You worry too much, you know death, you've watched it come over a thousand faces. Burns, bullets, pain, blood its all the same, you sit back and watch as the world travels under you, nothing stands in your way. And then she died and you had nothing to hold onto anymore. Until you saw the truth.
"That film, why did you show it to me, I didn't want it, you knew that then didn't you?"
Fiona looked at the unmarked clump of dirt where her family lay sleeping and then at Actor. "You needed to know, call it love, call it respect, but for her and for me you had to know."
"Computer, open file Zeta2surv2306 password Delta-Tango-Omega." A three dimensional image appeared on the formally dead monitor.
"How did you do that, I thought that power was shot through this whole area." Actor looked at the girl. "In fact I know its dead."
"Watch Actor, watch closely."
"What is it?"
"The truth, Actor, about you, me everything."
"You wanted to save me? And all this time I thought I was the one saving you.." Actor noticed that the darkness was begining to fade into the barest scrapings of the day on the horizon. "And failing again."
"It wasn't like that, it was never that, shes with me, and she remembers."
The images where in perfect colour, partially rendered in a three dimensional imnaging array, watching it made Actor feel slightly seasick as the jerks and shudderes were exagerated every second.
The girl on the table was dead, that was obvious, her skull was open to the elements, and the medical team were pulling the contents carefully out.
"Susan?" Actor was sick on the ground in front of him.
"Yes, thats her. They got her two days after she died in Saigon, you buried a homeless girl they killed and swapped." Fiona looked at Actor. "They had been watching her for a long time, and they knew what she had done. The killing, the running, they watched it all and didn't even try to stop her. They reveled in it."
"Why? Why didn't they at least try to stop her.." Actor had thought those months had been hell as he hunted her across the planet, always one step ahead of Paladin and behind her. And these, creatures had known all along.
"Because of you, and because of me Actor."
"I loved her, she was insane and I couldn't stop her but I loved her, even when she shot me and then tried to save me, I loved her."
"I remember it, she dragged you to a car and I asked, why are you smiling and you said that its the pain, its on one side of a coin, love is its opposite, its Pain that lets you know your alive.." Fionas voice was breaking away, distorted against the darkness. "And then I ran away, we never spoke again, you saw me die and then I saw for just one second that you loved me..." She began to cry, tears falling upon the already sodden ground.
"It goes like this, Pain lets you know your alive, and Love lets you know that out there in the world, everyone else is alive as well. Without you I was without love, I had nothing to hold onto. "
"They needed someone to run their logistics Actor, this organisation is enourmous, trains, choppers, guns, clones black list inventory, no-one could be trusted with it all, computers were fallable, they needed a thinking machine that could plan into the future, for whatever emergancy came up, they had her DNA already coded, her brain was scanned in hundreds of times over the years, they just had to build a shell, I told you I was fifteen, months Actor, fifteen months. I'm the third one they built in the last three years. The only stable one, the others were taken away, vivasected and studied, that room, with the children, that was were I was born Actor, grown in a vat, given this body and then told to be the brain for Hyperspaces logistics."
Actor pulls his gun out and points it at Fiona. "Bullshit, don't you dare fucking lie to me about her, of all people, don't you dare fucking try." On her forehead the barrel bumped slightly.
"I'm dying Actor. I was disconnected from the main compuer for too long, Rand was sent flying through the main networking array, I can't fix it, I'm going to die Actor."
Gun still in place Actor looked at her. Not again, jesus christ not again. "How long do you have?"
"I'm going Actor, I can feel it slipping away, back into nothingness, at least this time they won't find the brain, at least this time I will be able to rest." Her voice was distorted more now, electronically aided vocal cords failing as her body began to shut down.
"Fiona, I want you to know something.."
"I don't have anytime Actor, four hours, maybe five, its enough to take you somewhere important."
"Where."
"I'll take you to where Hyperspace buried Susan, and the failures that preceeded me. I'll let you find some peace in this world Actor, before I die. Not that I am really Alive." She muttered to herself. "There is a car out the front, I was planning on using it to escape when we met in the elevator."
"You were right, you aren't her. I loved her out of duty as a father and fear for her life from the bastard that killed her, I love you Fiona."
"I'm not alive. You can't love a thing."
"The place is called the Farm, its where they built all the clones in their army, there is this guy in charge of it called the Doctor, if you ever find him, kill him, don't hesitate."
"Who is he?"
"The father you couldn't be for me.."
Actor grabbed Fiona as she fell to the ground, her eyes, blinking furiously looked up at Actor. "I think I see now what it is to be alive Actor."
Actor just looked down at her as her blinking stopped and now he knew why she brought him here, not for his life but for her death.
And for the second time in his life Actor found he could only feel a sense of whiteness descending over his mind.
"I'll take you to where shes buried, because you need to mourn at least once for your child, even if only for a minute. You need to mourn."
"Amen Fiona.."
_________________ "Why can't we go back to living like cavemen? I know it was a rough and ready existence - the men where always rough and the women were always ready! " - Santa.
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