Co-written by Handepsilon.
Disclaimer: Sylvia Johnson belongs to me.
Simon Levinski and MoboGenesis belong to Handepsilon.
The dawn had risen in Central City, the capital of the United Federation. Transports were starting to become operational and filled to the brim with workers, as they always did during the weekdays.
Among the offices these workers were heading towards was the campus ground of the Global Health Center, the World Government's international health and research organization. Each of the workers were heading towards different buildings, depending on which division they belonged to.
Among the workers heading toward MoboGenesis, the genetic research lab, was Sylvia Johnson. She was a pretty silver-and-black fox in her mid-thirties with light blue eyes and short black hair. She wore a pair of black-rimmed glasses, a black jacket over a simple white button-up shirt, a knee-length black skirt, and black combat boots with grey accents. She headed straight through the lobby towards the elevator and, after showing her ID and scanning her fingerprint, she tapped her security card and a set of extra buttons opened up on the wall. She chose one that said "B5".
The lift started to descend as it closed. Going further into the subterannean structures under the building, it keeps going for what appeared to be a minute, until finally Sylvia could see a large underground interior that made up all the sections underground, if only for a few seconds before it descends back down.
And it stays moving... Probably for 5 minutes.
Finally the floor arrived at B3, where a few scientists started to exit out. Naturally there wasn't any new folks who entered in the elevator.
Sylvia idly wondered what was on the other underground floors, but kept quiet as she waited for her floor. She wanted to work already.
Finally the door opened to floor B5, where Sylvia was greeted by a long corridor with doors on occasions. The lights were just starting to turn on. Either that, or the light turned on because she came there. There was no telling whichever occured.
Sylvia headed down the corridor, keeping her eyes on the signs outside the doors. "4C, 4C... 2B, 2C, 3A..." She continued reading off the plaques until she reached her lab.
She seemed to be the first to arrive as the lab was completely empty. I guess I can familiarize myself with the labs while I wait for them.
She decided to check the Chaos Drives room first. This area seems unnecessary. We're working on their powers without a power booster, why do we even need this? ...Maybe I'm just a little biased...
The place only had few features, with the main one being what seemed to be an energy infuser. It was clearly not to be handled without care, just as the warning sign plastered on it suggested. The other feature was the plethora of Chaos Drive tubes on the shelves, which gave the walls a rainbow look.
The tubes there were categorized neatly according to their colors, some of which were rarer than others and Sylvia probably had never seen. Their glow and hue seemed different too, even in the same category. These might indicate the potency of each. All of them were encased in small, yet really thick tubes.
Among them, a few batch, especially the golden and dark purple ones, seem to rattle a bit occasionally, as if the container wasn't stable enough to keep the energy safe and calm. For the uninitiated, these might cause panic. Fortunately for Sylvia, the instruction manual was placed right next to the shelves.
The fox was indeed curious at the rattling tubes. She was tempted to hold them, but she knew better and instead reached for the instruction manual.
And it was a much wiser decision. The manual's warning section mentioned something about not moving the "unstable" Drives around too much, lest it explodes, among many other things.
The fox's eyebrows rose. Good thing I didn't touch those. Who knew something so beautiful could be so dangerous? she thought as she read on.
Other instructions seemed to detail more on its' own usage, how to insert them inside the infuser and several more safety measures.
Sylvia had enough and put the manual down. The lab was still empty as she came out. What in Chaos' name are they doing?! she thought as she checked her watch. She'd spent a good half-hour in the Drives room. Did I come early or something? She decided to just continue familiarizing herself with the rooms, the next being Conception.
To her eyes, it wasn't too complex, clearly not as complex as the last one due to her already knowledgeable mind. It had everything necessary to breed lifeforms without needing any living host to house them. There were plentiful of instructions too there, even more than the last one. It was probably due to the delicacy of the process.
As soon as she reached that place, footsteps could be heard. The employees were arriving.
"About time," she muttered before turning to face them. "May I ask why all of you are late?" she asked, crossing her arms.
"It's... 8:30 AM, ma'am," one of them pointed out.
"I was under the impression work starts at 8," the fox said sternly. "Call me crazy, but aren't the majority of the Artificialis made children? I don't think it's very smart leaving children alone for so long. And while we're on the subject, if any harm comes to an Artificialis, I will personally see to it that the only jobs you'll ever work in will only involve flipping burgers... and mopping floors. Understand?" The fox's glare could probably turn their blood to ice.
"Y-yes ma'am," the scientist said before he and the rest of his colleagues went towards each of their posts. A lot of them seemed to be stationed in the conception chamber, and the second largest portion was handling the Chaos Drives. It seemed that the third and fourth section of all 5 were undermanned... While only one was stationed on the last and largest section, the lush green part of the lab.
Or at least that's what it was supposed to look if Sylvia went with her memory. The Playground, as said section was named, didn't look exactly complete. It was quite barren and there wasn't anybody occupying it.
It made Sylvia start to remember her old project, back when she was the head of a supersoldier program. She started thinking of little Kailila. She could just see the little echidna playing in there, smiling that bright smile of hers-
Sylvia shook her head. Don't think about them. If you think about them too long, you'll remember that day. She went back to the Conception room. "May I ask why so many of you are assigned here?" she asked as she picked up the instruction manual.
"Conception is one of the most sensitive sections, ma'am," one of them responded, a mid-aged female beaver who seemed to be the one with the most experience than the rest. "And because there aren't any Artificialis to tend to, resources will mostly be diverted to this stage after the Infusion chamber is properly stocked... which it is. We usually will reassess the resources again after the first one is ready in the incubation stage."
Sylvia nodded and proceeded to read the instructions.
The details in each instruction book were quite a hefty amount of text walls, with several images to help pointing things out. Fortunately there were summaries at the end for whoever got driven to boredom.
The entry door opened again, this time, a particular crimson-furred rabbit entered the lab. He seemed to be the more higher ranking than even Sylvia. "I see you're already setting up shop," he said to the fox.
"Hello Mr. Levinski. Yes, I guess you could say that. I'm getting re-used to a lab environment today," she said with a chuckle.
"That's good to know. Are there any problems so far?"
The silver fox shook her head. "Nope." She gave a little snicker. "B'sides, wouldn't that be more of a reflection on you, or whoever you hired to build this place, if something in the labs malfunctions in the first hour?"
"That's... exactly why I asked," the rabbit shrugged. "Wouldn't want you to work with problematic tools, especially on the first day in the office. This should be, ah... 6 out of 10 times I checked the state of this place. The next one will be on this afternoon."
"You check the labs regularly then, huh?"
"Not this regularly, but this is my regular schedule on new labs," the man shrugged. "Don't let this make you believe that I had no faith in you or your colleagues. I just want to make sure that everything is in order."
Sylvia waved her hand dismissively. "It's fine. Just don't expect to see anything in the Conception chamber next time you check here."
"Of course not." The rabbit stepped back for a moment. "Well if you'll allow me to take my stroll around..."
The fox gestured for him to go ahead.
"Thank you." He went off to check on things in sequential order, occasionally asking the lab assistants about the tools they were using, the state of it, and such.
Sylvia, for the most part, decided to check how the Conception tools worked. It had been a while since she worked with genetics, so it'd probably be best to reacquaint herself with one. She shook her head with a little snigger as she remembered her old method: she told her subordinates which element(s) she'd wanted, if at all, mixed the DNA, & then it proceeded to grow inside a chamber a couple months. Probably not the smartest method, now that I think about it, even if it did work...most of the time, anyway...
For the most part, the process seemed quite similar, although it seemed that the infusion was done after a thorough examination. Apparently raw energy infusion into the DNA doesn't always result in it growing, and sometimes it could lead to fatal result. For the infusion to work in optimal manner, the type had to match so that after the infusion, the scientists could just let the energy synchronize itself with the body and grow naturally.
Sylvia's eyebrows raised, and her hand flew to her mouth. Oh my Chaos. Is that why not all of them survived the Conception stage?! I-I-I never thought it could be fatal! She started to feel a little sick.
Just then, the rabbit leaned over to check on the same section as Sylvia did. "Is there something wrong?"
The silver fox shook her head. "N-n-nothing you'd probably want to talk about, sir," she said, her voice somewhat weak.
He narrowed his eyes for a moment, before finally leaving, continuing his inspection further.
The fox felt like she'd done something wrong, but she didn't know if she should follow after him, so she sat down and focused on making the sick feeling go away.
After completing his assessments, Simon Levinski looked rather satisfied. It seemed that the facility had met his current criteria. With that, he turned back to Sylvia. "Very well, I'll be coming back by the end of the day. Work diligently, Miss Johnson."
The silver fox nodded. "Yes sir."
Simon nodded back as he went towards the exit, closing the door behind him. The rest of the scientists gave a light huff as he was out of the room.
Sylvia rolled her eyes at them. She headed back to the Drives room. "So, how about we go over these 'Chaos Affinities'," she said as leant back against the wall. "I myself have never personally worked with Chaos Drives. Always just left that to my subordinates."