trans_9 | Tethered [Closed]

Entry tags:

Tethered [Closed]

Brenda knew in the back of the back of her mind that it hadn't always been like this.

Somewhere at the blackening edge of her conscious awareness she knew that there'd been a time when she'd been happy and content, a time when everything hadn't been so sterile, so cold, so rigorous and exhausting and infuriating...

She may have been too numb and defeated to act on it, but her inaction did nothing to quell her rage. It boiled up from the very core of her, building blistering pressure beneath her skin day by day as the pressure of merely existing pressed in to counter it. She often felt as if she spent every waking moment in this limbo of rebellion and resignation.

Ever so occasionally something took a crack at her careful balance, pitching her into utter despair or frustrated rage depending on the direction she was pushed. Being there to see Danny when he was brought in had left her mute for days, slow to task like moving through a fog until one too many harsh words brought her temper back to form.

Today it was the collar.

The thin strips of electrodes strapped across her calves and forearms were no heavier than a stick-on bandage. The skin grafts itched but the strapping didn't impede her too much. The collar was another story altogether. It sat like a yoke over her collarbones, at least a quarter of a pound of metal and wire, the little green diode at it's center glowing soft and steady as she went about her tasks. She was never unaware of it, constantly feeling it jangle against her neck, it's weight pressing into her skin.

She knew it's limits inside and out, memorized them rigorously for very clear personal benefit. Stay inside the invisible fence or you get a shock, like teaching a dog to stick close by jabbing them with a goddamn cattle prod...

He'd hollered for some thing or another which was what got her moving, dodging down an aisle of the lab storage to hunt up more of the power sources he'd be going through like candy, and then out of nowhere the orange warning light flickered on. She hadn't been watching for it and came up against the results of the red-light five seconds later when she slammed into the outer limits of her containment.

Fire shot through every limb and she crumpled to the floor mid-stride. She landed unprotected, cheekbone cracking off the tile, body skidding with her momentum, as her arms were busy convulsing uselessly everywhere BUT in front of her face. She screamed as she curled up on herself, a howl of pain, confusion and sheer fury. When the shock stopped she gasped for breath before cursing at the top of her lungs.

"Son of a BITCH!"

She struggled to take herself back the way she'd come, creeping across the floor between rounds of crippling muscle electrocution, taking three more strikes from the circuit before she made it back safely within the perimeter. Slumping against the shelving at the end of the row she let her body quiver as her muscles spasmed with little aftershocks. What the HELL? Had he moved after calling to her? No, he'd been glued to his workstation all day. He only could have...

A moment later when his glowering shadow fell over her she met his eyes with fire blazing in her own.

"You shortened my radius." she snarled, venom dripping from every word.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Querl was busy looking over scans, sliding scales, and holo-notes, long fingers deftly typing in data and observations on floating keypads. He brought his work with him wherever he went. It was his life now, after all. It was all that there was for him. Intellectual engagement.

"Affirmative," he said simply. "Did you get the part I needed?"

Something clicked, and he said, "Ah. I thought it was closer. Mother must have moved them."

Edited 2011-10-08 08:10 (UTC)

"Why did you shorten the radius Querl?"

Her voice was low, body quivering with anger as she drags herself up to her feet. She could give less than a shit who moved what. He shortened the leash. For WHAT?!

"It seemed prudent," was his simple answer.

"WHY?" she repeated, louder, taking a threatening step toward him.

"I'm already within screaming distance at all times! Now I can't even be a room away without getting an electronic bitchslap? What the hell is your problem?!"

Brainiac 5 seemed completely unperturbed, which was partly because he had the power to zap her at any time, but also because he felt no fear, just like he felt nothing else.

"Mother attempted to corner you earlier this morning. Now she can no longer do so."

The question remained: why did he care if his mother cornered her? Why did he even keep her?

She opened her mouth to snap at him again and the words died on her lips, her raised hand dropping weakly to her side.

His mother had tried to... He'd pulled her closer to keep her away from...

Hope, tiny but painfully intense, blossomed somewhere deep in her chest.

"Querl?"

"It's not for any sentimental reasons, I assure you. You're of use to me and Mother has a tendency towards violence. It would do me no good if you were destroyed by her."

Destroyed like an object, rather than "killed" like a person.

But still, why did he keep her? Why?

She swallowed thickly, struggling not to let her eyes well up. His logic was sound, but only to a degree. There was the faintest look of puzzlement in the tilt of his brow and the shade of his frown.

"You don't think you could replace me with something more efficient?"

He'd threatened several times in the heat of annoyance to do just that.

"No."

There was more of that puzzled look again, as if he was surprising himself with his own answers.

Why did he keep her? Why didn't he just have a helper-bot made? It would be more obedient, wouldn't it? There would be less escape risk.

"It would be a waste of a valuable resource."

Valuable. Why had he just called her that?

She took the slightest step closer to him, reaching out to brush her fingertips against his arm.

"Valuable, huh?" she murmured. "Because of what I can do? Or something else?"

Part of her is scared to tempt him, afraid that making him acknowledge his remaining shreds of emotion will lead to him irradicating them in turn. The selfish need for hope makes her probe him for an answer anyway. It's been so long since she's even dared to hope that he was still THERE somewhere underneath this monster...

Clearly disgusted by her touching him, he shoved her hand away with surprising strength.

"Ape, I didn't give you permission to touch me. Your continued insubordination and presumption will have consequences."

His eyes were dead, emotionless, as he raised his hand to strike her--and then it stopped in mid-air, frozen, shaking, as if some invisible force wasn't letting it fall.

"What are you doing? Is this a display of latent psychokinetic ability?"

The answer would become quite clear to Brenda when she looked at his face, though. His eyes were still dead, but his cheeks were wet, from the tears silently streaming down them, unbeknownst to Brainy.

Edited 2011-10-10 03:38 (UTC)

She recoiled from the shove he gave her hand, staggering a pace back as he wound back to strike her, ducking low and bringing her arm up to cover her face on reflex.

Brenda raised her head only when no blow followed, slowly peering past the shield of her forearm to see him frozen mid-motion. The tears rolling down his cheeks sucked the breath right out of her lungs.

Her throat worked soundlessly for a moment, hot tears blurring her vision.

"...not doing anything." she managed, finally, putting out a hand to the shelving to support herself as she rubbed at her eyes.

Edited 2011-10-10 03:47 (UTC)

"You have to be."

But his arm would not, could not move, and it shook from the effort of him trying to move it.

He finally felt the tears slipping down his face and lowered his hand, bewildered, his other hand reaching up, his fingertips pressing against the moisture there.

"I don't understand. I've shut off my emotional processing. I am incapable of having emotional reactions. There are no irritants in my eyes--how can I be crying?"

"You can't get rid of it." her voice cracked, a bitter sobbing laugh. "You buried it so deep but it's there. You still remember."

"That's insipid sentimentality speaking and nothing more."

He stormed away from her and went back to where he had his scanners, and immediately starting scanning himself, started looking at scans of his own brain.

"I'm free of emotion--finally free of it--from its complications, from its confusion, free from pain..."

He was getting increasingly irritated, and eventually lost his temper, smashing a console, tears still streaming down his face.

"I won't allow it to come back. I won't. I'm better this way! I am a Brainiac!"

Edited 2011-10-10 04:08 (UTC)

Brenda slid to the floor as he stormed back to the panels, curling into a ball to sob for a long few minutes before she could get herself together and follow him.

The concrete knowledge that some small part of him was still too attached to her to harm her burned at the center of her chest, painfully bright after the bleakness she had felt up until now.

She stopped, hovering in the door to his workroom, eyes flickering over the smashed console and his tense shoulders, the hands wiping at his face. She opened her mouth then shut it again, unsure quite what to say.

Eventually, he sank down into a chair and sat, trembling.

Looking up at her, his expression interminable, he said, "I'm not going to harm you." He paused. "It seems I'm incapable."

She slunk a little closer, biting back a faint smile.

"I know." she said quietly, stopping just outside his reach. Instinct screamed at her to put her arms around him, to try to calm his trembling, but she knew well enough from before that it was better to tuck her arms close against herself.

"Do you remember why?"

"I once had an emotional attachment to you."

Confusion was etched in every line of his face--and there were lines. All that pain had aged him.

There was a little click of his tongue.

"Your father used to harm you. When I still had emotions, I abhorred the very idea of you ever having to face such violence again, never mind facing it from myself. I remember, even if I feel nothing for you now. I remember everything I've ever experienced."

Brainiac got up and started pacing, hands clasped behind his back.

"During my torture, I must have put a subconscious mental block in place to prevent myself from causing you any truly grievous harm."

Edited 2011-10-12 04:16 (UTC)

Brenda let her weight sink against the console, leaning on it as she watched him pace. Her eyes followed him but her head stayed still, her hand laid against the front of her throat on a nervous protective instinct.

"Yeah, well, you were still pretty smart back when you had all those pesky emotions, weren't you?"

Suddenly, the sound of metal shattering rang out.

"SHIT!" Danny shouted. He'd probably already been heard, there was no sense in trying to keep quiet anymore. Quickly, he started working on the last two power dampening cuffs, alternating between heating them and freezing them so that he could break them in his weakened state.

Brainiac immediately floated into air and zipped back in the direction of his main lab. Brenda would have to try her best to keep up.

"Oh for fu-"

Brenda snarled, cutting her cursing short to start running after him.

"Come on, comeonnn." Danny ground out, trying to hurry it up. Finally, the leg cuffs broke under the accelerated wear-and-tear, and Danny slipped off the table just as Brainy entered. The halfa leaped for the back wall, phasing through it at the last possible second.

The Coluan wasn't angered or upset by the escape of his subject only because he couldn't feel those emotions.

"He can't get far. We're too deep inside the ship and Stacy's walls have phase-blocking."

Brainiac suddenly froze in place and then turned to the table where Daniel had been secured.

Several of the restraints were broken, but one was completely intact.

"I did this. I left one of his restraints unsecured."

Brenda, slumped panting in the doorway, stared first at the unbroken shackle, then up across the table at Brainiac and the shifting expression of disbelief and frustration on his face.

Her heart skipped hard, a rush of hope jolting its rhythm. He was in there. He was in there! Somewhere underneath that cold face and those dead eyes he was still THERE...

For a moment, he looked completely dazed. Lost. As if some great shift was starting to happen in that head of his.

His legs nearly gave out from under him, and he had to sit down.

"I am a Brainiac. I feel nothing, nothing at all."

Brenda took a cautious few steps closer to him, swallowing hard.

"But you remember what it was like to feel, so of course your emotions are still there when you think back on things, right? Doesn't that make sense?"

"Yes. Regardless, it is irrelevant to my current situation. Those memories are irrelevant."

"No they aren't. They're strong enough to disrupt your actions now so they must mean something."

"They mean nothing."

His eyes got that blank, glossy look once more.

"I have to get back to work. I'll build a means of tracking my subject. You will assist me."

Brenda swallowed thickly, letting her head drop as his eyes unfocused again. Exhaustion, physical and mental weighed heavy on her shoulders. He was slipping under the water again and she just didn't have it in her to go in after him again. He'd logic her to pieces...

There was a long moment of silence before the required "Yes sir" left her lips.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tethered [Closed]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject