IX
Once they were deep inside the bunker, Kean began
preparations for a fight. She knew it was only a matter of time before
the deconstructionists discovered they were gone. And, if this Archivist
was anything like previous Archivists, they would be hunting her more
than Lorcan and Niamh.
“What are you?” asked Lorcan. He had been
quiet until now, obedient and thoughtful, but silent. He no longer held
Niamh’s hand and was standing in the archway looking as though he were
prepared to run.
“What do you think I am?” she countered, stopping to look at Lorcan. Her silver eyes bespoke centuries of existence and pain.
“I
know you are not human. I know that you are, at least part, gynoid. You
are not other as Niamh is other, but you are just as alien, foreign.”
Pulling
herself up to face Lorcan, Kean allowed another glimpse of what lay
behind the mask. It did not surprise her when Lorcan took a step back.
“I
am ancient. I was called an ‘elemental’ once. I was also called a
witch. At the time I was created the Archivists were at war with a group
called the Septemberists. The Septemberists were not quite human and
not quite other, but they had power. The Archivists wanted this power
for themselves and began kidnapping Septemberists for experiments.
“One
of these victims was a young woman with oddly silver eyes. She did not
fight back, simply allowing the deconstructionists to take her hostage.
She believed she could kill the Archivist and escape. As powerful as she
was, she was wrong. Torture and mutilation break you.
“They
cracked open her skull and inserted the probes. They stripped skin off
one of her arms and replaced bone with mechanized rods. True to their
names, she was deconstructed to her base components before being
rebuilt. They tried to bind her in the form of a gynoid.
“They
discovered, after they rebuilt her, that they could play God with her.
They had created her, they would enslave her. They used her, never
knowing what her powers were. The Septemberists were destroyed and the
Archivists had the last of them as a pet. They may not know what powers
they had, but neither would anyone else.
“However, they had left
no reason for the girl to live. Her entire world had been destroyed and
all she knew was revenge. They had stripped away her identity, had
transformed her into this being, this monster. So she sang the wires to
life and she woke the fires beneath the earth. The wires moved, like
snakes, into the houses of the Archivists. They electrocuted and
strangled everything in their path and the fires burned everything.
“The
deconstructionists used the scanner hooks to capture her and they
brought her to the Caverns. They tortured her with water and
electricity. They peeled the flesh from her body so that she was more
than naked. They burned her with cigarettes and heated glass. And they
reset her.
“She knew only that her name was Kean, a name they
gave her, and that she was more, but she was less. She served for two
centuries, yearning for a part of her she could not remember.
“At
the end of the second century, the Archivists grew lazy and began an
experiment. Believing that I had no emotions, and no awareness, they
released me into the human world to see if they could make me human
again. What they had forgotten was I was never human to begin with. I
rediscovered myself in the Caverns, the tapes and records of my
existence kept in the open. They believed me docile, what need was there
of lock and key?
“Again I awakened the wires and the fire. I
called the winds and the oceans as well. This time they were completely
unaware and I ravaged their numbers. When they began to fight back, I
disappeared, leaving only my name behind. The new Archivist is led down
to the Caverns each summer to learn why I should never be forgotten.”
Lorcan
was silent for a long moment, just looking at her. She did not move,
only watched for him to come to his conclusions. He glanced at Niamh,
who looked chilled, before looking back at Kean.
“Can you raise the wires as you did before?” he asked.
“I can.”
“Can you raise deactivated androids and gynoids?”
“I can.”
“When do we attack?”
Kean smiled, feral and wicked.
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