Kiran once again found himself alone, left to his own devices in Sync's office. He definitely didn't find things too bad at all. It may be seriously boring, but at least he wasn't being forced to do something he was completely against.

He had to admit; if it stayed like this, and Van made no further moves to harm anyone, he could be very satisfied with this simple life. Sync was actually treating him with respect so far, even with his obvious knowledge of what Kiran had done. He had spoken with Sync about what sort of story he should tell for the sake of the others. In the end, they had agreed on a story about him failing his last mission to squelch the rumors going around for the time being.
It was nearing sundown, about the same time Sync had returned to check on him the previous day. Kiran had finished the task that he had been given the previous day, and considering that he had been given until tomorrow to finish it, he felt he was doing quite well. There was only a small number of papers left to finish and he knew that he could have it done within an hour.

Kiran heard the door open admitting a disgruntled looking Sync. His masked superior was carrying the pile of papers that he had taken in the morning when Kiran reported in. He put them down on another table in the room. Kiran could hear him making some comment under his breath about Dist being a whiny idiot, but before Kiran could inquire, Sync looked over at him and upon seeing Kiran's progress on his work, looked a bit less upset.
"So what progress have you made, Kiran?" he asked.

"Nearly complete, sir. If I could have another hour, it would be finished." Kiran informed him.

"It can wait until tomorrow. You are dismissed. If I were you, I would stay away from the research wing. Dist is in a very foul mood today, and you know what that means."

"A lot of yelling?"

Sync smirked. "Have you forgotten his freakish obsession with replicas and the fact that you are one? If you want to avoid being his new test subject, stay far away."

Kiran groaned. He had forgotten about Dist's strange passion for fomicry, since he hadn't bothered him in quite some time. He still remembered a time when Dist wanted to run tests on Kiran and do research with him as the subject. Dist had eventually been forced to stop trying to get Kiran as a test subject because of Kiran's rank. The others wouldn’t stand for Dist using a God-General as a test subject, no matter how much it might benefit the order.
"Anyway, I did what I could. But you know how he is when he's in a bad mood, he likes to mess around with things he shouldn't. So I advise that you stay away. I told him you don't have permission to be a test subject and you have more important things to do for me." Sync explained. "So get out of here before he comes back begging. Oh, and bring your weapon with you tomorrow. I got you scheduled for some training with Largo. Report in at the same time you did today. Got it?"

"Got it, sir. Thanks for the tip. I'll keep far away from the research wing tonight." Kiran replied as he walked out into the hallway, closing the door behind him. It didn’t take especially good hearing to be able to tell that Dist was ranting at the moment. His loud, though unintelligible, yelling actually echoed throughout the halls. What could have possibly brought this one on? Kiran racked his brains but he still couldn’t think of any instance where Dist had ever gotten this bad.

The worst part was, he couldn’t figure out where the yelling was coming from, which made avoiding the crazed researcher that much more difficult. All he could do was keep his eyes and ears open and be ready to run if he saw Dist coming.

Kiran really felt for Reiner right now. The poor young recruit had to be getting an earful and Kiran just hoped he could figure a way out before Dist caused the poor kid to go deaf.

Kiran decided the best thing he could do was go eat something and hope that he could get back to his quarters before Dist found him. Maybe Reiner found a way to get away from Dist and could explain what happened.

On his way to the mess hall, he almost ran into Reiner, literally. “Oh thank goodness I found you Kiran! You’ve got to get out of sight. Dist is looking for you!”

“Damn it. I thought Sync told him I don’t have permission to become his new test subject.”

“He’s pissed at Sync right now. So I doubt anything Sync said will matter much to him. He can’t take it out on Sync, but he sure can take it out on Sync’s assistant.”

“What in the hell happened? Sync came back grumbling about Dist and said very little other than warning me to avoid him.”

“I’ll explain what I can. Do you know of a place where we can get out of sight?”
“Only place I can think of is my own quarters. I can at least lock the door there.”

“Let’s go then. You really need to get out of sight before Dist himself comes looking for you. He sent me to find you, but I’m not going to let him submit you to that. That and Sync outranks him and has already denied permission. If I had my choice of who to run afoul of, I would pick Dist over Sync any day.”
“Good choice there.”

They walked to the wing where the God-Generals all had their quarters. It was far enough away from wherever Dist was at that moment that things were much quieter. Kiran unlocked his door, Reiner followed him in. Kiran then bolted the door behind him.

Kiran sat down on his bed, letting Reiner have the one chair that existed in his room. Reiner didn’t seem to notice the fact that the room was actually rather barren. It was a lot smaller and far less grand than one would expect the quarters of a God-General to be. If he did notice, he was decent enough not to comment. “So what happened then? I hope Dist didn’t yell at you too much.”

“No, thankfully he sent me off looking for you not long after Sync left. But basically what happened was that Sync came and spoke with Dist about something.”

“Did you catch what it was?”

“No. I was on the other side of the lab when Sync came in and they weren’t speaking very loudly, well until Dist started yelling.”

“What did he say?”

“He screamed out ‘No! That can’t be true!’ and then I heard the sound of glass breaking and he started screaming even more. Sync couldn’t stop laughing at that point, which only seemed to make Dist more irate.”
“Did you see or hear anything else?”

“He yelled ‘Not again! Damn you Nepenthes!’ then screamed for me to find the adhesive remover. I looked everywhere, but it was gone. It’s a common prank to be played to be honest. It’s not that unusual for Nepenthes to steal materials from us, or he replaces some of the chemicals with a rather strong glue mixture. He mixes it with something to make it more liquid, but it’s still a strong adhesive. I have to admit, he’s pretty smart to have come up with something like that. It just has no practical purpose other than annoying Dist to no end.”

“Don’t tell me, the glue ended up all over Dist, didn’t it?” Kiran remarked, trying not to laugh himself.

Reiner was trying very hard not to laugh at this point, he was barely able to speak now, “Y-yeah. He must have put his hands in his lap for some reason, because when I came to tell him I couldn’t find the adhesive remover, his hands were glued to, well, I think you can guess.” Reiner finally managed before he started laughing himself.

“No way! Did he really glue his hands to his pants?”

Reiner couldn’t speak, he was laughing too hard, so he just nodded. Finally he was able to control his laughter and he continued. “Yes. His hands were glued between his legs. He tried to get Sync to help him get his hands free. At first Sync refused, but Dist was yelling so much that he gave in and tried pulling his hands off. All that accomplished was sending Sync flying backwards into a nearby bookshelf. His mask actually almost slipped off, but he got a hold of it real fast before we could see anything. He was not pleased with Dist at all and left after telling Dist that you won’t become his test subject as a piece of revenge.”

“I wonder what Sync said to upset him so much?”

“I don’t know. Once Sync left, Dist started muttering something about ‘She can’t be…not to him…’ So it must have to do with some female he knows. Then I got sent off to find you while Dist tried to free his hands.”

“Some female he knows? Hmmm…” Kiran mulled.

“I wish I knew more, even if it was to warn her about this.”

“Does he show interest in any women?”

“Besides getting more upset when Nepenthes makes a fool of him in front of Cantabile? No he doesn’t”

“Whatever it was, it must be bad if he wants revenge on Sync.”

“That’s all I could figure out. For some reason he seems real interested in studying you. Could it have to do with that special ability you said was too complicated to explain?”

“That’s probably it.”

“It must be really special. Dist only tends to be interested in really strange stuff. You’re lucky to have such a special ability, if only I were unique like that…”

“Don’t say that Reiner. You don’t know what it’s like to be sought out by people like Dist for study because you have something no one else has. I don’t want to be a lab experiment, would you?”

“No way. That’s why I won’t bring you to him. I don’t care what sort of punishment I get for not following that order, but I will say I couldn’t find you.”

“If anyone asks, I didn’t see you tonight.”

“Thanks, Kiran. Anyway, I better go before someone comes looking for me. Good night Kiran.”

“Good night Reiner.”

Want more? I have posted all of it to my personal webspace:

http://ladynadiad.atspace.com/day1.html
http://ladynadiad.atspace.com/day2.html
http://ladynadiad.atspace.com/day4.html
http://ladynadiad.atspace.com/day5.htm