Unethical Practices

The Final Choice

Cisco was soon back on guard duty again, and true to his word, he pretended that neither Ray nor Felicia even existed. After talking it over with Olivia, she told Rey that it would take time before he was ready to forgive. She'd let him know that Cisco had transferred over to mainly guarding the prisoner, so as to get away from any unpleasant thoughts about what was going on in the lab. She did, however, also relay a message that he would make a visit for a checkup eventually, and suggested that they use the time to clear the air.

It was strange how easy it was for things to return to the new normal. Without Cisco to ensure their socialisation, Rey and Felicia spent more and more time in the lab. Rey even started spending most of it in the inner lab, and was surprised to note that Chief didn't make any more visits in all this time. They were finally making some progress with the new core, when Cisco finally showed up. Despite the way things had ended last time, he actually smiled friendly at the two of them as they gave him the checkup.

"Have the limbs given you any issues, such as unexpected pain, tremors, loss of sensation or anything else?" Felicia asked while Cisco ran the tests.

"No, nothing," he replied. "They work just fine. There was some initial soreness before I broke them in, but nothing now."

"Good. I'll leave the two of you to finish up then. Let me know if you need anything."

Once she stepped away to check on some other experiment she was running, Rey paused.

"Look. I know I made you upset, and I'm sorry. I genuinely thought you'd be happy to have your legs and arm back."

Cisco sighed heavily.

"I'm not angry about the arm and the one leg. I'm angry about two things. First of all, the leg that was fine as it was. Second, because you said that you 'fixed' me. I wasn't broken. I was fine the way I was. I'd rather have gotten used to living with only one arm and no legs if it meant that you didn't make me a new leg. And I thought I'd made that clear."

Rey nodded.

"I'm sorry. I really am. And you're right, I should've asked first at least, and not taken things for granted. If you want me to, I'll remove your leg."

Cisco gave him a tired look.

"Don't. Don't try to fix anything else. If I forgive you, it's going to be on my terms. You're just going to have to live with it until I do, if I ever do. I'm going to take a bit of a rest here before going. I'm sure you've got some experiment to run or something."

Once Cisco was gone, Rey kept stealing glances at the door where he'd left. Felicie couldn't help but notice, and gave him a surprise hug from behind.

"I overheard. I'm sorry that he didn't appreciate what you did for him."

Rey sighed and turned around to reciprocate the hug.

"No, he's right. I shouldn't have done what I did. I could've saved him without regrowing the limbs, and he's right that I shouldn't have said that I 'fixed' him."

"Still, you did save his life, and I'm sure anyone else would've been grateful."

"I guess that's what ethics committees are for."

She gave him a light punch in the arm.

"Stop that. We're changing the world here. Once we get to share this with the outside, we're going to be heroes."

Once they had wrapped up the research for the evening, they decided to relax together in her apartment. They had barely settled in and started the movie when the alarms were once again blaring. They both shot up in panic, shared a look and headed immediately for the elevator. Before they were even halfway, Rey heard Chief call out.

"Don't forget the Templar core!"

He looked behind him, but didn't see her there. As strange as it was, she had been right. They needed that for their research.

"Go ahead" he told Felicia. "I'll just get some stuff from the lab."

"Are you sure? We've got all the backups we need."

"Yeah, but the core can't be replaced."

She frowned, torn between asking him to forget it and come along, or letting him go. After a few seconds, she kissed him on the cheek and squeezed his hand.

"Promise you'll hurry."

"I promise. I wouldn't want to disappoint my girlfriend, after all."

He gave her a quick kiss before turning back.

What was supposed to be a quick grab, turned into him turning the lab upside down when the core was nowhere to be found.

"What's taking you so long?" Chief chastised him from behind.

Rey wasn't sure when she had shown up again, but it was an unwelcome distraction.

"Well, you could try helping me" he spat back while emptying the contents of a drawer on the floor.

"I literally can't," she snapped back. "I'm not real, you dolt."

He froze and turned around to look at her.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

She rolled her eyes at him.

"I'm a figment of your imagination, you idiot. You were losing your touch, starting to question yourself and stuff. So you made me up to have someone to order you around, make you do the things you wanted to do anyway. Create a scapegoat and whatnot. Why else would I be acting like a mix of every authority figure you've seen here? Or how I've helped you out with your research literally without touching anything? Or talking to you, but not anyone else?"

He blinked slowly.

"What?"

"Oh for fucks sake. Just keep looking for that core. If you die here, so do I."

"So when you ordered me to regrow Cisco's limbs-"

"All you. Shit, just forget about it. You're not going to find the core, just get out."

Before he could move, the room shook, and the woman from the prison broke through the floor. As she headed for the vats to break them, he quickly made his escape through the airlock.

"How'd she break out?" he muttered to himself, despite the panic. "And how did she even get ahold of her core again?"

"That's not too hard to figure out" Chief sneered. "Only three people have had access to the lab where you had the core. You, Felicia and Cisco. One guess as to who it could possibly be."

A chill ran down his spine. That was the reason he had come back for the checkup, and why he'd been relatively friendly. It had all been a trick. As he headed for the elevator, he heard a gun fire. In all the chaos, he couldn't really piece together what was going in, but when he stepped out into the corridor and saw Cisco standing over Felicia's body with a gun, blood pooling out around her, it became all too obvious.

The two of them stared at each other across the hallway for a few seconds before Cisco pointed the gun towards him.

"Why?" Rey asked, trying to understand. "Why did you do this?"

"He's not gonna listen!" Chief hissed in his ear. "You need to get out of here!"

"You know why," Cisco replied.

"Because of your leg? I'm sorry! But Felicia had nothing to do with that!"

"It's not because of my leg! You've been kidnapping people and using them as lab rats! What is wrong with you? Both of you! You're turning people into monsters!"
"Wait, no, that's not-"

Cisco fired a shot that hit Rey in the chest. As he collapsed on the floor, his vision darkened.

"I'm not going to stand here and listen to your crap. You both need to die so that your research does too. Ceren is right. Everyone here is a monster."