The screening itself was a fairly simple procedure. The guards took all three of them over into a small tent one by one and checked them over with a number of different artifacts. After only a short time Jack and Charise stood waiting to meet the director. Meanwhile the unconscious beastfolk that Jack thought to be the Fawler’s missing daughter was taken to another tent after the testing and was being held there with several guards posted in case of her awakening yet again.
The minutes ticked by causing the both them to struggle to stay awake and aware. Their exhaustion and injuries catching up to them now that there was no more excitement. After a time, both of them sat down, no longer able to stay standing. Almost as soon as they sat on the ground next to each other had they had fallen asleep. Only the fact that they were leaning against each other kept them upright.
They were woken up by someone shaking their shoulders. In front of them stood a large human man clearly getting up there in age judging by the salt and pepper coloration of their massive mane of hair and huge busy beard. Even at their advanced age however, the shape he was in made it obvious that he could likely take both of them with one hand tied behind his back. Jack had the suspicion that he would be able to do so, even if both Charise and himself were in perfect shape and not the barely held together mess they were.
“Come on lovebirds. Up and at ‘em. You asked for the meeting so you are going to have it. It’s not time for sleeping under the stars no matter how romantic it might be.” The man let out a booming laugh at his own terrible humor.
Jack struggled to stand. Even with having rested, his body was still weak from the blood loss and overexertion. Charise managed to get up onto her feet and reached down to pull him up by his armpit. Once he was on his feet, he decided that there was no real point in getting mad at this beast of a man and tamped down his annoyance. Instead, he chose to play along with the old fellows’ inanities. “Sorry sir. We just couldn’t help it. We just had to take some time and enjoy the atmosphere. I’m sure you can understand.” Jack said giving an over exaggerated wink as he did.
The man laughed more at Jack’s willingness to join in even with how worn out he was. He wiped some tears from under his eyes and gave the two of them a come-hither gesture. “This way then. The madam is waiting for you. Just a friendly warning, she’s a mite bit cranky at the moment.”
Jack shrugged awkwardly, trying to not think about the fact that he was almost certainly the root of her current frustrations. Having been the one to set off the events of the night. “Thanks for the warning. We’ll do our best to not make things worse for her.”
It was a short walk over to what looked like just another one of the hastily put-up tents that decorated the area. This one was slightly larger than all the others in the area which made Jack assume that it was most likely being used as the central headquarters. Instead of going in there as he thought they would, they took a sharp right and came to a small tent just next to it. The old fellow held open one of the flaps and gestured for the two to enter calling in as he did. “I got your guests Ma’am. Screening for both of them came back negative.”
A derisive tone drawled from inside the tent. “Yes Bjorn. I am aware. We wouldn’t be meeting right now if it hadn’t. You two, hurry it up. I don’t have all… night.”
Charise and Jack looked at each other and headed into the tent, nodding at Bjorn as they passed. The inside of the tent was sparse, the only things inside were three chairs and a small table. Sitting in the chair facing the entrance was the same woman that Jack had been interviewed by briefly after his own escape from the system’s control.
“Sit.” Her brusque tone brooked no room for argument.
Charise just looked puzzled at the woman’s attitude. Why would she have even agreed to the meeting if she was going to be so upset by it? It wasn’t like the two of them really held any real position of strength to get their way. If anything, the fact that they were escaped prisoners should have meant that they were fully at her mercy.
Jack meanwhile was still struggling as best he could to simply keep himself together. The brief bout of unconsciousness earlier did little to help with his current state. In the end he simply had to deal with it. No matter how much he wished, it wouldn’t change reality. His body began to sway slightly as his mind started to wander. Before he could fall, he felt a hand guiding him, helping him to sit down into the folding chair in front of him. As he sat, he gave a grateful smile to Charise.
As soon as the two of them had sat down in the chairs Madam Blue continued. “So. You wanted to talk to me? Well… Talk.”
“Yeah.” Jack rubbed at his tired face, hand sticking slightly to the semi dried blood covering half of it. He looked at his hand for a brief moment triggering numerous terrible memories before he snapped out of it. “Must say. Surprised you were willing to meet us. Not sure why you would be willing unless something outside of your control forced you to. Seemed happy enough to leave me locked in the depths even after being checked over and cleared of housing the parasite anymore.”
“If you are simply going to waste my time with pointless conjecture I will leave right now and you can go back to your room once we have settled this incident. I have no need to sit here and listen to this drivel.” Madam Blue scowled fiercely making as if to stand and storm off.
Jack’s head lolled to the side slightly before he gave a small shake and sat upright once more. “Except it’s not drivel, is it? I last saw you weeks ago at this point. I might be struggling a bit at the moment but I can certainly remember something about you coming to visit again and the possibility of freedom. Though I could simply be mad I suppose. But no. Other than food I sat there for weeks only being checked on for my injuries to heal. I was theoretically what your institute was set out to do and yet…”
Madam Blue tried to divert Jack’s train of reasoning with the simple statement, “Setting up testing for a situation that had never occurred before takes time.”
“Sure. I don’t doubt that some of the items you got that the good doctor used on my next test probably took a bit to secure. But it leads into the question of what were you doing with all the animals? Why was I kept in near isolation? It leads me to think that there was no plan to release me at all. That I was to stay there and be studied and, who knows, maybe even vivisected for you lot to find out why I managed to break free.” Jack’s slurred speech rose as he spoke until he was shouting at the end.
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“Look I’ll admit. We were delaying your release. But no, we weren’t planning anything nefarious. The hope was that we could figure out a way to replicate what you managed and free others. But part of what we needed to do that was to have a control.” Madam Blue pointed at Jack emphasizing, “You were our control. So, we kept you to monitor you and see if there were any changes or other factors that would be of help. I know a few of our staff were supposed to see you every day so I’m unsure what exactly you mean by near isolation.”
Jack laughed harshly in disbelief. “What do I mean? What… what… what else could you fucking call it when all the interaction you get for fucking weeks is just two people coming twice a day. It wasn’t so bad for a bit because at least they would chat with me, but after about the first week the only thing I could get out of them was a brief hello and nothing else. What the fuck is that if not near isolation!? It certainly seemed off to me that the people that were willing to talk to me at least a little just all stopped one day and I couldn’t get anything out of them.”
Madam Blue looked a bit puzzled at that and held up one hand. “One moment. You mean to tell me that they all stopped talking to you at the same time?”
Jack sneered, “Isn’t that what I just said? Look I can understand not having me around the other patients, inmates whatever the fuck you want to call the other prisoners of this hellhole. When I met Charise here, the first thing that she did was try to bash my head in.”
Charise just shrugged and nodded awkwardly as the attention focused on her for a brief moment.
Madam Blue shook her head and looked back over at Jack. “I can say without doubt that I did not order or tell anyone to have you isolated other then from the other patients. And that had to do with their reaction when you had been moved past several on route to your original room. I will check in the morning when more of the non-emergency staff have arrived to see if anyone ordered such a thing or if there was some other reason for it.”
There was a pause as she seemed to consider something before she continued. “You are correct to there being a certain level of outside pressure adding to why I am willing to sit down and have a talk with you rather then just simply apprehending you. Not long after you were brought in, we were contacted by one of the managers from the company’s main branches and told to make sure that you were kept in good condition and treated well for the duration of your stay. Admittedly, at the time all that meant was to make sure your needs were satisfied well enough here for the rest of your life. You know, on account that we had no way of dealing with the parasite so our only real solution was quarantine.”
Jack looked puzzled at that. The only interactions that he had had with Telipar Industries was during the course of this investigation and with how things had gone with Carlos Ross-Telipar he would have thought that they would have been ordered to quietly take him out or for some other accident to befall him. He slowly opened his mouth. “Are you sure that is actually what they had been asking you to do? Or had they been stating that they wanted you to take care of me while implying with tonal cues that really you should kill me.”
“What? Of course not! Why would you even think such a thing?” Madam Blue looked slightly aghast at the suggestion.
“Well, I met one of the heirs to the local branch not to long before I wound up here. At least I am pretty sure he’s one of the heirs. Carlos. I think it is safe to say that meeting really did not go well at all. What with him getting publicly embarrassed because he couldn’t take a damn hint to save his fucking life.” Jack shrugged.
Madam Blue shook her head. “I don’t know if what you are talking about played any into the isolation that you experienced but I can assure you that the orders that I got were indeed to make sure you were well taken care of as in being comfortable, not the opposite. I am unsure of why exactly I got those orders if you did indeed have such a run in with one of the branch heirs. Perhaps it is simply due to caution considering your last name.”
At the mention of Jack’s last name Charise perked up a bit. In their interactions he had only ever introduced himself as the slur that was his name. She was truly curious at just what family would be willing to let someone end up with such a derogatory name.
“I can see that possibility, but I doubt it. It would probably take only a cursory glance at my history to see that I have nothing to do with them other then a coincidence in naming. I have no doubt that there are many others out there just like me who share the name and nothing else with them.” Jack considered the idea for a moment before dismissing it out of hand.
The director simply shrugged. “It still may be the case. After all it doesn’t hurt to be safe rather then sorry. When it comes of the noble families, they take even the smallest slights as an extraordinarily serious matter.”
Jack chuckled at that. “Yeah. While the poor and destitute suffer they fight and squabble about who slept with who’s sister. The only reason that most of them stay in any kind of power has nothing to do with any of the so-called heirs but just the Agier that they are related to. Nepotism at its finest.”
At this point Charise couldn’t contain her curiosity she just had to know. “What is your last name man? I know just how screwed up your given name is but I can’t believe that any noble family would let someone get away with naming their kid what you got named.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. No reasonable family would ever let their kid be named Jack. Especially not a family like the Bertrand’s.” Jack laughed humorlessly.
A period of silence fell over the tent before Madam Blue broke it. “I believe we have gotten far off topic from where it was originally meant to go. I was told that you mentioned something about freeing others? I take it that Miss Riverstone here is an example of that success?”
Jack nodded and slumped slightly his body showing the signs of exhaustion again as his anger left. “Yeah. Hopefully I can show you how it was done and you lot will be able to copy it. I was planning on using girl the two of us brought for the demonstration. I’ll admit there are still a couple things that needed to be tested. One is if when Charise restores her mana from ambient sources that she doesn’t get… what would be a good way to put it?”
“Re-enslaved? Puppted? Fucked over by some kind of strange super being? I mean really take your fucking pick. Whatever one you go with I fucking hope that it doesn’t happen.” Charise scowled as she threw out suggestions.
“That does seem like it would be inconvenient. What is it that makes you feel like that could happen?” The director agreed in a dry tone.
Jack shrugged and explained, “Well, we couldn’t test it very well inside the complex but from what I could tell there are either remnants or something else within her unused mana passages that caused the conversion of her mana in the first place. As her mana can’t be channeled into those passages actively like mine can it needs to be checked if the slow natural flows will remove the parasite now that she is free, or if it will be able to make a comeback.”
“That matches some of what we have found before. From our autopsies with other creatures that had been infected, it certainly has a presence within unused mana passages. Not much was thought of it however, as remnants were everywhere throughout the flesh, not just the mana passageways. I will admit we had not done any vivisections so I do not know if that would have shown something different. We had to be extremely careful of any tests we ran however as any errors could cause whoever was running the experiments to become infected themselves.” Madam Blue nodded thoughtfully.
Jack shrugged again. “I’m happy to go over all the steps of what I did and how it works with you and to help see if you lot can do it as well. But… before any of that I want to make sure that myself and the others freed from the system’s control will be released. Having spent the last however many weeks as a “guest” of your facility I want some level of assurance that I will not be held again.”