Posted by Lieutenant Alexis Bonner (Assistant Chief Medical Officer) in Side Sim - The End… Of The Beginning

Posted by Lieutenant Dr. Solomon Kane (Chief Science Officer/Research & Development) in Side Sim - The End… Of The Beginning

(snip)

Kane squatted in front of Soulis, who was having great difficulty breathing. Kane’s head cocked to the side, the feral eyes that never seemed to rest moving over Soulis… appraising him… as both a doctor… and a predator. “Broken ribs hurt, don’t they.” Kane said as he reached forward and pressed a fingertip into the area he knew the sharp, jagged points of the broken ribs were. Soulis cried out as much as he could with little air in his lungs, and Kane nodded slowly. “Yeah… they’ll be able to fix you up physically. But that stuff in your blood? Yeah… I meant what I said. Oh, it won’t take away much if any of your knowledge. You’ll still know physics and biology and science… but you just won’t be able to… kinda… piece it all together. Not like you were great at that anyway, otherwise you wouldn’t have needed Alexis. But now? Whew… now it will be a lot worse. And you’ll know that you knew it before… that’ll be the real kicker. It’ll be right there just close enough you can get it… and then “poof’… gone into the broken and blocked synapses of your brain. Oh, and before you think you’ll reverse it? Yeah… you can’t. Even a neural regenerator won’t work. See the synapses aren’t just broken and burned… their redirected back onto themselves. Like a feedback loop. And that means it seems to your body that they are working… so there is nothing to fix.” and he held his hands up and shrugged. “Oops… guess that means your value to Intel will be dropping significantly over the next day or so. Oh, I’m sure they will try to fix you… you are so absolutely valuable to them, right? I mean, it’s not like you are just some cog in a much bigger machine… right?” and Kane leaned in close to Soulis’s face. “It’s not like you are replaceable… right?” And Kane patted his cheek softly as a stunned Soulis began to realize what was transpiring as the tattooed doctor-turned-engineer-turned scientist stared at him with a feral grin.

Alexis watched, well more like listened, her vision was a little fuzzy. Blinking several times to bring clear the fuzzy dark edges in her vision. She knew it would begin to clear as endorphins eventually began to race through her blood stream to ease the pain. Watching him taunt Soulis, Alexis realized Kane was actually really scary, she hadn’t realized that before. Like predatorily instinctually scary. And it was amazing. The look on Soulis’ face made her laugh, and then cut off. That arm really hurt.

“Naw… you’re special. No one can do what you do, right? No one… no one anywhere…” and Kane looked over his shoulder at Alexis and then back at Soulis. “Well… we both know the reality there, don’t we?” He stood up slowly and looked at the chronometer on the wall. “You have about thirty seconds left till those cooked synapses start to hurt.” Kane walked over to a workbench, opened it, and pulled out a flask. He walked over and stood over Soulis, watching him carefully. Taking a drink, he offered it to Soulis. “One for the road? No? Ok.” He took another drink and walked over to Alexis.

“Heya, champ.” he said as he squatted in front of her. “You ready to finish this thing?” From the other side of the room, a low moan began…

Kane, CSO

Alexis looked at Solomon, “Hey.” She shifted slightly, “Yeah…” She looked over at Soulis as he began to moan. “What’s like? Hmm? What’s it like feeling everything you fear, Soulis?” The man looked at her with confusion and moaned louder. “You wanted to be an augment, now you are…augmented stupid.” Soulis’ eyes widened slightly, and then fear as the pain increased. Alexis put her head back, “I can turn on a light, you will never not be what we’ve made you.” She looked at Solomon, “Yeah, I’m ready.”

Bonner

Kane nodded and stood up, helping her rise to her feet. He slowly walked her over to where Soulis now lay cradling his head. “W… wh… what… what… did… what did you do to me?!” he cried as tears ran down his face and he gasped for air between spasms of pain rocking his head and chest. Kane looked down and him and shook his head. “Pretty pathetic there, Soul-patch. Again… you could be a man… but you choose not to be.” and he glared at him through the hair falling across his face. He then looked at Alexis and jerked his head once at the prone figure. “Say your peace.” he whispered low enough that she only heard it in her earpiece.

Kane, CSO

Alexis stared down at him for a long time, watching him cry, gasp for breath, and curl into a fetal position against the pain. Alexis had never enjoyed watching someone suffer. It just wasn’t who she was, but this…this was satisfying. Alexis wasn’t sure how she felt about feeling that way, but right now she didn’t care. Say her peace? There was nothing she wanted to say, was there? She knelt down right beside him, staring into his face, “Hurts doesn’t it? This is nothing, this is only the first initial contact. As more of the toxin reaches your hippocampus the pain is going to get a lot worse.” She tsk’d several times, “You were told to stay away. I told you, your boss told you, he told you,” and she looked back and up at Solomon and then back at him, “you wanted what didn’t belong to you.”

His fingers twitched oddly and his mouth went a little slack. “That right there, is your brain loosing control of your fine motor skills.” She moved making him look at her. “So before your pitiful worthless mind becomes even more inept, let me connect the dots because you can’t. This,” she nodded to the lab in general, “was planned to the very last detail. The project, the name - Eden’s Apple, my project logs, my personal logs, my fear and willingness to bring you straight to it. Oh and let’s not forget you being led like a donkey with a carrot to the files to begin with, all planned to every last detail. You. Are. Not. Smarter. Than. Me. And Solomon Kane might be meaner, more devious, and more malicious, but he’s also a hell of a lot smarter than you. He’s being nice.” She waited while he twitched and cried. There was more but she wouldn’t give Soulis that, he didn’t matter and she had nothing to prove to him. “What’s it like? To know poor pathetic little Alexis did this to you?” She leaned forward, her breath across his ear and whispered, “Understand now?”

Alexis stood, slowly, careful not to jar her arm. She leaned against Kane, she tried not to, but the pain was making her light headed and sick. Alexis turned her head and looked up into Kane’s face, and quietly in his ear bud, “I love you and I want my ring now.”

Bonner

Kane nodded, but didn’t smile. He looked down and inspected Soulis and then said “Aha, there you are.” when he spied the wrist band. He held up Soulis’s arm and looked at the man. “Don’t worry… the pain will subside in a few days. Oh, it’ll get a hell of a lot worse over the next few hours, but after that it’ll fade. Three days, you’ll be fine… well… as fine as you can be.” He looked up at the chronometer. “And there is the mark. Now it really is irreversible. Some high grade antibiotics could have halted it before now, but again… you didn’t think, you just reacted. So… I’m gonna send you back to… wherever the hell you came from now. And don’t come back, okay? This-” and he gestured around at the situation, “- this was your free pass. You come back again… I might actually want to make you suffer. Toodles, Soul-patch.” and he activated the wrist band.

Soulis’s scream was cut off in a swirl of transporter lights.

Kane looked at the spot a moment and then looked at Alexis. “C’mon… let’s get you fixed up. Good thing your man is a doctor.”

Kane, CSO