A Meeting of the Minds

[Julius Sedaire]

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Ijaat stretched, fresh scars covering him... Had he seriously flown off to Adumar and challenged the very Wrath of the Dark Lord himself? He still didn't really know what, if anything the man had done to him. There was just the singular sensation of pain in every single join and muscle, a burning sear of agony. The medic who had stitched him up on Aeten II had wanted him hospitalized for weeks, but he had snuck out once they told him that he was stable and wouldn't die.

There was no way he was ready to fight anyone, let alone that Sith Lord, again.... But he had a wrecked suit of beskar'gam and needed answers to his questions. So he had gone to his contacts through the Underground, and found someone to call to this seedy little joint in some backwater world in the Outer Rim... They served good flatbread with some sort of zesty garlic sauce and chicken or lamb, and though they frowned upon strong drink, their date juice tasted good in the parched mouth he had.

To tell the truth, Ijaat was jumpy, and he kept checking the safety on his DE-10, and to make sure his haymaker was charged and ready. Nightmares had plagued him, and paranoia had set in. Everyone he saw could be an agent of the one he had faced, come to drag him back to the death he still rightly didn't know how he escaped. Coming to finish the job while Ijaat was too weak to defend himself, though such peons were usually trivial to him. So he waited for his contact's man to show up.

The question was one simply of Biology. What, if any, had the Vong-King changed within him? He had shown erratic readings. What they meant, he didn't yet know, but the full file sat in a holo 'jector on the table in front of him, along with hard-copy files and readouts next to it, all marked with a stern looking 'PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL' stamp on it. Would this guy hurry up already?

[member="Bhaltair Dhimani[/FONT][SIZE=10px]"][/SIZE]

 

[Bhaltair Dhimani]

This probably wasn't a good idea, coming out in the open like this. He was technically a wanted man, although the militaries and governments aware of Bhaltair's special case were trying to keep it under wraps. A shadow war, of sorts, over a...monster that caused a public mess almost everywhere he went. However, someone needed Bhaltair, not...the other guy. They needed him and they had money and he needed money. Despite his hesitation about this situation, Bhaltair knew that he'd have to stick his neck out at some point. This seemed to be the best place to do so.

He walked into the meeting place, the Seedy Little Joint...Bhaltair supposed there was humor involved in naming an establishment in such a way. As he walked inside, he aimlessly looked about for his contact. Eventually, he spotted a dark haired man at a table who appeared to be waiting for someone. He slowly and uncertainly walked over to [member="Ijaat Akun"] and said,

"Are you, uh...Akun?"

 

[Julius Sedaire]

"I am...Please, sit... Try the... Well... Whatever this is, I can't pronounce it, but it's delicious"

Ijaat tried to relax in any way possible... He only had the briefest of knowledge of the nervous man in front of him from their mutual contact, but he knew he did not want Bhaltair to become agitated or angry. In any way whatsoever. Though to think the small furtive moving man with the almost stutter in front of him as violent or a threat in any way was... Well.... Amusing... But he had that glint in his eye, the same glint Ijaat saw in the book smart people so brainy they had problems relating to regular people some days. That would fit with the mannerisms too.

"I have a problem after a recent fight with... Well...."

Ijaat indicated the file and clicked the holo projector on, reducing the projector span to a tiny hand held bit a few inches square, but enough to give an idea of his medical state when he had been found., The hard copy would detail his account of the fight with [member="Reverance"] as well. What he remembered of it.

[member="Bhaltair Dhimani"]

 

[Bhaltair Dhimani]

Bhaltair took the seat and set to work on the data he had on hand. Food could come later because this case looked serious. The name of the affliction was one outside of his knowledge, but he could see what effect it was having on Akun's systems. It must have been a Force related super science, because the affecting chemicals and infections were outside the realm of typical science. Still, given more time, he had high hopes that his skill and knowledge could find a way to treat this.

"I can understand the majority of what's going on in this video feed of your fight, but you're going to have to elaborate on the after-battle effects that happened to you. For instance, what are the symptoms currently affecting you? Do you have any wounds that don't appear to be healing?"

[member="Ijaat Akun"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Wincing, Ijaat rubbed at his temples and nodded slightly to the waitress who set another drink in front of him. With a shrug, he popped another of the narcotic pain killers the backwater doc had given him before he left that med center they had found him at. In truth, he had no clue what was going on, but might as well list what he knew.

"There's some parts of my armor won't function... My A.I. seems to be slightly damaged and won't synch with my helmet systems and keeps mentioning something about the neural link is altered, whatever that is... And the system monitors on the helmet say I'm running a 105 degree fever... And pretty much every wound of mine is healed or healing, even though some of them probably should still be raw gashes by now...But I've noticed my reaction times are a bit quicker, even if my muscles are weak and shaky like I ran a few miles in full armor..."

[member="Bhaltair Dhimani"]

 

[Bhaltair Dhimani]

"...Hmmm. Well, the brain has a strong hold over the body. Whatever's altering your cerebrum might also be sending enhanced impulses to stimulate your body's natural healing. That's some fever you've got...It could be that your brain's metabolic activity is increasing...yet you didn't feel adverse effects from it?...Whatever's manipulating your brain, be it a virus or whatnot, could be producing this much energy to enact...change. Your increased reflexes sound like they're coming from your synapses...That could explain the advanced healing and your shakiness! Your affliction is flashing through your nervous system, expanding and refining it...or razing it...If "it" has a hold in your brain, it might be tweaking the hormones you release...That shakiness sounds like your synapses are firing up your sympathetic nervous system repeatedly so that you can have a steady supply of adrenaline."

Bhaltair noticed how Akun's eyes would unabashedly flick down and look at what was likely a sidearm. He might have thought the man was going to try to kill Bhaltair or tranq him, but the look was one of desperation and survival. This man was paranoid.

"Alright, Akun?" He bent over in his seat towards the man, his elbows propping against his legs. "If you're being attacked through your adrenaline, you need to calm down. Let me show you a calming technique." In retrospect, this was all incredibly ironic. "Put your arms against your sides and then bend your forearms perpendicular to your body...Clench your abs and start puffing air in and out. Strong breaths. Now, focus on your stomach. Corner that anger in your chest and let it stay there. You are not angry, your stomach is. When you feel it all collected there, release. Lean back in your chair and breath slowly. No one here is going to hurt you."

[member="Ijaat Akun"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Seeing the man speak, and act, Ijaat nodded, positioning his arms in just such a way as an old swordmanship mentor had shown him. At some point he would have to ask the man if he knew anything about his old teacher or swords. It really was, to his knowledge, an obscure technique. Trying to calm and collect himself, he nodded, and slid another report forward. Redactions were rife in it, but it was clearly a medical report from Dr. Alest Neist from some place called Selvaris. It detailed what, to most would be a horrific set of experiments Ijaat didn't really understand.

"The vong did this.... Can you teach me to stop it? Or tell me what it means?"

His voice was calm as he sat back in his chair, oddly enough looking relaxed, even though his face would spasm and his gut would clench, or various other muscles would tremor and shake as he sat and talked to the man. This one could help, he was sure.... So much had been happening to him since that place, he was not sure he understood any of it.... But for some reason he trusted this man would help him, if nothing else he would help him find a direction to go in.

[member="Bhaltair Dhimani"]

 

[Bhaltair Dhimani]

He took the time to quickly read what he was giving, but Bhaltair was sure to catch every word so that nothing was left out. Whatever hell hole he had been in, Bhaltair would certainly not wish upon any other. He was going to need to take note of these Vong for future notice.

When he had read it all, he looked up and said, "They're adding their own Vong bio-tech into your body. Akun, you've been used as a test subject. Whether in the name of science, a sick play thing, or maybe they saw something in you that they wanted to make better in order to challenge themselves in the past. Whatever the case, they think of you as a pawn in their game. There's something called an..."Ooglith" living in your bones. It's taking the place of where your nutrient-rich spongy tissue, the bone marrow, should be. They've hooked you up to some symbiotic bio-tech, but there seems to be a lot of trade-offs, both shown in this report and which will likely make themselves known to you eventually."

"...I can tell you that this is going to take a long time, though. I have a PhD in Biology, but this...Vong tech is very new to me."

[member="Ijaat Akun"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Ijaat sighed and steepled his fingers, thinking a moment and nodded. His eyes were hollowed like a hounds, haggard, and his flesh was pale and sweaty, obviously feverish. Something was wreaking havoc on him, even if not to try to kill him the adjustment to whatever this Vongtech was, well... It was not going well for him, and he nodded to the paperwork with a haunted gaze, breaking his hands apart to tap it lightly with a grouping of fingers to drive home what he was going to say.

"Can you figure out if this is real? And how to help me stabilize my health? If the report is right.... I don't need to stop it... I need to learn how to use it so I can kill the bastard that did it to me. And can you help me figure out why I can't work my armor right anymore, and what to do about it? A mandalorian without armor is... A naked soul..."

[member="Bhaltair Dhimani"]

 

[Bhaltair Dhimani]

This was usually the moment time that Bhaltair would have given a laundry list of things for his client to do and then leave in anonymity. However, this situation represented a myriad of things. One, this man was clearly going to need more help than a trip to the hospital or a Doctorate For Dummies book could give. Two, this was a chance to make more money and expand his knowledge. Three, this man was Mandolorian. That meant he had an "in" with the type of people who accepted you, few questions asked and they tended not to pry. They were, as far as he knew, not the type of people who had a government which wanted to create monsters. Of course, Bhaltair wasn't actually very learned about Mandolorian culture, but he thought that he knew the basics.

Akun wanted to take this...monstrous experiment and use it against its creators. Bhaltair wasn't completely familiar with why a person would want to do that because he just wanted to get rid of his curse, not use it. His curse was too much power for any one man. If he helped this man...maybe he'd be enabling for something bad to happen...Or maybe he'd be doing something right.

He sat and pondered, food and drink farthest from his mind at the moment. Finally, he spoke.

"...Well...Biology and Computer Science are my strong suit...But....Ok, yes. I can help you with this. However, you should know that I'm...kind of on the run, in the sense that whole governments are killing to get my...research." He didn't want to come right out and tell him about...the other guy. There were already enough people who knew his secret and that list didn't need to grow...yet, anyway.



[member="Ijaat Akun"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Here Ijaat laughed, and pointed out to where presumably a ship would be resting in dock and smiled, a feral glint in his eyes. The good doctor was nervous, but he knew about nerves. And he had a secret to hide, or so it would seem. Maybe he had made monsters of his own in his past, or shab even his present. Whatever it was, it didn't matter. Ijaat judged a man by the now, for the most part... Manda knows, as an arms dealer, he had his own demons to fight even besides his days in war that brought their own ghosts to haunt his restless nights. Finally, he spoke.

"Doctor, you have very little to worry about... I'm a Mandalorian... We do rather well at discouraging people from prying, and if they do pry, we have way of discouraging them from doing anything than a casual glance. There are a lot of old maxims and sayings for this, but what the bottom line is truly is that, if you are willing to help me. Well... Let me just say we will make sure to take care of you just fine. I own a bloody Island in the middle of the ocean on Mandalore... I'd love to see them come get you there... And don't worry... I don't intend to be like them... I intend to make them pay for creating beasts like me... What I am, if that report is right... What I am is a monster, and an abomination, and I won't let them get away unchallenged. Even if the one who caused it is the Wrath of the Dark Lord himself."

[member="Bhaltair Dhimani"]