The Darkest Truth Within

With a slight frown, the young doctor finished reading the report he had been handed, then shot a brief glance at the woman on the examination table behind him, before coming back to the datafile as if to make sure he hadn't misread it.

Really, Dr. Weller couldn't have given him a more poisoned gift. This woman—the one who, in a sheer reflex, without blinking an eye, had thrown a scalpel right through Assistant Scott's throat before anyone, herself included, had realized what had just happened. This weird employee who had been crazy enough to spend every day of her life in the wilderness of the Shadowlands for almost two years and a half. This woman whose dreamy gaze would take on a threatening edge in a matter of nanoseconds, who in his eyes couldn't have picked a more fitting callsign than the one stated at the beginning of the Omni-Med report.

She was watching him intently, and he knew it. Watching, quiet and silent—a predator observing her prey before the decisive attack. Dr. Weller had warned him to not perform sudden, unexpected moves around that patient, nor to leave any instrument near her, but somehow, he felt that all of this was useless. The woman actually didn't need a weapon to hurt someone if she really wanted to. In spite of what he knew about her training that was geared towards all but close-combat, that slim but muscular body was a weapon in itself, and the tests performed over the past two months tended to confirm it.

“ So, Miss... Markarian," he finally began, without looking at her. “How did those reassessment tests go? ”

Idle chit-chat, to keep her busy with something. Anything but to go on feeling her presence in his back, her deep gaze lingering on him like some kind of guillotine ready to fall at any moment.

They went kinda well,” she answered in her odd, quirky voice whose accent he still couldn't quite recognize.

At least she didn't seem to mind this attempt at a casual conversation.

“Why, Doc. Ya expectin' me ta tell ya I was unable ta make it? Oh, I know. I think yer lookin' fer a reason ta blame dat anomaly, like Weller told ya ta do. See if it could be a problem fer me. Or fer ya. Did I guess right?”

Or not.

He kept standing where he was, near the deask and the lit computer screens, staring at the medical report. Yes. The anomaly. The one they had found in her blood, the one confirmed by a more thorough DNA analysis. It still eluded them. It couldn't be the forewarning signs of a degenerative illness; her state hadn't deteriorated since the first check-up they had put her through, and her general health was better than it had ever been, according to the records. Weller's hypothesis was that the Ops hadn't told them anything in that regard, yet he still sensed there was something else behind Markarian's case.

“Teehee, I knew it. Told her not ta worry. Can I go, now?”

He gave a start at the sound of her playful tone. A wild animal, playing with her food before devouring it. For a second, it was as if she had been standing there, right behind him, looking over his shoulder with a mocking expression, reading the report at the same time he was perusing it. Slowly, so slowly, he turned to her, this time, almost expecting to see her gone, but she was still there on the table, sitting cross-legged in a casual pose, head slightly tilted, an innocent smile on her lips. The room he knew so well seemed darker, colder, less welcoming. The shadows around her, around him, had they always been so thick?

Perhaps this had just been a trick of the mind, for a few seconds later, the light of the twin suns poured again through the small window of the laboratory. Yes, a trick of the mind. A cloud briefly passing in the sky, probably.

“I really need ta go,” she said again; the dreamy look in her eyes suddenly disappeared, leaving room to another expression, that of irritation, holding many promises of harm. “We're getting tired of all those tests. If ya want me ta come back another day, just say so, but I have work ta do, y'know.”

She didn't even wait for an answer, and unfolded her legs in a swift move to hop from the table. For a second, her hospital gown partly unveiled the white flesh of her thighs, before her bare feet touched the ground without a sound. A runner. A Fixer. Someone who knew how and when to duck to avoid the most lethal blows. A body made for twisting, turning, whirling, as lithe as a dancer's, as deadly as a knife. She would make it deadly for him as well if he wasn't to let her go right now, there was no doubt about that.

“We are still trying to figure out what this anomaly... could...” he muttered. A single glance from her made his voice trail off.

“Then go on trying, but let me go back ta tha office. We've got 4-Holes ta take back, in case ya've forgotten.” A cold, cold voice. As cold as the air around her seemed to be in that moment.

She walked to the chair where she had left her clothes, and, without sparing another second of attention for him, unfastened the gown to let it drop to the ground. He opened his mouth, then realized he should turn to at least give her a facade of privacy, but just as his voice had died, his intent to do so died as well. He found himself watching her with a mix of fascination and repulsion, as she slid into her uniform of the InternOps—watching her long dark, white-striked hair undulate in her back, her quiet but precise gestures, the odd-looking tattoos spiralling around her upper arms, the old battle scars on her pale body. She looked human. She was human, but for the oddity in her blood cells and her brainwave patterns, sometimes too wild, and always too complex for a simple Solitus.

Was this the same woman pictured on the photographs attached to her complete medical record? She looked so different. Younger. Sharper. It was true that the Shadowlands would often change a human being, but to such an extent?...

Maybe it's not... an anomaly.

His train of thought broke all of a sudden. Without a warning, she had turned to him again, throwing over her shoulders the long red cloak that revealed her position as a security agent within Omni-Mining. She walked towards the desk, and the light seemed to dim again—that cloudy, tricky weather, really!

“So, will ya sign dat document, or will I hafta do it myself?” she whispered on that dreadful ,playful tone again, already too close to him, as she casually brushed away one of the two long white locks framing her narrow face.

“The document... Yes. No. Wait, Miss, I don't think we can let you go yet, we're not sure if—“

“Of course, ya are. And remember. Tha Ops orders. I know Del Rey gave 'em t'ya.” She waved a hand as if to dismiss his concern. “Tell ya what, I'll come back regularly. If ya need ta run more tests. I'll come back just fer ya, Doc.”

“But—”

“I really want ya ta discharge me now. Really.” She cocked her head, looking at him askance. “You wouldn't want to cause a disagreement between us, would you, Doctor?”

And indeed, he realized he wouldn't. She was probably dangerous enough to send him to Reclaim on the spot, and he didn't have high enough a security level to force her to stay here anyway against the direct orders of the InternOps.

Maybe he had voiced his thoughts out loud. Maybe his gaze had simply betrayed him. She cracked an amused half-smile, took the electronic pad and pen he had left on the desk, and held them in front of him, waiting for him to sign the discharge form, which he finally did. No, crossing such a person wasn't a good idea. The Ops or Omni-Mining could do whatever they wanted with that nutcase. Omni-Med would anyway summon her whenever they needed to, after all.

A couple of minutes later, he finally snapped out of his reverie, only to realize that she had left. With a sigh, he then walked to the window of the laboratory, and thoughtfully, searchingly peered at the blue sky.

There wasn't a single cloud in sight.

((Bear with me, I'm still not 100% sure where exactly I'm going with that, but... I'll be going somewhere. Someday.))