War of the Worlds fic - opener.
I wrote this to be the opener to a Red Dwarf crossover fic that kahvi and I are writing, but the tone of it didn't fit the crossover, so I'm posting it as a standalone. Ironhorse is cloned.
Some days are just a succession of unfavorable situations.
This was one of them. In fact, it was probably the capper in all of the days of his life, as far as Ironhorse was concerned, and that was saying something.
First of all, there was the fact that he had been caught. Rare enough, but still, never something to keep the ego shored up. Caught with his pants down, well and truly; these aliens were nothing like the robotic pseudo-humans who oozed pus and blood from radiation sores. Those aliens were lethal enough, but armed with fairly conventional weaponry. Not these little spheres that bobbed and glowed like children's toys and burned a hole right through a man.
The fact that he was obviously being experimented on was not a pleasing one, either. He had seen what remained of human subjects after a few representative Mor-Taxian experiments, and although he was in no hurry to die, he would far rather have a nice clean gunshot than go through a regimen of experimental psychoactive drugs or be the subject of vivisection. Or what he was experiencing at the moment, whatever it was.
Being stripped naked and immobilized on a platform that felt creepily alive, with aliens who looked like German car salesman staring at him with interest that was not quite clinical enough, was plenty humiliating - but then there was the matter of what that vital platform was doing to him. He had no idea what it was, but it felt like something was sucking at his psyche, pulling out his energy, his vitality. It felt like a combination of the worst physical abuse he had ever experienced and the best sex he had ever had, both at the same time, and his mind was not dealing well with the dichotomy. The longer it went on, the less like himself he felt. The reason why he was there began to elude him; who he was began to elude him, until memories of the reservation and Vietnam and Northern California began to feel like badly embellished stories he had been told years ago and was rapidly forgetting. He was a body on a platform, and his life had always been lived here, with aliens who looked far too much like humans staring at him.
He scrabbled at his rapidly dissipating thoughts, and grabbed hold of one of them. The thought that nicely summarized the worst part of all of this.
He had let Blackwood down.
Some days are just a succession of unfavorable situations.
This was one of them. In fact, it was probably the capper in all of the days of his life, as far as Ironhorse was concerned, and that was saying something.
First of all, there was the fact that he had been caught. Rare enough, but still, never something to keep the ego shored up. Caught with his pants down, well and truly; these aliens were nothing like the robotic pseudo-humans who oozed pus and blood from radiation sores. Those aliens were lethal enough, but armed with fairly conventional weaponry. Not these little spheres that bobbed and glowed like children's toys and burned a hole right through a man.
The fact that he was obviously being experimented on was not a pleasing one, either. He had seen what remained of human subjects after a few representative Mor-Taxian experiments, and although he was in no hurry to die, he would far rather have a nice clean gunshot than go through a regimen of experimental psychoactive drugs or be the subject of vivisection. Or what he was experiencing at the moment, whatever it was.
Being stripped naked and immobilized on a platform that felt creepily alive, with aliens who looked like German car salesman staring at him with interest that was not quite clinical enough, was plenty humiliating - but then there was the matter of what that vital platform was doing to him. He had no idea what it was, but it felt like something was sucking at his psyche, pulling out his energy, his vitality. It felt like a combination of the worst physical abuse he had ever experienced and the best sex he had ever had, both at the same time, and his mind was not dealing well with the dichotomy. The longer it went on, the less like himself he felt. The reason why he was there began to elude him; who he was began to elude him, until memories of the reservation and Vietnam and Northern California began to feel like badly embellished stories he had been told years ago and was rapidly forgetting. He was a body on a platform, and his life had always been lived here, with aliens who looked far too much like humans staring at him.
He scrabbled at his rapidly dissipating thoughts, and grabbed hold of one of them. The thought that nicely summarized the worst part of all of this.
He had let Blackwood down.