<::|| The Candidate- The Conversion ||::>
Emily had been abducted in the night, drugged and dragged off into the depths of Orion base. Her mind was hazed, she faded in and out of consciousness, each time she saw the same corridors of the facility; faded and cracked. Two units who remained silent throughout the journey were dragging her; Emily clung to reality in the darkness by listening to the constant heavy step of the carriers. Then there was nothing. No sound, no stepping, not the faintest whisper, Emily was alone. A hard pain shot through her face, she opened her eyes and coiled in shock, at once she cowered in fear and confusion. Her vision cleared; one of the units was staring down at her, eyes a lidless blank, he unclenched his fist, satisfied with the punch he used to stir Page from her limbo. The pair then picked up Page once more and continued pulling her along the concrete floor; the legs of Emily's jumpsuit had now become completely torn, every bump and stone of the floor was ground into her knees like hammer on a vice. Emily was still partially numb to the pain however, she cast her squinted gaze around the path ahead; the corridor had opened up to a single walkway over a chasm of blackness, in the centre towered a dark and featureless spire at the base of which a door awaited her. Emily tried to wriggle free with her ached joints but to no avail, she uttered to the units to let her go but she trailed off after knowing that they wouldn't ever betray their orders.
The spire door slid open; a blue hue emitted from the inner chamber, blanketing the walkway in its artificial tone. One of the units forced Emily's head downwards harshly; her neck stung with pain has the units pulled her up and strapped her, barely aware, onto a steel slab. Emily's joints were locked into place; her knees, ankles, elbows, shoulders and neck. She was now fully awake but it was all too late, the process was now underway. Emily struggled to move her eyes to the right where two other slabs stood mounted at the same angle to Emily's, one held a man; he was motionless, his head was limp and had fallen to face Emily, his eyes were glassy and his mouth was wide open as if he had died in agony...
The other slab held a man who, like Emily, had just been strapped in. A screen lowered over his face as a piece of apparatus took hold of his eyes, holding them open. The light of the screen flickered into life, the man twitched as the video played; from her angle, Emily saw the video as a series of flashes whizzing past the man's eyes. The eye clamps then ejected a series of long needles, which penetrated the man's skin; some entered his eyes, others through the eye sockets and into the brain, it was then he began to scream. The screaming shook Emily into a panic, she averted her eyes and began to tug and struggle at her confines but it was not enough; the screen folded down over her eyes and the eye clamps descended, jamming quickly into position and tearing her eyelids open, exposing her retina to the film. The film played; images and sped up clips of violence, murder, anger, slaughter, torture. Pictures and videos of horrifying nature funnelled into Emily's eyes, she gasped upon the first few seconds before starting to shout in fear. It was then she heard the clamp buzz before ejecting a series of needles. She screamed in terror, shaking violently with all her might, she wailed and spat as the syringes entered her eyes, at once the pain was unbearable; she cried out in endless agony, she gasped as the fluids from the clamp were pumped into her before falling into comatose.
She wasn't finished, not yet.
She had to fight it.
She tried to remember, remember the things that she lived for, what was worth living for and fighting for.
The time before the war... It was so perfect, they all lived so blissfully, she had to remember who she was or they would win.
Her sight returned; eyes red with trails of blood from the lingering needles, she screamed.
"I am Emily Page! I am E--" She gasped again with pain as a fresh salvo of drugs entered her system. "I am human! I am not one of them! I..." She tried to remember who she was; she couldn't remember her parents, her brother, her life before the war, the invasion, her assigned apartment, even what she looked like before enlisting was a faded dream. "I will not be like them! Never-- Aaargh!" She continued to shout in defiance. "Never! Not me! Not like this! No, I am Emily! I am fr--" She fell limp against the third and final dose of the drugs, she fell to them and tumbled into a deep and dreamless sleep.
She awoke, an unknown amount of time later in the barracks, she couldn't remember anything... Nothing of the room or the conversion, she rose from bed as a unit entered; he gestured Page to follow, she obliged. Emily felt fine, more than fine; better, much better, everything was clear now. She saw things clear as day; she no longer held any fear to the unit that lead her, for it was he that, like his fellow units, carried the sacred and just mantle of the Universal Union. Page was led to an open topped hanger; above the concrete was a perfect clear blue sky, in the middle of the hanger sat an active dropship; the bay ramp was down, inside there were Page's fellow candidates. The unit took her into the dropship; he then turned, advised the dropship was ready for lift-off then departed quickly as the ramp rose, sealing Page and the rest of the candidates inside the ship. The familiar voice of Dispatch spoke.
"Unit status: Approved. Destination of assignment: City Seventeen."
Emily Page was now dead; Unit 016 had taken its place. 016 stared blissfully stoic straight ahead, just like the others, she was at peace and she was happy...
And that's a wrap! Thanks for reading, sorry for the delay in the final part. Also...
<::|| The Unit ||::> Coming soon... Maybe.