A/N: Give me... a Husband-Wife team.
"Myra? Myra, are you there?"
Myra groaned softly at the faint voice that just barely pushed through her semi-conscious mind, just barely pulling her out of her own dark subconscious. It felt like all five of her senses had gone out the window, only to be violently pulled back in in no particular order. She could barely hear, she could barely feel; she could hardly think, let alone hold a thought for more than just a few fleeting seconds. And given the throbbing pain in her head, the persistent thundering in her skull, she wasn't even going to attempt to open her eyes.
Not for now at least.
There was the sound of something crackling; the muffled sound of a voice getting further and further away, just barely audible to her deaf hearing.
One hand reached out towards the sound, using what little strength she could muster up in order to do so; she was desperate to make sense of the sound, of the voice.
Myra could feel the cold floor underneath her fingertips now as they stumbled in a valiant effort to find the source of noise, to find out just what exactly was saying her name. It felt like it had been so long since she heard someone else saying her name, someone other than herself. Perhaps someone who wasn't yelling it in order to regain their identity, who wasn't yelling it in order to make themselves real again.
There was a small piece of her brain that told her exactly what she was looking for, what she was searching for. And while Myra wasn't sure just how long that thought would last given her crippled mentality at the moment, she kept the word repeating over and over again in her head. She hoped that it would stick around long enough to help her find what it was that she needed to find.
A communicator.
A radio.
"Come on, Myra, I know I heard you... Please, just- just pick up, would you?"
The voice, as far away as it still sounded, was becoming desperate now.
Groaning again, Myra forced her body to roll forward, moving it with her outstretched arm in order to get the most reach out of it from fingertips to shoulder. And fingers continued to stumble around in several failed search attempts as she dragged them along the smooth tile beneath her. Two slow sweeps though and she felt her fingertips finally make contact with something.
"... Where are you?"
Fingers wrapped themselves around the object, the radio, and slowly dragged it back towards her; no doubt filling the receiver with a soundboard of harsh scraping.
It was surprising just how exhausted she was by a simple task. It left her with sharp pain radiating up and down her arm, which was now tucked closer to her; her fingers almost desperately holding onto the radio at this point, as though knowing firsthand just how desperate she was for a crutch.
Taking a deep breath to level the trembling in her lungs, Myra slowly forced her eyes open, hoping to at least get a good look at the radio in hand. Instead, she only felt regret in the motion as a light source of some kind above her flooded her eyes with a hot pain that seared through to the back of her head. A whimpered hiss escaped through partly clenched teeth as she tucked her head away from the light, using her own body to shield herself from the blinding light source.
It felt like there were fingers digging through her eye sockets, scraping at the inside of her skull.
Dragging in a few extra ragged breaths, Myra tried to re-collect herself as fingers fumbled with the bulky radio in hand. She ran her fingers along the sides of it, turning it over once or twice before she found the large crescent button she was looking for; she pressed the pad of her thumb down on it, opening the communication line from her end.
Despite no previous attempts, she found enough of her voice to force herself to speak with it.
"Juli?"
"Myra? Thank God- fuck- are you alright?!"
Her senses were slowly coming back to her, slowly returning and helping to pull her back together.
And the feeling of touch, the reawakening of the receptor nerves in her brain made her realize just how cold the floor was underneath her; it made her realize just how biting it felt against her skin, how it had chilled its way through her clothing with ease.
Myra shivered, feeling the near chattering of her teeth at the sudden loss of body heat. She turned her body just enough to wedge her right arm underneath it and slowly pushed herself up; she felt the trembling in her limbs at the slightest forced use of strength. There was barely much strength left in her to straighten her arm out, to get herself resting on her hip instead.
But it was enough to get her away from the chilling floor, just enough to give herself some comfort.
"How long has it been?" Myra questioned, struggling to form the question in her head first; it felt like she had to force out each word like it was a statement on its own. She could hear the near raggedness of her voice and was almost convinced that it wasn't her own. It sounded so far away, like she was shouting at herself from the far end of a tunnel. "How long since you last heard from me?"
A heavy sigh on the other end of the radio seemed to give her an answer.
Or at least, it prepared her for one.
"Three days."
Three days?
Christ.
"STEM's been without a Core for three days?" Myra whispered, keeping her head low still to block out the light above her. If she could find the source of it, if she could find the light switch, she could save herself from the pain. But she could just barely get to where she was sitting up now, she wasn't confident that she could force herself to go further. Not right now at least. "Previous calculations and predictions have stated that STEM cannot and should not exceed thirty-six hours without a Core."
Her head was throbbing and she couldn't so much as risk opening her eyes.
And yet she could still recall and recount previous test runs for STEM.
Good to know her priorities were still right with Mobius.
"STEM's been without a Core for a week now," Kidman corrected.
It wasn't so much the revelation that STEM had gone on without a Core for so long, that STEM was still somewhat functional despite having nothing to be harnessed to that surprised and shocked her.
It was the fact that she herself had been in here for a week and had no recollection of the time passed.
"What?" Myra questioned in disbelief. "That's not possible. We have fail-safes in place for that kind of fallout- we should anyways. What are the damages? What's the state of Union right now? How much of it have we lost?"
Part of her hated that she was acting out on her Mobius persona, but right now it was the only thing that she could cling to.
The only thing that gave her something to focus on, that gave her subconscious something to hold to.
(As of right now, it was acting like a core for herself.)
"Over eighty-percent of it," Kidman answered.
This wasn't supposed to happen.
An eighty-percent loss would affect over three hundred patients and over three years worth of work.
And now all of it was gone in just a week's time?
As powerful as STEM was, it was a frail beast.
Shifting her weight from her hip to her knees, Myra freed her propped arm just enough to move it out from underneath her. She reached up and gingerly pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand- hoping that the gesture would help ease the tension behind her eyes. It didn't do much but the motion granted her enough of a placebo effect to look past the hollow throbbing.
"Did the rollback system not work?" Myra questioned.
"No. Due to the sudden disconnect of the Core, our back-up files got corrupted," Kidman spoke. "The programmers have been running recovery functions on them but right now the prognosis isn't looking good in our favor. It's predicted that if we try to run them, we'll overload the system, and it'll go into auto-shutdown. We'll lose everything at that point."
Myra forced herself to make the first attempt to get to her feet, only to feel the shakiness in her legs force her to postpone the attempt. She could feel a sense of nausea settling into the pit of her stomach already and didn't bother to question whether it was coming from the headache that was persistently hounding her at the moment.
Swallowing down the hint of bile at the back of her throat, Myra tried once more to get to her feet.
It was a shaky attempt and she felt her balance give out about halfway up.
But she found her support on a nearby wall that she practically stumbled and fell into, hitting it hard with her right shoulder. It stung like hell with the weight of her body coming down on her shoulder, but she used the wall as leverage to get her feet underneath her again. Pushing up, Myra half-dragged her shoulder against the wall until she was upright once more.
The more prominent stinging in her eyes reminded her of how vulnerable they still were to the light.
Prompting her fingers to reach out once more and search along the wall for the necessary light switch.
She got damn lucky and found it close by- and promptly switched it off.
Almost immediately, Myra felt a sense of relief wash over her as the pain in her eyes dulled considerably, giving her some relief from part of her suffered agony.
Allowing her just one moment to forget about it.
"Myra, do you... do you not see the destruction?"
"Juli, I can't guarantee anything of what I've seen in here," Myra replied, as she slowly began dragging herself along the wall, feeling around for her environment. She tested opening her eyes once more and found that the experience wasn't as agonizing the second time around. The lack of light in the room was a relief but it left her eyes struggling to adapt to the darkness now.
She managed to see enough to maneuver herself along the wall, unsure if her body could withstand supporting its own weight at the moment. Running her hand along the wall, she felt it give into a corner, which she blindly followed, and just about ran into a large storage crate that resided around the bend. She could see the white finish, the red Mobius symbol painted on top, but it was the small green light that gave it away.
She didn't care much for what was inside of it though.
The supplies would do her little good in this condition.
Instead, Myra eased herself down onto the crate, taking the weight and pressure off of her legs, giving herself a chance to rest. Keeping her back to the wall, she slowly lifted her legs onto the crate with her and pulled them to her chest, giving herself a moment to recollect.
"I don't even know what's going on with me... I can't even think straight right now," Myra whispered, hearing the exhaustion in her voice now.
"Are you alright? Where are you right now?"
She hadn't even bothered to question that herself, not even when she recognized the Mobius standard supply crate underneath her. Up until now, Myra hadn't questioned anything at all- which was unlike her.
Blinking a few times to ease the tension behind her eyes, Myra looked around the dark room to get an idea of where she was. And she didn't have to look far to know that she was in the Marrow. The room itself didn't matter so much to her, they all felt the same after all. These Mobius supply rooms were as basic as they could be, providing little furniture and little comfort; they were never intended to be anything other than what they were designed for.
They were meant for work, for a constant cycle of going in and out and coming back in again.
Still, Myra tried to look for what sector she was in, which exit she was closest to, but the room itself gave no distinguishing marks. And right now she was in no condition to go looking for one.
What she did see was how much of a mess the room had been made out to be, certainly nothing that was up to code.
Everything was thrown around, kicked and scattered about, as though someone had been desperately looking for something.
Maybe a report or a keycard- maybe even a weapon.
Maybe a way out.
...
And like someone flipping on a switch, Myra felt a rush of memories come at her.
A rush of things she didn't want to see, that she didn't want to remember.
She had seen Union, she had experienced it during its gradual collapse after the thirty-six hour mark.
She had seen the faces of Union; the faces of the newly branded Lost, twisted in agony, in confusion.
She had seen their mutilated forms, their inevitable decay into animalistic hierarchies.
She felt the weight of their terror, the weight of their agony on her shoulders.
She had seen their heads filled with white tendrils, erratic and whipping at the slightest hint of damage, at the slightest hint of danger.
And Myra thought of the white substance that manifested itself over her own skin, eating at her body, at her mind the same way it was doing to them. And it was from that possessed state of mind that she woke up here in agony, in confusion over what was going on. Maybe it was her own exhaustion that had short-circuited the memory, or maybe it was her mind reflexively trying to save itself by cutting out the bad memories.
Even down here, tucked away in the halls of the Marrow, Myra could could hear, damn near feel the wreckage of Union above and all around her now. She could feel the pressure, the tension that was altering the once-stable atmosphere. Once programmed to maintain the perfect weather patterns, the perfect environment, STEM was now eating Union alive- devouring the unsuspecting and defenseless civilians inside of it.
None of them had a chance of surviving in here.
Not now, not like this.
"Oh God," Myra whispered, feeling the throbbing in her head worsen at the sharp recall.
She felt her Mobius persona dissolve away, leaving her exposed.
Leaving her as the person she tried so hard to hide, so hard to forget at times.
"Myra, what is it?" Kidman pressed, and her tone seemed to imply mild panic.
The air had been so damn quiet between them, Myra had almost forgotten about the other woman.
"The Marrow's gone, Juli," Myra started, "and I think it's because of me. No, I know it is. I- I don't know what's going on with me, but I'm turning into one of those creatures. I can't control it, I don't know what's going on with it, but... I must've came down here at some point when I was that thing."
Kidman would have no idea what she was talking about.
Mobius was in the dark in regards to STEM, in regards to Union.
All they saw was data collapsing and deleting itself.
They weren't seeing the creatures that were actually manifesting in here.
They weren't seeing their once peaceful townsfolk now cannibalistic and angry.
Mobius would've sent in recovery teams before this stage but unless a direct line of communication was established and maintained, there was no way any information was getting out. And Myra could recall seeing bodies, Mobius personnel, bloodied and mutilated; their hands left either outstretched or clinging to their radios, desperate for just one last emergency call.
Despite Mobius' best attempts at damage control, their agents never stood a chance.
She never should've come down here.
But Myra couldn't control her actions when STEM took her hostage the same way it did the Lost.
But STEM twisted her in a different way from the Lost- manipulating her into some other kind of creature.
A monster who called itself the Matriarch.
It dug into her memories, into her subconscious, revealing information that it needed, that it wanted.
And it used her to spread its infection into the bloodstream of Union, poisoning the Marrow.
It was her presence here that had begun to spread panic. It was her presence, her manipulation that took over the security team, the programmers, the science units that Mobius had assigned down here. They controlled Union from the inside; they helped Union grow, they watched it develop into the Utopia it could be.
The Utopia it should've been.
The Mobius personnel were the only ones in STEM who should've been able to resist the calling of the Lost.
But she had taken them by force and had bled them of their identities until they were withered and empty just the same.
She turned the lights off on Mobius.
And she left them in the dark.
"... Union's gone and there's no recovering it," Myra whispered, feeling the surge of memories coming back to her now. A week lost in Union was slowly uprooting itself from where she thought she had forgotten it. It was slowly backtracking, slowly pulling her along, making her remember each and every encounter she had had so far in STEM. But as the memories rolled by, she felt the guilt that once riddled her quickly turn into anger. "And we have Theodore to blame."
She never should have trusted the man but Theodore seemed to believe in what she was saying; he agreed that Mobius' use of her daughter was vile and wrong.
And yet she just played herself right into his trap.
Theodore was hired because he was smooth and charismatic; his words could speak to the soul, they could sway a crowd. He could convince perfect strangers of anything. It was through his published messages and sermons that Mobius had obtained so many willing volunteers for Union to begin with. Theodore pulled in more volunteers than the obviously baited sleep study trap did.
He had been playing her right from the start.
And now they were all suffering for it.
But Myra bet that Theodore was thriving here.
His ego was allowing him to remain conscious, to remain above STEM's influence.
It was making him feel like a God while she was sinking further and further into despair.
"Have you had any luck in finding Lily?" Kidman asked; her tone was careful and soft, as though knowing it was a delicate question to ask.
And Myra felt the hollow pain in her chest ache at it. "No," she answered, "I-I've seen her but she always runs from me. I don't think I'm the person she thinks I am, or I don't look the same to her, I don't know. I'm something different in here and she knows it. Just like the rest of Union, I'm the same as them."
"If you were the same as them, we wouldn't be talking," Kidman reminded. "You're fighting it-"
"Barely," Myra interrupted. "... I imagine this is what Beacon was like for you."
"It's hard to draw comparisons," Kidman replied- and the strained tone in her voice implied enough about the subject.
And Myra knew she had said too much.
"I'm sorry."
"It's fine, Myra, what's important right now is that you're still alive," Kidman reminded, quick to brush the subject off. "Alright, so... let's try to get things back on track here. Where are we standing with the plan right now?"
It was a rough question.
"I don't know," Myra started, before she pinched the bridge of her nose once more, desperate to keep herself functional at this point. "Alright, uh... alright, so STEM's been without a Core for a week now and everyone in here has been changed into some kind of monster because of it. Lily is nowhere to be found, but asides from the obvious, STEM hasn't been changed yet- which means that Theodore doesn't have her either. It means that she's smart enough to evade capture, which is good."
Christ, she was talking about her own daughter like Lily was some kind of escaped experiment.
"But... Lily runs from me too. STEM's not affecting her due to her ego, which means that it's me who STEM's changing; I'm directly being affected by STEM and because of that Lily doesn't recognize me as her mother."
"Do you know what STEM might be using against you?" Kidman questioned. "Studies from Beacon showed that the patients there were being warped and controlled by their own sense of despair under pressure."
Without a Core, STEM could warp a person based on that person's own mental strength, based on emotional and psychological issues; based on their own ego even.
The first test at Beacon laid out how one's own sense of despair could turn a patient into a twisted version of themselves. And considering how most of the patients at Beacon had been mentally ill, the STEM versions of themselves mimicked and mocked their illnesses; their torture. STEM warped them with their own weaknesses, forcing them to exist forever as the Haunted.
And now the failing project of Union had twisted Mobius' own test subjects into the Lost, confusing and manipulating them by merging two different forms of their own identity; their real identity outside of STEM and the one that Mobius had created for them.
Each title accurately portrayed how the victims fell into STEM's hierarchy.
Of course there were variables to take into account.
STEM's Core before and during the Beacon incident had been Ruvik Victoriano, a mentally-ill man forced worse by his upbringing and his own experimentations. He had been forced into being the Core by Dr. Marcelo Jimenez, as well as by Mobius. But Ruvik had created STEM; he knew how to manipulate it into doing his own bidding. Ruvik had stripped control from the outside and held it in his possession on the inside.
The one downfall to STEM's work.
One should never put a master in the place of their own creation.
But here, within Union, STEM was functioning without a Core, without someone influencing its design.
It was functioning on its own and attempting to correct what it saw as wrong- only to make things worse in the end.
It was stripping people of their identities and warping them to how it saw fit.
And she was no different.
"You're smart, Myra, I know you've got an answer, or at least a theory to this," Kidman continued.
"STEM attacks on a subconscious level, taking advantage of traits sometimes unknown to the victim at the time," Myra started, leaning back against the wall behind her to take the weight off of her shoulders. "I entered STEM with the sole purpose of getting Lily out. And now after Theodore betrayed me, I'm even more focused on getting to her before anyone else can. I can't describe exactly the kind of plight I'm going through right now and I think only someone who's a parent, someone who's a mother can understand it."
Myra had no intentions of making that sound like an undercut comment.
She was going through her thoughts, speaking from her mind; sometimes she didn't have a filter when she did that.
But it was still an important thought to make.
"I think it's obvious that STEM is using my own maternal instincts against me in here. I came into STEM with the sole idea of getting Lily out of it, but... whenever I'm that thing, all I can think of is how safe STEM is instead. How I can protect Lily better in here than I can outside of it. How Mobius can't touch her while she's in STEM, and they can't touch her outside of it lest they lose the whole operation."
It was hard to believe that her own want, her own need for getting Lily out was what was endangering the both of them.
It was her own maternal instincts that were being twisted against her, rotting her into the white-skinned monster that called itself the Matriarch and acted nothing like a mother.
Not like the mother she once was- that she still was.
"I gave up everything for her. I left behind everyone I loved so that I could keep an eye on her, so that I could at least know where she was, so I could at least control that she was safe. So she wouldn't be alone while Mobius kept her locked up in here."
Myra could feel the pain in her head coming back, throbbing harder now as STEM slowly began to sink back into the nerves and passageways of her brain.
"I just wanted her to know that her mother was still with her, that she still loved her- but now she's gone. Lily's gone and there are monsters in here who want her for her seat of power. And if they get to her before I do, they will kill her."
Myra swore she could almost feel the cold wax texture beginning to grow over her skin.
She swore she could feel the Matriarch scratching at her chest, desperate to come alive again.
"I have to protect her. For once in my life, I can't fail this."
The other side of the communicator went silent.
And it remained silent for what felt like several long minutes.
It was just long enough for Myra to fear that Kidman had either been caught or that the woman was having to stay quiet and keep her head down to hide her position. It reminded her that Kidman still had to worry about Mobius, that she still had to worry about the Administrator. Hell it was a miracle that they were speaking right now; it meant that Kidman had been able to sneak way, that she was by herself at the moment- a rare feat under the watchful eye of the Administrator.
It reminded Myra of how difficult it was for Kidman to get away from the suited man, especially in regards to her project work with STEM. Kidman was the only Mobius agent to survive STEM during the attempted cleansing of its unstable launch at Beacon. And the Administrator never let her forget that.
It was like Kidman had been put on a pedestal, just not the kind that anyone would ever want to be on.
The silence planted a seed of fear inside of Myra's chest.
She didn't think she could handle it if Kidman had to back out now, if the woman had to suddenly cut the cord and leave.
This was the first time in three days that she had been coherent enough to call Kidman.
The first time in three days that she had been stable enough in her own mind to remain in this form.
Myra didn't want to be alone in it.
"I know you want to protect Lily," Kidman finally spoke, a little quieter now on her end, "but you can't do that if you're the same monster as everyone else."
Right.
If Myra kept this thought process up, if she allowed for herself to be tricked into thinking that STEM would keep Lily safe, then all of this would be for nothing.
She still had a job to do.
And she would be damned if she let it fall apart now.
"You have to find a way to control this."
She had to, that much Myra knew for certain.
But just because she knew that she had to didn't meant that she knew how to.
"How?" Myra questioned, sliding further down the wall now. Her body felt heavy and it felt like she barely had the strength to keep it supported on its own. She could feel the throbbing in her joints, the hollow ache of tendons pulled too tight, of muscles held clenched for too long. "I've been trying to fight this thing but this is the first time in days that I've been able to maintain this body."
"You need to focus on something other than Lily-"
"She's the only reason I'm in here," Myra reminded, a little sharper than she intended to. "Who else am I supposed to focus on? When I think about Lily, I turn into that monster. When I think about Theodore, I turn into that thing. When I think about myself, when I think about Mobius- it's all the same!"
There was more silence on the other end.
A subtle crackling from the thin frequency between them.
And once more, Myra feared that Kidman had disappeared on her- that she had even ran the woman off with her outburst.
"What about Sebastian?" Kidman offered.
And Myra flinched at the name.
Flinched at how it seemed to come from nowhere.
"I don't... I don't want to think about him," Myra objected; she could hear the pulled strain in her voice at the outright lie. She didn't want to think about him- as if Sebastian wasn't the only continuous thought that had been going through her head for three years now. Lily was the spitting image of him with her dark hair and tan complexion; she even shared some of Sebastian's mannerisms, both inside and outside of STEM.
Lily absolutely adored her father and it had destroyed her when she was lied to about his passing.
Myra had been the one to conjure the lie, knowing that it would be better for Lily that way.
Knowing that it would be it easier that way for Lily to understand why her father wasn't around anymore, and why she couldn't see him again.
But every time she looked at Lily, Myra saw Sebastian.
And it ached like an unforgiving force in her chest.
Myra's safe house inside of STEM was the same house that they had lost to the first three years ago.
It was still untouched; it was still beautiful from the outside and still decorated with family pictures on the inside. Whenever Myra walked the halls, she could hear past memories they had all shared as a family still living there; she could see ghost images of them moving through the house. Sometimes she could still feel Lily's presence in there, like Lily was going to be just around the corner- and if Myra was quick enough, she could catch her.
But... she could never feel Sebastian there.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't find him.
Myra figured that it was her own guilt that kept her from pulling him. Whenever she tried, whenever the thought of Sebastian so much as crossed her mind, all she could think about was the night she left him. She kept replaying the night over and over again like some kind of sick twisted game, going through the same motions, ending up with the same result no matter how hard she tried to change things.
It was all futile.
Sometimes she could still see herself there, writing that letter, knowing full and well that Sebastian would never see her again once she sent it.
Knowing full and well that she had willingly left him when he needed her the most.
That was why Myra was doing this, that was why she was in STEM to begin with- not just for Lily, but to make things up to Sebastian as well.
"What if you could see him again, Myra?"
"You know I can't," Myra reminded, refusing to acknowledge the burning sting in her eyes now. "You know this is an one-way ticket, Juli; we both know this. It wasn't supposed to take this long but... it's going to get done. I will finish this and when it's over, we won't have to worry about it anymore. You'll be free, Lily will be free. She'll be happy and so will Sebastian. I have to do this."
"Not in the state you're in," Kidman spoke. "Myra, please, I'm serious, do you think Sebastian-"
"What good would it be to pretend?" Myra whispered, cutting the woman off once more. She didn't want to talk about this. Not here, not while she was already vulnerable enough to STEM's influence. "I've spent three years agonizing over him-"
"But he would take focus away from Lily, away from Theodore, wouldn't he?"
"Juli-" Myra started, only to stop herself as she felt she had caught on to the woman's persistence. And the idea of what Kidman was or wasn't proposing sank lead weights into her stomach. "Juli, we both know how this plan was going to go. I know this is frustrating and it's not what we anticipated but... You are not under any given condition to bring Sebastian into this. He is never to enter STEM again."
Myra felt her voice strain once more, almost threatening to crack this time as she felt the first hot tear escape between squeezed eyelids.
"He has suffered enough."
There was more silence.
And it left Myra alone to her thoughts, to her unbridled emotions that were beginning to trickle down the curve of her cheeks. She tried to ignore them at first but gave in and hastily wiped them off with the back of her hand. There was a tight pain from the back of her throat down to the base of her neck as she clenched her jaw to keep her lips from shaking.
She couldn't risk breaking down right now.
It would only do more harm than good for her.
"As of two hours ago, Sebastian was admitted into STEM."
Myra stilled at the words, a heavy breath suddenly caught dead in her throat.
The radio now felt like a weight in her hand as she slowly lowered it away from her. It felt like her mind was struggling to process the words, struggling to process what they meant, what effect they now had. She struggled to process how things were far different from how she had anticipated them.
Her worst-case scenario had never factored Sebastian becoming a part of this.
Worst-case scenario had always been that she failed, that Mobius found out about her plan. That she, Kidman, Theodore, and Torres would be executed. That Lily would continue to be used as STEM's core, forever living her life as an illusion inside of Union. At least until she outgrew her role as Core and was no longer an useful asset to Mobius.
Worst-case scenario never prepared her for Theodore's betrayal, for Union's collapse, for STEM's struggle without a Core.
It never prepared her for the possibility of Sebastian joining her in here.
Pulling the radio back up, Myra struggled with what to say, with what to ask. It didn't feel like her throat could even handle speaking with how tight it was, with how it seemed to hold her hostage. She went through several failed attempts before she settled on the simplest one.
"Why?"
A long sigh came from the other end of the radio and it was a gesture that Myra had heard far too many times when working on the force. That hesitant silence followed up by that last bit of forced courage. It brought back memories of news announcements, of coming face-to-face with families to let them know that yes, the body pulled out of the river two days ago was their seventeen-year old son. And yes, there was foul play involved. And no, they didn't have any leads at this current time.
It was the hardest part of the job at times.
"STEM's been offline for a week and we've been in the dark this entire time... The Administrator pushed for it," Kidman answered; her words were somewhat quiet and rushed as she spoke. "Union's on the brink of collapse; we've already lost ninety-five percent of the population and eighty-percent of the world itself. We've lost contact with all of our security teams; Baker's been confirmed dead and the reports are not looking good for the rest of his team. The Administrator wasn't going to risk any more causalities from our numbers. Not to mention, Sebastian has experience from Beacon and-"
"And he's expendable," Myra finished.
She knew exactly how Mobius thought, how Mobius perceived outsiders.
That was why they tested at Beacon.
Not just because of the STEM prototype already available to them, but because no one cared for the patients there; no one would notice them dead or missing. They were considered sub-human to Mobius.
"With Lily running loose as the Core, and with us unable to secure her protection, Sebastian had the perfect motive to be manipulated by," Kidman continued, unearthing plans that Myra should've known Mobius would have in the works. "He didn't come willingly and he didn't go into STEM willingly either- not without the proverbial gun to his head."
Everything was getting harder to swallow now.
So now not only was Theodore responsible for Lily's endangerment, he was also responsible for Sebastian's.
"If they're looking for STEM experience then why didn't they choose Joseph?" Myra pressed.
And almost immediately, she knew that she shouldn't have asked it.
Her anger over Sebastian being pulled into this was blinding her.
"Because Joseph isn't compatible with STEM," Kidman reminded; her voice was tight as though it was coming from between clenched teeth. "He showed poor connection at Beacon and... even with Union, he couldn't properly connect; he exhibited the same symptoms from Beacon even when given a separate identity. Hoffman already deemed him a liability should he enter STEM again."
Of course.
Myra had read over Joseph's report as well as Kidman's statements on him as well.
Her firsthand experiences were... disturbing to say the least.
Myra had worked with Joseph for years alongside Sebastian; she always knew the man to be calm, collective, maybe even a bit dissociative in some regards. He was very work-orientated and detail-focused; there were very few things that could escape him. Enough so that when Myra was training Kidman to infiltrate the KCPD, she warned the woman to take extra precaution around Joseph.
Even so much as a single slip of the tongue could give him something to work off of.
But the reports that Kidman turned in following Beacon detailed a man Myra didn't recognize.
And even now, three years later, Joseph was still unrecognizable.
It was worth questioning just why the Administrator kept Joseph around even after the man had been labeled a liability, a threat to Union's stability even. Why keep him around when he couldn't even be indoctrinated into Mobius' own ranks.
But Myra knew why.
Joseph was easy leverage against Kidman.
Hoffman's reports on Kidman following Beacon showed surprising detail of regret and guilt in the woman's psyche, all of which was rooted back to Joseph. And the few times Myra and Kidman had the time and privacy for their own talks, Kidman often talked about the nightmare of killing Joseph inside of STEM. She was well aware that it was all fake now, but in the moment it felt real, and she still had nightmares of seeing him dying over and over again.
And given his imprisonment with Mobius now, death would seem like mercy.
Joseph was leverage against Myra as well.
The Administrator had no reason to question their loyalty, not at that time anyways, but he was always prepared for anything and everything. He was always prepared should something decide to happen. And his constant reminders about Joseph's imprisonment here only pushed on the fact that as long as she and Kidman stayed in line, Joseph would remain unharmed- or at least, he would remain alive.
"Sebastian can help you, Myra," Kidman spoke, calm once more. "He survived STEM's influence before and he even helped Joseph fight through it too."
Myra felt the weight of exhaustion heavy throughout her body now.
She was physically drained and her emotional welfare was plummeting fast.
"I read your reports on Beacon, you said that he turned Haunted once," Myra spoke, rubbing at her cheeks once more, trying to hide the evidence of her draining physique. Every inch of her ached inside and out. And it wasn't going to get better from here; it would only get worse. "What makes you think he can resist Union?"
"Because the only time Sebastian had gone Haunted was due to Ruvik's direct influence on him," Kidman reminded. "Ruvik couldn't touch me inside of STEM, so he used Sebastian as a puppet- but it was the only time he had ever show affliction. Despite everything he was battling before Beacon, Sebastian exhibited strong mental and psychological traits when inside of STEM. I had an added boost helping me, but Sebastian had nothing; so in the end, STEM simply couldn't overpower him."
Myra sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose once more. "... That must be where Lily got it from."
"I'm sorry, Myra. I did what I could to avoid this."
She closed her eyes and pulled her knees closer to her chest. "I know you did, Juli," Myra whispered, knowing well she needed to recollect herself before STEM could take advantage of the situation she had found herself in. "Have you... have you spoken with him? Does he even know I'm in here?"
"He only knows about Lily," Kidman assured. "As for speaking with him, yeah, I'm trying to help guide him through Union right now. He didn't start off where he should've and we're still trying to figure out just what the black spot between here and Union is, but... he's in there with you."
Myra could only imagine what was going through Kidman's mind right now.
She was currently on the outside of STEM trying to control what little communications remained on the inside. Kidman was trying to guide Sebastian through the mess of Union that Myra herself had help to create. On top of that, Kidman was trying to keep her on task, trying to keep her from succumbing to STEM like everyone else in Union- all while the Administrator was looking over her shoulder. And there was no doubt that the man was reminding her time and time again how everything was resting on her.
If Kidman couldn't get Sebastian to save Union, to salvage STEM, to reconnect the Core, then there would be consequences to pay.
Kidman had four lives hanging in the balance here.
Herself, Sebastian, Lily, and Joseph.
One out-of-power motion and the whole thing could come crumbling down.
One out-of-power motion and everyone that Kidman knew was going to be dead.
Maybe even herself included.
"We both know it wasn't suppose to come down to this and if it was up to us, it wouldn't have. But we don't have that kind of control right now- and right now, I can't risk losing you," Kidman started. "You're the only card we have in play; you're the only person who can pull this off. We've got Torres in there, but she's only there for support; she doesn't know STEM like you do. So please, Myra, just... forget about the plan, okay? Forget about everything right now and focus on yourself. Focus on finding Sebastian first. He's our key to finishing what we started here."
Sebastian had survived the Beacon incident.
He had survived STEM three years before, back when it was worse off than this.
Maybe... maybe he could help her.
"What do I do? What do I even tell him? And what if- what if I'm that thing when I find him?" Myra questioned.
"He'll know what to do," Kidman assured once more; and the woman sounded oddly confident despite knowing nothing about what was going on inside of here. She had experience with the Haunted, not the Lost. She had experience with Beacon, not Union. "You work on finding Sebastian and you let me handle the rest, okay? And just go with whatever I say, alright? You can trust me. Sebastian doesn't... he doesn't have to know everything. Not right now at least."
It wouldn't be right to leave in him the dark like that, to continue leaving him without answers.
And while Union certainly wouldn't be the place for it, he deserved to know what had happened to her.
He deserved to know what she did to him.
"And what if he just shoots me on sight?" Myra asked, and even she was surprised at how bitter the words sounded.
Sebastian would have every right to be angry with her.
He would have every right to refuse her, to let her succumb to STEM's influences.
It would be what she deserved.
But... that wasn't the kind of man Sebastian was.
And despite everything between them, Myra knew he would never even think, let alone risk harming her.
Monster or not.
"He won't," Kidman started, another blind assurance. "... He still wears his wedding ring, you know? Just like you still do."
Myra used the radio in hand to conceal the solid band on her left finger; she had to resist the urge to touch it, to twist it around like she used to do when she was in thought. She had contemplated taking it off numerous times before and had gotten close to doing so a few but... she never could go through with it. She could barely even touch it some days.
This ring was the only connection she had to Sebastian during her initial months with Mobius- at least until after the Beacon incident.
She had his coat hanging in her office; the one she and Lily had gotten for him.
The Mobius agents who had initially dragged him into the basement of Beacon had removed it before they hooked him up to STEM. And Myra had been quick to claim the familiar coat just before they evacuated the building.
It was against protocol but... she needed something else to remember him by.
Fingers slowly moved to touch at the gold band, feeling the smoothness of it under her fingertips.
Myra could still remember picking the ring out; she could still hear herself insisting on a flat band rather than the traditional gem ring.
The two of them worked with law enforcement; they were always going out on cases, always going out to crime scenes. She didn't want to worry about the ring getting stuck on something or getting knocked loose while handling evidence. She wanted something simple, something low-maintenance- something that would allow her to keep her hands free without erasing the symbolism completely.
So she and Sebastian settled on getting matching rings.
Just plain, solid gold bands.
They were simple but it got the representation across- although not without sometimes missing on the first try.
It only told her that Sebastian never forgot about her.
That he never stopped looking for her.
"It's been three years," Myra whispered, "we would have a lot to talk about."
"A lot of time to make up for," Kidman agreed. "It might be enough to keep you from thinking about Lily. And it would be a good start for Sebastian to help you get you back on your feet again. And when things are back in the clear, you two can put an end to this."
Wishful thinking.
Not exactly Kidman's strongest feature but... someone had to be the optimistic one here.
Someone had to keep trying, to keep pushing.
Taking a deep breath, trying to force herself to unclench and unwind, Myra pushed herself up and slowly worked her way off of the supply crate. She bit through the nauseating headache that threatened to take her over again, that threatened to squeeze all of the contents out of her stomach. "Alright," she started, as she settled her weight back on her feet, testing her strength first before she took the first step. She needed to find an exit out of here, she needed to figure out which arm of the Marrow that she was in. "I'm going back to Union then. I... I'm going to find Sebastian."
"He should be easy to find," Kidman remarked, before the sound of background noise seemed to draw the woman's attention. "Shit, I have to go now, alright? Just please, Myra, please stay safe."
"Don't worry about me," Myra replied, "just worry about covering your own ass, alright?"
"I don't know when I'll be able to get back into contact with you-"
"We've already said our goodbyes, Juli," Myra reminded.
"... I know."
A/N: Okay so this is part 1 of 2 for this AU setting I want to do.
And it's basically just TEW2 BUT with Sebastian and Myra operating as a husband-wife team. That is it.
From here, I'm just going to do sporadic AU stories that will reference back to this story. I haven't decided if I'm just going to compile everything into one story collection or post all of them separately as their own stories. Big decisions to make, but I at least wanted to get the origin idea out there.
Been playing the game and trying to do more wiki research, so not everything is 100% accurate.