Verrik's footsteps echo through the decomposing intestines that are the streets of Ryxirin City. Only the sound of falling, acidic rain reciprocate the passing noise of his movements. The city lights are vibrant, but when the storms come few people venture outside. Verrik's vinyl suit covers his entire body from the corrosive liquid falling from the sky. Still, the weather is unpleasant and there is little room for his antennas in the hood of the suit. He has been put to work in the emergency room, even though he has experience in genetic engineering. He suspects that this so his new employers can test him out, to see if he is a spy. He just hopes that they don't find the truth.
It has been raining all week, it started the day after he began his work at the hospital. He has seen several cases of people with burns due to the rain. Mostly derelicts who fall asleep outside or forget their protective suits. The injuries tended to be relatively minor, but one case in particular continues to haunt Verrik. A young woman, no older than sixteen, was dumped in the entrance of the emergency center and ignored for some time. She was naked and crying in the floor, her body hunched like a heap of wet leaves. Finally, since it seemed that no one else would, he rushed to her side to try to help. When he gets closer he notices that she is covered in severe chemical burns. The rain had apparently eaten through her skin and quite a bit of her muscle. The bones of her hands and feet were exposed, all white and bony like plastic twigs. He had no idea where she came from or how this happened. She was unrecognizable, save the fact that her muscles were red in color, indicative of any of hundreds of humanoid species.
"Can some one get me a stretcher! She needs help!" the nurse yells out in vain. His is ignored, so he repeats his plea. "Please! She is going to die if we don't get her to trauma room!"
Finally, a rather bored looking Kisheyan nurse walks by, taking a deep hit from her compressed omega mask. She sputters and snorts as she struggles to keep her footing. Her flesh hangs from her face like a walking corpse, though she is likely sixty at most, which is quite young for her species.
"Don't waste... your time" she finally manages to spit out, "she's just a whore... I saw her... tied to a pole... by the metro station... yesterday." The nurse gasps and breathes from her mask once more. "She got... what she... had coming."
Verrik ended up retrieving an anti-grav stretched. By the time he loaded her on it and got her into a spare exam room, it was far too late. He stares at her corpse and tries to make sense of how so many people can be so indifferent to the suffering of another being. Dr. Ferizin walks into the the room and smiles enchantingly at Verrik. His antennae hang like wilted flowers. She attempts a rather futile, one handed massage of the andorians nearest shoulder. He pulls away and stares sullenly at the naked, burned corpse, wanting desperately to find a sheet to cover her. To give her some kind of dignity.
"Zether" Dr. Ferizin says, "You aren't going to win any popularity contests around here by wasting everyones time and money on disposable patients.
"Popularity contests? I'm sorry, I thought this was a hospital."
"It is, but this isn't Argalia, or wherever the hell you came from. In my hospital, we don't waste time of patients who can't pay, androids, or any other worthless waste of space."
"I'm sorry doctor. I didn't mean it that way." Verrik manages to force a smile and try to play his part. "I just want the money, just like anyone else."
He has to work hard to hold back the need to vomit. Money has never had any purpose to him, but saving lives always has. He knows he needs to try to "fit in" for the sake of the mission. But how far must he go? Must he truly turn callus and let innocent people die? He won't progress in his mission if he continues to act like a Starfleet nurse, but how could he live with himself when he acts like a Kisheyan? Suddenly it seems clear why so much of the population is addicted to one substance or another.
Dr. Ferizin pulls a hypospray from her pocket and injects herself in the neck. Her eyes roll back into her head and she is overcome with the familiar warmth from the sudden swelling of her blood vessels. Her cat pupils are dilated into huge black diamonds as she frowns at the nurse like a disapproving mother.
"Now, I want you to take this thing to the burn site. This is the only part of the building where space is an issue, as you damn well should know. Get moving!"
Wordlessly, Verrik pushes the stretched out of the room and moves toward the dreaded "burn site". The place where the corpses from the entire hospital are piled into one great mound. Once a day, or whenever the twenty meter deep pit fills up, they use a powerful beam to vaporize the bodies and other medical waste. It is crude, but effective, the Kisheyans hold very little emphasis on burial practices.
When he arrives at last to the site where other medicals technicians and nurses are dumping the bodies over the edge of the pit, he takes great care to pick the body up and carry it to the edge. The others stare at him as he drops her in the pile. The entire place reeks of rot and flesh dissolving from the acid rain, and the pit looks very much like the mass graves of ancient earth during wars. He runs back inside quickly, pulling the stretcher behind him and trying not to get burned. He looks down at his gray linen uniform and realizes that he is covered in the girls blood and mucus from her extensive burns. Not that anyone would notice, much of the staff look the same.
Verrik opens the door to a rather archaic building, he walks through the pitch black corridor and down the stairs. There is a faint light, somewhere within the milky depths of the maze. Somewhere, deep in the underground depths of the building, is an insect infested room being rented by the andorian holds an adjacent door to the animal vein corridor with the pale milky light. He pays a good deal of money for the place, one could say it was in the bad part of town if such a location could be distinguished from the rest of the planets densely populated surface. Finally, he gropes the damp wall until he feels his door handle. He inserts the key, an old fashioned plastic one, into the curiously textured latch.
As he is about to walk in, he feels a heavy weight coming down on his shoulders. He falls backward and is pinned to the floor. "Give me all you're money!" a surprisingly child like female voice demands. He can feel the person sitting a chest, holding the blade of a knife to his throat.
"I don't have any! Get off me!"
Surprisingly, the robber complies. She stands and pulls Verrik up by his hand.
"You aren't Kor'siv! What are you doing here?"
"I live here! Leave me alone, I don't have any money!"
A light flickers on somewhere nearby in the hallway any Verrik's would be robber is better illuminated. She is a female humanoid with rodent like features and a long, rat like tail twitching nervously behind her. She has three finders and a thumb on each hand, she wears no shoes and has opposable toes, quite similar to her hands. Her eyes are large and black, protruding slightly from their sockets. Her face and the front of her abdomen are pinkish exposed flesh, while the rest of her is covered with a thick, grayish white fur. Her nose is much like that of any common rodent as her ears are large and round, protruding from the sides of her head. She wears heavy purple eye makeup, torn pink, leopard print pants, and an equally tattered white shirt. She grins at Verrik, her well sharpened teeth exposed.
There is a an awkward moment of silence and then a sudden metal clanking noise coming from the ceiling. Verrik looks up, still rather listless from the robbery. Another being like the female in front of him scurries on the metal grating of the ceiling above them. This one is a male, with black fur and equally colorful clothing. He drops down and snickers at the female.
"Way to go, Riivi! I told you that fucker moved!" he says laughing.
"Well way to go! Now he knows my name! Say, andorian, didn't you just say you live here?"
Verrik is unsure whether he should answer this question. For one, he is unfamiliar with the species of the two individuals now standing before him. He has no idea what their customs or culture entail. Finally he just nods nervously. The female gives him a rather intense pat on the back as she makes a most unusual chattering noise with her teeth.
"Well hi there, I guess you're our new neighbor! We live across the hall, I'm Riivi and this is Niru, my idiot colleague. So who the hell are you, andorian?"
"Ver- Zether... my name is Zether."
"Well, Zether, if thats your real name..." Riivi says, folding her knife and shoving it into the waist of her pants. "We'll be seeing a lot of each other! Sleep tight!"