capeandcowllogs | (no subject)

WHO:

dontknowgray
WHERE: some rented lab space in the City
WHEN: afternoon 1/18
WARNINGS: violence. body horror. more violence.
SUMMARY: Stein finally crosses the line with Katurian hot on his trail, and when he gets busted an alien cop with a chip on his shoulder shows up to do the arresting.
FORMAT: words in a structure of some kind

In the end, after all of Stein's preparations, everything was easy to arrange. He rented a private lab space, signed the paperwork to have the patient of his choosing sedated and transported...

Less than an hour after putting the patient under, Stein was arranging him on an operating table miles from NOHoPE. Changing someone's personality through the physical alteration of the brain was a sound theory--and after Stein proved it with this unfortunate sufferer of antisocial personality disorder, the rest of the scientific community would have to accept his ideas, too.

With that in mind, Stein prepared his tools and got to work.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Stein glanced up--just enough to see who was addressing him--and then his gaze flitted back down, to the brain he was currently busy taking apart. It was delicate, messing with someone's brain matter while keeping them alive.

"Hello Katurian," he says mildly, though there's an undertone to his voice that makes his usual benign monotone sound...sinister.

He stepped forward. His legs didn't feel natural underneath him. They shifted and not-quite-buckled and could have been made out of wiry stilts for all he knew. His eyes were locked on the other man.

He thought of his knife, tucked into his jacket.

"What are you doing?"

Stein sighed, hands still busy.

"Performing an experiment."

It sounded as though he was picking each word with extreme delicacy, though he didn't sound guilty at all. Just faintly annoyed.

"I'm sure whatever you want can wait, Katurian."

"This isn't your lab. This isn't even-- I don't even think this belongs to the hospital."

Another step. He was walking on the jagged end of a cliff. He was walking on a thin sheet of ice. He was walking on nothing.

"Is that a patient?"

"Yes." Such patience. "A patient. A test subject."

Said as though the two terms were interchangeable.

"What do you want."

"A test subject." The words were torn out of his throat, loud and uneven. "A test subject."

Even Katurian didn't know whether he was trembling in rage or fear. His thoughts folded on top of each other until they all blurred together. He didn't know the tenseness in his stomach from the tenseness in his chest. He didn't notice that his hands had balled into fists.

Stein finally stopped his work, frowning behind his surgical mask. What an annoyance.

"Yes, Katurian. A test subject. You're interrupting a very important experiment."

"The patients are afraid of you." He was practically yelling now, unaware of how his voice echoed from the walls. "Is this why they're afraid?!"

"You're being ridiculous."

Stein was eerily calm in comparison.

"I am not being ridiculous! Is this why they're afraid of you?!"

Before he knew it, the knife was in his hands. He held it so tightly that he felt the handle cutting into his skin. He didn't lift it, though. He kept it at his side. It could have been a stick, a pen.

He shook.

"Tell me what you're doing to him. And t-tell me how many others you've done this to."

"Do you prefer the term melodramatic? It also applies."

He gives Katurian his full attention and, on the table, the patient's vitals start to waver.

Katurian hears the sounds, the changes in those beeps, and then he freezes, the knife still at his side. His eyes dart to the machines.

"Stich him up."