AN-I swear there's a point to this. We'll get back to the action soon, I just had to get this part out. SCP-1000 referenced.
Another day, another death. She is getting tired of this, so tired. This time, they strapped her down, took her blood for samples, gave her a local anesthetic, and sawed off her leg. There was no pain, just a pulling sensation and the rocking of her body as the blade bit into the bone. When the tests first began, she'd begged them to stop, to reconsider, told them that even though she always came back dying was just as awful every time, but no one ever listened. Their impassive faces may have hidden a desire to take mercy on her, but it was mercy she never saw.
They'd taken her leg and allowed her femoral artery to spew her blood all over the white-tiled room, drenching the walls and floor with bright, bright red. Her heartbeat weakened and became irregular, feathering inside her chest as it lost momentum. Every time it was the same, but no less terrifying—maybe even more so for Jane and John since they knew that death was not the end for them; there would be more tests, more days in a cell, and no escape from the Foundation.
She returned from the void whole, her leg having grown back in the few minutes she'd been dead. The researcher across the room was still studying the one they'd removed from her, and she reached out to it like it was a lost friend. Now, hours later, she thinks that there must be a joke in there somewhere—I miss my leg, we were very attached, ha ha ha.
After being allowed to recuperate for a few hours, she is taken out again, this time to the interrogation room where she will talk to Able about nothing for a few minutes until he dismisses her or tries to kill her, or succeeds. Strange as her life has become, there is a twisted kind of routine to it as well and it is that monotony that has her wishing that she could bring herself to just eat a gun, but she and John are strong-willed to a fault and would never give the Foundation the satisfaction of relegating their memory to an anonymous series of numbers in an archive somewhere.
She walks, her back straight, into the dimly lit room and sits opposite Able. Normally he would greet her, but today he just watches her face, his eyes as intense as he's ever seen.
"You look like death, Jane the Shepard," he says.
"I could say the same thing about you," she retorts with a chuckle that frightens her in its flat, emotionlessness.
"This place, these people . . . they do not know what they do to those such as us." He leans forward and at first she thinks he means to reach out and touch her, and if he does that she'll scream because if the only sympathy she'll get in this place comes from an inhuman psychopath, she thinks that there will be no redemption for her. "They take our souls. People like you and me, we were not meant to be caged like criminals."
"What would you suggest they do with you? Let you go, commit mass murder?" she asks, but half-heartedly. She is beyond caring if he actually answers her.
"I did well enough on my own for thousands of your years before I was taken. Long and long have I lived in war—there is always war somewhere, you know. My . . . other half," he says-he never calls Cain his brother, "would be good in war as well, but he is not quite so, how do I say?"
"Evil?"
"Volatile, maybe."
"That's the understatement of the millennia, right there," she scoffs and Able cocks his head to the side, his gray gaze staring holes in her like he means to read her mind as a witch reads entrails.
"You are troubled," he said. "What have they done to you, little Shepard?"
It isn't fair that his words should make her want to cry, to confess everything. She looks down at her hands, picking at her nails. "No more than they've done to you, I'd bet."
"Yes, they seem to have a special interest in the two-natured."
She looks up from her hands and sees that he is regarding her sadly. It is the first time he has shown any softer emotion with her. "You too?"
"Yes. I . . . made a mistake long ago, and have been paying the price ever since. This," he says, indicating himself, the room, the entire facility, "is my punishment for one transgression. I have spent too long like this, little Shepard, and it eats my soul away."
Two tears cut a wet trail down her cheeks to her lips where she licks them away, relishing the saltiness on her tongue. "Yes," is all she can say.
Able's face contorts with rage and he slams his fists down on the table, buckling the metal. Jane shrieks and shoots to her feet, knocking her chair to the floor as she backs into the wall but Able isn't looking at her. He is glaring at the door, and at Doctor Hardwick's face in the tiny square window. He catches the doctor's eye and points at him, shouting in that ancient language that doesn't sound made for human mouths. Doctor Hardwick's eyes widen and he gestures to the armed guards waiting just outside the door.
"That man, that—" he lapses into his native tongue again, "—is the very embodiment of everything that is wrong with this place, this . . . Foundation." He sneers as though the term is so ridiculous as to be laughable. The guards and the doctor are yelling at each other, and while she can't hear much of what they're saying, it sounds like they're trying to ascertain who should go in first. Maybe they'll break in before Able goes into a rage and kills her. Again. Through the blocks, she can feel John's answering fear and quickly peeks in to see what's happening on his end and finds him crouched against the wall, mirroring her own position. His version of Able is standing in the middle of the room, still pointing at the door. They have reached a convergence of their respective timelines, point in their lives that for some reason must progress this way; the same happened the day the Agents came and took them away from their homes and locked them here so long ago. It's like falling down a hole, this on-rush of time, and she braces for impact.
Able turns to her and crouches down before her, and his cloudy eyes are soft with something she has no name for, not yet. He reaches out to touch her face and she cannot suppress the whimper that escapes her when his fingers meet her cheek. Her skin crawls like it's trying to shrink into itself to get away from his alien touch and if he doesn't let her go soon, she won't be able to stop the screams from pouring out of her.
"I do this for the both of us," he says, and his head whips around to the door again. He snarls and, faster than she can blink, slams into the door with the force of a freight train. Jane jumps and cringes into the corner as he rams into the dented metal over and over again; the guards have backed up and pushed the doctor and his simpering assistant, Gerald, out of the way.
Able roars and charges one last time and the door flies outward into the hallway, crushing a guard and sending another spinning into the wall. The air explodes in a hail of gunfire, which ends quickly. Able reappears through the smoke and his chest is peppered with bullet holes that are healing as she watches. He flicks his chin toward the hallway and is gone again. Jane stands slowly and waits for the security personnel that must surely come, but they don't. A klaxon blares and she leaves the interrogation room, stepping gingerly over the crushed and broken bodies of the guards. A few feet away, Doctor Hardwick lies with his throat torn out, but Gerald is unharmed. He starts toward her and makes to grab her, but she punches him in the jaw and he collapses in a boneless heap.
Jane follows the path of destruction that Able is blazing through the facility—long gouges in the wall, bullet holes in the walls and cell doors, and blood and death everywhere she looked. John is with her; in their confusion and fear their mental blocks have all but collapsed and they are the closest they've ever been to being one mind. Her feet lead him down the hall and his eyes show her the way through the maze of corridors and rooms that continue past her cell and toward what she hopes is the exit. A fierce hope blazes within them and their steps quicken.
They don't hear the woman coming up behind them until she grabs their shoulder and forces them face first into the wall. There is a click as her handcuffs open, but before she can close them on their wrists, she utters a strangled gasp and falls against the wall behind her. They turn around and see 343 there, looking from the woman to his hand, which is sheathed in a faint white glow. He turns his gaze to them, and they know that he sees them, both of them; they're not sure where this thought comes from, but it rings true. He places a hand on their forehead and they are suffused with the sense of being watched over, protected.
"Go now, Shepard. You never did belong here." He smiles and pats their cheek before turning calmly back to his cell. They hurry on their way with a renewed sense of purpose. They round the corner at the end of the hall and are faced with a stairwell that goes up to an open door, and beyond that lies the exit. Outside . . . they haven't been outside in twelve years, and they sprint up the stairs two at a time until they burst out into the cool night air.
Able is there—he is riddled with holes, his left arm is hanging by a thin strip of skin, and he is covered head to foot in blood, some of it his own. He is healing, but not fast enough, and although he is still inhumanly strong he is weak enough that the Foundation staff are able to restrain him. He bucks and snarls beneath their weight and they fit him with handcuffs and leg irons before backing off, and Doctor Clef is there with his Colt .45 pointed at Able's head. The doctor says something in that strange, guttural language to Able, who goes still and tries to tilt his head up to look at him. Able answers him in kind and lays back down, his cheek pressed to the dirt.
"I never blamed you, you know," Able says.
"I know," Clef answers softly and fires a round into Able's skull. While the staff is busy clearing up the mess, Clef looks out over the huddle and spots Jane/John. They freeze, waiting for him to sound the alarm, but instead he mouths at them, "Go." They nod and sprint soundlessly into the thick woods that surround the facility.
They run all that night and into the next morning until the sun begins to climb to its apex and the air is tearing in and out of their lungs and their limbs cannot move anymore. There have been no sounds of pursuit, but they can't get over the feeling of being chased; they should have been chased, they know, there's been a containment breach and the Foundation will stop at nothing to bring back its property, so while a concerted effort has yet to be made, they know it's coming, and soon.
They collapse to the edge of a shallow creek and drink deeply of the water that tastes like rain and silt and heaven. A little ways down the bank there's an outcropping of rock that they crawl under. The stillness seeps into their bones and they try to put up the mental blocks again as the fear leaves them, but they're only able to dampen the connection in their fatigue. It's enough for now, though, and Jane is finally more or less alone in her body again. She lays on the ground, shivering in her thin blue shirt and pants and slip-on sneakers. Her clothes were not made for early autumn in the woods, but she slips into the deep unconsciousness of total exhaustion regardless, and feels John do the same.
It's dark again when she is awakened by a crackling sound and opens her eyes to see that someone has made a fire ringed in stones collected from the creek. The wood pops and sparks skirl up into the darkened sky; she follows their path and sees the stars for the first time. The sky is full of them, a long, wide carpet of stars that spread from horizon to horizon, like pinpricks of light in a vast black blanket. She steps out onto the moss-covered bank of the creek and stares up at the stars with tears streaming down her face; it is the most beautiful thing she's ever seen in all her eighteen years and it fills her heart with a feeling so huge that it might split her in half. She longs to reach out and touch those stars, fly among them and see what other worlds lay out there. Maybe meet an alien; she's seen them on the vids the Foundation approved for her, but has never met one before.
There is movement in the distance between two trees, a passing shadow slightly darker than the others. She stays very still and watches as the thing comes closer; it is humanoid and tall, maybe eight feet high, with a barrel chest. The edges of the thing are blurred and as it comes closer she can see why—it is covered in matted, dark brown hair. She cannot see its face, but the long arms and slightly bow-legged walk suggest a primate ancestor. It's ironic, she thinks, to be attacked in the woods by a beast after having just escaped a prison full of them. She has seen the stars again, though, and so faces the approaching giant with her head high.
It comes closer, slowly, and just before it enters the circle of firelight it raises its hands and stoops a little, and she almost laughs out loud at its apparent attempts at being non-threatening because clutched in one is a long sharp stick.
"Come on, then, get it over with," she taunts, opening her arms wide. "I can tell you now, it won't do any good."
It steps closer and the flickering orange light falls on its face, looming over her. Two big brown eyes watch her warily through wisps of hair, startling in their warmth. Its features are similar to a gorilla's, but with a longer nose and protruding brow, and it has huge human hands and bare feet that leave huge prints in the muddy banks of the creek. She can see now that there is a dead, skinned rabbit spitted on the stick it carries. They regard each other in silence for a long moment before the giant ape-man moves closer and hunches over the fire. Jane watches from a distance as he (for there's no doubt that it is male; the hair doesn't conceal his nakedness that much) sets up two sticks that end in a Y shape and puts the spit on them lengthwise. He stands up straight again and turns to Jane, and she swears that she can see in his face something so completely human that there's no doubt in her mind they share a common link.
"Food," he says stunted English. He has a deep, rumbling voice that she feels in her bones. "Girl . . . you, eat."
She is so utterly stunned that her tongue has turned to a useless hunk of meat that lies uselessly in her mouth. "Th—thank you," she stammers.
He nods and says, "More, next moon. Wait. I . . . make the way." Jane nods, too quickly, and he turns and heads back into the woods with his slow, lumbering steps. She lets out a shuddering breath and goes back to the fire on shaky knees, then sits down and turns the rabbit as it cooks. She eats it quickly, the tender meat burning her fingers and mouth but she doesn't care, it's the best thing she's ever eaten. When she's finished, warmed by the food and the fire, she buries the bones and smothers the fire with dirt, then douses the remaining embers with water from the creek and begins to follow her mysterious benefactor's steps into the woods.
He has made the path clear, breaking twigs and making slashes in the trees that shine bone-white in the moonlight. Her own feet are dwarfed by his big footsteps and she follows the path he's created for her.
The following days follow in similar fashion—she travels at night, sleeps during the day, and as the sun sets, he comes and builds a fire and brings her food. The second night, it is two squirrels and some berries she didn't recognize wrapped in a leaf. The third night, he brings another rabbit and this time, she invites him to stay. He sits with her in an amicable silence while he watches her eat, taking none of it for himself even though she offers him some.
When she buries the carcass, he stands up to leave but she surprises herself by taking hold of his arm. He looks down at her expectantly and she has to clear her throat before asking, "Why are you doing this for me?"
His voice is solemn when he says, "You, girl . . . you have number. Me, too. Not people, not anymore." He points at her, then to himself. "Number."
Her hand is still clutching his arm, but she's not aware of it anymore. "What number are you?"
"One thousand," he answers, then shakes his head. "No . . . no number, no matter. Me, free." He points off in the direction they've been going and says, "You free, too. Soon." He smiles and gently plucks her hand from him before disappearing back into the trees, marking the path as he goes.
She reaches the end of the woods the next morning, and there is a small bundle of food waiting for her. He is nowhere to be seen, but she thinks he's watching anyway, so she takes a stick and writes in the dirt, unsure if he'll see it or understand: I will never forget this. Thank you. –Jane.
She continues over a small hill and sees on the other side a city laid out before her, just waking up for the day. She wanders the streets, receiving a lot of stares at her dirty uniform and she knows she must look like hell; she hasn't bathed in almost four days, but she has no money and doesn't know of anywhere to go that might have a shower. She wanders for most of the day before settling down on the sidewalk to eat some of the food in her bundle, and she resigns herself to sleeping on the streets before her eyes light upon a sign hanging in a window across the road that reads, Serve Earth and travel to distant planets—join the Alliance navy today! It is a recruiting office.
She grins to herself, the first genuine smile she's had in years, and thinks that sounds like the best idea ever.
AN—In the next installment: the Normandy crew finally meets Able and the worlds collide.
