Salt: A Ninjago story

53: A Little Help Please

It seemed all brains were of interest to Pixal not just human ones. Zane had been thoroughly scrutinised and cross-referenced with a human subject; in side notes Pixal had pondered how Dr Julien, Zane's creator, would have made an ideal comparison subject, but she had coerced Borg as a similar type. The information they found was fascinating, but not particularly helpful; a mass of symbiotic circuitry and soft tissue, which had surprised them both 'how the hell do they have soft tissue?' Hitch exclaimed. It was a truly alien brain, artificial yet organic and was not at all comparable in design to a humans'. They kept looking through Pixal's extensive research all filed under date only, this was obviously enough for Pixal to know what it contained, so what they were opening was unknown until Hitch shouted Lloyds name in shock.

Within a file, a subject heading; The Quiet One.

It was a small file dated from when the The Quiet One escaped. Pixal must have initiated scans and research on her brain immediately after tending to her wounds. Hitch could only think how driven Pixal was; brains were her obsession!

The notes on her sister Gene covered mutation in the brain stem and she recorded oddities from what would be considered normal sleep cycles. Pixal had been in the process of a continual observation that had been cut short.

The only other entry was simply a title - Nocturnal Lagopthalmos.

'What's that?' Hitch and Lloyd said in unison and a quick dictionary search answered them.

'Her eyes were open...' Lloyd said.

'When she was asleep' Hitch continued.

'Is that relevant?'

'It's definitely weird!' Hitch scratched her head 'lets look at the scans. Pixal mentioned the Brain Stem. Is Gene ill? Does she have a disease? Or is the mutation something that's now triggering her powers?' Her mind was racing as she opened the scan files 'You know Lloyd, I don't even really know what a brain should look like'

'You're kidding?'

'No, I mean why should I? How would I  know if what I'm looking at is a tumour, a healthy brain or a flippin' pickled walnut?'

'Well, let me get my highly boring but quite useful book back and we can cross reference from some diagrams'

'So books can be useful then?'

'Books are the boss! Honestly Hitch, don't knock them, give me half a chance and I'll show you some awesome books that will make your brain do backflips!'

Hitch laughed, she was nervous and excited, the closed brain of her sister Gene was being laid bare to her... albeit as a series of scanned slices. Life suddenly felt unreal; to be here in The Temple of Spinjitsu with the Green Ninja himself, getting excited about brains and books, this was the stuff of fantasy and she was living it.

Lloyd left to find the heavy tome on the human brain and Hitch pulled up Gene's scans again. As she considered them, the enormity of what she was looking at dawned on her. This was her sister, laid bare with nowhere to hide, not slices of processed meat. It was the sister that had kept them afloat and safe, securing them a life; even if it had been a bad life and they had been made to do bad things, she and Nat had lived to find the right life. But Gene hadn't managed to achieve that for herself, they didn't even know if she was alive or... Hitch didn't want to think about it. Her sister had sacrificed everything that was good in her to ensure they had survived and Hitch found that she couldn't look at her sisters brain a second longer. She left the room to find a quiet place to hide.

Passing the library where Lloyd was pulling the large book back off a shelf he saw her pass 'Hitch?' Going to the door he looked out, was something wrong? He followed and saw her climb the tree outside and jump over to one of the large rock formations, scrabble further up to sit hunched away from the temple 'Hitch' he called up. She didn't turn. He put the book on the grass and climbed the tree, all the way up to where she sat staring out at the sky. He balanced in the swaying tree-top 'Hitch? I got the book' she nodded slightly in acknowledgement 'can I come over?' She shrugged. Lloyd swayed in the tree-top back and forth, closer to the rock until he could step off to sit beside her quietly. She seemed to be contemplating the view, so Lloyd looked out at the silent sky and then back at her sad face 'you want to talk about it?'