The Beehive: Ch 4 (Hostile Takeover)
Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2003 9:14 pm
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or any of the characters associated with it. This is simply a nonprofit fanfiction that I’m writing for fun; no harm in it, right? However, Tyler and the other characters that aren’t part of the Gundam Wing universe are mine and personally, I feel that if you were to steal them your kind of lame; even more so then myself.
AN: Well, it’s finally here, the elusive Ch4; I knew I rated this thing R for something. First, there is some graphic descriptions of violence and second, the conversation between Mr. Darter and Mr. Almond is a little raw, to say the least. Anyway, please enjoy.
The Beehive
Chapter 4: Hostile Takeover
DATE: February 16, 203 AC
LOCATION: Remote Desert Lab, The Beehive
~*~*~ TIME: 8:44 AM ~*~*~
His head was shaved, he was dressed in a flimsy patient gown, his brown eyes studied the blank waiting room. The walls were mostly bricks and metal painted white and completely flat all around the room, save a closet in the corner, rather uncomfortable actually. The floor was smooth concrete, the only thing on it were a few hospital beds on wheels; one of which he was sitting on. The tension in his heart grew as the minutes ticked by to the time of the surgery. This wasn’t like normal surgeries however. First, this surgery wasn’t being performed in a normal hospital, it was being performed in an underground research facility. Second, this surgery wasn’t for the purpose of maintaining his body; it was for enhancing it. More specifically, his flesh was to be merged with cybernetic implants, and in so doing he was to become the ultimate soldier. Lastly, this surgery wasn’t going to be performed through the normal methods, it was to be done through the Beehive; thousands of nano-bots were to be infused into his body to help build, place, monitor, and maintain the implants; in a sense he was to become one with the Beehive itself.
When the door opened, the man did not expect to be staring back at himself; he tensed up ready for anything but then slowly realized that it was just one of the head scientists behind the Beehive, Dr. Marcus. It was amazing how similar he and Dr. Marcus looked, especially since Dr. Marcus had, for some unknown reason, decided to shave his hair off, just like him.
“You scared me doctor”, the man sighed in relief, “are you ready for me yet.”
Dr. Marcus said nothing, he just stared at him with blank brown eyes and began advancing toward him. A small, unsettling smile rested on top of his chin.
“Is everything all right, doctor?” the man asked, anxiety building toward the young scientist’s advancement.
Tyler still said nothing as he finally approached the nervous soldier to be and jabbed a small, hand held device into his shoulder.
The man winced in pain; he could feel some kind of a fluid being pumped into his veins but he had no time to react. Things were getting fuzzy, it all just seemed unimportant now, the Beehive, the revolution; it all came second to resting his eyes for a moment.
~*~*~ TIME: 10:59 AM ~*~*~
“Incredible little devices”, Dr. Jonathan smugly commented as he looked down upon the man, or more precisely, cyborg who lay before him and the surgeons.
He did not yet appear to be active, but the monitors all showed that he was in excellent condition; it was likely that his system wasn’t done rebuilding and merging with the newly installed implants. Despite this delay, it was still incredible. A surgery that would otherwise have taken at least a month to safely complete had been done in less then two hours with the help of the Beehive. And even then the subject’s biology would reject the implants and upgrades without the bees, which were now flowing through the patient’s blood, to suppress and replace the immune system.
The subject was no longer just human, he was more then human. He was a perfect union of flesh and machine, an ideal fighter with superhuman strength, powerful weapons, rapid regeneration capabilities and immune to almost all types of diseases. He was the first in what was to be a long line of soldiers. Accompanied by other war machines (made by bathing raw materials in a pool of bees and having the Beehive rearrange them) that were being manufactured and kept in the same underground facility, these soldiers would overthrow the ESUN, making those involved with The Beehive Project the new leaders of the world.
His arms and legs were integrated with black, metal pods containing a new weapon, designed by Tyler Marcus himself; thin gundanium tentacles, tipped with pinchers; they were strong, dexterous, lightning fast, versatile and deadly. Tyler had said that he was inspired by Gundam 05 and the Epyon; he also insisted that they were put into wide use for all weapons built and controlled by the Beehive. His muscles were being rebuilt, expanded and supported to increase his physical strength. Pods were placed throughout his entire body, containing excess proteins and minerals that could be used by the bees to repair battle damages as well as a system of artificial veins and vessels that also stretched throughout his entire body to deliver them to needed areas. They looked bluish black underneath the pallid skin under which they lay. The sickeningly pale skin pulsated slightly in some spots were bees were still doing work. If his eyes were open it would reveal that his irises were now a grayish color, an effect of the optical implants. His chest and back were armored and contained hundreds of additional tools, computing equipment, even more tentacles weapons and the most important feature of all; a set of wires which came out of the back portion and connected with the back of the subject’s skull, which was now grafted with metal for protection. These wires fed directly into the subject’s brain and were what made it possible for all these additional systems to be controlled by the subject and work in coordination with the subject’s body.
Another feature was also added, which the subject wasn’t supposed to know about. All of the people chosen to undergo this surgery were selected by small radical minority groups, many of which religious extremists, which were under the impression that the Darter Corporation was supporting their ideals. Obviously, in most, if not all cases it was a lie and thus a system to control the soldiers was needed. This is the main purpose for Dr. Marcus; he designed a system which would make it possible to not only connect a person’s brain to a computer but control their mind, not much unlike a mobile doll. Thus, Mr. Darter and his supporters would have a small army of perfect soldiers at their command. On top of that another fail safe system was added, which could deactivate the Beehive and all the bees with it, if there were an emergency.
“So, Dr. Marcus asked not to be disturbed, even for this?”, Dr. Jonathan asked in astonishment.
The surgeon he was talking to shrugged, turned away from the screen presenting the subject’s vital signs, towards Dr. Jonathan and replied, “He said he was too tired to make an appearance after making all of the last minute modifications last night.”
Dr. Jonathan contemptibly snorted a bit, “He was up late last night but still, I can’t believe he’d miss this. This is the fruit of our labor.” He gestured toward the new perfect soldier.
About seven more minutes passed, Dr. Jonathan and the three surgeons just continued monitoring their creation. They all wore turquoise blue surgical aprons, hair nets, masks, and latex gloves; just like normal surgeons would. Of course, most of this equipment was unnecessary; they only had to insert the implants in the general locations they were needed, the bees did all of the precise connections and modifications for them; of course they had to make incisions but the bees also would destroy any unwanted bacteria or viruses which found their way into the subject’s system so it wasn’t an incredibly big deal whether the surgical environment was kept sterile or not.
Watching the doctors, behind a sheet of thick bullet proof glass was a very board technicians, who monitored the equipment an implants. He lazily leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed, half in dream world. His wrinkled, tan technician uniform swayed in constant as his head bobbed up in down with sleep. The dim lights in the room he sat in made a small chocolate band across his clean cut black hair.
Suddenly, one of the monitors beeped waking the technician up from his nap. He surveyed the green glyphs climbing up the black screen and pressed the intercom button. “Dr. Jonathan”, he called, “almost all of the implants have activated, he should be waking up soon”.
“Thank you Simon”, Dr. Jonathan responded. He then added, “Would you please get Dr. Marcus. I don’t care what he says, this stage is critical and we may need him.”
“Yes sir”, the technician replied as he began to dial the number to Tyler’s quarters.
Dr. Jonathan heard the scream of the other surgeons behind him and turned around in surprise to see that the test subject was sitting up and had the other three surgeons restrained with his tentacle weapons. There was a fire in his cold, cybernetic, once brown eyes, three of the tentacle weapons were extended from his back and were wrapped around the three surgeons, who violently thrashed as they were hoisted into the air. The subject brought himself to his feet, almost in awe of how easily he could stand despite the fact he was holding three grown men in the air. He opened his mouth to speak, but it wasn’t the voice of the intended test subject, it was the voice of Dr. Tyler Marcus. “Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary”, stated the now mechanized Tyler, in a voice of almost pure self confidence and cynicism.
“D……… Dr.……… Marcus..? but..?”, Dr. Jonathan stuttered as his aged mind tried to comprehend what was happening.
“How am I here? It’s all part of being perfect.”, he mocked. “I’m afraid I had to remove the mind control device though. There just wasn’t any room for it after I added this little feature.” His head gestured to the door leading out of the surgery areas as a left arm tentacle shot out of its pod and constricted Dr. Jonathan. All of the monitors in the room went blank for a moment and then displayed the words “Those that seek power only for their personal pleasure make their lives forfeit. I shall now exact judgment, for I am the master of the Beehive” in a constant loop.
A man with a semi-automatic burst through the door in a panic, “The Beehive! The machines! The Weapons!” He gasped, “they’re all out of………”, he stopped himself as he noticed what was going on and raised his weapon to fire; he dropped it though, in a grimace of pain as one of Tyler’s back tentacles shot through his lower leg with the bloody snap of his bones.
All the lights in the entire underground facility went out. Except for the cold glow of the monitors, a human couldn’t see. Tyler had no problem though, since the optical implants allowed him to see far more of the electromagnetic spectrum then what is normally considered visible light. He had no problem seeing that the technician was making his way to the red button that would deactivate the entire beehive.
The intercom in the room cut into the technician’s advance; “Oh come now”, Tyler chided indulgently, “do you really think that I would leave that system active?”
The technician hesitated for a moment but that was all that Tyler needed. One of his right arm tentacles punched through the bullet proof glass like a pencil through tissue paper and into his right shoulder, pinning him to the wall. As Simon watched his own blood trickle down to the concrete floor, in a state of shock the communicator clicked back on; Tyler had one more thing to say, “By the way, I bluffed. There’s no way I could have removed that without at least one of you numskulls noticing. Had you pressed it I would have died right here.” Two other tentacles sliced through the wall and into the machines tearing them up; the Beehive could no longer be deactivated from that terminal. The tentacle that had him pinned released him and he fell to the floor. Normally he would have cursed himself for his incompetence but he just couldn’t find it in himself to care. His shoulder and right collar bone were shattered and he was too dizzy from the loss of blood and pain, so he just let himself slip into unconsciousness, soaking in his own crimson pool.
~*~*~ TIME: 12:32 PM ~*~*~
The two men, Mr. Darter and Mr. Almond, smirked as the cute little brunette secretary with the tight red skirt left Mr. Darter’s smoky office and closed the hard wooden door.
“That is a fine piece of ass”, commented Mr. Almond, almost in admiration of Mr. Darter’s choice in secretaries.
“You’re telling me.”, Mr. Darter smugly replied, his cigar bobbing like a ship at sea as his mouth sounded the words.
Mr. Almond took a cigarette and lighter out of his pocket, stuck the white cylinder in his mouth and lit the end orange.
“Normally I try to refrain from smoking in the office”, stated Darter, “but this is a special occasion.”
“Still better then the presidential residence”, Mr. Almond interjected, contempt edged his voice, “that bitch of a president only allotted one room in the whole building were you can smoke; and it isn’t even as big as this office. I’ll tell ya”, he continued, his frustration with President Darlian’s policies was obvious simply by his tone; he was certainly pissed off, “it’s beyond me how a little girl like that got so far in the game; it’s a total fluke. I mean, we can’t even fucking swear with her in a room.”
“Eh………”, Mr. Darter brushed off, “there’s no way she’s that ‘Miss Perfect’. Every politician has indiscretions.”
“Well, I think she’s fucking the gundam pilot”, Mr. Almond casually shot back, “but that’s about it.”
“See……… she pretends to be so innocent in public but whores off when no one’s looking; it’s a common tale among young women”, Darter calmly made his point. “Anyway, it’s no matter; if all goes well the world will be ours by the end of the week.”
“heh………”, Almond snorted, “I can’t wait to see her face when she figures it out; ‘It was me bitch!’”.
“Speaking of that”, Mr. Darter cut in, “the surgeons should be about done.”
Mr. Almond gave Mr. Darter a puzzled look; “wouldn’t they contact us?”, he asked.
“No”, Mr. Darter replied, “we kept the underground facilities almost completely cut off from the rest of the building, for obvious reasons. Most of the employees don’t even know they exist and most of the ones that do think its just storage space and don’t have a clue how big they actually are.”
“I see”, answered Mr. Almond, “I’m sorry I lit up.” Mr. Almond buried his cigarette in a nearby ash tray and stood up.
~*~*~ TIME: 12: 40 PM ~*~*~
The secret elevator doors opened into a long dark hallway. The clinking of metal, the hiss of welding, and numerous other mechanical noises echoed through the hall from the inky black distance.
Something was wrong and Mr. Darter knew it; perhaps they had a problem with the lights. He stepped out of the elevator and called out, “Hey, what’s going on down here”. His voice rang through the halls, only answered by the constant background noise he heard as he stepped off the elevator.
The two schemers weren’t left to ponder long however; two metallic tentacles burst through the dark showed and coiled the two men. They were carried through the intricate hallways at a rocket’s speed, the wind stung their faces as they were unwillingly navigated into the huge hanger area. The lights were still dim but were better then the hallways so the two men could clearly see the enormous underground chamber. All the mobile suits an machinery were up and running, most were constructing things and making modifications to the room. Most noticeably, the same type of segmented metallic tentacles were now being installed on the walls, in fact, the tentacles that had captured them had been grafted to the walls near the door they had just been dragged out of, and a jungle’s network of these vines extended all throughout the hanger. It was also possible to see that the chamber was being expanded as well, mobile suits and tentacles were cautiously chipping away and burrowing into bedrock while adding supports to ensure the expanding chambers stability. Though the line of sight was heavily disrupted by the thickening layers of vineish mechanical hands the Beehive, a massive super computer system which controlled the actions of the specially designed nano-bots with precision stood proud amidst the domain it was helping to create, in all its splendor. Something else beside it was also visible, it looked like the base of another Beehive.
“Why hello”, the taunting voice of Tyler Marcus echoed through the chamber as his highly altered body was lowered down to their level, “I was wondering when you’d finally come down here; I was becoming impatient.”
“Dr. Marcus!”, Mr. Darter gasped in desperation, still flailing in a futile effort to break free of the coil around his waste, “what the fuck is going on!”
“My, my, such language”, Tyler taunted disdainfully, “I’m afraid I don’t have time to explain though. As you can see”, Tyler’s left hand gestured to everything in the immense room, “I’m so very busy right now. But let’s see.” The two tentacles which wrapped around Mr. Darter and Mr. Almond hoisted the two men up a bit so that Tyler had a better look at them. The two men shivered fearfully, neither sure what to expect. Tyler’s, now metallic brown eyes darted right and left, examining the two specimens before him, piercing through their wretched flesh in an effort to determine their worth to his cause. “Let’s see”, he outwardly thought, “mind slaves or test subjects?”. He continued studying the two men for a moment; long enough for Mr. Darter to realize that Tyler wasn’t equipped with just the standard implants; additions were being added even now. Many more tentacle devices had been added, and the devices on his back were piling up, he looked like a cross between a turtle and a jellyfish. Most of his biological form was concealed but what was visible was very muscular, Tyler looked like a body builder, an unnaturally pale body builder. It’s not as though he particularly needed the muscles though, he was being lifted and transported by the network of segmented metal vines that were strung all throughout the facility as well as the ones grafted to his body. Tyler winced a bit as a yellow wire from one of the newly added devices popped into the back of his neck and began worming upwards towards the connection point, but he quickly maintained his conceited composure.
“Well, you seem to have brains that could be of use to me………”, Tyler finally broke the horrid semi-silence, “………mind slaves”, he commented. Immediately, the vines coiled around the two men responded by dragging them back down the hall they came, and into darkness; their screams bouncing down the halls to heartless ears. Neither man knew what he meant by “mind slave” but it couldn’t be good.
AN: Well, it’s finally here, the elusive Ch4; I knew I rated this thing R for something. First, there is some graphic descriptions of violence and second, the conversation between Mr. Darter and Mr. Almond is a little raw, to say the least. Anyway, please enjoy.
The Beehive
Chapter 4: Hostile Takeover
DATE: February 16, 203 AC
LOCATION: Remote Desert Lab, The Beehive
~*~*~ TIME: 8:44 AM ~*~*~
His head was shaved, he was dressed in a flimsy patient gown, his brown eyes studied the blank waiting room. The walls were mostly bricks and metal painted white and completely flat all around the room, save a closet in the corner, rather uncomfortable actually. The floor was smooth concrete, the only thing on it were a few hospital beds on wheels; one of which he was sitting on. The tension in his heart grew as the minutes ticked by to the time of the surgery. This wasn’t like normal surgeries however. First, this surgery wasn’t being performed in a normal hospital, it was being performed in an underground research facility. Second, this surgery wasn’t for the purpose of maintaining his body; it was for enhancing it. More specifically, his flesh was to be merged with cybernetic implants, and in so doing he was to become the ultimate soldier. Lastly, this surgery wasn’t going to be performed through the normal methods, it was to be done through the Beehive; thousands of nano-bots were to be infused into his body to help build, place, monitor, and maintain the implants; in a sense he was to become one with the Beehive itself.
When the door opened, the man did not expect to be staring back at himself; he tensed up ready for anything but then slowly realized that it was just one of the head scientists behind the Beehive, Dr. Marcus. It was amazing how similar he and Dr. Marcus looked, especially since Dr. Marcus had, for some unknown reason, decided to shave his hair off, just like him.
“You scared me doctor”, the man sighed in relief, “are you ready for me yet.”
Dr. Marcus said nothing, he just stared at him with blank brown eyes and began advancing toward him. A small, unsettling smile rested on top of his chin.
“Is everything all right, doctor?” the man asked, anxiety building toward the young scientist’s advancement.
Tyler still said nothing as he finally approached the nervous soldier to be and jabbed a small, hand held device into his shoulder.
The man winced in pain; he could feel some kind of a fluid being pumped into his veins but he had no time to react. Things were getting fuzzy, it all just seemed unimportant now, the Beehive, the revolution; it all came second to resting his eyes for a moment.
~*~*~ TIME: 10:59 AM ~*~*~
“Incredible little devices”, Dr. Jonathan smugly commented as he looked down upon the man, or more precisely, cyborg who lay before him and the surgeons.
He did not yet appear to be active, but the monitors all showed that he was in excellent condition; it was likely that his system wasn’t done rebuilding and merging with the newly installed implants. Despite this delay, it was still incredible. A surgery that would otherwise have taken at least a month to safely complete had been done in less then two hours with the help of the Beehive. And even then the subject’s biology would reject the implants and upgrades without the bees, which were now flowing through the patient’s blood, to suppress and replace the immune system.
The subject was no longer just human, he was more then human. He was a perfect union of flesh and machine, an ideal fighter with superhuman strength, powerful weapons, rapid regeneration capabilities and immune to almost all types of diseases. He was the first in what was to be a long line of soldiers. Accompanied by other war machines (made by bathing raw materials in a pool of bees and having the Beehive rearrange them) that were being manufactured and kept in the same underground facility, these soldiers would overthrow the ESUN, making those involved with The Beehive Project the new leaders of the world.
His arms and legs were integrated with black, metal pods containing a new weapon, designed by Tyler Marcus himself; thin gundanium tentacles, tipped with pinchers; they were strong, dexterous, lightning fast, versatile and deadly. Tyler had said that he was inspired by Gundam 05 and the Epyon; he also insisted that they were put into wide use for all weapons built and controlled by the Beehive. His muscles were being rebuilt, expanded and supported to increase his physical strength. Pods were placed throughout his entire body, containing excess proteins and minerals that could be used by the bees to repair battle damages as well as a system of artificial veins and vessels that also stretched throughout his entire body to deliver them to needed areas. They looked bluish black underneath the pallid skin under which they lay. The sickeningly pale skin pulsated slightly in some spots were bees were still doing work. If his eyes were open it would reveal that his irises were now a grayish color, an effect of the optical implants. His chest and back were armored and contained hundreds of additional tools, computing equipment, even more tentacles weapons and the most important feature of all; a set of wires which came out of the back portion and connected with the back of the subject’s skull, which was now grafted with metal for protection. These wires fed directly into the subject’s brain and were what made it possible for all these additional systems to be controlled by the subject and work in coordination with the subject’s body.
Another feature was also added, which the subject wasn’t supposed to know about. All of the people chosen to undergo this surgery were selected by small radical minority groups, many of which religious extremists, which were under the impression that the Darter Corporation was supporting their ideals. Obviously, in most, if not all cases it was a lie and thus a system to control the soldiers was needed. This is the main purpose for Dr. Marcus; he designed a system which would make it possible to not only connect a person’s brain to a computer but control their mind, not much unlike a mobile doll. Thus, Mr. Darter and his supporters would have a small army of perfect soldiers at their command. On top of that another fail safe system was added, which could deactivate the Beehive and all the bees with it, if there were an emergency.
“So, Dr. Marcus asked not to be disturbed, even for this?”, Dr. Jonathan asked in astonishment.
The surgeon he was talking to shrugged, turned away from the screen presenting the subject’s vital signs, towards Dr. Jonathan and replied, “He said he was too tired to make an appearance after making all of the last minute modifications last night.”
Dr. Jonathan contemptibly snorted a bit, “He was up late last night but still, I can’t believe he’d miss this. This is the fruit of our labor.” He gestured toward the new perfect soldier.
About seven more minutes passed, Dr. Jonathan and the three surgeons just continued monitoring their creation. They all wore turquoise blue surgical aprons, hair nets, masks, and latex gloves; just like normal surgeons would. Of course, most of this equipment was unnecessary; they only had to insert the implants in the general locations they were needed, the bees did all of the precise connections and modifications for them; of course they had to make incisions but the bees also would destroy any unwanted bacteria or viruses which found their way into the subject’s system so it wasn’t an incredibly big deal whether the surgical environment was kept sterile or not.
Watching the doctors, behind a sheet of thick bullet proof glass was a very board technicians, who monitored the equipment an implants. He lazily leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed, half in dream world. His wrinkled, tan technician uniform swayed in constant as his head bobbed up in down with sleep. The dim lights in the room he sat in made a small chocolate band across his clean cut black hair.
Suddenly, one of the monitors beeped waking the technician up from his nap. He surveyed the green glyphs climbing up the black screen and pressed the intercom button. “Dr. Jonathan”, he called, “almost all of the implants have activated, he should be waking up soon”.
“Thank you Simon”, Dr. Jonathan responded. He then added, “Would you please get Dr. Marcus. I don’t care what he says, this stage is critical and we may need him.”
“Yes sir”, the technician replied as he began to dial the number to Tyler’s quarters.
Dr. Jonathan heard the scream of the other surgeons behind him and turned around in surprise to see that the test subject was sitting up and had the other three surgeons restrained with his tentacle weapons. There was a fire in his cold, cybernetic, once brown eyes, three of the tentacle weapons were extended from his back and were wrapped around the three surgeons, who violently thrashed as they were hoisted into the air. The subject brought himself to his feet, almost in awe of how easily he could stand despite the fact he was holding three grown men in the air. He opened his mouth to speak, but it wasn’t the voice of the intended test subject, it was the voice of Dr. Tyler Marcus. “Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary”, stated the now mechanized Tyler, in a voice of almost pure self confidence and cynicism.
“D……… Dr.……… Marcus..? but..?”, Dr. Jonathan stuttered as his aged mind tried to comprehend what was happening.
“How am I here? It’s all part of being perfect.”, he mocked. “I’m afraid I had to remove the mind control device though. There just wasn’t any room for it after I added this little feature.” His head gestured to the door leading out of the surgery areas as a left arm tentacle shot out of its pod and constricted Dr. Jonathan. All of the monitors in the room went blank for a moment and then displayed the words “Those that seek power only for their personal pleasure make their lives forfeit. I shall now exact judgment, for I am the master of the Beehive” in a constant loop.
A man with a semi-automatic burst through the door in a panic, “The Beehive! The machines! The Weapons!” He gasped, “they’re all out of………”, he stopped himself as he noticed what was going on and raised his weapon to fire; he dropped it though, in a grimace of pain as one of Tyler’s back tentacles shot through his lower leg with the bloody snap of his bones.
All the lights in the entire underground facility went out. Except for the cold glow of the monitors, a human couldn’t see. Tyler had no problem though, since the optical implants allowed him to see far more of the electromagnetic spectrum then what is normally considered visible light. He had no problem seeing that the technician was making his way to the red button that would deactivate the entire beehive.
The intercom in the room cut into the technician’s advance; “Oh come now”, Tyler chided indulgently, “do you really think that I would leave that system active?”
The technician hesitated for a moment but that was all that Tyler needed. One of his right arm tentacles punched through the bullet proof glass like a pencil through tissue paper and into his right shoulder, pinning him to the wall. As Simon watched his own blood trickle down to the concrete floor, in a state of shock the communicator clicked back on; Tyler had one more thing to say, “By the way, I bluffed. There’s no way I could have removed that without at least one of you numskulls noticing. Had you pressed it I would have died right here.” Two other tentacles sliced through the wall and into the machines tearing them up; the Beehive could no longer be deactivated from that terminal. The tentacle that had him pinned released him and he fell to the floor. Normally he would have cursed himself for his incompetence but he just couldn’t find it in himself to care. His shoulder and right collar bone were shattered and he was too dizzy from the loss of blood and pain, so he just let himself slip into unconsciousness, soaking in his own crimson pool.
~*~*~ TIME: 12:32 PM ~*~*~
The two men, Mr. Darter and Mr. Almond, smirked as the cute little brunette secretary with the tight red skirt left Mr. Darter’s smoky office and closed the hard wooden door.
“That is a fine piece of ass”, commented Mr. Almond, almost in admiration of Mr. Darter’s choice in secretaries.
“You’re telling me.”, Mr. Darter smugly replied, his cigar bobbing like a ship at sea as his mouth sounded the words.
Mr. Almond took a cigarette and lighter out of his pocket, stuck the white cylinder in his mouth and lit the end orange.
“Normally I try to refrain from smoking in the office”, stated Darter, “but this is a special occasion.”
“Still better then the presidential residence”, Mr. Almond interjected, contempt edged his voice, “that bitch of a president only allotted one room in the whole building were you can smoke; and it isn’t even as big as this office. I’ll tell ya”, he continued, his frustration with President Darlian’s policies was obvious simply by his tone; he was certainly pissed off, “it’s beyond me how a little girl like that got so far in the game; it’s a total fluke. I mean, we can’t even fucking swear with her in a room.”
“Eh………”, Mr. Darter brushed off, “there’s no way she’s that ‘Miss Perfect’. Every politician has indiscretions.”
“Well, I think she’s fucking the gundam pilot”, Mr. Almond casually shot back, “but that’s about it.”
“See……… she pretends to be so innocent in public but whores off when no one’s looking; it’s a common tale among young women”, Darter calmly made his point. “Anyway, it’s no matter; if all goes well the world will be ours by the end of the week.”
“heh………”, Almond snorted, “I can’t wait to see her face when she figures it out; ‘It was me bitch!’”.
“Speaking of that”, Mr. Darter cut in, “the surgeons should be about done.”
Mr. Almond gave Mr. Darter a puzzled look; “wouldn’t they contact us?”, he asked.
“No”, Mr. Darter replied, “we kept the underground facilities almost completely cut off from the rest of the building, for obvious reasons. Most of the employees don’t even know they exist and most of the ones that do think its just storage space and don’t have a clue how big they actually are.”
“I see”, answered Mr. Almond, “I’m sorry I lit up.” Mr. Almond buried his cigarette in a nearby ash tray and stood up.
~*~*~ TIME: 12: 40 PM ~*~*~
The secret elevator doors opened into a long dark hallway. The clinking of metal, the hiss of welding, and numerous other mechanical noises echoed through the hall from the inky black distance.
Something was wrong and Mr. Darter knew it; perhaps they had a problem with the lights. He stepped out of the elevator and called out, “Hey, what’s going on down here”. His voice rang through the halls, only answered by the constant background noise he heard as he stepped off the elevator.
The two schemers weren’t left to ponder long however; two metallic tentacles burst through the dark showed and coiled the two men. They were carried through the intricate hallways at a rocket’s speed, the wind stung their faces as they were unwillingly navigated into the huge hanger area. The lights were still dim but were better then the hallways so the two men could clearly see the enormous underground chamber. All the mobile suits an machinery were up and running, most were constructing things and making modifications to the room. Most noticeably, the same type of segmented metallic tentacles were now being installed on the walls, in fact, the tentacles that had captured them had been grafted to the walls near the door they had just been dragged out of, and a jungle’s network of these vines extended all throughout the hanger. It was also possible to see that the chamber was being expanded as well, mobile suits and tentacles were cautiously chipping away and burrowing into bedrock while adding supports to ensure the expanding chambers stability. Though the line of sight was heavily disrupted by the thickening layers of vineish mechanical hands the Beehive, a massive super computer system which controlled the actions of the specially designed nano-bots with precision stood proud amidst the domain it was helping to create, in all its splendor. Something else beside it was also visible, it looked like the base of another Beehive.
“Why hello”, the taunting voice of Tyler Marcus echoed through the chamber as his highly altered body was lowered down to their level, “I was wondering when you’d finally come down here; I was becoming impatient.”
“Dr. Marcus!”, Mr. Darter gasped in desperation, still flailing in a futile effort to break free of the coil around his waste, “what the fuck is going on!”
“My, my, such language”, Tyler taunted disdainfully, “I’m afraid I don’t have time to explain though. As you can see”, Tyler’s left hand gestured to everything in the immense room, “I’m so very busy right now. But let’s see.” The two tentacles which wrapped around Mr. Darter and Mr. Almond hoisted the two men up a bit so that Tyler had a better look at them. The two men shivered fearfully, neither sure what to expect. Tyler’s, now metallic brown eyes darted right and left, examining the two specimens before him, piercing through their wretched flesh in an effort to determine their worth to his cause. “Let’s see”, he outwardly thought, “mind slaves or test subjects?”. He continued studying the two men for a moment; long enough for Mr. Darter to realize that Tyler wasn’t equipped with just the standard implants; additions were being added even now. Many more tentacle devices had been added, and the devices on his back were piling up, he looked like a cross between a turtle and a jellyfish. Most of his biological form was concealed but what was visible was very muscular, Tyler looked like a body builder, an unnaturally pale body builder. It’s not as though he particularly needed the muscles though, he was being lifted and transported by the network of segmented metal vines that were strung all throughout the facility as well as the ones grafted to his body. Tyler winced a bit as a yellow wire from one of the newly added devices popped into the back of his neck and began worming upwards towards the connection point, but he quickly maintained his conceited composure.
“Well, you seem to have brains that could be of use to me………”, Tyler finally broke the horrid semi-silence, “………mind slaves”, he commented. Immediately, the vines coiled around the two men responded by dragging them back down the hall they came, and into darkness; their screams bouncing down the halls to heartless ears. Neither man knew what he meant by “mind slave” but it couldn’t be good.
Sorry, I just couldn't resist. It was the first thing that popped into my mind. 