Lesser evils
Sheila was even more confused than she had been before and that was saying something.
She was bound by the controls that Stalker had placed in her hull. But the ones who surrounded her kept begging her not to make them use them. She was trapped somewhere that she had never seen, with a bunch of total strangers. But the two humans, Kerry and Simon, were kind and gentle. She could not contact anyone and she was terrified by all of this. But she was also bemused. These two really seemed to be trying to win her trust.
Which made no sense at all!
"I don't consume food, Kerry." Sheila said after the woman offered her some. "What do you want?" She demanded for the fourth time.
The two humans looked at one another and then in unison, sighed. Simon looked away while Kerry reached out to lay a hand on Sheila's housing. Sheila could have recoiled, but she was fairly sure that the woman would not hurt her. Not that she could escape this place.
"I do not understand it all." Kerry said quietly. "I am not a medical professional. But there is a sickness here that has infected everyone." Sheila tensed and Kerry shook her head. "It is no infectious now according to every scan and professional that we have talked to. Including the clone."
"Is that why she was brought here?" Sheila asked, her voice taut. Kerry and Simon nodded. "And...she did what?"
"At first, she helped the survivors recover." Simon was quiet, sad. "Most of our children died in the epidemic." Kerry bowed her head and nodded. "But then, she started doing things."
"Hurting people." Sheila corrected. Simon made a face and nodded. "What did she do?" Sheila didn't want to know, not really. But if she was supposed to help these people, then this might be her only way out of here.
"I was lost in my grief." Kerry's tone was resigned now. "I wasn't eating, wasn't drinking. I was barely sleeping." Sheila looked at her and Kerry nodded. "The sickness took my son, Nicholas. He would have been your age."
"I am sorry." Sheila's instant condolence was heartfelt and Kerry smiled a bit forlornly.
"We didn't understand what she was doing." Simon shook his head. "I mean, she was a doctor. Her methods were harsh, but she did pull Kerry and others out of their grief and get them functioning again."
"And then?" Sheila asked slowly.
"I..." Kerry slumped a bit. "I helped her for a while. She told me that if I helped her, it would keep me busy, help me learn to cope. In so far as that went, that was true."
"Helping her do what?" Sheila demanded.
"Tending the kids who are left." Kerry's voice was barely audible. "We couldn't lose any more, you see." Sheila swiveled her main sensor housing from Kerry to Simon and back. "We… um… The sickness left us all sterile." She faltered.
"And?" Sheila snapped, patience fleeing.
"We put the kids into isolation as soon as we realized there was a problem." Simon replied, not put off at all by Sheila's tone. "They are still infectious, but they are not sterile."
"If the sickness was killing people..." Sheila paused as horror started to dawn. "Oh no… You didn't!"
"They are all in stasis." Kerry said weakly. "Not even the clone could hurt them there. I don't know if she tried. The isolation wards are off limits to our people. Only the master's servants and medical professionals are allowed in those wards."
"Well, I am certainly not one of his servants!" Sheila snapped. "And if you put kids into a waking hell of stasis..." Not all forms of stasis put the subject to sleep. If they were awake and aware… Oh dear.
"They are asleep." Kerry said sadly. "And they will remain asleep until we can find a cure."
"I am not an epidemiologist!" Sheila said flatly. When both looked blank, she clarified. "A doctor who studies diseases. I am a nurse. I can tend patients, treat them if given a plan to do so. I don't know enough about this situation to make any good decision though."
"Will you at least try to help the kids?" Kerry begged. "My own is gone, but there are dozen more who are still alive."
"Kerry, if they are in stasis, anything I do may hurt them worse." Sheila argued. Kerry's sudden look of desolation shook Sheila to the core. "I… I don't want to help Stalker. He has hurt my friends, killed my friends. He is the direct reason my genetic donor is dead." Kerry stared at her and Sheila continued. "He lied to the kindest, gentlest being I have ever met and then left her to raise their daughter alone."Kerry and Simon both recoiled at that, but Sheila wasn't done. "When his daughter was found to have a cancer, he used Sentient tech on my genetic donor to make her help. I was there when she died. When the Tenno had no choice but to kill her to keep the tech from growing out of her brain! I won't help him."
"If the Betrayers killed her..." Simon started, only to be cut off.
"They haven't betrayed me!" Sheila all but threw the words at him. "They protected me, gave me a home, somewhere I could feel safe. Stalker has lied to me, hurt me, tried to abduct me before. I won't-" Her words cut off as Simon raised a hand and she suddenly couldn't speak. Or move! Kerry cried out in sudden fear.
"Simon! No!" The woman moved between Simon and Sheila for all the good that would do. "She is Oracle's daughter! You can't!"
"My son is in one of those pods!" Simon said through clenched teeth. "She will help. She has to."
"You are going to get us all killed!" Kerry said with a snarl. "Let her go!"
"We need her to tend the kids." Simon said flatly. "Kerry, move. I am taking her to the wards."
"No!" Kerry threw her arms around Sheila. "She has to do it of her own free will. We cannot enslave her, Simon. You know what the Master said Oracle will do if we do that."
"Without those kids we have no future, Kerry. You know this." Simon said flatly. "Sheila, this way." He waved and Sheila's body started walking without her commands. She was panicking but Kerry was worse.
"You are out of your mind if you think she will help like this!" Kerry held onto Sheila's housing, but it did no good. A MOA was far stronger than a normal human and Kerry was dragged along behind the MOA as it walked. "Simon, don't!"
A door ahead of them blinked red as they approached. A wide band of warning lights illuminated swath on the floor that Simon stopped short of. Sheila quailed as she moved right into them and the door ahead of her flashed green. Kerry… did not let go.
"Kerry! Let go of her!" Simon said sharply. "You cannot go in there!"
"I am not leaving her alone!" Kerry shouted even as the door hissed open to show a short corridor and another door. An airlock? Sheila's coerced body dragged Kerry into the corridor and the woman let out a moan as the door behind her hissed shut. Suddenly Sheila had volition again. Sheila spun her sensor housing to look at it, but she was not surprised to see it locked. She couldn't sense anything behind the walls or doors. Dampening field shrouded her sensors. A decontamination beam washed over them. If this was a sterile lab, it might take several minutes to run its full cycle.
"Kerry?" Sheila asked slowly. "What is in the wards?"
"There are three and I have only been in the one with the kids." Kerry released Sheila and backed away. Her face was a study. "I am sorry. I didn't think he would do that."
"I did." Sheila sighed. "Power can corrupt even the best and love makes us all do strange things. Hell, Mom threatened to burn a good chunk of the system to ash for me and I know she doesn't want to."
"She..." Kerry swallowed hard. "How will she react to this?"
"I don't know, Kerry." Sheila admitted. "Taking volition from me didn't actually hurt." She paused as Kerry shook her head violently. "Kerry..."
"It does." Kerry said savagely. "Organic or technological, it does. Don't try telling me otherwise. You are not a robot. Treating you like one is wrong."
"I didn't know any better but the ones who found me kept saying the same thing. They can be damn persistent, the Clergy can." Sheila admitted, only to pause as Kerry made a face.
"The who?" The human asked.
"Eh… long story." Sheila replied. "But you might like them if you ever meet. They know about grief and loss. So…" She scrutinized the airlock and then sighed deeply. "I still don't understand why you need me. I am just a nurse. Hell, he could have abducted any number of humans to tend the kids far more easily than snatching my mind."
"Well, you don't need to eat." Kerry mused. "Do you sleep?"
"Four hours of downtime a night." Sheila replied. "Mostly recharging my on board power systems." Kerry stared at her and Sheila laughed a little tightly. "Gave me lots of time to study. For all the good it did. No matter how much I know, I am not organic, so I cannot ever be a doctor."
"What?" Kerry gaped at the MOA and then shut her mouth with a click. "Prejudice? Are they insane? You are Oracle's daughter."
"Adopted." Sheila replied offhand as the decontamination beam cut off and the locking panel on the door ahead shifted from red lights to green. "I am not one to use family to get ahead anyway and I could serve as I was." She slumped a bit. "I was happy as I was."
"I am sorry, Sheila." Kerry said weakly. "For all of this."
"I cannot scan anything through the walls." Sheila looked at Kerry. "You have been in here?"
"I um… I woke up in one of the wards." Kerry admitted. "I wasn't very coherent. She um… I..."
"I understand." Sheila reassured her. "It was a shock to me too and I never had a human body. I had no idea what she was doing or why it felt like that." Sheila broke off as a look of consternation appeared on Kerry's face followed by sudden rage.
"She raped you." Kerry said flatly.
"An argument could be made that she did the same to you." Sheila said in a suddenly strained voice.
"I gave consent." Kerry laughed little. "Not that I was in my right mind to do so, but I did and it was signed and everything."
"If you were not in your right mind, then whatever the hell she did to try and cover herself is not valid." Sheila snapped. "And you know it."
"I was so screwed up, Sheila… I still am, but differently." Kerry shook her head. "Whatever happens next, I am ready for it. I was ready to die after losing my son."
"I am not ready to die just yet, so if you don't mind, try to avoid self immolating too close?" Sheila said with a snide laugh. Kerry flushed, but them smiled at the MOA. "Better?"
"Yeah, thanks." Kerry stepped close to Sheila and laid a hand on the MOA's housing. "You are a good person, Sheila. It is an honor to know you."
"You say that now..." Sheila quipped as the pair started for the door.
When the door opened, both were slammed by a solid wall of sound. Kerry went stiff and then collapsed to the floor. Sheila was rocked back, but recovered before she tripped over the fallen human. Sheila stared around wildly, bu the walls were bare, white painted and the only furniture was a MOA charging station that looked suspiciously like her own back in the dojo. A green light started blinking on it.
"I cannot leave her!" Sheila's words were lost in the cacophony.
Without her medical gear, she was useless to Kerry though. If the station was like hers, then it likely had access to gear she could use to figure this out and treat Kerry. If it wasn't? She was sacrificing herself to be disassembled. Standard MOAs were built in the fabricators aboard Corpus ships. Used or damaged ones were disassembled to for the parts to be reused. She didn't know if a Corpus fabricator would recognize her organic bits or care. If those were disassembled, she was dead. Period.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Sheila thought grimly as she stepped forward. The charging station opened and she turned around to back into it as she always had. This time, though when it closed, she could not help a pang of terror. The sound cut out as soon as it did and she felt… things attaching to her housing. A voice sounded directly into her sensor clusters. Stalker.
"If you are hearing this, Medic Sheila, then we have succeeded in bringing you to this place." Stalker actually sounded worried. "Whatever I did to get you here was needed. There are twenty young lives for you to focus on. Any organic form that enters the area will be at the very least knocked unconscious by the sound that is emanating from the third ward. As security systems go, installing that one was a mistake. You may be able to help the female who is causing this. You may not. Your housing will last for some time, but not indefinitely. Even a warframe is not proof against such raw sound."
Kerry. Sheila breathed even as the things attached to her housing activated and she was suddenly in a medical MOA again! A fully functional one with more gear than she ever seen on a regular MOA. Hell, she could probably run an entire multiphasic genetic scan sequence just with her on board scanners!
"You need to stop this. Stop her." Stalker said sadly. "I would if I could, but I cannot get to her. Sedate her and she will stop broadcasting. Then you can tend the kids."
For how long? Sheila demanded angrily. But there was no reply. The changing station clicked open and Sheila was assaulted by the sound again.
Kerry was still crumpled where she had fallen and Sheila dashed to the human's side. A quick scan showed the woman had suffered burst eardrums as well as inter-cranial damage from the raw volume. Sheila immediately encased the woman's head in a sound canceling field and started treatment. It was quick and the only external sign was a little bit of blood seeping from the woman's ear. Such was a minor concern all told. She was unconscious and would likely stay that way for a bit. Sheila did not envy Kerry the headache the human would have when she woke, but she would wake.
This was starting to make sense now. A bit. Sheila's housing had been augmented with shielding that would protect her from the sound. She could find the source and shut it off where even Stalker would likely be incapacitated in minutes at best. She wondered idly if he had tried as she made Kerry as comfortable as she could and then started off into the wards. In moments, it was clear that whatever the place's primary purpose was, it wasn't medicine. Or at least, not medicine intended to save lives.
Small rooms lined the corridor that was helpfully marked 'Wards' with an arrow. Each was occupied by a still human form. None of them showed life signs and all were restrained even with the force fields that took the place of doors. Prisoners. Some showed bandages. Others showed healed signs of surgery to Sheila's sensors. Still others showed pallor or other marks of sickness. Test subjects? Human test subjects?
What the hell is this place? Sheila demanded silently. There was no way any words would be heard over the sound that… Sheila paused. The sound was repeating, It was getting clearer as she kept on towards the end of the hall. A set of doors shown on each wall as Sheila tried to comprehend a pattern in the noise, ahead but it still made no sense at all. It was certainly a pattern, but it wasn't any she had ever encountered. It wasn't like the Clergy music or the rachni music or anything else she had ever encountered.
Sheila paused at the doors. They were numbers but there were no other identifiers. One started flashing green, so that was likely where she had to go. She had to be under scrutiny at the moment, but like Stalker had said, no one could live in this except maybe an enhanced MOA. And only for a while. She could feel the sound vibrating through her, her own internal defense keeping the damage at bay for now and repairing what they could. Eventually, they would fail and she would die, but hopefully not before fixing this. If she could and then if she could trust Stalker not to kill her or enslave her forever. She scoffed at that thought. Only a fool trusted him.
The door hissed open and Sheila stepped through into a room straight out of any of the Clergy's ancient collection of stories about mad scientists. Machinery both medical and incomprehensible surrounded the room. It was fairly large but it did not feel that way. The gray floor and ceiling did nothing to dispel the sense of despair that clenched Sheila's heart as soon as she saw what lay in the middle of the room. A glass tube dominated the room. It was huge and Sheila could not see any way to breach it. Which was likely a good thing.
The young human woman who hung within the fluid had tubes and wires into her unclad body. She looked to be about twenty standard years in age. The scans were clear, she was alive. Her face was covered with a clear mask but for a moment, Sheila could not make out her features. Then she could.
And what she saw…
"MOM!"