The last thing Envoy remembers as her eyes flutter open is the faint feel of Morpheus kissing her goodbye. He's gone, left to the realm of dreams and memories, while she returns to the lab where she decided to rest. She still sits in a lotus position with the supposed 'power' orb sitting in her lap. She also realizes she doesn't quite feel alone - nor is she; shadows of figures flicker in and out around her. The room is full of whispers, from status reports of physiological systems, to the power output of optical collection and focusing emitters. She even hears some comments involving the stability of the gravity drive array and the quantum manipulators.

The ghosts seem to sputter in and out and nothing quite makes much sense; it's as if she is only getting fragments of events that happened long ago. Even the exam table seems to flicker in and out of 'existence' from where she sits. Another ripple of the light and it's now a hazy outline of a tube with a shadowy figure standing near it and reaching inside.

"If fate is kind and you one day find yourself awake, I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me -  forgive us, for what we did here. To you and to the others," a whispery woman's voice says. "I know that the world will not be easy for you. You will be different. Some will fear you, others will hate you. But, please, believe me when I say this, you are no less valuable, no less important, and no less alive than anyone else. You may have been born in a lab, but you still have a soul. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. Of all the things I regret, I will regret most that I never got to see you grow up." The shadow leans into the tub for a few moments. As it draws back, the outline of a door comes down to close off the tube.

"Please, protect him," the shadow says and for some strange reason, Envoy feels like the shadow is looking directly at her. The shadow's hand runs over the surface of the tube before it and both begin to fade. "Goodbye." the shadow says, faint and choking.

Blinking three times, Envoy watches and waits. She wonders if there are more spirits with stories to tell, yet to be found, or if it really is just her presence that is evoking these slices of the past. She picks up the crystal from her lap and stands, idling scratching at one of her discolored patches of fur. "Dreaming when I sleep, and seeing visions while awake," she says to herself. "Everything is changing." She holds up the orb in her hand, and studies it to see if she can get a sense of its function.

Well … it glows pretty brightly, for one. It also feels like it probably contains a tremendous amount of power, though precisely how to tap into it is uncertain. It's also at this point she notices there are small indentations at regular intervals around it, seemingly dividing it into hemispheres.

"This must be were those glass probes attached to you," Envoy tells the ball, and tentatively presses a finger to one of the depressions.

Every bit of fur on Envoy's body sticks straight out and so does her mane! Yow, it feels like she just stuck her tongue into an electrical socket! The smell of burning flesh doesn't help, either. Nor does the searing pain from that fingertip.

Gritting her teeth, Envoy tries to pull back her finger without having to drop the ball.

It's actually hard to get her muscles to move, but she manages to get her finger off the indentation. The tip is horrifically burned. The tissue starts to repair itself in short order and the pain begins to lessen, at least.

"Okay, electric dynamo crystal," Envoy manages after she gets her jaw working again. "I guess I can put you back into the robot for now, and get the gate opened," she tells it, and heads out of the lab to return to the weapons range.

The robot is much as she left it, gripped in a stone hand and with its chest split open. It still looks dead, more or less.

Envoy fits the crystal back into its cradle, and gives it a slight push to see if it retracts on its own.

With a whir and several clicks, the cradle retracts. Lights flicker on within the cavity and the sound of solenoids and hydraulics echo in the chamber as the machine starts up. "RESUME CURRENT TRAINING STRATAGEM?" it asks, "OR DEFINE NEW DIRECTIVE?"

"Disengage training session," Envoy says in Von Bronson's command voice, and watches to see if the barrier to entry corridor retracts.

The machine stares at Envoy for an uncomfortable minute. "COMMAND CONFIRMED," it finally intones. Its weapons retract against its arms. It takes another minute, but the entry corridor gate finally retracts.

"Go back to standby mode until further voice-activation," Envoy tells the robot, hoping it won't argue.

The chest plates close with a hiss of pressure. "CONFIRMED," it says, then goes silent and still.

Taking a deep breath, Envoy relaxes a bit without even realizing she'd been tense. She eyes the hole leading to another cavern, but decides to take care of some other things first. Namely, she needs to make sure there isn't a skeleton lying around for Icarus to find. So she heads up the corridor to return to the vivisection lab.

The vivisection room is much as she left it; darkened with skeletal remains entwined – and in some places, embedded – with some sort of fiber-optics and crystal on the examination table. It, thankfully hasn't moved … yet. Envoy frowns at the remains. She can't just throw them into the incinerator as is – she needs to remove the crystal components. She turns to the tool tray to get the bone saw.

The bone saw still seems serviceable for the most part. Probably stainless steel.

The optical wiring is probably safe to ignore, given how intertwined it is. That still leaves something in the skull that they connect to though, so the Aeolun sets to work there first. The irony doesn't escape her. "I used to think I could eat people's brains to understand them," she tells the skeleton.

Cutting the bone isn't that bad, as it turns out. What is, though, is the intermittent phantom screams and sobbing that come out of nowhere. Her actions seem to be triggering bad memories in this place. It's thankfully not constant, but it occurs often enough to be rather unsettling. And if the screaming wasn't enough, by the time she's cut enough to be able to remove the top of the skull, her hands feel wet … though look completely dry.

Envoy has to pause and set the saw back on the tray. "There's nothing I can do in here that doesn't resonate with some past event, it seems," she whispers to the air. She closes her eyes for a few moments, then returns to see what's inside the skull.

The organic components have long since rotted away, but the crystalline components have not. Nestled in the center of the skull cavity, held in an intricate and delicate-looking metal frame which some fiber cabling connects to is a starburst of Sifran crystal, no more than maybe an inch and a half across. If it had to be compared to something she has seen before, it looks like a three-dimensional snowflake. Even after all these years it is still glowing softly, too. Envoy can even see what looks like electricity dancing about within its latticework.

"What were you originally?" she asks the crystal, and sings to it a bit to see how responsive it is. She also doesn't care for the frame. She hopes Icarus doesn't have metal in his brain.

The device echoes back each note Envoy sings to it in both a duplicate tone and a soft flare of light. Each tone also seems to light up a different branch of the crystal. Other than the sound and light show, though, it doesn't do anything.

"You must be an impulse transcoder," Envoy guesses, and gets some cutters to try and clip the fibers with. "I'll have to teach Icarus to sing properly if he hopes to master his implant."

There are cutters at hand and with a bit of delicate work, Envoy is able to cut away the fiber optic cabling. The crystal is still firmly held within its frame, though.

Envoy hmmms. The frame was certainly in place while the subject was growing… but there must have been some way for them to remove the crystal. She looks over the tools to see is anything might be specific for cutting metal.

There's some sort of powered saw with a ceramic disc on it. It looks like it could cut metal.

From her first experience with the doctor's power tools during her encounter with the Juggernauts, Envoy knows to see if the power cable is connected before trying the trigger.

The cable is plugged in, and the cutter makes a tinny whirr when it fires up.

Next, the Aeolun looks for some sort of eye protection, as she expects sparks and bits of metal to be shooting out of the brain cavity, and having to close her eyes would make it harder to work in there.

There's a full face shield on a counter in the room. The problem is … it isn't intended for people with muzzles.

Envoy improvises by holding the shield in front of her with one hand and wielding the cutter with the other. She can deal with minor burns on her hands after all.

And boy do sparks fly when the cutting wheel hits the metal frame. The stench isn't pleasant, either. It doesn't smell like iron. If she had to guess what it is, it is probably titanium or an alloy thereof. It's slow going to cut the frame with one hand, but fifteen minutes later, Envoy is able to lift off enough of the frame (with only a few burns to show for it) to be able to lift the crystal out.

She places the crystal on the counter for the time being, and is glad she didn't bring any of her potentially flammable clothing (although it means she has to carry a shoulder bag instead of using pockets). She next moves to the skeleton's hands to see how entwined the gravity-drive crystals are.

Entwined is an understatement; they're practically fused into metacarpal bones. Each of the thin hand bones have slivers of crystal going down the back. The collection of bones where they all meet up at the wrist … well most of the bone is gone there and it is entirely Sifran crystal.

"Hmmm," Envoy hums, as she examines the crystal closely – mainly to see if Icarus can expect any problems with ligament or muscle connection in his hands. "How did they extract you? Acid to wash the bone away, perhaps?" she asks, and decides to check the lab's cabinets for such.

The crystal looks like it was somehow shaped to match what the natural bone would look like. There are even marks in its surface where ligaments used to likely be. So, they probably function as good as any natural bone would in that spot. There are numerous bottles in the cabinets, but all the labels have long since faded to be unreadable.

Rather than risk experimenting with unknown chemicals, Envoy returns to the table and tries something different. She sings to the crystals to try and make them resonate enough to literally vibrate the bone away.

Envoy gets them to resonate and glow … only the effect is not quite what she intended. The light around the hands start to bend and twist as a localized gravity field begins to generate…

Stopping her song immediately, Envoy hurries out of the lab to watch from the doorway, while also trying to sense if the local magic field is being effected as well.

There's definitely an affect on the local magic field. It's fluctuating like mad from what her senses tell her as she focuses on it. It changes in ways that shouldn't be possible. One moment it's completely gone, then in the next second, it surges to surface-level Sinai for about fifty feet in all directions, then in the next second it's back to the sky-island level that radiates on Abaddon now. The table beneath the skeletal hands groans loudly as the metal twists and deforms from the force of the unstable localized gravity field. There's a sickening crackling sound as she watches and she sees white bits fall out of the field and slide off the warped metal table. When the field finally fades away, the bone of the hands have been pulverized and all that remains behind is the crystal and a few fiber cables.

"Well, I guess the result is what's important," Envoy says quietly, and gets the wire cutters to finish removing the collection of crystals. Then of course she'll have to repeat the process for other hand and both feet.

The other hand goes a little smoother as she at least knows what tone seems to trigger the localized distortion on it. With a lower volume, she's able to free the other one without as much damage to the work table and chaos to the magic field. The table still suffers some warping, though. Both feet result in similar experiences, but she at least is able to extract the crystal. One thing she's learned; she now knows a tone that will invoke the generation of the field. The volume seems to affect the size of the field and the effect on the local area, but as to how shifts in pitch and bone position would affect it, she isn't sure at this time.

The main thing Envoy takes away is knowing that the effects can damage the person with the implants if not carefully controlled. She places the crystals into her bag, and then checks if the table can be wheeled to the incinerator room or if it has taken too much damage.

The top has seen far better days. The wheels, thankfully, still work.

Envoy pushes the table out of the lab towards the incinerator room, although a bit reluctantly. She expects to trigger another area flashback from the action.

Envoy's expectation is correct. Instead of just seeing the skeleton on the table in front of her, she sees a shimmering image of a young human girl. Her body is bent a bit unnaturally and it is evident blood oozed from her ears, nose, mouth, and even eyes. On the chest pocket of the tattered shirt she wears is the number eleven. Her expression isn't one that is entirely pain … it is more one asking why?

"Can you hear me?" Envoy actually asks, stopping the cart. She reaches out to see if she can touch the apparition.

The eyes of the child look long dead, unfortunately, and it doesn't respond. As Envoy's hand passes through the child, her head rolls to the side and the signs of crude stitching become evident. Whatever was in her was recently extracted.

"I'm sorry," is all Envoy can say to the girl, as she pushes on into the incinerator room. Funeral rituals have never made sense to her, even though she'd actually attended a few. She opens the hatch to the incinerator, and tries to think of something to say. "No one will be able to hurt you or make you relive this now," she finally says.

"I really hate this," Envoy hears a whisper, though she can't actually see anyone. "Yeah, they look human, it makes this worse, y'know? Can't help but feel like they were real," another says. "Yeah, but they're just experiments. Meat-machines as Von Bronson called 'em … so that makes it okay, right?" the first voice asks. "'Suppose so," the second says with little real conviction in his voice.

Envoy remembers this part, as she slides the remains of Subject Eleven into the incinerator chute, even though it's probably long gone cold.

Envoy can hear the clatter of bones fall down the chute. "Guess in the end we're all just garbage someone tosses down a chute," one of the voices says as it seems to walk out the door. "Walter," the other voice says, "Just shut the hell up, okay?"

The Aeolun tries not to think too deeply on it. She knows why Spirit Mages value mortal remains – it lets them access the spirit of the person later on. She chalks it up to one of the mysteries of mortals that she can try to figure out when she has more experience. For now, her concern is getting the crystals back to her main lab, and making final preparations to wake Icarus. And also, she realizes, to see if anyone has come around to check on her.

The walk back to her main lab is uneventful. No ghosts replay any past horrors for her and her lab is just as she left it. Everything is pretty much in order and nothing looks disturbed.

Envoy sets down the bag on a table and removes the crystals, making sure to keep them separated. She then changes into her now dry clothing, has a small breakfast of rations, and goes to see if she has any 'mail' left at the entrance to the main firebase hangar.

Interestingly, there is one letter waiting for her at the hangar gate. It bears the stamp of the temple and a stylized "RM" is embossed on the front.

The Aeolun stares at it for nearly a minute before daring to open it, which she does with care as well. She unfolds it as if it might crumble away, and finally reads it.

"I have often thought I have seen everything and yet the world somehow manages to surprise me, Envoy of Lothrhyn. Rumors of your death reached me some time ago and after some small manner of inquiry, they seemed to ring true. And yet … I come to my office to find a full report of events waiting for me. What you tell me regarding this member, 'Ra' of the watch is worrisome. From what I have learned, he seems to have significant political ties. Rumor has it once he has his eye on someone, their life quickly becomes worthless. But … it seems even he has limits to his reach. Through proper diplomatic connections, I have learned that his recent actions on Abaddon, and most specifically, against you, have angered many powerful groups. If my contacts are correct, he has been officially recalled to Caroban to answer for his actions. It seems that attacking one favored by the Emirate, the Expedition of Abaddon, and the Imperials has threatened Caroban's attempts at improving its relations with them. This does no sit well with the Caroban administration. So, for now it appears your hunter has been muzzled."

"For now," Envoy repeats. Still, she's glad that her report got through to the Temple so quickly. She reads on to see what the Arch Inquisitor has to say about her own activities…

"As for your activities and discoveries, they are both interesting and concerning. I will ponder what they may mean. In the meantime, I hope that for your, and our, sake, you are acting with the utmost caution, care and wisdom. The powers with which you may be meddling concern all of us. Ask yourself this: Is it worth the danger you impose to all of us to recover the parts you have lost? I know that many would say no, but in this I will have to trust you. Should you discover anything that may threaten the well-being of our world, I trust you will bring it to my attention. Until I hear from you again, I wish you luck. – Arch-Inquisitor Raphael Melchizedek."

"It's not just for me anymore… is it?" Envoy asks herself as she folds the letter and sticks into an inner pocket of her robe. Granted her own full recovery is definitely something she wants – but there is so much she needs to investigate as well, like just what the 'plan' is that the Tribunal mentioned, and what Sifran agencies may still be active. "What do the Sifrans intend for us all," she mutters, as she returns to the bowels of the base. I can't leave Icarus in his prison now that he realizes what it is, she thinks. But there is a lot I need to explore here still. I'll just have to wait until he has recovered enough to join me.

The base is uncomfortably quiet as she makes her way through its passages, back to the freight elevator. The equipment she put in the elevator earlier, the gurney, blankets, and clothing, are all still waiting for her. As the elevator descends, Envoy actually gets a funny feeling that she might describe as nervousness. Perhaps watching so many young lives die here is starting to weigh on her. Soon, she will literally be holding the life of someone in her hands. The elevator stops with a thump and she's back in the damp cave far beneath the base. She can hear the soft hum of the power equipment that is keeping the pod functioning.

Envoy takes a deep breath, and goes to the supplies. She takes one set of scrubs and makes a few modifications to account for her wings, and then changes into those. Next she spreads out a blanket on the gurney and locks its wheels. She checks the surgical supplies next, making sure the suture needles come pre-threaded and ready to go, as well as giving the disinfectant alcohol a sniff to make sure it's what it says. There's no saline, so she can't wash out the wounds easily – but she gets a few collapsing cups ready to scoop up the blue tank fluid with, figuring that will work in its place. "I wish I knew more about sewing up blood vessels," she says, closing her eyes. She'll have to do it one catheter at a time, saving the neck connection for last.

"Display vitals," she finally tells the computer.

The display crackles and blurs as it tries to come back to life. One by one, the subjects vitals are written out down the display: NEURAL FUNCTIONS: Stable and within expected waveform. HEARTRATE: 10bpm. BLOOD PRESSURE: 70/50. MUSCULAR STATE: Functional. SYNTHETIC SYSTEMS: Gravity-drive: Operational. Quantum Manipulator: Operational. Defensive systems: Operational. Overall Chance of successful extraction: 85%

"Please test alarms for various failing vitals," Envoy asks next, so she knows what's happening if horns start to blare.

The machine goes through a sequence of tones. A high-unchanging tone indicates heart failure. A low unchanging tone indicates neural failure. Blood pressure failure is a tone somewhere in-between. Synthetic systems failures fire a rapid series of beeps. All of the tones are jarring enough to get attention and it would be hard to mistake one for the other.

Envoy does not feel particularly heartened to know what each one means, since there's nothing she can do about any of them if they occur. "I need a Life Mage," she says, and wonders if she could actually get one to come – but the only one on Abaddon that she knows of by name is Latania. Of course, an Expedition doctor would probably do just as well, if she could get one who would be discrete. But other than the few she met in the hospital (who did little more than clean her wounds so she could heal on her own) she doesn't know any.

And Icarus cannot offer any advice here, his body floats limply in its chamber. The display flickers next to him, asking: 'Resume Standby, Begin Resuscitation, or Terminate Subject'.

Sitting down, Envoy thinks of her options. Icarus' magical resistance is probably low at this point, she reasons, and as long as the implants remain inert she may be able to put him into a transformed state. "If I turn him into a tree, I could remove the tubes and heal him up before changing him back," she notes. "Resume Standby!" she tells the machine.

"Standby en… " the machine starts to say and the monitor starts to spark. Even the blue light within the tube begins to flicker.

"I should prepare the ritual just in case," Envoy decides, just as things flicker. Her eyes go wide as she edges towards panic. "Status report?" she asks the computer.

"S … stabilizer failure, f-f-f-f-f-f-f-fault in ground line. F-f-f-fault in oxygenation systems," the machine reports. "S-s-suspension failure imminent. Initiating auto-resuscitation procedure." Steam jets out of the side of the tube, a groan, then the squeak of metal on metal follows as the tube rotates so that it lays flat with its occupant face up.

I can't make any mistakes! Envoy realizes as she rushes to the tube and waits for it to open. Perform as much of the procedure as possible within the tube to maintain sterility, she decides, and starts putting on the surgical gloves and mask.

"I-i-i-initiating muscular stimulation," the machine stutters. Through the glass, she can see a series of needles fold out from the wall and slide forward, sticking into Icarus' major muscle groups. There's a crackle of electricity and in moments she can see his entire body twitching violently. His heart rate begins to climb rapidly on the screen 30 … 40 … 50 … 60 … "Adrenalin injection commencing," it reports as a clear fluid begins flowing through the various tubes that go into the child's body. The machine spews out data about vitals that change rapidly. Even the calm waveform that was his mind at rest is now spiking around violently on the display.

"Can't you be more gentle?" Envoy chides the machine, as to her it looks like it's torturing the boy awake.

The machine's answer is a violent explosion of sparks out one side. The lights dim again, but quickly return to normal. "Chamber opening, stand c-c-c-c-clear," it stutters. The needles withdraw from the occupants flesh. Several loud bangs go off as bolts that secured the tube closed explode. There's a hiss, a gurgle, then a rush as the to opens up and a wave of blue goo flows outward, onto the floor, and onto Envoy's feet.

Envoy rushes forward, hoping she doesn't slip, and reaches into the goo to make sure Icarus' nose and mouth are clear of it.

It's a mess and maneuvering Icarus turns out to be a bit of a challenge just to get a grip. The boy coughs and gags reflexively as a huge wave of the goo flows out of his lungs. He's still completely unconscious.

Once Envoy is sure the patient isn't going to drown, she gets ready to start unplugging him. "Which tube do I remove first?" she asks the computer, hoping it's still got some life left in it.

"Ex… extremeties first, legs, then arms. Chest follows. Neuro-collar is lllllast," the machine says.

Envoy checks the left leg first, feeling nervous. The femoral artery is dangerous to mess with.

There's a tube going firmly into Icarus' left thigh. What she can't tell, though, is if it goes into an artery, a vein, or just the muscle.

Singing to calm herself and help her focus, Envoy gets a suture pack and tears it open, pulling out the hooked, threaded needle. Holding it ready in her left hand, she grips the catheter in her right and starts to pull it out. "Removing left thigh catheter," she announces to the computer.

"Disengaging monitor to noted appendage," the machine reports. The tube comes out slowly and the feeling is … well, like pulling something out through viscus slime. A metal tip makes its appearance through the puncture, then it pops free. Redness begins to seep out into the blue liquid, turning it purple. The good news is, it isn't gushing out. So it was not in an artery.

Applying pressure, Envoy holds the insertion point closed and moves in with her left hand to sew it up, hoping that whatever muscle trauma is there will heal on its own.

It's like sewing leather, frankly, to suture the wound shut. About fifteen minutes later and a lot of care, the hole has been closed and there is no further sign of bleeding.

After breathing a sigh, Envoy grabs a fresh suture pack and calls for a vitals update as she moves around to check the right leg for any connections.

So far his vitals look … well, they aren't moving. Stable is hard to guess for a hybrid. Who knows what they should be at. It also looks like his right leg has a similar connection feeding into it.

Envoy opens the pack and repeats the process, first drawing out the catheter slowly and announcing that she's disconnecting it, and then hoping there won't be a gush of blood…

Another one comes free without a gush of blood. The suturing procedure is also mostly the same as well. As she's tying it off, she actually sees Icarus' hand flex a bit; it looks like a voluntary movement too. He's still asleep … but his body seems to be responding to brain activity.

The Aeolun frowns a bit. She wants Icarus to wake up… but not while she's working on him. Especially when there's no way to know how the gravity system may react when he's under stress. She hurries, along, checking the arms next.

Much like the legs, the procedures on the arms go reasonably smoothly. Each tube is extracted without extensive blood loss and the closing of the wound goes without a hitch. Of course that also means she's down to the remaining two, the big ones; the chest tube … and the collar. Icarus' toes wiggle randomly now.

"What does the chest catheter connect to?" Envoy asks the computer, as she wonders how many sutures she'll need for it.

"Primary r-r-role is excess water ex-extraction," the machine states, "P… penetrates chest cavity o… only."

It'll take a good ten stitches to close the wound it will leave behind, if she had to guess.

"Thank goodness," Envoy says, and then gathers the supplies she'll need. Once she's ready, she tells Icarus, "Try not to take any deep breaths while I do this, okay?" Then she starts drawing out the catheter.

Not that Icarus can really respond right now. The tube comes out and pops free with a disturbing sucking sound. The wound immediately starts seeping blood and lymph fluid. The stitching also turns out to be more difficult, if only because the wound is larger and the constant seepage leaves it very slick. It's thirty minutes before she thinks she was able to stop the leaking enough. All that remains now is the collar, the device that is Icarus' neural bridge and primary life-support.

"Does the collar connect to the major Carotid blood vessels?" Envoy asks the machine.

"Negative," the machine states, "P-primary linkage is in the spinal column and secondary vessels."

Envoy grabs up the rest of the suture packs, and examines the collar closely to see how it opens, and if she can deal with the catheters one at a time or not. "Does neural disconnect need to done in phases?" she asks.

There are two locking clasps on the collar and once opened, it looks like it should separate into two pieces. "N… neural d-d-d-d-d," the machine starts to say, then breaks down into an array of static and pops.

"Computer? If you can hear me I'm about to open the collar. If there is a special sequence for shutting down the neural link, please sound the blood-pressure alarm for two seconds," Envoy asks, hoping it's just the speech system that's failing.

There's nothing more from the computer.

Envoy closes her eyes and focuses her thoughts, pushing away other concerns. Remove the catheters and sew up the wounds, she thinks. Worry about the rest later. She opens her eyes and unlatches the collar to get to the catheters.

As Envoy draws Icarus' collar apart, she can see two small tubes running into his neck. They don't look so bad. What looks scary are the dozen or so needles that also go in, back near his spine. She can get to the catheters without completely pulling out the needles, it looks like, but it will be tricky to suture. She also notices there's a smaller metal collar loosely around his neck, probably thin titanium and looks completely solid. It's connected to nothing thankfully; and on the front of it are inscribed the letters 'XIII'

"Okay, change of plans," Envoy whispers. "Even if it wakes you up. I need to remove those wires first." She takes hold of the first needle with her fingertips, and tries to pull it out as gently as possible. Please let him be regulating his own autonomic functions now, she prays, although it isn't directed at any particular being – more to the universe at large.

The wire doesn't move, it is in fact extremely stiff. It looks like the only way to get it out is to remove the rest of the neuro-collar and pull all the wires at once.

Envoy considers her options. If she removes it all at once, that means suturing up the catheter points at the same time and hoping there isn't any complication from breaking the neural connection. Being ambidextrous helps with the first problem, assuming the second one doesn't come up…

The machine, nor Icarus, offer any advice. It doesn't help that he looks so … fragile right now.

She goes about moving the rest of the collar out of the way as best she can, hoping the wires aren't physically connected to it, and getting as much slack as she can in the tubes.

As the collar moves, the needles going into his neck and spine pull slowly out, along with the catheter tubes, although they were fairly well attached. All of the systems on the pod go crazy and every alarm starts screaming. All the vitals on the static-filled readout flat line. That's not the horrible part … Icarus' entire body jerks and spasms in the pod violently. Fingers and toes splay and his back arches him upward in what looks like it would be an extremely painful stretch. It stays like that for a few seconds and then everything goes limp and slack as he collapses back into the pod, motionless.

"Damn… " Envoy says and presses her ear to Icarus' chest to listen for heartbeat and breathing.

It's hard to hear much at the moment and he doesn't seem to have drawn a breath yet. In fact, he doesn't for several seconds. It reaches a point where it seems critical that he breathe … and his chest finally rises, lifting her head slowly with it. "Hey," comes Icarus' very tired and raspy voice as that breath leaves him, "You actually do have a horn."

"Yes," Envoy says, wiping her eyes (darned blue goo). "Now hold still so I can sew up the holes in your neck. You'll need your strength for complaining that the shower in the base doesn't work, after all… "