Disclaimer: I think we all know that I don't own anybody.
Family Relations
By Be Boring
Chapter 13: "New" Friend
"Eva?" Jondy asked, not sure where the name had come from. It didn't bring any face into her mind, but something told her that it was something big.
Eva smiled brightly, making her look several times healthier. "That's it! I remember them calling me that now."
Jondy knew she shouldn't ask, she wasn't supposed to remember anything, but her curiosity was killing her. "Who is 'them?'"
Eva looked up at her with some confusion. "Don't you remember? The others in the unit named me that, just like they named you. What's your name? Maybe I'll remember you."
"I'm Jondy," she replied, wondering if Eva even remembered her. From the look on her face, the name rang a bell but wasn't bringing any image to her mind. "Maybe you'd remember X5-210 better."
Recognition popped into her eyes and she nodded eagerly. "Yes, I remember you now. You still have the same eyes. I wouldn't have expected your hair to be that color though."
A quick memory of a barbershop flashed through Jondy's head. "That's because I dyed it." At the blank expression on her sister's face, Jondy explained, "I changed the color with some chemicals." Had she been this clueless about the real world after she'd gotten out? She couldn't remember, but she supposed she must have been.
"What about the others? Do they look the same, or have they changed their appearances too?" Eva looked so starved for information on the other X5s that Jondy felt bad for her, then guilty that she couldn't help her out.
"I don't know, I can't remember what any of them look like. Well, I do know what Ben looks like. His face is quite a bit narrower from when we were here, but that's probably true for all of us. His hair is a sandy color, and he's pretty tall. He must be around six feet." Her memories from the dream were vague now, so Ben's image wasn't so clear anymore. "I can't tell you much more than that."
"Which one was Ben? I have an easier time remembering numbers than names."
"He was 493." The designation came out so easily that it took Jondy a few moments to realize that she'd remembered something without meaning to. I'll have to force that back out later, but right now I think Eva really needs to know as much as I can give her. She didn't have any solid memories of the teenage girl sitting in front of her, but she automatically felt a deep respect for her, so she must have been someone important.
Eva smiled again, looking so thrilled that she seemed to be on the verge of tears. "Um, let's see if I can remember other numbers. What about 734?"
A young Asian girl's face popped up before Jondy's eyes, then smoothly transitioned into a late teenager's mischievously grinning face. What was her name though? "She hasn't changed much. I don't think she's done anything drastic to her appearance, so she's still pretty recognizable. I'm sorry I don't know more for you."
"That's alright, you've done a wonderful job already. It's the most I've heard about them in years. Do you remember anything about 830?"
The image of a stunningly beautiful young black woman with nearly black eyes came to mind. "I just remember that she's so gorgeous, I was really jealous of her. I think she may have had a boyfriend, but I'm not sure. I think I was pretty close to her."
"Then can you remember her name? Maybe your closeness will make it easier." Eva was nearly bouncing in her seat from excitement. It was obvious she had waited a long time to hear this kind of info.
"It was really pretty, it suited her nicely. Carrie, Tara, Sierra… no, those aren't right. Wait, it was Kiera!" Just the name brought feelings and memories flooding back to her in a rush that she couldn't block. "You'd be so proud of her, she's probably the smartest one out of all of us. I've never really seen her lose her temper, and she gives better advice than any psychiatrist. She was taking lots of biology classes like anatomy and physiology, neurobiology, and genetics as well as some veterinary courses so she could figure out our bodies. Whenever something was going wrong physically with any of us, she was the one to contact."
Eva raised an eyebrow. "Surely you didn't all know where to reach Kiera, that's not how we were trained."
Jondy shook her head. "No, we had someone in between. I think I knew how to reach her myself, because I can remember doing it, but everybody else had to go through another person to get help." Suddenly, a sharp pain tore through Jondy's head. Perhaps the heat drug was finally wearing off. In her excitement to see Eva, the induced heat her body was going through had been forgotten. While holding her throbbing head, Jondy declared, "I don't think I can talk much more, my head is killing me." The phrase appeared to confuse Eva, so she restated, "My head hurts badly." Eva then gave a nod of understanding.
"You talk so strangely now, with all these odd combinations of words that don't make any sense. I guess saying your head is 'killing you' makes a bit of sense, but it's not really killing you, so why would you say that?"
Jondy laughed in spite of the pain. "It's just one of those things you learn when you're not in Manticore."
The thudding of boot heels in the corridor made them both jump. "I'd better go before we're caught together," Jondy whispered, slipping to the door and peeking out. She could see a soldier's back approaching the room she was supposed to be in, so she slipped out and darted around the corner. How was she supposed to get back to her room with Shayna without being seen? Before she could decide which corridor to take, however, a hand fell onto her shoulder and she turned to see the soldier staring at her. He towered over her, standing at around six feet tall. Clear blue eyes remained fixed on her, setting off his blond hair that had several shades running through it, from dark to nearly white blond. He was quite a bit younger than the other soldiers she'd seen here, but his jaw line was stronger than theirs. She couldn't concentrate on him too well with her headache, but she guessed he was an X5.
"I don't know how you got out of there, but you'll have to go back to your own room now," he said, not seeming as concerned as she would have expected him to be at finding her where she wasn't supposed to be.
"Wasn't Dr. Martsloff going to see me again?" She would have thought he'd run some tests to make sure the drugs had worked.
"Not to my knowledge," the soldier replied, turning her to face the corridor to the right and giving her a slight push from behind to get her moving. She let him direct her all the way back to her own room before she spoke again.
"I suppose you'll be reporting me for wandering off," she commented dully.
He shrugged. "I don't see any reason to, you didn't get into any trouble."
She just turned to stare at him in disbelief. "But I knocked an X5 unconscious! Why would that be left unpunished?"
If anything, he looked amused at her reaction. "Do you want to be punished for knocking him out?"
"Of course not," she snapped. Why would she want to be punished?
"Then what are you complaining about? I would think you'd be happy to not get reprimanded. What were you in there for anyway?"
She didn't see how it was any of his business, but as another X5, he would at least understand what had happened. "I was being cured of my seizures and heat cycles. I guess you don't need to be told what the other X5 was for."
"No, I don't, but you took care of that right away, didn't you?" Why did he still look so amused?
"I haven't seen you around here before, so who are you?"
He waved a finger in front of her face and opened the door to her room. "You're too curious for your own good. Who I am is none of your business, but you may as well know I'll be bringing you your meals every day."
The sarcastic smile she shot at him was dripping with mock sweetness. "So I get to see you every day? Oh, joy." With that, she rolled her eyes and walked in to be by Shayna. Like usual, she was sleeping on her cot and not moving an inch, so Jondy took her customary spot sitting at the end of her own cot. When would she be able to see Eva again? She couldn't wait to talk to her again, she hadn't even found out what had happened to her in the years that she'd been in Manticore. Why was she in that room? Wouldn't Manticore have been using her for missions? If she felt so much personal respect for the girl, she must have been somebody important, so why wasn't Manticore using her? The only thing she could come up with was that they hadn't been able to reprogram her and decided to just lock her up. Even that didn't make much sense, but she couldn't think of any reason that Manticore would lock up an X5 like that.
The next morning, Jondy was forced into wakefulness when the soldier she had met the day before brought in her breakfast. He silently set down Shayna's tray behind her sleeping back, then moved over to Jondy. "You'll be starting your reprogramming today," he said quietly. "So you'll have to finish this quickly."
"I thought they weren't going to do that until the baby was born?"
The soldier cast a strange look in Shayna's direction. "They decided they'd have a better chance of getting answers out of you if you were completely under their control. Besides, a sedative has been put into her food so that she won't have much time to think about you being gone."
"How long will I be gone?"
He shrugged. "As long as it takes."
She took as much time as possible to finish her food, but he didn't try to hurry her along. For some reason, he looked a little sad every time his eyes landed on Shayna. When she'd finished the meal, he took the empty tray from her and gestured her to her feet. She followed him silently down the hall, wondering why he was acting so much more casual than the other soldiers that she was used to. "I hope they realize that if they plan on working on me as long as it takes, we'll be sitting in a little stone room for eternity."
To her surprise, the soldier smiled. "If you want a little bit of advice, don't stare directly at the words they show you. They're going to drug you, so you'll be open to suggestion, but don't let yourself focus on the words. I'll be in there too, but I don't know how much good I'll do you. I doubt if I'll even be in your line of vision."
Jondy halted dead in her tracks in the hall, studying him warily. "Why are you helping me? You're… you're not really a soldier here, are you? Does Manticore even know you're the one taking me everywhere?"
Half of his mouth lifted in a bemused smile. "The only person I need to watch out for is Lydecker, nobody else even suspects I'm here. You don't even know who I am, do you?"
"Not a clue."
Now the smile became complete. "You're the best possible person I could have chosen."
Could have chosen? What did he choose me for? She followed him cautiously into a dark room that held a white screen on one side, with a chair directly in front of it. Glancing up at the ceiling, she could see the projector, which was sitting on a base suspended three feet behind the chair, just enough for its images to clear her head on their way to the screen. The room only contained a few people, including three guards, Dr. Martsloff, and Colonel Lydecker.
Jondy's escort stepped behind one of the other guards when Lydecker stepped forward, holding out his hands with his palms facing upwards in a sign of welcome. "I know I planned for this to come later, but I simply couldn't wait. After the resilience you've shown, I realized that we needed that kind of loyalty on our side, rather than on the side of our escapees. You will be a wonderful ally for us, especially once you've joined us and allow yourself to remember what you know about the others. I'm guessing you know quite a bit, judging by the effort you've put into keeping it all from us. Sit down, make yourself comfortable, and with any luck, this will all be over quickly."
Not wanting to appear too stubborn, she settled herself obediently into the chair in front of the screen, but she sent Dr. Martsloff a scathing glare along the way. She naturally hated Manticore and Lydecker, but that was for unknown reasons. At least she knew why she automatically despised the sleazy doctor in front of her. A self-satisfied smirk was all he would give back to her, then he approached her with yet another syringe in his hand. He plunged it into her arm, then stepped back so that Lydecker could pick up the controller for the projector.
"You've been away for a long time, but I'll bet that you remember a lot of what you're about to be shown. The first thing I want you to remember is that you wouldn't be what you are without Manticore, and it wouldn't be what it is without you…." As Lydecker's voice started to drone on with a strangely melodic ring to it, Jondy started to feel lightheaded. The words he was saying suddenly seemed to make so much sense, and when the word "OBEY" appeared on the screen in front of her, it remained imprinted in her mind. Suddenly, a movement to her right caught her eye. Her escort had moved his arm in a seemingly careless way, but it was enough to attract her attention and draw it away from the screen. When he was sure she was looking at him, he gave her an encouraging nod and she returned to looking at the screen, but this time she focused on the area just above the words, where the brightness kept her eyes locked. Hours dragged by as she tried to block out Lydecker's voice, and she glanced every now and then at the young man to her right just to keep herself going strong. I am Jondy, Shayna is my sister, Ben is my brother, and the one who's with me now is also my brother. She couldn't be sure about that, but it was a gut feeling. Manticore will ruin my life, and if I remember anything, it will ruin the lives of my family. I have to stay strong for them. Somehow telling herself these things while under the influence of the willpower-damaging drug made her resolve deeply strengthen.
Suddenly, her escort turned to look into the hallway, and when he turned back to face her he looked deeply concerned. Something was going on out in the hall that he didn't like. When their eyes met, she realized he was desperate to get into the hall. What had happened? Jondy's eyes roved frantically around the room, searching for anything that might be useful. That's when she noticed a cord running past her chair and traveling all the way to the wall. It was the extension cord that powered the projector. Listening carefully now to Lydecker's voice, she noted with a smile that he was standing about two feet behind her, so if she could get the projector to fall forward, she would be able to knock him out. Making sure no one was watching her, and none of them were because the monotony of the reprogramming had sent everyone into a deep stupor, she started inching her right foot towards the cord. She didn't hear the click of any of the guards readying their guns, so she was still good to go. When she had the cold cord trapped inside her curled toes, she started slowly pulling it towards her. Just when she had started wondering how far she would have to pull the cord, she heard the telltale squeak of the projector sliding forward on its base. Nobody appeared to have heard it, so she pulled a little harder. After another, louder squeak, Lydecker paused in his seemingly endless lecture on what loyalty was and where her loyalties should lie.
Now or never, she thought eagerly, and gave the cord a vicious tug. The final scraping of the projector on its base made everyone turn to look, but Lydecker had no time to get out of the way. It came crashing down, impacting almost immediately with Lydecker's forehead. The guards all pulled their guns up and pointed them at her, but her escort was already behind them. He reached forward and pulled a handgun off the side of the nearest guard and shot him with it, then turned and shot the other closest guard. Dr. Martsloff was next, to Jondy's great relief, but a resounding click echoed in the air as the X5 tried to fire at the last guard. The guard smiled and raised the much larger weapon in his hands, but the X5 rushed forward, flipped the gun in his hand so he was holding the barrel, and brought the butt down roughly on the guard's head.
Meanwhile, Jondy had gotten out of her seat and was checking Lydecker's pulse, disappointed to find him alive. "Are we going to finish him off?"
The other X5 shook his head and ran to the door, opening it and looking out. "He's the least of our worries right now. I think Manticore caught another one of us."
Jondy couldn't believe it. "Who? And how did they find out where they were?"
He pulled his head back in and looked like he wanted to sink straight down to the ground. "It's Kiera, that's who they caught. I thought it was her voice I heard, but I was really hoping I was wrong. I don't get it, you haven't told anyone about her, have you?"
Her face went dead white. She had been right before, it was pointless to keep Eva locked up instead of sending her out on missions. The truth was Eva was on a mission. "You go after Kiera and get her out of here, I have something else to do. How do I get back to where you first found me?"
He looked confused, but he replied, "You go left out this door and go straight as far as you can go until you come to a corner where you can only take a right, take one more right after that, and then a left and you'll be down the corridor I found you in. Why are you going back there?"
"Don't worry about it, just get to Kiera." Without giving him a chance to protest, she headed straight out the door and started going left. The instructions were easy, it didn't take very long for her to be back in the corridor that reminded her so much of the Casteau mansion. She opened the first door on her left and entered, but it was now empty. Instead of leaving, however, she stood perfectly still and listened as hard as she could. After nearly a minute, she heard movement on the other side of the wall to her right. She pressed her ear against it, there was definitely someone back there. Someone was walking around the room that would have been Kyle's back at the mansion. That's when she noticed something about the wall in front of her. It wasn't extremely noticeable, but the brick looked slightly newer than the rest of the wall. Her fingers started running over it until she found a spot that her fingers could just barely slip into. Rather than open the hidden door, however, she hesitated. What was she planning to do once she was face to face with Eva? She was drugged, so she would be no good in a fight. Eva was reprogrammed and had had several years more training than Jondy. How did she stand a chance?
She started to look around the room, but the only object that held any potential was the bed. She hurried over to it and started feeling around. Her hand slipped under the mattress, and to her surprise, she pulled a metal bar back out that was the length of her arm. Had Eva been planning to attack her if things didn't go well yesterday? She gripped the bar in her hands for a moment, then stuck it under her shirt in the back. If she slid the upper half under the back of her bra and put the lower half under the elastic of the pants Manticore had given her, it would stay in place. As long as she kept her back away from Eva, she should be set.
An idea came to her so quickly that it was almost like someone had put it there. Instead of going through the hidden door, she headed back into the hallway and entered the other room from the hallway. Eva had been pacing the room, and she looked pretty shocked that Jondy had come in. "What are you doing here?"
Jondy let tears stream down her cheeks as she shut the door behind her. "They caught Kiera, and I just don't get why I'm so confused right now. I want her here with me, but something tells me that she shouldn't be here. I'm so confused because I know we all belong at Manticore, but there's a part of me that really wishes she hasn't been caught."
Eva knew perfectly well that Jondy had been "reprogrammed" today. A sympathetic look flashed over her face and she moved forward as if she was going to hug Jondy, then seemed to think better of it. "That's normal, you're caught between the truth of how things should be and how you believed things should be when you were in the outside world. Manticore made you see the truth, but you haven't had time to let it sink in and overwhelm the part of you that turned away from Manticore while you were away. It's all perfectly normal. After another reprogramming session, things should become much clearer for you."
Jondy found herself practically shaking with suppressed rage. This girl she had used to respect so much had lied straight to her face. Amazingly, she found herself smiling at her sister. "Oh, it's already clear to me what the truth is." When Eva turned to look at her curiously, Jondy pulled out the bar and swung it as hard as she could. She felt the metal connect with Eva's temple and her sister fell to the ground, but she slowly sat up again. Blood was flowing from the impact point on her head, and her eyes were slightly crossed. Jondy simply couldn't hold back her anger anymore. "You bitch, you're the one who got Kiera caught! We both know she doesn't belong here, but you took information that I gave you in confidence and got her captured! I can't believe I was stupid enough to feel sorry for you!" She lashed out angrily and the metal bar came into contact with Eva's cheek this time. Why wasn't that self-assured look leaving her face?
"You'll regret this, Lydecker will make sure of it," Eva hissed. "We'll find Ben next, and eventually we'll get to all the others. They'll be back here where they belong, except for Zack, who will more than likely be killed because I doubt he'll ever allow himself to be reprogrammed, and I'll be CO like I was always meant to be. You can't stop that, no matter how hard you try."
Jondy's fingers tightened around the bar. "You're never going to be anyone's CO again." With that said, she brought the bar straight down. Once Eva was lying motionless on the ground, Jondy turned and vomited violently on the floor, dropping down onto all fours as her legs buckled. She had just killed her sister, how could she deal with that? It had been a moment of anger, combined with a refusal to let Eva's plans go through. What horrified her even more than what she'd just done was the effort put into tricking her into giving up the others' names. The last thing she had seen before being given the drug to cure her seizures had been a hallway that looked exactly like her wing at the Casteau mansion, which something in her mind must have picked up on because she dreamed about the mansion after she was given the drug. They had apparently planned to let her take out that X5 so that she'd go wandering into the hall, and they'd even put in a secret door between the two other rooms so that Eva could rush into whichever one it sounded like Jondy would be entering. Jondy had no doubt that Eva had been standing just on the other side of the door in place of Kyle's, listening intently to find out which one Jondy was going to enter. The only thing she didn't understand was Ben's role in her dream; how had he been able to warn her about Eva? Her only solution was that her own subconscious must have noticed something that gave everything away. Now that she thought about it, she should have found it suspicious that only Dr. Martsloff had been leading her to the padded room. Even with her being weak, it was still dangerous to leave an ordinary human alone with her. It's even dangerous for an X5, she thought sadly, gazing down at Eva.
She merely stood there, staring at Eva's body for several minutes. Finally, she turned slowly toward the doorway. She had to get to Kiera now, and Shayna, if possible, and get them both out of there. Then she'd be able to remember everything safely.
Author's Note: I'm sorry for the long wait, but please review! I'll try to get the next one up faster, but it would nice to have some incentive. ;) (Someday someone will teach me what subtle means, but today is not that day.) I'm not so sure I like ff.net's new QuickEdit thing though, it doesn't let me put in my usual marks to indicate a break in time, I have to use their gray bar now. Oh well, I guess I'll adjust.