Dominoes: To the Cleaners

[Geneviève Lasedri]

Here she was, in some sterile room, in a building, in the southeastern sector of Sky City, Lianna. How many times she had simply passed out on the way to this rather civilized outer world, she did not know. It had nothing to do with motion sickness or hyperspace travel. She had never had issues with such spacefaring-related ailments and was entirely accustomed to flying about the galaxy on a monthly, or even weekly, basis. No, that was not what antagonized her.

Visions came and went. Gen had never known these before, and the tangibility of them was frightening. The dreams felt more and more real to her. Sometimes she was fearful that she would never be able to leave the otherworlds of her mind. None of them were very joy-filled epiphanies. They all told of a dark future--a hopeless future. Something was coming for her. No matter where she fled; no matter what part of the galaxy she found herself in, she could not escape the assailing visions. She had been paranoid, but never before had she been this paranoid.

And now she was in some secretive medical facility, waiting to be anesthetized and subjected to the wills of whatever people would be operating on her body. If that was not concerning enough, there was also the fact that some random company leader was now screwing around with whatever was going down in the Ceres exodus of ECHO Esprit. This was now sounding like the biggest mistake she had ever made. Lasedri very nearly rushed out of the building.

Then the onslaught resumed. Her diaphragm contracted and she felt the blackness begin to take her over once more. She made her decision. "Okay, hurry," Geneviève commanded, hands beginning to tremble in panic. She quickly offered her arm to one of the doctors. "I'm ready. Put me out."

[member="Enigma"]

 

[Onrai]

[member="Geneviève Lasedri"]

The doctors nodded, quickly placing a rag soaked in liquid anesthetic over Gen's mouth. Within a good two to three seconds, she would have drifted off into unconsciousness. Once they had done so, the surgeons came in. Nanites would be the key to dealing with her damaged eye as her head was placed in a skin rejuvenator. The device would help purge her scar from her face, and repair the outer layer of her eye. Prior to closing it over her head, an aqueous solution was sprayed into her damaged eye - this solution consisted of nanites, each of which carried biofiber particles to help repair the damaged tissue in her optic.

-

In the meantime, Circe had just arrived where Genevieve needed to be. The two had exchanged enough information that Circe would be able to get through security - both ECHO's and Gen's own - without any hitches. Right now, she was seated in Gen's office, currently looking over a datapad at the current products being offered by the company. She made a mental note to do more business with ECHO later down the line...

 

[Geneviève Lasedri]

Mitczik, head engineer of ECHO Esprit, raised his webbed hand for a very casual salute after knocking on the door. "Hey, Gen," the elderly Mon Calamari greeted, though a little reserved considering her usual post-flight mood. Normally, he would wait a few hours--or even a couple of days--before initiating any conversation with her, but the event that was currently transpiring warranted a little quicker pace in all things, including conversing with the boss. "They're already loading up the transports. Sweeper crew is gonna come in tomorrow and clear out all the sensitive material, and then we're set to jet.

"How'd the meeting go?" he asked. So busy, always shuffling through readouts, his boss was. She could use a break, especially with the state of her health.

-

Geneviève sank into a dimly lit world--the same one she had experienced when she had come close to death. A barren rock that must have been at the edge of the galaxy--the Tingel Arm, she had assumed--and nothing in motion but the swirl of orange fog settling only a few centimeters above the surface. But this time, Gen was not in a spacesuit. She was breathing in the nothingness. How this was possible was beyond her, but dreams are strange.

The presence of stars was almost nil, and the feeling of loneliness was just as pronounced as before. She shivered, wondering how long she would be stuck here and if Saran's apparition would magically pop up again. Frak, Saran...

[member="Enigma"]

 

[Onrai]

[member="Geneviève Lasedri"]

"Meeting went pretty good. Those freighters and containers should be getting shipped in soon." She continued flipping through the info, doing more reading up. "Sorry if I seem a bit too inquisitve... Taking some experimental medication. Supposed to help heal that eye scar so I'll look a bit more agreeable. Aftereffect's that it's made my head a little fuzzy."

-

"How much longer do you think we need to wait, doc?"

"The nanites should've already begun to settle in. In a few more hours things will be fixed up. It may take her several days, perhaps a week or two to finish regaining vision in her eye."

"Good to know... I wonder how Miss Savan is holding up..."

 

[Geneviève Lasedri]

The Mon Calamari took a closer glance at 'Geneviève', genuinely surprised and intrigued about her sudden interest to remedy the mere ornament that was her dead eye. He never would have predicted she would try to fix it. She seemed to have an odd attachment to it, from what he had observed. Like it provided 'attitude' or whatever her generation might have called it. But what did he know? "That new doctor of yours must be really impressive," Mitczik commented, nodding approval.

"Gen, are you going to need any help sorting all this out? We don't have much time." The chief engineer stepped into the room, hoping his boss was going to be a little more open for the time being.

-

A random breeze swept across her face as she trudged along the dusty surface of the lonely rock, despite the lack of atmosphere. It felt as if it came from the stars, which had moved a considerable distance in such a short time. She looked up to behold the radiative flare of one of the stars as it exploded. Thousands of lightyears away, some sun had just died.

The wake of the supernova washed over the remaining stars in the visible heavens and purged all the sources of light other than itself. Gen hurried onward, hoping to reach the far side of this celestial body before complete darkness overwhelmed her. How small she felt.

[member="Enigma"]

 

[Onrai]

[member="Geneviève Lasedri"]

"I'll be done sooner or later... What's the rush?" She raised an eyebrow, wondering as to what the hurry was. Any proper information she could acquire would likely prove to be useful to her company - but she was not one for industrial espionage. Any info she found out would likely be utilized in future business deals with ECHO. "Just trying to catch up."

-

"...and she's done." The casing over her head opened up. The nanites had done their duty and were now harmlessly dissolved. She would, over the next few days, regain her sight, and even though her eye as it appeared was still glassy, the scar around it was now gone. The fogginess would disappear in time.

"Miss Lesandri, do you feel alright?"

 

[Geneviève Lasedri]

"Just a little antsy about us moving out," Mitczik replied, honestly. It was just like her to downplay the big details--sometimes aggravating. But he knew she was well aware of the situation in reality. It was just an odd 'cool' about her that made her seem so apathetic, but he knew that deep down, there had to be at least one thing that she cared about. Otherwise, why was she here? Why any of this at all?

He drew a little closer, hoping not to seem too intrusive. "Don't mind me. I guess it just comes with age." He glanced at her busy hands flicking about whatever reports or readouts she was taking in. "News from the far side of the galaxy?"

-

Oh, anesthesia. That was always a kicker. She had awakened from one mysterious world to find herself in a distorted version of the world she had previously been in. The remnants of the drugs were warping the aural senses, and her eyes felt dilated and jittery, her vision unable to focus on anything clearly. Her eyes...

"I'll let you know in a few days," she mumbled in response, still slightly disoriented. "I assume this gets better over time."

[member="Enigma"]

 

[Onrai]

[member="Geneviève Lasedri"]

"Not much right now... But I've only gone over three-quarters of the news, so there's bound to be something." She smiled. continuing to read through the documentation, eager to find interesting news. "Hmm... RRDI's got a new majority owner. Interesting... Could you get me their product list? Want to see if they have anything worth purchasing." Mingling business deals was the best way to ensure things grew more fortuitous for her.

-

"Indeed, ma'am. Just relax for a period of five days to one week. By then, all disorientation or distortion will have stopped." The chief scientist paused to make some notes. "Do you have any sense in your damaged eye?"

 

[Geneviève Lasedri]

"RRDI? You're thinking about going big-time now, Gen?" That was almost a pleasant surprise to Mitczik--at least from a businessman's standpoint. About time they got their name truly out there with the big boys, though what affect that would have on their top priority projects was not something he was certain about. They would have to play things even more carefully in that case.

"Nevermind. I'll go get you set up with a catalog." The old Mon Calamari engineer backed towards the door with slight hesitation. "Glad to see you back, Gen," he saluted, then turned to part and fetch the RRDI listings. Very curious.

-

The real Gen squinted her right eye and completely closed her other, gauging whatever 'sensitivity' the doctor was implying. There was something.

Always a champion of the understatement, Lasedri quelled any possible excitement and responded in droll tone. "If you mean a fog of a fuzz of a blur of white, then yes, there's sensitivity." So her eye was being receptive. Even a clouded, bright sight was an improvement over years of gray nothingness.

[member="Enigma"]

 

[Onrai]

[member="Geneviève Lasedri"]

She continued working, scrolling through the information before accessing the main computer. She noticed a login in the corner of the screen, and upon double-tapping it, found herself confronted with an encrypted key. "Let's see..." Eyebrow raised, she chose to go brute force, and soon the encryption was broken. Inputting the key itself, she soon found herself looking at something exceptionally lurid. Her voice was quieter than a whisper as she exhaled.

"The Rebel Alliance?"

-

"The fact that you can see anything at all means our work was a success. Over a few days, your eyesight should return to normal as the nerve endings reactivate. But don't strain yourself."

The scientists gave each other a high five.

 

[Geneviève Lasedri]

RRDI's catalog was not too difficult to come by. It seemed like they were doing fairly well in recent history and their market was expanding, even into the Outer Rim territories. But what the Benefactor wanted with such a company was beyond Mitczik's reasoning. He had always liked the quiet environment here, even if his boss was a little snippy and even if he could never talk much about what exactly he did. Still, businesses need to avoid stagnation, and perhaps even a temporary cooperation would get the gears turning. Gen knew best, he supposed.

Returning with the material he had just retrieved from the 'Net, the Mon Calamari stepped back into his boss' office to find her nose buried even deeper into that datapad of hers. "I've never seen you this studious before, Gen," he commented, capped with a light chuckle as he handed over the tiny data link. "What's caught your eye about these RRDI folks?"

-

Gen sniffed in scorn at the celebratory display the scientists had made. It seemed almost as if this were the first time they had performed this procedure and they had not been certain of probable success going into the operation. This bothered her. But it seemed that whatever they had done was working--at least to some extent. She would not know just how well or how poorly they had done until about a week from now. Patience was not Lasedri's virtue.

"I'm sure you happen to have a blindfold on hand?" she interrupted, holding her hand out in front of her eyes to block the bright light that her eyes were now receiving overexuberantly. "Give it to me."

[member="Enigma"]

 

[Onrai]

[member="Geneviève Lasedri"]

She quickly shut off the image of the Rebel Alliance information as he returned, making sure he saw nothing. "RRDI's moving up in the world of businisess. Not to mention that their technology is, to say the least, above average in quality. I'll have to make a business deal with them in order to climb another rung up the business ladder."

-

They nodded, handing her a blindfold to cover her eyes. They admittedly had not expected such would work, and yet... this turned out to be a surprisingly good test of medical-grade nanites. "The initial feelings of brightness should soon begin to fade away... I can ensure that. Your sight may never be perfectly what it was before, but you'll definitely be able to see with no visual blurriness or impairment."

 

[Geneviève Lasedri]

"I always thought you were the private type..." He cracked a sly grin and would have winked at 'Gen' if he had the eyelids to do so. "You're not going soft on us now, are you?" Lasedri had never been so open about her company. But, then again, she was never predictable with him. There was always a new development that she never keyed him in on. It was part of the mystery that he had stayed on to solve. And he still had a long way to go in the pursuit of clarity--if it could ever be obtained.

"I hope you're not planning on making all these choices without consulting me on the usefulness of the products..." Mitczik grinned and came around to check out what his boss was searching for.

-

"Well, if that's what I can expect..." the real Geneviève muttered somberly as she wrapped the cloth around her head, securely tightening it so that it would not slip from in front of her eyes.

With a little focus afterwards, she dove into what shallow depths of the Force she had been able to discover and peered around the room through this supernatural form of vision. She was prepared to leave now if they were prepared to release her. Or perhaps if they were not, even. "Is all said and done, then?"

[member="Enigma"]

 

[Onrai]

"Soft? No." She paused, eying him over. "I just realized that we can set the bar higher for ourselves than it already is." A fair enough point - in her opinion, from the data she had gathered regarding Genevieve's work as the head of Echo Esprit Industries, she had missed potential business opportunities due to her conservative views regarding corporate affairs. In layman's terms, her net was too small to catch the bigger fish. Circe wanted to help make sure that net got bigger.

-

"If by that, you mean 'Is the procedure to repair my eye done?', then yes." One of the scientists finished. "But we would prefer that you stay here for a week, until your eye has finished healing completely. After all, if there are any complications, I and my colleagues would rather be on hand to make sure that nothing goes wrong."

[member="Geneviève Lasedri"]