Chapter Text
Her arm was held in a tight grasp and her body held firmly to the chair to keep her immobile as another person stood at her bound wrists. All around her were walls of high contrast - white walls approximately four feet tall that gave way to black, one-way mirrors on three of the walls. The ebony haired woman looked up into the man’s eyes and was disgusted to find no spark of life. There were no markers of his own personality under the issued outfit; not even his hair showed individuality. And he showed no interest in his job as he pulled out a tattoo gun. She struggled against the restraints but nothing she did helped. She was strapped down tightly in strategic places to the restraining chair.
The woman kept trying to flex her hand, trying to summon up something to help her. She tried to summon her Gift, a power she'd had for years with no explanation for how she'd gotten it, fruitlessly. Her breathing quickened as she panicked. Nothing; she couldn't feel anything rising to the surface in her defense. As the man drilled into her skin over and over again, the bound woman screamed at him with every derogatory word that she knew. Her head was forcibly jerked to the side before they jammed yet another needle into her body. She felt every moment as her body froze up, traveling from the injection like a rushing stream which took away her ability to even protest. A stunted sound echoed in her throat but it seemed as though she didn’t have control over her tongue and her lips.
“Don’t worry about the temporary paralysis. It's a side effect of the process; it should wear off soon. From now on your identification number is 1-7-2 B2. You would do well to memorize it. That's what you'll be called from here on out,” a voice called out from somewhere behind one of the one way mirrors with a hint of pride in his voice. “Welcome to the Organization.”
As the man before her finished up the procedure and removed the strap from around her forehead, Razaria was finally able to move her head to see what had been put on the underside of her left wrist against her will. Maring her skin was black lines of varying width. The recognition of what was there seemed surreal to her. It was a bar code. They had put a barcode on her like she was some sort of product to be sold. Indignation and fury welled up inside of her as she stared at the black ink on her left forearm. The room was too quiet for a moment. The cold room barely held the sound of breathing as the paralysis continued to play a part in keeping her down. In that eerie stillness her heart sounded like the waves of an ocean crashing angrily inside of her body.
Within thirty seconds, the doors opened up with a decisive mechanical sound before two guards walked in. They moved over to her prone form and gripped her arms tightly as the chair's restraining straps were undone. Though everything in her wanted to fight them, Razaria still couldn't move. Perhaps that was the scariest sensation of all - they had removed her ability to even try to fight back. They carted her out of the procedural room and down the long hallway. The hallways blurred together to her as they hauled her around forcibly. Everywhere she could even begin to see was black or white with a few variations of gray on the high vaulted ceilings. The guards stopped in front of what looked to be a wall only for a section of it to open before them. As the wall moved it revealed a network of lasers and she could barely make out another door behind the brightness of the tightly woven laser web.
One of the guards pointed a skinny flashlight looking device, no wider than a pencil she used to write with in school, at the grid of laser lights. The lines of lasers went away after he traced the doorway with the beam of light. She finally saw the door behind the laser grid and realized that it looked completely out of place. It looked like any other bedroom door she had ever seen, though it was made out of a matte metal she had yet to confront. Like everything else about this place it was alien to her. As she tried to come to terms with something so simple being so strange, Razaria wiggled her fingers. Her whole body had that tingling type of pain that came with something waking up. She tried to reach out, wanting to touch the strange metallic door as her limbs started to wake up. She had forgotten that her arms were both held back by two very big, very scary looking men as well as the fact that she was still having issues moving.
“Get in there girl!” One of the guards barked at her as the other opened the door.
As soon as there was room, she felt herself being tossed forward forcibly. She landed on the cold white tiled floor with a thud. Her aching body hurt more than she thought possible as the reigns of paralysis finally faded in a slowly agonizing way. Saying that it felt like she jumped out of a high window to land face first on the sidewalk might do justice to what was left in the wake of the paralysis.
“Oh a new girl!”
Razaria looked up to be met with the sight of a white haired girl. The first impression that Razaria got from her was that this girl was trapped somewhere between being a child and a full blown woman, as though she could go either way on the drop of the hat. Judging by her eyebrows and skin tone, which looked perfectly matched with white hair, she knew that the white hair had to be natural. Or at the very least she had spent a lot of money to make people think so. The only dark hair anywhere on her that Razaria could see was her eyelashes which framed clear green eyes nestled in a youthful face.
“Ivy, get out of her face,” this voice wasn’t as bubbly as the first and the dark haired woman couldn’t see where it had come from.
Razaria noticed that what had looked like a wall to her side was retracting to reveal another section of the room. The other girl in the room, whom she had yet to find out a name for, sat on a bed in the right hand corner side with her laptop and soda forgotten about for the moment. Her hair was a rich red and Razaria had to admit that coupled with her bright yellow eyes it gave the girl a unique look. There was something about the set of her mouth and the judgmental look of her eyes that made the redhead seem more mature than the white haired girl that had first greeted her. She wore what seemed to be a very unoriginal style of clothing, baggier than Razaria was sure was necessary.
“My name is Ivy or 0-2-4 is what the guards call me. She's 1-4-6, but we call her Mari,” The white haired girl known as Ivy spoke again.
“I’m Razaria,” She paused for a moment. “What's the bunch of numbers about?"
“Oh, that’s just your identification code or designation, whatever you want to call it. It’s part of the barcode they pressed onto your wrist,” Mari said nonchalantly as she went back to typing on her laptop after taking a sip of her soda.
“Identification number…” Razaria said to no one in particular walking over to what looked to be the last vacant bed area.
Razaria's eyes moved down to look at the ink that had been freshly stamped into her skin. The situation felt unreal to her; this had to be some messed up joke. But at the same time the raven haired young woman knew that this had been taken too far to be a joke. There was no way that anyone she knew could do something as elaborate as this. Besides there was a small part of her that felt like maybe this is what she deserved; maybe she deserved to be in prison. That was just a little, quiet part of her while the majority felt nauseated about the situation she was currently in.
Bile continued to rise in the back of her throat as she took in her surroundings. White and black; that's what everything was. There was a uniformity to the room that gave it a harsh look. Single sized beds and dressers with three drawers each along with a small writing desk near each bed; all features were black and white with very sterile designs. The only color that she had seen so far was the dark blue of the redhead's shirt and once she'd moved to the bed in the corner she hadn't even been able to see that.
“I feel like I’m in a prison with really nice furniture,” Razaria said sitting on the white bedspread.
“You are,” Mari said, though Razaria couldn’t see her from her spot. "If prisons were allowed to murder their inmates for noncompliance that is."
"Wait what?"
As Razaria tried to peer around the corner so that she could look towards the women who declared that the guards were allowed to kill her, she heard a noise that sounded like the main door was being opened. Seconds later a new girl with long blond hair and noticeably blue eyes walked into the room. She was just what every little girl Razaria had known wanted to look like when she grew up. Razaria watched in interest as the robot-like girl continued on her way to her own bed covered in white. She hummed a soft angelic tune as she took a brush off the perfect white dresser and started to take long strokes through her already straight, brushed hair.
"Uh, who are you?" Razaria asked as the blonde finally sat down her brush.
The other girl turned to look at her and smiled. Razaria couldn't help but wonder how the prison she was in had such good dental care when she saw the other girl's teeth. And there was something so familiar about her smile that it made Razaria feel more on edge than she was before.
"Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. My designation is 1-6-9. What's your designation?"
"My name is Razaria," Razaria answered, feeling like the room was spinning on her. "I can't remember my designation."
This girl...the room...everything up to this point was unreal. Every creak made her jump and that was with the ache that had set in to all of her limbs. It felt like she had slept on them wrong all at the same time. She was starting to miss when everything was numb.
"What, you can't read barcodes?" The redhead on the other side of the room asked sardonically.
Razaria frowned and glared even if she couldn't see the sarcastic redhead. She was so glad that someone found her situation funny. She definitely did not. Before she had time to retort with a come back, the white haired girl moved over to her and grabbed her arm.
"Well it says 23-0-0-16-0-0-1-7-2-3-2. Which means your designation is 1-7-2 B2."
"Thanks?"
"Ivy," the girl reminded her with a pleasant enough smile. "And the girl over there is Candice. You'll hear the guards call her 1-6-9 though. Just like you'll get called 1-7-2. That's just how things work here."
The white haired girl, Ivy, took a seat next to her on her bed. Which felt like an invasion of personal space considering the fact that she had just met her. Yet this girl already felt comfortable enough to just assume a spot on another person's bed. Razaria started to assume that maybe she was socially challenged or something. The odd thing was that there was no visible sign on her face or body that there was anything different about her. At least nothing more drastic than her white hair.
"But it's so odd that you're a 'two'; I've never been around a 'two'. They must have seen something really special in you."
"What the hell is a 'two'?" Razaria asked as she moved farther down the bed away from Ivy.
"Oh that's right! You haven't gone through orientation yet! Awe that's so cute! You're just like a kid!"
One thing was clear in this very confusing situation: Razaria did not like being called a kid. She clenched and shifted her jaw as she went very quiet. Normally it would be the time that she just got up and walked away. That wasn't an option right now. Razaria might be new to this place but she knew better than to assume that the door was unlocked. She had seen the guards undo a laser net; she could still practically smell the ionized air even though the metal door was closed. There was no way she was going to be able to get out of this room so easily.
"Ivy," the redhead from across the room, Mari, called out as she closed the lid of her laptop.
"Hmm?"
"You're being weird again. Give her some space to get her bearings."
See, normally something like that should have made Razaria feel better. She wasn't the only one who recognized that this was a very strange situation. She should have felt grateful for that, but at the moment all she felt was a whirlwind of negativity. She couldn't help but feel like this girl was trying to defend her even though she had never asked for help. She wasn't helpless and she hated when people tried to make her feel like she was.
"Oh, okay. Well I hope that she gets them pretty quickly. It's almost time to go play," Ivy said as she moved back to her own bed.
Seriously, this girl must have something wrong in her head. Who said ' go play ' like that was normal for adults to do? Razaria shifted on her bed as she looked around the room again. Everything about this place felt wrong. And despite the fact that there was technically plenty of space, Razaria felt like the room was too crowded. What made it worse was the fact that she didn't even know why she was there or for how long she was going to be there. She didn't even know where ' there ' was to begin with! Which was possibly the worst thing. Or at least it should be. Her current concern was more on the fact that the girl Ivy kept looking at her. Seriously - she was just too weird.
"What?" Razaria finally snapped.
"So what's your Gift? What made a 'two' good enough to be in here?"
Razaria didn't know what a 'two' was and what was so bad about it but she knew that whatever it was, it wasn't a good thing. The way that Ivy kept pressing in on her was definitely setting her off. It was like the girl was trying to rub her nose in everything she didn't know about this place. And that notion was pissing her off.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Ivy sat back and blinked, thick ashen eyelashes touching her high cheekbones. From this angle, Razaria noticed that she probably wasn’t as young as she'd first thought. She just had that kind of face and demeanor about her. The next thing was that her anger only seemed to amuse the smaller girl.
"Well, I can do neat things with energy; I mostly use it for plants though. You should see some of the plants they've let me grow in the gardens! Maybe they'll let me show you after we're done playing."
"Playing what?"
"She means training," Mari spoke out as she stood up from her bed in the corner.
Mari moved around the walls that blocked her from Razaria's view. She was actually pretty tall; that was Razaria's first reaction. She wasn't freakishly tall or anything but she was just a little taller than average compared to the woman Razaria was used to seeing. Mari stretched her arms out as she rolled her neck, the popping sensation was treated like an old friend.
"Training for what?"
"Oh, they really didn't tell you anything did they?" Candice asked from across the room.
Before Razaria looked back to the last girl to join the room, she watched as the redhead rolled her eyes. Mari did not seem amused in the least by Candice. If Razaria wasn't wrong it looked like Mari was disgusted or at the very least angry. She had no idea what she'd be angry at but then again, Razaria didn't know the young woman very well. Still...that had not been a happy look.
"They're training us to be killers for hire," Mari quipped.
Razaria's head whipped back towards the redhead so quickly that it was a wonder she didn't have whiplash. She had to be joking . Right? The girl before her gaze didn't seem to be about to laugh or anything that would denote a joke. She was smiling but it seemed in a sort of mocking way; maybe a bit rueful.
"You're joking right?"
"She's joking," Candice spoke out in a sharp tone.
Mari shook her head, "Not joking. They train us how to use our Gifts. They train us to fight. They teach us how to spy and infiltrate. They teach us languages, arts, and sciences if it's important enough. They teach us to survive through adversity, how to work as a Unit, how to handle modern and archaic weapons. In everything but name - we're the future weapons of the world."
"Mari," the perfect faced blonde called out reproachfully.
No way. No way. She was joking - she had to be. There's no way that all of that was true. And there was no way, even if it was true (and it wasn't!), that she would go along with it.
"Welcome to the Organization," Ivy said in an oddly chirpy tone.