Chapter Text
Internal Memo from Dr. [Redacted] Regarding Specimen FH-14
While we’ve improved on the previous model in both strength and biddability, I worry we’ve sacrificed too much by not prioritizing intelligence in the current batch of test subjects. I have several reports of FH-14 asking my support staff if they are his parents, and I see this obsession with family ties becoming a liability for his later training. Must I remind you that we are under contract? I hardly think our investors want a new breed of cybernetic super-soldier who refers to his Handler as “Dad.” See my attached suggestions for optimizing the specimen’s training regime to emphasize greater independence.
Re: Internal Memo from Dr. [Redacted] Regarding Specimen FH-14
Apologies, here is the attachment now.
Gorgug swears as he accidentally brushes the back of his wrist against the bulwark of the spaceship he’s repairing. He immediately checks the thin tubes surgically grafted into the skin along the backs of his wrists and arms, worried he’s damaged something. The tubes stretch all the way behind his shoulders and down his spine, places he has to squirm to reach. When he has access to stolen shipments of Regulatory Adrenal Gland Enrichment, the compound he needs to inject to stabilize his moods, the tubes are filled with greenish liquid and become almost imperceptible against his orcish skin. When he’s forced to carefully ration the compound, like now, the tubes are more obvious, translucent access points along his body. Back in the lab, the scientists who worked on him were so gleeful when they came up with this plan to have his body always permeable, like adding an extra network of artificial veins to access and test and distribute the compounds which eventually became R.A.G.E. It’s like he’s vivisected, kept flayed open just in case someone wants to mess around with his insides.
The thought—half memory, half anxious projection—makes his heart rate speed up, and Gorgug quickly fumbles at his pockets, pulling one of his few remaining vials out and slotting it into the injection port on his wrist before his emotions start spiraling. It’s an instant relief as the R.A.G.E. floods his system—the emotions are all still there, but it’s like a clear screen has come down between them. His rage and fear and disgust aren’t bleeding into and reinforcing each other anymore, and he can take the time to examine what he’s feeling. He slumps down against the side of the ship and just breathes, idly picking at a loose thread from his coveralls. His clothes are as much of a stitched-together mess as Gorgug is himself—it’s not like a group of gnomes had anything in his size, but they made the best of what they had, combing gnome-sized cast-offs into something new, disguising the seams with colorful floral embroidery and leaving cut-out sections so Gorgug can still check on his augments. It’s a mess, but a good mess, so Gorgug figures the same should apply to himself. He doesn’t have to be some sort of cyborg super soldier anymore—he can just be a good mess.
He’s been feeling unsettled ever since Adaine tracked down some confidential files from his old lab. Reading the partially redacted fragments of scientific reports on his childhood brings back memories. Normally Gorgug is able to separate off that part of his life—he escaped, so he doesn’t have to think about anything before. Now that he has the reports in front of him, with all of their bullshit rationalizations for hurting him, for hurting the others, Gorgug keeps returning to the memories he’d buried. He’d hoped he’d reached a point in his life where his emotions are in balance, where nothing can get under his skin and make him lose control. In reality, Gorgug knows that no number of mantras or breathing exercises will help him maintain his emotional stability on his own. The scientists who watched over him as he grew from a cell sample to a person externalized his emotions, years of tests and drugs and surgeries rendering his innermost feelings always a little too close to the surface. It’s all something to do with his endocrine system, or his… adrenals?—Gorgug is learning the words for what’s happening in his body, and knows how it feels when he’s torn up inside by an emotion he can’t control, but he struggles with the how and why. How it all fits together, why anyone would do this to him. But he hates feeling stupid about it, so he’s painstakingly trying to learn. Without R.A.G.E. in his system, Gorgug can’t stop feeling—he’ll get angry and stay angry, or sad, or paranoid, until he wears himself out. Theoretically he could coast on a positive emotion, and he has once or twice, riding the manic high of a heist with Fig and Fabian until he passed out, but that’s dangerous too. And Gorgug doesn’t want to be dangerous anymore.
Learning about machines is coming much more easily to him. Gorgug likes working with his hands, and he likes working with the Thistlespring Collective. Life in the Ballaster Asteroid Belt is easier than his childhood in a series of classified laboratories. The gnome salvagers who first settled in the Belt to escape their corporate indentured servitude are a tightly knit group, wary of outsiders, but they immediately adopted Gorgug into their ranks as soon as he stumbled, confused and hurting, into their territory. He doesn’t quite fit in their hollowed out asteroids and the twisting metallic structure they ironically named the Tree—he’s too big, too clumsy, too moody compared to their cheerful geeky enthusiasm—but the forty-odd gnomes who salvaged him from his aimless wandering through space have made Gorgug feel at home in a way he never has before.
The lab trained him to fight, the Tree taught him to build, learning new skills and a new way to be strong. Not that he’s doing a great job with that at the moment. Gorgug’s been working on repairing this salvaged ship ever since he got back to the Tree. The Thistlesprings recently found a gutted Planetar class starship, and Gorgug shyly claimed salvager’s rights over it for the first time since living with them. (The gnomes were so proud that Gorgug had to fend off beaming offers for help for the rest of the day—he might not do the best job, but he wants to put the ship back together himself.) It’s a medium-sized ship, definitely too big for just one person, but Gorgug likes having more room to spread out. The ship is snub-nosed and awkward looking at dock, but it’s one of those ships built in space and designed to stay there, so the square-ish shape never needs to blast through a planet’s atmosphere. Instead, there’s a smaller pod that looks mostly intact for ferrying a few people planetside and back. It’s not sleek or flashy, there are no weapons, the speed never breaks the intergalactic margins of safety. It’s the kind of ship that some spacers get to haul around cargo and some get to raise their families. Along the side, partially scraped off but still legible, is the name “Endless Sky.” Gorgug loves it.
He tests out the power couplings he reattached to the cockpit by pulling up screens of the few memos and reports Adaine sent, trying to search for clues. The reports are hard to read, but they still make him nostalgic for his crèche, the few happy memories he cherishes from the lab. Before he learned that his crèche-mates weren’t meant to be his friends or siblings, but fellow experiments, before they lost each other. They took all of their classes together, invented quiet games out of sight of the Monitors, curled up into the same pile of limbs when it was their assigned time to sleep and tested how long they could stay awake, whispering and giggling, before the Monitors came to shout at them. There were originally six of them in Gorgug’s crèche: two other part-orc kids from the FH series like Gorgug, two tabaxi boys who were an offshoot of the NF experiment, and Zelda. They were supposed to refer to each other by their numerical designations, but one of the other FH kids had trouble with numbers—she could never keep them in her head—so Gorgug suggested they make up their own names. None of them wanted to pick from the surnames embroidered onto the lab coats of the scientists or the armor of their Monitors, the few real names they knew. Instead, they challenged each other to invent the silliest combinations of sounds they could. The two tabaxi became Bordad and Brorjej, and the FH girls claimed Jorjuj and Chej. Gorgug kept vacillating between Gorgug and Gorbag in those early days before settling on the former. BD-9 wanted to join in on the fun, but she was mostly non-verbal and had trouble with the name games. Gorgug finally named her Zelda, after a contraband children’s story a sympathetic teacher had smuggled in when the scientists decided to let them learn to read. Zelda was a fun name to say, Gorgug explained, and it was fitting because her horns were a bit like a crown, so she was probably a captured princess, just like in the story. He made up a gesture like curving horns to be part of the name. He thought Zelda liked her new name, because she copied the gesture excitedly and he could see a smile hiding behind her hair. Gorgug projected his happy feeling back for her, focusing on happiness and family and safety and trying not to think about how angry the Monitors were when they found the story, the way the princess on the cover had distorted when the Monitors poured chemicals on the book and set it on fire as a lesson to the crèche. They never heard from that teacher again, and Gorgug knew enough at that point to be worried.
Internal Memo from Dr. [Redacted] Regarding Specimens NF-2 and -4
The NF series is progressing nicely, at least. I would call this one of our few true successes. Corporate espionage is such a lucrative market for our operations, and I expect a number of prominent Korps will be interested in purchasing one of our new models, once they reach maturity. Thankfully, they aren’t plagued by the same health problems that seem to be an issue with the other series. Let’s expand the NF program while allocating more resources on improving the longevity and health of our FH and OB specimens. We’re still losing too many specimens during their developmental stages. I acknowledge that OB-16 is a resounding success, but the rest of his crèche barely made it past puberty. We can’t afford the same losses in our future batches.
As they grew into puberty, they started to manifest new abilities. Brorjej was terrified the first time he turned invisible, until the laughing scientist in charge that day explained, dismissively, that invisibility was the entire point of the NF series, the entire point of him existing. Gorgug and Chej shot up in height over the course of a few months, towering over their friends, newly stretched limbs awkward until they grew used to them. Exercise time in between lessons started to turn into training sessions, as the lessons themselves dropped out of their schedules. Gorgug freaked out a little the first time he was handed a weapon and shoved into a battle simulation, but Chej took to it immediately, loving the rush of a good fight. Gorgug learned to enjoy sparring with her, but he never liked the simulations where he was meant to kill his way through faceless robotic enemies. It always felt more like a pointless slaughter than a skill. Fighting with Chej or Brorjej or Zelda was more like a dance—they were on the same side, trying to figure out how to move together so it looked like they were hurting each other enough to satisfy the Monitors without actually doing permanent damage. Fighting with Zelda was his favorite, because she could move so quickly and gracefully around him, and if he played it off right he could catch her up in his arms in something that was almost a hug. She would laugh and gently butt her head against his before slipping away. He missed the way her body felt in his arms, her horns against his temple, her giggling breath in his face. She’d always pull away, but he knew she’d come back to him.
Gorgug didn’t realize for a while that some of the kids in his crèche were failed experiments. Gorgug felt responsible for the others—he was always a little bigger, a little stronger, didn’t have the pain in his joins or trouble digesting food that slowed down Jorjuj. She never did grow properly. Since he was stronger, it was his responsibility to help. He and Chej would carry Jorjuj around on their shoulders when she had trouble moving, and they both tried to keep track of which foods she could keep down and which ones would make her sicker. Jorjuj wasn’t the only crèche-mate who was growing up wrong. No matter how hard he tried Bordad was never able to turn invisible and was kept back from training with the others. Brorjej did his best to help, but he could never figure out how to explain a skill that came to him so instinctively, and it was up to Gorgug to mediate when invisibility lessons inevitably turned into arguing and sulking. Both Bordad and Jorjuj were moved to a separate lab for medical testing while the others were training. Gorgug let himself hope that they would fix whatever was wrong with them, but only Bordad came back from the tests, twitching and trembling and refusing to say what happened to Jorjuj. Brorjej never let the other tabaxi out of his sight after that, and his attempts to teach Bordad how to disappear took on a such a frightening new urgency that Gorgug almost missed their bickering. He and Chej mourned for Jorjuj together, inventing little rituals in the cold quiet of their dormitory before bed, whispering her name back and forth like a mantra or a prayer before a sparring match. And Gorgug kept careful watch over Chej, looking for any sign her health was failing too. The signs were all there already—a stiffness in her wrists and fingers when she pushed herself too hard in training, her constant hunger that even an increased food allotment couldn’t sate. Gorgug disguised her clumsiness when they sparred and didn’t let himself think about what those symptoms might mean.
The two tabaxis escaped one night, slipping past the Monitors and the security cameras so stealthily that Gorgug suspected the invisibility coaching had finally paid off. Escape. It was a new thought for Gorgug. He’d previously only been able to imagine a life in this lab, but if he could get out, take Chej and Zelda with him… He thinks, he hopes the tabaxi boys got clear away, and based on the increased security and the tight, angry expressions on everyone’s faces it seems likely they did. Gorgug has looked for them in the past few years of freedom, drawing on the Thistlespring’s networks and his own intuition, but they’ve dropped off the grid so thoroughly that he can’t find any trace. He thinks that’s a good sign—if he can’t find them, then they aren’t in danger of being recaptured. They were certainly safer getting out when they did, before everything else started going wrong. Escaping before the surgeries, before the implants and drug trials, means Brorjej and Bordad can pass as normal in a way Gorgug will never be able to. He doesn’t begrudge them that, but it makes it feel wistful for the life he couldn’t have.
Internal Memo from Dr. [Redacted] Regarding Specimens BD-1 through -9
I cannot stress enough the importance of maintaining strict boundaries between our experiments. Case in point, the BD model was meant for infiltration and espionage. While a certain level of athleticism and agility is obviously important for the model, whoever had the bright idea to inject nonhuman DNA into the sample ought to be fired. How exactly is a half-goat creature supposed to pass unnoticed in a crowd? Telepath or no—and I have yet to see clear proof that the telepathy gene expressed itself correctly in any of the specimens—I hardly think our target demographic is going to want to keep one of these furred monstrosities around. I recommend we keep the surviving specimen alive for further study, in the hopes we can isolate the telepathy gene more successfully in future batches, but I refuse to sign off on any more of these creatures until these issues are resolved.
Zelda had good and bad days. Fortunately the scientists had already decreased her training load, and she was often allowed to go back to the sleeping quarters and lie down and listen to music when she got overwhelmed. Gorgug wasn’t sure whether the scientists knew she was overwhelmed from the tangled feeling of everyone’s emotions overlapping, not from any physical sensation. The crèche knew Zelda couldn’t always control feeling what they were feeling, and tried to be careful around her, but Gorgug thought the scientists didn’t know about her ability yet. Otherwise they would be more careful to not let their own feelings bleed through around Zelda. It was thanks to her that the crèche knew which Monitors would treat them with a bored efficiency and which to avoid at all costs. Gorgug knows he’s always been a little too trusting, and he started relying on Zelda’s insights more and more, watching for her coded gestures whenever he felt unsure about a situation. He liked watching her hands move, little graceful gestures switching from sign to sign in her own invented language. He liked hearing her voice, too, the few times she wanted to speak, liked being one of the few people she trusted in this place.
There was little else to trust about the labs. The scientists started them on a series of new drug cocktails once they hit puberty, first Chej and then Gorgug. Some of the drugs made them stronger, some of them made them sick, some messed with their emotions. It wasn’t until Chej came back from a long training session so blind with anger that she punched through a wall, breaking two of her already-brittle fingers, that Gorgug realized how badly the drugs were messing them up, and how badly their messed up emotions could hurt Zelda. The worst part was he wanted Zelda to feel his emotions. There was a warm fluttery feeling Gorgug got around her that he though Zelda would like—she was often interested in new emotions, as long as they weren’t painful—but it was safer to keep his distance, to make sure Zelda never had to share his rage. It was soon a moot point anyway—shortly after the drug tests started, Zelda was moved to a different facility. It hurt to be separated, like losing Jorjuj all over again, and now there was no reason for Gorgug to try to control himself. He started taking more risks during training sessions, using the fighting as an attempt to sweat the anger out of his system.
He still feels guilty that he was so caught up in his own feelings during that time that he missed seeing how much sicker Chej had gotten until she collapsed, suddenly, in the middle of a sparring match. She’d been moving more slowly, more stiffly, for a while, but the change was so incremental it was hard to notice, and she always smiled cheerfully when Gorgug checked in. He thinks now that she knew she didn’t have long, and didn’t want him to worry. He remembers the surprise of how easy it was to fight off the Monitors trying to hold him back from her body, the way her eyes rolled back in her head as she started shuddering. No one came to help, and all Gorgug could do was hold her as she convulsed, repeating “It’s Gorgug, I’m here” until she stopped moving. She didn’t respond—didn’t look like she could speak—but he wants to think she could hear him, knew that he was there, until she was still and gone. He didn’t resist this time when the Monitors wrestled him away. For the first time in that place, he was truly alone.
They’re all still there in his memories: Zelda smiling and slipping out of his arms, Brorjej punching they air the first time Bordad was able to hold his breath and shift the color of his fur, Jorjuj directing a giggling Chej around their dorm from her perch on her shoulders. And then later, Ragh. Endless Sky might not be the ideal spaceship for the journey Gorgug has in mind, but it’s coziness is going to be essential for Gorgug to keep himself together if he’s really going back to find his friends, his crèche, his… whatever Zelda and Ragh were to him. (If either of them are still alive, or sane, he doesn’t quite let himself think.) He’s not sure where to start except back at the beginning, at the same lab he broke out of five years previous. If it’s still standing, if anyone is there. He sings a little nonsense song to himself as he fumbles with the circuitry and effortlessly lifts fallen debris, preparing for his journey. His ship is a home and his home is a ship.