Blood Impulse

Part 17.3 - REPROGRAMMING PEOPLE

Homebound Sector, Haven System, Flagship Olympia

The office was dark. The false starlight of hyper realistic screens barely illuminated anything. The only real source of light in the room was the white spotlight that shone onto the glass and metal frame of Reeter's desk.

Liquor sat in a decorative bottle on the desktop, the light of the nearby holographic projector shimmering on the glass. The space was neat, perfectly so, but it was far from tranquil.

"You had one job, Colonel," Reeter snarled, tightening his grip around VanHubert's narrow throat, "One job."

VanHubert gargled incoherently, grappling with Reeter's iron grip, but he didn't dare dig his nails in, even as he was forced to his knees, choking.

"I gave you authorization to use Thunderbolt, ordered you to destroy the Singularity if it became a problem. So, tell me," Reeter said, easily dragging his captive forward, VanHubert little more than a rag-doll in his grip, "Where did I go wrong?"

The wet sound of choking, struggling lungs filled the room, VanHubert unable to answer as panic trickled into his beady eyes.

"Perhaps," Reeter said, tossing his second in command down onto the exotic fur that decorated the floor, "my mistake was appointed a sniveling weasel like you my second in command."

VanHubert heaved, knotting his fingers into the fur of the animal hide below him. He tried to pick himself up, but deprived of oxygen, he was too weak.

Admiral Reeter looked down upon the display with disgust. Given the most powerful weapon humanity possessed, given power enough to end the Singularity with one strike, VanHubert had still failed.

"It's not his fault," Manhattan crooned, her hologram flickering into existence above him, "After all, he's only human."

VanHubert glared up at her, "You damned devil." Her appearance at this moment was exactly what he had dreaded most.

She painted a look of pity onto her expression, pulling it from her archives as she looked down at him. "Humans are so weak." A lack of oxygen and their muscles and body began to inevitably shut down, slowly sometimes, but torturously all the same. They were such fragile creatures. There was an almost infinite number of ways they could be broken physically, mentally, or emotionally.

She turned her violet gaze to Reeter, "What would you like me to do to him?"

The Olympia's commander glanced idly down to where his executive officer weakly lay, pouring bourbon into an eloquent glass. "You once amused me, Colonel. Your utter tenacity for the tasks I gave you was remarkable, but I have no use for someone whose messes I have to continuously clean up." That twisted enjoyment of VanHubert's had lost its appeal. "I need someone more focused." Someone who could dance the razor's edge of focus and clean execution. "I need someone who can hunt down and kill the Steel Prince."

"And every member of his crew?" Manhattan queried.

Reeter nodded, relishing the taste of liquor on his lips, "And every single member of that pitiful rebel crew." He wanted them all dead. No exceptions. Naturally, he'd let Manhattan have her way with the Prince himself, but seeing him reduced to a drooling vegetable incapable of complex thought would be satisfying enough.

A predatory smile rose to her pretty little pixie face. "Your wish is my command, Charleston."

"Sir," VanHubert gasped, trying and failing to get up once again. His struggle amounted to little more than the flailing of feeble limbs. "I've been loyal." He'd activated Thunderbolt's charge preparations the moment Gives had split from Command, as per his orders. "Don't do this. Don't let her change me." It was a form of death, no matter if his heart continued beating. "I'll do anything."