The Asset shuffled out of the showers and stood, head down and eyes shut, in front of the cryo tank. Normally silent, its throat clicked with a swallow and a soft grunt. Technician M lifted his head sharply from where he stood at the monitor, double-checking. The Asset had received a bolus of antifreeze IV and a round of electroshock therapy, and then the tac team had escorted it to the armory to wrangle it into its cryo-suit. They had returned it forty minutes late. M was at first only concerned that he might need to replace the IV catheter for a second antifreeze dose. The Asset had a curious furrow between its eyebrows. Its throat bobbed, and it grunted again. "Asset, condition report," M demanded. Technician K glanced over her shoulder at him. She was manning the remote for the Asset's shock collar. It took a lot of attention, and she should have been the first to pick up something off with the Asset, but M had been assigned to it longer than K. "Condition functional," the Asset replied. "Asset, are you experiencing discomfort?" K asked, sharpening to more than her finger on the trigger. "No," it replied. M said, drowning it out, "That's a useless question, K. Asset, remove all clothing and submit to inspection." The Asset eyed both K and M, only complying slowly, after they each gave it a nod. First rule of working with the Asset: control your nonverbal cues, because it picks up on them. Like a horse. The Asset stripped clumsily, unsystematically. It started by unbuckling the cryo vest. Then it left it dangling, and removed one boot. Then it felt the back of its muzzle, turned back to both K and M for approval, and removed that. Then the belt. Then the vest, dumped on the floor like it wasn't twenty thousand dollars to replace if someone stepped on it wrong and it sprung a leak. Then the trousers, stepping out of them with the bare foot. The Asset did not get underwear, because budget. "Oh, fuck," said M, flinging his hands in the air. The Asset cringed. "What?" asked K, circling around, then, "What the fuck? Fuck! What the fuck is that?" That was a raw, red, glistening cylinder, somewhat like an earthworm the size of a man's fist, protruding between the Asset's cheeks and bleeding down its thighs. The Asset grunted again, its abdomen hollowing, and the cylinder lengthened slightly. Unfolding from the inside. "Tac team thought we wouldn't notice," M growled. "Just pop him in the freezer, pull him out good as new, those fucks, that's not how it works in real life. I am going to skin them. I am going to sedate them and skin them. They get their rocks off, and hand this to us? My name's going on his cryo intake form, not theirs!" "Is that a prolapse? Men get prolapses?" "Seriously, there's no one higher up the pipe that would listen to us. I think we need to kill one of the tac team. Because if we hadn't caught this, five years down the line someone would've killed us." "M, we can figure out a deterrence gesture later. We need a real doctor! Who do we have on call?" "You are not listening to me," M growled. "If this gets out, it won't matter whose fault it is. The Tac team will get off scot-free. We will take the fall." "So what do we do, shoot the Asset?" K asked. At this, the Asset looked over its shoulder with a hopeful expression. Then it slowly twisted its torso around and investigated the red worm with its biological hand. Fingers circled the sensitive rim of anal skin, squeezed and probed the inflamed rectum that protruded from it, passed into the oozing, mucus-wet hole where the colon began to evert and fold around itself. Its throat clicked, and the lean bands of abdominal muscle tightened. The prolapse extruded another inch. "Asset, stop that!" M bellowed. It looked back at him defiantly. Eyed the remote control in K's hands. Electrocution would cause involuntary contraction of every muscle in the body, and that alone would make the prolapse progress. It knew that. Just like it knew that it was seriously damaged--but for the moment, functional. The Asset was not, really, much like a horse at all. Or maybe it was exactly like a fucking horse. "Asset," M said, his voice low, steady. "There is only one outcome here where I walk out alive. That is if that thing goes back in your body where it came from. If you refuse to cooperate, K will electrocute you and you can continue to literally shit your guts out. At least we will have the satisfaction of knowing you suffered before getting us killed. And if you do successfully shit your guts out, someone will find you, and they will put you back together. Probably not too well, but rest assured they will always find a use for you in whatever form you can be had. Do you understand?" The Asset bent its head and fingered its prolapse for a terrifyingly long time. M gave the nod to K to zap the shit out of it, but just in time, it said, "I understand." M sighed slowly. He looked at the maintenance chair across the room--adequate restraints, but not enough flexibility. They needed a surgical table. They needed one of those stupid inversion tables for people with back pain. They needed a medieval torture rack, but, hah! Apparently those were obsolete. "Asset, lie down on the seat of that folding chair face down with your hips on the chair and your chest on the floor. K, watch him. I'm gonna...run and get supplies." "If you make it worse, I'm calling a doctor," K called as M hurried from the room. "If I make it worse, we're both dead."
M swiped out of the cryo room. Swiped out of max security. Took two elevators to the ground floor. Took a moment in the men's room banging his head against a bathroom stall door. M was pretty damn good at his job. He maintained over a dozen ancient, unique machines whose designers spoke four separate languages, all of which were indispensable for the preservation and maintenance of HYDRA's greatest weapon. It would take at least two years for him to train a replacement, and the kind of intelligence that he brought, the ability to source and swap parts for a Soviet refrigerator that had to run uninterrupted for years at a time, to re-machine parts for devices that had no blueprints and no specifications surviving--that was, and he said this in all humility, irreplaceable. But if Tac team wants to fuck the ass out of the Asset, he was going to be the scapegoat. Fuck HYDRA. He should have stayed on his dad's ranch. He knew exactly what to do for the Asset, though. He'd seen this on his dad's ranch.
He got back to the Cryo room an hour later, with a carton of salt, a towel, and a stolen dry-cleaning hanger. "You were gone that so long I expected you to bring actual medical equipment," K said, eyes bloodshot from staring at the Asset. "Medical equipment's for people," M defended himself. "You have any idea how hard it is to find wire coathangers anymore?" He wet the towel in the sink, and poured half the salt into it. Then he approached the Asset. "Asset, I am about to perform medical care. Do not resist."
Fill: Medical equipment is for people
Technician M lifted his head sharply from where he stood at the monitor, double-checking. The Asset had received a bolus of antifreeze IV and a round of electroshock therapy, and then the tac team had escorted it to the armory to wrangle it into its cryo-suit. They had returned it forty minutes late. M was at first only concerned that he might need to replace the IV catheter for a second antifreeze dose.
The Asset had a curious furrow between its eyebrows. Its throat bobbed, and it grunted again.
"Asset, condition report," M demanded. Technician K glanced over her shoulder at him. She was manning the remote for the Asset's shock collar. It took a lot of attention, and she should have been the first to pick up something off with the Asset, but M had been assigned to it longer than K.
"Condition functional," the Asset replied.
"Asset, are you experiencing discomfort?" K asked, sharpening to more than her finger on the trigger.
"No," it replied. M said, drowning it out, "That's a useless question, K. Asset, remove all clothing and submit to inspection."
The Asset eyed both K and M, only complying slowly, after they each gave it a nod. First rule of working with the Asset: control your nonverbal cues, because it picks up on them. Like a horse.
The Asset stripped clumsily, unsystematically. It started by unbuckling the cryo vest. Then it left it dangling, and removed one boot. Then it felt the back of its muzzle, turned back to both K and M for approval, and removed that. Then the belt. Then the vest, dumped on the floor like it wasn't twenty thousand dollars to replace if someone stepped on it wrong and it sprung a leak. Then the trousers, stepping out of them with the bare foot.
The Asset did not get underwear, because budget.
"Oh, fuck," said M, flinging his hands in the air. The Asset cringed. "What?" asked K, circling around, then, "What the fuck? Fuck! What the fuck is that?"
That was a raw, red, glistening cylinder, somewhat like an earthworm the size of a man's fist, protruding between the Asset's cheeks and bleeding down its thighs. The Asset grunted again, its abdomen hollowing, and the cylinder lengthened slightly. Unfolding from the inside.
"Tac team thought we wouldn't notice," M growled. "Just pop him in the freezer, pull him out good as new, those fucks, that's not how it works in real life. I am going to skin them. I am going to sedate them and skin them. They get their rocks off, and hand this to us? My name's going on his cryo intake form, not theirs!"
"Is that a prolapse? Men get prolapses?"
"Seriously, there's no one higher up the pipe that would listen to us. I think we need to kill one of the tac team. Because if we hadn't caught this, five years down the line someone would've killed us."
"M, we can figure out a deterrence gesture later. We need a real doctor! Who do we have on call?"
"You are not listening to me," M growled. "If this gets out, it won't matter whose fault it is. The Tac team will get off scot-free. We will take the fall."
"So what do we do, shoot the Asset?" K asked. At this, the Asset looked over its shoulder with a hopeful expression. Then it slowly twisted its torso around and investigated the red worm with its biological hand. Fingers circled the sensitive rim of anal skin, squeezed and probed the inflamed rectum that protruded from it, passed into the oozing, mucus-wet hole where the colon began to evert and fold around itself. Its throat clicked, and the lean bands of abdominal muscle tightened. The prolapse extruded another inch.
"Asset, stop that!" M bellowed. It looked back at him defiantly. Eyed the remote control in K's hands. Electrocution would cause involuntary contraction of every muscle in the body, and that alone would make the prolapse progress. It knew that. Just like it knew that it was seriously damaged--but for the moment, functional.
The Asset was not, really, much like a horse at all. Or maybe it was exactly like a fucking horse.
"Asset," M said, his voice low, steady. "There is only one outcome here where I walk out alive. That is if that thing goes back in your body where it came from. If you refuse to cooperate, K will electrocute you and you can continue to literally shit your guts out. At least we will have the satisfaction of knowing you suffered before getting us killed. And if you do successfully shit your guts out, someone will find you, and they will put you back together. Probably not too well, but rest assured they will always find a use for you in whatever form you can be had. Do you understand?"
The Asset bent its head and fingered its prolapse for a terrifyingly long time. M gave the nod to K to zap the shit out of it, but just in time, it said, "I understand."
M sighed slowly. He looked at the maintenance chair across the room--adequate restraints, but not enough flexibility. They needed a surgical table. They needed one of those stupid inversion tables for people with back pain. They needed a medieval torture rack, but, hah! Apparently those were obsolete.
"Asset, lie down on the seat of that folding chair face down with your hips on the chair and your chest on the floor. K, watch him. I'm gonna...run and get supplies."
"If you make it worse, I'm calling a doctor," K called as M hurried from the room.
"If I make it worse, we're both dead."
M swiped out of the cryo room. Swiped out of max security. Took two elevators to the ground floor. Took a moment in the men's room banging his head against a bathroom stall door.
M was pretty damn good at his job. He maintained over a dozen ancient, unique machines whose designers spoke four separate languages, all of which were indispensable for the preservation and maintenance of HYDRA's greatest weapon. It would take at least two years for him to train a replacement, and the kind of intelligence that he brought, the ability to source and swap parts for a Soviet refrigerator that had to run uninterrupted for years at a time, to re-machine parts for devices that had no blueprints and no specifications surviving--that was, and he said this in all humility, irreplaceable. But if Tac team wants to fuck the ass out of the Asset, he was going to be the scapegoat.
Fuck HYDRA. He should have stayed on his dad's ranch.
He knew exactly what to do for the Asset, though. He'd seen this on his dad's ranch.
He got back to the Cryo room an hour later, with a carton of salt, a towel, and a stolen dry-cleaning hanger.
"You were gone that so long I expected you to bring actual medical equipment," K said, eyes bloodshot from staring at the Asset.
"Medical equipment's for people," M defended himself. "You have any idea how hard it is to find wire coathangers anymore?" He wet the towel in the sink, and poured half the salt into it. Then he approached the Asset. "Asset, I am about to perform medical care. Do not resist."