The Chip Implant

WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MILD SEXUAL THEMES, DISTRESSING THEMES, AND DEPICTIONS BLOOD AND GORE THAT MAY BE UPSETTING TO SOME READERS.

EMETOPHOBICS ARE ALSO WARNED.

BANG!

The rusty, white door of the bedroom slammed open. The darkness that once shadowed the small, stuffy space was cut open by beams of dim, blue light peeking around the figure that stood in the open doorway.

The familiar clacking of heels bounced off the walls as a shadowed figure advanced towards the bed tucked neatly in the left corner of the room, specifically the person who was sleeping in it.

Grinning, the figure forcefully ripped the covers off the person sleeping.

“Bok-su, dear,” Valentina’s familiar, sultry voice cut through the air.

“Morning patrol awaits, so don’t sleep in!”

The sleeping person - now known as Bok-su - awoke, startled, and glared up at Valentina from her spot with her dark eyes. They gleamed with concealed anger.

Valentina’s tall form towered over the lower-ranked prison guard authoritatively. With a cheeky smile on her face, she reached out a hand to Bok-su’s face and grasped the younger girl’s chin, pulling it upwards.

“I’ll give you five minutes to get ready,” she ordered.

There was no response.

She decided Bok-su’s silence was a yes, and forcefully released the other prison guard’s chin, successfully snapping Bok-su’s head to the side in the process.

Bok-su looked down, sitting up with her feet tucked beneath her and her hands covering her shoulders. Her heart was beating profoundly in her ears. Biting her lip, her eyes clamped shut, as if she were waiting for something bad to happen. A palpable tension hung in the warm air.

Finally, the sound of Valentina’s heels clacking against the floor as she left the room made their way to Bok-su’s ears. The prison guard breathed a sigh of relief.

Dim blue light from the room’s open door shone on her pale skin and tinted her dark eyes a greyish-blue. Her black, mid-length hair sported neat, crimson red streaks and was worn loose.

She pulled the bed covers over her slim figure that was shivering and dressed in white, loose-fitting, drab pyjamas that revealed her shoulders and lower stomach.

God, how she wanted Valentina to stay at least ten yards away from her!

...

“Morning, Sunshine.”

Shikyo’s eyes flickered open to the sight of Mateo standing over him, arms crossed and smiling slyly.

His heart skipped a beat in shock.

“God damnit, Mateo!” He yelped, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of his tired eyes.

“Don’t scare me that way again!”

Mateo chuckled heartily, the sound of his warm laughter seeping through the prison hallways.

“You’re welcome, dumbass,” he retorted. “I woke you up ‘cause it’s almost time for breakfast.”

Shikyo groaned groggily and pushed himself off the ground with his arms.

“What’s for breakfast?” He asked.

It better not be something gross. I don’t feel like getting food poisoning today.

Mateo shrugged and leaned back against a wall behind him, sighing contently.

“Honestly,” came his nonchalant reply, “I’ll eat anything these people give me. It’s better than starving in this awful place.”

With a small hum of agreement, Shikyo too, leaned back against the wall behind both him and Mateo.

He seems to know a lot about this place, the thief thought. I wonder how long he’s been here.

The thief cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Uhm...”

He wanted to ask Mateo how long the prisoner had been at Ashmound for, but the words got clogged in his throat, pushed back by second thoughts.

Doesn’t that seem a little rude? I barely even know this man? I wonder how old he is... He doesn’t look much older than me... Still, I shouldn’t ask... Ahh, what am I kidding? I’m in prison, after all.

Taking a deep breath, Shikyo finally spoke up, his voice dragged and croaky as he forced the words out his lips.

“So, Mateo... How... Long have you been here for?”

Mateo, to Shikyo’s surprise, didn’t look taken aback by the question at all. If anything, he seemed rather intrigued by Shikyo’s sudden curiosity.

“You mean, in Ashmound, right?” The prisoner responded to Shikyo’s question.

Shikyo nodded.

Seconds felt like hours as Shikyo waited for a response. Sweat pooled down the sides of his face like clumsy little raindrops. Maybe the question was a little too rude, after all?

All Shikyo could hear was his own, uneven breathing, like wind whistling softly in the silence. He glared frantically at Mateo, his eyes blaring daggers into the older prisoner.

Finally, Mateo opened his mouth to speak.

“Probably ‘bout a year,” his voice cut smoothly through the cold air.

Damn, Shikyo thought. Without thinking twice, he opened his mouth to ask another question.

“So, how old are you?”

“Twenty. You?”

“I’m eightee--“

CLICK!

Golden keys rattled as they slotted through the keyhole beside the cell door. The metal bars that the door consisted of shook violently as they were pushed aside to open up the barrier between the cell and the prison hallway.

Both Shikyo and Mateo snapped their heads in the direction of the noise.

Standing there in the space where the cell door stood before, was Bok-su. Her dark, soulless eyes burned lasers into Shikyo as she looked him over.

Shikyo gulped back any words of shock lingering in his throat and reached a hand up to his forehead to wipe beads of sweat off his pale skin.

Tension arose in the area as the two prisoners had a stare-off with the soulless-looking prison guard.

Mateo opened his mouth to speak, but no words seemed to pass through his parted lips.

Shikyo was in a cold sweat.

Bok-su continued to observe Shikyo, raising a pointed finger towards him.

“You,” she said firmly.

Shikyo chuckled awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck.

“Me?” He asked.

Bok-su raised an eyebrow and nodded. With mild frustration glimmering in her eyes, she ambled towards Shikyo until she was standing in front of him. When she was there, she fished in a pocket of her prison guard uniform, before pulling out a glimmering, silver pair of handcuffs.

“Hold your hands out,” the prison guard ordered firmly. She didn’t seem like one who would take no for an answer.

Shikyo and Mateo locked eyes. The latter nodded, as if to tell the former that it would be better just to comply.

Taking a deep breath, Shikyo stretched his lean arms out in front of him and waited for the feeing of cold metal rubbing against his wrists. The sensation came seconds later, followed by a cold irritation on his wrists as Bok-su pulled him forward from his cuffs. His feet shuffled forward involuntarily as he was lead out of his cell. With one last look at Mateo, he sighed and followed Bok-su, his mind dreading what might happen next.

...

This is so stupid.

Bok-su pursed her lips and tightened her grip around Shikyo’s restraints. Her black flats clacked against Ashwood Prison’s hard floors.

This isn’t going to revolutionize anything. It’s just pure sadism.

Her eyebrows knitted into a frown, but she kept leading Shikyo on by his restraints in spite of her anger.

The idea of the chip implant didn’t intrigue her whatsoever. The thought of surgically implanting electronic chips into prisoners to be able to control them like puppets made her spine crawl. It was just inhumane and unnecessary!

Her eyes flickered back towards Shikyo; she studied him again.

To her, he seemed intelligent and sneaky, but she was sure he could easily be taken down by an officer with a shock laser. In her opinion, he didn’t seem to need the chip implant. She had heard the claims about his robbery and how he shot a guard through the head, but that was nothing compared to what some of other prisoners had done. Still, crime was crime, and any form of crime - from stealing, to murder - is a definite prison sentence.

I guess I’ll never really know why they do it... Navigating this place is like running through a bloody labyrinth.

The two walked in silence for a while, with the only sounds around being their own footsteps and the clanging of metal.

“Ugghh,” Bok-su heard Shikyo groan.

She sighed and rolled her eyes; in spite of that, she couldn’t help but feel a pang of empathy for the thief.

“Just a couple more minutes. Hold tight,” she muttered smoothly.

Shikyo sighed.

“My feet hurt,” he whispered, adjusting the position of his hands inside the cuffs that restrained them.

Everything fell silent again, with the exception of the pair’s footsteps and the clanging of metal.

Until...

CLACK, CLACK, CLACK!

Bok-su’ breath hitched in her throat. She recognised the sound of those footsteps.

Valentina emerged from the shadows, cat-walking down the prison hallway as if she were in a fashion show. As she passed Bok-su and Shikyo, her eyes immediately trailed over to the former, ignoring the latter entirely. Her hazel eyes gleamed with authority as they skimmed up and down over Bok-su’s form. She smiled almost mockingly at the lower-ranked prison guard as she passed.

Then, in only a few seconds, she was gone.

Bok-su felt shivers run down her spine. She wiped a bead of sweat off her forehead with a free hand and swallowed down the lump in her throat.

God, that woman is so sleazy.

...

He adjusted his white coat and cleared his throat. His golden hair fitted with light blonde streaks was neatly slicked back, and his light brown skin glowed a dim, greyish blue from lights that clung to the roof above him. His pupils were shrunken in his emerald green eyes.

Before him stood an old, rugged operating table, that had a small tray connected to it by a bent, metal handle. The tray held all sorts operating instruments, from surgical needles, to orthopaedic knives and was beige in colour.

The operating table it was connected to was originally beige in cover, but was stained with blackish red splotches of blood and had its paint peeling off to reveal slithers of silver.

The room itself was dim and gloomy, with grey walls, a white roof and navy blue, marble floors. It reeked of bloody plastic and metal.

Suffocating tension blanketed the operating room, swirling around him in clouds of heat.

His eyes were locked on a specific scalpel on the tray connected to the operating table that was leaking crimson red blood from the blade onto the white surface beneath it.

I really need to clean that, he thought.

But it’s not my place to touch the operating equipment unsupervised... I heard another operation is going to happen... I don’t want to watch--

“Apprentice Moore,” came a deep, rich, commanding voice from behind him.

Instinctively, he whipped around, coming face to face with a tall, underweight woman who sported black hair, tanned skin, dark, soulless eyes and wore a white lab coat identical to his.

“Doctor Choi!” He replied, chuckling nervously. His hands snapped to his sides and he straightened his posture. He was terrified of this woman more than anything. There was just something about her demeanour that was intimidating and fear-provoking.

The woman - now known as Doctor Choi - raised an eyebrow at her apprentice’s strange response.

“Our next patient is coming in now. I expect you to watch and study the procedure. Understood, Casper?”

Casper gulped.

Doctor Choi sighed, but didn’t bother to say anything else.

All of a sudden, the door to the operating room swung open, and a female guard walked in, dragging a prisoner behind her that Casper had never seen before. Immediately as she walked in, Casper recognised the female guard as Bok-su. He nodded politely at her.

She didn’t bat him an eye; both her eyes were locked on Doctor Choi as she carefully undid the prisoner’s handcuffs.

Once she was done, she nodded at the higher scientist and left.

Casper’s attention then turned to the prisoner, while the latter just stood there, rubbing his wrists.

...

“Oww,” Shikyo muttered, massaging the soft skin of his wrists which were indented with purple marks from the tight cuffs. His eyes darted around the room, snapping their gaze on two scientists standing in the room with him:

One of them had the same eyes as Bok-su and was an older-looking woman; the other one was a blonde man with a worried expression plastered on his face.

The female scientist studied Shikyo the same way Bok-su did earlier. That glare sent shivers down the thief’s spine.

“Shikyo Fujimori,” the female scientist announced. “You know why you’re in Ashmound, don’t you?”

Shikyo nodded. He knew his risky heist had sent him to Ashmound.

The female scientist nodded, her expression still icy.

“You stole over one million dollars from Obelisk Financial Services,” she hissed.

Over a million!? Shikyo thought. I thought it was barely even one thousand!

The female scientist then cleared her throat and walked over to the operating table. Her hands grazed over the operating materials sitting on the tray connected to the operating table.

“You seem shocked,” she said icily as she reached for a scalpel.

“Uhh,” Shikyo responded, the words stuck in his throat.

But before he could say anything else, the male scientist chimed in.

“Stop pressing him,” the blonde requested.

“That’s the last thing someone needs before surgery.”

The female scientist hummed in disagreement but said no more. She trotted back over to Shikyo, twiddling the scalpel in her right hand.

Shikyo’s heart was pounding in his ears. Wasn’t there an anaesthetic the woman was supposed to be carrying?

His breathing quickened and his hands clenched into fists by his sides.

He yelped when the female scientist grabbed his head and pushed it forward, exposing the back of his pale neck. Her hand was ice cold, like her demeanour.

Without warning, a sharp, blaring pain cut through the back of his neck. It was an intense burning sensation that shot down his back as the muscles in his neck were torn by the scalpel.

“Casper, pass me the chip,” the female scientist ordered, her voice sharp like the blade of the scalpel she had in the back of Shikyo’s neck.

The blonde scientist fidgeted with something for a few moments (Shikyo was unsure of what the scientist was really doing since he was forced to look at the ground) before walking over to Shikyo and the female scientist.

More shuffling noises filled Shikyo’s ears. The room was cold. The scent of his own blood and torn flesh stuffed itself into his nose. His neck was burning and throbbing. He felt something else sharp insert itself into his neck, intensifying the pain up.

He hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday, but it came out all onto the floor in front of his feet.

His knees felt weak. His stomach growled in satisfaction of releasing its unwanted contents. His throat burned. Pain continued blaring down his spine, sending his muscles into unwanted spasms. Blood trickled down the sides of his neck into his shirt.

Then, without warning, his weak knees gave in on him and he collapsed onto the ground in a heap, beside his stomach contents. More bile trailed its way up his throat and stuck itself there at the sight of the first heap on the floor. He tried to cough it out but it wouldn’t budge. His neck was still throbbing and his blood was pooling onto the floor behind him.

“Shikyo Fujimori,” the female scientist barked.

“Get up.”

She grabbed the thief by his arm and hoisted him up, throwing the bloody scalpel on the floor beside her.

From across the room, the male scientist, Casper, watched with a hand clamped over his mouth and shrunken pupils. His free hand was clenched into a fist by his side and his eyebrows were knitted into a frown.

Shikyo’s eyes drifted to the scientist for a moment as his tongue burned with acid and the floor was loaded with the second heap. He coughed. His eyes left Casper and rolled into the back of his head before being closed over by his eyelids.

. . .

Holy shit! Casper thought, covering his mouth. His stomach churned and his panic receptors blared like fire alarms. Horror drained over but then fell as if someone had pulled a plug on him the moment his eyes locked with Doctor Choi’s.

“Iseul,” he said firmly, removing the hand from his mouth. A pang of guilt washed over him after he called Doctor Choi by her first name, but he felt even more guilty for the prisoner the higher-ranked scientist had in her grasp. Shikyo, was it?

“Shut it, Casper,” Came Doctor Choi’s response. “Just pass me the suture needle.”

Casper opened his mouth to speak. The air tasted cold and metallic as he swallowed it, along with his words.

I’d better stay silent. I don’t want to end up like these prisoners...