A/N: As always, thank you reviewers!! Here's the next part, I hope you'll be needing some tissues.
Enjoy!
Chapter 15
Rommie blinked. A blurry empty world filled her visual and neural pathways. Panic raced through her circuit as she realized the reason for the emptiness. She was alone, cut off from the main A.I. Her systems were so quiet, so empty without the connection to her bigger self. Suddenly her quiet system roared into gear as memories came rushing back. Memories of Harper turning her on for the first time, memories of meeting Dylan in the flesh, memories of her first love, her first lost, and then, lastly memories of the energy wave.
Her newly repaired body bolted up from it's prone position to standing in a nano-second flat. Her processors were doing overtime trying to put together the pieces. Where was the crew? Where was the main A.I.? What was that energy wave? Too many questions with no answers. The android did not like having unanswered questions.
Then she felt it. She felt the data strings begin to file into her all too empty system. She felt the main A.I. coming back online. Relief filled her, she was not alone. As to reinforce this feeling, Holo-Rommie shimmered herself into existence in front of the prodigal little sister.
"Are you ok?" the trick of light asked.
"Yes, all systems are functional. How's the main systems and what the heck happened? The last thing I remember is that energy wave." Rommie asked as she started to pace the confined space of the main computer core.
"All systems are nominal. Main memory banks are missing six days. The last thing I remember was telling Harper he was our only chance."
A look of horror passed over Rommie's face. "Harper!? Our only chance? What...why... what happened?" Rommie shuddered.
"The energy wave seemed to invade the crew's mind and take them over, all save Harper. He was interfacing with us, I think that's what protected him, but his data port was severely burned." Andromeda secretly hoped it wasn't permanently damaged. As much as Harper got on her nerves, she really did enjoy his presence in her matrix. "I remember waking him and apprising him of the situation and then felt all my systems getting cut off. Then nothing."
Rommie was still walking the path of the frustrated and confused, back and forth, back and forth. "So where is everyone now? And how did we get back online?"
The hologram shimmering got stronger as she gathered the requested data. Her mirages of eyes widened in shock. "You have to get to medical NOW!"
That stopped Rommie dead in her tracks. "Why?"
"There are thousands of Nietzschean corpses throughout the ship. Harper has our crew strapped to medical beds and is in the process of torturing Tyr! Go! I'll try to stall him." With that, Holo-Rommie shimmered out of existence.
Just as fast, Rommie turned and raced toward the door. "Grrr.. What I wouldn't give for a nice boring simple mission for once," she growled as she dashed towards medical
******
Harper dug the super sharp scalpel deeper into Tyr's muscular chest until he hear the right response from his victim.
"Arrgghh!" screamed the Tyr-Stolic combo. The cry ripped from the Kodiak's already rough dry throat.
That was the response the human was looking for, but unfortunately his mind responded to the response. Memories pounded at the lid of the box in his mind. The lid was slowly starting to give way. Quickly, Harper started to jump on the lid, forcing it down and with it all the unwelcomed memories his cutting Tyr was bring up. As his mental self continued to fight with the troublesome box, his real self was having a nice conversation with his torture victim.
"Are you still there Stolic? Are you still enjoying the experience of pain? You know you can leave at anytime and the pain will end. Come on, you know you want the pain to stop," Harper's body spoke. His mind wasn't saying those things. His mind had left that horrible person below. That horrible person who was torturing his friends just so he wouldn't be alone. His mind was watching from above, completely detached from that monster below.
"S...S...Still ....t....t...there..." Tyr managed to sputter out through the pain. He had to give the boy credit. Somehow the child had become a master torturer, but the powerful Nietzschean was quite afraid to find out the source of the boy's surprising skill.
Harper looked down at the trembling form that laid in front of him. Small deep inch long cuts covered half of Tyr's powerful body. His soft temples were covered in small deep perfectly circular burns. A deep sigh left Harper's lungs. Damn-it, he didn't want to use the other techniques he knew, the more painful ones, the more damaging ones. But Stolic was stubborn and wouldn't leave easily. It looked like it was back to the Tray-O-Torture.
He place the bloodied surgical knife down and picked up a brown bottle with a dropper on top. The mystery bottle contained hydrochloric acid. His mind quickly flashed back to his 16th birthday. After his present of two thousand cuts, instead of cake they gave him a drop of acid inside each of the fresh cuts. His present day body shuddered as he remembered the pain, the unbearable pain that filled his body with each tiny drop. Once more he shoved the memories into the box. Tyr, must focus on Tyr, he forced himself to think.
Tyr noticed the shudder that ran through the boy's body as he picked up the brown bottle. He heard the child's heart rate double and smelled scent of fear that permeated the air. Harper's regret-filled eye's locked onto Tyr's pain-filled eyes. "I'm sorry Tyr," the boy whispered. Even at the low level of the voice, Tyr heard everything. All the regret, all the pain from the past, all sorrow of the present. Come on boy, you can do it, Tyr silently encouraged with mixed emotions. He desperately wanted Stolic to be gone, but the pain was getting to him. He wanted rest, he wanted the boy to stop. Tyr tried to shove those weak thoughts aside and focus on what needed to be done for his survival. Where there's life there's hope, Tyr began to repeat to himself readying himself for the next round of playtime with Harper.
The kludge took the dropper out of the bottle and began to share a page of his past with Stolic and Tyr. He took aim at the first cut and dropped his bomb of acid.
"Enjoy the pain," Harper said as his stomach did flips of disgust. That was what one of the many ubers who tortured him had said. He had become a freak'n uber! One more thought to shove deep into the box.
With each drop, the screams became harsher and louder. Begging eventually slipped from Try's lips and mind. He didn't mean to beg Harper to stop, he wanted to cheer the boy on but his subconscious took over and begged for the pain to end. Luckily the boy only cringed at the Kodiak's cries for mercy and continued dripping the little droplets of pain..
Drop, scream, drop, scream, drop, scream.."HARPER!!" The familiar voice broke the rhythm of pain. A familiar soft but powerful voice, the voice of Andromeda.
"Andromeda go away," Harper hissed quickly.
"Harper what are you doing!?" the computer demanded as Holo-Rommie shimmered into existence in front of Harper. The engineer was quite a site. He was a shell of his normal happy-go-lucky self. What the hell happened in those six days, the computer questioned herself.
"Go away," the shell of man demanded with more force this time. He was in no mood to explain his idiotic plan to anyone right now. "Privacy mode, Harper Special, Alpha Delta Four," he ordered. The hologram blinked out of the room with a look of annoyance filling her face just as she vanished. No one could override a Harper Special, not even the ship herself.
Harper returned his attention to his trembling victim. "Do you want to leave my friend now?" he asked.
"Never you sick human! Do you know how much pain your causing your so called friend? Do you!?" Stolic spat out in fear with Tyr's hoarse deep voice.
"Yes I do and I don't care," Harper lied. "So...do you wanna reconsider your decision and leave now, or do you wanna go another round with Mr. Hydrochloric Acid?" he asked as he waved the bottle in front of Tyr's widening eyes.
Those eyes quickly turned into eyes filled with determination. The Nephew of the Ruler was not going to give in that easily! "Give me your best, you psycho!" he snarled.
"Fine," Harper replied coldly as he drew more acid up into the eyedropper.
*****
After minutes of hurdling the sickening corpse that littered her entire interior, Rommie finally reached medical. She was currently desperately trying to by-pass all of Harper's amazingly complex overrides when she heard a sound she never thought she would hear.
Tyr screaming, and a blood curdling agonizing scream at that. It sounded as if his throat should be raw and bleeding after creating such a shriek. Goosebumps rose from Rommie's artificial skin. Damn Harper for making her so human.
More screams filled the air as she punched to unmoving door. Even with her powerful strength the door wasn't even kind enough to respond with a small dent. "OPEN THE DOOR HARPER!!" She yelled as all other options disintegrated. Only more terrifying screams of Tyr begging for the engineer to stop answered her demand. If Rommie was a cartoon, steam would be bellowing out of her ears.
Punching the indestructible door one more time, she then spun around and started processing the situation. She couldn't override Harper's override, she couldn't knock down the titanium door and she couldn't stop Tyr's pain.
As Rommie once more began to pace the corridor, Holo-Rommie shimmered into view. "We've uncovered the ship's recordings from the past six days," the hologram stated with a very ominous look filling her fine features.
Rommie's feet stopped as her head shot up to look at the concerned hologram. "What happened?"
"You have to see it to believe it. Downloading the data to your systems now."
Rommie's eyes widened as the video feed started playing in her computerized mind. "Holy Shit..."
******
With each miniscule drop of acid that landed in one of Tyr's many deep tiny cuts, a new wave of agony tore through both Tyr and Stolic's mind and shared body. Screams still ripped from Tyr's raw throat. Begs still escaped his dry cracked lips. Tyr tried desperately to block out the pain with his mantra, "Where there's life there's hope", but with each pause in between words, the pain managed to seep in and invade his concentration. But still the stubborn Nietzschean continued to mentally chant; "Where there's life there's hope, Where there's life there's hope, Where there's life there's hope....."
The young weak Stolic was less fortunate for he had no chant, no inner strength to call upon. No way to block out the constant barrage of agonizing pain. For the first time in his life, he had no special treatment, no powerful Aunt to help him, no royal assistance. All he had was darkness and never-ending pain.
Above the two trapped tortured being watched a haunted Harper. Just like when he was tortured, Harper had left his mortal body behind. He was floating above the gruesome scene, staring at his own body as it slowly and maliciously drip more acid into one of the small gapping inflamed wounds. Above the pain he floated and watched as his body was slowly killing his friend.
******
Harper begging Dylan to stop punching him, thousands of Pythos marching onto her pristine decks, then explosions, dead smoldering bodies hitting the decks, more explosions as brains hit the ceilings, faces melting, a sick smiling Harper, more death, more explosions, Harper carving "uber" into a forehead, crew getting strapped down in medical, Harper placing a small green pill in his mouth, Tyr crying out for help.... Then the file ends with Rommie outside of medical, right back where she started.
If it was possible, Rommie's jaw would be laying on the floor right now. It was unbelievable what had conspired over the past six days. Her whole life, her whole crew, everything had been completely turned upside down and then shaken for good measure. Oddly enough, her processors kept focusing on how she was going to clean up all the decaying bodies from her decks.
Shaking the trivial thought from her head, she tried to focus on the real problems at hand. What the heck was Harper doing to the others and how could she get into the sealed up medical room to stop him. In order to feel somewhat useful, she went back to trying to crack Harper's override on the door. Note to self: Next time get a dumber engineer.
As the ship made flesh worked on the door, the A.I. was trying to figure out what drug was in Harper's system. Before he engaged his special privacy mode, she had gotten good readings on all the crew. Besides still having the alien energy readings, Dylan, Beka and Trance seemed to be fine physically. Trance did seem to have a gun shot wound to her leg, but as normal with Trance, it seemed to be healing over at an impossible rate. Tyr, even with the torture, seemed to be in good shape. It seemed like Harper was purposefully trying not to permanently harm Tyr's body but only cause him pain. Andromeda sent this information to a separate area of her matrix to be processed further. Harper, the only one standing, was ironically in the worst shape. Whatever drug he was on was the only thing that kept him upright. Between the shattered arm, the burned data port, the slight fever he was running, plus the fact that his metabolism was off the chart, his blood pressure was dangerously high and his heart was imitating that of a old Earth humming bird, the human should have been passed out on the beds next to the others. But there he was, standing and torturing Tyr. Unfortunately, none of the drugs in her database matched the mixture of chemicals that raced through his blood stream. The great and powerful warship had no idea what he had taken, why, and what he was doing. This many unanswered questions made the all knowing warship quite cranky.
******
"Come on Stolic, I know you want to leave that painful body."
Drop. Scream. Begging.
"Leave Tyr and the pain will end. I promise."
Drop. Scream. Crying.
"I got thousands more techniques I've picked up along my travels."
Drop. Scream. Begging.
"You've just experienced the warm-up procedures. Don't make me move up to the real torture devices."
Drop. Scream. Crying.
"So just leave Tyr and your pain will end."
Silence.
Harper sighed. "Fine, just let me finish up with your cuts. We only have about twenty more to go, then I'll show you what I can do with electricity and water."
As Harper compressed the soft end of the dropper, a perfect droplet of acid formed at the other end. Tyr and Stolic watched with trepidation as the acid slowly fell from it's home, through the air and finally landed deep inside a cut the boy had pried open with his crippled hand.
Pain once more tore through their collective souls. For twelve hours they had known only pain, agony and more pain. For twelve hours Stolic wished for the pain to end. For twelve hours he had fought the urge to leave this pathetic corporal form and enter the infinite expanse of space and death. He knew if he left Tyr's body, he would die. His energy form would slowly dissipate throughout space and his essence would eventfully be lost. As the new wave of agony washed over his mind once more, Stolic decided death was now preferable.
Without a word, Stolic began to leave Tyr's writhing body behind.
At first, all Harper saw was the familiar dance of electricity shimmer across Tyr's deep brown eyes, but this time what followed brought a small flicker of hope to Harper's heart. The electricity slowly rose from the eyes, forming a cloud of shimmering energy that danced in flowing ribbons around medical. The flowing energy engulfed Harper. He could feel the desperation in Stolic's being, the fear of the unknown, the fear of death. Next frustrations surrounded Harper as the energy being realized that the engineer's shielding devise would not let him take the human.
Who would want that skinny short pathetic body anyways, Stolic tried to make himself believe. But this was it. The great Nephew was taken down by a weak corporal being. How humiliating. Soon the pain of humiliation was replaced with the now familiar feeling of all encompassing agony as his energetic essence was dissipating throughout the ship. He was being ripped apart by the same chaotic forces that had ruled his nature. Oh the irony.
Stolic gave one last powerful shriek that shattered the glass beakers which laid in medical. A scream like no other echoed throughout the ship and out into the vacuum of space where it was silenced.
Silence now also filled medical along with calm. Harper stared down at Tyr's still trembling form. Brown eyes locked onto blue eyes. Mixed emotions filled the distance between them. Thankfulness, fear, sorrow, regret, but most of all pain. Quickly Harper looked away in shame as he silently un-strapped the larger man. The unnervingly quiet Harper injected Tyr with a sedative that would override the drug that had kept him conscious throughout the whole torturous experience. Rest Tyr, rest, Harper thought but was unable to bring himself to say out loud. The now heavy eyelids closed over those rich brown eyes as torrents of tears were building up behind the blue ones.
******
Still outside of the now eerily quiet medical, Rommie stood in shock. Her ear receptors were still shaking from the un-human scream that just resonated through the entire ship. Her circuits were still tingling from the wave of energy that passed through her body. She could have sworn she heard the energy cursing Harper's name. Some of her circuits must still be fried, she thought.
Hissing from the impenetrable doors opening broke her from her silent state of shock. She turned to see a ghost walking towards her. Cuts and bruises still covered his dirty and blood covered face. His left arm hung sickly at his side only swaying with the momentum of his bounce-less steps. His bright orange shirt was now gray, black, and red. The original bright lively color was completely hidden. The usually shinny data port was now muted by the oozing blood and grim. Grim that coated every inch of his body. The area around the port was so swollen that it looked like he had a huge tumor on his neck. Resting on top of that swollen neck laid the drooped head, the sunken cold eyes, the dirt and blood covered amazingly still spiky hair. But this was not her Harper, this was a ghost, a shell of the man she knew and loved.
The depressive being brushed past the staring android, mumbling an order as he went. "Go check on Tyr, make sure he's ok." He never made eye contact as he slumped down against a nearby wall. He cradled his head in his knees and one functional arm. Another mumble could be heard from his self made cavern of despair, "Go."
Rommie obeyed his order out of sheer confusion. Her processors didn't know what to make of what she had just seen, so she turned and went to work on a problem she could handle.
As she entered medical, she saw all of her crew lined up on the medical beds. Only Try was not restrained and only Try showed signs of the horror that was Harper. Quickly she ran her hand over his body, over the numerous inflamed cuts and over the patchwork of burns on his temples. He would survive. But she also noted that the intruder's energy pattern was gone. She now realized the theory she had been repressing, the theory she was hoping was wrong was, in fact, correct. Harper was torturing the others to drive the intruders from their bodies. Sad eyes drifted over the peacefully sleeping forms of Beka, Trance and Dylan as Rommie realized what they still had to face. Then her thoughts turned to the sad soul who was planning on performing the torture. It would kill him to have to torture all of them. She couldn't let him do it alone. She race back to the corridor to find the ghost.
He hadn't moved an inch. He was still trembling and cradling himself up against the wall. His head was buried in the nook of his right arm as his left arm still hung dead from his thinning body.
Rommie took in the sight as a sigh escaped her lips. "Harper?" she gently whispered the ghost's name. No response. She slowly moved towards the trembling form and slid down the wall next to him, placing her arm around his shoulders. At no point did he even acknowledge her presence.
"Seamus?" she gently whispered again.
"What?" came a muffled rough annoyed voice from the cavern.
"Talk to me," she ordered as a mother would a child.
"'bout what?" mumbled out from the form.
At least he was talking Rommie thought. "The drug you took. What is it, why did you take it."
"Buzz, earth drug. Is Tyr ok?" the still muffled emotionless voice asked.
"He will survive. I'm more concerned about you though. What's Buzz, it's not in any of my databases?" she asked as she pulled Harper closer in, trying to sooth his trembling body.
"Glad he's ok, and don't worry 'bout me, 'm fine." Harper said rather unconvincingly as he shifted his sore body.
"Buzz...what is it?" Rommie tried again.
"It's...it's...a drug...don't wanna talk about it," he spat out as he turned his still buried head farther away from Rommie's direction forcing his face deeper into the crevice of his arm.
Rommie noticed his slight movement. She so yearned to see those sparkling blue eyes. As gently as possible she reached into his space and place her hand on his slightly exposed cheek. As if touched by acid, Harper pulled away even farther trying to escape the tight embrace of Rommie's arm. Tenderly, Rommie reached in farther, grabbing his chin and forcing his face out of the depressive cavern. She turned the down trodden face towards her, forcing his chin up. That was when she saw them, for the first time, she saw them.
His eyes, his dead empty eyes. Just as quickly as they appeared, they dropped back down to stare at the oh so interesting floor.
Rommie's heart, real or programmed, dropped out of her chest and shattered. "Seamus, look at me."
No movement.
"Seamus, I understand what you're doing...what you did. I'm here to help. You're not alone anymore. You don't have to....hurt them alone" She paused as she let the words filter through his stubborn brain.
His eyes were still locked on the floor as a battle was raging in his mind. The black box was exploding, great floods of emotions, of memories were begging to escape. Screams pounded at the lid as sobs tried to weep through the cracks. He felt Rommie's cold yet warm embrace around his shoulders, felt her hard yet soft hand cupping his chin. His raging thoughts then turned to Trance, Dylan and Beka still laying imprisoned in their own bodies. His thoughts turned to Tyr covered in cuts. He could never face him again, he could never look him in the eyes ever again. That was how it would be with the other too. Never again would he be able to look into Beka's vibrant eyes, never again would he be able to bask in the glory of Trance's glowing smile or laugh at one of Dylan's sad attempts at humor. He was no longer part of the crew, no longer an accepted part of the family. He was alone...again. But that was HIS future, not Rommie's. The other's needed her. They would need her to help them through what he was doing to them, to help them stay together. He was expendable, she was not.
He slapped a new bigger stronger box on top of the old one. His thoughts and brimming emotions silenced as he reentered torture mode. He only had three and a half days left to free the others before his Buzz clock ran out. He realized with two doses of Buzz in his system that when that alarm finally went off, his life was most likely over. Yes, he was expendable, dead and expendable.
The silence grew louder as Rommie's plea remained unanswered. Rommie then noticed something, a change. Harper's features suddenly grew harder before her eyes. "Harper?" she gently prodded.
Still no answer, but there was movement, massive movement. Harper quickly jerked his head out of her warm touch and shrugged off her loving embrace. He forced his still trembling legs to hold the ever decreasing weight of his body. The increased metabolism and the lack of food over the past five days were burning what little fat Harper had on his slim form.
"Harper?!" Rommie asked much louder as she jumped up to follow the silent Harper. A quiet Harper always put her concern chip in overdrive.
Walking away from Rommie and back into medical, he spoke, "I've got to do this myself Rommie. You have to be here for the others."
"Damn it Harper, listen to yourself!! I can be here for you too. I can help you. You can't do this alone! Look at what just torturing Tyr has done to you. We can do this together!" She yelled hoping to get through to him. She failed.
Harper walked up to Tyr and place one of his extra shielding devices on the peacefully sleeping form. Still shunning his gaze from Rommie's eyes, he gave her an order, "Take him to another room. Care for him, clean the acid out of the cuts."
Rommie stared at the stranger in front of her with her mouth agape. "No! Harper, listen. We ca...."
"Rommie, please, just do as I say," Harper interrupted as the exhaustion finally started to filter into his voice.
She was getting nowhere with him and Tyr's cuts were in desperately need of cleaning. "Fine. But Harper, don't you even dare seal me out of here again," she threaten like only a warship could. With Harper's help, she transferred Tyr to a gurney. Then alone, she moved him to one of the smaller adjacent medical rooms. As soon as he was comfortable, she raced back to the main medical facility only to find that Harper had indeed sealed her out.
"GGGRRR!! DAMN IT HARPER!!! LET ME IN THERE!!" she screamed at the annoyingly closed door. When there was no answer, she slammed her fist into the door. Again, the rude door responded with not even a mark.
With steam pouring out of her ears, she spun around and headed for the closest armory. Firepower always worked when talking failed. She saw what Harper was doing and was not about to let that boy needlessly sacrifice himself for the others.
*****
Inside the once more sealed tight room, Harper stood watch over his next victim. The room was eerily quite as his hand hovered above his Tray-O-Torture searching for the right object. In front of him laid his father-like uncle, his captain, his friend.
His next torture victim.
His hand found the small syringe and lifted it off the tray.
"I'm sorry," fell quietly from his lips as he pressed the syringe against Dylan's neck.
TBC......