"There is not one among us in whom a devil does not dwell;
at some time, on some point, that devil masters each of us...
It is not having been in the Dark House, but having left it, that counts."
― Theodore Roosevelt
Jenny looked up from the reports that Lester wanted her to look over before they were entered in official record at the sound of someone knocking on her office door. Not many people bothered to knock, not in the ARC. Tyleihian flitted over to the window and said, "It's Mumvuri and Alexander."
That explained it then. Alexander, as they had named the clone of Nick Cutter, was almost painfully shy and exceedingly polite, a stark contrast from the actual professor, who was known for just barging in whenever he felt like. Sometimes, though, Jenny wondered if perhaps he was that way because he was afraid of being punished. What had been done to him in his time with Helen was still largely a mystery, but from what little she knew about it, it wasn't exactly a pleasant picture. "Come in," she called.
As he stepped into her office, Ty made an indignant sound, a rush of anger prickling in Jenny's mind, and she glanced up in surprise, only to gasp softly. There was a raw, bloody scrape on his cheekbone, a cut above his eyebrow, and a split lip that dribbled blood down his chin, leaving small crimson spatters on his shirt. His dæmon, Mumvuri, was on his shoulder in the form of a mink and looked just as bedraggled, her fur ragged, stuck in clumps, as if another larger dæmon had taken her in its mouth and shaken her viciously. "What the hell happened to you?" she asked, rising and stepping around her desk to look at him closer. "Here, sit down."
Jenny sat him in a chair then opened the bottom drawer of her desk, taking out the mini first aid kit she had taken to carrying around with her, given the job she worked. She kept another in her car and under the sink at her house.
Ty flittered around, buzzing with indignant anger. Mumvuri, who usually became a bird in order to fly around with him, merely huddled down in Alexander's lap and watched him with glassy eyes. "What happened?" she asked again, daubing at the cut above his brow. From experience, she knew it had to sting, but he didn't so much as flinch. Jenny wondered, not for the first time, if clones didn't feel pain the way other people did; the Cleaner clones had never shown pain, either, not slowing even when grievously wounded.
"I am not liked," Alexander replied simply.
"What do you mean?" She picked up the sticking plasters.
"The others in the ARC do not like me. They think I am unnatural, and I am at fault for the explosion in the ARC and the Master's injury. They are angry that I am here."
Her hands stilled, and Ty even stopped his energetic flitting to hover in midair, a skill only hummingbirds could master. Jenny stared hard at him, feeling anger blooming beneath her breastbone, spreading outwards through her chest. "Did the soldiers do this to you?" she asked, voice thicker with outrage.
Alexander said, "They are angry."
Forcing a deep breath to steady herself, Jenny picked up the antiseptic once more, turning her attention to the scrape on his cheek, just below the scar under his eye. "I want names, Alex. Tell me who did it," she demanded.
She knew that not everyone in the ARC liked Alexander very much. It was a touch unsettling to be faced with a genetic replica of another person, especially a person that most of them worked with on a daily basis. It was even more unsettling that Mumvuri could change shape as well as be as far away from Alexander as she chose to be. They had been forced to separate when still under Helen's control, as the psycho woman would Sever the dæmons from any clone that had one. As for why Mumvuri could still change, they didn't know. Dæmons settled between the ages of ten and fourteen most of the time, right at the onset of puberty. However, as a clone, Alexander was never a child nor experienced puberty; he had been created a fully-grown adult. Connor was the only one to offer an explanation so far. He said that people's dæmons didn't just settle when they became adults, physically. Rather, they settled when someone knew who they were as a person, and that Alexander hadn't yet been around long enough to find out. It was as good a reason as any.
Still, he was a little unnerving, and Jenny herself had been hesitant to be around him at first. Now, she saw him as simply another person, albeit a slightly odd one, but also quite kind and gentle. She knew that not everyone shared her opinion – save for Connor and his fennec fox dæmon Brincallón, whom she didn't think could dislike anyone – but she never would've thought they'd go so far as to physically assault him.
"It does not matter," he said quietly.
"The hell it doesn't!" Ty burst out angrily, his wings an iridescent green blur as he darted over to hover before Alexander's face. It was very unusual for a dæmon to speak to a human not their own; dæmons spoke to their own human, the dæmons of close friends, and perhaps the people of those dæmons, in that order. But social etiquette had never stopped Alexander before, so why should Ty bother now?
At this, Mumvuri lifted her head from where she'd curled into a dark ball of bedraggled fur on Alexander's lap. She became a hummingbird herself, though she was a drab brown colour rather than Tyleihian's iridescent green and red plumage. "It does not matter," she repeated, her voice soft and raspy, like silk pulled across wet stone. "We are not the same. We are only an imitation. We are at fault for what has become of the ARC and the Master, and they are right to be angry."
Jenny frowned. "Why would you think that it's your fault? Helen's the one who brought the bomb in the ARC, she shot Cutter. You didn't have anything to do with that." Well, it wasn't entirely true. Alexander had set off the bomb, true, but only because Helen had ordered him to. And he had given Cutter the chance to run for it first.
"If not for us, Mistress would not have been able to get inside the ARC at all. Therefore, it is our fault."
"You couldn't have done anything different, Alexander, she was controlling you. Wasn't she?" Jenny asked.
Mumvuri became a marmoset and clambered up onto his shoulder, grasping at his hair with small paws, tail curled around his neck. Alexander reached up to stroke her fur gently. "Yes. Mistress created us with the purpose to follow her orders. We are made so that we cannot disobey her orders," he answered in a solemn voice, staring down intently at the floor as if ashamed to admit it.
"You disobeyed her, though. You let Cutter run away, you refused to shoot him," Jenny reminded.
"Because the Master said I did not have to listen to her, that the choice was my own to make. He said I was a free man."
"Why do you call him 'Master'? He didn't have anything to do with Helen."
Alexander shook his head. "It does not matter. They are both my creators, and only they may make me obey. The Mistress created me, but the Master is part of me," he explained.
"So you had to follow Helen's orders until Cutter told you otherwise, when he said you could choose," she said, beginning to grasp what he meant. Cutter had inadvertently and unknowingly saved his own life.
"Yes." He looked at the floor once more, twisting his hands in his lap. "But I am still responsible."
She could feel Ty's indignant anger towards Helen like an itch in the back of her skull, but at the same time, she felt a deep swell of...not quite pity, but more sympathy for the figure sitting in front of her. Most of his short life, he had been under the control of a complete madwoman, only recently free of her, and now he was being plagued with guilt over something well beyond his control. On impulse, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly.
Alexander went rigid all at once in her arms. He was not used to physical contact, having only been touched when being given a medical examination or when being injured by others, and had no idea how to respond. His first instinct was to draw away, until he realised that she wasn't hurting him. Rather than risk doing something wrong, he remained very still. He could hear the sound of her heartbeat beneath his ear, and she smelt very good, like lemon and vanilla and sugar. Ty had flitted over and landed on Mumvuri's back, now in the form of a raccoon, and she was similarly frozen as the hummingbird gently preened her fur with his pointy beak.
Jenny ran a hand down his hair, hating the way he flinched a little, like an oft-beat dog expecting to be struck. "Alexander, it wasn't your fault. No matter what anyone says, it wasn't your fault what happened, okay? I promise you. And you are not an imitation of anything, understand? You're a person, just like any of us, and they shouldn't hurt you because of what Helen did. She used you, and that wasn't your fault. You made the choice not to listen to her, and you chose to try to be better than you were before and make things right. That's what matters now. That's what counts," she murmured softly. "So don't blame yourself for what happened to the ARC and to Cutter. Alright?"
"I understand," he replied quietly, his voice muffled against her skin.
"Good." Jenny lowered her arms and leant back, though Ty didn't yet leave his place on Mumvuri's back. Realising something odd for the first time, she asked, "Alex, why would you come to my office if you were hurt instead of going to see Ditzy or Palmer in Medical?"
He ducked his head once more. "You are kind to me."
Jenny felt a flush begin to spread in her cheeks, but before she could say anything else, the phone on her desk began to ring. Reaching around, she answered it, grateful for the brief distraction. "Yes?"
Ty flittered over to her, and Mumvuri became a mink once again, curling herself around Alexander's nape as Jenny listened to whomever was on the other end of the line. After a moment, she nodded. "Thank you. Alright, I'll be sure to tell him. Goodbye." She hung up the phone and turned back to face him. "That was the hospital. Cutter's being released today, though with his pain medication he isn't allowed to drive. We'll have to go get him."
Alexander visibly paled, sliding a little lower in his seat. He had never said so aloud, but it was clear that he was largely afraid of Cutter. The others in the ARC harboured less than charitable feelings about him, as the dull, throbbing discomfort in his face reminded him; he dreaded to imagine what the man whose DNA he was made from thought of him and Mumvuri.
Jenny gave him a small, comforting smile. "It'll be alright, Alex. Promise. Cutter will understand." And if he doesn't, she thought to herself and Ty, then we'll make it clear that he better adjust his viewpoint, on no uncertain terms, either. Alexander might have begun in a dark place, but he was doing his best to leave it behind him, and that was the most important thing.