She awoke in stages. Once she'd ascertained she was lying on a hard surface, unrestrained, she stretched out her senses as far as they would go, straining for any more clues as to her location within the facility. The sound of dripping water came from somewhere off to the left, and the echoes told her that the room couldn't be much larger than ten feet square. It was chilly and damp, which went against her experiences at Site 25—the whole complex had to be well-maintained with its own interior atmosphere to contain the anomalies it housed.
There was a quiet shuffling sound, very close to her, and then silence again, except for the hollow echo caused by the leaky ceiling. Drip . . . drip-drip . . . drip.
The shuffling sound came again.
Her body flooded with adrenaline and she pinpointed the source of the sound, which she thought was coming from somewhere outside her cell. She slowly cracked her eyelids and saw something gray shift in her peripheral vision. It moved again, and Jane finally recognized the pointed ends of a turian fringe. She opened her eyes more fully and allowed herself a moment to adjust to the lancet of pain that shot through her head when the light hit her. The guard had whacked her good; she raised her hand and felt dried blood coating the back of her neck, matting her hair into crunchy, dirty locks.
"Jane?" Garrus pressed his hand against the thick glass wall separating them. They were in adjoining cells, separated by two inches. He may as well have been on the moon for all the good his proximity did her. She slowly levered herself into a sitting position and clutched her temples, willing the ache that had settled into her brain to go away so she could think. It was dissolving slowly; she reached out to John and tried to see what he was doing, but his side was still dark and his thoughts were sluggish. He was probably still unconscious. She hoped Tali was all right; the SCP staff might not know about quarian physiology, and some grunt might have tried to take off her face mask. In a place like this, dank and moldy and obviously not used very often, exposure to the air could mean a death sentence for her.
She was in one cell in a row of five, each one separated by thick glass, with a solid steel door that presumably led out into the hallway. Why they'd make the whole row visible to each prisoner was beyond her, but there was surely a sadistic motive in there somewhere. Aside from a shallow depression in the concrete floor with a pipe leading into the wall—a rudimentary toilet, probably—there was nothing else in the cell. The floor and back wall were decorated with scratched dates, pictures, and messages, not all of it in English, not all of it depicting anything found on this planet. The marks of past prisoners, trying to make an impression on the world before they left it forever.
She turned slowly, wincing as the movement pulled the gash in the back of her head, and tried to smile. It was supposed to be reassuring, but she thought it probably looked ghastly from Garrus' perspective. "I'm alive. Are you all right? Did they knock you out, too?"
"They tried, but turian heads are hard." He rapped his forehead for emphasis, and she saw the mottled discoloration near his temple. She hadn't known his plates could bruise. "I heard them say something about going to get the gear man, but I don't know what that's supposed to mean."
"The Gearman." She stared into the hallway, her mind racing furiously. What game were they playing now? They had to know what happened with him before. If they didn't . . . well, this might get interesting.
"You know him?"
"Knew him, yeah." Her eyes unfocused into a thousand-yard stare and a ghost of a smile played at her lips. "Mordin reminds me of him in a lot of ways. You'd like him, I think—very practical, by-the-numbers sort of guy with a technical bent."
"Sounds like a party animal," Garrus grumbled, settling back against the wall. "As soon as we get out of here, I'm gonna jam the barrel of your grenade launcher down Clef's throat and pull the trigger."
"He might actually thank you for that," Jane answered with a wry twist of her mouth. "But I won't stop you. Hell, I'll hold him down for you." The enormity of their situation was pushing at the edges of her mind, and the only thing keeping it at bay was the hope that the Gearman was really still around, and that he still remembered her.
"So, since we've got some time to kill," Garrus said, pulling her out of her musings, "you want to tell me about this Gearman? I've been flying blind for the most part here, and it'd be nice to know what to expect for a change." He was obviously trying to keep the hurt out of his voice, but she heard it anyway. He was right—she'd been keeping back so much because she'd thought she was protecting him, but maybe it was time to tell him everything. He deserved to know, and there may not be a better time to lay it all out.
But to do that, she'd have to start at the beginning . . .
She gazes up at the men flanking her; she has always been slight for her age, and barely comes up to their belt buckles. They have guns, like policemen, but their uniforms are all black with large circular patches bearing the Foundation's logo. Thinking back on the scared and haunted look on her mother's face as they led her away, she wonders if this is all her fault—if by not dying in the fall she somehow screwed up the balance of the universe, and this is her punishment. Tears sting her eyes but she forces them back; she will not cry. She's a big girl, and big girls don't cry.
*It's okay, Jane,* John whispers to her, like a tickling in the middle of her brain. She was three years old when she discovered that other people didn't hear voices in their heads, and had learned to talk about John as though he were an imaginary friend to keep her mother from giving her worried looks.
How do you know? They took us away, and we didn't even get to keep Ama. Ama is a little stuffed elcor given to each of them for their sixth birthday by some distant relative or other. They'd both taken to sleeping with it as a sort of security blanket; this will be the first time in eight months they've spent the night without it.
*They probably just want to ask us something, and maybe we'll get a shot. Then we can go home.*
I hope so.
*Be brave, Jane.*
And so she was. She was the bravest kid she knew; she was always the first to jump off the swings or explore the dark tunnels that passed under the roads, and she wasn't afraid of spiders. When she'd picked up a green snake one time, she'd been cemented into the play yard lexicon as fearless, a girl not-to-be-trifled-with. She can handle herself well, and she isn't going to ruin her reputation by being scared now. She is almost seven, for crying out loud.
Down hallways and past locked doors with numerical placards and attached clipboards, she counts the overhead lights encased in wire mesh. Fifteen lights and several turns later, her escorts stop and turn her to face a door no different from the others. This one is marked "SCP-4672", and she wonders what's inside.
"Ah, there you are!" says a genial voice behind her, and she whirls around to see a tall, thin man with thinning brown hair, a white lab coat, and rimless glasses perched on his nose. He is carrying a clipboard and smiling at her. "I'd hoped to meet you at the helicopter, but I was delayed. I apologize. My name is Doctor Hardwick. Have these nice men treated you well?" He rubs at a fresh bruise beginning to form at his temple and annoyance flits across his features, there and gone almost before she realizes what it is.
"Yes, but they don't talk much." She fidgets under the doctor's false warmth, and the fear that's lain dormant in her gut begins to rise up and stretch.
"They're trained not to speak to skips."
"What are skips?"
He reaches over her head and hangs the clipboard on a nail embedded in the wall beside the placard. To the guards he says, "Go ahead and put her inside. Have Arlen arrange for her meals to be brought, starting with dinner. No one is to talk to her until I've done a psych." And with that, he strides briskly away with a shout over his shoulder, almost as an afterthought, "Nice to meet you, I'll be back this evening."
The door squeaks open and she is led inside. By the time she realizes that the guards have not accompanied her, the door is closing behind her. The lock panel turns red, and she knows that she will not be going home. As though a part of her knows she will want to remember, she marks this moment as the one when she became aware that she was a prisoner. No matter what John says, they are stuck here.
Three hours later, she has paced the length of her room dozens of times and taken stock of her meager possessions, which consist of a relatively comfortable bed, a vanity, some toys, a small bathroom with its own soaps that she promptly uses to make bubbles in the sink, a few thin books with bright illustrations written for much younger children than she, and a television with recordings of old cartoon movies she's never heard of before. The walls are painted the same industrial gray as everything else, and it smells like laundry and mop water and something else that she cannot name. If she knew the word "despair", she might have associated the smell with that word.
A slot opens in the door and a tray slides through bearing a plate of macaroni and cheese. She takes the food as though it might explode at any moment, and the tray retreats, the slot banging shut. She takes the plate over to the vanity and stares at it for a long moment before getting into an argument with John over who should eat it first just in case it's poisoned. He tells her she's being a baby, but she winds up convincing him to go first. They are unsure of the nature of their bond this early in life, but the basics of how it works are ingrained in them like a genetic memory, something they just know.
Ten minutes and nearly the entire plate of macaroni later, John isn't dead and she feels safe enough to take a bite herself.
After dinner, Doctor Hardwick returns and his friendly mask isn't fooling her at all. She is a specimen to him, a research project, and not a very interesting one at that. He brings in his own folding metal chair and plants it in the middle of the room, motioning for her to sit on the bed. He scans her file for a long time, and her feet swing out into space. She studies her pink sneakers, entertaining herself by bouncing slightly on the mattress while she waits in the uncomfortable silence. She is reminded of her mother's admonitions about strangers and wonders if the doctor would apply to that rule. Maybe she should ignore him.
"All right, let's get started," he says, huffing a sigh. He takes out a mini recorder and places it on the vanity, turning it so the microphone is pointed out into the room to catch their voices. "Doctor Hardwick of Site 25 performing a psychiatric evaluation on SCP-4762. Please state your name."
She stares at her shoes. Her feet continue to move in shallow arcs above the blue carpet.
"Can you say your name into the microphone, please?" he asks again. She says nothing. "What about your address? Where are you from?"
Kick, kick, kick. Pink sneakers rising and falling. Mommy said 'don't talk to strangers,' and Jane thinks there can be nothing stranger than this.
"Do you remember anything about the fall, or what happened afterward?"
She stops kicking, her feet below her field of vision.
"You were dead for five minutes and twelve seconds, if the eyewitness reports are correct. What was that like?"
She covers her face with her hands and hums atonally. Go away, go away, go away.
"Jane, you need to answer my questions. If you do, I'll bring you dessert. Maybe pudding, do you like pudding?" he asks in a cloyingly sweet, wheedling tone.
She hums louder and starts rocking back and forth. "Go away, go away," she mumbles.
"What was that?"
"Go away! Go away, go away!" The last word turns into a sustained scream and she hates the tears that run down her face to pool in the creases of her cupped hands. Doctor Hardwick looks down at her in disgust and stalks out of the room, slamming the door behind him. It isn't until the lights go out in her room signaling bed time that she dares to remove her hands. There is a dim night light in the wall, an unexpected courtesy in this place that seems totally devoid of human warmth and comfort. She wonders what she did that was so wrong. She wonders if she should have just stayed dead.
It is their first night away from their mother, in a strange place, without Ama, and in the darkness of their cell, John and Jane both cry themselves to sleep.
OoOoOoO
Three months later:
At first, the changes that come over the guards are written off as a normal reaction to having to work with a child of her age. She has come out of her shell somewhat and she is a charismatic and energetic girl of six (almost seven, she reminds everyone who will listen; it is her birthday next month). Soon, there are guards sneaking her dolls and cookies, smiling at her in the hallways as she is taken for testing. She affects everyone except Doctor Hardwick who, for some reason, she has put permanently on the do-not-trust list.
It isn't until the first time a guard tries to hit the doctor over a less than favorable comment about Jane that anyone realizes there may be another characteristic they've missed. Doctor Clef is summoned to Site 25 two days later, and Doctor Hardwick takes on an assistant as a sort of buffer zone between himself and Jane's guards, who have very nearly become more hers than the Foundation's.
After a short interview, Clef emerges from her cell and informs everyone present, "She's not a reality shifter, but she definitely has some pull. That could just be chalked up to her natural disposition—she's got quite the personality for a child her age—but there could be something else at work here. Keep an eye on her guards, and if any of them try anything," he says, looking at them pointedly, "have them reassigned to 682 detail. In the meantime, I'll have her upgraded to Euclid." He patted Hardwick's shoulder and gave him a reassuring smile. "I wouldn't worry about it too much."
"Thank you, Alto. Your expertise in this matter has been most helpful."
"Don't hesitate to call if you need anything else. I'll send someone over this afternoon to speak to her some more, if you don't mind."
"Not at all."
Clef turned to leave, surreptitiously wiping the hand that had touched the doctor on the legs of his trousers, scowling darkly.
When the guards at the facility's entrance call to tell him that there's someone who wishes to visit Jane, he ushers the guest in with great curiosity. There is the subtle whining of hydraulic pistons and servo motors that precedes the man, and Doctor Hardwick finds himself looking at SCP-172. His black hair holds the tracks from his comb, and his equally black moustache is waxed and groomed with precision. His dark eyes regard the doctor distantly, and he can almost hear the clicking of his robotic eyelids. There is a large ornate key hanging from a thin chain around his neck.
"Good afternoon," 172 says politely. "I am here to see your newest acquisition, 4762. Alto said she is called 'Jane'."
"Yes of course, right this way," Hardwick says, making a mental note to call Clef the moment he returns to his office. Mixing of SCPs has never been a good idea in his experience, but Clef is a senior researcher by several hundred years and has always had the ear of the O5s. He has a guard unlock Jane's cell and the Gearman enters with a nod of thanks, pulling the door closed behind him. Seconds later, the video feed from her room goes blank and for upwards of twenty minutes there is no official record.
Jane watches as the stranger disables the camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling. She's holding a toy robot she was using to lay waste to a city of terrified Barbies and stares in suspicious curiosity as the man lowers himself to the floor, the gears in his knees whirring as he crosses his legs Indian-fashion. He is wearing a warm smile, and she finds herself responding despite herself. She has a feeling about people, and this man strikes her as someone she can put in the "good guy" category.
"What are you playing?" he asks.
"War. I got a new truck and it doesn't like the Barbies, so it got the other robots on its side to make the doll-city 'splode."
"Oh, that sounds like fun. Do you mind if I play?"
She raises one eyebrow in disbelief (what grown-up wants to play dolls with a kid?) until she realizes this man isn't kidding. "Okay, yeah. You be the robots, and you try to beat me. Whoever has the most guys at the end wins."
They play for a few minutes, and by the end of it the dolls have won the war. He doesn't let her win either; he plays fair, and announces his surrender when there are only two robots remaining. They are putting the toys away when he asks, "Do you know why I am here?"
She thinks for a moment before answering. "Because Doctor Hardwick thinks there's something wrong with me."
"You may be right about that," he agrees. "But the reason I am here is because there is someone in the Foundation who thinks you are a very special girl. Tell me, Jane, are you strong and brave?"
"Yeah," she says proudly. She's picked up a snake before, and punched a boy in the face for calling her friend names. All the kids at school knew she was strong and brave.
"I'm sure you are. You'd have to be brave to live here." He leans closer and Jane does the same, almost unconsciously. "Do you think you would talk to me again if I came back to play with you sometimes?"
"I guess." She doesn't tell him how much she really wants him to stay here all the time; she spends so much time alone with her toys and her videos that sometimes all she wants to do is scream until she can't think anymore. She may have already done so if not for John; they have been each other's saving grace. "You talk like a doctor, but you're not like the other one."
"Do you mean Doctor Hardwick?" She nods and looks away, afraid she might get into trouble for telling on the doctor. "Can I tell you a secret?" he asks. That gets her attention, and when she meets his eyes she finds them warm and accepting. "I used to be a doctor, too. A long time ago."
"Really?" she asks reverentially. She is being entrusted with a secret, and treats it with the gravitas it deserves.
"Yes. I used to work here, sometimes with children much like you, Jane. And do you know what?"
"What?"
"You're one of my favorites." She grins, a broad gap-toothed smile. He stands to leave, and bends down to shake her hand. "It was very nice to meet you, Jane."
"Nice to meet you too, Doctor—"
"Gears. Call me Doctor Gears."
AN about the characters: This update contains SCP-172, the Gearman and Doctor Gears. I'm messing with SCP canon (such as it is) here just to be able to put Gears into the story, since I love his character so much and wanted him to have some interaction with Shepard. Basically what happened is that Gears ended up working with 172 and found out that it's not only an elaborate machine but a soul-trap of sorts. He winds up making an arrangement to enter the robotic body of 172, thereby freeing the previous occupant and rendering himself almost immortal. He maintains that he is 172 to almost everyone but Clef, who knows the truth.
