It's well past midnight and Rhodes Island is quiet, or at least as quiet as it ever gets. You've dealt with the Reunion infiltrators and docked the ark successfully with Lungmen. For the first time in two months, since Rhodes Island broke you out from your cylinder in Chernobog, your calendar is clear.

Or at least, it would be clear, if not for the three fugitives waiting in your office. Never a dull moment in Rhodes Island, that's for sure.

The lights in your office are off, and there is just enough light from the reflected glow of Lungmen for you to make out three silhouettes on your couch. Are they asleep - no, one of them is looking at you. You can tell because the light is glinting off a pair of spectacles as they turn their head to look at you. Without moving the rest of their body. It's sort of terrifying, but then again, thanks to numerous operator-related incidents, you are no longer fazed by situations involving less than one chainsaw.

You beckon to the figure and move quietly to the corridor outside. Soon enough, a Liberi (owl-type?) emerges, blinking in the harsh fluorescent light. "Welcome to Rhodes Island, Miss...?"

"Dr. Olivia Silence. Rhine Lab Medical Research Institute. Originium researcher." She grimaces. "Formerly of Rhine Lab MRI now, I guess."

"Ah. You'd be the co-worker Ptilopsis mentioned." In an encrypted email sent barely twenty hours ago.

"She was already in touch with you?" Silence echoes in disbelief. "So she really did have a plan after all."

You shrug. "She has an ongoing medical maintenance plan with us. Which includes onsite consultation and visitation rights. You are no doubt aware that Columbian healthcare for the infected leaves much to be desired."

"Bullshit." She frowns and closes her eyes in thought. "So that's how Rhodes Island did it. She was spying for you."

"Unlike many other researchers, Dr. Ptilopsis has a functional ethics module and is not afraid to follow its directions."

"Our research were classified for good reason!"

"And unless I am very much mistaken, one good reason is asleep on my couch right now." The test subject. "How many more were there?"

Silence bites her lip and remains silent. Very appropriate, but right now, you need to make sure she isn't a Rhine Lab saboteur, so you poke at her a little more. "What makes this one special, Miss Silence? From what I understand of Rhine Lab's research, even one is far too dangerous to be kept around."

"Don't talk about her like that." She glares at you, but it bounces off your mask as you cross your arms and lean back against the corridor wall. "Ifrit..." She twists her hands together nervously and looks down at the floor, murmuring "Ifrit is a good girl."

You resist the urge to fall down in comedic shock. "Excuse me?"

"The others hated us. They were so angry all the time. We had to keep them sedated. But not Ifrit. She asked us for bedtime stories instead."

"Mmmm." You skimmed through Ptilopsis's leaks earlier today and learned more than you really wanted to learn about Rhine Lab's super-soldier research program. For all that they form the basis of Amiya's transplants, and Babel's last desperate gambit, they make you want to vomit. "She thought you were trying to help her."

"Yes." Silence sags against the corridor wall. For a long while both of you are lost in your own worlds. Silence, presumably wrestling with her inner demons, and you, evaluating the possible ramifications of accepting these refugees into Rhodes Island. Living proof of child experimentation would blacken the careers of anyone involved. What steps would such men take to ensure silence? After all, dead men speak no tales.

"Ptilopsis said that you had someone here like Ifrit, but in better condition." Silence breaks you out of your reverie. "Is that true?"

You give a curt nod.

"Then you have a solution to the dissociation? The hallucinations? The nerve pain?"

You shake your head, then shrug and spread your hands. Ifrit's problems probably stem from donor incompatibility. You could try the basic meditation and aromatherapy suite to sync donor and host, but that particular treatment has a somewhat erratic success rate. "Maybe."

"Please." There is so much misery in that single word that it makes you want to look away. "Ifrit deserves better than this. She deserves a normal life."

A vision flashes before your eyes - a small Amiya holding a ball and urging you to play. Pre-ammnesia memories or a figment of your imagination? You have no way to tell.

"So she does." Damn the consequences. "Go back to sleep, Dr. Silence. We shall discuss Ifrit's treatment plan tomorrow morning."

A week later, said consequences come to visit. Director Saria has a reputation for being cool, calm, and having a plan to kill everyone she meets. And as you spend long and increasingly more worried hours debriefing Silence and Ptilopsis, you begin to realize it is well-earned.