Chapter 8: Rude Awakening
Gregory Michaels awoke with a start in his four-post bed to the sounds of pounding on his door. As always, he was alone in his ample-sized apartment in the Institute's housing complex. He glanced at the clock, which read 3:00 AM.
Disoriented, he rose to bare feet. He shuffled towards the door to his bedroom wearing only an undershirt and boxer shorts. He grabbed a thick, blue bathrobe from a hook, donning it. The pounding increased in urgency.
"Just a minute!" he said, fumbling at the tie rope.
He padded across the lush carpet in his small living room with very little furniture or decoration and glanced through the peephole. He recognized the stiff figure of Inquisitor Herman Gottfried standing in the hall. Confused, he twisted the deadbolt and opened the door.
"You are needed in your laboratory immediately. Your assistance is required for the treatment of several subjects, some of whom will not live out the hour." He turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Michaels standing dumbfounded in the doorway.
"Wait, I'm-" Michaels recovered and called out long after the Inquisitor was out of earshot.
I'm not a bloody doctor, Michaels finished the thought. He sighed heavily, the expulsion transforming into a gaping yawn. Shuffling back into his apartment, he crossed the living room into his bedroom. He rubbed his eyes with one hand, fumbling around on the nightstand for his glasses and knocking over a half-full glass of water. The liquid spilled down onto the carpet.
Michaels swore loudly, using the sleeve of his robe to mop up some of the liquid. Jamming the spectacles on to his face, he glanced in a mirror on the wall. Balding, bad posture, bags under his bloodshot eyes, unclean and unshaven. He rubbed his face, frowning.
Several minutes later, he emerged from his living quarters, dressed in the previous day's clothing. Tired and irritable, he had to contact the housekeeping staff about the small clean-up. Hopefully, they'd send out one of their drones quickly and be done before his return. He hated having any contact with them, especially if they happened to have been one of his prior subjects. Of course, that was fairly common now, as he'd been administering the conditioning process for years. Though it was not exclusively his responsibility, he'd given the treatment to quite a few people.
He passed several doors that contained other apartments, housing other important people working for the Institute. Cleaning and maintenance staff, some of the conditioned subjects, lived in what almost appeared to be a barracks outside the compound. It was a long rectangular structure with rows of bunk-beds, footlockers, and a couple of unisex showers and bathrooms.
An uneventful walk later, he rounded the corner, heading towards his lab. The usual guards with automatic weapons stood flanking the door. Rather than lazily staring off into space, they appeared tense and apprehensive. As was his custom, Michaels paid them no attention. He palmed the panel next to the door, which slid open.
Absolute chaos greeted him. The usual single patient bed had been cleared out; numerous tables were arranged in no particular order in the large circular lab room. Over a dozen men of in various states of severe injury lay upon them. Several were unconscious, most of them were bleeding, seeping off of the tables and dripping onto the floor, and those still awake expressed their injuries by crying out or moaning.
A few surgeons and medics milled around, binding wounds, tying sutures, and fiddling with IVs, occasionally conferring with one another. A few living and uninjured soldiers were positioned at the circumference. The lab was a flurry of activity and noise.
Michaels gaped. Pausing in the doorway for several moments, he stared at the scene.
"What the… who the- why?" he stammered to no one in particular. A few people gave him brief glances but returned to their work without comment. He spotted Inquisitor Gottfried speaking with calm at a visibly upset doctor. Michaels waded his way through the room, catching bits of the discussion as he neared.
"-critical condition and cannot be subjected to any questioning! They must be moved to a medical facility for treatment and observation immediately!"
"They may contain valuable information that must be attained at the first available moment," came the stern reply from Gottfried. "When it has been determined they have divulged everything possible, they will be released to receive proper care."
"Some of them will die very soon if they are not treated."
Gottfried turned towards Michaels as he approached. "Some of them will die regardless. Information needs to be retrieved from them before this occurs, and it needs to be done without any delay. Do you not agree, Citizen Michaels?"
Michaels glared at Gottfried, aware of the man's authority. "I'm sure if you deem it necessary, Inquisitor Gottfried, then any loss or permanent injury for these men will be regrettable."
Gottfried nodded and gave a thin smile. The doctor, frustrated, stalked off towards the room center, pausing to evaluate a few patients.
Michaels glared at Gottfried. "Tell me Inquisitor. What in the nine hells is going on in my lab?"
Gottfried regarded Michaels with the same intense calm as he gave the angry doctor. "I apologize for the late hour, but as the good doctor was kind enough to mention, several of these men have very little time left." The stone face cracked slightly, displaying a tinge of an emotion that looked something like concern. "You have been roused this evening to assist with the interrogation of the survivors."
"But I'm not a doc-" Michaels paused, thinking. "Wait, survivors of what? What is going on?"
The Inquisitor's calm appearance faded further as his jaw clenched. "I advise you, Citizen Michaels, to get to work immediately. The soldiers are dying as we speak along with their valuable information."
The edge of Michaels' fatigue faded. "Was it a failed incursion?" He looked once more across the busy room and back into Gottfried's face, which betrayed an affirmation. "How is that possible?"
Gottfried's calm dissolved, clear irritation in his gaze. "That is precisely what I would like to find out. Get to work."
Michaels hesitated a moment longer. He pushed past the Inquisitor toward the subjects. He technically had a doctorate in biology and chemistry, but his clinical knowledge of treatment was limited to the effects of different drugs on various organisms. If Gottfried wants them awake and not screaming, maybe I can help. He pulled out several vials and syringes out of drawers. Working on the table, he tapped into the vials, filling the needles.
He moved over to one injured subject, who bled from several torso wounds. The same annoyed doctor reached over and grabbed Michaels' wrist. "You can't give that man an adrenaline shot. If his heart rate rises before we stabilize him, he'll bleed out in minutes."
Michaels scowled at the doctor. "Out of the way, or I'll have you shot." The doctor paled and released his arm, backing off. Michaels cracked a smile and thought, That was kind of fun, before plunging the long needle into the unconscious man's chest.
The man awoke, screaming bloody murder and trying in vain to struggle against the restraints. His eyes were wild, and he continued yelling and screaming. Michaels jabbed him with another needle, a painkiller, and watched as the man's eyes took on a glazed-over look. The yelling gradually faded into soft whimpering. The man breathed in gasps, and Michaels could tell by the amount of blood welling out of the wound that his heart rate was erratic and rapid.
Michaels motioned to Gottfried, who approached and hovered over the soldier with questions. Michaels watched as, a few minutes later, the man slipped into unconsciousness again. Gottfried gave a nod to another angry-looking female doctor who rushed in, trying desperately to save the soldier's life.
An indeterminate amount of time passed as Michaels passed from patient to patient, pulling victims of horrendous injury to consciousness. Several of them screamed in agony prior to administration of numbing agents or painkillers. He worked quickly, pouring chemicals into their bodies. Gottfried followed close behind with his questions. Once he finished, the men were given emergency car
e. A few died before, during, and after being questioned. They were carted off.
At last, the final survivor was removed from his lab. All of the doctors and soldiers had moved elsewhere, leaving nothing but a hideous mess and the smell of sweat and blood lingering in the air. Michaels leaned against a table as Gottfried spoke in hushed tones to one of the guards, who saluted and left.
Gottfried turned around and walked towards Michaels. "You have attained a status privileged enough to be made aware of the events of the last several hours."
Michaels raised an eyebrow and motioned for him to proceed.
"Due to information gleaned from one of your subjects yesterday, it was determined that the denizens could no longer be left to their own devices. There has been intelligent organization with militaristic intent. Tactical teams were dispatched to the given locations. When they failed to return or report, additional men were sent." He gestured around the empty room. "What you saw here was the remains of over one hundred trained soldiers. We cannot account for any enemy casualties."
Michaels did a double take. "Impossible!"
"Clearly not." Gottfried folded his arms behind his back. "They were ambushed. Cleanly. Proficiently."
Michaels stared in disbelief. "How?"
"It is still unclear," Gottfried gave his head a slight shake, "but it would appear that our informant was correct. However, even with it, we vastly underestimated their capabilities."
"Did you find anything else?"
"One of our men, who died of knife wounds, held in his hand a torn strip of cloth from an enemy uniform. It bore a fox insignia. Perhaps we may divine something useful out of this, perhaps not."
Michaels' mind whirled, remembering Dunlevy mentioning something about a fox. Cursing his lack of attention to the rambling fool, he cast the thoughts aside and asked, "What is to be done?"
The Inquisitor considered the question before responding. "Unknown. Yet. None should dare strike against us in such a fashion, and it will not be forgotten. Whoever engineered it must be dealt with."
Michaels nodded seriously before letting out a gaping yawn. He glanced at his watch; it was nearly six.
"You must be tired," Gottfried said. "Return to your quarters and rest."
Yawning again, Michaels nodded and departed the lab, hoping that he wouldn't need to return before it was put back together.
A few minutes later, he arrived at his room. He passed his ID badge over the scanner on the wall, hearing the lock give a faint click. Walking in, he pulled the glasses from his face and closed his eyes as he moved towards the bedroom. As he arrived, he heard a noise.
His eyes popped open, and he jammed the glasses on, seeing an intruder hunched over the night table. Michaels grabbed a lamp sitting on his dresser near the door, brandishing it in front of him. "Don't move!"
The intruder stood up and turned around, jumping slightly when he noticed Michaels wielding the lamp. He held a blow dryer and towels in his hands.
Michaels' mouth hung open. "What are you doing here?"
A man with a bruised, swollen face and short, now-clean hair gave him a little smile. Michaels recognized him as the man he applied the conditioning to the day before: Gottfried's priority subject. What was his name? Michaels couldn't remember. James? John?
"I'm very sorry to bother you, sir. You sent for cleaning." The servant kept his eyes to the floor as he offered the towels and blow dryer as proof of the statement. "I'm finished here, sir. Sorry for the delay. Have a good morning." He started walking out, making short, stuttering steps.
Michaels moved to the side and stared as the man passed. There was something unnerving about the fellow that he couldn't place. What was his name…?
"You there!" Michaels called out. The man stopped and turned around, standing in the doorway. He stared at Michaels' feet with vacant eyes.
"Sir?" came a soft, polite reply.
"What was your name?"
"Jeffrey, sir."
Michaels appraised the man, wondering what it was that bothered him so much. Jeffrey stood there with a dull expression. "You may go."
"Thank you, sir," the servant said before departing.
Ah, that's it, Michaels thought. He doesn't seem to blink.
In a rare moment of weakness, Michaels briefly entertained the idea that what he was subjecting people to could have been in some ways inhumane. It was only yesterday that the man was captured, beaten, interrogated and subjected to alteration of mind and body. Already working in housekeeping, how strange.
"It's nothing," Michaels muttered. Pulling off his lab coat, he laid down on his bed. He remained awake for quite some time before gradually drifting into a fitful sleep.