Boone
When Liam restructured my-our cell I found him taking the time a resources to build interrogation rooms into our warehouse HQ pretty odd. You couldn't really question Atavi or hybrids after all. I winced a little at trying to get anything out of either of them. I didn't question his actions though. I figured he was just doing it because tradition and conventional wisdom called for them. I could sympathize with his need for stability. Besides that I was so eager to hand him the whole mess I wasn't about to do anything that might make him reconsider. 'I sure didn't want *that* job back.'
I looked at Sandoval through the one-way mirror and shook my head. My former boss looked like death warmed over. Which led me to believe the Atavi hadn't been treating him too well. Though that brought me to the question about his presence in that alley. If I'd read the situation right he'd been there on the side of the spy not the Atavi he was currently playing dog for.
Sandoval wasn't the type to forget such important facts as guns not killing Atavi either. He had to known the Atavus he'd shot were going to kill him when they got up. So what was going on?
I sighed and shook my head at the awkwardness of my situation. Part of me was enraged with Sandoval for both mine ad my sister's sakes. I wasn't quite sure what I'd do if he started taunting me with his usual cold arrogance. He knew me far too well for my taste while I knew only out of date information. I'd almost handed him over to Liam, who I'd reasoned knew how to get to him, but then I saw the look in his eyes. As much as my sister was my last line to humanity I get the feeling Sandoval is even more so to Liam. If I'd tried to shrink away from this duty it would have fallen to Liam. I was sure he would have done it but I wasn't that cruel.
Sandoval still hadn't moved for the position he'd taken since deposited in the interrogation room. I hadn't really thought he would. He deliberate control used control used to unnerve me. 'Well he's not going to get interrogated without an interrogator. Better get in there.'
I gripped the cold knob and took a deep breath to call my calm to me. I swung the door open and entered the room. Sandoval's face ticked as he recognized me but it quickly smoothed out into the emotionless mask I was more than familiar with. He nodded calmly, "Boone. I assumed you'd stay with the resistance." He placed his shackled wrists on the table in front of him and I noted how fragile his wrists were. I tried one of his strategies and waited for him to say more but Sandoval seemed satisfied with that statement so the silence stretched. In fact overall I'd say he looked satisfied in a way that concerned me more than his cold aggressiveness ever had. I couldn't place it but that look was familiar.
Internally I shook my head deciding I couldn't play last line. I gathered myself to interrogate the master. Only I was beaten to it.
"How'lyn is no longer in charge. An Atavus named Tau'erds led a coup. However you ran into him during the raid, I assume he is dead." He raised an eyebrow and glanced down at my wrist where Jazkit was firmly attached then continued. "They're performing a genetic purge up there because they discovered that some Taleons and Jaridains merged into Atavi. Things will be pretty chaotic now with out a leader. Even if they manage to override the power shut down I initiated. The codes for the Mothership systems should be in my jacket over there." He pointed with his shackled hands to his jacket on another table.
Part of me was suspicious crying out that this was too easy and a trick but my people had already checked him for weapons. I retrieved his jacket and pulled a data crystal from the pocket I knew it was in. My team hadn't checked the contents just confirmed it was a data crystal.
I turned to him holding the crystal. My doubts even greater. This was too easy and anything involving Sandoval was ever been easy. "Why are you doing this Sandoval." My suspicion was clearly heard in my voice.
Sandoval gave me a small smile. "I was always a survivor Boone. You might not full realize the lengths I would go to for that since I've only really shown that trait off since you've been dead. But I never should have done what I've done. I've killed, blackmailed, tortured; the list goes on and on Boone. And I did it all just so I could survive for my revenge." Sandoval waved his shackled hands in front of his face. "I saw red for so many years Boone. Dee Dee was dead and all I had left was my anger. I literally couldn't feel anything else. I wanted the Taleons to HURT. Whatever it took to do that didn't matter. But the red finally cleared Boone and I see what I've done and know in the end I sold my soul. I've got a reservation in Hell, but I wanted just for one moment to feel like the man I used to be the man who was willing to die doing the right thing."
There weren't any tears in his eyes and he didn't look away. I could read his sincerity on his face. It threw me. Sandoval was being honest. "What the hell is going on?" I demanded shocked.
"You should have let me go the first time. I would have liked to have died in Dee Dee's arms." Sandoval gave me a small smile then collapsed forward his body seizing.
Carin'an
The pain from Tau'erds claws seemed at first to rip through me. Crashing into me again and again. I'd never felt such pain and as a result I had no clue how to deal with it. I let myself be lead first by Sandoval then by the strangers who now held me more grateful than anything else. In the end I found myself occupying a little room with a big mirror. By that point I had begun to recover and was a little exasperated with my situation.
My rescue was perhaps the must unexpected thing to ever happen to me and now I was at a loss as what to do. I couldn't go back to the Mothership and I couldn't join the Resistance. I could go on pretending to be a human for a little while. if the people holding me didn't decide to dispose of me.
I was also unsure which mask to use now. I was being held by humans presumably I should don the personality I had used to my advantage while trying to infiltrate the Resistance. Yet that mask felt bitter and cracked. I'd caught glimpse of Tom before being placed in this room and somehow I just couldn't bear the thought of playing the part that had betrayed so many people's trust.
That decided I pulled up the ruthless indifference I had used among my fellows. I banished the cheerful naive girl who promptly shattered like the frail crystal deception she was. I felt a wave of bitterness directed towards her. She had been every thing I could not be and I had taken some joy from playing her. Yet I had envied her so, just as I had despised her for what she represented. She was tainted the not so innocent acts she had performed. I was very confused inside. Mourning the shade yet hating her at the same time.
Liam
I faced the woman before me with an impassive look on my face. The woman before me wasn't beautiful in the classical sense. Her dark hair was a sort of blue black and her luminous blue eyes stared out at me from a bronzed face. Looking at her was like looking at an exotic painting. Even her movements seemed foreign. 'Which must have come in handy.' I thought bitterly.
Tom Sullivan, one of my best recruiters, had shakily informed me as soon as he'd seen the prisoner that he'd been courti8ng her for weeks and that she knew more than I'd like.
My insides churned just as they had every time I contemplated the good men and women I'd lost because of spies. It was a bitter irony that the thing I despised the most were spies when I myself spent my life spying on those I'd Protected.
Containing my disgust I marshaled my arguments. Spies naturally had to have some intelligence to succeed at their jobs. If the facts were laid out correctly and logically her own intelligence might force her to tell me everything she knew. And this spies had some definite incentives since it seemed her former employers wanted her head.
""Liam." My eyes widened in surprise. I hadn't identified myself and I had doubted very much she would recognize me from the little footage shot of me during my Protector days.
I stared at my prisoner. She seemed confused, disoriented, but her squinting gaze was focused unwaveringly on me. It was as if she was trying to see well enough to figure something out. Suddenly her whole posture changed. She straightened her back yet became more relaxed and comfortable in her skin. Her confusion disappeared and something else replaced it. It was as if a completely different person was sitting in front of me.
"Liam." She repeated and I noted her voice had changed as well. Smoothened, deepened, and gained a confidence and maturity that was almost regal.
I felt a shock of recognition hit me. 'That voice- It can't-' I stared at the woman across from me feeling numb among other things.
"Da'an." I whispered. She smiled at me. That serene smile I had seen hundreds of times on another face.
"Yes."
Carin'an
Then HE walked through the door. It was like when I looked at Sandoval only a thousand times stronger. Part of me cried out at the sight of him pushing against a wall inside I hadn't realized was there. I squinted looking at him trying to bring all the shadows I saw dancing around him into focus.
"Liam." The name came from my mouth without ever my consciously knowing it. Inside the wall vanished.
I smiled at the dazed young man sitting across from me and said once more, "Liam." This time sure in the meaning of the word. I reveled in the knowledge of who I was. Shifting I settled into my skin. Everything was new yet at the same time it was all I had ever known. The feel of air on my skin! Actual skin! I reached out to share the experience only to find silence. I searched my head and heart but I was alone.
I gazed into the emptiness afraid yet at the same time I knew that emptiness. It was very strange. I searched for remnants of the Jaridain who had entered the chamber with me but found only trace of his personality. The strongest core of him -Carti- lingered within my hunting instincts. I recalled the conflict of my early days and how it had stopped. I truly was alone in my own skull. I had a skull. All of my musing took no longer than an eye blink. Liam meanwhile got over his own shock.
"Da'an?" I smiled happily as he said my name solidify my grip on who I was. 'I'm Da'an. I'm Da'an.' After so many months of wondering I *knew* who I was.
"Yes."
When Liam restructured my-our cell I found him taking the time a resources to build interrogation rooms into our warehouse HQ pretty odd. You couldn't really question Atavi or hybrids after all. I winced a little at trying to get anything out of either of them. I didn't question his actions though. I figured he was just doing it because tradition and conventional wisdom called for them. I could sympathize with his need for stability. Besides that I was so eager to hand him the whole mess I wasn't about to do anything that might make him reconsider. 'I sure didn't want *that* job back.'
I looked at Sandoval through the one-way mirror and shook my head. My former boss looked like death warmed over. Which led me to believe the Atavi hadn't been treating him too well. Though that brought me to the question about his presence in that alley. If I'd read the situation right he'd been there on the side of the spy not the Atavi he was currently playing dog for.
Sandoval wasn't the type to forget such important facts as guns not killing Atavi either. He had to known the Atavus he'd shot were going to kill him when they got up. So what was going on?
I sighed and shook my head at the awkwardness of my situation. Part of me was enraged with Sandoval for both mine ad my sister's sakes. I wasn't quite sure what I'd do if he started taunting me with his usual cold arrogance. He knew me far too well for my taste while I knew only out of date information. I'd almost handed him over to Liam, who I'd reasoned knew how to get to him, but then I saw the look in his eyes. As much as my sister was my last line to humanity I get the feeling Sandoval is even more so to Liam. If I'd tried to shrink away from this duty it would have fallen to Liam. I was sure he would have done it but I wasn't that cruel.
Sandoval still hadn't moved for the position he'd taken since deposited in the interrogation room. I hadn't really thought he would. He deliberate control used control used to unnerve me. 'Well he's not going to get interrogated without an interrogator. Better get in there.'
I gripped the cold knob and took a deep breath to call my calm to me. I swung the door open and entered the room. Sandoval's face ticked as he recognized me but it quickly smoothed out into the emotionless mask I was more than familiar with. He nodded calmly, "Boone. I assumed you'd stay with the resistance." He placed his shackled wrists on the table in front of him and I noted how fragile his wrists were. I tried one of his strategies and waited for him to say more but Sandoval seemed satisfied with that statement so the silence stretched. In fact overall I'd say he looked satisfied in a way that concerned me more than his cold aggressiveness ever had. I couldn't place it but that look was familiar.
Internally I shook my head deciding I couldn't play last line. I gathered myself to interrogate the master. Only I was beaten to it.
"How'lyn is no longer in charge. An Atavus named Tau'erds led a coup. However you ran into him during the raid, I assume he is dead." He raised an eyebrow and glanced down at my wrist where Jazkit was firmly attached then continued. "They're performing a genetic purge up there because they discovered that some Taleons and Jaridains merged into Atavi. Things will be pretty chaotic now with out a leader. Even if they manage to override the power shut down I initiated. The codes for the Mothership systems should be in my jacket over there." He pointed with his shackled hands to his jacket on another table.
Part of me was suspicious crying out that this was too easy and a trick but my people had already checked him for weapons. I retrieved his jacket and pulled a data crystal from the pocket I knew it was in. My team hadn't checked the contents just confirmed it was a data crystal.
I turned to him holding the crystal. My doubts even greater. This was too easy and anything involving Sandoval was ever been easy. "Why are you doing this Sandoval." My suspicion was clearly heard in my voice.
Sandoval gave me a small smile. "I was always a survivor Boone. You might not full realize the lengths I would go to for that since I've only really shown that trait off since you've been dead. But I never should have done what I've done. I've killed, blackmailed, tortured; the list goes on and on Boone. And I did it all just so I could survive for my revenge." Sandoval waved his shackled hands in front of his face. "I saw red for so many years Boone. Dee Dee was dead and all I had left was my anger. I literally couldn't feel anything else. I wanted the Taleons to HURT. Whatever it took to do that didn't matter. But the red finally cleared Boone and I see what I've done and know in the end I sold my soul. I've got a reservation in Hell, but I wanted just for one moment to feel like the man I used to be the man who was willing to die doing the right thing."
There weren't any tears in his eyes and he didn't look away. I could read his sincerity on his face. It threw me. Sandoval was being honest. "What the hell is going on?" I demanded shocked.
"You should have let me go the first time. I would have liked to have died in Dee Dee's arms." Sandoval gave me a small smile then collapsed forward his body seizing.
Carin'an
The pain from Tau'erds claws seemed at first to rip through me. Crashing into me again and again. I'd never felt such pain and as a result I had no clue how to deal with it. I let myself be lead first by Sandoval then by the strangers who now held me more grateful than anything else. In the end I found myself occupying a little room with a big mirror. By that point I had begun to recover and was a little exasperated with my situation.
My rescue was perhaps the must unexpected thing to ever happen to me and now I was at a loss as what to do. I couldn't go back to the Mothership and I couldn't join the Resistance. I could go on pretending to be a human for a little while. if the people holding me didn't decide to dispose of me.
I was also unsure which mask to use now. I was being held by humans presumably I should don the personality I had used to my advantage while trying to infiltrate the Resistance. Yet that mask felt bitter and cracked. I'd caught glimpse of Tom before being placed in this room and somehow I just couldn't bear the thought of playing the part that had betrayed so many people's trust.
That decided I pulled up the ruthless indifference I had used among my fellows. I banished the cheerful naive girl who promptly shattered like the frail crystal deception she was. I felt a wave of bitterness directed towards her. She had been every thing I could not be and I had taken some joy from playing her. Yet I had envied her so, just as I had despised her for what she represented. She was tainted the not so innocent acts she had performed. I was very confused inside. Mourning the shade yet hating her at the same time.
Liam
I faced the woman before me with an impassive look on my face. The woman before me wasn't beautiful in the classical sense. Her dark hair was a sort of blue black and her luminous blue eyes stared out at me from a bronzed face. Looking at her was like looking at an exotic painting. Even her movements seemed foreign. 'Which must have come in handy.' I thought bitterly.
Tom Sullivan, one of my best recruiters, had shakily informed me as soon as he'd seen the prisoner that he'd been courti8ng her for weeks and that she knew more than I'd like.
My insides churned just as they had every time I contemplated the good men and women I'd lost because of spies. It was a bitter irony that the thing I despised the most were spies when I myself spent my life spying on those I'd Protected.
Containing my disgust I marshaled my arguments. Spies naturally had to have some intelligence to succeed at their jobs. If the facts were laid out correctly and logically her own intelligence might force her to tell me everything she knew. And this spies had some definite incentives since it seemed her former employers wanted her head.
""Liam." My eyes widened in surprise. I hadn't identified myself and I had doubted very much she would recognize me from the little footage shot of me during my Protector days.
I stared at my prisoner. She seemed confused, disoriented, but her squinting gaze was focused unwaveringly on me. It was as if she was trying to see well enough to figure something out. Suddenly her whole posture changed. She straightened her back yet became more relaxed and comfortable in her skin. Her confusion disappeared and something else replaced it. It was as if a completely different person was sitting in front of me.
"Liam." She repeated and I noted her voice had changed as well. Smoothened, deepened, and gained a confidence and maturity that was almost regal.
I felt a shock of recognition hit me. 'That voice- It can't-' I stared at the woman across from me feeling numb among other things.
"Da'an." I whispered. She smiled at me. That serene smile I had seen hundreds of times on another face.
"Yes."
Carin'an
Then HE walked through the door. It was like when I looked at Sandoval only a thousand times stronger. Part of me cried out at the sight of him pushing against a wall inside I hadn't realized was there. I squinted looking at him trying to bring all the shadows I saw dancing around him into focus.
"Liam." The name came from my mouth without ever my consciously knowing it. Inside the wall vanished.
I smiled at the dazed young man sitting across from me and said once more, "Liam." This time sure in the meaning of the word. I reveled in the knowledge of who I was. Shifting I settled into my skin. Everything was new yet at the same time it was all I had ever known. The feel of air on my skin! Actual skin! I reached out to share the experience only to find silence. I searched my head and heart but I was alone.
I gazed into the emptiness afraid yet at the same time I knew that emptiness. It was very strange. I searched for remnants of the Jaridain who had entered the chamber with me but found only trace of his personality. The strongest core of him -Carti- lingered within my hunting instincts. I recalled the conflict of my early days and how it had stopped. I truly was alone in my own skull. I had a skull. All of my musing took no longer than an eye blink. Liam meanwhile got over his own shock.
"Da'an?" I smiled happily as he said my name solidify my grip on who I was. 'I'm Da'an. I'm Da'an.' After so many months of wondering I *knew* who I was.
"Yes."