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Chapter Twenty-Three

"This is our main hospital facility..." explained Cassandra as the two Vulnira walked into a large room from the a long underground corridor behind them. The room was large and white, resembling that of a traditional hospital, with beds lining the outer walls and sterile smell to compliment the fresh white linen on the beds. It was clear that this facility was well paid for and well kept.

Janice was just glad to get out of the relentlessly hostile Terran sun, which had been making her feel increasingly more uncomfortable in her own fur since she had arrived in the Fesalis desert. She had ventured down into this expansive underground facility cautiously with her sister who she still felt untrusting of.

"So... what is this used for?" she asked, glancing her eyes over the room, fixing her narrow gaze on a couple on the far side of this unsettlingly white room. There was a Cervijord nurse in the furthest corner of the room tending to, what she could only assume was a Vulnira male who was laying in the bed.

Cassandra, being the taller of the two Vulnira sisters, gazed down at her younger sister with a mixture of emotions. She was still somewhat surprised to see her again after so many years of no contact between the two however, her duty to the company would always win out over any familial loyalty that was left residing in her long closed heart.

Still... it was oddly good to see her again.

"We use this facility to care for people in advanced stages of illness..." replied Cassandra, brushing her long hair from her eye. "Information gathered from these patients can be used to research and develop new treatment plans for many diseases." keeping her description brief and somewhat simple as she doubted her sister would have any prior knowledge of how disease research was conducted by Phoenix Grace.

Cassandra ushered Janet down the room as Janet noted mentally that the guards who had stuffed her in the back of a van and drove her here, were positioned just outside of the door. This had been the most forceful tour she had ever been on.

The two approached the patient as the nurse left him with a clipboard, Cassandra trying her best to conjure up a compassionate smile. She had never been good at it, locking away her emotions ever since that day which she refused to talk about with her sister.

The Vulnira on the bed had matted fur, his face appearing somewhat tired and parched. There was something missing from his eyes, a fire that had long gone out, a zest for life that most people would cling to had long since diminished due to the condition that was slowly eating away at him.

He did his best to conjure a smile for the two females that approached him.

Janet gave an awkward wave, she could tell that this Vulnira was living on borrowed time. He looked weak and she felt confused as to what emotion she could show him without insulting him and making her pity seem genuine, which it was.

Cassandra gave a short glib smirk and then picked up his patient notes from the end of the bed. "This is Mr... Trinell" she said, reading off the notes with an almost blank tone in her voice. Her soul laid bare to Janet for a moment, allowing her to see the cold, lifeless person that her sister had become over their years of separation. "He is in the advanced stages of "Galway's Syndrome".

Janet shot her sister a piercing look. How was discussing his condition in front of the patient with a total stranger professional or ethical? "Cassandra... That's very..." she started, about to chastise her sister before the male Vulnira interrupted her.

"Are we going to the beach today Alice?" he asked, looking at Janet with a distant longing in his eyes, his brown irises wide.

"Oh... I'm... I'm sorry sir..." replied Janet, not knowing what he was talking about. "I don't know who..."

"You are wasting your time..." replied Cassandra promptly. "He's too far gone. Galway's Syndrome attacks the neurons in the brain, we don't exactly know what causes it but it essentially causes acute dementia... in a few moments, he won't know who you are."

Janet was taken back but the seemingly uncaring nature of her sister's voice. How could Phoenix Grace do this to actual people!? This male did not look much older then her and it was clear that he needed round-the-clock, compassionate care, not to be coped up in the middle of a desert as a lab rat for Phoenix Grace. "He needs to be properly cared for..." she blurted out, a considerable, self-righteous fire burning inside her again, as it had when she discovered about Janus's murder to expose this "company" for the mass murderers and "death merchants" that they were!

"Really..?" replied Cassandra, putting the clipboard back on the end of the bed. "Would you be so judgemental if you knew what Mr Trinell had done when he had his sanity?"

The male Vulnira looked at both of the females with a disturbing sense of wonder, saying nothing, it was clear from the expression on his face that he was somewhere completely different, experiencing something completely divorced from reality.

Cassandra continued, her voice cold and unsympathetic. "Before he contracted the syndrome, Mr Trinell was responsible for the kidnap and subsequent murder of a young girl, Alice Levain... Infact... he was convicted of the abduction and murder of fifteen girls."

The was a strong, startled silence that filled the room which was only filled by Trinell's continual humming while he started drawing on a small pad on the bedside table, to which he started to use with the same accuracy as a toddler. Janet was stunned beyond belief.

"So... does that give you the right to experiment on him?" she asked finally. She knew that her sister had crippled her argument beyond sane rationality but it was too late to back away now.

"We are not experimenting on him..." started Cassandra. She knew that her sister would like nothing better than to pin everything on her. After all, she was always so perfect growing up while Cassandra herself was treated like the black sheep, always having to suffer for her sister's mistakes.

"Cassandra... you are the oldest!"

"Cassandra...you have to look after her!"

The words of her parents echoed in her mind for the first time in years. She had tried to airbrush the memories but they crept back from her subconscious. She simply could not erase her childhood completely, fragments and memories remained intact. "If you must know... Mr Trinell volunteered to be studied when he was first diagnosed with Galway's. I imagine it was preferable to spending his declining years in prison. We provided him with the best medical care possible in the developed world."

"Who are you people!?" shouted Trinell in a sudden confused outburst, causing the nurse to come rushing back into the room. "I didn't do it! Why are you keeping me here!?"

"I think it's best that you leave, Miss Equinox" called the nurse in a soft voice as she attempted to restrain the male Vulnira, who was thrashing about widely on the bed, the nurse towering over him and attempting to administer some kind of injection, hitting the panic button on the wall beside the bed to call for assistance.

"Alice was so beautiful!" cried out the deranged fox. "It wouldn't last... not forever... but I loved her."

Cassandra pulled Janet from the room, who was still in shock at the sudden violent outburst of the seemingly benign fox in front of her. She had dealt with these kind of people during her history at law enforcement but something about this experience struck her to her very core. She had just been absolutely proven that her assumptions, had meant nothing and if she had been so wrong about this man?

Could she have been wrong about Janus's death? Could Obsidian have killed Janus too?

"You see... "little" sister..." replied Cassandra as they moved out into the corridor with Janet looking visibly shaken by what had happened. "It would be easy to label Phoenix Grace as evil... black and white... so simple to you... The "big, bad corporation, praying on the innocent". But can you even tell what true evil is anymore?"

Janet felt her entire world shatter before her eyes. It had been a powerful demonstration of how her judgments could be wrong, especially when she herself, was not in the possession of all the facts. She had judged a monster as an innocent man and a victim of the "big, bad corporation" that she wanted to believe in.

But life was rarely ever black and white...