(no subject)
((Okay--just as a brain excercise, does anyone have a character type they think I absolutely cannot RP? (If you say "Krauser" I will cry.) ))
((Background, Umbrella laboratory scenario; obviously. Warnings include: dark. Mentions of violence. Dur.))
It's a system, and it works like this.
There's the environment, constant. The normal lights, the hum of them, the smell of computers and the whir of fans, the rolling of chairs, the clicking of keys, the clinks and clatters of beakers and slides. The sounds of metal sliding into place, the brief blare of an electronic lock. Always the same.
There's the routine, so structured you know the way things will unfold before they happen (for months after he gets out, Krauser picks up a calendar. He stares down at the squares, running his fingers along the lines, and tries to conceive that was all the time it took him to know the place in his bones.)
There's the voices. That's where it starts to get a little less systematic. Wesker was there for the beginning, some time in the middle, and at the end. There's so much he can't remember; it's hazy, for different reasons. Blank in places. He understands a lot of that's reaction to pain, some of that's got to be the drugs, while some of it's physiological changes. (Sometimes bits come back, like just a snatch of a dream, without connection to other sentences; he plays those over and over until, like the dream, the boundaries between certainty and fuzzy memory give way and he's not even sure that was something he heard awake.)
But still: there's the lab, and the experiments, and the experimenters. Its own world, its own rules, and he's just there for a comparatively minor change. Better durability, faster reflexes, better healing; turning into something he wasn't before, so that some things never happen again.
There's a way to do it. There always has been a way. If he'd found the way earlier, he'd still have his team. He failed. But he's found it now, and it works like this:
The system is there to reshape, remold, or alter entirely. (He didn't ask why those who were there with him were taking the change. He didn't ask if they were volunteers. They all were there; what was the point? He knew something of the history. . . but he had to. There was no other way.)
The system is there to be a background, to be learned, to not get in the way when it's time for the decision. The decision is part of the system.
It's called "making the jump." The body changes gradually, through stages. Claws grow, muscle mass develops, spines form. Or there are quieter changes, the rush of a metabolism adjusting itself to account for regenerative ability, the slide of a third eyelid, the hiss of an IV melting away as blood suddenly becomes more corrosive than its plastic walls can handle.
The mind does not change so slowly. The mind remains thinking as it always did, making sense of everything in a human manner, with no way of tracking the changes or understanding what they mean (those voices explaining, softly, over and over, he knows what they told him but the words don't seem to fit. . .)
It's when the body is done changing, when tape and bandages and restraints are long gone and new skin has become accustomed to the touch of air, that the mind either switches over, still in control, transition from human to weapon. . . or it doesn't.
(His is easy. Nobody in the labs was, or ever had been, a target. He's a BOW? Big deal. He still has his discipline, he's still himself--he isn't some random monster from the holding pens.)
He never forgets the latest addition to the Tyrant program. (He learned he had a recognisable smell a month or so before, something that reminded Krauser of pine and horses. The pine-smell went sour as he changed, and his skin went blue-gray and pebbled. The skin at his throat lapped into gills; he needed an oxygen mask until his lungs adjusted. But then physically, he was done. A failure in that he couldn't go out in public, as the project had intended; a resounding success, in that he lived with useful adaptations; a failure in the end, but salvaged.)
He never forgets the way the door wasn't quite slid home before the latch was flipped. He saw. This is when he's off the more interesting drugs and his eyes aren't so light-sensitive that he's blind even in dimness. But he's still drugged, at the time, and it's dreamlike. None of it seems like anything he should worry about. Not the initial mistake. Or the investigation, the jiggling of the latch in slender, inch-like claws, and the noiseless way the steel slides open. The tentative touch of a digitigrade foot on the ground.
The lab isn't unoccupied. He can't see what the other BOW is looking at. He sees the body settle suddenly into purposeful lines, and he knows how to read its language: aggression. He sees the needle-like claws curl inwards, can almost hear the soft sound as the tips drag across the thickened ridges of skin around his palm. The BOW ducks behind a counter.
There's a soft gasp as someone sees the open door; the quick rush of footsteps. The BOW's spine ribbons into sight midway between the counters twice, one appearance quite far from the other--he must be running like a cheetah--and Krauser knows the next sounds so clearly he could draw what's taking place. The scent of blood roils into the air, so thick he hears teeth snap from about five feet to his left and understands fully the expectation of resistance.
It shows him he can interact. He manages to pull himself to his feet and take about four steps forward, leaning his shoulder against the wall. The other BOW is still slashing at the body, mouth working as he tries to shout something. Hunh. Voice gone? Krauser has no idea. But it's time to stop this. He draws his fist back and slams it into the bars. The first two hits don't work, but they do manage to help him work himself up into a state where he can ignore the drugs. The third hit rattles the bars, which sets off the impact sensors, and an alarm starts to sing.
The BOW's head jerks up, and the scent of fear causes another clack from Krauser's left. Krauser quietly heads back into his zone; his work's done and he's not liking the noise and the light and the smell combined. Worse, that close to alive, he remembers. So he tracks it as the BOW springs up and charges, full weight crashing against the bars. Jagged teeth grind against the metal, and the BOW swipes through them. Krauser watches the motion, aware already he's too far back to be clawed. What he hears doesn't sound good. The BOW's not going to win against the bars. Well--maybe not; one just bent inwards. The BOW's too frenzied to seem to take advantage of it, rearing his head back once to give a soundless shriek before biting the metal again. Krauser doesn't think he's breaking his teeth. It's hard to tell.
He watches the team come in, noting that the third one's a little sloppy. He watches the lead two find the obvious target and fire two darts into the frenzied escapee's back. He stares into Krauser's eyes, fingers loosening, blue-bloodied teeth shrieking along the metal as he starts to fall. Krauser doesn't pay attention, really. He's done what's needed.
He stays out of it until he hears a familiar voice. "What happened?" Wesker.
"C13 got out." There's the shuffling of paper. "Murdock's signed off on security for these."
"The records look like someone's made a dosage error. The inhib-" he watches Wesker's head snap suddenly to one side, attention zeroed in on the speaker. The speaker glances down at the paper he's holding. "Uh, let me just make sure I'm reading this right."
Wesker reaches up, moving the bent bar. He hasn't looked at Krauser. Krauser hasn't expected him to. "We'll need a relocation." He glances down. "He's useless for this program. We'll have to fall back on tradition. Take him down to surgery. We'll start him in Behavioral as soon as he's out."
The critical speaker frowns at his papers, then peers up at the wall for a moment. He rustles paper again, a sharp rattle. "Hey, why'd we put C17 on-"
Wesker speaks as though he's tired of him. "Collect the files on the prior two incident reports. When this one's finished, read through it. Meet me in my office to discuss your findings."
It's a system. It works.
__
Krauser leans against the wall of his apartment, watching the gray sky through the window, and thinks about friends long dead. Thinks about transitions. Thinks about making them, or failing. Thinks about being intelligent and still falling to become a mindless killer.
He thinks about the plaga, about the transition, about how there's really the only one jump to make. People just think they're making it again. If someone didn't, it's bad; it's not impossible to overcome. There's a use for everyone, and if he becomes a threat. . . well, Krauser's only got the one way to neutralize him.
He hasn't drawn the knife. Looking at the symbol right now would be a bit much. He's got things to do. Best to go do them, and then keep watching for signs of Saddler.
((Background, Umbrella laboratory scenario; obviously. Warnings include: dark. Mentions of violence. Dur.))
It's a system, and it works like this.
There's the environment, constant. The normal lights, the hum of them, the smell of computers and the whir of fans, the rolling of chairs, the clicking of keys, the clinks and clatters of beakers and slides. The sounds of metal sliding into place, the brief blare of an electronic lock. Always the same.
There's the routine, so structured you know the way things will unfold before they happen (for months after he gets out, Krauser picks up a calendar. He stares down at the squares, running his fingers along the lines, and tries to conceive that was all the time it took him to know the place in his bones.)
There's the voices. That's where it starts to get a little less systematic. Wesker was there for the beginning, some time in the middle, and at the end. There's so much he can't remember; it's hazy, for different reasons. Blank in places. He understands a lot of that's reaction to pain, some of that's got to be the drugs, while some of it's physiological changes. (Sometimes bits come back, like just a snatch of a dream, without connection to other sentences; he plays those over and over until, like the dream, the boundaries between certainty and fuzzy memory give way and he's not even sure that was something he heard awake.)
But still: there's the lab, and the experiments, and the experimenters. Its own world, its own rules, and he's just there for a comparatively minor change. Better durability, faster reflexes, better healing; turning into something he wasn't before, so that some things never happen again.
There's a way to do it. There always has been a way. If he'd found the way earlier, he'd still have his team. He failed. But he's found it now, and it works like this:
The system is there to reshape, remold, or alter entirely. (He didn't ask why those who were there with him were taking the change. He didn't ask if they were volunteers. They all were there; what was the point? He knew something of the history. . . but he had to. There was no other way.)
The system is there to be a background, to be learned, to not get in the way when it's time for the decision. The decision is part of the system.
It's called "making the jump." The body changes gradually, through stages. Claws grow, muscle mass develops, spines form. Or there are quieter changes, the rush of a metabolism adjusting itself to account for regenerative ability, the slide of a third eyelid, the hiss of an IV melting away as blood suddenly becomes more corrosive than its plastic walls can handle.
The mind does not change so slowly. The mind remains thinking as it always did, making sense of everything in a human manner, with no way of tracking the changes or understanding what they mean (those voices explaining, softly, over and over, he knows what they told him but the words don't seem to fit. . .)
It's when the body is done changing, when tape and bandages and restraints are long gone and new skin has become accustomed to the touch of air, that the mind either switches over, still in control, transition from human to weapon. . . or it doesn't.
(His is easy. Nobody in the labs was, or ever had been, a target. He's a BOW? Big deal. He still has his discipline, he's still himself--he isn't some random monster from the holding pens.)
He never forgets the latest addition to the Tyrant program. (He learned he had a recognisable smell a month or so before, something that reminded Krauser of pine and horses. The pine-smell went sour as he changed, and his skin went blue-gray and pebbled. The skin at his throat lapped into gills; he needed an oxygen mask until his lungs adjusted. But then physically, he was done. A failure in that he couldn't go out in public, as the project had intended; a resounding success, in that he lived with useful adaptations; a failure in the end, but salvaged.)
He never forgets the way the door wasn't quite slid home before the latch was flipped. He saw. This is when he's off the more interesting drugs and his eyes aren't so light-sensitive that he's blind even in dimness. But he's still drugged, at the time, and it's dreamlike. None of it seems like anything he should worry about. Not the initial mistake. Or the investigation, the jiggling of the latch in slender, inch-like claws, and the noiseless way the steel slides open. The tentative touch of a digitigrade foot on the ground.
The lab isn't unoccupied. He can't see what the other BOW is looking at. He sees the body settle suddenly into purposeful lines, and he knows how to read its language: aggression. He sees the needle-like claws curl inwards, can almost hear the soft sound as the tips drag across the thickened ridges of skin around his palm. The BOW ducks behind a counter.
There's a soft gasp as someone sees the open door; the quick rush of footsteps. The BOW's spine ribbons into sight midway between the counters twice, one appearance quite far from the other--he must be running like a cheetah--and Krauser knows the next sounds so clearly he could draw what's taking place. The scent of blood roils into the air, so thick he hears teeth snap from about five feet to his left and understands fully the expectation of resistance.
It shows him he can interact. He manages to pull himself to his feet and take about four steps forward, leaning his shoulder against the wall. The other BOW is still slashing at the body, mouth working as he tries to shout something. Hunh. Voice gone? Krauser has no idea. But it's time to stop this. He draws his fist back and slams it into the bars. The first two hits don't work, but they do manage to help him work himself up into a state where he can ignore the drugs. The third hit rattles the bars, which sets off the impact sensors, and an alarm starts to sing.
The BOW's head jerks up, and the scent of fear causes another clack from Krauser's left. Krauser quietly heads back into his zone; his work's done and he's not liking the noise and the light and the smell combined. Worse, that close to alive, he remembers. So he tracks it as the BOW springs up and charges, full weight crashing against the bars. Jagged teeth grind against the metal, and the BOW swipes through them. Krauser watches the motion, aware already he's too far back to be clawed. What he hears doesn't sound good. The BOW's not going to win against the bars. Well--maybe not; one just bent inwards. The BOW's too frenzied to seem to take advantage of it, rearing his head back once to give a soundless shriek before biting the metal again. Krauser doesn't think he's breaking his teeth. It's hard to tell.
He watches the team come in, noting that the third one's a little sloppy. He watches the lead two find the obvious target and fire two darts into the frenzied escapee's back. He stares into Krauser's eyes, fingers loosening, blue-bloodied teeth shrieking along the metal as he starts to fall. Krauser doesn't pay attention, really. He's done what's needed.
He stays out of it until he hears a familiar voice. "What happened?" Wesker.
"C13 got out." There's the shuffling of paper. "Murdock's signed off on security for these."
"The records look like someone's made a dosage error. The inhib-" he watches Wesker's head snap suddenly to one side, attention zeroed in on the speaker. The speaker glances down at the paper he's holding. "Uh, let me just make sure I'm reading this right."
Wesker reaches up, moving the bent bar. He hasn't looked at Krauser. Krauser hasn't expected him to. "We'll need a relocation." He glances down. "He's useless for this program. We'll have to fall back on tradition. Take him down to surgery. We'll start him in Behavioral as soon as he's out."
The critical speaker frowns at his papers, then peers up at the wall for a moment. He rustles paper again, a sharp rattle. "Hey, why'd we put C17 on-"
Wesker speaks as though he's tired of him. "Collect the files on the prior two incident reports. When this one's finished, read through it. Meet me in my office to discuss your findings."
It's a system. It works.
__
Krauser leans against the wall of his apartment, watching the gray sky through the window, and thinks about friends long dead. Thinks about transitions. Thinks about making them, or failing. Thinks about being intelligent and still falling to become a mindless killer.
He thinks about the plaga, about the transition, about how there's really the only one jump to make. People just think they're making it again. If someone didn't, it's bad; it's not impossible to overcome. There's a use for everyone, and if he becomes a threat. . . well, Krauser's only got the one way to neutralize him.
He hasn't drawn the knife. Looking at the symbol right now would be a bit much. He's got things to do. Best to go do them, and then keep watching for signs of Saddler.