Heisenberg Research Station, Cologne
June 13th, 835 AS
Doctor Thorn's Lab
The journey to Heisenberg station was fairly uneventful. Apart from a couple of Liberty patrols near the border, the only inconvenience along the way was the anxious wait. Freud had never had a medical check-up before, because there was no urgent need for one. And anything that wasn't urgently needed was usually put on the back burner.
After all, he had to feed his sister, and considering her health, he didn't think about his own at all. He could walk and work, that was enough.
Looking out at the station, which resembled a small Freeport, from the cockpit of his fighter, Roland hesitated for a few seconds. It was hard to comprehend how Thallia had learned more about him in less than a week than almost everyone else learned in a year. Including the people he had fought dangerous battles with time and time again. One thread clung to another, one word to another word. He revealed more and more to her; both because he wanted to and because he had to. He couldn't afford to keep anything from the woman who offered him help, because she might be putting her own safety at risk. And she was hardly the kind of person who didn't think about the consequences and possible dangers.
"Well, there's no point in dragging it out. I don't know if you can hear me, but try not to cause trouble."
It was silent. As it had been lately. As if Roland was just a guy with an inexplicable ability to fix things again. But he knew better than to hope for that.
Another second passed and Freud flew his fighter closer to the station, contacting it and requesting permission to land. The tired voice that answered asked surprisingly few questions, and soon Freud was leaving his ship in the hangar.
The station wasn't very big, but it seemed to be quite popular. Lost in the stream of people, the young man pulled up a map of the station on his helmet's visor, quickly finding the place marked as Thallia's laboratory. A few minutes later, after walking down several corridors, he stood before what appeared to be the entrance to Thallia's laboratory. There were a few seconds of hesitation, after which Locksmith shook his head slightly.
"Not again. Pull yourself together, coward."
With that, Freud... Knocked on the door. He wasn't sure if there was anything else to indicate his presence, so he started with the most obvious thing.
"Just a m...moment, I'll be right there!" Thallia's says quickly, the electronic rendtion of her tone pitched and loud. A moment passes. Another drifts by. Finally, with a series of clicks and a pressurised hiss, the door opens up to reveal a softly smiling Dr. Thorn. A smile that brightens on seeing who had come to visit.
"Welcome Roland! Come on in." Taking a few steps backwards, Thallia gestures towards a coat and shoe locker where her own tan coloured coat and satchel bag hung. Two pairs of black synth-leather boots below. "Did you ha...have a good journey? Uneventful? Tea? Coffee?" The doctor's eyes were studying Roland with a warm-hearted glow in them.
Behind her, in this first room, appeared to be . On the far side of the room a corner desk was mounted, reflecting the glow of three monitors arrayed in a three-faced curve. Two cast a bright combination of blues and oranges as readouts, datastreams, and coding filled the screen. On the third, an aerial view of the alien site on Planet Sudbury. In On the left hand corner was a fabric couch looking towards a coffee table arrayed with a couple mugs, a PDA, and a hypnotainment band. In fact, there were a few different models hung up to the side.
Two doors led to other parts of the lab meets accomodation, one of which was a well maintained sliding pressured door.
The seconds between the first sound of her voice and the opening of the door were painfully long. That fear that was squeezing him in its fist was pressing so hard that the young man momentarily caught his breath. But as soon as he saw her soft smile, this inexorable grip around his soul melted away like the last ice floes under the warming heat of the sun in spring.
The contrast of sensations made Roland freeze for a moment, but her second sentence brought him out of this brief pause. He nodded slightly in greeting.
"Thallia. It's good to finally meet."
He follows her inside, looking around the room with mild curiosity. For him, who was used to living in a small room, this place looked respectable just from having a separate place for clothes and shoes. He shrugged slightly, hanging up his coat and taking off his black shoes to put them below.
"Quite calm. There were some patrols, but I easily got past them. As always."
Having finished removing his outer clothing, Roland turned back to Thallia. The offer of a drink made him pause for a moment. On Invergordon, he usually tried to make do with plain water, as the quality of other drinks was questionable. Here he had no such concerns.
" ... Tea, if possible."
The sight of Planet Sudbury on one of the monitors behind Thallia made the young man rest his hand on the side of his helmet as he recalled how visits to Ontario were becoming increasingly painful for him. It seemed that even the simple image now triggered phantom pain. But Freud pulled away from it, focusing his gaze back on Thallia.
Suddenly he realizes something.
"... Right. Helmet."
As usual, Freud simply forgot about this piece of equipment. The feeling of the helmet closing him off from the outside world became so familiar that the young man almost never took it off in public places unless necessary. And even then, he felt a certain uneasiness. But there was no one here except the two of them, and that made it much easier.
Freud raised his hands to his neck, touching the base of the helmet. A clicking sound, and then another. Then a hissing sound, like the one door had made when it opened. With a fluid motion, Roland removes his helmet, releasing a stream of long, dark hair. The tall, young man with pale skin squints slightly as his grey eyes adjust to the light. Then, as if remembering that he is human, he looks at Thallia with a small, slightly shy smile.
Thallia's brown eyes study Roland's face curiously with subtle darting movements this way and that. A broad grin breaks out on her lips. "You sh...shouldn't hide your face so much. Tea it is. I'll pop the kettle on."
Turning to walk across the room towards the far doorway, she makes a detour towards the corner desk. Tan-coloured trousers sat around a tucked in dark grey short-sleeve top with turned up square-cornered collar, held up by a thick synth-leather belt. The material was more worn away between the belt loops on her right hand side. She reaches for the monitors, turning the off by a switch underneath. In a quiet tone, she speaks towards the computer. "Lexi dear, please switch all lab monitors away from outputs related to ONT-1, OM-2A, and ONT-RA. Thank you."
Looking towards Roland, she casts an apologetic smile whilst moving into the other room. "Apologies, I ur... I should have thought ahead about that. Are your symptoms that acute?"
The hum of a drinks unit quietly rumbles from within that second room. "Oh, ur... Roland? I've got fruit teas. Blackcurrent? Lemon? Something called...'Vanilla Rum'?
"You think? Well, I'm used to the helmet, but... I think I wouldn't mind taking a little break from it when we're face to face."
Still smiling, he took a deep breath, as if tasting the air without his usual filters. Once again, she helped him feel more at ease with her calm, positive response. Not to mention that it was flattering to hear, considering her own rather pleasant appearance. Speaking of, Freud couldn't pinpoint her age, although he knew she was probably older than him.
Placing the helmet on one of the shelves in the locker, Roland was left in a black pants and turtleneck. He looked at the latter with slight thoughtfulness for a second before turning his head to Thallia once more.
"I'll probably need to take off some more clothes for... The examination?"
When the picture on the monitors changed, he nodded gratefully. This gesture was appreciated.
"Not so much that the image alone hurts me, but... I suppose memories can be painful too. I've heard that a lot of people experience something similar in Ontario, but I guess it affects me more than most. Thinking about stocking up on painkillers for when we do get to Ontario."
Roland followed her, looking around the next room. He shrugged his shoulders in slight embarrassment at her question.
"To be honest, I haven't tried any of this. I'll take whatever you recommend."
Across from Roland, and the first thing he sees in the relatively small bedroom-kitchen cubby combo, is the messiest double bed tucked into the corner. Duvet thrown to one side, pillows askew, clothes littered across it's length. A bedside table complete with lightstand, alarm clock, and a PDA sat atop the clock. A wardrobe standing the height of the room with a smaller cabinet with a keypad mechanism tucked between it and the other far corner. A dark brown leather holster with a sidearm was placed on top of the cabinet. Clothes hung on a wireframe clotheshorse, the smell of damp, softener infused fabric eminating from it. The small alcove where Thallia stood was a tiny kitchen space - the surfaces barely large enough to prepare a meal. Plenty big enough for a cup of something warm.
Thallia turns and looks at Roland with a sheepish smile, her chuckle nervous and quiet. "ur... I didn't expect you to come so quickly. D...D...ignore the mess. Please."
"and d...don't worry. I get it. I'm a coffee person so this lives in the cupboard just in case," she says, looking over her shoulder briefly at Roland to the sound of a spoon tapping against the sides of a mug. The pungent smell of hot blackcurrent filling the room. Running her fingers along a short rack of spices, she finds a tall tube of clear liquid. Unscrewing it, she adds it to the tea and continues to stir. "I've added some contrast d...dye to your tea. Shouldn't, ur... shouldn't taste or smell of anything. An iodine-gadolinium solution. Once absorbed, it'll aid our scans by i...improving visibility of various tissues."
Turning to Roland and smiling warmly, she offers the mug of tea towards him.
If only Thallia knew where and under what conditions Roland had slept a few years ago. Sometimes the best bed he and his sister could hope for was simply the floor of some abandoned building with a half-collapsed roof. Most days, of course, weren't that bad, but the sight of her bedroom-kitchen didn't bother him at all in light of his own misadventures.
"Don't care about the mess. I came for a medical check-up and... To spend some time with you, Doctor. The rest is not so important."
If anything, it made him feel bolder. Having covered the distance to his interlocutor, Freud stops right behind her, watching the movements of her hand from over her shoulder. He lets out a small laugh at her assurances that adding something to the tea won't affect the taste.
"I guess I'll just have to trust you on this one. I wouldn't know better, anyway."
So when she turns around, the young man is standing... Well, close enough that he doesn't have to reach for the cup. Taking it from Thallia, Roland carefully tastes the drink. Then he pauses for a few seconds, lost in thought. The mixture of sweetness and tartness was quite unusually pleasant for him.
"... I like it. A bit like one of the drinks I had at the bar on Arranmore. But... Without the heaviness of alcohol. Better."
With startled eyes, Thallia takes in Roland's drinking with intent attenion. Seeing him actually take a sip, her expression around her brow and eyes relax a little. "You don't need to tr...trust me. I'm having a dose myself." Taking the flask of coffee that had been brewing in the humming drinks machine, Thal turns at the waist to reach over to the rack for another vial. The swirling pattern of the coffee's foam is skewed out of shape as the solution is added. Stirring the beverage, Thallia takes a sip of it herself. "aah... nothing like a flat white."
"Speaking of medical check-ups... shall we get to it?" She gestures past Roland back towards the other room. "We'll want to go to the lab, through that sealed door near the de...desk."
"If I didn't trust you, I wouldn't have come here."
He shrugged, smiling and taking another sip. A bigger one this time.
"There are much easier ways to kill me, besides."
Looking back at the door she pointed to, he nods before moving towards the entrance of the lab. Stopping next to it, Freud slightly stretched his shoulders and leisurely finished his tea.
Lifting her coffee flask up to her lips and holding it back, throating pulsing with each gulp, Thallia makes sure to put back a good half of her coffee before walking over to join Roland. She lets out a tut as she puts her attention to the screen at the side of the door. "All this talk of killing. You're here for a medical e...ex...examination."
A flurry of fingers later, a keycode input to unlock the door, and it's sliding panels open. Rather than leading directly into the laboratory there was a short corridor. It's walls were banded like the interior of security scanners found on the majority of stations across Sirius.
Thallia looks to Roland and, offering a grin, gestures inside. "After you."
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