A/N: Okay, so now I've amended this chapter per recommendations, it should be a little better.
The X Levels
Eider led Drake back to the reception area.
"Hi, Joss." The level's receptionist looked up at Eider's greeting with a smile, not giving a second glance to Drake. Eider handed her the employment forms. "I'd like Mallard to join the training session we have scheduled tonight."
"Yes, sir. I'll fit his induction program around it."
Drake turned back to Eider. "What induction program?"
"We have a corporate culture. We need to familiarise you with how we do things around here."
"I have to get back to work. I'll leave you in Joss's capable hands." Eider gestured and took the bulky briefcase, putting it on the reception desk.
"Thank you." Drake intoned as Eider left. He turned back to face Joss, who was staring intently at her computer screen, determinedly making Drake feel unwelcome.
Drake stood there watching Joss for a long while. "So do you get many non-vampire employees?"
"Not in security." She replied without looking up at him. "Everywhere else." She kept her eyes fixed on the screen.
He considered this answer. "Is that because vampires are accepted as more able-bodied against threats?"
She finally looked up at him, fixing her hazel eyes on him with a grim look on her face. "Yes, frankly. Envys are flimsy and easily broken. You fall, you bleed, you bruise, and you struggle against any amount of undue pain. I can't see you handle the training exercise, Mallard, much less a genuine threat." She took a breath. "You've won over our section head somehow, but that training is going to be the proof." She went quiet and continued tapping at her computer.
'Yeah? Well, I like proof too.' In his mind, there was no more argument to have with the frosty receptionist for the time being.
"I've sorted out your schedule. X3 first."
Drake stared at her for a moment. "What's on X3?"
"I have to input your forms into the system." She said, ignoring his question and Drake realised he had a tough case on his hands. He went to the lift and once inside he pressed X and 3.
Drake stepped onto the level and once again approached the receptionist's desk. "Hello?" Drake looked down at the new person. "I'm ..."
"Yes, I see you're scheduled in, Mr. Mallard. He won't be a moment."
'Every level in this building has a receptionist.' Drake recalled his tour scarcely a week ago. On every level you would walk two steps out of the lift and into the reception waiting area. Every level had a few empty chairs and some sort of coffee table on which perched a short stack of books or magazines. Only the decor and the people made the levels different from each other. Like this one; instead of a brown haired woman duck with an attitude, it was a male dog with a mild look on his face.
Drake paced the room, realising this induction program was going to take all night and that he'd have to start looking for the killer tomorrow. What was the connection between Curtis Mane and his father? He'd never heard of the man, but then, he'd only been six when he'd lost his father.
"Drake Mallard?" He turned his head. At the mouth of the corridor was a tall lean duck in a white lab coat. "I'm Doctor Simon Anatra."
"Hi ... I'm not sick."
"Anyone can see that." Anatra gestured to the corridor behind him.
Anatra led him through into a large medical ward. It was empty at the moment.
"I take it you get a lot of sick people coming in." He gazed at all the empty beds, remembering Joss's words about 'Envys'. "Who?"
"Oh, just usually the security department, it's nothing to bother you." He gestured to a bed and busied himself with equipment.
'But I am in the security department!' Drake took a steadying breath and decided to deal with one thing at a time and get the answer to that question later.
The bed that Anatra had directed Drake to wasn't just any ordinary sort of hospital bed. The numerous computer-panels surrounding it made Drake suppose that they used this setup for intensive care patients. "That's a pretty big machine."
"It's a bio-scanner. It'll take a record of your systems. It's company policy to have a template for all our employees. We don't come across a lot of need for them but it's a good insurance in case something ever does happen to you."
"That's ... very reassuring." Drake moved over and lay down on the bed.
When Anatra activated the scanner, Drake's feathers began to prickle all over. "I ... should have asked if there were any side effects."
"I haven't encountered this one before." Anatra remarked, switching off the scanner. The tingling stopped. "Vespers always carry the impression of their previous host. But you have no physical evidence of genetic re-sequencing. Your Vespers only have an impression of you. You're not a vampire. How can you have Vespers?"
"A cloud of them invaded me. They came out of an energy vat."
Anatra shuddered in horror. "That must have been an excruciating experience for you."
Drake twitched with the painful memory. "Better me than Launchpad." He reasoned it off.
"You're only young, too." Anatra continued on, grasping Drake's arm and rolling up his sleeve.
Drake watched him do it with a great deal of personal misgivings. "Somehow I didn't think a vampire would handle dealing with blood very well."
"Ah, see, mainstream perceptions. Vampires actually make very good doctors. I'll prove it." He put his hand against Drake's chest. "If you were electrocuted and your heart stopped beating, I could make it beat again for you. Or say if your heart rate was faltering or too low. I can raise it."
There was a nervous spasm in his body. "Oh ... what?" Drake's breathing quickened against his judgment. "Let ... go!" He squawked, backing away, holding his hand against his heart. It was still pounding.
"You are quite a healthy specimen." The doctor gazed steadily at him. "Lie down."
Drake stared motionless at the doctor staring back at him.
'Lie down.'
"No!" Drake pushed against the mental repetition. The foreign control disappeared and left his heart rate to its own devices. Drake took a breath of relief.
"You've got a good defence system."
Drake blinked at that. 'That was a test?'
"We're always a bit worried that someone could torture the information out of an Envy staff member. We don't even like the idea that other vampires might take them over." Anatra took Drake's arm again and he flinched against the strong grip.
"Let go. I'm warning you."
"Oh, are you really that reluctant to donate a bit of blood?" Anatra let go.
Drake rubbed his arm. That was one heck of a grip for a doctor.
Anatra finished setting up the mobile extractor unit, giving Drake a moment to rationalise his position.
'I don't have the option not to comply in this place.' Drake knew he'd signed a contract that explicitly tied him to the corporate community. He took a steadying breath and lay down.
Anatra put his hand against Drake's chest again. Another nervous spasm and Drake's heart rate slowed down. His body felt a great pull to sleepiness as he lay there. Anatra's fingers were spidery on his arm as he applied the antiseptic swab. Then Drake felt the needle, long and metallic sliding uncomfortably between his feathers, through his skin and into his vein.
Drake's heart rate accelerated again, rising higher and higher. His head spun for a long frightening moment before his heart rate lowered to normal again.
"You've got what you wanted, now let me go." And the doctor let go of him, withdrawing the needle as he did. Drake was fighting against gravity now. He sat up, cradling his head, dizzy, feeling faint. 'How much blood did he take?' It felt like a great quantity.
"You should take it easy for a while."
"Great, thanks for the suggestion!" Drake snarked; he was rather unimpressed with his current physical state. He got off the bed and stumbled out of the room.
Drake got to the medical reception area and dropped into a chair. "Okay, now I'm worried about the training session." He rubbed his face, remembering the last S.H.U.S.H. test program Grizlykoff had pushed on him. He had been perfectly healthy at the start of that and nearly didn't survive it. This time he was going in already sick. 'What proof will this be now?'
"Mr. Mallard, you're due on Level X2." The Dane informed him.
Drake stood up carefully, mindful of his spinning head. "Good job Anatra's got a template of me now." He commented aloud. "I'll probably be back in here before the night is out." He stepped towards the lift and pressed the up button.