#Also kirk acevedo's character (nurse or paramedic of some kind) had a really big dragon tat along his side and i was like SICk....

[wawamouse]

Oz "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" -inspired AU

(Yes this is just me bullet pointing a fic I’m too lazy to write out)

Another strange unethical study gone wrong!

First the snatched inmates return to their pods, distinctly but indescribably Changed

Inmates who weren’t in the study observe the odd, emotionless state of their returned fellow inmates and initial responses range from ridicule and mockery to muttered statements acknowledging how creepy it seems, like all the study participants got brainwashed

Pod by pod, inmates from the study begin to emerge in the mornings, Different. Better?

They are polite. They do not fight. Even the most vile inmate suddenly takes a turn toward expressing remorse! The experiment from the staff’s POV seems to be a success. The inmates have no desire for parole or a hasty release. They will serve out their time quietly and without incident and if/when they are released, they want only to reintegrate into society so quietly that it will be as though they don’t exist. Ideal, no?

Cue increasingly unnerved staff — Sister Pete, Father Mukada, McManus, etc, perplexed by the changes they see

But the study appears to have been a rousing success, so Querns wants more people to sign up, and increase the incentives (incentives that, once the inmates emerge from the experiment, they no longer care about) (they no longer care about anything). The experimental Round 1 group is now moving into some sort of Round 2 involving different therapy treatments, while a new Round 1 is opening for volunteers.

Chico, working in the hospital ward, has been one of the inmates who got roped into helping the outside doctors who have been overseeing the trials. He finds the changes in the inmates very strange although he also thinks they’re kind of funny at first, too (because they don’t really react right to things he says)

But it gets harder to laugh off when Miguel says he’s thinking about signing up the next Round 1 of the study. If he gets the real drug then maybe he’ll finally have a better chance getting paroled

Chico tells him it’s a bad idea. Sure, no one’s brains have bled out their nose yet, but look around man!! Half of Em City has turned into creepy husks of their former selves.

Miguel can’t be talked out of it, so Chico just tries to make sure his name gets out into the control group by breaking into the office and going through the files (cursing under his breath the whole time like whyyyy should he give a fuck) (except that some of the other Latinos have already gone through the trial and they Changed and it scares him a little, deep down. It feels like they've all turned into background extras (lol) with no personality. HE’s not going to take some spooky mind numbing drug but if he’s the only one who doesn’t, he’ll be alone)

As he’s rifling through files he shouldn’t be looking at, he can’t find the subject lists but he does find papers that seem to outline some sort of secondary purpose for the project that no one ever really explained to the participants or the prospective participants. It’s hard to make out what it all means and also Chico’s running out of time (gate opening across the ward, someone approaching) so he just takes one of the papers and crumples up to stuff in his pocket before getting the fuck out of there

Since he couldn’t find the patient list, he’s not sure which group Miguel has been placed into. He’s also not really allowed to be around past the intake assessments so he can only help usher Miguel into a curtained off area and wait for him to emerge. Of course, that doesn’t really tell him anything either. Saying “how was it” and getting a grunt of “fine” doesn’t mean much; it takes a a couple doses for the drug to take effect

Cue Chico staring at Miguel during meals and first thing in the morning, trying to tell if he’s turning into a pod person (much to Miguel's bemusement and then annoyance)… doesn’t SEEM like it… But maybe it’s still too early

Chico’s still got that crumpled piece of paper in his pocket that he presses into a library book and carefully reads in the safety of their pod after lockdown; it's still got a lot of jargon that he doesn't understand and he crawls down to Miguel's bunk to show him. Chico is convinced that the gist of it seems to be that the project is some sort of mind control experiment; it's not that the inmates have been treated and are becoming better, they're just becoming blank slates.

"For what?" "For round fucking two, Miguel."

Unnerved, the next day Miguel agrees to not swallow the pills, just in case he has the real deal. Meanwhile, Chico goes to the only other person either of them can think of for advice: Rebadow.

Rebadow hasn’t taken part in the study. He says he doesn’t take part in any studies, and he’s seen his fair share come through Oz over the years—not since the first one, anyway. The first one?

BACKSTORY UNLOCKED: The year was 1966. Rebadow’s death sentence had just been commuted and he had a new lease on life. Oz’s then-new warden had agreed to let a private research group ask for volunteers among Oz’s inmates in order to gather participants for a behavioral therapy study. It was supposed to be a non-invasive experiment, and after a few weeks of drug trials and feeling no great difference in terms of his outlook on life (physical symptoms: fatigue in the morning and a general brain fog), it was announced that the study participants would be moving on to a new segment of the study. A “physical therapy” room had been set up in an old unused wing of Oz. Here, the participants were given increased/injectable dosages of the study drug and then subjected to various “stimulation” to see how they would react. Bob was place in a chair with a hood over his head and repeated zapped with what felt like an electric charge before the hood would be ripped off and a bright light would be shined in his eyes while a strange indistinct static would be blasted into his ears from a headset. Then he would be asked what the voice had told him and each time he would say that he never hear any voices. This went on and on for what felt like hours and at the end of the day, when he wanted to leave the study, the doctors told him that was alright, but he would just have to take some more medicine before so. Well, he was at this point, quiet wary of taking any more medicine, so he asked instead how much longer the study would be going on. The doctor told him it would only be one more day, and that the final day would really just be the patients getting asked a series of questions while having their brains scanned. Rebadow says that he doesn’t remember the final day whatsoever—just that he went into a room and had nodes attached to his head while he was lying down. The doctors asked him a series of inane questions and then asked him to count down from 10, and then the next thing he knew, he was waking up in his cell. He never did find out what the study was all about or whether it had been a failure or a success, but the research group left pretty swiftly and it was said that they were quite disappointed. One of Rebadow’s fellow participants later went berserk and got sent to Solitary before being transferred to a mental hospital instead, but every one else’s behavior seemed unchanged. Rebadow hadn’t been a particularly violent man—aside from the murder—to begin with, so it was hard to say. But a few weeks after the experiment, God spoke to him for the first time.

Chico: …That’s cool, Bob. What about the shit they’re doing right now? / Rebadow shrugs. He says it seems like whatever they’re doing right now, it must be more of a success. Science these days… it’s not like how it was when he was a young man. Back in his day, mind control was just a CIA pipedream.

Whatever is going on, he advises Chico to tell Miguel to find a way to back out of the study, or to at least make sure he doesn’t get locked into Round 2. Look around: haven’t you noticed?

The pod people emerging from Round 2 have started to cluster together, abandoning their previous affiliations to all shadily meet in the classrooms or gather at lunch tables to sit/stand as if in conference… But they don’t seem to be discussing much at all, or at least, when either Miguel or Chico try to pretend to stumbled across them and see what they’re up to, they fall silent and just make polite, robotic conversation instead

Miguel has experience with pretending to take pills but not actually taking them, so he’s been collecting the ones that he’s been given. He, Chico, Rebadow (and now Busmalis lol) gather around and stare at the little pile of pills Miguel has collected. Of course, none of them are fucking scientists or anything so they just sort of stare at the pills like they expect something to happen.

“Maybe they’re placebos,” Busmalis says. Miguel lifts his head a little and peers around Em City. “I don’t think they’re doing placebos anymore, man.”

Chico suggests they try crushing up the pills and giving it to someone else to see what happens. At such a concentrated dose, if Miguel is being given the real drugs, then surely if they give it to someone else, they'll know right away

Miguel's not so into that plan, but Rebadow reasons that the study drugs don’t seem to actually be actively harming (killing anyone), so Miguel sweeps the pills back into his pocket and says he’ll think about who to dose and how.

Chico’s vote is that Miguel gives it to Torquemada, who’s been running around doing his own thing in the background. It’ll be easier to tell if there’s a sudden change in someone with a bigger personality to begin with, plus fuck that guy for the Destiny business. With the inmates becoming transformed by the study drug anyway, the tits trade in Oz has been suffering a serious demand shortage that has caused some troubles for Torquemada, as his power is now beginning to slip. (“At worst, you’ll be putting the guy outta his misery by letting him join the vegetated masses” is Chico’s twisted logic). Still somewhat conflicted, Miguel agrees.

Busmalis is all “oooh How will you get the drugs to him? Sprinkle it in his food? Mix it into his toothpaste?” / Miguel and Chico just give each other a look.

Smash cut to: they have bonked Torquemada over the head and have dragged him into a supply closet to stuff the pills down his throat the old fashioned way: one guy holding his nose and and mouth until he swallows and the other guy sitting on his legs. Once all that’s done, they knock Torquemada out again and untie him like “now what” / “guess we see if anything happens” and skip off to wait for Torquemada to emerge from his beauty sleep either very pissed off or completely zombified

In the meantime, the inmates coming out of round 2 have formed even more of a peculiar hivemind, moving in packs and generally being very creepy. At night, some of them stand at the glass of their pods, just staring at each other until the hacks tell them to get back in bed.

Of course, Miguel and Chico aren’t the only ones who have noticed the strangeness. One of the bikers whose associates have mostly all been lured into the experiment by that point finally snaps and freaks out—starts wailing on another guy but is quickly subdued by a horde of the pod people, who turn him over to the hacks and confirm each other’s stories that he completely went berserk and needs to be duly punished

Similar incidents arise

Torquemada is discovered wandering around in a complete daze with no recollection of where he is or how he got there and is admitted to the hospital ward for evaluation. Dr Nathan thinks it could be some sort of temporary concussion based amnesia—he does have a bruise on his head, but it doesn’t really seem to account for the severity of his case; his motor skills and reasoning is all there — top notch, in fact, but it turns out he’s not only quite amnesiac but also very susceptible to suggestion and unable to remember too much at once. Gloria thinks they have to send him to the hospital for brain scans altho Querns isn’t so enthused about it, since Torquemada seems physically healthy and MRIs are expensive……. So Nathan just continues to hold Torquemada for observation instead. His condition doesn’t seem to deteriorate but it doesn’t seem to get better, either.

Miguel continues to feel conflicted about what’s happened to Torquemada, thinking the drugs basically gave him dementia or something (Chico: it’s not dementia, it’s mind control!! And if you’re not careful, they’ll turn you into him, too). They have a real philosophical argument about the point of continued resistance and sneak into the hospital ward to see Torquemada in person. Torquemada has no idea who they are and doesn’t hold much interest in anything around him. Just sits patiently in the hospital bed until he seems to pick up on the fact that they’ve sneaked over and aren’t actually working a shift, and then he calls Dr Nathan over who calls a hack over to drag them back to Em City and face discipline for wandering where theyre not supposed to be (Chico tells McManus that technically they are both allowed to be in the hospital ward as inmates; its not really their fault the hack who took them their took his eye off them. It’s a big misunderstanding, yep.)

McManus suspects that they’re (Chico’s) the ones who did something to Torquemada to make him all confused. He doesn’t know WHAT but he WILL find out. Also, he’s very fucking disappointed in Miguel (yeah yeah). It’s been a year and a half since the incident with Ruiz and the evacuation and then repopulation of Oz. Chico just barely avoids the Cage (gets gym and library privileges revoked for a month instead) and is dismissed, with McManus having Miguel stay behind to talk instead. (cue Chico dawdling around the base of the stairs for Miguel to come down; in the mean time, he gets to the enjoy the unsettling stares of the pod people around the unit. He starts to wonder if maybe they’re planning something)

When Miguel at long last comes out of McManus’s office, he seems subdued but just says that McManus suggested that going through with round 2 met help him show the parole board that he’s truly changed (results have been amazing. disciplinary slip hand outs have been at an all time low)

“You can’t.” Miguel only shrugs. “I know,” he says, but he doesn’t seem so sure.

That night Chico stands at the pod wall and quietly reports what he sees. He’s got all kinds of theories about the mind control—theories which Miguel usually listens to, but that night Miguel doesn’t want to hear anything about. He’s been moody about the whole thing since they when to see Torquemada and it’s clear to Chico that Miguel thinks that they really did just give him a concussion somewhat and that there’s no big conspiracy at all. It’s just their imaginations they’ve been letting run wild.

“What about the paper?” “Chico, we don’t know what that shit was talking about! You grabbed ONE paper talking about neurotransmitters and fucking CBT. It doesn’t mean SHIT.”

And Miguel likes Rebadow too, but the man says a CIA experiment let him hear the voice of God. Doesn’t that seem a little insane to Chico? JUST A LITTLE? Has it never occurred to Chico that maybe there’s nothing weird about what’s going on, and he just WANTS there to be so he doesn’t have to face the fact that he’s not likely getting out of Oz anytime soon?

Chico is like YEAH? What about them?! > Points behind him to the rest of Em City and Miguel just says quietly that nobody’s goddamn out there. Nobody’s standing out at the windows communicating telepathically to each other. It’s just Chico standing there making up shit to pass the time.

Chico dives at him and tries to choke him, demanding to know if Miguel’s been taking the pills the past couple of days after all. He took them, didn’t he? They™ got him, didn’t they?

Miguel manages to throw Chico off and hiss “Don’t you get tired of your own bullshit?” just as there’s a sharp rap against the glass and a strong light shining into the pod. The hack tells Chico to go back to his own bunk, but otherwise can’t be bothered to deal with them. Shaking, Chico retreats to his own bed, and sleeps very little that night.

The final day of the round 1 trials Miguel is participating in comes ups and while he’s locked into it based on the contract he signed, he’d originally decided he wouldn’t continue on to round 2 like the researchers will assume he will. Now Chico’s not so sure what Miguel’s plan is. After their argument, it seems like Miguel wants to just succumb to the mind numbing effects of the trial, and there’s nothing Chico can do about it. He does feel a little insane about it, wondering if Miguel is right and that somewhere along the line, he simply went off the deep end and didn’t notice. He’s always been a little ehh in the head but who in Oz isn’t? And he’s never been nuts the way Miguel has been. He’s always been able to SEE reason even if he doesn’t always ACT rational. The transformation of the pod people had seemed like an obvious thing in the beginning; now with everyone else acting one way, and him starting to become part of the irritable, troublesome minority, he’s not so sure.

He gets a last chance to catch Miguel for a muttered conversation as he’s waiting in queue to be called behind the curtain where the drugs are administered for the trial. Chico says that Miguel is right and that maybe he’s just been seeing what he wants to see, but one thing he does know is that Miguel Means Something™ to him , now, after everything, and he doesn't want to lose him to the apathy of whatever it seems like the drugs do to participants

Miguel just gives him a strange look but doesn't have time to say anything else because he's being called in next already. Chico steps back and gestures for Miguel to go ahead

Miguel acts normal coming back from the study that afternoon, but they don’t really get the chance to talk and then the next time Chico sees Miguel is at dinner after Miguel has had a counseling session with Sister Pete, which always puts him in a sort of dull mood, too, all tired from having to think about/remember why he’s still stuck in Oz. This sort of starts to make Chico think Miguel has turned into a pod person, and between Chico’s paranoia and Miguel behavior, they sort of keep at a distance as the unit goes into lockdown for the night. The quiet isn’t exactly unusual tbh but there’s an unease to it that hangs over Chico—keeps him wired, keeps him awake for another night even as the boom of LIGHTS OUT rings through Em City and they plunge into darkness.

The next morning, Miguel is still hard to read, but while they’re standing outside for count, he turns to Chico. Leans over and is like “you look like shit btw” and Chico’s like "Oh thank fuck"....the most beautiful words he's ever heard in his life. It's "You scared this shit outta me" and "You didn't take it?" / Miguel just shakes his head. He looks around Em City and says he doesn't want to be a zombie, doesn't want someone else planting thoughts in his head. Oz has already taken enough from him; when he leaves—and he will, someday—he wants to still recognise the man in the mirror.

It's an uncertain ending: Miguel and Chico have not been turned into the strange pod people... yet... but they’re surrounded by them, and it’s soon announced that the program was a success, and in turn, the Emerald City project looks like a success, and that the entire thing will be rolled out on larger scale to the rest of Oz in the an upcoming phase

---

That's the general idea anyway 🤪 I'm open to riffing on this

I just wanted some psychological vibes for Oz and I rewatched Invasion of the Bodysnatchers last night (the 70s remake)

#text #oz hbo #i originally started writing this last night and then passed out in a delirious haze. yes i DID have a very strange dream. #but it was a dream where i was watching a random tv show from 1986 and i was like Hey is that bobby cannavale.... oh hey... #there's a lot of oz actors in this random medical/police(?) drama??? omg.... #at one point the character were lip syncing 'the call' by BSB in an interrogation room in a very late 90s/early 2000s jumpcut style edit #maybe that was the fever dream of a dying patient idk #but in my dream i started watching the show bc i saw a clip of that scene and was like wtf 😭 #Also kirk acevedo's character (nurse or paramedic of some kind) had a really big dragon tat along his side and i was like SICk.... #but i think that particular detail was bc my tattoo artist sent me a design last night lol #idk where the backstreet boys montage came from. i must meditate on that one. #oz au