Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Mentally Sound

The building sat as its own small complex upon the Arcadia hospital complex. It had three sides, and a large courtyard annex stuffed full of trees, benches, and a single large fountain. A local sculpture had been commissioned to create the statue in the middle, a two-part artwork depicting a Drev and a human clasping hands. The little plaque that sat on the edge of the fountain dedicated the fountain as the Drev war memorial and if you looked close enough into the burbling water of the fountain, you could just see the delicate white outline of names carved into the dark stone, human, drev, Tesraki, and Rundi names all mixed together.

The main entrance sat on the left wing of the building, leading straight into intake.

Over the door, large silver letters glittered in the light of artificial suns.

Steel Eye Health and Wellness

"How many do we have?" Adam asked, taking the clipboard from the SE representative's open hand. Up until this very moment, the SE manufaturerers had been so exclusive, they didn't even have their own facility. When Adam had asked the rep, why not, he stated that they used all of their money specifically on R&D, so there wasn't much room for their own facility.

After Adam made his offer to fund SE, they had agreed Arcadia could be their main base of operation .

"There are Fifteen volunteers all together." The rep said, motioning to the clipboard. Eight women and seven men, but we imagine that number is going to double if not triple over the next month or so. A lot of governments have shown interest in our project, and a few of them are looking to sponsor a human of their own"

Adam nodded, "Never got it to work on aliens."

The rep shook his head, "Not as of yet. As you know we have rigorous testing standards. Owing to.... Our predecessors, it is important that we don't move through things too quickly. When it comes to modes that will work on nonhumans, we have yet to leave the inanimate object testing face, much less move onto live subjects."

Adam's eyes scanned quickly down the list.

"Why not, Drev seem more than durable enough."

"It has nothing really to do with durability." The rep said, "But more to with nerve clusters, how they fire, how they experience pain and movement. The human body is an odd mixture of durability and easy access to major nerve clusters. The human spine for instance allows for easy access to the most major nerve highway in the body. The Drev are harder to work with considering their backplates. That is not to mention the fibrous connective tissue and their already tough skin. Past that you would be surprised how sensitive Drev nerves are, so as of yet, SE enabled Drev arent viable."

Adam looked down at his hand, flexing his fingers and watching as light glimmered off the metal edges of his exoskeleton.

Eventually, he turned his eyes back to the clipboard running down a list of demographics. There were at least Seven volunteers from Arcadia, six from Earth, one from Mars, and one from Hathor to his surprise.

"President Kelly sponsored most of the ones from earth. The martians are still debating on the subject, but they decided to give one a go. The rest are up in the air. We are in negotiation with the jupiter colonies. As you know they are a little less wealthy than Earth, so they won't be able to sponsor as many, but we think we can work with them.

Adam nodded slowly, "If it comes down to money, just tell them a lower price and i'll pay off the rest. I care more about the safety of this galaxy than how much money is in my pockets.

He would have liked to do all of this for free, but that was hardly a viable option. The SE suits were incredibly complex to manufacture, and that meant paying for the raw materials, the refinement of those materials, advanced computer components and processors, not to mention that actual implantation itself which lasted over the course of a few weeks, less so now that krill was helping to perform the operations, but still.