“Hmm. Interesting.” Dohnal put his arms down, lying them on the table. He took a moment to consider the information. His rather unique situation would surely be a first.
you can’t get rid of me.
“I know,” Dohnal said out loud, just a whisper.
A couple seconds after that, the perimeter alarm went off, and Dohnal sat straight up, not knowing what the noise was. Something else had moved into the area of the facility.
Ro sat up when the alarm went off, a frown tugging at his mouth. "That's odd." He stood, heading towards the main control room without checking to see if Dohnal was following. It didn't matter to them, not that much. They just wanted to see why the alarm was going off, if possible. It was odd; a month in silence, with no one, and now two alarms in the same day? It felt like an odd coincidence, if coincidence it was.
Dohnal followed Ro - if only because he was curious on where they were going. And what was going on.
Whatever had triggered the alarms was human in appearance, although it could be noted that the camera feeds were not 100% clear. The human walked incredibly stiffly - it didn’t seem to be walking around much either, seemingly have gone stationary once it came into view of the cameras.
So instead, it was a person, standing, perhaps looking at the ground. From what cameras the person had shown up in, you could pinpoint the person’s location being a couple feet past the main gate of the station.
But most notably of all was the fact the person wore no suit. No protection, no oxygen mask, nothing.
Dohnal stiffened - recognizing that this was the Puppet he had encountered before.
(should the person/Puppet thing be Lindsey, or nah?)
(great! Alright!)
Ro's eyes widened. "Wha–" they broke off, staring at the blurry image. "That's– that's Lindsey." he said, stammering for a moment and tearing his hand through their hair. "I've got to– he's been gone for a month, where's his mask?" for once, they were taken aback in surprise. They had long ago assumed that Lindsey had met with some accident and died, for him to turn up now was…impossible. "What's wrong with him?" he wasn't asking Dohnal, it was all rhetorical questions that they had no answers for. He peered at the screen, wishing he knew a way to make the image quality better so that the feed could be better studied.
Foolish of the Puppet to return.
Dohnal never tore his gaze away from the screen, even refusing to blink. He only momentarily broke his focus when Ro spoke of knowing the Puppet - or formerly knowing it. The person within him was gone - the only thing that remained was…well, Dohnal didn’t know, but the closest thing he could connect it to was parasite.
“That’s not him,” Dohnal said simply. He knew it wasn’t this person Ro was thinking of. But he also knew it could be hard to explain to the human. Especially since he’d never had to explain the Puppets to others before.
Ro's eyes snapped to him. "What are you talking about?" he demanded, staring at Dohnal through concerned eyes. "That's Lindsey, he's one of my coworkers. He left a month ago, he…he must have found another station and come back. I don't know why he doesn't have a mask, but there's no way that that's not him." they turned their gaze back to the feed, eyes narrowed and intense as they studied the blurry, still feed of Lindsey.
"And what," he turned to fix their eyes on Dohnal again, gaze more intense and focused than Dohnal would have seen him before. "The hell is a Puppet, precisely?" their voice was full of calm, though it was the kind of calm that waited before a storm, the kind of calm that concealed too much underlying stress.
Dohnal didn’t move an inch, his focus now completely on Ro. He stared at him as he spoke.
“Something dangerous to both of us. If it realizes that there’s people here, it’ll probably call more even Puppets, and that might escalate the situation far beyond even my control. You’d do well to listen to someone who has dealt with these things before.” His fingers twitched ever so slightly.
“I don’t know exactly what Puppets are, but all I know is that they’re not human.”
Ro was silent for a long moment. "And do these…Puppets…have anything to do with your questions earlier? About parasitic aliens and symbiosis?" they kept their gaze fixed on Dohnal, hand twitching faintly towards the taser at their hip. The reassurance that it was there was all that they needed. That they could use it if necessary.
Dohnal paused, retreating into his mind for a moment to consider what to say. Carefully, he responded - albeit a bit more slowly. “Symbiosis..no. Puppets are just parasites. The symbiosis question regarded something else.” He didn’t elaborate on that point.
His fingers curled.
From the cameras, ‘Lindsey’ had seemingly vanished from view.
He stared at Dohnal, remaining silent for a long, long moment. "Explain." he demanded in a low tone, finger brushing against the taser at their hip again, now very suspicious as to why and how Dohnal knew all of this.
Dohnal’s eyes had lost some of the intense look at them, and from that point on seemed a bit more hesitant to speak. “The deep caves of Selnu were thought to host appropriate conditions for life; deeper than anyone on the expedition had ever gone.” A pause.
“They were right. Although, it wasn’t active life, and it was in a state similar to hibernation. They woke up because of human activity on Selnu. I don’t know how exactly they managed to knock down operations on Selnu but clearly, they did,” Dohnal glanced around.
“Knowing you’re probably going to ask how I know all this, I didn’t spend the last few months just doing nothing. And the person who treated me had…secrets of their own.”
You trot close to the truth there.
“As for the Puppets..” Dohnal sighed. “..They were once human. Just people caught outside, or maybe their facility had a breach. The parasite manages to hunt them down, and connects, wiping away all that remained of the human. Now it’s just a puppet being controlled by the puppeteer.”
"Well shit." was the first thing they said. "So that's why you were asking all those questions earlier." they raked a hand through their hair, adjusting their glasses and studying Dohnal carefully. "…so, what do we do about it? We can't survive in this station indefinitely, but the radios don't fucking work. And I've tried to signal off-planet but again: it doesn't. fucking. work." he grimaced, glancing back at the image on the monitor. "And there has to be a way to…fix this. Somehow." they drummed a finger, considering all of this. "Fuck, the first alien contact wasn't supposed to go like this." they mumbled, shaking their head a little bit.
Dohnal just stood in his spot, listening - or perhaps not, as there was a distant look in his eyes. “There is a…radio tower, to the North of here, if I’m thinking correctly.” His voice was low, somewhat quiet. “The radio here may not work, but the tower should, since it was a station designed specifically for that purpose - it has a stronger, wider range.”
technically, you’re making face-to-face contact with an alien right now..
Dohnal cast another glance at Ro. “How did you think the first alien contact would go?” The tone of the question wasn’t very friendly, but it wasn’t aggressive either. It was more..neutral.
On the main controls, a button started blinking red, signifying that one of the vents in the basement had just opened.
"God, fuck, I don't know, but better than this." he retorted to the question, nodding a little. "I know about the tower. That's…where Lindsey was going to go, and–" he broke off when the flashing button caught his eye. "What?" they tapped through the controls in order to bring up cameras of the location; it was likely just an equipment malfunction, but if the vent had opened he would need to go down and fix whatever mechanism had opened it; they shouldn't be opening like this, not without someone opening it up.
“Then perhaps that should be the next…” Drifting off as he noticed the flashing light, only as Ro noticed it as well. Dohnal stared at it - having a feeling that if he hadn’t been let in the station earlier, what they were about to see was probably how Dohnal would have gotten in himself.
The basement, put simply, was primarily designated as a storage area, although it was still an important area either way. Plenty of piping ran through the floor and walls.
But that was not the focus - as the cameras moved through the location, they first picked up one of the vents, which had been the one that had opened.
More importantly was the Puppet who was now standing in the basement.
This doesn’t make sense, Dohnal thought. Why did the Puppet come in?
It knows. It won’t go away.
“It knows,” Dohnal repeated, just a whisper.
"What the fuck." were the first words out of Ro's mouth when he spotted Lindsey/the Puppet standing in the basement. At Dohnal's words, his eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about? And is this…is Lindsey dangerous?" he didn't know what to do in this situation. All of his learning had always been to approach aliens with caution but this was already beyond any kind of control or biocontainment. This was a full-on outbreak and his only ally was Dohnal, who seemed…questionable at best.
((Sorry for delayed response! My responses also might be a bit more slow since school is starting back up this week for me.))
Why did the Puppet not leave? Puppets weren’t like..Dohnal, they had no way of telling that humans had been somewhere, aside from visible signs.
think. we’re not so human ourselves. maybe that has something to do with it.
Then why..out of everything - why did a Puppet choose to follow him now? Dohnal was oddly still and silent - it almost seemed as though he hadn’t even heard the question. But he did.
“They can be. But the best thing to do would be to get rid of it, no matter what.” His answer came, after the longer pause. He avoided eye contact with Ro - instead, his eyes seemed to be more distant, not staring at anything in particular.
(it's fine! Oof good luck)
Ro stared at Dohnal. "How?" He asked, already dreading what Dohnal's answer would be. Already knowing it wouldn't be pleasant to do, especially not when this was Lindsey, goddamnit. "There has to be a way to…to fix him. Somehow." They dragged a hand through their hair, eyes moving to the monitor again to watch where Lindsey/the Puppet stood in the basement, vent still open where he had entered.
“What do you think?” Dohnal prodded. He had the answer. He knew the answer - that there was no cure, no way for these things to get better - if there was, they definitely lacked the resources and means to make one. Maybe they could. But from Dohnal’s perspective, it wasn’t worth it. Sure, there was Dohnal - but what he was - compared to The Puppets was just something completely different.
"Damn you." Ro spat, though the ire in his voice wasn't really directed towards Dohnal, but towards the entire situation. Their eyes dragged over to Dohnal for a moment, then back to Lindsey on the screen. "This is…" he shook their head, closing their eyes for just a moment. "Fine. Fine. If there isn't a way to fix him, is he…contagious?" was Ro in danger if Lindsey wasn't sent away somehow? Would they become some mindless thing?
