Jack peered into his children's room, checking on the two loves-of-his-life. His children were playing together on the floor, a mass of crayons sitting next to them. One was drawing on a piece of paper, a rainbow of colors all divulging in the center where he had drawn the Hyperion symbol. The other was playing with a stuffed bear. Jack walked into their room, leaning down to talk to the two of them, "Hey you two, what are you doing?"
"I'm drawing Hyperion, where I'm going to work with you one day, dad!" The young boy held up his drawing to show to his father.
"I see that Rhys, well, if you keep studying hard you might be able to join the company!" Jack turned his gaze to his daughter, "And what about you, Angel? Who is that?"
Angel hugged the bear tightly, her short black hair covering her face as she did so, "This is Mister Bear, he eats crime!" She smiled.
"Oh, he must eat a lot of crime with such a big belly!" Jack laughed, but his laughter slowly subsided when he noticed something on his daughter's arm. "Uh, honey, what's that on your arm? Did uh, heh, did your brother draw that?"
Rhys glanced up from his drawing, "I didn't draw on her this time!" He said, innocently.
Angel pulled her sleeve up further to show her father, "Blue! I dunno where it came from. Do you think it's pretty? Rhys said it was pretty!"
"I said it was cool, not pretty! Too bad it isn't Hyperion yellow, though." Rhys muttered, going back to drawing more yellow on his masterpiece as Angel stuck her tongue out at him.
Jack seemed to be in shock, an emotion they hadn't seen from their father before. He began to take a few steps backward, chuckling nervously, "Y-yeah, very pretty…" He made it to the door of their bedroom and called to his wife, "H-honey!? Can you come here for a second!?"
After discovering Angel's newly acquired blue markings, Jack and his wife made an appointment that same day to meet with a doctor. Both children dragged their feet and sighed multiple times as they got dressed, Angel especially so because doctors meant shots and pain and cold rooms and weirdos, but still, she listened to her father. She was daddy's little girl, after all. He made her wear a long-sleeved sweater and long pants, even though she wanted to wear a frilly dress, but at least he compromised and let her wear her favorite sweater with a rainbow. Once they signed in at the office, they sat in the cold waiting room; their mother read a magazine as the television in the corner blared some sort of boring show about cooking. Rhys stared at the cooking show, almost in a trance, and Angel heard her brother's stomach growl. She glanced over at him, feeling guilty that he was dragged here because of her, and she tugged on her father's sleeve and pointed towards a vending machine in the room. "Can you get me some candy, please dad?"
"You know that stuff rots your teeth, Angel."
"I'll brush them extra good tonight!" She said and smiled.
Jack couldn't help but smile back at her, "Good girl, I'll get you some candy then." He said, standing from the chair and heading over to the vending machine.
Without her father or mother realizing, Angel trailed after Jack, excited to bring the candy back to her older brother. She watched as her father fed the machine money, but it didn't give him the candy he wanted nor his money back even after he pressed multiple buttons. He began to bang on the machine and kick it, "Come on… I just want some candy for my daughter…" He kicked it again, "Stupid piece of crap asshole!"
Angel tilted her head, eyebrows furrowed, "Daddy, what's an asshole?" She said, the foreign word having no meaning to her.
"Uh…" Jack muttered, turning towards her, surprised by her appearance, "Oh, honey, I didn't know you were there! Um, don't repeat any of those words daddy just said, ok?"
"Ok. Where's the candy?" She asked, only concerned about one thing.
He kneeled in front of her, ruffling her short black hair, "Sorry kiddo, looks like we aren't getting any candy from this machine."
Angel's lips drooped into a sad frown as she glanced over at the machine, "Is it broken?" She asked.
"Yep."
She stared at it, a feeling pulsating through her left arm, a strange, but powerful feeling. "I think I can fix it…" She said, softly, as she raised her hand towards the machine.
"Angel? What are you…" Jack stopped midsentence as the vending machine spat out a packet of candy.
"There!" She said cheerfully, walking over to the bag of candy and picking it up.
Jack had stood up by this point, hand on his forehead, "What the hell did you just do Angel?" He asked, his voice rising louder than he wanted to the point that other people in the waiting room glanced over at them.
She flinched from his tone, "Um, I fixed it… uh, I don't really know… beyond that…"
"Honey, the doctor called us…" Jack's wife's voice echoed across the waiting room. Angel skipped over to her brother, giving him the candy.
"Thanks, Angel!" Rhys said cheerfully, taking his favorite candy and opening the bag greedily.
"Hey, you can share some of it with me, I did get it for you, after all!" Angel muttered.
Rhys rolled his eyes, "You got it for me, not for yourself!"
"There's plenty to share!" Angel put one of her hands on her hips, her other outstretched, palm up, waiting for Rhys to give her some candy.
Rhys stared at her hand for a moment, chewing on the candy, cheeks puffed at her persistence, "… Fine, here." He grumbled, dumping some candy into her hand.
"Come on children, Jack, the doctor is ready to see Angel." Their mother spoke softly as she gently held Jack's hand, which calmed him down. He followed his family and the nurse to the doctor's room where the doctor sat Angel up onto the examining table. Of course, what came next after he examined her was no surprise to Jack or his mother. Angel was a siren.
"A siren?" Rhys asked his parents as the doctor went out of the room. "What's a siren and why does she get to be one and not me?"
"Hush, Rhys," Jack commanded, and his son pouted, crossing his arms in front of him.
"What is a siren, though?" Angel asked the same question, and Jack's stern gaze softened.
"It's… it just means your special, honey." Jack replied.
"Yes, you have an amazing gift." His wife responded to Jack's sentence. "Your life will be different from here on out, but I promise, you'll do amazing things."
Jack picked his daughter up off the table, hugging her, "Yes you will! When you grow up, you can work with me at Hyperion! I'll make sure you get in!" She giggled as he winked at her.
Rhys glared, staying silent, as his mother patted him on the shoulder, "You too, Rhys. You'll do amazing things one day as well."
He glanced at the floor, "Even though I'm not a siren?"
"Of course, darling, you're the smartest boy I've ever met." She leaned down to his ear and whispered, "I think one day you'll even be able to run Hyperion." Rhys smiled wide from this, imagining himself as the leader of the company, his mother and father being incredibly proud of him. "Come now, children, it's time for us to go home. How about we stop and get some ice cream on the way?" She smiled, holding the door open as her children cheered and Jack laughed at their eagerness for ice cream.
Sadly, they never made it to get ice cream. The doctor had sold Jack and his family out—he had told some thugs about Angel, that she was a siren, and they intercepted the family and kidnapped Angel by gunpoint. Jack glared at the thug who held Angel, not daring to move because of the turret he had set up beside him and the three other thugs behind him, all pointing their guns at the small family. His wife held Jack's hand, squeezing tightly as tears streamed down her face. Rhys stood slightly in front of them, fists clenched, teeth bared.
"Give her back!" Rhys shouted, and the thug laughed as Angel sobbed against his grip.
"Listen here you… bandit… give my daughter back! I'll, we'll give anything just… I work with Hyperion I can…" Jack stumbled over his words, desperate to find some way to get his daughter back.
"You? You're, what, a code-monkey? You can't give me anything that's worth a siren! Come on now, you already have another kid and you can make more, just leave her with me." The thug smirked back at the family.
"Daddy I wanna go home!" Angel cried loudly.
Jack looked at his daughter with tears in his eyes, her sobs making him breakdown. Rhys looked at his parents, "We can't… we can't leave her! We must save her, what… what do we do? Dad? Mom? We aren't leaving her!" Rhys said, pulling on the hem of his dad's shirt, tears stinging his eyes. After his parents didn't respond he looked around desperately. Maybe if he ran fast enough across the way, they would focus on him and Angel could escape? Their dad had a gun, he could fire upon the thugs—that was his plan. He began to run across the sand-covered ground towards Angel and the thug holding her.
"Rhys!" Jack yelled at his son, grabbing the sleeve of his shirt to try to stop him, but his fingers slipped, and Rhys only stumbled before continuing to rush forward.
The thug laughed, pointing his SMG at the young boy, and shot multiple bullets into his right arm. Rhys gasped out, falling to the ground, wailing in pain, blood pooling underneath him. Angel's blue eyes widened with fear, her whole-body trembling at the sight before her.
"Rhys! This… no, this can't be happening! Rhys!" She shouted, her siren tattoos lighting up a very light blue color as she struggled against the thug's arms.
He laughed at her attempts, "Relax kid, your brother brought this onto himself—uh, what's…?" He glanced at his turret beside him, the turret jerking around, almost as if something was fighting to control it. "What is happening—" Before the thug could even finish speaking, the turret shook, faced towards the thug holding Angel, and poured bullets into him before turning on the thugs behind him and shooting them to the ground. The thug dropped Angel as his dead body hit the ground and the turret shook again, Angel's hands balled into fists, tears dripping from her eyes and onto the ground as she tried to control it, keep control of it, but she couldn't and her siren powers began to cause the turret to spin around and shoot chaotically in all directions.
"Honey get down!" She heard her father cry out before the turret's shots rang out, a stunned silence falling over the land as Angel finally gained control of the turret again, forcing it to power down. "No… NO!" Her father yelled out, cradling his wife's body in his arms. Angel curled up into a ball beside the dead body of her captor as she covered her ears, trying to block the sounds of her father and brother crying, the scent of fresh blood drifting through the hot air, causing her nose to wrinkle. Her life would never be the same again, just as her mother had said.
"Let me go, dad!" Angel shouted, struggling against her father's grasp. They were somewhere Angel had never been before, her father had brought her here after spending some days in the emergency room where Rhys was and where their mother was pronounced dead on the spot. Jack had said he was taking Angel home, but this wasn't home, this was a cold and empty room with nothing but black screens and a single chair in the center of the room.
"Ah, no can do my little Angel…" Jack said, finally forcing her into a chair and restraining her arms and legs, easily overpowering her. "This is for your protection, honey!" He said as he brought over a round dish to where she sat.
"You're such an… an asshole!" She shouted a word which she still didn't understand the meaning to, but knew it was meant to be used when angered.
"Language!" Her father said back to her, "Come on, honey, after what happened with… your mother… I had to do this, to protect you, me, and Rhys…"
She sniffed back her tears, "Is… is Rhys ok?"
"He's…" Her father paused for a few seconds, trying to find the right words to say as he didn't want to tell her yet that Rhys's right arm had to be amputated from the gunshot wounds he suffered, "He'll be alright, he's still in the hospital right now, recovering, but he's going to be fine. See, you want to protect him, right? Keep him safe? Then you'll stay here, for him and for me."
She bit her bottom lip, "O-okay…" She wanted to protect her father and brother, and if this was the best way to keep them safe, then she would listen and be obedient.
"Besides, look at this…" He brought the round dish down and placed it gently on her head before flipping a switch, the black screens in the room all lighting up, showing different places in Pandora all at once. "Our Hyperion satellites will let you see all of Pandora from this little room and you can control it with this helmet and your siren powers which will let you see the world at all times of the day! Isn't that a good deal, honey?"
Angel looked out at the screens that the Hyperion satellites broadcasted to her. "I… ok… yeah, I think…" She muttered, amazed at seeing the world before her eyes and having control over what she could see.
"I love you, Angel…" Jack said, softly, patting her shoulder.
"… I love you too, dad."