[hr][hr][h1][b][i][color=green][center]Daedalus Corp. 'Site Corinth', 1000 Hours[/center][/color][/i][/b][/h1] [@Naive1] [@GingerBoi123] Dr. Lanel gave a low whistle, fingers tip-tapping away at his note-taking tablet. What he was seeing wasn't nothing - it wasn't exactly something, but the combat applications of Project Ichor might not be worth throwing away entirely. It was obviously no substitute for Project Ajax, but then, what was? The subject's speed and ferocity were, at the very least, something - it was hard to get that kind of aggression out of a super-soldier without a good deal more mental conditioning, under ordinary circumstances. Of course, he hadn't seen enough to save the project from being flushed just yet - that would depend on what happened next. He tabbed over to the RONIN's control panel and began to type, his words appearing in text across the cyborg's vision. [i]To your right, a panel in the wall has just opened up. It contains a UV flashlight of significant intensity. Attempt to use it to subdue the subject.[/i] [hr] [@Serendipity] The door opened, and a familiar face greeted her behind it. Pudgy and greying, Dr. Chauncey looked like he belonged in a college classroom, waxing poetic about astrophysics, not in a top-secret lab doing superscience that could affect, as he called it, 'The stuff of reality'. And yet, here he was. "Iris, my dear! Come in, come in, it's no trouble at all. I've had extra time to get us all set up for the day's experiments. Exciting things are afoot, my dear! With a bit more data, we'll be ready for the Deep Dive." The Deep Dive was what he called the planned excursion into darkspace - 'the whirlpool', as he called it, for the shape of the portal Iris had had a hand in creating. They had made a few forays into darkspace before; that was where the crystals that had saved Iris's life and granted her her abilities had come from, of course - but Chauncey was confident that, with the aid of Iris's unique talents, a portal could be stabilized long enough for a prolonged exploratory mission; one that would, hopefully, help them understand what had happened to her. He continued talking as the two walked into the lab, droning on about the miraculous achievements they were certain to accomplish together. He took his standard place in front of the monitoring equipment, gesturing for Iris to take hers. "Come along, come along, we have so much to do." [hr] [@TheGrundlesnart] A few minutes after mealtime, the door slid open, and three figures stepped into the room. The first two were armed guards, with facemasks on and rifles at the ready - a useless gesture, really. If something happened to make them necessary, they wouldn't have been enough. The third was altogether more interesting - an older woman in a smart suit, her grey hair tied up in a bun, a tablet in her hands. "PBV-2424, I have some questions to ask," she said, and that was strange, since she wasn't one of the doctors who usually came to ask him questions - she didn't look like a doctor at all. She motioned for him to sit down, and then continued without a care if he did, "Have you been in contact with anyone, Daedalus personnel or otherwise, in the past three days?" [hr] The Vault door slammed shut, and there came a [i]hiss[/i] of steam as it sealed. The inside was all steel and hot, damp metal, poorly lit like an old factory. Three guards wrestled Emmeline forward, kicking and screaming all the way, into the heavy iron apparatus that dominated the room, and forced her to her knees as the device clamped around her neck, wrists and ankles. "Fuckers!" she screamed. "I'm not afraid of this anymore! I'm not afraid of [i]anything![/i]" "I believe you," said a low, dispassionate voice, as the Warden stepped into her field of view. He was a young man, with a close brown crew-cut, pale skin, and dead hazel eyes. "Dear, dear, when will you learn to stay out of trouble?" "Fuck you," Emmeline replied, holding his gaze with a trembling lip. "Articulate," he sighed, dismissing the guards with a wave and stepping over to a small medical gurney a few feet away. He produced a syringe, tapping it with a finger. "I assume you know what this is?" "[i]A coagulant agent, so you don't bleed out,[/i]" She replied, adopting an exaggerated german accent. "You creepy Nazi fuck." "That's a new one," he mused in his thorougly regionless American accent. "But yes, I see you're familiar with the process. So familiar, in fact, that I put in a request for more advanced mental conditioning procedures, tried and tested in the Proteus Project. Won't you be a good little dog then? But, unfortunately, the paperwork is not in yet. So, until next time you end up here, we will have to make do with the old ways of behavioral modification. And who knows, maybe if that doesn't work, we'll get some of the little girls upstairs and give them the same, until you learn to behave?" "Fuck. You." The Warden chuckled, produced a simple drill-like tool from the gurney, and revved it up.