4: Reasoning
It was dark outside, the moonlight creeping into the bunker as the door flapped in the warm breeze. Ganam remained motionless, hunched in the gloom by his desk. He couldn't face having the light on, and felt he needed the quiet that only truly fell when the generator was switched off.
He'd barely moved for the last two days. It felt as though there was a heavy weight resting inside hit gut. His fingers tingled, his eyes burned, and his nerves were set on edge. There was a constant burning sensation in his chest, and the twitchiness in restless limbs rarely abated for more than a few minutes at a time. All this he'd felt before to some degree, but it was so strong this time. Perhaps he'd pushed himself harder this time to make the deadline, reaching true exhaustion. God knew a gun to the head could do that to a man.
But he knew inside that that wasn't it.
"So why are you doing this, if I may ask?"
Ganam had decided to ask the question as the door creaked the arrival of his guest, sick to his stomach but managing to fight off the fear. Why should the crazy man get to do all the asking? He threatened, he stalked, he ranted and raved, and he asked endlessly.
For all the crazy man loved to talk, he hadn't responded straight away.
Ganam had anticipated the man's arrival with a sense of foreboding. It had become a ritual to be acted out every couple of days as they headed into the final allocated week. He'd walk in like he owned the place, talked and then went without a care for what he left behind. A dangerous man, calculated in his indifferent attitude. Ganam hated to think what would happen should this man ever find himself in a position of any great power.
"You tried using your imagination? I thought you were one of the clever ones. Creative."
Of course, the crazy man had turned it into a chance to belittle him.
"It's a straightforward enough question." Ganam had answered back, somehow. "People always have their own reasons."
He didn't add that they were usually selfish reasons, although they almost exclusively were.
"True. Very true."
Strangely, the man had spent much of the rest of their meeting quietly, watching with his silhouette spread in a passively threatening manner across the back wall. Ganam had worked, a smugness blossoming in his chest. He'd felt like he'd scored a point in the verbal battle the man seemed to enjoy creating between them. Then the crazy man had started pawing through files, rifling through Ganam's things as if to show he still held the upper hand.
It wasn't until he'd gone that Ganam had noticed the files had been taken from the boxes in the corner, the ones he'd left sealed for almost 10 years. Seeing the Matronic's Munitions stamp broken, a little stab of ice had struck him in the ribs. Those designs and specifications had been his life's work. They were his personal, private things, and the crazy man had had his hands all over them. Not that he could have comprehended them of course. Not unless he was some kind of genius. Ganam hoped that was not the case. They were his manual, the legacy of all he'd created in the bionics labs before he'd run away.
Sitting there in the shadows, he wondered vaguely whatever had happened to the family business. His sister had taken over no doubt. She had been destined for it, far more deserving of it than he. Anna was strong, like her father. She would never have ended up like this. Maybe in leaving to pursue his own dreams, he'd done the right thing. Even if his reality had fallen short of the ideas he'd had in his young, foolish head, he hadn't just done it for himself. He hadn't wanted the company, the responsibilities and rigid structures that kept the machine of industry going. Anna had.
Maybe it was the truth. Maybe it wasn't.
He wasn't sure anymore, but he didn't intend of dwelling on it. Some people needed the lies to live, and hell, maybe he was one of them. He'd clung to it all these years, afraid someone would ask about his past. They never had. The beauty of Pandora was that its residents weren't the conversational type.
Perhaps, in some horrible way, he and the crazy man were alike.
He couldn't be sure, but when he left he'd been muttering something. Ganam had assumed he'd been speaking to himself like the desert bandits he'd encountered who'd lost their wits, but now he wasn't so sure. Two words had stood out in particular. They could even have been the answer that Ganam had asked for. If they were, he might just be able to understand the reason, if not the method.
As he'd left, the crazy man had whispered:
"For her."
The loader, a miniature prototype specification model barely 7 inches tall, was dancing round the lounge.
The first thought he had was 'It shouldn't be doing that'. Fair enough really, as the model didn't possess any kind of programming. The code was all still on his computer, encrypted so well even Tassiter wouldn't be able to find and take the credit. Hell, its processor had been from an aged laptop he'd fished out of the office compactor. He'd thought it more likely the thing would explode than walk.
But that had been the problem with John. He'd been a bit slow on the uptake, even if he did show initiative.
Only once assessing how impossible it was did he look for the cause. The cause, it turned out, was a little girl, singing a nursery rhyme and glowing like it was the most normal thing in the world. He almost didn't recognise her.
"All around the stactus plant..."
John's- His little Angel.
"S- Sweetie?"
The glow stopped abruptly, the loader falling to the floor. Angel's face fell too, eyes wide with an all-encompassing fear that nearly broke his heart as he realised it was because of him. Her eyes brimmed with tears even as the afterglow left them.
The room had been silent for a short moment, like the calm before the storm. Then she'd curled into a ball on the floor, a wail of childish despair building in her throat.
"Hey, don't cry. Don't cry, pumpkin." He worked to keep the tremor out of his voice as he rushed to his daughter's side. He had no idea what was going on. No idea at all. Except he did. Didn't want to think about it. The possibility was too amazing, though his wife would disagree. He'd hoped… He smothered the thought.
He dropped to the cold floorboards, putting his arms around her and whispering soothing words into her hair.
"It's OK now. Daddy's here."
"I'm sorry. I'm s-" Her little voice caught on a sob. "I just- I just- He was sad, Dad. I just- Just wanted to cheer him up. Mom'll be so angry. Mom'll-"
"Shh. It's OK."
It didn't feel OK. She was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. Her skin buzzed with power. It was almost frightening how something so small could contain so much. It rolled off her in waves, rising and falling with every beat of her little heart. As strange as it was, it didn't surprise him that the television screen burst into life, channels flicking past. The loader model started to thrash on the floor. The ceiling light flashed and hummed, the bulb exploding under the pressure. Other miniature explosions tickled the edge of his hearing beyond the howls of his little girl, telling him that he'd have some cleaning up to do before his wife came home (A power surge, one of his loader experiments gone wrong. The lies came to him so easily).
He held Angel until the tears, and the electrical insanity around them, subsided. He wasn't sure how he held it together, but he did. He had to. For her.
"Now, how about you tell Daddy what happened?"
Angel wriggled around so the she was looking up at him, eyes bloodshot and face red. It hurt to see her so unhappy. She gasped and sniffled, unable to speak at first. Her eyes then flicked over to the desk in the corner of the crowded room. He followed her gaze.
"Mr Robot's mind was- Was in there. He seemed so sad, so I..." Her face scrunched up. "I put him back together. In my head."
"In your..."
John felt a stab of adrenaline, cold and exciting, break through the blankness he'd lived in his entire life. He'd been told this moment would never come, but now it had and it was as if someone had switched a golden light of opportunity on overhead. He knew what he should do; or rather what his wife would want him to do. But he found it strangely easy to break his promise to her.
"How did you find the- Mr Robot's mind?"
"Easy." Her face smiled while her eyes didn't. Such a grown up look for a child. "I followed the path. There were some doors, but I opened them."
"And... Do you think you could do it again?"
She looked at him, so serious. Nodded.
"Are you mad at me?"
"Of course not. You're my little princess." He squeezed her. "I love you."
She returned the hug.
"Mom will be mad though. Mom doesn't want me to be- To be-"
A Siren. They both knew it, he through education, she through instinct. Neither could bring themselves to say it.
No one had been able to say it except her mother, and she'd only said the word to deny it. She'd been so afraid when Angel was born. So fearful they'd take her baby away, and afraid that the shame of bringing a Siren into the world would destroy her reputation. Everything she'd worked for gone, taken from her because of one stupid moment where she'd thought with her maternal instinct and not her head.
Her words, not his, when they'd argued that one time. Angel had been in her crib nearby, barely old enough to be out of the hospital incubator. Rationally he knew she couldn't have understood back then, but she knew now.
He felt Angel shake with the threat of more tears.
"Not if she doesn't know, eh?" He gave her a conspiratorial wink. "It can be our little secret."
Angel's face lit up, mercifully metaphorically.
The man sitting on the Hyperion transport shuttle cursed. The work of the last few weeks had dredged up the past, making it plague his subconscious even as he dozed. He didn't like it, but it was a necessary evil. He would suffer for his cause, and in doing so would keep her from harm as he always had done. She didn't understand, but it was all for her.
Everything he'd done was for her.
His little Angel.
Ganam's bones screamed at him to move, his guts writhed in agony and yet still he stayed motionless. He felt like a long held breath, waiting for the moment of exhalation. In truth, he'd been waiting since that man had entered the bunker, pulled the gun and held it to his head. Every waking moment had had such terrifying purpose. Little food and even less sleep had left him a hollow thing. Only his curious pride, his drive to do something, had kept him going until now.
He could see his shadow against the back wall, where so often he'd glimpsed his oppressive customer's. He'd never been vain, but he could tell that he appeared ragged round the edges. Sunken cheeks and bloodshot eyes probably, like one of those dehydrated desert bandits. Had they ever felt like this? No wonder they were mad.
But no, fatigue didn't cover it by a long shot. It was the anticipation, the dread that filled him. He sat in the dark to hide the thing he'd created.
It was finished.
He knew he wasn't done yet though. Not three hours ago the radio had crackled, and he'd heard instructions alongside the thwack of a satellite drop outside. It was the impact that had thrown the door open. He hated going to get the drops, fearing he'd find the loader waiting. He hadn't so far. Perhaps it was under instruction to stay hidden unless it had to-
He didn't want to think about it.
He'd have to move, to act on what he'd been told to do in preparation for the man's last visit. His body and mind conflicted, but he knew he'd have to move. Do this task, then sleep.
Then come what may, he'd have to be ready.
"Ain't no rest for the wicked."
He breathed the words to the night, using them to kick-start himself into action. Pain shrieked through him as he went to address his tasks, leaving the soulless face of the man who would be his death leering in the moonlight.