Chapter Twenty
[To] Our Dearest
The super villains in the Blasto vids didn't hold a candle to where they entered. At first it was just a long, metal hallway, lined with large windows that looked down into smaller rooms. Some of those rooms were empty. Others, unfortunately, had people who were strapped down to large contraptions, monitored by technicians in green and white uniforms. While many appeared unconscious, there were some that had their mouths wide open and jerked their limbs violently, silently screaming behind the protective glass. Mary couldn't seem to pull her eyes away, her feet barely moving on their own without the aid of being forced along.
They finally entered through a metal door with a large red bar painted across it, the room beyond buzzing with activity. It had two floors that were open to one another, a main control area stationed in the center with littler sections of computers surrounding it. More uniformed officers ran about, carrying on in their own worlds and ignoring them as they came into view. The only person that was important enough to notice appeared to be another man in suit, lights flickering in his eyes from analyzing a datapad.
Before Mary had time to completely take in her surroundings, she breathed in lightly with surprise, the pain in her arm suddenly gone. Nerva walked forward, attempting to start a conversation with the apparent leader of the operations and leaving his back turned to her. She almost felt vulnerable, looking around quickly to the sights and sounds that bombarded her. It only took a moment to remember what she had to do, what her friend had asked her to, and began to slide her feet back slowly. She glanced carefully over her shoulder, noticing that the woman beside her was gazing elsewhere and the door behind them was still active with a green signal switch. Her heart felt like it was about to leap out of her chest and beat her to the exit, knowing she couldn't wait any longer to make her escape.
"Don't run," the woman whispered, hastily grabbing her arm as Mary half-turned towards the door. Her eyes met hers with a sympathetic gaze, drawing her to stand in front and placing her hands on her shoulders. She leaned over near her ear, staring off to watch the men before them carefully. "Don't run. They won't hesitate to kill you."
"Isn't that what they're going to do anyway?" she retorted quietly, her back beginning to tremble when Dee Dee remained silent.
The two men turned back a moment later, the turian officer glancing to the woman behind Mary in a self-satisfied manner. The human man, though, stared at the blond haired girl, the side of his mouth pulled to the side slightly in question. His blue eyes pieced a burning hole of curiosity into her skull, Mary feeling it even as she drew her eyes away. Without a word he knelt in front of her, reaching out and grabbing her chin. She wanted to smack him, pull away from him and claw at his face, but she froze. The man's presence, from the icy, firm grip he held to the calculated thoughts running through the back of his mind, made her feel like she was staring into the face of death.
"Sixteen, hm?" he thought aloud. "The crop of fourteens didn't do well, but perhaps there's a threshold."
"Do you want us to take her down to the examination rooms, Mr. Lawson?" Nerva asked.
The man considered it, his finger gliding along the edge of her jaw to her neck. He shrugged when deciding on something, reaching into his coat pocket for a pair of purple, rubbery gloves. Pulling them tightly into place, he took out a small vial and an instrument that couldn't have been longer than three inches. She watched as he punctured the vial's top, drawing up a blue, glowing substance into the tiny syringe.
"No, I don't want to waste time on another possible reject specimen," he stated. Without hesitation his hand suddenly went for her neck, dispensing the liquid into her neck. "The second phase project is too important for that."
Her face suddenly felt hot, a bright, bluish-white light flooding her vision. She could feel her knees grow weak, her head spinning as a loud ringing sound filled her ears and infected in mind. Outside of her thoughts, the three adult stared on at her reaction. Dee Dee held tighter to keep her from falling over, unable to hide the worry building within her. Even Nerva seemed suspicious towards what had been injected, feeling anxious to the possible reprocussions. Over time, the man grinned, nodding with approval and standing.
"Placid acceptance. A very promising start," he commented, waving for an assistant to bring him his datapad once more. "We can move ahead will a full injection and workup then."
"What did you do to her?" Dee Dee question, her voice echoing a calm anger.
"Sparing the technicalities, it's an experiment to see if we can't manufacture moving platforms," he replied, almost uninterested to answer. "We only have stationary wavelengths to reach troops at the moment, so if we can yield trainable, cognoscente towers to send out the Reaper frequency, we'll be able to expand our operations much more effectively."
"So...use human brainwaves as a signal instead of machines?" Nerva surmised, shrugging. "How do you get the nanites to cooperate? Drones are one thing, but this..."
"That's why it's still in the experimental phase—" the man began, sounding irritated, before he was interrupted by a nervous looking worker.
"Sir, we have a situation."
Mary's head was spinning, watching little blue wisps of light dance in her vision and slowly fade from view. She thought she could hear voices, scratchy like being spoken behind a fan. It was soft at first, only a buzz hiding at the base of her skull, with almost a calming affect. The sounds grew increasingly louder, however, as the man began to shout orders to those around, the room erupting in a flurry of activity. He turned back to them, his mouth frowning in a scowl, and pointed to Dee Dee with a heavy hand.
"You. Take her to stasis and get her aboard a shuttle," he said, going to the main control station in the center of the room.
"What's happening?" Dee Dee asked, keeping a wary eye on the turian beside her.
"Reapers have landed just outside the facility," he replied coolly, rubbing his forehead. "Why are they even here? It has to be due to the signal, but...Damn it. I need more time."
Without another word the three headed for the exit, winding through a different set of hallways to their destination. Mary stumbled along in the care of Dee Dee, holding onto her hand tightly. She didn't even realize she was walking next to her until they had reached a more lively area, passing by uniformed agents who were scrambling to collect various things. The world was slowly coming to life around her, but not without battling the smaller voices echoing in her mind. She felt cold, fear striking into her core for no apparently reason other than the panicked faces of those they passed. Mary could have sworn she heard crying, pleading for things she couldn't quite make out.
In her attempts to focus more on reality, she found her heel catching on a large wire snaking across the ground, falling to her knees as her shoe's heel broke. She recognized shouting but was unsure of the words, the ghostly image of the former merchant appearing in her vision. It was almost blurred by the blue light behind her, Mary rubbing her eyes as she was hurriedly pulled to her feet.
"We don't have time for this!" Nerva yelled, reaching to take Mary and set her walking at his own pace. Dee Dee held her closer, however, her eyes stern in defiance.
"She was just infected with prototype Reaper nanites. She's going to have a little trouble walking," she spat, patting the girl's head as she clung to her waist for support.
Mary's eyes widened at the sight she saw behind Dee Dee. Inside a room, the blinding glow fading, she finally saw an asari woman. She was strapped to a table, involuntarily twitching with her mouth half-open. Though Mary didn't see her physically speak, she could have sworn she heard her voice, sad and wondering what was happening to her. What had happened to her children. If her husband, Goddess forbid, would follow them there. Mary saw the tears fall from the sides of the woman's eyes and felt them on her own cheeks, her breathing becoming choppy in an overwhelming sadness. It only subsided when she was suddenly jerked away, her shoes falling away from her feet and feeling the painful sting of Nerva's talons on her arm.
"Then she's going to have to get over it faster," he hissed, his jaw clicking shut.
Dee Dee picked up her heels, both the good and the broken one, and paused, examining their soles. After snapping off the dangling heel and placing it in her shirt, she tossed the rest lightly at him, catching him off guard and scrambling to not touch them too much. She took the opportunity to take Mary back, hurrying her along to distance themselves. While he suspected that her anger was getting the best of her, he maintained the spacing between them to relish the amusement of the moment. What he didn't expect, however, was her abrupt stop after crossing the threshold of a doorway, hastily signaling for it to close.
Mary stared at her in bewilderment as she heard him shout from the other side, seeing his shadow reflect in the small window of the door. Dee Dee worked quickly, opening the control panel and tearing away at the wires, causing the system to malfunction. He wasn't going to get through that way any time soon, at least.
"What are you doing?" Mary inquired quietly, the question slipping from her mind.
Dee Dee huffed with one final pull, a few stands of hair falling away from her neatly kept bun. She stumbled back a little, but, after smoothing out her dress, looking over to her, smiling gently. Her eyes examined the girl's features, looking to be sure she wasn't about to pass out or the wound in her neck was still bleeding. Satisfied, she removed the heel from her blouse and placed it in her hand, beginning to fiddle with her omni-tool.
"Hang on to that. You might need it later," she stated over the banging from the other side of the door. "I left the tracking device for Tertius to find. Once you're off-planet, the signal should become stronger."
"Off-planet? I don't..." she drifted, watching Dee Dee remove the communication device from her wrist and readjusting it for her.
"Take my omni-tool," she said quickly, handing it to her. "This is the map of the facility, this is for communication, and this is to activate medi-gel. Understand?"
"Why are you helping me?" she asked bluntly.
She hesitated, Mary noticing the edges of the woman's lips start to quiver. Placing Mary's chin in the crook of her thumb and index finger, she continued, "Because after all my teasing to try and push him away, he still cared enough to come back. I'm just repaying the favor."
Mary shook her head, her eyes beginning to sting, "But Tertius...he—"
"Hey," she spoke over her, making her gaze return to her own. "Did you see him die?"
"No, but—"
"Then he's still alive. He cared about you too much to let go. You're very, very lucky to have that," she reassured, smoothing back Mary's hair. After a moment, Dee Dee unclasped the chain of her necklace and placed it around Mary's neck, letting the small, brass medallion fall over her blue dress. "Get to the shuttles on the other side of the base. Try to stay hidden, but if anyone stops you, say you're under orders from Henry Lawson to get off Horizon. They should believe you."
"And if they don't?"
Dee Dee grinned, laughing halfheartedly. She apparently hadn't thought that far herself. Reaching around, she pulled out a pistol that was strapped to the back of her thigh, placing it into the girl's hand.
"Just stay safe and tell him I said hi when you see him," she answered, patting her on the back. "Now get moving! This place will be crawling with Reapers soon."
With her feet bare and a glow still hovering in her vision, Mary backed away slowly before heading off down the hall, hugging close to the walls. The further she moved away, the more Dee Dee's smile faded, turning back to the window in the door when Mary had finally disappeared from view. She met the glare of the turian beyond it, crossing her arms and plastering a smug grin on her mouth.
"Oh, come now, you should have been expecting this," she chuckled, rolling her eyes.
"I didn't think you had it in you," he scoffed, typing various codes into his omni-tool to open the door, possibly even sending out a message to the other Cerberus members. By the way his mandibles flicked out every so often, she could tell it was to no avail. "This will cost you, you know."
"I have nothing more to give," she replied, reaching up her hand and tapping her fingers upon the safety glass. "This company, these people, even you, took everything I had."
"Don't be so dramatic," he said, going to the control panel on the wall to see if it would react. "I knew you were weak emotionally but to be such a sap? Fake boyfriend or not he must have really gone to your head. Tell me, does that knife of knowledge still hurt, or is his death simply a consequence of war?"
Her grin faded, bringing her face close to the window. Small circles of vaporous breath smudged against the glass, Dee Dee looking on at Nerva's frustration. Not even his thwarted attempts to exit the research portion of the facility could satisfy her anger, subconsciously scratching her nails into the cold metal.
"I'm not who you take me for, Nerva," she stated, pressing her lips together. There was a plan in the back of her eyes that he would never see, hollow and void of feeling. "Do you want to know the real reason I left Rio?"
Nerva laughed, "Centurions are going to be on your ass in two minutes and you want to go discussing your back story? Please, don't let me stop you!"
"I knew a man once who was a lot like you," she began, ignoring his sarcasm. "He was from Columbia and, oh, how my sister loved him. He was strong and handsome and it didn't hurt that he could speak Portuguese. Of course, the reason why he could speak our tongue was because, as we soon found out, he was a drug dealer. Small time, worked as a subsidiary for a larger cartel, but he had his fingers in places where he could hold on to enough power. Funny that some of his money was funneled back into Cerberus operations. That's how I found out about this company, anyway."
Nerva lifted his gaze, observing as the lights began to flicker around them. There were loud bangs erupting from a distance through the walls, most likely cause by the escalating violence between Cerberus and the Reapers at large. His back tightened, nervous at the situation and wondering if he should try to find another escape route soon. Dee Dee, though, was not phased, tilting her head.
"My sister would never admit it, but he was abusive," she continued. "Only subtly at first, getting angry over the littlest of things. He would always calm those around him back into a false sense of security, making them believe he was a gentleman. That image went on for so long, but one day he snapped."
She could see him gasp as they both heard a piercing cry, rattling the pipes in the ceiling and Dee Dee feeling the vibration in the door. Nerva shook his head, pacing up the door's window.
"Dee Dee, open this door," he demanded lowly, glaring at her.
"That man tried to hurt my sister," she admitted, her eyes flicking up from the floor to him. "So I killed him."
"Dee Dee, open this door!" he shouted, banging his hand against the glass.
"It was an accident, really," she said quietly, laughing lightly to herself, "but with nothing to defend her or myself with I stabbed him in the throat with my medallion. It was just enough to nick an artery."
The screech echoed again, louder and more threatening. It was clear which direction it was heading, Nerva turning around to face what was coming down the narrow hall.
"Dee Dee!" he yelled in a panic, taking his gun from his belt.
The creature that they had heard appeared from a smeared portal of sorts, hovering lightly in the air with its long, gangly arms at its sides. The lights of its body were dimmed, but became violently bright when it felt a stream of heat sinks hit its body, its mouth opening in another scream. Dee Dee would give Nerva credit for at least trying, running through one clip and then another almost seamlessly before his gun finally gave out on him, throwing it at the creature. In one last, pitiful attempt he looked back at her, horror striking his features as she smiled sweetly.
"You took my light away from me," she said unhurriedly, "and now I'm going to take yours."
She winced as a spray of blue blood covered the glass, small flecks of flesh lifting into the air as ash and burning in an orange light. Gazing through the thinning portions on the window, she looked at the asari-based abomination as it stared at its prey, seeming almost pleased with its work. Eventually it turned, floating back the way it came. Dee Dee, without pride or pleasure in what had just occurred, dusted her hands with a sense they would never come clean. It wasn't a new sensation, but she didn't like it all the same. Still, her insides settled in fulfillment. Sending the girl off on her own was the safer of the two options; they would have known what she had done soon enough and probably have her on an alert list. That is, if Cerberus managed to hold back the Reaper forces. Teritus would just have to the do the rest.
She held her arms, a chill falling down her spine as she turned away. The hall she was in was silent then, devoid of the bustle that once flooded it. She wondered if that's what many planets—many homes—felt like, and had a hard time keeping the emptiness from welling in her eyes. Dee Dee had gotten used to the absence of people, of companionship and trust. It was then she mused at the famous line, 'It is better to have loved and lost', and decided that whoever wrote those words was an idiot. Tertius would probably think so, too. With that in mind she smiled genuinely, letting the darkness drape around her like a veil of mourning and walking off to no where in particular.
Author's Note: I am so sorry for being so behind on these. D: School is starting in a month and, since it's my senior year of college, I've had a CRAP TON of stuff I've had to worry about, (so fanfics have kind of been on the back burner a little bit). The last chapter and epilogue will be posted in two weeks, much like the last few chapters have been, so thank you so much to those who have stuck it out to read this, (and those who have recently picked it up!)