genessia | ( video )

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[ Balthier has never seen architecture like this before, or so many vehicles, or hear any quite so loud. He's figured out the hologram was just that, though; a projection, and pre-recorded it would seem.

When he follows the clever instructions provided him with his communicator, though, he finds it exceptionally simple to operate, which is fortunate.

The face that appears on the screen is young, and his expression is less than pleased. He also looks like a man who could use a cup of coffee as he attempts to straighten the sleeves of his shirt, which is wrinkled from sleeping in that pod. When he speaks, though, his tone only sounds bored with a small edge of annoyance.]

While I'm quite obviously not the only person around, I wonder just how many of you have these communicators. It's strange, though. Our kidnappers don't seem to know how to operate a proper ransom. Take note, if you would: we're supposed to be used as leverage for payout. You shouldn't be offering us money.

[He shakes his head and frowns at a particularly annoying wrinkle in his sleeve.]

They seem to have the mechanics down well enough, but they're still rank amateurs, aren't they? It's hard to find good abductors these days.

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Thanks. Call me if you get lost. And uh, wait in the lobby.

[ Inviting people to the morgue on the first day isn't exactly kosher.

Liv is going to start prepping everything while she's waiting for him to arrive. Which includes a variety of medical tests including borrowing a full body scan from upstairs and plenty of syringes. Oh, and Q-Tips! ANd borrowing one of the offices that aren't her own. ]

[Balthier didn't have a hard time finding the place. He was accustomed to travelling, after all, and finding his way was something he'd always been good at.

He found it confusing she wanted him to wait in the lobby, but he did as he was instructed when he arrived, looking around, casually interested. He'd never seen a laboratory that looked anything like this before, and he'd seen more than a few laboratories.]

[ Within a minute or so of his arrival, Liv came out through the elevator. She smiled and held out her hand for a shake. ]

Olivia Moore. We spoke over the communicators. Thanks for coming.

[When the elevator doors slid open, Balthier approached, smiling as he did so. He took her offered hand and gave it a gentle squeeze before releasing it.]

Balthier. It's my pleasure, Olivia.

[ Her hands are pretty cold when they shake, but she has a firm handshake and a smile. ]

You too, Balthier. This way. [ She starts leading him back toward the elevator. Hospitals are great at having everything on different floors. ] So what's it like where you're from? Major culture shock or normal confusion?

I wouldn't call it a shock, but it's certainly different. There are far more Humes here. [He takes note of her cold hands, but doesn't comment. He also notices how pale she looks, but Balthier is more accustomed to zombies rotting and reeking of it, so he's not putting two and two together.] And far less...well, everything else.

[ Something she's very grateful for. She tries very hard to make sure she doesn't end up a mindless, rotting zombie. ]

Humes? [ She thinks for a second on what humes sounds like. Some vague memory of playing a game called Warlock Forest made the term snap into place. ] Humans, right. Fayren, Everglade, and Nova City have bigger populations of other species. Attleton and Genessia I think are majority human.

[He nods.] From what I've seen, yes. As for the technology, it's both foreign and familiar, if that means anything.

[ Hey look, there's the floor they're on. Once the elevator opens its doors, Liv leads him into a room prepped with a few syringes and a CT scanner. ]

It weirdly does. [ Liv goes over to the tray with the syringes and starts prepping them. ] Go ahead and take a seat right there, I'm going to take some blood.

[A syringe is not something Balthier has ever seen before. The person in him that's never been stuck by a needle is a little nervous. The scientist in him, however, is curious, and the curiosity wins out, though he doesn't approach the offered seat.]

What will you do with my blood?

Test it for drugs and pathogens- anything abnormal that they could've done to us to get us here.

And you can do that with my blood. [He looks curious and confused.] How?

If you're excited about the blood, wait until I tell you what this cup is for. [ She is most definitely holding up a urinalysis cup with the most sardonic expression. Okay but she'll answer his question. ] Whenever you ingest anything, once your body filters through what's waste and what it can use. Microscopic traces of the substance end up in your bloodstream, which is detectable for different lengths of time in your blood depending on what type of drug it is. Once we separate your blood from any other substances in it, we can look at those substances under a microscope and tell what it is based on its structure. The cup is for urine, which we can do different tests with. The same substances will stay longer in the urine than your blood, and I'll need hair too. If the blood and urine fail, but the hair tests positive for a substance, that tells us that they drugged you anywhere from a couple of weeks to around three months depending on what it is.

[He nods, not really following. All the science in his own world is related to the Mist.]

And so, you're thinking whatever happened to us all is related to some drug?

I'm thinking whatever happened to us has to have some detectable trace and it's somewhere to start from.

It's possibly some manipulation of Mist or another, you know.

I'm guessing you're not talking about the little droplets of water suspended in the air?

[He tilts his head to the side.]

No, of course not. I'm talking about the source of all life: Mist.

Maybe on your planet. I mean yes, water is a huge part of being alive, but I'm guessing it's something completely different where you're from?

... [He looks confused for a moment before continuing.]

I'm not talking about water, or its gaseous state. Mist. It's...the energy that flows through everything, sparks nerves, directs the pull of gravity, makes the world turn and neurons fire. It can me used to fuel airships, small transports, record or transmit messages over long distances, and is the energy behind all Magicks. Mist.

[Seriously, he doesn't understand why that's not clear.]

[ She's going to start cleaning his arm while they talk so that she can draw blood. ]

Where I'm from, we don't have airships or magic. We have electricity, gas, millennia of evolution, and loads of other scientific explanations outside of my area of expertise to cover all of those things. Your planet probably has Mist where mine has electricity and biochemical reactions. There are all kinds of things I don't understand here, but no one's mentioned Mist before so I don't think your world's card was drawn for this place unless it's something you know how to detect and we don't.

I can use Mist, though admittedly, I'm abysmal at Magicks. [He begins watching her work while he continues.] We aren't some primitive society, you know. We have all those things. Mist simply is. It's...another biochemical process. Quantifiable. A particularly brilliant, albeit completely mad, scientist of some renown was even able to manufact a crystal capable of capturing and containing Mist for use. They generate the electricity that powers the Glossair rings on, well, everything.

I didn't mean to imply you came from one. Since we don't have airships and I couldn't begin to tell you what a glossair ring is, I assume you just branched off with different kinds of technology.

[ once she's finished cleaning him, she wraps the blood pressure monitor around his arm and hands him one if those tiny foam stress balls shaped like a brain. ]

Just hold onto that for a second, I'm going to take your blood pressure. It might squeeze a little. [ and the stethoscope end gets tucked underneath the arm wrap just before a little motor starts pumping it with air. ]

[He'd been about to speak when she handed him the...brain-shaped balls. Aside from looking at them curiously, he didn't do anything with them.

Instead, his attention was immediately grabbed by the pump as it began to pump air into the cup around his arm. It was a surprisingly loud mechanical whir, and he was duly impressed it came from such a comparatively small machine.

He didn't, however, know what it meant to have his blood pressure checked, what tightening a tube had to do with it aside from constricting blood vessels, but, while it was uncomfortable, it didn't hurt, and it didn't last long, either. Blood flowed around the body, bringing nutrients where they were needed. He could follow the point of checking blood pressure, assuming it had a norm.

It was most likely akin to maintaining oil flow in a ship's lubrication systems, something he was familiar with.]

So, do I need an oil change, then?

I think you'll be okay without one.

[ She depresses the arm band, then takes his pulse at his wrist. After that, she writes it in her notes on a clipboard, then turns to prep the syringe. ] Squeeze the brain three times, then hold it. Any history of anemia?

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