The beeps of medical machines. The milling about of doctors, nurses, interns. The muted humdum conversations of daily activities. All of them blend together into a sort of horrid suburban-science white noise, one quite grating to unaccustomed ears, until...
The sound of a pen tapping against a glass tube has a set of glasses-clad eyes squint in focus, the noses that support each pair of eyewear scrunching a bit. The man making the noise slowly withdraws his pen, making a few chicken scratch marks on a clipboard before clearing his throat with a cough. Judging from the labcoat, lanyard, and the very official looking documents on his hand-held board, he's probably something of an important person.
"Ahh, yes. This one... Was found yesterday. Uhmm. 'Julio... Esteban... Richter'," he recites rote, directly off the information in front of him. That bronze skinned man floating in the embryonic tube fluid in front of him and his colleagues is hooked up to a series of tubes, and quite eerily, has his eyes open. Wide open. "Part of some sort of... 'X-Factor' investigation. Head office doesn't really understand all the details yet, nor are they important..."
The sound of one page being flipped fills the silence, before some muttering among the interns and lesser scientists begins. They all shut up when Egghead Number #1 continues though. "Ahh. What is important... Apparently, this one can control tectonic plates on a very specific level. Localized earthquakes... Nasty ability to be in the hands of one like this, really. He's been started on pentathol, and should be ready for extraction within the week... We're quite excited about the prospects, hmm..." Every word that passes his lips seems... empty-headed. Distracted, in a sense.
"Mmm?", he mumbles, flipping through another page on his clipboard.
"Should his eyes be open like that?"
Marfa blinks and slowly looks up from the board, smirking when he sees the wide-eyed mutant in the tank. Making a tsk-tsk sound before clucking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, he starts to shake his head. "No. No they should not. See to that, Lennox." With a nod to an orderly beside him, the gangly servant quickly assents, and adjusts a few knobs and levels on the tank, adjusting the serum levels inside...
Suddenly, it's bright. Glaring, beaming, hurting yellow. As though nothing in the world exists other than a violent, painful yellow color. The more seconds the pass, the less intense the light gets, and the more it settles down to reveal surroundings. Three lamps pointed downwards, onto what looks like... a surgical table?
Leather straps, Drawn tightly. Too tightly, even. To the point where each one of them is more than a bit painful. Weight upon the head... Heavy, grating... uncomfortable. Nothing else but blackness, and the feel of a dirty sheet underneath. Nothing else, until...
"Ahh. You're awake, Mr. Richter. You nearly died on us three times." A voice. Not attached to a form. Not yet. But as it continues, it becomes a floating silhouette. Masculine, to match the voice... But nothing specifically defined. It sounds familiar, though.
"I am sorry about that. At least one of them was our fault. But that hardly matters now... I need for you to relax... Julio. This will go much swifter and simpler if you do. Would you like me to explain what is about to happen to you?"