Royal

[Business Scrub]

The waiting room is crowded, yet like many of its kind it is silent. The only sound is the soft turn of a page, or the nervous tapping of a foot. The room is mostly plain: blue and white modern walls, and a single receptionist at a featureless smooth desk. She looks bored, yet some of the anticipation from the patients has seeped into her, and she taps her pen restlessly against the computer.
Every half hour or so a blonde woman walks through a door and calls out five people, who stand and follow her deeper into the building. You look down at the pamphlet in your hands, anxiously awaiting your turn.

The patients among you wait anxiously. If the pattern holds, it should only be a few moments for the next group to be called...

[EdroGrimshell]

William is one of the people with his foot tapping, but not out of nervousness. He's impatient, "come on, what's talking so long?" he mutters.

[Rhyvurg]

Reginald Barrington checks his watch, sighing perhaps a little loudly.

[bladesmith]

The young girl nearby deftly twirls a pen over her fingers as she reads a magazine. She looks apparently perfect, from her fingernails to the pair of designer sunglasses perched atop her shoulder length ponytail of bright red hair. However, when she looks over at the others, the dull pall of apathy that colors her tone might be slightly off putting. Either that, or the valley girl vocabulary.

"You guys gotta be, like, all zen about it. Its like, it'll happen when it happens."

[Re'ozul]

Frank sits in his chair, elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. The doubt is becoming stronger and stronger now. What was his big idea with this stunt. He had sold virtually everything he had left for this and for what? The fleeting hope that it would help?
He was unemployable now, blacklisted by his old boss. His own damn fault really, cooking the books, manipulating transaction, pusing money into his own pocket. He had thought he was so damn smart, no one would figure it out, but they did. It took giving them nearly everything he had for them not to drag him to court. He only had his small apartment and his car left when they were done and even then only because people would have asked questions about that if he had suddenly lost those.
Now he had no chance to get a job again, well outside of fast food probably. He was not going to go that route. That pride was dumb, but it was his. So this now was his gamble. He had sold his car and most of his belongings, only a barebones apartment to go back to. This would either work, or he would be not only broke but broken.
Now he is sitting here, his upper body rocking back and forth slowly. His thoughts only going one direction.

'Oh God, oh God. This was a mistake I just know it. Crap. Crapcrapcrapcrap...'

[Dienekes]

George sat silently, his eyes glued to a seemingly featureless spot on the wall across from him. He felt like hitting himself, here he was, sinking all his money into another crazy scheme. You'd think he'd learn by now, but no. This was the last one, he promised himself for the hundredth time. After this fails he'd go get some damn desk job and work like a normal person.

[Business Scrub]

Five minutes pass, the silence pregnant with anticipation. Suddenly the door in the back opens: a quiet noise, but in the silent room it's enough to grab everyone's attention. The woman steps out again, dressed in a blue and white company attire, clipboard in hand and tapping a pen against her side. Unlike everyone else, she seems very nonchalant: indeed, she's been shepherding patients into Royal Inc. all day. She smiles a bit at everyone's expression, and reads names off of the clipboard:
"Frank Flannlen. Nina Rayen. Reginald Barrington. William Cooper. George Brant. If you five could follow me please?" She holds the door open for the five, and leads you down a long T shaped hallway. Doors line the sides of the hallways, all innocently labeled: 108 Maintenance, 120 Filing. The hall splits at the end into a left and right, but in the center sits a steel elevator.

[Rhyvurg]

"Well. This isn't ominous at all, is it?"

[bladesmith]

"Finally!"

Nina shoots out of her chair, dropping her pen and magazine on the table beside her. Whatever her comments earlier, she seems supremely excited now. Brushing past the nurse, she breezes into the hallway. Skipping past the boringly labelled doors, she gets almost to the intersection before realizing that she has no idea where she's going, and that the others aren't moving as fast.

"So... Like, which way for the upgrades?"

[EdroGrimshell]

William follows, his impatience alleviated for the moment by movement. He was never good with sitting still, "I'd guess behind the ominous steel doors that we were led to," he says dryly to Nina. His voice sounds like it's raw, but it was always like that.

[Dienekes]

"I like, don't, like, know," George quietly muttered to himself as he followed the rest of the group in.

[Re'ozul]

Frank stands up and follows the others. The chipper attitude of the valley-girl grating on his nerves. As he enters the corridor with the others, his uncertainty and fear starts to ebb away. There is no turning back now anymore without looking like an imbecile. His last chance had been in the relative anonymity of the waiting area.
He takes a deep breath and exhales audibly, then straightens up and walks forward. The fear and doubt are still clawing at the very back of his mind, but now they are insubstantial, irrelevant. His mood returns to its normal indifferenct state, enough to crack a smile at the muttered retort of the man in front of him.

[Business Scrub]

The woman, Gwynneviere Royal now that you can see her name tag, lets out a lighthearted chuckle. "Aren't they a bit ominous? It's perfectly fine though, trust me." She turns to Nina about half way down the hall. "Nina, if you'd follow me please. It get's a lot more confusing down below and I'd hate for you to get lost."
As she approaches the elevator with the group behind, the doors slide open seemingly by themselves. She appears to have expected this and doesn't break stride as she walks inside. Once all six have fit in the large space, the door slide closed and the elevator starts moving downward, again without any input. The inside of the elevator is ordinary, if a little large, with regular door open and close buttons, and floor buttons B4 through 6. The B3 is lit up as the elevator starts to descend.

[Re'ozul]

'This is strangely normal. I expected something ... weirder I guess. Still, going down is not really all that uplifting.'

Having entered the elevator at the back of the group, Frank is now in the uncomfortable position of being right next to the doors, right next to their lady guide. Part of his mind is occupied with thoughts of her, just due to their proximity.

'Gwynneviere Royal, either her parents were really good or really evil. Even written differently, there is enough of Arthur's bride that the last name becomes somewhat redundant.'

For a small moment he considers starting smalltalk with her before realizing that she most likely is subject to people doing just that every day. He subsequently fixes his gaze on the elevator doors again. His back turned to the others in it, he starts to wish he had gotten in early enough to get one of the back corners.

[Rhyvurg]

"So, what exactly is going to happen? It's not a shot is it? I hate needles."

[Dienekes]

Funny name, George thought as he glanced at the name tag, bet she's gonna cheat on her husband. "A bit odd, for a member of the family to be sent as a receptionist."

[EdroGrimshell]

Ugh, I hate long names, Will thinks, "mind if I just call you Gwen? I'm really bad with names."

[Business Scrub]

"I'd rather you did, actually." Gwyn says to Will, keeping her eyes forward. "Most people do."
The elevator begins to pick up speed. "Oh, I'm not a receptionist." She looks a touch offended, but recomposes quickly. "I was in charge of figuring out the groupings for you five, for everyone really, so I'm about the only person that knows how to calibrate things to each specific group."
The elevator slides to a halt, and the doors open. Outside, the hall looks much different than up above. Around you, there are four different halls, many which split into yet more. "As for what the procedure entails, I'm going to let Tomas explain that, he can explain it better then I can."
She starts walking down the hallway on the left, looking back to make sure you are following. On the left and right of the hallway up ahead are large windows that let you see into labs of some sort, though from this angle you can't see whats in them. A few security cameras are scattered around the ceiling: clearly this level is under more security then up above.

[Rhyvurg]

"And this is for real, right? This isn't some kind of elaborate scam?"

[EdroGrimshell]

"This would be one expensive scam if it is, most con artists wouldn't do anything this elaborate," Will says, looking around a little, but never lingering on anything, he knew a bit about Lab security from working in them at times, "though, a mutagenic process is almost as expensive as what we're paying, I doubt you're making much by offering it at the current price other than free test subjects."

[Re'ozul]

Hearing his greatest fear for the moment verbalized, Frank unwillingly flinches for a second. He tries to keep close to the lefthand wall. Close to their guide but far enough away to the side to be less noticed.

[bladesmith]

Nina stayed quiet on the elevator, thinking that it would be a good time for the guys to chime in and say something, which she was only a little disappointed by. That, and she was still trying to remember where she had heard their guide's name before. However, like most seriously long names, it was a lost cause on Nina. But if Gwyn was cool with it being shortened, that made everything easier. Like asking about the bits of info that did pass through Nina's "importance filter".

"So, like, you chose us five to go together, Gwyn? That's so totally weird, 'cuz I like, have nothing in common with these dudes."

[Business Scrub]

The laboratory on the left side is empty save for a few nondescript machines, however the right is bustling with activity. Four men and women in white coats stand around a glass tank watching as excitedly as one of the largest eggs you've seen slowly begins to crack.
"As hard as it could be to believe, I can assure you this is no scam." Gwyn smiles mischievously. "Though if it was, we already have your money, so....
You don't miss much, do you Will? You're right, we could charge ten times the price and be really making money, and people would happily pay it. But they're skeptical: they want living, breathing proof that this actually works. Not to give you the wrong impression, but from a marketing standpoint, you all are our publicity."
When the group is about halfway down the hall, you all see a large metal object float around the corner. Quite literally floating: the roughly three foot triangular prism seems to hang effortlessly in the air.
"Nina, Frank, Will, George, and Reginald, meet Thomas. He's Royal's main computer, and handles of all the high level programming and data structures in the labs here, as well as day to day activities."
Despite being faceless, the machine, Thomas, seems to incline it's head towards the group. "Afternoon Flock 11." The voice comes from Thomas: not exactly human, but pretty darn close. One at a time, he approaches you. On a screen on one of his faces you can see a picture of yourself as well as updating numbers: age, exact height and weight, body temperature, blood pressure, etc. It's clear that Thomas is sizing you, inside and out.
Gwyn continues down the hall talking to Nina. "You may be more alike then you know. But it has less to do with how similar you are mentally and more genetically, and how you could be. I suppose that's sort of the theme of this whole event, isn't it? Finding out there's more to you then what you know now. Thomas, I believe they were wondering about the specifics of the procedure. Would you mind filling them in?"
"Of course. As you may know, the genetic code for humans, indeed any animal, is grouped into introns and exons. In nature, when coding proteins a cell will remove the introns. Yet these still contain genetic information specific to the individual. Over the next twelve hours, you will be administered a form of virus tailored to rebuild your cells, using the intron DNA in ten synthetic chromosomes. The actual difference is based on what exactly your introns code for, much of which remains a mystery at this point. Experiments so far show that the most likely outcome is an abstract form of entanglement with event patterns in the individual's memory, though this trend simply does not hold true for many."

[Re'ozul]

Frank is intrigued at the floating bit of machinery. Having worked mostly with computers for the last few years he thinks himself quite capable at them, but this is far beyond whaever he imagined these people were using.
His hands itch as he wants to take it apart and see how it works, but those thoughts die quickly as he notices his stats constantly updating when it floats over to him.
Interested he leans closer attempting to calm himself and see what effect that has on the numbers.
Looking around for a moment he adopts an unsure expression and speaks up for the first time since the waiting area.

"I'm not sure wether I should be adressing the room or this node, so please excuse me if I am doing it wrong. I'd like to know how you are getting these readings. Sensors in the walls, or in this node? Nanites in the air we breathe in? Considering what I am seeing before me I'm not ready to rule out anything."

[Rhyvurg]

"So, is it a shot?"

[EdroGrimshell]

"What would happen if we were exposed to mutagens before going into the process? I've been around a good number of them and have likely had a few affect me in the past," Will asks.

[Dienekes]

"Oh God, I share a genetic pattern with a valley girl," George sighed under his breathe, "Even my own genes betray me."

That piece of information though was immediately brushed aside when he got a chance to really look at Thomas. "Uhh," George spoke up for the first time. "How are you floating? I don't see any means of propulsion." This was quite possibly the most interesting thing George had ever seen.

[bladesmith]

"There's no way you'd fit in my jeans, nerd." Nina scoffs quietly at George. You decide whether the pun was intended or not.

Trying to put her distance from the creepy robot and the stinky one, she casts about, looking back at the giant egg. Instantly fascinated, she watches for a bit, hoping to see what comes out. However, her own inattentiveness, and the questions popping into her head keep her from seeing it through to the end.

"Hang on a second, floaty bot. So, like, what we get outta this is connected to, like, out memories? Dude, like, if I wanted to be Supergirl as a kid, like, I could fly and have, like, be really strong with laser eyes and stuff? Oh, and like, are you guys messing with animals, too?" She asks, pointing idly at the hatching egg, then finally noticing the display on the robot. "Oh, man, and I'm like, really fat. My manager will kill me."

[Rhyvurg]

"Is is a shot isn't it? That's why you won't answer."

[Dienekes]

George looks at the girl in complete bewilderment. She's sensitive about her weight, go for it! Of course I couldn't, you're nearly bursting out of them yourself, say it, he thinks. Of course, all he actually does is close his eyes for a second and shakes his head as though to clear it of the comment.