Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

[Doctor Zendu]

​

Location: Nondescript makeshift pharmaceutical lab adjacent to the Wrestle Mechanics Headquarters on Antecedent.​

Theme Music: Marilyn Manson, Sweet Dreams​

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Wearing the white coat and protective gloves of a medical technician, Doctor Robert Zendu cheerfully bustled around the makeshift laboratory that D.U.T.I. (The Department of Unorthodox Tactical Inventions,) which was mostly just a front for a Red Ravens drug ring, had generously provided in order to mine the doctor's talents on research and development. The product was a new drug that would target the user's subconscious, changing the nature of brain synapses in order to make the user more susceptible to the acceptance of a waking dream state. Or so Zendu hoped. Holo recording his process every step of the way, the doctor felt he had gotten closer to perfecting the right combination of compounds for the yet unnamed drug. At least his current experimentation on the pineal glands of Nightmare Demons, garnered from the Nar Shaddaa Black Market, indicated a possible breakthrough was imminent.

As the doctor began testing the prototype on a alien liver to assess organ toxicity, he waited for his counterpart, Jen, the half Ryn representative of D.U.T.I., who was scheduled to check up on their progress. It was also the day his test subject for the first clinical trial, a swoop biker named Jalek Sathora, would arrive. D.U.T.I. was paying Sathora handsomely for his time, especially since there was no telling what the drug would actually do to the man. The hardened criminal was obviously used to ingesting all manner of substances so this was probably just another Monday for Sathora. It would be a shame if their illicit clinical trial didn't go well, but the doctor was overly confident that there was no need to dwell on the possible negative results. If the drug had a positive success rate, he hoped it would prove useful in his own private practice in treating patients with PSTD, and allow him to publish new award-winning scientific journals on his auspicious treatments. As always, Doctor Zendu liked to practice a glass half-full attitude.

[member="Jen"] [member="Jalek Sathora"]

 

[Jalek Sathora]

Normally, Jalek wouldn't have thought to find himself around the area of any kind of medical lab, whether it was makeshift or not. Then again, he never thought that he'd end up joining any kind of organized group similar to the Red Ravens, but he'd done that weeks ago. Not to mention he'd wound up finding himself in a relationship with the president of the syndicate, one Cryax Bane. The unlikely occurrences had only served to make his life more interesting since, and this would just be another one of those. Of course, he'd elected not to make his trip here known to anyone, more so because he knew just how much the Chiss would worry if he was made aware of things. So, as far as he was concerned, the Morellian was on another slicing job for the Ravens.

Instead he was currently outside of some unnamed lab, cigarette at the corner of his mouth, smoke drifting into the afternoon sky. It was his way of relaxing before going about things, however typical such a thing might be for him. It wasn't unusual for him to be going about imbibing any manner of illegal substances, but getting paid for it, that was something new. Yet, after getting an idea of the figure, he couldn't complain. And something told him Cryax wouldn't, should he happen to catch wind of anything. Credits were always a useful tool.

Finally he stubbed out the cigarette, exhaling one final cloud of smoke and flicking a strand of red hair out of his eyes before stepping inside of the building, glancing around before he finally laid eyes on the man he'd come to meet, [member="Doctor Zendu"]. He'd never heard of the doctor, much less ever thought of meeting him, but he was here now, and there was no backing out. So he leaned up against the wall nearest to the other man, simply watching him at work for a moment, marginally curious as to what was at work here. Most just took him for another stereotypical street kid that didn't know any better, but behind his tattoos and shaggy red hair, there was a highly intelligent mind that he could put to work if he so chose. And this was one of those times, whether this doctor realized it or not.

"Doctor Zendu?" It wasn't a question so much as a way to initiate conversation, as he was already aware of who he was speaking to. But it was formality, and he supposed that as long as he wasn't around the other Renegades or at the casino on Antecedent, he'd have to go along with things. But as long as his doctor didn't treat him as just another punk kid, he could deal with it. Of course, things would be just as amusing if he did.

[member="Jen"]

 

[Jen]

It had only been a few weeks since Jennifer had met up with Doctor Zendu to make the business arrangements for the development of the still to be named drug. It had taken place on the planet of Belasco. Jennifer had sought out the busy Doctor in an attempt to pretend that D.U.T.I, The Department of Unorthodox Tactical Inventions, was a real thing and was in dire need of some expertise from the Doctor himself, not too far from the truth really. Jennifer wasn't a good actor though and had failed horribly, the Doctor staring right through the cover up. Luckily for her and the Ravens it didn't seem that the criminal aspect of it all had concerned him terribly much though, a fact that had made all of this a lot easier. And with the expertise of the Doctor and some very basic research on laboratory equipment, the Ravens had been able to set up a pretty decent laboratory, even though it could be considered makeshift it provided the researcher(s) with some good equipment, most of the equipment serving functions Jennifer couldn't even start to guess on, but after all the Ravens wanted good results just as much as the Doctor, if not more, so everything needed to be in as good as a condition it could be.

As already mentioned Jennifer wasn't a Doctor in any way and had very little knowledge if any on chemistry in this sense and had therefor easily given the responsibility to the Doctor when it came to developing the mind-numbing drug, while she would be taking care of other aspects of the project. Today however she was scheduled to show up to get a quick status on exactly how it was proceeding, but also witness the very first human testing of it.

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The flailing sound of plastic being pushed carelessly aside was heard as Jennifer stepped into the laboratory, making her way through the hung up barrier that was set up to both obscure exactly what was going on in the experimenting part of makeshift chemist heaven, but also doubling as a sort of sterilizing wall of some kind. It took some time before Jennifer looked up to recognize the presence of the two already arrived people, deeply focused on the thick laptop like datapad in her hand, definitely a custom one judging from its crude, functional and youthy design. The last part of the description of it seen in the sprayed on comic like skull and graffiti text spelling out: Sandro.

It seemed like Jennifer had given up on keeping the cover up of D.U.T.I to some extend. Back when the Doctor and Jen had first met she had attempted to dress up fancily trying to provoke some sort of ethos in the man. It hadn't worked however and the teenager had therefor decided to drop it all together. Today she was simply wearing her black mechanical trousers, tight by the lower leg and baggy by the waist, and a brown-ish tanktop, revealing her “new” tattoo. A tiny fragile looking chain that circled the very top of her left shoulder, every link in a different vibrant color. Another thing of notice, unusual to her normal appearance was the surgical mask she was wearing over her nose and mouth. It probably didn't have a lot to do with the fact she wanted to make sure she didn't contaminate the substances Zendu was working with, rather having something to do with where the laboratory had been set up. It being by the facility that provided Dragon Droids Pty and Wrestle Mechanics Inc. their manufacturing, production lines and offices. A fact that had made sure that the skies above the 20,300,000-square feet facility remained filled with heavy black clouds.

Finally gazing up from her laptop after having finished tapping on its keyboard she flashed the two an unseen smile from behind the surgical mask, her action stopped midways as she realized the mask was covering her mouth, quickly pushing it off so it could rest around her neck instead. "Good to see you're still working hard, Zendu." She grinned, her eyes wandering to the other person in the room, the guinea pig that Zendnu had asked for. Jennifer hadn't recognized the name of the subject at first glance, but now she remembered. It was that biker guy she had met during the speeder betting party and she had also probably seen him during Cryax's promotion ceremony. How funny. She stopped, pointing a finger at him with a slight teasing smile: "Jalek? Right? I didn’t realize you were an addict. Or is it the easy credits that inspire the noble deed?"


[SIZE=11pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt] [/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt][member="Jalek Sathora"] :: [member="Doctor Zendu"][/SIZE]​

 

[Doctor Zendu]

The doctor was a bit surprised when Jalek Sathora just wandered in and started walking around like he owned the place. But Zendu was in the middle of inserting a long syringe into a liver and stopping now would undo all the work he'd done over the last couple of hours, so he simply let the man watch. Once he withdrew the syringe, he carefully placed the liver in a nearby refrigerator, its door opening with a hiss. Then he turned back to the young man who was casually leaning against a wall. "Doctor Zendu, that's me alright. Mr. Sathora I presume?" He gave the biker a toothy grin. "Thank you so much for participating in this trial. Your contribution to the medical world will be invaluable, I'm sure."

When Jen from D.U.T.I. arrived, the doctor smiled at her surgical mask. She probably didn't need it but he'd never fault someone for having an abundance of caution around chemicals. "Ah Jen! It's very nice to see you." His eyes drifted to her clothing and tattooes, and briefly mused that she and Jalek might have some friends in common. He grinned enthusiastically at the girl. "The solubility of the FIM or First Human Dose, is very solid. I think that we're about ready to just go ahead and move into the clinical trial." With that he looked at Jalek with a tight smile and gestured to a nearby clinical recliner with metal cuffs on the armrests. "Mr. Sathora. If you would please have a seat, we can get started."

[member="Jalek Sathora"] [member="Jen"]

 

[Jalek Sathora]

The first thing that caught Jalek's eye once the woman now known to him as @[member="Jen"] was the datapad she held in her hands, obviously a custom job just from a quick look of things. As a slicer he was more than adept in identifying pieces of technology, and this one was all too familiar to him in his profession. There were many things he was capable of with that particular piece, most of them not exactly on the legal side of things. Shifting his attention from the datapad to her question he only smiled and shrugged. "Not an addict, necessarily. But I'd be lying if I said I'm not in it partly for the credits." If anything that was only a half-answer, but he wasn't entirely sure what the reason was himself. So his response sufficed, at least to him.

The formal attitude of @[member="Doctor Zendu"] still amused him to a degree, but he was never one for such a thing, really, if ever. A casual outlook on life was what he maintained above all else, and it was something that had served him well so far. Well, that was debatable. His first run-in with the Ravens hadn't been the most pleasant thing, until the trick he sprung. And even before that, it had earned him a few sticky situations with those who didn't share his point of view, or who tired of his constant snark. But something told him that this time it would be different, so he sat as he was bid, resting his wrists within the metal cuffs that were thus far disengaged as if they weren't there, having a pretty good guess as to what they were used for.

After another moment of studying the lab, not bothering to conceal the curiosity behind his look, finally looking to the man with a crooked grin. "No one calls me 'Mr.' anything, unless I'm in a cell or cuffs. Actually, not even then. So Jalek will do just fine, or whatever moniker you might prefer." He leaned back in the chair now, watching the two in front of him for a moment, finding that his thoughts were drifting back to Cryax again. So he decided to address them, with a slight smile on his lips all the same. "Oh, and should a certain Chiss come asking around, I was never here." He shifted in his seat. "You could say he's a bit protective." At that he couldn't help but grin again, already imagining what the man's reactions would be if he could see him at that moment. A few choice words would be exchanged, certainly.

But that was something to consider later, as he was more focused on the here and now considering where it was he sat at the moment. Concern wasn't quite the right word to use for what he was feeling, but more of a guarded curiosity about, well, everything. A part of him was surprised no other routine questions had been asked, but he supposed it didn't matter now, this far along. Now all there was left to do was get down to business.

 

[Jen]

After the two had noted her presence after her brief sentences she glanced back down towards the Sandro Laptop in her hand, smiling at the progress she had done. And perhaps also the holovid of a Jawa running around in circles fleeing from an old school R2 unit, the video playing silently in the corner of the screen, but that fact was of no important matter. Jennifer was now almost finished with the program for the injection tool on the cannula that would make sure the drug would be inserted into the right portion and part of the brain. Currently the program had archived over 125 measured anatomical correct reconstructions of various alien brains. Meaning she only needed to get some information on a Herglic brain and that number would raise to 126, making it capable of identifying and help insert the substance into the most drug abusive prone races throughout the galaxy.

Her gaze raced back up towards the two as she heard Zendu starting to talk, her head bobbing a bit up and down in response: "Sounds good! Let us get going then." She grinned, moving up to the opposite site of the constraining chair as Jalek began to answer her question. "Aha.. I see." Jennifer replied as if understanding exactly what Jalek had been thinking, though she supposed she hadn't as there was probably some sort of detail he had not let out. As Cryax was vaguely mentioned she raised a curious brow, at both occasions when she had seen Jalek, Cryax had always been there as well, but he was after all the president of the Ravens now.. So… Furthermore, Cryax had after all approved of this research, gladly giving the resources needed for it to run efficiently as it could potentially give a gigantic edge to the Ravens on the spice market. Slowly starting to type in a few things on her laptop Jennifer asked in an inquiring, yet nonchalant manner: "Oh? Are you two family? Oh and also, would you identify yourself as Human?" She said almost jokingly, the last part of her question probably being an actual part of the dose testing ahead of them.

[member="Jalek Sathora"] :: [member="Doctor Zendu"] [member="Doctor Zendu"]​

 

[Doctor Zendu]

With a flick of a switch, the durasteel cuffs engaged, clamping down on the wrists of Jalek Sathora, immobilizing him there. Doctor Zendu gestured to them as he tested their strength, making sure the thin slicer couldn't easily slide out of them. "Don't worry about the restraints Mr. Sath, uh, Jalek. They're more for your safety than anything. If you were to seize or have some other, um, distressful responses to the drug, the cuffs would help keep you in place." Hunched over the doctor clapped his hands together and smiled at his guinea pig. "There. Are you comfortable enough?"

Doctor Zendu crossed to his work table and mixed up the dose, depositing the blue liquid into a rather long syringe. As he prepped it, he looked over at Jen. "Why don't you explain a little bit more about what Jalek is about to feel once we administer the drug." Then he returned to his lab rat and wrapped a tourniquet around his forearm. With a toothy grin still plastering his face, he tapped the side of the syringe and simply said, "This won't hurt. Much." before he plunged it in.

[member="Jalek Sathora"] [member="Jen"]

 

[Jen]

Once Jalek was.. Locked in as comfortably as it could possibly get in a chair such as that one, Jennifer moved a little closer to him, her free hand starting to rummage through various pockets in her trousers as if she was looking for something. The tip of her tongue absentmindedly sticking out at the side of her mouth in concentration. "Aha!" She finally exclaimed after a few seconds of what had to herself appeared as minutes. Her trousers could seriously hold a whole lot of equipment within it, one of the reasons she unlike many other her age didn't wander around with large and impractical handbags all day, every day.

Right now she was standing with a metal handle with a few buttons, some electrodes and wire attatched to the end of it in her hand, quickly plugging the wire into the Sandro laptop in her hand. Afterwards she just as quickly pressed one of the buttons on the handle, the electrodes shooting out from it and hanging from the handle in their wires. "Ah yes Zendo, well first of all, Jalek. We will monitor your brain activity.. If.." She said, struggling a bit with the last word as she leanned forward, starting with placing one of the electrodes on his forehead, trying to push his hair away from the places she started to attach the many electrodes: "If.. I can get them all to sit there, that is. Would have been easier if you had been bald, can I shave you afterwards?"

"Anyway... I'll try to see in which part of your brain the drug responds to the drug the most so.. Once it hits the market people can inject it straight into their brains. That way it will probably be much cooler. So, yea.. From what I've understood you should fall into a waking dream of sorts. Hallucinate a whole lot. Of course I don't know, you're the first test subject after all so once it's done. Which will probably be a couple of hours, you'll describe it to us, yea?" She flashed him a grin, moving a bit back with the metal handle lying ontop of her laptop, an image of a brain seen on her desktop, activity seen flashing on the image every now and then as she waited for his answer. It would take some time before the drug reached his brain through his blood stream.

[member="Doctor Zendu"] :: [member="Jalek Sathora"]​

 

[Cryax Bane]

It wasn't atypical for him to disappear for stretches at a time, but for the most part Cryax usually knew the whereabouts of his boyfriend [member="Jalek Sathora"]. When Jalek couldn't be found at the casino, however, Cryax did what any slicer's boyfriend who was also a slicer would do. He hacked into Jalek's Datapad and traced his location via GPS. The Morellian seemed to be hanging out in one of the warehouses at the Wrestle Mechanics headquarters for some unknown reason. His whereabouts didn't exactly raise any hackles per se. Cryax was simply missing his company, so the Chiss decided to drop without texting him first. Obviously the two slicers didn't have the best concept of boundaries in their relationship.

He silently stood in the doorway before anyone in the warehouse noticed his arrival, his red glowing eyes scanning the scene. The place seemed to have been converted into a makeshift laboratory, and there was a tall gawky-looking man in a white lab coat hovering over someone in a medical chair. Also in the room was the half Ryn/half human slicer and good friend, [member="Jen"]. When the man moved a few feet out of the way, finally noticing the Chiss in the doorway, Cryax saw no other than his boyfriend Jalek strapped in the chair, restraints around his wrists. Thankfully the Morellian didn't look alarmed, although he never really wore many other expressions besides cool bemusement so Cryax wasn't sure if he'd even know the difference.

"What the frell is going on here?" said the Chiss said glaring at Jen and the unknown man. "And why do you have my boyfriend strapped to a chair?"

 

[Jen]

Jennifer was fully concentrated on watching the read outs on her sandro laptop, so focused that it didn't occur to her someone had joined them in their room, not until that someone spoke at least. Because of this she was somewhat startled as she suddenly heard Cryax's voice, her amber eyes raising from the screen and towards the voice's source in the other end of the makeshift lab.

"Oh.." Jennifer muttered mostly at herself as she realized who had joined them, but almost as if she had never been surprised, had expected Cryax to show up she flashed her usual wide grin, it forming on her features. She turned partly towards Cryax to face him while still holding her datapad in her right hand, answering to his question. "We're obviously torturing him." She said in a very serious manner, pointing briefly towards the nearby table where line after line of cannulae were lined up containing the same blue substance.

She waited a second, her grin widening as she watched Cryax's reaction before she quickly waved a dismissing hand as to make sure Cryax understood it as a joke, a quiet laugh heard from her. "Nah, testing the new drug. Jalek here needed the credits." She gave Jalek a pat on his shoulder, by now he was probably starting to suffer from the effects of the drug..

[member="Cryax Bane"] :: [member="Jalek Sathora"]​

 

[Jalek Sathora]

Apparently the two had moved past the point that had been made clear about specifically not telling anyone or even hinting at their being together. Either that, or Cryax had forgotten himself for the moment, but whatever the reason, his blatant announcement of their relationship only bringing another grin to his face. Of course, Jalek was, more often than not, simply amused by his boyfriend's actions, and this was no exception. He hadn't really expected him to react any differently, but it was still a nice surprise when the cards played out exactly how he'd predicted them to, or close to it. But this had been one of the reasons he hadn't wanted the Chiss to know where he was, because this reaction would likely play out more later, when they were alone. Oh well, you had to deal with the consequences eventually.

After a moment of this same thoughtful silence in which he regarded Cryax with his jade eyes he spoke, "Before this turns into a lecture and he," Here he nodded in the doctor's general direction, "Starts getting defensive about everything, everything's fine." Now the same vaguely teasing tone that was ever present returned to his voice. "Didn't think you missed me this much, Blue. Are the kittens not keeping you enough company?" He was referring to the surprise that he'd left in the other man's office just shy of a week or so ago, something that still amused him to this day. But Cryax had eventually consented to the idea of it, after a bit of prodding on his part.

Blinking slowly now, no more words found his lips as the drug began to take effect.

[member="Jen"], [member="Cryax Bane"]

 

[Doctor Zendu]

Doctor Zendu, now monitoring Jalek's vital signs with some wires hooked up to suctions placed underneath the Morellian slicer's shirt and attached to his chest, cast a glance over at the dagger-eyed Chiss who had just stopped by unannounced. Then he looked over at Jen. "You didn't tell me we'd have an unexpected visitor today," he said huffily, completely unaware of the Chiss's position in the Red Ravens and the fact that Cryax was practically the benefactor of the entire operation. The doctor hunched over Jalek and flicked a light in his eyes, lifting up the man's eyelids with a gloved thumb, checking for pupil dilation.

Ignoring the Chiss, he stood in front of Jalek with his hands clasped together. "Now you should be starting to feel the effects of the drug. However, the physical signs won't be noticeable to you at all, after all the drug affects the brain in a very specific way. I will explain later." With that he tapped the top of Jalek's forehead with his penlight. "To test the drug's affects you are going to have to follow a few simple commands. Now do exactly what I tell you. First you are going to try and lift your arms from the restraints." He walked backwards a few paces and adjusted his glasses, making sure the red-haired slicer was still listening carefully to him. "If the drug works, the restraints should slip from your wrists. Once you're released you'll walk towards me, and then I will give you a new set of commands."

"It's very important that you tell me everything you're seeing, every step of the way, Mr. Sathora. For example, when you've removed your wrists from the restraints, tell me. Are you ready to begin?"

[member="Jalek Sathora"] [member="Jen"]