[FFXIII-2] Test Subjects (4695 words)

[shamera]

Title: Test Subjects
Fandom: Final Fantasy XIII-2
Character/Pairing(s): Serah, Noel, Mog, Hope, Alyssa, Snow (a bit Snow/Serah)
Rating: PG
Warning: continuation of the paradox ending: Test Subjects
Summary: “The mind of the subject will desperately struggle to create memories where none exist.”




“Good work today!” Serah praised him brightly with a gentle clap to his shoulder as they were returning to position. “That was a handy move you had with the flanitors. I didn’t know they could melt like that!”

“All part of the job, right?” Noel replied with a grin as he sheathed his sword behind his back, rotating his shoulders and neck to stretch out the kinks. "You'd think that those monsters would learn to stop showing up, especially when this isn't their territory and they should know better than to show their faces by now."

"I don't blame them too much," Serah interjected, a small smile on her face as she glanced at her partner. "I mean, how are they supposed to hide from ADAM, right? The system will always find them and see where they are." That’s how it was designed. “It could just be that they have nowhere else to go.”

“Don’t say that,” Noel grumbled. “That makes me feel bad for completing our missions.”

Serah paused from where she was checking Mog over, and then smiled slyly. “Liar. You’d complete the missions no matter what. You can’t stand to submit a failure report to the mission adviser. Isn’t that why we’re, what, taking on three times the amount of missions that teams can potentially do?”

“We’re the only team.” Noel interjected, shaking his head as he crossed his arms and leaned against a metallic wall to wait for Serah to finish her routine inspections. “There’s no set standard before us. We’re just doing what needs to do done for the facility, that’s all.”

“Fine, three times what we need to do.” Serah amended, sounding even more amused as she clutched Mog in her arms to try and hide her smile. “At this rate, there won’t be anything to do by this time next week, you know. We’d get a few days off. And then you wouldn’t have an excuse to bother the mission adviser.”

“I’d be more worried about you.” Noel teased right back. “What are you going to do without missions? Knit Mog a sweater?”

“Kupo!” The moogle interjected, flying over and waving his staff at Noel. “Don’t make it sound like a bad thing! Serah can do anything she wants, kupo!”

“That’s right!” The pink-haired girl agreed, catching Mog by his midriff and hugging him to her. “What’s wrong with knitting? Maybe I will take up a hobby! The way you’re racing through the monsters, soon there won’t be any left at all and we’ll be out of a job. Then we might get reassigned — or decommissioned, who knows? If that’s the case, we’d have far too much time on our hands. Hobbies would be a good thing to have.”

“Or promoted.” Noel disagreed. “Desk jobs. I can see you bossing everyone around.”

“Hey, why boss?” Serah complained. “You’re making me sound bad!”

Subject Alpha and Subject Beta, return to operations.

Both Serah and Noel cringed back slightly like children with their hands caught in the cookie jar, and even Mog seemed to wilt under the voice. They looked away from each other nervously before making their way to the center of the room, facing the doorway and standing up straight.

“I’ll never get used to that thing.” Noel muttered under his breath, and Serah only spared him a sympathetic smile before they found themselves teleported back into the black.

—

“Neural telemetry between the subjects are exhibiting strong signs of chaos. Each deployment increases the accumulation by 0.836%. Soon they may be a danger to the system. Suggestion for extermination.”

“Negative. Testing continues.” The man standing behind the panel never looked away from his work, and the blond girl lowered her clipboard diminutively in affirmation. “The subjects are contained, and this provides a method to study into the Unseen Realm and its effects on humans.”

“Expansion of chaos diverts power from main controls.” The girl objected, although her voice never rose or lowered to express discontent.

“From auxiliary.” The man corrected. “We have cycles to spare. Take three more biophysical datas. We need separate entities if their minds continue to create these falsified memories.”

“Memories we did not give them.”

“Memories which improve their performance three hundred fold. Decision stands. Divert auxiliary power.”

There was only a brief hesitation, and the blond girl tilted her head down in assent before turning on her heel to leave, hesitating a moment as she spotted Noel leaning several meters away, frowning at her.

“Suggesting Serah and I be sacked again, Alyssa?” The brunet asked, arms crossed across his chest as he raised his eyebrows at you. “You’d think that you would have given up by now.”

Alyssa’s expression didn’t change in the slightest. “Flawed programming needs to be decoded and fixed. My suggestions will go through when chaos levels are high enough. It is only a matter of time.”

“Yeah, yeah, you keep telling yourself that! Or, you know, you could try working harder if you don’t want to be ‘reprogrammed’ yourself.” He jabbed a finger only inches away from her face, but she didn’t flinch. “Like Hope said, we’re doing three hundred times the work. How about you? If there’s any funding in this department to be cut, you might want to review your own little performance sheet first.”

“Impertinence. That will be added to your review.” Alyssa responded calmly before she dissolved in cubes, teleporting away. Noel sputtered as she disappeared, unsure what the word meant but understanding enough to know it was a bad thing.

“Yeah, well — you, too!” He shouted at the air where she dissolved, and then grumbled softly to himself knowing that she was already gone. He stepped toward the middle of the room where there were several consoles and a spinning ball of energy, bright and powerful, suspended in the middle of a thick wall to protect it. Noel sniffed in indignation for a moment before he sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck to relieve a non-existent ache caused whenever he had to deal with the blond girl.

“You know,” He said, tone changing and softening just the slightest as his eyes darted between the silver-haired man standing behind the console and the ball of energy in the room, “You really need to get out more, Hope. Before you end up as nuts as Alyssa.”

“Your presumption of my difference from other entities here is false. All life here is fabricated, and my presence is required in the Core room in order to regulate systems for ADAM. I do not leave this room.”

“Workaholic.” Noel accused, although his tone was lighter.

It was only then that Hope turned to look at him, expression as blank as Alyssa’s and eyes reflecting the light in the room, making them a vibrantly bright color oscillating from blue to green and back again.

“Your concern for this duplicate has been noted. As has been your mission report. There is no need to travel here to report in when your file has already been logged.”

“Just wanted to make sure that Alyssa hasn’t convinced you to sack us yet. And I’m checking in on you. Serah’s been worried, but she’s not going to say it. You work too hard, Hope. All this standing around in one room isn’t good for anyone — even Alyssa gets to go where she wants! So, you know. Being our mission director and all, I’m formally inviting you to come join us at least once. See what it’s like out there. Breathe some fresh air!”

“Air is not necessary. But your comment has been added to file. You’re here for your next assignment?”

Noel grinned. “Ready when you are!”

Hope needed, the movement terse as he typed out phrases on his consoles. “New testing protocols pre-configured. Mission is to eradicate errors within floor thirteen. Multiple hostiles lifeforms have developed within that level which need to be found and eliminated.”

“Roger that!”

With that, Noel did a mock salute with two fingers, and faded away with the teleport cubes as Hope relocated him to starting operations.

Error within mental core architectures of Subject Alpha and Subject Beta. System log documents memory flux increasing per mission. Reprogram.

“Reprogramming unnecessary. Additional instability within Subjects result in increased output. Test subjects will continue with experimentation until research on chaos has been completed, or they self-terminate. Precautions for duplicate models of Noel Kreiss and Serah Farron biometric data unnecessary. Should their programs malfunction, more models can be reproduced from originals.”

The silver-haired man paused in his words, and then added. “Increase of emotional familiarity direct correlation to increased production output. Belay orders for new individual biometric data. Auxiliary power requested for extra processing power for Hope Estheim and Alyssa Zaidelle entities.”

Access denied. Artificial intelligence within the system creates conflict and slowed processor output.

“Not artificial intelligence; requesting expanded emotional output for entities to continue research. This entity retains command structure for override of all system programs, but is also a part of the system.. Once again, requesting auxiliary power.”

Is that a threat?

Despite the whir of programs powering up in response to the system’s agitation and filling the room with the pulse of threatening energy, the silver-haired man did not react. He was not programmed to react to threats, or to respond to the AI’s anger. If the system wanted him threatened, it would need to reroute enough power for him to contain the capacity for fear.

“The Eden Restoration Project can only be successful with this entity. Request auxiliary power.”

The machine was silent for several long cycles.

—

“That,” Serah griped as she trudged after her partner, hands trying to undo the tangles in her hair. “Was disgusting! I’ve never felt so gross in my life. I’m going to need two bottles of shampoo to get this slime out of my hair. How did all those things manage to hide out in the thirteenth floor? I need to have a talk with Hope about how the system managed to miss that! There’s got to be a glitch somewhere if those things were allowed to duplicate that much before we got assigned to it.”

“You can talk to Hope about that.” Noel said, although he wasn’t as bothered as Serah was.

“Or you can stop taking extra missions and learn knitting or something.” Serah grumbled, although her good cheer was hard to keep down, even with the amount of slime in her hair.

"What, and make sweaters for Mog? He doesn't need it!"

"Kupo! What if I want sweaters?”

Noel rolled his eyes the moogle flew in a circle around his head, and raised his hand to wave Mog away. “You’d probably like the sweaters that Serah makes you more than sweaters I make you.”

“That’s because Serah would make better sweaters, kupo!”

“See?” He turned his head to give his partner a flat look, even as Serah attempted to hide her giggles behind a hand. “Biased!”

“Welcome back Serah, Noel!” Came a chipper voice from ahead of them, and Noel drew back instinctively from the unfamiliarity of it. He looked over, hand already on the handle of his sword, to see Alyssa smiling at the two of them, standing with her head tilted and a hand holding onto her elbow behind her back. The smile was so familiar that he took a step backward, shaken by just how disoriented he felt.

“Alyssa!” Serah’s exclamation was full of happiness as she stepped forward toward the scientist. “I thought you’ve been too busy with your latest project...”

“Never too busy for you guys, though.” The blonde replied, a smile on her face as she backed up into the room they had originally been designated for their base of operations. "This would be your third mission for the day, wouldn't it? You guys sure have been busy! Make sure you don’t wear yourselves out, okay?”

“We could say the same about you.” Serah’s response was enthused and happy, grateful to see a friend she had dearly missed. “I’ve barely seen you and Hope around lately. It seems like a hard job keeping this place running.”

“Well, things have been a bit hectic around here.” Alyssa admitted. “We’ve been revamping! Come see for yourself.”

With that, she walked into the room with a mysterious smile, and Noel and Serah exchanged a look before the pink-haired girl gave a smile as well and followed along, Noel and Mog following after her.

The room... that wasn’t the operations room. Noel knew that room. That was the Core room, as if it had been moved from the area it was in, but it was more likely that the pathways had been changed to lead them to a different place. The new room was… brighter than what he remembered, the light warmer. While there had previously been no furniture at all and only the central terminal, now there was the bare minimal scattering of chairs in an aesthetically pleasing design, along with a heavy desk glowing with holographic projections. Still austere, but… Was this what Alyssa had meant by ‘revamping’?

“Back already?”

The voice was mildly surprised, but not unpleasantly so, and Noel found himself smiling just as widely as Serah.

“Did you miss us?” He asked, crossing the room in several large steps to greet Hope, just as Serah was bounding up next to him as well. She was probably more excited to see the silver-haired man, especially since she had been so uncertain about bothering him while he was busy before.

“The two of you work far too fast to be missed.” Hope praised, just a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. He was still standing in front of the same console Noel had last seen him at, but was finally looking away, his stance more relaxed than before. It was as big a change as Alyssa’s friendly demeanor was.

Strange.

"Don't underestimate us," Noel responded with a confident grin, a distant part of himself feeling as though this was all a script to play along to even as he put a hand on his hip and waved the other hand to signify the flippancy of his words. "We're the best team you have!"

“I can’t argue that.” Hope’s tone was light, teasing, and all at once Noel found himself almost at a loss for words. “You guys are the only team we have. I’m sorry we keep asking this of you and can’t spare more personnel to get everything done, but —”

“Don’t worry about it, Hope!” Serah interjected, a smile on her face which warned him not to bring it up again. “You’re busy with your work, and it’s not like we have other things pressing for our time. Besides, we’re the ones agreeing to take on all these missions. If it were that troublesome, we wouldn’t be bothering to do more than we have to, right?”

“...Of course.” Hope agreed reluctantly. He still looked somewhat guilty, though. “If that’s the case, then I’m afraid I have one more mission for the day. It’s rather urgent, but… thanks to the technology in this tower, if you need time to clean up first, that can be arranged.”

“That would be nice, yeah.” Serah said with obvious relief as she pulled on a strand of her grime-filled hair and grimaced. Noel nodded along, one hand up to press against developing kinks in his neck. It had been a long day for the both of them. “It’s the first time I’ve heard ‘urgent’ attached to a mission, though.”

“Yes.” Hope clarified. “Unlike all previous assignments, this precludes an intruder from the outside.”

“Outside?” Noel asked, as he and Serah accepted the datapads handed to them by Alyssa. His eyes skimmed over the text briefly, but then gave it back to the girl as he figured Serah or Hope would fill him in on what he had to do.

“It’s been a long time since anyone has tried to invade Augusta Tower,” Alyssa spoke up, voice worried. “We’ve been isolated for a long time because the work we do here is so sensitive. We’re working on building the future, you know? It’s hard work making sure everything goes the way it’s supposed to go!”

“So someone’s actually breaking in from the outside?” Serah sounded bewildered. “Why would anyone do that? I mean, everyone knows to leave this place alone, right?”

Alyssa nodded along with the words.

“The only knowledge we know is that the man who entered did so not twenty minutes ago and managed to disable the surveillance on the entire first floor. This will be a two-part mission: one person to take out the intruder, and the other to save an important data chip that we —” At this, Hope’s head tilted slightly as if he were hearing something the rest of them couldn’t hear. “That I need.”

“Data chip?” Noel asked uncertainly. As much as he would have liked to bring that back personally, from the descriptions it sounded a better idea for Serah to be bringing in the chip while he took care of the invader.

“Yes.” A few taps on a hologram and an image was brought up, pale green and slowly rotating as Hope zoomed in to bring up more detail. “It’s attached to the main terminal on the first floor, within a black box at the very bottom of the terminal to prevent damage in case of emergencies. While all that is necessary is the chip, the entire box would be preferable. It’s most likely what the intruder is after, so we need one person distracting him while the other retrieves the information.”

“I’ve got it.” Serah said, handing the datapad back to Alyssa. “Don’t worry about this, we won’t let the intruder damage any more of the Tower.”

“We really owe you.” Alyssa told her. “This just isn’t something we can take care of on our own, you know!”

“Well, that’s why we’re here.” Serah said cheerily. “Just leave it up to us!”

—

The cleaning process was quick and unsatisfying, but it did the job and Serah’s hair was a pale pink color again rather than an amalgamation of green and black slime and oils dripping down and seeping into her clothing. Still, she would have rathered a nice shower than what they got. She’d have to look into it after this, since they didn’t have all that much time before the systems containing the intruder to one level would fail and once the person got access to the elevator…

“How about you go after the data chip?” Serah asked, watching Mog float in circles above them, obviously tired out from the day. The moogle had taken to drooping just slightly and muffling little yawns rather than making retorts at Noel, and was nice almost nodding off in mid-air. That wouldn’t do. She needed him awake and aware for the upcoming fight. Of course, if she just went after the data chip, then Mog would be allowed to rest on her shoulders, but…

“That’s not what we’re supposed to do.” Noel said with a shrug, just watching the flashing lights as the elevator went down. “We’ve got our assigned jobs.”

“Are you saying you don’t think I can handle the invader?” It didn’t take much to work up the sickly-sweet accusation, and the tone made the hunter freeze and slowly raise his hands in defeat, leaning away. Serah added a smile to her words, reaching out to grab Mog from the air and hold him close to her. The words were mostly empty, since she long understood that Noel trusted her and understood she could fight (he just had a tendency of being protective, but Serah realized that came from his past).

Still, it was the quickest way to get what she wanted.

(And she couldn’t help that twinge of curiosity, because behind layers of… something, there was an unsettling feeling that she couldn’t pinpoint. It made her want to lash out, to push against what she was supposed to do and question everything. Wasn’t there something important…?)

“I’m not saying anything,” Noel said cautiously. “But you’re better with these computers and I’m —”

“Better at fighting?” Serah interjected sweetly.

“What? No! I mean, yes, but I’m not saying that —”

The elevator stopped and Serah stepped forward before the twitch of her lips could give her away, Mog peeking over her shoulder at Noel to watch him attempt to sputter his way out of this mess. The moogle looked more awake now and was holding a little hand to his face in amusement even as his bobble shook watching the hunter.

“Just get the data chip, Noel.” Serah concluded. “You know where it is, right? And let me take care of this one. Maybe I just want to see the villain who would want to see humanity’s doom.”

“And what?” Noel asked, although it sounded like he had already given up the argument. “Invite him around again for tea?”

“Maybe I will!” Serah responded cheerfully. “Or maybe I just need his size so I can knit him a sweater to match Mog. I’ll make you a blue one.”

“Is that an incentive to finish all these missions so you can learn to knit or is that supposed to be a clue to slow down so we don’t run out of missions so that never happens?” Noel asked, sounding genuinely confused.

Serah just laughed in response, and then turned away. “I’ll meet you back for debriefing.”

The first floor looked old, especially compared to the other places in the Tower they’ve been sent to. The lights weren’t as bright on the bottom floor, some sparking as Serah realized that was most likely due to the intruder blazing in and destroying things. It was almost a blazen trail of destruction, and she frowned in distaste as she passed several small rooms with security cameras destroyed and barely hanging by a wire. Other areas were completely iced over, white and gleaming, turning austere rooms into a thing of beauty.

The pink-haired girl stopped for a moment at a doorway, reaching out to run her fingers down a metallic wall frosted over with brilliant geometric designs thanks to the ice.

She shivered suddenly, not because of the cold but because of the realization that this would be the first time in a very long time she wouldn’t have Noel has a back-up in case something happened. The two of them had fought all their battles in Augusta Tower together, and now she was going off on her own based on a whim.

Thanks to the damage on this floor, Hope had warned her before they left, communications would be in tatters. That included communications between her and Noel and not only the fact that Hope and Alyssa wouldn’t be able to hear if they needed help.

“Mog?” She questioned, voice barely above a whisper. The quiet ‘kupo?’ she got in response told her the moogle felt the danger as sharply as she did, and she reached out for him. Without question, Mog did a quick flip in the air and transformed down into Serah’s grasp into the intricate bow she was well used to.

She continued on quietly, following the trail of ice and faint sounds of items being tossed about, until she could clearly hear the battle between the intruder and the security bots still functioning on this floor.

She leaned against the wall outside the room the noise was coming from, and carefully pulled back Starseeker’s bowstring in preparation of a fight. If she did this right, then she would be able to take down the intruder with only one shot, and then have the rest of the security bots help her dump him out.

If she didn’t do this right, well… it would just be a drawn out fight. Of course she could win without Noel.

With one intake of breath, Serah spun on one heel and pulled up her bow, the drawstring brushing her cheek as she focused on the one man man fighting against the sparking and dying bots. She released the arrow with her exhale, lips turning up as her aim carried true.

The man roared and turned around before the arrow could connect, and her smile faltered as she watched him bat the projectile to the side with supernatural reflexes. Impossible!

Her eyes darted to the arrow now embedded in an iced over console and then back to the intruder, finally taking in his appearance. Tall, taller than anyone she had met before, wearing a thick trench-coat and gloves (where were his weapons? Surely he couldn’t have taken on all the bots without a weapon!), with slicked back blond hair and.. extremely startled blue eyes.

“Serah?” The man gasped, and she felt like her world was collapsing around her.

She pulled Starseeker’s bowstring back again, a second arrow ready to fire despite the slight tremors in her arm.

How do you know me? She wanted to demand, but had a feeling (a whir in the back of her mind) that demanded she not go down that path. Her objective was to take out the invader, or at the very least distract him until Noel’s mission was complete and the hunter would come as her back-up.

“Serah, what are you doing?” And now the man sounded incredulous, still moving about to avoid the attacks of the group of security bots. He looked between her and the rest of his attackers, wrists crossed in front of himself as he defended against the attacks while he connected the dots. “Are you actually helping them?”

“Of course I am!” Serah shouted out, not knowing why this man’s voice, his eyes, his disbelief at her actions, boiled her blood so. She kept her aim on him, the weight of the bow miniscule compared to the turmoil of her thoughts. “You — you’re the one trying to stop ADAM, trying to stop Hope from helping everyone—”

“What are you talking about?” He demanded, and now stopped trying to defend as he jumped into action, taking out another security bot (did he really just punch it into pieces?) before ducking under the weapon of another.

She wished Noel was here with her right now, wished that she could hear Alyssa’s voice in her ear telling her what she should do. For some reason, her arm just wouldn’t release. She could have shot him at least three times by now, why…?

Finally, finally, her fingers let go and she heard the man shout out as the arrow embedded itself into his arm.

“Serah, ADAM is destroying the human race in the future!” The man yelled at her above the whirs of multiple bots realizing that they might actually have the slimmest chance now that their opponent was injured and slowed. “I just came from Academia — the fal’Cie is turning everyone into Cie’th, and none of the historical data matches up. Serah, you’re protecting the enemy — this thing is what killed Hope!”

No. She didn’t want to listen to any more of those lies. Ignoring the burning in her veins, Serah narrowed her eyes and drew another arrow, this time aiming to make sure this intruder would shut up after she was done here.

—

“Serah’s Chaos readings are through the roof.” Alyssa told him, sounding sad. “Any more, and we’ll lose her. Whatever she found down on the first floor is overwriting our suppression codes.”

Hope closed his eyes, ducking his head in acknowledgement as he tried his best to ignore the smug presence of the AI suffocating the room. Initially, he increased performance levels outweighed increased Chaos, but numerous experimentation concluded that beyond a certain percentage, performance was debilitated by defiance.

It would be a shame to lose their best team so far.

“Bring them back up,” Hope finally said, one hand resting gently on the console before him. “And reprogram them.”