More Surprises, Part 2
Posted on Mon 17th Aug, 2020 @ 6:00pm by Commander Paul Graves PsyD & Lieutenant Damion Ildaran & Captain Andrus Grax
Edited on on Sun 6th Sep, 2020 @ 7:41am
1,447 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
Resolution
Location: Intelligence Department, Interview Room 1
Timeline: MD 3, 1305
Previously, in our interrogation process, Helle made assumptions ....
Damion was silent for a moment, contemplating the likely fate of those others. "Do you know what became of any of those people?"
"No. I was focused on keeping us in one piece, and preferably keeping at least one of us conscious at all times. At one point, we were taken out of the ... the room, and we never were taken back. That's the point at which we arrived at whatever the base was, and I don't know if others were delivered there at different times ... or what their fate might have been, if not." She shrugged, which might have seemed callous to some, but it was more matter-of-fact with her. "Slavery would be my guess."
Now, why would she think that?
"What sort of people were these others?" Damion asked. "Men, women, adults, children? Any particular species or state of health?"
Muffet frowned at the catch in the woman's voice at the word 'room.' Was that something significant? She waited, though, knitting calmly, for the answers to Damion's questions.
"Women," Helle said slowly, remembering back to her time with the pirates. "Adults, but some were on the young side. No one appeared past 30. No children. No men." She sorted through the questions the interrogator had asked. "Lots of species, but all humanoid. Or even more, all more or less human looking. No Klingons, no Vulcans. There was an Orion woman, though, and a Bajoran. No exotic species. As for health ... I guess we were all healthy enough not to appear ill or diseased, at the very least. No one coughed or sneezed or vomited."
She paused, forcing herself to remember everything, to see the room in her mind. It was dim at all times, sometimes completely dark. There weren't enough beds, and they weren't comfortable. She'd made the mistake of offering to share with a younger woman, and never gotten her bed back. "No one had anything," she said. "No personal belongings, just whatever they were wearing."
Helle had blanked out the others, blocked their memories to the fullest extent she could. Especially Zelda and Tanith. They didn't need to know any of the time of incarceration. She had stayed fully aware, while appearing to sleep on the floor in a corner much of the time. She'd watched and waited ... for a chance that never came. "The women had no power, no chance at rebellion or escape."
Damion fought not to shudder. It was like back home, only--creepier, much better organized. He exchanged glances with the Addams sisters. Were they looking at multiple purposes, here--slavery by the Aenar and black-ops experimentation by Dobbs or whoever--or just the experimentation?
He recalled the information that Elizabeth had shared with him--the bizarrely written autopsy reports. Those had suggested cybernetic and genetic manipulation, that the unknown subject in charge was trying to create supersoldiers, people with Klingon stamina, Vulcan mental abilities, and Chameloid physiology, able to shift physical form. That did not match with Zelda's experience. So was that an old, abandoned experiment, and Zelda's experiences represented a new, more current line of research? Perhaps the UNSUB had found exotic DNA too difficult to recombine and so had decided to stick with more generalized humanoid stock? If my suspicions are right, DNA he was more familiar with, Damion thought.
It was a level of evil that Damion had never contemplated.
"You mentioned there being a couple of men among them," Damion said. He paused a moment. "So, after a period of being held in this barracks sort of place on the ship, you were brought to the base where you heard the woman coughing. What happened to you there?"
As the woman paused before answering the question, Andrus Grax looked on from behind the screen. He glanced at his colleagues, Graves, Keller and Fisher, who were flanking him. The full horror of what this poor woman had been through was beginning to sink in.
"Captain," Graves said in a low voice, "I don't think this is Morrigan anymore. I don't know who she is. Morrigan is always very firmly in control and protective, with a darker feel to her. This personality is brighter in tone, more businesslike, quite well organized. Lt. Ildaran hasn't noticed. He's deep in thought."
Grax nodded, slowly. "I think you're right," he said, matching Graves hushed tones. "I'm getting more from her... more willingness to cooperate. It's as if some barriers within her have started to come down. What bothers me," he continued thoughtfully, "is that I can't tell whether she is in control of those barriers or not." He glanced at Graves again, "What do you think?"
"I ... don't know." Paul studied Zelda through the observation monitor. "As far as I'm aware, Zelda Alegari is an entirely human woman. She shouldn't have any ability to put up mental barriers, and if she was dealing with an abusive Aenar, that Aenar wouldn't likely have tolerated attempts at resistance or concealing information from him, I'd think." He frowned. "And yet, something is there. I do feel resistance, somehow." Paul glanced back at Grax. "And since I said that, the logical conclusion is that she must be controlling them, if I feel resistance. But how?"
* * *
Steeling herself to remember more than she would ever want to be reminded of, Helle took a deep breath and let it out. "Nothing good," she answered bleakly. "You've heard the others' memories of that arrival, few as they are. I hadn't realized how much I would need to clamp down to block out pure evil." She glanced at Ildaran uncertainly, then at the doctor across from her. She reached for her counselor's hand and squeezed it.
Ischemia held on to her and murmured. "We'll get you safely away. You can tell him everything."
The prisoner looked into her eyes. "You're sure about this? It's a peek into hell I can give you all, but there's no locking it away after you've seen it." She looked back at the man questioning her, but didn't let go of her lawyer. "Fair warning, you're going to have nightmares forever, unless you have your memories scrubbed."
"I've read ... reports," Damion told the woman he believed to be Morrigan. He looked only at her, as if the two of them were alone in the room. "One report, written by Dr. Addams here, described the nature of your ring and how it came to be put on and in your finger. Another was a set of autopsy reports that had to do with experimental test subjects who'd been left to die almost two decades ago and were later found."
He let out a breath. "Do you know of an Earth woman named Delphine LaLaurie, who lived seven centuries ago? If you know naught of her, thank your gods, and dinna go looking. I believe she was at least as evil as the person who made your ring, only on a much smaller scale and without the advanced knowledge of the person who messed with you. What one can bear, another can share, aye? You've borne this alone for long enough. It's time this reign of terror ended."
Helle frowned, a crease appearing at the top of her nose, "I never heard of her, and it isn't exactly a comfort to know there have been others like the men who held us. There were times when I wished they'd leave us to die." She looked down at her hands, debating. The thing about being THE sister was that the others were unable to offer advice. She'd never tried a conference with them, because she didn't think it would work. Or it might work too well, and she would forever be fractured all the time.
Glancing up at each person around the table she mused on the group. Were these people strong enough to take down the very group who had created her and her sisters? Oh, they hadn't borne Zelda as a child, but all the rest of the women stemmed from what one or another of the men they'd met had done. She gazed the longest at Dr. Addams. There was a woman who had secrets. Helle recognized that in her. And pain, she recognized that, too. There was a goodness in her in spite of both.
Letting out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding, the woman said, "All right. I'm probably a fool to trust any of you," and here she glanced at Ildaran. "I don't sense the evil in you that I've sensed in others. Get it all recorded, because I'm not going to go through this more than once."
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