Chapter 20

Angel

This was her prison.

When Angel had first been locked inside the Control Core, every fibre of her being had screamed to escape. To run away, to get out before her father could lock the door. Some instinctive scream in her mind demanded that Angel understand one simple truth: if she was trapped here, she would never leave.

But her father had assured her it was temporary. That of course he would not leave her in there. Of course he was looking for a way for her to be allowed out, a way that keep the world protected from her power.

For so long, Angel had believed him.

There were days, of course, when her patience wore thin. Angel's anger rose, her pain tore under her skin, the solitude pushed so painfully upon her mind that she would scream and shout. She would let her power burn through the Control Core, pushing it to its limits. On those days, Jack would not soothe her with words of promises and freedom. No…on those days she would be scolded with reminders of blood and guilt.

"See, what would have happened if you hadn't been in there and you'd pulled that crap, huh?" Jack would snap, scowling face appearing on the monitors around her. "That's exactly how you got your mother killed, Angel! God, sometimes, it's like you don't even care! That you don't care if you kill someone, you-you don't care how much it hurts me to see you locked in there. Is that it? What, you want me to just let you out and risk everyone's lives?! Y'think if I had it my way, I wouldn't let you out right now? I wish I could be that selfish, Angel. But I can't. I can't risk a everyone else's lives just because you're my daughter."

Somehow, his words would bring an apology to her lips. For a few days, Angel would be convinced he was right. The worst part was…she knew he was, in a way. In the worst way, Jack was right. Ignoring the risk, letting her out, maybe that would be wrong. Maybe she deserved her prison, she would think to herself sullenly.

Maybe he would still look for a way to let her out.

Angel wasn't sure at what point she had lost hope that she would ever see the outside world. Maybe it was the day after Jack had stumbled, half-delirious with grief, out of the Control Core and left her sitting on that damned chair. Maybe it was the year after. Maybe it was yesterday.

It definitely wasn't today. No, today was one of those rare days when her father was in a great mood. That mood was infectious, bringing a smile to Angel's face. Her heart felt lighter as she watched her father pin up another piece of paper to the wall of the Control Core.

"Okay, new theory: the Sirens are pointing towards the Vault," Jack said, tracing a finger across the photograph of the mysterious ancient mural. He stepped back then, finger drumming on his bottom lip. He turned to Angel, flicking a casual open palm towards her. "Y'know, this new dude has started, forgot his name, but he had all these cool old records from a planet over in another galaxy, super-rare, super-cool. Anyway, they had these stories about a creature called a siren too! And these things they were these hot chicks who would sit on the rocks and sing to sailors. The song would be so mind-bendingly awesome that the sailors would be convinced something amazing was waiting for them. They'd follow the song and bam! Hit the rocks and die!" Jack clapped his fist into his hand to signify the sailors hitting the rocks, making Angel jump.

"S-so you think Sirens here are luring people to the Vault?" Angel asked, tilting her head to get a better view of the mural photo behind her father. "It…makes sense. We have powers, and people think there's something connecting the Sirens and the Vaults, right? So maybe people are supposed to think they can have Siren-powers too if they…open the Vault…but then they…die."

Angel pulled a face. She didn't like the idea of being a beacon of someone's demise.

"Maybe? God, that would suck," Jack mused, turning his attention back to the photo, bottom lip jutting out a little partly in thought, and partly in disappointment. "Like, maybe this bit behind them is just a nice planet and they're luring some poor idiot to Pandora to go in the Vault and get eaten by Prince Charming over here?" Jack struck the paper with his pen. He rapped it a few times against the photos, then shook his head. "Nah, nah, that can't be it. That would be crazy. I mean one, why? Even if this monster's meant to be taken literally, it's locked up. Why would the Sirens be feeding it dumbasses opening the Vault?"

You're trying to open the Vault… Angel thought to herself, holding back a giggle. Her father certainly wasn't a dumbass. He was one of the smartest people she knew. But, then again, she supposed she did not really know many people.

"Nah," Jack concluded, tucking the pen behind his ear and accidentally knocking the cigarette he had tucked behind there earlier to the floor. "You guys gotta be linked to the Vault some other way. God, this is frustrating. Is this meant to be the past? The future?" He opened his arms out to the mural photo, then spun on his heel to face Angel. "It's right there, Angel. I just. Can't. Understand it yet."

He headed over to her, flopping down in front of the force-field. For a moment, a terrible sadness appeared to settle on his shoulders, slumping his entire frame. Angel liked to think it was the sight of her prison that had hit him, though she knew it was more than likely his decades-long torment at solving the Vault mystery.

Still, she scooted as close as the force-field would allow.

"Dad…what is it?"

For a moment, it looked like Jack might say something — he lifted his head, a serious look shielding his eyes so that Angel couldn't tell if her father was angry or sad. Or both. But then, something glimmered behind his eyes and he turned away. He got to his feet, leaving Angel confused and, not for the first time, stung by his sudden shift in mood.

Just like that, every ounce of blame she thought he had finally taken away from her doorstep landed with a crash back upon it.

"I'll uh…I need to ask someone something first. Listen, uh…just…we'll talk about it tomorrow, okay?"

"But-"

Angel scrambled to her feet, but what could she do? He was gone, disappearing out the door without another word of whatever concern had dampened his mood so suddenly. It was not unusual. But it didn't make it hurt any less.

Recoiling in on herself, Angel stepped away from the force-field. The markings on her arm glowed ever so faintly, reacting to the surge of bitter loneliness that always followed when those doors to the outside world, so far away, shut once more. The machine of her prison whirred to life around her, and before she could focus her powers, Angel found herself standing in a crude representation of her childhood home. It had been born of need and pain, instinct and walls, so it was not her best work — the living room was too bare, missing the little details she cherished in her memory. The rug was the wrong colour, and the armchair was absent. The room was too big, making the neglected elements all the more obvious.

"Hey, Starburst. What's eatin' ya?" The digital ghost of her father flickered in front of her. Angel almost deleted him then and there, knowing the copy existed only through her, spoke the words she told it to say. It was just lines of code, her request to the VR system embedded in the Control Core from its previous life being answered. He only said whatever Angel imagined he might say if her father still loved her.

"I…" Angel started, though she couldn't find it in herself to look up. She contented herself with speaking to her feet instead. "I don't think he's getting better. Since Mom…I-I mean, without her, he…you…changed. I…I miss you."

The digital copy didn't respond to her plea immediately. It waited for her to tell it what to say, as it always did.

"Angel, sweetheart…this isn't all on you," her digital father said, speaking out her thoughts. Thoughts she dared not confront Jack with yet. "He…I…still have choices. This is how I'm choosing to deal with it. Badly."

"What am I supposed to do?" Angel could feel tears prickling in her eyes, her throat tightening. "It's all my fault, isn't it?"

Again, silence met her words, until her anger seeped in through her powers and echoed in the digital ghost's words:

"…No. I always act like your mother's death was something that happened to me. But it didn't just happen to me. It happened to you too. I'm being a selfish assh—"

Angel gasped and struck out with her hand, casting the illusion away with a swipe of her arm.

I can't say that! I can't think that!

She looked around at the monitors as the virtual world of her home crumbled away with her panic and revealed the Control Core's default state around her.

"…Language…" she muttered, hugging her arms around herself.

She usually spent her days among the stars, watching the planets beneath her through satellites and machines. But some days, Angel see the outside world a little closer. Sometimes, she almost walked on the ground. Sometimes, she almost felt normal.

"Dad?" Her voice crackled through the speakers of Jack's ECHO-device. He was holding the gadget at an angle, giving Angel a lurching view of the sky. She heard the dry ground of Pandora crunching under Jack's feet as he stomped across the wasteland and wondered what that would feel like under her own feet.

"What?"

"I didn't get to see the flowers this time," Angel said, trying to shift her line of sight as much as the ECHO-device's limit screen allowed. She hated logging into small machines — they were always so cumbersome, so restrictive. "What're we bringing her?"

Jack didn't answer, leaving Angel with nothing but the sky above and the crunch of gravel. The girl scowled — being ignored sucked, and she was expected to live most of her life being ignored as it was.

"Dad?!"

"Nothing! Alright, I didn't bring any this time!"

Angel baulked. That didn't seem right at all. Her father always brought her mother flowers, and today of all days?

"You forgot? W-well, should we stop by somewhere?" Angel asked. Panic began to crawl over her limbs, flickering the ECHO-device screen. Somewhere deep in her heart, a spark of warning went off. Something wasn't right. Jack would never forget something like this.

"Shut up, just…shut up, okay?" Jack snapped, his tone flustered and sharp, blaming Angel for whatever turmoil was going on in his head. "Not today."

Angel bit her tongue and let the rest of the journey go by in silence. The device bobbed as Jack walked along, knocking Angel's vision in dizzying lurches. Still, she tried to see as much of the outside world at this level as she could, pretending she was walking along outside. In the distance, Angel could make out an Outrunner hurtling across the scalded wastes, orange dust billowing behind it, carrying whoops of excitement from its passengers. They were treasure hunters, Angel realised, her eyes sparkling as she came up with stories of possible adventures they might be going on.

Jack clucked his tongue in irritation, having evidently spotted the commotion too. The sound swiftly shattered Angel's imagination.

Treasure hunters were nothing new across the galaxy. But with Dahl's steady departure from Pandora, they had felt bold enough to take on one corporation rather than two. News of digs and mines across the planet, along with rumours of convict workers having been driving mad by an alien presence in those mines, sparked whispers of legendary treasure hidden beneath Pandora's crust. Over the last decade, the presence of bounty hunters and would-be Vault Hunters had risen on Pandora, much to Jack's irritation.

"Even they know there's something worth looking for here!" Jack ranted aloud, though Angel was quite sure he didn't need or expect a response from her. "Frigging…Tassister with his head so far up his own asshole he can't see the opportunity here! I swear to God, if those idiots—" Jack thrust his hand skywards to Helios, throwing Angel's view of Pandora out of focus for a moment, "—lose me over ten fricking years of research into this festering garbage dump of a planet and its dumbass treasure hunters, I'll burn the damn place down!"

Angel remained silent. There was no sense talking to her father when he was in one of his moods, even if she nodded along with him. She could only hope a visit to her mother would help calm him down. Angel remembered, back when her family was whole, how her mother could talk her father down from every emotional height he climbed up. No matter how angry he got at the world, no matter which so-called idiot had driven him to blind frustration for a small mistake, her mother could soothe him and bring out the smiling, sharp-witted guy that would do anything for their family.

Angel missed her terribly. Her heart sunk as her mind cruelly conjured the last memory she had of her mother. A memory soaked in blood and guilt.

It wasn't long before the familiar sound of a rusty iron gate creaking reached the ECHO-device microphone, and the view from the device jostled and shifted. She was propped up in her usual spot in front of her mother's gravestone, sitting in silence as her father cut in to the screen, stooping over the grave to clear away the sun-scorched bouquet from their last visit. The petals were practically dust, crumbling and flaking away as Jack lifted the old bunch away and cast them aside.

It broke Angel's heart not to see a fresh set put in their place, an absence of colour against the bleached gravestone and orange dirt.

Her father sat down nearby, between Angel and the gravestone, facing away from her. He didn't say anything, which again struck Angel as odd. Usually, he'd say hello…tell her mother how everything was going…

"Uh…hi Mom!" Angel called out, heart hammering with nerves as she took the lead. Jack's head snapped to the side, a sharp look nearly silencing Angel. She gulped and continued: "S-so er…the prototype's kinda stalled. Bet you'd be…good at…figuring it out. But we're gonna crack it, right Dad? W-we're..a-a team!"

Jack shifted, moving his attention back to the gravestone.

"…I'm gettin' married," he said bluntly.

Angel's heart dropped along with her jaw. She wasn't sure if he was telling her or her mother. Or both. She couldn't even begin to unpick that question as the sudden slam of Jack's words winded her.

Remarrying? What? Who? When? Angel's thoughts whirled. She wasn't upset at the concept — six years had passed since her mother had died. No one could expect her father to remain alone for the rest of his life. In any other situation, Angel would have been delighted to hear her father had found love again, someone to pick him up and start putting him back together, maybe returning him to the father of her memories. But that was just it — she hadn't heard of her father finding love again. He had not mentioned anything of a new girlfriend or boyfriend, much less something so serious as to lead to marriage.

"It's time to move on," Jack appeared to be speaking to the gravestone, though his tone was so matter-of-fact that Angel would have been stunned to silence even if he had been addressing her. There was no joy in his words, no excitement. Just…hollow words, as though he were trying to fill a void and some small part of him knew he was still freefalling, clinging to the sides where he could. "And…she's gonna be good for me."

Angel didn't know what to say. She didn't know what she should say.

When the time came that Jack picked up the ECHO-device and began to walk away from the graveyard, Angel's heart shattered in silent realisation that this would be the last time she visited her mother. She wanted to scream. She wanted to shout. She wanted to yell at her father to stop, to talk, to think about her.

But guilt, her only companion, kept her tongue weighed down behind her clenched teeth.