Radiance

Radiance.

By

GhostNobody

Chapter 1:The Dust Settles.

The high pitched whine noise invaded the darkness of his dreams like an electric drill boring into his skull, as always it was followed by a voice that to him was the vocal equivalent of nails being dragged down a chalkboard and had the same effect of setting his teeth on edge.

"Rise and shine number seven its the start of a brand new day and we've got a whole series of new and exiting tests to get through, so up and at em!" the ever cheery and honey-sweet voice of Dr Rebecca Chalmers squealed through the speaker in the ceiling above his head.

Number Seven was the designation they had given him, he didn't know what his real name was, it had been stripped from him along with his memories which other than a few brief flashes of grey and yellow tunnels and people dressed in blue and gold with numbers written on their backs was an utterly blank slate, like an ink-filled void which every so often a bubble would rise and remind him that he wasn't always this way.

Slowly opening his eyes Number Seven looked about himself and his bleak little cell, other than a bed, a sink and a toilet the grey metal cell contained nothing of any merit, the only thing his captors allowed him to have in here other than the fore mentioned items was a single tennis ball which had once been bright and yellow and vibrant, but was now utterly bald and dull from the repeated bouncing against any and all surfaces during the many attempts to stave off the soul-crushing boredom and loneliness of the cell.

In the corner above the handless door a curved piece of black plastic sat behind which Number Seven knew there was a camera which they used to watch and observe him, some days he likes to bounce his ball off the camera in the vain hope that it would annoy the ever-loving shit out of the person who had drawn the short straw and was appointed his watcher for that day, why should he be the only one to suffer for this right?

Sitting up on the bed he stretched his aching muscles and felt his joints pop back into place as his muscles drew taught around them, after he was done he looked down his body at the many scars he had collected from both his time here and his vacant past, each time he ran his fingers over one of the raised puckered pink and white lines that crisscrossed him he felt like a memory was just below the surface reaching up with both hands for him to pull it from the inky blackness, but he could just never locate it in time to pull it free before it sank back unseen into the depths.

His skin was white with a hint of a golden tan though that was because of the UV baths they subjected him to rather than any sunbathing sessions, he was made to stand in a booth once a week for an hour while he was bombarded with the harsh blue light, he'd overheard the doctors joking about how his complexion was more sun-kissed than their own and that they were more likely to develop a problem from lack of vitamin D than him.

His chest was bare but his lower half was hidden behind a wrinkled pair of blue jogging style bottoms, they gave him a freshly laundered set each and every week, a vest, a jumper, tracksuit bottoms, seven sets of socks and boxers and even a pair of slippers, all in dark navy blue.

Lifting himself from the bed he further stretched and glared at the camera he knew the good doctors were staring at him through, he could practically feel her eyes on his bare body and it made his skin crawl, the very thought of the woman made bile rise in the pit of his stomach, he was sure if she hadn't been a doctor here she would have had a very promising career as either a molester or maybe even a dominatrix, she did seem to take a great deal of sick enjoyment out of the harm and pain she caused others, that's when an odd thought occurred to him, how in the name f hell did he know what a dominatrix was but he couldn't remember his fucking name?

Before he could really set to pondering the question in great detail the speaker crackled to life again, "Glad to see you're putting on a show for me there Number Seven its much appreciated, but if you could hurry up and get dressed we have work to do, unless you want me to flood the cell with gas and then come in there and dress you myself again of course? I did so enjoy the last time I got to test this new paralytic agent on you" Doctor Chalmers said with a high pitched laugh.

Number Seven ground his teeth together and turned towards the pile of clothes on the floor next to the head of his very uncomfortable bed, they didn't even allow him a single cupboard or drawers to stow his clothes in here, probably worried he was going to stash a Fatman inside it or something.

As he stripped off he could actually feel her leering at him through the camera again making his skin crawl as he shed both the tracksuit bottoms and his boxers before exchanging them for a new set and replacing the bottoms back on along with fresh socks his vest and the jumper, the last thing to go on were the thin slippers which did barely anything to protect his feet from the cold metal floor.

"Aww shame I was hoping to use the gas, you're always such a spoilsport Number Seven" Doctor Chalmers voice said in mock sadness, though with her it might actually not be mocking at all, fucking sadist.

As he turned back around to the door it hissed open and outside two hulking figures stood waiting, Number Seven knew the drill already so without a fight or resistance he stepped out into the white corridor glancing at both the Power Armored figures to his left and right, both were equipped with shock batons ready to bring him down without warning or notice if he so much as set a single toe out of the designated line he was to walk, it sometimes made him smile to himself that they considered him that much of a threat that they felt they needed to wear those colossal armoured suits just to be in the same space as him, especially as the fucking collar around his neck made sure he couldn't do anything anyway.

"Turn right," the figure on his left said his voice being modulated through the suit's speakers and it was so artificial in its tone that Number Seven couldn't even tell if it was a man or a woman wearing it, he did as he was told and turned to face the second person.

"Hands" the second person commanded in an equally distorted voice and he held them out side by side just like always.

A par of magnetic manacles clapped around his wrists and the person in front of him turned so he could see the back of the suit of Power Armour, it had an almost oval-shaped back that was filled with gears and electronics and filters etc designed to keep the wearer as isolated from the outside world as possible while still being mobile, it also raised the wearer's hight to a nearly seven-foot-tall making them a very imposing figure indeed.

Set right into the centre of the back of the armour was a small wheel kinda like were set onto many of the bulkheads like doors of this facility, Number Seven knew that this was the control to open the armour so the user could enter though he did wonder how they exited the thing as it was on the back and it wasn't like they could turn it themselves while inside, a mental image of a kinda Power Armor conga line of people letting the person in front of them out with the one who drew the short straw on the end only to be stuck in there forever unless they turned around flashed through his mind.

He was prodded in the back with a metal gauntlet, "Move" the distorted voice said, Number Seven huffed but didn't both argue as that only went one way, curled in a ball with your hair stood on end doing your best-dying insect impression after getting hit with the stun baton and he knew how much these guys loved their stun batons, they once shocked him twice for simply asking what the time was.

Their armour made an oddly rhythmic hissing clanking noise as they walked through the metal corridors of the facility, it was so rhythmic that it nearly lulled Number Seven into a bit of a stupor as they walked, but not enough that he didn't see other groups of guards leading others like him around to various places, each of them sparing one another a sympathetic glance as they noticed on another, though only Number Seven's guards seemed to feel the need for Power Armor, everyone else just got riot armour, way to feel special huh?

He was led to a room with a pair of white powered doors with a blue number 3 written on them, "Turn to face the door" one of the guards commanded, he did as he was told and both of them led in and undid a cuff each before removing the manacles, one of them pressed a pad next to the door on the wall and no sooner had the doors opened than he was roughly shoved inside before he had a chance to turn.

"Ooof hey!" Number Seven exclaimed turning towards the doors, but they had already closed and locked with a series of dull thuds behind him, turning back to the room Number Seven sighed heavily, he was in a testing lab, on one side of the room was a thick two-way mirror made of some kind of extremely thick bulletproof glass, which was according to a conversation he overheard from one pair of guards rated for Deathclaws and Super Mutants, whatever the fuck those were.

"Welcome Number Seven" Doctor Chalmers voice echoed through one of the speakers in the ceiling high above him, other than the double-sided mirror the lab was utterly bare, no equipment, no nothing, he could see the barely visible indents in the walls around him where the subjects would be released into it, the room itself was about thirty feet long and half as much wide, basically a much bigger version of his cell.

"So what's it going to be today doctor? You going to watch me play volleyball with myself again while you wank yourself stupid behind the glass?' he replied sarcastically glaring at the reflection of himself in the two-way mirror behind which she undoubtedly stood.

She snorted a laugh through the speakers, "No not quite Number Seven though I must admit that session was indeed most........stimulating and indeed illuminating as well" she replied.

The collar around his neck made a little whine and then a click and he felt a rush inside his head like someone opening a valve on a damn as it powered down, honestly, he didn't mind having the collar on because it removed the temptation to use the 'gift' they had given him and to suffer the pain that came as a byproduct of it.

Without the restraining collar, he felt his senses properly spark up, it was kinda like wearing a set of noise-cancelling headphones, you could sort of hear things through them but muted and far away, without them you heard clearly, without the collar everything tuned into sharp focus and he could actually feel the room around him, every contour, every panel, every single bolt and rivet even the ones you couldn't see with the naked eye because they were hidden behind the wall, imagine a million invisible tentacles reaching out from your head with the sensitivity of fingertips and touching everything around you all at once, all that sensory stimulus invading your skull all at once, the best way to describe it was deafening.

"I thought we'd start off today with a nice reflex test before we got onto something a bit more fun," Doctor Chalmers said and before Number Seven could even think of a witty reply two panels opened up on the walls and two human-sized metal shapes clanked their way into the room with him.

Number Seven felt the Protectrons before he actually saw them, like a bat's sonar feeding it an image his expanded sensory range-fed the shapes of the two robotic intruders directly into his skull and he spun to face them just as they raised their stubby little metallic arms, each one holding what appeared to be an automatic weapon.

"Kill, Kill, Kill," both of them said in their emotionless robotic voices in perfect unison before with a deafening roar both of them opened fire on him.

Number Seven instinctively held his hands up to shield himself from the barrage of deadly ballistic fire and right on cue felt a surge of pain run right from the back of his skull to the front like someone had driven a read hot spike through the pain centre of his brain, around him in the shape of a perfect bubble the bullets just stopped dead in the air, still spinning slightly from the rifling of the barrels they had left, but dead stopped about three feet from his actual body.

With a roar of pain and frustration Number, Seven threw his hands away from his body towards his metallic assailants and with a whoosh, all of the projectiles shot outwards away from him riddling the Protectrons with holes.

Both of them collapsed to the floor in sparking heaps, "Kill, Kill, Kiiiiiilllllll" one of them said its voice going low and drawn as its processor died and the light's from its now shattered glass dome head fizzled out.

"Excellent! Oh very well done Number Seven!!" Doctor Chalmers said with an audible clap of her hands at the display, but Number Seven really didn't feel like celebrating, he was down on one knee with his skull cradled in his hands as the white-hot pain slowly subsided inside it, every single time he was forced to use this 'gift' it hurt and the stronger the ability got the worse it did.

Telekinesis they called it, the ability to directly influence your surroundings with nothing more than the power of your will and your mind, Number Seven had no idea how he'd gotten such a 'gift' but among the flashes of what he believed to be his past were some very disturbing ones, images of laboratories filled with large unknown creatures floating inside vats filled with green liquid, of metal tables and lots of needles, of excruciating pain and yellow and black almost triangular symbols made up of three black wedge shapes around a black circle on a yellow background, of people in white standing over him, of a device filled with a blue liquid attached to him and that was it.

Whatever had happened to give him this ability the good Doctor Chalmers was obsessed with it, she seemed determined to test it and push it to the utter limits to see what it and indeed he was capable of, so every day was the same thing, into a lab like this one and she would think up new and sadistic ways to make him use the ability, like shooting at him with turrets forcing him to stop the bullets, or having a flamer spray him with fire and forcing him to shield himself from the burning liquid, or dropping him down a hole and forcing him to catch himself mid-fall, or playing beach volleyball against himself dressed in nothing but a pair of skin-tight speedos, yes that happened.

Before he could even collect his scattered and pain saturated thoughts a telltale hiss noise told him what was happening next, in less than ten seconds the room began to swim and spin before eventually, the ground came up to meet him and everything went black.

When he came too again he was strapped to a polished silver metal table with his arms and legs locked out to the sides in an X shape, the instant bit of the cold against his skin told him that he was once again naked and the lack of sensation in his skull hold him the restraint collar was once again active.

Lifting his head to look around he found himself in another lab, this one full of equipment that if it was of the medical verity then it was damn scary as most of it seemed to have either long sharp thick needles on the ends of it or circular disc-like saw blades, there were also a few microscopes etc.

Stood before him her bright red hair shining under the harsh white light and her face hidden behind a white surgical mask well except for her piercing green eyes stood Doctor Chalmers, a face that he could never forget despite having never fully seen thanks to the masks she always wore.

She was about five foot two and slender built, though it was impossible to gauge her exact dimensions as she always wore an ankle-length white lab coat and a white isolation suit under it, "Ahh welcome back to the world of the waking Number Seven, glad to have you with us, though I must say I have enjoyed the view while you were out" she said with a rather salacious and sultry note to her voice, he had that a lot of the scars on his torso and indeed body were her handy work and probably only a few of them had medical reasoning behind them, the rest were probably caused by whips.

"Fuck you doc" Number Seven groaned as his head slumped back down to the table feeling like it was filled with slush thanks to the sedative gas she'd used on him.

She had such a light and airy laugh for someone who was a grade-A sociopath, "Ahhh all in good time Number Seven let's not jump the gun now shall we?" she said that sultry tone that made his skin crawl returning, a part of him actually wondered if she had ever raped him while he was unconscious while another part of him was happy that he remained very blissfully ignorant of that potential abuse.

'Today we're going to start with a nice relaxing biopsy followed by a deep cortex scan then......." she began listing off the painful degrading and horrible procedures that she had in store for him when the doors to the right side of the lab opened and in walked what appeared to be and Assaultron, but unlike the one's he'd been forced to defend himself from in the testing labs, its one was utterly white rather than olive green, it also had a large red cross over its faceplate, but that red laser module that served as an advanced optic sensor was still present.

"Doctor Chalmers your presence is required in the conference room," the Assaultron said in its mechanical feminine and oddly sultry voice.

Doctor Chalmers looked at the Assaultron nurse and huffed loudly, her frustration very obvious in those bright green eyes, "Uggh can't those morons wait untill after I'm done?' she argued looking at the Assaultron which simply looked at her with its large singular optic.

"They were very insistent Doctor" it replied mechanically.

Doctor Chalmers huffed again and threw her hands up in frustration, 'Fine but I'm going to give those uneducated morons a piece of my considerable mind, don't go anywhere lover I'll be back soon, promise" she said turning to face Number Seven mid-sentence and sending a chill down his spine with her words, but that's when something very odd happened.

As she turned to go she passed by the Assuatron as she did the Assaultron jabbed her in the side with something that appeared in its mechanical hand as if by magic, she yelped loudly and turned to look at it accusingly before seemingly realizing what it was holding, "Traitor! I'll............" she began before her eyes rolled up into her skull and she crumpled to the ground like her bones had been turned to jelly mix.

"Wha......?" Number Seven began but before he could finish speaking the Assaultron was next to him looking down at him with its singular optic glowing slightly crimson.

"Don't talk just listen, my name is, well I actually don't know what my name is they just call me Number Three but I call myself Wisp, I'm here to free you and well me" the Assaultron said its voice still the same but the inflexions slightly different, gone was the mechanical coldness and it had been replaced with something much more, organic.

"How are you controlling that Assaultron?" he asked and the bot shook its head.

"No time for long-winded explanations, we have a very limited window for this to work, so we need to get moving, now hold still while I get these restraints off you," the bot said and before he could say another word the Assaultron had unshackled his wrists, ankles and finally his waist.

He stepped off the frame onto shaky legs and would have fallen to his knees if the bot hadn't caught him and supported his weight, "Whoa easy big guy, let your legs get some feeling in them before you start trying to do acrobatics" the Assaultron said.