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.
