Lawrence had graciously allowed her to sleep on the bed while he'd used a flattened cardboard box and pile of clothes as a substitute for a mattress. Angel fidgeted in the cot, sleep wearing thin on her consciousness. This man, this doppelganger of her Dad was an enigma she couldn't solve, never had Angel been in a position where she couldn't find out everything she wanted about a person. He'd given her his spare echo-comm before bed, but with strong words of caution on how and what she should use it for. Most of that had been ignored, Angel knew how to silently browse the net and not leave a trace.

Yet, the echo-net had yielded no answers for her, whoever this Lawrence had been before, his history was wiped clean from Hyperion's databases, probably from the entire network.

Lawrence can't be his actual name. If I knew his real name maybe I'd have more luck, she mused.

As promised, the not-jack had 'answered' her questions. However, the answers he did provide were mediocre at best.

Why did you become Jack's double?

Money.

Why were you at The Bunker?

Guarding you.

So, it was you, the person at the Bunker who I was communicating with?

Yes.

You were never very friendly.

He shrugged.

Did you know who I was?

Only that you were a Siren.

What really made you leave Jack?

He remained silent.

It was like talking to a wall, a very disgruntled brick wall, who appeared to be more taken with machines and guns than the living companion in the room with him.

Her memories of the last few cycles were hazy at best after she'd fled from the man who she mistook as Jack, she'd sought shelter around the other side of the hill. She hadn't strayed more than a few hundred metres. She'd waited, hoping for a chance to steal supplies before fleeing for good. But as the Pandora sun had worn down on her and as her body had slowly succumbed to the elements the memories seemed to resurface.

He wasn't Jack.

She waited for a chance to observe him, to be sure. When he'd fled to rescue what she'd soon realised was Felicity she knew he wasn't her Dad.

Angels fists screwed up into tiny little bunches, thoughts of Jack racked her body with a sickening rage. The memories were crawling back to her, like bugs over her mind she shivered to throw them off her.

"I've pumped every fricken ounce of Eridium I've got into you," Jacks words rang through her mind, "WHY ISN'T IT WORKING!?"

"I'm sorry, I don't know..." She'd pleaded with him to no avail. She'd begged him to know what happened to her mum, to understand why she needed to be in the 'chair' and why he was doing this to her. Nothing ever got through to him.

"You're a damn Siren, one of a kind! MAKE IT WORK"

She was a Siren and a tool to him, not a daughter and certainly not human.

Angel felt the intoxicating warmth of energy run down her arm, her powers were bubbling forward. There was too much tech in the room, too many instruments for her powers to harness. Her mind raced over all the items, two echo-coms, the Destroyer, a digi-struct item, the cloaking device, gear-chips, countless guns and arsenal. It was too much.

I won't lose control.

Angel rolled over in her cot, she needed to focus her mind away from the devices in the room. Her arm ached at the injection site, so she let her mind register the pain. Her body still cried out for more Eridium, but those were thoughts that also needed to be suppressed.

Lawrence was tinkering away with Felicity's interface, his back to her and he was speaking low to the bot. Spying and investigating was all she'd done for the last ten or eight years, and so she couldn't help but eavesdrop on his private conversation.

"When Jack found out I'd been scavenging part of your old code he threw a fit," Lawrence explained as he swiped a hand down the interface in front of him. The bot gave a low hum that Angel interpreted as a worried acknowledgement.

"Smart thing you did, scrambling parts of your code at the end of your files and spreading them thin across all the Destroyers."

The bot beeped.

"If Jack ever realised how extensive it was he'd have rewritten you from the ground up. He was too short-sighted, always under-estimating AI," Lawrence trailed off.

"You're right," Angel chimed in, without thinking.

Lawrence's head snapped over his shoulder, and he responded with a cool gaze, "you're awake," he acknowledged flatly.

Angel pressed her lips thin, she wasn't used to people being aware of her prying.

"What happened after Jack found out about you trying to restore her?" she questioned.

Lawrence didn't reply. Instead, he lifted himself off the floor to make for the fridge and pulled out a beer. A waste of valuable space and resources she thought.

"He destroyed what I was working on, that's all," he used the edge of his watch to pry the lid off the bottle.

Angel knew enough to know that wasn't 'all', but she didn't contend the matter.

"I could help you," she offered, "I used to talk with Felicity, and I noticed the same thing. That she was trying to rebuild herself. I never told Jack," she quickly explained as Lawrence had given her a firm look.

"How much do you know?" Lawrence's voice was low. His tone made the crawling sensation on her skin return.

Angel tugged at her yellow sleeves again, these face-to-face encounters were so much...more, than communicating through a screen. To have someone look you in the eye was unnerving, and new for her.

"Not enough for a complete picture. I...I wanted someone to talk with...So I thought if I put her back together we could be friends."

It had been one rejection after another in her life. The worst of it was her step-mother, who fled the moment she discovered who and what Angel really was. But Felicity, she'd understand, she'd know what it was like to forced into a role that you couldn't free yourself from, Felicity could be there when others hadn't. Or so Angel had prayed, she never got the chance for the AI to become part of her life.

Lawrence gazed down at her, he crossed his arms as he considered her words.

"So...how did this restoration project of yours go? Jack destroyed every I had worked on years ago."

"I was almost done, but when Jacks demands became too much, I had to sideline her," Angel admitted.

"So this code you were collecting, do you think you could access it?"

"It lays in my old server, which is back at the Control Core. It's not connected to any network, so it was impossible for others to hack or reach it. That's where I stored all my research for Jack and other projects for myself," Angel explained with a shallow sigh. "Jack would visit and collect it... until he had you do it for him," she couldn't withhold the accusation in her tone.

"Right" Lawrence drawled, uninterested in the slight accusation.

"I'm going back," he asserted

"What?! No! But Jack?" the girl all but screamed at him. He'd seen accounting interns with more bite than her.

"I can handle Jack, he won't kill me, hurt me maybe, but Jack doesn't like losing things that are his," Lawrence insisted.

"Yes, I'm aware of that," she replied coldly before fear retook her, "But you can't go back!" she implored.

The holes in his sweater we large enough to shove an arm through, she'd worn the material so thin he was sure it was going to tear at the elbows.

"If he… realises I'm still alive...I-I can't go back to that place!" Angel threw her self off the cot onto her feet.

"Promise me you won't go back to the bunker!" Her hands reached for his and Lawrence instinctively took a step back.

"Going back there is a fate worse than death." Angel cried at him, a tinge of guilt stirred within him.

His eyes were drawn to her left arm, which was beginning to shine through the thin yellow material. Lawrence saw the interfaces on his Echo, and the guns on the walls light up. Angel rocked forward, her arms desperately scraping at him to respond.

"Please Lawrence!"' Her nails dug into his folded arms. His echo began to emit static, images of the bunker, purple crystals, wires flashed across its screen.

"Promise me!" her eyes were wide, tears welled in the corners.

Lawrence looked her in the eye and held a firm hand to her shoulder, "Ok, I promise," he asserted, "I won't go back to the Bunker."

However, Angel didn't know his promises were worth skag-shit. Tomorrow he'd set out and return to the bunker with or without her help.

Sorry, kiddo.

****AUTHOR NOTES*****

As this is a short chapter, I'll make two updates this week.

Also first Angel POV. There will be a few of these throughout the story (as well as Jack).

Thanks for the kind comments and the kudos, please let me know what you think x

A03 Version, if you prefer to read it there - /works/12897621/chapters/29464575