Maris Fero
Riff-raff, Street Rat.
Hidden Location,
Unknown Regions.
“Wakey wakey, Doctor.”
All was dark, and from that dark uncertainty, thoughts formed in a mind clouded and drowsy.
Where am I?
How did I get here?
Where is here?
The last thing Doctor Franz Yenneba could recall clearly was leaving his high city surgery to go to a long lunch, before the full slate of expensive appointments in the afternoon. He had made a reservation at The Zabor, If he had missed that reservation there would be hell to pay; Zabor wasn’t the type of establishment you could stand up a table and expect them to forgive, not if you weren’t at least a Governor or some visiting royalty.
“Where am I?” he asked, his voice a croak, throat dry, feeling parched. With lingering disorientation, he continued with a cough to clear his throat. “..How long was I out?”
There was silence in reply, and Franz struggled to open his eyes or move. He felt stiff and uncomfortable, the surface he was lying on - he was lying on his back - was cold and metallic, not some soft plush private hospital bed.
Spinal injury? Maybe a speeder collision…
The silence was somehow more unsettling than the blindness, he felt the soft weight of some sort of mask against his eyes, perhaps to limit any damage he had sustained.
“I-I said - “
“Eight days.”
The voice was light and youthful. A woman, he thought, or maybe a girl.
Nurse maybe, a medical student perhaps?
She was nearby, maybe at the side of the bed, if it was a bed.
“How di- uh… What happened to me?” The doctor asked with a grim pause, gathering himself for the worst. And somehow, the truth was even more chilling and surprising than he had prepared himself for.
“I injected you with the neurotoxic venom of a particular serpent from a world you will never know. You lost consciousness shortly after that. Left untreated you would have suffered respiratory failure and died, but I needed you alive.”
Denial... This wasn’t happening, the voice was a teenager or a young woman, but the words and the confidence behind the deeds she described scared the doctor almost as much as the deeds themselves.
“Why!?” he croaked breathlessly, trying to struggle but feeling no response from leaden limbs. The sound of his thundering heart filled his whole world for that moment.
“Because. I needed a Doctor and your fancy rich patients thought you were the man to know…”
Franz still had no sight but the tone of that voice suggested that she was smiling.
“But- Please, I- I’m not a general physician- I- agghk” he argued before being suddenly cut off by a pressure applied directly to his throat, despite not feeling anything touching his neck. The sensation of the air about him seemed suddenly dense and charged. He vaguely felt the prickling of the small hairs standing on end.
“Please… pleaassse.. “ the mocking youthful stranger echoed in a voice that was suddenly so like his own he was shocked to hear it. “Still your tongue, I know just who and what you are.”
He felt the drowsiness wash over him again; A numb sensation in his lips and tongue, he had been drugged again and his senses began to fade.
“Now, you work for me. Sleep well, you have a lot of work ahead of you.”
It had taken another two periods of prolonged sleep before Doctor Yenneba had regained the use of the majority of his motor function, during which time he had become eerily aware of the silent automata left in charge of his medical care. A series of clumsy fumbling contacts with the droids had added weight to the growing suspicion that his primary carer was an unspeaking variation on the 2-1B medical droid, a rarer model now, but still in production in some distant backwaters.
On regaining his vision, when the droid finally permitted the removal of the mask protecting his eyesight, his theory was confirmed. His world was ten by ten cube, the back wall, ceiling and floor of which appeared to be solid bulkhead and internal surfaces, the ceiling containing flat panel lighting that kept the space illuminated in until the arbitrary moment a night cycle seemed to begin, only a pair of ventilation ducts seemed to break up the blank metalwork, each only the with of his head or so.
Two of the remaining faces of the cube were transparisteel, to the front face and left side. The right surface was an opaque black transparisteel with some sort of entrance into a hidden space beyond.
Through the open front and side of his cubicle, Yenneba saw a darkened ship's hold, unremarkable beyond the darkness and silence. No living soul seemed to stand watch.
The room was kept cool, the environment fresh and there was a dryness to the air that suggested it was being recycled, which made sense if this was a spaceship or a station. For furnishings he had a cot, whatever metal surface he had been on before was not present in the room, there was an area to relieve and wash on the back wall, and upon a clear polymer desk and chair there stood a stack of datapads for ‘entertainment’, all of which seemed to be filled with documentation on genetic theory and practises.
Another clear polymer construction, a cupboard with two doors opening from the centre, was stacked with food rations and nutrient pastes, along with some items for personal grooming and a trio of grey jumpsuits like the one he had been dressed in now. And then there was the medical droid, finished in matt black ceramic and stood at constant unceasing attention in the corner of the room, waiting to tend to the Doctor should he feel the need to make a mess.
It was only following his third sleep that Franz awoke to the unsettling sensation that he was being watched, turning over to see the humanoid silhouette watching from beyond the glass, silent, behind a blank faceless mask of brushed steel.
The figure stood around six feet in height, feminine built and athletic with it, similarly designed armour covered much of her form. They were very still, almost as still as the automaton, and for the moment they watched the doctor will dispassionate interest.
Franz rolled out of the cot and to his feet, stepping toward the transparisteel wall between himself and the figure, blinking rapidly, running a hand through his tousled hair, and awkwardly straightening his jumpsuit.
“H-Hello, Who are you? What am I doing here?”
The anonymous observer cocked their head to the side, in the manner a raptor or other predatory avian might regard a morsel. The figure did not reply, instead, inclining their head to the left, a gesture aimed to draw Franz's attention past the doctor's right shoulder. Instinctually, Franz followed the look and to his bewilderment, it was only now that he realised that the doorway was open, and with a growing combination of apprehension and excitement he stepped through into the bright lights of…
Another cubicle. This cubicle was much like his own but featured a series of lab equipment much like his own practice. In fact, after a more prolonged inspection, it was revealed to be exactly his own equipment, transplanted from his own lab to this space, the new rightmost wall of this lab space featured looked into a third cubicle, this one set with an examination table, several other testing devices and a duo of medical droids. An intercom unit between his cubicle and the next suggested that he could speak to those droids. Upon the examination table lay the prone body of a pale, raven-haired youth, who seemed to be sleeping. The young woman seemed uninjured and was apparently dressed in the same overalls as he had been supplied.
Another Captive?
Suddenly, a voice sounded from the intercom, The same one from before, and the figure had moved to stand outside the second cubicle, a transmitter of some sort in her hand.
“This is where you will work from now on, if you need more equipment it will be provided. The droids will follow your instruction so long as it does not attempt to subvert my will in this place.”
"The first subject is prepared. You are to investigate the subjects and offer insight into their condition. Advise me well and you will be treated adequately, advise me poorly and you will suffer in ways you cannot imagine."
Franz swallowed as he looked back over to let his gaze linger on the sleeping girl in the next cubicle and then to the droids before looking then back to the still figure in the cot beyond the barrier. The woman in the examination cot was deathly pale, with dark shadows about her eyes; She had a light frame, he couldn't image her weighing more than a hundred and ten pounds. Probably malnourished and almost certainly from somewhere, she didn’t get to see much sunlight.
“What’s wrong with her?” he asks hoarsely, biting his lower lip as he tries to get any grip on the situation he’s been landed in. The whole thing still felt like a twisted nightmare, He could really use a stiff drink right about now.
“I said what's wro-” he began to ask again before tailing off as he looked back toward where the figure standing out beyond his prison had been, but she was now nowhere to be seen.
“That’s what you are here to tell me.”
[Solo scene - preparing for Maris switch to The Maw]