We can rebuild her...whether she wants it or not

[Amara Zarides]

[member="Naamah Aesham"]
Amara’s look was one of utter trepidation. She’d met Akure about 4 hours ago and had since had a series of adventures and grumpy discussions with her. However, none of this had prepared her for a situation where she’d have to let the Chiss cut her open to try and remove a gadget which could instantly kill her if the other woman made a mistake.

This was pretty far down on the list of things which might be considered safe, sane or consensual.

“Are…you even qualified to do this? You don’t look like much of a doctor to me,” she said slowly.

Trust was a high price commodity. On the one hand she believed that Akure hated Archangel and also believed that the device was as she said. But to go under the knife of this woman was almost too much and too far to go.

On the other hand…she couldn’t even try and get near Archangel with it still in her. And who else would she find who could do the procedure and understand how to remove the device?

 

[Maelion Liates]

[member="Enyo Typhos"]
Droids were not cruel deliberately, though their actions were so inhuman and logical that often enough they had the result of being cruel.

How long passed? To one with no sense of the passage of time or perception, it might have felt an eternity. However, in the real world it was less than twelve hours until the brain was inserted into the cranium of the Human Replica Droid waiting for it.

A quick check confirmed that the brain was fully healthy. Then suddenly…Enyo would awaken.

It was better this time, there was senses, electronics parsing the digital data into analogue so that the brain could experience it. Everything would be slightly…different though. Remote. The feelings of sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste would be both sharper than normal, yet somewhat removed, like touching through a glove, seeing through a window.

And then there was the constraint. Conditioning brought to its pinnacle. The control of the conscious mind through the sub-conscious. Enyo could rage all she liked in her mind but she had been effectively reduced to a puppet.

Maelion stood over her. “Unit Enyo Typhos, report.”

 

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Maelion Liates"]


"What is dead may never die, but rises again, stronger and harder."


Enyo would probably prefer to be dead for good once she realised what had happened to her. For she had perished, but not been allowed to move on to the hereafter. Instead, she was stuck in a horrible limbo.


Undying, yet not alive. Trapped inside a jar covered by a mechanical shell. Denied any form of sensation, denied free will and agency, denied virtually everything that made you human. Her senses were sharper, and yet removed. Like looking at the world through a window - or rather an HUD.


"Unit Enyo Typhos is ready for service. Running diagnostics," she spoke in a bland, robotic tone. Her eyes flashed behind the electronic photoreceptors, manifesting an inhumane crimson before they resumed their normal brown colour. "Simulacrum integration complete. No errors." Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. But she could not see past the veil - nor did she have a mouth to scream.

 

[Naamah Aesham]

[member="Amara Zarides"]


"You need a lot of medical knowledge to be good at torture. Otherwise your captive dies on you if you don't do it right." Apparently Akure had not realised that being extremely creepy was a terrible way to build trust.


"I'm one of two people who can remove that thing. If you get near Archangel with that device inside you, you're dead or their puppet again," she said bluntly. The faux Chiss frowned, as if debating whether to divulge a piece of information she'd rather keep to herself. "I used to have one of those implants."

 

[Amara Zarides]

[member="Naamah Aesham"]
Amara just stared at Akure. “You are not being reassuring one bit, you realise that, right?”

What choices did she have? She could probably get all the details from the Chiss and try and find someone else to do it, maybe this second person. But there was no guarantee of success either way. If Akure, despite being a seriously creepy and socially awkward person, was willing to help, perhaps she’d better take up the offer.

After all, it only took an HRD getting close with a transmitter to take her out. And then she’d be where her sister was. In the end it was the need to save her sister which drove her. She could feel Enyo still lived…but the thread was weak.

Reaching to the Force, she sensed Akure had no ill-will. Many problems she might have, but she would not betray her. The Force reassured her. It was the first step of freeing herself.

“Alright, I’ll do it. No progress without pain,” she said softly.

 

[Naamah Aesham]

[member="Amara Zarides"]


"Little bit of pain makes the world go around. Well, sometimes more than just a little," Naamah chuckled, seemingly under the impression that she was being awfully witty. She kind of had a working relationship with pain.


"Take off your shirt," she ordered and turned around to fetch some tools. These included sterile gloves, a syringe and a box full of medical equipment that Amara probably did not want to look at. "You'll have to be sedated. It's easier for you and me while I'm cutting wires inside you."

 

[Amara Zarides]

[member="Naamah Aesham"]
Amara looked more than a little disturbed. Mission accomplished, creepy Naamah!

“Well obviously I’m going to be sedated! I’m not going to be conscious whilst you’re cutting me open. That’s the difference between surgery and torture…though I guess you know more about that than me.”

And so, off came her top and she laid down. She offered a silent prayer in the way of all atheists…just in case there was anything out there listening. Taking the medicine she fell swiftly, and deeply to sleep.

Visions. Always more visions. Amara did not dream much normally, but she did receive visions. She was pretty sure she’d prefer weird dreams to annoyingly cryptic visions.

She stood at the edge of a raging river. The ground was barren. Astride the river she saw Enyo…but not the Enyo she knew, rather she saw her looking as she should, yet strange…silent…still. She was trapped in an iron cage which prevented her being seen properly.
She called to her sister but could not be heard.
“Stupid allegorical visions,” she muttered.

 

[Naamah Aesham]

[member="Amara Zarides"]


Meanwhile, in the real world, Naamah was in the dark about Amara's spiritual escapades. "Well, guess it's time to cut you up and see what's inside," she remarked, because apparently she had to be morbid even while the clone was asleep. So while Amara was sleeping, she set to work. The surgery would take a few hours. If all went well, Amara would be free of her killswitch, and not die in the process. "Fortunately, none of the wires are colour-coded."

 

[Amara Zarides]

[member="Naamah Aesham"]
Trapped in her vision of allegories and metaphor, Amara saw her sister rise up and crush her to the ground. Now she was no longer in the cage, rather she was a golem made of iron crushing her underfoot before finally the vision vanished.

Her back hurt. Even in the dream she was annoyed by this, but dozed on merrily until at last she started to come to.

She almost wished she hadn’t. Her back really hurt. On the plus side she was alive and there was a horrible spider like device laying on the table beside her bed. It was covered in blood and had many wires.

“You did it,” she said sleepily, wincing as she moved and agitated her stiches. Amara was stealing the role of Captain Obvious!

 

[Maelion Liates]

[member="Enyo Typhos"]
Maelion examined Enyo closely. Seemingly satisfied, Maelion turned away.

“The capacity of your new form will be tested,” she said blandly.

There were battle droids, obstacles and other dangers in Maelion’s future, but once she was done with that there was a final test. A test engineered to make sure that Enyo was truly under their control.

The Simulacrum was a powerful tool, giving Enyo the ability to have the abilities of an HRD but still able to use the Force. Enyo would be watching on as the passenger whilst she went through the motions with no input from her real brain.

 

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Maelion Liates"]


She had been stripped of emotion, flesh and free will. Enyo moved on automatism, for she had been reduced to the state of a passive observer. Now she was but a weapon, wielded by a malignant artificial intelligence. There was nothing left for her except to maim, destroy and kill.


Droids fired upon her. Droids died. She destroyed them by overloading their circuits with mechu-deru or compelling them to fire upon one another. She smashed them into walls such with force she broke their bodies. She ended them with her blade by delivering killing strokes. Lesser machines could not match her strength, fury or speed. They were inferior and so they were broken.


Her violet lightsabre glowed with a burning light as it cut through automatons. She moved with a speed that just a day ago would have been impossible for her, too fast for many of the red-hot bolts to hit her. Others bounced off her lightsabre. It was all over almost as soon as it had begun and she stood atop a pile of droids. Unbeknowns to her, now the true test would begin.

 

[Naamah Aesham]

[member="Amara Zarides"]


"Don't make this sappy. Or give me a hug," Naamah grunted when Amara decided to play Captain Obvious. A nice doctor would have told the clone to take it easy, not strain herself and so on, but the faux Chiss figured the girl ought to know that herself.


So she picked up the spider like device, which had plenty of wires with blood on them. "Want to keep this as a memento? Or should I add it to my collection?" She was fond of hoarding rather morbid trophies.

 

[Maelion Liates]

[member="Enyo Typhos"]
Maelion scanned the wreckage. The Simulacrum was operating to acceptable standards. She had not expected otherwise. Archangel built its products well, and to last.

“Follow,” Maelion ordered.

Down they descended into a deep part of the lair where Enyo and Amara had never been before. Behind a door of adamantine strength there lay…a nursery.

Or rather, cloning tanks in neat rows. Each contained a humanoid in various stages of growth. One was fully grown and floated in a deep and dreamless sleep. This person was a dark skinned human with a peaceful, contented look on their face. Enyo would know from scanning personnel records of Archangel that this was a clone of one of Kerrigan’s favourites; Tempest.

“Initiate awakening process,” Maelion ordered. Just like with Amara before her, Archangel was birthing a new sister for Enyo.

 

[Amara Zarides]

[member="Naamah Aesham"]
Amara, through the stinging pain from her back, frowned.
“Well, I’m not going to stop you keeping it. I never want to see it again though,” she said feelingly.

She stood, wincing at the pain, and pulling a shirt on. “Do you have some kolto patches I can use? Also, can you recommend somewhere to stay for me and the girls we freed…if they want to come along?”
She thought about that.
“Somewhere which has carpets on the floor and no booby traps preferably,” she added firmly.

She observed the Chiss for a moment, then turned away to look down at the device for one final time.

 

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Maelion Liates"]


Cloning tanks upon cloning tanks. Each of them contained another clone, another organic who was intended to serve as Archangel's puppet. Another potential victim of the Simulacrum, or whatever other horrifying designs Archangel had in the pipeline.


Enyo's jaw tensed ever so slightly, though it was barely noticeable considering her impassive expression. But her neck stiffened just a bit as she took in the view. She wondered if another Siobhan or Amara clone was being grown right this moment.


Then her eyes focused upon the one fully grown clone. The black woman looked so content, peaceful and innocent. No, the inner Enyo thought, trapped inside her dark room. There were no doors, no exits...so she punched a hole in the wall, and found herself in another black room.


"That is a clone of Tempest, Siobhan's apprentice," Enyo stated flatly. Her voice was cold, unemotional...mechanical. She watched impassively while the tube was drained of fluids and her younger 'sister' awoke from her slumber.

 

[Naamah Aesham]

[member="Amara Zarides"]


Naamah shrugged. "Fine, it'll look nice on my shelf." The shelf of morbid curiosities. It included the fangs of an energy vampire and a still active HRD skull. Yeah, the Clawdite was kind of weird and deliberately creepy. Anyhow, she handed the clone a bacta patch.


"Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten isn't bad. For all the squeamish folks who don't like blood on their carpets or don't realise it's common sense to booby trap every place they sleep in." What were the odds that the aforementioned hotel was also a brothel or something similarly seedy? Oh, those were very high.

 

[Amara Zarides]

[member="Naamah Aesham"]
Amara nodded, wincing at a stab of pain when she did. “Well, thank you, Akure. I won’t lie, I’m glad we have a common enemy as I wouldn’t want to fight you. I’m going to get a new commlink, do you have a number of yours I can take so we might keep in touch? I have some things I need to take care of, and then I want to start moving against Archangel. I want them broken to scrap…but I want my sister free too even more.”

She picked up her kit from the table, running a quick glance over it to ensure nothing was altered or missing.

“It’s been a very long day, and I could do with a bath, some sleep and something to eat. So if there’s nothing more, I’ll take my share of the spoils and be going.”

 

[Tempest]

[member="Enyo Typhos"]
Her eyes opened. Her first thought was of how cold it was. Icy, bitter cold, so she curled up tighter, mewing slightly as the light burnt her eyes. With a cough, she spat out some liquid and took her first deep breaths.

As her eyes became accustomed to the brightness she saw two women. Her flash training had accustomed her to both their faced. Her sister Enyo, her protector, and Maelion her creator.

“En…yo?” she asked softly, uncertainly.

“Thuella has been a disappointment. The cloning process has brought only a fraction of her Force potential to bear. She is therefore a waste of resources.”
Those human seeming yet dead, cold, pitiless eyes fixed on Enyo.
“Kill her.”

This was it, the final test. Enyo had been indoctrinated about her role as the brood mother of her ‘sisters’. Every part of her would be fighting against the order. If she would obey this order she would obey everything.

Thuella looked up, confused. “Enyo? P-please…” she said pathetically. Within minutes of waking she was going to be murdered by her own sister it seemed. One dark hand stretched weakly up, imploring her sister.

Could Enyo resist? Or would she be forced to obey?

 

[Naamah Aesham]

[member="Amara Zarides"]


Naamah shook her head. "Kid, if Archangel got their screws in her brain, she's not your sister anymore. She's either a robot or a zombie." Or both, but that didn't cross the faux Chiss' mind. "If you see her again, she'll kill you or drag you back for 'correction'. That girl you knew is dead. So stop thinking of her as your sister if you don't want to end up dead. The card I gave you has my number."

 

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Tempest"]


Enyo...wavered. All her short life she'd been conditioned to see herself as the brood mother of her 'sisters', their caretaker and protector. At first, it had just been the effect of her conditioning and the result of her own loneliness. But over time she'd come to embrace the role.


Now she stood at a crossroads. No. Stop. I won't hurt her. No! Her internal cries became more and more desperate, frantic, but she had no tongue to voice them. It was not her mouth anymore. Or her body.


She tried to pull her body back, but it ignored her command and advanced anyway. "By your command." Her expression was cold, devoid of emotion. Then she snapped Thuella's neck and extinquished the light inside her eyes. With it, a part of Enyo died. Self-loathing flooded her. She was a monster, a murderer and a failure. Even this metal cage was too good for her.