"Here are the new blood samples, Magister," 11-4D said, handing Plagueis the vials.  "And the brain scans you requested."

Plagueis began organizing the vials, looking intermittently at the flimsiplast brain scans of his current experimental subjects.  

"Yes, these will do nicely, thanks," he said, pleased.  "It seems you were successful in securing data from all the test subjects, FourDee."

"Yes, Magister.  I assured them that I was not going to harm them, and that they would receive a meal of their choice on the completion of my instructions."

"I see you were quite successful," Plagueis remarked. "Especially given how--recalcitrant some of our subjects are."

"Yes, Magister. For several meals I fed all of them exclusively on nutrient rations which were selected to be both nutritionally complete and unappealing to most in their given species, as you instructed."

Plagueis smiled.  "I suppose they must have found that--quite unpleasant."

"Yes, Magister."

Plagueis planned to also do as he had instructed FourDee, which was to incentivize his experimental subjects to respond to any necessary instructions to ensure he received maximally useful data.  

When he finished with them, he would wipe their memories of him and this place and release them, tracking their behavior in real scenarios.  But that would not be for a while now.  First, it was time to get started with the main experiment.

He walked over to a centrifuge.  He had used this device to separate the black orbs from the pond water.  He had chosen to use injection as the method of delivery for the orbs, as he felt it would be the easiest and most reliable choice. But of course he did not want to inject his subjects with pond water.  So he had had to remove that component.

He took the black material he had separated, sterilized it, then combined it with a simple saline solution carefully calibrated for each species he would be testing.  According to his painstakingly considered theory, this should obtain equivalent results as ingestion.  But he would soon find out, at any rate.

Voras the Hutt

The Hutt gave him a terrified look upon seeing Plagueis approach with the hypodermic needle filled with black liquid.

"Agh, no! Please, I pay my taxes!"

Plagueis stopped and tilted his head.  "Intriguing, but ultimately irrelevant to your current situation."

"Okay.  But I--I'm pregnant!" he protested.  

Plagueis blinked at what he could easily sense was a blatant lie.  Of course, he knew such a possibility would not be considered unusual for one of the hermaphroditic Hutt species.  He did not know if Voras had assumed him to be aware of this fact or had instead planned to delay him with some lengthy explanation, but regardless of such logistics, it was the implications such a remark made about his own motivations that troubled Plagueis.

"No, you are not, and again I am puzzled--did something in my manner give you the impression that I have scruples?"  Though he had phrased the question rhetorically, part of him couldn't help wonder about the answer.  Could his current weakness be detected by others?  Or was this simply a desperate ploy, deemed unlikely to work but worth trying in a situation with nothing left to lose?

"I--I have money!  Release me and I can--"

Plagueis smiled.  "Ah, finally, I understand your thought process here!  Unfortunately for you, your money is of little interest to me, and certainly not enough to convince me to forgo you as a test subject."

Voras deflated, clearly disappointed that his attempts to talk his way out of his situation had failed.  "What is that, anyway?" the Hutt asked anxiously, his eyes fixed on the hypodermic.

Plagueis shrugged.  "Some sort of drug."

"And what does it do?"

"I prefer not to say.  But I will say that what interests me are the psychological responses.  It doesn't appear to cause any physical harm."

This seemed to mollify Voras somewhat.

"Why me?"

"You will see,"  Plagueis said.  

"My guess is that this is not the kind of experiment you get volunteers for.  Which I find...concerning."

Plagueis uncapped the hypodermic.  "Oh, I don't know," he said.  "You might be surprised what some beings  will volunteer for.  But such an approach was not very compatible with the timeframe or the secrecy I require."  He approached the Hutt slowly.

Voras, of course, tried to move away, but found he could not.  His eyes widened in alarm.

"What--?"

Plagueis smiled.  He was using his Force power to restrain the Hutt now.  "I anticipated your response this time, Voras."

Voras looked away.  "I'm not looking forward to this."

Plagueis jabbed the hypodermic in the Hutt's side.

"Ah, but I am," The Sith Lord said.  He held up his datapad.  "Now, I have a few questions for you..."

 Pirate Man, Type Unspecified

"She's gonna find you," the Weequay man said.  "And she's gonna kill you."

Plagueis had to admit, he found the man's intensity more than a little disturbing.

"I think you are mistaken about that," Plagueis said.  He took out the hypodermic needle.  The Weequay looked over at it.

"She's gonna find you," he said again.  "And she's gonna kill you."

Plagueis walked up to the man and pressed the hypodermic in his shoulder.  The Weequay man watched dispassionately as he completed the injection.

Plagueis brought up his datapad.  He would try to get some initial data now.  "If you would like to comment on what you are feeling at the moment--"

"She's gonna find you," the man said. "And she's gonna kill you."

"I see," Plagueis said, noting the response. "Fascinating."

 Rizlus Arcturus

"I demand to be released at once!" the man growled on seeing Plagueis.

"I'm afraid that won't be happening," Plagueis said.

"Black Sun will make you pay for this!"

"Unlikely," Plagueis said.  "You really aren't that important to them."  Of course, they would look into it, more on principle than anything else, but they would stop when they found the end of the false trail Plagueis had laid.  The Sith Lord had been quite careful about covering his real tracks.

"You’ll regret this, Mak Plain!"

"I doubt it," Plagueis said, smiling at the fake name.  He took out the hypodermic, and his captive's eyes widened.

"What's wrong with you?!"

"A question I'd like to know the answer to myself," Plagueis said, before injecting the man with the hypodermic.

 Plin Rov

"Hello," Plagueis said cheerfully.  The man rose to a sitting position on the long bench attached to the wall, looking sullen and bruised.  Sidious had not been gentle with him, but then Plagueis had not asked him to be.

"Who are you?" the man asked.

"Just a simple scientist who needed some experimental subjects," Plagueis said.  "Would you like to describe what you do?"

"I kill people painfully for fun," the man said.

"And--your occupation?" Plagueis asked.  "How do you make money?"

The man blinked.  "I kill people for fun.  I take their money when they're dead."

"Noted," Plagueis said.  He typed the information into his datapad.   Plin Rov, postmortem thief, human, age 27, warrant for arrest in Republic space.

"What's going on here?  Am I being executed?  I get a last meal, right?  I mean, the one earlier didn't count--"

"No, Mr. Rov," Plagueis said.  "You are not being executed."

"Life in prison, then?" He looked around.  "I don't remember a trial.  Is this solitary?"

"This is not a prison," Plagueis said.  "This is an illegal research facility."

Plin stared at him.  "Oh," he said.  "That's--unexpected.  What are you researching?"

Plagueis took out a hypodermic, checking the labelling.  "This.  I am hoping to study your psychological responses to being injected with this substance."

"Oh," Plin said.  "Sounds boring. Can I opt-out?"

"No."

"I guess I should have expected that."

 Aritar Vizago

"Ugh," Aritar said.  "What's this about?"  He looked around nervously.  "And where's that crazy freak from earlier?"

"Do you mean the man who captured you?  He is not here."

"Good," Aritar said.  "I'm still getting headaches from being stun-blasted in the face by him.  Hope you're not going to do that to me again."

"No," Plagueis said, taking out the hypodermic needle.  

Aritar's eyes widened.  "What's that?"

"A drug I'm testing," Plagueis said.

"Really?  Anything good?"

"It's not recreational, if that's what you mean," Plagueis answered.

Aritar scowled.  "You're as bad as your crazy freak friend, then."

"Yes, I suppose many would describe me as unpleasant," Plagueis said, injecting the mixture into the Devaronian.

 The Dissector

"Oh, it's you again," the man said, looking up at Plagueis.  "You some sort of Jedi enforcer?"

Plagueis shook his head.  "No.  I am force sensitive, but I am no Jedi, nor do I work for the government."

"So--then are you a vigilante?  Is this where you tell me the error of my ways and execute me messily?"

"Hmmm, no, I would not describe what I'm doing here as vigilantism, though it is doubtless illegal.  You are here as a participant in my research."

"So now you're going to poke and prod me, then,"  The Dissector laughed.  "How ironic."

"This does not disturb you?"

"In an abstract sort of way, I suppose," the man said.  "But it is also rather amusing."

"What is your occupation?"  Plagueis asked.

"My day job?  I'm an accountant.  Boring job, but it pays the bills, and buys my--essential equipment."

"Thank you," Plagueis said, recording the information in his datapad.  Then he took out a hypodermic needle.  

"Ooo, what's that?"

"A drug," Plagueis replied.

"Exciting," the Dissector said, tilting his head at it.  "What's it do?"

"It causes a number of psychological changes," Plagueis said.  "I am studying the effects."  He paused.  "It is not recreational in nature."

"I'll be the judge of that," the Dissector replied. "When do we start?"

"Now," Plagueis said.  He didn't think he'd ever seen a test subject look so enthusiastic.  He almost felt a bit bad about it, to be honest.

Almost.

Plagueis had visited all the rest of the criminals and had given them the injection of the emotional additive.

Now all that was left was his final  subject.  He stood in front of his last captive's cell.

Mak Plain, Muun, 158, mid-level IGBC banker , Plagueis thought.  He eyed the currently unconscious captive.  Yes, this one would be especially useful to him. Not only was Plain a Muun, but he possessed a number of other qualities that Plagueis found particularly relevant for this study.  Plagueis had collected quite a bit of information on him over the years in the service of his eventual planned takeover of the IGBC via San Hill.  

What made him such a good test subject was that Plain's resume was anything but plain. War profiteering in the Yinchorri crisis, extensive lobbying to remove the public safety restrictions on the Trade Federation, and of course, maneuvering his predecessor into an early death to secure himself an office on Coruscant.  He was an ambitious individual who was unafraid to step over the bodies of others in the pursuit of his goals. Metaphorically, of course.

But unlike the Sith Lord's other subjects, Plain had never been on the wrong side of the law, had never even gotten so much as a ticket for a traffic violation. Even the murder of his predecessor had been done in such a way that a prosecutor would never be able to make a case against him in a court of law.  Quite brilliant, really.

Plagueis still would have preferred holding the current IGBC Chairman.  Now he would have been an ideal subject for this experiment, and of course there was nothing more satisfying than addressing a personal grudge.  Unfortunately, Chairman Tonith was a bit too high profile for his purposes.  His disappearance would undoubtedly lead to questions, and a rigorous search by his large and well-heeled family.  

Whereas Plain had no such close relations, and for all his ladder-climbing, a rather low profile that ensured few would notice or remark upon his disappearance.  

He had chosen all his current captives with such considerations in mind, but nowhere was it more important than here, with the victim so close to home.

He woke his unconscious captive with a small trickle of Force lightning. Plain twitched, his eyes fluttering open.

"Magister Damask?" Plain said on seeing him, bewildered.

"Yes, that would be me," Plagueis said.

"What are you doing?!" he growled, futilely attempting to tug his arms out of the energy restraint Plagueis had activated.  "This is exceedingly illegal!  You can't just go kidnapping business rivals!"

Plagueis smiled.  "You should thank me for that, really."

"Thank you?" Plain asked, scowling.  "Why?"

"You see--I kind of--may have--possibly--put you on Black Sun's hit list."

"What?!"  Plain's yellow eyes stared at him in shock.

"Yes, I see you understand the gravity of your situation now.  So think of this as a, hmm, sort of protection program."

Plain narrowed his eyes.  "So you put me on their hit list, and now you're protecting me from them?  I see the motivation for the first act, if not the legality, but not the incentive for the second."

Plagueis laughed.  "Ah, yes!  I should explain.  You see, I run biological experiments as a hobby of mine and I required an additional test subject.  That's you."

Plain's eyes narrowed, and his lower lip curled in disgust.  "You are a sick, sick man."

"I know," Plagueis said.  He pulled out a hypodermic needle, and with a bright smile said,  "Now, let's get started."