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befuddled-calico-whump · 19 days

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Total $hit$how: I'm Going In

in which Joy goes on a life-changing field trip

cw: referenced violence, death mentions, implied lab whump, adult language

previous // masterlist //

×~×~×

Tomorrow came too fast.

In preparation for the mission, Joy’s body refused to sleep, waking her up at least once an hour to remind her that hooray, you have an important task in the morning! Better be ready, wouldn’t sleep be great?

She rolled out of bed at the first chirp of the alarm clock, groggy and more than a little pissed at her own brain. Vic hadn't specified a required uniform, so she changed back into the clothes she’d arrived in; breathable hiking pants, a black tank top, and a pair of combat boots. The shit they'd been provided for training was nice and all, but if she was about to embark on an expedition she wanted to remember exactly where her pockets were.

No one had seen Sahota since yesterday’s challenge, but Vic said he'd meet her by the compound’s exit. She waited there, slouched against the wall, tapping her foot in an uneven rhythm.

Fuck. The moment of truth was at hand. She knew she could technically hold up her end of the deal now, shoot an ‘oh damn, are you okay?’ Sahota's way and immediately get shot down with a gruff ‘fine. Don't ask me again.’

But that probably wasn't what Jericho had in mind. Joy couldn't be direct about it. Last time she'd tried, it had only pissed Sahota off, and that wasn't the effect she was going for. She'd have to be subtle, dance around the subject as best she could. Too bad she had two left feet.

If she hadn’t been cued in already, the first sign that something was wrong came when Sahota actually made noise on his approach. His footsteps were heavier than they usually were, his breathing more ragged. It took effort to suppress a wince when she caught sight of him. He'd looked bad before, but now she was surprised he was still standing, much less about to head off on a mission. His left eye was swollen shut, and cuts and bruises littered his face.

How many times had Harbor hit him?

Her anger at the other man doubled in size, but she managed to choke it back, keep it out of her expression.

“Hey,” she said. “Time to go?”

Sahota gave a silent nod, moving to the door and typing in a sequence on the keypad beside it. Joy thought to try and catch a glimpse of the code two seconds too late, and all she could do was mildly regret it as the door slid open.

It struck her as a little weird that it locked from both sides, but that was probably for cases like theirs: schmucks off the street, employed by vague threats and promises and kept on a tighter leash by Vic’s control issues.

She followed Sahota up a set of concrete stairs and into the daylight. The morning air was almost chilly enough to make her wish she'd brought a jacket, the overcast sky promising rain. Gazing up at the clouds, she realized this was her first time setting foot outside since her arrival. Thank fuck she’d been distractred enough that the thought was only occuring to her now, otherwise she would’ve been going stir-crazy in there.

Getting to the compound had been a bit of a blur—some generic car with tinted windows and a silent driver dropping her into Vic's loving arms—so she wasn't too surprised that its exterior wasn't familiar. Brutalist concrete building that wouldn't look out of place in a sci-fi movie. Bigger than it looked from the outside, but she knew now that most of the structure was underground.

Sahota moved away from the entrance, to an overhang at the side of the building. Joy didn't know why she was surprised to see a car parked under it. It made sense that they had a way to come and go, but their vehicle of choice caught her off guard. It was just a beat-up truck, not the sleek spy car she might've dreamt up. It was probably better for blending in, but she still found herself a little disappointed. All the fancy tech Vic had at his disposal for training, and he'd settled on a ford for his getaway vehicle.

Sahota moved to the driver's side, and she noticed for the first time he was limping. Just a little, barely enough to tell, but once she caught on, it was clear he was favoring his left leg.

Joy couldn't stop herself. “Did Harbor do that too?” she blurted out, gesturing down. He stared at her blankly for a second, then gave a small shake of his head.

“Old injury. Acts up in bad weather.”

“What's it from?”

He unlocked the car, sliding into the driver's seat. “Training.”

Bit ironic that a lasting injury came from training and not the job itself, but life was a bitch like that sometimes. She'd broken her wrist in a middle school softball game once. Not diving for home plate, or even staggering back to catch a ball. She'd just… tripped and landed wrong. It still got stiff on some winter mornings, much to her irritation.

Joy climbed into the passenger seat. “Is it gonna bother you on the mission?” It was a blanket question. Should you even be out here? Go to bed, is what she wanted to say, but she imagined Sahota would take offense to that.

“This isn't a mission,” he replied, starting the truck and tactfully avoiding her question. Fair enough.

“How far is it to the lab?” she asked.

“Hour. Maybe more if we catch traffic.”

Well, on the plus side that gave her plenty of time to slowly close in on the topic of Sahota’s okay-ness. On the negative, if she somehow pushed the wrong buttons, she’d be stuck with a silent and grumpy Sahota for the rest of the drive. And the mission. And the drive back. Joy swallowed, winding her fingers together and pointing herself towards the window. Tactful. Be tactful.

“Uh.” She cleared her throat. “Kinda lame that Vic shot down your idea.”

“Hm?”

“The challenge? I thought it was…” Fun? Hell no. It had been just as awkward as this. “...Interesting,” she finished. Sahota said nothing, his eyes—eye. Should he even be driving?—locked on the road.

“Also,” Joy continued when he said nothing, “it's kinda bullshit that Vic changed the plan after we won.”

At that, Sahota let out a sigh. “I shouldn't have let you try in the first place. That's on me.”

“Is it?” She turned in her seat, facing him. “Sounds like it's on Vic. Aren't you guys partners?”

His expression didn't change, but his hands seemed to tighten around the steering wheel. “Yes.”

“Then why is he the one calling all the shots? You should get a say.”

“It's complicated.”

“Complicated how?”

“It's…” his mouth tightened. “Vic’s had a lot more time on the job. He knows better than I do. If he overrules me, it's for a reason.”

It could be true, partially true, but Vic seemed to think he had more power than just that. Her mind went to the video. Vic’s total disregard for his so-called partner.

“Maybe he knows better, but that doesn't mean he can treat you like shit.” She might've been overstepping, and maybe the incident really was just so routine that neither of them cared about it, but the slight shift in Sahota's face, the way his arms tensed, had her thinking she was right.

“Why do you work with him?” Joy asked. “You're really fucking skilled. Why not get a job with someone who appreciates that?”

“What about you?” Sahota replied without missing a beat. “You're smart. You build and fix things like it's second nature. Why'd you go for the criminal side when you could be something better?”

Joy scoffed. “It's not that easy.” She'd watched her oldest sister struggle with student loans, and high school had already been hard enough to stay focused through. She'd been scared of college, to tell the truth, and joining the army fresh after graduation just seemed like the smart path. No financial burden for her parents, no help from anyone else.

“Exactly,” Sahota said. “It's not that easy.”

She couldn't think of a retort on the spot, and instead turned her gaze back to the window, watching the clouds gradually darken. The city skyline was growing in the distance, but they didn't seem to be headed in that direction. She figured she could ask about that, fill the silence, but she knew it wasn’t the question she was supposed to be chasing.

Are you okay? It was on her tongue, refusing to be spoken. Whatever he answered, she knew it would be a lie, and voicing it seemed pointless when she knew he wasn’t.

Eventually, they turned down what her mother would've called a road less traveled; a ribbon cut through the trees that was more pothole than asphalt.

“Rotorworx has a lab back here?” Joy said, trying to peer through the dense foliage.

“Used to. Closed down after an incident.”

“What kind of incident?”

“You’ve probably heard of it. Happened during the experiment Harbor was part of.”

Wait wait wait, this was that lab? Joy wracked her brain, trying to recall everything she'd read about the experiment. The published studies were vague at best. Something something innovative, life-changing technology. A sixth sense in development, a peek into another word. For a few months, it had been advertised on the daily; little teasing articles that told you nothing.

And then all of a sudden, news of the experiments stopped completely. Rumors circulating a few online forums suggested the project ended in a disaster, but she'd never found an official source; nothing to indicate exactly what went down. For all she knew, the research team had just been forced to scrap everything after losing funding.

But something had to have gone right, right? Harbor had come out with… with… well, the promised sixth sense. Why hadn’t that ever been publicized?

“What do you know about the incident?” she asked Sahota.

“There's not much intel available,” he replied. “Something went wrong. Several researchers were killed, and the lab was closed by the government.” He pulled the truck into a patch of weeds that lined the road.

Killed? It had gone that wrong?

“We’ll need to walk from here,” Sahota said. “The area will be fenced off.” He hopped out of the truck, stumbling a little on the dismount. Joy couldn't tell if it was from his knee, or some new, Harbor-caused injury. She jumped out after him.

“You okay?” she said.

“Fine.”

Exactly how she’d thought it would play out. Ah well, it was a decent warmup. Sahota started into the treeline, his boots crunching against fallen leaves, and Joy followed him.

“You said people died.”

“They did.”

“How?”

“Cause of death was never made public.”

Joy raised an eyebrow. “None of this was ever made public. It just… I don't know, went away.” She probably shouldn’t be too shocked. Big companies loved their good publicity.

The promised fence made its appearance before too long. It was simple chain-link; no barbed wire, no cameras that Joy could pick out. Instead, spaced out along every ten meters or so, there was a plastic sign:

DANGER. CONTAMINATED AREA.

“Contaminated,” she read aloud. “Fun. Should we be worried?”

“Probably not.”

Sahota scaled the fence with ease, and Joy followed. The area inside was less overgrown than the surrounding woods. Weeds came up past her ankles, but all things considered, that was pretty well-kept. Directly ahead, nestled between a few trees, a white concrete building stuck up out of the earth like a broken molar.

For a moment, she forgot she wasn't alone, taking off towards the lab without another word to Sahota. It wasn't very big. Was most of it underground? Had this been built solely for the sixth sense project, or had they conducted other research here?

“Cavan.”

Joy stopped short at Sahota's voice, casting a sheepish glance over her shoulder. “Sorry.” She waited for him to catch up, then held back a bit, deciding it was probably smarter to follow his lead. She knew her way around a shady area, but he seemed far more versed in subtlety than she was.

Sure enough, he honed in on what she assumed was a maintenance door, and knelt in front of it to get at the lock. In the six steps it took for Joy to reach him, she heard a click, and then he was easing it open, squinting into the darkness with his one good eye.

“No lights, no sounds. Safe to assume they cut all power once shit hit the fan.”

She peered over his shoulder. The maintenance room looked untouched, if a little dirty, and at one end, a flight of concrete stairs descended into darkness. Inviting, in a survival horror kind of way.

Sahota produced a flashlight, turned it on with a twist, and led the way down the stairs. The door at the bottom was also locked, but he made quick work of it.

That was a good sign, right? If there was anything inside worth seeing, it had to have been sorta protected by these security measures. The second door opened into a silent hallway. A thin layer of grime covered once-white tile, and she could see a few darkened doorways further in.

“If the main target's Elysium, this must be Asphodel,” she said, wrinkling her nose as the smell of mildew wafted out to greet it.

Sahota cast a glance over his shoulder as he stepped into the hall. “Didn't pin you for someone who knows Greek mythology.”

It sounded like something she should take offense to, but Joy just shrugged. “I'm allowed to have more than one hobby.” It wasn't like she made a habit of studying mythology, but the Percy Jackson books were some of the few she'd been able to sit through as a kid. Not only that, she'd actually enjoyed reading them.

“You like reading?” Joy asked as they pushed further inside, past a few empty rooms that looked like they'd once been offices. The corridor seemed to end at a set of double doors, deep in the dark.

“When I have time,” Sahota replied.

“Funny, I didn't pin you for a nerd,” Joy said. It was too dark to see his face, but she was willing to bet he wasn't smiling. “Are the books in the library yours?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“All of them?” Her mind went to the copy of 1984, all the tally marks. At first she'd assumed they'd been made by some previous owner, but maybe it had been Sahota all along. What would he be counting? Missions? Kills? Why put it there, of all places?

“Some are Vic's,” he answered.

She couldn't imagine what Vic would be counting either, unless it was all the parades he’d rained on. “Got a favorite book?”

He was silent for a moment, the only sound the faint fall of their shoes on the grungy tile. “The Hobbit,” he said at last.

“You are a nerd.”

“Maybe.”

She couldn't see shit past the flashlight’s beam, but this time she swore she heard the touch of a smile in his voice.

Before she could ask if he had a favorite character, they'd arrived at the double doors. They looked sturdy—or rather, they looked like they used to be sturdy. The layers of wood and metal had warped somehow, buckled outwards. Like it had been rammed with a truck from the other side, or sustained some kind of intense pressure.

Sahota tested the door on the left, and it gave, just a little. He hit it with a more focused shove, and it gave a little more.

“Help me get this open.”

Joy stepped forward, bracing her palms against the door and leaning forward with all her weight. The door swung open with an awful scraping sound and a terrible smell to match, all stale smoke and the sour odor of rusted metal. She took a step back, letting Sahota and his flashlight get in there first.

The walls were charred, likely by scientific failures. The floor was also charred, with a few random squares lightened by what she could only assume was the removal of equipment. It looked emptied out, but not completely. A few metal cabinets were jammed together against one wall, a few more toppled like dominoes near the center.

If Joy didn't know any better, she'd say there’d been some kind of explosion in here. And really, she didn't know better.

“Site of the incident?” she said.

“Looks like it,” Sahota agreed. “Check the cabinets. We're looking for notes, blueprints, any surviving papers.”

Joy nodded, even though he couldn't see it, and moved to the first cabinet. Sahota set the flashlight in the middle of the room, creating a dim, but usable, glow.

Cabinet number one wasn't in great shape. It seemed buckled in on itself, much like the doors, and getting the top drawer open took a lot of effort on Joy's part. With the scant lighting, she couldn't see what it held, and was resigned to feeling around inside. Nothing.

“How long have you been working with Vic, anyway?” she called over her shoulder as she moved to the second drawer.

“Almost twelve years now.”

Damn. “You guys must be close.” Vic was an asshole, there was no doubt about that, but had she been overthinking his and Sahota’s interactions? If they'd been together that long, they had to have some kind of weird coping mechanisms for when the other was hurt.

“Mm.”

A week ago, she would've asked exactly how close he and Vic were. She was still pretty sure they were romantically involved on some level, but their weird power dynamic made her… uncomfortable. But maybe it was just some kind of kink that had leaked out of their bedroom? If that was the case, it really wasn’t her business to be calling Vic a piece of shit to his partner’s face.

Joy wriggled open the next drawer. “Sorry about what I said before,” she said, feeling around the inside of the space. “About Vic treating you bad. I shouldn’t have made that assumption.” To her surprise, her fingers brushed paper. A few sheets by the feel of it.

Behind her, Sahota let out a quiet sigh. “It’s fine. Vic’s… he’s hard to get used to.”

That was an understatement. She’d liked Vic in the beginning, but it hadn’t taken long to see the ruthless apathy hiding behind his friendly mask. Maybe under that there was yet another layer, a sweet side that only Sahota got to glimpse. For his sake, she sure fucking hoped so.

Aside from a lonely sheet of paper in a bottom drawer, the remaining cabinets held a grand total of nothing. Joy shuffled her findings into the crook of her arm.

“Can we move this back to the hall?” she asked once she’d given the drawers a final once-over. “The smell is gonna give me a headache.”

Sahota didn't say anything, but when he knelt to pick up the flashlight, she took it as a yes. Joy left the room in a hurry, taking a deep breath as soon as she'd gotten a good few meters away from the door. Sahota handed her the flashlight, a folded piece of paper clutched in his other hand.

“Check what we have. See if it's necessary to explore further.”

Joy nodded, scanning page one. It took a few attempts of reading the first line before the words actually stuck; her mind was still bouncing between all the other topics of the day. The mystery of the lab, the mystery of Vic and Sahota, the fact that she still hadn’t finished her quest for Jericho… Fuck.

She forced her eyes into focus.

Your X4900 printer’s settings can be accessed by toggling the home menu.

Joy sighed. “This one's no good.”

“And the next?”

She shuffled the page to the back. “This one… looks like a list of names?”

“Names?” He leaned over her shoulder. It looked like some kind of spreadsheet; names and dates and a shitload of scientific jargon.

Marian Sullivan. 08-12-097. 09-29-133. 10-16-133. Failed acclimation, occular failure, released.

Ahmed Faisal. 11-02-102. 03-10-134. 04-22-134. Failed acclimation, observed deterioration. Released.

It was a list of… what, test subjects? For the sixth sense, or something else? Joy scanned the names, doing a double take when she reached the bottom.

Hunter Harbor. 04-11-113. 02-28-136.

The next two spaces were blank, as if still waiting to be filled in. Joy glanced at the doorway they’d left, the burnt-out, destroyed room. It looked like Harbor was the project’s only success by a hundred miles. And somehow, that hadn't been a great thing.

She swapped pages. The next seemed to be another piece of some manual, but after that… a collection of notes.

Construction largely consists of a bio-friendly silicon isotope; flexible and non-degrading. Interior electronics package is shown to be well-shielded against external factors. Centermost hollow houses Isotope G—

Joy paused, glancing back at Sahota. “Isotope G. You know what that is?”

“No.”

Definitely seemed like something worth finding out.

—designed to power implant, provided activation can be achieved. Extent of properties unknown, has been shown to emit a unique energy signature.

Joy sighed, shuffling the page to the back. “So Rotorworx is sticking shit in people's heads without fully understanding it. Is that a common thing with them?”

“Rotorworx has a history of not thinking things through. They prefer to look at results over consequences.”

Joy looked down at the next sheet. “Oh, here's more on the G stuff.” It was another set of handwritten notes, neatly penned onto a torn piece of notebook paper. This time, she read aloud.

“Properties largely unexplored, further research to be conducted ASAP. Full energization has been achieved on a microscopic level through ionizing Na-22 sample in proximity. Energization resulted in temporary visual phenomena that witnesses described as ‘otherworldly’. Energization of larger sample to be enacted ASAP.” She glanced over her shoulder. “You don't think… maybe they used this shit for the Reality Cage too?”

“We shouldn't assume,” Sahota said, taking the page from her and squinting at it.

“They said it was otherworldly,” she argued. “Even if it doesn't open portals or whatever, is that gonna stop Rotorworx from trying to use it that way?”

The corners of his mouth tightened. “Probably not.”

Joy glanced at the papers in her hands, once again face to face with the printer manual. “What was the one you grabbed? Have you looked at it yet?”

“Not yet.” He passed it to her, and she hit it with the beam of the flashlight. More handwritten notes, which so far, had been the jackpot.

1237 - Rate raised to .070 mSv/H, no change.

1300 - Rate raised to .071 mSv/H, no change.

1320 - Session terminated. Results inconclusive. Subject stable.

She re-read it aloud for Sahota’s benefit. “Milli-Sieverts,” she finished with disbelief. “They were straight-up zapping the test subjects with radiation.”

It seemed like the researchers were trying to energize the ‘larger sample’ while it was inside someone's head. Even though she knew this project had been shut down, Joy still cringed at the thought. She didn't have every piece of the puzzle, but the bits they'd found didn't paint a pretty picture. How had this been allowed? Why hadn't anyone stopped it before everything blew up in their faces? Literally?

She handed the page back to Sahota. “Think we have all we need?” she asked.

“Isotope G is a good starting point,” he replied, tucking the paper away. “It's more intel than we came in with.”

“Thank fuck for that,” Joy replied, rolling her shoulders back in a stretch. She'd really prefer not to spend any more time in this pit. She passed Sahota the flashlight and got to her feet, following the beam back the way they'd come. Once they reached the top of the stairs, she threw open the maintenance door with a dramatic shove. Ah, sunlight.

She held the door steady for Sahota. “You know what? That was fun,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow. “Really.”

“Really. Not every day you get to break into an abandoned lab and find weird shit. Fun.”

He let out a noise that might've been a laugh. Maybe. “Glad you enjoyed yourself.”

Joy grinned at him, leaning back against the white cinderblock and casting one final glance at the papers she'd found, now slightly crumpled from their place in her fist. She could probably trash them as soon as they made it past the fence. Sahota had the important shit, and she doubted she'd ever own an X4900 printer.

But in the daylight, something caught her eye.

Joy frowned, smoothing out the stack before grabbing the first manual page. Turning it over, seeing nothing but manufactured words. Nothing new, what had she just..? Ah. The second page, something had been scrawled with a soft pencil in the margins on the back, hardly noticeable.

“Hey,” she said. “I think there's more here.”

These notes were hastily written, like whoever'd made them was smack dab in the middle of something and just needed to get it down. It took her a second to make out the words.

0918 - Rate raised to 10 mSv/H. Material appears to react. A spike of energy equivalent to 11 Joules is read on the monitor.

0923 - Rate raised to 25 mSv/H. Material shows a spike of activity, equivalent to 78 Joules. Increasing.

“Sahota..?” Increasing. They'd managed to energize the G shit then, at least a little. This… this must've been Harbor's test. She continued reading, this time out loud.

“0929 - Source energy appears to malfunction. Readings asymmetrical. Geiger tube alarm threshold reached. Advise shut down and reschedule test.

0932 - Rate raised to 100 mSv/H. Material energization increases exponentially, reading 939 Joules.”

Sahota frowned. “And then?”

“That's all,” she said, feeling her eyebrows knit tighter together. “It just ends.”

A hundred milli-sieverts. She'd never gotten too deep into nuclear physics, but that was a lot, right? At the very least it wasn't a healthy amount of radiation for a human to be exposed to. And she knew Joules. Harbor'd basically had a microwave going off in his head. Joy clenched her jaw. Even if she was still pissed at the guy, she couldn’t imagine how that would’ve felt.

“This is what caused the incident, isn't it? They tried to activate the… whatever Isotope G is, and it backfired.”

Sahota had taken the paper from her and was staring it down. “We can't know for sure, but…”

“But you'd agree it's pretty likely?”

He nodded, a grim set to his mouth.

“Fuck,” she whispered. It didn't surprise her that everything had gone so wrong. Popping energetic material into the human brain—even in the name of research—was a disaster waiting to happen. But if things had gone so wrong with something small enough to be implanted in someone's head, what could happen with larger quantities?

“Fuck,” she said again, louder, shaking her head when Sahota looked her way.

“We need to get to the Reality Cage as soon as we can,” she said.

“That is the mission,” Sahota replied.

“No, it's…” Joy shook her head again. “I think it's worse than we thought. I think…” She clenched her fists, tapping her knuckles against her thighs. “If Rotorworx is using Isotope G, if they're trying to fuck with it the same way they did here…” She looked him in the eye, setting her jaw.

“It's gonna be like setting off an atom bomb in the middle of the city.”

×~×~×

@theonewithallthefixations , @violets-whumperflies , @whump-me , @pirefyrelight , @soheavyaburden ,

@snakebites-and-ink , @whumpsday , @kixngiggles , @echo-goes-aaa , @whumpcateyes ,

@clickerflight , @sodacreampuff , @starfields08000

#total$hit$how #ive noticed a trend with how each character gets their pov chapters ended lolol #the full chapter is almost 7k because joy has a LOT to say apparently #whump writing #writing #fiction #death mention tw #i was putting this off for so long specifically because of the science skfhjeke #it FEELS necessary but idk lol

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