Poison Pill
Michigan was nervous.
She had every right to be, but emotions had to be set back inside her head. To some soldiers in Project Freelancer, showing emotions was a weakness. However, it was hard hiding them when the Director approved Michigan for AI Implantation. What was excitement at first quickly turned to apprehension when thought of the idea of sharing her head with an artificial intelligence.
That's why she was standing in the middle of a room in the medical wing in full body armor, for the construct to be integrated into its systems. While waiting, she paced up and down the room and twiddled her thumbs. She even had lost count on how many times she touched the back of her head. Near the back of the skull, just above her neck was a metal plate, along with a thin slot. She was one of the few Freelancers that would have an AI put directly into their head rather than a storage unit.
Then she looked at the huge glass pod welded to the wall. Its glass lid stood wide open and it was big enough to fit someone of Michigan's small stature inside of it. On the flat surface, near the top of the pod was a small hold with a data disc slightly jutting out of it.
Probably where they're gonna stick the AI inside my skull. Funtimes...
"Agent Michigan, enter the pod and we will begin your implantation." The Counselor's voice cackling over the intercom made the agent jump a bit, mostly from nerves and lack of sleep.
Even when she climbed into the pod, her feelings towards AIs were still mixed. While primarily used for powering equipment and tactics on the battlefield, sharing a mind with an AI was not appealing to some. It also depended on compatibility with the AI and its host, according to the AI theory classes.
For some, like York and Delta, it was seamless. For others it didn't go very well. The worst-case scenario happened to Agent Ohio during her implantation. It took just one second for her assigned AI to turn her brain into mush, turn her into a drooling vegetable, resulting in her death a few days later.
Michigan gulped a bit as she laid back on the padded surface of the pod. She couldn't let that happen to her. She wouldn't.
A few seconds later the pod's lid closed and let out a hiss as it sealed her inside. Michigan fidgeted in discomfort before the intercom cackled to life again.
The Counselor spoke over the intercom, "Agent Michigan, try to lie still while we make the transition. It will make the process much easier."
The Freelancer took deep breaths to calm herself before his voice spoke again.
"Beginning sequence...implantation starting in three..."
She took a deep breath.
"two..."
She closed her eyes.
"One."
She felt a slight pinch when the disc slid into the back of her head. At first, nothing happened.
Huh, I guess it's not that bad. I wonder why everyone was so worried abou---Wait. Why can't I br--JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!
It felt like someone poured searing hot lava into her brain and out through her eyes. She loudly gasped and opened her mouth, but only a hoarse scream came out. Her body jerked and twitched violently while her lungs seized, her chest filling with the same burning feeling. Inside her mind was a completely different story, as if she was feeling every emotion in existence all at once and even the colors in the room were hurting her eyes.
After a few horrible, painful seconds, she finally screamed in an ungodly, earsplitting harmony with an unknown presence inside her head.
At the same time, the next room was in total anarchy. Red lights flashed everywhere followed by shrilling alarms and sirens. She could hear the panicked voices over the intercom.
"...the hell is going on?!"
"....don't know! This shouldn't be happening! Lambda isn't...."
" ...her out of there now!"
Then, that unknown presence that ravaged her mind began sifting through her thoughts and memories. It watched her life from when she was a child, her school days, all the way up to her acceptance into the Project. It was like watching a very poorly made biography on her life three times over. To make matters worse, her prosthetic started twitching on its own and started sinking punch after punch into the glass. Being trapped in the fever dreams after prosthetic surgery was nothing compared to this.
..stop it...
The presence didn't pay attention to Michigan's pleas and just continued to scan her memories, as if curious about its host. Michigan didn't even realize that the Director had overridden the safety protocols and released her from the pod. Then she tumbled to the floor when the lid pried itself open and she tried to stand on her now-wobbly legs using the wall as a support.
Stop it.
Then it stopped on a memory, the one where an energy blade tore her arm off with an Elite ready to go in for the kill. It felt like she was back in New Alexandria. She heard the sound of gunfire and screaming, smelled of something burning, the sight of dead civilians. Suddenly, the fear that she had put down for years almost instantly came back.
That was the breaking point.
I SAID STOP IT!
Whether she screamed it out inside her head or out loud, she didn't know. She didn't even remember when she punched the wall. She turned her head and saw her mechanical hand balled in a fist with a small crack in the wall from the impact. All that she did know was that the presence inside her head just stopped sifting through her thoughts, as if realizing that it was hurting her.
She could feel her head swimming, not a good combination with the fact that her body still shuddered, she found it difficult to breathe and it started to get dark around the edges of her vision.
Don't pass out...don't pass out...
She concentrated on breathing while she willed herself into getting off the floor, taking big, greedy gulps of air while the burning inside her head subsided. Her heart was pounding like a jackhammer in her chest, but eventually that slowed to a much more manageable pace. She still felt feverish, sick, even breathing hurt like hell.
That's it, get back on your feet. Don't...
She started to stand on her feet when something thick started coming up in her throat, making her gag.
Oh shit, I think I'm gonna....Oh fuck my helmet!
Too weak to fight off the urge and not wanting to drown in her own sick, she immediately ripped her helmet off before she heaved and spewed out the contents of her stomach onto the floor. She could barely hold herself up with her arms shaking, trying hard not to pass out in her own vomit. The only thing she could do retch whatever came up her throat and let the feeling pass until she could actually get up off the floor.
When nothing was left, she spat out the last of the vomit and ignored the thick, burning sensation in her throat. She shakily stood on her feet while she wiped her mouth with her arm. Her head still ached and the bright lights in the room weren't making it any better.
"F.L.I.S.S, send a medical team in there." She heard the Director's southern drawl over the intercom, "Agent Michigan, are you alright?"
"My brain's hijacked and my skull feels like a fried egg. How do you think I feel?" Michigan angrily snarled, her hands covering her face in an attempt to piece her head back together and shield herself from the intense bright lights.
"Don't worry," the Director's voice remained unchanged, even with Michigan's angry outburst, "the feeling will fade eventually."
"What the fuck did you do to me?!" she angrily spat at the presence in her head. Then she felt something go numb in the back of her skull and it spread to the rest of her brain. Before she could protest, the darkness skirting around the edges of her vision seemed to claim her when her knees buckled from underneath her and everything went black.
--
The lights weren't as bright as before, but the pounding in her head and the bad taste in her mouth were still there.
Okay, so I'm alive. Alive is a definitely good start.
It took a minute to get her bearings when she propped herself off the bed with her arms, immediately recognizing the white, sterile walls of the Med Bay on board the Mother of Invention. It wasn't until she looked down at her legs that she finally noticed she was in her fatigues, but that wasn't exactly a priority.
"No, Director," she heard a female voice from the other side of the room, "Agent Michigan hasn't regained consciousness yet...No sir, this won't be like Agent Ohio. Her vitals are strong, so I'm optimistic about her outcome..."
She noticed the head physician, a woman with white hair and thin glasses while dressed in a white doctor's coat, standing next to the wall with her back turned and a landline phone in her ear, presumably arguing to the Director.
And, from the sound of her tone, she was losing.
"Director, I would not recommend...Sir, with all due respect, she needs a psych evaluation before she's certified for field work again...to see if her memories and personality are intact! Who knows what Lambda has done?"
The sound of Michigan groaning in pain was enough for the doctor to turn her head and notice the now awakened Freelancer sitting up on the cot.
"Director, I think she just woke up...No, you can't---Oh, you son of a bitch..."
When she realized that the Director had ended the call, the doctor angrily slammed the phone onto the receiver and let out a string of curses that would put South Dakota to shame. The doctor regained her composure and walked towards her patient.
"Sorry you had to hear that," the doctor's tone returned to a pleasant demeanor, almost motherly, "You had us worried for a while. How are you feeling?"
She sat up on the edge of the bed, resting her feet on the floor. "My head's exploding and there's a jackhammer in my chest. Other than that..."
She stopped mid-sentence when the all too familiar feeling of something thick and burning shot up in her throat. She swiped the bucket by the bed, put her head near the brim and retched for the second time. The bucket magnified the heaving sounds and made her headache worse. When she was done, she placed the pail on the floor and held her head with her hands.
"Ugnh," Michigan groaned and spat in the bucket, "I'm fuckin' peachy..."
It took a few minutes for the nausea to go away. Michigan finally asked, "How long have I been out?"
"About twelve hours," the doctor proclaimed, "You're lucky to be alive Michigan. Considering what happened to you during your implantation, we thought you'd end up like Ohio."
[Dr. Carter, could you please refrain from mentioning that? You are making her uncomfortable.]
Michigan jumped and turned her head as a little glowing avatar just appeared over her shoulder. It took on the form of a male dressed neatly in a suit with short hair while tiny letters and numbers scrolled down its greenish-blue body.
"What the hell..." was all she managed to say the tiny construct turned to her.
"Hmm, this is different from when we tried to get you here. "Dr. Carter commented. When she saw Michigan's confused look, she quickly added, "After you passed out, Lambda wouldn't let us go near you. It hacked an automated turret and shot at anyone who came near you."
The doctor ran her medical scanner up and down Michigan's head, "It took the Director, Counselor and one of the AI fragments to talk him down and let us treat you. We still have no idea what went wrong with the process."
Then the flashes of what happened before she lost consciousness came back to her, her anger building a bit. "Yeah, I'd like to know about that."
It took the construct exactly three seconds to come up with an answer.
[I was being cautious.]
The answer left the Freelancer dumbstruck. Michigan tried to find the right words and when she finally did, she blurted out in anger, "Wha-What kind of an answer is that?! That's bullshit! If you were supposed to be cautious, then why did you do all that shit? You could've killed me!"
The construct disappeared at his host's outburst then reappeared at the end of the bed as if to keep his distance. [Let me reassess. My original intent was to scan your memories. If there were anything that triggered any negative emotions, then I would have done my best to ignore or avoid mentioning them in the near future rather than ignorantly bringing it up later and making you uncomfortable]
"So, you making my head explode, unable to breathe and making me vomit? The memory flashes? What was that?"
[An...unintended side effect. I thought you were strong enough to survive, but I had no idea the process would bring so much...discomfort. After you screamed at me and lost consciousness, it left me...confused. I thought you were in danger. Your safety was my priority.]
"Still, your 'safety' could've killed everyone, Michigan included." Dr. Carter quipped, her medical scanner signaling that it was finished and she read the results. "Hmm, physically, you're fine. Your prosthetic is fully functional. Brain waves are slightly higher than normal, signs typical of an AI with a host. There are other tests I should run, but the Director hates waiting. He gave me strict orders to send you to the debriefing room as soon as you woke up."
[That is not recommended.] The construct protested, [Agent Michigan is not-]
"I know, Lambda."Dr. Carter interrupted, "But he needs to see that she's alive and walking. "
Michigan just let out a sarcastic laugh, "Oh, great."
She had every right to be, but emotions had to be set back inside her head. To some soldiers in Project Freelancer, showing emotions was a weakness. However, it was hard hiding them when the Director approved Michigan for AI Implantation. What was excitement at first quickly turned to apprehension when thought of the idea of sharing her head with an artificial intelligence.
That's why she was standing in the middle of a room in the medical wing in full body armor, for the construct to be integrated into its systems. While waiting, she paced up and down the room and twiddled her thumbs. She even had lost count on how many times she touched the back of her head. Near the back of the skull, just above her neck was a metal plate, along with a thin slot. She was one of the few Freelancers that would have an AI put directly into their head rather than a storage unit.
Then she looked at the huge glass pod welded to the wall. Its glass lid stood wide open and it was big enough to fit someone of Michigan's small stature inside of it. On the flat surface, near the top of the pod was a small hold with a data disc slightly jutting out of it.
Probably where they're gonna stick the AI inside my skull. Funtimes...
"Agent Michigan, enter the pod and we will begin your implantation." The Counselor's voice cackling over the intercom made the agent jump a bit, mostly from nerves and lack of sleep.
Even when she climbed into the pod, her feelings towards AIs were still mixed. While primarily used for powering equipment and tactics on the battlefield, sharing a mind with an AI was not appealing to some. It also depended on compatibility with the AI and its host, according to the AI theory classes.
For some, like York and Delta, it was seamless. For others it didn't go very well. The worst-case scenario happened to Agent Ohio during her implantation. It took just one second for her assigned AI to turn her brain into mush, turn her into a drooling vegetable, resulting in her death a few days later.
Michigan gulped a bit as she laid back on the padded surface of the pod. She couldn't let that happen to her. She wouldn't.
A few seconds later the pod's lid closed and let out a hiss as it sealed her inside. Michigan fidgeted in discomfort before the intercom cackled to life again.
The Counselor spoke over the intercom, "Agent Michigan, try to lie still while we make the transition. It will make the process much easier."
The Freelancer took deep breaths to calm herself before his voice spoke again.
"Beginning sequence...implantation starting in three..."
She took a deep breath.
"two..."
She closed her eyes.
"One."
She felt a slight pinch when the disc slid into the back of her head. At first, nothing happened.
Huh, I guess it's not that bad. I wonder why everyone was so worried abou---Wait. Why can't I br--JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!
It felt like someone poured searing hot lava into her brain and out through her eyes. She loudly gasped and opened her mouth, but only a hoarse scream came out. Her body jerked and twitched violently while her lungs seized, her chest filling with the same burning feeling. Inside her mind was a completely different story, as if she was feeling every emotion in existence all at once and even the colors in the room were hurting her eyes.
After a few horrible, painful seconds, she finally screamed in an ungodly, earsplitting harmony with an unknown presence inside her head.
At the same time, the next room was in total anarchy. Red lights flashed everywhere followed by shrilling alarms and sirens. She could hear the panicked voices over the intercom.
"...the hell is going on?!"
"....don't know! This shouldn't be happening! Lambda isn't...."
" ...her out of there now!"
Then, that unknown presence that ravaged her mind began sifting through her thoughts and memories. It watched her life from when she was a child, her school days, all the way up to her acceptance into the Project. It was like watching a very poorly made biography on her life three times over. To make matters worse, her prosthetic started twitching on its own and started sinking punch after punch into the glass. Being trapped in the fever dreams after prosthetic surgery was nothing compared to this.
..stop it...
The presence didn't pay attention to Michigan's pleas and just continued to scan her memories, as if curious about its host. Michigan didn't even realize that the Director had overridden the safety protocols and released her from the pod. Then she tumbled to the floor when the lid pried itself open and she tried to stand on her now-wobbly legs using the wall as a support.
Stop it.
Then it stopped on a memory, the one where an energy blade tore her arm off with an Elite ready to go in for the kill. It felt like she was back in New Alexandria. She heard the sound of gunfire and screaming, smelled of something burning, the sight of dead civilians. Suddenly, the fear that she had put down for years almost instantly came back.
That was the breaking point.
I SAID STOP IT!
Whether she screamed it out inside her head or out loud, she didn't know. She didn't even remember when she punched the wall. She turned her head and saw her mechanical hand balled in a fist with a small crack in the wall from the impact. All that she did know was that the presence inside her head just stopped sifting through her thoughts, as if realizing that it was hurting her.
She could feel her head swimming, not a good combination with the fact that her body still shuddered, she found it difficult to breathe and it started to get dark around the edges of her vision.
Don't pass out...don't pass out...
She concentrated on breathing while she willed herself into getting off the floor, taking big, greedy gulps of air while the burning inside her head subsided. Her heart was pounding like a jackhammer in her chest, but eventually that slowed to a much more manageable pace. She still felt feverish, sick, even breathing hurt like hell.
That's it, get back on your feet. Don't...
She started to stand on her feet when something thick started coming up in her throat, making her gag.
Oh shit, I think I'm gonna....Oh fuck my helmet!
Too weak to fight off the urge and not wanting to drown in her own sick, she immediately ripped her helmet off before she heaved and spewed out the contents of her stomach onto the floor. She could barely hold herself up with her arms shaking, trying hard not to pass out in her own vomit. The only thing she could do retch whatever came up her throat and let the feeling pass until she could actually get up off the floor.
When nothing was left, she spat out the last of the vomit and ignored the thick, burning sensation in her throat. She shakily stood on her feet while she wiped her mouth with her arm. Her head still ached and the bright lights in the room weren't making it any better.
"F.L.I.S.S, send a medical team in there." She heard the Director's southern drawl over the intercom, "Agent Michigan, are you alright?"
"My brain's hijacked and my skull feels like a fried egg. How do you think I feel?" Michigan angrily snarled, her hands covering her face in an attempt to piece her head back together and shield herself from the intense bright lights.
"Don't worry," the Director's voice remained unchanged, even with Michigan's angry outburst, "the feeling will fade eventually."
"What the fuck did you do to me?!" she angrily spat at the presence in her head. Then she felt something go numb in the back of her skull and it spread to the rest of her brain. Before she could protest, the darkness skirting around the edges of her vision seemed to claim her when her knees buckled from underneath her and everything went black.
--
The lights weren't as bright as before, but the pounding in her head and the bad taste in her mouth were still there.
Okay, so I'm alive. Alive is a definitely good start.
It took a minute to get her bearings when she propped herself off the bed with her arms, immediately recognizing the white, sterile walls of the Med Bay on board the Mother of Invention. It wasn't until she looked down at her legs that she finally noticed she was in her fatigues, but that wasn't exactly a priority.
"No, Director," she heard a female voice from the other side of the room, "Agent Michigan hasn't regained consciousness yet...No sir, this won't be like Agent Ohio. Her vitals are strong, so I'm optimistic about her outcome..."
She noticed the head physician, a woman with white hair and thin glasses while dressed in a white doctor's coat, standing next to the wall with her back turned and a landline phone in her ear, presumably arguing to the Director.
And, from the sound of her tone, she was losing.
"Director, I would not recommend...Sir, with all due respect, she needs a psych evaluation before she's certified for field work again...to see if her memories and personality are intact! Who knows what Lambda has done?"
The sound of Michigan groaning in pain was enough for the doctor to turn her head and notice the now awakened Freelancer sitting up on the cot.
"Director, I think she just woke up...No, you can't---Oh, you son of a bitch..."
When she realized that the Director had ended the call, the doctor angrily slammed the phone onto the receiver and let out a string of curses that would put South Dakota to shame. The doctor regained her composure and walked towards her patient.
"Sorry you had to hear that," the doctor's tone returned to a pleasant demeanor, almost motherly, "You had us worried for a while. How are you feeling?"
She sat up on the edge of the bed, resting her feet on the floor. "My head's exploding and there's a jackhammer in my chest. Other than that..."
She stopped mid-sentence when the all too familiar feeling of something thick and burning shot up in her throat. She swiped the bucket by the bed, put her head near the brim and retched for the second time. The bucket magnified the heaving sounds and made her headache worse. When she was done, she placed the pail on the floor and held her head with her hands.
"Ugnh," Michigan groaned and spat in the bucket, "I'm fuckin' peachy..."
It took a few minutes for the nausea to go away. Michigan finally asked, "How long have I been out?"
"About twelve hours," the doctor proclaimed, "You're lucky to be alive Michigan. Considering what happened to you during your implantation, we thought you'd end up like Ohio."
[Dr. Carter, could you please refrain from mentioning that? You are making her uncomfortable.]
Michigan jumped and turned her head as a little glowing avatar just appeared over her shoulder. It took on the form of a male dressed neatly in a suit with short hair while tiny letters and numbers scrolled down its greenish-blue body.
"What the hell..." was all she managed to say the tiny construct turned to her.
"Hmm, this is different from when we tried to get you here. "Dr. Carter commented. When she saw Michigan's confused look, she quickly added, "After you passed out, Lambda wouldn't let us go near you. It hacked an automated turret and shot at anyone who came near you."
The doctor ran her medical scanner up and down Michigan's head, "It took the Director, Counselor and one of the AI fragments to talk him down and let us treat you. We still have no idea what went wrong with the process."
Then the flashes of what happened before she lost consciousness came back to her, her anger building a bit. "Yeah, I'd like to know about that."
It took the construct exactly three seconds to come up with an answer.
[I was being cautious.]
The answer left the Freelancer dumbstruck. Michigan tried to find the right words and when she finally did, she blurted out in anger, "Wha-What kind of an answer is that?! That's bullshit! If you were supposed to be cautious, then why did you do all that shit? You could've killed me!"
The construct disappeared at his host's outburst then reappeared at the end of the bed as if to keep his distance. [Let me reassess. My original intent was to scan your memories. If there were anything that triggered any negative emotions, then I would have done my best to ignore or avoid mentioning them in the near future rather than ignorantly bringing it up later and making you uncomfortable]
"So, you making my head explode, unable to breathe and making me vomit? The memory flashes? What was that?"
[An...unintended side effect. I thought you were strong enough to survive, but I had no idea the process would bring so much...discomfort. After you screamed at me and lost consciousness, it left me...confused. I thought you were in danger. Your safety was my priority.]
"Still, your 'safety' could've killed everyone, Michigan included." Dr. Carter quipped, her medical scanner signaling that it was finished and she read the results. "Hmm, physically, you're fine. Your prosthetic is fully functional. Brain waves are slightly higher than normal, signs typical of an AI with a host. There are other tests I should run, but the Director hates waiting. He gave me strict orders to send you to the debriefing room as soon as you woke up."
[That is not recommended.] The construct protested, [Agent Michigan is not-]
"I know, Lambda."Dr. Carter interrupted, "But he needs to see that she's alive and walking. "
Michigan just let out a sarcastic laugh, "Oh, great."
Authors Notes:
Written before Season 10.
Written before Season 10.