NationStates Jolt Archive

Nan Ungol Off-Shore Research Facility

You are entering Security Zone One. Warning, you are entering Security Zone One. Colonel Morrison was descending slowly, the elevator clanking as it went deeper and deeper into the heart of the mountain. The Colonel chuckled. He found it mildly ironic that you would have to descend below ground to find light. But such was the land of Mordor. You are entering Security Zone One. This is your last warning. A camera flashed, scanning Colonel Morrison’s retina. “Damn it. I hate retina scans.”

The heavy steel shaft doors slid open, and the Colonel was faced with two black-clad security personnel, with a spider-shaped silver tag on their uniforms, wielding FN-2000 black-painted rifles. Their faces remained entirely impassionate, and they did not salute – being private security, rather then military personnel, they owed him no allegiance. He walked right between them –and straight into probably the most insane man in the research division of the Allanean Department of Defense.

Doctor Ricardo Cortez was two meters tall, and heavily augmented. His left eye was in fact a big, ugly, steel-and-glass camera, spinning in its socket with no relation to his ‘good’ eye. His teeth were replaced by steel implants, each also housing a variety of additional electronics. The left side of his skull was shaved bald and decorated with USB plugs – and from his fingers, a variety of surgical instruments was ready to extend when needed.

The man smiled. “Hello, Colonel. I understand you have come to inspect our project.”

“This is essentially correct, Dr. Cortez.” – Morrison replied, in a brusque, steely fashion.

“Very well, Colonel.” Cortez was still smiling, the electric lights of the Institute glinting in his eye. As of now, he could well be exploring the Colonel’s innards via infra-red, X-ray, and sonar all at once, for all Morrison knew. “As you remember, the Team Dagger Brigade has happily donated a volunteer to undergo our – still experimental – procedure. He is scheduled to begin it, today.”

Morrison gulped. He didn’t quite like Khristians – he saw them, on the whole, as silly and inept. The few, however, that survived his grueling course, the Colonel loved. And they loved him. This “procedure”…

As he pondered that, he was led into a room – white, pristine, with one wall made of glass. On the other side, on an operating table, Private Abdullah Neen lay. Naked, with his long hair shaved entirely – with all hair on his body shaved entirely – the young man seemed to sleep. Next to his bed, suspended in strange fluid, was a small, palpitating organ.

“I was informed you would like to watch the First Stage of installation. I was also told you have the clearance.”

“I command and train Team Dagger. I have the clearance for everything.” – Colonel Morrison said bleakly.
Cortez’s smile changed into that of outright satanic glee. “Good. Pink Bunny Cola will be brought, and some food if you like. As for me, I will go in there and install the First Stage organ. His secondary heart.”

Morrison could only blink in shock as he sat down.

You are entering Security Zone One, repeat, you are entering security Zone One...

Colonel Morrison was a jaded man. Jaded by war, by the violence he has seen inflicted and has inflicted on others – in war and in training. In his training facility, known as the “Forge”, fully 70% of all recruits used to wash out through severe physical or mental trauma – or die in the process. Of the thirty percent survivors, Morrison would select the best via actual combat missions in the field. Naturally, those who died in those missions did not graduate to become a member of Team Dagger.

And yet, for some strange reason, the troops in that team did not hate Colonel Morrison – they loved him, in a strange and perverted way, and he loved them, too. And perhaps that was why he was disturbed by what the Khristian now outstretched on the operating table would undergo. Yes, he wasn't supposed to be – after all, he had often done worse.

Yes, after all, the Private had survived the first operation – the installation of a secondary heart. Yes, after all, so far, the Doctor had not failed. But what was this new ossmodula thing? According to what the Colonel was told, it was to modify the hormonal systems of the 'patient', altering – or screwing up, depending on who you asked – the bone-forming process in the Khristian boy's body. For two years after the installation, the Private would mutate, becoming a hardier, stronger being.

At least on paper.

In practice, it would be possible that it would screw up badly, and the two years would become a slow process of painful, torturous death.

Two days after this operation, before the Private had even fully healed up, two more implants were installed – the biscopea and the haemastamen – to encourage muscle growth to go along with the bones and to regulate the new hormones, respectively. Now, there was no way back whatsoever. If this worked, Abdullah Neen would become a superhuman. If it didn't...

“He will suffer terribly.” - smiled Cortez.- “For long, long months, as his body grows itself into strange, unnatural and unhealthy forms.” - regardless of the content of his speech, the Doctor was always smiling. One could almost think he was relishing in the concepts he was expounding... “Unfortunately, we will not be able to kill him. We must follow the process to it's bitter end.”

Security Zone one. You are entering Security Zone One...

Colonel Morrison was learning to tune out the annoying alarm by now, but still somewhere in his heart he still continued to be worried. Maybe it was silly. After all, the previous operations had succeeded excellently, and the implants were well-received by his student's body... but, then again, these new operations were going to be much more complex. Over the next three week, the Khristian soldier was going to be installed with four different implants in three operations – one on the cranium, one on the chest cavity, one on the spine.

First, they would cut his brain open. The very though made the Colonel feel ill at eased – even before he heard of the two implants that would be attached to it. One was a Catalepsean Node, installed through – Morrison shuddered - via a hole drilled into the occipital bone in the skull. This one was to help the soldier deal with sleep deprivation in the field. What was the point if you could kill him during the operation, the Colonel did not know.

The second one was worse – this included slicing open the spine and installing somethig known as an omo-pha-ge-a – the pronunciation was rather hard on the Colonel. This device was something of a genetic computer, a spinoff of the varying Snel technologies. Apparently – thuogh the process was lost upon Morrison – it allowed you to learn something about people by eating their flesh. It read residual psychotronic waves or something like that. He hated that science-like gibber.

And then they sliced the chest cavity open. He gulped with disgust as he remember the description of those implants in the brochure he was given. The preomnor is a large implant which fits into the chest cavity. It is a pre-digestive stomach which allows the subject to eat a variety of otherwise poisonous or indigestible materials. No actual digestion takes place in the preomnor. Individual sensory tubes assess potential poisons and neutralise them or, where necessary, isolate the preomnor from the rest of the digestive tract. Ew. Just ew.

The only thing actually useful, according to Morrison, was something called Larraman's Organ and it helped you to recover from wounds. But still – what's the point if you can die when having one installed?

Not like anybody cared for Morrison's opinion, anyway.

“So, Doctor, what's that new operation for?”

“Was. It was completed fifteen minutes ago.” - the Doctor smiled at the Colonel with his terrible steel teeth. “We put in four new implants.”

He opened his laptop. “The first is pretty mundane. It's a Multi-Lung.”

“What?”

“A third lung, so to speak. It kicks in situations where the air is poisoned or otherwise damaged, and it helps the patient breath where normal humans would die.”

“Oh. Nice.” - said Morrison without feeling. “What do the other ones do?”

“Occulobe is an adaptation added to the brain. It improve the capacity of the patient's brain to interpret ocular input. It is the first step to improving the patient's eyesight. While we were at it, we installed a Sus-An.”

“A what?”

“A Suspended Animation Membrane. SAM-666, last bleep of Snel biology coupled with Allanean applied science. It enablesthe person to drop himself into suspended animation.”

“Oh.” Morrison was not entused.

“And finally, we installed HyperEars. Those are electronic devices, actually. They improve your hearing. And by 'improve', I mean they move it into an entirely new realm of perception.'

The Colonel's eyebrows moved. “This is actually kind of cool. So, when is the next operation?”

“Two months, once we get it all squared out.”

The Colonel has already decided what to do during that one.