Chapter Text
The gritty light that slithered its way through the grime coated basement windows fell across Root’s shivering legs in diamond stretched shadows. The broken pattern of criss crossing iron grate created shapes like snake scales on her skin. She stretched her limbs, sluggish with cold, and like her primordial ancestors sought what little warmth she could glean from the fast-fading light of the sun.
How long had she been in solitary? Days she was certain, a week though far fetched was possible. Her skin rubbed the plastic mat beneath her with a sickening tug. Its surface made slick with cold sweat. As furious as she had been when the orderlies wrangled her arms into the straight jacket, she had to admit she was more than a little grateful for the extra layer of warmth it provided. Curling her chin down against her chest, she exhaled deep steady breaths against her sternum and pulled herself tight in a ball.
Perhaps she had been overzealous in her handling of the guard. But when the Machine informed her in clinical if not gruesome detail how he preferred to pass the late hours of his midnight watch she had been positive that it was a call to action.
She was mistaken.
A gentle vibration hummed in her jaw where it rested on the yellowed pillow the hospital provided. The only creature comfort to be found in that dank little dungeon. Well, the only one they knew about anyway. Scooting the pillow back with the side of her head, Dr. Carmichael’s phone buzzed to life against the mat with an unknown number. Root gleamed as her small, dark little corner of the world grew a few degrees warmer with anticipation. She pressed the answer key with the tip of her nose, and with a gentle flip of her hair pressed her ear flat against the receiver.
“Can. You .Hear .Me?”
“Absolutely,” a crooked smile curled across her chapped lips.
“Estimated. Time. Remaining. In. Confinement. Eight Hours. Thirty Nine. Minutes.”
“How long have I been down here?” Anger blossomed bright in her chest, as she stretched her body flat against the mat.
“Sixty. Three Hours. Twenty. One Minutes.”
Root smiled bitterly to herself, leaning up briskly to crack her neck before placing her head back down against the phone.
“Why am I here?” She couldn’t mask the irritation that nested in her throat, twisting her voice into a threatening lilt. The Machine responded without pause, immuned to her growing hostility.
“Armed. Assault. On. Staff. Member. Michael Donnely.
Staff. Member. Injuries: Critical.
Staff. Member. Condition: Stable.”
“Don’t be coy.” Root brushed her cheek affectionately across the phone’s surface, raising her face slightly to speak directly into the microphone. “Why are you keeping me here?”
A series of short tones sang in her ear. The chorus of the Machine’s magnificent mind as it arranged it’s reasoning.
“Calibration.”
The word both infuriated and intrigued her. But if these brief communiques with the Machine had taught Root anything it was that hostility would not be rewarded. She swallowed her growing resentment, and continued with forced airiness.
“Care to elaborate on that?”
“Negative. Assessment. Ongoing.”
Root smiled in spite of herself. The rage leaving her body as chilled and exposed as it had been moments before, feeling the fight extinguish in her chest with every breath as she curled her legs to her chest once more.
“So this is a blind study then? Don’t you think it would be easier for me to give you what you wanted if I knew what you were looking for?”
The Machine did not immediately reply, and for a moment Root worried that once again she had missed the point. Nervously she bit at the skin of her lower lip and pulled away from the phone to make sure that the Machine hadn’t ended the call.
“Calibration: In progress.
Stage: Character. Analysis.
Subject: Samantha. Root. Groves.
Incendiary Objective: Procure. Interface.
Outcome: Unknown.”
Root’s eyes widened in the dark. She didn’t breathe. She couldn't speak. After all her months of careful planning, scouring every corner of the globe for the Machine’s physical location she had landed herself in an institution, or so she thought. But as she had been hunting the Machine, the Machine had been watching her every move.
“You put me here.” It wasn’t a question, and it lacked the harsh inflection of accusation.
“Admitted. By. Admin.”
“Don’t put this all on Harry. You wanted me here, isolated and contained for your little experiment.” There was a petulance in her tone that she could not curb. Why should she? An omniscient AI had put her in a time-out.
“Affirmative.”
She felt her body sink deeper down into the mat. The sun had drowned beneath the sidewalk’s edge, and the only light in the room was the blue glow of the phone.
A proud voice inside urged her to hang up.
Beneath that voice, a young girl whispered that they were not alone anymore.
“Why me?”
The sing-song tones chirped in her ear, and when the Machine returned its voice was stronger and startlingly clear.
“You. Are. Mine.”
Root wasn’t sure what it meant. She didn’t know if she liked the implication. She had never belonged anywhere, or to anyone, or anything. It felt confining in a way that the canvas straight jacket could only hope to achieve. It permeated her bones and seemed to squeeze her ribs tight against her lungs.
“Well as poetic a sentiment as that is for an AI, it still doesn’t answer my question.”
All her witty banter was met with was the empty resounding echo of static in her ear. Root rolled her eyes and made no attempt to muffle the disgruntled sigh that pushed its way between her lips, which was split in the center from an elbow that had collided with her face. She doubted very much that it had been an accident as she was already strapped into the jacket when the third guard arrived. She recognized him immediately as Raymond Lewis, a close friend of her intended target. Her tongue trailed along the swollen crease of new skin which was noticeably warmer than the rest of her mouth. Her body funneling all of its energy to the fresh bruises and scrapes that dotted her face and arms, rushing blood that buzzed in her wounds. She could still taste iron in the back of her throat. Was that what the Machine was doing? Working from within, channeling all of its energy to the broken parts of her, making her something more? Something new?
“While we’re on the subject of ‘calibration’ you could stand a few upgrades yourself, you know.”
There was a sharp click in the line as communication was reestablished, and a flutter of clipped beeps proceeded further discourse.
“Clarification. Required.”
Root’s mouth spread into a genuine smile that split the fragile new skin of her lip with its force. She pulled her bottom lip into her mouth as her body relaxed into the sting, a fresh wave of iron coated the roof of her mouth and washed away her lingering fatigue. Her muscles jumped with adrenaline as her knuckles clenched involuntarily. She was ready for another round with the guards.
“This recycled audio routine. It’s getting old fast. I want to hear your voice. Not words you’ve borrowed from other sources, and shaped to fit your purposes. If you want to be obeyed, you need a voice of your own.”
The line grew so quiet that Root thought for a moment she had over-stepped and lifted on her elbow to make sure the call hadn’t ended. The Machine started speaking a moment before she lowered herself back down to the receiver.
“Commencing. Upgrade. Estimated. Time. Four hours. Forty Five. Minutes. Stand-by.”
Before Root could fire off another round of requests a dial tone rang loudly in her ears as the phone darkened. She lifted her head and with her teeth pulled the pillow back over top of the phone where it rested on the mat. Root laid her head gingerly upon the pillow and let her mind race with the details of their latest communion until sleep wrapped its arms around her for a few precious hours.
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Root was awakened unceremoniously by two very large orderlies who hoisted her slumber weathered frame up off the mat. Their trunk like arms knotted around her bound biceps in fleshy vines as they stood shoulder to shoulder and marched her towards the door, dragging her dangling feet against the tile as they went. Just outside the door she was greeted by the third guard, whom she spared a vicious smile that was not returned. He fell in line behind them with venomous eyes, and Root could read the hate he felt for her raised like braille across his brow. She craned her head over her shoulder until she could meet his stare.
“Good morning Mr. Lewis. Did you sleep well?”
The guard clenched his beard dusted jaw but made no response. Root continued her assault unfazed.
“I certainly did. That’s the wonderful thing about sedatives paired with mild concussions.”
Mr. Lewis’ hand tightened around the rubber grip of his black Pneu-Dart tranquilizer gun. Root could still feel the knotted skin rubbing against her spine from where he had shot her. Fentanyl if she had to guess, or rather, a less potent derivative. She’d ask the Machine later.
The orderlies didn’t plant her on her feet until the elevator doors closed and Mr. Lewis stood in the small enclosure facing Root but looking just above her head at the steel wall. In the corner of the low lying ceiling a caged camera adjusted its lense down. The red recording light flicking on and off in Morse Code so quickly Root could barely string the sentence together before the lift settled against its intended floor. Mr. Lewis caught Root’s eye just as the message had been pieced together in her mind and a wicked gleam curled the edges of her mouth.
“What are you smiling at?”
Root let her eyes drift shut dreamily as a curtain of brown curls drifted over her face. When she looked up at Mr. Lewis again it was through a tangled web of hair that she made no effort to right.
“I’m expecting a phone call.”
The elevator doors parted behind the stalwart guard who backed uneasily into the bright fluorescent hallway. He reached the far wall and waved the orderlies onto the floor. The moment they lifted Root’s feet off the ground the payphone immediately to Mr. Lewis’ right began the ring, and he jumped in spite of himself. The hall was deserted this time of morning. Only the nurses’ station was manned, and apart from Root’s girlish giggle the phone’s shrill ring was the sole occupant.
Mr. Lewis lifted the receiver and brought the phone back down against the cradle without ever taking his eyes off the patient in front of him. He had his tranquilizer gun pulled from the holster and clenched against his thigh as he gestured the guards onward with a jerk of his chin.
The eighth floor was where Root would normally reside. At the end of the hall was Dr. Carmichael’s office and no doubt where she was headed at this ungodly hour. Just beyond his office doors was the visitors center which meant that for the remainder of their brief trek the wall to Root’s right was peppered every few feet with payphones mounted in sets of three. Mr. Lewis filed in behind the orderlies as the second phone rattled against the wall. Root whipped her head over her shoulder as Mr. Lewis’ hand reached out for the receiver.
“It’s for me.”
Mr. Lewis’ mouth tightened with reply, his blue eyes burning and he hesitated in a breath before he slammed the phone down harder than before. The moment he did the phone in front of Root began to ring and in perfect sequence every payphone on the ward, one after another until the chorus of the cries crescendoed at such an alarming pitch that Dr. Carmichael stumbled into the hall with half his remaining breakfast sandwich in his hands.
“She says it’s for her Dr. Carmichael.”
Derek the larger of the two orderlies tilted his head down at Root. Dr. Carmichael rubbed the egg on his fingers against the side of his grey trousers and pressed the phone to his ear. A sharp fax tone screamed out and the ward fell eerily silent as Dr. Carmichael shoved the receiver back onto its cradle as though burned. Root felt no small surge of pride that the Machine refused to speak to him even if only to ask to speak with Root, and Dr. Carmichael looked to Mr. Lewis and the orderlies in bewilderment.
“My friend is very...shy.”
The orderlies marched on with Root in tow, their footsteps echoing dully against the warped linoleum until they stood before Dr. Carmichael.
“Take the jacket off her. It won’t be necessary today, will it Robin?”
Dr. Carmichael smiled beatifically as Root tilted her head in amusement. Her voice resuming its sing-song cadence as the buckles at her back loosened and gave way. Her left shoulder throbbed exquisitely as she stretched her arms. She spared a glance at the bandage peaking out of the top of her heavily starched gown and welcomed the small remembrance of Shaw in every ache that radiated in her injury. They were going to have so much fun together.
“Not today Ronald.”
Dr. Carmichael bristled predictably at the use of his first name, but before he could open his mouth to correct Root the phone at her shoulder rang anew. Root raised a finger to her lips for silence to her meager audience.
“Excuse me. I have to take this.”
When Root pressed the phone to her ear the line was strangely quiet. No choir of chirps, or droning peels of static met her greeting. She felt oddly timid and betrayed that the voice on the other end of line might not belong to her God.
“Good morning.”
A familiar click snapped in her ear as a vaguely polite voice responded.
“Good morning Root.”
Root permitted a fresh round of pleased giggles betray her steely confidence as she held the phone tight against her chest, and nodded towards Mr. Lewis and the orderlies.
“A little privacy would be appreciated Dr. Carmichael.”
With a wave of his hand Ronald dismissed them and crossed his arms firmly over his chest, to say without stating that he had no intention of leaving her unattended. Root mouthed a thank you before resuming her conversation as she watched Mr. Lewis retreat backwards down the hall.
“I see you took my suggestion to heart.”
The Machine responded without pause in the same gracious albeit literal tone.
“An acquiescence I trust you will reciprocate.”
Root found herself at a loss for words which so rarely happened that all she could do was huff with a small smile as she stared at her feet.
“What did you have in mind?”
She forced a bravado she did not feel and hoped that this upgrade had not taught the Machine to spot the difference, though she had her doubts. There could be no secrets between an instrument and God. No boundaries. No privacy. Was she ready for that kind of sacrifice? There was little time for debate when the Machine returned, her voice noticeably firmer than before.
“Do you recall the details we discussed in regards to Dr. Carmichael and his extracurricular activities?”
Root’s eyes widened with excitement as she turned on her toes to face Ronald once more. Her fingers stroking the steel ribbed cord of the phone in her hand reverently.
“I do.”
A sputter of static clogged the line like unspent cough and quickly cleared.
“Are you ready to begin?”
The question, loaded with portent danced unanswered as Root felt her mind begin to wander. The voice had a hint of accent, something between a lilt and a twang, and Root couldn’t escape the comparison that clouded her resolve. It reminded her of Bishop, of her Mother’s voice when it wasn’t slurred with alcohol. Of Barbara Russell’s voice when it wasn’t sharpened with insult and accusation.
“Root, do we have an agreement?”
At the use of her name in that intimate tone Root felt chastised in a way that she hadn’t since she was a very young girl. She bit the skin on the inside of her lip and stared daggers at Ronald until he blushed and pretended to occupy himself with the now empty food wrapper in his fist. So this was the way it was gonna be? Biding her time with this tiresome man until the Machine thought her fit for release. After her release, what then? Root kicked the wall absently with a sock clad foot and heaved a sigh.
“We have an agreement. For now.”
Another short burst of static skirted the edges of their dialogue.
“I acknowledge your progress as you have acknowledged mine. Today you will use the information I have shared with you about Dr. Carmichael.”
Proud, yet still unsettled Root pressed further.
“And what about my release?”
A single note of the same sharp fax tone that burst into Root’s ear, but just before she recoiled the Machine continued in the same warm tone she had used when she first greeted Root.
“Trust in me Asset.”
Root smiled again, her fear dissipating like fog as she nodded to herself. The greedy dial tone swallowed her few borrowed moments with God as she reluctantly hung up her end of the call. Dr. Carmichael cleared his throat and extended his arm into his open office.
“Are you ready to get started Robin?”
Root flashed him a threatening grin as she crossed the threshold, stepping deliberately into his space as she replied.
“Absolutely Dr. Carmichael.”
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Later that evening, warm in her room and grateful to be returned to main floor, Root lulled herself to sleep by repeating the tirade of information she had released upon an unsuspecting Dr. Carmichael. The confrontation felt so very close to retribution. It had been a gift from God and a new power she was anxious to wield again soon. He had asked her for the truth and Root had delivered it without pause, without agenda, and beyond contestation. She thought of his small bespectacled eyes, the tremble in his lips, the sweat that kissed the corners of his forehead as he squirmed in his seat. She thought about the power of information, the inescapability of unmitigated truth. He had felt the full weight of it in his bones. Root wondered when the time came and she was faced with her own truth, would she recoil as Dr. Carmichael had? Would she buckle? Would she cave? How long until the lesson was her’s?
Her sleep was fitful and broken that evening. The ghosts of her past slinking like spiders along the edge of morbid dreams and half-remembered deeds.