Unethical Practices

A lucky break

Rey stood up before he could stop himself and stared at the gem. Unlike the cores he had seen up until now, this one was not a perfect sphere, but slightly oval, with a few nicks here and there. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, until he realised he didn't even know where to start his questions, and sat down again instead. The one who did start asking questions was instead Felicia, despite the brain fog from the pain.

"What are you?"

With a smug smile, Swann buttoned up his shirt again, slowly.

"When I first came to this little rock, I was worshipped as a god. You might have heard of the Star Born."

While Rey frowned, Felicia's mouth dropped.

"You mean they were right?"

He turned to her with a confused expression.

"What is he talking about?"

"They call themselves the Temple of the Stars. They're a small, native population living not too far from here, though their ways have made some consider them somewhat of a cult. Supposedly, they worship 'The Star Born', who came here ages ago. There have been all kinds of rumours about them possessing supernatural abilities. If they are able to harness cores, that would explain things. They could have technology that we don't."

"That is somewhat true," Swann filled in. "They do have technology based on pseudo cores. In their case, they are a finite resource however. Without a true core, these imitations can't be made. I have developed a method using my own as a basis, however, yet there is still much to be discovered about how they work. Thus why I brought people like the two of you here."

Rey shook his head. This was all a bit much to take in at once.

"Okay, but why aren't you with them? If they already have a bunch of tech and they worship you?"

The condescending look Swann gave him made him flinch, but he still got an answer.

"I told you about it when we first met. I want to change the world. They, on the other hand, are against it. You don't need to concern yourselves with the details, but we found our differences of opinion to be irreconcilable."

There was a story he obviously wasn't telling, but the tone carried a clear warning not to pry.

"So what now?" Felicia finally asked after a long pause. "We just go back to work as usual?"

"Yes, but with a few caveats. While you still report to Durst for now, I will personally be overseeing your work. If you so much as think about breaking the rules again, I will know about it, and the consequences will be severe. I will also expect far more from your personal projects going forward. If you can't keep up, I'll consider you more of a liability than an asset, with all that it entails. On the other hand, if you prove yourselves, I will be giving you personal assignments, as well as some information about my species."

His head snapped to Felicia, who shrunk back in her chair.

"Yes, your reward will be 'more work'. Is that an issue?"

She immediately gave him a wide-eyed headshake.

"Good. Take the day off from work and think hard about your next steps. If you don't have any other questions, you may leave now."

Cisco handed Rey a beer and sank down on the couch next to him. After the meeting, Rey had gone straight to Cisco's living quarters, and had told him the parts he was allowed to share. Luckily, this had been one of Cisco's days off. They now sat there in silence until Rey finally made a deep sigh.

"I really fucked up this time."

Cisco looked over at him and shook his head.
"Let me tell you the story of a friend of mine. The first time he went on a date, he got there way early. He figured that he couldn't just wait around without ordering anything, so he decided to get something to drink. Only, he was super nervous and didn't think straight. So he ordered a huge milkshake. The only problem was that he was lactose intolerant. Like seriously lactose intolerant. I don't think I need to go into details of what happened after that."

"Ouch. Yeah, that must've sucked."

"Yeah, I usually tell that story when people are down on themselves. Trying to give some perspective, you know."

"'There's always someone stupider out there' kind of thing? Yeah, I guess that sorta makes me feel better in a way..."

"Oh no. That was the dumbest thing I had ever heard of up until now. You managed to break the record."

"Hand me a trophy, or it doesn't count."

"Don't tempt me."

Silence once again filled the space, only being interrupted by the barely audible slurps whenever they took a sip from their beers.

"I need to know, why did you think it was a good idea to actually try to sneak into areas you're not allowed?"

Rey shrugged and stared into space.

"I was stuck in my research. It's everything to me. I wouldn't do it again, but I can't say that I'm sorry that I did."

"I warned you about Felicia."

"You did, but she was the only one who could help me. I had to take the risk."

"And that's why you're a dumbass."

"Can we talk about something else? I came here to wind down before I stress myself into an aneurysm."

"Sorry, but I'm only giving you crap because you deserve it. I'll give you one last piece of advice before I drop it though. Now that you did fuck up by doing what Felicia told you to, make sure to use her for all she's got. She owes you. She's probably going to try to turn it back on you and blame you for getting caught, but don't buy it. Make sure she repays her debt."

While things were strained between them after the spying incident, Rey and Felicia still worked well together when they were in a professional setting. The way they got around Rey's problem with the limb attachments was by using some of Felicia's test cores. By working with her, he learned that the easiest information for cores to store was DNA, which in turn was what somehow made the connections between flesh and machine stable. Neither of them had a full understanding of how it worked, and they would likely return to study the phenomenon in greater detail in the future. Right now, however, they were focused more on getting it to work to begin with.

Once they had a few tentative successes, Felicia decided to sit down with Rey to talk about the next step. They had just finished putting the test animals back in their cages, and she made sure to speak before he had a chance to leave.

"Hey, Rey, so I've been thinking about something."

He didn't look up from his pad, still taking down notes, but answered with a non-committal 'Mhm'.

"I think it's time we move on from animals to human test subjects."

This was enough for him to look up from his notes.

"What makes you say that?"

She shrugged and motioned towards the cages.

"We've made it work with these, and I really don't think we're gonna get more data. Besides, the entire point with this is to make them work for humans anyway, right?"

"Are you sure we're ready though? We've got it working for now with various animals, but I'm not sure we know enough to move on."

She motioned towards a chimpanzee that sat in one of the cages with a metal leg.
"Come on. You've seen the data, you have to have figured it out too. The closer to humans the test subjects are, the better they work. It's time to move on to the next step."

"Okay, but where would we get volunteers for that? Wait, never mind. I'll ask Durst. It's her job, not mine."

"Do that. She's the one that got the people for my brain studies, so she should be able to scrounge up some people."

"You make it sound like they've got a storage full of people, just ready to go."

She responded with a noncommittal shrug.

"I wouldn't know anything about it, but all things considered, would it really surprise you that much if they did?"

Something about the casual way she said it sent a chill down his spine. She was right. With how little he knew about the other floors of this compound, and how big the secrets it seemingly held were, it really wouldn't surprise him.