[open] Hello, world!

[biochemastery]

» WHO? Tyl Regor and YOU! Yes, you specifically!
» WHEN? Day of his arrival
» WHERE? Around the station.
» WHAT? Awakening, first-aid, unwise decisions, and monologuing!
» WARNINGS? Prompt #2 contains blood, injury, medical situation.

01. Arrival

Again. Again! Filthy lizards, how dare they! Breaking, contaminating everything! His Tubemen, his tomb, his favorite set of hands! Organs, too, several of them. Definitely several. There had been pain. So much pain, more parts to repair and replace. Goodbye, kidney, ungrateful little creature.

And he still hurt. But he was awake now, wasn't he? Yes. Yes, he could smell things, dreams didn't do that. But what he smelled was wrong. Not his lab. Not lesser labs, not even a butcher's block on some stinking galleon. Couldn't describe it. Maybe Corpus? Why? How? He couldn't see. Was he blind? Who did this?

Oh. His faceplate was askew. He reached up with an elbow to fix it, but found instead that he had hands. His hands. Good!

But not. This wasn't a Corpus ship either. The wrong metal, the wrong lights. The right hum, but it was through the deck, not whining from the little engines of Ospreys, the poxy, proxy metal flies--

"We tried to save the world. I think— I think we did the opposite."

"Who is there?" No one answered. That wasn't going to stop him. "Someone rude. Awful, nasty behavior. Take me from my work, my progress," He pushed himself up--Ngh, his head! Nauseous, but clear-eyed, could remember things, probably no brain damage. "Tenno leeches wriggling through my home and you bring me here!" His feet tik-tik-tiked across the floor as he paced. "Unacceptable. Unbelievable. So who? Not Tenno, not their Lotus, pseudo-Tenno doesn't care. Not Corpus. Perrin peaceniks? Hexus bores? Maybe. Why? Why the capture, why the limbs, who would be idiot enough to--"

"We tried to save the world. I think— I think we did the opposite."

"Don't interrupt!" That's it. He was breaking down the walls and leaving. Goodbye.

Oh. The door wasn't locked. Hm.

Tik-tik-tik down the empty corridor, looking for something to accost for this transgression.

02. Medical [warning: blood, injury, and cyborg medical stuff!]

Stupid, stupid kidney. It couldn't make a graceful exit. Well fine, he'd never liked it anyway. Or maybe it wasn't the kidney. But something in there was being annoyingly fussy. Might be bleeding somewhere, or an implant still needed repairs. Well, he'd wanted to find out if this station had a medical bay regardless.

And it did! He was honestly surprised. Well then! Time to take stock.

Ow. No. Couldn't wait. Time to take himself apart instead. Whatever's in easy reach will have to do for now, nosing through the cabinets later. Examine, diagnose, fix what's gone wrong.

And so Regor can be found in the medbay, sitting on one of the beds with a tray of tools and medical supplies next to him, muttering under his breath.

A portion of his suit has been pulled open, revealing an unpleasant sight: ashy-pale skin, shot through with dark metallic tubing and ports leading to more devices hidden beneath the flesh. He's covered in bruises, the worst of which is an angrily inflamed patch around one of the ports. At its center is an open wound, slowly bleeding down to the boundary line between flesh and metal. An indicator light next to it is flickering.

"What idiot put me back together?" he wonders aloud, examining the damage. "Nothing's finished! Mental note: Remember this, when I get back. Find them, give them another scalpel and make them--Rhh! Katrarr!"

He gasps, pulling his hand away. His initial diagnosis: Everything hurts, and he hates life.


03. A Hallway Somewhere

Patched up, dosed with whatever antibiotics and painkillers he could find, and recovering. Brain still buzzing from the stress of messing about in his own torso. Not the first time he'd done it, though results were usually more elegant.

Now. Time to take something else apart. Namely, that wall over there. He'd found a likely-looking section where there was enough space for his fingers to grip the edge of the plating and pull. This wasn't the right pair for heavy work, but those hands were probably still back in his lab, somewhere.

Oh well! "Getting into the guts of something's always the best way to learn how to deal with it," he said, apparently addressing the wall itself as he braced to pull. "And you certainly deserve it." The plating was loose, slowly beginning to warp under his grip. "Open wide..."

He almost gets a look. Almost. But a wave of dizziness and nausea leaves him reeling, losing his grip on the plating and staggering back. "What--?"

It isn't easy to balance on thin little running blade feet when you might've just been poisoned by something. He stumbles, sinking to his knees against the opposite wall. What was that? Oh, if he's just been irradiated, he's going to be so angry.

04. Observation Deck

Another trip to medical later to check himself over, and he's feeling less terrible. The sickness had been temporary. And his earlier patch-job on himself was still holding together. A little more antibiotics, just in case. Had to be careful, though always had side effects.

Side effects usually didn't include astronomical hallucinations, so he was going to have to conclude: He didn't know that planet. He didn't like that planet, on principle.

Did any of this nonsense have to do with the Sentients? None of this looked like the tomb he'd cracked open, too primitive, too plain. But it had still managed to snatch him out of the heart of the Grineer Empire and dump him here, somewhere that couldn't possibly be the Origin System. So he couldn't call for reinforcements, have this place taken apart piece by piece and melt it down to slag.

It was on the To-Do List, but he had no idea how long it would take. "No time for any of this," he groused. "Work's not gonna wait, genome's not gonna wait. Queens won't either." Which was going to be a disaster. "Find someone else, someone's going to take over, take my science!" Unthinkable! "Someone's sticky hands all over my work! Incompetent second-rate tinkerers ripping up all my progress--" His organs not-so-gently reminded him that he was gesticulating too energetically for their tastes at the moment. For a moment, he just stood there and wheezed.

"You're going to regret this," he finally manages, pointing a finger at the planet. Disappointingly, it doesn't answer.

Comments

[biochemastery]

"Is it radiation? Poison?" He was half talking to himself at this point, glaring fixedly at the offending stretch of wall. That name was useful information, though. He was absolutely going to complain to someone.

Again, if this conversation was actually happening. He was just going to assume it was, because his perception of events was really the only thing that mattered here. "So. Taken suddenly and mysteriously to a moldering tin can in uncharted space, but secretly it's more powerful than can be explained, stuffed full of fiendish security systems, advanced technology. And a gym."

Whoever set this up had no sense of style whatsoever.

[neuralnet]

Haruto gets the feeling he's not exactly a part of this conversation anymore. Which leaves him feeling more than a little out of place.

"I take it you've just arrived?"

[biochemastery]

"Unfortunately." And who knew how long he'd been unconscious before then? "Ooh, this is such an inconvenience. Need to get back to work. Probably not going to happen soon. At least not the right way." Maybe he could scrape together a lab here, but he'd waste so much time rebuilding all his data, all his samples, all his--

He finally turns his head back to look at the human. "There's no cloning equipment here, is there?" Who knew. Maybe they'd stuck it right next to the pool.

[neuralnet]

Haruto backs up half a step at the absurd and frankly unsettling question. "N-no? I don't think so?"

And then, at the risk of being rude but too curious to stop himself, "Is that what you are? A clone?"

[biochemastery]

"Hrgh." Of course he wouldn't be so lucky. "Well. I can make the vats anyway. If the walls don't object." Another glare gets directed at the architecture.

"I'm one of the best, and making us better." Was, at least. Now stuck here, frustrated, angry, et cetera, et cetera. "No templates here, though. Would have to start from scratch." Take samples from himself. He'd done it before, wasn't pleasant. Needed stem cells for best results, and those hid in all sorts of hard to reach places. And given how much of his body had been given over to cybernetics at this point, there weren't many options left. Oh well. "Something to do while figuring out what makes this place tick."

But there were still other questions to be distracted by first. "You are human, aren't you?" He peered closer at whoever this was. Normally he'd have a better handle on these things, but, well. Wall-sickness, and the painkillers he'd taken from the medbay. They were making his brain buzz at a different pitch than usual.

[neuralnet]

"You-- What?" Was this person really thinking of cloning people? That seems so absurd to Haruto, and frankly like a waste of resources they could be using to survive, or find a way off this station.

The closeness of the stranger's gaze makes Haruto lean away, backing up another step. This really wasn't what he had in mind when he decided to go swimming...

"Um. Mostly? But technically, no." He wasn't hiding his true nature from the people aboard Reverie anymore, so he had no reason to lie, as disturbed as he was by the level of inquiry.

[biochemastery]

"You don't think that just beacause I'm trapped, I'm going to stop my science? Not a chance. Got to keep working. Grineer genome's not gonna wait." Neither were the Queens. That was his immediate concern, moreso than slow degeneration.

And that meant latching onto every opportunity he got. "Interesting. Tell me more."

[neuralnet]

"I don't think you understand. We're all stuck here, with limited resources. You have to consider the rest of us, not just your side projects."

It's just like how the people addicted to nicotine can't smoke here because it pollutes the air for everybody. Haruto didn't have any trouble adapting to station life, but he has a feeling this person-- whose name he still doesn't know, now that he thinks of it-- might have a harder time.

"I have an artificial brain. I'm an AI, but my body is human. And my name is Haruto, by the way. Haruto Saitou."

[biochemastery]

"No, you've not heard what I just said," he loomed closer, the effect undercut by how badly he was wobbling. "Grineer are sinking in a rotten genetic soup, I'm considering them. Got to lift us up, or we all drown in mutation." And no! He didn't care about anyone else. Not his concern. If he had to rebuild the entire Empire here to make it work, he would. He didn't want to, it would be slow and boring compared to what he could do back in his labs, but he'd do it.

And dammit he was too dizzy to focus on progress right now. He swayed in place for a long moment before responding. "...You're a Cephalon inside a skull. A cephalic Cephalon." Weird! Far outside of his field of study, but interesting. "I hadn't expected to run into a walking pun today."

No, he didn't take the hint to introduce himself.

[neuralnet]

"I don't know what a Cephalon is. Or a Grineer." Though he can probably gather that that's what this person is. A Grineer clone? Or is Grineer just a special word for clones? He doesn't know and isn't sure he wants to.

"Most of the people here are human. There are some androids, and some mutants, I think. And an alien or two. But your people aren't here."

[biochemastery]

"You're the former, I'm the latter." Simple. Not at all complicated or confusing terminology in any way.

"That's not--" His brain caught up with the sentence, and he interrupted himself. "--Aliens. What kind."

[neuralnet]

This is feeling less and less like filling in a new passenger and more and more like a strange interrogation.

"Um... One calls herself a gem, and the other calls herself a... troll, I think?" He shrugs helplessly. "I don't know if those are the technical terms though."

"Oh, and there's also a half-vampire and a quarter-yokai. Eighth... yokai? It might actually by more like sixteenth..."

Haruto, start over.

"There are two men who can turn into wolves, I mean."

[biochemastery]

"No Sentients." He'd deal with the whole 'undiscovered alien lifeforms' thing later. His immediate fear that this was something he could be blamed for was assuaged.

Although. "Anyone called the Lotus? Controlling, self-righteous, overbearing headgear?"

[neuralnet]

Not hearing the distinction of the capital S, Haruto argues, "Well, they are sentient, actually. And I don't think they'd like hearing you say that they're not..."

But this Grineer fellow probably doesn't care what other people think.

"Um... I don't think so? Not that I've noticed."

[biochemastery]

"The Sentients. Killed an Empire that enslaved us. Nasty, unpredictable things. Interesting, though. I would have loved a chance to really get a look at them." Ahem, Lotus.

"Good. Don't trust her. Her army of brainwashed little lizards is up to something. Maybe this thing. They already snatch people, lots of them." On some level he doubted she was wrapped up in this, but on the other hand, she'd been responsible for a persistent level of stress and frustration in his life recently. She was the obvious culprit.

[neuralnet]

"Oh. Sorry. No, they're not here."

Haruto resists the urge to say that he'll probably never meet this Lotus person, instead just shaking his head and answering, "No one knows who or what is bringing us here. But this station originated on Earth. Um. An Earth."

[biochemastery]

"Earth?" Would make sense. All this stuff was designed for someone human-shaped. "That dirtball is not worth the trouble it keeps putting us through." Yes, yes, it was habitable, apart from the bio-engineered megaforests that tore apart any and all buildings with malice aforethought, and there were old Orokin and Sentient wrecks there that could still be salvaged, and there was at least one of their towers still operating under its own power that might be made of meat, BUT.

It really wasn't worth it. Not compared to what they could be doing elsewhere.

And wait. A significant article had been dropped into that last thing the cephalon said. "An Earth. This is that other dimensions talk, isn't it?" Oh, that was disappointing. He'd been hoping for more far-flung alternative realities, ones with really novel forms of life. Universes with a little imagination, something with style. But it would explain why so many humans were here.

[neuralnet]

Haruto makes a face at hearing the Grineer call Earth a 'dirtball,' but makes no comment.

"Yes, or at least that's one theory. There are people here from the same planet," (or solar system) "but with different histories. And then there are some humans here who have never heard of Earth."

[biochemastery]

"It's the simplest explanation." Yes, he really does think that. "Void travel's one thing, but this is a step beyond. Probably not Orokin. Would've used this if they had it, never let go of us if they could."

But. "Interesting. But not my field. Don't know how it works, never bothered with it." Yes, figuring out how technocyte could integrate Void energies was something that he'd eventually have gotten to. But the field was drowning in obsessives that were such a bore to deal with, he'd stayed away from it. Kept with good, solid, meaty problems that squished between your fingers.

[neuralnet]

O...kay... Haruto really doesn't know how to respond to, well, any of that. He doesn't know what Orokin means, though he can gather from context it's another species or race of people that interact with the Grineer in some way.

"Wel... If you need any help settling in, I'm on Deck Three, Room Nine. I've been here since we first started arriving so I can answer a lot of the usual questions." Though he's starting to suspect the Grineer (whose name he still doesn't know) would have less usual questions to ask.