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We... we did it.
They had made a man who believed only in the profit and worshipped the idol of self-worth and cared not for those things which turned him a fortune—among other things—into what he had once laughed at and considered less than human. Not worth his tears or his pity.
Gil watched in wonderment at the hulking creature, groaning, certifiably faceless—still slightly fogged up by the drugs put in him by the gallon just to keep him from killing his surgeons.
But there it was, and Gil could see it, the once-a-man kneeling down on one knee to his ward—Marina. He was truly her knight—as he had once promised her.
Gil frowned. Remembering that he had just recently gotten the unfortunate news that the girl’s parents had been killed. Murdered. But why? Gil was left to wonder the circumstances that would lead to this outcome...
But it didn’t matter now—the orphaned girl was part of the program now, conditioned with a new father in mind.
It was only a pity that they had to lose a good, honestly repentant man in the process.
The little girl hopped up into her father’s fabric and metal clad arms, blinking up to him and smiling wide.
His helmet glowed a fluctuant green and yellow, he stared long at Marina and moved a hand slowly to ruffle her black hair with a sound resembling contentment. A rumble which shook the windows and floor before Gil.
The porthole of his helmet settled on a light and verdant green. Marina clutched one of her father’s hands—one of his fingers, specifically—and said something that Gil couldn’t translate.
Silly girl, Gil tilted his head inquistively and even a little intrigued, she’s—
What is she?
She’s... just like any other child, Gil concluded.
Full of laughter, and energy, and was a simply endless fountain of questions about the sky and whether or not starfish are actual stars.
It was, much to Gil’s chagrin, endearing.
At present, Gil almost could see the pride in Epsilon’s body expression, the conditioned love that the person he was before wouldn’t be able to figure out or cope with. His chest was puffed out, and his strong arms had ahold of his daughter—almost physically unable to let go.
Gil felt a little bad, but it was only work—and the subject had, in fact, volunteered. And even got a beautiful daughter in the bargain.
He remembered how hard that the man had fought, hearing the girl call out for him from the other end of the facility while the subject attacked the walls in a fit of very real panic and fear.
Wondering where his baby girl was. Begging them to leave her be. Let her go. Let my little girl go!
Between Gil and his colleagues—this was a successful test of how deep the bond already was without the actual, physical tether that prevented him from getting too far away. It was strong. Frighteningly strong.
To part from his Little One was to induce pure terror. To... emulate paternal instincts.
Upon hearing her cry—Sinclair cried too. Gil noted that as an unnatural thing to see on the man’s face. So unnatural that it disturbed Gil.
A few projected screams of a child and a man once violently inimical toward—repulsed by, even—the concept of surprise fatherhood would try to break a door down to get to his child.
Only now, as a Protector, he would be able to do so.
Breaking windows and doors and walls... just to coddle his would-be daughter. He would kill men and beasts alike to save her.
Success.
Infallible success.
Gil broke from thought briefly to see Epsilon put the front of his helmet against Marina’s forehead, an expression of utmost affection.
Marina reached a hand out and poked the middle of his porthole window of a face and stuck her tongue out at him.
Gil stifled a smile. Killing it before he could start regretting this any more than he already did.
Epsilon gripped her hand, Marina pretended to pout, then wrapped her arms around the base of his helmet. Hugging him as tightly as ever—if not more so.
Gil ran his fingers through his hair, feeling torturously guilty all of a sudden as he watched the two be god-forsaken happy family. A forced family.
He had to take a break from overseeing the aftermath, after witnessing what he could only describe as a man under a spell of pure and blissful brainwashed bullshit. Gil silently and secretly reprimanded himself for swearing.
But men, like matter, could never be erased—only repurposed, reshaped.
Sinclair was still there, just not as Sinclair. The matter remained, the mind did not.
Only the daughter could remember the man underneath the helmet.
The last one to see him before he had begun changing.
But they were bonded now, and she didn’t see him as any different.
Only as daddy.
Every time she said that word, it was another stabbing pain in Gil’s chest.
As iced-over as he tried to keep it, his heart was thawing out more and more, every time he saw Marina and her Protector. The ice used to protect him from that pain. Used to make him numb.
This bond—it was all so fake. But looked too real to be anything but.
Gil hoped that this second success would allow him to sleep easy again.
But he would remain bothered by problems he couldn’t solve. Preposterous!
He was a scientist—a man of reason and necessity. No issue was without answer.
He was certainly an admirable doctor, a graduate well-versed in the near-artistic prose of biological and genetic sciences.
But still, he had none of those answers he had hunted for—as much as he pored over his notes and thoughts. It was a fool’s errand, it only frustrated him.
The last thing Gil noted that night was Epsilon cradling Marina as she began to doze off—the bonding process must have been quite draining—then he backed out of the observation theatre.
“Right, well, this was an unprecedented success.” He said offhandedly.
But at what cost?