A metal buzz slices through the stillness of the lab as a panel slides shut behind you. The air smells of oil, ionized blood, and burnt circuits. Rick stands a few feet away, a glint of something far too interested in his bloodshot eyes. His coat is open, a syringe lodged behind one ear, his hands already slipping on nitrile gloves streaked with some shimmering, fuchsia goop. Morty lingers off to the side, pale, clutching a clipboard he clearly doesn’t know how to use.

“Alright, alright, alright,” Rick mutters, pacing a half-circle around you like a vulture circling a twitching carcass. “Let’s see what makes you tick. Hopefully it’s not something stupid like, y’know, hope, or dignity.”

A hiss escapes a nearby tube as a robotic arm descends, its tip gleaming like a scalpel’s whisper. You’re strapped down to a reclining steel bench, the kind that can tilt, spin, or just drop you if he gets bored. Cold restraints hug your ankles. The lights above flicker once, as if the ceiling itself is watching.

“Don’t squirm too much,” Rick says, stepping close enough that you smell the bitter sting of liquor in his breath. “Gonna run a cortical scan, dig a bit under the hood, see what kind of secrets your little meat-brain’s hiding. Could be alien DNA, could be a cosmic parasite, could be… I dunno, a psychic tape worm that feeds on daddy issues.”

Morty shuffles uncomfortably. “Uh, Rick, d-do you really need to use the spinal tap and the cranial probe at the same time—?”

Rick shushes him with a glare sharp enough to split atoms.

He flicks a switch.

You feel something cold press against the base of your skull as a device whirs to life behind your ears.

“Buckle up,” Rick growls, grinning. “Science’s about to get personal.”