Altered States
It had to be only minutes, but it felt like an eternity. The pain was fading as her mind was pushed back, further and further into her brain.
Amelia was screaming. She could feel others in her mind screaming with her, trying to help as the machine overwrote her basic consciousness. Her memory it would leave intact, she knew. She knew more about Sentient tech than most, having been part of Karl's clan for some time. The records of what he had found when he had assumed command of his former clans dojo after their destruction had been both exhaustive and horrifying.
She tried to subdivide her mind as she had heard was possible. Let the machine take control of only part of it. Janet -the Oracle- had done something similar during the hunt for the Elena Greensky. But Amelia had only heard about it, she had never actually done it. It didn't work. She was still losing ground. She pleaded in her mind.
Cut me out! Subdivide me! Amelia screamed. If he gains access to all of you, everything we have worked for is gone!
That doesn't work with Sentient tech, Amelia. The Reverend Mother sounded strained. What was she doing? We can...keep you... separate a bit. But we cannot block you out completely. That would kill you.
Then do it. Amelia begged. I cannot... He will take control use me to hurt Mishka, to hurt everyone!
No, he won't. That wasn't the Reverend Mother. That was-
Amelia went still as the pain her head...vanished. Janet? She asked as her mind fell free.
Oh, Amelia. Come here. The Oracle was crying as the world fell away.
Amelia was lying on her back. Her head was on something soft that moved under her. Soft hands caressed her scalp. She was crying as whoever held her crooned softly.
"Oh Amelia." Janet was crying softly too. "I am sorry. I didn't see this. Mishka was doing so well, I didn't look." Something soft wiped Amelia's face clean of tears.
"Is she really dying?" Amelia felt detached now. Was she dying? Being controlled? She didn't know. Couldn't know.
"Yes." Janet said sadly. "The poison the Red Veil hit her with destroyed every nerve in her leg. It also did a lot of other damage. The Clergy doctors saved her life and the Caretakers gave her a place, a new family. But no one saw the creeping death growing in her leg. No one but Stalker." Janet let out a deep breath, half sigh, half groan. "He has been keeping an eye on her, but a distant one. I tolerated it because he wasn't going to hurt her or even show himself. Not in any of the visions I saw. Until she went to the relay. He saw her there and knew somehow, instantly how sick she really was. No one else suspected. It is not something that doctors today think of."
"He is trying to save his daughter." Amelia said weakly.
"Yes." Janet sounded sad now. "But it may be too late. If he had spoken up, said something, anything, we would have checked. Even coming from him, a warning about Mishka would have been heeded. But he could not trust. We might not have seen it. But we might have and none of the rest of this would have happened."
"What I saw is bad, Janet."Amelia swallowed hard. "Her bone marrow is changing."
"I know." The hand was back on Amelia's brow as Amelia shuddered. "I cannot stop what he has done to you, Amelia. No one can."
"I know." Amelia said weakly. "Does he have a controller?"
"No." Janet held Amelia as a shudder wracked her. "He had the enthrallment device, but even he isn't crazy enough to keep live Sentient tech around that has a mind of its own." Amelia relaxed, but then stiffened again. "Easy." Janet crooned.
"Without a controller..." Amelia said weakly. "It will grow. It will subsume me and then everything else in the area until it can make a controller! It will-" She broke off. "No. No, He will make me treat Mishka and then kill me and destroy my body."
"I think so." Janet's voice was husky.
"Can I save Mishka, Janet?" Amelia asked softly. For a long moment, there was no answer. "Oracle?" She begged. "Please?"
"No." The word was flat.
"Can anyone?" Amelia begged. "She is a good kid. She doesn't deserve this."
"Neither do you." Janet said sharply. "What the Tenno plan to do to you is just as bad as what Stalker plans."
"Janet, I broke my parole." Amelia said in a soft voice. "What is worse? I gave the information in my mind to the Corpus. Something I swore I would never do. The penalty is death."
"You gave it to the Clergy." Janet corrected the doctor grimly. "And they already knew how to get into the Orokin towers. They just had more sense than to try." Amelia had to smile at Janet's dry biting humor.
"Be that as it may, Janet. I broke my word." Amelia said softly. "Karl won't have a choice." The clan leader would not delegate Amelia's execution. The only reason he hadn't killed her just after finding out what she had done was that she had been trying to get Serene back. If the Tenno caught her again, she died. Period. She forced herself to change the subject back to the first one. "Can anyone save Mishka, Janet?"
"Yes." The Oracle said quietly. "But before you ask, he won't allow it. He won't trust them despite the fact that they were not involved in what he seeks vengeance for."
"Who?" Amelia asked softly. There was no answer and she suddenly felt faint, as if she were falling. Or waking! "Oracle! Who can save Mishka?"
"Remember the good, Amelia." Oracle said from far, far away. "Let go of the bad."
"Wait!" Amelia pleaded, but now she was falling for real.
Amelia felt her body sit up. She felt right. But not. Everything seemed in order. But she was... This wasn't right. Her eyes opened and the red and black warframe stood nearby, his posture anxious. She felt tubes retract from her. She felt the symbiote thing contract around her, a second skin almost.
"Doctor." Stalker said quietly. "Your patient awaits."
He stepped back as Amelia's body rose. She wasn't in control! But... it felt... She wasn't in control, but she wasn't afraid either. She felt nothing. No emotion erupted in her mind. Nothing but cold logic. That was so wrong. She was an empathic person, it was what made her a good doctor. But this? This machine that was her? No. This wasn't her.
"Status of patient?" Amelia heard her voice ask. But it wasn't her voice. She had never been so cold, so unemotional in her life! That should have terrified her, made her angry or something. it didn't.
"Diagnostics available on secure network." Stalker said as he moved to the side and a bank of medical machinery came into view surrounding a pod exactly like the one Amelia had been in. Inside it, Mishka slept, her face drawn with lines of worry and pain. Tubes connected to her from various parts of the machinery and her symbiote was rippling around her, drawing her pain into itself, trying to help her. "Illness is cancer. Location, right leg."
"Survey proceeding." Amelia watched her hands touch the machinery, sure and quick in their movements despite the unfamiliar equipment. "Cause?"
"Three base neural antagonist pathogen." Stalker replied. "Damage to right leg irreparable. Amputation was indicated and performed. Remnants of pathogen have reacted with bone marrow, causing cancerous growth. Removal difficult."
"Removal impossible." Amelia heard her voice state calmly. "Patient is terminal. Euthanasia recommended." Amelia quailed. The thing inside her was recommending that they kill Mishka!
"Negative." Stalker retorted, somehow remaining calm. "Remove." Amelia's hands flew over the controls. Why was he so calm? Why was she?
The machine cannot hear us. The voice of the Reverend Mother said into Amelia's mind. You cannot respond, Amelia. Don't fight. She warned as Amelia tried to do something, anything. You cannot fight what was done to you. That bastard. That lousy stinking kinslaying bastard.
"Beginning removal." Amelia heard her voice say as energy started playing over Miska's leg. "Patient is waking. Unable to sedate due to limited power."
"Damn." Stalker knelt down beside the pod. "Keep working. Mishka?" He asked gently as the girl groaned. "I know it hurts, Mishka, but we are trying to help."
"Hurts..." The girl's voice was low and filled with pain. Her eyes did not open. Indeed, from what little Amelia could see, she wasn't fully conscious.
"There is a growth in your leg, Mishka." Stalker said softly. His voice was a far cry from the dark and sinister thing that Amelia had heard before. "It is not natural and it is hurting you. We are trying to remove it."
"Hurt! Where is my mom?" Mishka's voice was slurring. "She will make it better."
"Your mom is busy, Mishka." Stalker said sadly. "I am here. It's okay, honey. It will be okay." Was he comforting her or himself? Her eyes opened and she stared up at Stalker and then at Amelia.
"Father?" Her tone was odd. Calm, but weak. So weak. "What have you done?"
"I am trying to save your life." Stalker said quietly. "I am not a healer. Not a medic. This problem is far outside even most normal medics' experience. It is drastic, but it was needed."
"Not for me." Mishka was crying as she stared at Amelia. "No. Not for me." Amelia felt her heart fall to pieces as the girl cried. "You cannot kill others for me!"
"Mishka!" Stalker said firmly. "I would tear the entire Solar System down for you or your mom!" The girl shut her eyes. "Mishka! Listen to me!"
"You lie." Mishka said softly, her face going slack. Her heart rate sudden slowed. Amelia stared, she knew that sign. Mishka was committing suicide!
"No!" Stalker screamed as Mishka's biorhythms started to fade. "Mishka! Stay! Please! Your mom needs you!" For along moment, Amelia feared it was too late, that the girl had gone too far. But then Mishka's rhythms stabilize a bit.
"Mom." Mishka's voice was nearly inaudible. "You hurt her again."
"I am trying to save your life." Stalker calmed a bit. "That is all that matters. Every way I have tried, the fake Tenno have thwarted. What I did to this noble doctor is unconscionable. I know this. But if there is even a remote chance to remove what is killing you, then I have to take it." Amelia's body stepped away from the machinery and Stalker looked at her. "Doctor?" Amelia's body did not respond and Stalker heaved a sigh. "Status of patient?"
"Anomalous growths removed." Amelia heard herself say.
"And?" Stalker pressed. Amelia smirked inwardly as Stalker groaned. Her body did not react. It wasn't a question the thing running her understood. "Damn. Too much control. But I had to."
"Had to or wanted to?" Mishka asked, her voice groggy. Stalker turned back to her and Amelia braced herself for anger. But when he spoke, it was resigned.
"Mishka, I am not a good man." Stalker said softly as he rubbed the pod she was encased in. "I haven't been a good man for a long, long time. I gave up who I was, what I was to seek vengeance for the Orokin."
"Why?" Mishka begged. "That makes no sense."
"I know." Stalker's voice was still mild. "I never planned on meeting your mom, on falling in love. It happened. We have to go on. I am lost, Mishka. Nothing can save me. But part of me remembers the pure uncomplicated feelings that your mother woke in me after so long. Leaving her was one of the hardest things I have had to do. But it was better for her and you. I know regret Mishka. If you believe nothing else I say, please believe that I regret not staying with your mother, not getting to know you, watch you grow the most."
"I... do not understand." Mishka said softly.
"I know." Stalker said sadly as he rubbed the pod again. "Sedate." Mishka gave a small cry and then she was asleep. "Status of patient? And prognosis?"
"Patient is stable. Abnormal growths removed." Amelia heard herself say. "They will regrow. They will require removal again. Patient is terminal. Recommend euthanasia." Stalker went still at that.
"Treatment?" Stalker demanded. "I remember something about cancer treatment. Something called Chemophotocloresis or something like that?" Again, Amelia's body did not respond and Stalker growled something vile. "Postulate that patient must survive. Treatment possibilities?"
"Chemotherapy is contraindicated with the patients current state of health. Doing so will cause irreparable harm." Amelia wasn't sure where that information was coming from. She surely did not know that. "Abnormal proteins have swept through patient's body. No known means of correcting." Stalker stared at the doctor and then at the pod.
"I..." Stalker sounded broken. "No. No. Not after all of this. There has to be a way!"
And if there is? Amelia went still as the Reverend Mother spoke through her. What then?
"Haven't you done enough?" Stalker screamed.
No. You have killed Amelia. The Reverend Mother said sternly. The Tenno will not forgive what she did to try and get Serene's body. She joined us, she violated an oath, to try to save one she loved. Even if the Sentient tech can be stopped, which is not a certainty, her life is forfeit. She knew that and chose that anyway, for the chance to save her mate. But... She continued as Stalker started to snarl a rejoinder. I do understand, just as my predecessor did. We do strange things for those we love. Stalker stared from Mishka's still form to the quiescent form of the doctor and back.
"Yes, we do." Stalker sounded sad.
We have been ransacking our files ever since we discovered why you did what you did. The Reverend Mother said quietly. Amelia is lost. Mishka still has a chance. Not a great one, mind you. But a chance.
"Can I trust you?" Stalker demanded. He went still as a flash of gold appeared in the middle of the room.
Amelia stared at the five humans and two tiny warframes that stood with weapons trained on Stalker. Commander Horatius ran the Corpus Special Forces, the ultra secret and secretive special operations teams that worked for the Clergy. None of the humans carried standard weapons. One hefted a grenade launcher. Another an Amprex. Another held a Lecta whip in a professional grip. A fourth held some kind of cybernetic interface system and was tapping holographic keys faster than a human eye could follow. But it was the fifth that had Stalker freezing and Amelia quailing. The small cylinder in his hands didn't look dangerous, but every scanner in the room was flashing red. Most with radiation warnings. Nuclear.
The tiny Nyx warframe and tiny Frost warframe that stood beside him were not as bad in some ways, but worse in others. Amelia knew Ona, but the Nyx had been disgraced, doing penance for a horror done in the past. So, what was she doing here? With a team of Corpus Special Forces?
"No." Commander Horatius said as he and two of his team stepped forward, blocking the view to the hacker and the one with the nuke. "I am sure you have a self destruct in here. So blow it. Or attack and we detonate ours." Stalker was very good, but all it would take was a button press to turn the entire area into radioactive vapor. He could blow the room up, sure. But then...
"And of course, kill Mishka." The voice from the tiny Nyx -she barely came up to Horatius' waist- was soft.
"I do not want to." Stalker said slowly, not moving. "But I cannot trust you any more than you can trust me."
"You know who I am?" Ona asked quietly. Stalker nodded. "You know who trained me?"
"Richard." Stalker said softly. The Tenno who had been the First Rhino had trained Ona and her kin after finding them in a horrible Orokin genetic lab. He had lost his memory due to a number of factors and wound up in cryo in the Void. His death had cost Stalker a great deal both emotionally and physically. Tenno still hunted him for that death to this day and would forever. Tenno defined single minded at times and when one of the First was cut down by an assassin's blade? That assassin would die. Period. There hadn't been a choice and Richard had begged for it, but still...
"Master Richard and Master Nikis taught us a lot." Ona said mildly. She bore no weapon. Odd that, but then again, she was one. The Frost by her side likewise was unarmed. "And you know..." She sounded thoughtful now. "The single most important thing that Master Nikis taught us was by leaving."
"And?" Stalker demanded.
"He didn't want us consumed by his own hate." Ona said quietly. "He succeeded. We are not. We have own demons, but we battle them." She shook her head. "You have killed Amelia. You have killed Serene. But we can save Mishka and we will." Stalker stared at her and she shook her head. "Not for you. Not so you can brainwash her or whatever. But because she is a good person who deserves better."
"I was never going to brainwash her!" Stalker protested. Ona crossed her arms and glared at him. The Frost likewise did not move. "Okay, okay..." He admitted. "If she chose, after, I would have taught her what I knew. But not against her will!"
"You are a check on the unbridled power of the Tenno in this system." Ona was still quiet. "Which is why, as part of our penance..." She nodded to the Frost at her said and indicated herself. "We have come to help Mishka. The method that the Reverend Mother found is called a 'bone marrow transplant'. But to do so, you need compatible donors."
"Both of us are compatible."