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She wakes up in an unfamiliar room.
Her first fragile thought is to move. To find out where she is. Yet when she tries to rise from the strange platform she’s awoken upon, she finds she cannot move. Arms and legs bound to the table. A panicked whine escapes her throat, and she flexes her muscles, doing anything she can to break free. It’s no use. Whatever they’re made of, the bonds will not falter.
Then, a voice.
“Calm the subject. You chose her. I expect you chose more wisely than the fools who let that traitor Midorikawa have his way at the Japan Branch.” She knows that voice, but the speech sounds muffled. It’s like there’s water in her ears, but she can’t move a muscle to shake it out. Professor No… No… her mind can’t piece together the syllables. Sharp fluorescent lighting shines from above into her eyes, blinding her, making her temples throb.
A shadow falls over her, blocking out that cruel, artificial light. She almost doesn’t recognize the girl when she steps into view, dressed head to toe in a clean, white surgeon’s garment so antithetical to the all black she wore every day at university — except those eyes! Familiar, deep black, with a hunger that’s all new, as if she’d desire nothing more than to sink her teeth into her prone prey’s heart and consume her flesh whole.
A hand on her cheek. The girl’s hand feels cold, even through the latex glove separating them. Was she ever this cold before? Or is it herself overheating?
“It’s too late, Griddle. We have you. You’re ours.” She draws out the last word, tasting the triumph on her lips. “You belong to Shocker now.” The girl lays her other gloved hand on her breast, right above her furiously beating heart. “I’ll shape you anew, into something more than human.”
She tries to say the girl’s name, tries to beg her for release, to desperately implore Why, but all that comes out is a piteous gurgle.
Vivid memories flash through her mind. The girl’s arms wrapped tightly around her waist as she sped along the remote roads, greens and browns slipping by in a blur. There’s the wind whipping at her face. The sharp scent of gasoline. That day—the day this all began. How long ago was it? She doesn’t know. All she knows is the hours upon hours, senseless with sedatives, chained up like a dog. That day, she’d brought the girl out riding on her motorcycle, as they’d done so many times before. She had wanted the girl to help her study that day for an exam—Professor N— will have my skin if I fail!—but the girl said cryptically, You won’t need to worry about that, Griddle, which was strange because she’d been tutoring her for months, helping her make sense of the finer details of the material that just wouldn’t fall into place otherwise. Let’s go out to the country, the girl said instead. She should have known something was wrong, she thinks now. She should’ve been smarter. She should’ve realized before she was surrounded by too many figures on motorcycles to escape, dressed all in black. She should never have trusted this duplicitous witch.
She gives an almighty thrash, trying vainly to break free of her bonds. The cold, cruel metal cuts into her skin. She knows her wrists will be bruised and bloody later. A worthy price for freedom. For the chance to knock the girl off her feet and wrap her hands around that slender neck of hers and squeeze until the light goes out in her eyes. She’d study her face as their tears commingled, as their pain blurred into one.
“It’s time to give her the hemolymph.” The sharp command from the professor snaps her back to reality.
The girl disappears briefly from view, ominous footsteps clattering across the cold metal of the laboratory floor. She returns with a syringe in hand, filled with a cloudy, greenish liquid. “May I do the honors, mother?”
“You may.”
As the girl brandishes the syringe, it glints in the light, temporarily blinding her helpless subject. Her hand settles on her cheek again, fingers just as cold as before. She strokes her skin with deceptive gentleness for a few idle seconds, then slides her hand downwards. The girl lowers the syringe and, without any warning, presses it in.
The pain of the needle piercing her skin is nothing to the sensation of the foreign substance entering her bloodstream. Something alive, injected directly into her veins. It crawls within her, tiny legs tickling, scraping away, bathing in her blood. Her entire body seizes up. She thinks she might die. Her vision blurs, her head swims ferociously, and the world fades to nothing.
She wakes up in an unfamiliar room.
It’s tiny. She’s on a narrow cot that’s far too small. Her elbows rub uncomfortably against the cold plaster of the wall, and her feet hang off the end. She shifts from her prone position on the bed and sits at its edge, taking in the rest of the small, cell-like room. A weak fluorescent light fixture hangs from the center of the ceiling and on the opposite wall, there is a mirror above a gleaming white porcelain sink. Otherwise, the room is barren, but for the door. It doesn’t even occur to the subject to test the handle. She sits here alone, staring blankly across the room until her body wills her to move.
Thirsty.
The subject rises. It takes only two strides to reach the sink. She turns the tap and lets the water flow. Cups her hands and drinks, splashes the water on her face. The droplets slide slowly down her skin as she turns off the tap. She studies her face in the mirror. Red hair that falls lazily into her eyes—golden, framed by dark, exhausted circles.
“You’re finally awake.”
The subject does not even jolt in shock at the sudden intrusion, merely turns around to find a small figure standing in the doorway. The subject can see past her into the hallway beyond, where the walls are as uniform and white as within.
Her visitor takes slow, confident steps towards the subject. The girl may be small, but just from the way she holds herself, she takes up all the space in this claustrophobic box of a room. It’s a face she recognizes, but she cannot remember from where. She doesn’t remember anything before the cold, white room. Before the creeping sensation of a thousand tiny creatures with a thousand tiny legs crawling under her skin, becoming one with her body.
“Who are you?” the subject asks, voice hoarse from disuse.
“Never mind that.” The girl waves a dismissive hand. “Let us test your mental acuity. Tell me, what are you?”
“Gi…” Her voice trails off, and she frowns, crease forming at the center of her brow. “I don’t remember,” she admits, feeling small, even as she towers above the girl below her.
An irritated click of her tongue. “Not your name. Not who are you? What are you?”
“Grasshopper Augment Version Sigaus.” Immediate. The words tumble effortlessly out of her mouth without needing to think about it. She hadn’t known the answer before she said it, but the thousand tiny creatures crawling beneath her skin seem to flutter in agreement.
“And who do you serve?”
“Sustainable Happiness Organization with Computational Knowledge Embedded Remodeling. Shocker. I serve Shocker.”
“Very good.”
The girl reaches up and grasps the subject’s jaw, tilting her face to study it at different angles under the sickly fluorescent light. “It’s incredible. You can hardly tell the difference just from looking. Except for these.” She places her thumb below one eye and runs it down the raw, pink welt that cuts down each cheek—scars from the reconstructive surgery that makes her more than and less than human in equal measure. It hurts, but Grasshopper Augment Version Sigaus does not react. She doesn’t flinch away from the girl’s touch, not even when she digs an experimental thumbnail into the sensitive flesh, drawing blood that trickles slowly down her cheek. With every beat of her heart, the refrain chants in her head—Follow, trust, obey.
“But even they should fade, in time, as your body heals. They’ll only show when you transform.” The girl releases her thumb, and Grasshopper Augment Version Sigaus bites back a gasp. A delighted smirk forms on the girl’s face at the sound.
“Trans… form?”
“Transform into Grasshopper Augment Version Sigaus. It will take time, but you will learn to harness the power. With you at my side, we will clean up the Japan Branch’s mistakes and restore Shocker to its former glory and beyond.” She grabs Grasshopper Augment Version Sigaus harshly by the chin so their lips are a mere breath apart. “Together. You and I.”
“You… and I. You… Who are you?” the voices in her head tell her she shouldn’t ask again, but she has to know.
“You really don’t remember me, Griddle?” Grasshopper Augment Version Sigaus’ expression is blank. The girl laughs, and it makes her spine tingle. The sound is so familiar, but her brain is all a jumble, a moth-eaten quilt with gaping holes where the memories should be. “Unbelievable. Mother told me the procedure might have this effect, but this is more than I could have expected. I’m Harrowhark. Harrowhark Nonagesimus.”
“Harrowhark. Nonagesimus.” Grasshopper Augment Version Sigaus tastes the name on her lips and, for the very first time, she smiles.
