Processing begins.

Druuna looked around her curiously as she followed the soldiers to the processing building. Quite a few other soldiers were moving around the compound, either on foot or driving vehicles. Most were relatively young and surprisingly none at all showed any sign of injury or other physical defect. Druuna stopped dead when one female soldier turned around and waved, the young woman looked identical to the trooper she knew as Smith.

"You have a twin?" Druuna asked the blonde soldier.

"Kind of." Smith laughed. "Never really thought of it like that. I'll leave to the techies to explain."

They resumed the short walk. Druuna paid more attention to the faces of the passing soldiery now and by the time they reached the building had spotted several identical faces amongst them, including twins for Patton and sergeant Spencer. She'd seen twins before of course during her travels, but this many in one place was puzzling.

The building doors slid open on their own volition as they approached making Druuna jump back in surprise. The women soldiers giggled at her reaction and assured her that it was simply technology, but even so Druuna jumped quickly through the doorway in case the door chose to shut itself. The inside of the building seemed to be entirely white and pristine, the walls, ceiling and even the floor a uniform glossy hue.

"It's so shiny and clean." Druuna said in wonder. "It must take you all day to scrub and polish."

Druuna was so busy looking around at the gleaming white building that she almost failed to notice that her group had stopped at a large desk. She turned her attention to the uniformed woman sitting behind it and was astonished to see a third Smith sitting there.

"Triplets!" Druuna exclaimed.

This new version of trooper Smith simply smiled at Druuna, her teeth as white and lips as full and red as the original facing her.

"This is Druuna, we picked her up in the desert." Sergeant Spencer told Smith number three. "She's here for processing."

The new Smith looked back to Druuna and smiled again. Rising from behind the desk she came round and held her hand out to Druuna.

"Come along Druuna." She said in a friendly tone. "I'll take you through. I'm sure you'll have no trouble at all, you look absolutely perfect."

Druuna looked nervously at the three women troopers she'd entered with for confirmation.

"There's nothing to worry about Druuna." Spencer said soothingly. "We'll wait here. This won't take long, I'm sure you'll be back with us soon."

Druuna allowed herself to be led through another doorway into a larger room. Several men and women were inside though these wore white coats over the top of their camoflaged clothing. They were mostly staring at screens and banks of flashing lights whilst tapping away industriously at keyboards. A young man stood and walked over.

"Hello, you must be Druuna. I'm Doctor Klein." He introduced himself. "I'll be processing you. There's absolutely nothing to worry about, it's very quick and painless. Before we start I just need you to strip so I can examine you."