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@Naive1 @GingerBoi123

Dr. Lanel took a sip from a mug of lukewarm coffee, willing his tired eyes to focus on the documents in front of him. He glanced up at the pane of bulletproof glass that formed the wall behind his desk, and past it, into the padded 'sparring chamber' beyond. The girl in the orange jumpsuit curled up on the floor inside and shuddering, in his opinion, represented a gross indulgence on the part of Daedalus's R&D division. They had always been prone to flights of fancy, but 'Project Ichor' was a new low in the company's tendency to put efforts before aims. Sure, by all means, the subject was a remarkable success - but when one had a vampire, what did one do with it?

That was his job to find out - his supervisors had told him to find some way to make the procedure marketable by the time it was perfected, and that's what he was going to do. To that end, the test of the day, and the reason he was here in this combat observation pit instead of his nice, heated office. In the past, denying sustenance to subjects of Project Ichor had resulted in them entering panicked 'starving' states of high-adrenaline and aggression: he was here to see how far that went. It had been three days since TR-781 had been fed, and in a moment, he'd release the company's own personal attack drone to see what she could or would do. The Ronin was under specific instructions not to harm her permanently, just to gauge the starving vampire's threat level and attempt to subdue it.

Dr. Lanel sighed and pressed the button on his microphone. "Alright, send him in."

---

@Serendipity

Elsewhere in the facility, a young, plump woman in a clean white labcoat carried a tray down a hall, humming a pop song. She paused in front of one of the doors, labeled 'EP1138', and cleared her throat before reaching up to knock with one hand. "Iris," she said cheerily, "Breakfast time! Open up!"

Most of the test subjects (those who weren't under constant lock and key) at Site Corinth were expected to get their meals in the prisoner cafeteria. There were a few exceptions, of course, for those who were particularly hazardous, antisocial, or, as in the case of Iris, kept under tighter control for the purpose of... information restriction. The discrepancy had been explained to her as being for her safety, as many of the test subjects were dangerous inmates with criminal records, the sort she shouldn't be spending much time with - it was unclear if she ever bought that excuse, though. The tray had Iris's usual breakfast fare of biscuit, cereal and milk, and a cup of orange juice - bland, but nicer than a lot of inmates got. Unbeknownst to the woman carrying the tray, there was something extra today - a waterproof plastic tablet sat at the bottom of the cereal bowl, containing a USB drive. On the side were two words written in pen: 'The Truth'.

The woman paused before knocking again, checking down to glance at her phone and smiling. 631-D was attempting to escape again, and since it'd been four days since the subject had gotten out of the Vault after last time, she won half the pot. A song in her voice, she knocked again. "I-ris! Open up! Remember, you've got to meet Dr. Chauncey down at his office in thirty minutes!"

---

@Hellion @NorthernKraken

The cord of muscle hit the guard on the helmet like a concrete brick, wrapping around his head and pulling him off his feet.

Immediately, the cafeteria exploded into chaos. Prisoners and test subjects hit the floor and crawled under tables on instinct, while the remaining fourteen guards advanced with tasers drawn, encircling the attacker. "On the ground, 631-D!"

Emmeline looked around, her eyes wild, yanking the cord back into her arm with a flick of the wrist and trying to keep as many of the guards in view as possible. "That's not my name!" she shouted, "Call me by my name-"

Six tasers hit the woman at once, and she spasmed and collapsed to the floor. One of the guards moved to pin her down and handcuff her arms behind her back, while another pulled out his radio and began muttering into it. Two more went to go help the guard she'd knocked to the ground to his feet, and the others turned to scan the room for further signs of rebellion. "Back to chowtime, people," one of them barked, holstering his taser. "Twenty more minutes." Mealtimes in the cafeteria were always carefully controlled - half-hour blocks, only a percentage of the inmates eating at the same time, with the groups and times changed every week so that the crowds were always different. Even so, there was always the occasional incident like this - especially when 631-D was involved.

Among the crowd watching was a woman, Sam Hell, covered head to toe in tattoos and looking up from her plate of gruel. The ink on her arms flared up, almost imperceptibly, at the action, as though her body was ready to go into fight or flight mode. Not far from her was Kieran Smith, his mind buzzing with voices and feelings not his own. Moments before it had happened, one of the voices had cut out, clear and simple - I won't let these bastards keep me here.

---

@TheGrundlesnart

The security in the Dog's room was state-of-art.

Security cameras, motion sensors, reinforced doors, and an armed guard outside of no less than twenty men carrying riot shields was only the tip of the iceberg; the real piece de resistance was the piping, capable of flooding the room in less than two minutes and draining it in three, while remaining too tight for the shapeshifter to squeeze through. The Dog sat in the middle of it, in his own world as always, slate resting on his table. It would have been very, very difficult to get anything out of that room without Daedalus knowing it, and just as hard to get something in. There was always a way, though.

The ceiling opened up - not unusual. The hole in the ceiling was where the food came from - today was no different, as a body flopped down from the darkness and landed on the ground with a thud. It was an older man, brown-skinned and dark-haired, dressed in the orange jumpsuit of an inmate. Also not unusual - the Dog was a popular choice when a body needed to be disposed of, especially a failed test subject that might still be dangerous. There were a few foreign objects within the meat - two bullets in the back of the skull, for a start. Not unusual. What was unusual was what was inside, stitched into a pocket in the cadaver's torso - a pair of plastic, noise canceling earbuds.

---

The Dog paced, as he usually did when on solitary days like this. His social interactions were fairly rare, even though his conditioning kept him as docile as the pet of his namesake. He was expecting a visitor today, apparently. One of the guards had said something about it. He didn't know what it meant. Could mean they had finally found a way to kill him that wasn't drowning. Or maybe they'd have him fight someone again. Like that robot samurai thing. He didn't like fighting.

What they didn't realize was that the conditioning hadn't changed much of his real mind. Ford Thomas was angry. All the time. Seething with rage nonstop, which only released when they gave the command. Like some kind of perverse orgasm denial but instead of pleasure, it was violence. In the moments after the command, Ford was free. He delighted in the violence. It gave him a pleasurable high like nothing else in the world. Consuming. Devouring. Growing. Nothing felt better in the whole world. And then they said that miserable halt command and suddenly he was ashamed, scared of what he had been, trembling from the adrenaline like a scared little boy.

It was no wonder he barely reacted when the body came tumbling down the chute. He cocked his head at it.

"PBV-2424. Incoming command. Remove your muzzle at this time."

He hated this process. Being forced to eat another human being to clean up after their messes. But food was food. Maybe this one knew something pleasant? Remembered a nice song... He would get flashes of their memories. Nothing specific. Never anything useful. Just... random bits. Sounds and images. Maybe he'd had a nice family The Dog could pretend was his own for a few minutes. He felt the electronic latch on his muzzle come undone, and he pulled it from his face, wiping away the drool from his lower lips as he stared miserably at the body. He didn't want to-

"Sic 'em."

MEAT! The only thing in the entire world worth having was here, right here, in front of him and oh how succulent it appeared! A ripping, tearing, oh the wonderful sensation of digging teeth into flesh and tearing away the bloody chunks! This one was cold but what did it matter when you could feel the dribbling of their life essence down your chin and neck? When you could feel the meat under your growing claws? A chunk from the neck to test the flavor, yes, just a nibble, just a nibble that would kill any man in seconds!

Yes, an unlatching of the jaw now. How could he wait? How could he wait another second before eating this snack whole? Or maybe a bite or two along the way yes a big bite yes just to hear the bones crunch and feel them snap under the teeth yes it was so good god yess feel the crunch of the ribs and the gentle hiss of the bursting lungs oh in the name of all things holy it was divine it was sensational just a quick swallow and then he could crack those delicious femurs and feel the marrow in his throat yes yes yes yes crunch snap yes YES YES YES YES ALL OF IT DOWN FEEL THE MASS BECOME HIS FEEL THE ENERGY, THE MEAT, THE BONE AND TISSUE MAKING HIM STRONGER, BETTER, YES. HE COULD KILL ANYTHING. HE COULD KILL EVERYTHING!!

"Heel."

Ford looked down. The man was gone. Just a bloody spot. Next came a towel and some wretching from a guard who'd been dared to watch the process. A newbie, probably. One of them had died last week, right? He bungled the command word during a testing and he'd been impaled before the control room could say it on the intercom. Reeled in like a struggling fish. The memory nauseated Ford now. Especially how much he'd relished it in the moment. He hated his other self. It didn't hate him back. It was too busy with the meat.

It wasn't until he'd changed his clothes, washed the blood away with the small hose in his room, and was reaching to put his muzzle on that two small plastic objects slid out of his hand and into the sink. He looked at them, but didn't touch them. They looked electronic, yes...
Earpieces? Why did the prisoner have ear pieces? Was this a music thing?

The intercom crackled. "2424, do not delay in replacing your muzzle."

Ford palmed the earpieces, acting like he was wiping something from the sink and then he put his muzzle back on, sliding in the earpieces as he did so as stealthily as he could manage. He was not well versed in sleight-of-hand, but he'd picked a pocket or two back when he was homeless.

"Thank you, 2424. Was your meal satisfactory?"

It was a bit hard to hear them, but The Dog knew the question already. He gave a thumbs up. It wasn't satisfactory. It was humiliating and disgusting. But if he ever gave them a thumbs down... they just sent another body.

Through the door a rippling aria was turned down, the melody a contrast to the song in the visiting woman’s voice. The door opened to a raven-haired teenager in a cream blouse and dark green slacks, her braid running down to the small of her back. “Hi Sarah! I’m sorry, I was dancing.”

She did a lot of that when she was alone in her quarters; her doctors said it was important to keep up her general fitness and would benefit her rehabilitation. It also harked back to what she used to do before the crash, and that was something she needed sometimes. Most of the doctors and nurses were very polite and friendly, but - except for rarely when Dr. Chauncey would put aside his work and just talk to her - she felt very alone here at Corinth. She’d never been to Mississippi before; she had asked one of the older guards once if she could go on a supervised visit to see the sights and he had given her an odd look before saying the same thing she always heard. “It’s not safe outside Iris, not until Dr. Chauncey says you’re ready.”

“I promise I won’t keep him waiting,” she assured the honey-blonde as she took the tray with a small smile. “Have a good day!”

Everyone here was always so busy, most of them caught up with helping the troubled souls in the criminal quarters. They never had time to talk, and after the first three months here she had learnt to stop trying. The rare times one of the younger nurses or guards would stay to talk, it always turned out there was somewhere else the were supposed to be, and trouble would erupt as a result.

“You too Iris,” Sarah effused, watching carefully as the girl closed her door and then turning to walk away. By the time she passed the guard at the corner of the hallway, she was already mentally counting her winnings again. She just had one more bout of surgery to scrub up for, and then…

Inside the room, Iris ate as she always did - dipping her biscuit into the milk and taking little bites from the soaking bits around the rim until it was gone. Then the cheerios interspersed with long draughts of juice, and finally draining the milk from the bowl. That was when she found the tablet, the little clear plastic tablet tapping at her lips and looked at it in surprise. The Truth? Was this part of a new testing regimen? She saw the USB port and looked briefly around her quarters. No, no laptop had suddenly made an appearance so with a mental shrug she slipped it into her pocket and set off for her morning appointment.

She would ask the doctor, he always knew what to do.

It was only a short walk here in the upper levels of the facility, and almost exactly thirty two minutes after Sarah delivered her breakfast she was pressing a button outside a door. The screen lit up with a familiar-looking older face and she gave him her first full smile of the day. “Iris here Doctor Chauncey, I’m sorry I’m late.”

“Fucks sake. Here we go again.” The woman shook her head while continuing to chew the tasteless food, lazily staring at the spectacle unfolding across the cafeteria. 631-D was at it once again, and this time it seemed she was more pissed than previous days. Sam and Emmeline had a mutual respect for one another, regardless if their social engineering skills were less than desirable, but Em also tended towards bouts of psychosis, resulting in conflicts like these popping up from time to time.

Sam, on the other hand, decided to steer clear of the chaos in this instance. Not so much due to the half-dozen guards in the immediate area armed with stun pistols, but for the simple fact that she had been down this road numerous times, and didn't really feel like jumping into the fray head first. It was bad enough that the last altercation rendered her unconscious for almost forty-eight hours due to heavy usage of abilities she still couldn't fully control. Sometimes it felt more like the darkness within had control of her. Every tattoo that covered her tall lean frame, which were only one part of her unusual supernatural ability, felt as though they would lift off of her skin at times, black inky tendrils tearing away from her body completely to satiate their need to cause harm. She could hear their pleads, their demands even, to be free to reign hell. But through various mental exercises -and the occasional drug to offset mental fatigue- Samantha was able to bring some semblance of peace to an otherwise chaotic gift.

She watched as the guards pinned poor Emmeline down and regrouped, a few surveying the remaining inmates, and Sam glanced over at Kieran, who was sitting near the end of the long, rectangular table, curious as to what his course of action would be. On the one hand, she hoped that he wouldn’t take any further action, realizing that this whole shit storm that was brewing was for nothing anyway. Plenty of escape attempts were made, and each one failed, sometimes in worse ways than others.

Sam turned back to her food, scooping up another spoonful of “today’s special”, and shoving it in her mouth. She wanted out same as all the others, but there had to be a better way.

Olivia was curled up on the floor of the chamber mere moments from insanity. She had expected this, and this was nothing she had not experienced before, but she always hated it, every time it felt like the first. There was a certain point in her mind where she broke, where her heart beat so hard in her chest it almost literally threatened to tear itself out of her chest, completely deafening her and driving her to madness. Luckily she was not quite there yet. Olivia gasped with every long heaving breath as she tried to ignore the reason she was here, that they were doing this to her for a very specific reason, and that soon enough something or someone would be in this room with her, and she would be lost.

Simultaneously, the Cyborg was being escorted down the halls towards the next test. Not having to eat proved helpful to Daedelus, allowing Ronin to participate in any required tests or duties away from the main group of “patients”, way from anyone the corporation would deem as ‘prying eyes’. Beside Jason were two security guards, armed with all the gear necessary to subdue any rogue project as well as specialised computer tablets affixed to their arms to interact with the systems and trigger any killswitches that required electronic input. Jason wasn’t in the mood for antagonized the escorts, all he was focused on was the test briefing being streamed to his retinal interface.

After a few moments, Jason would find himself waiting outside the door. He was studying the specifications of the test subjects from ‘Project Ichor’. In brief, it was essentially a vampire making project which sounded like a tween girl’s dream. However, the reality and effects were rattling to say the least. The only sustenance is blood and this particular woman had been starved for three days. Only 18 too. Jason’s fists balled and his teeth clenched in anger. This girl was barely an adult and she’s had so much taken away. However, his thoughts were quickly dashed as the metallic door slid open and he stepped through. Spying the girl crawled up into a ball, he quickly unattached his sheathed Vulcan sword from his waist and tossed it to the side.

Time moved agonizingly slowly, every shuddering breath bringing a new wave of deafening pain. Her body screamed for her to move, and even curled into a tight ball she could not prevent the twitching. Arms and legs, sudden and irregular spasms that rocked her whole body. Olivia was simultaneously grateful and annoyed by the padded room. On the bright side she could not harm herself quite as easily that way, on the downside it was extremely difficult for her to knock herself out. Her body stiffened as the sound of the door opening echoed in her mind, the shuddering suddenly stopping as her body stiffened in response, she was gone. TR-781 lay silent on the ground, moving slowly and waiting until the door closed before rising up, spinning on the balls of her feet and launching herself across the room on all fours and throwing herself at the figure's waist.

Ronin was surprised at the girl’s speed. Pleasantly so even. It meant that she hadn’t been starved to death… yet. Feeling the impact into his waist, Jason immediately wrapped his left arm around her neck and locking his right arm under her torso, clasping his hands together beneath. Managing to temporarily secure the subject in the lock, Jason still felt himself being pushed back into the metal door he had just emerged from. The Cyborg attempted to drive forward and return the two to the centre of the sparring room to try and give them both the room to manoeuvre without hurting themselves by not being on the padding.

TR-781 bellowed in response, screaming to herself as she let him carry her weight and pulled her legs up to kick at the wall, her entire plan revolved around throwing her opponent off-balance, though it did not seem to be going in her favor at this point. Her eyes flicked from side to side, desperately searching for an escape, or somewhere to sink her teeth. Unfortunately for her, she found no purchase. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was vaguely aware of the metal man who faced her, but it seemed an unimportant fact to the screeching beast.

The kick off caught Jason off-guard and found himself tumbling to the ground from the momentum. In some quick thinking, Jason threw TR-781 off to the side as he rolled across the floor. Getting back to his feet, Ronin quickly entered a fighting stance. He kept his weight forward on his left leg, spring loading a kick with his right if the Vampire girl would charge at him again. At the same time, he kept his fists up and his elbows in tight in case an attack came from above.

TR-781 grunted as she was tossed aside. She grumbled to herself as she scrambled away from the figure and looked around the room. The door was closed and she was trapped with the man who was clearly trained, and somehow made of metal, metal tasted horrible and hurt when she bit it. Her eyes slid over him quickly before stopping at his face, noting with silent glee at the unarmored face. Her lips drew into a smile, displaying the elongated fangs that seemed to dominate her mouth in comparison to her other teeth.

---

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---

People always seemed surprised when Kieran said he liked the cafeteria. The assumption was that it must be overwhelming, all those voices and smells and feelings – all that noise – but ultimately, that was the thing that made it so tolerable. ‘Quiet time’ was never really quiet. It was being alone, but for Kieran, empty rooms were never really empty – they were just filled with memories and echoes instead of people.

And with Daedalus, they were never good echoes.

In the cafeteria however, everything kind of… blurred. The feelings and thoughts faded to a bearable background level, hunger pangs to not-quite fulfilment as the meal wore on. Occasionally, however, something pierced through.



Clear as day, as if it were speech, not thought. A year or so ago, Kieran wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference – now though, he’d had enough practice –

“Is she thinking or speaking 8712?”

“Stop hurting her!”

“It’s a simple question!”

“I don’t know!”

-that he could distinguish between the two pretty easily. He looked up, trying to locate the owner of the jagged thought without being too obvious. The guards were pretty good by now at realising when he’d heard something… interesting, and he didn’t want to get himself or the speaker in trouble. Or at least, more trouble, because that thought had been loud, and no way was its original proprietor going to keep sitting on it.

Luckily, he didn’t have to look for very long. A woman. Blonde hair and – he concentrated, brow furrowed as he peeled back the layers of emotional static - practically rippling with rage. Oh dear. He knew that look, or more accurately, that feeling. Shit was about to go down, hard.

Fleshy, cord-like structures erupted out of the woman’s arms – surprise, not from her, from the guard nearest as his head smacked the tiled floor with a sharp crack. Pain and disorientation - Kieran winced.

Panic erupted. Kieran scrabbled backwards, slipped of his chair and hid, driven by the primal rush of the scattered crowds. He could feel himself start to sweat, thoughts start to race, fear begin to grip every molecule, except no. That wasn’t his. He had to remember that it wasn’t his.

Eyes screwed shut, fingers tightly squeezed his nostrils shut to block the stench of fear. Breathing, in for one – two- three – four, out for one – two – three – four, again. It didn’t do much. Never did much, but it was enough to bring him back from the edge. Going over was never a good idea, not unless he was in the mood for seat-belt like restraints and enough drugs that he couldn’t tell what he was feeling, never mind anybody else.

An overwhelming fuzziness.

He peeled open his eyelids, barely daring to look, just in case it wasn’t over – but it was okay. The woman was on the floor, limbs twitching and eyes rolled back. He allowed himself to breathe as normalcy resumed in the special way that the almost comical desensitisation and Daedalus-brand conditioning ensured it always did.

Kieran picked himself up of the floor, brushed a squished pea that he’d knelt on off his pants, and sat – not daring to look at the woman – 631D, apparently, any more than he already had. There was something about her…No. Not about her specifically, about Daedalus. He wasn’t sure what, but something was brewing, and he wanted to be on the right side of these walls when it finally bubbled over.

Something told him that 631D was the key to that.

Another voice, distinct in its apathy – he turned. Sam. She’d gone back to eating almost immediately, barely flustered. But he’d heard her – that the woman’s escape had been doomed to fail. She mustn’t have realised, mustn’t have – wait, was that familiarity?

He looked at his food – only half done, and Deadalus portions were controlled anyway, just a little less than they really needed, enough to keep energy levels low. Throwing away food wasn’t something to be done lightly, but this couldn’t wait. He stood, plate in hand, and walked towards the hatch, carefully timing it so that he passed Sam when the guards were looking the other way.

Quietly, just as he was walking past her, he muttered under his breath, “This is more than the others. If you want to get out, help me find her,” before continuing on to the hatch where dirty dishes were deposited.

---

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@Naive1 @GingerBoi123

Dr. Lanel gave a low whistle, fingers tip-tapping away at his note-taking tablet. What he was seeing wasn't nothing - it wasn't exactly something, but the combat applications of Project Ichor might not be worth throwing away entirely. It was obviously no substitute for Project Ajax, but then, what was? The subject's speed and ferocity were, at the very least, something - it was hard to get that kind of aggression out of a super-soldier without a good deal more mental conditioning, under ordinary circumstances. Of course, he hadn't seen enough to save the project from being flushed just yet - that would depend on what happened next. He tabbed over to the RONIN's control panel and began to type, his words appearing in text across the cyborg's vision. To your right, a panel in the wall has just opened up. It contains a UV flashlight of significant intensity. Attempt to use it to subdue the subject.

---

@Serendipity

The door opened, and a familiar face greeted her behind it. Pudgy and greying, Dr. Chauncey looked like he belonged in a college classroom, waxing poetic about astrophysics, not in a top-secret lab doing superscience that could affect, as he called it, 'The stuff of reality'. And yet, here he was.

"Iris, my dear! Come in, come in, it's no trouble at all. I've had extra time to get us all set up for the day's experiments. Exciting things are afoot, my dear! With a bit more data, we'll be ready for the Deep Dive." The Deep Dive was what he called the planned excursion into darkspace - 'the whirlpool', as he called it, for the shape of the portal Iris had had a hand in creating. They had made a few forays into darkspace before; that was where the crystals that had saved Iris's life and granted her her abilities had come from, of course - but Chauncey was confident that, with the aid of Iris's unique talents, a portal could be stabilized long enough for a prolonged exploratory mission; one that would, hopefully, help them understand what had happened to her.

He continued talking as the two walked into the lab, droning on about the miraculous achievements they were certain to accomplish together. He took his standard place in front of the monitoring equipment, gesturing for Iris to take hers. "Come along, come along, we have so much to do."

---

@TheGrundlesnart

A few minutes after mealtime, the door slid open, and three figures stepped into the room. The first two were armed guards, with facemasks on and rifles at the ready - a useless gesture, really. If something happened to make them necessary, they wouldn't have been enough. The third was altogether more interesting - an older woman in a smart suit, her grey hair tied up in a bun, a tablet in her hands. "PBV-2424, I have some questions to ask," she said, and that was strange, since she wasn't one of the doctors who usually came to ask him questions - she didn't look like a doctor at all. She motioned for him to sit down, and then continued without a care if he did, "Have you been in contact with anyone, Daedalus personnel or otherwise, in the past three days?"

---

The Vault door slammed shut, and there came a hiss of steam as it sealed. The inside was all steel and hot, damp metal, poorly lit like an old factory. Three guards wrestled Emmeline forward, kicking and screaming all the way, into the heavy iron apparatus that dominated the room, and forced her to her knees as the device clamped around her neck, wrists and ankles.

"Fuckers!" she screamed. "I'm not afraid of this anymore! I'm not afraid of anything!"

"I believe you," said a low, dispassionate voice, as the Warden stepped into her field of view. He was a young man, with a close brown crew-cut, pale skin, and dead hazel eyes. "Dear, dear, when will you learn to stay out of trouble?"

"Fuck you," Emmeline replied, holding his gaze with a trembling lip.

"Articulate," he sighed, dismissing the guards with a wave and stepping over to a small medical gurney a few feet away. He produced a syringe, tapping it with a finger. "I assume you know what this is?"

"A coagulant agent, so you don't bleed out," She replied, adopting an exaggerated german accent. "You creepy Nazi fuck."

"That's a new one," he mused in his thorougly regionless American accent. "But yes, I see you're familiar with the process. So familiar, in fact, that I put in a request for more advanced mental conditioning procedures, tried and tested in the Proteus Project. Won't you be a good little dog then? But, unfortunately, the paperwork is not in yet. So, until next time you end up here, we will have to make do with the old ways of behavioral modification. And who knows, maybe if that doesn't work, we'll get some of the little girls upstairs and give them the same, until you learn to behave?"

"Fuck. You."

The Warden chuckled, produced a simple drill-like tool from the gurney, and revved it up.

The dark-haired girl relaxed when she saw him, illuminating with a gentle glow wholly absent before. In a corporate institute that often felt very strange to her, Doctor Michele Chauncey was her one constant support. While frequently absent-minded, he seemed to be fascinated with the odd crystals that had enabled her to survive the accident that had ended her family's lives and the powers they seemed to have granted her. Still he was mindful of her needs and rarely refused her more reasonable requests without an explanation. Iris - Elaine - knew that he saw her, and for that reason rarely drew him up short when he grew so rapt in his work that he called her by her project name. In truth, she rarely thought of herself as Elaine these days. It was easier to be Iris, here.

Riding into the test chamber on a wave of Dr Chauncey's impassioned rambling, Iris smiled and nodded at the appropriate moments and sat on her usual seat. There she ran her fingers through her hair, parting it at the centre and exposing the ebon crystal where it protruded from the crown of her head. Given the choice she always swept up her air to conceal it from view and the Doctor had helped her with a thin electrum cap that helped to keep her powers from surging uncontrollably outside of a safe environment. At his nod, she removed it and set it aside and felt at once the dark energies seeping into the crystal network running through her body.

"Alright my dear, we're going to start our experiments today with what we looked at on Friday," he began. Chauncey was always very careful to explain to her well in advance what he planned to do, linking it carefully to what they had done before so that she could make the appropriate connections. She noticed with a small mental sigh that he had the cameras set up to record again. That meant this was a demonstration for Doctor Chauncey's bosses. She had to be on her best behaviour today to help him justify continuing to help her, he had explained, which meant that this would likely be a full session of testing and that she wouldn't have a chance to ask about the strange tablet in her breakfast. Maybe she could convince him to stay and talk once the testing was done? Wait, what was that? Oh yes, he was finally getting to this session's new business so the girl listened intently

"So today we will begin with this apple," he pointed. "Open a portal, as thin as you can, reach through and take it in your hand. Hold it there while I perform some measurements, but be sure to tell me if it begins to hurt. Do you understand, Iris?"

"Yes Doctor," she nodded and her grey eyes unfocused. Doctor Chauncey had a theory about darkspace, that it grew progressively more dangerous the deeper through it the portal's pathway went. To that end he had been trying to help her visualise a pathway limited to the theoretically safer higher frequencies and it was this that she did now; clutching at the dark energies as they flowed from her chakra to the faceted chips embedded in her fingertips. Then she reached into the stitches that underpinned the lab - sending his instruments screaming - and tore open a gossamer-edged ring of nothing as well as its twin above the good Doctor's fruit bowl.

Stretching out an arm, she reached through the black before her and watched as her hand reappeared ten feet away to grab the firm green apple between the pears without hesitation. She patiently watched as the Doctor measured the lengths of her arm, poked some kind of syringe into the void and waved a glowing scanning device all around her and the fruit. It didn't feel like much of her was exposed to darkspace. That thin band of skin was bitterly cold, but it was going numb. Not sore. That was okay, right?

The Dog sat down when asked, as it was in his programming to be quietly obedient lest he experience punishment.

He listened to her question and cocked his head to the side. A single finger raised and pointed to the loudspeaker. Then he took his tablet and wrote down, [From the speaker. Every morning. They give me instructions.]

He erased what he had when she seemed to have read it all, and wrote again. [And you, right now. Sometimes the guards say things, but not to me.] He erased and directed his next written statement to a guard.

[Did Rico ever ask that lab tech out?]