Ask Poison is the Cure

[Kayden Skyler]

Spoiler: Music OOC

As Cheriss went to investigate, Kayden hung back a moment just to make sure there weren’t other threats looming in the vicinity.

There were no signs of the undead save for one. His gaze landed on the woman with the bloody stumps. It was a mistake to figure her for a living person. Took her legs. Did he also take her life?

The creature dragged herself along the sidewalk with little purpose, no direction, moaning. Or was she still alive when he stole them? Loss of blood might have done her in, if nothing else.

Kayden let her crawl after losing interest and followed after his colleague. Crying and snarling caught his ears just as a zombie flew into the wall.

The other one was jerked upward, head crushed upon a ledge in an instant. Blood and pulp rained down before Kayden released his hand and stepped forward. The remaining group was still focused on the whimpering girl. They were almost upon her.

Kayden raised his other hand after it ignited a red blade and let go. The saber soared across a line of necks before returning to its owner. Heads flew as bodies fell backward. The girl was screaming now, a curious reaction for someone who had just been saved.

“Shut her up.” Though, perhaps not the same way as Cheriss had with Thank The Stars. The girl might have information of her own.


@Sicadorito

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

With one smooth throw of his saber, Kayden had taken care of the zombies surrounding the girl. She screamed again as heads and bodies fell around her, and Cheriss stifled a sigh. It was going to take one of these performances again if they were going to get her to calm down and tell them what she knew. Shut her up? Fine.

Moving a couple of the bodies aside so that she had a clear path to the girl, Cheriss made her way over and lowered herself to a knee, enough so that she was at eye-level with her. The girl wouldn’t meet her gaze, so the Sith placed a hand lightly on the girl’s cheek and turned her head towards her. The child didn’t resist, and instead looked at her with eyes filled with terror.

“You’re safe now, darling.” Her voice was soft, reassuring. With her back to Kayden, she couldn’t see what he was doing, but she hoped that he wouldn’t do anything to scare the girl further. Fear might work on a fully-grown being, but when it came to children, Cheriss had found that exuding gentleness was far more efficient. When her hand came to rest on the girl’s shoulder, the child suddenly wrapped her arms tightly around her and threw her head into her chest, sniffling and whimpering. Ugh. She’d have to get this jacket washed.

Cheriss turned around to give Kayden a warning look before turning back to the girl, lifting her up to a standing position. She still kept her hands on the child’s shoulders to keep her in place. Studying the child’s tear-streaked face, she couldn’t have been more than six or seven, but that was old enough to be able to describe something, or someone, she’d seen.

“How did you get here? Did someone tell you to stay?”

@Die Shize

 

[Kayden Skyler]

Spoiler: Music OOC [Recurring]

Tempted as he was to pull faces at both the woman and the girl, Kayden hung back and let the former do her thing. He figured one of these Sith would be more convincing as a mother figure than the other and no argument there.

The girl was otherwise a blaring siren in a place like this and there was no way in this hell that she was tagging along with them. They just needed to know what she knew. Pump and dump. A child who outlives their usefulness no longer needs to live.

“M-Mommy!” The girl struggled to speak through her sobbing. It had quieted down, at least. Those corpses were likely not the only ones that had been lurking nearby. Hopefully they’re not a part of a herd.

“Mommy…” The girl pointed toward the street. “Daddy… They…they…they…gone…away…”

It was Kayden’s turn to sigh. Gazing toward a corpse, he got an idea. A man was wearing a white jacket that could have passed for a lab coat. Kayden put it on and stood before the girl’s forefinger, pointing at him now. "What am I?"

“D-Doctor,” she said. “Mommy. Daddy. Doctor.”

“Yes, sweetie.” Kayden offered her the warmth of his smile and knelt down, pointing at himself. “Doctor. My friend is a doctor too.” He drew a cone above his head in place of warping into a Cerean. “He was looking for your mommy and daddy. Have you seen him?”

The man and the girl locked eyes. Hers were unblinking and blue. Two oceans frozen in time. A moment passed. Tears stained her cheeks but were no longer flowing. She said nothing. Then her hand shifted. She pointed into the building. Toward the ceiling. Up the stairs.

“Doctor?” Kayden beckoned. She nodded. “Thank you.” He rose, traded the white coat for his black one and whispered into Cheriss’ ear. “Don’t think we’ll get much else out of her. She’ll draw a crowd with that voice of hers.” What to do about that seemed certain. Then he got another idea. “Though, that would keep the Infected on her instead of us.” Distractions were good when it came to AMS.


@Sicadorito

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

Cheriss stepped back when she saw Kayden take a white jacket off a dead man and put it on. What in the world… Then she realized what he was doing, and as he knelt down in front of the girl and began to speak to her, she couldn’t help the smirk forming on her face. Very clever.

Cheriss’ gaze followed the girl’s finger as she pointed upstairs. If what she was telling them was true, then their quarry was much closer than she’d thought. At Kayden’s whisper in her ear, she nodded, her eyes drifting back to the girl, still standing there. Yes, she could still be of use.

“Give me a moment.”

Approaching the child again, Cheriss guided her to the doorway and then out of it, turning the girl so that she was facing her.

“Now, darling. Mommy and daddy may have gone away for now, but Mr. Doctor and I saw them looking for you. They’re worried sick.” She looked into the girl’s eyes, then pointed to a building with a domed roof a good distance away from where they were now.

“Do you see that?” The girl nodded, wiping her face with her arm. “That is where mommy and daddy are looking. When you get close, make sure to yell as loud as you can so they can hear you.”

“They… there?”

“Yes. You will see them again soon.” Cheriss smiled, and the girl turned around and started to walk in the direction of the building.

“MOMMY! DADDY! I’m HEEERE!” The girl really did sound like a siren. It seemed that she’d gotten the attention of the Infected too, given the growling noises that answered her. Well, by the time they found her, she and Kayden would hopefully have found the doctor too. Heading back inside, Cheriss came to a stop beside her partner.

“Upstairs, then?”

@Die Shize

 

[Kayden Skyler]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Kayden wondered what waited up the stairs. The building was no skyscraper but it had some floors to it. There was an elevator nearby but the broken door and sparking light indicated that it was out of commission. His concentration on counting staircases was broken by that infernal scream.

Good riddance. Cheriss had gotten rid of that problem that was now the Infected’s problem, though they wouldn’t see the little girl that way at all. How do you see them, Dr. Sawin? What was this scientist after, exactly? His own kind of cure? Or your own kind of poison?

“Upstairs.” Kayden confirmed. “I mentioned the doctor might be Force-sensitive.” His gaze wandered from the first step all the way to the ceiling. How blood managed to get splattered so high was any little girl's guess. “I don’t sense anything.” Yet.

Wasting no more time, he began to climb. His hilt was out but not ignited. He wanted it at the ready though. The Infected could burst out of closed doors, emerge from hallways, fall down from upper floors because maybe falling felt like the thing to do, and they needed to be dispatched immediately so as not to become one of them.

“Keep in mind we may not actually find this guy. Maff could just as easily have moved on, to some other building or to another life.” Kayden felt like pressing that last bit, wondered what his fellow Sith would make of it. Has she seen the other side like me?

There was a scraping sound just then. At foot of the floor above the staircase was a door. It just then began to budge, the scraping turned to tapping. Kayden stood in front of it.

“What do you think? Could be the living or the not-so-much. Might even be our doctor, or what’s left of him.” Whatever was in there could be more than one, waiting to leap out, but passing the room by could mean passing opportunity by. “Your call.”


@Sicadorito

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

Kayden started his climb up the stairs, saber hilt out, and Cheriss took her own out of the pocket of her inner jacket. The only attention they would draw out here would be that of the zombies or the locals doomed to die, so there was no need to keep it hidden.

“Moved on, you say? It’s possible,” Cheriss answered, dusting the front of her jacket off as she looked down the hallway in front of her and Kayden. It looked like this place used to be a medical station, but it was clear that it had since long been overrun by the undead. She could picture Maff in a place like this, dead or alive.

She stopped beside Kayden, having heard the same scraping and tapping on the door in front of them. Peering beneath the crack, she could see a moving shadow inside. Sawin? Perhaps he was hiding his Force signature, because she still couldn’t feel anything.

“We can give it a look. One room won’t take us long.” With that, she pushed the creaking door open and stepped inside, feeling some resistance when the door came into contact with something behind it. Just as she was about to step around and see what it was, a zombie arm reached out from behind. Before it could get any farther, Cheriss pointed the end of her hilt at the door, igniting her saber. The blade went straight through, and when she turned her weapon off, a dull thud on the floor told her that it had found its target.

Stepping over the arm, she looked to her right to find a zombie clad in a white lab coat on the ground, a sizzling hole in its side. The lekku on its head ruled out the possibility of it being the doctor they were looking for.

“Not him,” she affirmed, looking back at Kayden. But there was something else now, at the other end of the hallway. Some kind of slow, heavy movement, as if something were being dragged. She couldn’t hear it just yet, but she could sense it. She wondered if Kayden did too.

“Do you feel that?”

@Die Shize

 

[Kayden Skyler]

Spoiler: Music OOC [Recurring]

Kayden stood at the doorway, content with observing his partner take care of business and not wanting to get in the way. The blade through the door was a nice touch, its metal couldn’t withstand a blade like that. Straight through the skull. Squick.

They were in a waiting room, only the seats were ripped and toppled over, blood painted the floor and walls in morbid artistry, and a few more bodies were not getting up anytime soon. They looked like they had either been torn apart by claws or eaten up by teeth.

“I feel it.”

Kayden looked down the hallway. It led to patient rooms on either side and appeared to junction into another corridor, likely looping toward an exit door that led to the main lobby the pair had just entered from.

Force sight lent itself to the discovery of other ambling individuals further ahead, in this room or that one, but one figure seemed an anomaly. Kayden was dying to learn more so he entered the hallway, walking cautiously.

The dragging movement stopped. There was a BANG! as a body was thrown into the wall from out of nowhere. It was a broken, bloody mess, and was followed by a roar. Then, emerging into view from the end of the hallway, was a monster if ever there could be.

It was missing its face; in place of it was shredded flesh. By the build, though, Kayden wagered the species. “That, my dear, is a Herglic.” He ignited his blade as it paced toward the pair, stooping as if to pounce. “Once upon a time, anyway.”


@Sicadorito

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

She could hear it now, the lumbering steps of whatever was doing the dragging. She pushed the zombie’s arm aside with her foot before making her way to the exit, curious to find out what it was. By now, Kayden had already left the doorway, and the dragging stopped just as she stepped out the room.

The mangled body flying into the wall at the end of the hallway announced the creature’s arrival just before it came into view. As it turned its faceless head towards the Sith, Cheriss lit up her saber and came to a stop beside Kayden.

“This doctor had better be worth all this trouble,” she responded, eyes locked on the Herglic as it made to pounce. When it lashed out with its arm instead, Cheriss quickly moved her saber in front of her and swung it in a circular arc, severing the monster’s hand from its arm. It drew back for a moment, and Cheriss took the chance to briefly communicate with Kayden. She still didn’t take her eyes off the Herglic.

“You think you could get behind it?”

@Die Shize

 

[Kayden Skyler]

Spoiler: Music OOC [Recurring]

The Infected Herglic had just lost its hand but, naturally, it had hardly registered the loss. Those victims of the AMS virus needed a hole in their head or it removed from their body in order to eliminate them, and the pair of Sith had no choice but to.

“Yes,” Kayden could get behind it for sure. “As long as you keep in front of it.” Cheriss had to be the bait for this to work. He was even tempted to nudge her forward himself, just in case, but thought better of it.

With the Herglic focused on her, his very own assailant, Kayden would wait for it to lash out again. At that point, he was up and over, the Force propelling his leap. Twirling midair, he would land behind the beast while swinging his saber.

The blade burned through the Herglic’s midsection, separating the torso from the legs with a geyser of blood between. Even then, the legs walked forward some more while the rest of the creature flopped about on the floor like a fish.

Kayden tilted his head, watching as the Herglic began to crawl toward Cheriss. It was a pathetic sight. Is this the fate that awaits us all? Forced to drag our maimed and mangled corpses across the cold floor, like this Herglic and that woman, in the void that swallows the light?


@Sicadorito

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

“Fine.” She would do what she had to in order to get this thing out of the way, and if that meant being the distraction for now, then so be it.

Cheriss reached out with her blade and slashed at its side, quickly pulling back when it reached out to attack again with its other arm. But before it could, Kayden had jumped forward and sliced it in half. She would have thought that was the end of it, but even after it was cut in two, what remained of the Herglic was still moving forward towards her. Lovely.

When it got close, she cleanly separated the Herglic's head from its shoulders with a swing of her saber. Cheriss made to step over the rest of its torso, but she realized that one of the arms were still moving and reaching out blindly. Pushing it aside with the Force, she made her way over to where Kayden was. She put her hilt away and dusted her hands off as if she had physically touched the creature.

“If we do this again, you are going to be the bait,” she said to Kayden before pausing to look around. “Wait.” There was something else here with them, something alive.

“Over there.” She turned to a hallway that branched off of the one they had been in earlier. The presence had always been there, but she hadn’t felt it so strongly before. What had changed?

@Die Shize

 

[Kayden Skyler]

Spoiler: Music OOC [Recurring]

The woman’s words had taken Kayden out of his trance. He blinked back into reality, seeing the gory remains of what was once a Herglic. Now an ornament in a gallery of bloody walls and mindless moans echoing across them.

Yes, he felt it, sensed it, needed it. “Yes, over there.” The two Sith were staring in the same direction. “As though it always was.” And what is this new sensation? Yes. There it is. There you are. “Come.”

Kayden walked with newfound purpose, picking up the pace as he passed room after room. A door burst open on his right, his lightsaber extended to sever the neck; a door on his left, let Cheriss deal with that. They reached another door. Kayden stood before it.

“No doubt about it.” He comforted both of them. The feeling was stronger than ever. “Our scientist is Force-sensitive after all.”

He tried the handle. Locked. Moved to burst it open. He’s unlocking it. The door opened from the other side but there was no hand on the handle. Inside, sitting on the edge of a patient’s bed with all the patience of a sun, was a male Cerean.

“Well,” he spoke flippantly. “You have found me. Are you here to kill me?”

Kayden deactivated his blade. “Doctor Maff Sawin?” There was a modest bow. “We are here to rescue you.”

The floor stole his gaze just then. Upon it, scattered in a kind of ordered chaos like a child playing with leftover chicken bones, were the limbs and organs and the fractions of both among what appeared to be a Duros. Once upon a time.

“Though, something tells me you don’t need much rescuing.”


@Sicadorito

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

Herglic left behind as the two Sith walked, Cheriss was far more interested in where and what the sensation was coming from. Anything in her way was swiftly cut down, and the fate of the zombie that shambled out of the door to her left was no different.

Soon they’d stopped in front of a closed door. Someone was in there, no doubt about that. Kayden said what Cheriss was thinking out loud, then tested the handle of the door to reveal that it was indeed locked. But a few moments later, the door swung open seemingly by itself if not for the Cerean man inside. Finally.

She entered just behind Kayden, standing beside him as he addressed the doctor. She kept her hands folded loosely in front of her.

“You would be correct.” Sawin didn’t elaborate. Instead, he extended a hand and rearranged two of the organs laid out in front of him before setting them down and meeting Kayden’s eyes. “What do you really want?”

There was a genuine curiosity in his tone. No fear at all, she noted. Cheriss answered instead.

“We are interested in your work. There is much still to be learned from the virus, which I am certain you know as well as we do.” She paused. “Your knowledge, your research has great potential, and we are here to help you realize it.” That earned her a smile from the doctor. The promise of greatness rarely failed to elicit such a response.

“And what of my ‘malpractice’? I should have you know that my prior research was discarded for that very reason. How do I know you won’t do the same?” It was a silly thing to even bring up, and even Sawin seemed to know it.

“When it comes to knowledge, doctor, no price is too high.”

@Die Shize

 

[Kayden Skyler]

Spoiler: Music OOC [Recurring]

The doctor deliberated, looking from his ‘work’ to the two guests in the room. “A notion that I wish most lived by. For science, for the future, there can be no constraints, no restraints. There can be only…progress.”

Kayden nodded in agreement. He was right about that much. “Unfettered. We have to be nothing less.”

“Ah, but so much more.” Sawin eyed the lightsaber hilt. “The Sith aspire to the same, do they not?”

It didn’t take a mind-read to figure that one out. If the man and the woman had been Jedi then they likely would have sought a whole different approach. “The two of us do, anyway. That’s where you come in. Come out, I should say.”

There was a bang just then, down the hallway, a growl and a scream. “I believe we’ve overstayed our welcome. You have a lab outside of the city, correct?”

Maff narrowed his gaze as though debating whether to lie. Clearly, however, even if he was not enthusiastic about joining the pair, he knew he had no choice. He’s right about that much too. What wasted potential for any medical board to cast this one out.

“Yes. My primary research center when I’m not studying in the field.” He stood up, slipping a datapad into a bag. “I guess I have enough data for now. We should go.”

“Stay between us. We’ll head out the same way we came in. Come.”

The three entered the hallway. Movement on the left: Another Herglic. The right: A mob of lesser humanoids no less undead, shuffling toward their would-be dinner. Kayden’s blade hummed back to life.

“How versed are you in the Force?” He did not look at the doctor, focusing on the threats.

“I’m no Jedi. Or Sith, for that matter. I can open a door but not much else.”

“I got that covered. Cheriss, check the Herglic, if you’d please.” With that, Kayden tossed his saber. It really was that easy, blade cutting through a line of necks like butter. When it returned to its master he was already advancing, poking at any heads still attached.


@Sicadorito

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

The doctor agreed to leave with them in the end, to Cheriss’ relief. Having to forcibly get the location of the lab out of him would have been time-consuming and inconvenient. And she was one who appreciated efficiency. However, given the unearthly snarling from outside, their troubles weren’t over yet.

Another Herglic? This one wasn’t as large as the other one, and so Cheriss was able to freeze it in its place with the Force as she walked over. Two horizontal slices of her blade separated the head from the shoulders and the torso from the legs. Releasing her grip on the creature and putting her saber back onto her belt, this time, she made sure that it had fully stopped moving before she turned away.

Rejoining the others, she followed after Kayden and Sawin as they made their way out of the building, staying a little behind both of them to make sure that one, Sawin didn’t try to run, and two, to take care of anything that might be lurking behind.

The lab itself was located in what Cheriss would describe as the middle of nowhere. It was a good distance outside of the city in what looked like a long-abandoned imperial fort. When they approached the door of what used to be a barracks, she waited for Sawin to step forward to open it.

“You’re up, doctor.”

@Die Shize

 

[Kayden Skyler]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Sawin stood before the gate that led to eternity, to life unending and beyond, and appeared to realize this truth as he hesitated at the console that would unlock the teeth and reveal the maw.

“What you two are about to see…has never been seen by anyone else except for me…”

Kayden could live with that. Yet, he sensed some untruth in those words. “You mean to tell me you have no assistants?”

Maff searched the sky before answering. “Well, perhaps it is more accurate to say I had assistants. They…can no longer feed themselves…and must be fed.”

Kayden could live with that too. Let’s just move along. “I yearn to see what your eyes do, Doctor. Open the door and you open many doors more. Together, the three of us shall turn keys that unlock the universe itself.”

That made the doctor squint. No matter. We don’t need to share the same vision. The door opened. Sawin led the way; a scientist leading a pair of researchers, one of whom would put that research to better use.

The outside air was hot and foul, as though the ground were fuming at the nostrils with putrid rivers for mucus. Inside the barracks-turned-laboratory, however, the air was cold, the world was quiet, and the blue hue of indoor lighting was like a frozen middle finger to the black red sky of Deysum III.

“This way.” Sawin proceeded down this corridor, took a right toward that one, a left down this one, straight ahead. “Not that way.” He corrected Kayden as the latter went for a door. Can’t help myself. Those growls…

They passed the typical: Mess hall, security room, quarters, engineering, offices. Kayden was quiet most of the way, whether the other two bounced words off each other or not.

They neared the medbay. There was a gurney outside of it. A body was upon it. A man. A Human. He was motionless. Kayden approached just as the skeletal body came to life. Alive. Not undead.

He struggled to move, hands and feet restrained, so settled for thrashing. He struggled to speak as well, the words more like unintelligible moans, but this man was definitely among the living. For now. Teehee.

“You weren’t putting that tongue to good use anyway, Spencer,” Sawin offered as he strolled by. He didn’t so much as glance at the starving soul before opening the door to the room opposite the medbay.

“Truth be told I was just tired of hearing him complain,” the Doctor admitted. Kayden nodded in understanding as he and Cheriss were admitted into the main hall. Not anymore.

The entire room had been converted into a laboratory, one filled with computers, research stations, test tubes upon tables and others between the floor and ceiling, the latter filled with bodies more. This one stamped with 'AMS-32', that one with 'AMS-24', another with 'AMS-66'.

"Welcome to the chamber of promise, my friends," Sawin smiled as he approached a pair of cages. One had three sentients inside, about as skinny as Spencer and just as alive. The other had just one individual. Dead. Undead, better yet, and as hungry as the other three...


@Sicadorito

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

Unlike Kayden, Cheriss was not of the mind to explore. There was nothing that irked her more than not knowing what was ahead, but that was the case in this fort-turned-laboratory. They passed by rooms where eldritch groans and occasional screeches could be heard through the doors, and had Sawin not warned Kayden about opening one, she would have held him back herself. They were still not fully in the know about what the doctor was researching other than that it involved AMS, and until they found the true purpose of this lab, Cheriss would hold off on wandering the halls without a guide. She’d had enough of dismembering zombified humanoid dolphins.

When the group passed by the man on the gurney, Cheriss’ curious eyes rested on him. What purpose did it serve to starve him? Was that somehow more attractive to the virus? Maybe, maybe not. The doctor brushed him off, and so the Sith did too. Spencer held little value.

But Cheriss soon saw that he wasn’t the only one here lacking weight. Inside the main lab, the two cages holding the barely living and undead gave Cheriss the hint of an idea of what Sawin was looking into.

“What a curious arrangement.” Her gaze swept the pair of cages. “What is the purpose of this? We all know what the virus does to a living being.” They rot from the inside out, what more is there?

“That may be, but I’m more interested in how it happens. How this virus keeps the Infected physically alive, so to speak, longer than others. Testing them here, in a controlled environment, is the quickest way to gather good data.” He tapped on a datapad sitting on the desk next to him. “Starving them seems to help the virus along as well. Take a look for yourselves.”

He tapped on the datapad again, and the metal door separating the two cages slowly slid open. With that, the zombie practically sprang at the living beings sitting at the bottom of the cage, scratching and biting at any flesh it could find. The strange thing was, Cheriss could hear no audible screaming on the part of the sentients even though she could see that they were in pain as they tried to move away, to no avail. Why aren’t they fighting back? Sawin went on as numbers flashed on the screen next to her.

“We will see, in a few hours time, that these three will be able to get to their feet and be as eager for living flesh as their friend here. But the question is how? The conditions and the structure of their bodies remain the same— except for the addition of the virus. There is something about it that is able to make efficient use of the energy that remains at a level I haven’t seen before. You two are fortunate to be able to see this happen in real time. There is so much to learn and appreciate from.”

@Die Shize

 

[Kayden Skyler]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Sawin’s answers to Cheriss’ questions painted him as an open book. How it happens. Not why. Not what for. For what? Why the study?

As the doctor spoke on, Kayden watched on, observing intently as the single Infected rushed upon the three not so much. Cheriss looked to the screen while Kayden looked to her, wondering what she might make of all this, before his eyes found Sawin’s face.

The man glued his gaze to the cage like someone watching their favorite TV program. Oh. That’s why. That’s what. This scientist appreciated the science for what it was, targeting the insides of the virus as much as the insides of its victims. The ends are the means, the means are the ends.

Some people in this universe just wanted to find out how the clock ticked without much caring for what time it was ticking toward. A wasted vision. Shortsighted. But every tool has its use. Kayden Skyler would put Maff Sawin to no less.

“That much is certain.” He looked back to the Infected individual feasting on the remains of the fallen. There was much to learn here and just as much to exploit. "You are not the only party interested in knowing more about this virus. My associate and I represent one such party. AMS is a plague...but a practical one."

Skyler’s eyes turned toward those great tubes filled with fluid and bodies and organs, and one with the latter growing outside of the former. He read their numbers, every one preceded by ‘AMS’. A woman opened her eyes, stared back at him, bared her teeth. Still beautiful.

“How long have you been at this, Doctor?”

Maff sourced the answer from the ceiling as though time really did have no meaning to him. “Months. At this stage, anyway; live experimentation, chiefly on this world. Overall?” He looked into the Sith’s eyes, and there might have been the secrets of time and space in both. “Years. Thanks to this virus, lady and gentleman, the path to progress, true progress, has been paved before my very eyes…”

Indeed. “This world. Deysum III is a cesspool; a pit of corpses before they are even made. A morgue, you might say.”

“Indeed.”

“Going out for fresh specimens must take its toll.” Sawin did not appear to disagree. “We can help with that. Provide as many subjects as you need to continue your work. Human, Herglic, you name it.”

“And what else?” Though, the scientist was just masking his being sold at this point.

“Oh, we have resources beyond your laboratory and this planet, Doctor. Remember who you’re talking to. My question for you is how much time do you need to complete your…project?”

Time. It blinked and budded in the space of Kayden’s mind as he remembered who he was talking to.


@Sicadorito

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

Even as Sawin tried to hide his delight, he looked like a puppy who had been offered the biggest, juiciest bone of the pile. He knew full well the benefits of what a partnership like this one would bring. It was surprising that others hadn’t gotten to him and his research first, and Cheriss could only describe it as a major missed opportunity on their part.

“Time? My friends, I could do this for another month, another few years, even. There is so much to uncover and so many new questions to answer.” He stopped, but Cheriss sensed that he had more to say. She followed his gaze back to the cages, coming to rest on the bloody mess on the ground.

“But, I’m close. This close,” the doctor pinched his fingers, “to solving my original puzzle. With a few more live specimens, I would only need a few more weeks if all goes well. Maybe less.” Cheriss glanced at Kayden. It would not require much sacrifice on the Sith’s part, and the knowledge they would gain would be worth the price. It was full of untapped potential, and regardless of whether or not Sawin was aware of it, the data could be put to better use.

“Wonderful. In that case, we would be happy to provide our assistance. Our resources will be at your disposal, and should you need anything, please do let us know.”

She held out a hand for him to shake, and he took it without hesitation.

“Now, would you care to give us a tour around your facility? It would certainly help to know where we are going when bringing in your samples.”

@Die Shize

 

[Kayden Skyler]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Sawin was proving more and more that he would not so quickly turn his back on the kind of relationship that he was building with the Sith. He was a solitary soul, so invested in the work that the work became his universe, and as long as he could keep working he was not likely to complain.

Such independence had surely helped keep him and his work so secret while, now that it was being unearthed in the shadows, there was no threat of the light shining on it just yet. The scientist saw these Sith as tools as much as they saw him as one. Such is the beginning of a rewarding relationship.

From the specimens so far encountered, both the living and the dead and the something in between, Kayden discerned that much of Sawin’s time here had been spent researching slowly and methodically. A few more live specimens, some more Spencers, might indeed be all that remained.

“Shall we begin in the mess hall?” Maff prompted his guests like a proper tour guide. “I’m a bit famished myself, I do say.”

“Let’s save that for last.” Kayden could eat but had more pressing curiosities. “Show me engineering. I want to see what it takes to keep a place like this running.”

That sat well enough with the scientist so he took them on a stroll. When the tour ended, Kayden sat in the mess hall recalling sophisticated generators, a storage room stocked floor to ceiling with foodstuffs, a morgue of the dead and dying, and an incinerator that smelled like Snivvian steak.

“ . . . And so it occurred to me that maybe the hosts retained certain memories in the neocortex, among some species anyway, and granted we’re talking elementary—”

“Hm?” Kayden was just then brought fully out of his trance. He waved away whatever Sawin was blabbering on about with a fork. The good doctor was just as much a good cook. “What kind of meat is this, anyway?” It did not look like beef, maybe chicken, but perhaps also monkey. In some jungles, monkey tasted just as juicy.

“You…don’t know?” Sawin looked from one Sith to the other. “My apologies. I thought it was obvious that Deysum III can hardly support wildlife.” He folded his napkin into a perfect rectangle. “So, I make do with what meat makes it my way…so to speak.”

Kayden looked at the morsel stabbed atop his fork, tilted his head, thought back to that one time when a cruise ship had crashed on an uncharted world and he was among the survivors.


@Sicadorito

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

On the tour, Cheriss was hardly paying any attention to the scientific jargon spilling out of Sawin’s mouth about the virus and whatnot. What she was interested in was the layout of the facility and the purpose of each room, taking note of anything that could potentially be useful. Could the incinerator be utilized for something other than burning up the dead?

Their final stop was the mess hall itself. She wasn’t hungry at all, and she was doubting how safe it was to be eating in a lab, but for the sake of their newly-made deal she decided to accept the plate of whatever the meat was. It wouldn’t do Sawin any good to poison his new sponsors.

As soon as they sat down, Sawin launched into another long and boring lecture about his research again, and Cheriss decided to pretend like she was listening while absent-mindedly having some of the food. It was, surprisingly, decent. Maybe she could ask him for the recipe— that would certainly be more interesting than whatever that memory cortex thing he was talking about was.

Kayden beat her to it, asking about the dish, and his response caused her fork to freeze in midair. He said what? Her first thought was that it was a prank, but the utter seriousness in his voice told her that he was being honest. Forcing herself to keep a straight face, Cheriss set the fork down and pushed the plate slightly to the side. She glanced at her partner. Somehow, Kayden appeared entirely unbothered, and she decided not to think more of it.

“Thank you for the… exceptional meal, doctor. There is something urgent I have to take care of, so please excuse me.” With that, she got up, made her way over to the bathroom, and searched up the fastest way to get off this godforsaken planet.

@Die Shize