[color=9e0b0f][b]Haven - Sealed Upper Story Quarters[/b][/color] Marie stood at the door, the large bar which normally secured it had been pushed aside. She felt her hand faltering with hesitation as she balled her fist and reached it forward to knock. She wasn’t sure she wanted to do this, but knew she needed to. She knocked twice, just as she always did, then let herself in. “Hello?” She asked, to the darkened room beyond. She heard a rustling in the darkness, and a shadowy figure crossed through a small corner of sickly pale light streaming in from a nearby window. She stood there for what seemed like hours, waiting, watching, until a voice called back, “Marie?” A hunched, robed figure stepped forward into her view. The creature's face was covered in lesions, and the skin around its mouth was pulled back in a rictus grin. Marie stared at the half-trog thing, and lowered her head, unable to meet its terrifying gaze, “Yes Mom,” She said, whimpering, “It's me.” The thing that was once Sandra Kundanika stared at her with eyes that were filled with recognition, but still unable to fully comprehend her surroundings. Her mother shifted back and forth between states of awareness - but she always seemed to regain it briefly whenever Marie was around. “Dad is dead,” Marie said simply, not wanting to draw it out any more than she needed to, “Your husband…..Ishmael…is dead.” Sandra cocked her head, as if confused by the words, “Deeead?” She hissed, her voice hollow and unnatural. Its tone sent shivers down Marie’s spine. “Yes,” Marie nodded, “He’s gone mom.” Sandra slunk back into the darkness, a pained groan emanating from her, “Not dead. Not dead. Not dead. Leave….bring meat,” the thing snarled. “I’ll send up one of the guards with a bucket of brahmin meat for you,” Marie replied, fighting back tears. She was gone again, Marie knew it, and so she slipped herself out of her mother’s room and barricaded the door once more. Her mother had given everything, quite literally, to see the cure for the TDC completed. A sacrifice that had ultimately led to her own infection with the disease. Her father had tried and struggled in vain to see the cure completed quickly once Sandra became unable to work on it...but by the time he and the newly arrived Abaddon finished her work it was already too late. The vaccine could prevent TDC infection, even reverse its effects to a degree: but it could not cure it completely. Once someone was on the way to becoming a Trog - it was too late. Her father, and now Marie, had been unable to end it - to give Sandra the peace she deserved. Perhaps they both hoped vainly that, one day, a full cure for the Trog condition could be found. Maybe that was true, but more than likely it wasn’t. Marie fell down in a heap against the door to Sandra's room sobbing. How could she possibly do this by herself? [b][color=f7941d]Uriel Abaddon - Haven Laboratory[/color][/b] Abaddon threw open the double doors to his lab located on the basement floor of the Haven tower. Two yellow painted steelyard factory protectrons beeped in cheerful salute as he strode past them and into the lab proper. Abaddon never liked to trust the Haven guard to his own protection, and so he’d ensured that he would have his own, personal, robotic guardians to defend him if needed. It had been all but trivial to override the bots’ old programming in the steelyard to serve at his command and there were many other such robots in rest of the ruined city. “Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel..hmph indeed. Bunch of tribal-fucking traitors,” He growled as he strode up to a long table with a variety of jars, vials, tubes, and various other lab equipment splayed out on top. He grabbed one of the jars, half full of some unknown green liquid, and prepared to toss it against the wall in anger. He stopped himself and looked at the jar, thought better of it, and set it back down. He then grabbed an empty Nuka cola bottle and tossed it instead. It hit the wall with a loud thud, but didn’t shatter as he'd intended. “The fuck is your problem dude?” A half-dressed raider woman with the left side of her hair buzzed off stumbled out of the nearby doorway that led to his bedroom. She was clutching a nearly empty bottle of beer in her right hand and took a swig of it as she leaned against the doorframe. “My problem is that I’m the resident expert here on The Brotherhood of Steel and nobody here seems to recognize that!’ “Ugh what now?” Abaddon continued his rant breathlessly, “At least I convinced Marie to act more cautiously...but she should have just ignored that idiot Paladin-Lord all together. I’d trust that heretical gaggle of fools even less than I trust that rat bastard Sutler. Vikia and her scouts could be walking into a trap for all she knows!” “Dude…what the fuck are you on about,” The raider woman replied, clutching her head in pain as she nursed an obvious hangover, “You want some Jet or something? Take the edge off?” “Not now!” Abaddon snarled, then added more quietly, “Later...maybe.” “Well come back to bed at least and calm the fuck dow-” “It's that Guard Captain Harlock, he’s poisoned her against me,” Abaddon interrupted, “He’s going to become a problem in the future. Oh yes, don’t think I don’t see it. Young, brash captain of the guard…oh yes…he’s playing the long game. He thinks he’ll be able to take Ashur’s place - usurp Marie and have me exiled when he’s Lord of The Pitt well I’m the one who plays kingmaker around here!” Abaddon shouted, practically frothing with rage. “Man I’m waaay too hungover for this bullshit…” the raider girl mumbled, turning around and stumbling back into the bedroom. “Don’t forget who pulled your ass out of scav duty in the Steelyard and got you reassigned here!” He called after her, only to be met by a middle finger jutting back out from the doorway. Abaddon sneered and then turned back to his lab equipment, looking thoughtfully at one of the terminals which was connected to a large row of data banks that lined the entire far wall of his lab, “Unity…” He said mumbling to himself under his breath, “What an odd name..perhaps there is something in my archives that could shed some light on it.“