Welcome to Gaia! ::

My name is Jun, I live in Barton at...at...ah, the HyTech Building.

Ah, y-yes...I run Hybrid Technica. That's how it happened. HyTech.
We're a - a petshop. That's all. Very simple. A...laboratory petshop. Designer pets.
Humanoids with animalistic features - ears, paws, very cute, very desirable.
At least, they were. Up to a point. Some...years ago. Not a lot of customers...come anymore.
It's expensive, a laboratory...petshop. It's been...difficult. We just...need one thing. One big thing.
Something to spice up our merchandise - to get those crowds rolling in again.
We need this.

It had been a few weeks since I'd sent Maxwell out for something, anything.
Maxwell - he's one of our products, the first, good lad, very helpful.
He's done this for us before: all we need is some DNA - strand of hair, a scale, blood.
We've had some...interesting samples that way, and those - those are popular.
He'd been a while - he rarely takes so long - and I was worried, but he returned today.
Very quiet. Face oddly drawn. Just passed by my desk and handed the vial over.
"It looks like ink," I was skeptical.
"It's not," he didn't look at me.
"Congealed ink. It's a bit...lumpy."
"It's blood," he snapped, hollow, like the clap of a coffin lid, a voice that left no room for argument.

So I didn't. And now I'm thinking. Perhaps I should have...should have asked more questions.
Because this thing...this blood, or whatever it is. Is it blood? It must be. I've been staring at it...for the past...few hours now.
How many hours? I no longer know. It is dark outside. The clocks says...ah - ah the clock says something.
It is dark outside. Strange things happen when you look at it. How long has it been?
I hear...voices...

09/10/2013

This time I awoke in a completely different place. Almost utter blackness...
...save the soft light from this -

- infernal machine.

What is this thing?

I peer into the darkness, can just make out the stretch of metal across the ceiling...
I reach out to touch it, gingerly - it terminates in a...spout. There is something of a tap.
I can hear the steady gurgle of some fluid within, and a constant hum.
Something is going on in there, but even as I brush the tap, I draw back my hand.
I cannot - I do not dare.

The robot is here, flanking the overhead machine like a sentry.
It is still dead and cold, and I do not know how it had come.
My tools, I can see as my eyes adjust to the dark, are again scattered across the floor...
...but what concerns me more...

What concerns me more are the vessels that nestle around them.
Little...glass vessels, I see, as I bend over to retrieve one. Ovoid. Hollow.

Almost...like...

...eggs.

A tinkle - I've kicked something, glass against glass.
I bend down again...it is the vial.

...But it is empty.

11/10/2013