”These folks seem more like people modified with animal features than animals modified with human features…”
"Didn't you come in that way?" asks the tigress, but she answers anyway. "That's the hall to the hexagonal room with six doors to different zones and a map of the station."
Nissa recalls her past kneejerk reaction to bluff. So it *is* the same door, she’d have said so casually, so naturally, she even believed the lies herself.
Now, she found herself biting her tongue—not to prevent herself from lying, which Mother disapproves of—but to stop herself from blurting a truth that need not be told.
“Thanks,” she says sincerely, admiring the tigress. She flits to the door, ready to proceed to the map!
”These folks seem more like people modified with animal features than animals modified with human features…”
"That would fit with what we know of his stated goals," Unity comment quietly.
Now that Nissa is satisfied with their safety, Unity open the door and walk through.
A small hexagonal room has 6 doors. You came through one. It is labelled 'Tropical Forest 1'. Going clockwise facing the door you came through, the doors are unlabeled, 'Tropical Forest 2', unlabeled, 'Tropical Forest 3', and unlabeled.
The room is white paint over concrete.
"Well, I guess we decide if we are all gonna be 'good guests', and start with the labelled doors. Or be our usual selves and explored the likely restricted areas", Theo smirked, hands on his hips, reading the doors.
"I wonder if it'll cause issues if we open and peek?" Zellgato also tries to look for scuffs-claw marks, worn down paint, boot marks, etc in the white paint. Trying to judge if any given door sees higher visitations, and which may see the least.
"Exploring the tropical zones sounds fun", Theo admits.
"And some of those animal hybrid forms could use some exploring as well", the godling winked and chuckled.
Unity roll their eyes at Theo. "Depending on just how they're created, some of them might well be only months old by some definitions, you realize," they say.
"It seems unlikely that the other tropical zones would be what we're looking for," Unity say. "Isn't it strange that they're all tropical? Shouldn't there be more than this? Maybe there's a larger portion of the station through another door."
They trot around the room, sniffing at each of the doors.
With doors on every wall, Henri looks at the ceiling and the floor for anything approximating a map. If he doesn’t see anything, he asks the room, ”May we see a map of the station?”
"Certainly," says a voice. A map appears on all walls, showing the rest of the station. Many parts are left light grey and unlabelled. What you see is that the station has 16 quadrants shaped like the pupils of cat's eyes. Each quadrant is labelled with reference to climate and geography: Arctic 1; Coast 1 and 2; Desert 1; Tropical Forests 1, 2, and 3; Temperate Forest 1, 2, and 3; Grassland 1 and 2; Mountain 1 and 2; Swamp 1 and 2. Each zone also has a six-digit code.
You are currently in the zone that connects the three Tropical forest zones. If you go through the door to Tropical Forest 2, you can cross TF2 and get to the Desert 1, Tropical Forest 2, Coast 1 intersection. If you go the other direction, you get to the Temperate forests section.
You know, however, that there are areas not elaborated on this map that must correspond to the administrative areas.
"Unity. This is still Moreau-coded. Where does your intuition tell us to go?"
”So there are two ‘public’ doors for these environmental sectors. We’ll have to pass through this zone to reach this one. I presume this nexus has three administrative doors, as well. Perhaps observational ports into the zones…. This Doctor has a full staff, if he’s getting observational data in all these areas.”
He looks to Unity, wondering if they have an internal instinct that will guide them through this maze.
A thought occurs to the speedy medic, ”Do we have a moment? I think I want to see if I can detect anything in their tech.”
Unity stare at the map for a bit. Where would... somewhere around the center? Was there anything in the center? Or perhaps an oddly blank spot somewhere?
"To be honest, we're somewhat expecting that Dr. Moreau has or shortly will notice we're here and will *hopefully* want to talk instead of just sending people to attack us," they comment as they look at the map.
”Good point. I’ll be right back.”
Henri finds a spot to sit and begins to take deep breaths as he tries to reconnect with his internal nanite colony.