A/N: Annnnnd here is the next part of Chapter 6. There is 1 more update to go before I proceed with the last chapter, so keep your eyes peeled. Also, I really welcome any feedback, thoughts or feelings you might have, now that we're getting to the climax of the story. It's been a long and eventful trip so far, and there's still quite a bit more to go, and it'd be great if I get a sense of how all of you are enjoying or not enjoying the story so far. :)
Special kudos to Ieldra who undertook the effort to write all the science parts into convincing jargon that explains in detail the genetic processes for those who are interested in such things. In case you're wondering, we worked our asses out to make this whole setup work with existing scientific knowledge as much as we could. ;)
You can't possibly keep the wolves away forever, Miri.
That fateful conversation kept replaying in Miranda's mind as she walked towards the lift lobby. And it was with a heart-clutching pain that she realised this time, she'd led them right to Oriana's doorstep instead.
There was no other way to look at it. Well-meaning advice from Shepard, defiant protests by Oriana—she'd shrugged them off in her obsession to keep her younger twin safe beyond all reason, safe from information that might turn her world upside down, safe from witnessing a confrontation between herself and Cordelia. To achieve all of that, she had outright quashed the pragmatic notion that the tower would've been the best physical refuge.
On autopilot, she punched the button for the turbo lift. When the doors slid open, she stepped in and leaned tiredly against the metal wall.
It was so hard learning to let go. Every time she thought she'd achieved some progress, the next incident proved she hadn't. It had been that way with Oriana, and it seemed it might become the same problem with Shepard. Perhaps it was just as well that that the events now set into motion were beyond her control. This wasn't something she could ever shrug off. And come hell or high water, once this situation was resolved, Miranda knew she would have to face this particular demon and conquer it once and for all.
"Please input your desired destination."
The automated voice program rudely interrupted the impending collision that was her line of thought. Done was done. She had to trust that Shepard could take care of himself the same way she needed to scramble now to ensure Oriana's safety. And it was with heroic effort that she clamped down on the self-castigation and doubt that now seized her heart to concentrate on the banal task of selecting a destination.
The method Eldfell adopted when it came to designing the layout of his tower was simple. The public offices of numerous companies and subsidiaries he owned, forming the bulk of his investments, were mostly housed in the lower levels. The more valuable and more classified he deemed his possession or project, the higher it was located along that two-kilometre height.
The significance of her old suite of rooms being on the topmost levels had taken a while to settle in when Miranda had studied the architectural blueprints. Soon after, she couldn't help but notice that the biolabs were directly below that. As she lifted her finger to punch in the level of the labs, she hesitated for the fraction of a second. It was as though her body retained its mimetic memory, recalling oft-repeated motions from decades past. She could recall the times when she'd been right in this space, wondering which levels were accessible to her, and would contain things that would interest her young mind.
A slip of the finger and the button for level of her old rooms lit up. She moved to countermand her decision, but soon after, her hand dropped back down. The elevator began to climb. The speed was soon such that the level indicator began to change only every tenth floor. The flickering of the numbers mesmerised her as much as they did almost thirty years ago and it was with a jolt that she came back to herself when the elevator chimed and the door slid open.
Slowly, as if in a dream, she exited the space to step into a painfully familiar lobby. There was a security terminal embedded into the wall nearby. A brief inspection of the security log said the rooms had been locked up dating back to the time of her escape, a lock-down that hadn't been breached for the past twenty-nine years.
She was the first person to enter this area after all this time. It was a measure of how good the filtration was that only a thin film of dust coated every surface. Nothing else detracted from the homecoming experience; the decades of absence wiped away as easily as the dust with the brush of mental fingers. So much so that Miranda stopped short when she saw that the pendulum clock in her study room had winded down, its clock hands frozen in time.
It'd probably stopped the day she'd jumped off the tower. The clock been a birthday gift from her father, made by a renowned master from the last century. Despite her reservations about receiving gifts from that quarter, she'd loved it and used it for her concentration exercises while sitting at the rosewood table, another personal favourite. Funny how she'd had to steel herself to leave them behind. Only to spend the next twenty-nine years living out of a suitcase, never having anything in terms of permanent possessions.
Leaning against the table, Miranda closed her eyes and swallowed hard against the memories of growing up here and the heartache of returning. She couldn't help but wonder why her father ordered her suite of rooms to be locked up. Along with every action—from the way he used to treat her, to hiding his involvement with Cerberus all these years, and now making her the sole beneficiary of his estate, giving her the keys to the reason for her existence—none of this came with a single footnote to explain his motives. She was left with a legacy that couldn't be deciphered more so now that he was gone.
One thing was clear. There were no answers to be found in here. With a heavy heart, she walked back to the lift and punched in the floor for the labs. The door of the database room opened to security presence that twitched with hair-trigger reflexes before relaxing again.
"Clear the room please."
"Yes, ma'am." One of the guards murmured and in unison they vacated the control room at her command.
Slowly, she surveyed the room. Here was where all the records would be stored and all the monitoring equipment for the various experiments going on kept. The hum from the sophisticated computer databanks was pervasive, and almost tentatively, she walked towards one of the consoles to input her personal code.
Highly-encrypted files dating back decades before her birth bloomed into existence at her touch almost magically. Some of these were privy only to her father and at most one or two of the top scientists that had worked on the project. Their silence had been bought or guaranteed in multiple ways.
Taking a deep breath, Miranda sat down and hit the master override command, bypassing all locks to open them at once. Instinctively, her eyes began speed reading, starting from files dating back more than fifty years ago. They detailed her father's struggles to get the project off foot on his own, without Cerberus aid back then. Some of the early results were chilling, especially those detailing the outcome of the first few test subjects, in other words, the sisters that came before her.
It was decided even at that stage that certain modifications would have to be done post-natal. And so they became the first retroactive engineering subjects, marked to undergo similar tests she'd underwent. None of them managed to survive long, expiring from shock from the extensive biological trauma. That had paved the way for the creation of the genetic trait to accelerate the healing process and raise the pain threshold in later subjects, herself included, to survive the experience.
It was more than a little disturbing to read the details presented in cold clinical language, and she couldn't help shaking her head as she proceeded to browse the files that recounted the nuts and bolts of the project.
Eldfell had cast a wide net in his search for original material. Ova from an unidentified donor from the top one percent of the human population had been obtained at great cost. The list of criteria had been mind-boggling—to be certified free of genetic defects, in possession of an almost incredible level of natural intelligence quotient, having multiple rare immunities to particular diseases and such.
Not that it had mattered, since ultimately the nucleus of the ova was removed, the twenty-three original chromosomes of the donor's discarded. In its place would nestle the genetic cocktail that her father had painstakingly spliced together, and then with the aid of chemical triggers, encouraged to enter cellular division. Nonetheless, there were some parts of the cell that remained—parts that would've been inherited by all subsequent generations and the most important one was mitochondrial DNA.
Talk revolving around DNA usually referred to nuclear DNA, which is the construction blueprint to create an entire human being. They are a combination of genetic traits supplied by each parent, mother and father. Mitochondria, however, are structures that exist outside of the nucleus and are responsible for the conversion of energy from food into a form that can be utilised by cells. These structures carry their own distinctive set of DNA, and are solely inherited from the mother.
Eldfell had ordered for the original donor's mtDNA to be altered and made more efficient in how it converted energy for each cell. That alteration was authorised to be passed down to every generation. Miranda had a good idea why that order had been given. It was beneficial overall, more so for biotics, who need to harness large amounts of energy whenever they fire their eezo nodules. She didn't know if her father was prescient or not since the inclusion of biotics was a late development. Only that this particular piece of engineering existed even before her own conception.
Apart from that, all that was left of the donor was a number ID. She stared at the seemingly nonsensical designation. When she'd told Shepard she never had a mother, perhaps that wasn't true. Whoever this mysterious egg-donor was, she was the closest thing to a mother Miranda and all her sisters shared. And it was impossible not to wonder what kind of person the donor had been and how she looked like.
Like an unwilling dreamer unable to wake up from a deeply disturbing dream, she set aside that particular file. This was when her eyes chanced on another with her name in it—DM3F-2150.9723!BT4-Miranda.
This was probably it—the mother lode. And it was with trepidation that she made herself open the file. Scanning through the contents was so habitual that it wasn't something she could make herself stop. Some of the information she'd already known and had shared with Shepard and Oriana—that she was created before the prenatal effects of eezo were documented, so she had to be artificially made a biotic. The process had involved undergoing long bouts of surgery plus other highly invasive procedures that were so gruelling that she only had hazy memories of that particular phase of her childhood.
No surprise there. All of that was documented in the file. Perhaps that was why the next part caught her totally off-guard...
Timestamps – subject age: 10 Earth Standard. Phase of retroactive engineering: currently in stage 2. Behavioural and fully-expressed physical characteristics 90% done. With the coming onset of puberty, all traits should manifest to their full potential.
Stage 2 involves retroactive engineering of reproductive and developmental systems, in particular alterations of the menstrual cycle and pregnancy processes (stage 2-2) as well as reprogramming of the ova (stage 2-1).
Stage 2-1 consists of splicing into the host's ova the core N genecomplex and genetic switches controlling the temporal and spatial distribution of gene expression during foetal development. The genecomplex itself will enable and control the formation of eezo nodules at most effective nodes within the infant-stage nervous system. These nodules are necessarily minute, and will require further cultivation via environmental eezo absorption post-natal to reach effective sizes. Cut off should be at around 12 years of age, earth standard. After which for female subjects, resumption would depend on the onset of pregnancy. Read below.
Stage 2-2 will alter all phases of pregnancy as to enable the transfer of resources needed for expression of the N genecomplex in the foetus, without disrupting normal biological functions. Its main functions will be as follows:
In the menstrual cycle, progesterone levels will trigger production of the eezo transport chain in addition to the standard processes during the pre-implantation phase. The main components of the eezo transport chain are carrier proteins, transfer catalysts and highly specific immune suppressors (see attached documentation for the complete list).
Should pregnancy occur, the levels of the chain's components will be controlled to stay roughly proportional to the growth rate of the foetus' nervous system, and the chain will be extended by protein channels in the placental capillary system to allow the carriers to pass into the foetus and the amniotic fluid. Control of the assimilation process will pass to the fetus' N genecomplex at this point.
In parallel, as eezo is siphoned off from existing nodules, eezo intake from the environment and its metabolisation, which was switched off at adolescence, will be reactivated by a simple genetic switch. Since this process is dependent on environmental factors which cannot be controlled, nodules can experience erratic contractions and expansions during all phases of the pregnancy [side note: this could be used to increase the power level in an adult if nutritional recommendations are followed closely].
All documented changes here are necessarily summarised, please see attached files for each of the specific processes for a more complete report.
Her eyes sought the information relentlessly, even mindlessly. It took far longer for her mind to process the significance. But as piece after piece clicked into place, the mental chokehold became stronger and stronger until the sense of suffocation was almost palpable.
The report went on to talk about the success of encoding all these biological processes into a series of dominant alleles. It related the sheer technical difficulty of altering all her ova, since women were born with their ova and no more new ones were created. Nonetheless, it had been done. And everything that had been retroactively engineered into her would be reflected in all the chromosomes within her ova. The lengthy document eventually signed off the project as being tentatively successful, concluding with a note that her genetic template should be monitored to ensure all final developments took place smoothly at the onset of puberty.
Miranda rested her head against the table, and swallowed hard. The room felt preternaturally cold, the table surface icy. She shivered, finally comprehending what her father had done to her and the time bomb he'd placed in her genes. Almost all the genes involved in the time-released functions were hidden or piggybacked onto what were otherwise normal genetic expressions, dormant until the relevant switches came into play and made them active. It was easy to overlook them in a generic scan, and that'd been what had happened all these years.
Imagine if she never knew all this, and went ahead with what was the natural progression of things. Only to find out years later, past the point of no return...
But even as the logical conclusions unfolded, a large part of her continued to struggle with disbelief. The scientist in her couldn't help but reel from the revelations. The sheer engineering and ingenuity involved was absolutely staggering. All this went to explain why she would have the exact genetic template as Oriana, because Oriana's had been based on her own after extensive retro-engineering. But it was absolute hubris for her father to imagine that he could create a genetic dynasty even with twenty clones! That fact couldn't have possibly escaped him. Besides, against the immense gene pool that was the human population, they were just a drop in the ocean!
The whole situation was beginning to take on the characteristics of a cosmic joke. And as if replying to her attempt at denial, her helplessly roving attention became arrested by the cryptic title of another file: Social Projections and Extrapolations. Unable to tear her eyes off the screen, she opened it.
A series of safeguards have been implemented to ensure that certain behavioural traits are encouraged and practised to maximise the propagation of the genetic template. At puberty, traits like a heightened libido, enhanced fertility in the form of an altered menstrual cycle will come into play.
The final step is the introduction of a revolutionary biological function – a genetic agent, an organelle that works on foetal stem cells in the form of a series of one-time repair mechanisms that would transform any N0 genotype into an NN genotype in the earliest phases of embryogenesis. The repair mechanisms will identify any possible allele provided by the other parent and replace it with the N allele if not already present. The process will be finished with blastula formation, so that all primordial germ cells will be of the NN genotype.
Predicting population growth and distribution continues to remain a tricky endeavour influenced by many factors, but given certain constants like a lack of preference for or against biotics, complete freedom of movement, a lack of catastrophic 'extinction level' events, a estimated number of 4 billion human beings could possibly carry the gene complex in 1000 years' time.
Miranda began to laugh, a laugh that contained more than a hysterical tinge. It seemed her father had done the impossible after all. The same way it was now impossible for her not to feel that sense of bodily dissonance. The urge to source inward was overwhelming, and the part of her that was human and female was deeply aware of the sensation that somehow along the way, she'd lost control of her own body, that it no longer belonged to her.
The silence of the labs was deep, broken only by the low hum of machinery—the same low hum she'd imagine that blood would make coursing through her arteries, the frantic activities of all the individual cells that make up her body, relentless and immutable in performing what they'd been programmed to do, against what she knew was normal for human biology. With a sinking feeling, she realised even her expressed wishes and desires weren't her own—they were behaviours inculcated by her genetic programming. And riding on that thought was a fear that stunned her to realise how real it could be.
Her thoughts travelled back to the last week and her reunion with Shepard. In the heady atmosphere, she'd forgotten that her infertility was cured and that she wasn't on any birth control. She'd since estimated she was in her safe period, but in the light of the new information, there was no way but to admit to the possibility that even right now, a nascent life could be growing within her womb, in exact accordance to the template dictated by her father...
-~o~-
It'd taken all of Oriana's self-restraint to clamp down on her anger and fear so she could calmly report to Miranda regarding Shan's and her relative safety. And now that she'd heard Cordelia's parting words before the abrupt cut off of the comm-channel, her frustration dealing with their youngest sibling rose to the point where the words simply blurted out of her mouth.
"What? Are you having a change of plans now?"
Cordelia laughed as she retraced her steps to take seat on the same chair again.
"No. We're simply going for a detour. The calm before the storm if you like." Once her elbows were resting comfortably across the backrest, she gazed at Oriana intently. "Have you ever wondered why Cerberus was singularly so interested in getting their hands on one of us?"
Oriana's attention darted from Shan back at Cordelia almost guiltily. It worried her that he still hadn't shown any signs of stirring, so much so she had to remind herself that despite Cordelia's apparent geniality, her youngest twin was a greatly mercurial creature. Any moment, the oft-familiar hostility could return with devastating effect, and with a deep breath, she tried her best to keep the irritation out of her voice.
"I'm not sure I get what you mean. Heck, they had Miri for decades, and they didn't attempt to conduct any kind of experimentation on her."
Cordelia responded with a dry look which she'd learned to interpret as "are you stupid?" Except this time, the gesture was almost sisterly that Oriana was somewhat taken aback.
"That's because we're all replaceable. If I hadn't been given up as a sacrificial lamb, our dear oldest would've suffered the same fate as myself. Now as I was about to say before you threw me off-track—" She went on almost candidly. "The answer may seem deceptively simple, isn't it? Except our most obviously beneficial traits—fast healing, longevity, superior intellect and augmented reflexes—all these are simply red herrings. It takes an obscene sum of money to incorporate that entire range into a single person, but none of them are groundbreaking by any standard. Besides, these traits will be bred out of existence in as few as five generations once we start mingling with the general populace. Certainly not something worthy enough to be called a 'genetic dynasty'."
Oriana's frown took on a thoughtful quality as she carefully turned these words over. As much as she hated to admit it, it made sense. After all, it'd been a question both she and Miranda had pondered over and came up none the wiser. What they hadn't thought of was the Cerberus angle, which would naturally be at the foremost of Cordelia's mind.
"So you're saying they're a smokescreen to hide something in our genetic template?"
The animosity that Oriana had come to expect from Cordelia whenever Miranda came into the picture was still strangely absent. Instead, her tone was more bitter and despairing than anything else.
"She was fortunate enough to find a course of work that made full use of almost every of those traits, But in the end, it doesn't matter. According to our father's mandate, her value, along with every one of us, lies in the fact that we are unwitting tools, useless in ourselves, valuable only in the offspring we bring about."
Oriana couldn't help but roll her eyes. Not this again. She was getting quite sick of the fact that she was the last to know anything of importance. It was bad enough that she had to suffer one sister's well-meaning intentions which meant she was always left in the dark, always needing to solicit information from others. And now here was another intend on playing riddles with her.
"Has this got something to do with the fact that we're all biotics without having undergone prenatal exposure to eezo?"
She snapped out her question brusquely, at which Cordelia simply raised her brow.
"I must say you continue to surprise me, Ori." Her younger twin murmured half to herself. "I assume you learned that from her? Does that mean she already knows what's encoded into our genes?"
"Oh, for crying out loud..." Oriana growled, her ire rising. "Next you'll be telling me that our father has found a way to make us genetic biotics. Well, here's my answer: eezo doesn't exist in the natural environment of Earth. It's impossible to create genetic biotics with humans because our biology doesn't have the infrastructure to support it in the first place. So now that we've got that out of the way, why don't you just tell me what is it you want to say?"
It'd been one of the most frequently-asked questions in human schools on asari worlds, and the answer repeated so often by exasperated teachers that Oriana didn't even thought to sound out the possibility to Miranda. Which was why Cordelia's absolutely stunned look took her entirely by surprise.
"You're kidding me, right?" Oriana said in a small voice that grew stronger in conviction as she continued. "You've got to be. What is with all of you treating me like a kid?" Just because I'm not in this cloak and dagger business like the both of you doesn't mean I would shatter like porcelain if I hear any bad news!"
A harsh laugh was her answer this time.
"And the moment I pay you my first compliment, you force me to take it back. Grow up, little girl. Firstly, I never joke and secondly, this is not remotely about you or your personal insecurities," came Cordelia's curt rebuttal. "Aiken Eldfell was the richest man on Earth, his ability to muster resources and manpower second only to the scope of his ambition. You simply can't imagine that his ambition knew no bounds, do you?"
Oriana shook her head adamantly. Genetic theory was one of her weakest subject in school, which in her case, meant it was the one subject she'd failed to ace. The basics remained firm in her mind.
"Stop lying to me please. His boundless ambition remains pointless if the objective is scientifically impossible in the first place. There's no way to create human genetic biotics. We'd have to include alien biological processes into human physiology, and that's just bad science. Besides like you just mentioned, any genetic trait would get bred out within a few generations."
Cordelia's eyes grew cold and flinty.
"I assure you I've done my homework, even paid for that information with human lives. And you're right. The only way is to encode new biological processes, processes based off asari physiology, refined and then made compatible with human biology. Which was exactly what he did. All the processes were tested and encoded into her retroactively before they were replicated in the rest of us. The whole package comes with a self-propagating mechanism, a genetic cuckoo's egg if you will, which guarantees that it will always express itself with each generation. What our father has done ensures there's no way this particular gene complex will be diluted and bred out of the human population."
She took in Oriana's stunned expression and continued in a soft voice, "And so we're now bound on a course to spread a genetic template that's no longer wholly human, consisting of parts borrowed from other alien races – all to satisfy a mad man's craze to create a legacy that would resound through the ages."
Oriana shivered at the deep revulsion that coloured Cordelia's words. It was a feeling she could very well identify with. And warring with that sense of alienation was deep doubt. Much as she tried, she couldn't accept what Cordelia said. It was too far-fetched for starters, but a small part of her that took in all the details and saw how they clicked into place insisted that this whole presentation, done in honesty or for an ulterior motive, couldn't be discounted.
She wanted to scream that she never wanted this – all these gifts so overtly and lavishly bestowed. There was always a price for such things, and now to learn that the price involved having a different genetic makeup from the rest of the human race, one that included non-human elements, and that any future children she might have would be saddled with the same curse...
Out of all her sisters, she was the one most untouched by the circumstances of her origins. If only she'd never met Miranda, or not be as inquisitive and tenacious as she'd been in maintaining that connection, she could've gone on living her life wistfully without knowing better. But for the umpteenth time, the voice in Oriana's head reminded her that she'd still likely have found all this out the moment her father's henchmen got to her. Even worse, it would've been a discovery made more painful for not knowing at all.
"It's still not possible." She shook her head stubbornly as she forced herself to look at the issue from every angle. "The reason for our existence had been something that'd always bothered Miri, and she's got all these years to find out and examine what's in our genetic template. I can't believe she wouldn't know of something like this."
"That's because the timebomb is encoded and hidden so well within regular gene sequences that if she didn't know what she was looking for, she wouldn't know where to start." Cordelia responded dryly. "And you said yourself that she's hidden things from you before. I'd imagine this wouldn't be the first or the last time."
Oriana stared at her youngest twin mulishly. No, she refused to believe that Miranda would hide something so big from her knowledge. It was impossible to tell if Cordelia was trying to drive a wedge between them, but she knew once she let that seed of a doubt take root, there would be no end to the matter.
Cordelia shrugged insouciantly, seemingly unaffected by her resistance.
"If you don't believe what I said, then it may be in your interest to enter the tower with me peacefully. All the original files pertaining to our conception are in there. It'll be proof none of us can deny."
It was a very tempting proposition. Once and for all, she would be able to learn everything for herself, not from a second-hand account, and without worrying that her source was attempting to hide things from her out of good intentions or malice.
But in doing so, she would give Cordelia a free ticket into a stronghold that was arguably their trump card. Cordelia's expressed intention to kill them all, including the pains she took to physically impersonate Miranda wasn't lost to Oriana. The fact that her youngest sister's oft-expressed hostility towards Miranda was strangely absent all this time rung warning bells as well. How much of what she said was the truth? How much of it a ruse to gain access to the tower? Never had yea and nay warred so hard within Oriana.
"What kind of game are you playing at?" She demanded almost desperately. "If you're going to kill all of us, does any of this matter?"
Ever since she'd accidentally broached a red button issue of Cordelia's right at the start of their acquaintance and almost paid for the mistake with her life, Oriana had done her best to be careful over what she said and did in front of her third twin. Perhaps it was dumb luck that'd been on her side all this time. If so, her luck finally ran out.
Cordelia's face grew mottled, her eyes livid with rage. The change in her mood was so drastic and sudden that Oriana couldn't help but hunch her shoulders in instinctual preparation for the retaliatory blow. As it turned out, it didn't come, but she looked on in shock as biotic energy limned Cordelia's form after which she proceeded to smash the chair she'd sat on to smithereens. As a finishing move, her youngest twin stabbed a chair leg straight into the carpeted floor, the momentum and strength behind the thrust so excessive it dug into the wooden panelling beneath like a hot knife through butter.
"Matter? Does any of this matter? How dare you ask that question? The world, the galaxy, creation owns it to me!" She jabbed a finger into her chest. "I didn't ask to be born. I didn't ask to be someone else's tool, to suffer for reasons beyond my control!"
Cordelia kicked at the slanted chair leg with all her might, uncaring of the pain or injury she was causing to herself. But gradually, she slowed down and finally stopped. Eyes fixed on the ground, she continued, her voice lowering to a guttural whisper.
"I'm going to do my best to make sure that our father's plan for a genetic dynasty never reaches fruition. If that means killing every clone out there, if it means I have to commit murder and mayhem to acquire the money and resources to find out how many there are, and where they all are, so be it. I'm going to make damn sure that there won't be another generation. The best way to do it is to get to every single of us before we start to breed. Wipe out the root of the problem. Make sure the template to create natural human biotics will never get the chance to propagate."
Cordelia sat down on the floor after her voice trailed off. The motion was so sudden, and her limbs sprawled so haphazardly that it was as if strength had left her body in a rush.
Movement registered in the corner of Oriana's eyes. Shan was stirring and regaining consciousness, but ironically that particular concern, once pressing, had been replaced. Her eyes remained riveted on the spectacle before her.
"How many of us are there out there? How many have you killed?" Oriana breathed in a still voice. She'd never dared to ask that question directly before. Her youngest twin's assertion that they were the only three left was what had been gleaned through offhanded references. In the light of what she'd just been told, it became pressing now to know the exact number.
"Twelve. All younger than us." Cordelia finally looked up at her, those grey-blue eyes seemingly as stunned as hers, but for whatever reasons, God only knew. "As far as I know, our father had been releasing batches of newborns every few years, distributed to orphanages and foster homes all over the galaxy to avoid detection. There could be as many as a hundred of us out there."
Cordelia laughed, a sound without strength or conviction, as she gripped the splintered edges of the chair leg, not caring that the wood dug into her hands. After a while, she spoke up again in a deathly whisper.
"Of course, the attrition of war may have helped whittle down that number. But we're engineered to survive by any means necessary, aren't we? Beat us down, starve us of affection, drive us mad with torture, and we're still near impossible to kill. After all, it doesn't matter that we're crippled as long as we follow the biological drive that dictates what our father wants us to do..."
The silence in that aftermath was so absolute that a single pin drop would've shattered the spell. Distantly, Oriana noticed that Shan was now awake, his eyes wide open as he listened in on the conversation. But that was eclipsed by the experience she just underwent. Never in her life had she heard such immense despair and hurt in another person's voice.
We've failed her. We've failed her so badly...
That thought rose again and again even as she sat stock-still, torn between going forward to comfort Cordelia and fearing the rebuff that might turn violent. Try as she might otherwise, the rawness and depth of Cordelia's anger and bitterness finally gave her the most compelling reason to believe that all her youngest, most wayward sibling had said might be true.
It was strange, almost surreal, really. Every time a reason arose to distrust Cordelia, another would take its place, urging her to sympathise with her youngest sister. Oriana closed her eyes, assaulted by a deep sense of tiredness. A part of her recognised belatedly now that her reluctance to believe had stemmed partially from how every single shred of evidence seemed to cut too close to home. But if she had to believe, she knew she would need to verify every single detail for herself.
And it was with a sinking feeling that she realised it was likely she'd have to become the key that would give Cordelia ready access to the tower. Silently, Oriana could only pray that Miranda would forgive her when the time came.