“Marvelously. Though I can’t say our exploratory went as smoothly as I would like.”
“I saw. His organs kept slipping from you.”
“Subconscious Metamorphic Adaptation. The ligaments that pull on his innards are attached throughout his body. As part of his normal, albeit strange, anatomy, the collar effects it little.”
“Is his body rejecting the explosive devices?”
“No, though we are observing very closely. We’re not sure if his body is going to try and absorb them.”
The man and woman in lab coats peered down into the room through the observing glass at the teen curled up, staring straight ahead with his arms folded over his belly. The room was plain white, sterile, with curving walls, a much different sort of cell than the crude, square things that lay many stories above them. The bed was a simple platform that extended from the wall, and here Teddy stayed on his side and had moved little the last three hours. The orange jumpsuit was gone. Now he was in a light gray outfit reminiscent of scrubs from a hospital, though the shirt had only three drawstring ties down the front.
“Does he remember any of it?” The taller, brunette woman looked at the tablet she carried, seeing his vitals from the collar about his neck.
“No, but he is sore, and the collar is still on at fifty percent. He heals quickly, but there were still trails in the skin when he started waking. I am sure he suspects.”
“Hm. Is the excessive sweating and shaking due to pain or nausea from the anesthesia?”
“Uncertain.” The man removed his glasses, cleaning them before placing them back on his hawkish nose again. “It took some time of studying his cells and the body scans to attempt any of it. His DNA is a condulated thing. We managed a feasible cocktail, through some trial and error.”
“A cocktail..” She touched the screen, observing cooly. “This is the same sort of mixture they use to tranquilize reptiles in the zoo. You gave him enough to subdue a bull crocodile.”
“As I said, feasible. His DNA has enough similarities to reptiles that it gave us a good hint what would work.”
“Not all reptilian, though, and his nerve structure is much akin to an octopus’ array. He’s alien, for certain, but according to the analysis, some of his DNA looks... broken.”
“Broken on one side, filled in with something else on the other. It is as though something very rigid met something very adaptable. Poetic, isn’t it? It will be interesting to see what advances we can make by studying his cells.”
“Hn. I would still prefer if he did not know at all. If he were to ever surface again, it would not look good for anyone’s image. Human rights have been subduing our progress for far too many years. A setback is not what we need.”
“Ah, see, you just said a key word, there.” They paced along the hall, passing many cells they could look down into, all filled with different subjects. “Human rights.”