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"Right right, you're here for a purpose... sorry. I'm quite fascinated by all this and have a tendency to ramble."

Getting up, the professor moved to the large airport screening machine type thing, and tapped a few commands into the key panel.

"Ideally, I would like a series of body scans. I'm afraid I'll be asking you to strip down for it, but I can have the machine run automatically and leave the room while it does so if you like."

"Oh my."

The Professor scuttled forwards as nines disrobed, apparently completely forgetting his offer for allowing the man some decency as soon as he had waved it off, and also forgetting abut personal space.

His interest was not Nines' scars however. It was the metal bands that decorated him instead.

"Hmm, this was mentioned, but I hadn't realised.. how fascinating. Stand right there for a moment, would you?"

Capering across the room extremely swiftly for a man his weight, the Professor rifled through a few drawers grabbing things before moving back to Nines.

"I'd like a sample. But you will have to stay very still so I don't end up injuring you... would you mind if I removed the largest one?"

"Shouldn't be too hard... especially once I know what they're made from of course."

Again taking the latter part of Nines' speech to be the most important, and inferring from it permission, he took the man's left arm and an almost spoon like device in his other hand. The spoon had razor sharp edges however, though the Professor had an unerring dexterity with the device, sliding it just under the edge of the wrist cuff and twisting it slightly. A slight grating jar followed, but caused no discernible reaction from the metal band, even when he withdrew the device and slid the spoon part into what would prove to be a miniature mass spectrometer.

"Ten minutes and I'll know what we're looking at. Can I start the scans in the mean time? If you don't mind?"

Eagerly nodding, apparently unaware that jimmies had even begun to be rustled, the Professor showed Nines into the machine, showing him where to stand and how, before powering it up to a soft hum, then a whirring whoosing noise as components within the plastic shell began to rotate and scan.

Sat at the computer watching the data as it came in from both the scanner and the spectrometer, the Professors brow knotted, quirked... and then he reached for the phone. While Nines was inside the scanner for the next fifteen minutes, the Professor had a long conversation with someoe, before hanging up and then coming to let Nines out of the scanner.

"You make an enthralling study sir. I will need a cat scan at some point, just to understand your digestive system correctly."

"That would be me."

The voice came from behind Nines, and would of course be instantly familiar.

"Indeed. Her Ladyship asked to be briefed on anything unusual or surprising I may find as soon as possible, and well..."
"He's found something significant, significant enough I wanted to be here to ensure you didn't freak out. Take a seat?"

The Professor seemed somewhat ill at ease but nodded, and passed Nines' a robe to cover himself while they talked.

"The good news is I can take those bands off you if you like, without causing any problems. But there will need to be a surgical procedure as well to ensure no.... unfortun...."
"To ensure Ice doesn't come after you for it. He's stepped severely over a mark and I intend to have his head for it. One way or another."

Roan;s demeanor was hard and bitter, her hands digging out a cigarette, which she did not light in deference to the hard glare the Professor gave her. Clearly, she was gravelly upset with someone, and for a change, it wasn't Nines.

"It's not the procedure that will bother you. It's what he found."
"Erm... prehaps it would be better if I handl..."
"... it would be. You are as astute as ever, Professor. Nines? I'm pissed off about this on your behalf. I don't think you'll take it well. I'm going to stay on site for the Professors safety, and we can discuss things after."

Standing up, the Lady left the room, presumably to go smoke the cigarette with a scowl on her face.
Wincing, the Professor sighed and turned to his computer, bringing up several files on screen.

"The bands are made of a simple enough alloy they can be gently cut off you without causing their contents to react. We have surgical cutters on site that can do that easily enough. The reason you have had trouble with them before isn't the bands themselves. It's something else.


There's a foreign object on your spine."

Clasping his hands together as he said the last bit, the Professor glanced up at the screen showing an Xray of Nine's body, including a blurry mass in his back, near the bottom of his spine, just above the pelvis.

"I can remove it. Though it will have its own complications. Nothing that should effect you however."

"I'm not entirely sure. It's organic, and has its own pulse. I wouldn't necessarily call it alive however, but it is giving off an electrical impulse similar to brain waves, which seem to be being registered and repeated back from the bands. The scans cant see inside the metal of course, so I'm not sure what is receiveing or repeating the signal.

If I remove the foreign object however, and implant it into a suitable new host..."

He shrugged, letting the sentence hang with its obvious ending unsaid. Clasped hands showed his nervousness about the entire situation however.

"I was thinking a pig would do just fine. The assembly could them continue in symbiosis, could be studied, and the pig is unlikely to mind too much as long as its fed."

The Professor did not deign to answer the last part, instead settling for a shrug. Outside, there came the odd sound of a terse voice. Apparently, Roan was on the phone. And unhappy.

"...she told me to try and solve your problems, because she can't. But I'm a scientist first and foremost, and won't so anything without the patients permission."