Happenings and Unhappenings
A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen. – Edward de Bono. .:Beryl-centric:. For thezombiemarch.
Warning: Nothing belongs to me (including the swanky quote), slight AU, heavy incorporation of head canon and tense/person changes, as well as possible reader frustration at the fact that the character constantly gets her memory wiped.
Seven, Before Memory Wipe
In the cell located below ground she sits with her arms wrapped around herself and she shivers, rocking back and forth because she's scared and cold and doesn't know what to do.
Is this her punishment? Mommy used to put her in the basement when she did bad things, but mommy always let her out of the place filled with scary spiders. She feels that she has been in here for far too long.
There are no spiders here, but she is scared. There are other cells and they, too, are filled with children, two each, and they are scared too.
How much time passes? There are no clocks here and even if there were she would not know because she cannot yet read what the needles pointing at circling numbers painted on faces tell her.
The robots that brought her here, the robots that are twice her height bring another kid. He is around her age, and has black hair and blue eyes. He struggled and is hurt all over but his eyes are still angry.
He is not angry at her. "What's your name?" he asks after he tries and fails to break the bars of their cell.
She tells him and he tells her his name.
When she shivers he wraps his arms around her and it's warmer after that.
Twelve, After Memory Wipe I
She was in a cell. That was certain. There was a boy in her cell. That was also certain. The boy had black hair, blue eyes and an expression that told her he was just as confused as she was.
There was nothing else she was certain about.
"Where are we?" he asked her with a desperation to know, to find out just what was happening.
All she could do was shrug and shiver. She didn't even know herself. It was wrong, so so wrong, for her to know about things like their prison being called a cell or the fact that she knew with unsupported certainty that this whole thing was underground yet not even know what her name was.
"Who are you?" he asked her then.
She tried to not cry. "I don't know," she replied instead and heard her voice, thick with unshed tears. "Who are you?"
He didn't know either.
Everything was oh-so-hideously wrong.
Outside, some of the cells were empty.
Sixteen, After Memory Wipe III
When I come to my senses I find myself strapped onto a flat surface – a bed? – and there are robots pushing me down a hall. It's hard to turn my head, so my vision is restricted and I only see the sterile lights on the ceiling.
Who am I?
I feel myself go below, far below. It is a sinking feeling in my gut and it is instinct speaking, telling me that I am no longer on the same floor as before.
It's disturbing how I know things like this, but not who I am or where I am. Those are more important, right? They certainly feel more important in my mind . . . and yet I cannot bring myself to remember.
Is it important? If it was important, I would have known about myself, yes?
The robots arrive at a destination somewhere. It is a large manmade cavern with a multitude of cells. Some have occupants, some do not. They remove the restraints that strap me down and uncertainly, I obey their silent tugs and enter one of the empty cells. There is a needle stuck in my left arm.
Who am I?
Later, they bring in some more people and fill a few more cells – not all of them, though, and there is a sinking feeling in my stomach again. This time, though, it has nothing to do with the change in my location.
One of the people they bring is a boy, around my age – but certainly taller – with black hair and blue eyes.
"Who are you?" I ask him because I wonder if identity is important. Is it? Is it not?
He shrugs. He does not know. And we are both uncertain.
We spend the rest of the night holding hands, trying to comfort each other by being real and there. We do not know each other, but that does not matter when we are virtual strangers to ourselves.
Twenty-Three, After Memory Wipe VII
Beryl is placed in a cell in the sublevel sectors of her creator's laboratory. The robots escort her there to make sure that everything goes as it must. She looks down upon their domed heads and recognizes her creator's work.
In the cell there is her partner. He is a generoid with black hair and blue eyes and unlike her white-based armour he is covered in black.
Her recognition software runs his information through the system and identifies him as the generoid named Xenon.
They wait in the cell silently. When the doors to the arena open they obediently walk out and receive their weapons – a scythe for her and an energy sword for him. Her internal system synchronizes with the network and provides her with the details of the challenge that she must complete. The objective of this challenge is to be the last generoid pair standing. She and Xenon must take down all the other pairs without suffering heavy injuries. If one partner is to fall, the pair will be disqualified immediately.
A small explosion of multicoloured lights go off over their heads and that is their signal to start.
Gold and Silver both fall with their synchronized strikes. Neon and Bismuth are foolish and turn on each other. Argon and Lithium distract each other and are swiftly disposed of. Chromium and Mercury are destroyed by Xenon all too easily.
Radon and Krypton put up a fight and for a few moments Beryl's systems give a high percentage drawn from current situations and estimate of outcomes of her and Xenon losing to them.
Then Xenon unexpectedly swipes at their legs and while they are distracted she disables Krypton easily with one, two, three swings of her scythe –
And Radon turns to analyze the situation regarding his partner –
But Xenon takes that opportunity and five milliseconds later Radon is split in two with a powerful cut from his sword.
Beryl and Xenon are the last ones standing, surrounded by pieces and shreds of all the other generoids.
They are the last generoid pair left standing.
Beryl and Xenon are taken to be repaired. Once every system is healed, they return to their cell in the sublevel sector of their creator's laboratory. The temperature is registered as 'cold' by her inner thermometer, but that does not bother her.
They wait in silence for whatever happens next.
? ? ?, Awakening
When Beryl wakes up her system is stored with everything and nothing at the same time. All the information is available for her to access, but primarily there is one order at the very beginning.
OBEY YOUR FATHER.
Her father is the human. He is the one who created her and gave her purpose in life. Her internal system tells her to obey him.
And so she does.
? ? ?, Betrayal
The other generoid, the one her systems identified as Xenon after he was activated and tested, betrayed her father. Her father gave her an order to stop him but before she could fulfil it he fled.
Her father is angry. Anger is, according to her systems, an emotion humans feel when their plans go wrong. Her father had been so happy when Xenon was made functional. Then Xenon betrayed him. Mathematically, his reactions make sense.
Xenon's actions do not make sense. There is no cause, other than the encounter with the Resistance members, and she has no direct evidence to believe that the encounter was the reason for his betrayal. Beryl does not understand why Xenon left for the sake of 'memories' and made her – their –father angry.
? ? ?
There are intruders in the underground sector of the laboratory.
Beryl destroys them without a second thought and dispatches a summon for the clean-up bots through the network. But then she sees a cell and she pauses. Her system only recognizes it as a part of the sublevel sector and yet there is more to it, something to do with the empty cell and the cool temperature of the cavern.
Her system runs every factor of the sublevel cavern through and analyzes it before coming up with no results. No. There cannot be more to it. It is a part of the sublevel sector of her father's laboratory. To believe in anything else is to not be a generoid, it is to be human. She is not human.
The clean-up bots arrive. Beryl leaves and the doors to the sublevel sector slide shut automatically behind her as the sensors register her presence exiting the man-made cavern.
The feeling does not leave her. She runs it through her system again, searching for an answer to it all. This time, there is an answer, although it does not make sense.
The gnawing, aching feeling within her is identified by her computers as 'sorrow'. According to the information in the master chip, generoids should not feel any emotion other than blind loyalty to their creator. If they feel anything else without cause that makes sense mathematically or scientifically, they must undergo a full system checkup for possible bugs or viruses.
Beryl concludes that it is time for a system checkup.
Author's Justification for HC: Actually, this is only one of many head canons I have for Beryl and Xenon. I mean, come on. Androids. A million possibilities. For example . . . say Beryl was actually Gelimer's biological daughter (although I can't help but wonder who would marry him).
My head canon of Gelimer is that he's a perfectionist (as well as a narcissistic psychopath/sociopath) and because of that, he's not going to just decree a random kid he picked off the streets as his perfect masterpiece like he did in the intro. I think he picked several and then chose the best by process of elimination. Of course, some of them died during the 'testing' and 'robotizing' process, hence the empty cells. He also wouldn't have called the kids by their real names, in fear of brining back memories and resistance. So he named them using the elements as inspiration.
Apparently Xenon went through a lot of memory wipes. If Beryl was once human (and there are a few hints) then she must have gone through the same thing. (so when are you going to go and rescue Beryl, Xenon?)
Anyways, hope you liked it, thezombiemarch.