View Full Version : IC: Shades of Crey
This is an in-character role play thread, with limited participants, please leave comments in the out-of-character thread. Please ask to join before jumping in.
Nyx played by Nyx
Suede played by the_starcrosser
Shardre played by Evion
Rooftop to rooftop to rooftop.... and somehow she STILL hadn't dropped that teetering bucket of chow mein. Years ago, she had hated her powers. Now, she could hardly imagine life without them. Telekinesis sure made things like not dropping twenty dollars worth of Chinese food a lot easier. And she hadn't had a car in years... no reason to when porting was free and much faster. She arrived home soon enough, pausing to unlock the door with her teke before shuttling all of the food inside and closing the door behind her. All without moving a hand. Sounds of an X-Box and its half-rabid players reached her ears. She smirked.
"Chow's here!" she called, figuring Shardre and Suede wouldn't be tearing themselves away from their game anytime soon. Humming, she let her brain unburden her hands, setting that pesky bowl of chow mein down first. Then the fried rice, the steamed rice, the orange chicken, the Mongolian beef, the Szechwan chicken, the stir fry, and the fortune cookies. Nikeiva Kasta then poked her head into the refrigerator, searching for drinks. Did she still have that root beer?
"WOO!" came a rather Suede-like cheer. "Take that!" There was a bunch of electronic smashing and crashing noises as the little cartoon figures bashed each other into small flaming pieces. Suede sniffed. "Mmm Chinese!" She crowed, taking her attention off of the screen for a second.
"Ah, drat!" Shardre scowled as once again her character was flung from the screen. "I swear, that's the fifth time!"
Nikeiva poked her head out of the kitchen to call at them again. "You two gonna eat or what? It's going to get cold!"
*Bweep PONG* Suede's character was sent flying, accompanied by an evil cackle from Shardre. "Revenge!"
Suede let out a yelp and scowled. "Bwah! I'll get you next time, my pretties!" She smirked and leapt up from the couch. "But first! Food!"
Finding the root beer, along with some milk of questionable freshness and some Gatorade juice and a random bottle of hard lemonade, Nikeiva stuck it all on the counter next to the little take out boxes and chopsticks, turning to see Suede cart-wheeling into the kitchen.
"We love you! Food now! Hungry Chinese yes!"
Shardre's tail twitched. "What? Food? I didn't even realize Nyx was back!" She hurried up after Suede, entering with a bit less flare. "Oo, Chinese! Did ya get the beef?"
Fetching a few paper plates from a drawer, Nikeiva started opening boxes to begin the divvying up of the food. "Yeah yeah, here's your steamed rice and orange chicken... the Szechwan is over there... this one's stir fry... Shardre, your beef's there... did you want the chow mein or the fried rice? I can't remember..."
Suede was shoveling fried rice onto a plate with gusto. "Szechuan sweet and sour chow mein! With orange mandarin fried cookies!"
Nikeiva ****ed an eyebrow at her strange friend and scooted the root beer just a liiiiiiittle farther away from her with a bit of teke.
"Chow mein, always." She snatched up one of the boxes, and looked around for the noodles. "Unless Suede's already gotten all of it!"
Suede stuck her tongue out around her chopsticks, which she was holding in her teeth to use both hands. "Nah eff a fwai wife!"
“Nah... there's two boxes... it's always popular. I guess the stir fry is mine... no matter, I like stir fry...." Nikeiva replied.
Shardre stared... and snickered behind her hand at Suede's face.
Suede grinned and held out the box of rice, helping herself to some noodles and orange chicken, then scowled at the beef thoughtfully, using her lips to manipulate the chopsticks back and forth like an ant's pinchers.
Shardre waved off the fried rice, going for the chow mein Nikeiva had pointed out. From her index and middle finger grew two long bone spurs, which she used to spear a piece of beef before using them as impromptu chopsticks.
Suede heaped her little piles of various fried and spiced meats, noodles, and rice, and then went in search of the root beer. "Hey, we got any - ah there we go!"
Picking up a pair of chopsticks, Nikeiva paused, grinned, and let them go in the air. "Hey... guess what?" She grinned, concentrating, manipulating the two sticks with her mind, and fishing out a piece of broccoli from a box. "... teke sticks!"
Suede squawked with glee, removing her own sticks from her mouth. "Hey cool! Wish I could do that!"
"Ha! Nice. You never have to use your hands!"
"Pretty much...” Nikeiva replied, using her mind to pick up a bit of broccoli. “Although this does take a lot of concentration..." She picked the chopsticks from the air and set about the business of eating with them normally. "Anyway, I was about ready to shove a pair up the nose of the guy behind the counter... he offered some special squash dish.... I don't know about you two, but I can't even stomach the thought of squash after all... those... pumpkins last night." She gave a shiver. "Stupid Fir Bolg… I STILL have a headache."
Shardre made a face. "I still have the smell in my hair. It doesn't wash out."
Suede gave a smirk. "Oh, I found dried pumpkinseeds stuck all over my clothes - practically glued to my boots. Try getting THAT out of the tread."
"If they weren't evil nasty things, I'd consider making toasted, seasoned pumpkinseeds..." She shook her head. "At least my contact gave me something HUMAN this time..."
Suede raised an eyebrow, pouring the root beer into a tall glass. "What's that? Don't tell me freaks..."
"I dunno, freaks are better than Tsoo. Blasted teleporting Sorcerers - no offense, Nyx," offered Shardre.
Nikeiva shook her head. "None taken..." She flashed a grin. "Better. Crey."
Shardre raised her brow inquisitively. "Crey? You mean, like that big company?"
Suede's eyes lit up. "Sweet!" She gave an evil grin. "I could use some agent-bashing. Those creeps give me the creeps worse than the zombies..."
Nodding, Nikeiva picked around in her box of stir-fry. "Yeah. Just the basics for now... clean up some of the street presence in Founder's Falls... apparently that place is crawling with them."
Suede balanced her plate in one hand and her drink in the other, leaning up against the fridge. "Yeah, they like that shmancy area. Have some offices down there, I think."
The horned mutie sucked down a bunch of noodles noisily and spoke with a cheek full. "So... I haven't heard much about 'em. They're pretty bad?"
Suede glanced over at the spiky girl. "Yeah..... they're bad. Known for being general pains in the arse, as well as being creepy suited blokes..... " she leaned in closer "And there's rumors - more than rumors - that they kidnapped a lot of wounded heroes in the Rikti War, brainwashed or mind controlled 'em with microchips, and made 'em their foot soldiers..."
Nikeiva's expression darkened just a bit. "I believe it too. Hope you never fall into their clutches. Some of us have a personal beef with them..."
Suede leaned back and gave a small shudder. "They're just a big machine looking to make cogs of us all..."
Shardre's eyes widened. "What?! But... that's awful! Geeze... I can't believe they'd do that to heroes, of all people."
"Technically it's a rumor... but it's one that all informed people would know is true...or at the very least, highly plausible."
Suede nodded slowly. "Aye. Even when they're not kidnapping heroes or screwing over the public in general, they're doing all manner of bad things down in their laboratories..... at least, so I hear from other heroes and contacts...." She jabbed a thumb in Nikeiva's direction. "They have somethin' against you, don’t they? They got that friend of yours, Manson or whatever his name is."
Sighing, Nikeiva nodded. "Seth... yeah... Seth... he had a rough time at their hands..."
"Hmm..." Shardre speared piece after piece of beef and chicken onto one of her fingers until she had a shish-kabob going. "Aye, you were a science-made hero, from what I'd heard around the base, right?" Shw looked back at Nikeiva curiously. She was still new to the crew, and not as 'in the know' as some of the members regarding peoples' pasts.
Suede tapped her chopsticks on her nose. "They weren't behind that guy Wolfenstein, were they?"
She paused a moment, then scowled. "Oh. Him. Yes... he was connected..." She turned to Shardre, giving a half-nod. "... yeah. I wasn't... born with my powers. They were the result of an experimental drug. I don't.... I don't like talking about it."
Suede pointed at her head with the chopsticks. "Yeah. Bad joojoo."
"Or something."
Shardre nodded, understanding. "Well, if they're connected, all the more reason to thrash those Crey around a bit, right?" She waggled her shish-finger around. "Get a little revenge and the like!"
Finishing off her stir-fry, Nikeiva sighed. "Yeah... scratching a few ice cubes off of a berg, but yeah... you girls wanna help?"
Shardre grinned as well. "Of course!"
Suede nodded. "For all the capes out there. And the civs." She grinned.
"Great... I was going to hit Founders later this afternoon, but I'm always open for company in unfamiliar territory."
Shardre bit off one of the bits of meat that was starting to dribble down her finger and gnawed on it. "Sounds good. I've never been there myself, but I've heard you can reach it from a road through Talos?"
Suede balanced her cup on her plate as she reached for more noodles. "We'll be with you. I'd want backup in that place just from the snotty people living there, m'self."
"And snotty monsters, I bet!"
Nikeiva was mid-swallow at that, and the idea of monsters wearing Prada or Gucci nearly made her snort a gulp of Gatorade.
"Breathe, Nyx! Breathe!" Shardre laughed.
Suede grinned. "Well, I did get bitten by a lady's dachshund once." She scratched her forehead with her still-gooey chopsticks. "Or was it a Pomeranian... Anyway, I don't know how it got into a tree, but I should’a left it there."
Finally swallowing, she Nikeiva half-coughed, half-laughed a bit longer. "I remember that! I think it was a Chihuahua! Her boyfriend hated the thing or something...."
"Chihuahua!" Suede beamed. "That's it! The one with the pink sweater."
"Augh, the awful pink sweater..."
Giving up trying to pinch a difficult piece of food with her sticks, Suede finally just speared it on the end and stuck it in her mouth. "Yeah, that was scary. I'd rather fight the Tsoo."
At that, Shardre had a turn snorting, and was quickly reduced to fits of giggling face-down on the table. "The mighty Suede meets her match! The chihuahua of DEATH!"
"Darn straight. Friggin' ninja chihuahua of doom. Anyway, what time are you thinking of heading down?"
Recovering herself, Shardre licked off her bone spurs before breaking them off with loud cracks and tossing them in the trash. "I think I'm going to be unable to look at pink sweaters the same way ever again..."
"Dang, I’m not gonna get used to that any time soon," Suede remarked, glancing at the bone spurs she'd broken off. "Friggin awesome though."
"Pink's not your color anyway..." Nikeiva said around a bite of Szechwan chicken.
"Well, unless you consider magenta to be a kind of pink."
The telekinetic grinned. "I consider magenta a kind of 'agh', actually."
Shardre ruffled her hair over her horns and grinned. "Sorry. On both accounts. I just prefer it this color!"
Nikeiva shrugged. "No worries. Won't matter a bit to the Crey agents whose sorry butts we're going to kick..."
Suede stuffed another few pieces of orange chicken in her mouth, chewed, and licked her lips. "Was gonna hit the cheap movies with Dusty this afternoon, but that got pushed back til tomorrow. I should be free aaaaalll night." She smiled deviously. "And my boots are shined and ready to go."
Shardre shrugged. "I'm always good to go whenever. Not like I have much of a social life."
"Likewise...” muttered Nikeiva. “Well, how about I meet you there around 6? Early enough that there's still plenty of daylight, but late enough that most of the rush hour traffic is over..."
The prickly heroine nodded. "I'll be sure to grab an early dinner. You never know how long it can take to find those baddies..."
"And I don't like to eat mid-hunt anyway... the adrenaline upsets my stomach."
Suede slurped up a noodle noisily. "Hey Shardre, we should get some City Dogs down in Talos before we hit Founders. They've got some good one's down at Spanky's with all the fixin's!"
Nikeiva made a face. Spanky's City Dogs... they always put relish and onions on them!!
Shardre perked up, tail twitching eagerly. "Sounds like a plan!"
"They might throw on extra onions if we clear out some ninjas first." She grinned and gestured with her chopsticks."
"Hey, ninja are a cake-walk now! I remember when I used to escape from them with my spiky ass barely in-tact!"
Suede nodded. "Yeah, it's those darn sorcerers, though the Ink Men used to scare me a bit.... They pack a punch. But ya just gotta be faster!"
"Hell, I just stun them and drop them off the pier."
Shardre tossed her empty Chinese boxes into the trash. "It was my first experience with being held, not a fun one."
"Never is..." said Nikeiva with a wince, doing likewise, mixing half-eaten things together for leftovers and throwing empties away. "Never is."
"We'll let the office know we've got an assignment on the way." Suede mused, clearing off the last scraps from her plate. Mostly peas and carrots mixed in with the rice. "Who'd you get it from, by the way?"
"A rep in Atlas, actually. Laurie something."
"Hm. That's unusual."
Nikeiva shrugged. "Doesn't matter to me... they're the good guys."
Suede scratched her head. "Not sure I’ve heard of her, but there's a lot of contacts."
Shardre nodded. "Hey, it's work for the city. Always good!" Fetching the milk, Shardre opened it and gave a sniff. Her face instantly contorted in the most bizarre expression and she quickly recapped and tossed the bottle in the trash. "I think I'm going to make a run to the market before we hit Founder's tonight."
Nikeiva winced. "... so the milk WAS bad. Sorry."
Suede nodded. "Yeah. Here, I'll give you some cash, pick us up some ice cream." She rummaged in her pocket and pulled out a few bills. She glanced at the empty Chinese cartons. "Mmm. Nothing like Chinese for breakfast. Thanks Nyxy!"
Shardre pocketed the change and grabbed a saggy hat from the counter, flipping it low over her horns. "I'll be seeing you!" She waved and slipped out the door.
Nikeiva sighed, leaning against the counter. "I'm so glad I didn't have to tell her everything about Wolfram...."
Suede waved and gave a stretch. "Hmmm. I need to follow up some more leads on another case this afternoon, but we'll call it an appetizer to our fun at 6:00. Where do we meet ya, Nyxy?" She glanced over. Suede winced slightly. ".... Aye. Sorry, still kinda tough on ya, isn't it..."
"Always will be. So, 6 in Founders?"
She nodded. "At the gate?"
"Easiest place."
She broke into a wider, catlike smile. "Shall I bring you a City Dog from Spanky's?"
The telekinetic smirked wryly. "Spare me. I'll find my own food, if you don't mind. I have, after all, plenty of leftovers."
Suede shrugged. "Suit yourself." she chuckled, and glanced out the window. "Right, I’d better be off. See you at 6!" she grinned, bouncing from the room and going to rummage for her boots and coat.
Nikeiva gave a wave as she finished cleaning up. Rats... they'd forgotten their fortune cookies. She'd have to have everyone eat them when they all got back...
Suede shuffled through the line past the guards, chewing the last bites of her relish-heavy city-dog, watching the great war-gate passing above her. Man, she'd hate to see someone try to open those things...And stranger yet, she realized that there were some in the city who could. With their bare hands. She sighed and popped the last piece in her mouth, glancing back at Shardre and dusting her hands off. "Ey's per'ee goo' huh?"
Shardre gulped down the last chunk of her city dog, nodding enthusiastically. "Good! A bit heavy on mustard, but the relish's great!"
Sitting in a tree off some yards to Suede's right, Nikeiva -- in costume now -- whistled.
Suede pointed over at Nyx. "Hey, there she is." She shoved her way out of the crowd of spandex and civilian clothes and leapt over into the tree. "Heeeyyy Nyxy!"
"Hey... just been watching the ebb and flow of normal and weird... ugh... and I can smell you had a dog...."
Suede gave a thumbs-up. "Yeah, they went a little overboard on the mustard."
Shardre leapt after Suede, landing a bit above her. She'd donned her classic spandex gear, leaving the armor she'd been given by a grateful scientist back at the base. "We're all good to go then?"
"Yeah... good to go. And... stay out of that park..." Nyx jerked her thumb toward their right. "Full of scary things. Trust me."
"Scary things, huh?" Shardre smirked. "Scary can be fun... But we have business first."
Suede smirked. "Well then, where's our first stop?" She pulled down her goggles over her eyes and threw the end of her scarf over her shoulder.
Nyx stuck a finger out toward the outlying city. "In there. Somewhere. Keep your eyes peeled." And she ported away to a rooftop, peering over the edge to observe.
"....I sure wish I could do that," Shardre grumbled, and with a rustle of the branches was gone through the air, leaping like a frog to the next rooftop.
Suede grinned and followed suit.
* * *
About half an hour of porting and hopping later, Nyx crouched at the edge of a rooftop, peering over. She beckoned to the others. "Pssst... here. I count three, by that coffee shop... just lingering outside."
Shardre scooted up to the edge, peering over. "I see them. Don't look too hard..."
Suede sprang over and landed in a dive roll, coming close to the edge and halting to creep closer quietly. "Looks can be deceiving.... see that one with the gloves? Bad sort, those... And the ones in the suits with the ear phones and glasses.... pretty high up agents..."
"Oh really?" Shardre looked again. "Well, there's three of them, and three of us..."
She mused. "I think we can take 'em. Good thing we don't need a warrant to beat up people in this town just for wearing snazzy suits."
Nyx grinned. "Yeah.... I had the same thought the last time I broke some Family heads..."
Shardre snorted. "But Family's family. Everyone knows they're goons."
"Plan of attack, then?" Nyx offered. "Drop from above or go around the corner and surround them?"
"I'm up for drop from above, personally. Land in the middle and blast them..."
"Death from above's always been my modus, I’m all for element of surprise." Suede grinned. "Lemme get the gloves monkey with my paralysis first... Unless you want to mess with 'em, Nyx?"
Slipping a hand into a belt pocket, Nyx withdrew a few darts. "Lemme disorient 'em... effects will take almost immediately, but they'll notice getting stuck with a needle even faster than that, so jump fast."
Thin spines of bone sprouted all along the outside of Shardre's arms and back as she tensed. She nodded sharply. "Ready. Just give the signal."
Suede readied herself, making sure the straps on her gloves were tight and her shoes tied.
Taking a breath, concentrating, feeling the teke energy take hold of each of those darts, Nyx ****ed an arm back, hesitated a second, aiming, and threw. The three missiles immediately parted ways, heading for their respective targets, each sinking into flesh within a blink of each other, followed by yelps of surprise from the unlucky Crey recipients.
"BANZAAII!" Suede howled as she dropped down from the rooftop onto one of the Crey agents. She knocked him over and lashed out with a kick at another suited opponent. Slamming a bare-fingered hand into the face of the gloved agent, she released the neuro-agent from her system through her skin.... and into his bloodstream. He staggered back, slumping half-over and seizing up.
Shardre was after her in a split second landing with a blast of spines from her back that hit one of the agents down his side.
Nyx also leaped down, twisting about to land facing them, her teke grabbing any small object nearby -- spoons, cups, small rocks -- and flinging them at the agents as a wild-flying distraction, though avoiding her friends.
The agent Shardre had picked fired off his gun at her at close range. The mutant ducked and weaved, narrowly dodging the bullets, and leapt in close to slash at his midriff with bone-blades jutting from her forearms.
A coffee cup narrowly missed another agent and shattered against a brick wall. Annoyed, Nyx spun around to track him with her teke, grabbing a throwing knife.... only to catch a glimpse of movement heading toward them. She turned to look.... and froze. More of them. Inside the coffee shop. Coming out. Armed. "Guys...."
Suede kicked low at the second agent, but he was well trained and he was fast - she feinted with a side-kick at his torso, then slammed a foot into the side of his head with a high hook kick. He spun around, his sunglasses flying the other direction. "Hah! Booooooooyah!" Suede turned toward the paralyzed agent, then looked Nyx's direction. "Huh?"
Shardre ducked a punch from her respective Crey agent and nailed him with an impaling spine, breaking it off in his gut and quickly growing another one. She turned to see what had distracted the other two. "Wha-oh *****."
"Oooooo..." Said Suede with trepidation. "Uhhh... this could get messy..."
"Run....?" Nyx offered, backing away, gradually picking up speed. She tossed out a few throwing knives, stabbing one agent, but there were at least three more, and even the one she'd gotten wasn't fully down....
"I second that motion! Go!" Shardre turned tail and bounded after Nyx, looking back to make sure Suede was coming.
Suede stood her ground for a moment, torn, but then back flipped a few yards as one of the agents started to charge. One of them whipped out a glowing weapon of some kind.... a trail of smoky fog coming from its icy barrel. "Watch out! Crey cryo-gun!" Suede yelped, narrowly dodging a regular pistol-fire.
"Cryo-WHAT?" Shardre jumped a bench and bounded off a wall as a trail of bullets ricocheted after her. "What's that do?!"
Almost... if she could just get around the corner..... Nyx glanced back to see if the others were behind her, and tripped on a curb, taking a tumble. "D*mmit!!" She threw a look around... somewhere.. somewhere to teleport to safety... with a little tech help she'd borrowed from another hero, she could at least recall the others to safety if she could get away....
Suede dodged one glowing blue icy blast, feeling the hair next to her face freeze solid in its wake. "Get out! Grah!" She cried out as something caught her ankle, sending her sprawling hard onto the roof-ledge she'd leapt to. "What the - CRAP!" She glanced back at her foot, which was encased in thick ice up to her shin and spreading up to her knee. And that had only been a partial blast. She glanced around wildly. Nothing to chip at it with!
Shardre cursed loudly, ducking a bullet and leaping up beside Suede. She hacked at the ice with her bone spurs, but it was too slow, the Crey were advancing on them. Grabbing Suede by the arm, she tried to haul her up. "Come with me!"
Suede kicked and flailed at the ice cementing her leg down. If only the boot would come off - darn her good knots! She glanced up in time to see the cryo-gun wielder taking aim at them again. Looked like the cryogenerator had recharged. "Look out!" she cried, eyes wide behind her goggles.
There! Suede and Shardre in trouble! She made a port leap, landing next to them, laying a hand on each, hoping that the gizmo she'd borrowed had enough juice to handle three people....
Shardre felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned her head, only to see the incoming blast. It was as if everything went in slow motion. She saw the blast. She felt the impact on her back as everything was insta-frozen. She felt it sweep over her, immobilizing everything, her breath escaping as her chest was trapped. And then nothing but cold.
There was a brief cold, dark blink of consciousness before Suede blanked out, in which she had one thought. "Ow."
Nyx, right in line with Shardre, was not spared either, and had just the moment to reach a mental jolt out and crush the gunner's windpipe before she too succumbed to the ice.
Agent Johnson: played by Nyx
Dr. Roderick: played by Evion
Misc. extras: played by Nyx, Evion, and the_starcrosser
"Heroes..." sighed Agent Johnson, shaking her head and staring up at the roof as her coworkers regrouped, some of the more able-bodied heading for the encased trio. "All right... disruptors on, bring 'em in we're behind on quota this week anyway..."
Several of the men ****ed their disruptors, powering up with slight hums, and hurried to the fire exit. "Think they'll be any good?" A blonde-haired man in a white smock smirked behind Johnson.
One bystander who had been within sight of the scene balked and hurried the other way, not wanting anything in the world to do with Crey agents in a bad mood.
A medic nodded, rubbing his thigh-- he'd caught a glancing blow of a boot in the scuffle. "Always worth a look under the hood, so to speak... I like the one with the spines... There's potential for fun there. Don't see it very often."
Agent Johnson turned on her heel to address the two. "You," she pointed at the man in the smock. "Make some calls. We'll need one of the labs open to receive and process them."
He whipped out a cell and grinned. "On it."
Then she flicked her attention over to the medic. "And you. Head up the preparations. Sedatives, teke blocking -- I know the pointy-eared one was a telekinetic -- the works. I want them out of here before that ice starts to give. Hustle!"
The medic gave a sharp nod and ran off to do his work. Johnson huffed to herself and glanced down at a coffee cup lying spilled on the ground, and then frowned at her pant let. A hot mochacino all over her freshly cleaned Versace pants and those idiot heroes thought they'd get AWAY with it?
The smocked man, one Doctor Roderick by title, snapped the cellphone closed. "They have transportation on the way. Don't look so gruff, we'll be sure to have some fun with these bunch before the day's through..."
Johnson's glower turned to a wry smirk. "I know. Just wish I could be in on it. Promise you'll invite me for viewing if you do anything interesting... especially to that Kung-Fu wannabe..."
"I'll be sure to play with her on one of your breaks." Roderick grinned wickedly.
The paralyzed agent groaned and twitched, trying to rouse himself and make his body function… "And doctor? A dose of something for Mr. Pickerson here... seems one of them has a contact paralytic agent...."
"Ah, but it's so much more interesting to watch the effects play themselves out..." he pouted, pulling capped syringe from inside his coat and going to attend to the agent.
"And SOMEBODY get me another damn mochacino! And it's about time....." She rubbed her temples, stalking out to the curb as a dark van turned onto their street, pulling up.
Parking, a team bailed out of the back, carrying various high tech equipment and assorted sedatives. The driver slipped out and headed over to Johnson. "They get bolder every year, I swear," he muttered, following her gaze to the rooftop.
Johnson shook her head. ".... I think they miscalculated... thought there weren't as many of us. Either way, a stupid rookie mistake..."
"Got any IDs on them yet?" asked the driver, shifting his weight from one leg to the other casually.
Johnson shot him a look. "They're encased in a few inches of ice, presently... Bagging them was more important…we can tag them at the lab."
Nodding, Johnson and the driver sat back to watch as the transport team assembled a system of anti-grav gadgets to lift the entire block of frozen heroes off the roof and float them gently to the ground.
"My team should be ready and waiting by the time we get back... I'm rather interested in that teke hero there, seems she has teleporting abilities of some sort...." said Roderick.
With another nod of approval, Johnson watched as the three heroes were loaded into a carefully conditioned van, which, after a few lockdown procedures, drove away. "All right. Coffee break's over. And I've got a lot of paperwork to file... and some drycleaning to drop off."
One of the agents picked a spike of bone out of his leg, and glanced at the fallen agent with the spikes in his side. "A bit messy..."
The medic nodded, triaging the fallen and porting the worse-off ones back to the medical facilities at headquarters. "Yes... yes... dealing with heroes often is... for one party or the other."
Lab Coordinator Danny Fendis: played by Nyx
Dr. Roderick: played by Evion
Dr. Ian Carver: Played by Nyx
Assorted techs and agents: played by Nyx, Evion and the_starcrosser
"Yeah.... yeah, we received your shipment. Thanks Cheryl. All right, all right, 'agent Johnson'. Sheez. Yeah. Lab team is working on defrosting and separating them now..." Danny Fendis, lab coordinator for lab #034B replied, wincing at the voice coming through his ear bud. Johnson was always uptight. Still, he got a kick out of calling her Cheryl. "Tell you what, though, we've had to break out the strong drugs for these three…yeah... no, actually, the one in the green and black. Some strong resistance, that one. Yeah. Yeah, should be separated and contained by the time you get back. Yeah. Sorry about the pants. Right. Later." Smirking, Danny hung up, turning his attention back to the lab and its occupants. Two technicians for each hero made for a crowded lab, especially with all the necessary instruments to deal with each one. Presently, they had managed to melt the first of them -- a gal with a pair of goggles-- free of the others. One of the technicians attending to her dealt with some mild hypothermia while the other worked quickly to strap her down to a gurney and fit her with a power dampener collar so she could be carted away.
"How's progress coming on the other two?" demanded Fendis, arms loosely folded, observing. "Agent Johnson's on her way back -- I want this all squared away before she arrives."
"Progress goes smoothly," commented Roderick, dressed in a fresh coat. He bustled about, eagerly observing the heroes in close quarters. "Quite a fascinating bunch we have here... Is the equipment for mapping set up?"
"Yes, everything's ready... I'm running the ID of that first girl through the system as we speak, see what our files on her are. You got all weaponry off her, right?"
"As much as can be taken without removing limbs!" Roderick chuckled. "The dampeners should take care of the rest."
"Excellent..." Fendis turned back to the technicians who were still working on the other two heroes, now that they had finally cracked them apart. Special care had needed to be taken, after all. The suspected telekinetic had had a hand on each of her partners and policy was to get them apart unharmed.
One of the technicians fired up the heating fan as they slowly rotated the frozen heroes, defrosting them without damaging the skin and cells. The cryo-weapon wasn't merely ice - a sophisicated cryogenics system in weapon form - but it sure did a darn good job of icing them down. The hydraulic dais churned in slow circles, heat lamps showing the glistening sweat pouring from the surface of the ice. There was a slight groan from one of the captives, and the techs were on-hand with gasses, dampening fields, and suppressors.
"Hm. I want extra encasements for the horned one. Last thing we need is to lose a tech to a mis-fired spine."
Another tech shook his head. "Hell, it's ALL dangerous... if one of 'em isn't throwing spines, another's breaking your mind in half ... and remember that psycho we had a few years ago? The pyro? Yeah... I STILL think that was a bad idea..."
"Anything you live through..." Roderick muttered. "We've learned since then."
"Less talk, more work!" snapped the lab coordinator. "We're almost thawed. And find some IDs on those other two!" Turning back to a computer station, Fendis took a look at a blinking message. "We've got a match on the first one... and a few files to go with her.... registered only under the name 'Suede'. Martial arts and street fighting, super jump, paralytic contact poison in her skin, suspected night vision. Works for ... Shades of Grey Investigations. Huh. Made up entirely of supers. Wonder if they all do..."
"What about the one in green?" asked a tech. "I think I might’a seen a photo somewhere..."
"Well, get me her ID and we'll find out! Check her belt, isn't the ice free there yet?"
Roderick turned to look back at the computer, scanning over the read-outs. "'Suede'? Interesting... Any hints on the origin of her powers?"
Another tech working close to the heatlamps and fans uncovered an ear from his sound-dampening earphones. "Hey, lookit this!" He held up a chunk of ice with a bone spear in it, caught midway through firing. "Heheh!"
Skimming through a few other files, Fendis let a grin spread over his face. "Engineered mutant. Some files are encrypted, higher security clearance than I have, unfortunately. Might have to go to Carver, or higher."
Another tech gave a thumbs up to the encased bone spear, then went back to work employing a little power saw to shave away larger remaining chunks here and there.
"Hmm. Engineered, huh. Might want to send her down to Darresey, he's been boning for some genetics work on heroes." Another agent remarked, folding his arms over his suit.
"Oh really?" Roderick's smile took a wicked twist. "Engineered. Most fascinating..." He turned back to the techs and waved his hand at them. "Quickly! They're going to thaw by themselves at the rate you're going!"
"Yeah... Darresey should have the clearance for these files.... right. Yeah, I'll give him a call."
The other agent flicked a sliver of ice off the suit as the chainsaw kicked up bits, and glanced back at the file. "Anything on the third?"
A tech passed off an ID from the spiney heroine, and Fendis fed the card into a slot. "Running it now."
Roderick leaned over Fendis's shoulder, reading the screen with interest.
"Only known as Shardre... probably an assumed name. Calcium spines grown from pockets beneath her skin and heightened reflexes, super jump... seems to have a mild form of regeneration to heal herself after sprouting spines...Hm, also works for Shades of Grey..."
"Great, we snagged a whole nest of them. Couldn't just be some random signups from Atlas, nooo."
Fendis sighed, his smirk drooping. ".... We'll have to keep an eye out. They might just want these three back..."
One of the agents shrugged. "Well, good luck on that to them. We don’t' do catch and release."
"Sir, the last one..." said a tech, passing off another ID, this one from the green and black costumed heroine. Fendis took it up and fed it in as well, looking up at Roderick. "Regeneration... you always have fun with that..."
The doctor smirked. "You know how I love it. Means I can push them even farther..."
"Could be useful. We've got plenty of regenerative DNA on file, but this one might have something to add."
After a moment of processing, more files popped up and Fendis browsed the information. "Nyx. Also Shades of Grey. Imagine that. Telekinesis, teleportation, some superhuman senses. Known to use bladed weaponry and chemical defenses, some sedative and some lethal." ... a few seconds passed, then another file popped up, exhumed from the archives. Fendis squinted at it. Then, reading a few lines, grinned. "Someone go get Carver. He'll want to see this...."
One of the standby's nodded and turned, talking into his mic. After a minute or two, he turned back. "He's coming down himself."
"Excellent." He turned in his chair, surveying the progress. "Dammit, aren't they thawed yet? How HARD did Morris JUICE them??"
"Pretty hard, sir! He turned it up to notch three. Couldn't seem to hit them with the narrow burst."
Roderick rolled his eyes. "Such heavy-handed treatment..."
"Timeframe? Within the hour, at least?" groaned the coordinator, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
One of the techs gave a thumbs up. "Spiny is finished, sir!"
"Finally! Get the dampeners on her!"
"Should be another ten to fifteen minutes on the last, sir." One of the techs looked up apprehensively. The maroon-haired martial-artist on the first gurney twitched.
They moved the spiky thawed girl onto a gurney table. On top of the dampeners, sheaves of durable plastic material were fastened like shells over her arms and torso, and her tail was strapped to one of her legs.
"So it's just our little psionicist left, then," muttered Fendis, watching as the technicians remaining worked on freeing her from the last of the encasing ice.
"Indeed..." Roderick looked back at Fendis. "What's so interesting that it has to bring Carver down?"
Fendis grinned. "... let's just say Carver has overseen work on this one before." Turning back to the computer, Fendis smiled at the description of this one's power origins: Scientifically induced.
Leaving the techs to finish, Roderick took Shardre into the other room to be mapped with Suede.
It was another ten minutes before Nyx was freed and the techs were in the process of strapping her into the gurney and fitting the necessary dampers when Carver arrived, dark eyes darting around suspiciously. Danny Fendis nodded toward the techs and their patient. "There she is. Her ID pulled up a file containing information we got via one of our other experiments... I trust you remember Mr. Mason, the pyro?"
One of the other agents snorted. "Balrog Boy? Oh great. My hair still won't grow back on one side, right here," he pointed to a sizzled-looking spot just behind his left ear.
Ian Carver, overseer of Project W97, smirked. "Yes, I remember him well. He was a lot of trouble, especially for such a half-baked success."
He strode over to the gurney, nudging one of the techs aside to look down at the still slightly bluish face of the unconscious heroine. His eyes glazed for a moment, remembering. Then he nodded. "It's her. Take her to lab 18 -- I'll be overseeing work on her personally. You're long overdue for your follow up appointment, Ms. Kasta...." Carver purred, almost affectionately, if coldly.
Dr. Roderick: played by Evion
Roderick watched with positive glee as the mapping came to a completion, mind already racing with possibilities. "Take the subject Suede away to Room 12 and keep her sedated, but bring Shardre with me to Lab 3 and bring my tools."
"Yessir!" The lab assistants hurried to complete his wishes as Roderick strode on to the lab. Shardre's gurney was carted in, along with a tray of what looked to be surgical equipment. Along the wall of the lab was a mass of computer devoted to DNA and gene study... and manipulation.
Under his guidance, Roderick's team assembled around the bound mutant, removing the protective cover from one of her arms. One of the techs injected her shoulder with a local regeneration-nullifier to keep her from healing back during the operation. Brandishing a scalpel, Roderick dug into the flesh, just deep enough to get through the skin, and peeled it back, revealing a small quarter-sized gland with a funnel tip.
"Fascinating..." He applied a stick that glowed at the end with electric energy, setting off the nerve connected to the gland. Instantly, a two-inch spike of instantly-hardening calcium jutted out from the gland. Using his gloved hand, Roderick broke the spur off from the base, and the rest receded back into the gland.
"Hm, these seem to be the source of those spines of hers... So they only form in certain locations on her body..." With a few deft slices, Roderick popped the gland out onto a waiting tray, and one of the assistants carted it off to be analyzed. After taking a blood sample, Roderick had Shardre's shoulder stitched back up.
"Keep her sedated. I need some time to analyze her DNA. We'll find the key to her mutation soon enough." Wearing the wicked smirk his comrade had learned to associate with his 'passion' for work, Roderick turned to the computer, into which he set a vial of Shardre's blood, and sat down at the computer. "Now, where to begin..."
Agent Johnson: played by Nyx
Daressey: played by the_starcrosser
"Hope I haven't missed anything interesting..." muttered Agent Johnson, striding into lab 12. She'd heard Daressey was in the process of examining that Kung-Fu Fighter heroine who'd taken out her mochacino.
The room was brightly lit and filled with a soft hum of machines. Vibrations traveled through the floor, through the air, making a steady subsonic thrum that filled the whole lab space. Glowing consoles surrounded a horizontal tube set into a cradle of wires, tubes, and glowing readouts.
"Daressey! Heard you were starting work on this one!" she called to the head medic who oversaw lab 12.
"No, no," the man said over his shoulder, watching a screen. The unconscious hero was strapped to a nearby gurney with steel restraints, wires leading to taped electrodes stuck to her mostly exposed skin.
"No?" she parroted.
He turned and smiled, casting fever-bright eyes on the agent. "Sorry. We're still in the alpha stage of the examination and haven't begun any of the really fun work yet, so you haven't missed anything...." He turned and gestured at the subject on the table. "We've run the bloodwork, cell analysis, and DNA structures from her, and come up with some interesting results. Looks like genetic engineering work, but pretty sophisticated, more so than I’d give credit to most projects 20 years ago." He smiled. His bright blue eyes and chiseled features could have won him a spot on any TV drama. But here he seemed almost out of place with the heavy science. "She's a hacked helix, genetic fragments fused together at conception - probably one of the first successful artificial gestations, from the look of it."
Johnson scoffed. "Pretty minimalistic powers for all that trouble... some leaping and a contact paralytic?"
He tapped his chin, staring with a distant, almost lustful gaze. "Yes, yes. Very simple, almost rudimentary, but that's the beauty of it. So.... open-ended. A design perfect for... how should I say..." he glanced back at agent Johnson. ".. advancement."
She smiled an unpleasant smile at the captive. "Sounds painful."
Daressey shrugged. "Oh, it won't be, at least not until we have the cell growth accelerated." He stopped and considered. "Though.... there might be a bit of.... undue DISCOMFORT when we have to halt her cell regeneration... and then there's the genetic infusions..." He smiled apologetically. "Oh. Well, perhaps it might be a bit painful after all."
Johnson flashed him a toothy grin. "Perfect. Promise you'll call me when you start doing something fun..."
He nodded, then glanced at another glowing readout to his right. "And I think I have just the stuff in mind, I’ve been dying to try it out.... I'll have you informed before we begin," he flashed another distant, feverish, oddly beautiful smile at the agent.
"Wonderful. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an unholy amount of paperwork to file.... damn heroes are always so much damn paperwork...."
He nodded, as if not really hearing her, and went back to staring at the readout display. Suede's vitals skipped for a moment, then resumed their normal unconscious patterns. Daressey smiled. Yes. It would be so perfect.
"So... what ARE you thinking of doing?" asked a junior tech, a kid who was probably still in college.
He didn't bother looking at the assistant. "You know that sample we retrieved from crash site 413-A?"
"... yeah...?"
He looked over at the restrained, sedated hero. "I think it's found a new home."
The assistant's eyebrows bounced, but he otherwise showed no signs of emotion. "I'd write my research paper on that if I could... Infusing genetically engineered heroes with alien bio samples.... head of the class for sure..."
"Well, if you do, keep in mind that Crey has certain... policies.... that it doesn't like breached." He cast a lazily indifferent look at the tech. "Policies which can get you terminated." He gave another bright, empty smile. "So make sure it's all theoretical, of course."
The younger tech nodded. "Of course. Theoretical."
The man turned away. "Crey is always looking for new blood to add to their repertoire, after all.... once you've established a name for yourself they could easily snap you up to back up their operations currently underway. Just don't take my credit, kid, or they might be snapping up new blood in a different respect." He grinned and patted the younger man on the shoulder.
The tech restrained a swallow. "Who, me? I just process blood samples, sir."
Daressey nodded. "Good man."
Ian Carver: Played by Nyx
Nyx: Played by Nyx
"Subject is secured, doctor," said a lab tech, who had just triple-checked the power dampener, restraints, and sedation level of a particular pointy-eared test subject.
Ian Carver nodded, re-reading through some information on a print-out. He'd read it a dozen times already, but it never hurt to have information clear in your head, especially when embarking on a delicate experiment such as he had before him.
"Excellent. Take her off the sedatives… considering the resistance she has to them, according to the lab findings, she should wake up soon."
The tech nodded and removed an I.V. feed, which had for hours been responsible for keeping Nikeiva Kasta unconscious. Carver smiled. He always insisted his test subjects be conscious, being able to monitor their reactions and interactions with certain chemicals or stimuli was always invaluable, but Nikeiva…
Nikeiva.
Nikeiva he wanted to look in the eye when he altered her life once again. How he envied Wolfram in those moments of discovery, when he held the power to alter a life for good or for ill in the palm of his hand… Wolfram had taken a nobody and made her into something. Then power shifted, and it was Wolfram's guinea pig who had taken the reins and altered his life - decidedly for ill. And she had tried to make the same grim alterations to Carver's life. Tried. Carver glanced at a little refrigerator unit, where a syringe rested, full of a waiting, potent life-change. He smiled. Power had shifted again. It was back out of the hands of the assassin, in the hands of the doctor now. Where, Carver believed, it belonged.
Mere minutes elapsed before Nikeiva roused from heavy sedation, and only another minute or two was necessary for her to get her head together and make sense of her surroundings. Once she did.... "Oh crap..."
The realization of her location hit her first. Inside a Crey lab was not a desirable locale. Not for a hero. The second realization made her stomach squirm. She could not move. Nor, worse, could she teleport. Or use her telekinesis. Her hearing and vision were still acute -- they couldn't cancel out physical traits -- but good night vision wasn't exactly useful in escaping some very firm restraints.
"Sleep well?" asked a voice from off to her left. Her head snapped toward the sound, and immediately her eyes narrowed.
"Carver."
He didn't bother to look her direction as he pulled on a pair of latex gloves. "So good to see you again. We have much to talk about."
Just the hint of a smile flickered across his lips a moment before he was all business again. Opening the refrigerator, he pulled out a tray, on which sat a syringe. He set the tray and its cargo on a little nearby cart.
"I guess I missed," she muttered, not taking any pains to keep her comment under her breath. "Could have sworn I hit you, though..."
"Oh you did," he said, unbothered. "Collapsed a lung and kept me in detoxification for two weeks straight." He waggled a gloved finger at her. "But... you missed my heart."
"Or maybe you just don't have one..." she shot back, eyeing the needle warily. "So what now?"
Carver nodded to a tech. "If you please, keep an eye on her vitals. I don't expect any bad interactions, but we can't definitively rule that out, and I want to nip any potential problems in the bud...."
The tech saluted sharply and turned to fulfill her duty.
Nikeiva glared at him, but Carver only looked her in the eye, unintimidated, and gave the syringe a few taps as another tech swabbed a spot on Nikeiva's arm. "I imagine you can already guess what this is..." he said "...but I'll spare you what little hope you may yet have and tell you up front -- it's what we call the W97 serum. W, of course, stands for Wolfram. I believe you knew him. And '97 was, of course, the year it was first successfully used on a human volunteer." He flashed just a small- but very smug - grin at Nikeiva, who, despite her defiant scowl, was going a bit pale. "....that, of course, was you. I'm sure you remember..."
"You should have died!" she snapped. "Dammit, how did you survive a poisoned dagger through a lung??"
He smirked, slipping the needle of the syringe into a vein in her arm. "... you forget where I work, Ms. Kasta. Life and Death is our business."
"Damn you..." she snarled, watching with a shiver as the fluid disappeared into her body. Carver remained impassive, even professionally detached, though how much of it was a show was hard to tell by looking.
Removing the needle once it was empty, Carver handed it off to another tech to be properly sterilized. "I want blood tests performed every three hours to monitor absorption. Once it's been absorbed, sedate her again and put her in a containment cell. I want to monitor her closely."
"Yessir," answered the tech. "What should we do if she has a... negative reaction, sir?"
"Stabilize her if you can, put her into cryo if you can't, and we'll fix the problem later. I don't, however, foresee any problems. After all, this serum was designed especially for her...."
Over and over again, under her breath, Nikeiva cursed him. It was all she could do, after all, to keep from breaking down in fear and despair. Not this. Not again.
Agent Johnson: played by Nyx
Dr. Roderick: played by Evion
Shardre: played by Evion
Roderick grinned with barely contained enthusiasm as he dipped the syringe into the just-completed concoction. The lack of sleep was evident in the bags hanging under his eyes and in the disarray of his hair, but one couldn't tell he had only caught an hour or two from his energy level. Tapping the syringe lightly so the air settled, he placed it carefully on the waiting cushioned tray. No risks were taken. He was clad in gloves, fully covering clothes, and a mask for his mouth as well as safety goggles. Gesturing for a lab tech, he turned away from the computers. "Take this with the utmost care, it's a virus of the nastiest sort. Should you break it, I'll inject you myself."
The lab tech gave a disturbed look and carefully moved the tray over to the other workstation, where it waited for Roderick's attention.
Roderick walked from the room to a smaller adjoining space where the staff had slowly been bringing Shardre from under sedation. Sadly, her powers were as much physical as anything, and he couldn't inject her while she was fully cognizant. At least the dampers would limit her power for the time being. allowing her system to take in the virus before her regeneration could clean it. And by the time her regeneration did take effect, it would do the work for them, replicating the infected cells at an exponential rate.
Taking the syringe up with steady hands and casting an eye at the techs to make sure they were monitoring everything, Roderick tipped the syringe into the crevice of Shardre's elbow and slowly injected the virus into her bloodstream. "At least you'll be awake when this first starts taking effect..." he smiled. "I can't wait to see your face, and how it will change."
The blue fluid passed into Shardre's arm, leaving a slight bluish tinge in the spot where it was injected, before quickly fading back to her normal skin tone. Roderick snapped a finger at the lab techs. They'd have to move quickly now to get her to the designated observation room before she came to enough to injure anyone, including herself.
Jumping into action -- wearing heavy duty gloves just in case -- several techs rushed to help, pushing the gurney with the mostly-unconscious heroine on it through a door.
She was taken down several halls, until the labs gave way to more 'durable' structures. They entered double doors into a waiting room type space, from which two doors exited. One was protected with high security and made of the most durable kinds of metals and synthetics. Roderick gave both voice recognition and retinal scan, and with a slight hiss the doors pulled apart. Shardre was pushed into a room of bare white. No pads, and the bright lights were protected by bullet-and other things-proof glass.
"Remove the restraints from the subject. Quickly! Unless you wish to be her next pincushion!"
With practiced precision -- it wasn't their first time handling dangerous subjects-- the techs removed the restraints and set the drugged up heroine on the floor, beating a hasty retreat along with Roderick.
The door hissed shut and Roderick passed through the other door into an observation room. He mentally praised Crey for their ingenious devices. The entire wall facing the cell was a myriad of screens set together seamlessly, receiving feedback from tiny cameras in the wall of the cell to which it connected. It gave the exact feeling of observing the subject personally, but was far safer for the more violent subjects that came through, and they wouldn't even know they were being watched.
Roderick smirked and pushed in a number on the computer board in front of him. "Agent Johnson?"
"Johnson here. What do you want?"
He practically purred as he spoke, "Are you too busy with that silly kung-fu fighter, or would you be interested in watching the start of my fun?"
There was a snort of mild annoyance, then Johnson replied. "Darressey isn't doing squat yet. Have you already started?"
"I imagine she'll be awake by the time you get here. And then the real show will begin!"
Even then, Shardre's eyes were moving behind her eyes, the fog of drugs slowly lifting from her brain. A groan escaped her lips, caught by the room's microphones.
"On my way," replied Johnson.
Shardre groaned again within her cell, and twitched an arm. Everything felt heavy, like she was under a blanket of lead. She couldn't even summon the strength to open her eyelids.
Only a few minutes had passed by the time Johnson arrived. She'd been visiting Darressey's lab, which was on an adjoining floor. "Well? Have I missed much?" she asked, joining Roderick in his observation room.
Slowly, feeling returned to her tingling extremities. She hazarded a peek, only to shut her eyes again and grimace at the bright light that assaulted her eyes. "Ugh, damnit..." she breathed. Her mouth felt like it was full of cotton, or some other equally pleasant material.
Roderick's eyes remained glued on the window-screen, but his smile brightened at Johnson's question. "Oh no, you always have the most impeccable timing."
Shardre rolled over onto her side and pulled an arm under herself, spines scraping against the cold floor. What had happened? Where was she? Her dazed mind registered that she was in strange surroundings, but she had yet to make the connection with the Crey she'd been fighting earlier. Where were the others, anyways? "Nnn... Nnyx? Suede?" she croaked, squinting open her eyes.
"Hm, the drugs must have had more effect on her than I thought. Perhaps she relies more on her regeneration than her normal immune system..." Roderick commented with no less glee.
"Yeah yeah, I'm waiting for the fireworks..."
She managed to push herself up on her hands and took several deep breaths. The drugs were quickly clearing, and in their place a sense of dread settled. The white walls... they must have been captured. And there was no sign of her companions. She could hope they'd escaped, but that chance was slim at best. But if her treatment was any sign, then they'd at least be alive.
"Patience, dear. Patience! I am as eager as you are, but such things require time. You see, I've injected her with what I would call... well, pardon my boasting, but it is my finest work to date! A masterpiece of genetics, if you will! Taking her own mutated genes, I spliced them, removing extraneous materials and chromosomal dampeners, and have no re-injected the material back into her in the form of a viral blood-born pathogen. It'll take over her cells and begin replicating itself at an exponential rate. We should begin to see the effects soon enough, though it will most likely be several hours, even a day, before the process is complete."
"And what are you expecting it to actually DO to her?"
Roderick took his eyes from the screen long enough to give Johnson a smile that made her hair stand on end. "To bring out her full mutational potential, of course."
Giving a half-nod, Johnson took a seat to watch.
Shardre had crawled over to a wall and sat herself up when the first wave hit. It came as heat, a burning inside her, penetrating to her core. Her heart skipped a beat as everything convulsed, sending her falling to the floor on her arching back. A primal scream tore itself from her throat. The pain!
Roderick gripped the edge of the control panel with whitening knuckles.
Even Johnson, momentarily startled by the scream, leaned forward, watching intently.
Another scream escaped Shardre and she rolled across the floor, writhing as her very cells were being torn apart and re-made. Spines burst from her skin as she clawed at it, and snapped off in her violent spasms, littering the floor with shards of bone. It began slowly, a change in tint. It almost looked like she was suffocating, but for the horse screams that continued from her. Like bruises, bluish patches of skin started surfacing and spreading, creeping an inch at a time.
"Good god, Roderick. She's changing color. This is fantastic."
For a moment the bone-deep pain lessened, and Shardre lay on her side panting and shaking.
"Isn't it? And the best part is even I do not know what the full extent of her changes will be. It's all a marvelous surprise!"
Pushing a button on the computer, he spoke quickly. "Have them bring Agent Johnson and I coffee in observation room 7c, and some lunch. Fresh, nothing pre-packaged."
"NON-fat vanilla latte, this time..."
He flashed her a grin. "Perhaps some popcorn for the show?"
Johnson shook her head. "It gets stuck in my teeth."
"Very well. NON-fat vanilla latte," he repeated to the console, "and if you get that wrong, we'll throw you in with our lovely subject here."
Closing the connection once more, Roderick returned his full attention to his project.
Tears streamed unbidden from Shardre's eyes, forced out by the sheer trauma of her body.
"Finally... something to watch... Carver's been so secretive about what he's doing, and Darressey is taking his sweet time running tests and mapping DNA..."
She could feel it coming again, the agony. She could feel it coming, but she couldn't fight it. Bracing herself did nothing as the pain lanced through her body. She arched back, mouth open in a silent scream. It came on every sense of her body: a searing heat in her flesh, an iron taste in her mouth, an acrid scent in her nose, flashes of red and white through her vision, and a shrill ringing in her ears. And then there was blackness, blessed blackness as her brain severed connection with her abused cells and retreated in on itself to wait out the storm. Shardre's form fell limply to the floor of the cell.
Johnson snorted. "She dead?"
A quick glance at the monitors showed her vitals to be steady. Roderick shook his head, peering closely at the screen. "No... See there? See how her skin is still changing?" He pointed to where the blue was creeping up her shoulder. Patches where it had first appeared were deepening, becoming a richer blue rather than just a faint tint, and a shimmer could be seen in the light as the very texture was changing.
"So now it's more like watching a lava lamp than a blender."
"Call it what you will." Roderick gazed at the screen, standing where he'd been since first entering the room. "But what I see is a rebirth. Time will show the fruit of my labor."
Daressey: played by the_starcrosser
Agent Johnson: played by Nyx
Suede: played by the_starcrosser
Daressey bent over the console, pressing a button. "Agent Johnson, might I have a word with you?" crackled over the com to Johnson's headset.
Johnson sighed -- she'd just left Roderick's little freak show. "What is it?"
There was moment of static. "I'm going to be starting in a few minutes, I thought you'd like to know."
"It's about time! I'll be right there."
"Acknowledged. They'll buzz you in to lab 12."
Johnson arrived shortly, having taken only a brief side trip to drop off a report. "I hope this is good... Roderick put up quite a show..."
He stepped back, glancing at the still-unconscious girl - woman, really, though something about her seemed to give a less mature appearance. He moved to another set of controls to prep before their other guest would arrive.
He looked up, nodding to the agent. "Hmm, did he now? I might ask him for a recording..." He chuckled.
"Yes... well, you're both making up for Carver... he's being such a disappointment..."
"Well I don't know how much of a show there'll be for you, but she'll be awake for it so I’m sure you'll get a...... kick.... out of her." He smirked, leaning over to adjust some more dials.
Johnson half-snarled, tempted to bap Daressey upside the head for that crack. "Just get on with it... I have patrols to do."
He flipped a switch and a hydraulic arm descended from the ceiling, all a mass of wires with several needles of different sizes protruding from a gunlike end. It stopped about on shoulder level above the table Suede was strapped to, which had some other machines connected to it and looked like it had a bay door beneath it. He walked over, whistling and producing a small vial and attaching it to the end opposite of the needles.
Johnson ****ed her head. "And what's that?"
The vial was drawn into a compartment with a click and hydraulic noises, and he walked back over to the main console. With a few button selections, the gun-arm maneuvered skillfully over Suede, tilting downward, and descending with grinding noise until the needles hovered just centimeters above her chest.
"Oh, this is my little toy. I do so love this thing, I can do everything I might have used my own hands for from right over here. And it comes with so many fun attachments." Daressey smiled, his detached, overly-bright movie-star smile. He looked over at the console again. "This will simply bring her up from her unconscious state, but then the fun begins."
Johnson took a seat nearby. "And did you finally figure out what 'fun' was going to be?"
He reached over and pressed another button, and with a mechanical whine, the needles rotated, a small one clicking into place and then descending into the area of Suede's heart. "Hmm? Didn't I tell you?" he glanced over, surprised. "I thought I had. We're finally going to test out one of the samples from crash site 43-C. Thought a bit of infusion might be in order, we'll see how it comes out."
There was a lower thrumming sort of hum, and a liquid could be seen in the syringe tip as it plunged into Suede's chest for a moment, a long moment, then retracted again with a whir.
Suede lay still for a moment. Then she leapt forward with a lung-filling gasp, her eyes snapping open, and her spine arching as she bucked against the restraints. She writhed for a moment, then fell back against the table, her eyes wide and staring. Then she blinked rapidly, shaking her head and staring about the room fearfully. "Wh. Ha. At..... Wha..... What's g.... going on?" she gasped. "Where.... where the HELL am I?"
Johnson grinned. It wasn't a pleasant grin.
From across the room, Daressey smiled. He quickly tapped in another series of commands and nodded to a couple of lab techs, who tapped in commands of their own. The legs of the table seemed to detach from the steel tabletop with a hollow BHOK-click, and then the bay doors beneath the table started to grind open.
"No! What the hellassmonkeys is going on?!" Suede snarled, baring her teeth and jigging back and forth as best she could under the thick steel bands holding down her limbs, shoulders, and hips. Up from a dark space beneath the doors sliding open raised the thick glass and metal cradle that had been in the room before.
The cradle continued to groan as it was raised upward, until it came to a stop just above the floor and just below the tabletop. The doors clanked back together underneath, and lab techs moved forward to check the tubes and wiring connecting the cradle with the other machines.
"You! You lab turds, let me outta here, I don't know what this is, but -" she grunted, pulling against one of the firmly-binding steel braces. "- I’m not gonna stick around to find out!"
Daressey shook his head and made a tsk-ing noise. "Now now, is that any way to treat our hard-working specialists? After all, we're providing you a free service, one I’m sure will leave you very.... enlightened..." Daressey smiled, looking back at Johnson. "... Or at least, it will for us."
Johnson just waved, looking terribly smug.
Daressey just chuckled lightly, yet his eyes were wide with excitement and his white teeth flashing in a smile.
Suede rolled her eyes wildly, trying to get a better look at Daressey and his guest, but all she replied was a guttural gasp-snarl-grunt of frustration and wrath as she jerked with all her might against the restraints.
Daressey waited for nods from the techs, then flipped another switch and pressed a sequence on the panel. The needles on the gun-arm rotated again, this time a long, wicked looking one clicking into place. Suede froze, staring up at it. "No...." she whimpered, her eyes like a frightened deer in front of a Mac truck on the interstate. The needle descended, a bead of some strangely luminescent fluid forming at the very tip. She twitched and writhed until it brushed her skin, and she froze again, trying to deflate herself beneath it. "NOOOOO!" she howled.
Funny enough, it felt just like being stabbed very slowly with a large pointy metal thing. Hot searing pain flashed over the area, jolting other nerves in her body. She stiffened, crying out.
Johnson pumped a fist in triumph. "And we aren't even to the good part yet!"
There was a whirring as the contents of the small vial were pumped into her arterial bloodstream, and though it felt like long minutes in the pain-accelerated span of her attention, she was actually shocked when she felt the needle start to retract out of her. Had she expected it to go on longer? Hours? She didn't know. Really, she didn't care, as her mouth puckered up and a tear rolled from the corner of her squinched-shut eyes.
"Any idea what it'll do?" asked Johnson casually.
She tried to block out the noises and the jolts as she felt the table start to descend, slowly, the whole table vibrating with the hydraulic system. Her breath came in shallow sob-like gasps, and she opened her mouth but nothing came out. She rolled her head to the side. ".... mmaaaadd...." she wailed in a hoarse, choked, childlike whisper. She cracked open her eyes just as something passed by her head..... what?
The edge of the thick glass and dark-metal cradle loomed past her vision, and then there was a THUD and a CLUNK as the tabletop locked into the bottom of the cradle.
Daressey glanced at agent Johnson. "Oh, the actual effects will be very much a surprise, since we have no real data on the contents of the crash site. It was originally thought to be Rikti, but some of the DNA patterns, after study, don't.... quite match up." He smiled apologetically.
Johnson sighed. "I'm hoping for hideous mutations..."
Daressy gave her a reproachful yet amused look. "Oh? Didn't you get that from Roddy's freakshow work? It sounded fairly.... hideous.... to me.." He smiled again.
"I know. And I wish it were this one."
He laughed, tilting his head back for a hearty chuckle. "Oh, just sit back and watch, I’m sure you'll get your Ripley's fix soon enough."
There was a strange thrumming and gurgling, and Suede opened her wet eyes wide again, suspiciously. She gave a sniffle. Then suddenly a fluid, clear except for a greenish tinge given off by the lights around the cradle, flooded up over the tabletop from below. "Nyaaah!" Suede cried out as it swiftly rose up inch by inch around her. She turned her head upward to get her nose and mouth away from it as it continued to rise.
More and more of the thick clear liquid rose around her, submerging her hands, arms, legs, running into her ears. She shut her eyes tightly and whimpered at the sensation. It crested her stomach. Her neck. Her hips. "Aaaaauuuuuuhhh!" she wailed one last time before the fluid surged over her face, wresting the outside world with it's precious oxygen from her.
Johnson gave an almost girlish applause. This was just delightful!
Every sound, every vibration seemed magnified a hundred times over, slowed down to a bass and kicking her in the eardrums. She opened her eyes, seeing the shimmering surface above her. It was in her nose! She clamped her mouth tightly as the air in her lungs bubbled up through her nose. She was going to drown! They were insane! Her heart was racing, her head was throbbing, and her lungs screamed for air.
She convulsed, giving a snort as she accidentally let air out and fluid in through her nose, and then it was over, all over as she coughed and the air exploded from her lungs. She suddenly relaxed for a split second as everything froze in her head. Her life didn't flash before her eyes, she was almost disappointed. She'd always wondered if it was true. But in that moment, she realized that it was going to be over very soon. She had an out. An exit, beautiful with all its green glowing neon, like a movie theater sign. She almost laughed. Then, she felt the pain decreasing in her head. She felt fluid moving in and out of her lungs. What the hell? She didn't even get to die? She frowned. GYP! Suddenly her lungs filled fully, breathing hard. Oh God, she was going to live. Live live live live...... She kept breathing in and out. LIVE!
She heard a thrumming again as she kicked at her restraints. Something was..... something was above the surface... she could see dark shapes above her.
Hands plunged through the glimmering, flickering surface, gloved hands with some kind of tendrils in their grasp. They seized her, fastening things to her body, and she kicked back and forth. Then with a sloshing, they withdrew. The glow in the tank seemed to be intensifying, like a slow heat rising coldly. Green light. From both ends of the tank, panels opened. And the light filled the tank. DAAAMMMM IIIIIT, she screamed mentally in rage and fear, hearing a gurgle from her throat. The vibrations through the thick fluid pervaded her whole being. And then....
Daressey looked on with delight, cold beads of sweat standing out on his forehead, his hands trembling as they gripped the edge of the control panel whitely.
Johnson cast him a glance and scooted slightly away from him -- scientists were always creepy when they were THIS into it.... it was like sex for them...
There was a burst of energy through the tank. The subject convulsed in her coffin, her womb, as the machines whirred into high gear. He smiled. So perfect. He was almost jealous.
They could see the silhouette of her form wrapped in wires and tubes, arched and shaking stiffly as the machines' whine grew in pitch and intensity. Moment after moment passed, a bead of sweat dropping onto the scientist's hand unnoticed. Finally, the noise dropped, lower and slower, the light fading, until all that remained was the thrum of the other machinery and the blinking "Active" lights above and around the tank.
He turned, slowly, tearing his eyes away from the sight and nodding to the lab techs. They moved forward again to run checks and calibrations. He glanced over at Johnson. "We may have to do this several more times before the effects start to take, but for now we'll have to let her systems recover. Can't have such an expensive project turn into waste disposal, can we?"
"I prefer to think of it as prolonging the enjoyment."
He smiled. "Words out of my mouth." he glanced back over at the tank where Suede lay unmoving, her hair floating slightly around her. "Feel free to hang around, but we won't be continuing for several more hours at the soonest."
Johnson shook her head. "I'm afraid I can't... but thank you, doctor. You and Roderick have given me something to keep me smiling during patrols.... harass Carver for me, will you?"
Daressey gave her a two-fingered salute and cast a fevered smile at her. "Oh, I will, if I see him. Do the same for me if you run across him, will you? I might.... be here... for a while." he grinned.
She nodded, then rose and trotted off, still smiling that unpleasant smile of hers. She cast one superior look at Suede, then left the lab.
Daressey moved over, slightly unsteadily, toward the tank. He rested a hand on it, looking into the depths. And he smiled.
Nikeiva: played by Nyx
Nyx (the voice in her head): played by Nyx
Ian Carver: played by Nyx
As Crey holding and observation cells went, the one they'd put Nikeiva in was one of the nicer. It was small, but by no means terribly uncomfortable. It had, at the least, a flushing toilet and a cot with blanket and pillow. Nikeiva wasn't sure how long she'd been there -- there was no clock-- but she was sure it had been several days. She'd awakened and fallen asleep several times already. What was more, she was starting to wonder by now whether the solitude and waiting were playing tricks with her mind, or if her body really was starting to react... already the small, bland lunch she'd been given wasn't sitting well in her stomach.
She shifted on the cot, thoughts running a mile a minute. Were Shardre and Suede alive? Did they escape? Were they being tortured like this too? She hoped not. Hoped to high heaven.
"Doesn't matter... you can't help them until you help yourself..." she said to herself. Nikeiva shivered. She hated it when she wasn't sure which side of her brain comments came from...
"Shut up," she told herself. Whichever side of herself it had been.
She clenched her jaw shut, but her mind continued to reel with a conversation that she wasn't actually trying to have. ~We need to get out of here-- my life, your life, depends on it.~
"I know that. Go away."
~Get your -- my-- sorry carcass out of bed and do something about it, and maybe I will...~
Nikeiva shuddered and rolled over, feeling a tremble of nausea in her gut again. Her darker self had been plaguing her for hours, if not days, and there was little she could do about it. Throwing off the light blanket she sat up.... and her vision swam and her stomach bucked at the sudden movement. She nearly blacked out, saved from that fate only by doubling over to clutch her sick belly. "Ohhhhhh... make it stop...." It wasn't going to stop. She knew that. Her other self knew it. She'd been dosed with more of that drug. It was only starting. She felt her guts wrench, and she dashed for the toilet, relieving her nausea for the moment.
~They're probably watching every moment of this and laughing...~ said the voice in her head. Nikeiva gave her skull a few violent shakes -- and quickly stopped that when her headache surged. She vomited again.
"Shut.... up..." she muttered, the words echoing a bit in the porcelain.
There wasn't much else in her stomach, but she stayed there, half crumpled by the toilet, until her guts relaxed a little -- even if her headache did not. She should get up... inspect the room again... not that she had found anything the first time... it might make her other self go away for a while... she shifted to her knees, bracing her hands against the floor to push up.... and paused. Her hands. Were shaking.
".... oh please not again.... please..."
Bed. She could feel it coming. She wanted nothing more than to be tucked away in bed, her own bed at home... Jumping up, Nikeiva staggered toward her bed, searing pain pulsating behind and to the side of one ear, balance dangerously askew, knees and hands and jaw all trembling, only to stop, and nearly pitch over... bed... it looked a mile away.... She blinked, which hurt, and opened her eyes again. Not so far.... she staggered forward, clutching her skull, shifting her palms over her ears to block out that high, ringing sound that was coming from nowhere....
In the few seconds it took to get to bed, her feet and calves had cramped up, and her fingers curled and clenched so tightly that her nails were digging into her palms... She collapsed on the cot, succumbing quickly to the jerking and spasming she'd barely managed to hold off. Even behind eyes clenched tight shut and rolled back, colors and shapes burst onto her sight, and that ringing.... it was so LOUD.....
THUD! A convulsion tipped the cot over, slamming her head against the wall... knocking her blissfully out for a few minutes, at least until the worst of the shaking was over...
When she came to, the shaking was in only her extremities, and the visual and auditory disturbances had subsided. She was left only with the urpy feeling in her stomach, the perpetual ice-pick sensation in her skull, and a quickly-sinking sense of hope.
~Get up,~ said the voice in her head.
"To hell with you..." she muttered aloud, lips still twitching a bit.
~Get up, while it's lessened, and get out, damn you...~ demanded the voice again. Nikeiva gritted her teeth, trying to shut it out... She was so tired.... in so much pain.... but she had to maintain control....
~You're weak. Give it up.~
"No..." she breathed, blinking back tears. "I won't. Go away."
~You're making it harder than it needs to be.~
"GO AWAY!" she shrieked, jolting upright, nails raking at her scalp in an attempt to claw the voice from her head, succeeding only in drawing blood ... the voice was silent. And for just the moment, her headache wasn't as bad.... Swallowing, she looked around. Her throat still burned from all of the backward swallowing she'd been doing, but her stomach, for the moment, was not in total rebellion so much as a muttering unrest... groaning, she righted the cot and slinked over to the little sink near the toilet. There was no mirror, but she could see enough of her reflection in the metal plating of the faucet to gauge that she looked awful. "Funny that... I feel awful too...." Still a little dizzy, she leaned against a wall to keep her balance, looking around again.
There was a tightly sealed door at one end, but as far as she could tell, no other point of entry. She couldn't even see any cameras or microphones, though she would never be convinced she wasn't being observed. How to get out of here? Maybe when her regular food tray came, she could.... what? She could never fit through that slot...
She sighed, which turned into a groan. This was bad. This was really bad. Maybe Aether and the others were looking for them?
From a remote viewing room, Carver smiled. Wolfram had been right on target. Her symptoms were in keeping with what he'd recorded years before, as well as some from the Crey experiments, which had involved larger doses of the serum. The nausea and the convulsions were to be expected, and what appeared to be a severe headache and some hallucinations were no surprise. Chuckling to himself, Carver smiled.
"... beautiful. I can only wonder how you'll turn out this time...."
* * *
"..I TOLD you, there isn't a way out," Nikeiva muttered under her breath, trying to talk down the voice in her head... it was getting more and more vocal, and she was getting tired of dealing with it...
~Look again,~ prompted the voice.
"There's a door. It's locked. Beyond that, it's sealed, hydraulically, I'd guess. We're not getting out that way. And we're not teleporting. We -- I can't. I've tried. It's like something's blocking me...."
A vague flash of annoyance came over her, and she wasn't really sure where it was from... Shifting, she got up to go to the sink-- she was thirsty. Her stomach had settled after waging several hours of war with itself, and she wanted some water.
Cranking a tap, she cupped a hand and slurped up some cool water, mind still racing. She'd been in here for days now, she was sure of it... and the longer she stayed here, the worse her outcome was fated. There had to be some way out, some way that didn't depend on waiting for her captors to come get her. And anyway, she was sure that whatever was in her head would get to her first. And that was another battle she was sure to lose the longer she stayed here... Though what her darker self would do against the current situation... she gave a smug smirk. She doubted she could find an answer either... and then what? Would she go completely insane? Would serve Crey right...
Sighing, again in annoyance, though this time she could place the reason, she looked up to the corner of the room at a slight glimmer she'd noticed days ago. She'd thought it to be another hallucination at first... but it was still there after several sleep cycles and revolutions of migraines, nausea, convulsions, and seeing things. Even when there had been nonexistent microscopic chartreuse penguins crawling all over her, the glint in the corner was still there. She was fairly sure she'd found it. The camera.
Now if only there were something she could do to it....
"I'd give a kidney if I only had something hard to throw at it...." she muttered under her breath, staring hard at it. She figured she must be death-glaring right at Carver-- good, let him look. If she ever got the chance, he'd be visiting Wolfram in hell before he had a chance to say 'sedate her'.
Splashing her face with the water a few times, she cranked off the tap, sighing and watching the water go down the drain. If only. It was long minutes before she realized she was still standing there, hand on the knob staring down the drain. ~Break it,~ said the voice in her head.
"The camera?" she mouthed. "I've thought of that. I can't get to it."
~Break it and they'll have to come and fix it...~
"Dammit, I said I've already thought of that. I don't have any way...."
~The sink, you idiot. You think that knob your -- my-- hand is on is particularly sturdy? Go ahead. Snap it off.~
Nikeiva stared at it. Her mind was rushing like a hamster in a wheel. Breaking the sink wouldn't bring the Crey boys in to fix it-- she was sure they'd be just fine letting her sit there without a sink knob. But using the broken piece to break the camera.... she WAS a good throw, after all....
".... Seth, I hate you so much I actually love you!" she whispered to herself, cracking her first grin in what seemed like an eternity. Then she gritted her teeth. This handle was coming off. Bracing, she gave it a hard jerk the wrong direction, twisting and pumping and pulling. It bent a bit... then a bit more. Finally, with a creeeeeeeeak, the handle gave way, leaving Nikeiva with a chunk of metal a few inches long, decently balanced, too. She grinned. Odds were she wouldn't break the thing on her first try, or her second, or her eighteenth, but she had nothing if not endless free time in this cell... between the bouts of nausea and suffering anyway.
Sizing up the camera lens, taking hold, fidgeting the broken piece of metal into the right grip, she paused, then let fly, beaning it dead on. It didn't look broken... she went over and retrieved the piece. She backed up.
She tried again.
For a half hour, until the onset of another throbbing headache, Nikeiva continued hurling the broken piece of metal at the camera lens. She wasn't even sure if she was accomplishing anything, but it gave her a bit of strength... let her feel like she was fighting back.... made the voice in her head shut up.
Hours passed. She'd only thrown up twice today. Lying on the floor by the toilet, waiting for her hands to stop shaking, Nikeiva thought. Thought only about her routine. Throw metal at camera. Pick up metal. Throw again. Was she getting anywhere? ~Get up. Do it again,~ said the voice. It was getting impatient now.
Nikeiva groaned. "... let my hands stop shaking first... I can't throw straight," she muttered.
~Get up. Do it again. Keep doing it. You have no alternative.~
"Shut UP already!" Nikeiva hissed, getting up onto one elbow.
~MAKE me...~ it replied.
Snorting, Nikeiva got up -- her stomach wasn't quite happy, and her hands were still twitching, but she was too angry to stay down... how dare they do this to her. To her friends. How dare that voice push her when there was no place to go. She lobbed the metal piece at the camera lens again. How dare -- clink. Her ears perked up. That had sounded different from the four hundred seventeen other times she'd done it.
Collecting the metal piece, she stretched up onto her toes to get as close a look as she could at the lens. It was hard to tell, but she could have sworn it had cracked.... ~Keep going!!~ howled the voice.
For once, Nikeiva agreed. Backing up, she resumed, a mixture of anger and hope fueling her, adding power to her throws. If the camera actually breaking beyond use didn't bring them, perhaps her actions might.
And when they came to stop her... well... she could feel the other presence in her head almost purring. Powers or no, she wouldn't hold back on them. Already she could think of a half dozen ways to fatally employ her little broken piece of sink handle...
The picture was becoming continually more fragmented, but Carver just smiled. Four days. From injection to resolution, already the serum had nearly run its course... Nikeiva was recuperating. Symptoms were fewer and farther between, and lessening in intensity... soon it would be time to collect her, and see what was being kept suppressed by those power dampers...
Shardre: played by Evion
Dr. Roderick: played by Evion
Time was irrelevant to the semi-conscious Shardre. She passed through fevered dreams for what could have been weeks as far as she could tell. When she was more conscious, there was pain, causing to her to retreat once more into her coma-like state. Finally consciousness came to her in the form of a terribly empty stomach and a throbbing head. She cracked her eyes open and hissed in pain as the eternal white light of the cell assaulted them. Squinting them shut, she tried to pull herself off of her back and sit up. Her head felt oddly heavy. She winced, reaching a hand up to rub her pounding temples. Her fingers passed up through her shaggy bangs, and touched the base of her horn. The skin felt tender, as if it'd been stretched. Her horns had always been one of her least favorite physical mutations, but curiosity led her hand up the bony material. And up. And back and around until she felt the sharp tip somewhere near her chin.
By now Shardre's eyes were wide-open. Shifting up proved difficult as her legs bent at odd angles. "Wha... what's going on?" she croaked to no one. "My horns..."
She froze mid-sentence, having caught a glimpse of her hand. ...Blue? She held it up to the light, sure it was just a trick of her eyes. Her heart skipped a beat. In the bright ambience, it was more than clear. Her hand - and arm from what she could see - were a deep blue, and covered with a bumpy texture that couldn't be anything but scales. Scales!
"No..." she groaned. No, this couldn't be right. This couldn't be her!
A look down proved that the rest of herself was as blue as her arm, and thick scales plated on her front like the belly of a snake. But what was worse was the sight of her feet, or what had used to be her feet. During her fits the bones had been stretched out painfully and her toes had been replaced by what could only aptly be called hooves.
It was all too much for the mutant. Her body... Her body... Shardre doubled over as her stomach convulsed, and dry heaved on the floor.
When her empty stomach finally calmed, Shardre wiped the back of a hand across her mouth, only to shudder as she felt the scales brush her lips.
From the observation room Roderick watched every move with manic fascination, letting not one shifting of weight escape his notice. "Simply beautiful..."
Turmoiled emotion fought through the shock threatening to overwhelm Shardre. This... What she was... The pain... It was all Their fault. She struggled to get her feet under herself, falling back on her tail as her hooves slipped. The pain motivated her, fueling her anger. "Stand up," she hissed at herself. Hand clasping the wall for support, she managed to make it to her feet, panting and shaking. Everything felt weak, drained.
Groaning, she let her head fall against the wall. Her horns clacked loudly as they bounced against the smooth walls. The horns... she'd almost forgotten them with everything else. Now... Now they were so massive, she couldn't even rest her head. It was like wearing a football helmet she couldn't take off.
Rage boiled within her and tilting her head back, she let it escape in a furious howl. From all over her body sprouted a briar of massive spines.
With no target to focus on, Shardre turned her rage on the walls of her confine, scratching feebly at first, and soon escalating into a raging flurry of slashing and punching and kicking, all the while screaming at the top of her lungs.
The cell proved durable. Spines shattered and fell to the floor to be trampled under her hooves as she raged. All the while, Roderick watched with glee, particularly noting the greenish fluid that seemed to be oozing from many of her spines. He would bet his reputation on it being a toxin of some sort. Yes, his wonderful project had certainly come a far way in their few short days together!
At last, her reserves of energy spent, Shardre collapsed to all fours. Slowly, the spines retracted back into her body, dissolving once more to replenish her dangerously low supply of calcium. Tears welled at the corners of her clenched eyes.
"I don't want to be a monster...."
Daressey: played by the_starcrosser
Agent Johnson: played by Nyx
Suede: played by the_starcrosser
Daressey smiled as the fluid slowly drained out of the tank. He was feeling well-rested and fresh, and after 32 periodic generation cycles in the tank, it seemed as if things were progressing nicely. Now if he just had some hot coffee, it would be perfect. He brushed some hair out of his eyes with the back of his hand, running his eyes over the stat sheets.
Her systems seemed to be stabilizing - which was good after that one or two bouts of seizures, where they had to abort the sequence. Her blood pressure and white blood cell count were fine, her heart rate stable, and there were only relatively MINOR fluctuations in her brainwave patterns. He smiled, putting the printouts aside. He put his hands on his hips and walked over, as the lab techs began removing the wires and tubes from the deceptively small, fragile-looking form that lay in the bottom of the glass cradle. After all this work, he was finally satisfied with her progression. It was a lot slower working with these.... 'older models'... but he believed it was worth it. There was a purity to the early genetic work. Not rushed like these things nowadays. There was something to be said for progress.... He approached the tank, peering down at the unconscious form.
The lab techs worked busily, checking vitals and removing machinery. A thin stream of oxygenated liquid trickled from Suede's mouth, her head to the side. One by one, the thin lifelines connecting her to the machines were stripped away, leaving her strapped to the metal plate by the clamps. Daressey checked the injection array arm to make sure it was still in good order.
"I hope I'm not interrupting anything interesting..." muttered Johnson, who stalked in, glancing at the techs and their damp experiment. ".... is this it? I thought alien goo and all that zapping would do something DRAMATIC, Daressey!"
He looked up with an expression of annoyance. "You can't rush these things, Agent Johnson! If you want flash and bang, go see Roderick, he'll give you a thrill." he pushed a button, sending his precious injection arm whirring back up toward the ceiling.
"So what DID you do to her?" she asked, folding her arms and looking down with some disinterest. She'd hoped for something more unpleasant for the Kung-Fool....
He moved over to the cradle and leaned up against it, half sitting on the edge. He folded his arms obstinately. "The DNA sample is fused with her existing DNA now, and it's been fully regenerated into all her cells. I admit, there's been not much physical signs - as of yet - but I assure you-"
There was a small coughing from the tank.
He glanced down irately, then back up to the agent. "-that we'll be seeing a lot more systematic-"
Another cough wracked Suede's form, expelling the remainder of the fluid, and a huge gasp filled her lungs with oxygen. "HHHHHHHGHHHH!" She lurched, the shoulder bindings clicking open as she flung her body forward, her eyes snapping open. Her eyes were entirely black, as if her pupils had dilated so completely that they took up the entire orbs. A gurgle and a rasping noise escaped her throat, and a weird noise, a strange vibration from her throat that seemed most unnatural.
"Holy mother of-" Daressey leaped forward off of the tank, staring over his shoulder. "Get those restraints back on her," he shouted at the nearest lab tech.
Johnson jumped back, startled, fists clenched and ready for a confrontation if it came to that.
The lab techs, clad in heavy protective gear, hurried forward to restrain the project.
Suede's body shook, her maroonish hair clinging wetly to her face and neck, her blacked out eyes fluttering shut again as she suddenly went limp.
Still tensed, Johnson stared hard at the limp girl, as if expecting her to become a threat again at any moment. "Might be time for a secure cell for that one..."
Daressey stared, his eyes fixed on the soggy little bit of life that lay there. Her skin looked paler, gleaming wetly from the liquid she'd been marinating in for days.
He nodded to Johnson, his eyes still riveted to Suede. Blue veins showed through her slightly transparent skin.... almost greenish, he thought, how odd. She frankly looked like a drowned corpse...
Suede's body shook again, one convulsion, and then the monitor nearby that chimed out her heartbeats suddenly went flatline. "Dammit!" His eyes widened. "Get the defibrilator, now!"
Then, as suddenly as it stopped, the heartbeat picked up again.
Stepping back to let the scientist and techs do their work, Johnson leaned against a wall to watch... some experiments worked, others flopped, their bodies unable to withstand the changes. She wondered...
Daressey paused, frozen in mid-action, watching her intently. Now what? Was she stabilized? He couldn't waste all this time and effort, not to mention the funding from Crey....
She didn't move. Her chest rose and fell steadily, and her head rolled to the side. She seemed unconscious as the lab techs held her down long enough to re-fasten the shoulder harness and lock it back down again. Daressey breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like his little progeny was still going to be some trouble, but at least she hadn't gone belly-up. Figuratively speaking, he thought as his eyes traveled over her mostly-bare form.
"So now what?" asked Johnson.
He sighed, running a hand through his thick head of hair again. "Now she goes through final checkups, gets tagged, and we transfer her to a holding and observation cell." He moved past a lab tech, giving the order to put the table up. "And she gets a shower and nutrient pump, how ironic," he chuckled to Johnson.
"I hear Carver's planning a controlled test run in a day or two of his project..." she glanced at Daressey. "Think you'll do the same?"
He snorted. "Carver's going to bite off more than he can chew, I’ll wager. But yes, yes," he waved her off. "I'll be running tests of my own, but I’m going to make sure of a few things first. Caution never killed the cat, so they should say."
Johnson shrugged. "Still, it'll be interesting. He did manage to keep control of that pyro somehow... at least until that mercenary group decided they wanted him...." She shook her head. THAT had been messy...
He sighed as the table struts clicked into place and the metal plate in the bottom of the tank began to rise. "Yes, let's hope SECURITY is a bit more quality controlled now, shall we?" he said acidly, raising an eyebrow as he watched the progress of the machines. "I don't want any uninvited guests anywhere near this entire operation."
"Agreed. Speaking of, any news on whether their employer is looking for these three?"
He looked at her nonplussed. "I don't know," he said offhandedly, "Why would I know? Talk to the intelligence agents. Or is that too much of an oxymoron?" he bit off, leaning a hand on the tabletop as it fastened into place on the leg supports. A grinding noise heralded the opening of the bay doors and the descent of the cradle down below.
Johnson smirked. "I don't suppose you'd know anyway...Stupid of me for asking... you barely leave this laboratory..."
He rolled his eyes and pulled a bit of scanning equipment to swing into place over Suede's head. He clicked on a light and pried her eye open. Normal, completely normal. Well, relatively, for her. Had he hallucinated those black orbs? His brow furrowed in thought. "Agent Johnson....."
"What?" she asked, shifting her weight to one leg.
"Did you.... see..." he paused, thinking.
"See what?"
He scowled and closed Suede's eye again. "What color were the subject's eyes when she woke, a moment ago?" he turned, giving a curious glance at the agent.
Johnson gave a curious look right back... She'd been startled at her sudden awakening, and had thought she was seeing things.... "Well... I was probably just seeing things...but I could have sworn they were black."
He nodded slightly. "Here, look at this." He moved back over to Suede, prying her eye open again. They looked normal, the iris an amber sort of hue, but other than that, normal.
Johnson slinked over, peering down at the pried-open eyeball. "Uh.... looks.... normal to me? I don't know, I'm not an ophthalmologist..."
He smirked. "Exactly. I saw the same thing before...." he shrugged to himself. "Well, whatever it means, I plan to find out." He gestured to a lab tech to get the final physical tests started.
Johnson shrugged as well, though it was more to clear her mind of the weird moment than an act of nonchalance. "Call me if anything spectacular happens. I'm going on patrol."
He nodded, waving her off. He reached out, his hand hovering over suede's face, nearly touching her almost translucent-looking skin. Such a mystery...... a mystery HE had created. He smiled smugly. This should be interesting indeed.
Jade_Dragon
09-08-2006, 10:33 PM
Agent Johnson: played by Jade_Dragon
R4-CHL: played by Jade_Dragon
Misc. extras: played by Jade_Dragon
"Agent Johnson... we've got a situation here."
For the umpteeth time that day, Johnson sighed loudly. There were times this job got annoying. And this was one of them. She put a hand to her headset. "Yeah, go ahead."
"Perhaps you'd better get up here. Reception area B."
Johnson hurried to the reception area, to find a pretty woman in a blue dress standing there talking to several of the security guards. As the girl looked up at her, Johnson was taken momentarily aback. Although there was nothing she could really put her finger on, there was something unreal about this woman. Being a woman herself, Johnson knew what was "natural", and this girl's eyes were a bit too big, her legs a bit too long, and her figure just a bit too stylized.
She quickly cleared her minds of any distracting thoughts, however. "Excuse me. May I help you?"
"My name is Rachel", the woman said, pushing a huge pair of glasses with circular lenses up on her nose. They made her look very professional and bookish. "I'm with Shades of Grey Investigations. I understand a number of our agents were seen in Brickstown a couple of days ago in the company of some of your agents. They have since gone missing, and I was wondering if you might have any information about them."
Alarm bells went off in the agent's head. "What was your name again? You're with... Shades of... what?"
Rachel showed her an ID. It identified her as SGI's receptionist. This was far too much of a coincidence. She made a momentary glance at one of the guards, and he surrupticiously crept back around behind the desk to activate the silent alarm. Johnson quickly turned back to Rachel before she could be alerted.
"I'm afraid I haven't heard anything about our agents working with people from Shades of Grey, but if you'll wait here a moment, I will check and see if anyone knows anything. We have many operatives all over the city, it is possible your agents consulted with some of them on a case. I will see if any of them remember you."
"Thank you very much," the lady said sweetly, bowing slightly. "I'm sure this won't take more than a minute of your time."
"You'll bet it won't", Johnson uttered under her breath, as a team of Cryo Scientists burst into the room. She gestured at Rachel, stepping back, and without even a moment's hesitation, the men fired at her. In moment, like her friends, she had been frozen solid.
Johnson stepped forward again to inspect their captive. "Was that really necessary?" the security guard said, returning from his post at the desk. "She looked harmless to me."
"Harmless, huh?" She glanced at the man, then back at the frozen girl. "That was just her act, to keep people off guard. She's actually far more dangerous that she looks, I'm betting..."
As if to demonstrate her point, she stepped forward and pushed on the girl's chest. She toppled over with a loud THUNK!, the floor under their feet shaking slightly. The sound was much louder than someone of her size and weight should have made, and there was a subtle metallic ring to it.
As the Cryo Scientists stepped up to try to pick her up, one of them groaned from the strain. "She's heavy! REAL heavy!"
"An android, maybe. Her features are too symmetrical to be natural. She's obviously manufactured. But by whom... ?"
Johnson put a finger to her lip thoughtfully. This was an odd bunch. Even their receptionist was more than she appeared.
"Get her down to the lab, and let's see what makes her tick."
As she turned to follow the scientists back into the corridors of the building, Johnson spotted a light on the security guard's desk. Shoving past him, she walked over to it, and hit a key on the computer. The guard looked over her shoulder, a bit embarassed that he had missed seeing it himself.
"Hm. Just before she was shot, there was a signal sent on an unknown frequency. I should have known."
She turned back to the guard. "Get me a team to work on that signal, and try and track it back to who it was sent to. And try and decode it as well. She shouldn't be able to pull that trick again with out dampeners working on her, but let's be ready in case any more of her friends try a rescue."
"Yes, Agent Johnson," the guard said, still a bit uncomfortable at not having caught the breach himself. Johnson said nothing, though, and merely followed the scientists who had already taken their prisoner out of the room.
Jade_Dragon
09-09-2006, 01:02 AM
Darnessy: played by Jade_Dragon (don't worry, I'm only borrowing him for a second)
Agent Johnson: played by Jade_Dragon
Lab Coordinator Danny Fendis: played by Jade_Dragon
"What the heck do you want?" Darnessey shouted as he entered another of Crey's containment rooms, obviously angry at being interrupted. "I still have work to do, you know?"
"You wanted to know if our 'guests' employer would come looking for them," Johnson answered cooly. "Apparently so."
She gestured at the guerney, where Rachel lay strapped by thick-looking bands of steel. Fendis manuevered the bed into the center of the room, and then hooked up the wiring coming from her dampener devices into the power supplies in the wall. It hadn't taken nearly as long to thaw out Rachel since they had only one subject to defrost, and as she was an android they didn't have to worry about organic damage, either. They had already fitted the young woman with a dampener collar, and wires had been stuck into her scalp to monitor any electrical activity from her computer brain. She seemed completely immobile, but Johnson was still glad to see the metal shackles holding her down.
"What did you find on her?"
"Well, there wasn't a Crey file on her, she seems to have escaped our notice. But according to her registration, her real name is..." he double checked his data on a small parmtop, "R4-CHL. Apparently, she signed up along with a technie named Alan Midnight. There aren't too many details, but apparently they're from the future or something. I'm guessing she's his creation; a battle droid or something."
"What does this have to do with me?" Darnessy cut in. "I'm a biologist, not a computer specialist!"
"Well, Dr. Beckett is actually out on leave right now, we've got a call in to him, but he won't be in for several hours. But the main thing is, I wanted to update you on this development. If this 'Rachel' is Mr. Midnight's partner, likely HE will come looking for HER."
"That's not my job, that's yours," Darnessy said, waving a hand dismissively.
"Well, you may have someone coming after your plaything, so just be on alert. There's no telling if she was able to alert her parner before she was captured or if there are any OTHER SGI agents who may also be waiting for her to report in."
She glanced back at Fendis. "Have there been any more radio emmissions from her system, since you thawed her?"
"Actually, there appears to be a low level transmission eminating from her at all times. However, it's likely a danger signal, and the dampeners are strong enough that it won't be leaving this room."
As he spoke, he was stripping the silky blue dress off of her. Darnessy suddenly looked interested. Johnson found herself fighting back the urge to smack him right across the face.
"We've been monitoring her, well, 'brain' activity, and she appears to be deactivated. There are just basic monitoring functions going on. So apparently the dampeners are working as they should."
Johnson frowned as she studied the slender woman. As the gown was cut off of her, it became even more obvious that her form was unrealistic, designed to be as shapely and sexy as possible. "If she's from the future, I don't know if we can be sure of that. From the report the techs gave me, her design is centuries in advance of anything we have, even here at Crey. We can't even begin to understand her."
"Yeah, but think of what we could learn from her. If we can take her apart..." Fendis grinned wickedly.
Darnessy was also grinning wickedly, and Johnson again had to fight back the urge to slap him. "Whaddya know..." he commented offhandedly. "She's anatomically correct."
"Well, only from the waist up," Fendis corrected, but he hadn't lost the grin. Johnson crossed her arms and leaned against the wall, scowling. I suppose I wouldn't have to wear underwear either, she grumbled to herself, if I was built in some factory.
"All right, all right. Keep your minds on your jobs."
"Once Beckett gets back, tell him to get to work on taking this little Barbie doll apart and seeing what we can actually learn from her. In the meantime, place a guard on her in the observation room, and set up alarms to go off if there is any change in her systems. Robots are usually easy to deal with once you turn them off, but there's always the problem of figuring out whether or not they are actually off."
"Even if she does wake up, she'll never get out of here," Fendis said. "And we can monitor her without any sign that we are actually doing so."
He gestured up in the direction of the cameras, which were of course so well hidden in the walls, no one could ever know they were there. Their presence could only be detected by the people who were actually looking through them. At the moment, the observation room was empty, and so the images displayed by those cameras should have been going unnoticed by everyone.
One figure, though, stepped back from the display, and wrapped her arms around herself reassuringly. She gave a little girlish giggle, watching with interest as her captors finished their preparations of her body, and hooked up the last of their monitoring equipment. It was a little odd, she idly thought, to see her body down there like that. Was that what Alan felt, when he projected himself into the Matrix back in our time?
"Ooo, how naughty, naughty," Rachel commented, drawing her arms up to her chest in mock embarassment. "Look at those bad men leering at my poor helpless, naked body!" Rachel smirked at herself. She understood that she had been programmed by a man, and yet, there was still a certain pleasure in knowing her looks had a strong effect on the male gender. Even had the thought not been part of her coy and provocative persona, she said to herself, she probably would have had it anyway.
Her smile faded, though. If that was what was going on with her body, her friends were likely enduring much worse. She glanced around her at the virtual environment she found herself in. It had really taken nothing to download the majority of her software into Crey's mainframe, although the primitive system couldn't quite fit all of her requirements, and she had to leave some of her systems running on the deck in her body. Still, she could keep the signals back and forth between the two systems low enough not to attract attention. The first thing to do was to find out what sort of system was keeping her from contacting the Teleportation System and drawing them all out of there. And if she could find out any information on what was being done to Suede, Nyx, and Sharde, so much the better.
Closing her eyes, she willed herself into Scout Mode. It had been so long since she had been virtual, she had almost forgotten what it felt like. Of course, this primative network was nothing like her Matrix back at home. Even so, her mind automatically interpreted the images she was seeing as if she was in the Matrix. That made her feel comfortable, and hopefully it would allow her to react faster, too, if it came down to doing battle. There wouldn't be AIs in this time period, but there would be bots and security systems.
Rachel shrank down in a matter of seconds, her body shifting, until she had taken on the form of a blue-furred raccoon. In this form, her viral signature was low enough that it shouldn't trip any alarms. Still, even in this primitive network, the old dangers were still the same. She crept carefully out of the "room", and began to follow her instincts, letting the flow of information and network traffic guide her to where she needed to be.
Seth Mason: played by Nyx
"Hey, you've reached Nikeiva, I can't talk right now, so leave a --"
Click.
Seth Mason sighed, hanging up his cell phone. Fifth time today, as it had been for the last three days since he'd been trying to get in touch with her.
"Battery must be dead, didn't even ring like before..."
He sighed, shifting on his motorcycle. Nikeiva had never been an easy one to get a hold of, but she usually responded to his voicemails... he glanced up at the apartment building before him... maybe she was home and unaware her phone was dead... Maybe she was sleeping the whole weekend again -- it happened sometimes, no thanks to that Wolfram formula. Dismounting the bike, he started up the stairs to the top apartment, Nikeiva's. Lucky number 13.
Tapping on the door, Seth called out, "Nikeiva? You home? It's me, Seth..."
No reply. Not even the sound of movement. Seth smirked, then tried again, knocking and calling a few times before lack of response drove him to try something else. Dropping to one knee, he fished some tools from a pocket. He'd been a burglar not too long ago, and working with Payroll had only increased his skills... He had the door open quickly and slipped inside, fully expecting a paranoid dagger or a flying knife to his head...
Nothing.
Shutting the door, he crept through the apartment. It didn't take him long to determine that not only was she not home -- Nikeiva had very little furniture, so there were few places to hide -- but that judging by the food going bad in the fridge, the fine layer of dust on everything, and the large number of messages on her machine -- 38! -- tha