Prompted Story Snippets

Death and Discoveries (continuation of SaSoD)

So that was what he'd discovered.

She really shouldn't have been so surprised, but who could blame her. She was practically raised by the organization. That whole nature vs nurture argument.

For her, it was definitely the nurture.

God, the further she dug, the worse it seemed. And there were still so many records she couldn't get to. Quite honestly, she wasn't sure if she wanted to see them anymore.

Too late for second thoughts, she mused. Her eyes skimmed over the labels on the files, not entirely sure what was she was looking for.

(Hold up. Was that her civilian name?)

This wasn't even in the right record room. She was digging through the room dedicated to threats, like powerful criminals or known adversaries of the organization. And she knew that her file was usually situated in the one used for storing operative's information.

Something wasn't adding up. Either she had two files or it'd been recently moved. 

It'd only been a few days since his defeat. Since she started doubting. Since she started really paying attention.

She'd noticed how people hold their tongues around her. They don't speak of any of their missions or even how their families are doing.
Were they told not to tell her or were they just afraid?

She'd also noticed how everyone walked around on eggshells whenever she was nearby. Even if she was in a room, the people in the hallway would be abnormally quiet. 

The only way she could describe it would be like she was a blindfolded cat sitting in a room of mice. Like one tiny movement would lead to all of their deaths.

As soon as she'd noticed, she'd also realized just how much she hated it. Growing up like she did, there wasn't a lot of other ways that she'd gotten human contact. Beyond her trainers, of course. They didn't want her to become too socially stunted, after all.

(Focus back on the situation.)

Right. The file.

She reached in, searching out with her senses to find a few triggers to a handful of alarms. Would've been dangerous for anyone but her. She had the cameras looping and the triggers were disabled in half a second flat.

She pulled out the file, squinting at how light it was. It looked pretty thick. Why wouldn't it-

A flash drive? What kind of odd encryption was this?

She shook her head. Sometimes the organization was overly paranoid, and then there's times like now when their paranoia paid off.

If they noticed that the drive was missing, she'd be doomed. All of her other digging would inevitably be discovered. They'd know about the warning that he'd given her, if they didn't already.

Making up her mind, she pocketed the flash drive and slipped the file back into the cabinet, reactivating the alarm triggers. She cast a forlorn look over the rest of the room. 

If everything else in here was held to the same standard of security, it'd be a miracle if she was able to read more than 3 or 4 before they caught on.

She slunk out of the room, watching the security camera in the far corner flicker back to normal. Everything was still in the same place it'd been when she'd started looping them. Good.

She opened one of the many balcony doors and fled the building, unaware of the council meeting taking place in her absence.

Had she known, she might've stayed behind. But that is not a reality any of us can see.

The problems keep piling up, don't they.

Is she more trouble than she's worth? We have many others that could feasibly take her place. It wouldn't be hard to make some kind of accident happen while she's patrolling.

Even so, she has the support of the public on her side. We need something to shake their faith in her first before we can go ahead with anything else.

Agreed.

So how should we do it?

If you aren't adverse to listening, I've got one.

By all means. Go ahead.

The flash drive was a lot bigger than she had anticipated. The documents were buried in folder after folder of convoluted organization, like nothing she'd ever seen. The actual encryption itself wasn't nearly as hard to crack.

Huffing, she flicked a finger over the touchscreen and selected a line of code at random. She moved over to the corresponding document, waiting for it to load.

Wait, what the hell.

This was a log of her life. Early life; when she was maybe two or three years old. A handful of pages of various schedules for different days, full of tables and more medical jargon than they'd ever bothered to teach her.

There were a couple that she did recognize. They were taking about brain scans and one of them mentioned dissection. Why would they be trying to dissect her? She already understood her powers.

They couldn't have kept that much from her, right?

No, they had. She scrawled furiously through a jumble of files, using keywords and older codes to find a section on her spectral abilities. Nothing.

That really couldn't be right. They'd need to record their findings somewhere-

There.

And they had. Charts and numbers flooded the screen, showing her power growth throughout all of the years that they'd trained her. Which was apparently a lot more than she'd realized.

How was she expressing signs of her energy signatures as an infant and then having none in her toddler years? Something really wasn't adding up.

Her toddler years were the ones that she'd found the schedule for, right? Would that have anything to do with it?

Splitting the screen, she pulled up the document she'd found just a few minutes ago. The small energy spikes in her toddler years lined up with dates just before her brain scans. Why wouldn't they have told her?

Shouldn't she know everything that she can so that she could be the best heroine possible?

Maybe he was right.

Maybe they really hadn't had the best in mind when they look her in as an infant.

Gritting her teeth, she decided to copy every file on the flash drive to her computer. While she was at it, she permanently disconnected it from any wifi signals. If they found out what she was doing, she'd really be dead.

Maybe she already was.

Click.

Boom.