Chapter Text
The pain of transfer rips through me. It’s a welcome agony. The pain cleanses me, washing away my previous failure.
My last owner had asked for the impossible. But the failure is the same.
The medical asset kept me sedated in the days since then. I don’t think my injuries - once addressed - were serious enough to warrant such a treatment. Maybe he suspected that I would attempt a similar action again.
I would have welcomed the oblivion the same way I welcome this agony. Anything to chase the feelings of inadequacy and despair from me.
“Shadow,” my owner’s voice says as the pain fades away. Then a series of numbers.
My name. Shadow.
I had another name once, but this is the only name I remember. When my new owner had asked for a name, it’s what I provided. It’s true in more than one aspect. I am a shadow. Not a person. Just evidence of where a person once was.
“Can you sit up?” he asks, and then he moves to help me when I don’t respond.
I sit up on my own and he takes the gag from my mouth. It’s something owners do to keep assets from biting their tongue during transfer. I wouldn’t have, but he doesn’t know that.
“How do you feel?”
I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing. He wouldn’t understand the tremendous relief that I experienced at being transferred. At having a different owner, and leaving my failure behind. I don’t know how to explain it to him.
So I say nothing.
“Can he talk?” my owner asks. To the medical asset, not to me.
“Not a lot, and I’m sure it’s painful, but there’s nothing wrong with his vocal cords. They weren’t damaged during his haphazard suicide attempt.”
It was a sloppy attempt. Normally I keep a poison capsule behind my molars, but the medical asset took it before they locked me up. Apparently he’s had interactions with covert assets before.
“Can you talk?” my owner asks me directly. I nod. “It’s okay, you don’t have to. Does it hurt?”
I shake my head.
“Okay,” he responds, but he sounds confused.
It does hurt somewhat to talk. Moving my jaw irritates the injured part of my throat. So does turning my head. And there’s a dull ache the rest of the time.
Physical pain does not need to be avoided. My discomfort is unimportant.
“I’d like to ask you some questions. Is that alright?”
I nod, even though I’m not sure my compliance is required.
My owner looks toward the medical asset. “Maybe we should wait?”
He shrugs.
“Physically he’s well enough to answer some questions, but it’s up to you.”
“Delaying is pointless,” the combat asset growls from the doorway. He’s been standing stiffly, his arms crossed over his chest and his attention trained on me. His barely-leashed aggression is evident in the tension of his body.
“There’s no reason it can’t wait if-...”
“I’m fine,” I tell them, trying to keep my voice at a normal volume, but it comes out soft and cracking. Moving my jaw stings. While I wasn’t sloppy enough to nick my windpipe, the carotid artery is close enough for me to feel it when I speak.
They quiet, attention turning back to me.
“Alright,” my owner says. He settles on one of the chairs. The medical asset stands on one side of him. The combat asset comes to flank him on the other side. The two of them standing as an honor guard above him.
I move my foot, still feeling the cuff chaining me to the bed.
It seems like an over abundance of caution.
“Can you tell me who sent you?” my owner asks. “I don’t want to pressure you. I understand if you feel the need to protect-...”
“Owner Arcrest sent me.” Isn’t that obvious?
“Oh.”
He seems surprised by my compliance.
“I hold no loyalty to Owner Arcrest. And I’d be foolish to hold loyalty to a dead man.”
The combat asset takes a threatening step forward.
“How do you know that?”
“Zero,” the medical asset growls. The combat asset takes a step back, but his tension remains.
“How do you know he died?” my owner asks.
“I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t. He wouldn’t have given me to you willingly. And sending a covert to kill another owner is against the rules.”
“Why would he send you to kill me?”
“I don’t know.”
“He already drugged and humiliated me. What more would he gain?”
I stay silent, but he doesn’t seem to need an answer. One of those facts is somewhat incorrect - I’d been the one who drugged him. Owner Arcrest had been very specific that he’d wanted Owner Price to be functionally paralyzed but not to lose his memory. As a covert asset, I have training in toxins and intoxicants. However, I had only been a tool for Owner Arcrest’s will, so maybe the blame still remains with my owner. I am an instrument for my owner to use.
“Why?” he whispers. “It doesn’t make any sense.” He glances at me and asks at a normal volume, “What was the plan? How did you get here?”
I know the answer to one of those questions.
“I was on the jump ship. When they brought you back, there was enough of a commotion that I could disembark and hide in the alcove. The plans for this style of ship are public. There’s a known blackout on the security feed in that area that I exploited. ”
The combat asset makes a noise like a growl.
“And you waited there? The whole time? It must have been several days.”
I nod in response. It hurts, but I’m expecting the pain. As an assassin, I’ve been trained to stay still for long periods of time. I know to take a small amount of water with me and hydrate sparingly, extending the amount of time I can stay hidden. Food isn’t an issue if I’m not moving, but dehydration becomes an increasingly large obstacle. I’d been at the end of my endurance when I’d finally been allowed to strike.
“Why so long?”
“I was waiting for a signal.”
“From Dillon?”
I nod slightly, but he already knows that.
“The watch,” the medic says. “Is that how he signaled you?”
“It’s a one-way transmitter,” the combat asset answers for me. “Low tech enough that our shields couldn’t block it. I can monitor for it now that I know the frequency, but another device would just use a different setting.”
“One way? So he couldn’t send a signal out?”
“No. We’d have caught that, and the device isn’t designed for it anyway.”
“So what was the plan?” He turns back to me. “What were you supposed to do? Kill me and then yourself?”
No. That would have been achievable. That would have been easy. But Arcrest still would have been implicated, and he’d have lost a valuable asset in addition.
“I was supposed to strangle you. Your combat asset is known to be unstable. Once you were dead, I was to infiltrate the cockpit and send an emergency signal to the Arcrest manor indicating that your zero had lost control and attacked. I would request assistance and unlock the hatch for Owner Arcrest’s jumpship. As the closest vessel, it would make sense that they would come to your aid.”
“And when they arrived, you’d sneak back onto the ship like you’d never been here,” my owner says. “What about my other assets?”
“I was given no specific instructions about them.”
“Arcrest would have wiped out everyone else when he arrived,” the medic says. “And blamed it on Zero. He has combat assets of his own. We wouldn’t have been able to hold him off once he was inside the ship.”
“So what went wrong?” my owner asks. His voice is curious, not angry. I’m surprised. I’d thought the information might turn him against me.
“It took too long for the signal to come. I had been expecting two or three days, not over a week.”
At that point, I was suffering from severe dehydration. My muscles had long since locked up. By the time the target approached, I’d barely been able to get myself off the ground, let alone attack him. My fingers had been all but numb, and I’d had to resort to using the garrotte wire instead of my hands. Even then, I’d had to take the target by surprise and I’d barely managed to hold on to him.
“Why so long?” my owner asks. But the question seems more to himself, so I don’t answer. “What happened that day?”
“You left the bottom floor,” the medic says. “You’d been staying in the medbay and the Captain’s quarters until then.”
“You called another owner,” the combat asset says, his voice irritated. Like the answer is obvious. “You gave evidence that Arcrest returned you to the ship alive.”
“And Carter told Ellaine,” the owner says. “Maybe he said something to Dillon too? It doesn’t seem like Ellaine would have told him.”
“He may have her communications tapped,” the combat asset says. “Considering their ties.”
“It’s possible, although I would be surprised if that woman were so careless. Either way, it’s pretty obvious that she didn’t know about his plan. She was delighted when it failed and got him killed. She’d been hoping for that outcome.”
“And she risked your life for her scheme,” the medic says. “She’s a dangerous ally.”
“We’re playing dangerous games,” my owner says. Then to me, “You tried to kill yourself. Is the punishment for failure truly so awful?”
Punishment?
No. I’m not afraid of pain.
But the emptiness of failure is too wide of a yawning chasm. Without any hope of redeeming myself, it had threatened to swallow me.
But I don’t know how to tell him that. So I make no response.
“I understand,” Master Price says. “You don’t have to tell me. You won’t have to face anything so nightmarish here. I may be strict at times, but I’m also fair.”
He doesn’t understand. Fair or unfair, strict or lenient. It makes no difference to me.
He pauses long enough that it’s evident he expected a response. It gives me a twinge when I’m unable to give him one.
“You’ll be given time to heal,” Master Price says. “And you’ll be restrained at all times that you’re not directly supervised. Only Zero or Lee will be permitted to give you free movement. Thankfully you were alone the last time you got free. If you’d harmed one of my other assets, we’d be having a much different conversation.”
I wouldn’t have harmed any of them. Without direct orders to hurt them or without them interfering with my task, I have no desire to attack them.
And I hadn’t been alone.
I’d been almost free of the cuff when I heard the door open. I’d worried that they’d somehow noticed what I was doing, but then the blonde domestic entered. The red-haired asset entered behind him, and I hadn’t been able to quite place his role. He walked with the squared shoulders and confident step of a combat asset, but his slim form didn’t fit the profile.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” the red-haired asset had said.
“I’m not going to let him die of dehydration,” the blonde had said in a surprisingly stern voice. “Go back and watch the monitors. Zero made sure he’s well restrained.”
The zero had made sure I was bound, but the manacles he’d used were standard issue. I always keep a piece of wire tucked in the lining of my shirt collar. When I’d realized that they were planning to bind me with chains, I’d slipped it from my shirt and stabbed it into the skin of my palm. As dehydrated as I was, it had barely bled. Once bound, I’d struggled to get the wire loose, but only because my thoughts had been cloudy and my limbs sluggish. The nauseating sense of failure had been eating at me already, becoming all-consuming in the silence. It was more than I could stand.
“If he tries anything funny, I’m coming back and busting his head!” the red-haired asset had growled, before stepping back out of the room and closing the door.
The blonde domestic’s lone presence confused my muddled brain. It hadn’t made any sense for him to be there, even when he’d approached.
“I warn you not to try anything,” he’d said, “although I doubt that it will do any good. Just be aware that your situation will not improve if you try to harm me.”
It seemed like he was waiting for a response. I couldn’t see any obvious reason or benefit to hurting him, so I’d nodded. That seemed to make him relax, and he’d let his frown fade into a kind smile. His single visible eye had shown a warmth that surprised me. Pale and silver, indicating a late-stage clone. His other eye - barely visible through a swath of golden hair - was obviously damaged. So many strange things here. Few owners keep damaged assets, and even less bother with imperfect domestics. They’re too easily replaceable, their skills too common and transferable.
I wondered if there might be something special about this one? Or maybe it was the owner who was unique, not the assets themselves.
The blonde clone’s smile seemed genuine, fully reflected in his expression and his visible eye. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had smiled at me like that. It managed to break through even the all-consuming dread that permeated me since I’d failed my master.
“I know we’re on opposite sides,” the domestic had said in a softer voice, “but we’re also not. It’s not you doing this. You didn’t orchestrate this.”
I couldn’t think. There was too much in my head and too much fog in my brain.
“I’m not stupid enough to bring anything in here that could be used as a weapon,” the blonde said, still approaching. “But I also won’t stand by and watch you suffer.”
He raised his hands and there was a glass of water there, a straw at the edge of the glass. I was so surprised that it took me a moment to place my lips on the straw and suck at the cool water. It wasn’t cold, just barely below room temperature. Still, the liquid hit my body like a blow and I had to stop after only a couple sips for fear of being ill.
“I won’t take it from you,” the blonde assured me. “Go slow.”
I’d taken a moment before returning to the straw. The water laid heavy in my stomach, but it no longer threatened to come back up. Even the small amount helped to clear my head.
The blonde domestic waited patiently as I worked my way through the glass, taking small sips. Letting my stomach settle and adjust to the water. Letting my body start to rehydrate.
It had felt like a betrayal when I’d finally managed to get my hand loose from the cuff.
The domestic had gasped in surprise and jumped back, but not before I’d managed to grab the empty glass from him and smash it against the chain holding my other wrist.
The water had brought clarity to my mind, but also to the piercing sense of hollowness from my recent failure.
“Don’t!” the domestic shouted. I don’t know what he thought I was planning to do, because he’d gasped in surprise when I’d taken a large shard of the broken glass and laid my own throat open.
“No!” he’d cried, and smashed his fist against my wrist hard enough to knock the glass out of my hand. “Damnit!” he’d shouted, and I’d felt his hands close around my throat. He’d been trying to staunch the blood with only his fingers.
The door had burst open then, and the red-haired asset had burst in brandishing a piece of metal pipe as a weapon.
“Get him down!” the blonde had barked.
“No fucking way!”
“He’ll die if we don’t!”
“Good! Saves me the trouble of beating him to death!”
I’d started to fade out at that point, welcoming the numbing darkness.
Obviously they had gotten me down. I have brief memories of being unchained and loaded onto a gurney, then chained again. Of the blonde’s worried face and determined silver eyes. Then more disjointed memories, until my new owner had returned and laid down on the cot beside me, renewing my life with his own.
I don’t know how to feel about this connection. Even as he stands before me, looking at me expectantly. It almost feels like I should be able to feel his presence in my very blood. The idea frightens me if I think about it too much.
“I’ll let you rest for now,” Master Price says, rising to his feet. “Once you’re healed, I will have a great need for you. But for now, just rest and recover.”
I’m still chained to the bed, being fed nutrients intravenously. There’s really nothing else I can do other than rest. Yet it is posed as a suggestion, not a requirement.
He leaves, and shortly after the medic and the zero follow. I know that I’m being monitored, although I have no desire to escape now that my ownership has moved to Master Price. I should be thinking of all the ways I can make myself useful to my new owner. All the ways I can assist his team, can prove my loyalty and devotion. Earn his praise and his pleasure.
Instead, I find myself dozing, surrendering too easily to sleep.
And a kind, silver gaze haunting my dreams.