Chapter 9
Restricted Maritime Zone BZE:4200.04
Cycle 6002.644.10.5W
Mean had been worriedly watching over things for the last three days at the new medical bay. Besides data processing and generating a treatment process, not much had happened. This was mainly because Nyoma was still sleeping. But that was not the bit that worried him.
Despite Gil’s initially unique seeming view for an academic, he now strongly suspected she hadn’t really understood what link to her works claims about healing meant. It seemed she hadn’t quite linked it to the point that things would only work if the person’s identity or heart was engaged.
He politely tried to prompt Gil about what beliefs and exchange she thought the temple ritual of this island was supposed to achieve. She chatted with him, interested almost more in him, rather than examining the process she was working on together. He completely lost her when he asked what changes she was expecting to begin to guide Nyoma through, using the consultation before her treatment.
Out of ideas he returned to his usual balance of training, patrolling and grunt work, as the priority balance shifted with each new couple of major tasks that were added. Just to be on the safe side though, he dug out an old tool at one stop past his locker. He grabbed a strange looking object of bronze with an unusual blade. He quickly and discretely tucked it into one of the closable slots of his blaster pouch.
This particular morning he was looking forward to going fishing, but he was instead summoned back to the medical bay. Nyoma was awake. When he arrived Gil smiled happy to see him, she showed him the latest initial stabilisation image that she projected to be possible. He smiled and took interest where he could. He didn’t understand how this part of the process happened, in any of the systems he had seen.
He checked one more time if she had reconsidered doing a consultation with Nyoma. Gil was a little confused about Mean bringing this up again, but reassured him that everything would be fine. With nothing else he could help with, he moved to the side, waiting to disappear into the background as people thought of him as security again.
A little later Dueliet wandered past and asked how he was today. They made polite small talk. Seeming satisfied with the conversation she wrapped it up and said that Nyoma was on her way here. They would be interested in any thoughts he had as things progressed so he should feel free to speak up if he had more ideas or concerns.
He felt like Dueliet was relating to him more like a concerned councilor, than a superior for the time being. They had dismissed his consultation worry already, but he couldn’t really go into depth about why he thought that was needed, without bringing up things that would make progression difficult. He guessed he could only trust in Gil’s optimism and hope this technology could do more than he thought possible. He smiled and politely finished up the conversation with Dueliet.
He was left to settle against the side of the bay as she joined the others pouring over various projects in there new hi-tech classroom. There was one other civilian working with Gil and two at a separate station with Dueliet.
Nyoma wandered in still not quite awake. Stretching once she got through the door, then she happily yawned. In the mean time Gil had waved her over to the station she was at, she at least talked her and Dueliet through the physical changes expected from the procedure today. She left the explanation as the bigger, potentially more painful version of what had happened with treating her hand.
After the first success from this temple, Nyoma easily was reassured by Gils words. She expressed her enthusiasm for getting on with the next phase and happily jumped back into the chair. Once again Gil set up the initial field around the chair. It kept workspace hygienic but more importantly stabilised genetic information of each creature inside the field. This time since she was comfortable, the blue light scanned her there.
Gil exclaimed that she was already looking so much better as the first scan processed. The food and sleep had made a huge difference.
Dueliet jokingly said that they could just skip the procedure and feed her for a few more days then. Both looked worried until the realised they had missed the intonation, that had marked her words as a joke.
Mean watched, unsure if he should at least ask about how her initial temple ritual had happened. But they were all confident and cheerful. They were all excited. Gil already had a different field generator in place, the mid size one should be enough to do a basic tidy up. Hopefully Nyoma was clear enough on why she was doing this, because no-one else was double checking.
The secondary field powered up. It was obviously set very low. Some of the other disfigured bumps of lizard flesh melted back a little. It looked okay. Gil commented that that was mainly as expected. She was just a bit surprised that internal feedback was already happening.
Nyoma groggily said she was still fine, so they let her acclimatize to this level of change as much as possible. With Nyoma looking as comfortable as she was going to be, Gil clicked the field up another notch. This time there was instant arching of the back and tensing. Gil looked a little worried.
She asked Dueliet for reassurance to keep going. Dueliet looked surprised as she understood very little of what was going on. Still talking to herself, Gil said maybe she should turn it off.
Unable to sit back any longer Mean asked what she was thinking, that was definitely a bad idea. He asked her what she thought the best case scenario would be if the field was turned off. Gil sheepishly said that in the best case scenario she would be weaker, with her flesh initially as a more blobby mess.
With that cleared up Mean said that that definitely ruled out turning the field off. First off, the straps on the chair were there for a reason, she should use them to secure Nyoma. Then turning it down a fraction should let her talk to Nyoma about the change of her soul. Gil was confused and said nothing. Gil did the straps up and then did nothing. But getting more flustered she eventually dialed the field back a fraction and ask Nyoma if she was okay. Nyoma moaned a little.
Seeing he was going to have to help he walked up to the edge of the field. He yelled at her asking if she was just a useless lizard that had given up already. Or if she still wanted to get well and help her tribe.
She seemed to pull herself together a little and got out the words that she was fine, so he could stop his yelling.
Mean checked with Gil if she was acclimatizing.
Gil looked paniced at that very idea. She looked at her console, then Mean, then her console. Finally she looked back to Mean and sheepishly asked if she should be.
He was getting frustrated and told her of course she had to acclimatize before the last phase. He took that as a definite no and talked to Nyoma again. He told the lizard to listen up, if she wanted to change, she had to let go of some of the strength the ritual had provided and be softer again so that they could work with her to make things better for the village.
Nyoma sort of responded.
Mean looked at Gil, but she shook her head.
He yelled again. He asked the ugly lump of lizard muscle, why it didn’t want to trim down to a healthy form so that she could help her tribe. Still not getting a decent reply he yelled again. He asked the lizard if it even wanted to be healthy and work closely with people.
This time there was a worrying quiet for a bit. But then with emotion in her voice, Nyoma said she wanted to be well and be with others.
This time he looked at Gil and she smiled nodding. She kept looking at him. Still nothing happened and she was still watching. He got annoyed and asked if she was going to click it up the next notch, because if she didn’t do it soon she would probably die before they finished.
Gil again flustered dialed up the generator. Instantly Nyoma spasmed against the straps. Gil looked panicked. He told he to calm down and just determine what was needed to finish the extraction. She looked baffled. He though for a bit and walked into the field, it was not a fun tingly sort of feeling.
He was out of sync with the field so his time was limited now too. He checked Gils console, the anchor for her modification ritual had been placed at the back of her neck. He told Gin to crank it up more. She looked confused and now Nyoma looked different too there was almost a green mist or slime oozing out of her making a larger strange distorted form.
Gil had clicked it up a little but there still wasn’t enough change at the anchor. It had expanded a little, but he couldn’t tell where Nyoma started beyond it. So he got Gil to crank it up two more fractions till it was clear. Psyching himself up he grabbed his tool out of the blaster pouch and carved into the green form surrounding Nyoma. There was a monstrous cry that felt like it echoed out of another dimension at the same time as coming from the form surrounding Nyoma.
It was handy to be able to trim, with the console to show his progress. The monstrous cries continuing as he trimmed the anchor to a consistent thickness from Nyomas essence. Done he waited, the monstrous cries continuing. Dueliet ran in presumably to shut things down. He yelled at her to wait, now with one hand on Nyoma’s shoulder and one hand keeping Dueliet at a distance.
Dueliet felt his confidnence and calmness. So she froze despite having run into the field and now being by the source of the disurbing yell. The with one monstrous cry, the slime around Nyoma almost evaporated. There was a weird ash that fell to the ground as well though.
One step at a time he order things. He sent Dueliet out, then he left the field. He checked that Gil was comfortable with powering down the fields. She was.
He needed to get out of there, it had stirred up some unpleasant memories. He left the craft and went for a swim the cold ocean water refreshing him. He felt confident and free swimming.
Having done a particularly calming circuit underwater in the little clear lagoon, he surfaced. Nat was off to one side.
She addressed him as dude and asked if his mum had been a mermaid or something.
Mean shook his head sadly.
Nat said that it sounded like the team in the medical bay were impressed with him. While he had probably earned his swim, they would like him back in there. She biffed a towel at him as he reluctantly walked out of the water.
He wandered back to the craft and to his quarters. He had an oversided wardobe to call his room. Having quickly dried and put on a fresh set of clothes, he wandered back to the medical bay. Once there Dueliet greeted him and thanked him for his efforts. She asked how he was.
He said he was much better after the swim. She nodded and said that she hoped that he didn’t mind, Gil had a few questions. She waved him over to a little office off to one side of the medical bay.
Gil didn’t hold back and asked how he knew to do that as soon as the door was closed.
He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose and forehead. Having accomplished the task of self reassurance he opened his eyes again. This is what he had been avoiding discussing. He wasn’t sure if it would have been better if the craft had been staffed with a regular doctor who could have dealt with this sooner or if this was the best time to deal with it. Whatever the case, now it would be a potential security concern till he explained.
To simplify he explained that he had been an operative that had focused on cults that incorporated body modification into their practices. His determination given by a goal for helping others meant that he had survived and there had been good results as far as the cult was concerned.
He had been able to gather data and bust a major cult. In the follow up he had also assisted a limited medical team in their work to tidy up some of the damage for the victims. That was why he was familiar with this process. Although the process had been a modern animal life-force extraction variant, the reverse energy extraction and cleanse was similar. At other places the cleaning tool had usually been a seperate field generator instead of the bronze tool ha had used.
Once sorted some he had helped re-home some of them. Victims with posh families could often find themselves facing anger as they went back to there families. So having a social worker that looked like a thug tended to smooth initial interactions. Those that had been kidnapped off the street also seemed to find having a calm giant on there side, very helpful during the process of putting their lives back together.
Eventually once he had recovered as much as one could, he was adrift in the world, floating between jobs and places. An old associate had come to him and said that there was a company doing similar experiments that they weren’t even allowed to make a file on. He was sorry to ask but wondered if Mean could work on the problem.
After a month or so Mean had agreed hoping it would bring some sort of closure that even the re-homing of people had not. He signed up at a boxing hall that functioned as one of their recruiting spots. And a car took him away.
It had all been a lie though. He had tricked into becoming a new test subject for a companies dark research wing. They just strapped him into a treatment bed and tested how much further than others his boundaries were.
They would drain multiple animals into him at one time and then watch him writhe and suffer. In his clear moments he knew he had to have a goal that could work with the spiritual overload he was given. He had to have some form that could shape a monster so that he wasn’t destroyed by the pressure.
Some days all he could manage to focus on was revenge, he felt the only option was to become a monster strong enough to break out and destroy anything that got in the way of this. They helped him accidentally with the weaponizing side of their research.
There was an arena where he would occasionally be released to fight off the madness and come to the terms with the new more weaponized version of his form. Initially it was just to survive beatings against that came with facing the other creations.
But eventually his determination grew, he was going to survive this, close the place down and find a way back to being human. It was a strength that let him become their most dangerous specimin. In the arena he would quickly make work of their other specimins, giving them a quick end, that some days he wished he could share.
But he continued. He got the reputation as a demon that would devour whatever they sacrificed to him. One that would devour anything they threw at him. He had started eating the anchor points of the combatants he was thrown against.
Eventually they fed him less and less. They stopped sending him to the arena. Presuming he was dying they monitored his shriveling as another exciting experiment. But this was merely a much needed chance to fast. It was a chance to have the gluttony that had been forced on him processed.
Till the end they thought they were watching him die. Till the end they though that the bulky animal was the powerful and dangerous monster. There carelessness cost them the facility.
From what he remembered he had become lithe enough that he could slip out of the wrist shackles. The next time they came through the door of the now lower security area, he watched the terror of the researcher as he slipped out of the wrist straps and freed himself in the next instant.
At the time he thought it was merciful and that was the first of many researchers that met a quick death. He assumed that there had been some sort of clever containment plan but it didn’t work. He had destroyed half of the facility in mere moments, the panic of staff opening doors that should never have been opened.
Their schedules of tranquilizing and managing creatures in sedate states, suddenly was revealed as a ultimately fragile construct. But then there was no stopping, there was no treading water, he had to keep moving till he could find a way back to being human. He had to work with the beast. So he gathered what he could about the companies that the facility had been part of and hunted them down.
Quickly and mercifully he dealt with the companies and the enemies became fuel for the beasts furnace like metabolism. In the end he though that he he done all he could do and would have to end it. But he was found.
The same guy that had refereded him eventually learned that he had been used. He eventually hunted down the facility but hadn’t done anything else, too afraid to deal with the powers involved. So Mean had been left to deal with his fate by himself.
When the facility was desroyed the one that refered him was free to act. He got permission to head up a rescue squad since it was clear that Mean could still reason given the tidy targeted nature of his destruction.
This squad caught him right at the dock. He thought he thought he might just swim into the ocean and hopefully disappear into the darkness out there. But he suddenly had a vary nervous squad around him. One that should be able to deal with anything, make soldiers and even elites seem amateurs. But they were there and very cautious.
He could recognise the one that referred him as he approached trying to seem calm. But Means reflexes were still in charge and he only just manage to restrain the hand to keep the force no lethal as it shattered the mans nose. It was probably the most human thing he done in ages. But unfortunately this wasn’t the best time to be laughing about anything, if he had still been able to laugh.
The guy that had referred held his hand up to a now even more on edge team surrounding them. He made it clear that they could only take him in if he came peacefully. It was almost surreal to be cuffed with such feeble cuffs and lead int the back of an assault van they got him to one of the recovery centres he was more used to.
Despite being forewarned it did not stop people panicking as he arrived. For them it must have seemed like something straight out of a horror story had shown up. Thankfully he finally had hope and the purpose that had been keeping his soul together to make it back to being a human, kicked in with strength like never before.
He was quickly given a monitor and sedatives, lots of sedatives. They thought they were going to have to act very quickly even if for the amount of sedatives that would be gone through to keep the staff around him comfortable about rehabilitation.
He was quickly scanned and could still remember the head of the medical team spitting out her coffee as the fist scan of his condition came in. She looked back to those with him and double checked that they though it was possible to turn this back into a human.
From there his memories were more vague. Apparently they spent a lot of time trying to get him in a coma in-between when they were draining the energy from him. If they hadn’t had a scan of when he came back from the cult mission it wouldn’t have been possible.
Both of the females were quiet for a long time. Eventually Dueliet asked if he would like to see Nyoma. He nodded, he had left before the first hints of the procedures success would have been obvious.
Dueliet lead him to one of the recovery rooms. Nyoma was there with a light blanket over her. She definietly looked young and healthy. In fact with a more elegant reptile form she was now quite beatiful. Gil lifted the blanket of the sleeping girl and talked over some of the details.
He said Gil should probably put the blanket down now. Gil looked startled realising that she was still treating the girl like research. Nyoma was definitely going to need some clothes now. He was released once they though he was okay. Even he was surprised by how well the imaging console had allowed the process to go for her treatment.
Wehl 2024
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