âThereâs no turning back, not from this.â
Stellaâs eyes cracked open, and she reached up for the mug, pleasantly surprised to find that there was hot chocolate inside. She probably hadnât had this stuff since she was a little girlâusually, she preferred tea because it was cheaper and generally better for her. But she supposed she could indulge just this once.
Moving to sit up, she brought the cup gently to her lips and sipped, rolling her eyes at his commentary. âYeah, yeah, I get it. Little use to you tired, and no use if either of us is dead.â It was unexpectedly difficult to say the word dead, though she successfully kept her tone light.
At any rate, Violet left, so Stella finished her hot chocolate in silence. The quiet solitude, with nothing much else to do at just the moment, left her with a little too much time to think, and of course her thoughts went immediately to the life sheâd left behind. To her aunt and uncle, now killed because of what she was, and even her dog presumably the same. They just really didnât leave anything behind, did they? Burn it all. It was a terrible solution to a problem, but she supposed it must work sometimes, or theyâd never use it.
But what was the point in killing them? They hadnât done anything wrong, just raised her as well as they could. They had nothing to do with the Eden project, so why⊠she sighed. Thoughts like this were only going to upset her, but while she could normally ignore them in favor of the things she had to be doing right that second, there were no such other obligations right now, making them harder to push aside. Her fingers laced over the mug, and she allowed herself the indulgence of being depressed for a while. Of grieving for a while. She did not cryâshe could not seem to allow it even given her decisionâbut she mourned.
And then she stood up and made her way to sleep.
The following morning was spent, largely, getting themselves into disguise. Stella was blonde this time, much to her chagrin, her eyes made blue by contact lenses. She also had a bit of an adventure with plaster to reshape her face a little, mostly around her nose and brow, giving her softer, shallower features. She surveyed the results in the mirror, matching them to the ID card Uno had manufactured for her. Apparently, her name this time was Chelsea Calloway, which sounded a bit ridiculous to her, but was definitely believable as the name of a journalist.
Shaking her head at her altered visage in the reflective surface, she applied a few last touches to blend the alterations seamlessly with her skin, straightened her clothes, and wet to knock on the door of the room Violet was using. âReady?â
Darcia was mildly surprised at Cruxâs response to her gesture, but then, considering that she had never before felt the need to make it, she hadnât expected anything in particular as a reply, so perhaps anything would have surprised her in some measure. Almost without her own conscious registry, she found herself leaning into that soft touch, and she held steady as he closed the distance between them, knowing not enough to understand what this motion would have suggested to the average person.
For her, there were simply no expectations, nothing in particular that seemed a logical conclusion to this exchange, and so she blinked owlishly when he kissed her nose, her smile brightening. It intensified that ambient warmth sheâd been feeling lately, and the feeling was not at all unwelcome.
Too soon, she thought, it was gone and so was he, but Darciaâs smile didnât fade for several more minutes. She was not the kind of creature that required sleep, and so she spent the evening making reports of some events, though not the ones heâd asked her to remain silent on, then pulled up schematics and other information that they might need at any given point tomorrow, so as to have them ready in less than a second should she ask for them, instead of needing to actually access them through the Network. When she was done, though, this left her with several hours to herself with nothing to fill them, and so Darcia did two things she had never done before.
First, she completed an internal scan of herself, projecting the results onto one of the blank walls of her room and studying them. It had always made her vaguely uncomfortable, to confront so starkly the fact that she was only a machine. Fundamentally different from humans. But in this case, it was necessary, and after sheâd made detailed observations of everything beneath her metal skeleton, she scanned everything over it, all of the organic parts that most took to be purely cosmetic. This was not quite trueâthese pieces of her, like everything else, had a purpose. She had a heart that pumped blood, and nerve endings that could feel pain, or⊠warmth.
The second thing she did was send in a request for Cruxâs personnel file. She wanted to know more about her partner. The request was perfectly justifiable in purely logical terms, and those were the terms that she usedâit made sense for her to understand as much of her partner as anyone else did, to increase the efficacy of their teamwork. But she was not herself convinced that this was the real reason she wanted to know. She did not know what that real reason might be, however, and so for now, she left it alone.
By the time all this was done, it was morning, and in short order, they were placed onto a government transport to take them to the facility in question.
The greeting from the Supreme General was highly terse, but Darcia was not offended. Instead, she simply inclined her head, and at the command for a report, replied with a clear âYes, sir.â And that was that. The two were part of a security detail that, while fewer in number than the Warfelt, was comprised almost exclusively of military officers. The two of them stood out quite a bit, as Darcia obviously, at least to those who did not know her nature, lacked the build to be in the military, and Crux, as a GHOST, was outfitted and equipped for a different range of tasks. Nevertheless, they were left to guard the rear, and that they would do, to the best of their considerable ability.
Moving to sit up, she brought the cup gently to her lips and sipped, rolling her eyes at his commentary. âYeah, yeah, I get it. Little use to you tired, and no use if either of us is dead.â It was unexpectedly difficult to say the word dead, though she successfully kept her tone light.
At any rate, Violet left, so Stella finished her hot chocolate in silence. The quiet solitude, with nothing much else to do at just the moment, left her with a little too much time to think, and of course her thoughts went immediately to the life sheâd left behind. To her aunt and uncle, now killed because of what she was, and even her dog presumably the same. They just really didnât leave anything behind, did they? Burn it all. It was a terrible solution to a problem, but she supposed it must work sometimes, or theyâd never use it.
But what was the point in killing them? They hadnât done anything wrong, just raised her as well as they could. They had nothing to do with the Eden project, so why⊠she sighed. Thoughts like this were only going to upset her, but while she could normally ignore them in favor of the things she had to be doing right that second, there were no such other obligations right now, making them harder to push aside. Her fingers laced over the mug, and she allowed herself the indulgence of being depressed for a while. Of grieving for a while. She did not cryâshe could not seem to allow it even given her decisionâbut she mourned.
And then she stood up and made her way to sleep.
The following morning was spent, largely, getting themselves into disguise. Stella was blonde this time, much to her chagrin, her eyes made blue by contact lenses. She also had a bit of an adventure with plaster to reshape her face a little, mostly around her nose and brow, giving her softer, shallower features. She surveyed the results in the mirror, matching them to the ID card Uno had manufactured for her. Apparently, her name this time was Chelsea Calloway, which sounded a bit ridiculous to her, but was definitely believable as the name of a journalist.
Shaking her head at her altered visage in the reflective surface, she applied a few last touches to blend the alterations seamlessly with her skin, straightened her clothes, and wet to knock on the door of the room Violet was using. âReady?â
âBut that is okay, because you have made it possible to walk forward without hesitation.â
Darcia was mildly surprised at Cruxâs response to her gesture, but then, considering that she had never before felt the need to make it, she hadnât expected anything in particular as a reply, so perhaps anything would have surprised her in some measure. Almost without her own conscious registry, she found herself leaning into that soft touch, and she held steady as he closed the distance between them, knowing not enough to understand what this motion would have suggested to the average person.
For her, there were simply no expectations, nothing in particular that seemed a logical conclusion to this exchange, and so she blinked owlishly when he kissed her nose, her smile brightening. It intensified that ambient warmth sheâd been feeling lately, and the feeling was not at all unwelcome.
Too soon, she thought, it was gone and so was he, but Darciaâs smile didnât fade for several more minutes. She was not the kind of creature that required sleep, and so she spent the evening making reports of some events, though not the ones heâd asked her to remain silent on, then pulled up schematics and other information that they might need at any given point tomorrow, so as to have them ready in less than a second should she ask for them, instead of needing to actually access them through the Network. When she was done, though, this left her with several hours to herself with nothing to fill them, and so Darcia did two things she had never done before.
First, she completed an internal scan of herself, projecting the results onto one of the blank walls of her room and studying them. It had always made her vaguely uncomfortable, to confront so starkly the fact that she was only a machine. Fundamentally different from humans. But in this case, it was necessary, and after sheâd made detailed observations of everything beneath her metal skeleton, she scanned everything over it, all of the organic parts that most took to be purely cosmetic. This was not quite trueâthese pieces of her, like everything else, had a purpose. She had a heart that pumped blood, and nerve endings that could feel pain, or⊠warmth.
The second thing she did was send in a request for Cruxâs personnel file. She wanted to know more about her partner. The request was perfectly justifiable in purely logical terms, and those were the terms that she usedâit made sense for her to understand as much of her partner as anyone else did, to increase the efficacy of their teamwork. But she was not herself convinced that this was the real reason she wanted to know. She did not know what that real reason might be, however, and so for now, she left it alone.
By the time all this was done, it was morning, and in short order, they were placed onto a government transport to take them to the facility in question.
The greeting from the Supreme General was highly terse, but Darcia was not offended. Instead, she simply inclined her head, and at the command for a report, replied with a clear âYes, sir.â And that was that. The two were part of a security detail that, while fewer in number than the Warfelt, was comprised almost exclusively of military officers. The two of them stood out quite a bit, as Darcia obviously, at least to those who did not know her nature, lacked the build to be in the military, and Crux, as a GHOST, was outfitted and equipped for a different range of tasks. Nevertheless, they were left to guard the rear, and that they would do, to the best of their considerable ability.