A Warped Heart

Consciousness slammed back into the young woman at the feeling of something cracking into her knees. She bit out a curse, sluggishly opening her eyes and trying to bring things into focus. It didn't help much, since all she could see was floor, but even that was too much for her aching head. The bright lights seemed to be directly reflecting off the tiles into her eyes. Where was she? How did she get here? Panic flashed through her body at her next thought. Who was she? An area on the back of her skull throbs trying to remember, forcing her to shut her eyes and breathe through the pain. She focused on the sensation of being dragged. Her knees painfully bumped across every tile, but at least it was a distraction from the massive headache she had

Once the pounding subsided she lifted her head to take in her surroundings. She was being dragged through a white, overly sterile looking hallway. She craned her neck to look at who was dragging her. Or rather, what was dragging her. Gripping either arm were sleek automatons, heavily armored and freakishly strong. She couldn't remember much, but she knew enough to know this was not a situation she wanted to be in.

"What's going on?" She slurred.

Two robotic voices replied in unison, far too loud for the pounding in her head. "You have been sentenced to death."

Her head jerked up, pain ignored, as dread flooded her body. "Death," she choked out, "What did I do?"

"You have been sentenced to death," they repeated. The two automatons turn a corner, revealing the end of the hallway. A single closed door.

The woman began to struggle in earnest, pulling uselessly at the grip of the robots. One reached forward and tapped the door, it swinging open to display... Nothing. The woman blinked, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. There looked to be nothing beyond the door. She could vaguely make out floor just inside the doorway, but nothing else. The automatons swung her forward into the room, the woman having no option but to fall forward and crumple into the room. She groaned in pain, and the door swung shut.

Her breath caught. Going from the harsh lights of the hallway to a silent pitch black room made her heart pound in her ears. She strained to see or hear anything, reaching her hands out to find a wall. Anything to make her feel like she's not in an endless void. A faint thrum sounds through the room, and a dim blue glow comes from small lights embedded in the bottom of the walls. It's barely enough to see the outline of the room, but as her eyes adjust, she realizes she's not missing much. There's nothing in the room, just four walls. Even the door she came through has vanished. No handle, not even a seam in the wall.

The woman's eyes catch on something. There's a small square of wall near the floor that looks slightly different. Walking over and kneeling next to it she finds that its a small hinged door, barely big enough to fit a plate through. Not that she had to worry about that she thought sarcastically.

Tilting her head from side to side she takes in the metal door. Maybe she could pry it off the wall. It would be hard without a handle or any tools, and she wouldn't be able to fit through it, but the thought of causing any damage at all makes a sick sense of satisfaction swirl through her. She grips the door to the best of her ability, fingers getting scraped and skinned from the concrete and rough metal.

After what feels like hours she smacks her sore hands on the wall in frustration. Closing her eyes and sitting back on her heels, she does the only other thing she can. She thinks.

Everything feels just out of reach, and she suspects that the throbbing patch on the back of her skull has something to do with that. She can't remember her name, much less how she got into this situation. She looks down at herself, and a gold glint catches her eye, seeing a heart shaped locket hanging from her neck.

A woman putting the locket around her neck flashes through her mind. She was scared. Worried?

Another flash of memory, someone sitting in front of her at a metal table, slamming their hand down and shouting. Why were they threatening her?

Her, sprinting down an alleyway in the rain, filled with the fear of being chased. Why was she being chased?

Seeing the locket being held and frantically gestured to by the same scared woman. Was it important?

More shouting, pain, a hug; she squeezes her eyes closed at the jumbled onslaught. What was happening?

Heat rose in her throat and behind her eyes. She was being executed and she didn't know why. It was just out of reach, her mind refusing to cooperate. She was so close, she just needed one more piece of the puzzle.

A speaker crackled to life in the small room, making the woman whip her head around quickly to find the source of the sound, seeing a small camera in the corner. "One last chance," a voice said playfully. "All you have to do is tell us what information you're taking to the insurgents, and give us updates on what they're planning next."

Another piece of the puzzle fell into place. She had been running information for the insurrection, spreading news and plans to various hideouts sprinkled through the city. The scared person she had seen in her memories was the leader. They had given her the locket.

The locket. Realization zinged through her. There was something important about the locket. She bit down the urge to reach up and clutch at it. She couldn't draw attention to it, not when she was being watched. She desperately wanted to take it off and look at what was inside. Unless they already took whatever was inside. She pushed that thought away, it filling her with unexplainable fear. They didn't, she reassured herself, if she still had the locket, and they were still asking for information, they didn't think to look in it.

"I'm not going to tell you anything," she snarled at the camera.

"Well," the voice sighed, sounding only minorly inconvenienced, "no matter. There will always be other messengers with less loyalty."

Those words made the woman tense up. Why did that seem to strike a nerve in her?

The voice continued, pulling her out of her thoughts. "You haven't run out of usefulness yet. What do you know about mind toads?"

Icy fear weighed down every part of her body. Knowledge of the illegal nano devices unfortunately coming easily and vividly to her. Able to copy a brain's neural pathways and transfer the information to a computer, they sounded great in theory. Until you discover that the side effect is tearing apart the very brain it was copying. If these people have and are using mind toads, they had to be stopped. She at least understood why she was working for the insurrection now, she thought bitterly.

The voice laughed. "I see you know about them. Just know, you brought this upon yourself."

The small door she had previously worked so hard to break, now swung open easily. She frantically scrambled up and away from it as fast as she could, pressing herself as far opposite of the opening as possible. Over the faint thrum of the lighting she could hear the rushing noise of metal tapping against metal thousands of times a second. The toads were coming, and there was a horde of them. She felt faint, the throbbing starting back up in her head as she began to panic.

There was no way to stop nanobots. Memories of deaths caused by the toads flashed faster and faster through her mind, each one more horrific and more head pounding than the last. The rushing noise of the toads was getting closer, and she cursed how much knowledge she had about them. How did she even know so much about them??

She paused. The last piece of the puzzle fitting into place. She was a researcher. A nanobot engineer. Memories flooded back as if they had never been gone. A wild grin took over her face as the crawling toads got closer. She could now see them starting to climb out of the small passageway, skittering across the floor and up the walls and making the already dim room even dimmer as they blocked out the lights.

She laughed loudly, proclaiming to the faceless voice, "Yeah, I know about nanobots." She raised a hand to her locket, feeling the heart shape in her palm as she flicked it open. A gold light flashed out, letting her see the room and the thousands of toads in detail for a brief moment before the light whited out her vision. The feeling of water running over her skin as her own nanobots flooded out of the locket. It was cold, but not unpleasant, and she felt like she was buzzing. Although whether that was from the bots or from adrenaline she couldn't tell. A final sharp and dizzying yank sent her stumbling to her knees.

Instead of the concrete of the cell, she landed on a rug. She took a moment to breathe, sprawled on the floor. Several large rugs littered the area, with blankets and pillows on the couches that faced a roaring fire burning in the hearth.

"Severin??" A woman's voice called.

Severin turned toward the sound, smiling at the worried face of her friend. The woman was standing over a chair hastily knocked over and papers scattered across the table and on the floor. Roisin rushed towards her, helping Severin to her feet and looking over her critically. "You're okay?"

"I'm okay. Got hit in the head, but otherwise I'm fine."

Roisin wrinkled her brow in distaste but otherwise let it drop. "You had to use the locket though," she said.

Severin lifted the locket off her neck. "I did, and you can yell at me all you want about how dangerous it all was later," she said, still grinning, "But I'm here and I'm safe. And look." She clicked another button on the locket, and waved her fingers briefly through the interface that her and Roisin had designed. She dropped the locket and it fell for a moment before opening and showing a larger hologram of the room she had just been entombed in.

"You haven't run out of usefulness yet," echoes through the air, the voice sounding even more sinister now that Severin knew what came next. "What do you know about mind toads?"

Severin grabs the locket out of the air, stopping the playback before she has to see her own reaction again. "I have all of it," she says. "Enough proof of corruption to bring the city to its' knees."

"But are we ready?" Roisin asks.

The atmosphere in the room shifts violently. The two women both staring silently at the locket, both lost in their own thoughts. Faint city noises could be heard over the crackling of the fire. They were on a precipice. Would they be willing to jump?

"We have to be."