1 Along Came a Spider...Or Rather a Spider Was Born?
"Speak! Tell us the code!" the burly man in front of me shouted, his spittle flying everywhere and onto my face.
Hearing, and smelling him, loud and clear, I bent over and spat out some of the blood pooling in my mouth, "Man, you need to go and get your halitosis checked out. Jeez, that shit nearly knocked my ass out~" I quipped back at him and before I knew it, another fist slammed into my cheek. This time, however, fully knocking lose one of my molars.
Spitting the tooth out, I stretched my jaw about and felt it creak and crackle as I did, "Jesus Christ, man, what did I say about the face? Not to hit it--"
As you might have guessed, he hit me again.
"Do not play games with us, Mr. Jones. We have the time to do this all week if we have to," a voice spoke to the side in considerably less accented English and in a much more calm manner than I expected. Well, less accented and more than the brute currently hitting me so it wasn't a very high bar.
Groggily looking to the man who's appearance I couldn't make out due to the bright light shining down from above, I squinted before smiling 'apologetically', "Aw shucks, I have a Dentist appointment I have to go to the middle of this week. Any chance I can get a raincheck on this torture?"
My head was yanked back to looking at the guy who'd been hitting me and--
*Thud!*
--Was now hitting me again.
"You *Thud!* Fucking *Thud!* Cocky *Thud!* American *Crack!* Bastard!" he said between punches before he grabbed my now messy and unkempt hair and sending one last right cross right against my jaw, finally breaking it.
The pain was excruciating but this wasn't my first broken jaw or my first torture session. I'd been trained to resist the pain and the desire to give in and spill the beans.
I hadn't cracked before and I won't crack now.
"Okay, okay, Alexei, don't beat our friend here to death. We need the codes after all," the man off to the side cooed with a smugness that I didn't quite understand but didn't care about either way.
Spitting out more blood onto myself, I internally lamented about how I'd ruined another suit before I looked up at the grunt torturing me, "You kiss your mother with that mouth? Well, I suppose she's been kissed by worse things so it doesn't matter much. Like most of the men who live in the backwards village you came from, huh? Your poor old father," I taunted him with a smile that hurt and only aggravated my broken jaw.
But the pain it brought was necessary. If I could taunt this fucker enough he might slip up and actually kill me.
Honestly, I'd been in this place for about 3 days and I hadn't found a single way out. Nor could I guarantee I could hold up against their torture for too long either. I was trained to resist it and I'd resisted plenty of torture before - but everyone breaks. No matter how strong or well-trained they are.
It's a matter of time and effort.
And these guys have as much time as they're willing to spend on me plus the desire to expend an ungodly amount of effort as well. They need the codes inside my head.
Codes to a lab just off the coast of America and in international waters because of, ahem, law-related reasons. Why not just storm the lab with the might of whatever nation or PMC* they represent? Because that'd mean war and war is long and hard. It'd be their last resort. Their first resort, is easy enough to determine:
(*A/N - 'PMC' stands for Private Military Contractor. It's essentially a private army that you can hire if you have the right amount of money.)
Get the codes from me, sneak some spy onto the island and hope they can sneak their way to whatever they want.
Though I can definitely assume it's to get the Data for the Super Soldier program that's on the island.
Most of the power houses seem to be onto us, it would seem.
How do I know this? Well, the year is 2029 and the world is run not just by big, superpower nations but also massive PMC's headed by the wealthiest people around. I'm a sellout and work for one of the bigger PMC's. Creed International Defense or CID. But that doesn't matter.
What does matter is that through plenty of research, CID has figured out the beginnings of unlocking a human's physical potential.
Pretty good, right? Well, yeah. But also no. Because in a world now run by military power and who has the bigger guns and the better soldiers, the secrets to the human body and how to augment it are exceptionally sought after by just about everyone.
And I'm not just a sellout who works for CID after betraying the good ol' US of A, I'm also the right-hand man who runs CID; a guy named Hector Creed. I know secrets and have access to just about everything CID has their fingers in. The reason to why I'm the right hand man is a-whole-nother story. But the quick run down is that I deal with the internal security of the company and get rid of certain...unfaithful elements.
...I'm basically the Head of the KGB but for CID. So, the Head of Internal Affairs.
But I also do work as a, uh, cleaner?
...Okay, I'm an assassin who kills people for Mr. Creed. But don't let that effect your opinion of me, okay? I'm a pretty decent guy. When I'm not killing political and monetary opponents for the PMC, that is.
A man's gotta make a living after all, right?
Look, I'm not proud of what I do. But I don't have any delusions of grandeur either. I don't think I'm a good guy and I don't think what I'm doing is right. My main philosophy in life is 'You've gotta do what you've gotta do'. That's it. You can let your moral compass lead the way or you can throw it away and walk whatever path you want. In the end, neither one is better than the other.
Deep and introspective talking aside, I felt my head get pulled backward by Russian Arnold Schwarzenegger and something metal was jammed into my mouth.
It took me about a second to realize what they were and by then they were yanked out of my mouth.
Pliers. The metal thing shoved into my mouth were a pair of pliers.
"Argh fuck!" I gave a howl of pain as I felt over what had been taken - another one of my fucking molars! - "Oi, teeth don't grow back, you know? I really do have to go and see my dentist now," I muttered with a somewhat pained smile.
Fuck, that really did hurt. Even more so with my broken bloody jaw.
The man off to the side spoke up in Russian, speaking to Alexei with an annoyed tone. Jokes on him, however, I just so happen to know Russian.
"Come, Alexei. We'll let Hector's bloodhound think about his choices for a little while," he sounded like he sneered toward the end and I just kept a straight face, not wanting to let him catch on that I knew Russian just in case he slipped up any further. But he didn't. His grunt, Alexei, literally grunted before turning and walking away, following the man out of the dark room and into a dark corridor.
Seeing them leave, I leaned back into the chair, "Well, shit," I groaned before wiggling my jaw about and wincing when a shot of pain ran along the side of my jaw, "Definitely fully broken...Jesus Christ," I muttered, doing my best not to move my jaw when I spoke to myself.
Moving my tongue to the back right side of my mouth, I pushed against the bottom right molar that was still there.
A small pop sounded out inside my head and the cap of that totally legit molar popped off.
Sucking out the pill inside the hollow molar, I sighed as I moved the pill to the front of my mouth. Placing it between my front teeth, I closed my eyes before biting down and breaking the shell of the pill. Knocking my head back and swallowing - courtesy of the ungodly amount of blood in my mouth at the moment - I instantly began spasming.
Pain. It was...really painful. For the first few seconds, anyway. Then the painkillers kicked in. Cyanide Pills 2.0. Like a mini-lethal injection but contained within a pill. Gotta love that technology, huh? Ever advancing and making new ways to either kill people or save 'em.
As I felt my body shut down, a distinct feeling of panic and distress hit me. I, like any other sane person, didn't want to die.
But, despite being a sellout, I still had loyalty to my employer.
Also, there's the small fact that even if I gave up what I knew, I'd still get fucking killed. So I'd rather be an asshole and deprive them of that information. An eye for an eye, right? Even if it makes the whole world blind, sometimes it's the only response for immature man children like myself.
Jokes aside, I felt my body begin to convulse intensely before I felt my fingers going numb. Well, this is definitely the end.
Shit.
So many hot chicks still left to fuck. My boss' wife! God, I'll miss those tits. My boss' hot daughter as well! Thicc thighs save lives, right? Then I bet my ass that those thighs would save me right now.
And then my vision blacked out, my last thoughts being of some real bombshells I'd had the pleasure of getting to know intimately.
Ah fuck.
. . .
Then my eyes shot back open. Voices, sounds, actual light instead of a dark room and an overly light lamp pointed at my face!
Was I saved? Did those Russian's somehow save me? Did the dosage fail?--Oh god, I hope the dosage didn't fucking fail. I'll be really in the deep end if that happened...
But I soon realized...I was in a hospital.
Surrounded by babies. Or what sounded like babies. Babies crying their lungs out.
"Aww, look at this poor little fella," a woman with a deep southern accent spoke up, "Just been born and he's already lost his mommy and daddy," the woman who spoke peered over whatever I was in and looked directly at me, her brown hair cascading over me and covering most of my vision while her brown eyes held a considerable amount of pity for me.
...Is it me or is this lady a giant or something? Like, seriously, her head looks bigger than my upper body--Wait, little fella? Is she actually a giant or am I...No.
No. Just no. One millions times no. Hell no. I refuse to believe it; no.
...AM I A GODDAMN CHILD?! REINCARNATION?! SERIOUSLY?! ME? REINCARNATED?!
...Well, some people must've put me on the wrong destination list--and they forgot to wipe my memories. Things like that actually happen though? Thought that stuff only ever happened in novels. Guess life imitates art and vice versa, huh?
