Sanctify

Jenna had never been to the LA Union Station but had always wondered about it from photos online. She had always found it such an anomaly that no one suspected it to be a cover for something more than just where trains docked, in and out, all day long, and where thousands of people pass throughout the day. Where thousands travel, it’s easiest to hide the obvious, like a tank or a whole organization. But she knew that the nice spider-looking complex only hid half of what Remedium, their organization, wanted to set aside. But what she knew best was, her first physical memory came from standing in the waiting room, staring upwards. There, she blinked a few times and found herself staring up at the same artistry that haunted her first sight as Jenna Witte.

Hayden looked up and around. He frowned and asked, “You really want to do this?”

Jenna nodded and replied, “Let’s go find Michel.”

Hayden followed Jenna down through the doorways of the trains and into the dome that led to the different subway lines. He almost crashed into her when she stopped. For Jenna, it was difficult retracing her steps as she sought into her memory, like attempting to consciously navigate a dream. With a tight expression, Hayden stepped forward and led her through the people to the service elevator in the shadows. When they were safely inside and the doors closed, he let out a sigh of relief for not drawing too much attention to themselves.

Jenna seemed to slouch a bit as she leaned against the walls. “I thought I would remember more once here,” she murmured to herself. “I wish I could melt my two identities together.”

Hayden only bowed his head respectfully. He’d remembered reading about her case trial and wanted to ask her so many questions; what was it like being integrated, how does her body cope with it, and how long was her life span now that she had adjusted to the enhancements. Operatives rarely went over the 15% integration mark these days. The human body, whether it be an Origin or Shadow, was only able to withstand so much machine integration before losing human consciousness.

Jenna held no mechanical parts but a disc that allowed infinite knowledge and memory. Her Origin had a brain of a computer and an incredible reaction response. She tested well and was recruited, or abducted, for the Silence Campaign. Lady May had only been a trainee during that time, but found power and grew to her position of overseeing Shadows. Calling clones Shadows was due to the protection detail they were originally intended to fulfill, but the original process of replication sometimes killed the Origins, which only added complication to the plan.

The elevator doors opened and Hayden led the way through a series of corridors before they entered a cold room filled with metal and glass. Hayden felt the curious glances but ignored them, flashing his badge for the security guards. Even in their eyes, they recognized the well-known face of Jenna’s. True, no one knew what happened to her predecessor, but everyone knew about her Shadows. Seven total, from what the records had shown. The first two ran the mainframe of the organization, so as Jenna passed the floating seats in the midst of the computer screens and projectors, digital layouts and more, both caught glimpses of her but neither said anything or paid any attention to her.

Jenna frowned, “Mirrors?”

Hayden shook his head and whispered, “In the original Silence Campaign, the highest number of Shadows from one Origin was seven.”

Jenna saw anxious faces and retorted, “Keep walking.”

Hayden nodded and continued on his way towards the central offices. There, he turned a few times before stopping at a black door that looked to have rusted metal on it. Hayden noticed Jenna’s eyes widen with familiarity. He realized she would remember bits and pieces, being birthed behind the Black Door. But he remembered the firewall installed in her mental cap so that she would have the identity of the Washington born Jenna Witte.

With a deep breath, he stepped aside and whispered the word only ever uttered to refresh a Shadow. He recognized the dilated pupils and the few blinks before she walked straight at the door. He had to prepare himself before saying it, knowing the chill that followed. The word itself had such deep-rooted hate and pain, even the most human of hearts felt it in the air.

Through the doorway, down a tunnel and spiral steps, Jenna opened another door and, inside, Lady May inspected a human corpse with three metallic appendages. Without looking up, she asked, “How many cracks do you see?” to no one in particular.

Hayden leaned closer before answering, “16 or 17?”

Lady May frowned and added, “Second opinion?”

“42 including internal tears,” Jenna replied in a tone Hayden didn’t recognize. He even turned, just to make sure it was her. With her penetrating eyes and inquisitive nature, Jenna leaned over the corpse and sniffed it before adding, “Perhaps a few damaged organs.”

Lady May looked up and smiled to the unsmiling Jenna, “To what do I owe this honor?”

Jenna replied, “I can’t do my job without my Mark, now, can I?” she added.

Hayden’s jaw dropped a bit. He’d known Jenna’s two sides but the way they seemed to intermingle reminded him of the video footage of her Origin. It was almost like seeing the real person before him, which made him feel all the more strange.

Lady May never seemed to blink. Instead, she nodded and asked, “And what will you have me do about this? Why didn’t you communicate about your visit first?” Her anger seeped through those words.

Hayden took a visible step back but Jenna only glared on. “After you left, I realized that your people must know something about Rayner or Michel. Let us access the database and we’ll be on our way.”

Lady May frowned, “You’re choosing this path on your own? Come back to this side, where we need and can use your skills for better purposes. Michel will find his way back to TriVerse. For now, we need to focus on the cyber attacks we’re receiving. They are… phenomenally complex.” Lady May never liked exaggeration and yet, her words seemed to claim otherwise.

Hayden put in at that point, “Yes, I saw it. An extreme clutter of viruses, like a headache of a tornado,” he added with abysmal fascination.

Jenna shook her head, “We need to lay low and figure things out. I need to connect to the system, if possible,” she turned to Lady May, who pulled out a key from around her neck.

“There is a laboratory on the outskirts of town that no one will bother you in as long as you put up the barriers and stay undetected. I’ll send you the direct information but you have to leave before a breach is noticed,” Lady May hurried to the backdoor of the lab.

Hayden frowned, “We came in the front entrance. No one said anything –”

Lady May cut him off with, “That’s because the twins protected the space. Once TriVerse chooses to approach the higher echelons of Remedium, I cannot protect the both of you at once. So you must go now,” she added, motioning for them to go through the door.

Hayden stepped through first and found himself in front of a ladder that led to, most likely, a subway station. “So just go up?” he asked, already off the ground and up a few rungs.

Lady May nodded, “We’ll be in touch. You know the drill,” she added and shut the door after Jenna passed through.

Jenna paused a moment, as if she could see in to the chamber they had just exited. And then she looked up with haunted eyes and whispered, “Faster.”

In the lab, Lady May heard Jenna and Hayden hurrying up the ladder as fast as they could as more feet neared the Black Door. She sighed and crouched low. When she heard the first sizzle of someone entering her space, she jumped and caught hold of a handle bar above the lab. She used momentum to swing herself into the pod that closed as soon as she entered. From there, she watched men with the TriVerse emblem on their shoulders file in and search the area. No one looked up and no one found the door that led to the ladder.

With a hand on the glass that separated them, her pod rose into a shaft that brought her away from the space and investigating team of intruders below. She saw her reflection in the darkness on the other side of the glass and then all fell away as she entered the colder chambers filled with Shadows and computers. Her pod stopped and she stepped out. Greeting those who waited for her, she led them to her office, seeing the working Shadows not even flinch despite the attack from the morning.

Because all of the Shadows were genetic mutations and fractions of what their Origins were, that meant any and every cyber and virtual attack impacted them on another level. Humans saw and understood only the surface, but having your brain waves and heartbeat rely on that which others can control was a much different story. A mystery none knew how to attack just yet brought great pains to Remedium. No one had expected it to affect these machine-like creatures that kept life going as everyone knew it, but it had and now, whether she liked it or not, Lady May saw fear in the eyes of the humans who had commissioned for such experiments to take place.

“Such a cruel world,” she mumbled to herself, ignoring the blinking lights of multiple phone calls to her office. After finding out the complications of cloning from greatness, those very humans thought to put the clones to work, which worked, until now.

Whether she made the right decision sending Jenna to her would soon be revealed.

Jenna and Hayden stepped out of the shaft and walked down a hallway to find themselves at the Red Line platform at the LA Union Station. Jenna looked around and murmured, “Looks like we’re on our own.”

Hayden searched the crowds for wandering eyes but no one paid any attention to them. “Do you know where we’re going?” he asked quietly at her side.

Jenna nodded, “There’s a faint memory of an abandoned facility that I really want to go to. I can feel something calling me there,” she added. A distant light caught Hayden’s eye and he peeked over to see Jenna in deep thought. People moved around them quickly, searching for the best position to enter the oncoming train.

Hayden had to nudge her to the side as the subway train arrived and a man bustled forward. He knew better than to test her. She was on a mission and he, apparently, was what muscle she needed. They hadn’t brought Oren because he had insisted on remaining at the house, in case anything or anyone decided to return. Jenna had to go and, therefore, Hayden her guard. Boy, he wished Michel hadn’t disappeared.