trans_9 | [closed to Sokka]

"Yeah. My sister."

Despite all Sokka's teasing to the contrary, Zuko continues to be serious as they walk to the medlab.

"After Aang defeats the Fire Lord . . . what happens to her?"

"Um..." Awkward. It's so weird having a Zuko who doesn't know about all this stuff.

"She's in a hospital for people who are sick in their heads, you know? It's really hard, since she has to be restrained to keep her from just burning the place down..."

Way to kill the mood, Zuko.

What mood? Zuko has only one mood, and that's BROODY.

"And my uncle?"

That's a much nicer subject.

"He opened up his tea shop in Ba Sing Se again. He's pretty happy with that whole thing."

That . . . that brings a smile to Zuko's face.

"That's . . . that's great." He pauses, trying to find the right words - "Thanks."

They're getting closer to the lab, and Zuko's striving for conversation topics now. He looks around a bit, thinking a little.

"And . . . your family is all right?" he asks, as they enter the medlab.

Sokka smiles right along with Zuko. It's a rare occurrence, even after the whole saving the world thing. So it's good to see the guy relax.

"No problem." He adjusted the sheathe for his sword, then looked back at Zuko.

"We're alright. All back together again, which is good."

"Good. That's good."

He doesn't want to ask anything about his mother. Just in case it's either bad news, or because Sokka doesn't know anything -

"We need to try and get deeper in to the lab," he says, as he passes the used equipment.

"Yeah. Yeah it is."

They're guys. That's all that needs to be said, right? He paused once or twice to examine a machine that caught his eye as they moved deeper and deeper.

"How are we supposed to do that? Are there doors back here or something?"

Actually, there are. The lab's been fixed up, so the enclave Zuko found the bison whistle isn't there anymore, but a door is there that wasn't there before, recently opened, where a machine was that's since been shoved out of the way.

It leads to another part of the Special Weapons Division.

"In here."

Zuko ducks through the door, igniting a small flame in his palm to light the way.

Sokka follows after Zuko, peering into the darkness outside the circle of light the flame gives them.

"This place kinda gives me the creeps..."

This place is indeed creepy. There are small enclaves--like separate cells, with empty pods in them, including the one Omni-Knight came out of it.

One of them is scorched black--the walls, the pod, every part of it is blistered black, yet if they touch it, there's no soot of any kind.

The air is dusty--Stacy doesn't clean here, and most of dust is made of skin flakes anyway, which Stacy has plenty of. The lights are dim, as some of them are burned out.

There's also a larger enclave that's very similar to MedBay, and quite large, with medical equipment. There's something that looks like an operating table there, with mechanical arms--surgical equipment of some kind.

And restraints.

Hanging from a hook there is some kind of harness, metal segments, shaped like a human spine, with needles all along it, like it was meant to be cybernetically affixed to someone's back.

There are also desks there, with something on one of them: datapads, like in the Media Library, covered in green-gray dust, left untouched by the group that discovered this room.

Zuko pauses to stare at the spine-thing, but not for very long, as he walks past. Everything in here is, indeed, creepy - not that he'll admit it out loud.

"Just keep an eye out for anything that could have been Aang's. Or anything he could have touched."

He inspects the blistered, blackened pod.

"Right..." He cautiously pokes into the little 'Med Center' enclave, recoiling at the strange instruments and the restraints. Whatever happened here, it wasn't good.

It's likely hard for Zuko to see, but burned into the floor is a mark.

Photobucket

What Sokka finds isn't promising: the devices in the Med Center don't seem to be quite like the equipment in the MedBay, meant for healing. They're of a more probing, invasive nature.

If he notes the design, he doesn't think more of it than as decoration. Who knows what passes for art in this place?

"I don't know what caused this fire."

Sokka scooted out of the little Medical pod, shaken by his discoveries.

"No idea. Firebenders? Maybe Aang..." He frowned.

"Judging by the looks of that table in there, Aang would not have liked this place..."

There's more to explore here. The other little enclaves, the desks...

Paperwork. Zuko made a beeline for the desks, opening and closing the drawers he could find to look for evidence. If anything was written in a language he could understand, that would be a bonus, but not one he expected. Still, best to leave no stone unturned.

"Look for something you can read. Or with pictures."

"Uh, right!"

Zuko was the expert Aang-hunter, so Sokka did as he was asked, starting to go through another desk next to the one Zuko was busy with.

Sokka finds something. Datapads.

The writing is translated courtesy of the ship, too, although some of the words and symbols remain untranslated and the files are corrupted, so chunks of data are missing.

Project: Chrysalis
Subject: Ю/\/]\\| /ЭФ∂ \]{]-∑∫
World: }[\/{]/\€∑
Head E.R.S: V'Lertz'kgig
Subject Chosen Name: Jonothon Starsmore
Powers: Possesses a furnace of psionic energy in his thorasic cavity, and observation in native habitat showed indications of to short-range telepathy.

\]]\/¡ ¬°ЛП)
[Errorerror FILE CORRUPTION]

||Status||
76279.5-Project Chrysalis is a rare find and it's doubtful we would have even discovered what we had if the surveyors hadn't stumbled on some unusual readings during their scheduled vital monitoring. Subject was originally classified as a low-level psionically sustained telepathic being, but strange spikes and jumps in psionic energy from the subject caught the eye one of the surveyors and they brought it to me.

Subject appears not only to just be sustained and kept alive by psionic energy, but it seems as if what remains of his body is limiting how much energy can be accumulated and released.

Due to the nature of Project: Silence, and subject's psionic absorption abilities, it would not be wise to transfer subject to Special Weapons Division just yet.

However, once subject is transferred, ideally we should be able to cut away and destroy the rest of his body and help him reach his full potential. If that can be done successfully, this subject and the subject of Project: Silence should be enough to end this war.

It is as if we have been given a gift in lieu of the failure of Project: Descent.

What a lucky find!

There are other files. That's just the one on top.

Zuko leans over Sokka's shoulder to read the datapad.

"The Special Weapons Division. That doesn't sound like a place for people, but if anybody could be called a weapon -"

"Yeah...and if they're treating people like weapons? I'm liking this less and less." He begins going through the other datapads, scanning them one by one.

Here's another one.

Here are the recovered files from Project: Silence, and exactly why we should abandon our plans with the the Kdathian Sone.

We cannot let this happen again.

---

Project: Silence
[Errorerror FILE CORRUPTION]
Head E.R.S: V'Lertz'kgig
Subject Chosen Name: [Errorerror FILE CORRUPTION alt translation: "thedarkcomes"]
Powers: Capable of, and we haven't figured out which is true, either spreading her nightmarish consciousness over a given area or sucking sentients into it. Capable of producing forcefields/telekinesis? Full extent of her powers is still unknown, but she is capable of producing an extinction-level event over an area at least as large as a community.

||Status||
77245.3- Subject has been moved into habitat room 2. Subject of Project: Descent has been kept in habitat 1. Once Project: Silence has been stabilized, it might appreciate a playmate, and it may help it to remain stable.

Subject appears to have suffered injury and abuse and according to her history. Wounds will not respond to medical treatment, yet patient remains alive.

Psionic shielding has been put up around habitat two and S.W.D as a whole. We will keep them operational as the dampeners are removed, just as a precaution.

[Errorerror FILE CORRUPTION]

Something went wrong. Shields not enough. Readings indicated two entities instead of one. Child's body inhabited by nothing like we've ever seen. Communication with the entity was futile.

Darkness everywhere. We've lost contact with the rest of the ship. Human life fluids on the walls, everything rotting. Half of my staff is dead.

[Errorerror FILE CORRUPTION]

Five more dead today. We destroyed the bodies lest they become like the monstrous beings that attacked us.

Apparation of [Error {"unholychild"}] appeared. She was afraid of us. The child and the entity appear to be connected, but separate It appears that the child was forced to carry psionic parasite against her will.

She calls it[DeityConceptTranslationError="God."]

[Errorerror FILE CORRUPTION]

I am alone. They're all dead. We attempted to rescue subject in habitat 1. Partly to spare the child.

...Partly in the hope that he would find it in his [glslf] to forgive us and offer protection. His pod was empty. I fear the subject...[Error TRANSLATION error approximation{"peacefulsoaring"}] is already dead.

I do not think they are coming to rescue us.

On the way back to our refuge, the[Errorconcepterror]RedPyramidRedGodofDeathExecutioner[Error]
fell upon us.

I was the only one to escape.

[ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR]

<>A/#$ //&^&*

..............

........

.....

...

.

God is coming.

". . . that doesn't sound good."

Way to understate, Zuko.

It occurs to him, briefly, that if things like . . . like this are in the Special Weapons department, under lock and key, then there's a danger that instead of freeing Aang, he might unleash this - or something worse - in the Avatar's place -

No. He has a task, and he will complete it.

"We'll have to be careful not to let it out."

[closed to Sokka]

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