[“…a threat.”]
Not long after making the announcement, Dr. Globur took their hand off the broadcast. They then leaned back in their chair to get a more panoramic view of the four monitors positioned in front of them.
Three of the screens showed varying angles of what was going on in the room below, and the other remaining one was linked to show the intricate workings of the patient’s internal system by constantly sending them updated information such as his glucose levels, blood pressure, and hormonal balance.
Well, that was until said person spat it out.
"…” Dr. Globur was silent as they watched the item quickly evaporate.
That.. wasn’t supposed to happen.
Sure, in theory, the device wasn’t made to survive outside of certain liquids; Dr. Globur had created it this way so that it could be removed with no traces of it ever existing. Now that this device had left the patient’s system before their say-so or even finished doing its job, however, this same add-on proved to be nothing but an impairing function and complete waste of money.
“Is that—?”
“Yes.” Dr. Globur interrupted their assistant before he could even finish posing his question.
Nothing more was said between them as they both stewed in their own thoughts.
The two knew how invasive the surgery was to get this monitoring device exactly where they needed it to be. It wasn’t something that the patient could just swallow, no. It had to implanted outside of his oesophagus, his intestines—big and small—and any other major organs for it to get accurate readings. It was made to travel through the patient’s body, which included his bloodstream, at the simple touch of a button.
Here’s what the two of them are baffled about: Because the device wasn’t anywhere near the patient’s digestive system, it shouldn’t have been in his stomach for him to vomit back up. So how the hell it even happened, neither of them know — on all accounts, it should’ve been completely impossible.
“…. He looked straight at me just now.” The assistant, Kenny, involuntarily shivered. He’d broken the silence with this simple statement, which was the main cause of Dr. Globur’s sudden look of disdain.
Kenny was simply overreacting. All the patient had done was locate the cameras, and the angle at which they were placed meant that what they saw on screen made it look like they were making direct eye contact at each other. Although.. seeing as the patient was an abnormal specimen, perhaps Dr. Globur should give their assistant the benefit of the doubt. For all they know, with a man of his caliber — the patient really could’ve seen the two of them through the lens.
Dr. Globur sighed at the slight possibility. “I knew we should’ve wiped his memories— but did anyone listen to me? No.”
If they really did that then perhaps the patient wouldn’t have been able to so easily break free of their restraints, nor destroy the tank made of highly tempered, imported fucking glass; neither know how to walk, talk or somewhat understand their current situation. Just these simple things raises their danger levels.
Dr. Globur’s glasses glint as they continued to stare at the monitor showing them the live feedback of the room below.
“Should we….” Kenny suddenly wrung his lips between his teeth in anxiety. “Should we do something? He’s going to escape, right?”
It was inevitable at this point. The last reading that had been sent through before the patient regurgitated the device showed that everyone down in the room had no hope nor statistical success in overpowering him. If they did somehow manage it though, it would only be after taking some serious damage.
“Yes, well.” The doctor shrugs, blasé for all that the product of their failure is staring them right in the face. “This outcome was undoubtedly always going to happen, and besides,” they sneer, “We were never told to keep him unconscious and sedated for an indefinite amount of time.”
The hesitant expression on Kenny’s face tells them that their assistant is still not quite sure, so they swivel in their chair to point their uncapped pen at the calendar. “See? We were even given a date for his release.”
“…” Kenny’s eyes wordlessly trail after the pen. The explanation would’ve been enough to calm his fraught nerves, and Kenny honestly expected it to — but when he actually locates the date … he feels his blood run cold.
“Dr. Globur—” He sucked in a shaky breath. It didn't calm him any. “That’s four years from now!!”
MEANWHILE, BACK DOWN IN THE ROOM.
After Ziun posed this question as to who they were, one of the metal walls slid open to expose a dimly lit corridor. Ziun barely glimpsed it before walking through the doorway were two… scientists? Or were they doctors— nurses, even? They each had on spotless, white overcoats and seemed to carry some sort of equipment with them that he couldn’t make head or tails of.
At Ziun’s scrutinising look, the two glanced at each other before the one with a blanket flung over their forearm stepped forward.
“We’re here to help.” They paused when met with Ziun’s warning glare. “Do you want to cover yourself first? We can talk more after.”
Ziun notices that they never answered his question — not clearly. His gaze chills and flickers to the remaining five people in the room. None of them had moved or shifted, and Ziun knows it’s because they’re only waiting. For orders probably, but he’s certain that if he shows any signs of aggression then they wouldn’t hesitate to fill him full of holes on their own volition.
—ah, no. Stun him full of holes..? He’d heard the person announce to them to switch their, er, phasers over to a less threatening type of ‘ammo’. Ziun isn’t sure which one is worse if he’s honest.
That evolved rifle "gun" leaves the immediate vicinity of his face when one of the nurses(?) take those few steps closer to him. They pause a breadth away and Ziun quickly snatches the blanket from their hands without them offering it again.
"Stay there,” he orders, haphazardly throwing the blanket across his shoulders and is banking on the fact that they’ll listen if only because they haven’t been told to do otherwise. Give in to his demands, he means. They had probably been instructed to do what was within their power to keep him calm and docile. Proving him right, they stiffen up where they stand, not daring to move under his unblinking gaze. It's as expected.
At this, a heavy silence descends upon the room. The guards’ attention never leaves him, and their hands even hover over their own ‘guns’ strapped to the side of their thighs or other weapons elsewhere on their person in precaution. When they’d done this, Ziun had noticed that only one of them had a phaser that was reminiscent of a ‘rifle’. The name may be changed, the blueprint upgraded; but a gun was still a gun, and the person with this long-barrelled phaser was probably their team’s sharpshooter— or something similar at least.
Rather conveniently, it's this ‘sharpshooter’s’ weapon that had been shoved in his face earlier. Why they even had to stand so close to him, he doesn't know nor understand. Wouldn't that leave them more vulnerable?
Ah, whatever!
With the blanket draped over his shoulders, Ziun finds that he would rather it act like a skirt. The position he has it in traps his arms to his chest, and really, he wasn’t a modest enough person to care if his bare nipples were on display. He sweeps a look at the group of guards as he pulls the fabric off his shoulders, noting how some of them tensed up at his slight movement. They were scarily reactive that meant they couldn’t be anything but professionally trained; yet despite this imminent threat, Ziun calmly manoeuvres the blanket to where he wants it.
In the end it sits bunched around his waist where he ties the two corners together. That long barelled weapon is unmovingly trained on him even when they were forced to back up a bit with Ziun’s movements. They all unfailingly keep him within range despite him still showing no visible signs of aggression, which is.. fair enough, really.
Ziun doesn’t even know if he’s a threat— either to these people or himself. What body was he in? Was he a criminal of sorts, or carried a virus that needed to controlled? Knowing his luck though, it would be none of the above. Instead this could be his original body—possibly original world—where he was yet to be guilty of anything but still somehow a captive.
Now more comfortable regardless of the chill that hits his bare skin; he resumes his analysing of the people who’ve been sent to ‘contain’ him. The first thing Ziun notices once he tunes back into his surroundings is that they’re all on edge. It was almost as if there were a threat he didn’t know about. Which, after glancing around, Ziun realised that it was him?
He frowned. If that was the case then why were there so little people here? He doesn’t doubt that there were more people behind the lens of those cameras he’d spied in all four corners of the room, so why there’s less then ten people in the room with him, he doesn’t quite understand.
But perhaps he’s overestimating his danger level? No. As someone who had "lived" countless other "lives", he was worth the extra security. The feeling was instinctual and bone deep — such assurance was, quite frankly, maddening.
And so was this endless, restless surge of power in his body.
When he’d been in the tank and submerged, it wasn’t nearly as irritable. Instead it lent him the strength he needed to move and rid himself of those damn restraints — but now it burns him something hot that Ziun finds impairs him more than anything.
It feels.. wrong. Like there was a battery at the base of his nape—settled between his system of nerves—drawing in this unknown energy that kept on charging without his say so. This foreign power eventually gets to be overwhelming and Ziun figures that it’s something he’s meant to expel— at least.. he hopes that he can do so.
In the end though, Ziun has been to too many Worlds to not know what the presence of a "battery" could mean. This place he’s in must have other forces in play, specifically, a supernatural one that Ziun is lucky, or unlucky enough to have.
He waits for that same feeling to peak again before he swallows and feels a certain tension around that same area of his neck he wasn’t aware of before. It takes him an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to release that muscle and whatever was beneath it’s surface, but when he finally does, Ziun stumbles back as a visible shockwave ejects itself from his body.
It sends the guards in front of him flying back and into the wall looming behind them. A stray shot brushed past Ziun’s ear just before their bodies hit the metal wall with a loud thud. The bullet was so hot that it had seared the tear in his ear closed before it even had a chance to bleed. From this, Ziun is now sure that their ‘phasers’ didn’t hold actual bullets but instead shot lasers.
It would make sense, if he was being honest. The room he was in, the weird tank that he had woken up; it all points to this world housing a more advanced type of civilisation. If Ziun were to pinpoint the exact era then he’d take a gander and say that humanity had made it to the stars—possibly even the galaxy itself.
These thoughts and deductions of his last for barely half a second, so he doesn’t miss the suspicious sounding crack that originated from the guards’ direction upon their impact with the wall. The awkward noise probably meant one of them had hit the back of their skull against the hard metal— which was a mildly surprising sound to hear, seeing how well protected they were.
While checking to make sure that his ear was truly fine despite being grazed by that laser shot by whoever had managed to react quickly enough to aim at him, Ziun spies a streak of blood left on the wall by one of guards as they slide down it. They were probably the same person who cracked their head, and this rings true the moment they slump forward, lifeless.
It… doesn’t bode well for their continued survival.
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