The image of the scientist who apparently didn't exist was branded into the back of Koschei's mind. Her flaming eyes, the ferocity in which she yelled Koschei's last name...it was all very familiar in a way, yet so different.
Nobody he knew would call him by his last name, there were simply too many Oakdowns in the city. Oakdown was like the time lord version of "Smith".
Koschei was still thinking about that as his escorts pushed through a set of double doors, revealing a lab, which was fortunately not bright white.
It was a big room, with a ceiling more than twenty feet high. Long fluorescent lightbulbs held suspended from the ceiling, illuminating the concrete floor. The equipment was also large, big machines ten feet high making nonstop whirring sounds. There were multiple tables scattered around the room, which was four time the size of the TARDIS's control room.
Koschei walked behind his two escorts, looking at the scientists running around the room. None of them seemed to pay any attention to him.
He was led all the way to the other side of the room, where the two guys finally stopped walking, forcing Koschei to do the same.
Koschei tried to stuff his hands into his nonexistent pockets, but his hands were bond. He sighed. He never felt comfortable without his hands in his pockets around strangers.
"Um...what do you want us to call you?" The shorter guy asked.
"Master."
The taller guy laughed. "Well, as you can see here, you're not exactly the Master...he is." He looked over to the side.
Koschei turned, seeing a middle-aged man in a ankle-length lab coat walk slowly to him, a slight smile on his face.
Koschei felt his hearts rate speed up. He, for some reason, was afraid of this man he had never seen before...or had he? Things were getting really strange today.
The man stopped walking, just outside of the three's combined personal space bubbles. He leaned against the edge of a table.
He looked just like a polite dude like that.
But the guy had called him the "Master". So was this man in charge of this lab and its studies? If so, Koschei had a few questions to ask him...
The man held out his hand to shake. "I'm Dr. Morning Alender. Nice to meet you, Mr. Oakdown."
Koschei sighed, balling his fists. He couldn't even shake a dude's hand! Even though he was wondering how Dr. Alender knew his last name. Did he say it in his sleep or something? The title of "mr" was strange to Koschei. Usually, time lords called each other by their clan names (Eno for Koschei) or with the title "Jaki."(usually more respectful and used formally)
Dr. Alender studied Koschei's expression. "You seem uncomfortable...did I dress you the wrong way? What pronouns should I use?"
"Um...no...it's fine. I go by male pronouns." Koschei answered, putting on a smile.
Dr. Alender, however, corrected himself by calling Koschei Eno, which somehow made Koschei relax a little. He wasn't comfortable with his real name or "Jaki" being used with him...it felt so different. And Koschei decided he had enough different for now.
"So, Eno, I suppose you have no idea what happened when you woke up here."
"No, sir, I didn't." Koschei expected Dr. Alender to smile at his response and say, "Nah, just call me Morning." (or something else other than "sir") but he did not.
"It was a lot of trouble to get you out of that fire alive. We actually had to force an artificial regeneration, so sorry for any minor memory loss." Dr. Alender explained, all while keeping a cheerful voice.
Koschei tensed. Artificial regenerations were extremely dangerous, and usually ended up harming more than helping. But he seemed fine...
"Also sorry about the padded rooms. While we were monitoring you before this incident, you seemed rather unstable. We weren't sure how you were going to react to a new environment."
Yeah, I reacted by stripping naked. Koschei tried not to react to that statement. "Wait...you were watching me before?"
Dr. Alender seemed surprised that Koschei actually asked a legit question. "Well...we were watching you for a long time, actually."
"How? Like...why..."
"You'll all understand it one day. You're still confused." Dr. Alender said.
Confused? Yes, very. Koschei didn't know whether these guys were bad...or stupid...or both. "So you guys are keeping me here because..."
"We want to restore populations...and Eno, you're in grave danger."
Koschei felt light-headed and started to stumble around. Eventually, he was asked to sit down and was given a glass of water. He had more than enough weirdness for today. He was always in grave danger, how much worse could it be?
Who was there to trust? The only other of his kind was off shagging another companion. And also, he thought he was dead. He thought his fucking cells were ashes. Nobody wanted a surprise visit from somebody they thought they had burned.
Koschei thought he was dead until he woke up in that padded room. It was a shame, actually. The one time he thought he would be allowed to die, he was saved again. His fifth attempt at death was a flop.
He brought the rim of the glass to his lips, drinking some water to look less spaced-out. He could say he was rocking the look today.
The shorter guy crouched down in front of Koschei, taking in free hand in his. "Are you feeling better?"
Koschei nodded, sitting up straight. "What type of danger?"
"Um...lemme ask Dr. Alender." the shorter guy looked up at Dr. Alender, who loomed over Koschei, face deadpanned and arms crossed.
Dr. Alender didn't answer for a full minute, and after that, it was obvious he was never going to answer at all.
Koschei found that rather strange. Did they even know what the danger was?
Later, Koschei was back on his feet and a female scientist with red hair greeted him, finally taking the handcuffs off and telling him that she was here to take stats.
Koschei felt a little relived that the scientist was taller, even though that was only because she was wearing heels. It reminded him of Gallifrey, even though half of those memories were bad. He just needed a little familiarity right now.
First, the scientist, whose lab coat read "Marshall", took his height. Five feet and six inches. That seemed taller than what Koschei remembered, but his height may have been because he last regenerated on Earth, which forced his body to choose a new form accordingly. The lack of gravity on Earth made humans taller, and also time lords that regenerated there.
Koschei remembered how frustrating it was having to look up all the time.
Weight? 129 pounds. Not bad...for a human.
Overall, Koschei was unimpressed and annoyed. But he could live with these changes.
He was waiting for the scientist to finish talking about his stats with Dr. Alender, who also seemed unimpressed.
After that was over, Dr. Alender met Koschei's eyes. He smiled. "Hungry?"
Koschei soon learned that the food was actually good in a secret facility five miles underground. He earned a few stares as he stepped into the cafeteria with his two escorts, whose names were Mike and Theo.
Koschei didn't hesitate to grab chocolate milk and a bunch of BBQ wings. And maybe add an apple to that. He, for some reason, loved apples. Especially the sour ones.
Mike and Theo led Koschei to a table in the back of the mess hall. There was nobody else sitting there, and Koschei was just fine with that. He didn't need anything else new today.
"You like chicken?" Theo asked.
"Of course." Koschei answered.
"Well..." Theo took out his phone and suddenly, Koschei heard the sound of a chicken crowing. "You'll like this."
Koschei listened to the chicken make random sounds...in a melody. Whoever did this must be good with the sampler. And then the bass dropped.
He dropped his wing. "Am I listening to chicken dubstep??"
Theo laughed, turning red. "The best kind of dubstep there is."
Mike just poked at his food. "He plays it every day...get used to it."
Koschei decided he could live with a three-minute song made entirely of chicken sounds and drums every day. "Is that really all you listen to?"
"There's also the cow song."
"In other words, that's all he listens to." Mike interjected, accidentally sending a single piece of mac-and-cheese flying across the table. "Michael Jackson is always better."
Theo gave Mike a dirty look. "I can give you a chicken dubstep version of Beat It!"
"No thanks, don't ruin the song."
Kocshei peeled the skin off a wing, putting it into his mouth as he watched Theo and Mike argue about Michael Jackson. At least their voices blocked out the drums a little.
"Hey, Eno! Tell this idiot that chicken dubstep is the best music!" Theo yelled at Koschei, fighting to stay sitting up.
Koschei shrugged. "I prefer Green Day."
Mike and Theo stopped fighting for a moment and stared at Koschei.
"So you like emo music?" Theo asked.
"Yeah. It's lyrically better than the pop songs. Besides, they're cool dudes."
"What...else do you listen to?" Mike asked, scooting back to his original spot.
"Metallica, Linkin Park, the Offspring, Skillet, My Chemical Romance, Coldplay, Bastille, REM, Red Hot Chili Peppers...stuff like that."
"Wow, emo enough."
Koschei sighed, focusing back on his chicken wing. He already missed his phone, which had five playlists of 200 songs each, which were all "very emo".
It turned out that Koschei didn't have to go back to the padded room. Instead, they moved him to a more normal room.
It was small, with rounded metal walls and fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling. There was nothing but basic furniture in there: a bed, a desk with a desktop computer, and some drawers.
Koschei sat down on the bed, which wasn't that uncomfortable. He could live with it. He inhaled the scent of chlorine, which reminded him of a torturous trip to the mall with Lucy. (Who somehow listened to classical music but could stand rock music blasting through the walls of their room.)
Koschei stood up and walked to the drawers, pulling open the topmost one and seeing they had clothes in there. (more scrubs) He picked out some that were black.
He loved black, it was the absence of color, which described him in way too many ways.
The other drawers had stuff like towels and bath supplies.
And also, Koschei discovered the K-cup machine. He shoved a Donut Shop cup into the machine and turned it off, watching the machine dispense a stream of brown liquid into the simple white mug under it.
There was a knock on the door.
Koschei got up and opened it. It was Theo.
"What do you want?" He might have said that a little too harshly.
"Meanie. I just wanted to ask if you liked the room...as much as one could like it."
"It's...cozy I guess. Lots of privacy, unlike the other living arrangements I had." Koschei said, leaning against the wall.
"At least we agree on one thing. Is it weird I expected you to be playing emo music by now?"
"The best sound is silence." But unfortunately, I never get that.
Theo shrugged. "Well, hope you're doing okay. The bathroom is all the way at the end of the hall," he pointed down the hall, "and if you run out of K-cups, you can always come to me because I hate coffee."
Koschei smiled at Theo, who left, slowly walking down the ultra-bright hallway.