"Allow me to introduce myself..." Said the Scientist. "I am Doctor Triega, the foremost expert in neurology and neurobiology... Well at least here on Pioneer Two anyway!" He said with a slight chuckle.
A glare from Natasha was enough to make him adopt a more serious tone.
"My friend, you have found yourself in the thick of a most unusual turn of events. You are not who you think you are."
"I don't understand. Isn't anyone going to explain exactly what's going on?" Said Seb, growing ever more frustrated.
"..." Hesitated Doctor Triega. "Actually I don't know what's going on myself." He turned expectantly to Natasha.
She sighed impatiently at her so-called expert.
"As incredible as it may sound, it appears as if your mind and memories have been transferred into the body of a HUcast formerly known as Ben-X."
"I... Er..." Seb attempted to speak but this final revelation was overwhelming, the bits of conversation filtering slowly into his brain. "How did I die?" He finally managed to say.
"Your... Body was discovered about two hundred and fifty Beats ago. The autopsy revealed massive neurological trauma, whatever process was used there's no going back." Natasha said solemnly.
Seb felt like he needed to cry. In one simple step his life had been destroyed and now he had been imprisoned in this foreign body. The thought that his future had been taken away filled him with despair, then surprise that he could feel despair.
"So what will happen to me now?" He asked her.
Her hand instinctively moved to the dressing on her cheek before she answered. "You are being held pending a full investigation. Your Android host was found wandering my lab complex. You appeared to be malfunctioning and incoherent but you mentioned some keywords that brought you to my attention. That's when..." Her voice faded off.
"I attacked you? I'm sorry." He hoped his voiced sounded sincere enough.
"In the mean time, you will have to be... Deactivated..."
"Deactivated? You can't do that!" Implored Seb.
"It'll be okay." Matisse stepped forward and held his hand. Her touch was light but reassuring.
Doctor Triega flipped a panel open on Seb's chest and indicated the button sequence she should press. She gave his hand a final squeeze.
"I'll be here when you wake okay?"
The room seemed to darken and move away from him at great speed and her words seemed to stretch out even as they too faded into the darkness.
-------
Natasha Milarose flopped down upon the worn coach and lay there for about a hundredth of a Beat before rising back to her feet and plodded wearily to her desk, collapsing into the chair. She grabbed a couple of the nearby PDAs, knocking empty take-out cartons to the floor. Unlike the rest of the neat and orderly laboratory complex under her control, her personal office was an exercise in chaos and entropy.
Her eyes were starting to ache from the effort of staring at pages and pages of mission reports as well as the transcribed interviews she had been personally conducting for most of the day. Her head was aching more and more as she began to fully comprehend the enormity of the situation.
It had been nearly sixty days since the destruction of the evil entity known as Dark Falz at the hands of a single hunter. Rico Tyrell had inadvertently become an unwitting host, her release only possible through death... Natasha constantly found that thought hard to take and fought back the tide of tears that would inevitably come.
Less than twenty-five Beats after the defeat of Falz, a signal had been received from the planet. The source of the signal was an island located five kilometres off the coast some one hundred and fifty kilometres due south of the Central Dome main site. This was actually the second time that signal was transmitted to Pioneer Two.
The first time was four days after the explosion that took the life of everyone that was there, oddly it would have coincided with the time of Rico's possession. However during that first instance the signal was weak and garbled sufficiently enough to prevent an accurate determination of either its source or meaning.
The island had been named Gal Da Val by the secret military researchers that used it as a base of operations. Beyond that little else had been known. The buildings had been hidden with a special form of cloaking that would absorb most orbital scans, except those made in the visible spectrum, thus disguising their true nature.
Following the haphazard investigation of the original mystery on Ragol and the subsequent loss of many hunters it was decided that security and protocol would be the primary concerns for the investigations on Gal Da Val. With resettlement of the Central Dome slowed to a crawl in order to minimise a potential repeat of the Falz incident, the Principal had given her total authority over these operations to run as she saw fit.
The first step was to vet each and every hunter that came in through her doors. Background checks as well as a battery of ability test to ensure they would be capable of surviving anything they might encounter. These tests were compulsory even for the Legendary Hunter that had defeated Falz. She half suspected that for some these tests were nothing more than an inconvenience, but she would be taking no chances.
The island would prove to be everything she had feared and more. The original indigenous species modified and released back into the wild. Failed experiments some, but no less deadly. Casualties were mounting day-by-day even despite the stringent entry requirements to weed out the 'weaklings'. If things continued this way, she would be unable to keep losses hidden for much longer.
She put down the PDAs. She already knew what they said for she had read them dozens of times. Some of the teams that had entered the East tower also reported contact with this mysterious FOnewm Paganini. The promise of 'rare' items enough to persuade several to hand over copies of data taken from the computer core. Now a HUnter by the name of Seb Cole had had his mind transferred into an Android body. To what end? Perhaps to access the data in his head?
More questions to follow. How did this Paganini know about the data or even about the missions to the two towers? What did he want with the data? How could he or at least his agents move in and out of her lab undetected? The android Ben-X who for the past few months had operated with impunity in Lab missions and tests now turned out to have had false ownership documentation. Who was his master? Again, was Paganini involved somehow?
She needed a walk, a break from work to clear her head. She rose to her feet and left the office. One Beat later she came back, placed all the PDAs into a shoulder bag and then left once more.