Editing Ghosts of Rage (Warhammer High) (section)

===The Truth Hurts===

The drive was quick, especially with Furia behind the wheel. She had made it back to the hospital in record time, somehow managing to not get caught by arbites on the way there for speeding.

Unlike the last time she was here, the parking lot was not as vacant. Finding a parking spot after several minutes of searching, she made her way to the nearby elevator.

A short ride up and she arrived to Doctor Chawas’ floor. It was much busier this time around as the Treasury wasn’t keeping the entire floor cleared. Medicae doctors filled the large hallway, running around with their work. None of them even stopped to pay attention to her, which she was thankful. As always, no one recognized her to be who she really was.

She made her way down to the doctor’s office, dodging traffic easily enough. She finally arrived to Elizabeth’s door and knocked loudly.

“Come in,” said a voice inside an instant later. Furia opened the door and walked inside.

She took a moment as she glanced around the room, taking it in. Like the rest of the hospital, the entire office was sterilized and clean. There was not a speck of dirt, nor any sort of disorganized behavior to be found.

The doctor sat behind a simple metal desk, typing away at her computer before she glanced up. “Lady Furia, it's nice to see you. Take a seat, I’ll be done in a moment.”

Furia closed the door and sat down in one of the two small chairs in front of the desk. She glanced around some more, looking at the many diplomas that decorated the walls and the textbooks that filled the shelves. The doctor was apparently very knowledgeable in many fields of study.

“Alright Lady Furia,” the doctor said a moment later, “What can I do for you?”

Furia reached into her pocket and took out the pill bottle. “It's Furia, alright? And I came about this.” She slid the bottle over the desk. “What can you tell me about it?”

The doctor looked at the label. Her brow furrowed, shaking her head. “Where did you get this?”

“The Treasury official gave me those. Supposed to be an anger reducing medical alternative.”

“Yeah, if you want to lose a lot more than just your anger. Its meant to pacify someone who has violent... tendencies.” The Doctor paused as she looked up at Furia. “By Terra, they are making you take this,” she muttered, suddenly quite shocked.

“Not making me, but didn’t give me much of a choice,” she mumbled. “Why? What are the intended effects behind these pills? Side effects?”

The doctor sighed as she turned to her computer, typing away at the keyboard. Furia waited a moment before she stood up and leaned over the desk, trying to get a good look at the screen.

“Xelaratin is a product of a secret military research project,” Elizabeth started. “For the past decade scientist have been working and this is one of the few things they have been produced that meet their expectations.”

Furia looked at her strangely. “How do you know all this?”

The doctor paused for a moment, before talking a bit quieter. “I used to be part of the Imperial Army’s Medical Research board. This project among others was something that we had to keep track of its progress.”

“You used to be?” the redhead asked.

“Well, I began to question the morality of some of these projects and the generals found that to be against the ideals of the Imperial Army., so they assigned me to Terra to shut me up. Can’t complain really. Hive Tetra’s probably the best place to end up with a medical position. Very normal problems,” she said, but turned to Furia, “for the most part.”

Furia nodded slowly. “So what was the point of the project?”

Elizabeth looked at her for a moment and back at the screen. “Well, the idea was based on how much the human body uses chemicals to communicate. We have always been able to use medication to help induce certain feelings in the human body, for example to counter depression or recreational drug use you can find on the street.”

The doctor leaned back into her chair, “The project's goal was a bit more ambitious than that. The scientists were trying to create an agent to control emotions on a person. For example, inducing fear on our enemies or making our troops be a bit more courageous.”

“That sounds pretty crazy,” Furia commented. “Wait, why are you telling me this?”

The doctor shrugged. “I don’t really care. It’s not like you’re a reporter or an enemy of the Imperium. Plus, you probably outrank me, so I need to tell you if you ask.”

She looked back at her computer, looking over the research files some more. “And it was crazy. After several years, we found out two things. First, trying to use chemical agents to control xeno species is next to impossible. Dark Eldar are immune to such attempts from years of drug use already. And orks are basically plants. The idea didn’t fit with them as easily.”

“And second?” the teenager asked.

“Second, human emotions are fucking complicated.” Elizabeth turned away from the computer and looked at Furia. “After nearly ten years the only success they had was inducing or reducing anger on a human subject. However before I left the board, I got a good look at some of the test results. They basically pointed out that by doing either, a wide variety of other effects would be included since targeting anger was incredibly difficult to begin with.”

Furia swallowed hard, suddenly realizing that this was about her. “What kind of effects?” she asked.

“Well,” the doctor started, seemingly trying to remember. “It would make you less inclined to be angry, as that was the goal. It would also make you emotionally distant to outside sources, apathetic to causes, and basically act like a sedative physically. These effects wouldn’t be all immediate at first, instead grow over the next couple months to be more obvious.”

“What the fuck,” Furia growled, her fists clenching. “You telling me that these side effects made it through to the end product?”

“Uh, well,” the doctor muttered, noticing Furia’s growing anger. “Not exactly. These effects were intended as far as they were concerned. They weren’t side effects.”

“What?! What are the side effects then?”

The doctor turned back to her computer, tapped at her keyboard for a few seconds. A nearby printer activated and printed out a single page. “Have a look,” Elizabeth said as she grabbed the page and handed it over.

Furia stared at the list, her jaw dropping. There was at least twenty items on the list, all different side effects. “Loss of memory, nausea, insomnia, loss of libido?!” She looked at the doctor, suddenly freaking out. “I won’t want to have sex anymore? What the fu-”

Furia buckled over to the floor, her stomach pain having returned. Grabbing the doctor’s garbage bin, she puked out her guts once more, her stomach still empty from earlier.

Dr. Chawas was beside her an instant later, holding her steady. The redhead heaved for a few more moments, as her body slowly realized there was nothing else to expel. The good doctor rubbed her back, making her feel a bit better as her arms began to shake.

“Some of the physical effects disappear within a week or two, others remain. It depends on the person taking it. Especially concerning someone like you. The pills effects can vary, some can take longer to show up then others. Your body might have a better time fighting the effects then someone more... average.”

“I can’t believe,” Furia rasped between ragged breaths, “that they would put me on this shit.” She spat into the bin, sitting up as she tried to breathe deeply.

“No kidding. You need to stop taking it. It isn’t worth it.”

Furia wanted to agree, but knew it was more complex than that. “Can you give me something to get rid of the symptoms?”

The doctor shook her head. “Not without inducing even more, maybe even making the originals worse.”

“Well that's too bad,” Furia grunted, standing up and trying to regain her strength. “Guess I’m gonna have to bear through it all.”

“What?” Elizabeth blurted out, shocked by that statement. “You can’t be telling me you are going to keep taking these things, after everything I told you.”

The teenager shrugged, using a tissue from Dr. Chawas desk to wipe her mouth. “As I said before, I don’t have much of a choice.”

The doctor opened her mouth, still wanting to argue, but Furia shot her an angry look, startling her. “I don’t want your advice. And to be clear, I wasn’t here, alright? We didn’t have this conversation.”

The doctor nodded slowly, feeling likewise about the entire exchange. Furia picked up the bottle and pocketed it, along with the list of side effects. “Thanks again doc,” she muttered and left the office, making her way back to the parking lot.

“Good luck, Lady Furia,” she heard Chawas say behind her.

Furia arrived at her car minutes later and sat in the driver seat. She reached into her pocket and removed the list of effects. Glancing over it, she growled as she crushed the paper in her hands.

She wasn’t sure what to do anymore. A few days ago, she was pretty happy with her life, and even this morning things seemed to be going her way. Yet it suddenly dawned on her that if she remained here, she would cease being who she was.

She would either not take the pills and have a good chance of many more violent incidents with her probably ending up in jail. And with her in jail, she would either get herself killed or become the very things she hated.

Or she took the pills and ceased being Furia altogether, becoming a shadow of her former self. Even if she was still there mentally, it wouldn’t be her as she knew it.

No matter what, it seemed that she was destined to be forever trapped with her destruction. She would cease to exist altogether, a body with no real mind behind it. As Furia stared blankly at herself in her rearview mirror, everything looked bleak for the young woman.

“Well this sucks,” she mumbled, starting her car. She would at least enjoy the few moments she had left being herself before it all changed, one way or another.