What is Taken

[Iron Father Ferrum]

(I haven't written anything in a long time, and I felt like putting something back up here.  I also had this sudden and inexplicable itch to do something that didn't involve combat. . . so here's this.  Enjoy, and feedback is always welcome.)

 

 

 

I knew this was coming.  In a way, I wanted it, looked forward to it.  Even that desire didn't make dealing with what was about to happen any easier, though.

 

I tried to calm the blood rushing through my veins.  I closed my eyes to the dim light and took a deep breath.  Then another.  A third, slow and rhythmic.  My enhanced sense of smell quickly filtered through the sensory input.  I recognized the sharp scent of alcohol-based antiseptic, the pungent aroma of promethium, the softness of lapping powder, and the vague sensation of warm, red blood underneath it all.

 

My twin hearts were no longer thudding painfully against my ribcage, so I opened my eyes once again to the world.  The lights in the operating room were turned down, so dim in fact that if it were not for the occulobes that had been implanted in me I probably would not have been able to see much.  There wasn't much to see even then; I turned my head to the left and was graced with a view of a wall, its metallic surface much scuffed by centuries of wear.  To the right, I saw a row of operating tables.  The one nearest me was spattered liberally with blood, its fastidious owners not yet having gotten around to cleaning the gore from its surface.

 

Once more, I squirmed on my own table, trying to ease the cramping in my muscles from the restraints that held me down.  Hefty steel hoops pierced the table's surface and were connected by some artifice to some infernally strong machine beneath the table.  They were pulled exceedingly tight, effectively immobilizing me.  Two large bands crossed my torso, preventing me from leveraging myself off of the table, with a series of smaller bands pinning my arms and legs in place as well.  I wasn't used to being so trapped, so. . . helpless.  The thought triggered my super-renals glands again, and I had to concentrate on my breathing again to calm my hearts back down.

 

I was so focused on regaining control of my own flesh that at first, I didn't notice the other's approach.  When I did, the battle for control began again.  Like me, he was a giant made out of a man, though this one was much older than I.  It was difficult to make out the colors and patterns on his battle plate.  The room was simply too dark.  His armor was darkly metallic, the weak light glistening oil-like from its dull surface.  His helmet -- I'll never forget that -- was pure white, so bright and clean and pure it almost hurt my eyes to look at.  I never saw his eyes, but the red lenses of his helmet glowed eerily bright in the darkness, washing the faceplate of his helm so that it took on an almost pinkish hue.  I heard a slight jingle and looked down to his waist, where a scrap of chain-mail hung between his legs.  Before it, however, was a series of heavy glass vials that clinked together with his every movement.  Two were empty, one filled with a thick, viscous fluid, and the last had a ruddy brown fluid in it in which a starfish-shaped mass of flesh floated.  I knew what that was; one was buried beneath my carotid artery, another secured behind the heavy mass of my ribs.

 

The Space Marine walked a full circuit of the table -- of me, supine and helpless before his inspection -- before stopping on my left side.  One heavy, armored gauntlet came to rest on the back of my left hand.  Its touch was, against my expectation, almost gentle, but I curled my hand into a fist nonetheless.

 

"Open your hand," the giant ordered.

 

It wasn't fear that gripped me -- I was beyond that now -- but some emotion took control.  I felt an insane need to resist this, to resist him, and so I kept my fist pulled tight.  His touch was no longer gentle, his manipulator glove closing around my fingers.  He pressed, my flesh, strong as it was, no barrier to his power armored strength.  I felt my bones begin to splinter, heard my joints pop as they were forced out of alignment.  Still rebelling, I forced myself to open my fist and lay my hand out flat on the cold iron slab.

 

"Better."  I looked over at him as he held up a large syringe.  He tapped it lightly, swilling the clear fluid within a little, then without warning jammed the large-gauge needle at its tip into the muscles of my left bicep.  The pain wasn't bad, and my body automatically disengaged the nerve receptors to block it out anyway.  When he withdraw the needle, a small bead of bright red blood welled up from the puncture in my skin, but again my superhuman anatomy clamped down on the injury and prevented any more of the life-giving liquid from escaping my veins.

 

He was motionless as he worked, unaware or uncaring that I was watching his every move.  My hearts had begun picking up the pace again, this time triggered by the sight of the large rotary surgical saw blood that had filled his hands.  I tried to shrink back from him, but reticence made no difference to the restraints that still held me firmly immobile.

 

I watched his finger pull back on the trigger, I watched the blade accelerate to its operating speed, its jagged teeth blurring together into a single whirling disc of silver-white.  I took one last deep breath as the saw rose.  My tormentor said something to me then, but even with my enhanced hearing, I couldn't make it out over the machine-roar of the surgical saw.

 

The blade fell, and my world turned white with pain.  I gritted my teeth, refusing to let my pain be known, to met my tormentor know just how much he had hurt me.  A spray of scarlet splattered across my face, and I could taste the coppery warmth of my own blood on my tongue.  The blade's whine took on a deeper tone as it carved through the iron-hard bones of my wrist.  I writhed in agony, trying desperately, futilely, to pull away from that infernal contraption.  In the back of my mind, I could hear the other Space Marine repeating a mantra, like a prayer, but the words couldn't sink into my conscious mind.

 

And then finally the saw blade stopped whirling.  I blinked the spray of blood out of my eyes but refused to watch as my tormentor held up the ruined stump of my left hand.  I imagined him inspecting it, curious about this failed lump of flesh, before flinging it aside like so much refuse.

 

He continued to work.  The larraman cells in my blood immediately began to staunch the sanguine flow, but the other man was making new cuts and new incisions, snipping away folds of flesh, attaching clamps to some veins while spraying others with a solution that washed away the larraman scabs and let the blood run anew.  I clenched my jaw tighter with every cut, and all the while he repeated that four word prayer.  It sounded familiar somehow, like I should have recognized it, but my body had gone into overdrive to prevent infection, purge the pain, and prevent me from bleeding out or losing consciousness, and whatever it was couldn't penetrate the biological haze clouding my brain.

 

At last he seemed satisfied with the damage he'd wrought.  For my part, I too was satisfied, for not once yet had I loosed a single scream of whimper in response.  My torturer then produced another device of burnished steel and cold iron, and slammed it down onto the ragged stump of my wrist.  Spines in its flat end speared into my flesh, and I could them react to the presence of hot flesh around them, wriggling around beneath my skin as they sought out the shattered ends of my motor neurons.  I could feel those questing tendrils find their targets and pull taut, could suddenly feel the warm, wet steel of the table beneath my fingertips as my brain acclimatised to the sensory input from the haptic sensors in my new hand's fingertips.

 

The heavy metal straps pulled away from my body, allowing me to sit up as the other Space Marine took a step back.  He watched as I raised the bionic simulacrum of my left hand up for inspection; it moved and felt just like my own weak flesh had.  I hadn't expected such a smooth transition.  It was a thing of beauty: the holy form of humanity rendered in tungsten carbide and steel.  I was forever part man, part machine.  Machine...

 

"Aspire to the machine," I said, the words coming almost unbidden.  Those were our words.  Our prayer.

 

The Apothecary stepped back up to me and laid a heavy hand of my shoulder.  "You did well, Initiate.  Remember those words, live by them, and they will take you far in our Chapter.  Welcome to the Iron Hands, brother."

[Aqui]

Awesome sauce!