Vol.4 Ch.2 – The Price Of A Name II
Chapter 2: The Price Of A Name II
“What do you mean, you want one of my memories?” Elaine asked, instantly on guard.
When Mariana didn't reply quickly enough Jeanne explained: “Mariana has a Soul Shard of Mnemosyne. She can dive into people's memories and learn from them. That's also how she will figure out your name.” She said the last as she looked over at the butterfly girl.
“So what does this entail?” Elaine asked. “Will you take that memory away? And what memory do you want, anyway?”
“I am not a Disney villain,” Mariana said, her voice breathy and her words slow, but a wry amusement shining through. “I don't steal memories. I want to look at one so that I may learn.”
“Learn what?” Elaine asked.
“The acid spell you used to defeat Jeanne,” Mariana said. “I want to learn it.”
“That's too complicated to explain,” Elaine said. It was a spell Tiamat had gifted her, orders of magnitude more complicated than anything she'd used before.
“Precisely. That's why I want to study the memory directly. So?”
Elaine's lips thinned. She did not want anyone rooting around inside her memories. Not only was that just about the most personal thing she could possibly show another person, there was also one particular detail she absolutely did not want anyone but her lovers to know. A ten inch detail, to be precise.
But at the same time she could tell just how important it was for the butterfly girl to get her name back. Even if Jeanne and Rachel didn't seem so insistent upon it Elaine understood. This girl had no name of her own. She was a victim and, in some ways, she would continue to be a victim until she had a name to call her own instead of the designation Caulder had inflicted upon her. She wasn't happy with this Mariana for putting a price tag on the girl's dignity but she supposed it was fair. Diving into the girl's memories would very, very likely not be a fun experience, either.
“You won't talk to anyone about what you see in my memories,” Elaine said. It was not a question, not a request. It was a statement.
“No one but you,” Mariana promised.
“Alright then,” Elaine said, holding out her hand to shake. “Deal.”
“Deal,” Mariana said and shook Elaine's hand. Despite the girl's frail, willowy appearance and mannerisms, her handshake was firm.
“Now then,” Mariana said, turning to the butterfly girl. “Shall we find out your name?”
The girl swallowed. “May I... lay down for that?”
“Absolutely,” Mariana said. “We'll go to my room.” She looked back at Elaine. “Come with. She will need someone to hold once this is done.”
**
In truth, Mariana was fairly sure she herself would need someone to hold her once this was done. The girl was traumatized by what she had suffered and seen under Caulder's control and diving into her memories would be some of the least fun she'd ever had. But she could also tell that this was something the girl needed.
And so when the three of them reached Mariana's room she gestured for the butterfly girl to lay down in her bed, trying her best not to show how self-conscious she felt about the two strangers in her room.
Her room, such as it was, did not hold much of her personality, only a few keepsakes from her family, but even so having it seen by others was embarrassing. Her bed was made, at least.
“Is this okay?” the butterfly girl asked, laying flat on the bed.
“Scoot as far to the wall as your wings allow,” Mariana said. “I need to fit on the bed as well.”
The girl did as instructed, so quickly that Mariana could tell she'd learned some brutal lessons about not obeying fast enough. Instead of commenting on it she crawled onto the bed herself, then looked over her shoulder at Elaine. “Sit down and get comfortable. This might take a while.” She paused, then added: “This has never happened before but just in case, if one of us starts thrashing, wake us up.” She had read some warning messages about diving into particularly traumatic memories and if anything qualified, this girl's memories would.
“Understood,” Elaine said, sitting down in her desk chair.
Mariana took a deep breath and then turned back to the butterfly girl. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” the girl replied, even though she clearly wasn't.
Mariana summoned the power from deep within her, her M-skill Memory Dive. And then she fell into a nightmare.
**
Subject 259 was strapped down to what passed for an operating table in Caulder's butcher shop. Normal operating tables didn't have cogs and vises that allowed them to function as racks. They didn't have removable panels that allowed a surgeon to access a patient's spine while they were strapped into it. They didn't have manacles that could extend spikes if needed.
Caulder did not believe in things like anesthesia for surgery. Instead, he used paralyzing agents, to make sure the patient could actually feel what was happening to them.
And so 259 was awake and aware and utterly unable to do anything as the back of her head was sawed open. Surprisingly, that didn't hurt as much as she'd expected. And then Caulder plunged a pair of tongs into a jar filled with a saline solution and pulled out something that looked like nothing so much as a metal spider, its legs wickedly sharp and two wires tipped with spikes coming out of its abdomen.
“This is your conscience,” Caulder told her. “A friendly companion to make sure you behave, one who is always,” he paused for dramatic effect, “in the back of your mind.”
She wanted to scream but her body wouldn't obey. Not even when he placed the metal spider against her brain. She could only shed silent tears of agony as the spider jammed its legs into her brain tissue. And as the two spikes connected to the wires began to burrow into her brain, deeper and deeper, her salty tears hit the open wound at the back of her head, adding to the agony.
“There, that wasn't so bad, was it?” he asked, mock sympathy in his voice before he said: “Ah right, you can't answer me anyway, can you? Now, about that spinal attachment...”
**
Mariana ripped herself out of that particular memory. She had known it would be bad but she hadn't expected it to be quite this horrid. She hadn't even meant to look at that particular memory, the pull had been too hard.
She hated being in this place, in this girl's memory. So much pain, so much despair, pressing in all around her. Diving into Alejandro had been like a cozy vacation, all the memories of being made fun of and discriminated against for his race and his sexuality eclipsed a hundredfold by the good memories of a man living his best life and being true to himself. Diving into this girl was not that. Living this girl's memories was hell. In fact, if any of what Rachel had said about hell was true then the experience of being this girl was worse than hell by orders of magnitude.
Mariana floated in a dark void, surrounded by spheres of memories. This was perfectly normal, this was what she'd already experienced. But where Alejandro's spheres had mostly been bright and happy places, there was no joy to be found here. The most joyful memories she had found so far had been the most recent ones, of gorging herself on fruits, of being able to share Caulder's secrets with people strong enough to stop him, of being accepted and hugged.
But she wouldn't find what she was looking for up here. She would find it at the very bottom of this well and that meant diving deeper and deeper, all the while hoping she wouldn't get sucked into another memory like that.
**
Looking at sleeping women would have made Elaine feel like a creep at the best of times but somehow, here it was positively nerve-wracking. The butterfly girl was sleeping calmly, her normal nervousness replaced with calm Elaine was hoping she might one day have while waking. Mariana, on the other hand, was shivering and tears were running down her cheeks. She wasn't thrashing yet though, so Elaine was simply enduring, not sure if she even wanted to know what the girl was forcing herself through right then.
**
“Miss O'Connor,” the lady sitting at the imposing desk asked, “what made you apply for a receptionist position at IDS?”
I really need the money and working for a private security contractor pays much better than any other secretary position, 259 thought but was smart enough not to say.
“I believe that working as a receptionist is the best possible way for me to use and expand my current skillset when it comes to customer relations,” she said instead. “Of course, the fact that one of your company's employees suggested I apply for this position also helped.”
“That would have been Miss Grace Snyder, correct?” the lady behind the desk asked.
“Yes.”
The lady nodded slowly, considering. “While you are uniquely qualified for your age I feel the need to clarify: We are a private security contractor. We sell defensive solutions to individuals as well as to larger entities, including multi-billion dollar corporations as well as countries. Many of our applicants find this objectionable. Will this be an issue for you?”
She had read up a bit on IDS before this interview of course. Some of IDS' customers were countries and organizations she didn't like very much. For example, there was a certain non-profit organization based in Switzerland that had bought several dozen automated turrets to secure their assets, which she found rather questionable.
But in the end, she was applying for a receptionist position, not as a sales manager. Every company, or at least every company that would have her, had something questionable going on with it and so she might as well apply for the one that offered the best pay.
“It would not impact my work in any way.”
“Excellent,” the lady across the desk said, then reached into the desk and pulled out a device that looked like the kind used for measuring blood sugar levels. “Then all I need from you is a simple blood test.”
259 might have found that questionable but IDS hadn't demanded the customary drug test that other companies did so she didn't think it too odd. She just held out her hand and let the lady prick the ball of her forefinger with her machine.
The pain was gone in a moment, the device beeped and text flashed over the screen. The lady pulled the device back very quickly but 259 nonetheless managed to catch “SOUL SHARD QUALITY: EXCELLENT. SOUL SHARD: FAIRY QUEEN A—“ before the device was out of sight.
“Very good Miss O'Connor, you are hired. If you would just follow me so we can get you your contract.”
**
O'Connor. It was a start. A last name, at least. It also gave Mariana a wealth of information to go on. A timeline was starting to grow in the back of her head, about what had happened to the girl and in what order. Mostly she was relieved that she was actually able to find memories the girl herself clearly no longer remembered. The question was whether she had made herself forget them or whether Caulder had done something to keep them out of her reach.
She thought this while diving deeper and deeper into the girl's psyche. Memories didn't work like a timeline, where the most recent ones were closest to the surface and the oldest were deepest, so going all the way down didn't guarantee she would find the old memories, but it was a start.
She paused as she saw two memories, one as bright and pleasant as anything she'd ever seen and one so dark and gloomy she feared she might be thrown out of the girl's mind entirely if she touched it, lest her mind shatter under the experience.
She dove carefully, trying not to disturb the horrid memory. When she was close enough to touch the bright memory she reached out... and a tendril of the bad memory shot out and wrapped around her metaphysical arm.
**
“Please master, I promise I didn't mean to, please don't! No!” 202's begging was broken and panicked, and both her and 259 knew it wouldn't change anything.
“Take her away,” Caulder said to the two cyborgs who had grabbed hold of 202. “Into operating room seven. I will be there momentarily.” He looked over at 259. “You did not aid her, so you will be spared her punishment. But your little conscience”, he tapped the back of his head, “told me that you thought about it. So you come and watch what happens to traitors.”
The crime 202 had committed, the sin that she would spend the rest of her existence regretting, was helping a test subject escape. A little boy, no older than three or four, was free, and 202 would be punished with a fate worse than death for it. 259 had almost helped her with it, almost. If she had, maybe 202's treachery would have remained undiscovered. Or maybe the punishment 202 would now be subjected to would have been shared between them. 259 had almost helped but in the end she had chosen her own horrid existence over the hell Caulder would inflict upon 202 now.
And so she followed. And she watched. She would have loved to think that the implant made her watch but there was a horrible fascination in watching torture play out, in knowing that this awful thing could have happened to you instead but didn't. And not only did she watch, Caulder made her his assistant for the surgery, forcing her to provide the tools he used to disfigure and mutilate 202.
She handed him the scalpel he used to cut away 202's gorgeous dragon wings. She carried away the amputated limbs. She handed him the prosthetic legs needed to turn 202 into one of those cyborg dogs as well as the other parts required for the operation. The tubes that used to rewire her digestive tract, the neural bypass that put 202's body under the control of a slaver AI without allowing her mind to shut down, the tailbone prosthetic that would give the beast an accentuated tail.
When he was done 202 was a quivering, bleeding pile of meat encased in metal, polymer and neoprene, utterly obedient and unable to stop the humiliation he would force her body through.
Because turning her into a dog was only the first part of her punishment. The rest would be worse.
**
Mariana ripped herself out of the memory, refusing to watch the rest. The girl had been right, there was something fascinating about watching this gruesome torture, but she refused to watch more than she had to. This experience had scarred the girl and it had left its marks on Mariana as well.
She turned back to the glowing memory. She really hoped watching that had been worth it and that this was what she had been looking for.
**
She was running around the backyard of her parents' house. She loved this place. It was so expansive, so idyllic. None of her friends had backyards like this one, none as big, none with as much space for trees to grow and flowers to bloom.
She was thirteen and it was her birthday. Her friends would be arriving soon and that was exciting on its own, a day of fun, but this was something else. Right here, right now, she was alone in the woods. She was old enough to know the fairies she thought she might find here weren't real but she still knew they were. She had seen faint glimmers between the trees every time she'd been out this far and they hadn't all been her imagination. There was magic in the world and magic in the trees, fairies flitting around among the leaves and the flowers.
The fake butterfly wings she had strapped to her back were silly and she was too old for them but it was her birthday and just for a day she got to pretend she was a fairy queen, the one who ruled the little sprites she was sure were hiding just out of sight.
“Aurora, come inside!” her mom called. “We need a little fairy princess to blow out the candles!”