New Black Gold, part1

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Content: This is a fanfiction dedicated to the game Deus Ex: Human Revolution, based on its narrative and the way I played the main character, Adam Jensen.
I'm disregarding any complementary canon as far as I've read it.
As I'm closing some time gaps, I mainly concentrate on Jensen coping with his situation and focus on the relationship between Jensen and Sarif.

Disclaimer: Title courtesy of and with friendly permission by Miracle Of Sound. Characters and preview footage © Eidos Montreal
Rated M for language, gore and future erotic content.
For more information see comment below.

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2027, Detroit, Sarif Industries HQ, Micro-Chem Labs.



The fire alarms were still wailing, filling the entire facility with an unnerving demand for urgency. Flickering red warning lights flashed over scorched white walls. Heavy smoke still lingered in long corridors, while wrecked consoles coughed up electric sparks. Small fires remained, smoldering through plastic and metal, leaving an acrid stench in the air.

'Jesus Christ!' David Sarif gasped at the sight of utter destruction that had befallen his laboratories. It was much worse than he had dared to imagine.

Surrounded by a group of security guards, the CEO of Sarif Industries waited impatiently for the emergency personnel to clear the doorway to Subsection 6 from potentially dangerous debris.

'Frank,' he contacted his Chief of Cyber-Security via Infolink, restlessly pacing back and forth while trying to replace the sensation of helplessness with something useful. 'Tell me you found something. Anything.'

'I'm sorry, boss,' the answer resounded right inside his head. 'Whatever happened down there, it fried the whole surveillance system. I can't even get a lock on the researchers' GPLs.'

David cursed in silence. At least five scientists had been inside the inner labs when the fire broke out, and not just any scientists. Not to mention Adam Jensen, Sarif's Chief of Security, who David had personally sent down here to check on the situation. All of them probably dead.

How could this have happened?

A moment later one of the men working at the door gave his OK to proceed, and David was one of the first to enter the sealed-off area.

'Be careful, sir,' an armored guard tried to hold him back, but David gave a damn about safety right now. It was already too late for that.

'Don't worry about me,' he barked at the man, more aggravated than intended. 'Go, look for survivors!'

Anybody, just anybody, please, dear Lord...

Following the order, the emergency personnel swarmed out, searching, clearing and securing. It took no less than five minutes before the first report came in. They found a body, burned beyond recognition. Then a second one. And a third. All the same.

David gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. This must be a bad dream. Nothing but a bad dream...

'Holy shit!' one of the men suddenly exclaimed in utter surprise over the radio. 'He's breathing! He's still breathing! I found a survivor! He's alive!'

David immediately shook off the stiffening grasp of despair and, filled with a rekindling spark of hope, hurried towards the source of the communication, just to freeze again where he stood as soon as he laid eyes on the mutilated body buried beneath the rubble of a retaining wall.

'It's... Jensen, sir,' a security guard identified his superior, but David already saw.

'How can he still be alive?' another wondered, and David could hardly believe it himself.

There was blood everywhere. Thick shards of broken glass had cut practically every inch of the Chief's skin, most of them still piercing the flesh. Jensen's abdomen was slashed and his guts spread about the floor. The left arm was smashed to a pulp and, worst of all, the gaping bullet hole on the left side of his forehead permitted a shocking insight into pure nothingness.

Yet Jensen's eyes were wide open, blindly staring at his own personal void, and the bubbles of blood, regularly oozing out of a cut in his cheek and trickling into the black beard, proved him still alive indeed.

'Oh god, Adam!' David called out to his security chief, pushed a shocked guard out of his way and went down on his knees beside Jensen, completely ignoring the gore soiling his expensive designer clothes.

'Come on, stay with me. Don't you dare give up now. I got you, son. Stay with me, please.'

Trembling, he reached out for the broken body, and when he caught sight of his own ornate cybernetic arm, he realized there was only one way to save this fading life. He knew Adam would abhor, probably even hate him, but there was no other option.

Snapping back to reality, David turned to face the stunned emergency personnel.

'Don't just stand there gawking! Get him to a clinic, stat!'

The sharp command finally animated the helpers to new activity, calling in paramedics and clearing away the rubble.

David pitched in to assist, unable to just watch and do nothing.

Less than ten minutes later he found himself sitting next to Adam inside the VTOL that was carrying them to the closest LIMB facility, forehead resting on the knuckles of his folded hands, silently praying and urging the aircraft to go faster.

As it had turned out, Adam really was the only survivor. The collapsed retaining wall must have protected him from the fire; still, it was a miracle he had survived injuries this fatal. David wondered if that fact related to the security chief's genetic anomaly or was just a result of sheer strong-mindedness. Adam had proven his stubborn temper more than once, after all.

But no matter the reason, he was running out of time.

Just don't give in yet!

The short flight seemed to last an eternity, but as soon as the VTOL touched down and opened its hold, a group of LIMB medics scurried in to take care of Jensen and transport him inside the facility, David right on their heels.

In front of the operating room he met with Dr. Karim Fong, who he had requested personally, knowing him to be one of the best in cybernetic prosthesis surgery. And right now, Adam needed the very best.

Dr. Fong gave the case sheet compiled by the paramedics earlier a quick survey, then examined Jensen directly while his team prepared him for processing.

'Penetrating head trauma, causing a severe hematoma; massive blood loss; severed limb; fractured ribs...' his Mideastern accent was heavy, and his dark eyes were full of concern when he turned to face David. 'I'm not sure I can save this man's life, Mr. Sarif.'

But David didn't want to hear any of it and fixated him with a determined gaze.

'Do whatever it takes, Doc. Sarif Industries will provide the necessary hardware. But should he die, I'll hold you responsible.'

Fong raised an eyebrow in obvious disapproval.

'You are aware that the procedure causes serious distress to both body and mind. In his condition I can't...'

'His body can take it,' David interjected, knowing this for a fact. 'Just do your job, Doc. I'm not losing anyone else today.'

'Very well,' Fong frowned, but complied, studying the medical chart once more. 'There is a possibility I can preserve his right arm and...'

'No,' David cut in again, almost detesting himself for what he was about to say next. 'He's no use to me like this. You'll replace all limbs with cybernetics, and there are additional modifications I want you to perform.'

There was no question about it anymore, after everything that had happened these last few hours. The results of the research Dr. Megan Reed and her staff had died for today belonged to Adam Jensen, the man who had made this bio-technological breakthrough possible in the first place.

Dr. Fong didn't make any effort to hide his reluctance, but was in no position to object. He knew Sarif's company policy and corporate influence all too well.

So he just nodded his understanding, turned away to enter the operating room and left David behind alone.

'God, forgive me...' he whispered to himself after the MD was gone, facing the grave decision he had just made for another human being; a man more than an employee, more than what he considered a friend, a man only met once in a lifetime.

'Forgive me, son...'

The surgery went on for over ten hours until Adam was finally out of mortal danger.

David didn't leave the observation chamber for one moment, ignoring the damage control he should have taken care of, ignoring the blood drying on his clothes, ignoring the inflaming scratches left on his organic hand from clearing the debris off Jensen's body, ignoring the fatigue trying to overwhelm him.

All he could remember afterwards were the dreadful screams emanating from the OR; screams that could only originate from a fierce battle against death itself.





2027, Detroit, LIMB clinic, Infirmary A



There were screams echoing in his ears; far away, yet disturbingly present.

Who was screaming? Did something happen?

Right, something did happen, something terrible.

Adam remembered a sense of danger, gunshots, fire, a dear one in distress, shock, pain, struggle... and the deadly, abyssal muzzle of a .357 Magnum pointed at his head - his very own .357 Diamond Back.

Then, there was nothing but a bright light...

Adam forced his eyes to open.

Right, light... Too much and way too bright.

But he doubted hell was that luminous, and since there was no way he had gotten himself an invitation to heaven, that meant he was still alive? Where, the heck, was he then?

The light was still too dazzling though, causing him a piercing headache, so he closed his lids again to try and clear his view.

This was wrong. Something, no everything felt... just wrong, somehow out of place. And why did his eyes hurt so much?

Adam's next attempt to determine his whereabouts turned out to be more successful. There were forms slowly taking shape in front of his eyes, shadows contrasted with the lights he identified as frosted lamps above and around him.

Then the shapes intensified, solidified, until he was able to distinguish four familiar letters etched into the opaque surface of the lights; four letters that filled him with instant and bottomless terror: limb.

No. No! No, no, no, no, no...

Adam jerked up, just to get halfway overwhelmed by a consuming pain, denying him his next breath and flaring his vision.

But pain, breath and flares were forgotten the moment he caught sight and fixated on the black, metallic abomination that should have been his hand.

No...

This wasn't true... it couldn't... it mustn't...

Adam felt an icy grasp clench his heart, as he watched in horror the synthetic digits respond to his automatically given command, rolling into a fist.

No.

Dreading, yet unable to refrain, he broke away, looking left to see his fears indeed confirmed. The shiny black substitute of a human arm, copying its right counterpart, went all the way up to where his shoulder was supposed to be, holding a tight grip on his torso.

No!

Crippled, dismembered, corrupted, broken - and artificially rebuilt?

Adam felt panic slowly taking over. The blood froze inside his veins, his breath became shallow and frantic, his heartbeat rose to a fierce pounding inside his chest, his stomach roiled and his vision blurred, as a red veil fell over his eyes and rendered his mind blank.

Somewhere nearby an electric beep went off, signaling an emergency, but Adam hardly noticed anymore; just like the shapes suddenly approaching and the voices shouting. All that remained was a horrendous abyss suffocating any reasonable thought, while he found himself sucked into darkness.

Hands clutched for his body in an attempt to push him down, overpower and restrain him; and Adam reacted by instinct alone when he desperately rebelled to break free.

The shouts grew louder, accompanied by rattling noises; something heavy crashing to the ground; the ugly crack of a snapping bone; a shriek; a strange metallic clink, followed by the unmistakable smell of blood.

Then, Adam felt invaded by an alien weakness all of a sudden, rendering his limbs numb, quelling his frenzy and choking his rage.

He tried to revolt once more, but fatigue's tender embrace proved to be merciless.

Right before he fully lost awareness, he realized the screams that had penetrated his dreams before had been his own, bursting out from deep inside himself that very moment.



Adam's next awakening happened to be more peaceful.

Even though he remembered instantly as soon as his mind entered consciousness, he felt somewhat... distant, calm.

Maybe it was the drugs still working.

Maybe there was a way to adapt, after all. There was no other choice anyway, was there?

But for that to begin he had to face it first.

So he took a cautious breath, steeled his guts and slowly opened his eyes.

He found himself inside the same room he had woken up in the first time, lying in a clean bed and surrounded by orderly arranged medical equipment. None of it showed any traces of his violent outburst earlier; no scratches, no damage. Though he guessed, that didn't apply to the people who got hurt during the incident. He still remembered the sound of a snapping bone and the scent of blood, vividly.

Shoving the rising sense of guilt aside, he forced himself to focus on more immediate matters and finally dared to lift his right hand before his eyes.

There it was. Black, metallic, artificial... and horrifying. A travesty attached to his very core.

Adam felt his heartbeat increase again, his breath accelerate, his body tremble...

Calm down, damn it, concentrate, think!

The design was unfamiliar, he analyzed, rationally, though the fabrication clearly related to Sarif Industries. A prototype, then?

Adam wasn't sure he liked the idea; not that he liked any of it, at all.

But this prosthesis obviously was a weapon built for combat. He could feel the strength residing within the electro-active polymers, imitating, even surpassing, human muscle tissue; not to mention the hidden nanoceramic blade he somehow knew to be there.

He raised his left arm to compare and found both limbs to be identical up to his shoulders where they tightly enclosed his torso, fanning out in splayed clamps. In the space between he noticed metallic bolts penetrating the seemingly organic skin.

So, they reinforced his whole chest cavity with a cage to support the augmentation? What else did he lose?

Following that question an alarming thought surfaced, and Adam couldn't assess his worries any more urgently, lifting the blanket and looking beneath.

His abdomen had been patched up and neatly bandaged, whereat the legs emerging from his shorts and mounted to his hip weren't his own, but of the same shiny black line of production as the arm prosthetics.

With paralyzing horror Adam realized he would never be able to stand on his feet again. The only notion still keeping the revulsion in check was the fact that, at least, his privates seemed to have been left intact. Too small a relief, though, to even begin to accommodate for everything they'd taken away.

What else? There had to be more.

The next moment he registered for the first time the strange frames edging his perception, only noticeable from the corner of his eyes. Head-mountings?

Right, a protective shield, screening the eyes if required and displaying a HUD, downloadable right into his cerebral memory.

Why, the hell, did he knew all that? And how, the hell, could it feel alien and familiar at the same time? Like it had always been there; like he just never knew how to use it?

Confusion threatened to overwhelm rationality, and Adam forced himself to calm down once more, taking one slow breath after another.

Head-mountings... most likely implicated retinal enhancements, as well. Which would explain his strange vision - more acute than he remembered and somewhat different - and why his eyes still hurt.

So, they stole his eyesight, too...

Damn you, Sarif!

Lost in his loathing scorn, Adam startled the next moment when the door at the other side of the room suddenly hissed open and a man, carefully balancing a cup of steaming coffee, entered the infirmary.

David Sarif, however, was focussing all his attention on the brimming beverage, so he didn't notice Adam being conscious and watching, until he came a few steps closer, looked up and instantly twitched in surprise, stopping dead and spilling some hot coffee over his cybernetic hand, not even realizing.

'Adam!' he exclaimed. 'You're awake. I... Ahh, shit!'

Finally registering the dark brew dripping off his fingers and staining his classy waistcoat, David cursed away, put the cup down on a nearby table and shook off the remaining drops, while Adam just observed in silence.

'How are you feeling?' David asked eventually, composing himself, yet not without genuine concern in his words.

Adam couldn't help but feel sarcastic.

'Why don't you tell me, boss?'

Ignoring the hoarse sound of his own voice, he raised the augmented hand for David to see, closed it to a fist and activated the blade hidden inside the lower arm. The nanoceramic weapon sprang out with a metallic clink and remained bare, shiny and deadly, protruding from the joint.

Damn, it was as easy as clicking one's fingers. Maybe even more so, since Adam actually had no idea if it was easy or not to click one's fingers operating a cybernetic prosthesis.

As expected, David flinched back, barely noticeable, and stared at Adam's modified limb, before a sympathizing touch entered his eyes.

'Look, I know what you're thinking,' David began cautiously, 'but you were about to die...'

'And you think that gives you the right...' Adam growled back, no longer withholding his resentment.

'You know damn well I had the right!' David responded, now vehemently defending his actions. 'You signed a contract, Adam.'

Yeah, that he did, hoping the special agreement would never come into effect. Still, it wasn't enough of an answer to justify this kind of humiliation.

'Right,' Adam acknowledged, slowly cooling off and retracting the blade. 'And what's the other half of the truth?'

There always did exist at least one other, especially with a man like David Sarif.

David appeared to be aware of it too, given his abrupt silence and reluctance to speak on. At that moment he seemed terribly tired all of a sudden, as if a heavy burden weighed him down.

He broke away, trying to fix his eyes somewhere on the floor, until they caught sight of his own cybernetic arm and held on.

'You're right,' he finally said, 'I've no idea what it must be like for you. It's just...' He clenched his artificial fingers into a tight fist. 'I couldn't lose you, too, Adam. I already lost too much that day.'

That, at least, was an answer Adam could deal with.

But now he felt like the lowest of assholes himself. Up until now, he hadn't even thought about what happened to everyone else during the attack. What about...

'Megan?' he whispered her name with a sense of foreboding, and when he saw David gently shaking his head, validating the suspicion, Adam felt his stomach convulse.

Shit, he should have been able to protect her, save her! It was his job, his duty, for Christ's sake, the reason why Sarif employed him!

But he had failed, and now Megan was dead.

'I'm sorry, Adam,' David shared his compassion. 'I know, Megan and you were--'

'That was quite a while ago,' Adam cut in, though he couldn't neglect he and Megan had been very close once and still used to hook up from time to time even after their relationship had ended.

'What happened back there?' he forced his thoughts to focus on something more tangible.

'I was hoping you could tell me,' David admitted, raising his eyes back at him. 'Aside from a fuzzy witness report and some blurred security footage Frank was able to extract from one of the intellicams we got nothing. The DPD is still investigating, but public opinion holds Purity First responsible.'

'They were no Purists,' Adam contradicted, knowing for sure. 'They were heavily enhanced, military grade. And professionals at that.'

David frowned, but remained silent, obviously processing this new information, while Adam looked down at his own augmentations, recalling the last few memories of the incident, burned into his mind.

Pain, blood and fire. Megan lying on the floor, motionless after saving his life in exchange of her own, right before that bastard put Adam's gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

He had been powerless, incapable to carry out his responsibility. Maybe... maybe now he could...

He despised the thought the very moment it entered his mind. He didn't choose this; he didn't ask for this! Yet, at least it might grant him the opportunity for some payback. After all, he was still alive, wasn't he?

'How much did you replace?' he followed that sentiment, glaring up at his employer. He just had to know.

David seemed to be caught off-guard by the sudden change of topic, hesitated and avoided Adam's gaze once more.

'You have to understand, son, you were critically injured...'

Damn it, he was doing it again, dodging straight answers!

'How much?' Adam insisted, growing angry.

'Over fifty percent,' David eventually caved, and Adam could feel panic resurface and threaten to strangle him.

Over fifty percent? That meant he was more machine than man now?

'I got you the most advanced equipment Sarif has to offer,' David continued to explain, ignoring Adam having difficulties to follow his statement. 'Full limb prostheses, chest frame, spinal stabilizers, Sentinel Health System, rebreather, energy converter, cranial and retinal enhancements, SMART vision, CASIE, reflex booster, Rhino Dermal Armor, optical cloaking, even the Icarus and the Typhoon system.'

Adam hardly got half of it all. There was only one thing he truly began to understand. He had been turned into a weapon, built and owned by Sarif Industries.

'Apparently due to the heavy brain damage, the neural links weren't fully functional until you regained consciousness,' David kept on talking. 'That's why you had such a strong reaction the first time you woke up.'

"Strong reaction" was gently playing it down; in fact, Adam had been completely out of control.

'There were a few minor casualties, but don't worry, I'll have everyone well compensated.'

Right, all hail the corporate power! If you can't ease people's discomfort, just go ahead and buy it!

'Frank also assures me all of the software will kick in over time,' David still swaggered on, not noticing the seething rage he fueled with his choice of words. 'You'll be a hundred percent operational before long.'

Shut up. Shut up! Shut the fuck up, dammit!

Adam almost couldn't take it anymore. He felt like he was on the verge of doing something very stupid. And as a general rule, you just don't bite your owner's leg.

'I think you should go now,' Adam managed to squeeze through gritted teeth, only barely keeping his anger in check and cutting off David in mid-sentence, who gave him a worried look in return.

'Adam--'

'JUST LEAVE!'

The roar was strained and violent and finally convinced David to heed the implied warning.

He took a shaky breath, nodded his consent and was already turning away, but still hesitated, stopping short the next moment and shooting a last glimpse at Adam, about to voice whatever was on his mind.

Don't.

Don't you dare say you're sorry!

Just don't!

And David didn't; he simply broke off after a while and left the room without another word.

At least he had the decency not to lie.

Adam slowly leant back into the pillows, desperately trying to regain control over his trembling body, trying to fill the void that threatened to overtake his thoughts with something substantial. But there wasn't much left.

He realized, he had been wrong before. He had entered hell indeed.



As it turned out, Adam still had to undergo three additional surgeries, finishing the modification of his new legs, before he could seriously try to get up and walk on his own, let alone start with any kind of rehab.

Within a short period of days, he was raring to escape the confinement to bed, not only because he urged for unrestricted mobility as it should have been a matter of course, he had a strong need for an adequate lavatory, too, since peeing in a pot every day wasn't exactly his idea of recuperation.

But when he finally was able to stand up and enter the small bathroom for the first time, shakily on weak legs, he wasn't in the least prepared for what was staring back at him from the mirror across.

The black nanoscale skin of his cybernetic arms immediately caught his attention, drawing him in, daring to take a closer look. And it was as bad as he had expected, mechanic surrogates taunting the marred remains of his humanity with artificial supremacy.

Very much unexpected, on the contrary, turned out to be his facial traits he had never had a chance to examine before; or rather what was left of it.

Black frames branched over unfamiliarly haggard cheekbones and brows, sticking out, impossible for anyone to miss. An ugly scar crossed the left eye and, right above, a hexagonal depression was embossed into his forehead, marking the cranial enhancement and, most likely, the entrance wound of the bullet that had crushed his skull.

The most shocking sight were his irises though, completely deprived of their former grey-blue color, now an unnaturally glinting yellow-green. He even could watch the retinal lenses counter-rotate with each other when he leant in to have a more immediate look, focusing on their fake image reflected by the mirror surface.

Adam's guts twisted as he stared into those eyes in aversion, not noticing his tight clutch on the sink until the ceramic gave in and burst under a marrow-chilling crack.

After that, he concentrated entirely on recovery and rehab, finding some resolution in physical activity and learning to handle the prosthetics. Gaining control over their functions worked out surprisingly well, though for quite a while Adam continued to have difficulties gauging the strength of his new limbs and broke several other pieces of equipment in the process.

Worst of all, however, proved to be the annoying psych evaluations when so-called specialists persistently probed and pried into his mind, trying to talk him into some mental trauma.

Adam kept his distance during these sessions, which probably didn't have a very positive impact on his discharge date. But he knew there was no use in having strangers poke around memories he'd rather leave behind, especially since he couldn't do a thing about it anyway.

He also kept quiet about his dreams, which didn't cease to haunt him, filled with screams, blood and fire, always dismissing him with a sensation of impotence and failure. Not much he was able to do about that, either, other than sticking to exhausting training and exercise whenever sleep used to torment him.

Despite all the time and effort he spent on getting acquainted with his new skills, he never managed to become fully adjusted to the lasting sensation of disembodiment that accompanied him since his first awakening; not even when he discovered he was still able to feel. Obviously the nanoscale epidermis grew capable to interpret touch and temperature, as well as degrees of pain, and relay the impressions to his brain. Still, it simply refused to feel like his own.

He did learn, on the other hand, that clicking his cybernetic fingers turned out to be very easy, in fact; only the originating noise didn't sound right at all to his ears.

Over three months he had to stay at the LIMB clinic, confined and virtually imprisoned; and when he finally got permission to leave, he noticed a certain unease about facing the outside world he should have been abundantly familiar with.

<tbc>