The Sapphire Shadow

Chapter Twenty: The Vault

Darkness. Soft white light glowing ahead. Maybe a tinge of blue.

Nadia took slow, silent steps. She knew what the light was before she laid eyes on a single one of them. Like gems. Small, bright memory drives. Hundreds of them, thousands perhaps, lined up in racks filling every wall, stretching on down a cavernous hallway.

The vault. A little joke then.

Dread filled her chest. This place was a tomb, not a vault. Every one of these drives holding a person's mind trapped inside. Nadia had taken pains to ignore her mother's plans, had fled the Structure for a new life so as to not be involved. She had run away.

And it had led her here. A giant leap in medical science, fueled by murder. A fitting tribute to her mother's vision. All that was missing was a few exotic potted ferns.

Nadia wasn't alone. She crept closer, the blue glow of her eyes blending into the light all around her. Chin up. Back straight. Show no weakness.

Tess. Her darling Tess, ratty hoodie and all, dressed up in that damnably ugly army coat. Tess stood at one of the shelves, next to a small cart with an open case on top. Her prosthetic hand drifted over the rows of drives, fingers tapping at thin air. One of the drives caught her interest. She plucked it from the wall and gently set it into her case.

"And you scoffed at me for stealing jewels?" Nadia said.

Tess yelped, sending a small pile of glowing drives skittering off her cart onto the floor. It took her a few blinking moments to collect herself, making a point of barely looking at Nadia as she kept scanning through the drives.

"What are you doing here?" Tess said.

"I could ask you the same thing," Nadia said. "Cheshire."

Tess paused, only for a moment, a small malicious smile teasing at the corners of her lips.

"Have you always been him?" Nadia said. "Or did you merely commandeer the name?"

"Oh, I created Cheshire," Tess said, plucking another drive from the wall. "He's been a very useful identity."

"Useful for lying to everyone."

"You're partially to blame, you know. You're the one who inspired me to get my hands dirty. It was just psy-ops and hacking until you came along."

"How gracious of you. I suppose you think..."

She tripped on her words as Tess selected another mind for pilfering.

"Stop doing that!" Nadia screamed. "Look at me!"

Tess paused, halfway to stashing the drive away. Finally, painfully, she turned to face Nadia, those beautiful purple eyes clear of any display for once.

"Those are people!" Nadia said, pointing to the drive. She held her hands up at the walls all around them. "These are all people!"

"Well, multiple copies actually," Tess said, without a trace of horror. "Scanned before and after death, during various procedures...you know, a good spread per subject. Gotta hand it to your mom—she's very thorough."

Nadia fought back a number of vulgar words. "You can't steal these. This is wrong."

Tess raised a finger, looking like she was having a hard time hearing. "Hold on a sec. Since when do you care about what's right or wrong?"

That one stung. She winced through it. "This is an atrocity. These should all be destroyed," Nadia said, hardly believing the rage in her voice. "These people were killed."

"And you're saying their deaths should be for nothing?" Tess said, seeming to relish the confused blinking in Nadia's goggles. "You have no clue what this research is worth. It's priceless."