"Do you smoke, Doctor?"

Zed looked up from the corpse of a badass psycho he had just finished cutting apart, to the man standing in the doorway of the clinic. He was already lighting the cigarette in his mouth with a re-usable flint match. The man was tall, friendly looking, with dark auburn hair; and had bright, hazel, spectacled eyes. Zed wouldn't have been able to believe that this man had killed the badass psycho by injecting him with some kind of chemical that caused the organs to shrivel up like raisins, if something like this had not happened before. Last time it was a bruiser whose organs had liquified into some kind of meat smoothee.

Even now there was an amiable expression on his face as he stood relaxed, his weight casually shifted to his right leg. With an olive-green jacket tucked under his left arm, he held out an open cigarette pack in his right arm.

"Not in here. And put your damn mask back on, how do you think I lost my license in the first place?"

The man did a shrug, took a few steps back, and shoved the pack in his pocket as he took the cigarette from his lips "the samples I need have already been collected," he inclined his head to the refrigerated sterile containers containing the shriveled parts of the heart, liver, brain, bowel, kidneys, lungs, and spinal cord.

"Besides, this place is hardly the most…" his eyes traveled to the bin of waste, which was filled with discarded limbs and other such detritus, "sanitary of places."

Zed glared at him, "I'd planned on taking out the trash, but you woke me up so early in the morning I didn't exactly have time, so please excuse the mess."

The other man took a long drag on his cigarette, then smiled grimly through a puff of smoke, "I apologize."

Zed glanced at the shriveled organs, "what's the point of collecting those things anyway?"

The man started grinning and his eyes brightened, "you really want to know?"

"Not really." Zed really didn't want to wind up getting another hour long lecture of scientific jargon about one of his latest projects.

His shoulders slumped, "oh, ok."

Dr. Zed first met the man a few months ago, during the aftermath of a bar fight that resulted in the destruction of said bar in the middle of nowhere. The man had gotten into an argument about, believe it or not, the superiority of the number 63 over the number 69. He said it was something about it being more mathematically satisfying, and it was the first time had listened to a fully grown, drunk man seriously rant about division properties as if it were a political problem. When the man sobered up, told him who he was.

The man said that his name was Aaron Ryder, a former biotech engineer from Hyperion. He had a Ph.D. in biology and robotics from one of the top universities on Eden-5. Honestly Zed doubted it. The man looked too muscular, too rugged, too… something, to be one of those wimpy little scientists from the central planets.

Except, Zed's doubts faded after the man continued to visit. Aaron came for a multitude of reasons: to watch him work, offer assistance, and to ask him to perform autopsies on various different corpses. All the corpses Aaron brought in had died due to some kind of poisoning. Either from some chemical concoction he created, or by grabbing the most poisonous plants on Pandora, feeding them to bandits. At first he'd thought that it was all to just annoy him, but it turned out that Aaron was testing him. Which made it all the more annoying. There have even been a few times he's asked for Zed to dissect one alive, a request he hasn't fulfilled out of spite.

Zed sighed, looking down at the newest corpse, "why ask me to do this for you? Couldn't you do this yourself, mister 'Ph.D.'?"

Aaron waved his hand, "sadly, I don't know my way around a chest cavity like you do, Doctor. I'm a Ph.D not an M.D."

"I'm not a real doctor."

"That hardly keeps you from conducting your practice, besides I'm certain most of the people who come in with their leg almost blown off are pretty happy you're around."

A few seconds passed as the disgraced scientist took another long drag on cigarette. Zed said nothing.

Aaron looked down at the corpse, exhaling a serpent-like cloud of smoke as he dropped the burning cancer stick on the ground. He crushed it under his boot and walked forward.

"It's a pity your skills as a surgeon are going to waste on corpses."

"I'm not going to dissect a living man."

Aaron gave him a pointed look, "It isn't as though you haven't harvested organs from a still living body. What's the problem?"

Zed narrowed his eyes and folded his arms.

"I don't like you. That's why."

"Liar. If you didn't like me, you'd shove that buzz axe through my sternum."

He sighed. Aaron wasn't wrong.

"Why do you want to dissect someone while they're alive? Some kind of morbid curiosity?"

"I suppose you could say that…" Aaron said, smiling spitefully, "mostly I just want to learn the technique of keeping someone… or rather something alive while I take it apart."

"Something?"

"A certain relic left behind by the Eridians: a guardian."

"A… What?"

Aaron walked to the table, picking up one of the containers, "A guardian. You've heard of them before, I'm sure."

"I have." Zed began to shake his head, "don't tell me you believe in those fairy tales about the Vault and alien treasure."

The other man chuckled, as he turned the container in his hand, "I don't believe in fairy tales, only evidence."

He placed it back down on the table, "I've met one."

"You've met one." Zed was incredulous.

Aaron's smile grew, his eyes glittering with excitement, "I have. It is one of the finest constructs I've ever seen," a laugh, "and I must say, it's structure is a prime example of what I've strived for in the entirety of my life's work. I even remember writing my thesis on the concept in college. It'd be the opportunity of a lifetime to take one apart and study its inner workings..." his smile faded, "except…"

"Except?"

He sighed, "It becomes little more than an empty husk once you kill it. The insides melt and become liquid, then evaporate into mist… It makes things rather difficult to get a peek at what makes them tick."

"I'm sure it does. And why do I need to dissect a living person again?"

"I just need to know the process, you don't need to be the one present for dissecting a Guardian." He began to pace the floor, "and I'd pay you for your time, of course."

"How much?"

"However much you believe is fair. Cash, organs, you name it."

Zed suddenly decided to humor the man.

"Alright. I'll do it."

A/n: edit:

4/10/21: Hello. Unfortunately as of today this is an abandoned fanfic. Frankly, all of my energy has been delegated to simply surviving, and I am unable to continue writing. Also everything I have written so far no longer fits what my mental image of what I'd like the story to become. If I were to keep working on my fanfic with Erin, I would have to start over from scratch, and like I said I do not have the energy to do so. As short lived as this was, I thank you for your time. - Kris