AN: I am profoundly indebted to TCR and themarshal for helping me with this chapter.
The first thing I was aware of when I could breathe again was my aunt's gaze on me. Her dark eyes seemed to be taking me in for the first time. I could imagine her poring over a medical scan or sizing up a new patient in the same calculating way.
"There was never any indication that Matt was a biotic. Mark and Jennifer never mentioned her being downwind of a transport crash. And there are test for these things. I find it hard to believe he could evade them for sixteen years."
Miranda's eyes were hard. The tension in her shoulders turned her rigid. I was struck with the odd thought that she was mere moments away from either rending my aunt limb from limb or shattering into a thousand pieces. "You of all people know how terribly inefficient bureaucracy can be, don't you Dr. Shepard?" The subtle stress on her name was laced not just with vague contempt, but what I could only describe as hatred. "The Alliance couldn't be bothered with a backwater like Mindoir. A latent biotic could have gone unnoticed for years.
The pure malice in Miranda's voice made me even more uneasy, but also curious. Dad hadn't talked about his sister much, but he'd never said anything bad about her. The citizens of Eden Prime treated her with the respect due a skilled professional who had left a lucrative practice on Earth to work in the colonies. Though she had never told me why she'd left the practice. It wasn't important anyway. The important thing was to get this uncanny woman out of my living room so I could go back to my regularly scheduled life that didn't include being a biotic.
I crossed my arms over my chest and did my best to give Miranda an intimidating look. "Or you could just be way off base." I towered over her and outweighed her by at least fifty pounds, but it didn't seem to bother her. I might as well have tried intimidating a glacier. "All you've got is the word of a miserable slimeball of a slaver. I've got news for you: crooks lie."
The fury left her as quickly as it came, and she gave me another predatory smile. "You're right. He is scum. I have no doubt he'll be spending the rest of his life in an Alliance prison, but that doesn't seem like enough, does it? Someone should make people like him pay as they truly deserve. Someone has to protect those colonists, why shouldn't it be you? You're lifting salt shakers now. I imagine what you could do with an implant and decent amp. There wouldn't be anything left of those slavers."
I won't lie: she tempted me for half a second. The squints had ruined my life, and I'd spent a lot of time thinking of ways to kill them for the first few months after the attack. And the idea that I could stop another Mindoir from happening... well, if that wouldn't make the nightmares go away, then nothing would. But no, I'd be shipped off to Jump Zero to undergo who knew what training. They didn't let family visit out there. Too much of a security risk, they said. I'd be alone again. And the Alliance wouldn't leave me alone afterwards either. I'd be documented; my life subtly directed and nudged until working for them was my only option for a decent existence. No art school, no freedom, no anything.
"I'm not a biotic."
The smile widened. I took a half step back to get away from her. She twirled a finger around a stray lock of hair with practiced casualness. "Perhaps. A real biotic would have been able to save his family. His parents, his brother and sister, all of them. But you? You were helpless."
"No!" Something broke inside me. The next few seconds were flashes of sensation. A sharp, metallic taste in my mouth. Energy coursing down my spine and across my arms. My arm swinging outward. Miranda smirking at me. And the fury that consumed me.
Not my fault. Not my fault. The next thing I knew, I was on my knees, coughing. Red flecks appeared on the carpet. I was coughing blood. And I felt like I'd been trampled by a herd of elcor.
It was Miranda's turn to tower over me. A rapidly fading blue aura crackled around her. "Impressive. You're far more powerful than I ever dreamed. I'd say that was forty or fifty newtons of force." She made a dismissive noise. "Though I wouldn't suggest trying it again, I do want you alive."
What the hell had I just done?
My aunt was beside me in a moment, hauling me to my feet and leading me to the couch. Miranda had demolished the last of my pride, so I let my aunt help me like I was some cripple and collapsed onto the couch. I wasn't sure which was worse: the pain or the humiliation. I suffered through my aunt asking me if I knew who I was, where I was, etc. I was pretty sure I was fine, physically. The rest was up for grabs. I was an idiot. I'd played right into Miranda's hands, and now she knew what I was. She could do whatever she wanted to me. She'd probably get some kind of bounty for delivering a biotic to the Alliance.
Apparently, what she wanted to do right then was turned on her omni-tool and scan me. The device made several approving beeps, and Miranda nodded to herself. "Mr. Shepard, your vitals are excellent. I think you have the constitution of a horse. Anyone else would have probably burst a blood vessel trying that without amps and training. And fifty newtons..." She directed a wintry, withering stare to Aunt Gwen. "I don't need to tell you how impressive that is."
I'd seen pictures of people pale with supposed shock. Normally, it's a metaphor, a cheap little bit of artistic shorthand to let the viewer know that your subject is afraid. But I saw the color drain from my aunt's cheeks until she was half living woman, half corpse.
"You think Matt's more powerful than Eldfell?" she whispered.
"And apparently without the nasty side effects." Miranda's tone was smug, even triumphant.
"Who's Eldfell?" Anything to get the conversation off me. I'd heard of Eldfell-Ashland Energy, but I'd never known them to have much to do with particularly powerful biotics.
Neither of them said anything for a long time. Miranda arched a single perfect eyebrow toward my aunt, as if daring her to speak. Finally, my aunt cleared her throat. "Claire Eldfell is the only person who ever manifested biotic abilities without in-utero eezo exposure. Her father discovered a krogan medical procedure to implant her nervous system with eezo directly. She was the most powerful human biotic on record." She fidgeted slightly. "But there were side effects: crippling pain after sustained usage of her biotic abilities, seizures. She died about seven years after the operation." She rubbed the bridge of her nose. "There was an article in the Galactic Journal of Neurosocience.
I felt cold and sick to my stomach in a way that had nothing to do with my biotic outburst. Claire Eldfell's dad had implanted her with eezo nodules deliberately. Most people who were exposed to eezo ended up with cancer or went crazy from the implants. And Claire Eldfell had suffered pain and seizures for what it sounded like a very short life. What kind of sick fuck would do that to his own daughter?
Miranda addressed me directly. "And you're much stronger than she was, by the look of it."
"So what you want to do to me?" I'd thrown everything I could at Miranda, and she was still here. Nothing left to do but raise the white flag. "Implant me and ship me off to some camp? Make me do your dirty work if I survive that long?"
Her laugh was as cold, harsh, and humorless as the rest of her. "Mr. Shepard, I told you I was with the Milky Way Foundation, not the Alliance. We do want to give you the appropriate implants and amplifiers for you to make effective use of your abilities. Training, as well." She wrinkled her nose. "I'd love to send you to a boarding school, but you've had a very traumatic year and there are some concerns that uprooting you again could lead to 'adverse psychological effects.' You aren't any more use to us crazy than you are dead. And you'd be outfitted with the new L3s. We've only just finished our final testing, but there's every indication that they won't lead to the side effects of the L2s."
Every indication. That was reassuring.
"And the training?"
"One-on-one, here on Eden Prime. You'd be able to go to school normally." She smiled again, and for the first time looked as if she didn't want to devour me alive. "I've been asked to be your instructor. Because of our closeness in age, I imagine." There was a slight tension in her voice that suggested that that wasn't the whole reason.
"You?" I guess she would have been a good teacher if they wanted to terrify me into being a good biotic.
Her eyes darkened, and the way they caught the light reminded me of the sapphires. "It's a much better deal than you would get if the Alliance ever found you. They would send you off to some boarding school. They would you use for their own purposes. If you were a very good little boy, they might make you a military officer. You could forget about that art school you wanted to attend."
"Let me guess: the Milky Way Foundation would have to tell the Alliance about me if I turn you down?"
Her hard, glittering eyes were the only answer I received. They were the only answer I needed.
I exhaled sharply. It wasn't a good feeling, being blackmailed. I needed to have some power, or at least pretend I did. "Let me think about it."
"I'll be back tomorrow." And with that, Miranda was gone. She moved with an easy grace, no hesitation or wasted movement. Perfect and uncanny, just like the rest of her. I shivered.
"I'm going to my room." Aunt Gwen didn't try to stop me.
My room had been the guest room before I came to live there, and it still didn't feel like it was really mine. The bed was too big, the sheets real cotton instead of the scratchy synthetic stuff I'd grown up with. My aunt had tried to make it seem like it was really mine. The bookshelves along one wall had been repurposed to hold my supplies: graphite, charcoal and pastel pencils, brushes, palate and palate scraper. And of course, the paints. Dozens of shades and hues just waiting for me to put them to use.
It was the paper and charcoal that I reached for. Miranda had all the cards when it came to my biotics, but I still had one scrap of petty power over her: I was the god of this blank page. I could render her any way I pleased. I bit my lip and thought about what I wanted to do. Not caricature, no. Miranda Lawson demanded my respect as much as my fear. She was one of those goddesses I'd heard about in my grade school literature classes: terrifying, awe-inspiring figures who could turn mere mortals into spiders with a flick of their graceful wrists. She demanded no less than her due.
In the end, it was my initial image of the living statue that I returned to. The bones of her face were perfectly molded, her proportions taken straight from my anatomy books. Her lips curved upward in a small smile that promised misery or glory to anyone who dared trust her. Her hair fell around her in waves, carefully shaded to suggest not just black, but the multitude of highlights the real woman possessed. The eyes glittered with equal parts malice and intelligence. This couldn't be mistaken for some amateur attempt at rendering a human face. I had to capture the real, terrifying Miranda.
It had been a long day, and I found my attention wandering halfway through her perfectly sculpted nose. Claire Eldfell, of all people, flitted across my thoughts. I wondered how old she had been when she died. No older than eighteen. We hadn't been able to link biotics and eezo until after first contact, and the implants would have had to have been inserted before she hit puberty. Plus another seven years. I had a sudden image of her: pale and fine-boned. Too tall and thin to be cherubic, but with a sad, sweet expression that made what her father had done to her all the more horrible. Her hair was all soft, golden curls, her eyes a mix of blue and gray that could turn sapphire in the right light.
No, wait. Those were Miranda's eyes. I resented the intrusion. I had my pleasant little fantasy of the wronged innocent, and Miranda had left whatever innocence she might have possessed behind long ago. And yet, the image would not leave me. I looked at my half-finished sketch. The two girls would have made for a fascinating contrast if I'd had the slightest idea what to do with them: real, unnerving woman and illusory, angelic girl. One forced to suffer because of her father, the other compelling me to embark on a new life. One of victim of biotics and one touting their power.
I returned pencil to paper. Damn Miranda Lawson. If she were invading my work as well as my life, she could at least have the decency to serve as a model in payment.