Finally done!
Sorry it took so long. Dionysia's such a complex character and it's not at all easy to write her childhood. It's so complicated, so much happening and it's hard to justify how she ends up as messed-up as she does.
I love her. She's just complicated.
Whee, formatting time!
Chapter 22
Dionysia continued taking pain killers for a week, and would have gone on taking them for longer if Krik hadn’t insisted that she stop; they didn’t want her getting addicted after all. Fortunately by that point her body had gotten used to the presence of the stitches in her lips and after one vicious (but blessedly quiet) tantrum she discovered that the pain had sufficiently ebbed away for her to eat and breathe. It was only when she suddenly tried to open her mouth by reaction, if someone made her laugh or her temper got the better of her for example, that she felt the need to complain.
Even so, it was the best part of a month before Krik decided that she could participate in the experiment he had planned without the pain in her face affecting the results.
The eight vykkers were carrying out their experiments in a large complex owned by the Vykkers’ Conglomerate. It consisted of a number of fully outfitted laboratories of various sizes and levels of technology, which were rented out to vykkers in need of a private place to work and Decrough’s team were using a smaller-than-average lab on the ground floor which also had a small outdoor area where Dionysia was occasionally taken for some ‘fresh air’ and sunlight. In addition to the laboratories, the complex also kept a number of sligs and mudokons which were rented out for use in any of the buildings’ labs.
With Decrough’s permission, Krik rented three sligs and three mudokons to use in his test. First working on Dionysia he placed her in a chair and tied down her arms. Under her left hand he placed a box with three switches and then he rigged up a large, blunt needle over her right arm, making sure the point of the needle was exactly two centimetres from her skin, pointing towards her. “Now listen,” He told her, “When the experiment begins this needle will start moving towards your arm. You’ll be blindfolded so you can’t see it. This is what you have to do: when you first feel the needle touching you, I want you to press the first switch on the box under your left hand, ok?”
She nodded, slightly nervous.
He smiled at her. "Very good. Now, the needle will keep moving at you. When it first starts to feel uncomfortable I want you to press the second switch. Then wait again. It’ll keep coming towards you; it’ll become painful, but you won’t be hurt. We’re just trying to find out if you feel pain more than normal, ok? So wait until it becomes as painful as you can possibly bear, until you can’t stand it any more, and then press the third switch. The needle will move away from you and we’ll end the experiment. Understand?”
She nodded. Since the stitches had been put in she had tended to avoid speaking when an action or gesture could be used instead.
“Excellent. Remember; don’t press that last switch until you really have to.” And then he put a blindfold over her eyes, attached a couple of electrodes to her head so they could monitor her mental responses to the experiment and then began.
Her skin had just broken and she was bleeding very slightly when she let out a low cry and flicked the third switch. Instantly the needle withdrew and Krik unstrapped her from the chair and let her go.
He did the same test on the three sligs and three mudokons he had hired, strapping them in the chair, positioning the needle two centimetres from their right arms and explaining the three switches before they began. The whole thing was finished in four hours and the results were clearly visible before he even looked at the psychological data.
He presented his findings to Decrough the following morning. “It didn’t take me long to work out that Dionysia’s ability to withstand pain is much lower than that of normal inhabitants.” He handed over a small chart showing his results. “You’ll see that there was no significant difference as to when the models first felt the needle touching them between Dionysia and any of the others, so on the surface her skin is no more sensitive than anyone else’s. However, you’ll see the sensations became painful to her a second before the first slig felt pain, and about three seconds before the first mudokon. Then she cancelled the experiment much sooner than any of the control models. I also monitored the brain patterns of her and the other tests to ensure that she wasn’t lying.” He handed over a bundle of paper which Decrough gave only a cursory glance. Krik went into the home stretch of his presentation, “It’s clear that her pain threshold is abnormally low, though whether the fault is in how the sensations are picked up in the deeper levels of skin or in the way her brain translates the signals it receives are unconfirmed. I would suggest we investigate further into this so we can make moves to eliminate this problem from later Black-Skin models.”
Decrough was silent for a few minutes before speaking. “It’s strange we have not noticed these effects sooner; we’re frequently injecting her with syringes.”
“We have been doing so since she was a small child,” Krik explained, “And always in the same places: I expect those areas have become desensitized to the sensation of the needles being injected. I specifically chose a place where we had not previously injected her when doing my experiment. Also, the needle I used was blunt and so will have had a wider area of effect than a sharper needle.”
Decrough nodded again, “Interesting how the mudokons seemed more resistant to pain than the sligs.”
“That could be a biological difference or it may result from the fact that industrial mudokons receive frequent beatings whereas sligs do not.”
“Alright, we’ll do some further tests on her to try and work out the course of this, and in the meantime I’ll spread your results around the rest of the team. Well done for spotting that, Krik,” And Decrough gave him a congratulatory nod and dismissed him from the office.
Once again Krik left a meeting with Decrough with a definite feeling of pride. A short time later, he discovered another benefit of his research: Dionysia turned on Dachau, angry that he had said she was lying about the amount of pain she had felt after her lips were stitched, and shortly afterwards Krik was rather surprised, but also very pleased, to discover that he had taken Dachau’s place as her official favourite vykker.
This mostly meant that she followed him around like a bad smell half the time, but he put up with it, letting her trust in him build, biding his time until she would put her head in a noose if he only asked it.
It wasn’t so bad, he assumed, now that she’d quietened down and her temper had eased off a little, and there were advantages of winning her affection. If nothing else the look on Dachau’s face whenever he saw them talking was reward enough. He casually asked her one day, “What were you and Dachau laughing about whenever I walked in the room?”
She laughed evilly, “O-oh, that vykker doesn’t like you very much!”
“Oh? What did he say?”
She laughed again, “He went on and on about how you never did anything useful, how you never added anything to their work.”
“Hah! In the two years before I joined their little project didn’t progress at all, and now they’ve come further than ever before!”
Dionysia was unsure whether she was supposed to be flattered or not, but as Krik didn’t seem to be paying her any attention she added, “He said that you once worked with Skillya, and you did something that made her try and kill you.”
He looked at her sharply, “What did he say I did?”
She shrugged noncommittally. “Is it true?”
“The bit you’ve told me is at any rate, though I wouldn’t be certain about anything else he said.”
“What happened after she caught you?”
Krik suddenly became very grave. “She locked me in a cell and left me there for a few days while she tried to decide what to do with me.” He let her catch a glimpse of the hollow expression he usually kept hidden, just for a tenth of a second. It was not something he’d ever show anyone else, but he wanted to make an impression in her. He wanted to scare her; who knew when it might come in useful to have some fear to hold over her head?
“I got out, just. I tricked another vykker working there to contact the Vykker’s Council – that was the vykker’s government back then – and they had Skillya free me.”
Dionysia became silent for a few minutes until Krik changed the subject, “How’re your lessons with Mehler going these days?”
She shrugged again.
“What’s he teaching you now?”
She gave another shrug, “Still going on about reading and writing, as if I didn’t know enough of that to get on with. Then we look at how to tell if someone’s lying, and how to hide the signs when it’s you, and stuff like that.”
“Lie, cheat and deceive,” Krik summarised with a brief smile.
“Pretty much,” She responded, looking sly.
It was a couple of weeks before Dachau made an attempt to win Dionysia back; Krik had expected something sooner and was surprised by the wait, but he kept his eyes open expectantly and Dachau didn’t disappoint.
Krik was doing some chemical tests one morning, Dionysia sitting nearby talking about something or other (it wasn’t that he didn’t listen to what she was talking about, since she stopped every few seconds, partly because talking made her lip-stitches sore and also to make sure he was listening; he just didn’t bother remembering it), when Dachau had entered the room carrying a long box wrapped in brown paper, looking smug. Dionysia fell silent, whether because she was interested in the package or because she was thinking of making some mean comment Krik didn’t know since he hardly glanced up from his work.
“Dionysia,” Dachau said smoothly before she could speak, “I thought I might find you here.” His voice was smooth but carrying the faintest hint of disdain as if he thought anywhere where Krik was was a bad place to be. Krik ignored it.
Dachau bounced the package in his arms. “A gift for you. I originally hoped to give it to you a few weeks ago, to help you pass the time after the operation, but I’m afraid the company I ordered it from were rather slow in delivering it.”
Ah, that’d explain the delay, Krik thought.
Dionysia rose to her feet and swaggered arrogantly across the room (where had she learnt to swagger, he wondered suddenly) and accepted the package from Dachau, who was looking smugger than ever, clearly confident that his offering would win her back.
She examined it closely, turning it over and over before opening the paper. Krik kept his head pointing towards his experiments but raised his eyes to watch. He caught Dachau’s smug look and shot him an arrogant glare.
Slowly, almost ceremonially, Dionysia slid a long, narrow box coated in black leather out of the paper. It had a small fiddly latch and opened on hinges. She screwed up the brown paper and dropped it almost unconsciously before tackling the latch. It was obvious that this was something special, something more valuable than any of the gifts she had received previously, and she took her time. Dachau was watching her greedily as if it was him opening the present.
At last the latch came undone with a click. She opened the box and gasped. “You like them?” Dachau asked smoothly, “I had them made especially for you. Like you, they’re unique.” He had eyes only for Dionysia, who was staring open-mouthed into the box. They both seemed to have forgotten that Krik was in the room. From where he was sitting he could not see what the gift was.
Dachau continued, clearly enjoying her reaction, “You know some native mudokons put wooden rings in their feathers, for decoration. I thought, since we’re a higher culture, let’s not do better. I ordered them from one of the companies that makes jewellery for Skillya.”
Her hands shaking ever-so-slightly, Dionysia reached in and lifted a beautifully carved silver ring, very delicate-looking and obviously sized to fit over her feather, about half an inch long, out of the box. She was staring at it, transfixed.
“Each one patterned differently,” Dachau went on. Krik was by now watching alertly, his head raised, and Dachau shot him a victorious glance, “Each one unique. They’re very special, for a special child.” Dionysia seemed hardly aware that he was there. “I’ll help you put them on, if you like.”
Her eyes shot up, she stuttered, “No, I want to…” and her gaze sank back into the box. She returned the one she had taken out to its position.
Dachau smiled ingratiatingly, “Whenever you’re ready then. I’ll be in my office.” And he swept out, evidently to leave Krik to stew.
Dionysia moved over to the table and sank down into a chair beside Krik’s. She was about a year and three quarters old, growing much faster than a normal female mudokon, but she was still rather small, Krik noted, still just a child. She placed the box on the table in front of her, still gazing at the content, and she released it, letting the lid fall back so Krik could see inside.
There were six of the silver rings inside, resting in red velvet the same colour as Dionysia’s feather and as Dachau had said, each carved with an intricate, graceful pattern. They looked very light and as far as Krik could tell were pure silver. He hated to admit to himself that they must have cost Dachau a small fortune.
Dionysia gently lifted one of the rings out of its velvet seat and, pulling her feather over her shoulder, held them together to compare them.
“They’re beautiful,” He said softly and she jumped slightly, so enthralled that she had forgotten he was there.
Her eyes were shining as if she had just discovered a cave full of ancient treasures of a lost civilisation. “Do you think they’ll look good on me?”
He smiled indulgently and for once told her the perfect truth, “They’ll look fabulous. Dachau certainly got
this right.”
“Can I try them on?”
“There’s a mirror in my office; you can put them on there and see how they look.”
In an instant she was on her feet and hurrying out of the lab ahead of him, clutching the silver ring in her hand. He picked up the box and hurried after her, knowing better than to keep her waiting.
They reached his lab and he helped her thread the ring over her feather. Her hands were still trembling but his delicate fingers did the job easily. He added another, and then two more.
“No, I liked it better with just three in,” She said, examining herself in the mirror.
“You’ll probably change your mind as your feather grows,” He told her but obediently removed one of the rings and spent the next five minutes sliding the remaining three up and down until she was satisfied.
“What do you think Dachau will say when he sees me wearing them,” She asked.
“He’ll probably be overjoyed that you like them or enraged that you didn’t let him put them on you,” He replied.
She cackled, “Let’s go and find him!” She said, chuckling, and Krik knew that Dachau hadn’t won her over.
He laughed, “Whatever you ask. I’d suggest you don’t wear them all the time though, as they might get damaged. And if any sligs saw you wearing them they’d probably try to steal them.”
“They can try!” She hissed fiercely and he laughed again. Had hadn’t lost her! It seemed that it took more than silver to win over Dionysia.
* * *
A few months later something happened that changed the lives of every vykker on Mudos. Before the terrorist threat had seemed distant, a joke. They had all agreed that the threat would be over before long and Abe would be captured or killed before he could do any real damage.
One morning Dionysia came out of her room to find the eight vykkers silent, grave clustered together in the lounge. She felt as if she had walked into a room where someone important had just died. Not daring to speak, she cast her eyes around nervously before spotting the newspaper lying on the table in the centre of the room. The top quarter of the front page was taken up with an enormous, glaring headline.
FALL OF THE VYKKER’S CONGLOMERATE;
TERRORISTS DESTROY VYKKERS’ LABS!
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Fairly sure I got my MO facts there, I spent a while checking, since I don't have the game and the wikipedia article that would have helped seems to have been removed. If I'm wrong, let me know. Also let me know if you spot any formatting or grammar mistakes etcetera etcetera.
It reall, really is hard writing about Dionysia as a child. I have to say I'll be happy when she grows up and I don't have to worry about it any more! Aside from Krik's manipulation of her there's only a couple of big events in her life to come before W@RF and there might be only one more chapter of Warrior's Birth before I move on.
Anyway, reply and I'll try and get the next chapter up on time. If you do not reply then don't expect anything until April
. I might actually be stuck without full-time internet access for a month starting the middle of March since I'll be going home for Easter and my Mum's been having trouble with her internet. I'll let you know more in a few weeks.
We've been having a lot of these late-night updates recently. I guess it's easier to write at night since being slightly tired helps me get into character better, and then I get carried away, work into the early hours and have to post it then ad there since I'm already late updating
Anyway, the next one shouldn't be too bad and I'll hopefully get it up next weekend (assuming I get replies). You've probably had enough of my ramblings for now so it's toodle pip.
Rest assured that even if next chapter is the last of Warrior's Birth we won't be seeing the back of Dionysia.
REPLY NOW!