Fell Deeds

Chapter 1 I didn't sign up for this

My name is Crom....probably. Its not a great name is it? I say probably because I'm not really sure. I do not understand the language my "parents?" speak yet but Crom seems to be the word used most often when they have their attention centered on me. I suppose it could mean shit or something like that though... Me? I'm a brat. I know... Why is a baby so self aware? Long story that.. I may as well tell it as long as I'm talking to myself. Its a better use of time than counting stains on the ceiling. Let us go back a few months. Back to another time or place. Could be either or both. I'm still confused on this myself... Anyway... back...

{Location Earth. Baltimore, Maryland D Block Fort Carrol Super-max Prison 2072 AD.}

I lay there in my cell counting the stains and pockmarks on the concrete ceiling; I even named a few of my favorites. During that time my name was Abe Bannoc. I was somewhere in my mid forties in terms of age. I'm just over six feet tall with a scarred and battered body thickly packed with muscle. Sounds good so far right? Wrong. I was also bald and blind in one eye due to a close encounter with an FAE. My left ear looked like a candle left too close to a fire and I was sporting a rather impressive potbelly which accented my bushy salt and pepper beard perfectly. If I had to describe myself i would say I looked like a nightmarish version of Santa Claus who instead of delivering toys spent most of his time being shot down by anti-aircraft artillery. Not exactly model material. Not exactly what makes the ladies swoon. More like what makes children stare and cry in the grocery store. The very personification of broken dreams, violence, and hardship.

I was in that cell for entirely trumped up charges. Something about murder, trafficking weapons, kidnapping, false imprisonment, theft, arson, and assault. All perfectly acceptable during the war but then the war ended. I pissed off a few officers in my time and once everyone stopped trying to kill each other they decided it was time to settle up with me. I was just a merc so I became a convenient scapegoat. Lots of horrible bloody things were hung on me and only half were even my doing... well.... sixty percent my doing...maybe seventy-five percent... Didn't matter. I was well over it.

*tok tok tok*

I heard the guard coming for me. It was time to leave my cozy home away from home. I looked to the ceiling and bid farewell to Judith, Marcus, and Luditz; Three stains named after the three instructors I most hated in high school. I wondered why I couldn't have gotten a cell that once housed an inmate with an artistic flair. Most of the cells Id had before this displayed wild graffiti depicting everything from religious content to pornography. Those were the days. This cell was too sterile and gray for my liking. Its flat plain walls offended my carefully cultivated sense of aesthetics. Not one doodle of a big breasted amazon being back-doored by a horse or burning religious figure promising salvation that will never come. Boring... The steel collar around by neck vibrated softly and made the whining noise that always set my teeth on edge.

"Taking no chances eh Dicker?..." I muttered.

"Abraham Bannoc. Get your ass up. Its time"

The guard was an ugly slab of muscle and bone who had a permanent look of indifference carved into his apelike face. Maybe Five and a half feet tall and almost as wide. Milo Dierker looked like a fireplug with a blond buzz-cut. I got along with him ok. Just another dumb slob doing a rough job he hated.

"Whatever you say Dierker" I grunted

I sat up on my cot and stretched to get the kinks out. A myriad of grunts,pops, and curses saw to my feet in style. I turned to my Toilet/Sink combo, relieved myself, and splashed some water on my shaggy face to freshen up. Always liked to look my best. I then turned to Dierker as he opened the cell door.

"So how do I look?"

"Gorgeous."

"I think the orange of these jumpsuits really bring out my eyes"

"The shit brown one or the milky white monstrosity on the left?"

"Flatterer."

"........"

"What's wrong Milo? Don't you love me anymore?"

"They changed the method Abe"

"To what? Hanging? Gas? Can't say I care. Dead is dead."

"They think they got the machine working. That's why the collar is activated. You've been volunteered as a test subject"

The "collar" is actually a short range molecular transportation device. A particularly nasty bit of tech that simply moves part of my neck a few feet to the right or left depending on which unit is activated. The problem is that the rest of me wont be going on that trip. Best be a good boy or somebody will press a button that makes me shorter. I remember finding it funny that it was the outlawed use of this very technology that sparked the war in the first place. That irony was not lost on me...

".....great.. Any clue where I'm being sent?"

"Thanos 226"

Thanos is a prison planet that has no walls, guards, rules, and little chance of survival. What is does have is hellish dust storms, blisteringly hot days, frigid nights, and a population of carnivorous flora and fauna that feeds primarily on its population of equally carnivorous prisoners. Its multiple moons play hell with the tides and weather making life there all but impossible on most of the planets surface. Prime real-estate going cheap! Step right up! Usually it takes years of travel in a cryo-capsule to get there but if those psychopaths actually got the Machine working...

"The hits just keep on coming don't they Milo?"

*Shrugs* "Better than getting scragged ain't it?"

"Is it? If it actually works maybe. Last time they fired that thing up the rider ended up and a screaming lump of meat half fused to the wall. I think I should have drowned myself in the toilet."

"Maybe you will get lucky and materialize in deep space. Instant freeze. it's immortality of a sort"

"Thanks Milo. You always did know how to cheer me up"

"Get moving"

Milo led me down the hall of D block of which I was the only guest. I passed a few other cells which sported some of that enviable graffiti I mentioned earlier. One prisoner had apparently gotten extra ambitious and created a full wall mural of what looked like a yellow gorilla with giant breasts dry humping a caricature of our current president. Interesting. That gorilla looked familiar..

"Hey Milo..."

Milo glanced into the cell I gestured toward and shrugged.

"Looks a bit like you buddy"

"Also immortality of a sort"

"Never pegged you as the philosophical type...."

Snow and gale force winds assailed us as we arrived at the center of the island a few minutes later. Fort Carrol is a leftover from some war a few centuries back. Milo tried to tell me the history once but I never had much interest in such things. All i remember is that its a fortress off the coast of what used to be Baltimore before an Axon Bomb turned it into a crater. Now Baltimore is a perfectly round bay. Carrol is a hexagon shaped island only accessible by ferry. In the center is an 80 foot steel dome with a double door that looks like it could stop a 120 mm shell. All it needs is a big placard reading "All hope abandon ye who enter here." and my guts would have finished their transformation into ice water. Milo placed his palm onto the plate by the door and then we waited.

"Why is it so fucking cold out here?" I grumbled

"Close to forty degrees latitude and its February"

"Cute"

"You asked"

The door opened and a rush of warm air greeted me as I walked into the dome. We staggered through the door while shaking off our dusting of ice. The doors slid shut with a pneumatic hiss and locked with a barely audible click behind me. Inside the dome were a number a pale skinny men wearing the obligatory white lab coat and one freckle faced redheaded woman in gray rumpled coveralls ordering them around like a drill sergeant. They surrounded the machine making whatever adjustments lab geeks make when they are about to ruin a mans day. The machine itself looked something like an open MRI surrounded by a ring of 8 things that looked like copper and glass arc generators.

"Creepy. Can I go home now?"

"Man up Abe"

"You wanna go next Milo?"

"Id rather piss glass. Get going."

The redhead noticed us at this point and stomped over looking halfway between excited and annoyed. Her stomping ceased as she stopped right in front of me and gave me a look from head to toe as if sizing me up for a coffin. I gave her the same treatment. Dark red hair pulled back in a careless ponytail, rectangular glasses perched on a freckled nose. Deep green eyes that were slightly bloodshot and shadowed. Maybe five foot two with a slender figure as though she often forgets to do more than drink a cup of coffee and cram a power-bar in her mouth before going back to work. She looked...maybe 16 to my eyes. She crinkled her nose and pursed her lips as though she had made up her mind about me. She stuck out her hand and..

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"Dr. Chloe O'Hannagan. Nice to meet you mister..."

"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya" I replied.

Milo snorted and walked off to the side of the room.

"Eh? I am sure it was something else..."

She started fumbling through the papers on her clipboard. Suddenly I felt very very old.

"...haaa...... Its Abe. Abe Bannoc..."

"Ah. Right. That was it! Thank you for volunteering Mr.. Bannoc."

"Pretty sure I didn't"

"Eh?"

"Volunteer. I didn't. Not that it matters"

"I see. Well as long as you are here its fine"

"...right"

"Now Mr. Bannoc I need you to strip"

"...I appreciate the thought but we just met and I wouldn't want you to think I'm easy so.."

"Just strip!"

"Yes mam."

Seems I had lost my touch. I wasn't as pretty, young, or thin as I used to be so I didn't take it too hard. After stripping she gave me another once over.

"Hmmm. You're a big one aren't you?"

"Um... I like to tell myself that"

"We have to calibrate the machine with all of your physical data. Please step into the scanner so we can get your weight and other measurements. "

I stepped onto a two by two square pedestal which lit up under my bare feet.

"Ugh. I gotta see your hairy ass before lunch Abe? Cruel and unusual"

"Stuff it Dicker"

Milo snorted.

"So how does it look Doc?"

"Hmm? Oh!"

She looked up from her console as if just now remembering I was a living breathing person instead of a list of data and calculations.

"Abraham Bannoc. Age 43. Weight 112.037 kilos, Height 187.96 centimeters. width... Um... What happened to your head?"

"Fuel Air explosion"

"Ouch''

"You have no idea"

"Well lets get you cleaned up and prepped"

"joy"

She led me to stall which when closed hit me with jets of hot water and disinfectants from every angle followed by blasts of hot air. Not a good time to say the least. On the up side I don't think Ive been this clean since I was hosed down and scrubbed raw by my mother after I was sprayed by a skunk as a child. I was then injected with all manner of chemicals that were explained to me as it happened. I probably should have paid attention there but I was getting closer to the Machine at this point and was getting a bit jittery.

The lab geeks guided me to a sort of ceramic chair on rails leading up to the Machine. I was told to sit and once I had was strapped in tightly. I could just barely breath. The chair started sliding back into place and the white-coats scatted around the room....mostly behind protective shields I noted. The chair locked itself into place and elevated me a foot or so off the floor before tilting back a bit to give me yet another ceiling to stare at. At least this one had a skylight and odd bits of equipment to ponder over. One of the white coats came over and removed my collar.

"Hey Doc. What is this thing called anyway?

"The Machine" She replied absently

"Yeah but what is its ...er...scientific name?"

"Is doesn't have a name as such. It has a serial number which is long and an acronym which is longer. I can not accurately recite either off hand. Most of us call it the Machine though Ted over there insists on calling it Scotty."

Ted waved to identify himself.

"Scotty?"

He just grinned.

"Whatever"

At this point I noticed a slight discoloration on the far wall near the blast doors I entered though. It looked as if that steel plate had been replaced recently. I remembered the story Id heard about the last poor bastard who rode on "Scotty" and shuddered.

"Is this going to hurt Doc?"

"Most likely"

"............Is that something you should admit to?"

"Mr.. Bannoc we are going to be disassembling you at the subatomic level and transporting you over 30 trillion miles and then slapping you back together remotely. You will be reduced to base energy. Did you think that would feel good? You're going to be shooting through space for something like 6 years before enough of you gathers in the catch on the other end to reassemble. At least we think you wont be conscious during transport."

"What do you mean ENOUGH of me?..... And you THINK I wont be conscious?" Wont my brain be in bits at that point? How would I be aware?!?

"Well there will likely be some tissue loss during transport"

"So Im going to lose weight?

"If you mean an arm or leg then possibly though it is not certain. As far as consciousness goes it is hard to say. We are still studying the human brain and are as of yet unable to ascertain exactly how memories are stored. Some say it is simply a question of energy and since you will soon be reduced to little more than energy... Well.. We shall see yes?"

She was using much too whimsical a tone for the weight of her words in my opinion. Frankly this girl made my balls want to shrivel up and hide. Scary.

"..........So there is no guarantee I will have all of my limbs or even be able to remember anything even if I make it through?"

"Exactly."

"Can I back out now?"

"No... but even if you could those injections would kill you in an hour if we don't push forward with the experiment."

I really should listened to those explanations.

"Ha..haha.. Ok... If its really going to hurt that bad can I have something to bite down on?"

"Certainly not. We stripped you for a reason Mr. Bannoc. Any foreign matter would fuse with you during reassembly. You don't want that."

"Guess not"

"Pussy" Milo muttered under his breath

[Laugh it up monkey boy]

"Are you ready Mr.. Bannoc? We need to get started soon or your body will be too unstable to last through the process."

"............Not like I got a choice Doc. .... Lets do it"

She nodded and fiddled with her computers for a bit then just stared at me as the eight generators around me fired up. I don't remember much after that. Just that it did indeed hurt. Worse that being stabbed, shot, or burned. I was familiar with those and could cope with it more or less... This was something altogether different. It felt like being ripped apart with frozen tweezers through every inch of myself inside and out. I vaguely recall one of those generators flashing with fire and Doc O'hannagan screaming before the darkness took me. I think I dreamed after that.Specks of light in fuligin. Sensations of heat and cold. I do not think I want to remember all of it.

{Location} ?????

When I came back to myself I was cold and wet. I was unbearably weak and tired. I felt restrained at well as though I were tied up. Nothing seemed to make any sense. It seemed my awareness slipped in and out. I remember sounds of sobbing and then sounds of surprise and joy. I was having trouble breathing and couldn't get my eyes to focus at all. I tried to ask what had happened to me.

"...ck...hhk"

[Eh?]

I couldn't speak at all. I started to panic a bit. Can't see, move, speak, and my thinking was none too clear either. Shit! What is going on!? I'm not part of a wall of something am I!? I felt two monstrous hands close around me and was lifted into the air. A gigantic bearded face stared at me with wet eyes and what may or may not have been a smile. The face garbled some random noises at me before lifting me higher still and spinning himself and me around in circles as it hooted and hawed. I wondered if this is how those kids in the supermarkets felt when looking upon me. I decided to forgive them for their stares. I was then lowered into the waiting arms of another giant and bundled into some sort of rough towel or blanket.

[At least I'm not cold now] I thought.

After I was securely wrapped my face was pressed to what had to be the largest breast Id ever heard of in my life. I was starting to understand at this point. Instincts and hunger kicked in. I did what all creatures such as I did in that situation. I drank. Soon after that I fell asleep.