Chapter 2: Into the Dark
Miranda didn't expect to meet anyone on the biolabs level. Even so, as the elevator door opened, she strode out as if she belonged there. She found herself in a corridor going off to the left and right, featuring nondescript ivory-colored walls and dimmed lights. The elevator door was the only door on this side, opposite there was a niche with a reception desk and a surveillance camera. It was the same model used everywhere else and her omnitool had hacked it within milliseconds, routing all the camera's input to itself to be manipulated before relaying it to the VI for analysis. A row of office windows closed off with blinds and interspersed with labeled doors went off to the left and right of the niche for fifteen meters or so, after which the corridors turned away in a right angle as if to encircle the office section. She couldn't hear any voices. The air was cool and dry and carried a hint of organic solvents, as if the cleaning bots had been through a short time ago. Good. Apparently it was as she expected and everyone had already quit for the day.
Above the reception desk a signboard showed a list of names and functions. She memorized the room numbers of the department manager's office – one G. P. Chang, MD, DSc. – and the women's restroom. After scanning the labels at the nearest doors, she turned left and walked briskly down the corridor. The floor was covered with a steel-blue carpet, so moving silently was easy. Turning right at the end, she stopped at the second door, labeled unmistakably as the women's restroom. Use of all doors was logged during off-work hours, which she couldn't avoid, but a virus she'd inserted into the security software would erase all log entries created by her fake ID.
She entered the restroom. There were three stalls. She stepped into the one at the back, sat down on the closed lid and pulled up her feet. Microscopic reconnaissance drones created by her omnitool would map the area before she continued, but it would take some time. She disliked waiting. There was too much time to think; or to brood, if she was honest with herself. She wished Niket were here to distract her. Unbidden, his image popped up in her mind. Nice brown eyes and an attractive straight nose in a well-proportioned face, and light brown skin. His brown hair was never neat. Neither was his clothing, and he had no sense of style. Average, he looked, not like her in the least. But he was unafraid to make jokes about their respective parents, and like her, he loved boating and swimming. They'd been friends for ten years.
Niket's mother ran CAE's marina. It was the kind of thankless job where you only got noticed when you made a mistake. The pay was correspondingly low. Insultingly low, Miranda had said when Niket told her. Niket had implored her not to mention them to her father. She had been ten at the time, but already known if she told her father what she thought he'd have Niket's mother fired. But three years later she'd learned to manipulate the HR department's records and gave her a little upgrade. Nothing spectacular, but it should make paying off her debts noticeably easier. She'd never told anyone and had no idea if Niket suspected. He'd never brought it up.
In time, their friendship had acquired an added dimension. It wasn't exactly love, or so she thought. There had been a few pleasurable experiments, nothing more. Well, they had been very pleasurable. These days, on the rare occasions when their schedules permitted and they ventured out on one of the motor-boats, or on one of those old-fashioned wooden sloops the head of the legal division collected, there was always a tension in the air between them, a hint of what they'd shared and would possibly share again. It was almost impossible to escape observation, though. The security detail was supposed to stay at range, but she knew they had high-resolution infrared optics. In addition, there were her father's satellites to consider. Talk was another matter – bugs were easily detected and microphones easily fooled for someone with her skills. So circumstances had conspired to keep them at "just friends" with a little added excitement now and then – as if there was anything "just" about having someone she could trust. They'd laughed together and comforted each other, and shared each other's secrets. She didn't know how he felt about it all – they both weren't good at expressing emotions – but for her, sharing her secrets, telling him what she'd done, and why, and sharing her dreams with him, had created a bond that could stretch to the stars and it wouldn't break.
She was startled out of her reverie by several voices approaching. Annoyed by having almost slipped off her seat while daydreaming, to say nothing of daydreaming in the first place, she hurriedly checked herself and the stall she was hiding in. Good. There was nothing on the floor to detect by a casual glance. She also didn't smell. She kept herself meticulously clean and never used perfume if she could avoid it. It wasn't long before the restroom door opened, and someone stepped in, announcing her – probably her – presence with the clacking sound of hard-soled shoes on tiles. Miranda heard the last words of a sentence, spoken from the corridor in a man's voice.
"...in my office. End of the corridor, then left. It's room 007."
"See you in a moment."
The woman stopped walking. There was a scratching noise, then an almost inaudible click. Miranda longed to check her drones but she didn't dare move. She almost didn't dare breathe. In this silence, considering the tiled walls would amplify all noise, a drop of sweat falling to the floor would be almost as obvious as a gunshot. She couldn't even shift on her seat. The tension only let up after the woman had activated a tap and water started running. This went on for about a minute, then the water stopped, there was another click, and the woman stepped out into the corridor again. Risking only shallow breaths, Miranda waited for another two minutes before she checked her omnitool. The drones were out of contact, still busy with their task of mapping the area, but the omnitool had recorded the voices. A crosscheck of the voice imprints with CAE's HR database told her the man was Chang, but there was no matching record for the woman. Not CAE, then. There had been two more people accompanying Chang but the sound of their steps wasn't enough for identification. So much for her plans to search Chang's office. She could only hope their meeting would be short.
She had another few minutes to wait until her drones would report back, so there was a little time left to be annoyed with herself. Why the hell didn't I monitor the fucking camera, she berated herself. This daydreaming wasn't like her. It was like sleeping on the job, and she never did that. She shouldn't be thinking of Niket in here, at this time, but he had a habit of popping up in her mind at the strangest times. Trusting him was stupid, really. Trusting anyone was stupid. But never trusting anyone, you couldn't live that way, could you? Damn it, how could you ever know?
Her omnitool projected a green dot into her eye, begging for her attention. She called up the floor plan it had constructed from the drones' data. The layout followed a standard research level template: a number of offices in the front, encircled by corridors. Labs in the back, engineering, storerooms and other facilities placed for easy access depending on their purpose. There were two more surveillance cameras over the doors to the lab section. Her omnitool would be able to deal with them without her input. Chang's office was located in the back of the office section, far out of sight of the restroom door. She could walk away with no one the wiser if she wanted, or wait the meeting out and proceed with her original plan. But her curiosity wouldn't let her. She had to know what they were talking about. A woman not in CAE's employment in the biolabs during off-work hours, that was unusual.
She needed a plan. Her drones were small enough to be invisible to anything but a bug sweep, but to keep contact with them they had to stay in sight. Their signals were too weak to go through walls, and amplifying them would trigger the security. Chang's office had two large windows to adjacent corridors, but the microphones she'd need to eavesdrop through them were specialized equipment beyond the current programming of her omnitool to manufacture. Listening at the door would be too risky, even assuming she could hear anything through the thick layer of plastic. But according to the floor plan she could get to one of the windows without being seen from within. If she could get a drone into the room, maybe she'd be able to catch its signals through the window.
Mentally cursing herself for not being prepared quite enough, she made a note to upgrade her omnitool's manufacturing unit, ordered her drones to scout the different ways to Chang's office, and stepped out of the restroom. Stepping more carefully now, her soft-soled shoes made no noise at all on the carpeted floor. Selecting a path from the presented options, she walked down the corridor, stepped through a pair of connected offices and out into another corridor. She was almost at the next corner when a drone pinged a warning.
Quickly she stepped through the next door into yet another office – how much office space did they need for this research wing? – and closed the door behind her. Hearing nothing, she fastened a relay chip to the office's window. Her drone sent an image of a figure standing in front of Chang's office. And it wasn't just anyone. Zoltan Markovic, one of her father's bodyguards. If he was here, then so was her father. Damn you, she thought as she felt the familiar fear creeping up on her. You don't know me anymore... She looked down at her trembling hands. If she'd carried a pistol, she'd have dropped it. Scowling, she forced herself to breathe slowly and let her heartbeat calm down. Accept your fear, her combat trainer had taught her when he'd introduced her to knives. Fear can save your life, but don't let it control you. Her father wasn't a god, however much he wanted to make himself one. Ever since she'd killed the men who'd abducted her and fought her way out of imprisonment, he didn't have absolute power over her anymore. But if he surprised her, he could still get through her defenses by his mere presence. It was almost a minute before she could continue.
The stakes had risen dramatically. Only the most important projects got her father's personal attention. And from now on, she absolutely couldn't afford to be seen. Deception was not an option anymore. Markovic would recognize her immediately, and he knew she wasn't supposed to be here. There was no way left to get to the window of Chang's office, but she'd used drone relays before. She sent one drone down to the office door and another crawling up to the window, while she looked for a spot to hide from a casual glance into this office. Having to use an improvised hiding place didn't sit well with her – she liked to plan everything in detail – but she'd known this would be a trip into the unknown. The first drone lost contact as it made its way under the door. It shouldn't be more than a few seconds now.
"...you're telling me there's sixteen years between them, and they're identical?" The woman's voice was low-pitched and smooth. Likely she could sound very pleasant, but at the moment she was clearly annoyed. "Sixteen years of research and you've not a single improvement to show for it?"
"There's only so much you can do with genes", Chang's voice replied. "Between the limitations of the human genome and the restrictive parameters I'd been given, there wasn't anything more we could do. Speeding up cognitive functions even more carries a risk of autism, physical enhancement would make her look like a body builder as soon as she started any serious physical regimen. It's much the same with all the other enhancements: either we're at the limit of the 100% human template – well, at least of the attractive human template – or you can't code for it in the first place. Like the immune system. We made it more adaptable starting with Miranda, but there's really no way at all to account for unknown threats. The body has to learn these things."
"Spare me biology 101, I know that part just as well as you," the woman replied. "That the template would prove so limited is an unexpected and very unfortunate surprise. What about the lifespan?"
"I'm glad to say we were more successful there. The net gains aren't significant compared to the previous version yet, but the new viral messengers are very efficient. The cells show increased telomerase activity without transmuting into cancer cells. We've also improved mutation prevention and replacement of dead neurons. The mechanisms haven't made it into the genes – see file XI for details – but we're working on that. To code for..."
Miranda couldn't believe her ears. They were talking about her. She knew she was genetically enhanced. That's why she learned faster, needed less sleep and less training for physical skills involving hand/eye coordination. Presumably she also had a longer lifespan than the average human. She'd been after the details of what exactly they'd done and how for a long time. She'd studied biochemistry and genetics, analyzed her own cells, but of course with neither the original material nor any documentation, there was no chance of deciphering anything. But now, discovery of the scientific background of her engineered genes paled to insignificance before something else: 'They' were identical. Who was the other one? She was quite aware that being biologically related to someone didn't count for much in real life. But the thought of a sister, even more, an identical twin sister – she couldn't help being curious. She concentrated on the meeting again. Her omnitool would record everything, but she had to hear for herself.
The woman was speaking.
"...the procedure is considerably less drastic without any loss in efficiency. There's less stress on the body, so the operations can be moved forward. Her food will have to be enriched with eezo for six years, but the body will build up the nodules naturally once their cores are implanted. Which means she'll likely be a significantly stronger biotic than her predecessor."
There was a short pause.
"Very impressive, Ms. Kavanagh," said Chang. "Since you don't mention it, I gather you haven't been successful at coding for biotics. Not that we have..."
"I'm afraid you got that right. We've tried to encode asari functions with human DNA, but it didn't work out. Natural eezo fixation is tricky, and since eezo doesn't naturally exist on Earth, we're completely in the unknown here. As if that wasn't enough, it turned out there are too many other functions tied to asari biotics, the reproductive ones being the most problematic. The resulting organisms would be distinctively non-human. The details are included in this documentation. You can study the details later, but I recommend a look at pages 12 and 13."
Another pause. There was a clank; then the sound of a chair being moved. Miranda would have appreciated a 'less drastic' procedure at the time. There had been several weeks of extremely painful side effects, and of course they hadn't told her what they were doing at the time. Good that her sister wouldn't have to undergo the same torture. She smiled self-deprecatingly. Here they were, the answers about her origin she'd been looking for for two years. Strange how they'd been eclipsed by an inconclusive hint of a sister. Hopefully there would be more details about her.
"I see you're still planning to use this...distasteful setup," said Kavanagh, noticeably disgusted by something she'd read. "We want healthy humans, physically and mentally. This will do nothing to further that."
"They'll never know. There was no damage done." That was her father. He always sounded unconcerned. "Your boss would be the first to agree we can't be squeamish about our methods."
"Maybe," answered Kavanagh. "But he knows what I think of it, and I'm still here. I suggest you use some of the money you're pouring into this project to find an alternative. This is completely unacceptable for standardized high-level biotics training. Do your psychologists know about this? They could tell you about the possible disasters you risk."
"As for not finding out", Kavanagh continued. "The twins found out, didn't they? And that's the reason why they've vanished from the face of the Earth."
There were a few moments of complete silence. Apparently Kavanagh had surprised everyone. Miranda's thoughts raced. First a sister, now another pair of twins – what were they doing here? Did she have more sisters or was she part of a bigger experiment? How long has this been going on? How many children had her father made as secret projects? And where were they now? She needed time to think it all over, but the meeting continued inexorably.
"How did you find out about that?" Her father's voice had that careful tone indicating his mind was working in overdrive. Kavanagh had made a mistake, Miranda thought. She shouldn't have triggered his paranoia.
"We're not amateurs, Mr. De Morgan." Kavanagh's voice was still low and smooth, but it carried the hint of a threat. "We also haven't forgotten about our agreement. We share our research with you, we give you the improvements in our surgical procedures. In return, we get access to your rejects. You haven't been exactly forthcoming with your part. Now where are the twins? That we haven't been able to find them tells me you're quite aware of who you're hiding them from."
Nice try, Miranda thought. But you couldn't intimidate her father. He was a good businessman and could be very diplomatic, even generous if it suited him, but in his personal projects and interests, what he wanted more than anything else was exclusivity. And it couldn't get much more personal than this.
"You're the first of a new dynasty." Her father's voice resounded in her head. "A dynasty of superior humans, fit to rule over those with lesser ability. I've given you the best genes human science can make, and your children will inherit them, but you also have a duty to make the most of them. I can't do that for you. That's why I push you so hard. Don't think I'm not aware of it. It's all for a purpose. If you're not the best, it's not only you who'll have failed. I'll have failed as well."
Of course he had taken for granted she wanted to be some kind of queen legitimized by superior genes. He didn't even notice how crazy that sounded. He'd made genetics his religion, and just like any other religion, he twisted the facts to make his obsession look superior to others. To keep his dynasty exclusive, he'd try to keep all its genetic material away from everyone else, never realizing this was even crazier than the idea of the dynasty in the first place – people left their DNA everywhere. You just had to pick it up and clone it. But it didn't matter. Whatever organization Kavanagh represented, they wouldn't get what they wanted.
"It's none of your concern." Her father replied – Miranda could've told Kavanagh his exact words beforehand. "They're dysfunctional; too dysfunctional even for you".
"Let us be the judge of that. If you won't do your part, I'll have to recommend to my boss that we terminate our co-operation."
"You're rather cocky for one of the Illusive Man's lackeys. Do you even know how much of your organization I fund?" Apparently, Kavanagh had hit home. Her father wasn't usually so crude.
"No", Kavanagh continued unperturbed. "But neither do you. And don't try to change the subject. Your rejects are good enough for us. We don't have your….strict requirements." There was heavy sarcasm is her voice now. "We're pushing genetics and training to their limits, but trust in our cause to engender loyalty."
She might as well have said 'we don't have your control issues' outright, thought Miranda. Who was this woman who dared to speak to her father this way, and who was her boss, this 'Illusive Man'? She recalled the moniker having come up in the news a few years ago, but it hadn't surfaced again. The way she spoke, Kavanagh's organization must be powerful. She'd mentioned a cause, so it was probably not a business, but she couldn't think of a political organization with both the inclination and the power for this kind of secret co-operation. Terra Firma would support it, but they were a disorganized group of nut-jobs with no idea of the real complexity of anything.
"This won't get us anywhere," she heard her father say. "I propose you set up a link to the Illusive Man after we're finished here, and I'll talk this over with him. Let's get on with this review. I believe you were criticizing our trigger mechanism."
"As you wish, but that won't change anything," replied Kavanagh. "I don't know why we're continuing this charade. You're obviously not prepared to honor our agreement, or take any of our recommendations under advisement."
"You think it was easy to see my daughter being manhandled by these…animals?" Her father growled, clearly at the limit of his precious control. "Think again. The results, however, have been worth it, and they got what they deserved. I believe Dr. Chang has brought the relevant documentation. I suggest you check it before you question our methods further."
"I have Miranda's files here," said Chang. "Our simulations show it is very likely there isn't an alternative solution of equal effectiveness. The very attributes that make it so distasteful to you make it a very effective trigger. This documentation includes a full recording of the manifestation, if you want to have a look. It's a rather impressive display, if I may say so on her behalf."
"I'm here for a review. Let's see it," said Kavanagh.
As soon as her father said 'trigger mechanism', something in Miranda's brain made the connection, and she went rigid with shock. For a few seconds she refused to consider the incredible truth, but then her father confirmed it. It was a setup, an inexplicably cool and dry voice in her head put it into clear words, even as she reflected on how much like her father this was, this subtle emphasis on 'my daughter', as if he didn't care overmuch about what happened to anyone else's daughters. Then the world went cold. A shudder went down her spine, sending its cold fingers into her insides and encasing them in a shell of ice. She retreated from the universe, caught in a memory. 'It', that was two years back, when her most destructive biotic power had manifested for the first time, a scene she recalled in every insignificant little detail...
-O0O-
She awoke to blackness. Some kind of hood was over her head, and she was lying on a smooth plastic surface. She tried to sit up and banged her head on something flat. Muffled voices answered from somewhere. Apparently she was in a box, with her hands and feet, even her fingers bound. Unable to move her fingers or hands, she couldn't use her telekinetic powers. She smelled something and fell unconscious again.
Another awakening. She was sitting on a chair and bound to it. Someone pulled the hood from her head. Two human figures stood in front of her, their faces hidden by grotesque-faced carnival masks. One of the masks had a long, crooked and pointed nose, the other a painted mouth full of grinning teeth the size and shape of piano keys. Long Nose was fiddling with a camera standing on a tripod, its lens pointed at her. A male voice came from behind the nose, saying "cheeeese", mockingly. Both laughed. Big Grin was also a man. They let the camera run for some time. Somehow, her muddled brain connected some of the facts. An abduction; they wanted something from her father, probably money. Thus, the camera. Then one of the men forced a breathing mask on her face. Nothing after that until...
...the last awakening. She was stripped down to her underwear and lying on a bed, chained to its metal frame, in a room with walls of concrete painted a light brown. Her fingers were bound with bandages and wires. There was a single door of grey metal, with a small window at eye level. A small table stood beside the doorframe, with a bottle and a glass standing on it. The camera on its tripod was set up in one corner, its lens to the wall. There was no sign of the chair. Up in the corner near the bed, there was a fan blowing air in. The air was warm and smelled stale. The mattress she was lying on smelled musty, as if it had not been cleaned in a while. The bed was standing on a worn grey carpet, the flooring under it made of synthetic dark green tiles. Most of them were cracked. She wasn't hungry.
The two men came in, still wearing their masks and laughing. Long Nose said her father would get his precious flower back, but they'd give her a gift so she'd always remember them. Big Grin made a crude joke using the word "flower", continued there'd be no way to avoid it, so she might as well enjoy it. Long Nose pulled the camera over.
She knew what would be coming. She told herself it would not matter, but she knew it was a lie. The rape would be bad enough, she thought, but even worse would be the memory. They could make her remember, always. They'd destroy a precious dream she'd nursed for a year or two, a dream she'd thought to share with Niket, perhaps. If these men had their way, it would be defiled. Whenever she'd even think of sex, of love, she'd see these masks floating in the dark. It would never go away.
Suddenly, it was all too much. She yanked at her chains. She screamed "I'll kill you" at the top of her voice. Long Nose came over and bent over her, the mask's misshapen appendage almost touching her face as he trailed a hand up her leg. She shivered. "How'd ye do that, little vorcha?" he said, and Big Grin laughed, struck an effeminate pose and mocked "Me kiiihlll you". It had, however, not been completely pointless as an act of defiance. She had tried to call on her telekinetic powers by willpower alone. She had failed. Too well were they trained to respond to the movements of her fingers and hands. But something else had happened. She felt a current running through her body, a power building up, pressing outward. It was like her skin would break.
The biotic power euphemistically named 'warp' rarely manifested in humans. In order to protect its user from her own power, it required an even distribution of preferably even-sized eezo nodules throughout the nervous system of the biotic, something that rarely came about through random exposure. Its controlled application required a mental discipline not unlike Zen meditation, but unlike Zen monks, a combat biotic needed to call upon it in a split second. As opposed to the more obviously telekinetic abilities, 'warp' was not an optionally non-destructive power. In a spherical area, it would create millions of micro-singularities. Their gravity wells were measured in millimeters at their largest and they only existed for a nanosecond, but they were steep enough to result in huge gravity differentials. Any unprotected solid matter within their range would be ripped apart by tidal forces. The more powerful the biotic was, the more singularities she could create, and the smaller were the pieces left. Some asari matriarchs, it was rumored, could shatter molecules into their constituent atoms. The power, some said, should've been named for what it did: disintegration.
Alexander De Morgan had left nothing to chance. His daughter had not been exposed to eezo as a fetus. Her nodules were implanted, in a grueling series of operations that had lasted several days, and taken her several weeks to recover from. There hadn't been any expense spared for her training, but the power had refused to manifest. Some blockage of the nervous current, the experts said; most likely, a mental flaw. It shouldn't have mattered anyway, for at the moment, Miranda's mental state was anything but meditative. But there was something else that could give the body what it needed without any input by the higher mental functions: the fight-or-flight reflex.
When there was danger, and no hope of either fight or flight, one of the possible responses was mental retreat. The brain refused to accept the reality of the situation. A moment ago, Miranda's situation had seemed hopeless. She didn't know herself well enough to know it was a matter of pride, but she would not retreat. Instead, as she felt her nervous system powering up, a sliver of hope presented itself to her. Maybe, just maybe, she could trigger something through the movements of her vocal cords.
Barred from flight by chains, barred from mental retreat by knowledge, a primal aspect of her, something shared by all higher life on Earth for hundreds of millions of years, routed everything she had into the need to kill her enemies. And with her body carefully engineered, she held within her so much more than any normal human, though it was but an infinitesimal part of the dark energy bound up in the structure of space itself. Again, she screamed her need into their mocking faces: "I'll kill you!" There was an explosion of blue light. Her chains, the bed frame and the mattress and a part of the floor and the wall, as well as the bandages and wires around her fingers, all of her clothing and almost all of her hair disintegrated into a cloud of very fine dust . As she felt herself falling, her combat training took over. She hit the floor in a rolling motion and came up into a kneeling position.
Long Nose – not so long now as its tip was sheared off – stared incredulously at the stump of his arm. Big Grin was drawing his pistol. She made a throwing motion and sent him flying. With a sickening crunch, he hit the wall, leaving a broad track of blood when he slid down. Long Nose found himself facing a figure that could've stepped out of a myth: a savagely beautiful female clad in nothing but a cloud of dust, swirling around her in hypnotic patterns illuminated by blue light emanating from her skin. He turned to flee, but like the vengeful Erinyes of old, Miranda could see no reason to spare him.
With her voice roughened by the dust, she growled "I told you I'll *KILL* you". In another explosion of blue light refracted through dust, the last of her keepers, together with the camera and a part of the table, disintegrated.
From now on, Miranda De Morgan could kill with a word.
An orphaned table leg clattered to the ground. Then there was silence.
-O0O-
Back in the present, Miranda was shaken by a series of silent sobs that refused to stop. He had known, it screamed in her head, he set me up. Hesetmeuphesetmeup, it went, over and over again. She had been sick after the killings. She had collapsed to the ground, with no energy left at all. She'd been unable to stand up for minutes, but she had also been proud. Killing these men had felt so ultimately, so completely right, like nothing she'd done in her life before. But she'd only done her father's will. Again. After he'd set her up to be raped. Raped!
She hadn't grown up sheltered from the world's more unpleasant truths. She knew what some parents did, and despised those who were so much the slaves of their passions they couldn't even spare their own children. But this deliberate and calculated setup was ...no, not incomprehensible. She understood the reasoning all too well. But it refused to connect with what a father would do to his children. They'd have finished it if she hadn't killed them! Or had there been someone in wait to save her if she couldn't do it? She'd destroyed the camera, but there must have been another one or Chang wouldn't have the recording. Her father, as impossible as that sounded, had watched it all. But even that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was this: that he had been right. That his plans had worked. That she now owed this power to him and his 'distasteful setup', as Kavanagh had put it.
Finally, she managed to collect herself. It occurred to her that she was in hostile territory, and had been in hostile territory all her life. She felt her fear peak and called on her trained discipline to control it. The office she was hiding in looked, smelled and felt like another world. The familiar CAE furnishings, the walls, the ground, they felt like wadding under her hands and feet, changed into something foreign. No, more than foreign: alien. It was her father's world, but not hers anymore. In a way, it was liberating. No need any more to feel guilty because she couldn't love her father, because she couldn't bring herself to care about the same things he did, because she didn't feel what she was supposed to feel. It all fell away. Her father was her enemy. It was so simple. Why hadn't it occurred to her before? What did soldiers do in hostile territory? She didn't know, but 'be careful' and 'pay attention' must feature prominently in their guidelines. She took a sequence of deep breaths. Control. Thank you, 'father', for teaching me this, she thought. It won't go to waste. In Chang's office, there had been silence after the recording had run its course, but now they were talking again.
"A most spectacular success," said Kavanagh thoughtfully. "But I don't have to tell you what will happen if even a hint of this gets out. And if you don't mind a personal remark: I don't know how you can bear watching this. I can't argue with your results, but I don't like it."
"You don't have to like it. The facts speak for themselves", answered her father. "There was no damage done to her, and she's manifested her power. As an added benefit, she gave these men what they deserved. Surely you won't question that. I have to admit I'm rather proud of her."
Too late, Miranda thought in her hiding place. I've waited years for you to say these words. Now I don't care.
"I should mention we switched back to the standard mechanisms in the training that followed," Chang interjected. "Impressive as that was, there is the emotional instability of puberty to be considered. There could've been unpleasant accidents not so easy to cover up."
"Without that instability, you likely wouldn't have gotten any results at all," said Kavanagh, "Did she ever repeat that feat?"
"Not to my knowledge. She's become difficult to monitor lately, but another incident wouldn't have escaped our notice."
"Difficult to monitor, is she?" said Kavanagh. "Just in case you choose to replace her – don't deny you're thinking about it – remember our agreement. If you don't want her, we want her, alive, sane and fully functional. You know our objectives. You won't be able to wriggle out of this with bribes."
"We'll see," answered her father curtly.
"We will indeed. Now, show me into the lab. Let's see this new generation you've made in person."
Miranda heard chairs moving and the door open. Using the data stream of the surveillance camera over the door to the lab section, she could now take a look. They were coming in her direction. Markovic lead the group, his graceful movements belying his appearance – he looked slightly overweight, which said something about his muscle mass at two meters height. After him a tall blonde woman – that must be Kavanagh – at the side of her father, tall, lithe and dark-haired, and in excellent physical condition. People thought he looked striking. Chang came last, a slim, dark-haired man of average height who could've come from anywhere on Earth. At the corner, no more than three meters from her hiding place, they turned left and continued to the double door that closed off the actual laboratories. The drone picked up a last exchange before they passed out of range.
"...curious. What would you have done, if she had failed to call on her power?"
Her father's voice sounded as unconcerned as ever as he answered. "There is always a price to pay for failure."
Miranda was not surprised. Not anymore.