THE KEY LAIR

Rachel was aware that she was lying on her back in a moving vehicle,

with Lovrina and the two peons sitting around her. She didn't know

how long the journey took, time seemed meaningless in her sedated

state, but she did notice when the motion stopped. She was roughly

hauled to a sitting position, half-dragged off the vehicle by the peons,

which roused her from her stupor a little. Stumbling and trying to

collect her wits, she was unceremoniously taken down a short

corridor in a pyramidal building that had strange and rather creepy

noises constantly going on in the background. It wasn't a long or

particularly complicated corridor, and it ended in another set of

holding pens, one of which Lovrina opened, and Rachel was led in, sat

down, and another injection given before Lovrina and her peons left.

Whatever the injection had been, it wasn't more sedative, because

Rachel didn't feel woozy or lose track of time or surroundings. In fact,

she began recovering from the earlier dose, and was feeling much

more alert when Lovrina came to see her.

Lovrina was alone this time, none of her peons in attendance, and

Rachel wondered if this was a chance for escape, or at least revenge.

She watched as Lovrina opened the door-which opened inwards- and

closed (but didn't lock) the door behind her. She crouched down- in

front of the door, Rachel noticed, little chance of escape there-and

regarded Rachel with her great green eyes.

"It seems I was perhaps so wrong to codename you XD002." she

said. Rachel sat up and stared at the unexpected statement. That

sounded almost like an apology. Lovrina blinked and continued.

"It seems I was so premature, Grand Master Greevil had another

whom the code name might have so been given to had the subject

not escaped. We are not sure what went so wrong with the

Shadowing of the bird-human freak, but with her escape, the

codename XD002 is so yours now." Lovrina smiled nastily.

Lovrina must have realised her words would annoy Rachel, but

perhaps she underestimated the strength of Rachel's reaction. After

all, Lovrina had no way of knowing that Julie and Rachel even knew

each other, let alone that they were close friends.

Rachel flew at Lovrina, knocking her onto her back. Rachel's right fist

impacted squarely on Lovrina's right eye. Lovrina recovered fairly

quickly, shoving Rachel off her with surprising strength, scrambling

backwards, and showing a fine sense of self-preservation, she slipped

out of the door and had locked it behind her by the time Rachel was

on her feet. She narrowed her eyes at Rachel through the pen's mesh

door.

"When your time comes to be Shadowed, I hope it will be so painful

for you!" she hissed. Her eye had already started to swell and purple.

Lovrina turned on her heel, and walked off in an obviously foul

temper.

Rachel was pretty sure that she had just made things more difficult

for herself. If Lovrina hadn't hated her before, she certainly did now.

Rachel still couldn't help smiling, because throwing and landing that

punch on Lovrina had felt so good!

Lovrina returned half-an-hour later with an obviously blacking eye and both of her goons in tow. Lovrina unlocked the door, and they rushed her before she could even think of escape, grabbing her and forcing her arms painfully behind her back and pushing her out of the pen. Lovrina faced her.

"It's so time for your first processing. However, Gorigan would so like

to see you first." She turned, and the peons pushed her ahead of

them in her wake.

She was taken into a room where a conveyor belt fed into some sort

of mechanism, an ominous darkness looming within. A big man stood

by it, and as Lovrina approached, he turned, and Rachel recognised

him as the man who had questioned her about her tail on Citadark

Isle.

"Mr Gorigan, I brought XD002 to you as requested." She said.

Gorigan trained cold, calculating eyes on Rachel and nodded.

"Yes, Lovrina, I will be very interested to see the result of your

experiments." He turned so he was facing Rachel, pinning her with

his cold eyes again.

"It will be of scientific interest to me to see if the Pokémon stem cell

injections you have been and will be given will make this work. The

cells were imprinted with proteins that mach certain receptors in the

human brain tissue. They should lodge in your brain, and begin to

integrate with your brain tissue. This should make the Shadow

process begin to work on you. You will need several more doses of

the cells, and be processed several times, but I see no reason for it

not to work." He checked a couple of dials on the wall of the machine

and nodded. "Okay, Lovrina, you're cleared to process her."

Lovrina nodded to her peons. "Process the subject." She said. The

goons dragged Rachel forwards. She was struggling wildly, shouting

in protest. She didn't want to be 'processed', and was fighting as

much as she could, although she was at a disadvantage with her

arms pinned behind her. In spite of her struggles, the two peons took

her to the conveyor belt, and manhandled her onto it, holding her

down until she had entered the menacing maw of the machine head-

first.

At this point, she tried to scramble backwards, back the way she had

come, but the belt moved forwards faster than she could scrabble

back, and she fell forwards with a scream as the ground seemed to

drop from beneath her as the belt took a sudden downwards plunge.

When she emerged, five minutes later, the two grunts were waiting

at the other end. They pulled her out as she started to emerge, pale

and sweating, her eyes wide. Rachel swayed in their grip, then

seemed to recover her composure and balance, swearing at the

peons and struggling. She saw Lovrina approaching, and came out

with something unprintable to her, but Lovrina just approached,

signalled the goons to hold Rachel's arms as she reached up one

hand to turn Rachel's head to one side. Rachel jerked it away

angrily, but Lovrina just smiled, having seen what she had hoped to

see: a purple shadow beginning to colour Rachel's eyes. Lovrina

called Gorigan over.

"Look, it is so working, and after just one processing too." She said to

him. Gorigan came over, reaching out a hand to turn Rachel's head to

the front, something he did with ease despite her struggles. He

looked, and nodded.

"I'll give you the calibration frequencies so you can put her through

when you like as often as you like." He told her. Lovrina smiled with

glee.

"I will so make sure you get processed as often as you need to turn

you to Shadow." she told Rachel. "However, you now so need more

stem cells, and then a rest to allow them to take." She nodded to her

grunts, who forced Rachel down to a prone position on the floor and

held her there while Lovrina gave her another injection. Rachel was

beginning to feel rather like a pin cushion by this point, and said so,

but Lovrina ignored her.

"You will so be processed for the second time in an hour's time." she

told her. "Until then you have time to rest. I so know that you will not

rest naturally so you will be sedated again, but only a little." Again,

she gave Rachel another jab.

"Now, take my XD002 back to its holding pen to rest." she told her

uniformed followers. They nodded, and led the once again woozy

Rachel back to her holding cell.