Chapter Text
Green eyes stared at the floor, the mind acknowledging it wasn’t going to provide the answers she’d been searching for. Too many times the exact same spot had been the go to whenever they brought her back to a room so void of anything personal she was convinced they too didn’t know her identity. They’d stopped even looking at her after about the third day, her constant questioning ignored. Or was it the fourth… maybe the fifth?
Taking a deep breath to quell the anxiety once again starting to build the young woman brought her left hand up to wipe away the tears forming. Instinctually, she knew she had been right handed, learning to adapt the first time she’d woken up in this place. How exactly she’d lost her arm just one of the many memories for some reason alluding her right now. The only thing she knew for sure was her age, 34, because it was part of her Patient ID, 216-34.
“216, time for your tablets,” the female voice came over the intercom beside the door.
“Ok,” she answered, getting up to retrieve the tray as it was slid through the access slot. She didn’t really know what exactly they were but they did help to calm her down.
He stood in the corner, silent and incognito. Adam Jensen watched as Patient 216-34 sat back down on the edge of the bed and took her medication without question or pause. For almost three weeks now at the exact same time each day he witnessed drugs entering the system of a person once so vibrant and healthy. Half an hour after returning from her treatment those who ran this hidden facility would make sure she was too tired and out of it to continue trying to remember who she was.
Her name was Shaali and Jensen had been searching for her for nearly 8 months now. He wanted nothing more than to get her out of there. He couldn’t. Not yet. Sarif needed more time to figure out a way to make sure this never happened again. He’d almost lost Adam, he was not about to lose Shaali as well. David had sent his friend in knowing full well he wouldn’t have been able to stop him anyway, Adam tasked with finding out how they’d succeeded in shutting down the Nanotech that was so much a part of Shaali’s makeup.
Their success was limited, however. They couldn’t gain control with the machines still active and they’d been bonded with her long enough to permanently enhance all her natural abilities, including the one that allowed body and mind to heal. Therefore, every afternoon, under the guise of actually trying to help her kidnappers would come and take their patient for a procedure that would only make her even more confused.
Following the events of Panchea, the CEO of Sarif Industries had thought all precautions had been taken to ensure the safety of two of his best assets. As the heads of his security team, and also his friends, no expense or possibility had been overlooked. Thankfully, Adam’s suspicions about the timing of the interference to his biochip and the sudden mass recall for every augmented person to get an upgrade had made him listen to his gut instincts and not go through with it at all. Shaali had shared some of her nanites with him to help fully upgrade all of his abilities beyond even what they were initially capable of, and since both of them were immune to the effects of EMP grenades, Pritchard had warned the next step would be some form of external hacking device.
It was this theory Adam had been looking into, fully accessed stealth augmentations enabling him to infiltrate and search for the answers over a longer period of time while also keeping an eye on one of the few people he trusted the most. If they moved on to more drastic means of making her forget or started to physically hurt her in any way in their attempts to gain control, his stealth systems would no longer be needed.
Jensen moved over to the bed, gently touching her on the arm. Not much longer, the promise a silent one.
Somewhere in her drug addled state Shaali felt the touch, too gone to really understand what it was. It seemed she sensed a lot of things she couldn’t see lately never saying anything. What was the point, no one would tell her why anyway. Maybe it’d be better if she just let herself die but whenever she thought that there was this resounding “No!” in the back of her mind. There was definitely something there but Patient 216 was always too exhausted to dwell.
Adam glanced back briefly at her, the anger he felt only growing each time he caught sight of the missing prosthesis that had been her arm. Similar to his own, Jensen quickly worked out it had been removed the moment she’d arrived ensuring there was no identifiable evidence. Leaning down behind the strategically placed planter box, he quietly lifted the vent cover leading into the building's air-conditioning vents and maintenance corridors. One day soon he wouldn’t be disappearing into them alone.
“Are we any closer yet?” Jensen asked via his Infolink, the moment booted feet hit the top of the industrial garbage bin in the alleyway running the length of the side of the building. While waiting for the answer he reached over and shut an access cover that hadn’t been all that hard to find, slightly hidden by two cardboard boxes.
“I’m not sure, Adam,” Sarif answered. “Megan reported some sort of breakthrough earlier this morning. She sounded quite excited about it but there hasn’t been anything since.”
“Damnit Boss,” was all Jensen said.
“I know, Adam.”
“No, I don’t think you do,” the ex S.W.A.T member replied. “I have to leave her behind every time.”
There was silence from David for a few moments, the founder and CEO of one of the most influential augmentation companies choosing to ignore what Adam was insinuating. He knew where it was coming from more than most. “Adam, we’re trying. We have to know how they did this so we can reverse the process,” Sarif paused, gaze moving to look up the hallway past the doors leading into his office. “Once the recovery wing is finished we can at least bring her home but it has to be shielded until…”
“I get it,” Adam said, the inflection of his tone suggesting an apology. “That recovery area should have been thought of earlier.”
“You have no idea how many times I have told myself that, Son,” David assured him. “But none of us could have thought they’d be this effective. Shaali is like a daughter to me… no one saw this coming.”
Jensen sighed, eyes looking upward at the night sky, noting the edges of dawn on the horizon. Even on the outskirts of a city, the stars were brighter than he was used to. He’d always wanted to visit Australia, Shaali’s home country, wishing the circumstances didn’t involve one of the most important missions of his life. “If this takes much longer I’m getting her out of there whether we’re ready for it or not.”
“I understand that Adam,” David said. “I know I can’t stop you but it’s better to wait.”
“Not for her, it isn’t. From the looks of the latest data I’m about to send you they’ll be testing another way to try and control her sometime over the next few days,” Adam informed him. “She’s slipping further away from us, Boss. I can feel it whenever I’m in the room.”
“Megan and her team will have a look at the data. If there is even a chance it could work you know you have my full permission to do whatever it takes to bring her back to us,” Sarif said, ending the discussion for now.
David knew Adam would go ahead with or without his approval and he could hardly blame him. For so long they’d been looking and now she was right there in front of him and still his Head of Security could do nothing about it. To have the kind of loyalty Jensen displayed was something even David Sarif was getting used to. Oh, Adam questioned him and made his own decisions when he deemed it necessary there was no doubt about that, yet, he’d never turned his back on him entirely. Sarif couldn’t explain how that made him feel. Perhaps the biggest indication as to how much he appreciated it was when he’d divulged the secret of Shaali’s existence and entrusted her safety to Adam in the first place.
“Athene,” he greeted with a nod of his head, passing his Personal assistant and also one of his oldest friends.
“Perhaps you can update me as to what is going on in Australia soon, Mr. Sarif,” she said. “I really must be kept apprised so as to counter any negative press that Mr. Jensen may be unaware he is causing us.”
“You worry yourself too much, Athene,” David answered.
“About Miss Evans, yes,” she agreed, revealing the true reason for such a request and watching as David activated the new security panel hidden within a section of the wall beside her desk and directly opposite the doors to his office.
The steel panel split along the line already present down the middle, revealing the security access point to the recovery wing beyond. This time. Shaali was going to be kept close by, where he could personally overlook all that was done to restore her Nanotech and memory. It was very close to being finished, so close David almost contacted Adam again and told him to just go ahead and rescue her already. Still, he was a patient man, and also a very cautious one when it came to the protection of those he really did care about.
Leaning sideways against the wall of the café a block away from the building he could still see further up the road, Jensen took in a drag of his cigarette, feeling his augmented defences kick in to protect his lungs from any real danger. It was a bad habit, he knew but in his case, it couldn’t kill him. Even so, Shaali hated it. So did Sarif. Malik. The only one who didn’t give him a hard time about it was Pritchard. Probably because he didn’t really care, or so he acted.
“Here you go, Sir,” the waiter who’d taken his order said, placing a plate down on the table behind him. “Please enjoy your breakfast.”
“Thanks,” Adam answered, almost deadpan, moving over to sit down. Bacon, eggs, and toast had sounded good when he’d ordered it. Since then he’d started to think about Shaali and any real sense of normalcy had quickly started to fade.
“Coffee top up?”
That he would have, nodding. Augmented fingers enclosing around the handle even while it was being poured, Adam’s gaze moved back to look at his partner’s prison. It wasn’t just how they achieved shutting the nanites down he wanted answers to, it was also how they’d managed to overwhelm her on the night she’d disappeared. Shaali didn’t need her tech to hold her own. When he’d learned she hadn’t come home from the movies he’d been the first to start retracing her steps, again thankful for the locator chip implants Sarif Industries insisted every one of their employees have.
His friend hadn’t even made it out of the cinema. They must have known she liked to watch the later showings, Adam often warning her to be careful about the lack of people around. It had taken only a couple of days to learn two of the theatre employees had aided the ones responsible for what she was going through. After that, finding out exactly who and where they were had stretched out so long all those close to her had wondered what they’d find in the end if anything at all.
They'd never given up, though. Adam had made sure of it.
“Jensen, are you there?” Pritchard’s voice in his ear.
Adam swallowed the mouthful of coffee he’d just taken. “Yes, Francis, I’m here,” he said.
“You need to get Shaali out of there now,” the Tech’s words making Jensen sit up stock straight. “Megan passed on the encrypted part of the data to me. Jensen, they’re going to try and inject enough Nanites to reprogram her and eventually destroy her original ones altogether. They were nowhere near ready for this before. They are now. Get her out of there, Jensen,” the urgency clear in his tone.
There was no need for any further verification, information, or how in the world they could even accomplish such a thing considering Shaali’s nanites had built in protection of their own. Adam was up and heading away from the café before Pritchard had even finished talking, all thought of food now long forgotten. They’d always talked about someone eventually trying to take advantage of the weapon she could become, the other side of her ability to use her nanotech to heal, to destroy a person from the inside out as well. There was no way he was about to let that happen. She'd never recover from being controlled like that.
Square in shape, grey in colour, there was nothing special about the air duct he was crawling through, his mind going over and over the pain his friend would be in as the new machines took control of her body. He followed the angle upwards at least two floors, around another corner then to the left, passing three openings before heading up an additional two or so metres, the room he was searching for visible straight ahead.
It was here that he paused, “Pritchard, that remote access I installed still working or am I about to blow my cover after all this time?”
“Their firewall rebuilds itself differently after each hack. Don’t go bursting into the room just yet. I’ll tell you when,” Frank replied, way ahead of him.
Visors sliding over his eyes, activating his ability to see through walls Adam deduced there was only one person in the room, relieved Shaali was still there. However, as he lifted his hands to the vent cover he heard voices approaching until they stopped outside her door.
“Are we sure this is going to work?” the question asked as the female doctor entered the room.
“We are not sure of anything when it comes to this technology, Stacey. It’s why we needed our little ace in the hole here,” the older male scientist glanced over at their patient still fast asleep on the bed. “She truly is a remarkable specimen. The first of her kind, but not the last. I am only sorry that if this next procedure succeeds it will fully erase who she is for good.”
“Yes, but Daniel, she's already a weapon. Why do we have to take away the essence of who she was?” Stacey asked.
“Do you really think she’d just agree to work for us? Come now, Stacey, don’t be so naïve,” Daniel replied.
Stacey sighed. “Yes, I know, but what about her arm. Did we really have to remove it? She’s going to be incomplete enough as it is.”
“Oh, she’ll be whole again soon, just in the way we want her to be, and under our complete control. There may be a need to remove the other arm as well…”
“Pritchard!” Adam hissed, eyes narrowed behind visors hiding how much the anger was showing right now.
“Go!” was all the Tech replied with, patched in and hearing all of that.
How Adam just wanted to burst into the room like Frank had said. He didn’t. Shaali was going to be scared enough without him adding sudden noise to the equation. Besides, as he quietly lifted the vent hatch, moving out and taking up cover behind the planter box, he was going to feel a deeper sense of satisfaction in taking out the scientists before they even knew he was there.
At about the same time he went incognito, Shaali started to stir awake on the bed, eyes opening to see Stacey and Daniel standing close by. They turned to her when they noticed, both of them smiling. “Good morning, my dear girl,” Daniel said. “We have some excellent news for you.”
Despite the fact Shaali could see behind them, there was nothing to suggest there was anyone else in the room. The man in the black trench coat simply appeared out of nowhere, in that same instance reaching over to grab the two people who she thought had been trying to help her. In the time it took Shaali’s eyes to widen he’d already knocked their heads together so hard they were out cold before they even hit the floor.
Patient 216-34 winced and found herself scrambling back onto the bed until her back hit the wall. For some reason, she stayed silent even though every part of her wanted to scream, especially when the man suddenly turned his attention to her.
Jensen’s face softened, the visors over his eyes retracting so he could look at her directly. “Shaali, it’s me,” he said, hopeful that just seeing him might trigger something, anything in her memory.
“Who in the world… what did you do?” she threw back at him, briefly glancing down at the unconscious forms of the doctors. “Why did you hurt them? They’re the only ones who can help me remem…” tears started to fall. What was going on?
It killed him to the core seeing her so scared and vulnerable, and the lack of recognition when she looked at him, that… that hurt even more. He took a step forward slowly.
“No, stay away!” she implored. “Don’t hurt me!”
“Shaali,” Adam began, “I’m a friend. A close one. I’m here to take you home. This place isn’t what you think. It’s not a psychiatric ward. It’s a laboratory. They are not helping you. They’re making you forget. It’s why you don’t remember me. We were partners once…” he stopped talking, noticing the tell-tale signs of panic on her face.
“No!” she cried, eyes darting around the room desperately looking for some sort of escape. “They’ve been helping me every day to try and remember. Daniel said I was so close to breaking through the haze… that he’s helped many others do the same but my case was severe. It’s why it was taking so long. You can’t be right…” her gaze moved down to look at her so called saviours. “Can you?”
Now the confusion was settling in, overtaking the fear enough for Adam to close the gap between them before she even noticed. She looked straight up at him and, with a swiftness she didn’t even realize she was capable of, slid sideways off the bed. “You stay away,” she said again, stepping over Stacey’s prone form and making her way towards the door.
“Look, I get that for all you know I’m the one telling the lies, but please, just hear me out?” Jensen urged. Shaali hadn’t taken her eyes off him, and Adam could see her watching closely as he retrieved the photo from his jacket pocket. “Once I learned they’d taken your memories, I went back for this,” and he held it out to her.
Understandably, Shaali hesitated, glancing at the photo then up at Jensen’s face and back again. Slowly she lifted her hand to take it, a step closer to this stranger in the process. The moment eyes glanced over the image she realized he wasn’t unknown to her, she just couldn’t remember who the man standing right behind her in the photo was, or the woman with short dark hair kneeling down and leaning slightly into her as they held up a glass of alcohol towards the camera in some form of toast. Then there was the long dark haired guy and a much older man with greying hair, and the other woman, longer darker hair as well…
She looked up at Adam, “I don’t…” tears welled in her eyes again. The look of happiness on her face in the photo, and theirs. They’d obviously been having a good time and she had no recollection of any of it!
“Shaali,” Adam said softly. “The woman beside you there, that’s Faridah Malik, she’s your best friend. David Sarif is behind you to your left. You’ve always looked up to him like a father. Francis, well, Pritchard is behind you to your right and although he’s hard to like…”
“Hey, you know, Jensen, I’m right here!” the Tech said in his ear alone for now.
“He’s your friend too. In fact, your tech expertise nearly surpasses his own. The other woman is Megan. They’re also your colleagues…”
“And who is the man standing directly behind me, and in front of me right now?” Shaali interrupted.
“Adam Jensen,” he answered, again hoping his name alone might trigger something. “We’re partners. Heads of Security. You never returned home from the movies almost eight months ago now. We’ve been searching for you ever since. They took you from us, Shaali.”
“Why?”
“I will explain once I get you out of here,” Jensen said. “Here,” and he handed her an external Infolink identical to his own. “You’ll hear Pritchard again before you see him. Be warned his voice can grate.”
“Jensen, I’m going to be the one to come up with a new way to hack your systems if you keep those kinds of comments up,” Frank warned. Once the communication device registered a new user was linked, the relief visibly flooded through the man alone in the Tech Lab on the second floor of Sarif Industries.
“Hello?”
“Welcome back, Sha,” Pritchard said, using her nickname. “It’s been awhile.”