[Jack Fontaine]

Nobody Don't you know who I think I am? + CBE-177/"Anna"

The flat was small, but comfortable. Two bedrooms and an open plan kitchen/lounge area. Not enough to be called luxurious, but at least enough space to live. Jack was currently paying the rent on behalf of 177, or Anna as she seemed to prefer going as now. They didn't mind, it was up to her what she was called, Jack couldn't care less, and had made sure to make up a number of different IDs with the name and a false date and state of birth. They weren't fake IDs per say, they had come from the DMV, just all of the information on them was false. They had come around without calling ahead, and let themselves in with the key they'd had cut. They reasoned that she would have had some time to come to terms with the information she had received during her medical exam. Jack should not have that information themselves, but since they had installed the bug in the MNRU it had been child's play to get into the system and access what was supposed to be confidential information. Jack had what could be called a rather loose approach to privacy. If you couldn't protect it yourself then it was your own fault if someone else ended up looking at it. As long as that someone else was Jack. You couldn't trust just anyone with that kind of sensitive data. As a result of their less than respectful approach Jack knew that Anna had once been pregnant, judging by the rest of the notes she had not actually been aware of the pregnancy, so what could have happened to the child was currently a mystery. Jack was a sucker for mysteries. They'd given her a few days before deciding to make a house visit. It would be overly generous to call Jack a compassionate person, but people were not efficient when they were emotional, and Jack had little enough patience for people as it was. They knocked on the breakfast counter as they entered the lounge, though no doubt Anna was aware of their presence. Their abilities seemed to include enhanced sense in the package. They shuddered at the thought. It all just seemed so… unclean. "So… Did it go well?"

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[CBE-177/"Anna"]

She was in bed reading when she heard a doorstep outside her door. She paused, turning her head to listen, and then she heard the scrape of a key in the lock and she closed her book and got out of bed. Only one other person had a key to this place, and it wasn't someone she could ignore.

She came into the main room of her apartment just as Jack knocked on the counter. She wore jeans and a white shirt, both in a child's size and style, and her baseball cap. She was barefoot. She came out but didn't venture much past the bedroom door, leaning against the wall with crossed arms and a blank expression. The invasion of privacy issue didn't even cross her mind; rich and powerful men always acted like they owned everything, and everyone else had to work around them.

"So... Did it go well?"

She knew what Jack was referring to. She shrugged and stepped forward. Mostly she was glad to be through with the appointment. The other issues raised... she was still thinking them through. But there was no need to mention those just yet.

She drew near, finished typing on her phone, and held it out for her employer.

It was sufficient. I am in as good health as can be expected. Would you like me to get you something?

Jack Fontaine

[Jack Fontaine]

Nobody Don't you know who I think I am? + CBE-177/"Anna"

Jack had to fight from keeping their lip from curling at her offer to get them something. It was not phrased too subserviently, but judging by what Jack knew of Anna the tone likely was intended as such. Jack didn't like the idea of having servants, they'd grown up with servants, and their father had been accustomed to instant obedience from them. As a result Jack did their best to avoid such suggestions in their own life. They would be unhappy to discover that they were mostly unsuccessful in displaying such an attitude. "Thank you, but no, I might employ you for various tasks, but it's not your job to get me a drink." They stood by the counter awkwardly; obviously Anna was not going to broach the subject of the surprise that had occurred during the examination. Unless to her it hadn't been as much of a surprise as the doctor's notes had contrive to indicate. As if to make their independence and capability clear, they nodded towards the sink. "Mind if I get a water?" When she showed no sign of having an issue with the request, not that she would, Jack crossed to the kitchen sink and, taking a glass from the cupboard, filled it. They turned back, and without hesitation asked, "So you were pregnant?" The rest of the unspoken question was left clearly hanging in the air.

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[CBE-177/"Anna"]

Jack refused her offer to get them something, apparently preferring to get it themselves. 177 tilted her head in acknowledgment. Offering a guest something was simply part of being a good host, but given Jack's proclivities towards the usual behavior of rich people, there was always another undertone to it. So it surprised her, a little, that he immediately asked if he could get himself something. Apparently not making her do it was important him. She inclined her head towards the sink, as if to say, “Go ahead”. Why, she wondered? She didn't think for a minute that it was about seeing her as an equal. Perhaps he was fooling himself by these small nods to egalitarianism. Perhaps he simply liked control. It didn't matter just now exact as something to watch, and observe, and remember for when it became important.

She reminded herself that Jack wished to be called “they” and mentally reprimanded herself for forgetting. She stood by the counter, watching Jack get their drink. They turned, and with an air like a person playing a trump spade they asked about her pregnancy.

She stood still, staring at him, face blank. The only outward sign of her surprise was a blink in her eyes. So he knew. The secret that she was wrestling with, still trying to understand the implications of. He knew. Had Havelock told him? But in the end it didn't matter. It was simply another case of a powerful person getting their way. She shouldn't have expected any less.

She reached for her phone, mentally calculating what she would tell him. He wouldn't be satisfied unless she gave some details, surely, but she had no desire to tell him absolutely everything. How much to satisfy him, to make him decide that something else was more interesting?

She began to type. She didn't have a precise end in mind, only a vague idea of what to say, and somehow it got away from her. She found herself typing faster and faster, words that had been locked inside her pouring out in a relief of finally being spoken. She typed, and she lost all sense of caution or controlling the story. She typed because she had to tell, had to speak her story in the only way she could.

I was pregnant, yes. I thought that I had terminated it successfully, but they tell me from their scans I must have given birth. I do not remember that, but there are many things I do not remember. I was not the only woman at that place. There were many of us, both men and women, and they brought in more. I believe I lived longer than anyone else. When we came, the first thing they did was take our clothes. We did not get them back. In my cell I could hear what they were doing to the other women at night. I could hear them begging for mercy. I knew my time would come eventually. There were special chains for holding me and they put me there and took their turns. I thought, when I realized new life was inside me, that I would not give a child to that place, for them to do their evil work on. I beat my own belly that it would not be born. That is the last I remember.

Jack Fontaine

[Jack Fontaine]

Nobody Don't you know who I think I am? + CBE-177/"Anna"

It took altogether too long for Anna to respond, or at least begin to respond, she had to type things out before she could properly respond to anything. Then Jack revised their expectations, after all, the question they had asked could be considered personal, and normal people, which meant anyone but Jack, might have needed a moment to deal with the approach they had taken. Nonetheless, Jack took the response with a pinch of salt. Anna seemed to have been honest with them thus far, but Jack had very little in the way of ability to ascertain whether the information they had handed over was the truth or not. If they were indeed some sort of secret Soviet Soldier they could only imagine part of her training had included how to lie. At least, that's what they thought at first, and then before long the quiet tapping intensified, her fingers flying across the virtual keys at speeds that might have rivalled Jack's. It was like watching someone spilling their soul, albeit without saying an actual word. It was a very strange experience. They took the proffered mobile phone, inspecting the text that had been etched out onto the screen in simple black and white font. They hadn't quite expected what they read, and the surprise, shock and after a moment anger showed on their face. Jack might not be one predisposed to caring for others, but they did not have a heart of stone. They were mostly focused on themselves, and most of their actions would be in their own self-interest, or to be more accurate, their actions worked for whatever might be most interesting at that moment in time. Here, they felt a degree of responsibility. Anna was, to an extent, in their care. She might be employed as a bodyguard, but up until this point there had been little actual employment for her. Really what Anna had been was an expense. Still, she was an interesting diversion. "Well then, I suppose that gives us something to do." They paused here, uncharacteristically respectful. "We can find out what happened?"

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[CBE-177/"Anna"]

She watched the expression on Jack's face shift as Jack read the message she had typed. Having finished the message, she felt bare, like she had torn a scab from a wound. She wondered if it had been wise to let herself write as freely as she had. Still, there was no going back now. She kept her concern off her face.

Jack turned to her. There was something in Jack's expression she couldn't quite place. An emotion she hadn't seen before. Strange. She hadn't thought them capable of such feeling. She had viewed Jack as a cold calculator, concerned with their own goals and pleasure. On Jack's face now she saw something different- a kind of empathy.

Jack began to speak. For a moment, just for a moment, 177's face cracked and a look of immense sorrow crosses her features. But she was shaking her head even before Jack had finished speaking. No. Reaching out, she took her phone.

The child is dead. No child could survive in that place. They are dead an lying in a pit with the others. What was one death among so many? And even if not, they were not preserved as I was. Any child of mine would be aged, older than I am now. This is not a thing that should be, a mother who is younger than her child.

No. Any family I had was lost long ago.

Jack Fontaine

[Jack Fontaine]

Nobody Don't you know who I think I am? + CBE-177/"Anna"

Jack didn't miss the sorrow on Anna's face. It might have only been there for a fraction of a second, short enough for an observer to wonder if it had been there at all, but Jack had seen it. It had been more emotion than they had ever seen upon the woman's face, more emotion than they had thought her capable of expressing. It seemed the Soviet Superweapon did have a heart after all. It was wonderfully ironic that similar things were going through their heads, though Jack would absolutely have accepted the observation regarding their normal habits. They were surprised to have the phone taken from their hand without much warning, but did not say anything, waiting instead for Anna to type out another response. The response was not entirely a surprise considering the ferocity of the emotion that had been splashed across her face only a moment ago. "You can't know that. Anything could have happened to that child. They may have been preserved. They may have survived, they may have developed a power even more potent than your own abilities." Jack was not close with their family, except perhaps their sister. Their brother had been sadistic and cruel, their mother cold and uncaring, and their father manipulative and eternally disappointed. Jack's sister was hardly the ideal sibling, but they were a good deal closer to normal than the rest of them had been. At the end of it all, it had been somewhere to belong, however unwanted they had felt there. Anna couldn't understand that. "You owe it to them. They will have grown up without a mother, and certainly without a father, and now that you have a chance to give them a family you are too scared that you might get hurt." They put the cup carefully down on the surface. "I didn't take you for a coward."

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[CBE-177/"Anna"]

Jack's face showed no contempt as he spoke, but 177 thought she could hear it in his tone, his choice of words. Digging in, biting, clawing at her mind and emotions. Trying to make her pain simply another instrument of their will. Bah! He thought this was a game. A potentially amusing search for a lost child. Jack knew nothing. Whatever their words about mothers and fathers, Jack cared nothing for any child of hers. It was only another way of sticking his finger in places, poking at things for his own amusement. She stared at him, face, as always, steeled to perfect blankness. Only when they said the word “coward” did she react, cocking her head and giving him a sideways look. She was many things- and she could endure many things- but being called a coward galled her on a level far deeper than anything they had said to her before.

She was not a coward. She was anything but. And what pained her more than almost anything was hearing that fact doubted. She knew, on some level, that it was a manipulation. Jack had guessed what her reaction would be. Yet she found herself inexorably responding, unable to do anything else when that word came out. If she had needed him less, she thought, she might have made him regret choosing that word. She might have made him hurt until he apologized for it. But for the moment she endured, knowing she needed them, knowing that without Jack she was adrift in this world.

And... there was something else. They had described, in the space of a few words, a loneliness and a longing for family that had resonated with 177. She had lost the family she had once known, and the shape Jack's words created in her mind of a child left adrift in the world made something move in her heart. Yes... they had a point. A child should know its mother; it was right that it should be so. Suppose the child had lived. Suppose they lived now, or their children did. Suppose- she crushed the thought before it could go further. No. No. The child was dead. It was dead decades past, long lost and long forgotten. To think otherwise was fantasy, madness. And yet...

One day he would pay for every slight he'd dealt her. She would not forget, and she would make them regret. But today was not that day. Slowly, she moved forward, reaching for her phone where Jack had set it on the counter, and typing.

You have no right to compel me to this, nor any right to call me a coward. But for the sake of the child that might be, I consent. Do what you will.

Jack Fontaine

[Jack Fontaine]

Nobody Don't you know who I think I am? + CBE-177/"Anna"

Clearly they had hit a nerve as Anna reacted to the accusation of cowardice. It was a pity really that she was unable to talk, it made it that much harder to predict her reactions, to understand what exactly was going through her head. Without tone of voice it was that much more difficult to decide on a course of action regarding her. The words that she had typed were uncompromising however. She was pissed. They cocked an eyebrow, "It's nothing to do with rights. I have no real power to compel you to do this. I'm your employer, not your owner." Jack gestured around at the apartment, "This is part payment. I'm not going to take it away. I don't in all honesty care whether you live here or not. The money doesn't matter. Money has never mattered." They were unconsciously echoing their father in that phrase. It was something that he would often say. Money has never mattered Jack, remember that. It was easy to say that as someone for whom money was an afterthought, something they had vast reserves of. Still, to Jack, it was true, money didn't matter, it had ceased to hold any real value to them a long time ago. They played the stock market for entertainment, not profit. They shrugged and leaned back against the counter, "It's not an order. I'm not so unaware as to pretend that I'm nothing like my father. He was very good at giving orders, but I'm not one of those people that controlled you in Russia, you can say no to me. I wouldn't be happy about it, but what, really, am I going to do? If you wanted you could rip me limb from limb." They carefully watched the small woman, just in case she did try to dismember them. "But that doesn't change the fact that I think you should do this, and that I think not to would simply be selfish. I leave it with you."

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[CBE-177/"Anna"]

She stared at Jack for another long moment after they spoke, trying to fit his words into her idea of them. She had always taken Jack to be just another rich person- perhaps not without human emotions, but so totally wrapped up in themselves that those emotions hardly mattered. Under other circumstances she might have dismissed Jack's words now as mere gestures in the direction of human feeling, but something she had not seen before had crept into them. It had began as they had read her description of what had happened to her. Something across Jack's face- a look that said, no matter what else, they were being affected. And something in Jack's voice as well- the way they said that money didn't matter, the way they spoke of not being selfish. Strange words. Words she'd never have expected to come from him. What did the rich know of not being selfish? Surely this was a trick, an utterance of words he didn't believe.

Yet there was a power to those words. A stirring that they raised up, a longing in some part of her she had almost forgotten about. Duty- honor- those were words she had believed in once. Perhaps she still did, even if she now lacked any object to apply to those concepts. Her heart was wrapped around the striving to be a decent woman in a world that dealt indecency, and the way Jack had framed his words- the way he had pulled her with talk of selfishness- it tugged at her, softened her heart.

Her brow furrowed. She moved her mouth, but no sound came out. Suddenly she was gripped with an immense frustration at her inability to speak. How slow it was to type, and how difficult to find the words. To communicate simply by willing it- what a gift! She could write for long minutes and he would be able to answer quickly. Something inside her clenched, something already clenched inside her loosened. A piece fell into place. Her private assessment of Jack's worth rose ever so slightly.

She looked away, suddenly feeling tired, and rubbed at her eyes before picking up her phone again. Her typing was much slower now as she considered her words. Several times she paused and glanced at Jack before continuing. When she was done she handed the phone to him.

I owe you something. That much is clear to me. This world is not the one I remember, where force rules all. This is the world of subtle control. I am a blunt instrument; my usefulness here is limited, and I realize that now. I would not have been prepared on my own. You have let me be an expense, and I owe you gratitude at a minimum for that. As much as I dislike to hear it, you speak the truth. An attempt ought to be made to find the child. How one begins to find a child lost sixty years ago in a place one does not know how to find I do not know, but the attempt should be made. I know something of what it means to be abandoned by your own flesh and blood. I do not think the child should simply be forgotten.

Jack Fontaine

[Jack Fontaine]

Nobody Don't you know who I think I am? + CBE-177/"Anna"

Jack was patient as 177 tapped slowly at the glass screen of the device. There was no need to rush her, and besides, she kept glancing at them ever so often, pausing in their typing to do it. It had been a lot to take in, and Jack had not exactly been sensitive in the way they had convinced 177 to listen to them. When the tired looking woman eventually handed them the phone they took it carefully, glancing at her face before turning their gaze down to the small screen. Clearly she felt that she owed Jack something, which was true, Jack had put them up in an apartment, provided them with food, drink, medical care and anything else they might need. Jack enjoyed having that power over her, and hated themselves for enjoying it. "I'll be honest, I don't have a lot of experience in looking for missing children in Soviet Russia, but I do have a lot of experience in finding people who don't want to be found. I'm pretty sure it's a transferrable skill set." They placed the phone carefully back on the table. "Now I know this is a sensitive subject. And I can stop if you want. But just how much can you remember?"

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[CBE-177/"Anna"]

The night had been young the day everything changed for her. So much of her life was fuzzy, but this day was fixed in her head by tiny details. She'd been wearing a red dress, and no shoes. He'd been out that day, and she was waiting on Him.

She remembered with disgust how she'd felt waiting for Him to return. The giddy beating of her heart, the deep excitement of anticipation. The way His eyes had moved her, made her knees like water when she saw Him. The gray of His beard. Strange that she never remembered the upper half of His face. Only the beard. She had been His trophy, the grinning moron that clung to His arm when He wanted a pretty face to accompany Him. The shape of womanhood with none of the incessant prattle.

She had been hungry. She remembered this because when He had come back she had lunged for the blood He brought with Him, only for a restraining hand to be laid on her arm. "Not tonight, little flower," He had whispered to her. "I think I like you when feel the ache for your feed. There is an... invigorating ferocity to you, then."

And like a fool she had listened. Like a fool she had stared up at Him with shining eyes and acquiesced to His request. Lovesick. Infatuated. A stupid girl.

That night was a blur in her memory, though it must have been like all the others. She loved Him, and she wanted to be loved by Him, and in her heart even then was the fear that he would slip from her, throw her away. So she did her work, and made Him groan with pleasure, basking in the glory of the hand reached out to cup her chin, longing for the words that would say she meant as much to Him as He did for her. Idiot. Whore that she had been.

Afterward they had shared a glass of wine, and something had begun to buzz inside her head. She had been drunk before, but not like this. She had no power to fight it off. It had been too long since she'd fed. And He had stood up, and taken one last look at her, and left.

Oh yes. Some things she did remember. She stood still as the shadow of the past moved over her, darkening her face, passing through her in anger at them and the foolish girl she had been.

And what about Jack, she wondered. Perhaps she was not quite to Jack's taste in the bedroom, but perhaps he saw her in the same way. A tool. A thing. Something to be used and discarded.

Maybe. And perhaps this request was merely to satisfy his selfish curiosity. But even if so he had spoken truly. A child out there. Even if there was only a chance-

Something in her geart began to stir, and she crushed it. She had known the world too well to hope for mercy.

She picked up the phone.

They took me from the center of Moscow. I was chained, blindfolded, filled with horse tranquilizers, and stuffed in the boot of a car. I do not know how long we drove- hours, I think, but not so long you could not make the trip from Moscow and back in a day. Of where that place was I know little. I was outside only once, where they showed me the execution of the man who became my child's father by force. It was the only mercy they ever showed me. Outside I saw trees, and in the distance, mountains. To the north, I think, though I am not sure. It was winter, and I was naked. I did not watch as well as I could.

Jack Fontaine

[Jack Fontaine]

Nobody Don't you know who I think I am? + CBE-177/"Anna"

CBE-177 had lived a life that Jack couldn't even imagine. Soviet Russia was so far removed from modern day America that it defied comprehension, and she had undoubtedly experienced one of the worst aspects of it. Experimentation without ethics certainly had its benefits, although clearly it had reaped no reward in the case of the program that had produced her. Jack had no doubt that she had been a natural metahuman. After all, it had taken the Doctor centuries to crack that mystery and she had power and intellect beyond most mortal comprehension. No secret Soviet lab could have discovered it, no matter their funding or their lack of morals. They read what she had typed out into the phone, pausing once or twice to make notes on their own phone. Jack might have a formidable mind and a prodigious memory, but they were still fundamentally human, it would be better to make the notes now and avoid asking Anna to repeat anything. They'd already done a little research on her background, and the detail of distance narrowed things down considerably. There were a number of Soviet laboratories that distance from Moscow, as well as a few much closer, if CBE had been as severely drugged as it seemed then it could have been any of those. Still, it narrowed it down a little, She had been held at a laboratory somewhere in or near Moscow. The Soviet Union had been a big place, it was a relief to only have to search a small fraction of the now defunct world power. The local terrain helped even more, surely there couldn't be that many secret labs near the mountains in Russia? "Well I can certainly start to track down the Laboratory locations for you, maybe from there we can narrow it down." They showed no sympathy for the death of the man who had raped her, not that they thought Anna might have expected sympathy. Nor did they show any particular sympathy from the knowledge that she had been outside, naked, in the Russian winter. The Soviet experiment did not seem to be the kind to appreciate sympathy anyway. "Was he executed because he became your child's father?" If they could find a record of soldiers executed for rape and where they had been stationed or executed, that two might help to narrow it down.

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[CBE-177/"Anna"]

She nodded at Jack's words about finding the laboratory, then looked away. He seemed determined to do this thing, and she doubted anything less than an expression of fury would dissuade him. She was not without reservations. Some things in the past ought to stay buried. But if there was a child...

It was too much to think of. Useless to speculate on, for such slim chances. Jack would do as they chose, and would fail, and nothing would change.

She typed.

Will you ve doing this search from here, or must you go to Russia? I feel certain I would recognize this place if I was inside again.

Jack asked about the soldier she had seen executed. A bitter smile crept over her face as she typed her reply.

For defiling an experiment with his seed. It was not out of concern for me that they made an example of him. Any woman sent to that place could expect to suffer the same. But I was a special project, not to be interfered with.

Jack Fontaine

[Jack Fontaine]

Nobody Don't you know who I think I am? + CBE-177/"Anna"

Jack pulled a face; they weren't much for travelling, certainly not to somewhere like Russia. The place had a poor reputation for both weather and civil rights. Jack knew enough about their system of government to have their concerns. Still, they had already done some research into 177's history, and had turned up little. There were still places that could be searched from where they were, but inevitably they would have to head out to the actual site of Laboratory 1. Potentially Moscow as well, depending on where they might find records. Jack would have to brush up on their Russian. "I have no doubt we will end up there at some point in the near future. I have no real wish to visit Russia, but needs must." They had handed back the phone, and watched, head cocked, as 177 smiled bitterly. They hadn't quite expected that response, but it made more sense once they read the response she had typed out. That she referred to herself as an experiment so readily was surprising, although it was harder to judge, it was difficult to ascertain tone through text. Business-like, they moved on. "Well at least that should help us narrow down the location. I might be able to track down the records of soldiers executed for such crimes in the rough window of time that the laboratory was operating. After that it's just a process of elimination." They looked back up at the older woman, "Well Anna, it looks like you're going home."

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