Private In Vivo Veritas

[Arris Windrun]

NAR SHADDAA
THE DARK LANDS
Tags: Neriah Calven

A few weeks after To A Flame...

Arris summoned Neriah back to the Smuggler's Moon, down into the Dark Lands. There, like a setting star, the restored power plant glowed. It was a beacon now, something that few down there could ignore. When Neriah got closer, she'd see they were no longer alone. A handful of thugs guarded the entrance as a small crowd gathered around.

The acolyte was the only one allowed inside. The guards spared her the glares and hostility they showed the rest. If anything, there was almost a cold reverence, like to them she had power they answered to.

Inside, Arris could be found at the top - the control room converted into a small base of operations.

"Neriah," the cyborg greeted with a glance over her shoulder. "Remember that Gamorrean?"

She had since repaired her vocal emulator.

 

[Neriah Calven]

Tag: Arris Windrun

"Of course I remember."

That was one thing Neriah prided herself on. Her memory. Of course, it also meant that she remembered every the good and the bad. And for the past few months, all she had been remembering was the bad. Not that it mattered either way. Not that she complained about it anymore. Neriah had learned that complaining was pointless. It only made her more vulnerable. More of a target.

"What's come of it?"

She had assumed there was something wrong with the Gammorean. No-one looked the way it had, naturally. Even when she had dissected it, it seemed off. Not that she was an expert on xenobiology. Most of what she knew was history. Not science. Biology, chemistry, physics? The complexities were lost on her.

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[Arris Windrun]

Tag: Neriah Calven

Arris waved the young woman along and walked down a hall, into the back of the facility, where a storage room was converted into a makeshift lab. She had hack scientists working around the clock, the kind of people who undoubtedly had the backgrounds, but lost their licenses and legitimate careers for one reason or another - ethical violations, substance abuse, fraud...

There were corpses on the table, a variety of sapient species, and all had the same growths as the Gamorrean they found. A few of them were in rather severe states of growth, as if whole trees sprouted from their rotting flesh.

"It spreads, apparently." She said. "The growths themselves are inorganic, too, so it's exotic if natural..."

One of the technicians perked up. "Bioweapon... has to be." He returned to his work and kept mumbling about it.

Arris shrugged, then looked back at Neriah.

"What do you think?"

Whether she was an expert or not, Arris apparently trusted the acolyte's perspective.

 

[Neriah Calven]

Tag: Arris Windrun

Her gaze flickered over towards the technician, glaring at him for a moment. Even if her face was still expressionless, there was a cold gaze in her eyes as she tilted her head to the side, folding one arm along her front as Neriah seemed to stand her ground against this techincian.

"If it was a bioweapon, what's the purpose of it? Death? Infection? Control? If it's for death, it's not fast. It's dragged out. If it's infection? How does it transmit? How infectious is it? Are there immune? And if it's for control? How are they being controlled? Have you seen if they respond to radiation? Radio-waves?"

...Whilst she still may not have been an expert on things, Neriah at least knew what an expert would more than likely be looking for. If they did respond to radiation and radio waves? Well...She had no response to that. Instead she walked over towards the corpse, pulling her glasses down for a moment to get a better look.

"Where are they being found? Are they all in this district?...What do they all have in common? It could be a bioweapon, and they're using this place as their testing grounds. Or it could be targeted. Some kind of serial...infector who thinks they won't get caught out here."

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