to the scientists and doctors before, eventually, being the last man standing. It made no sense to Mikkel as the memories caught up to his current moments. There was no way he could have killed them all, not even at peak shape, but he had. He remembered doing it, but even that seemed wrong. Suddenly he doubled over and vomited, bile splashing on the ground and mixing with the puddles of blood that were thick and seemed to cover most of the floor. The blood was old, but not too old, already drying slightly around the edges.
Mikkel slowly straightened up, wiping his mouth on his arm as he did so. Vomiting would not clean the drug from his system, but it felt like a good first step. Next, he knew, he would need to get out of there and try to find Oliver. There was no guarantee that Oliver would still even be alive, but something told him that he was. Something told him that there was still time, even though Mikkel had no clue how long he had been out.
"Alright, I get how this is playing out," He spoke quietly to the eerily still room, pushing himself away from the table to hesitantly move across and to the door. "I'm going to need some stuff, some more Opal to straighten this shit out, and going to have to take these guns. You get me that, and then I'll do whatever divine mission you've got for me." He felt idiotic speaking to the air, never really the religious type. It was not a prayer, though, not really. It was more like a deal, a binding contract. If Mikkel got what he needed, he would do what he knew the Presence wanted of him. If not, well then he would get the hell out of dodge and plot his revenge from the safety of somewhere pretty far from Stockholm.
No response was ever given to Mikkel, not in words or images and he thought that it might have been for the best. His mind still felt impossibly slow, but the Presence seemed to have saved his ass more than once, and he hoped that would be a continuing occurrence if he ran into trouble. Regardless he armed himself with a gun from a soldier, strapping on a few combat knives and side arms. He looted what he could off the corpses including ammo and keys, and packed up the minimal supply of Opal the room held. He would need more, there was no doubt about that, and that was where the Presence came in. It would have to lead him to where ever Oliver was being held anyway, so he hoped there would be an ample supply of the drug along the way. Then, and only then, Mikkel thought, he would go and find the kid.
Playlist by the Amazing MasterPenguin: https://8tracks.com/masterpenguin/liberty-of-possession
Chapter 11 Song by the Amazing MasterPenguin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnLwHOVXkWE
Master Post: http://z4rf3.livejournal.com/16531.html
Chapter 12 The Greater Good: http://z4rf3.livejournal.com/19487.html
Meet Your Master
Chapter 11 Song by the Amazing MasterPenguin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnLwHOVXkWE
Warnings: Language, Torture (Physical and Psychological), Violence, Gore, Heavy Drug Use, Minor Character Deaths, Mentions of: Blood Diseases
Mikkel did not moan, did not stir, when he regained consciousness. At first it was slow, like coming out of a dream, but within minutes he was fully awake. Still he kept his eyes closed and his voice silent as he listened and attempted to ascertain exactly where he was. It was a skill he had learned a long time ago, though he could not pinpoint exactly where or when. He assumed it had to do with whatever training he had received while a soldier, and though many of his barriers had collapsed over the last few days, he had no intention of poking around in his own brain to try and find out more.
Laid on his back, Mikkel could feel the bindings keeping him in place. It was not a bed, not even what could be considered a gurney. It was more like a metal cadaver table than anything designed to keep a person restrained comfortably, warmed to his body temperature from prolonged contact. Mikkel could not feel much of his body, almost separated from his kinesthesia, but he assumed that all the parts were still there, though he dared not move them to find out seeing as though it seemed he was completely surrounded.
There were voices, muffled but seemingly close to Mikkel that moved around the space on all sides of him. As he listened he tried to gauge their distance, their tone, and the size of the room given their proximity to him. From their jargon they seemed to be doctors of some sort or another, though they did not hold small talk, all business from behind what sounded to be rebreathers. They were treating Mikkel like the biochemical weapon he was, which left him with the feeling that letting himself detox to the point of becoming a Berserker again would not have been a very smart idea. At best it would have been a dumb move, giving the Government more information on his condition, and downright suicidal on the bad end of the spectrum. If they could not control him, they would kill him, and Mikkel had a lot to accomplish in the short period of time that remained of his life.
"How long do you just plan on laying there?" Came Sinclair's voice through a speaker and Mikkel internally winced. He should have known that pretending to still be under sedation would not have worked, especially with the precautions that they had obviously been taking. "You could probably fool any of these idiots with your act, but the machines don't lie." Slowly Mikkel opened his eyes and got a look at the room. As Sinclair said, there were plenty of machines hooked to him. They did not beep or chime, but remained silent, although under the watchful eyes of the doctors. The displays of various vital signs were a steady rhythm that Mikkel knew corresponded to his heart and lungs. There was very little variation from his sleeping rhythms to his waking ones, but other machines seemed to have given him away.
One monitor, showing various colored lines, was the culprit on that front. They had been watching his brain waves from electrodes that were attached at various points on his forehead. Mikkel was able to school many things in his body, make him appear to be unconscious and incapacitated, but what he could not stop from ramping up was his brain, and it had given him away.
"Probably wondering where you are, aren't you?" Sinclair toned, causing Mikkel to frown. He did not actually care where he was, more concerned with the tubes, which stretched from the ditch of his elbow and out toward a machine. The blood inside was a deep red, deeper than Mikkel had ever seen his own blood, and he had seen it quite often. He wondered just how much Opal had been in his system to make the red almost black.
"Boedker," Sinclair said with just a hint of annoyance in his tone. Slowly Mikkel lolled his head to the other side, looking up toward a raised room where Sinclair stood behind thick glass. He was smarter this time, shielded before Mikkel could do anything. It was not ideal, but also not the worst thing in the world. Mikkel had enough people inside the room to deal with without adding the boisterous man to the situation.
"Actually, was a lot more interested in why I'm here." Mikkel finally responded in an even tone. Sinclair frowned heavily and looked at Mikkel with hard, unwavering eyes. His hands had been shoved deep into his pockets, and though his stance showed nonchalance, his face showed weary aggravation. Mikkel smirked, knowing that he had caused the man to look like that. "Would have thought you'd rather kill me on sight than risk bringing me in again, Sinclair. I've beaten you at every turn, after all."
Silence stretched on after that, Mikkel looking away again in the time in order to attempt to form an escape plan. He flexed his wrists, testing the strength of the ties. They were very serious about keeping him down, and with another moment of searching he found how serious. The bindings were not just on his wrists and ankles, but three over both legs, two over each arm, and three over his torso. Only his head was free to move around, limited only by his restrained body.
"You're here because we're going to retrain you," Sinclair said easily, and Mikkel's attention shot back to the older man, eyes hard and narrow. Retrain only meant one thing, and it was something Mikkel swore he would die before he did again. "Thanks for showing us just how much you can take. The amount of Opal in your system… well, simply put, would kill almost anyone else. Thank you for that data, First Sergeant Boedker. It will be quite helpful." Confusion and alarm blossomed for a moment on Mikkel's face, not missed by Sinclair who sneered with some level of joy that was dark and menacing. Mikkel had only been a sergeant when he was in the military, some branch that had no official title but had been closely related to America's Marine sector. He had not been of a seriously high rank when in the military, so at the seemingly random promotion he had just received, he was lost for words. It was far from the pleasant and yet surprised way many would accept the sudden large increase of personal power, though.
"Did you honestly think you had ever really left us, Boedker?" Sinclair said smoothly, one hand bracing him on the glass as he spoke down to the younger man. "Sure, you slipped out almost unnoticed, but we knew where you were for most of the time. We have men stationed out there, hiding where our AWOL soldiers go, feeding us back information. Our web is large and wide, Boedker, and we get information from everyone with the right leverage." Mikkel's features turned down into a snarl, eyes narrow and glaring as he pieced it all together. It had not been luck that he had met up with Maria. It had not been good fortune that Margie had taken him in. It had all been a plan that Mikkel fell into unknowingly. He pulled on the restraints hard, table shaking slightly, but nothing came from it outside of Sinclair's smug smile growing wider. Finally he had hit Boedker where it hurt.
"And Ekman-Larsson?" Mikkel asked, needing that proven. He needed to know if his instincts that first night had been right, or if everything had been wrong since he had left the base. Sinclair's face fell slightly, not jovial in Mikkel's misery any longer, but thoughtfully skeptic.
"He was… an unforeseeable contingency. Really, still not too sure what to make of him, but no matter, because soon we will get all we need from him as well as all we need from you." So, Mikkel thought, Oliver had been captured. The Church of Plano had been a Hail Mary play, one that apparently had not worked out. However, as Mikkel should have been concerned about his own safety, his own escape or immanent 'retraining', he could only think of Maria. Sinclair had made it seem like she had been part of his plan, but she had not been. No one was that good of an actor. No one would have pulled him from a firefight just because their boss needed him alive. No one would have taken numerous bullets for a false mission. She had been real, and Mikkel had to believe that her faith in Oliver had been real as well. Mikkel knew, with no need to convince himself, that his life and his mission held not even a single candle to what Oliver's life held. He would need to change his focus from revenge to protection, and though his body wanted nothing else than to pull free of the bonds and rip everyone in the room to pieces, he knew it would only get him killed and would do nothing to help Oliver.
"Where is he?" Mikkel asked, voice tight.
"You'll see him soon enough," Sinclair told him, sneering still. He had thought he had won, but Mikkel was not so ready to call it over. "As we're speaking he's getting some reeducation of his own. Soon we'll know everything and then you two, under my command, will become the best soldiers America has ever made. Two walking weapons, ready to kill anyone I tell you to. Poetry, really." Mikkel closed his eyes and laid his head back. He did not know how to feel, tangled up needs and wants that were indistinguishable. The last thing he expected to do, however, was laugh.
It was not a loud laugh, not one that shook his body and echoed through the room. Instead it was a slow one, one that burbled to his lips like a low roll of thunder and dissipated almost immediately. Still it drew the attention of everyone, even the doctors hesitated with uncertainty. It was Sinclair's demanding that made Mikkel speak; words rolling off his tongue that he did not think about; ones that came out as sentences instead of nonsense. They were words that carried a weight that Mikkel had not known any words could.
"He ca not be your weapon, Sinclair, because he's already the weapon of the Presence, and you know they won’t let us take another inch." The room remained tense, eyes glancing between the two men that glared at each other through the glass. Sinclair's hand balled into a fist and then relaxed flat again, though the tension remained.
"We read the book too, Boedker. We know much, and as soon as our translators finish, we will know it all."
"You'd already know it all if you would listen. He's going to either save us or get us killed. You're playing with fire, Sinclair, and this time the burn is going to fucking kill you."
"He is, apparently, a soldier of the Presence, according to your high little whore, but what do you think they are going to do if he's under my control, Boedker? Kill me? No, not when I'm the only one with his cure." Malcolm Sinclair paused, a smile slowly slipping onto his face. He had convinced himself he would survive through whatever the Presence had planned, whatever purge they would create. Mikkel knew he, himself, would not survive, and he also had his doubts that Oliver would be spared. The way the Presence had spoken to him, with harsh disdain, Mikkel believed that they would eradicate humanity without discrimination. Everyone would die including Sinclair and Oliver. They could not be bargained with.
"Actually, Sinclair, I think they're going to kill us all: You, me, the whole fucking lot. Do you really think Oliver will have some safety zone around him?"
"I'm thinking it won’t matter too much when you and he are released out there as Berserkers and you remove the rest of humanity from the globe. Just you two, me, and some select other few. We'll give those things what they want, a stop to the over population rape of this world, and I will be a king for the few left. I will be their master and you two will be my army." Another laugh, this time louder, came from Mikkel's mouth. Sinclair's eyes narrowed more, tiny slits, as he looked down onto Mikkel's immobile form. They both expected him to say something like how Mikkel would never work for him, how Mikkel would find a way to kill himself before ever becoming a soldier again. What came out of Mikkel's mouth, though, shocked both of them.
"Oliver can not be a Berserker, you fool!" As the words left his mouth, Mikkel knew what he was talking about, and it frightened him down to his soul. He was not the one speaking; he was not the one supplying information to his own brain. Someone else was-- someone else, or something else. "He touched my blood and did not change." It had not dawned on Mikkel before, but as the information came rushing to him, he knew it was the truth. The bag, he realized suddenly. That fucking bag that held the Opal had been covered in blood, but it was black and neither of them had seen it. Mikkel had blood on his hands, blood on his back, blood seeping out of every pore and of course it had gotten on the bag. Oliver had touched it, held it, slept on it. There was no way he could not have been exposed, and yet hours had passed and Oliver had not crumbled under the weight of miserable agony. The Berserkers were only in their world, some byproduct of medical tinkering, so of course Oliver would have been immune. Mikkel had probably not been safe enough to venture back to the streets, but Oliver had tested his blood and had not changed. Mikkel felt a small bit of kinship as he mulled it over, really thought about it. He could not hurt Oliver even if he tried.
"Well, what does it matter?" Sinclair left that open ended, pacing slightly in his glass box. There would be no trapping him again, Mikkel knew. Even if he managed to get out of the bonds, even if he managed to get out of that room, Sinclair was still too far removed from him. He would be out of there at the first sign of trouble. He was just an annoyance, not a mark at that moment. He would get his dues, so Mikkel needed to concentrate on Oliver instead. "With your blood, we'll figure out how you control them. We'll keep infecting that boy with more and more strains until one holds. We'll figure out how we made you, and then we'll make him. There's no way out of this one, Boedker, so why do you still fight it?"
"Because you're all I've ever wanted, Sinclair," Mikkel growled, all Mikkel that time. There seemed to be no traces of the Presence in his mind, no images, no thoughts that were not his own. Mikkel lived in the present, lived in the very moment where he knew what needed to be done. Without the memories flooding through him, without the strange words coming from his mouth, Mikkel knew full well that he was alone once again. It was to his benefit, made him more lethal and determined. If he did not let the past weigh him down he would be far better at making decisions and acting upon them. If the Presence would just stay out of his mind, Mikkel could function like the well-oiled machine he always had.
"You will have me then, Boedker, but not in the way you so desperately want right now. When we're done, when you, again, are the soldier you were born to be, you will want me another way. You will want me to give you commands; you will want me to point out your target. You will want to turn everyone to Berserkers to give me my army, and then you will control them because I want you to." Mikkel bit hard against his lip, gathering blood in his mouth and spit. He spit at Sinclair but got nowhere near the glass as the saliva and blood mixture fell harmlessly to the floor. Still, regardless of Mikkel’s now benign disease, some of the doctors stumbled back to get out from under the arch, afraid of the power Mikkel's blood once held. They, apparently, had heard about what had happened to the last group of scientists locked in the same room as him.
"No use fighting, Boedker!" Malcolm Sinclair said with a laugh. "You went ahead and took away the only weapon you had when you dosed up. At least some of the addictions we gave to you soldiers stick around." As Sinclair's words drew to a close, a needle was jammed into Mikkel's neck, hard and fast. For a second Mikkel cried out, but it dipped into a growl as he continued to glare up at the man. Malcolm Sinclair knocked once on the glass with his knuckle, a strange look of pride on his face. Mikkel was unsure if it was for hurting him, or for something he did not know about yet. It seemed unlikely that they would push more Opal into his system when he already had enough to turn his blood almost black, so his money went onto the something else.
"What are you shooting me up with, Sinclair?" Mikkel growled, feeling the effect of whatever was in his system almost immediately. His head swam, lightheaded even though lying down. The room seemed to shift like after a heavy night of drinking, but his stomach did not turn with it. He could not remember the last time he had eaten, and though not generally a good thing, it probably saved Mikkel from a more unpleasant reaction to the drug.
"Prozira. We just got a shipment in from America and were trying to find the right test subject to use it on." Mikkel clenched his eyes shut and wished Malcolm would shut up. His tone, the condescending nature of it, did nothing to help the way the new drug burned through his veins. It was completely unlike the Opal it seemed, starting with being light. There was no weight with it, did not feel sluggish and thick as it pushed through his veins. The Prozira seemed to set every vein on fire, making his heart ignite as it reached it. He wanted to reach up, to put pressure on the organ and hope to god that the pain went away. It felt like a heart attack, but Sinclair would never let him die. Even if his heart seized and stopped, they would restart it and try again. Mikkel wished it would just kill him, good and dead, but he knew the sweet release would never happen.
Fists balled and body pulling hard against the restraints, Mikkel groaned in pain. He thrashed in excruciating torment, but his mind did not seem to want to focus on the problem at hand. Instead it fluttered with thought because something peeked its curiosity. He had heard of Prozira before, but he could not remember where. He thought, tried to remember even though his vision swam and his head spun. He had heard of it before, but where?
When the knowledge came over Mikkel, it was like a wave. As if the drug had not messed with his head enough, whatever dawning realization he had sent him head over heels, reeling in memories. Behind his eyes images flashed, like a video in fast-forward. There was no sound to go with the replaying of his pervious actions, but he knew what they were regardless. It had been after his attack on the ballpark, just a few days prior by that point, but so much had happened since then that it had fallen to the way side. He had purchased Opal, a whole load of it, and with it he had purchased some pills. The dealer had told him they were new, brand new, and Mikkel had not been able to turn that away. He had wanted to find out what they were when he had returned to Molious, but then Molious had been destroyed and Mikkel had devolved to a Berserker. There had been a lot of things that took precedence over that memory, so to get it then, when he had needed it the most, definitely came from an outside source. Mikkel had been pretty sure that whatever divine insight he had gotten from the Presence had been fleeting and momentary. He thought it only had to do with Oliver, but they seemed to still be there, still monitoring and watching over him.
With the images zipping through Mikkel's mind, he remembered what the dealer had told him. She had looked excited about the little bottle of pills, insistent that it was the new hot thing. She said it calmed a person down, slowed them down. It took several seconds with that thought to figure out why the memories were going so fast. They were actually being replayed by the Presence at a normal speed, but his brain could not keep up. The reeling, the excruciating pain, was his body being leveled out. The Opal made him faster, more alert, and the Prozira slowed him, calmed him. Mikkel had not drunk the water in a long time, and the Parepin had some of the same effects. Parepin calmed a person, made them complacent. The Prozira was a stronger, more complete version of it. Mikkel's long since detoxed body would never be able to fight it off.
"I was sure you'd figure it out, Boedker. Almost positive that you'd see what was going on: We've been using you for years, for information, for missions. Unfortunately you're as dim as you are useful, so we have to drag you back, kicking and screaming, to make you useful again." Sinclair paused, eyes hard as they watched the Prozira take over Mikkel. He had never used it himself, not one to get himself dirty with the ugly stuff they gave to the civilian population. "There's nothing left out there for your kind. We've won, we've taken it all over, and your mission is over. Now we have to reassign you, and to do that we need to make you see the truth." He paused again. There was no doubt that Mikkel heard him, but he would need time to process it. He would need hours to understand what words were said to him, and even longer to mentally work through what they meant. Sinclair did not have time, had other things that demanded his attention. Oliver Ekman-Larsson was currently undergoing his own reeducation far away from where Mikkel was held. It would take an hour to get out to the base to monitor the situation there. Mikkel was hardened, and the scientists were under strict orders to not let Mikkel loose or to die. They would do what was needed to see that he became a functioning soldier once more. Ekman-Larsson, however, was a different case entirely.
"We've got big plans for you, Boedker. Remember that." Sinclair said with an air of humor, watching for just one more minute as the Prozira took over the younger man's body. Sinclair hoped that it hurt as much as the studies said it would. He hoped that Mikkel felt unimaginable pain for his transgressions. Turning, Sinclair exited the observation room, moving authoritatively through the halls. He felt excited, for the first time in a long time, for the future.
Everything in Mikkel's mind was shooting through at high speed. The way the scientists and doctors moved was almost inhuman, zipping around the room at paces Mikkel could not follow with his eyes. He pulled lethargically at the bindings, weak and uncoordinated. They had finally done it, finally caught him in their trap. He would never be able to get from under the Prozira, never be able to function fast enough to defend himself even if he managed to get free. His heart thundered in his chest, mixing the drug through his system. It still burned, but it became common, and his brain tried desperately to keep up with everything else and did not even bother to relay to him that he felt like death. There seemed to be no point in being stuck on that very obvious fact when millions of stimuli were sluggishly clogging his mental capacity as it was, fighting for attention.
It could have been hours, could have been days that Mikkel lay there, wishing his heart would just give up the fight. There was no way he would get out, no possibility of surviving the ordeal without bending to the whims of the Government, and he never would chose that over death. There was no choice, though.
It seemed like every minute to Mikkel's slowed brain, the doctors would inject him more. Sometimes it would be Opal, the familiar black liquid pushing heavily into him. He would feel better for a few seconds, but then there would be another dose of the Prozira, submerging him once more into a sea of pain and lethargic groaning. He needed to get out of there, but the bindings held him in place. Fighting had long since been abandoned for simple preservation. He wanted them to stop with the alternating needles, trying to let them think he was dosed up enough so they would move onto something else, whatever was next in their plan.
It was impossible to gauge time, impossible to tell what day it was or how long he lay on the cadaver table, but Mikkel was positive it was too late to save Oliver. The Government was not new to making soldiers, did not need a manual on how to drug a civilian into total submission anymore. They were old pros at it and that meant that Mikkel's mission had failed. Even if he could have gotten out of that room, he never would make it to Oliver before they had destroyed him. It was over, he had lost, and he wanted to convince his heart to give up the fight too. He wanted it to stop beating and give him the sweet release of death. It would not, however. Slowly Mikkel closed his eyes and accepted his fate.
When Mikkel opened his eyes again he staggered with shock. Around him lay the scientists and doctors that had occupied the room, puddles of blood around them like crimson halos. Mikkel's mind still functioned at a slower pace as he turned labouredly and looked around. Aside from the scientists and doctors were soldiers, about twenty of them, all covered in wounds like the others. They were cut up with precision, stab wounds and slashes that hit arteries when possible. Nothing moved save from Mikkel and he was grateful for that. It was not because he would have to attempt to defend himself, but because the otherwise stillness of the room was a relief to him. He did not have to try and keep up with anything anymore.
Taking a step back, Mikkel bumped against the table he had previously lay on. He had no idea how he had gotten free, but with all the bindings minus one slashed open, he had a fairly good idea. Somehow he had gotten his left hand free and armed himself. He cut the remaining bindings and then set to work on the occupants of the room. He had been under heavy guard, more than likely, so at the first sign of trouble soldiers had rushed the room. Mikkel had somehow killed them all, approximately thirty people total, and had not a scratch on him. Shakily his hand dropped the scalpel it had been holding, the metal clinking loudly on the floor. He lifted his hand slowly, seeing it covered in blood. He had definitely killed them all, but his horror had not been because of that. Killing was something Mikkel knew, something he did well. What scared him, what made him shake, was the fact that there could be absolutely no way for him to have done it.
"How the fuck…" He started, but before he got the words out, the memories flooded over him once more. He had all but broken his hand when he pulled it from the bindings, launching quickly to grab the scalpel that someone had left far too close. He cut the ties up his arm with precision and swiftness that his brain could still not comprehend. Before he freed any more of his body, the scientists and doctors had swarmed him, but some how they could not stop him. Mikkel had driven the scalpel into the first one's neck and pulled him close. As others descended on him he shoved the dying one back. He knocked a few of them over, bleeding everywhere as he attempted desperately to cover the wound. More came upon Mikkel, grabbing him, holding him down, and the soldiers had entered by that point. They opened fire without regard for the lives of the scientists and doctors, littering their bodies with bullets that never made it to Mikkel's body. They had inadvertently saved him and Mikkel used those precious seconds to free himself the rest of the way. He slipped off of the table, crouching low to count the boots of the soldiers. After that things got stranger.
Mikkel ran right at the remaining occupants of the room, seemingly dodging their gunfire. He could never dodge bullets, Mikkel knew, and definitely would not have had a fighting chance with the Prozira in his system. Yet Mikkel remembered it clearly, the way he ducked and weaved, not once even being clipped by a bullet. He slashed the soldiers apart, severing tendons first in order to stop their onslaught before returning to finish them off. Then he turned his attention back to the scientists and doctors before, eventually, being the last man standing. It made no sense to Mikkel as the memories caught up to his current moments. There was no way he could have killed them all, not even at peak shape, but he had. He remembered doing it, but even that seemed wrong. Suddenly he doubled over and vomited, bile splashing on the ground and mixing with the puddles of blood that were thick and seemed to cover most of the floor. The blood was old, but not too old, already drying slightly around the edges.
Mikkel slowly straightened up, wiping his mouth on his arm as he did so. Vomiting would not clean the drug from his system, but it felt like a good first step. Next, he knew, he would need to get out of there and try to find Oliver. There was no guarantee that Oliver would still even be alive, but something told him that he was. Something told him that there was still time, even though Mikkel had no clue how long he had been out.
"Alright, I get how this is playing out," He spoke quietly to the eerily still room, pushing himself away from the table to hesitantly move across and to the door. "I'm going to need some stuff, some more Opal to straighten this shit out, and going to have to take these guns. You get me that, and then I'll do whatever divine mission you've got for me." He felt idiotic speaking to the air, never really the religious type. It was not a prayer, though, not really. It was more like a deal, a binding contract. If Mikkel got what he needed, he would do what he knew the Presence wanted of him. If not, well then he would get the hell out of dodge and plot his revenge from the safety of somewhere pretty far from Stockholm.
No response was ever given to Mikkel, not in words or images and he thought that it might have been for the best. His mind still felt impossibly slow, but the Presence seemed to have saved his ass more than once, and he hoped that would be a continuing occurrence if he ran into trouble. Regardless he armed himself with a gun from a soldier, strapping on a few combat knives and side arms. He looted what he could off the corpses including ammo and keys, and packed up the minimal supply of Opal the room held. He would need more, there was no doubt about that, and that was where the Presence came in. It would have to lead him to where ever Oliver was being held anyway, so he hoped there would be an ample supply of the drug along the way. Then, and only then, Mikkel thought, he would go and find the kid.
Playlist by the Amazing MasterPenguin: https://8tracks.com/masterpenguin/liberty-of-possession
Chapter 11 Song by the Amazing MasterPenguin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnLwHOVXkWE
Master Post: http://z4rf3.livejournal.com/16531.html
Chapter 12 The Greater Good: http://z4rf3.livejournal.com/19487.html