Newt x Reader || A13

I lie in a bed, my eyes trained on a bare, white ceiling.

The sheets beneath me are thin, subtly scratching my bare legs. The holo next to me reads 3 in the morning, yet I am awake as ever.

Some inkling of a feeling reminds me that I haven't seen my brother in weeks. Not since they separated us.

They said it's for the future: for their project. I've tried to contact him; I've done everything I could think of.

It's ironic, in a way, how his door is a mere couple of steps from mine.

They took him from me on his fourteenth birthday: days before my twelfth. It's been weeks since then; the days are now blurring together. I wake up. I go to the lab. I learn. I learn to program. I run analysis on human anatomy. I gather information on a range of sciences. I learn without purpose. My life is, without my brother, a monotonous drone of existence.

Knowing tomorrow will be no different, I close my eyes and let go.

- - -

"A13. Report to lab in fifteen minutes."

I wake to the same distorted female voice every morning. Slinging my feet over the side of my bed, I stand, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. I dress quickly, throwing on a lab coat, and head towards the door to my cubicle, scanning my wrist on the adjacent metal plate. The door buzzes open, and I begin walking to the lab.

- - -

I stand before a holo simulator in a large lab with high ceilings. Unlike the rest of the compound, this room is crammed with blueprints and screens displaying information I've researched and projects I've worked on for all my life. On each side of the room, there are bolted doors which never open, and in the centre, the number 3 is printed in metal engraving into the floor.

Its meaning is still a mystery to me.

"Commence simulation?" The distorted voice sounds from the holo.

"Commence simulation using information submitted last night" I respond, voice flat. The holo, however, comes to life, images appearing and bars filling as the simulation proceeds.

They never tell me why I do this each day. They only tell me what to do, and I comply every time. Each simulation I run is an antibody-antigen catalysis reaction. It's like I'm trying to find something to counter a specific pathogen- a disease- but they'll never give me direct clarification.

All I know of is my task, and that I must complete it.

I'm snapped out of my thoughts as the screen goes dark, and a familiar red strobe appears.

"Simulation failure." The voice says, displaying a new set of numbers.

"Simulation pool lives for 38 days, 4 hours, 32 minutes, and 2 seconds after transfer completion. This is a 23 minute, 14 second improvement from the last simulation."

I reset the holo. Another day, another failed attempt, though the interval of improvement is relatively large.

"Record failure 212 and prep lab." I say, closing my eyes in frustration.

"Recorded failure 212, subject A13." The voice says, then logs off.

I sink into a chair behind a stack of failure logs and grimace at the tower of paper before me.

Each one is a lingering reminder of my scientific incompetence, I suppose.

"A13." A voice that isn't the holo calls out. I wheel around, disturbing the fine stacks of papers in my surprise.