The atmosphere in the ride back to the temporary camp was a little tense as the director was in a foul mood. Her tiredness and hunger leading to her being easily irritated. It likely did not help that it was already approaching noon by the time that they left.
Even so the group managed to get back without more than the occasional gripe at one another. As their group left the transport, Jack saw the driver had an expression of utmost relief. Clearly, they had been stressing the poor fellow out.
Once everyone was off of the vehicle Jack turned toward the director and asked. “Hey. A couple things occurred to me on our way over. One, is there actually any food in the camp? And two, are there any clothes that Charise and I could borrow or have? I hadn’t really thought about it earlier but it would be nice to wear something other than this drafty blood splattered gown.”
Madam Blue started to snap before she took a deep breath and started again. “No! – I mean, no. The camp itself likely doesn’t have any food as it was meant to be temporary. If things have continued to go well from last night the facility should be fully back under control. There is a small kitchen and storage building not too far from the main structure. So provided the facility is how it should be we will be able to access and reactivate all of the auxiliary buildings.”
She paused staring off into space for a moment before she continued, “If that isn’t the case, I’ll send someone to do a run back to town and get food from a diner or something.”
“That works. How about the clothes thing?” Jack prompted.
Looking Jack up and down Madam Blue shrugged. “I’ll have someone check for any spare uniforms. Otherwise? I don’t think we will have anything on hand immediately. If the complex has been retaken, we should have your effects in storage. Barring anything illegal of course.”
“…Of course” Jack drawled, thinking of the numerous items that he had been carrying when he had been brought in. Most of which were highly restricted and expensive. That was another setback that he would have to deal with once everything was resolved.
The director gave him a short look almost daring him to come up with another delay. When Jack didn’t say anything more, she turned around and strode off.
With her gone Jack looked at one of the guards who had remained with them. A younger man by the name of Thrisow. He had been instructed to keep an eye on the two as well as assist them if needed. “Is there anything we need to do while we wait? Or shit, even a place to wait so we aren’t just standing in the middle of the road?”
“Not really. I mean, you don’t really need to do anything special unless there is something you need to do to get ready for your display this afternoon. For the second thing, we might need to look around some but I’m sure we can find somewhere.” Thrisow seemed a little jittery as he stumbled over his words.
“Relax. It’s fine.” Jack tried to settle Thrisow’s nerves before mumbling to himself. “Things I need to do… things I need to do….”
Jack stewed in thought for a couple minutes. Absentmindedly following Thisrow as they started to move somewhere. He suddenly shouted out “OH!” startling everyone around him.
“Gah! Damnit Jay! What the fuck?” Charise exclaimed.
Jack jerked slightly at Charise’s shout, “Huh? Sorry. I just realized. We need to go check on that girl we grabbed. Make sure that she is okay and everything. Hmmm. Actually, it might be best if we can check on her in such a way that she doesn’t see us.”
“Why’s that?” Charise looked puzzled at Jack’s thought.
“Oh, I’m just worried that as the system is intelligent it may have some way of destroying the last little spark of the person. I have no way of knowing but, it pays to be careful.” Jack explained.
Thrisow cut in at this point, “Okay. I’ll ask one of the other guys to go check in on her. Do you know her name or anything?”
Jack rubbed his forehead struggling to recall before snapping his fingers when it came to him, “I think she might be… what was it… Fawler… Lacy Fawler? No.. ah! Dilacy Fawler. I’m not fully certain on that but it’s a decent guess. Also, she was pretty much the only beastfolk we saw during our rush out. I know there aren’t too many in the city so it shouldn’t be too hard to ask about her.”
“… You know. You could have just said she was a beastfolk. You didn’t need to explain how few of them there are.” Thrisow responded, a little irritated at what he felt was Jack patronizing him.
“Okay…” Jack slowly drawled out, stunned slightly at the annoyed response.
With that everything seemed mostly settled. They found an out of the way place to while away the time. Over the following fifteen minutes a couple of different security personnel came over.
The first brought a change of clothing for Charise and Jack allowing them to finally get out of their blood-soaked gowns. The second brought news that the prisoner that they had brought with them was indeed Dilacy Fawler, and she was physically fine. They were having to keep her bound and sedated for the time being. As when she woke up earlier, she attempted to escape.
Another half hour went by. At this point Charise and Jack were getting a little bit antsy. Both of them were feeling extremely hungry and did not have much to distract them. They had traded a few stories and tried playing a couple word games, but they were getting to the point that their hunger could no longer be ignored.
Stolen story; please report.
Eventually Charise turned to Thrisow and asked “Hey can you check on the fucking food situation? I recall the director saying that we would be getting food not too long after getting over here. It seems to be getting to a point where food should be here or something.”
“Yeah, sure. Give me just a minute and I’ll check on it.” Thrisow replied and headed off.
Charise watched him go before turning to Jack and asking, “So how confident are you in healing the girl this afternoon?”
“Not too sure. I’m pretty sure I can manage, but I’m more worried that the people working here won’t be able to copy what I do. I have no idea what will happen if they can’t.” Jack shook his head.
“What do you mean?” Charise prompted Jack to elucidate.
Jack thought about it for a moment before he shrugged and decided to tell her, “Well, what I did when I freed you was pull in almost every bit of the mana that you had remaining. Literally almost to the point where if I drew anymore you would die. It was only then that I could find it. The last residual remains of your own personal mana, and mana signature.”
Charise was aghast, “I was that close to dying?”
“Yeah, and that was only the start. After that I had to convert my mana to match your remnants. Essentially doing from the outside what you would normally do when purifying. If what I created was not close enough to your own, it easily could have driven you permanently insane. Plus of course all the worries about contaminating you with my emotions, or making you dependent on my mana.”
“I guess I’m lucky then.” Charise let out a breath of air, glad that none of the things Jack mentioned seemed to be the case for her.
Jack nodded in agreement, “Yeah, yeah, I would say you are. Besides that, that’s not even the end. If you remember you had to purify your mana again after you woke up. Plus, I have no idea if my then matching to your fully purified mana and giving you more of my mana is what allowed your own signature to fully oppose the systems mana conversion. If we are lucky just reclaiming the body is enough, but who the fuck knows. I should just be glad that I had such a bargaining chip to use.”
Charise laughed slightly at his fatalism, “No kidding. You finding the cure is rather like finding formorian shit in the gutter. Simply un-fucking-believable. I guess we just have to see how well it works.”
“Yeah, well, that’s more on me than anything though. You should hopefully be good to go here soon. From what I saw when we went outside of the dead zone, your mana now does the same as mine when it comes to the system. It’ll take a bit and probably be painful, but your external passages should eventually clean themselves out naturally.” Jack shrugged.
“Oh boy am I in for a treat then. Just doing those exercises yesterday was horrific. It felt amazing to have mana in me again, but damn, using it hurt.” Charise shuddered slightly at the thought.
Both of them fell silent, reflecting on their worries and concerns. As he sat there with his negative emotions starting to rise up it began to trigger the eidetic memories created from the system’s mental bombardment. Scowling Jack closed his eyes and started meditating, attempting to break out of the cycle before it got too bad.
It was a fierce struggle, every time he managed to break free, it felt like a new emotion would trigger it all over again. Sometimes the elation of success starting a cycle of over positivity, other times the fear that he would never manage to again have true control over himself wrenching him toward a chasm of despair. Finally, after about what felt like an eternity Jack felt stable enough to once more open his eyes.
He was surprised to see the director standing over him when he came back to awareness. She was stood there tapping her foot impatiently. “Finally, you’re up. We are all ready for you to show us how you removed the parasite from Ms. Riverstone.”
“Uhh… sure? Is there something I could eat really quick first? I still haven’t had anything yet.” Jack agreed slowly.
“Here Jay. I saved you some.” Charise’s voice came from behind him. As he turned to face her, he saw her arm holding out a greasy sack. “It’s some good stuff.”
As he opened the bag the smell hit him full force. It was some kind of burger and fry combo. Next thing he knew he had already eaten half of the contents and everyone was staring at him.
“What?” he asked around a mouthful of burger
Madam Blue simply sighed and said, “Nothing, just eat quickly please. We will be waiting right over there for you to finish.”
In less then a minute Jack had swallowed everything. So hungry that he barely even tasted the food before it disappeared. He licked his fingers clean and checked the bag for napkins to wipe off any remnants. Once he felt he was presentable he stood, greasy sack in hand.
He let out a satisfied sigh as the food settled into his stomach. Looking over, he saw that it was quite the crowd waiting on him. Not only was there Charise and the director, but there were also all of the doctors, including of course Dr. Trovihn, as well as several of the nurses and security guards.
Beyond all of that there was also the bound and unconscious form of the Dilacy Fawler. Being toted over the shoulder of one of the guards.
Seeing the lineup, Jack couldn’t help but to feel a sudden onset of nerves as the pressure to perform what almost equated to a miracle hit him. He let out an unsteady breath and shook his head. It didn’t matter if it made him nervous. It needed to be done.
He walked forward and joined the group. As he reached them Dr. Trovihn took a look at him and cheerfully said, “Ah good to see you! I’m glad that it looks like you are doing well. What have you been up to?”
Jack gave him a look and looked quizzically over at the director, “I’ve been locked up in small room since I last saw you. Did you somehow not know that?”
There was an awkward pause. After a moment the doctor, while glaring at Madam Blue, managed to get out, “No. No I did not. I was under the assumption that you had been released and would simply be visiting us in the future to help us run some tests.”
“Yeah… Well. I wasn’t. Now that we have that extra fun fact established, let’s get this done.” Jack stated in a cold tone before he paused, “You know… it dawns on me that I didn’t ask. Do you lot have some way to replicate someone else’s mana signature? Because that’s one of the key steps to what I am going to be doing.”
A disbelieving voice asked, “You can replicate someone else’s mana signature? That’s supposed to be impossible for someone to do.”
Dr. Trovihn cut in “Do remember that anything involving the procedure falls under your NDA’s so please make sure you don’t go and share any of what you hear or learn today. Also, to answer your question. We don’t have anything here with us that can, but I know of some machines that have been tested that can do a reasonable facsimile of someone’s signature. We should be able to get ahold of one or two of them.”
Jack nodded, “Okay. Just be aware that the sample it is going to be able to reference is likely going to be miniscule. I don’t know for certain, as so far, I have a test group of one. But from that one experience, I know that at least some of the people’s natural mana will be greatly diminished.”
“How small of a sample is miniscule?” One of the doctors that Jack hadn’t met before asked.
Jack specified, “Absolutely miniscule. With Charise, the only remnant of her own mana signature was the last tiny faction of mana in her body before she would die of total mana deprivation. I don’t know how else you would classify that.”
After Jack gave everyone that little tidbit the director prompted, “Any other questions or information that we need? No? Then let’s please head down to the room where you set up the equipment for the demonstration.”