Chapter 55 #3
“I suppose I don’t need this anymore,” he said, as he pressed down on some small device in his hand, sending a wave of distortion through the air. My CHRONO made a quiet noise, before my form reverted to my real body.
Some sort of EMP device?
I covered my chest instinctively, but I knew full well that in an Imperium suit, there were no questions as to my shape, my size, or my lies.
But I wasn’t the only one lying.
The air pulsated around Breaker, before the illusion faded. False skin was torn and shredded over his right arm, revealing the raw metal of a fully mechanical prosthetic underneath, extending from his shoulder to his fingertips.
The same arm that he always patted me on the back with, way too hard, without understanding of his own strength.
He flexed his mechanical fingers, as if removing the optical illusion had given him refreshing freedom, then he turned his attention back to me.
On his face, a thin scar knicked his cheek, contrasting with his bright smile and the warm hazel spirals in his eyes.
“It’s Fianna, right?” He asked as he approached. “I figured this conversation might be easier in our true forms.”
“Y-you knew?” I stared at him, wide-eyed. “How long?” I clenched Elio’s shirt protectively, but Breaker just shook his head.
“Come on now, do you really think I’m as hard headed as the rest of these Neanderthals?
I’ve known for months now.” He chuckled, before tapping his right temple with his partially exposed mechanical arm.
Now, without any illusions in place, his right eye shifted with the familiar maneuverability of a mechanical prosthetic.
The color of his artificial iris was similar to his real one, yet tinged with an extra sheen of vibrant gold, like they attempted to match the colors, but couldn’t resist adding the stars to his eyes.
“Admittedly, I hadn’t even thought to check if you had an illusion to cancel until you beat Elio in the simulator, but well, a random Station-born medical student couldn't possibly beat someone as adept as Subject 072.” He laughed, but only to himself.
“Unless, of course, they were Subject 001.”
“Subject 001?” And Elio was Subject 072? I wish I knew what that meant, but I suspected it wasn’t anything good.
“Funny thing that there were two Callans in the subject files for the Vessel Project, and one of them was named Vann—your brother, I assume.”
“The Vessel Project?” That was the second time I’d heard that name, but I hadn’t found any information on it beyond what Kitagawa told me. Outside of that single conversation, it was a concept that didn’t exist in any publically accessible server.
“Fuck, that’s a lot to explain right now.
” He glanced over his shoulder as unfamiliar star ships landed on the dome above.
“I can give you more of a rundown later, but to put it simply, you’re the first in a series of children who were genetically modified to be more compatible with the LYNC system in the Shinkas, and you, your brother, and every survivor of the experiment has been heavily monitored for the last thirteen years or so.
” He paused for a moment, like he was pondering what else I might need to know.
I could no longer say that Breaker was a bad liar, but the slight hitch in his expression told me he was parsing what truths he was willing to tell versus the ones he was going to withhold.
“You’re a human weapon and property of the state, whether you’re living as a soldier, an unwilling bride, or a forgotten war orphan, Fianna Callan,”
I took that in, unable to fully comprehend the extent of his implications.
“That doesn’t make sense. No one monitored us.
” We’d nearly starved growing up. If I was anything of value like that, wouldn’t they have taken care of us?
“We were borderline homeless. We fought for food. We hid from the enforcers. We never got caught.”
Breaker frowned, a look of pity painting his usually upbeat demeanor.
“That was part of it, unfortunately. Maybe you thought you’d slipped through the cracks, but you might be surprised how many instances of ‘free will’ and ‘rebellion’ and ‘hiding from the foster system’ are actually ‘allowances’ to see how the subject manages under different test cases.
Piloting a Shinka in a war is as emotional as it is traumatic, after all.
It wouldn’t be a good experiment if they didn’t test the subjects with different stressors to find the limits. ”
The limits? I swallowed thickly, my gaze dropping briefly to the unconscious man on the floor—to Subject 072—where I was clenching a hand covered in tattoos meant to mask slave coil burns.
Then I returned my gaze to Breaker, as a woman who had survived this war camp only because survival was the one skill I’d been forced to master.
If all of our suffering was somehow by design… I’d been willing to fight for this country, to try and change it from within, to believe it could be better. But if we’d fallen this far, that the men that controlled the world would use, abuse, and harm its own children?
That... that couldn’t be. Could it? It had to be a lie.
I needed it to be a lie.
I was speechless, so Breaker continued. “Putting your name on the death toll was brilliant though. Whether you knew it or not, you found the one, single way to have your records closed. They’ve still been monitoring Vann Callan’s performance, but the intended use of ‘Fianna Callan’ to…
” He held up his CHRONO and read from the screen directly, “‘breed with both modified and unmodified subjects to determine effects of mutation on fetal development,’ was going to be a dark path for you.” As callous and to the point as he was trying to be, he still winced as he read the words aloud.
“You made a good choice, even if I know these guys didn’t make it easy for you. ”
Why wasn’t I arguing? I wanted to yell and say that all sounded insane, but… it didn’t. Fuck, I wish it did, but I didn’t have a single piece of evidence to disprove a single word.
“But that’s not what’s important, is it?
” He took my silence as enough of an answer, then he dropped to a squat in front of me, putting his gaze at my level.
His melancholy smile was probably meant to be comforting.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m subject 016. And you know 002 and 003 very well.”
The billowing smoke of flame and ruin towered behind him in a fitting backdrop that reflected my own emotions.
Breaker, as though he was dusting off sand after a day at the beach, reached over to peel the remaining false skin from his mechanical arm.
He’d managed to hide his false limb for years with a fake texture and an A2, just as I’d somehow hidden my real body for months.
As he peeled away the glove, revealing the full extent of his cybernetics, that was when the real point became clear.
A symbol adorned the back of his hand, depicting coiling turquoise vines around a black star. An emblem that everyone knew.
The emblem of the Resistance.
Breaker was… Axis Mundi?
It dawned on me then that the reason all of these Ghuls had been so easy to take down—when the ones that attacked Protectorate 005 had been much stronger—was because they weren’t Gehenna machines at all.
They were replicas. Just like the replica Shinka who was a bomb, these probably weren’t even manned machines.
They were lies used to turn the Territories and the Empire against each other.
With a gentle ruffle of my hair, so familiar in its affection that it forced the first tear to escape from the corner of my eye, Breaker stood back up and drew in a breath.
“Let me reintroduce myself. I am Colonel Breaker Altair of Axis Mundi, assigned to Astaroth Academy to locate other pilots that were modified in the Vessel Project, and I would love to have you on my team.” Breaker reached out that hand, and I looked up into those mismatched eyes that reflected my battered body in their clear shine.
The eyes of the traitor. The rebellion spy.
A man who infiltrated our ranks to cause chaos, steal our technology, and cause untold deaths, with a carefree casual smile all the while.
He was of neither empire. Neither state.
He was the betrayer of all. Whether or not what he told me was true, it was our relationship that was now being presented as the only chip on the table.
Because those eyes also belonged to a friend who stuck up for me, who kept my secrets, and who helped train and hone my skills. The man who saw my potential amidst my failures, who came through when I needed someone, who made me laugh, and built me up when I was down.
Which part of that heart was his true face?
The ally or the enemy? Did it have to be one or the other?
Or could both sides of that coin, spinning in place, and never landing on a single face, be the real Breaker?
Maybe his heart was good and just, even if it looked deceitful and wrong.
Maybe everything he said was true, and the situation was more dire than I even knew. Maybe I didn’t know the whole story.
Maybe I didn’t care.
Maybe, with my cover exposed, and no other way forward, I needed a way out of this place, and he’d appeared at the perfect time to save me, with the perfect threat to make the choice predetermined.
Maybe I would do anything to not risk going back to the station as a criminal and a traitor, simply for trying to live as I wanted instead of how I was expected to.
If I wanted to keep the freedom I’d fought so long for, what other option was there?
If Vann was also a Vessel, whatever that meant, I was sure Breaker would be willing to retrieve him. It wouldn’t matter if they refused to give him a prosthetic. Axis Mundi had the technology, too.
This was the answer I needed exactly when I needed it most. If that was fate, then I was going to choose the puppet master with the golden smile, over the Playwright holding iron cuffs.
I reached out and planted my palm firmly in his. He tugged back to help leverage me upright, and when I stumbled, he caught me by the shoulders and held me steady.
Breaker beamed down at me, wide and clear and bright as always, understanding the implied consent in my acceptance. “Welcome, Fianna Pipsqueak Callan, to the Axis Mundi. I’m so glad you could join me.”
I laughed despite the tears in my eyes, my head still a whirlwind, and my entire person still not sure that this made sense. It was an impulsive decision, but it was the only one.
I hoped it wouldn’t be a mistake.