Hmm? I slowly come back to consciousness, wondering where I am. Beneath me is a hard, slick surface, not the scratchy cardboard I expect. I don't feel my tablecloth on top of me, and I sit up in confusion.

Oh. Right. I let my eyes scan the large room I'm in through the bars of my spacious cage. I yawn, my head clearing slightly and affording me a semblance of mental acuity. I slowly stand up, stretching my back in an attempt to alleviate some of the pain that comes from sleeping in a cramped position on a metal floor. I stop stretching once I feel alright and start looking at the activities of the few people in the room.

From what I can tell, it must be before G.U.N.'s normal hours; the man over there mopping is a janitor, and those few scientists to my right are all working on the same machine. No one else is in sight. I walk forwards, feeling the 1-and-a-half-centimeters-thick steel bars of the cage I'm in with my hands. The bars are about 3 centimeters apart, affording me no chance to slip in-between. I sigh, deciding to watch the people until something happens. I stand at first, listening to the conversation of the three scientists. After a while, I sit, crossing my legs, and realize I still have my shoes and gloves on, something that surprises me. I thought they'd have taken these by now, but no, apparently not. I continue to eavesdrop on the rather boring babblings of the engineers, cataloguing internally with much boredom their words about a slightly improved balancing system for bipedal droids.

Don't they have anything better to do than spend the early morning hours chatting about robots? I mean, even I think that's boring, and I don't find many science-related topics tedious. Chaos, they need something more interesting in their lives...provided that 'something' isn't me, that is. I groan slightly, lying down and lolling my head back, gazing up at the steel top of my cage. I should be thanking every force abounding in the universe that I'm still alive, but I'm not. Instead, I'm finding myself ridiculously bored. Ugh. I don't know if that says more about my personal arrogance or the fact that I'm barely two months old and still a selfish child. Hmm.

My ears swivel towards the door I had been carried in yesterday as it opens, and a veritable rush of scientists comes through the doors. I lazily roll over, lying on my right shoulder as I watch the humans come in. A prick of doubt spikes its way into my stomach as Professor Marya walks over, leading Lieutenant Topaz and two other, lower ranking, soldiers behind her. My throat tightening in fear, I roll myself up and sit bow-legged, looking up at the humans several feet above me. To my surprise, Topaz is the one who speaks.

"Alright, back corner," she says, motioning clearly for me to move back so she can safely open the door. Unfortunately, my generally impudent personality and impertinent mood leftover from my boredom make me flick my ears and ask:

"Why?" I look at her, tilting my head to the side, and she gives me a sharp look.

"I told you to, and I'm authorized to handle you. You listen to those authorized to handle you, or there are consequences. Now, back corner." My ears flick again, this time at her tone, and I almost make a retort, but the words successfully slap me out of being an idiot and make me scamper to the back corner. I sit down again, nervously chewing on my lip. I hope Topaz won't stay mad at me; I don't need more trouble here. She opens the door, and the two men behind her step into the enclosure. She closes the door, and I watch the soldiers warily.

"Uh...hi?" I venture nervously, and the closer of the two reaches out and grabs my arm, yanking me onto my feet between them. I wince slightly, but I let the men buckle some sort of harness onto me, one made of kevlar and metal. "What is this?" I ask them, genuinely curious, craning my neck to look at the straps on my back and side. "Why are you putting it on me? What does it do?" The second man stops fiddling with a cord he seems to have successfully attached to the back of my worn contraption, and Topaz makes some sort of signal to the men. She opens the door, and I stay where I am, figuring I shouldn't try to leave.

"Wha--??" I let out a small exclamation as the harness yanks me out the door behind the two soldiers. "What's happening?" I ask, confused as to why I'm being extricated from my cage. The terror I felt yesterday is renewed, and I shiver as Topaz sighs and looks at me.

"We're taking you for an examination. Stay between Myles and Wright. Once we're out of this room, don't talk to anyone, including me. No questions, no exclamations, no anything that involves speaking." My eyes wide, I spend a moment comprehending what that means. Taking my silence for shutting up, Topaz begins to lead our small group from the room.

"Why am I not allowed to talk to people?" I ask, though I have a feeling I know the answer. I swear that Topaz growls, and when she stops and turns around, she looks agitated.

"Because we can't have people knowing you can talk yet," she snarls, and I try to make myself smaller. "Now, if you do talk to someone when you're not supposed to, I will personally make sure you don't get another opportunity to do so in your lifetime. Got that?" I nod quickly, scared by how mad Topaz is. I bite my tongue, deciding I can't take the chance I'll accidentally talk. When we start moving again, I follow along obediently, deciding I'd rather live than ask another question.

I'm taken to another elevator, and Topaz brings me down to Sublevel 11. As we get out of the elevator, I see that "Alien Research" is the main category of the level, with several sub-categories. I remember Lyri Daugh saying I was "Mobian-based" yesterday when I see "Mobian Research" is first, whatever that means, and I gulp as I see "Creature Examination" is also present. Sure enough, I'm taken to the latter section, through several secure doors and into an examination room.

"Topaz! I've been expecting you," greets a man in a labcoat. I give him a suspicious look, but my expression of emotion is cut short when I'm lifted by my waist onto a metal table in the center of the room.

"!" I let out a small squeak, cutting off my words before they come, wondering why everyone picks me up by my waist or hips around here. I'm laid flat on my back, and restrained with metal cuffs so that I can't move my limbs. I wriggle around, not enjoying being helpless before someone with lots of sharp equipment.

"Alright, first we'll take an x-ray," mumbles the scientist I guess is some kind of medical expert, and I think that he's talking to himself. He positions a machine over my body, and I know that it's going to scan my form using high-radiation waves. "It'll hold still, right?" He asks Topaz, and she nods, glaring at me so I get the message.

"Yes," she says, her tone biting, and I give her a small awkward smile, trying to defuse her anger. Whether my gesture works or not I can't be sure, as she leaves the room, followed by the strange doctor-man. I wait, my back and legs cold against the table, and the machine starts traveling over me. I hold stock-still, not wanting to enrage Lieutenant Topaz any further than I already have. Once the machine stops scanning me, she comes back into the room with the doctor.

"Now, physical examination and blood sampling," she says, and the man nods. "You'll want to draw blood while it's restrained." I tense as the doctor grabs a long, thin tube with a small plastic bag attached to it. I start struggling against my restraints as he walks over to me with it, but my efforts get me nowhere, and I soon give up. He uses a wet cotton pad to sterilize my left inner elbow, and then, despite my non-verbal protestations, sticks the tube into my arm.

How utterly humiliating, I think, glaring at my own blood as it makes its way out of my arm. I mean, can't I have any say in anything? What if he drains a lot of my blood and I can't regenerate it because I don't have my powers? Will I die? It's not like I can get a blood donation or something. I gulp, and the sensation of seeing my own, red blood flowing out of my body with no consent on my part is rather disturbing. Eventually I look away, feeling rather ill due to the sight.

I never knew what colour my blood was before now, I realize, and I feel mildly surprised by the fact I had never thought about the detail before. I never even assumed it was red like a human's... I'm glad to know it is, though. I wonder for a moment how I would feel if my blood was another colour and decide I would be thoroughly weirded out by such an experience. It would just be another slap in the face telling me that I'm not human, I note, feeling a bit uncomfortable in my own skin. My thoughts are cut short, however, by the doctor removing the blood-drawing tube. I look over in surprise, nevertheless feeling a little lightheaded as I see how much blood was taken from me.

"I don't need to worry about it attacking me when I'm examining it, do I?" Asks the doctor, and I blink in surprise at him. He's asking Topaz, and she shakes her head.

"No; it's reasonably well-behaved, and I'll shoot it if it comes to that." My face pales, and my ears go down. As they do, I realize that I've started becoming attached to Topaz, even though I've been around her for less than an hour of my life. Thinking of her hurting me, or me hurting her, it just seems wrong, like something is off in even the contemplation of such a scenario. I make up my mind to talk to her about it at sometime.

"Does it understand basic commands?" The doctor asks, and I feel a bit numb as I sit up, my arms freed by the man during my inner conversation. Topaz says an affirmative, and the man softly grasps my back and chest, pulling out a stethoscope and timer. He takes a moment to look at a computer screen I can't see, at what I guess is my x-ray. He then traces four spots on my upper body, and I know that he's memorizing where my heart chambers are.

It takes a while of me sitting there, but he takes the beats-per-minute of each of my different hearts. He makes a small comment about the fact they're all the same, saying it likely shows my body uses all four equally. Then, the doctor checks to see what order they beat in, and I discover that my hearts beat upper-left, upper-right, lower-left, and lower-right. My lower hearts are near the side of my abdomen, but my upper hearts are asymmetrical. My left is farther left than a human's is, but my right upper heart is both higher and farther away from the center of my chest than my left is. I watch closely as the man does these things, never having been physically examined before.

After he checks my hearts, the doctor--whose name I still don't know--takes my blood pressure and looks into my eyes, mouth, and nose with a painfully bright light, along with several other rudimentary things. Then, he goes to take my temperature. He turns me onto my stomach, and I wait for whatever administrations he has in store for me.

"W--!" I nearly bite my tongue off to keep myself from talking as the thermometer is inserted into an incredibly uncomfortable place for me. And I thought having blood drawn was humiliating. I wait for the doctor to finish taking my temperature, still biting my tongue. Eventually, the thermometer beeps and is removed from my tail area, something I'm extremely grateful for. I let the man lift me back into a sitting position, my lips pursed with displeasure at my treatment.

"Well, those are the basics," the man tells Topaz, completely oblivious to how peevish my look is. She looks somewhere between laughing at my pathetic attempt at anger and scolding me for being so expressive, but she manages to keep her composure. She calls the two soldiers back in, who I remember are called Myles and Wright. They secure me between them with the leash--for that is what the cord is--and follow Topaz back to the elevator. I hope that they're going to take me back to the cage and feed me, but unfortunately, Topaz heads to Sublevel 4, not Sublevel 7.

Once on the level, I'm taken to a small, dark room. I look around curiously, but Topaz has the Myles strap me into a metal chair that is distinctly uncomfortable. She faces me once I'm secured, looking me in the eyes.

"You can talk now, but only answer the questions presented to you. Answer every question truthfully. Show respect to the people talking to you. Do whatever they tell you, no matter what it is. And for heaven's sake, don't ask questions, even if you want to. If you follow those rules, you'll be fine. If you don't, you'll get shocked. Just follow the rules, okay? It's the easiest way to get this done for everyone faster." I open my mouth, but she leaves, the door whooshing shut behind her. I blink into the darkness, my muscles flat against the chair, and I swallow slowly.

Something tells me this is going to be a very unenjoyable experience... Then, a bright light flashes on right in front of me. As I squint into it, I realize that I've gotten myself into a bigger mess than I had originally thought. There's no chance of escape for me. I'm completely at G.U.N.'s mercy, and something tells me that's not a very good position to be in. My best hopes are to make it out of this alive, forget about unscathed! And I don't even know if 'alive' is a possible outcome anymore...