Meteora
Title: Fifty-Eight
Word Count: 997
Author's Note: OH GOD I LOVE THESE TWO. Even if she does get in the way of my favorite ship.
"Doctor Allian, we appreciate your concern, but there's no evidence that Fifty-Eight's social development has been hindered in any way by the training."
Curfew had been almost two hours prior, but slipping past the orderlies was simple when they liked him enough to look the other way - if they heard him coming, that was. In the past two weeks, he'd become quite skilled at sneaking past them. After he'd committed the emergency exit maps on the walls to memory, he navigated the halls and stairwells with ease, his footsteps muffled on the carpet, and turned it into a game in his young mind. One night his goal would be the mess hall, to sneak chocolate ice cream from the freezer. The next, the library on the opposite end of the compound, to sneak a tattered pocketbook back to his room.
"With all due respect, General, you're not a psychiatrist."
"And with all due respect, Doctor, you're crossing the line."
When he'd heard rumors that some hotshot psychiatrist had been brought onto the project despite the General's protests, and that they would be arriving from New Barion in the middle of the night for debriefing, he made that his new goal for the night - to sneak right into the ring of offices in the heart of the compound and see if he could spot this new member of the team himself. Not for any particular reason - in all honesty, he wasn't at all excited about the change in his routine to accommodate them. He just wanted to prove he could.
"You've created a creature with the capacity for reason and emotion. You can't just continue his training without considering the psychological implications!"
A female voice, strong and persistent and very new. He leaned against the wall, dressed only in a pair of dark green cotton pants, and crossed his arms over his chest against the chill of the air conditioning kicked on above him. After a minute he shivered slightly, and cast a glare of annoyance at the grate in the ceiling before he unfolded his wings just enough to wrap them around the front of his body. Not a lot of warmth, but enough.
"Doctor, we're a weapons developer, not a daycare."
"You better learn to be both, if you expect him to be any more successful than the eight generations before him. If you continue on this route, you're going to make him incapable of reason, of mercy, of loyalty... the list goes on and on, you know." She sighed in frustration, and in the hallway his heart beat just a little faster, her passion sending a thrill through his veins even though he wasn't quite certain he understood what had her so riled. "I understand that your view of my profession is bleak at best. But you're dealing with a child in an adult's body. An adaptive, hyperintelligent, deadly child with only the most primitive grasp of human emotion, and if you don't teach him to control that he's just going to turn on you!" Something slapped a table, a clipboard or something equally able to make such a loud clatter. "Are you just looking for a repeat of Sirrus?"
Sirrus. He'd heard the orderlies mention it, the next closest lab across the wasteland. A glitch in the training, some said, or a defect in the gestation process. Irrecoverable loss. Total fatalities.
"Nobody wants a repeat of Sirrus," the General finally said.
"Then we're in agreement," the woman said. "My presence here is necessary."
"You presence here is tolerated, until I say otherwise. I don't give a damn if Mister Aegis says you're integral. You were a damn waste of resources before you started preaching, and now you're just a noisy damn waste of resources." There was a jangling noise, metal on metal - keys, he guess, on a keyring. "Take those. They'll get you into the necessary offices and libraries. You're to report to me, twice daily, between sessions. Is that understood?"
He should have left. The conversation was wrapping up, and someone would be coming into the hallway soon. If the General caught him out of his quarters he would probably be grounded again, even if he hadn't done anything terribly wrong. But he remained where he stood, leaning against the wall, picking at the carpet with his talons until he heard the Doctor receive her bunk number and the door of the General's office hiss open.
She should have gone in the other direction - there were signs right outside the office that pointed to her sleeping block - but she came around the corner and walked right into him. It startled them both enough that they jumped back in shock, him startled at contact with a human and her shocked out of her wits.
He would remember that first look at her - her tanned skin, cascading platinum curls, sapphire eyes and tiny glasses, sky blue polo and fitted jeans, and the unmistakable look of complete and utter wonder - for the rest of his life.
"H-hello," she stammered, clutching her clipoard to her chest like a shield. He would learn later, in one of their many meetings, that she'd never seen a hybrid in person until that moment. The pound of her heartbeat made him realize that she was uneasy, and he folded his wings back over his shoulder, hugging them tight to his back, in an effort to appear less threatening. It seemed to work, though the sight of his bare torso made a thin redness rise in her cheeks. Her hand snaked out from behind the clipboard and extended toward him. "You must be Fifty-Eight," she said.
"You must be the Doctor," he replied, shaking her hand. Her skin was beautifully warm and soft.
"Doctor Allian," she said, nodding. "Is there... a different name you prefer to go by?"
"Doctor Krover calls me Sketch."
"Sketch," she repeated, and smiled sweetly. "I suppose we'll be seeing a lot of each other."
Word Count: 997
Author's Note: OH GOD I LOVE THESE TWO. Even if she does get in the way of my favorite ship.
"Doctor Allian, we appreciate your concern, but there's no evidence that Fifty-Eight's social development has been hindered in any way by the training."
Curfew had been almost two hours prior, but slipping past the orderlies was simple when they liked him enough to look the other way - if they heard him coming, that was. In the past two weeks, he'd become quite skilled at sneaking past them. After he'd committed the emergency exit maps on the walls to memory, he navigated the halls and stairwells with ease, his footsteps muffled on the carpet, and turned it into a game in his young mind. One night his goal would be the mess hall, to sneak chocolate ice cream from the freezer. The next, the library on the opposite end of the compound, to sneak a tattered pocketbook back to his room.
"With all due respect, General, you're not a psychiatrist."
"And with all due respect, Doctor, you're crossing the line."
When he'd heard rumors that some hotshot psychiatrist had been brought onto the project despite the General's protests, and that they would be arriving from New Barion in the middle of the night for debriefing, he made that his new goal for the night - to sneak right into the ring of offices in the heart of the compound and see if he could spot this new member of the team himself. Not for any particular reason - in all honesty, he wasn't at all excited about the change in his routine to accommodate them. He just wanted to prove he could.
"You've created a creature with the capacity for reason and emotion. You can't just continue his training without considering the psychological implications!"
A female voice, strong and persistent and very new. He leaned against the wall, dressed only in a pair of dark green cotton pants, and crossed his arms over his chest against the chill of the air conditioning kicked on above him. After a minute he shivered slightly, and cast a glare of annoyance at the grate in the ceiling before he unfolded his wings just enough to wrap them around the front of his body. Not a lot of warmth, but enough.
"Doctor, we're a weapons developer, not a daycare."
"You better learn to be both, if you expect him to be any more successful than the eight generations before him. If you continue on this route, you're going to make him incapable of reason, of mercy, of loyalty... the list goes on and on, you know." She sighed in frustration, and in the hallway his heart beat just a little faster, her passion sending a thrill through his veins even though he wasn't quite certain he understood what had her so riled. "I understand that your view of my profession is bleak at best. But you're dealing with a child in an adult's body. An adaptive, hyperintelligent, deadly child with only the most primitive grasp of human emotion, and if you don't teach him to control that he's just going to turn on you!" Something slapped a table, a clipboard or something equally able to make such a loud clatter. "Are you just looking for a repeat of Sirrus?"
Sirrus. He'd heard the orderlies mention it, the next closest lab across the wasteland. A glitch in the training, some said, or a defect in the gestation process. Irrecoverable loss. Total fatalities.
"Nobody wants a repeat of Sirrus," the General finally said.
"Then we're in agreement," the woman said. "My presence here is necessary."
"You presence here is tolerated, until I say otherwise. I don't give a damn if Mister Aegis says you're integral. You were a damn waste of resources before you started preaching, and now you're just a noisy damn waste of resources." There was a jangling noise, metal on metal - keys, he guess, on a keyring. "Take those. They'll get you into the necessary offices and libraries. You're to report to me, twice daily, between sessions. Is that understood?"
He should have left. The conversation was wrapping up, and someone would be coming into the hallway soon. If the General caught him out of his quarters he would probably be grounded again, even if he hadn't done anything terribly wrong. But he remained where he stood, leaning against the wall, picking at the carpet with his talons until he heard the Doctor receive her bunk number and the door of the General's office hiss open.
She should have gone in the other direction - there were signs right outside the office that pointed to her sleeping block - but she came around the corner and walked right into him. It startled them both enough that they jumped back in shock, him startled at contact with a human and her shocked out of her wits.
He would remember that first look at her - her tanned skin, cascading platinum curls, sapphire eyes and tiny glasses, sky blue polo and fitted jeans, and the unmistakable look of complete and utter wonder - for the rest of his life.
"H-hello," she stammered, clutching her clipoard to her chest like a shield. He would learn later, in one of their many meetings, that she'd never seen a hybrid in person until that moment. The pound of her heartbeat made him realize that she was uneasy, and he folded his wings back over his shoulder, hugging them tight to his back, in an effort to appear less threatening. It seemed to work, though the sight of his bare torso made a thin redness rise in her cheeks. Her hand snaked out from behind the clipboard and extended toward him. "You must be Fifty-Eight," she said.
"You must be the Doctor," he replied, shaking her hand. Her skin was beautifully warm and soft.
"Doctor Allian," she said, nodding. "Is there... a different name you prefer to go by?"
"Doctor Krover calls me Sketch."
"Sketch," she repeated, and smiled sweetly. "I suppose we'll be seeing a lot of each other."