This time when Anya woke, she was lying in a real bed. She cracked her eyes and blinked when they worked. She looked around and froze on seeing the female form in familiar white, black and orange armor sitting beside her bed. Except for the mask, the woman was garbed as a Cerberus Phantom, complete with sword sheathed on her back. But the face...
"Good morning, Anya." The eldest of her siblings said with a sad smile. Her brown hair was cut very short to fit easily under the helmet and her hazel eyes were sad as she looked at her bedridden sister.
"Kai." Anya said slowly. "You are my minder?" She looked at herself, she was wearing a hospital gown and... She paused. Why hadn't they taken that smart diaper thing off her? She decided not to ask.
"Yes." Kai said with a sigh. "And before you try anything dumb..." Anya tensed by Kia just sat there. 'You have an new implant inside your skull." Anya's hands shot to her head and it was bandaged. Kai nodded. "It's experimental tech, but it works. As long as you cooperate, your voluntary muscles will remain under your control. Step out of line and you get zapped."
"I bet your mother will really enjoy doing that." Anya said sourly. "It sounds right up her alley. Hurting people."
"Our mother is busy, Anya." Kai said in mild reproof. "Goading her was dumb." The elder woman said with a frown.
"She is not my mother. She kills me, and you lose." Anya said with a shrug. "Pain and I are old friends."
"I know. Ah, Anya..." Kai said, her face falling, Anya stared at her, this was new. Kai had always been a stern, distant sibling. "I am sorry."
"For? Wait... Your eyes are not glowing...?" Anya said in wonder. "Was I your prisoner when the pulse hit?"
"No." Kia said softly. "But you were shielded from it, like we were."
"So..." Anya said slowly. "There is more than one place that the pulse didn't hit. Good to know." She was coiling her body, working up her meager strength. She knew she would likely only get one chance.
"Anya..." Kia sighed with a shrug. "You are going to try. Okay... Here..." She turned her back and leaned close to the bedridden soldier, leaving the hilt of her sword well within reach. "Take it."
"What?" Anya said, recoiling a little. "What kind of a trick...?"
"Take it, Anya." Kai said gently. "Take it, try to use it, on me or yourself. See what happens."
"It will hurt me if I do, right?" Anya asked, her eyes narrowing. "Some kind of trap?"
"No." Kai said with a shake of her head. "But you won't believe until you have it happen. I know I didn't."
"What?" Anya asked suspiciously. "This happened to you?" She demanded.
"And Melissa..." Kai said with a sigh. "And Jenni, although Jenni..." She sighed. "Jenni was a mess before it happened and she is more of a mess now."
"She was a jerk." Anya said with a scowl. "She thoroughly enjoyed hurting me."
"She was the youngest, Anya." Kai said sternly. "Were you wise at 15?" She asked, turning her head back to look at Anya. Anya took advantage of Kai's momentary distraction to slam the edge of her hand into the sensitive nerve cluster behind the Phantom's ear. An instant kill spot IF she could connect. She did. Or, she tried. As she connected, something roared through her. It didn't hurt though. Far from it.
On one level, Anya was aware of screaming. She was aware of her throat aching, her lungs flaring as air left them in vast, unending waves. But on every other level, she was submerged in the raw ecstasy that soaked through every pore and nerve. Then she slammed herself back to the bed, pounding her head into the yielding substance of the pillow as she tried to break free of the feelings. Word came and she focused on them.
"Anya..." Kai's voice was stern. "Breathe. Now." Her cheek stung and she gasped, air suddenly pouring into lungs that she hadn't even realized had been starved for it. "That's it..." Kai crooned. "That's it, sis. Breathe..." After a few moments a gentle hand rubbed her shoulder. "Easy, Anya... Easy... It's a shock, I know."
"You..." Anya shook herself and called on her training. It was remarkably hard, harder than she ever remembered it being. "You wired the pleasure centers of my brain..." Talking helped. Focusing on anything other than the still racing feelings helped.
"Not me." Kai said sadly. "I am no surgeon. But...yes. They did. Pain never made you do anything but dig your heels in harder." Kai's voice was resigned now. "Every time mom beat you, it just made you more determined to have your own way. You are one stubborn cuss."
"They did this to you?" Anya asked, horrified as she fought the feelings back. "Melissa? Jenni?"
"Yes." Kia said sadly. Anya cracked her eyes and found her sister sitting on the bed beside her. Kai looked at her and then a tear fell from the armored woman's eye. "Anya... I am sorry...I want to ease you and I can't."
"Don't..." Anya said slowly. "I still love you and Melissa and even Jenni. Your parents... Not so much. Don't get in trouble for me, Kai. You can't help me." She said flatly. "I won't help them. They will have to kill me."
"No." Now Kai was crying in earnest. "No they won't. The implant isn't just for punishment. Anya, sit up." Anya stiffened and then her face went slack as her body obeyed Kia's command without Anya's direction.
"What the?" Anya snapped.
"Move to stand." Kai said as she swiped her face, drying her eyes. "We need to get you to the lab." Anya struggled, but her body obeyed Kai's commands, sliding her legs off the bed as Kai moved to let her. "Stand up."
"What have you done to me?" Anya screamed as her body rose to a standing position.
"A control chip." Kai said sadly. "It interfaces with your spine, allows for total control of your body. It is not perfect. If we use it too much it will cause irreparable brain damage. But Father insisted."
"You have one too?" Anya asked, then sighed. "Never mind, of course you do. Your mother and father are nothing if not thorough in needing to control everything. Why can I speak?"
"Because I want to talk to my little sister who I have not seen in years." Kai said with a snarl as she walked to one side of the room. Anya could look around a little and it was a standard hospital room, bare except for the bed and the chair Kai had been sitting in. Kai pulled a concealed closet open and rolled a wheelchair out. It had straps on the arm and foot rests. "Are you going to make me command you?" Anya hung her head.
"No." Anya said slowly and remained still as Kai wheeled the chair over. "I won't cooperate, Kai. You have me at a significant disadvantage at the moment, but I will find a way to deny you your prize." Kai waved to her and she sat. The straps clicked shut on their own.
"Not my prize." Kia said soberly as she checked the straps. "And we are going to be very careful with you. We do not want to lose you again. You won't be able to activate any biotics. Between the implants and the drugs, you won't be able to." She sighed as she moved behind the chair. "You know...? I dreamed of this moment. Meeting you again. It... This isn't what I planned."
"In battle or talking?" Anya asked, curious despite herself. She didn't try the straps. Just looking at them, they were well beyond her ability to break. "And why are you sorry? You won, I lost." She said bitterly.
"Not about that." Kai said as she rolled the chair toward the door. It hissed open, showing two armed and ready Cerberus troops outside. Her eyes narrowed as she saw that both wore Dragoon armor, but both nodded to Kai and relaxed as she passed them. Anya noted they fell into line behind the chair as it rolled. A guard detail. "I would have liked to talk to you over drinks. Maybe when this is over..." She shook her head. "If we both survive."
"That sounds...dire." Anya said mildly. "Do I want to know?"
"We were all created for a specific purpose, Anya." Kai said with a small, barely noticeable shiver. "It didn't seem plausible to me when it was first explained to me and it barely seems plausible now. But I have my orders."
"I will not help Cerberus, Kai." Anya said softly. "Not after what I saw."
"You told Melissa you were on Benning." Kai said softly. "Was it as bad as the reports?" Her tone was kind.
"Worse." Anya said softly. "They took all the adults they could snatch to turn into cannon fodder. Then they had to do something with the kids. They rounded up all the underage citizens they could find and...slaughtered them. Penned them up and gunned them down. We had been moving in slowly, carefully. We hadn't expected... No one had. We hit them seconds later, too late for most of the kids. I doubt it was your cell, but it was Cerberus." She said with hate coloring her tone.
"Yes." Kai said slowly. "It was. A rogue faction. We were one of several cells mobilizing to 'deal' with them when Shepard dealt with them in her own, unique fashion."
"And the next time?" Anya asked coldly. "The time after that? And the time after that?" Kia paused in her moving, staring at her sister. "it was almost like clockwork, the attacks came so often." She jerked her head at the two guards behind Kai. "I go so sick of seeing Cerberus armor. We were posted to the capital and it seemed every day there was a Cerberus attack somewhere on Benning."
"Anya..." Kai said slowly. "I don't know. You know how it is. If I didn't have 'need to now' I didn't. and don't." One of the guards made a small gesture. Kai sighed and nodded.
"Were you tracking me?" Anya asked as Kai started off again. "I saw a lot of Cerberus troops. Killed a lot too." She said offhand.
"Not that I know of." Kai said, her tone worried. "But then again, I don't know a lot. They told me to go places and do jobs. I did."
"Kai." Anya asked. "Did they tell you to kill children?"
"No." Kai said, not pausing again. "I had to make some tough decision, but I never took my sword to kids, Anya. I... I don't know if I could have."
"I don't know if I believe you." Anya mused. "I saw a Phantom take a child's head off once. The girl was running away. She couldn't have been more than...ten? Eleven?" Anya said with a sigh. "She got a little in the Phantom's way and the witch took the kid's head off and kept right on coming. It wasn't needed." Anya said with a snarl. "That girl was no threat. I bet that ninja witch just enjoyed it."
"I doubt it." Kai said softly. "Anya. You have to understand. Most Phantoms, myself and a few others excluded, were Indoctrinated. They could not disobey whatever orders they were given. Free thinking, or deviance from orders was not encouraged. Indeed, it was punished, sometimes very harshly. If that Phantom had any of her mind left intact, she regretted what she did."
"Maybe. Not that I let her live long after that." Anya said sadly. "I don't know." She looked up as the chair wheeled towards a door marked 'Lab'. "Ah, my destiny awaits?" She asked snidely.
"Be nice, Anya." Kai said sternly. "She has suffered more than any of us."
"Oh." Anya said softly as the door whisked open and a slightly younger brown haired woman in surgical scrubs stood there, an irate expression on her face. "Hello Jennifer."