EVE Fiction

Like most Caldari-inspired medical offices, it was full of sterile white ceramic and polished steel, all hard angles and riveted edges. Unlike any other Caldari office however, the KCPCC office was decorated with Khanid art and sculptures, full of vibrant colors and sweeping curves; a symbiosis of Caldari architecture and Khanid culture. “This sculpture, it isn’t an authentic Assimian piece, is it?” He asked. “No answer? Or are you just surprised a podjockey knows his Khanid history?”
“Neither. The Doctor will see you now, spaceboy.” She said with a wink and a devilish smirk.
As she led him deeper into the office complex, Akai couldn’t help but notice the way she exaggeratingly swayed her (admittedly attractive) hips, and hated his capsuleer status even more. It was obvious she loathed him, yet nonetheless she was all but swooning over him; as always, it came back to the power and the money. Humanity both loved and feared capsuleers, and for good reason; but it made for a lonesome life outside of the pod.
The Doctor looked no different than he had the last time Akai had seen him, no doubt a product of extensive rejuvenation surgery and expensive organ cloning; while his face was still unlined, his hair had gone stark white and his skin had become almost translucent, clinging so tightly to his face that it looked as if he was nothing but a living skull. He had changed in small ways, noticeable only to capsuleer’s enhanced brain, but his eyes remained as cold and intensive as ever, a robot’s eyes.
As Akai walked in, The Doctor locked eyes with him, and in that moment, recognition flooded through Akai; it wasn’t just him that had begun to have issues with his cyberneural network, it was affecting The Doctor too.
“You may leave us,” the Doctor said, flicking his eyes toward the door. The receptionist was out of the room before he had even finished the second word.
“Doctor.”
“Mr. Kvaesir. Or should I call you Commander, now?”
“It’s been...a long time. I had hoped it would’ve been longer, Doc.”
“Time--”
“--is a flat circle. Yes.”
“I see you have not forgotten much, but then, you wouldn’t be here if you had.”
“Let’s cut the philosophical crap Doc, why did you recall me?” Akai said, grabbing the pristine labcoat of The Doctor with his cybernetic arm, locking the grip in place. “I had to pull out of the warzone in the middle of an Op… Do you know how many ships we lost because ‘you urgently requested my presence’?”
“Commander, I advise you to remove your hand from my--”
“Doc, I advise you to tell me what the HELL is so urgent you had me sacrifice a whole squadron of Oracles!” Akai screamed, hauling the Doctor up off the ground singlehandedly.
“The Sleepers are waking, Commander.”

>>END SURVEILLANCE FEED<<

"Can we get verification on those Oracles?"
"No, sir. The warzone is--"
"I didn't think so. Are our assets in place?"
"Tac teams are in position ready to move on your command, and the station is clear of witnesses. Sir."
"Lieutenant, get the Admiral on deck. He'll want to watch this."
"Sir."
"Alrighty ladies and gents, this is your Commander speaking. We all know what the stakes are today, but I know each and every one of you will do your duty today; for yourself, for the men and women next to you, and for your King above all. Operation Iscariot is a go, I repeat, Operation Iscariot is a go. Time to dustoff is twenty minutes and counting. Let's grab us a podjockey, people!"
"Lieutenant, get me that feed back up, NOW."
"Sir, the neural strain on the subject is nearing critical levels as it is--"
"Do it. Now."
"Sir."

>>BEGIN SURVEILLANCE<<

Akai gasped in blinding pain as another 'disconnect' struck, and his world shattered into jagged splinters and white noise. The servomotors in his arm, previously maintaining an iron grip on the Doctor’s labcoat, shrieked in electromagnetic agony as it short-circuited. As quickly as it had come, the pain and neural shock dissipated almost at once; but as always, the disconnect never lasted longer than ten heartbeats. Akai’s vision swam into focus slowly, but his hand no longer held the Doctor off the ground, instead it (as well as his arm) had partially fused and was a completely ruined mess of scorched ceramics. Dazed and in still in neural shock, he tried to walk towards the edge of the room in search of something to lean on, staggering for a few steps until his knees gave out. ‘What the hell is happening to me?’ Akai thought, as his brain kept trying to make his right arm move, even an inch.
“Look at me, Commander.” The Doctor’s atonal voice boomed in Akai’s ears, snapping his mind into something resembling awareness. Lifting his head became an epic struggle, only to be rewarded with the grim visage of the Doctor’s lifeless eyes. “Understand that I had no choice, Commander. What I did to you the last time you were here, it is unforgivable nonetheless. But you must know; I did what I did for the Kingdom. I do not regret this.”
“I...d-don’t,” Akai managed to say, “I don’t un-understand.”
“I have little time to explain, Commander. In ten minutes, everything will be out of my hands. Don’t trust anyone, not even the Royal Navy; this is bigger than the empires could’ve possibly realized, but they’ve realized it too late.” The Doctor spoke quickly, quietly, and with a passion Akai had never before seen in so dispassionate a man. “Follow the money; Modern Finances, Samarkand Financial--”
“Doc, what in the devil are you talking about?” Akai said, managing to sit up. It was a start.
“Tukoss’s reemergence, of course! Ah, but I forget you don’t read about anything that isn’t exploding,” the Doctor said. “The wormholes, the Sleepers, nano-fullerene polymers, C3-FTMs, TCMC’s...it’s all connected; but Tukoss’s reappearance can only mean one thing: the Sleepers have awoken.”

((Continued below))