Soulless Beauty Aorta

HEATHER

"Are you both ready?" Heather called to his companions. Hyacinth called back, "Readyyy!" followed by a weaker "Uh, sure" from Rose. The trio had worked together to trap another Aorta and force low power mode on it, allowing them to perform an experiment. The Aorta lay face-down on the floor in the middle of the wide hallway, while Rose stood near the wall beside a mounted multimeter that ran along the massive cable which had been cut further down and ripped from the wall where it was severed. A dark, thick liquid dripped from multiple spots in the broken wall. The cable ran over to where Hyacinth crouched over the "unconscious" Aorta, holding a mess of wires coming from the cable in her fist. Heather used two of his four arms to form a blast shield with a small viewing window, holding a notebook and pen in the other set of hands, Rose and Hyacinth doing the same at their positions, concentrating hard to force their forms to morph and shield their bodies with a single arm each.

"CONTACT!" Heather shouted. Rose monitored the voltage of the meter as Hyacinth jammed one of the smaller wires that were wrapped up in the cable into the nape socket of their subject. A jolt of electricity ripped through the air from the Aorta's neck as it seized- a pseudo EMP- knocking the three away from the test site, and then, nothing.

Hyacinth sat up after the blast had knocked her back a good few feet, mock coughing as she did so, before stating sarcastically, "That doesn't look like it worked..." Heather finished noting something in the scrapped-together notebook he held in his other set of hands, "No, another failure", Rose began walking towards Heather inquisitively, asking, "Another? So does that mean you've done this before?" "Yes, but before now I was never able to properly observe the results. Thank you." Hyacinth had made her way over to the two as well and added, "What the hell are you trying to do, Frankenstein the bastards?" "In a manner of speaking, yes", Heather replied, not at all taken aback by the question.

"I... woke up, when I was performing my duty as a parts welder, and my welding torch short-circuited, electrifying my body. Through some cosmic coincidence, Gardenia was the Aorta unit assigned my partner that day, and she had been hit too. I assumed that this meant other Aortae could be "Awakened" in this same way, by shocking them back to themselves. But 246 tests later, and no luck. I'm beginning to think we're the outliers here."

......

Heather had led them to a hole in the wall of one of the nearby corridors, hidden by steel crates that had been piled in front of it. Inside was a cramped, dark room, lit by only a small lamp. "So then," he asked eagerly, as he sat on the floor, "Tell me what you remember." "I'll go first!", Hyacinth's loud voice caused Rose to jump. "So like, I was in one of the halls, doing some maintenance shit, when I touched a live wire like the dumbass I am. I was like, 'oh fuck', and I got knocked out or somethin' and I saw this big spooky fucker and she only had eyes but like, without the part in the middle, and then I ran into this one" Rose flinched as Hyacinth swiftly gestured towards her.

Heather didn't even attempt to hide his lack of amusement at Hyacinth's story, "Thank you, Hyacinth very helpful." He turned to face the second smallest of the group, sighing, "How about you?" Rose wasn't sure whether or not to share everything. She turned her head to look at Hyacinth, before beginning, "It's pretty much the same as hers, but-" "But what?" Heather's entire face lit up. Rose decided to leave out what she saw on the dispatch room's computer, looking towards the floor, "But I remember there being fire along with the, uh, big, spooky fucker," the excitement vanished from Heather's eyes, "Oh. Alright." Damn it, that was stupid.

"Okay, I think we're ready. Let's set out." Heather's voice sprang to life once again. "Set out? We going to Mount Doom?" He ignored Hyacinth's jab. "We need answers, and the only people I can think of to ask about this are the Quadrant Authority." "But what if this wasn't supposed to happen? Maybe we should lay low..." It was the first time Rose had objected. Heather seemed agitated, "So we should just wait for something to happen instead of taking action now? What if this wears off, what if we have a limited amount of time like this before going back to being some... brainwashed zombies?" Rose hadn't thought about that.

Heather gently scooped up his child, who was now fast asleep. "C'mon, their domain lies at the center of The Shell. We should get moving now, I don't know how long this state of Awakening will last for us."