His first clear memories began when he awoke on the floor of a small white walled room. For a moment, his mind still hazy from sedation, he recalled voices he had heard... but the memory faded away like a dream.
He stood up and began to examine his surroundings. The room was completely empty, except for himself, and brightly lit. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all uniformly white, and glazed with some form of ceramic. There were panels set in at various locations, and a drain in the floor.
The room was very small compared to his own size, and he felt somewhat claustrophobic for a moment. Calming himself, he noticed something else. Not quite whispers, as the sense wasn't auditory... but similar. Traces of other minds, nearby. Just what they were thinking he couldn't tell, yet, but he was surprised to find that some of them seemed to be watching him. He looked around but he was still alone in the small room.
He still felt as though he was being observed, and mentally chided himself for being paranoid. And then, his thoughts directed inward, he noticed a few other strange things. For one, while his datatrax didn't seem otherwise impaired, he didn't seem to have a name. All he knew was that he was a Maximal... and for some reason he was in this room. Beyond that, there was nothing.
The other surprise was that his feeling of being watched hadn't been a bit of paranoia. As each second passed and the last traces of sedation wore off, he could sense his observers more and more clearly.
"Hello?" he called out, to see if they would answer. "Is anyone there?"
There was no reply, and he could feel they had no intention of answering him... they just made a note of his actions and continued to watch. He almost recoiled from the feel of their minds... strangely distant from him, detached and emotionless.
Puzzled, he moved towards the door... and was not surprised to find it locked. He could sense they wanted him to stay in here. What he didn't understand was why.
Someone was coming. He could sense her approach and moved back from the door a bit, waiting. 'Perhaps she'll tell me why I'm here... and who I am..,' he thought. As soon as the door slid open he knew that he was wrong about that. The scientist who stepped into his cell wasn't there to tell him anything.
He felt the danger even before she raised the weapon she carried, but nothing in his experience told him how to react to it. He looked at her face in confusion at this betrayal... and would afterwards often wish he hadn't. The expression she wore would haunt his nightmares... it was the mirror of the sense he'd felt from the observers. The look on her face was so cold... the sort of glance one reserves for some one-celled organism viewed through a microscope.
Something insignificant.
He stood there, frozen in hurt surprise, as she shot him. He couldn't believe what was happening to him, and the shock of his situation was so great that she had to shoot him again before he fell down. Then, as he was lying helpless on the floor of the small, white cell, she calmly walked over and shot him point-blank in the face.
But the first day of his life wasn't to be the last... his injuries were already starting to heal before the femme had left the cell, resealing the door behind her.
He felt as though he was floating at first, suspended in some dark limbo with whispers all around him. The whispers of other beings' thoughts. Slowly, he realized he could almost hear what they were saying... could feel their thoughts and their presence in the room they stood in. Having never been told it was 'bad manners' for a telepath to do so... not even knowing what a telepath was... he eavesdropped on their thoughts.
There were several of them, watching him. Scientists, some official sent by the Maximal Council... whoever they were... and a courier who was supposed to deliver a report on this to that Council. He felt the shape of their minds, the empathic impressions... From most he sensed the same disgusting coldness as before, with one exception.
The courier seemed... troubled. He felt more confused after sensing that. Up until that moment he had assumed there was some reason for his treatment. That it would be explained and that there was nothing out of the ordinary... But this one mech's feelings on the subject seemed to imply that not only was being shot not a normal way to spend your first day online, but that something far worse was wrong. He seemed... disgusted, even horrified by what he was seeing.
And then he realized he could hear them. Voices, more sensed than heard in any more mundane way. They were too far away to have actually heard them, and yet he knew every word they said.
"So, what do you think of Protoform X, Primal?"
A scientist, speaking to the courier... he watched their reactions, flitting from mind to mind as he listened to their conversation.
"Fascinating to watch, isn't it... the healing factor..."
"I know. I hadn't been expecting that, even after reading the reports..."
A scientist, and then the Council official, speaking up. He seemed... impressed, almost pleased with what was happening...
"How do you people do this and live with yourselves?"
The courier... now here was one he wanted to watch closely. He seemed genuinely appalled by the shooting, by the cell, by all of it really... But his remark only prompted a few chuckles from the others, as though the scientists had just heard a not-so-funny joke.
"You're overreacting, Primal."
"Be professional, boy."
"You'd best not be planning to go to the news feeds with this, Primal. Remember, this project is classified."
There was a hint of warning in the official's voice. The vaguest, faintest of threats...
"I... no, forget what I said. It's not my place to interfere here."
Resignation in the tone... and behind it, something more interesting. Fear. This courier felt that what was being done was wrong... but Primal would do nothing to help, he would not even speak what he thought. Because he was afraid. Of them. Of the Council...
Consciousness slowly returned, but this time the memories did not completely fade. They remained clear... the recollection of Primal's fear of the council, the cold detachment of the scientists, the almost smug amusement of the Council Official.
At first his optics refused to open, and he rubbed at his face in an attempt to determine what was wrong. The action brushed away dried fluids that had crusted around his optics and sealed them shut, the only remaining sign that he had ever been injured at all.
He stood up, wary now, and glanced around again. The cell was as he first saw it... plain, white, and small... yet somehow, it seemed darker. As for himself... except for the dried mechfluid on his face and chest, he had completely healed. Physically, anyway. Mentally was quite another matter.
Even an abused child has the hope that maybe someday the abuse will stop. That someone will change. It's often a false hope, but for some it is all to hold on to. He knew better. He knew exactly what they thought of him now, and that there would be more 'tests' coming. And that no one would help him because they were afraid.
And he couldn't do anything to stop it.
The activation of the sprinkler system in the ceiling didn't startle him. He was too lost in the contemplation of what awaited him... fighting back his own fear, determined not to give in to the same emotion that he'd sensed from Primal. But the small part of him that was aware of his surroundings at the time was glad of the method being used to clean the cell... and himself... for one simple reason.
It hid his tears.
He slept for a while, in a corner of the small room, and when he awoke the room was cold. He shivered as the temperature continued to drop rapidly. He scanned for the thoughts of the observers in an attempt to determine what was going to happen to him this time.
Primal and the Council Official were both gone, and the others weren't speaking among themselves this time, but that didn't matter. He could read their surface thoughts by now. They were running a series of tests. They wanted to get this set out of the way, because of some... inconvenience? Ah, there was the information he'd wanted... today was going to be tests of environmental extremes.
The temperature was still dropping. He ignored it for now. He knew what the 'inconvenience' was... they could not be in the cell for these tests. Which meant that later, they would come into his little white room. Why were they doing this to him?
He shivered again, and noticed frost was beginning to form on the walls and floor of the cell. A moment later and he was beginning to find the cold uncomfortable. The temperature continued to drop. He curled up tighter, shivering, trying to stay warm as the mechfluid in his fuel lines began to crystallize from the cold. Pain tore through him as systems began to freeze and shut down, but he was too frozen to scream. He welcomed the darkness when it came, and as he fell into unconsciousness he caught the stray thought from the observers... no normal Cybertronian would survive this...
He awoke with a burning pain spreading through him. The room was getting hot now, and his systems were healing from the severe case of fuel-frost. Before the pain from the first test had completely subsided, he realized the room was too warm... and getting hotter by the moment.
His systems fought melting as well as they had the cold. He found himself once again unable to scream... unable to move... as if the slightest pressure would cause his systems to liquefy. The last thing he saw before slipping back into unconsciousness were the thin lines of molten metal his fingertips left on the wall... as though he were made of warm wax.
The rest of the day was a blur of pain, one test after another after another to where he could not keep track of where one ended and the next began. Environmental extremes of all sorts were tested, from gravitational forces that crushed him nearly flat, to corrosive gasses.
He wasn't sure how long it continued. All he could remember was the pain, which seemed as though it would never end. And wishing each time he slipped into an unconsciousness brought on more by system shock than true stasis lock, that this time he would not wake up.
Finally he awoke, and the pain was only a memory. Still, he didn't move for some time, as if attracting attention to himself by moving would bring back the pain. His systems were sending back low energy warnings... but the damage from the tests had already completely healed.
Uninjured or not, consciousness was not a state he wanted... and he curled up tighter in the corner of his cell, attempting to fall back into the soft darkness of oblivion.
Sleep eluded him, and the low energy warnings became more and more persistent... he needed food. He stood, cautiously, casting wary glances around his small white cell.
A tray had extended from the wall, and he edged closer to inspect it.
There was a bowl on the tray. It was permanently attached to the tray, welded in place. In it was a grayish-brown substance. It had a slight unappealing scent, and he wondered what it was. A light scan of the constantly watching minds of the Maximal scientists on shift in their little viewing room let him know that they expected him to eat this.
He tapped the side of the bowl. It certainly looked unappetizing, despite his hunger, but he could tell from their thoughts that if he didn't eat this, there wouldn't be anything else. Even where his meals were concerned, there were no options.
He examined the substance more closely. It was a room temperature mush, with little smell or texture. It didn't seem harmful, at least. But the bowl was welded to the tray, and there were no utensils of any sort.
No other choice, once again... he stuck his fingers into the substance and scooped some out of the bowl. It was slimy to the touch, and he scowled. He put it in his mouth and quickly swallowed... and gagged. Given the appearance, he hadn't expected the stuff to have any flavor at all... and in a way it didn't. What it had instead was undefinable.
He stood there for quite a while, half wishing that Cybertronians could throw up.. and half glad he couldn't. And then he sensed something that made him angry. One of the technicians watching him was amused. Amused because he had no choice but to eat this slop or starve... perhaps they even wanted him to starve. Another of their tests...
He was still hungry. He forced another bite down, fighting back the urge to gag. There was an aftertaste to the stuff that, if he'd known of anything outside of his little cell, he might have likened to plain oatmeal, seasoned with white glue and soap. He simply couldn't eat any more of the stuff.
Hours later, the bowl was still there. The substance in it had somehow managed to grow colder with time, and become slightly jelled. If anything, it was even worse than before. And he was hungry...
He had no way to know how much time passed in his cell. He counted days by noting whenever he was left alone for a while. After only a few months he knew of thousands of ways to kill someone. Thousands of ways which wouldn't kill him. He knew what he was now... what they were testing for. And he knew that, unlike him, they could be killed... another thing to envy them for other than their relative freedom...
They strapped him down now, for their tests. It was necessary to sedate him in order to get the restraints in place, first with various gasses and then with stun fields. He always fought back. He knew if he ever stopped that it would be because he had given up... that he had become nothing more than what they saw him as... a thing and not a person. He refused to give in to that. He refused to let fear make him a slave like it did that whimpering courier he still remembered from the first day.
He had nothing but hatred and contempt for them now, these Maximals... They let their fear control them. Their fear of each other and of this Council of theirs...
Does chaining me make you feel less afraid, Maximals? he thought to to himself, alone in his cell for the moment. Does it really? He almost chuckled, and then let himself anyway... he knew his laughter disturbed the technicians monitoring his cell, and he found their reactions most amusing.
It especially frightened them when he would laugh during testing. They thought him insane by now... but they would never have guessed the real reason. He laughed because he'd sworn to himself they would never hear him scream... and yet, when the pain would come, as it always did... he had to do something. So he laughed. And they were frightened.
He'd soon found he liked it when they were frightened. They were all slaves to their own fear to begin with, and to toy with that emotion was the one small bit of vengeance he could extract from within his cramped cell.
They had to keep increasing the power on the stun fields used to render him temporarily unconscious. Like the gasses they'd used before, and the sedative they had slipped in his food only once... he was building up a tolerance.
Soon they would have to come up with another method... and if they didn't in time, they would get a surprise.
Escape wasn't on his mind, at least not of the usual sort. It had taken him some time to piece together that there was a world outside of his little white room. Certainly the technicians watched from somewhere else. But he knew of no other place than Omicron, nowhere to escape to. But perhaps, just perhaps, there was a way they were holding back. Some fail-safe or secret that these Maximals or their Council knew. And if he broke loose... if he showed them just how much he had learned in his time here... if he killed enough of them... maybe, just maybe... they would kill him.
It was the only escape he expected, the one he longed for during every test... the end that was denied to him by some strange aspect of his own being... the immortality they had cursed him with.
The stun field slammed him into the floor, and he only had a split second in which to wonder if it had any higher settings than that, before he blacked out.
A few tests later it finally happened. He began to regain consciousness before they had even reached his cell. He heard the footsteps approach his door, the examination table raising from its hatchway in the floor... and he remained perfectly still as the last traces of the stun field's effects faded. It took effort, but he knew if he moved too soon he would lose this chance... they would stun him again before they entered.
Optics shut, he heard the door slide open. Footsteps came closer. It was very difficult to force himself to remain limp and unresponsive as several technicians carried him towards the table. As soon as they had put him back down, but before they engaged the restraints, he grinned.
The stunned looks on their faces as he opened his optics soon changed to sheer terror. There was no time to activate restraints. There was no time to run. And as the screaming began, X started laughing...
He barely noticed the security alarm blaring when he found the observation room less than a minute later. Some of the technicians had tried to flee, others had tried to barricade the door to keep him out. Neither method was effective in the end.
He'd torn the door down like it was made of tinfoil. The alarms seemed more and more distant as he let his rage carry him onward, absorbing the panic and fear of those around him, tearing through anything... and anyone... in his path.
Until, quite suddenly, there was silence.
It was startling and unfamiliar enough to shock X out of his rage, as sure as if he had been doused with ice water, and he dropped the torn blue, silver, and purple form of the last of his victims to the ground.
Like a sound that isn't really noticed until it suddenly stops, for the first time in his memory there was quiet. A silence that was completely devoid of the emotions and thoughts of others. The previously constant feel of other minds, other thoughts and feelings that had always been somewhere nearby was gone. For the first time, he was truly alone.
He looked around at the carnage he had caused, feeling strangely numb without the soft whispers of other minds... other emotions. This silence wasn't what he'd wanted... was it? He'd only wanted to make sure they couldn't hurt him anymore. He didn't know what to do...
He hadn't thought this far, hadn't had any plans beyond making certain he would never be hurt again. He looked around again, the dazed feeling fading as he grew used to the silence. They hadn't stood a chance against him. He felt a growing sense of satisfaction, and smiled a bit as he kicked a piece of one of the bodies across the hall. No one would stand a chance against him... and no one would ever be able to hurt him again.
Legal stuff: All characters in this story are the trademarks and/or copyrights of their respective holders, except for those that aren't. Any resemblance to anyone who actually exists is coincidental (and pretty darn amazing), etc., etc. It's just a fanfic, guys.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
