***Six months later***
The airlock doors hissed open to reveal a brilliantly white, pristine corridor. Thick but clear plasma glass horizontally lined both the far walls, revealing the surrounding stars and the rest of the XITD space station in its full, clinical glory.
You have: Six thousand, nine hundred and twenty-two unread messages at your terminal. A generated, emotionless voice announced from the speakers above her in a crisp tone.
Her eyes scanned the corridor carefully.
What is that? She thought, her eyes squinted sharply as they focused in on something.
Two dust particles were floating gently before her, caught in the flow of the air system and drifting through the air like dinghies on a slow river.
She sighed loudly and stepped through the door. Her heels clacked on the floor with a sharp pinch.
"Eight months away and this place is falling apart. System request: Archive all messages received. If it's important, they'll send another." Her voice was quiet but crisp, every word articulated with great clarity, a tone that was soft yet cutting at the same time.
She moved with a mechanical-like grace, her strides calm and perfectly uniform. Standing seven feet tall, she was a wyrufal dragoness, split in colour down the length of her entire body. Her left side was a dazzling crystal white, her right a shimmering onyx black. Her two large, almost sad looking eyes had a chilling icey blue hue but a fierce intellect hidden behind them; they were constantly watching everything. She was dressed in a sharp, tight-fitting feminine suit that complimented her long and elegant figure. Her figure itself was a more traditional draconic body shape, as per the typical wyrufal species, with a slender neck and functional wings, that were currently folded up as neatly as possible against her back. Her long tail did not sway as she walked; it merely bounced slightly as her heels hit the floor.
She followed the corridor until she hit the pair of automatic doors ahead of her, which parted to reveal a giant laboratory within, bustling with smartly dressed Draconic Alliance XITD scientists in their sharp white lab-suits. The lab was several hundred metres long, with every inch of wall stacked with loud clicking computers, whirring analysis equipment and whiteboards covered in notes. Scientists quickly paced back and forth the room, checking notes and conversing hurriedly with one another. Upon her entry, however, that definitive clicking of her heels suddenly silenced the room. The entire floor stopped whatever they were doing, and raised their fists collectively into the air, sticking their thumb and outermost fingers out whilst their other fingers remained clasped against their palms. The dragoness repeated the gesture and after a few seconds, the floor resumed as it was.
"Evangeline! Perfect timing." A sly-sounding voice called out from behind her.
"Scyler! Am I relieved to be home! Such tiresome business dealing with the Royal Military Division."
"I bet. You can do us all a favour and keep any details of your escapade to yourself."
Evangeline smiled, showing a brief glimpse of her milky white teeth.
"I see even eight months isn't enough time to refine your people skills, Scyler."
The white dragon stood up from the bench he'd been resting on, currently dressed in a tight-fitting grey shirt and pair of black trousers.
"I don't need them. People are shit. Anyway, did you receive any of my messages about the on-going project?" They began to walk together, tracing around the outer walls of the lab.
"I did. I must say, I am deeply intrigued. An anomalous plague? Truly anomalous that is, and you believe it to be biologically engineered? I dare say, this is a first for the DA and possibly the entire universe. Oh, before we go on -" She placed a slender hand on his shoulder and plucked at his shirt, one of her claws tugging at the stitching. "You must wear standard issue XITD uniform going forward, Scyler. Seeing as you're under single employment now." She laughed as she spoke, half playful, half deadly serious.
"Oh? Did it all go as planned?" Scyler tried to hide it, but there was a hint of concern in his voice.
"It did. You have been formally terminated from the Royal Military Division, effective from when Chief-commander Koa announced it."
Scyler paused for a second.
"... Anything else...?"
"No. You're still my loyal, effective XITD agent. This present you've brought me was motivation enough to keep you onboard."
"Jace was furious, Evangelene. I mean, I knew you'd pull through, but even so -"
"Oh he tried. Believe you me. He is on your tail, Scyler. You need to keep your nose clean and stay aboard the station, no more field assignments for the rest of the year. I've also agreed that the RMD are allowed to inspect the station - within reason to - ensure cooperation between the divisions."
"There it is! I knew there was going to be some terms and conditions lurking. No more field assignments? Seriously?" He huffed loudly, a scowl flickering across his face.
"I know you love your field work, Scyler. But this is better than being imprisoned."
"You sure about that? The cake selection in the canteen is pretty dire at the moment."
"Do they still have the cream slices?" Evanagline shuddered to a stop, an unusual amount of urgency in her voice.
"Of course, it's one of the few things that stayed. The crew knows it's your favourite."
"Good! Then all is well. Now, enough about your personal business, you're fine, I took care of it. Tell me about this... corruption." Her pace suddenly continued and the two exited the large laboratory through another set of sliding doors, continuing down another corridor and into a much smaller, darker lab, alone.
"It's fascinating, the more we've learnt, the more it's revealed its true power to us. This isn't just some random nomad plague, this is the real deal." For once, the dragon sounded genuine.
Scyler stopped in front of a rack of shelves. Stacked neatly on them were several identical medical aids, each one made from solid white metal, with a vial of blue liquid worked into the front of the design. Attached to the front and sides of the shelves were bright yellow and black warning signs, showing a skull split in half down the middle; one side normal, the other side melting and cracked. Danger of corruption.
"Do tell." Evangaline prompted, flicking a dust particle off her cuff.
"Experimental first response pack. Provokes extreme regenerative response when used, near death subject brought back to complete health."
"Time?"
"Two minutes. Including bone regeneration."
The dragoness recoiled slightly, but immediately regained her composure.
"Two minutes? That's... remarkable. There must be a draw-back, otherwise we'd have sent this for full, mass-scale production already instead of sitting it in storage."
"Can only be used on someone already infected or immune to the corruption. If you're not immune, this will corrupt you." As Scyler spoke, he dropped the pack back onto the shelf with a slight hint of disgust.
"Hmm. I'm sure we can figure out a way around that. How many of these have been produced?"
"Standard batch."
"One hundred and fifty in storage... Hmm, okay. Take me to her."
"Already? We have a couple of other prototypes you may be interested in?"
"We can look at those after. I want to see what we're dealing with."
"Right you are. This way."
Scyler led the way out of the darker lab and through the bowels of the facilities. They walked in silence now, Evangaline drumming her fingers against the pocket of her suit. Their journey took them through a series of heavily armoured doors, each guarded by uniformed XITD soldiers, all of whom greeted Evangaline in the same way the laboratory staff did, and quickly granted passage for the two.
Several bulkheads later, they arrived into a small observatory, overlooking a larger surgical room via a wide, one-way mirror.
"Goodness! Is this her...?" Her dragoness composure dropped again, but a brief shake of her head placed her back in her cool state.
"Indeed it is. She corrupted over two hundred nomads personally in the space of about four hours. Quite the appetite."
Strung up in the middle of the room, surrounded by spotlights and pumping pipes, the blue and bloodied body of Plasia hung like a puppet, her limbs strung up and pulled apart by huge mechanical grippers. Her mid-section was cut open, with strands of intestines pulled free and suspended by much smaller robotic apparatus, hovering in front of her bisected torso like an in-progress crime scene investigation. From her mutilated form, several needles had been pressed into her soft skin and were either drawing fluid, or pumping things into her. She had several loosely bandaged wounds across her legs and arms, but despite the gruesome nature of the exposed organs and in progress examination, not a single drop of fluid hit the ground; everything was perfectly contained and monitored to the nth degree. Her every angle was lit by intense spotlights, and a series of beeping cameras were rigged to the ceiling, recording everything.
Her head hung limp, eyes closed and breathing slowly, defeated and broken. Dried tears stained her face.
Around her, several XITD scientists whisked away trays of bottled blue samples and cuttings taken straight from her body, wheeling the extracted material into another lab, through more heavy, guarded security doors.
As Evagaline took in the scene, she opened her mouth and went to speak, but cut herself off as Plasia's weak head looked up, her tired sapphire eyes flicked open and stared right at the dragoness for just a few brief seconds, before falling again and hanging limply in her restraints.
"She just made eye contact with me... through a one way mirror... was that coincidence?" The dragoness mused, scratching her pocket again.
"It is not. It appears that corriphite-infected czarites are able to detect when they're being watched. We... don't understand the mechanism right now. She couldn't see you, per say, but she knew you were there."
