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Emelyn put her hands on his arm and nudged him to turn around. She worried that she was pressing him against the wall and then, on second thought, pushed so that it would be most certainly the case. She would have suggested he get down lower to the ground, but that was her traditional views of what a man was calling to reason that a man in pain would have trouble enough without his legs buckling beneath him. Thomas Brinley had no legs- and Emelyn was reminded again what a strange thing she had agreed to do. Perhaps it would be enough that he use the slanting, moist wall as a sort of support. At the least, perhaps it would keep the man stationary up against a surface as she worked. The thought sent a sweet, almost nauseating sweat of liquid fear into her mouth. It was hard to swallow.

She almost laughed at the butter knife on the cloth, its shine dulled to a black, colorless outline with the complete lack of light. She didn't doubt that it had been sharpened- her handling of it earlier in mock preparation had resulted in a thin-line nick on her left thumb for the sake of her mental absence. It was just enough of a reminder to her that these were sharp enough to injure- and to include them in her pervasive fear of knives. But Thom had logicked Emelyn well with his argument- for her own purposes, Emelyn had overcome- or at least lived with- her phobia before. It would be hypocritical to use it now as an excuse not to do this thing. Still, the logic didn't keep her head from swimming as she gripped the handle on the knife. Her phobia of knives was tied into the fear that she- or whomever held one- would lose control of it, and she or someone else would be stabbed, slashed, or otherwise injured. Now, it was absolutely inevitable that someone would be injured- and somehow, that knowledge took the edge from it. There was no need to fear something that was definitely going to happen. Only dread it.

Em didn't ask if he was ready. She opened the bottle of alcohol and inserted the knife's tip. She swilled it around, then poured a fair amount on her own hands, blotting away the moisture with the clean antiseptic pads that came from the simple first aid kit they'd wrangled from Delia. The back of Thom's neck she also swabbed without a warning, and she resisted the urge to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, now that she had been so doused with alcohol.

Emelyn stood a moment, then touched with the back of the knuckle in the middle of her smallest finger a certain point at the base of Thom's neck. It was where they had agreed upon.

"It's not too late, Thom." Her own voice talked back to her against the deeper, cavernous pits of the cave.

She said nothing, only came closer to him and pressed the front of her leg against part of the long, lithe slither that was his body. It was as close as she could come to try and comfort the man, and also to be near enough to do what had to be done.

Emelyn had read books from the 'library' in the community center about anatomy- as much as she could find about the nervous systems of both snakes and humans, and the general anatomy of the area that she would be so perilously slicing. Despite what she had read, the diagrams she'd seen, and the choices she and Thom had made, she felt woefully inadequate- and painfully stupid as she made herself hold the sharpened utensil tightly and bring it closer to the snake man's neck. She was not equipped- physically or mentally- for the action, and yet, she'd made a promise.

"God help us," she said, the irony not lost on her as the words came, unbidden. Emelyn didn't believe in God. She was ill-equipped.

She didn't realize she was holding her breath as she forced the knife down in a 'scalpel-point' hold and forced it to bite down into the scaly flesh. The give was greater than she thought, and she blessed the monchromatic hedgehog nightsight for the lack of color attributed to the quick upwelling of blood. It was her first onslaught into his flesh.

She resisted the urge, as that first cut drew a viscious upwelling of colorless blood, to take the flashlight again and train its light on the wound. It didn't seem right to be working with this flat palette of lightless as the blood dripped down his back- but since she didn't need the intrusion of the dawn-tipped device... Emelyn kept silent.

It was a horrible thing, that first cut- and her stomach turned and a dizzy whirl of fearful intoxication greased the insides of her head. She almost lost her balance. But after that first violation- that first slice into the man like he was a cut of meat- it got easier, at least for the sake of her stomach, if not the actual discovery of the chip itself. Every slice she had to make deeper, edging around what had been a painfully shallow first invasion, stabbed her in its own way, and she felt guilty, and fearful.

It was amazing how much blood could come from a small wound- and how steadily his heart would faithfully pump it through his mutated body. Emelyn had seen an EKG once, a pumping, never-ceasing muscle that pithed away in a blue retroscope on the screen that was attached to conductor pads on her sister's chest. She'd gone with Mizzie to an appointment with a cardiologist to check to see what long-term effects chemo was going to have on her heart. They'd had to establish a baseline so that later problems down the road could be easier ascertained, and attributed to the toxic buildup of chemotherapy chemicals in her system. ...What an amazing thing, the heart, that it never forgot what it had to do- every second of every day. What a needless point it had been, at least for the sake of the cardiologist. That Mizzie's heart had beat at all- could have never been needless.

Her mind thusly occupied, she was surprised to touch metal with the tip of the makeshift scalpel. She was more than surprised- horrified, really, that Thom began to writhe and scream. She tried to jerk back, but both the slight wrap around her leg and the cramped space prevented this.

"Thom! ...Thom!" She cried, almost afraid to touch him. "Jesus... Thom..."

She put her hand on his shoulder- softly, palm first, so as not to startle him.

"No. But I'm going to get it with my claws, if I can. I don't want to have to touch the metal to it again unless I didn't already sever what it's anchored to. ...Are you okay?"

That frightened her as well. But still the biggest thing on her mind was the fear that she was going to kill him. But she did as she said- she went in with her claws, an ugly buzz in the back of her head wondering if her study of the lateral neck muscles would have any application here, sandwiched between a cold wall while she delved into a fresh wound of a man who was more snake than human. Who knew what unique musculature he boasted... and whether this day would bring him a unique death to go with it?

She probed the wound, and it was soft, warm, and vilely wet. The chip was in a suctioned cavern of blood and muscle, and if it had been anchored to the nerves therein, her tug, along with the earlier slice of the "scalpel", allowed it to come free.

Emelyn was surprised that it gave at all, and as soon as it had eclipsed the opening to the wound (ripping at the inner wall with the tug) she cast it to the ground, as if terrified of it.

"Wait, I have to dress the wound- you can't just... Thom!" Emelyn cried as the snake man slithered out of the zigzaggy passages. For all her nightvision and tightly wound leg muscles, hedgehogs were not designed for speed in tight, winding spaces, and by the time she reached the entrance of the cave, Thom had disappeared. It wasn't long before she went the way of the snake, as well- eclipsing off into the jungle, hopeful and fearful all in one.

Thom had heard Emelyn's calls, but had utterly ignored them, instead racing for the trees. The caves were so far from the village and the labs that they were very rarely traveled by anyone aside from the native fauna. The foliage grew thick and dense, and made travel difficult...unless, of course, you had the body of a snake.

For the cobra man, the jungle couldn't have been better. The going was a bit slower than it might have been elsewhere, true, but he still moved with surprising ease and swiftness, zigzagging against trees and bushes to propel himself forward on top of the aid from his belly scales. He kept low to the ground as often as possible to avoid cameras, tongue flickering out every few seconds to assure himself that no guards were nearby, and kept his direction northbound, heading for the area where the island's infamous chipless inhabitants were rumored to spend their time.

For the time, he kept moving, knowing full well that he had the advantage of speed in the thick jungle, and waiting until he had no other choice to hide.

Three-dimensional was, in the end, perhaps the best way to describe it. The terrain and density of the forest changed at intervals, but one thing was certain: there was much more to it than the ground. After a point, with the sound of jeeps off in the distance and the taste of the guards on his tongue, Thom took to the trees, moving up the trunk with surprising ease between his claw-like nails and the gripping scales of his stomach.

From the lower branches, climbing higher was effortless for the cobra man, though he was prevented from going too high by the sheer weight of his elongated body. In the less dense areas, there was always the possibility of being spotted, and he did run the risk of running into a camera, but Thom had a distinct feeling that the guards would be more concerned with ground attacks from Jamal or the wolf than scanning the trees for a giant snake.

Just to be safe, however, he changed his path, heading back the way he had come, but angling eastward rather than directly south. With luck, he could circle around or between groups of guards, while still keeping away fro the jeeps. His tongue was his best ally. He would know exactly where the guards were a good few minutes before they even spotted him.

If he was careful, at least.