NOVEL WEB Book 1 – Joining 2
"One moment, you're going about your everyday life and the next, you get thrown into the worst nightmare you'll ever experience. The only thing worse is when you realise it's real and won't wake up."
― Interview with Joined "Meister" #R42MHM217505. April 15th, 2011.
***
Gehoorzaamheid. Vertrouwen. Kalmte. Stilte. Overgave. Gehoorzaamheid.
Someone was quietly yelling at me, and I groggily opened my gritty eyes to complete darkness. I could tell I was lying on my stomach and that every square centimetre of me hurt something fierce. Gritting my teeth against the throbbing that accompanied every move, I rubbed my dry eyes, trying to understand where I was.
What happe-
Gehoorzaamheid. Vertrouwen. Kalmte. Stilte. Overgave. Gehoorzaamheid.
I winced away from the person - a man, I think- who started yelling at me again, but his voice came from everywhere at once.
Wha-
Gehoorzaamheid. Vertrouwen. Kalmte. Stilte. Overgave. Gehoorzaamheid.
It felt like somebody shoved crushed glass and rusty nails into my skull and was now methodically grinding it into my brain. I think I screamed. The grogginess vanished in blazing agony, and I remembered what had happened to me.
My back! Wha-
Gehoorzaamheid. Vertrouwen. Kalmte. Stilte. Overgave. Gehoorzaamheid.
A knife of frozen flames slashed into my head, effortlessly slicing through my face and skull before freezing and burning my brain one cell at a time. I screamed and clawed at my face trying to get the knife out.
My throat was raw when I returned to myself. I'd been screaming and ripping at myself for I don't know how long, and every nerve ending was screaming at me in pain. I could feel the blood dripping from the scratches my nails had clawed into my face.
I flopped over onto my back, wheezing heavily and froze as soon as my back touched the hard mattress. It felt wrong.
What did the-
Gehoorzaamheid. Vertrouwen. Kalmte. Stilte. Overgave. Gehoorzaamheid.
I heard the words without actually hearing them. They repeated like a song on a loop stuck in my head, and every time I tried to think about what had happened to me, they increased the volume drowning every thought out.
The words were in the same guttural language I'd heard before, but I somehow understood their meaning this time; Obedience. Trust. Calmness. Silence. Surrender. Obedience.
I was sure the words were the cause of the freezing fire blade and crushed glass that had hit me, but they had been pulled back.
I could still feel the torture tools looming behind the soundless words, ready to punish, but the phrases felt less threatening. They were kind of soothing even.
Something is wr-
Gehoorzaamheid. Vertrouwen. Kalmte. Stilte. Overgave. GEHOORZAAMHEID.
The words were, of course, stating the obvious. I'd be a complete idiot to disobey my betters. It was only natural to trust those who quite obviously comprehended more than I did. Who would even need to be told something so elementary?
Well, others were screaming around me, so they evidently needed to be told, but not me. I would obey, trust, stay quiet, and placidly wait until they told me otherwise. I was an obedient gi-
Wait, no! I a-
Gehoorzaamheid. Vertrouwen. Kalmte. Stilte. Overgave. Gehoorzaamheid.
Yes. I obey.
Gehoorzaamheid. Vertrouwen. Kalmte. Stilte. Overgave. Gehoorzaamheid.
Yes. I'm an obedient girl.
Gehoorzaamheid. Vertrouwen. Kalmte. Stilte. Overgave. Gehoorzaamheid.
Yes. I obey.
Gehoorzaamheid. Vertrouwen. Kalmte. Stilte. Overgave. Gehoorzaamheid.
Yes. I am obedient Material.
***
A buzzing electric sound cut through the silence around me, and fluorescent lights flickered on one by one, showing me that I was on what could charitably be called a bed in what looked like a barracks or hangar to me.
"OPSTAAN!" Somebody bellowed from far to my right, and even if I couldn't translate the word like the soundless words I heard, I could surmise its intent.
I exited my bed and straightened the grimy bloodstained sheets quickly. I then joined the other people to stand at attention by the foot of our beds, forming two rows on either side of an aisle which was left empty between our cots. Almost like we were in one of those military movies Adam loved to watch.
Adam.
I stamped down any thought about my ex before even the soundless words could react. No good could come of me thinking about that bastard.
My eyes flicked left and right, taking in the dozens of men and women of all shapes, sizes, and ethnicities standing to my left, right, and across from me. I idly noted that their clothes had been shredded, and each wore tattered bits of fabric that haphazardly clung to their bodies. Most of the exposed skin and clothes were crusty with dried blood. They all looked like extras in this year's blockbuster disaster movie.
I glanced down at myself and saw that I wasn't wearing a stitch other than my left shoe, sock, and the left trouser leg of my jeans, which was now a leg warmer at best. There was no sign of the rest of my clothes. I mentally stumbled when the embarrassment, anger, and fear I knew I should be feeling didn't appear.
What th-
Gehoorzaamheid. Vertrouwen. Kalmte. Stilte. Overgave. Gehoorzaamheid.
I blinked. Whatever I'd been thinking stopped in its tracks.
What happe-
Gehoorzaamheid. Vertrouwen. Kalmte. Stilte. Overgave. Gehoorzaamheid.
Yes. I obey.
Gehoorzaamheid. Vertrouwen. Kalmte. Stilte. Overgave. Gehoorzaamheid.
Yes. I am obedient Material.
"RECHTSOM!" the same voice bellowed the new order, and I turned to my right in unison with all the others on my side of the room. The other side turned to their left, but I was pretty sure the orders had been to turn right.
"MARCHEER!"
I started moving forward, taking slightly larger steps than I was comfortable with, but it kept me in the same position relative to the man in front of me. Wearing only one shoe was annoying, but I couldn't take it off because I wouldn't be in formation with the others, so I awkwardly limped on.
The man in front of me still had both shoes and the remains of his shorts wrapped around his ankles. But that wasn't what demanded my attention; that was his back.
Starting at the base of his skull, a gunmetal grey... thing extended down his spine to where I think his butt crack should have started. At first glance, it looked segmented, a bit like an armadillo with shallow curved horizontal groves. But when he moved, it flowed in an almost liquid-like manner. It reminded me of how I imagined a snake moved, scales that slid over and across each other.
I swallowed.
I moved my shoulders slightly further than I had been while marching and felt my spine twist in response.
Except, I knew it wasn't my spine. At a visceral level, I knew that most of my back was gone and had been replaced by the same... implant the man who had been dumped had. The same implant we all had.
WHAT THE HELL!?! WHAT DID THEY D-
Gehoorzaamheid. Vertrouwen. Kalmte. Stilte. Overgave. Gehoorzaamheid.
PISS OFF! WHAT HA-
Gehoorzaamheid. Vertrouwen. Kal-
[NO, I WON'T!] I silently shrieked at the words, and it was like I had hit a wall with a bat. The recoil stunned my entire body like an electric jolt going through me, but I also felt whatever the words were recoil at my scream. There was more than a little grim satisfaction at that.
OBEY! TRUST! KEEP CALM! BE SILENT! SURRENDER! OBEY!
The English words slammed into me like a freight train. Freezing fire slashed into my head again, followed by glass shards shredding everything inside me with far more energy than they had last time. I stumbled with the impact; it was all I could do to keep standing. I couldn't even scream as the commands locked my jaw completely.
GWAAA-
Obey. Trust. Keep calm. Be silent. Surrender. Obey.
Yes. I will obey.
Obey. Trust. Keep calm. Be silent. Surrender. Obey.
Yes. I am obedient Material.
The pain vanished just like last time, leaving only the memory and the threat that it would return if I was going to be difficult.
I started moving again and immediately noticed that the man in front of me was now more than twenty meters ahead. The woman following me hadn't closed with him even after she and the others passed me, so my place in line was still open. I increased my pace, and before long, I'd returned to where I was supposed to be. I saw a few others hurrying to do the same, tears of blood dripping from their faces. I raised my left hand and felt my face, but with my already bloody scratches, I couldn't tell if I was bleeding from my eyes like them. I didn't see a red haze, and wouldn't that be usual in cases like this?
My eyes caught a small oval metal plate on my left wrist, but before I could start wondering about it, I dropped the arm and hurried towards my place in line. A few people lay on the ground, some twitching while bleeding from every orifice. Others were not moving at all. I stepped over one of the latter before I returned to where I was supposed to be.
I tried to ignore the juxtaposition between how I knew I should be a panicking, jibbering wreck running for my life and the semi-calm orderly way I was focused on keeping to my position in line.
This is unnatural.
When I finished that thought, I flinched at the expected silent commands, but nothing came, which had me carefully wondering why there was no retaliation this time.
Obey. Trust. Keep calm. Be silent. Surrender. Obey.
Yes. I will obey.
I surrendered immediately, giving no pushback at all. I needed time to figure out what was happening. The silent commands had already changed their language to force me to obey, and it didn't take a genius to figure out the consequences of not following the orders.
We passed over a hundred beds on either side of the aisle before exiting the barracks and marching down a wide hallway made of unpainted concrete with bare metal doorways on either side every five meters or so. Men and women wearing bulky grey-and-black clothes stood at intervals and next to each door, bellowing orders at us in their harsh language. But, even without understanding the language, we all obediently lined up at their directions.
I couldn't see any rhyme or reason for who they ordered to line up in which row, except that they made sure that there were at least two of us in front of every door.
The doors slid open with an audible hiss, damp air wafted out, and the next one in line mechanically stepped through before the door slid closed again. A few dropped and started twitching before standing up again and stiffly walking through their assigned doors.
I can't say how long it took before I was next in line; my sense of time was weird. But when I was standing in front of that door, I got a good look at the man directing us.
He looked... average. Dark hair, blue eyes, maybe one-eighty tall. He was just a guy in his thirties you could run into on any street. He looked tired, though, almost haggard, with thick black bags under his eyes and a gaunt face. There was nothing to indicate he wasn't a random faceless office drone except for what he wore.
Up close, I could see that what I took for bulky clothes was an armour of some kind. The first thing that came to mind was that superhero movie with the power suit guy, but bigger, more cumbersome, even if it didn't seem to affect him at all. Some form of modern interpretation of medieval plate armour, with oversized pauldrons and very delicate gauntlets.
"In," the man ordered after I'd been taking in his armour for I don't know how long. I turned, saw the door had opened again, and walked into the empty room without hesitation.
I obey. I silently thought but quietly added for now in the back of my head.
The door slid closed behind me.