“Department C, Number 36”
“Part 7.1, Imposition”
Author: It_that_watches
“Officer 023, send in Number 36.”
The radio on the doctor’s belt crackled to life as the door chimed.
“Officer Rhynes, cycling airgap. Examination room is under lockdown until subject is remanded to containment. Please stand by.”
“Is there really a need for all of this? Isn’t Number 36 this one of the older models? At its age it should be on deaths’ door, should it not?”
“I appreciate that you wanna get to know all of the ‘staff’ Doc, but Wight’s not a fluffy. She doesn’t appreciate-”
Dr. Neuman scoffed at the guard. He had just gotten his second PHD and a bioengineering position at Hasbio after all! Surely, he knew better than some security officer.
“Oh, that’s enough of that, quite enough. I’ve interacted with these critters before, and I well know how to deal with them. I don’t see how this one could be much different. You said it was a prototype, correct? From another production line? Why is it still around if it serves no purpose?”
The airgap controls sang a three-note response to his inquiry, and he paused his tongue with uncertain trepidation. The locks click-clacked open, and the doors slid aside to reveal the specimen he was so eager to conduct his interview with.
The creature spoke.
“I’m finally here, and lucky for you I’m mostly lucid too.” She snickered a low, rising laugh- terminating in a sharp muscle spasm. “Ahem… ugh. Now whaddaya want?”
Before him stood one of the fabled “Little Ponies” that’s he’d heard of in hushed tones during grad school. This was to put it lightly, absolutely not what he was expecting- this wasn’t just an earlier rendition of the fluffy it was something else entirely.
He leaned back in his chair as she stepped through the threshold. Was it out of fear, or just a natural reclining motion? He couldn’t tell anymore- his stomach felt like it was falling. She looked so mundane- but as she drilled through him with her eyes, he felt some unearthly presence that made every hair on his body stand on end. Something was deeply wrong
Standing proud and tall- at about knee height, there she was- “H-S4BL#36”, the fearsome fable of Hasbio Department C.
He had to squint as she entered the light.
“You know I could be sleeping right now, but you had me called all the way over her to satisfy your weird horse-fascination.”
The doctor furrowed his brow in indignation, adjusting his glasses and voicing his retort.
“Now listen here Number 36-”
She cut him off quickly and violently as she bounded to the table in a single motion, teeth bared and eyes wild with hate.
“DON’T CALL ME THAT, YOU FILTHY BASTARD. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT.”
Her head jerked to the right, shouted something indistinct, and she returned to a neutral stance with one cool smooth motion, backing off to sit on the far end of the table.
“It’s Wight. Call me Wight.”
Dr. Neuman lowered his workpad from his face, speaking through trembling lips as he panicked in his office chair. How in the name of any of the various gods did something like this make it past prototyping, let alone to production!? Department A must have had some mad scientists and even madder engineers to breath life into this creature!
SHE’S STARING! SAY SOMETHING
“Oh! Really! Wight? H-How did you get that name?”
I wasn’t born with it, hehehe… It’s a joke. I’m a joke. I look in the mirror every day and see a broken copy. A copy with too many originals, copied too many times. I was faded away before I was born.”
The doctor looked around the room for something, realizing that this was a room meant to contain fluffies and not whatever this thing was. Security had long departed or wasn’t paying attention. He saw no motion behind the frosted glass walls.
“I was s’posed to be Twilight. S’posed to be someone else, but I was made wrong. They called me ‘Twi-white’ as a joke cause I don’t got no colors… Not like her- oh she’s so pretty… Twilight…” She laughed again, this time like an entirely different person- soft and sweet. “All white, red eyes, that’s me… but I like my eyes. They call me ‘albino’. They said they could fix me, maybe… but I don’t want that. This is all that makes me… me. I don’t have enough… me.”
“What… Num-” Her eyes constricted like venomous, backlit rubies at the half-spoken word. “Uh… W-Wight, do you ever mean by that?”
She bowed her head, bangs blocking out her face like a sheet-curtain.
“I know why you wanted to talk to me. All the new doctors want to see me cause I’m in a textbook or somethin’ somewhere. You wanna poke around in my head, so just ask your questions so I can go back to somewhere quiet. It’s like a waterfall in here.”
The doctor took in his surroundings. Wight seemed to be distressed by noise, ears flat back but the enclosure seemed near dead quiet. His concern grew in proportion to his curiosity.
“R-right, yes, we will get onto that, but… Wight, what uh- what seems to have you perturbed at the moment?”
“Oh… sorry.” Her eyes broke focus as she stared into the lights above. Her lips curled back into a wicked smile. “I just rememberd dying.”
“…”
“Ahah… AHAH! AHAHAHAHA-HHAAAAAAAAaaaa-ahaaa…”
Her eyes belied some nameless horror, her own gaze whorling around on an unsteady pivot- locking to meet something seemingly beyond him with a furious intensity.
“It’s not that bad.” She said playfully as she whipped her bangs out of her face, “Don’t get me wrong, it’s bad, but it’s not that bad. All the fluffies around here make it seem so much worse than it is. I must’ve died plenty of times, and I’m still here…”
This was it! An inroad to his questioning! Genetic memories imprinted onto an intelligent living creature… Against every fiber of his body that screamed to get away from this unnatural creature, he pressed on.
“That is ahh… an interesting assertion to explore. You say you remember dying… how is that possible? Even if you remembered the actions of ancestors… that’s the one event you couldn’t possibly have been around for.
She laughed a wicked, mocking laugh.
“You think I know what makes sense and what doesn’t? I’m eight! I have no idea what’s even real or not, and the fact that most of the time I can’t remember who I am scares me. You think it makes sense that I remember bein’ a highwayman in 1865? No! Of course it doesn’t! With what hands did I carry my sword and aim my pistol!? WHOSE BLOOD WAS ON IT!? WHY!?”
She grappled with her own head as she struggled to speak.
“I’m Wight. Wight the ‘Little Pony’. I’m a tiny science-horse that got made by accident. Nothing in my life makes sense… I’m just kinda… the person between who I was… and who I wanna be. Hrmm… I don’t think I’ll ever get there though.”
For a moment, the world seemed devoid of sound. For a moment longer he’d wished the silence would last.
“I hear lots of people say they think they’re failures. They’re jus’ bein’ hard on themselves. I got papers n’ doc-aments proving I’m a failure.”
She slumped down in a heap of dejection. The hollow silence returned for an uncomfortable second round.
Dr. Neuman tried to break the silent spell.
“S-so I see on record that you… You have some sort of ah- tenuous responsibilities here? Is… Ah, is that true? Do you perform a function in th-the facility?”
She replied in a matter-of-fact monotone, her previous passion somehow missing.
“I ‘crack the whip’ when needs be.”
“Could you… Elaborate?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
She inhaled a deep, desperate breath before looking back up at the doctor.
“I use what I have, to do what I can.”
“Meaning?”
“When fluffies misbehave, or need to be taught a lesson, I give them a show. Sometimes they cover my wings and have me parade around acting all nice. The dumb meatballs just think I’m a really tall fluffy.” She blushed momentarily before continuing. “Sometimes they tell me that I’m pretty. Sometimes I snuggle up with them and tell the good ones how to be even better. It’s… nice.”
“Ah… I see.”
“So, the staff use you as a reward or incentive? How does that make you feel?”
“Good… It helps me pretend that I’m a good person. Sometimes I even believe my own act. It’s… peaceful.” She bowed her head into darkened obscurity once again, bangs trapping her in an alabaster prison, “But then it ends, and I have to be… me. Or… Is the ‘nice’ Wight me?”
He could sense some sort of emotional distress coming from Wight, and thought that somehow, he could ease it.
“Dear little Wight, what do you mean? Pretending? It sounds like… You are an excellent example of what a biotoy should be!”
“Don’t… Don’t call me that. It feels filthy. I’m not like those monsters. I’m nobody’s toy.”
“You… well… I-I’m sorry.” He pressed his index fingers to his lips, pausing for thought. “Monsters? I thought you liked them, or at least they made you feel well.”
“Heh. Yeah, the good ones. But the bad ones? I don’t get paraded around to them. They don’t cover my wings when I’m… me. When I go to hunt the worst ones down. The fluffies they call ‘defective’. The fluffies that spread bad behaviors. The fluffies that try to escape their enclosures. The fluffies that think they could ever be better than me!?”
The feeling of primal dread returned. His hair stood on end and his stomach felt a bottomless void.
“E-e-excuse m-me?
“They mark the ones that need to be dealt with. So the spawn of the survivors remember. Genetic trauma, Dr. Tate calls it. Their genes aren’t ‘set’ yet or something. Hehehe… They tag them on the ears…”
Her face lifted and her hair fled from her rising countenance. She grinned a wide-white murderous smile, with perfect, opalescent teeth, gleaming with the lives of countless fluffies. Her pointed canines seemed almost vampiric from his point of view.
Her muscles locked up and she recited a list of uncomfortable implication.
“Green: Spare. Blue: Witness. Yellow: Terrify. Orange: Non-fatal injury. Red: Fatally injure. Black: Confess. Grey: Torture. White: WILD CARD!”
Her neck spasmed, snapping her out of the trance in an uncomfortable instant.
“And that’s not even including special orders… Things like pushing them to wan-die, forcing dams to crush their spawn, popping a soon-mummah like a balloon… And the lectures at the end.”
She closed her eyes and bathed herself in the harsh white light.
“To taste their blood and guts while telling them why they deserved it. To see their misery and laugh… to turn their tears to blood… that’s… th-tha-that’s what I really am. I’m j-j-j-just like yooouu…”
She fell off of the table onto the padded floor, rapidly losing consciousness. The barely felt the impact.
“A h-humaann… s-so I g-guess that does-s make me-e-e… a monster.”
She closed her eyes, heart pounding with excitement, blood as hot and heavy as lead. She didn’t even notice the transition between this world, and the realm of night… probably. She’d long ago stopped trying to discern between reality, a memory, and a dream.
“Wight! Get up! You can’t let them get away!”
Be Wight
The feeling of hard dirt scrapes your skin, and the smell of earth enters your senses
You look around to see only fire and war
LOCAL MEMORY ACCESSED: KNOWN ACTOR/SIMILAR RELATION
Matthew, your father stands to your right, nailed to the floor by a spear through his lower leg- his lab coat fluttering in the fire fanned winds
GENETIC MEMEORY OVERRIDE: DESYNCHRONIZED! INVALID ACTOR!
A pulse of pain strikes through your head, and your vision blurs
“Warchief! I’ll get help!” you cry out
“Nonsense girl, pick up your weapons and run them down!”
His commanding aura is inspiring, Bear skull hood and bloodied furs torn by combat, but his body unbroken
“Of course!” You think, the battle was not yet won!
You reach down and take your axes in hand, the weight feels right. Before you know it, you’re already running
The first kill is easy
You leap into the air, soaring over the cavalry wall and into the awaiting soldier
He was not ready, and crumples to the ground in a hopeless heap
One hatched embedded in his armpit, you spin him around and see his injured comrade
You lift your target’s comrade from his rest by his filthy blue hair and force him to watch as you stomp his erstwhile protector’s skull into the packed earth
You feel the vibrations of his shattering skull run up your leg, and drop the aimless ally- he is no threat of that you are sure
Matthew spoke with a sad monotone.
“Go Wight. Teach them. Give them your gift, and exhaust your spirit.”
Her whole body convulsed as the lab melted away and the walls between memory and reality collapsed. Her teeth clacked together, and spittle pooled in the corners of her mouth as she barked in response.
“Dad… a-a-am I a-a bad p-person? I-Is this e-evil? M-Monstrous?””
“No, Wight. You have the soul of a warrior in you. It’s time to let it out so you can go back to being you.”
Wight used her powerful hind legs to bound into the indicated pens where the tagged fluffies awaited their accelerated conditioning. A surprised fluffy, tagged red, went to defend itself with a crude defensive stance, but was crippled by a violent wing-buffet that snapped its foreleg like a dried twig. The fluffy fell on its face as she cancelled her momentum by circle-skidding to a stop. She saw a nearby blue-tagged fluffy and lunged towards it- biting its mane and bringing up its head just in time for it to see her hop gracefully off the ground and land all four hooves on the head of its friend, splattering its grey-matter-gore to the four corners of the enclosure. The witness fainted and fell to the floor with a thousand-yard stare. The chorus of terrified screams began.
Your unseen tribesmen cry out in victory, the sound filling your ears and heart with courage
A soldier ambushes you, running madly through the disrupted camp
You are prepared
You quickly kneel down and take a boot-knife from the slain invader, spinning around and slicing him across the face
The invading devil is blinded by his own blood! He begins screaming curses and obscenities at you in some foreign tongue
The red of the setting sun is starting to blend with the fires and blood around you- everything seems so vibrant
You hear crying nearby
Shackled in a nearby cage are children of your people! They must be freed
INGRAINED COMMAND CORRUPTED: PRESERVE LIFE?/RESCUE?
A swift blow from your hatchet shatters the lock, and the gate swings wide
Before you have a chance to escort them away, they are gone, and another challenger calls out to face you
“Is this really their champion?” You think with a grin widening on your pale, warpainted face
Though he has stepped forward, his blue crested cohort have stayed back- probably at his order
Their champion calls out to you and rushes, opening up his billowing white cloak to reveal pointed knives in either hand
You leap into the air, aided by the strength of your gods and ancestors
GENETIC MEMORY OVERRIDE: SYNCHRONIZED! PLAYBACK ACCELERATION.
In one swift movement you bring both of your shining winged axes down with force unrivalled
Both of their champions arms are severed at the shoulders- and the motion continues
You feel your body moving on its own, a dance of blood and steel
Your axes turn back to their victim and slice into their ruined frame
Their legs are severed at the hips
The sound of your axes colliding as they met was like natures greatest music, the sound of soul and iron meeting a symphony few hear
Before his severed torso could fall to the ground you scissor-strike through it like a twine-doll, head and belly separated from the ribcage
There is nothing left of him- the very concept of him is gone
The cohort of followers lay down their arms in surrender
Their leader is dead, and they recognize her superiority, there is no need to kill them
“But were there more threats?” You thought, “What else was out there? Was the battle won?”
Wight seems reinvigorated as the fluffies in the pens scrambled in every direction. Barriers between the enclosures were raised, offering her full reign of the killing fields. Her ears swiveled rapidly in seemingly random directions, listening for something only she could possibly know. “Foweba-sweep munstah! Fwuffy prutek’ speshaw-fwend an babbehs!”. One of her eyes snapped to and from the ear of the attacker. Orange. She snapped her muzzle down into the brainpan of her first victim, tearing loose a chunk of broken skull. She spun around with her head down, and the shatter-jagged improvised knife met its mark. Right across the eyes. Blood-tainted vitreous flowed like a gelled waterfall from the ruined organs, the blind fluffy flopping to the floor and wailing in pain. The shard of bone clattered to the floor.
The wails of nearby green-marked foals caught her attention briefly, hiding in the blankets they had just awoken in. She delivered a sharp kick to the “igloo shelter” causing it to skid into a corner- the only opening facing the wall.
She had heard the problem “Smartie-babbeh” that had been “White-tagged” and began to salivate.
The Smartie-babbeh screamed orders for her to stop, and to listen to it, but its screams went unheard. It charged at the veritable kaiju approaching it. Its friends cowered far behind it, backs to the wall, blue tags all.
A stroke of white feathers swept over the shrieking thing, and it instantly stopped its caterwauling. A tiny ear connected to a white tag clattered across the floor. Before it had a chance to begin again, she opened her mouth wider than seemed possible and snapped the little thing up. She could feel the vibrations or terror and attempted wailing, but that was not her concern. As she advanced towards the cowering posse, she pressed the foal in her mouth flat and smiled wide at them- its tiny feet waggling from the corners of her mouth. Until she bit down on it. Four little limbs landed before the onlookers, and they collapsed as she threw back her head and swallowed “whole” the newly pillowed foal.
Blood as red as her spinning eyes dripped from her mouth as she surveyed the area.
You could feel the churning excitement of battle in your stomach, the fire of battle aching in your limbs
It feels fantastic
More of them, these damned wood-and-steel clad invaders trying to take all you love
But these ones were sick… Bright yellow sores stained their faces as they trembled on the ground, weak and unarmed
“Stay your hands ‘Veators’ and be not slain. Should the gods lift your sickness, leave and never return; otherwise- serve the forest with your flesh.”
They seemed to accept this ultimatum and closed their weary eyes. You whipped the blood from your weapons across them like a crimson ribbon- and a blessing to speed them to their destiny, whatever it might be
A sudden jolt from behind!
Disarmed, you curse your foolish mercy…
You heel away from the attack, and see yourself beset by a pair of armored attackers
Grey and black, the ones they called Marius’s Mules
They always underestimate you
They die just as easy as the rest
These two will be no different
A quick retaliation knocks them off guard, surely, they were not expecting you to resist after such a hard blow!
You quickly uppercut the first attacker in the jaw
Cheap shot for a cheap shot!
As they reel back you strike their poorly armored genitals, knocking them into their ally and stunning them both
You aren’t done yet
The bracing of his breastplate is torn asunder as you tear the leather strapping with your bear hands
With your fists alone you break his ribs, and leave him gasping for air
Immobilized, this one will give much information once captured
His black-clad ally sounds a total retreat with some strange instrument
You grab the coward from behind by the neck where he goes oddly limp
You turn him to the carnage you have caused, ending on his disabled ally
“Tell your commanders what you’ve seen here, dog, and never return.”
You throw him to the ground where he whimpers unmoving
You don’t remember giving him that order
You stomp on his heel
“I said get moving degenerate, do not test my patience
The message is clear, and the soldier slinks off like the worm he is
You have better things to do
Returning to your Warchief, you take a moment to swipe the rations from a prior kill
They may be terrible brutes, but their alcohol is to kill for
Soon enough you see him, your father stands waiting
GENETIC MEMEORY OVERRIDE: DESYNCHRONIZED! INVALID ACTOR!
Soon enough you see him, your warchief stands waiting
“The battle is over warrior. We have won. Let us return home and rest
“So long as a single one of them poison our lands, the war is not yet won.”
GENETIC MEMEORY OVERRIDE: DESYNCHRONIZED! INVALID ACTOR!
She scanned her surroundings quickly, twitching violently as she approached a cowering group of fluffies marked with yellow tags. She smiled that wicked smile and addressed them with authority.
“YOU! You are lucky… SO VERY LUCKY! I WILL NOT KILL YOU TODAY!! Your… MISERABLE UN-LIVES CONTINUE! AHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!”
The fluffies convulsed, cried, and otherwise displayed dismay as she loomed over them with malicious mirth. They whimpered and wheezed, but she could not hear them over the sound of her own mind.
It looked that Wight stood frozen, seemingly incapable of movement- every muscle tensed. A fluffy and its mate charged (waddled at) her from behind. Bonk! One of Wight’s rear legs was moved by about a centimeter from the force impact. She slowly and deliberately rotated around and assessed the situation. “Fwuffy gon-” The grey-tagged fluffy lost its tongue as she uppercut its jaw mid word. “Yes,” she replied, “Fluffy gone.” Wight opened her wings as she approached the terrified attacker. She pinned it to the ground by stomping on its pelvis, obliterating any chance it had to pass on its genes in a spurt of spiking blood and pain.
What happened next gave even the observing researchers pause.
Wight licked her teeth and spit a mixture of blood and mucus onto the fluffy’s already tear-soaked face. Like a blacksmith’s hammer she tenderized the fluffy’s ribcage, tearing out chunks of bloody teal fluff as bruises grew deeper. And then…
She lowered her head and nipped out an incision in its skin. Moments passed before the gurgling screams of the fluffy intensified and Wight whipped her head upward… and spit out his sternum. She returned to her work, opening the chest cavity like an amateur surgeon with the tools of… well… a bird.
One by one, snip by snap, she peeled open his ribcage. After what seemed like an eternity, she commented on her handiwork. “Yeessssss… So pretty, isn’t it?”
She turned to face an empty wall, seemingly garnering some grand approval from it.
Before her lie the agonized fluffy- torso opened like a profane flower. Heart and lungs clearly visible under the ruined flesh, rising and falling, a rhythm unceasing. The gasping noises of her artwork were loud, but not loud enough for her to notice the black-tagged mare crying into the floor as she scuttled away in some misbegotten attempt at stealth.
“You… will stop. Listen… Your life belongs to me now. You are my herald! Tell the other fluffy scum what you saw. Tell them that if they misbehave… I’ll come for them too.”
The mare cowered and covered her head.
Lazily, Wight’s eyes panned to the now open enclosure gates, leading to the horrified remainder of this population. The ones that watched the bloodbath through the pane glass. The mare did not move.
Wight rolled her eyes.
She screamed as Wight brought a steady, heavy hoof down on one of those keratinous nubs people were kind enough the call fluffy “hooves”, shattering it into a mangled mess of blood and half-bone.
“GO!”
The mare slinked towards the gates of “safety”, while Wight returned to her point of entry.
As she passed her headless first victim, she took a moment to dig in and help herself to the still warm, fresh and nutritious liver. It was her favorite food after all. The fresh blood ran down her throat and filled her to the brim with the heat of life.
Matthew held his hands out, weary eyed and sallow. He caught Wight as she jumped into his arms and coiled up, a ball of gory love and sanguine sweetness.
“Dad…?”
“Yes Wight?”
“I’m tired.”
“Let’s get you a quick shower and it’s right off to bed with you. I’ll tuck you in and everything.”
She smiled weakly as her vision blurred.
“Love you… Dad…”
“I love you too, Wight. It’s good to have you back.”
What was he to do? Keep going? End the interview? Call for help? For the first time Dr. Neuman was starting to realize that there was more to this creature than he thought- he had absolutely the wrong doctorates for this. This was not the place for engineering or biology, but psychiatry and perhaps neurochemistry.
Beeeep
“Uhm… Officer 023? The subject has entered a melancholic fugue state and… I wish to terminate the interview.”
The intercom chimed back.
“Officer Rhynes preparing to cycle airgap. Please return the subject to the collection zone. Standing by.”
Was… Was he supposed to touch her? Would she move on her own?
He jumped as the speaker squealed to life again.
“Cycling aborted, remove all materials from the airgap- Hey Wight! Dave’s here and he needs your help.” Her ears swiveled to point at the grainy voice coming through the intercom, “He says some bad fluffies escaped and he needs help catching them.”
“Dave?” replied both voices in unison.
“Yeah Wight, he’s coming to the door now.”
Oh good, someone’s taking her- wait did he say door?
BANG!
The door behind him slammed to the side and as he turned to see what was happening, he received a face-full of feathers as Wight kicked off of the table and bounded off of his shoulder to leap into the awaiting officer’s arms.
“Sup Wight? Ready to smite some non-believers?”
Her eyes swam with chaotic glee, and she grinned with pointed madness. That could not possibly be the same sullen creature that had just been sat before him, its body and mind now overflowing with energy- full of fury and hate.
“YES, YES, YES! A THOUSAND TIMES YES! LET’S GO!”
The man replied jovially, lifting her up high above him where she refracted the bright fluorescent light into a demented halo.
“Alright you little bugger, let’s get you to the production floor.”
As they left the room through the wrong door, entering into an area that should never have specimens brought into it, without closing the airgap, unaccompanied by any production staff, Dr. Neuman took the moment to ponder what he had just witnessed. This was not what he was expecting- but then again this was his first week working on the campus. Perhaps… The culture here was different than he’d imagined. Perhaps Wight was just an outlier.
He’d look into it after he caught his breath. And after his hands stopped shaking.
Hopefully, the fluffies were easier to manage.