~I want you all to know, I deeply appreciate the reviews I get, as well as the fact that people have actually added this to their favs, alerts and what not!~
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In between games 1 and 2 (and where our story currently falls), there are three years that aren't really accounted for. Or, at least, they weren't, until now...
"How's the project coming along?" came Tiedemann's voice from behind, startling the two doctors he was addressing. The man on the left sounded, creeped, to say the least, when he spoke. "I-I don't, uh, really k-know, sir," he stammered. The man on the right just stood shaking his head in disbelief, at a complete loss for words. Narrowing his eyes, Tiedemann scowled through the viewing window...only to have the stern expression fade away almost immediately in favor of a, well...
"May I?" he asked softly, extending a hand courteously to the pretty lady before him, a kind smile on his lips. She giggled shyly and took his hand in hers, allowing him to sweep her close, so that they were now in a light but firm embrace. Gazing down into those eyes, he could swear the very stars themselves shone behind them as they glittered up into his own.
"Oh, you," she chuckled as he held out her arm and began to lead. As they went, she pressed herself closer to him, immersing herself in his warmth, bathing in his radiating affection. He could be so graceful...
Outside the one-way viewing window, Tiedemann looks like his brain just went on deep-fry. The look on his face (while in itself being truly priceless) is the kind of look that says 'FIRED' in big bold print (or caps lock) to the first doctor, the man on the left of the window. He can only look on nervously, sweating profusely and fighting a serious urge to just say 'fuck it all' and commit himself. His colleague is still practically in a standing-coma, his eyes glued to the spectacle before them, with disbelief etched all over his face as he continues to monotonously shake his head.
"You're every bit as beautiful as I remember," he whispers to her, turning them again. She let her head loll back a moment as they went, and he stole the opportunity to brush his lips tenderly against the taut skin of her throat, eliciting a contented moan to escape her as she reveled in the moment. "I love you," she breathes, her voice only loud enough for him to hear. Him and him alone, they way it should've always been... "I always loved you..."
"Is that a fucking height scale?" blurts out Tiedemann incredulously, his face slack in utter disbelief. The near basket-case himself doctor whimpers and nods fervently, praying The Marker he won't be signing up for EarthGov Welfare later on today. Before them, one of the patients in the 'project' is...ballroom dancing...with a height scale. "And, which one is this?" Tiedemann points, as if he's the only one seeing this (bet he wishes he was).
"It's...patient four." The man on the right says, finally adding his two cents to this. Tiedemann can only stare and gape as patient four goes into a few more elaborate turns with the scale.
"And...are any of the others...?" Tiedemann starts, gesturing toward the window as words are clearly beyond him at the moment.
"No." the more calm of the two doctors says. "Although I did catch patient five trying to lick the bulb in my desk lamp once, a session or two ago." He says this as if hoping it might justify what they're watching now. Tiedemann only nods dimly.
"That..." he says finally, as patient four twirls the height scale and goes into a dip with it, "...that, is just wrong..." There's something about the level of involvement patient four's exerting that just makes this much more disturbing than it might of otherwise been.
"Something tells me it can only get 'better' from here," sighs the man to the right. As if on cue...
"I wish I could feel you, just one more time," he murmurs in her ear, nuzzling back her soft hair with his cheek. "I wish I could take a part of you within me, so I could hold on to you forever..." "Maybe you can," she cooed back, turning her head. Suddenly her lips were on his, those inviting lips-
"AUGH! Wha-What the hell is that?" cries Tiedemann as patient four begins making out with the height scale.
The spazzing doctor looks somewhat depressed now. "OW!" he yelps suddenly as Tiedemann cuffs him hard in the back of the head. "Are you seeing this, man?" His boss snaps. (Please note, this isn't just your average 'make-out' session going on here. It's the kind of making out that most people only experience in their dreams, or see in movies, hence why...)
"Y-Yes I'm seeing it! How could you not!" whines the doctor in his own defense.
"...And?" Tiedemann's practically beside himself now. The doctor glumly hangs his head.
"I was just standing here wishing me and my wife had what this guy and that scale have," he says mournfully. Even the other doctor leans over Tiedemann's shoulder to stare at him.
"Don't go loose on me now, man." Tiedemann growls, giving him a rough shake. Hearing a stifled sniffle from behind him, he whirls to see some of the other viewing staff in tears and swapping boxes of tissues. If you didn't think his eyes could go any wider, you were wrong. They do, and his pupils dilate worse than ever.
"It's just so beautiful..." sniffles a nurse, blowing her nose loudly. "I wish I had what they have..."
"ARE YOU ALL INSANE?" roars Tiedemann.
"You're the one that wanted him in the program," shrugs the doctor to his right. "I, myself, am starting to wonder if the Marker alone led to this." Tiedemann's two seconds from storming out of the room when...
She drew away from him, and despite his best efforts to keep her, she still disengaged from their kiss. A pang of sorrow stung his heart as the thought that this may be their last time struck him. He continued to peck around the corners of her mouth, but then she said the one thing that could shatter the mood, that could make all that they'd just shared evaporate like it were nothing more than an amoeba in a decontamination chamber...
"Isaac, please...Make. Us. Whole-!"
"NO!" roared patient four suddenly, so loudly that his viewers (that he knew nothing of) could hear him through the re-enforced glass. Before they knew how to react, patient four shoved the height scale roughly away from him.
He pushed her away, and she recoiled like an angry animal, catching herself and suddenly rebounding on him and knocking him to the floor. "WHY NOT?" she shrieked in his face, instantly having gone from the woman he'd once loved to the dead re-animated puppet of the Marker he knew from his time on the shuttle. Damn was she strong! He had to get her off...!
As they watched, the height scale teetered back on its stand, and as it came back up to right itself it came up too hard and knocked patient four to the ground, where he lay thrashing around with it on top of him. "I knew it was too good to last!" cries one of the male nurses as a few of them rush in to liberate the loon in the viewing room of his current 'situation'. As a whole new drama began to play out, Tiedemann let himself out, in serious need of a cup of coffee and a strong aspirin. Somehow, seeing that was unsettling. Not only did it give him the notion that patient four was going to be a real pain, but it also made him seriously wonder what that scale had that he didn't...
Later that day...
Patient four was safely strapped down to his bed, waiting to be put into stasis until his next 'session'. As he waited for the technician to come in and put him under, he found himself staring determinedly up at the ceiling. He could see her out of the very corner of his eye, and he refused to look at her.
"Isaac, please..." she begged.
"No." he said flatly.
"Why not?"
"..."
"...Isaac? Why? Why won't you look at me?"
"...You got me in trouble."
Later still...
"Damn, must you be so pushy?" scoffs Fred as Nicole returns into the deepest depths of their new 'home', which really isn't so 'new' at all...
~Uh-oh, Isaac's entourage followed him to the Sprawl...as you knew they would. I tried to make it a little more 'vivid' in places to try to replicate how real his hallucinations are to him...here's hoping it wasn't a total flop?~