The massive grey building loomed ever closer, it occupied increasingly larger portions of Nico’s vision. After a few minutes of flying where the men in blue camo murmured to each other and the others, who were handcuffed like Nico shifted nervously, the area around the building became clearer.
Now that he was closer Nico could see that the grey building was not the only structure out here in the middle of the great Nothingness, well no longer nothing, since there was apparently buildings here now.
A vast compound of smaller buildings stretched out around the grey behemoth of a building Nico had seen earlier, all of the buildings were connected to each other via well maintained roads.
The whole compound including the large grey building was surrounded by a compound wall that was as far as Nico could tell, around about 4 Nico’s or so tall.
Large dust storms blew below them as the helicopter hummed as it approached a helipad at the edge of the compound, it landed smoothly as the hum died down.
The man in the center made a series of hand signs and the camo guys– probably a private military contractor, considering their discipline and mannerisms– began stepping of the helicopter while pulling on the people in handcuffs along.
There were 5 of the PMC’s including the leader himself, there were also 5 of the Class D1 employees, Nico with all the luck in the world got the leader.
Nico was pulled along at the front of their impromptu marching formation along with the leader while all the other PMC’s dragged the other D1 class employees behind them.
The sun beat down heavily on Nico, he squinted his eyes, looking down wouldn’t prevent the rays of the sun from bashing against his eyes harshly. The rays bounced off the sandy ground and came right back up to the eyes of anybody unlucky enough to be out here at this time.
The PMC’s looked comfortable and used to these conditions while all the other’s struggled to see properly. The goggles they wore also probably helped. The sun kept shining harshly and the wind swept their hair around, regardless they were marched onward in handcuffs towards a large warehouse like building.
A strong gust passed by that kicked up a bit of sand, Nico unaware of this had walked right onto the path of the small sand storm.
The bits of sand went right into his eye, crying out in pain Nico tried to rub his eyes with handcuffed hands, it proved to be futile, there was no way he could bring his hands out from behind him to rub his eyes.
The leader dragging him around proved to have some amount of kindness in his heart, he stopped pulling Nico along and then reached his hand out to his side.
One of the other men ran towards him and handed him a bottle, the leader twisted the bottle cap open and pulled Nico towards him and began pouring water right onto his face.
After a while of the water pouring onto his face, the particles of sand got washed away, it left Nico near completely soaked yet still alright since the heat of the desert managed to counteract the chill of the water. It actually felt comfortable.
Now soaking with water, Nico and the rest of the D1 employees got pulled into the warehouse like building. Walking inside Nico saw hundreds of chairs arranged in front of a stage.
One of the PMC’s walked away and began closing the large door that they entered the hall through, all of the D1’s handcuffs were then unlocked, all of them along with Nico were told to go sit at the front row and wait.
Nico began feeling the chill creep back into his bones, the building was air conditioned and the temperature was set to be really low, Nico sat shivering in the leftmost corner of the front row while the rest of the 4 D1’s sat to his right.
The five of them sat there, 3 men and 2 women, sweat trickling down nearly all of their backs with nervousness even with the AC working hard, except for Nico, he was too busy being turned into an icicle at the rate things were going with the AC and all the water that he was soaked in.
After waiting for what felt to Nico to be days the large warehouse door opened again and another set of D1 employees were led to the front and sat down, none of them soaking though, it seems only Nico was lucky enough for such happy situations.
While nearly turning into an icicle once or twice as he waited the warehouse began to fill out with more D1 employees, eventually completely filling each seat, only some of the PMC’s who had brought them stood there, the rest went someplace else.
After a bit more waiting where new guards entered the warehouse and began spreading around the place, the lights that were on all switched off.
Thudding footsteps of a man echoed across the warehouse, a tall dark haired bulky man with a mustache stepped onto the stage.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“WELCOME TO BASE CHARLIE TWO YOU MAGGOTS” the man shouted as he paced around on the stage.
“FROM THIS DAY YOU ARE NOTHING BUT THE LOWEST SCUM” his eyes seemed to pass over each and every D1 employee there.
“YOU WILL DO AS YOU’RE TOLD AND NOTHING ELSE, IF I TELL YOU TO JUMP, YOU WILL, IF I TELL YOU TO DANCE, YOU WILL, UNDERSTOOD” there was silence from the group of D1’s.
“ANSWER ME WITH YES SIR OR NO SIR YOU DAMN MAGGOTS, OPEN YOUR MOUTHS FOR SOMETHING OTHER THAN FOOD WILL YOU” the man’s eyes seemed to bulge and spit flew out of his mouth as he nearly screamed.
Yes sir’s floated around the warehouse with various levels of energy, Nico was too damn busy nearly freezing to death to care, he wondered whether the water that was poured on him contained some weird freezing agent.
A group of a 20 or so drones floated in from the sides and began hovering over each of the D1’s for a few seconds before moving onto the next, they shined a strange blue light on each of the D1’s faces and chimed in what seemed to be with no particular order.
The man on the stage seemed satisfied with the everything that was happening and the reception to his entry and marched off the stage after what most people would agree was a pointless speech, if it could even be called that.
Immediately after he marched off, extremely bright lights switched on, blinding Nico and the other around him. He tried to bring his arm up to shield his eyes but the light still came through the gaps.
The sound of multiple footsteps echoed through the warehouse as the lights dimmed to a somewhat bearable level, Nico opened his eyes a bit and saw 5 men walk onto the stage.
Their polished black shoes hit the stage and their stern gazes passed along all the D1’s sitting across them. They stepped off the stage and started walking towards the D1’s.
One of those five men walked towards Nico, “Stand up and follow me.” He pointed to 10 people, one of them being Nico. All of them, including Nico followed the man without any struggle.
Nico let out rueful sigh, at least this time the person leading him around wasn’t pulling him along and instead recognized the fact that he had legs and a brain.
The man led them out of the warehouse through a small door, looking back Nico could see each of the men that had been on the stage, leading groups of 10 away through different doors.
The heat of the air outside brought Nico’s attention back to the surroundings, the temperature of the air now balanced out the cold he was feeling, though wearing soggy clothes was still uncomfortable.
Eventually bringing his focus back to the man leading them, Nico began carefully observing him and the others behind him to try and get some clue as to what was going on.
They were lead down the street, through multiple turns and even a few traffic lights, the street was absent of vehicles, the surroundings were eerily quiet, it was the kind of quiet of a city during lockdown after protests or a pandemic.
Nonetheless they kept walking and reached a small building. The man leading them signaled to stop, Nico with his attention still on the weird surroundings didn’t notice the signal and bumped into the man.
He didn’t seem to particularly mind and turned around to face the 10 D1’s that had been following him, “All of you stay here, don’t move.” All of them already knew that trying to escape was pointless, they were out in the middle of who knows where and also surrounded by what was essentially a high security prison, only a person with no regard for their own life would try to escape.
“Follow me” The man’s deep voice sounded again, he looked towards Nico. Understanding what the man wanted him to do, Nico began following him towards the small building.
Nico caught a peek into the small aging building as the man opened the creaky metal door. The walls inside were coated in peeling paint and there was a rickety metal table inside that looked like it would collapse at any moment.
On the table there was a large machine that Nico had no idea about, a man sat behind the machine fiddling with a few valves.
“Always get this ancient stuff this far out, thing’s probably older than me ” the man behind the machine mumbled, he said a few more things but Nico’s attention had diverted away from that towards the man leading him.
He beckoned to Nico to enter, looking somewhat annoyed now at Nico’s wandering attention. He entered the room, it smelled as he had felt it would, of rusting iron and old paint, but there was also a very small hint of blood. That final smell really worried Nico, his heart sped up a bit.
“Sit down” The man that had brought him here commanded as he gestured towards a chair he had pulled up from somewhere and had set up in front of the machine.
With a decent amount of trepidation and sweaty hands, Nico sat down on the chair. “Put your hand out” the man behind the machine said in a bored tone. Nico put his hand out obediently, only after a bit of hesitation of-course. the man from earlier was still standing behind him somewhat menacingly, it seemed the delays caused by Nico wasn’t to his liking.
Once Nico put his hand out, a few inches from the machine, the man behind it began looking at Nico’s hands from the sides and top and then began turning a few more dials.
The machine began making clunking noises and a plate in the front of it slid off to the side, revealing a deep hole, the inside was a smooth surface, though there was a strange circular cut out somewhat in the middle of the cylindrical horizontal hole.
“Put your hand inside the hole” the man once again droned in a voice that sounded like he would rather be anywhere else than here.
A primal fear that Nico didn’t know he had flared up, putting his hand inside an unknown machine that probably was thrice his age didn’t seem like a wise choice.
The man sitting in front of him didn’t really seem like a professional either, if anything, the man probably would immediately run away if any problems occurred during whatever he wanted Nico to do, that’s the feeling Nico got from him at least.
The man who had stood behind Nico all this time menacingly finally seemed to have reached his breaking point with Nico’s delaying of obeying the commands given to him.
All Nico heard was the slight shuffle of clothes before his head hit the floor with a bang and the chair bounced off to a corner.
A heavy kick was delivered to his ribs, the memory of the gang boss kicking him flashed through his mind. He was pulled up by his collar and held at the man’s level.
“D1. You will do as you’re told by your superiors. Insubordination will be met with strict punishment. Understood” The man shook Nico to better settle the lesson.
Nico was pushed back in front of the machine, this time around he didn’t need to be told. He immediately put his hand into the hole and waited.
