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Consciousness returns slowly, with a dull, throbing ache. The room is a
cluttered lab, all white surfaces and crowded counters, and Quiet lies
immobilized on a medical table, feeling little more than a dull,
throbbing ache over her entire body, with occasional searing, stabbing
pains whenever she breathes.

Andrea's eyelids flutter as she opens her eyes. She blinks as the lab
comes slowly into focus, turning her head slowly an inch to the right
and left to see more. Her motions are slow and painful; her breaths
deliberately shallow. The Gaian attempts to wriggle her toes and
fingers, just a twitch.

No one lies in immediate field of vision, although by straining, one can
catch glimpses of someone in a white lab coat puttering around. The
glimpsed figure walks out of sight behind the table. "I see our guest
is awake." The voice is professional, strong, somehow vibrant--it's
the kind of voice that one can easily imagine leading armies or entire
religions. There are more sounds of things being moved, set down,
basic puttering. "Don't bother trying to get up. The straps are there
for your own safety. Now, you might be thinking about letting that
beast in you loose, certainly its strong enough to break free, but,
really, that would be unwise." Gentle fingertips touch her bare
scalp--apparently shaved during the unknown length of coma.

A water bottle's flexible straw touches her lips--there's something odd
with the skin on that hand, but it's hard to focus clearly. "Shallow
breaths. DeMolay did a number on one of your lungs, it was difficult
to piece everything back together correctly."

A few seconds go by before Andrea drinks, but she does. She makes weak
sucking efforts as she goes through the uncomfortable process of
drinking laying flat on her back.

The bottle is taken away after a few sips. "I want you to know I don't
blame you people for the deaths of the children. Anthromorphosizing
always holds dangers, and it's pointless to levy responsibility
against instinct."

Andrea simply breaths for a minute or so. Then she asks, her
normally-clear voice a touch rough, "Anthromorphosizing?" The long
word takes a grimace of effort, with a heartbeat-long pause in the
middle.

Gentle, strong hands grip her head, guiding it into some kind of cool
metal framework, locking it into firm place. "Applying human
characterstics to animals, yes." There is a brief prick on her bare
scalp, followed by cool numbness. "I know there's at least partial
instincti-driving going on. Is the sentience real, or is even that
mimicry? No, don't try to answer that."

Andrea's eyes show a flash of weak anger, as the moon's pull affects her
even in her current state. However, her body cannot substain the rage,
it soon dying into a flicker that is swallowed entirely by numbness.
She asks the disembodied voice, "You're calling me...an animal?"

There is the sensation of something thin and cold touching numbed skin,
short, precise incisions. "A /remarkably/ complex creature." The
wonder is almost palpable. More palpable is the odd sensation of scalp
being peeled away from skull without pain. "It would be best to remain
calm. Much of the interior damage was closed with silver thread. I
think, given data gathered, that would be lethal if you underwent
metamorphosis."

Stunned and sickened, Andrea laspes into horrified silence. A small
whimper escapes her throat as she stares dry-eyed at the ceiling.

Footsteps lead away from the helpless garou, and back. A sharp, electric
whine kicks into life--a telltale sound of a drill of some sort, and
shortly thereafter, sound is washed out by the heavy, deep vibrations
engendered by the bit being applied to exposed skull. There isn't any
real pain, but strangely enough, it's still a rather unpleasant
experience. After several minutes of that, there is a sound
uncomfortably close to a cork being worked free, and a disk of bone is
worked free. "The MRI didn't show anything unusual about the brain
structure, which doesn't seem right to me. I did wish we'd had
time--or room--to use it whenyou came to us, in that beast form. Do
the different bodies lead to different brains--does mentation change
between them, even personality?"

You get a near-incoherent babble of messages from Andrea.

Dear Gaia, dear Gaia he's sewn me up with silver thread...can't shift
can't escape....he's drilling open my skull...oh Gaia, save me, kill
me...

Andrea's body goes painfully rigid, her eyes wide and frightened. She
does not answer his question, asking instead, "What are you going to
do with me?"

Doc moves into view, and busies himself with taping open Andrea's
eyelids. "Easy, easy. There is no call to panic." The damnable thing
is, the thing's voice is honestly soothing. It's right palm splits
open, and there is a brief glimpse of dozens, maybe hundreds of
organic, thread-thin tendrils emerging before he reaches back and
places that hand on her numbed skull, presumably over the hole, and
pers deeply into her eyes. "MRI's not a foolproof technology. Maybe
you have fundamental brain structures that resonate falsely? Would
seem an odd ability to evolve, though." He is silent for a time.
Uncontrolled, brief spasms go through muscles in the bound garou, in a
very systematic pattern. "Motor center seems normal..." With his free
hand, he occasionally puts moistening eyedrops into the opened eyes.

He might've been a normal man. Once. His skin is a greyish-green in
color, and is caked with oozing, crusty folds and pulsing veins. His
neck is massive, heavily muscled with taut, oddly striated muscles and
almost metallic tendons that have burst through the skin. His head is
outsized to his body, the forehead swollen outward, burying beady
crimson eyes in deep pits of shadow. His nose and mouth are too small
for his face, adding to the impression of his head's size. He wears a
white lab coat, dress pants, and nothing else.

Andrea tries to shut her eyes and fails, her body twitching without any
conscious control on her part. The fostern finds herself in a totally
unaccustomed postion--helplessness. Weakly, uselessly, she attempts to
move her head from side to side in denial.

Phantom sounds ring in Andrea's ears, followed, long minutes later, by
odd, random visual patterns. The Doc stares intently into her eyes,
without any indication he's looking into the eyes of a feeling,
thinking being--it's more like he's pering into a microscope at a
particularly fascinating strain of bacteria.

Another voice calls off to the side, hesitant and respectful--almost
worshipful. "Doctor?" The deformed creature doesn't look away from his
work, uttering only a distracted "Hmm?" back at the unseen voice.

"You said to come tell you when Matthews got back from his...task?"

Regretfully, the Doc straightens, withdraws his hand from the back of
Andrea's head. The dozens of wiry tendrils projecting from his palm,
slick with blood, retract into the hand, and he removes the tape
holding the garou's eyes open as he nods to the unseen voice. "Yes.
Thank you." He turns back to the helpless garou. "Try to get some
rest--we shall resume this at a later hour." He walks behind the table
again, and something is placed and smoothed over the bared skull.
Following that, footsteps leave the room, leaving the garou in
terrified silence.

Andrea closes her eyes in the empty room. Without anyone to see her, she
lets go the last remaining shreds of her pride and cries. Silent tears
drip down the sides of her face, as she is unable to wipe them, but
her wearied and wounded body does not have the strength to sob.

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