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The bright, unnatural lights were blinding when his eyes peeled themselves apart. His already throbbing head pounded louder, and his stomach–bashed in by that officer’s pulse of Geo, no doubt–emanated such intense waves of pain that while he was nauseous, he felt like if he vomited, his innards, rather than the breakfast he last ate, would be expelled. Feofan blinked the spots out of his eyes from the lights and looked around as much as his headache would allow. This was not the cell he was kept in after he was detained. The room was much too bright, yes, but also contained a plethora of strange machines, beakers, and medical instruments, and had a smell that burned his nostrils like the coldest Snezhnayan blizzards combined with bloody murder.
A grunt and a crash echoed from somewhere to his right. Feofan whipped his head towards the commotion and squinted through the resulting pain to see a man not much older than him struggling to pull himself out of the grip of several people and off of a strange table.
“Restrain him,” an authoritative voice ordered from a man with a beak-like mask over his face and wearing a pristine white lab coat. “And clean up this mess he made. I will not tolerate the specimen breaking any more of my equipment.”
Feofan watched the man’s subordinates tie the other man onto the table and clean up shattered glass and strange liquids that had spilled across the floor between him and where the masked man was seemingly preparing to operate on the newly restrained patient. No, not “patient.” He said “specimen.” Was Feofan also a specimen? He stared in detached curiosity as the masked man cut into and inserted a tube directly into the specimen’s stomach, then attaching the tube to a bag of strangely colored liquid hanging on a hook above the table. Distant murmurs and scratches of quills accompanied the sight of the bag slowly draining out, the specimen’s chest spasming and pausing for a few short minutes until stilling altogether.
The authoritative voice broke the hushed focus of the room, and brought Feofan out of his stupor. “Mortality confirmed at T+5 minutes due to respiratory arrest. Dispose of the body and prepare the workstation for the third specimen.” The man turned away from the table and paused, seeming to spot Feofan watching. The beaked mask watched back for a moment, expressionless, betraying none of the man’s thoughts while he regarded Feofan. The man’s mouth then split into a sharp-toothed smirk, so quick and subtle no one noticed but him. Just as swiftly, it fell to neutrality and he turned and walked out of the room.
Feofan’s mind raced. That man intended to kill him. How did he end up here? The last thing he remembered was being beaten to a pulp by cops and thrown into that cell. That one piece of shit, blessed by the Archons with a Vision, decided it was his right to use it to pummel him with Geo after he was already down on the floor. They weren’t fooling anyone when they insisted he was the one who murdered Kholodov, but it didn’t matter in the end. Feofan and Kholodov were obviously targets of the local syndicate, and everyone knew they were in bed with the police. If they wanted to disappear people, they murdered one and pinned the blame on another. The police took care of the rest.
Was this where they disappeared to? Where even was this? Feofan inspected the subordinates rushing around the room and spotted what was almost certainly the Fatui insignia stitched on their lab coats. Just like the Tsaritsa, the Fatui hadn’t been around for a particularly long time, as far as Snezhnayan history went, but he knew they took full advantage of the vulnerable state of Teyvat post-Cataclysm to achieve their goals and had an extensive, international reputation of utilizing deceit and cruelty as a result. Even so, injecting people with strange liquids and watching how they die was not something he anticipated falling under that reputation.
Regardless, having strange liquids injected into him and being watched while he died was the situation he faced. He needed more information for how he could get out of this–to negotiate a way out. Feofan gingerly turned his head to hear the staff’s quiet conversations:
“Did you hear Mila got chewed out by Dottore? I heard them talking last night when Mila brought in the latest batch of specimens–well, actually, it was Dottore using that creepy voice of his when he’s pissed but reigns himself in. I almost wish he’d blow up at us instead.”
“Shit, yeah, I heard from Blagovesta. I get it, we can’t actually get sufficient data on this just from half-dead people from the streets, but I don’t know what we’re supposed to do about it. When healthy people disappear, they’re noticed.”
Thanks to those gossiping drones, Feofan’s understanding now is that masked man was likely this “Dottore,” he was gathering data on the strange liquid, and there was a supply problem with his “specimens.” It wasn’t surprising. Obtaining even vulnerable people like him clearly took an excess of resources, given how much set up on multiple organizations’ part was needed to place him in this predicament. It would take more to pluck fortunate people with families, friends, and an established role in society out of their lives–resources that the Fatui must not have had, or Dottore access to. Given what he knew about the far-reaching power of the Fatui, he figured it was the latter. He’ll use that to give himself some leverage. If he plays this right, he might have a solution to their “specimen” problem, while paying those bastards who put him here back tenfold. My, he’ll be such a worthwhile investment.
The room fell silent as Dottore returned and approached the table Feofan was reclined on. The same smirk from earlier appeared under his mask when he came to a stop and picked up a file at the foot of the table to review. “It’s rare we have an alert one. How are you feeling?” Dottore asked in a mockery of concern, completely at odds with his namesake.
Feofan scowled. Dottore was going to be an asshole about this? He opened his mouth to respond, but all that came out was a cough that threatened his nausea when his vocal chords scratched together like sandpaper. After a few painful, dizzying attempts to swallow, he managed to squeeze some words out, “We’re playing at doctor-patient after I just watched you kill a man? Well, Doctor, my head is pounding and I feel like I’m going to throw up quite a concerning amount of blood,” he replied, glaring at the part of Dottore’s mask where his eyes should be.
Dottore chuckled, leafing through the file in his hands, “What ignorant men may call murder, I call a worthwhile sacrifice.”
Feofan’s anger cooled. He needed to take control of this conversation. “That’s the thing. I’m not sure I’m a fan of what you’re doing here, Doctor.”
“Oh? And what am I doing here?” Dottore’s smirk widened a fraction, his head tilting in question.
“Testing some kind of poison on subpar test subjects, I gather. I’m no expert, but I do understand the Fatui to be quite the superpower. If they aren’t providing you with the resources you need, that bodes ill indeed for you making progress in your work and in return, being provided with sufficient reward,” Feofan was making assumptions about his circumstances, but he knew even in large organizations like the Fatui, business was business. Dottore’s results were limited by how much they were willing to invest in him–if he only relied on what was provided.
Dottore’s smirk slackened and his head turned slightly to glance at the members of his staff waiting around the workstation Feofan was supposed to get wheeled to. Their breathing seemed to stop, with some subordinates looking very interested in the walls and equipment rather than the scene unfolding in front of them.
Dottore turned back to regard Feofan, “And what is your point, boy?”
“I can help you secure better specimens. If you don’t inject that poison in me, that is,” he proposed.
Dottore threw his head back and cackled, his sharp laughter sending a wave of pain through Feofan’s head. “Hahaha! What can a half-dead urchin like you achieve? Might I remind you how we found you? Beaten unconscious and thrown in a cell; even the police didn’t want to deal with you. You’ll be of more use to me dead.”
How humiliating.
“I may have caught the eye of the wrong people, but I do have contingencies in place, if I’m able to utilize them. I’d like to repay the people who put me in that cell, and you need healthy, intact specimens. Our goals have more in common than you think,” Feofan managed a smile at the man standing over him. After the series of misfortunes in his life and business ventures up to this point, this is the moment he could really use a successful negotiation.
“You’re going to need to give me more than that. I would have to treat you, and I’d be losing a valuable specimen in the process,” Dottore motions to the file in his hands.
It was that moment when Feofan’s nausea grew beyond his control. He coughed and gagged, eventually spattering blood onto the sheer white blanket covering his body. Dottore shook his head and moved to wheel the table to Feofan’s death.
“I have mora stashed. Give me time to invest it while I shatter that fucker’s Vision to pieces and send him to you, along with everyone else, and I’ll give you the returns. Invest in me and I will give you what you want,” Feofan forced out between sputters, blood dripping down his chin.
Dottore paused halfway across the room, the table’s handle in his grip. His head turned to face Feofan, mask once again betraying nothing of his expression and his mouth in a flat, thin line. He then grinned and handed the file to a nearby staff member, grabbing a fresh file and quill from a stack nearby. “What’s your name, boy?”
“Feofan Sergeyevich Veksel,” Feofan croaked.
Dottore quickly scratched some information at the top of the file. “Well, Feofan, I think I’ll take you up on that investment. Put the toxin away and prepare for surgery. Time to observe what stitching up a live specimen will yield,” Dottore addressed his subordinates, pulling on a new set of gloves.
“...and how did you get shot?” Dottore asked, sounding unimpressed, while he applied ointment to his arm. The scent of ointment–some kind of chemically altered herbal concoction–mixed with the familiar scent of antiseptic from the lab, which smelled much like Dottore himself. The bright lights, impartial in their illumination, detailed Feofan’s gunshot wound, allowing the Doctor to apply the ointment appropriately.
Feofan cringed. He hadn’t anticipated the debtor he was collecting from to pull a gun on him. At least this time, when he actually committed a murder, he had the resources to cover it up. And he was even able to collect even more than he was owed through the man’s remaining assets. “It doesn’t matter. I’m still working on pushing Zolotova out, if that’s what you want to hear.”
“No, I’m not concerned about that. You owe me your life–you wouldn’t refuse my requests with a debt like that. Besides, controlling the Fatui’s finances appeals to you far too much to back out now,” Dottore countered, swapping to wrapping a bandage around the newly treated injury. Wrapping it just tightly enough to hurt, Dottore’s mouth curved upwards as he watched a flash of pain appear across Feofan’s face as quickly as it was smothered by practiced indifference. Even the indifference shortly broke into open exasperation.
“Are you quite done? While I am ever so thankful for you taking time away from cutting up corpses to treat my wound, I must remind you that I yet live and don’t appreciate being treated roughly,” Feofan couldn’t hold back an eye roll as he regarded Dottore. As indebted as he was to him these past several years, in Dottore’s company Feofan could never fully maintain his polite persona he takes with those he does business with; there was something about Dottore that made him honest. Feofan witnessed and partook in humanity at its most potent–debts accrued, paid voluntarily but usually collected by force, through transactions more unfair than not, calculated through information and manipulation, which become their own transactions to orchestrate–but it was with Dottore that he felt like he could be most human, most himself. Dottore, who treated people as things to study and dissect, was at the same time unfiltered with his desires and intentions, even with his face obscured by his mask. Offer him acceptance and loyalty, and he will repay it in kind. It was still a transaction, yes, but a simple and straightforward one.
“You could have visited any Fatui doctor meant for those of your rank, yet you came to me. One would think you decided being treated ‘roughly’ was a cost outweighed by the benefits of such a decision, banker,” Dottore fastened the bandage and turned to clean the equipment he used to extract the bullet and clean the wound. “Visit me in 3 days so I can make sure you’ve healed appropriately. Don’t get shot again. Or do, if you want to be one of the corpses I enjoy ‘cutting up,’” he chuckled to himself, “though it would be a waste of my investment in you.”
The fire cast a warm flickering light across his office, fighting the cold seeping in from the blizzard raging through the windows. The room smelled of a mixture of wood and tobacco smoke, always overtaking the aroma of every new tea and coffee brought to its occupant to keep him awake through hours of poring over expenditures, correspondences, and contracts from Fatui personnel, countrymen, and foreigners who want to take advantage of his influence, power, and money.
The sound of the door opening threatened Pantalone’s concentration. Continuing to study the form in his hand, he greeted the one person who would be rude enough to enter his office without knocking. “Zandik, dear, I can’t keep delaying approval for Pulcinella’s budget requests. He was quite angry with me when I met with him last week. If rather unintimidating,” he motioned to the stack of densely marked forms with schematics and equations and justifications for a new palace expansion. As long as he could afford to, Pantalone would make getting money from him as excruciating as possible for Pulcinella. However, he’d just about pushed the limit of how much he could make him wait before he escalated to Pierro or possibly even the Tsaritsa, so Pantalone was now working through his ridiculously long and convoluted documentation. The man always tried to sneak provisions in his requests that leeched money through loopholes and other means, so Pantalone couldn’t leave them to his subordinates. What a fucking pain in the ass.
Measured footsteps across plush carpet navigated across his office, around his desk, and came to a stop behind his chair. Gloved hands landed across his shoulders, inching towards his neck. “I come all this way and don’t even receive a hello? My, our darling banker is rather rude today,” Dottore leaned around Pantalone’s chair to mutter in his ear, hands squeezing his neck just enough for a relaxed sigh to escape his lips, his eyes fluttering closed, his shoulders drooping, and the form falling out of his hand.
“Hello, Dottore. What do you want?” Eyes slowly opening, Pantalone reached for a lit cigarette he had rested on his ashtray, lifting it to his lips. Before he could take a drag, Dottore snatched it out of his hand and squeezed it to powder, pouring the sad remains back into the ashtray. Pantalone sighed again and let his eyes slide back shut.
“Hm. I have a short request for your review. Nevermind Pulcinella–this concerns the elixir that, might I remind you, has already given you returns. Approve it,” the familiar rustle of Dottore’s coat sliding apart accompanied the quiet crinkle of paper landing on top of Pulcinella’s documents. He forced his eyes open and glanced down, skimming over the budget allocation Dottore was requesting.
“Rejected. Reduce it by 20 percent. Elixir or not, I cannot dedicate that large a sum to you,” Pantalone waved his hand in dismissal, reaching up to hook a finger into that bizarre–but very alluring–harness around Dottore’s neck, to tug his face closer.
“I can reduce it by 10. No more than that. The experiment also involves recreating the power of Visions. The power of the Archons, in our grasp. In our control.” A gloved thumb that remained on his neck dipped into his collar, stroking a scar from one of the many injuries Dottore had treated the day they met.
Pantalone glanced up beneath Dottore’s mask, obsidian eyes meeting blood red. “15, then. Revise the request and I will approve it.”
“We have a deal, Feofan.”
Their lips met, sealing a contract in a series that will end in fire.