Jun 04 12:05:46 106 PA
From Chronicles
The laboratory is mostly high technology and shiny. Around the walls, machines of various types lurk, including a large double fronted cooler and something that looks as if it will hold small vials of liquid and then spin them. In the centre of the room, a large metal table stands, without a spot of dirt on it. To one side, a couple of computer screens and a keyboard, clearly connected to the computer on the floor beneath them. The door and windows to the corridor outside have blinds for privacy, and the only natural light comes from the high windows in the wall. The walls themselves are painted pure, clean white, the floor is tiled with white tiles. Overall the room is clinical looking, and a peg behind the door holds several white coats.
The sun's perished this night, bleeding its last red light before defeated below the swollen curve of the cooling earth. Outside Mother Nature pours her fury into Kingsdale, swirling fat drops of rain about at every angle to soak a person to the skin and leave them in a small, dark, wet place where light travels inches and sound vanishes as soon as it leaves the mouth. Inside is quiet. Few can make it to the hospital, and those that do are cold and wet. Most stay in their homes, as indoors as that might be, and ride it out. One strange creature stands in the examination room, dripping in an unnatural twilight. The bulbs above are bright circles that cast little light, his perfect black features condescending and infinitely patient. He's come for her investigation, registered as 'volunteer,' as he eyes that door with a steady black gaze.
The music inside the lab is turned down and a pair of heavy boots move towards the door. Oddly, the person who opens it isn't Frankenstein or his creature, but a petite woman, dark hair tugged into bunches, white coat over pleated skirt with knee high socks and a t-shirt that reads "cruel". She grins, offering him a hand, hazel eyes brightening. "Hi! I'm Maya!" The enthusiastic welcome is mirrored in the small jump forward she makes, putting both feet together. "Thank you for coming! I'm really excited about this..."
Ahriman steps inside, those dark eyes turning this way and that. They have no pupils, so it's impossible to tell exactly where he's looking, though the lights overhead dim to follow his procession into the lab. The windows themselves become like polarized screens; one can see what's going on outside, but they transmit little light of their own in to illuminate the lab itself. Somehow it makes the outside world seem flatter, two-dimensional. As Ahriman speaks it's in a deep, rumbling voice, Something far too low-pitched for so delicate a frame. "I was told you would write me a letter describing my complicity in your endeavor."
Maya pauses, dropping her hand down before she steps into the lab. A puzzled glance at the lights and she frowns, trying to regain her cheerfulness. "Describing your complicity?" She repeats the phrase, clearly not grasping his meaning as she reaches out for a clipboard with a form on it. "Can I take your name first, Mister..." She leaves the phrase hanging, her grin returning as she gestures to a stool, a place for him to sit and be poked and prodded.
"Ahriman," the dark being rumbles. He turns to that stool and perches lightly, gracefully. Whenever he travels no motion is wasted, though his wool-wrapped arms cross before his sodden chest to dribble a fresh bit of water on the floor, and his black eyes narrow as they continue to move. They're the color of the night sky, the pale wisps of grey clouds leaking in at the edges, as he considers the room more than the woman before him. "Your police seem to have taken a mistaken view of me," Ahriman admits. "This is one of my ... public relations ventures. To show I mean your kind no great harm. I need the letter."
Maya is gathering supplies, listening in a distracted way to the man's rumbling explanation. "Ahriman." She repeats, pausing in her work to scribble the name down. "When you say mistaken view of you..." The words are left to trail, a question in her face as she settles next to the stool. "Some simple questions. What race are you? Where are you from?" She looks up with a warm grin, hazel eyes friendly. "And define, no great harm...
"I mean I can unsettle sunbabies," Ahriman speaks simply, absolutely motionless on that stool. Were his mouth not moving he might well be a statue, possessing the stillness most warm-blooded creatures possess only in death. "Your kind fears the dark." His head turns faintly, chin drifting to give Maya a profile, and he stops moving once again. He's easier to see on the profile, the play of his darkness and the light behind giving the best view she's seen of him yet. "I am Ahriman," he repeats, as if that explained his race. "Brother to Ohrmazd, son of Zurvan. I was created in the void before this world existed, brought the heat of the summer, the freeze of winter. I ruled this planet for nine thousand years, and shepherded your race from mud huts to the first brush of steel. By then the magic of this place had fled, and I fell asleep. I woke only recently amongst your kind. You now have armor, energy weapons, machines." His eyes flick to the room again, then back towards Maya.
Maya's pen isn't writing. It caught his name, but after that it paused, with the woman staring blankly at him, her lips parted slightly, the grin faded. "Uh..." She blinks and shakes her head slowly. "I don't think I understand." She speaks so softly that it might be a whisper. "How old are you? Precisely?" Her hazel eyes narrow slightly, her teeth capturing her lower lip as she awaits the answer, a tiny wrinkle between her eyes. "What do they call the race?"
Ahriman gives a shrug. It's a very human expression, one that means nothing and everything. "Nobody kept track of the passing of ages until the Sumerians," Ahriman replies simply. "or was it the Adacians who first cast their eyes to the stars?" He falls silent, head raising, eyes staring at the light above, which seems to throb in and out -- an idle gesture, as the rest of him remains motionless. "By modern reckoning, ten thousand years. Give or take. It is difficult to be more specific. I am one of two brothers, created by Zurvan. Ohrmazd was light, and I dark. I don't think your classification would include us both as the same species. So I am the only one of my kind."
Maya sighs, putting the pen down and pushing away the clipboard. She rests her elbow on the table, putting her chin in her hand and looking at him steadily. "There isn't much point in classifying you and adding your kind to the database. Because I'm not trying to do it to fun, but in case people need treatment and we don't know." She rubs her forehead with one finger, thoughtful, a glance towards the lights. "What is with the lights in here?" An exclamation of irritation. "You though, you should tell me more anyway."
"I am darkness," Ahriman speaks simply, as if that made all kinds of sense. He looks up, and it's as if the light sigs reluctantly back into the room. His features become more visible, though faintly less solid in the brighter light. "Living shadow. The lights can make me fade." He looses a slow breath, and his features turn into a faint frown. "So no letter?"
The petite scientist stares at him, nibbling her lower lip thoughtfully. "I don't know. The lights actually make you fade?" She stares at him hard for a long moment before she gets up to flick the lightswitch off, leaving them in the light that comes through the doors and windows. She moves carefully across there. "You are made from shadow. What do you eat? Do you require air?" She takes up the pencil, fiddling with it.
"I require oxygen," Ahriman replies, "though I have never compared my need to that of a human. My strength is on the upper end of your scale. My stamina surpasses it entirely. I eat a small amount of meat, perhaps a dog-sized meal two times a week. I do not drink. I absorb the night, I feed from ley lines. Often I have wondered if I could somehow shed this fleshy shell and retain some measure of myself intact. But why would I risk immortality to know?"
Maya is scribbling now, writing down as fast as she can. "Absorb the night how? Precisely?" She looks up, eyes almost squinting at him now, her face intense. "How much can you lift? How long can you run for?" She reaches for a few pieces of equipment, reaching for his arm with a questioning look. "Do you get ill at all?"
"Ill?' Ahriman asks. "No. Parasites do not feed on me, and my constitution is too different to house your infections. You have more in common with an ear of corn than with me." He flashes a set of white teeth at Maya in what must be a smile of some sort, though his look is condescending. She should have known that. Ahriman's soaked shirt sleeve gives a bit under that touch, and he frowns faintly at the apparatus. "I can lift four hundred pounds. I have never run so long I have grown tired. What are you doing?"
Maya hesitates, looking up with a small frown. "Do you have blood and a heart?" The question is a serious one, the petite scientist reaching for his wrist with her fingertips. A moment where she remembers something, turning to reach out her hand as a small device rises from her desk and lands in her palm. "How long have you run? How far have you gone so far without tiring?" The questions continue as she half concentrates on him and half writing.
Ahriman's expression grows dour, as the silver begins to bleed out of his eyes to leave only unrelieved blackness. "You're not listening," he rumbles, his voice taking an edge. "I don't tire. Who can know how far I've run? There was no measuring it. Sundown to sunup. I retain some of the blood I consume." His skin at his wrist is soft, velvety. It's probably partially why it reflects so very little light. He's warmer than human, almost hot to the touch, and doesn't have an apparent pulse.
Maya releases the light touch on his wrist, putting the equipment down and giving him a long look. "I am listening. I'm trying to work out the parameters of your abilities to record them, to document it somewhere. I have to record this, especially if there is only one of you. How can you breed? Does your race breed?" She scribbles a few more notes down, before leaning on the table. "I realise this is not new to you, but I have to start somewhere. If you want that letter."
"Race," Ahriman narrows his eyes. "You're not listening. There's just me. I come equipped for procreation, if that is what you mean, and if it is you should ask this." He leans forward, reaching to snag Maya's chin in a dark hand. His grip is gentle, yet firm, and it directs her gaze back up to his face. "I am paying very good attention to you. Return the favor."
Maya goes still at the unexpected touch, her hazel eyes flashing to his face, wide and startled. "I am. One is a race, if they are unique. But there must be a way ..." The frustration in her voice shows in the tightening of her lips. She lifts her hand, curling fingers around his wrist, her own fingers cool and dry. "I am paying attention but you don't understand. If you are the only one, unique, then you are ..." She trails off, unable to find a word to express herself, "Special. And it is more important to record things." She doesn't pull from the touch to her chin though, staring up at him.
Ahriman's lips curl into a smirk, and he stares at the small woman like a snake at a rabbit. She's trapped, even if she doesn't know it yet. "If there was, I would have discovered it long ago. I've tried often enough." he leans down, a touch closer, the dark sky of his eyes swept at the edges by the stormcouds of dawn -- shining silver brushstrokes that drift through his gaze, leaving his eyes a variety of grays, silvers, blacks, and even a hint of white. His breath smells vaguely spicy, a subtle whiff of something familiar yet indescribable. That hand releases her, and Ahriman slides frm his stool. "We're wasting our time," he decides, having progressed from dripping to merely damp. "I cannot help your cause, and so you cannot aid in mine."
Maya's eyes are wide, her gaze on his face as he speaks, moving closer. When he releases her, she stays frozen a moment longer, before she blinks, shaking her head, as if to clear it. "You can't help this, but if you let me record things, I'll write the letter..." Her offer is spoken softly, her voice revealing a little of how shaken she is and she rises abruptly, holding the clipboard against her body with both arms, hugging it as if it provides protection versus shadows. "Do you give your type a name?"
"I am Ahriman," the being speaks again, waving a hand as if to dismiss the question. "We will negotiate a deal, you and I. What you ask is beyond the scope of what I was lead to believe you intended." He turns for the door, his mane of ebony hair rising behind that dark head, and he speaks at the door, "How much time do you require? What buys me a letter of goodwill?"
The scientist shakes her head slowly, "I have no idea how much time is needed to study something so unique, and ...I don't know." The dislike of explaining that she doesn't know clearly isn't comfortable. A hand rises to fiddle with the end of a bunch, her lips tightening before she speaks. "Give me a day. A single day of being poked and prodded and asked questions you think are stupid. Then I'll give you your letter."
She's met by a deep, rolling laugh that sounds like someone trying to kick-start a Harley. "A day," he rumbles, head turning to flick one silvered eye over his shoulder at her. "Three hours gets me a letter. Six gets me an advocate. You may try and ..." The dark being waves a hand, groping for the right terms, "declare me a ... protected species, a dignitary, something."
Maya stares before she shakes her head slowly. "I'm only a doctor. I can't declare you anything... not without studying you further, and talking to colleagues and..." She waves a hand, indicating how much further she would have to go. "Why do you need all this? What do you need it for? What did you do?" Her forehead wrinkles, a step forward towards him, her chin lifting. "Three hours wouldn't be enough to gain me any understanding of your species."
"One of your kind asked me to kill him," Ahriman speaks simply, as if the matter puzzles him still. "He was injured, destitute, and refused healing. I made sure he was certain and obliged. Your police are quite interested in me, as you may well imagine." Ahriman's shoulders turn to match his head, squaring off with Maya. Effectively blocking the way out. He stares down at the woman, making a mockery of her gothic, darkling motif. "You will help me explain this to them. That I am baffled by the public outcry. Citizens attack me with magic for my mercy. Be my voice, and you get your day."
Maya goes still, retracting that step forward, suddenly needing space from the creature. She returns the stare however, lifting her chin as she listens to his explanation. "You killed someone? How can I explain that? He cannot have been in his right mind to ask for help that way..." Her eyebrows knot together, pity for the man he killed showing in her face. "How do you not understand this? I would ..." She hesitates, trying to put logic in the way here, "I would need to understand you better before I could consider explaining this to someone else. The director would need to agree..."
The dark being stares down at Maya, frowning. "I am not speaking to this, 'director,' human. I am negotiating with you." His hands drop to his sides, and Ahriman stalks forward, rumbling, "Your kind live a short existence, a life punctuated by brief intervals of pleasure on a plane of misery. He would have died in a few decades anyway. Who am I to judge his measure of his worth? How arrogant you must be, to look upon one of your own and say he must go on in misery because *you* think he might sometime make it better. It doesn't get better, human. Your kind die. Generally alone and in pain. Life has a one hundred percent mortality rate. Between these walls I thought I would find someone who understood that."
Maya takes a step backwards, her back hitting her huge table. "I have to ask him. I can't make that type of promise without doing so." The words thenselves are fine, but Maya's face is a little paler, her hands held together in front of her. "I understand that people die, I've been enough of it. But I'm a doctor, I don't take lives. I heal and ease where I can, not ..." She shakes her head slowly, "We take an oath, a promise." She straightens, refusing to stay pressed against the table, her hands dropping to her side. "I will ask him."
Ahriman's slow approach continues, the light in the room beginning to fade away. "Even in suffering, even in pain, the sort you can never treat?" the dark being asks, before reaching to plant a hand on either side of that table to stare down at Maya, his body nearly wrapped about her, the sole lights in the room the silver flashing in his eyes. The heat of his skin beats against her chest, wafting off his skin in waves. "You would continue your life support on a terminal patient, prolonging their suffering to the ends of your..." His eyes flicker down Maya's body, "undoubtedly exceptional skill?" His voice drops to a near-whisper, the bass rumble separating into individual clicks with an undertone of slither. "You are lauded for this. And your kind calls me monster."
His approach is met with a retreat that takes her up against that table, her breath catching in her throat. Her chin lifts, if only to lift her gaze to his face, her cheeks paling and then flushing as he speaks of the terminal patients. "I would continue giving them treatment, pain relief, anything I could do. I cannot take a life." A firm denial of his charge, but his words have hit their mark, and she lifts her hands to his chest, the gesture a refusal of his touch. "You... I haven't called you a monster. I sought to understand you." Her voice is a whisper, husky and as uncertain as her eyes.
Ahriman's chest is wrapped in a very nice, and faintly moist, pinstripe suit jacket. The shirt underneath is cotton, and under it all is him. A thing of nightmares, given enough flesh to wreak havoc on poor scientists left alone in the dark. More than enough flesh, given what he said earlier! "You're all dying. Mayflies who celebrate a day and are gone. He was done, human. He told me so."
Maya increases the pressure against his chest, the colour faded from her cheeks, leaving them white. "Everything dies in its own time." She replies, her voice unsteady, uncertain. "He may have been out of his mind, afraid, something fixable." She takes a steadying breath, drawing herself up to her full height, an attempt to deny the fear growing in her eyes. "And my name is Maya." A hard shove against his chest, a hint of temper born of fear in her face. "Back off."
"Maya." Ahriman doesn't budge. He's a thing of the dark, in is element, and finally interested. "You hold the power of life and death, and you think this gives you the right to choose. You are a God whose own whim must, by your divine right, surely be a superior judge of a person than their own opinion." His chest presses against the scientist's then, the line of his body firm against hers. He's clearly unaroused, and pressed hard enough against her that she knows it. "You have twenty four hours, Maya. Speak to your 'director.' Search your conscience. When I return, you tell me you have the right to decide how and when a person may die. A person whose fate is inevitable. And if you cannot, you will be my advocate. And you will get your day." That pressure builds, faintly, threatening to harm the young scientist, and then is simply gone. The heat is gone. A moment later the lights fade in, revealing an open door to the lab, the blinds swaying faintly in the wake of the air conditioner.
