1934 Peter Pan in Chains: Finale/Linking Chapter: The Researcher Speaks of Love

Synopsis
A conversation with Mr. Salomé Carpenter, head of Rhythm, a research institute under the direct control of Huey Laforet.

Salomé laments the loss of Rhythm's test subject No. 0038—a homunculus known as Rail—and proceeds to discuss Rail at length. He begins by explaining that he and other scientists cut into Rail's body without anasthetic in order to test homunculi's pain endurance and tinkered with Rail's ganglia, eventually creating within Rail a condition very similar to analgesia. Although Rail experienced physical agony for some time, his sense of pain first began to fade five years ago—during a session in which Salomé and Huey both cut into him—and faded away altogether over time.

With Rail gone, Salomé cannot research his future growth. He would have liked to study a similar case as seen with Huey's old friend Elmer C. Albatross—where physical suffering damaged Rail's sense of pain, physical suffering damaged Elmer's sense of emotions—but Huey has forbidden Salomé and the other scientists to treat Elmer like a guinea pig.

Salomé agrees with the unseen information broker that the experiments conducted on Rail were 'cruel' and 'unforgivable', recalling the guilt and regret in his and his colleagues' hearts as their conducted their research. However, he insists it was because he and his colleagues loved Rail and the other test subjects that they were able to endure the pain of their own sins—a sentiment he has heard the immortal Fermet express about Czeslaw Meyer, the "object of his love" who would go one to devour him.

Returning to the subject of Rail, Salomé claims he would have accepted Rail killing him due to his own love and the fact that he is essentially a divine God to Rail's kind. And God is a being with infinite love for all His creations.

The information broker then asks how Rail was lost, much to Salomé's emotional chagrin, but Salomé agrees to be cooperative. He muses that the main causes were probably a certain couple and their associated delinquent gang, but names several more individuals as being involved in the incident to varying degrees. As the story is Rail's story, he begins from the point where Rail has set off in search of Frank and Frank's kidnappers.