Omega The Girl in the Box

10.


Sienna



“Her memory seems to be...selectively gone,” I told Old Man Winter and Ariadne, standing in his office before the massive stone desk. The smell of the plaster and dust that coated me was still there, now evident to my nose because of the thoughts my brain was fixed on, of what had happened in Iowa, of how we had failed. Of how I had failed. “You told me once before that when she heals someone too much, she loses memory...”

“Yes,” Old Man Winter said in his rumbling tone. He stirred against the black background of the windows behind him; the lights that lit the Directorate campus were dimmed at this time of night, and stars were visible on the horizon behind him, a thousand points of light over the trees in the distance. “So far as I know, her memories, once gone...remain gone forever. This has, of course, happened to her before, which is why she remembers her name as Katrina Forrest rather than Klementina Gavrikov a.”

“I get that,” I said, and ran a hand over my forehead, stirring a small cloud in front of my face. “But there must be something that we can do. He’s her boyfriend, and she doesn’t even remember who he is. We had her look at him and it was a blank stare, nothing, no recognition, as if they’d never met before in their lives. But she remembers me,” I shook my head, “hell, she even remembers Reed. It’s like her memory about him just...vanished.”

Old Man Winter templed his hands in front of his face. “For a Persephone-type, the first memories to go are those most crucial—the core memories, if you will. The best of times, the most intimate of companions, these are bundled together in some sort of way that makes them closest to the edge. What remains, even after a fully draining event, is ancillary things, the trivial and unimportant. The rest is just fragments.”

“There must be...” I sighed. “There has to be something we can do.”

“She’ll receive our full attention,” Ariadne said from her place next to Old Man Winter. “We’ll have Perugini and Sessions working every angle they can to try and restore her memory, but this is...not something we’ve ever dealt with before, nor is it something where there’s an overabundance of information waiting out there to steer us in the right direction. It’s doubtful we’ll be able to do anything for her, because as with everything else, our experimentation with meta abilities tends to leave us with more questions than answers, more knowledge of the results than what causes them.”

“She saved him, his life,” I said, quiet. “She must have known she was close to the edge of losing memories, because she’d already healed me, Reed, Clary—she knew, and I think she did it anyway, and she ended up passing out on him.” I felt my jaw tighten before I loosened it to speak. “She saved his life, and she can’t even remember his name because of it.”

“Perhaps we should discuss this another time,” Ariadne said gently, looking to Old Man Winter. “This has obviously been an emotional day—”

“I’m fine,” I said, cutting her off. “I’m the only one who is, but I’m fine.”

“Clary appears uninjured,” Ariadne said. “Perhaps you can explain what happened—”

“It all went to hell,” I said. “This meta, he greeted us at the door, blasted through the wall with his strength and sent Clary into a parked car—”

“Why were you at the front door?” Ariadne said, and for once the ice extended from her words, not Old Man Winter’s. “Your mission was reconnaissance first—”

I didn’t answer, and tried to look past them, out the dark window, but the lights inside the office reflected me, only me, me and them.

“Did you go to the door?” Old Man Winter asked, “Or were you following Clary while trying to dissuade him from knocking?”

I felt a moment of tension. “It’s my responsibility either way.”

Old Man Winter did not back off. “And how did it happen? Did Clary disobey your orders and leave the van or did you tell him to do so?”

I felt my innards twist. To admit that Clary had disobeyed me felt like admitting I was a weak leader, unready to be doing what I was doing. But the alternative was lying. “I’m responsible either way—”

“The truth,” Old Man Winter said, “if you please.”

“Clary left the van against orders,” I said. “He did not listen to my repeated requests to return to it, and knocked on the door before getting himself taken out of the fight by the Omega meta.” I straightened up, bringing myself to attention. “I apologize for the failure of my leadership—”

“You have no need to apologize for having a teammate who disregarded your orders,” Old Man Winter said, impassive. “But the Omega meta—I have seen the footage of him in holding. I am familiar with him, his name is Bjorn. He is deadly. You did not draw your weapon?”

I pulled the pistol from beneath my tattered coat. “It was damaged.”

Old Man Winter stared deeply into my eyes. “You have a backup weapon, yes?”

I hesitated. “Yes.”

“Did you attempt to use either of them, at any point, during the mission?” Old Man Winter’s icy gaze was on me now, a winter’s storm of a glare that was absent any malice, but intense in its power.

“No,” I admitted. “I...don’t know what happened. Perhaps I was trying too hard to subdue the meta so we could find out about this ‘Operation Stanchion’ he mentioned.”

“‘Operation Stanchion’?” Ariadne leaned over the desk. “He just...spilled that out?”

“Something about calling it off if he was able to capture me,” I said, hoping that maybe the information would cause Old Man Winter to take his gaze away from me. The thought was making me uncomfortable, the idea that I hadn’t used my weapon...perhaps if I had, things would have been different, the others might not have been hurt. I felt the sting inside and shoved it down, ignoring that heartsinking feeling.

Ariadne and Old Man Winter exchanged a look, a much more obvious gesture from him than most. “We will...discuss it...when we interrogate him tomorrow,” he said, breaking away from Ariadne to look back at me.

It took a moment for it to register with me. “I’m sorry...did you say ‘we’? You mean me and Parks, right?”

There was a moment’s pause as the air shifted in the office, and I would have sworn the air conditioning had switched on if I hadn’t known better. “Things have come to a point where I can no longer allow them to proceed as they have been,” Old Man Winter said, drawing himself up in the chair, but making very little expression. “I will be handling the interrogation of Bjorn myself.

“And you will assist me.”