Chapter Fifty-One: Too Late

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Thanks to CatLady101, Lost Time Traveler,

and phoebus1991 for the faves.

And thanks to everyone else for your continued support.

And to those of you that worry this story will last forever or fear that it wont, well its already had a damn long run.

I have plans to finish this story line off as a punctual Christmas present to all of you.

The only thing I have left to decide is:

What should I write next?

~o~OoO~o~

Alexander Rook smiled as pleasantly as he always had, as if they were conducting business for a replacement as usual. But Derris didn't find anything good about the situation no matter how brightly Aria would have been smiling if she'd been there to receive the news with him.

"What if I – we don't want the current model completely recycled?" He only just managed to keep the anger out of his voice.

Rook's smile slipped. "I don't understand. Why would you want to keep the defective model? I'm sure that I remember warning you that she wasn't ready for deployment when the last one expired prematurely. I even offered one of the available replacements."

"And if that waste of a prince hadn't killed his father she would have still properly served her purpose as the birthing vessel and we'd be speaking about another combat model, but for the time being, her highness has been too long without her 'sister' and even amongst the Ishida questions are becoming unanswerable." Derris glared at the chubby little man on his monitor. "We don't have time to wait another replacement."

Rook frown then, looking more like a furry child than before. "I was under the impression that you'd sent her out under orders to rid you of the prince so that she could clear the way for Queen Aria to finalize her engagement with Ishida Hiro. Perhaps I should present this to her majesty directly."

"My lady Aria is currently indisposed due to the biologically encoded message we received from Calypso confirming her condition," he growled out that last part. "An unfortunate accident I'm sure she'll confirm."

Eyebrows raised, Rook blinked slowly before answering. "It didn't appear to have been an accident that caused this and Ishida Ryo's reaction when told he would have to leave her here didn't make it seem unfortunate either."

That was not what Derris wanted to hear. "Relieve the vessel of the exile's taint, take minimum about of DNA you need for a replacement, and make sure that this Calypso is fit for transport. I'm on my way to your location now."

~O~o~O~

They strapped down her legs and hips as tightly as they could this time. The surgeon she'd bludgeoned with her knee as he'd cut open her shirt more was still clutching his head in the corner of the room with an ice pack in hand. Her arms, chest, shoulders and head were strapped down so tightly as well that she thought she was about to pop from the pressure. One of the nurses was disinfecting the skin of her stomach while another rigged up a machine Seven was sure they meant to use to put her under. When Rook returned this time it was a surprise even to the medical staff. He stood over her, hands clasped in front of him, and frowned.

"It looks like we're not going to recycle you after all," he said. "It seems that Queen Aria still has need of you. Her Chief of Security, Derris will be arriving to collect you after you've recovered from the procedure."

"No!" She could practically feel the snap of the whip vibrating through the air. "Kill me. Recycle me. Don't send me back."

"Or what? You'll fall out of line again?" He seemed annoyed or bored. "I'm afraid neither of us have a choice in the matter. We'll take what we need from you so that we can make a replacement but in the mean time you're going to be a good girl, Calypso, and do as we've programmed you to do."

"The code words won't work, Mr. Rook," the doctor she'd assaulted stepped forward, ice pack still in hand. "The initial scans we took of her brain show that most of her original programing has been rerouted."

"Perhaps due to the communal mind wipe that Rebecca told us about," he reasoned as he turned to face him.

The other man nodded. "Most of the fail-safes we implanted into her cloned cerebrum have shut down all together and the data storage module has been corrupted."

"And the maternal nanites?"

He shook his head this time. "The scans didn't detect any in her system let alone any that had been activated."

Rook looked back down at her with a small smile. "So you don't even know what's expected of good girls anymore, do you? It seems you and Rebecca share the same problem. We're going to have to start from scratch with her as well sadly."

"Who is Rebecca?" Seven frowned, the pain of the straps biting into her body and her confusion making it hard to hold on to her fear.

"Oh, I forgot, you weren't there when I explained that to your crew," he seemed politely embarrassed despite the situation. "You know her as Portia Lin or Two. Neither of those are her name, however it doesn't seem like that will matter soon enough."

Two wasn't her favorite person, but the woman mostly held the crew in check, they needed her. "What are you going to do to her?"

"Your concern is touching, though I'm surprised that you seem to care since she's shown little sign of an affection towards you despite not having any memories of before when the replacements we'd initially prepared for you nearly subdued her during her last escape. I suppose it isn't that remarkable really, that even without her memories she'd have such an adverse ingrained response to the image of a woman who all but foiled her plans."

"What are you going to do to her?" Seven hissed again.

"We're going to recycle her and start over," he smiled again but it was sad this time. "Just like we planned to do with you. Now is there anything you need to say before we proceed?"

"Yeah," One of the nurses stabbed an IV in to her arm while another prepared a mask to put over Seven's face. "You talk too damn much."

He seemed disappointed but shrugged. "Good night, Calypso."

Despite the straps that tightly bound her wrists, Seven did what she could to make a profane gesture with her hand as her vision started to get foggy. She thought he might have frown or even shaken his head, but even with how thoroughly she was restrained, she felt as though she were beginning to float. Things slowly began to get lighter and darker at the same time, quieter. Seven felt the drugs invading her system a drop at a time. Each drop sending ripples of numbing sensations throughout her body. Lighter. Heavier. Darker. Softer. She could have been out for minutes or hours already at that point, there was no telling. Not until she woke up. If she woke up. Just like going into stasis. Almost a reverse of how she'd come out of stasis. She remembered alarms and dark eyes. Perhaps this was all just an elaborate nightmare caused by a malfunction in the stasis pod and she'd wake up and see Four standing there as he had been, all sharp edges and seriousness. But no, her mind chose to center on the sound of the alarms.

Wait.

On the Raza the alarms had seemed like a blaring repeated ring. This alarm was a rolling siren.

"Wake up."

Not Four.

"Damn, Seven, wake up."

She felt a dull smack and her head rolled to the side. The Not Four made more noises until Seven felt the fog drifting away and she could finally manage to crank her eyes open.

"It's about time," Two snapped. "Get the hell up, we need to move. Can you fight?"

Seven rolled her still drowsy legs off the table, only vaguely making note that the remains of her shirt were tied shut over her chest. "I won't slow you down."

Two almost grinned until Seven's full weight came down and pain slashed through her abdomen and the drugged haze and she crashed to the ground with an ear-piercing scream. "You can't even stand up. Wait here. I'll figure something out."

"No," Seven spat as she struggled get herself upright again. "Just hand me something to wrap my stomach with and we can go."

"Seven, this is an order – "

"Since when do I ever listen to your orders," she snapped. "Now hand me something to wrap this so we can get out of here."

Two glared but tossed a roll of thick bandages at her and went to the door to keep a look out. "Hurry up."

Seven dragged herself into a standing position and leaned heavily against the table. She tried to pretend that all the blood on the ground belonged to the bodies of the nurses and surgeons Two apparently killed to get to her, but she could feel the thick, sticky, wetness of it soaked into her pants and the skin beneath. The coarse stitches stopped her cold. She looked down, the very act sending waves of pain through her body, and what she found chilled her to the core, numbing her more than any medication could have managed. There was a horizontal wound that had been hastily, but efficiently sutured on her lower abdomen. She must have made a noise because Two was there all of a sudden, snatching the bandages out of her hand and beginning to wrap them tightly around Seven's core.

"I had one of them sew you back up before I killed him," Two's voice was strained, but softer than Seven had ever heard it. "They said it was too late to put it back."

Seven nodded as the other woman tied off the bandages, swallowing the burning in her throat and blinking back the tears that trembled on her lashes. "We need to go then before guards show up. I won't be of much use just yet."

Two looked at her, unsure, but not willing to argue again. "Let's do this then."

~o~OoO~o~

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