Sci-Lab I.D.S.

((From Here))

The telepad in the entry hall of the data server glowed. A few seconds later, DNR materialized upon it.

The first thing DNR noticed was that only the immediate area around the telepad was lit, as if by spotlight. The only things visible besides the telepad were the slate gray colored floor, and a peach-colored energy field that enclosed the area around the pad. Nothing else was visible. Turning about in a full circle, he could see no walls, no ceiling, no floor--- But there was something out there.

As DNR turned back around, he could make out faint hints of small, thin, red rectangular glows in the darkness ahead of him. They were spread out in ones and twos in the darkness beyond the peach-colored barrier, and each hovered at about head height. Most of them were stationary, but some moved about. One could only speculate what they were.

DNR didn't have to speculate for very long as the lighting situation soon sorted itself out.

The floors illuminated from within, revealing themselves to be made entirely of what looked like either solid light or Glass Panels. The floor glowed with a silvery white light, and the space below it came alive with a variety of colors. Looking down at it, one could see a network of dimly lit colored lines below the surface with the occasional pulse of brighter light of the same color running along them at regular intervals. The floor of this area was no less than eight panels wide, and stretched somewhere around 20 to 30 panels ahead.

The walls, now illuminated in their own right, appeared to be made in layers. The outer layer appeared to be the same glassy substance as the floors, and had pulsing colored circuits suspended within. All of this sat over an inner layer of what appeared to be solid metal with various virtual machines and their indicator lights built into the solid slabs. Looking up, one would note that the ceiling was quite possibly 20 or so feet above the floor, and had the same general look to it as the floor did.

Inset into the walls at regular intervals were the metallic frames of what were obviously entrances to other areas of the server. The frames stood roughly nine feet in height and encompassed a large, solid looking white metal blast door with Sci-Lab's logo carved into it. Both the frames and the doors had illuminated colored stripes, all of one color, inset into them. There were nine doorways in all. Four along the left wall, four along the right wall, and one centered at the far end of the hallway. The first two on the left were marked with red, and the last two with yellow. The first two on the right were marked with blue, and the last two with green. The center door at the end of the hall was marked with glowing white.

The reddish glows DNR had observed earlier belonged to several gray armored Guard Navis. The Navis were all basically identical... Each was six feet tall with a near-black deep gray body suit. They all wore lighter gray torso armor (with shoulder armor), a custom-style back unit, forearm braces, gloves, lower leg braces, boots, a belt, and an open faced helmet. The red glow appeared to have come courtesy of the semi-transparent red visor that fell down over their eyes from the helmet. A pair of them each stood flanking one of the nine doors, while another couple of them individually walked up and down the hallway; occasionally stopping to check one of the many panels set into the walls near each of the doors. None of them appeared to carry any weapons.

By the time DNR had taken in all of this, he noticed the peach colored barrier had long since vanished.

DNR, now a bit more confident in his mind about the surrounding area, walked out from the teleportation pad, keeping the façade of "Dr. Neuro". Now his sights are concentrated towards the green area of the hall, walking over in a calm manner. Still his thoughts are rather percolating about what may be beyond the doors... doors? "There seem to be two doors to this sector..." he thought to himself as the doctor gets closer and closer. He had to make a choice... but who knows what will wait for him inside the area? After a few choice seconds of thinking... the navi decides the leftmost door.

As DNR approached the green marked doorway, the Navis that stood flanking it reacted... and in a manner most... strange if not somewhat unsettling. They turned as one to face one another, then took exactly 3 identical steps towards each other, then turned as one to face DNR again. They now stood as a human wall, backs to the door, barring his path. They said nothing. They stared at DNR in silence, no malice evidenced in their eyes....

A slightly echoing, semi-synthetic male voice, fairly deep, spoke from DNR's left in a commanding manner. "Halt!" DNR turned his head to see one of the gray armored Guard Navis had somehow silently made its way to stand a mere 2 panels to his left. "State your name, your purpose, and your destination, Navi."

DNR looked to the left after he saw the Guard Navis barricade the door with there own bodies. "Hmmm... most interesting... security must be tight here if I have to do all of this in order to even get inside the sector..." DNR thought in his head as the Navi asked for the information. "I am Doctor Neuro, surgeon on staff from Chauliac Memorial Hospital here on performing routine checks on stasis chambers in the "Stasis-A" room of the green chamber." He simply answered in a business tone, his eyes focusing over to the red visor of the questioning Guard navi.

The Guard Navi nodded and simply said: "Verifying." A few minutes passed, then the Navi spoke up again. "Permission granted." The Navi then turned, walked over to the panel set into the wall by the door, and entered in a key combination on a touch pad.

The two Navis that were blocking the door parted, and resumed their positions flanking the door. The massive blast door then slid open, revealing a simple telepad.

"You may proceed." The Guard Navi added. still standing by the wall panel.

"Dr. Neuro" simply nodded as he waited for the door to open, revealing the teleportation pad inside. He then entered through the opened door, wondering in his head what could possibly be inside the green sector...

DNR materialized on an identical telepad, in an identical room elsewhere in the server. He stepped out of the teleportation room, the blast door closing behind him. As before, there were two Guard Navis flanking the blast door with Sci-Lab's logo on it.

This is where the similarities ended.

This area of the server was constructed of green crystalline material instead of the white crystal of the corridor he'd been in just previously. Inset into the floors and walls were a pattern of glowing traces, much like circuits on an electrical board. Pulses of light ran along the circuit traces at high speed once every few seconds. The area was a grid of wide hallways with tall ceilings. All of the doorways here were marked with green, with the exception of the door DNR has just walked out of, which was marked with white instead. They also featured a lighted green sign, set into the wall above the doorways, that gave the name of the room behind the door. None of the ones DNR could see were his destination.... And many of them he couldn't even read to begin with, as he wasn't programmed with all of the appropriate language and symbol packs necessary to do so.

As before, Guard Navis stood flanking every door. Now, however, they also roamed the halls with a small floating spherical sensor bit accompanying each Navi. The sensor bit was roughly the size of a basketball, and appeared to be made entirely of green colored glass, making them somewhat difficult to see given the environment. DNR wouldn't have noticed them at all had one not flown right past his face in eerie silence as one of the Guards passed him by.

DNR looked at the new area of the server that he has reached with an inner smile; it was a particularly breathtaking room and he had to bask in the radiant, almost soothing green crystalline material. This new room provided an even more difficult obstacle for the Researcher: a lot of these doors were difficult to decipher! "Damn the fact that I have limited language packs! Hmmm... there are guards everywhere... maybe if I check in just the right way..." he thought in his mind as he walked towards the left side of the hallway, taking careful consideration of each door to see which one would most likely be the right door. He walked in a calm manner, making sure not to seem as suspicious as possible. If he could not find any of the right door in that manner, he would then go in the other direction, but one would wonder just how long he'd be able to keep up this charade...

DNR checks all 18 doors along both sides of the corridor, and not one of them along this hallway appears to be the door he is looking for. (Then again, he can't read over half of the door signs.) Of the few that he could read, only the rooms [Particle Collider], [Electown Net Data], and [Climatrol Project] made sense. The rest were obviously acronyms, and included more than 7 characters each.

DNR took note of several other hallways that intersected this one as he went along. They were just as wide as this hallway, and included a dizzying number of doorways between them. It was also clear that there were yet more hallways that intersected those (hallways that ran parallel to this one)... The place truly was a grid one could get lost in for days on end. And this was just one tier out of 1024 such tiers in this sector of the server. That there were many other sectors didn't bear thinking on....

The Guards did not interfere with DNR as he wandered about. However a Sensor Bit was now following him quietly.

DNR finally looked, with little success, of the 18 doors that surrounded this particular area. None of them seemed right, but the first of the doors seemed rather fascinating. "Hmmm.... Aaaahahahhaaaah~ Particle Collier... Mhweeeheheeee... that's the instrument to understand how elementary particles work... interesting, but not what I'm looking for... hmm..." DNR thought as he walked through a few more illiterate doors, before coming across the next readable door "Hmmm... Electown Net Data!? That was probably from the war... hmmm... perhaps this is a place to back up or check on things that have been damaged? Even more interesting... maybe the next door could enlighten me..." the doctor said as he found the only readable door left, [Climatrol Project]. "Climatrol? Geeze... do these scilab guys just put words together and hope that it's a cool name!? If it were up to me I would call it something like Mr. Weather or something... nah... even that's a worse name... heheh... well... I've looked at all of these doors... none of them seem to be the right one... " "Dr. Neuro" stated in his mind, walking up to one of the guards as he said "Hello there sir? I am looking for the Stasis-A room. I was was given to broad of the coordinates to the room, unfortunately."

The Guard Navi stopped his patrol to listen as DNR hailed him. When DNR asked him for directions, the Navi nodded. "Of course." He made a funny gesture, and the sensor bit that had been following DNR silently floated around and into view. Once there, it started glowing, making it easy to see (rather than nearly impossible). "The Bit will show you to Stasis-A." The guard Navi added before turning away to resume its patrol. The Bit, meanwhile, began to float slowly away, presumably in the direction of said room....

DNR simply nodded as he saw the bit materialize into plain view, wondering if there were any others following him. "Thank you." "Dr. Neuro" stated with a nod towards the helpful guard as he followed right behind the bit, wondering if he'll finally get to see the destination. "Hmmm... so there are two theories so far for what this place is ... One: this server is the trash bin for the other networks... or two: this server might be to create backups of places that have been in danger... But these guys have to be the fanciest garbage men I've ever seen... Scilabs gives no expense to the ever-growing momentum of the sanitation engineers, what with giving them red visors and probably enough power to knock down corrupted data..." DNR made a mental note to himself as he calmly walked.

The walk down the corridor was a quiet one, with DNR's thoughts being the only thing to entertain him as the silent Bit led the way. Many more doors passed by along the way, and DNR was quick to notice that the labeling practice this deep in the server had transcended acronyms. Every single door was now accompanied by a colored label emblazoned with a seemingly random assortment of letters and numbers. [Blue G7BK889], [Red 92NT1PV], [Yellow LW394HR]... Lord knew what was behind them or what those labels meant, but that would all remain a mystery as the Bit floated by with DNR in tow.

After turning a few more corners and passing far too many doors, the Bit came to a halt right in front of [Green 8FT6QZ5]. Since the Bit had stopped, it stood to reason that the cryptic code on the door somehow translated to [Stasis-A], but it would take many weeks of decoding to even get a clue as to how that logic made sense, and DNR didn't have the time for that. There was a keycard slot by the door, but the Bit took the liberty of syncing up a thin red beam with the slot and granting clearance to who it was escorting. The door creaked and wailed from its long period of disuse, but finally the gears inside started churning, causing the two sides of the door to pull away and open the path... to a second door. Wow, tight security. The Bit moved forward to clear the next security gate, and the second door opened with even more noise, finally revealing the dim room inside. With the goal in sight, DNR stepped through the doorway, leaving the Bit floating by the terminal before the door closed behind him...

The only source of light within Stasis-A was an iridescent green glow emitting from a series of green stasis tubes lining the walls. Most of them were empty, but even the few that still had occupants were obscured into only vague silhouettes. Brass nameplates sat at the terminals in front of each tube, some of them intact, but others... not so much. A few were scratched up pretty badly, and one was even shattered into tiny pieces. The surviving plates, though, yielded names such as [Arcaster], [Bastion], [Scry], [Spectra]... The list went on and on. Which, though, did DNR come here for?

DNR could only think of the medical knowledge he had as he walked towards the inside of the room. Equations, the mechanics of the body, it was concepts like that that kept his motivation going, his fuel for knowledge being replenished from all of this walking around. It was double the torture for the doctor as the tight security was barring him access to knowledge as well as the entire mission could be putting Polonius in jeopardy. The doors cracking and the gears churning inside only heightened the tension, but it soon opened...

There was very little light apparently as "Dr. Neuro" ventured throughout the stasis room, being cautious. The doctor also made sure to see as much detail as he could, retaining his calm composure. "Let's see... I have to look at every single part of all of these stasis pods... anything can give a sign of what to fix... Hmmm.... " DNR pondered as he walked close enough to the stasis pods to see what was inside of them. He said nothing, for who would be listening? Again, his thoughts provided refuge: "Let's see whats the first one... Hmm... Arcaster? Not familiar at all... huh? That Can't be possible... Bastion? That guy was the provider of the tournament along with that Dame Alexander... just what exactly is this place... hmmm... Scry... Spectra... I see... w-wait... Scry? Who the heck is this person?... Wait... that sounds familiar!" DNR thought out as he remembered from looking at the key card given to him ... "S...C..R...Y... could this be tied into what Neuro needed to see? Mmmhhh... so interesting..." he pondered.

DNR began searching the room thoroughly for anything that might give him some extra information, but that proved to be mostly in vain. What other nameplates were intact DNR didn't recognize, and the vast majority of the stasis pods looked to already be empty. In fact, the only pod DNR could discern to be occupied, which was very difficult under the poor light of the room, was Scry's. In an effort to figure out what Dr. Neuro was supposed to be doing here, DNR began examining the nearest terminal, which just so happened to be Bastion's.

Under the nameplate were a series of buttons, all of them unlabeled and impossible to figure out without trial and error. To the right of the nameplate was a single node of light, green in color. A quick glance around the immediate area would enlighten the medical Navi to the fact that most of the other lights were green as well... except for Scry's. Under the lights on each terminal sat what looked like a card scanner. No screen, no buttons... just a slot that a card could fit in. There weren't any secret switches or anything of the sort on the underside of the terminals, proving that what DNR saw was what he got.

"Dr. Neuro" gave a thorough look throughout the stasis pods. "Hmmm...." he said as he looked out towards the control panel for Bastion's panel. "Lots of buttons to be sure but those wouldn't help out just what exactly this place is... and no buttons underneath the darn terminals... sooo....". he thought to himself as he then looked out towards all the other panels, green lights on them except Scry's. "Scry's it is..." DNR pondered as the doctor walked over to that panel. Taking out the key card and looking at the card scanner for Scry, he quickly thought to himself one last time "Hmmm... this'll be suspicious... well since I AM here for maintenance, I would have to test the card scanner... so he'd have to do this either way... let's just hope that whoever's inside won't just try to kill me... or worse, mmhhh. I'll have to risk it...oh, I'll just blame the system if I unleash something that's not suppose to hap--- I'm officially thinking too much for putting a card in a slot..." DNR said with a smile as he finally slotted the darn card, wondering how this'll turn out in terms of the mission.

The card slid through the reader effortlessly, soon accompanied by a beep from the machine to confirm the scan. The light on the terminal changed from red to green, and... nothing. Some very tense moments passed as the terminal's inner workings clicked a few times as it processed the new information it received, all the while making DNR sweat out the anxiety of not knowing what his actions had wrought.

*beeeeeeeeeeeeeep*

Finally, the information from the keycard cleared through the terminal and the stasis pod opened up, letting loose a thick fog of data as the suspension fluid inside met the stagnant air of the room. DNR was quickly overtaken and blinded by the fog as it gushed out of the pod, serving almost as a smokescreen to veil its former occupant. With his vision all but useless, DNR's focus went straight to his hearing, with which he could hear... footsteps? The sound was very muffled and quiet for the fact that the floor was metallic, but they were definitely footsteps. Whoever DNR had awakened was moving, and closer at that. The fog was beginning to dissipate, too, so in only a few moments DNR would be able to see what he was up against...

DNR was caught offguard when he realized that the other Navi was just on the other side of the terminal, and before he had the chance to draw a weapon... She yawned? She covered her mouth to muffle the sound, and while you'd think there'd be tears welling up in her eyes as well, there was really no way to tell as there was what looked like a paper scroll wrapped around her eyes. In fact, DNR was quick to notice that her entire body was clad in scrolls too, in form of a Yumlandi-style robe completely made of the stretches of paper. Under that was an off-white bodysuit, and not much else. No boots, no gloves... She really lacked all of the Navi dress standards except the bodysuit. There was no helmet on her head either, giving way to long locks of pure white hair that reached all they way down to her mid-back.

Overall, she looked pretty mysterious... and tired, considering she was still yawning. Once that had finally stopped, it clicked in her head that there was someone right in front of her, which made her jump back in surprise. Rather than take up a fighting stance after that, though, she asked, "Wait... Who're you?" as she stared at DNR, still disguised as Dr. Neuro, through her apparently ineffective blindfold.

As it stood right now, "Dr. Neuro" could barely look throughout the room: Not only was the only source of light within Stasis-A was a sparkling green glow emitting from the series of green stasis tubes but the navi's visibility had been dimmed more so by the actions that have been hoisted by his own perturb. Scanning the card seemed to do nothing at first, except the light turning from red to green. The dull air served to make the navi break quite the sweat, his left arm dabbing his forehead to remove the sweat data dripping in his forehead. "Mmmhhhh..." was his only thought in anticipation, the tension being enough that it wasn't possible to stave it off with the usual quip. As if to finally aid him in the suspense, the terminal finally exhibited an annoying but almost welcomed beep, helping DNR breathe a sigh of relief. "Finally... now to finally see Scry..." he thought out as the information from the keycard cleared through the terminal. The stasis pod then opened up, letting loose a wide fog of data as the fluid inside met the dull air of the room. As soon as the cover of the data fog suddenly rushed from the opening, it covered the navi as the green glow was augmented through its particles, deepening Scry's profile.

DNR was quickly caught by surprise from the sensation that the navi named Scry was on the other side. The sensation was overbearing that he felt like drawing a weapon would be necessary...but that left as soon as it came as he heard a yawn. "Oohhh it was a yawn... apparently a female's... ahahahahhhh! This excursion really hits me in all the right places~" the navi jokingly thought with an inner smile, seeking anything to get rid of the tension that was plaguing him. The mystique of who Scry was only deepened as soon as he finally saw the navi herself: her entire body was clad in scrolls, in the form of a Yumlandi-style robe completely made of the stretches of paper. Under that was an off-white bodysuit, and not much else. No boots, no gloves... not even a helmet... She really lacked all of the standards in navi clothing except probably the bodysuit, but even that would unfortunately leave little to the imagination.

Her tired yawn finally subsiding she finally asked who he was. Normally one would panic in such a situation, given the ghastly atmosphere of the room. DNR on the other hand... was one of those few that transcended normality. Amidst the yawning of the robed navi, he had already planned what he would say; the white-haired navi giving a cough that was probable from the damp mist. "Greetings there miss Scry. I'm your doctor, Neuro." The navi bowed from behind the terminal. He kept his soothing relaxed persona; his voice as well as the way he looked supported this notion. The navi then looked down as he saw all the buttons of the console, nodding as he said "I must forgive for the intrusion of course."

"Doctor...? Ah... I guess a checkup is needed every now and then..." muttered Scry absent-mindedly. Her thoughts hadn't quite caught up with her yet, although that didn't stop her from casting a gaze across the room and looking around. Something seemed to click in her head as she saw the many other stasis pods around, although there was still a general air of confusion surrounding the scroll-clad Navi. Turning around suddenly, Scry walked towards DNR, pushed herself up on the terminal and sat, cross-legged, across it. "So, uh... Why are you a doctor? That kind of profession isn't really needed on the Net as much as the real world..." Scry asked suddenly, and a rather probing question at that. Thankfully, Scry sitting on a good majority of her terminal's buttons didn't seem to do anything, possibly because her pod was already open. She started intently at DNR in anticipation of an answer, although the sheet of paper in front of her eyes made the effort pretty pointless...

"Mmhmhmmm..." Doctor Neuro chuckled with a smile as he looked back to Scry. "Why am I a doctor? Mmmhhh... if one were to take the question in a purely logical base of thought, I guess you could say I was programmed that way... but... well... I guess why I'm a doctor could be at the core of my person," DNR said as he stroked his chin, thinking out loud. "If you have to ask me in terms of a person however, it's knowledge combined with helping others. See, medical Navis have essential matters to do as their profession; not only do we look at Navis to make sure their code is satisfactory, we also look at medical equipment as well as laser scalpels, Exciplex lasers for ophthalmological purposes..."

The doctor then counted off various other medical instruments. "... Let's see... ah how I could forget my favorite medical equipment: electrocardiograms. As you can imagine what we do, medical Navis make sure viruses don't harm the equipment. We also help chauffeur different medical information to the right files at the hospitals."

'Neuro' then cropped his hands, giving a stretch of each of his fingers in preparation for the exam. "Medical Examination: Inspection," he said with a firm voice, focusing his hands together. As if to answer the White Blood Cell's call, his reflector shield popped up in front of his forehead a couple of centimeters out. The metallic disk then flipped 120 degrees, covering the Navi's right eye. It seemed to emit a blue-tinted light from the center before scanning the Navi for any signs of an irregularity.