Chapter 17: Guilt Trip

Dessi

 

Pamela called me to her office…

I was afraid of what she might say to me. I wasn’t sure why, but I had a bad feeling about her request for me to meet with her tonight. It was so late, something out of her norm. But there was no point in me worrying about it. I’d only stress myself out. Besides, we had done good, especially as of late, that last mission an absolute success.

It might be a gut feeling, but I had a hunch that whatever she wanted to talk to me about had something to do with Liam, AKA, their promise to my contract. I had requested that I be part of Liam’s team, in a miraculous event that he was one of the subjects captured after the bio nukes. Luckily for me, I got to reunite with him again after three long years… the longest three years of my life.

He didn’t get to enjoy our memories, though. I was still a novice back then, but I was able to wipe out images of me from his mind. At the time, thoughts of regret hadn’t bothered me, because something told me that night he had blown up the facility would be the last I would see him. So I selfishly took myself out of his life, that way I wouldn’t be a cause of pain when he remembered the lab, even though Liam had called me his only source of happiness back then.

But now, deep inside, I started to regret my brash choice. Now that he was with me again, all I ever wanted was for him to remember me, and all the time we’d shared together…

I was his tutor, a title I cherished even after I had survived the explosion. It was a role I had fought for day in and day out, until I caught his head scientist in a good mood and convinced her to preserve his mind from deteriorating. She had listened, and for years, Liam did too. He was attentive to my lectures and lessons, his assignments done while he was bound to the bed in a sedated state after I healed his reconditioning wounds. I remembered being recorded, high surveillance keen on watching our interactions, on the off chance we’d plot against the very people who’d imprisoned us. We couldn’t reveal much else to each other besides the subjects I had been teaching him: math, science, literature. So, we found a way to speak in code, the bulkier textbooks with more print easier for me to point out words and give him clues. I hadn’t been out of line when I spelled out I love you, and I could tell in Liam’s eyes that he loved me too…

Truthfully, I couldn’t remember wanting to be with anyone so badly before Liam. Even in the face of adversity, Liam was the kindest soul. He reminded me so much about myself, and who I wanted to be. Strong, caring, brave. It broke my heart every time they wheeled him away for experiments, and every waking day I’d bury myself in guilt for not standing against our oppressors to help us escape.

It was a gamble I couldn’t risk losing. Back then, my mind control powers were still foreign to me, as were my other powers. And every time I’d try to sharpen them, I’d get a helpful reminder of electrical currents running through my body. For Sigma-RE, I hadn’t been allowed to progress strength-wise. I’d become too much of a threat; they hadn’t predicted I’d be so capable. I’d be a force to be reckoned with, and when they threatened to separate me from Liam permanently if I fell out of line, well, that sucked the last temptation I had for sure.

So I took what I could get, and my time with him felt like something home would feel like. I had always told myself if I could do one good thing in my life, then I’d be happy with living on this way. For however long it would last. Maybe that was my purpose, to bring him happiness in such a trying world. I believed it was the only thing I could do to repay him, after those monsters infused his DNA into mine, making me the first successful man made supe…

“Ah, Dessi, thank you for coming,” Pamela said, scaring me from behind as I just reached her office door.

She stepped in front of me, pulled out her card key, opened the door, and gestured me in.

I nodded sheepishly, taking her invite with a little hesitation. I couldn’t read her mood, Pamela rarely the type to break out of her stern and flat tone.

“My apologies for requesting you at such late notice,” she started. “I hope I wasn’t pulling you away from something important.”

“N-no, not at all!” I said, standing behind her guest chair while she took her seat along the corner of her desk.

“It’s been a while since we last had the pleasure to meet alone, face to face.”

“Um, yes, it has,” I said, trying to smile sweetly.

“How are you enjoying yourself so far? With Liam?” she asked me in a friendly tone, as if she were genuinely interested. But… I couldn’t tell if she was curious because she was prying into team affairs, or because she wanted to see if I had caved in and told him already…

“We are doing fine, actually.”

“That’s good to hear.” She smiled. “It’s good to see even without him realizing who you are, that you two are still getting along well.”

“Why wouldn’t we?” I asked. “Liam is a great guy. He’s friendly to everyone he meets. Aster and Rynn will tell you the same. He looks after his team.”

“A persona I see hasn’t changed according to how you’d described him in the file,” she followed. “Quite remarkable, really. A man being tormented and tortured for nearly two decades, to have such faith in humanity still. Makes you really think how differently things would have turned out if Sigma-RE hadn’t been so selfish.”

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“I deeply regret the time he’d spent there.”

“That’s something we can both agree with. But maybe we can come to an understanding and agree with a similar matter.”

“Huh?”

“The fight with the titan,” she started. “I want you to erase his memory and make him forget about it.”

I gasped. “What? Why?”

“Well, he came to me after the debrief and I could immediately tell something was wrong. He was distraught, Liam’s encounter with the giant bringing those suppressed memories of Sigma right back on the surface. He had told me seeing Berret encased in the crystal core made him hesitate in battle, and I had to do everything I could to calm Liam down. In fact, he was close to detonating right here in my office.”

I winced, my breath trembling.

“I didn’t think it would bother him so deeply either, but, you have to remember Dessi, it has only been three years since he’d freed himself from that hell. You don’t want Liam feeling so vulnerable, do you? Isn’t that why you had erased his memory of you? So that he didn’t associate you with Sigma-RE? You didn’t want to be the cause of his depression, and I can understand that.” She walked up to me, taking me by the shoulder and looking down at me tenderly. “We only want what’s best for the ones we care about, Dessi. This is no different.”

“But what if Rynn and Aster talk about it?”

“Then I expect you to steer them away from the topic.”

“And… if I can’t? Liam is going to start to wonder if I erased his memory. They all would.”

“Mind manipulation is a general term of your capabilities, Dessi. This specific task isn’t listed in your SESB.”

“But—”

“You’re thinking too much into it. If you care for him like I know you do, you will prevent that fight from being his next trigger, and keep him happy. It’s what you do best, right? Keeping Liam happy?”

“Madam Zuchek—”

“For not only himself, but for everyone else on your team. That’s a fair request, isn’t it?”

I bowed my head down timidly.

“I expect you to not confront Liam about the matter, either. Your only mission is to clear his mind of that fight. I know I can trust you to do it, Dessi.”

Could I do it? I already felt terrible the first time I had done it, and vowed to never breach into his mind again! On the night Liam blew up the facility… I hadn’t thought that it would have actually worked. I also hadn’t planned on gaining his powers and abilities when I pretended to stumble on him, just so I could get contact. It seemed like it was all I needed for both mind wipe and mimicry, my fingers barely touching his knee where he rested on the lab stretcher. I hadn’t been allowed to touch him before, but our substitute observers thought it was just an accident, and didn’t think much of it.

Little had I known, gaining his powers, even for a few minutes, was what had saved me from his detonation.

Fate worked in mysterious ways. I had survived capture and experimentation because of Liam. I had also survived that night because of Liam. Even though I couldn’t find him after the blast, destiny had us meeting again. Many kidnapped subjects hadn’t survived the trials of infusing Liam’s DNA into their coding, but I was the first and only one who had. I had a purpose here, and I took my loyalty to the man I loved seriously.

Pamela was right. I’d hate for Liam to relive the sadness he’d felt for all of those years. Even today, I could tell, he was still broken inside, post trauma lingering on his skin, weighing down on his shoulders. He’d never bring it up, but I could tell. And I’d be damned if I couldn’t help him through this!

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