snip

Rovan grinned, “at last,” he said sighing with contentment. Then he cast eyes on Isabel. “And you’ve brought me a bonus, and a lucky one at that. We can move to phase two of testing straight away and see what happens when we merge two identical beings into one. Imagine it! Twice the density, redundant systems coexisting in time and space, twice the durability”. He looked at Iliana, “Your countrymen will welcome you back with open arms after this… Emissary”.

Izzy rolled her eyes at the man who was so giddy about her arrival. That all sounded so lovely, she thought with extreme sarcasm. She was pretty sure that if she was merged with her counterpart here, bad things would happen to her, not the least of which was death. Her gaze shifted to Iliana at his last words to her though. So, that was why.

Iliana hung her head in shame her true motivations revealed, then she looked up in anger. “Damn them, damn them all”. She put down the canister and stalked off leaving the unspoken question of whether she was damning the Prophets for alienating her from her people or damning her people for rejecting her due to her position as Emissary.

Junior Gamemaster Conspiracy Theorist

“No, just damn yerself because ya made this choice and are leaving me here t be some mad scientist’s deadly experiment! Gabh Transna Ort Fhéin ya pretentious twat!” She shouted after the woman. It was time to start working more heavily on her bonds. She had to find a way out of them before this grinning psychopath scientist did what he wanted with her.

Delaney, Sec

Rovan stepped casually forward and slapped Isabel across the face snapping her head back with a crack and making her lip bleed. “I’m glad the other one can’t talk. Silence meat, you’re not in the presence of a grinning psychopath scientist,” he gestured to all and sundry, “you’re standing on the cusp of becoming the future”.

Junior Gamemaster Conspiracy Theorist
OOC Monologuing is so HARD to resist.

She looked at the man as he stepped towards her but the slap to the face was a powerful blow that had her seeing stars and stumbling in its wake. Izzy hadn’t expected it, but now she knew… she understood what this man was and what he would do to her. It was hardly the first time she had endured pain like this and she could feel the anxiety rising in her even as she licked her bleeding lip, mixed it with a loogie and then spit it straight into his face. She had years of practice from spitting at her brothers and he was a point blank target. It had been an automatic and quick reply to his physical abuse.

Now she was realizing that he could read her surface thoughts. Regardless, the hot headed Irish woman simply shook her head and replied. “Nah. Yer just another body in the sea of bodies through time.” You’ll be a footnote… if that. Most scientists like you are.”

Delaney, Sec

Rovan bit down on his lip hard enough to draw blood, Alison took a step towards him but he waved her down as he wiped the spittle from his face slowly gaining control of his temper. He motioned to Julien to bring Isabel and they moved into the lab where Rovan looked proudly upon Isabelle’s mirror counterpart alongside her mirror brothers locked in holosleep.

Janna noticed an anomalous reading on the console but chose to say nothing.

Julien whispered into Isabelle’s ear. “Be ready”.

Rovan brought out the Orb in its canister and proceeded to install it into the depleted energy matrix that had up until recently drawn it’s power from Liam Madison. He chatted as he worked in an urbane and friendly fashion as if he was addressing a council of friends. “This is just one of many rooms housing subjects. Many generations of “meat” live here, all being conditioned through holosleep and the scenario’s we’re letting them live through. You, however, will be the next generation of supersoldier. Super dense, resilient, tractable thanks to our new system of receptive telepathy installed genetically into your cranial space. Perfectly able to destroy, loyal to a fault but capable of higher-level processing in the fulfilment of your purpose.” He looked up at Isabelle, “and did I say cheap to produce? Take the body, mold the mind, enhance, rinse and repeat”. He laughed a little and then pressed a button opening a door on the opposite side of the lab.

“And here is the man of the hour, the man from the future, the man who came and made all this possible…” Rovan swept his hand to the entrance to the next lab, “I give you Pierce Hamilton the 2nd.

A middle-aged balding man appeared with a sneer all over his very upper crust looking face. He swept his bowler hat off his head and then replaced it with a flourish. His grey-green eyes held a hint of dangerous malice.

“Thank you Rovan, a nice introduction, I can see you’ve been practising as per my instructions.” He spun on his heel and addressed Kaylee. “I’m assuming the Athena is on its way happily tracking the beacon on your stolen ship”. Kaylee gave an evil smile and took a little bow. “Excellent,” the man said with a contented sigh, “then it won’t be long Rovan before we can field the largest army of reconstituted supersoldiers any universe has ever seen” he paused again and grinned from ear to ear, “and I will be able to have my revenge for what the Athena did to my “other universe” brother, God rest him”.

Junior Gamemaster Conspiracy Theorist