Kayden was shocked.
He was, in fact, so completely thrown by the doctor's offer, he needed to think over the situation once again. Just to make sure he'd gotten it right. As he pondered, Kayden scratched the raw spot underneath his muzzle, where the ceramics hadn't been properly shaved to prevent rubbing.
The Doc had come strolling in to Kayden's cell, but Kayden hadn't given the man much thought. It was just him after all. Even in his thoughts, Kayden sounded out the man's name with nothing but contempt. Griffin, Kayden's Parapsychologist, was a cocky, self-righteous, and irritatingly chipper man, to be sure, however, the Doc had never appeared to be suicidal to Kayden. Hence his surprise at the Doc's arrival, with took place solo. There was no one else with him. Did he earnestly wish to end his life today?
The usual banter took place, and as it happened, Kayden began circling, like a predator, stalking its prey. Kayden thought not of escape, like any reasonable prisoner might. Instead, Kayden's eyes were trained on the Doctor, as if to grind him into dust with nothing but his gaze. The Doc, however, wasn't a stupid man. He did have that much going for him, though Kayden was loathe to admit it. Every time Kayden took a step in order to maneuver himself between the Doc and the door, the Doc only seemed to mirror his movements, effectively leaving himself a path for retreat. "Damn..." Kayden thought angrily, snarling just a little when he'd finally given up on that particular maneuver. "What a pain in the ass... Now I'll have to sit through some boring spiel."
The Doc was talking, but Kayden wasn't listening. He crossed his arms, diverted his gaze to some other corner of the room, and tried to tell the Doc, simultaneously as silently and loudly as possible, that it was completely impossible for Kayden to give any less of a fuck, at all, than he was currently giving. Still, the Doc droned on. "It isn't nice to threaten..." After hearing the first part, Kayden tried his very hardest, barely succeeding, not to flip the, "good," Doctor a very healthy bird. As Kayden liked to remind Griffin as often as possible, Kayden had been here since he was three. During those many, long years, Kayden had been subjected to every imaginable torture and test. Anything about respecting the faculty and staff in this cesspool of a facility went in one ear and exited the other just as swiftly. However, as he spoke, the Doc held up three fingers, which gave Kayden just enough interest in the subject matter to tune in to the last part. "... Give you three options. Want to hear them out before tearing me to shreds?" A slight chuckle left his lips as he spoke, his eyes narrowing just the slightest. Kayden responded in kind, growling and narrowing his eyes. "Real rich, coming from you. As if I had a choice anyway." Kayden thought, suppressing a chuckle. "Go on then. Let's hear it." Kayden said, finishing his train of thought out loud, so the Doc would know to go on.
When he realized he was out of immediate danger, the Doc spoke up once more. "Since you're such a danger to us, you can either A. Remain in your lonely freezer of a room until you die of natural causes, doesn't sound too fun." Kayden only snorted. "Wasn't that the understatement of the century?" The Doc continued. "B. Be humanely euthinized, you've asked for death quite a few times." At that, Kayden bristled. Just because he thought dying would be better than living like a prisoner for the rest of his days didn't mean he was planning on doing either. Kayden was, in fact, so irritated by the statement, he almost didn't pay enough attention to the Doc to catch what the last option was. "You get free run of RIST, by willingly submitting to tests and not endangering the employees or other RIST... Participants. We can work the details on this one, so your pick." Kayden's mouth fell slightly agape, as much as it could while constrained by the muzzle, and his heart stopped beating for a moment.
Griffin watched Kayden with a hard stare, his expression deadly serious. The Doc liked to joke inappropriately in just about any situation, but now, in this moment, there wasn't even a smile on his face. Even with Kayden's pyrokinesis as diminished as it was in this hellish freezer of a cell, Kayden's physical senses were as strong as ever. His ears picked up no irregularities in the Doc's vocal inflections or heartbeat. He couldn't smell a single drop of misplaced sweat on him either. The Doc was either under the strong impression that this was the truth, or, just maybe, it really was. Kayden's mouth snapped shut, concealing his grinding molars. His brow knit together, belying the mental processes taking place within Kayden's mind. Underneath crossed arms, Kayden's fists clenched tightly and his heartbeat quickened, ever so slightly. "This... this is the real deal, isn't it?" Kayden thought to himself. "If I do this, I can meet Roman... She... She won't just be in my dreams, she'll be right in front of me..."
Adopting a more relaxed posture, Kayden took a few steps back from the Doc. Slowly, with a measured gait, Kayden took three steps back, not out of fear, but rather, to appease the silent arbiters of this little deal. Kayden's eyes flitted up to the corners of his room, wherein little surveillance cameras faithfully recorded his every move. Surely, even now, a team of behavioral scientists and other RIST Officials were watching this transaction take place. Kayden would have to speak very carefully. He would have to make his intentions as clear as possible, without showing even a hint of the possibility of dishonesty. Kayden took a deep breath, returned his gaze to the Doc, and spoke. "Lemme get this straight. I stop punching your little worker drones, or any other buzzard who wears one of them little RIST badges, I try my best during those deranged tests you make us perform, and I allow you to take samples of my biology without a fuss, and you'll let me out of this freezer? As long as it's on the RIST grounds I can go wherever I like, do whatever I like? I'll get to take off this damn thing?" Kayden asked, pointing to the ceramic mask that covered the lower half of his face. From behind his muzzle, the question rang out eerily in the small room. As Kayden spoke, he made sure to stare directly into the Doc's eyes, trying to gauge the truthfulness of the Doc's response to his question.