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She goes out with Shaw’s fist at her jaw and wakes up a prisoner. The experience is, to put it mildly, excruciating.
Root feels the loss of the Machine like the loss of her pulse, her breath. There’s nothing to animate her. There are no signals, no invisible little waves of energy traveling all around her like caresses, and it makes the air feel like a void. She is a corpse here in this little room, with a box strapped to her ankle and darkness all around her. There are windows, but they barely help, and there are no clocks to tell her how long it’s been since the last time she wondered.
She went from having god’s ear to being penned like an animal in a little cage filled with niceties—books, comfortable chairs—that don’t make it feel less like a cage at all. It’s a hard thing to accept.
The first few days are the worst. She barely eats or sleeps, just stares at the shelves or out at the world she’s been barred from saving. Root has been a lot of things in her life, but she’s never been purposeless. Even before the Machine, she had her projects. Things to do, people to defraud, little waves to be made in what seemed to her like a chaotic and ultimately unfeeling universe. Now that the she knows that the universe is not chaotic and unfeeling, she knows equally well that what order there is is tentative. It has to be protected.
It won’t be protected as long as she’s here. Waves can’t penetrate Faraday cages.
On day three, she has a tense conversation with Harold. Afterward, she sticks her finger into the hot tea he brings and counts the seconds until she can’t stand it anymore. The tea gets cold before she finishes, and she doesn’t drink it.
Day four is better. Her mind slips enough that she starts to engage in an internal debate over whether it's worse to know the full extent of the universe’s potential and never be allowed to see it manifest or to remain ignorant of that potential forever. It’s the kind of conversation She would enjoy, and the thought revives Root somewhat.
On day five, Root resolves that she should do something to ensure that she’s not a boring conversation companion when she and the Machine are finally allowed to speak again. She cracks a book on quantum mechanics, and absentmindedly nibbles at one of the biscuits on her tray when she reads it.
“That's a good one,” Harold says softly as he sets her dinner in front of her. It’s the first time he’s spoken to her since their little spat.
“It is,” she agrees.
On day six, she sees Shaw, just briefly. She’s toting a heavy knapsack that looks as big as she is on her back, and she’s got a smudge of grease on her chin. Root surprises herself with the realization that she’d like to lick it off. Somehow, that little bit of instinct, of want, feels like a respite.
Shaw pauses briefly outside the cage, looks at Root with an unreadable expression.
“Hi,” Root says, and Shaw huffs something that may pass for a greeting and keeps walking.
On day seven, Root wakes thinking about all the preparations she should be making—can’t make—and feels sick to her stomach. She forces herself to get out of bed, or what passes for a bed, and channel her energy toward something productive. She reads a philosophy book that she plans to discuss with Her later. There are a lot of interesting ideas about interiority and subjecthood that she thinks the Machine will enjoy, and imagining that conversation makes her feel lighter, less tired.
Shaw delivers her afternoon meal. Or rather, she crams three energy bars through the slot in the door.
“We’re going to be gone for awhile,” she says as she hefts her bag over her shoulder. The barrel of a gun peaks out from between the zippers. “Don’t eat those too fast.”
“I appreciate your concern, Shaw,” Root says as she moves to the front of the cage. Shaw gives no acknowledgement. Root watches her go.
On day eight, the dog, who she has gathered is named Bear, comes to the side of the cage, looks at her with his head cocked.
The team came back last night and her brought breakfast this morning, but it’s two in the afternoon and lunch has not been forthcoming.
“I think they got held up,” Root tells him, and Bear just tilts his head farther to the side. Root’s not a big dog person, but he has an expressive face. She can see the appeal, maybe.
She tries to go back to her book, which is a theology text about a religion she doesn’t subscribe to but also about ideas she finds interesting. She’s reading a meditation on grace, on whether human beings can ever really earn salvation or whether it can only be granted to them at the discretion of someone else. A higher power. She wonders what She would say about it.
Unfortunately, though, she doesn’t have much time to reflect on it, because the dog whines, then barks.
She sighs. “What?”
He barks again.
She assumes he’s hungry, so she goes over to her breakfast tray and grabs the two pieces of untouched bacon leftover from the morning. Really, Harold should know by now that she’s not one for processed meats, just as she knows by now that Harold isn’t one for feeding the dog people food. She heard him scold John over it just the other day.
Still, if he feels that strongly about it, she figures he should have thought of that before he left without putting out kibble.
“Here,” she says, poking a slice through the bars. She has to lean forward to keep from crossing the invisible line with her ankle monitor. Some kinds of pain are just not fun, even for her. The position is awkward, but she manages.
Bear, for his part, looks thrilled as he takes the bacon gently from her hand and then proceeds to devour it in one massive gulp. It reminds her a little of someone else she knows, and Root feels herself smile for what feels like the first time in awhile.
On day nine, the dog won’t stop hanging out in front of the cage and wagging his tail every time Root stands up to do anything. It’s distracting in a way she mostly welcomes, and she surprises herself by wishing she could lay her head against his flank and feel his breaths against her ear.
On day ten, Shaw notices the Bear situation. There’s a hard look on her face as her gaze shifts between Root and Bear and back again. Root, to her credit, manages to school her expression into a benign, innocent mask.
“Bear and I bonded,” she says.
“I see that,” Shaw replies, and she shoots Bear a frown that Root translates as I thought you were better than that before summoning him away.
On day eleven, absolutely nothing happens. She’s gone through all the books that appeal to her, even the new ones Harold brought in. The only things left un-thumbed are some early twentieth-century mathematics texts that, while undeniably interesting as objects, are too dated to be worth reading anymore. Root runs her finger over their spines, watches Bear’s chest rise and fall steadily as he sleeps, and misses Her painfully. She takes the too-hot mug of coffee Harold brought her—he’s finally learning—in her hands, and holds it until she can’t stand to anymore. Everything feels too close and too far, and she feels like she can’t breathe.
On day twelve, Harold promises her another round of books but says he needs time to get them. She asks for sci-fi. He gives her an odd look before nodding and saying he’ll do his best.
Root looks forward to the prospect of new reading material, but dreads the implication it carries with it, which is: you are not getting out of here any time soon.
Harold closes the cage behind him, and Root sighs.
She lifts her head when he returns a minute later, carrying a large, thick book in his hands. “Here,” he says, as he passes it to her. “Try this one in the meantime.
It’s Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. Root sighs again and tosses it onto the bench.
That night, she hears the first of what will turn out to be one of three iterations of the same conversation.
It’s late, and Shaw is back from a mission involving an irrelevant number who works as an accountant at a financial firm. From what Root’s been able to ascertain, it’s something about the mob and money laundering. Pretty standard stuff, except that apparently the laundering was particularly skillful in this case.
“We just need more time,” she hears Harold say. “The financial trail is very complex. Unusually so.”
Shaw’s voice sounds gruff. She’s agitated. “I had eight Russians take shots at me today, Harold. We don’t have time. These people are serious, and we need to be utilizing all of our options if we want this woman to get out of this alive.”
The end of the sentence is louder than the beginning, and Root realizes that Shaw must have turned her head toward the cage when she spoke. Root walks toward the bars, tries not to get her hopes up. She doubts Harold will go for it, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t a little touched that Shaw was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Even after…well.
Harold hesitates. “That won’t be necessary, I’m sure. Give me an hour to try a different algorithm. I’m confident that I’ll be able to tell you where the transactions originated, at the very least. From there, we can narrow down who may have owned the accounts.”
“Fine,” Shaw agrees after a moment. “One hour, and then we’re revisiting this.”
A minute later, Shaw walks by her cell, catches Root’s eye as she passes. Root can’t tell if she’s surprised to see that Root was listening or not, and neither one of them says anything as Shaw leaves.
Root imagines the Machine in her ear, telling her Not yet be patient. She takes a deep breath, lies down on the bench and stares at the ceiling.
The next day, Harold brings her a fresh box of books and watches as she sorts through them. They’re from a used bookstore downtown, and their pages are dog-eared and yellowed with age. They are the opposite of the bright screens and neat, slick gadgets that she favors, and they feel like mockery under the circumstances, fit strangely in her hands.
Still, she finds a few good sci-fi novels and a book on string theory. Then she spots something else. She holds up the weathered paperback and raises her eyebrows.
“Charlotte Perkins Gilman? Really, Harry?”
“Perhaps I should have examined the contents of the box more closely,” he replies, and he has the decency to blush as he retreats from her cell.
The second iteration of the conversation comes six days later, when Root is beginning to flag. Optimism has never been her strong suit, and the longer she’s in the cage, the more unpredictably her moods ebb and flow. It’s not uncommon for her to wake up feeling ready to commit herself to another day of surviving only to find herself thoroughly morose and drained and hopeless by lunch. She doesn’t know how much longer she’s going to be able to hang on to the promise of a reunion that it’s possible isn't going to come. The fact that she has not tried to force it, to plot her way out of this torture, is the only thing she has to hold onto in some moments. It means she’s learning. It means part of Her is with her, even though they’re separated.
She hears Harold’s voice as his footsteps round the corner across the hall. He’s mid-conversation with Shaw, and even though Root missed the first part, she can tell immediately what it’s about.
“Let me remind you, Miss Shaw, that that woman kidnapped me. Harmed me.”
Harold’s voice is more tinged with anger, with pain, than it was last time. Shaw’s is calmer.
“I get it, Harold. I do. I’ve been at the wrong end of her taser twice now, but--”
“Exactly,” Harold cuts in, and Root can hear the way his voice has gone an octave higher than usual. “That is precisely my point, and precisely why I will confess that I find it baffling that you of all people are lobbying for Ms. Groves to be granted any more leeway than she’s already been given.”
“Your Machine is never wrong,” Shaw says, firmly. “And for some reason, it picked her.”
The conviction Root can hear in Shaw’s voice takes her by surprise, though she supposes it shouldn’t. It’s never escaped her notice that Shaw is the only one of them whose trust in the Machine compares to her own. Shaw’s need for something bigger than herself comes from a very different place than Root’s, but they share an impulse, an affinity. Root finds it comforting. Endearing, even.
There’s no time to reflect on that in the moment, though.
She hears Harold sigh. “The Machine is flawless when it comes to detecting terrorist threats or malice aforethought, Ms. Shaw, but that does not mean that it is infallible when it comes to the vagaries of the human character. Ms. Groves is dangerous.”
Shaw lets out a sound that it somewhat in the neighborhood of a growl. “Look, I’m not saying you—we—have to trust Root.” Her voice is low, restrained. “I’ll be right here to deal with it if things go pear-shaped. But she can help, and it’s our best option.”
“I’m afraid I have to decline.”
Something in Root feels like it collapses in on itself, but she bites the inside of her cheek and forces herself to look composed when she hears their footsteps approach.
Harold can’t look at her as he passes, but Shaw pauses, stares at her with a look Root can’t decipher.
“You trust her,” Root says softly.
A micro-expression of assent flashes across Shaw’s face before she schools it back to passivity and shakes her head. “I trust him,” Shaw replies, gesturing toward where Bear is lounging against the wire of the cage. “Hier,” she says, she Bear trots off with her as she leaves.
For the first time in weeks, Root is aware of her heart beating in her chest. Sleep is still elusive, but it comes to her eventually. It’s an improvement.
The third conversation comes nine days later. John is bleeding out from a gunshot wound, and Harold is losing his resolve in the face of the possibility of another death.
The exchange is brief. Harold asks Shaw if she’s willing to take a risk on the Machine. On Root.
“I’m in,” Shaw says.
And just like that, the door to the cage opens.
Root picks up the phone and puts her earpiece in. Can You Hear Me? She says, and the world falls back into place. Root's heart beats again. She breathes.
In the quiet moments in the car, god mode is a communion. The Machine says so much, buzzes in her ear and through her skull like the electricity she’s been denied for so long. Root doesn’t talk back, for the most part, but it’s enough.
In the lobby of the apartment building, god mode is a perfect surrender. Root gives herself over to the Machine, lets Her command her eyes and her muscles and her hands. The Machine never takes more than she’s willing to give, and always gives her a choice. Root chooses to quiet herself in favor of listening, and they move like a single entity for perfect seconds. Root never feels more complete, or more keenly like herself.
When She asks her to return to the cage, Root surrenders again. The distance is every bit as terrible as before, but it’s bearable now. Root can bear it because it has a purpose. Harold has to trust her, and Root agreeing to surrender her commission and pound her sword into a plowshare is the first step to making that happen. It’s the first step to saving the world.
Maybe it’s even the first step to redemption. Root doesn't know, but she trusts that She does.
When Shaw walks by the cage that night, she looks surprised to see Root there. Or, at least, as surprised as she ever looks. Root thinks she maybe sees an eyebrow twitch.
“Back on lockdown, huh?”
“I volunteered this time,” Root says.
Shaw scoffs. “Why would you do that?”
“She asked me to.”
“Ah,” Shaw says, and doesn’t ask for any further explanation. Root feels a rush of something in her chest, an echo of that earlier feeling of connection.
“That little trick of yours is pretty good,” Shaw admits after a beat, and Root smirks.
“I believe the word you used was ‘hot,’ Shaw,” she corrects, grinning. She hears a teasing inflection in her voice that she hasn’t heard for awhile, and the muscles around her eyes flex with her smile. It feels good. It feels like things are righting themselves.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Shaw deadpans.
From then on, Shaw talks to her more. Not much, but more.
The next day, she mutters, “Hey,” around a mouthful of sandwich as she passes Root on her way to the computer bank.
The day after, “Don’t ask,” as she tugs an unconscious man in a suit over to the couch.
The day after that, “Dammit, Root, have you been feeding Bear bacon?” as she holds up a bag of what looks to be less-than-solid poop.
Root could have done without that visual, but all in all, things are a lot better than they were. Sometimes, Shaw even sits outside the cage and props her feet against the wire while she plays games on her phone.
“I’m gonna beat this thing before you can ruin it for me again,” Shaw tells her. Root alternates between watching her play and “reading.” “Reading” still consists mostly of watching Shaw, but subtly enough that Shaw doesn’t tell her she’s being creepy.
The Machine estimated that it would be roughly eight more days before Harold came to grips with the situation enough to tolerate the idea of her freedom. Every day that passes makes her feel lighter and lighter.
On her seventh night until she's free, Root is reading an anatomy book when she hears the cage door swing open. She looks up expecting Harold, but she sees Shaw toting her dinner tray instead.
“How sweet of you, Shaw,” Root says, and then wrinkles her nose when she looks at her ham and cheese sandwich and chips. “Although, you know, this isn’t really what people mean when they say you should buy a girl dinner first…”
“Whatever,” Shaw says, then snatches something off of her plate. “Delivery charge,” she explains, waving with the pudding cup in her hand as she leaves.
The next day at lunch, Harold brings a salad with chicken and vegetables and dressing on the side. Root is pleased, and surprised.
It must show on her face, because Harold clears his throat. “Ms. Shaw indicated that you were dissatisfied with the previous choices.” He pauses, grimaces. “She may also have mentioned that if I kept trying to feed you pork products, my doggie probiotic bills were going to continue to be… substantial.”
Root has to suppress her chuckle. “Thank you, Harry.”
“Yes,” he says, and then hesitates as though he wants to say more. After a beat, he thinks better of it, and leaves.
Root smirks. She’s never wrong.
When the cage door opens again, at her own hands and exactly when it's supposed to, it opens permanently.