Disclaimer: Obviously I do not own Doom or any of the characters (either the movie or the video game) otherwise I'd be sitting on the beach of my own private island sipping margaritas.
This is my first fanfic so feedback is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
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People who spoke of hell as being a place of burning fires, molten lava and endless screams of the damned had clearly never been to Mars. John Grimm knew better. Hell was a wasteland of reprocessed air, re-hydrated food stock, light so artificial it made your eyes burn, all surrounded by the silent vacuum of an endless frozen desert.
Twenty-four months he had endured there. His punishment for surviving the madness of two different species attempts to play God. Although Grimm (a corporal at the time, now a mere private) had harbored no illusions about being given a hero's welcome, he had been caught off guard by the hostility that greeted him when he and his sister, Samantha, had exited the facility on Earth. The only two survivors, or so he had been allowed to believe for several weeks, both beaten, bloody and assured nightmares for years to come. He had been quickly separated from Sam and put into isolation. For the first day the only people he saw were doctors and nurses. No-one would tell him anything, but they were all dressed in head to toe protective Hazmat gear. He was repeatedly questioned about his "exposure" to C-24, a bio-engineered chromosome that a Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) scientist had discovered while analyzing the humanoid remains found in an archeological dig at the Olduvia base on Mars. Samantha had injected him with the chromosome in a desperate bid to save his life after he took a bullet to his lower abdomen. Ironically it was a bullet he himself had fired that had ricochet off wall to strike him. On the second day he was moved into a room with a large window through which he was to be interrogated for the next week. The Marine Corps and UAC Internal Affairs took turns working him over. One person or group after another. They questions might be asked in a different order or in a different demeanor, but the theme was the same. What had happened on Mars and why was he the only Marine who made it back? The questions grew more and more hostile and soon it became clear that no-one believed him. They might accept bits and pieces of his story, but much of it, they concluded, was either fabricated or vastly exaggerated. At best he was delusional from trauma and/or exposure to C-24. At worst, he was possibly a liar and a coward who was covering up for his mistakes. Slowly Grimm began to realize his career with the RRTS (Rapid Response Tactical Squad) was over and he would be lucky if they didn't court martial him.
Three months later, when UAC medical staff concluded that the effects of C-24 were actually temporary and the Marines concluded their investigation, the newly demoted Grimm was shipped off to the remote Mars base, Enyo. Remote being an incredible understatement. It was nearly a full week away, by ground transportation, from the nearest major UAC facility. Some mockingly referred to Enyo as "Mars City", as it had to be completely self-sufficient, but other than that it had very little in common with a real city. The staff looked more like the walking dead and the layout was clearly dreamed up by some demented engineer who was obsessed the mazes. It was here that Grimm was to serve out the rest of his career with the Marines. They had decided that it was in the best interests of everyone (particularly UAC) for John Grimm to be made to disappear to a place where he was least likely to cause any more trouble. A trial, of any kind, would mean airing "dirty laundry" in public. Considering the major ethical breeches by UAC scientists and the desire of UAC executives to keep quiet all information regarding their research data their solution was a simple one. Write the mission off as a failure due to "human error" and get rid of the human in question. Grimm would later learn that his sister had gone through a very similar experience. Interrogated, disbelieved, and packed off to a tiny, nearly meaningless archeological dig in the Arizona desert. UAC had informed her that if she "behaved" she could redeem herself and work her way back up the corporate ladder, but if she tried to speak out to anyone about her experiences she would be discredited as a scientist and her brother, John, would be transferred to a prison outpost on the Mars moon, Phobos, which had a dangerously high death rate among the staff.
Yet after two years Grimm wondered if perhaps that would have been a more fitting post for him. At least there he would have had the weekly riots to channel his anger and frustration into and the fear of being jumped at any moment to keep him feeling alive. There was nothing more that Grimm wanted than to feel alive again.