“Hi, Dr. Jacobs!”
He froze. That voice was one that he hadn’t heard in some time, but she always was the distinctive one. He knew that if he turned, there she would be, a tiny girl dwarfed by her own soft blue uniform, her hair flying in every possible direction. Subject-29, his greatest failure. No, not his failure, the project’s, the corrupted German DNA of her female donor, but not his own. He had tried to work with her, but some things were out of his control.
“Ya okay there, doc?” the high-pitched little voice chirped, not wary and polite like …show more content…
I’m quite well.”
“You wanna turn around? I really think you should.” So different, harsher, less controlled in her tone. Perhaps Subject-29 was doomed from the beginning. “Suit yourself. Your wife’s gone, you know.”
At that he did spin around, to find Annie--how she’d grown!--standing alone in the dimly lit hallway in a spectacular show of the dramatics she had become fond of. Small mercies, she didn’t have that ridiculous costume on.
“Angela, explain yourself,” he said, summoning as much authority as he could. He knew Annie, and whatever plans of vengeance she had, the little girl he once knew was still in there and she always wanted to please.
Annie tilted her head to the side. “Why, do I scare you, doc?”
“Now, …show more content…
And, no lie, you owning up to half the stuff you pulled on me, a literal child, was kinda validating. Oh, and your fired.”
“I don’t...”
“Well, you are also surprisingly expendable, doc. And gettin’ kinda old. And well--“ she gestured up and down her body-- “you’re known for your misses more than your hits. The rest of the world’s got new and better minds popping up in science every single day. Like, um, Eve St.James. We’re like kinda frenemies and she owes me and you, well you used to work for her anyway.”
His own personal Frankenstein’s Monster, he realized. That was what was in front of him. “What do you think this farce accomplishes? You’ll never see me convicted and you’ll be put down if you try to kill me. You are nothing more than a thing that plays at being alive. Angela,” he said her name like a grounding force, her name was Angela, Subject-29, nothing more than what he had given her. “You, you never think.”
Angela shrugged and clicked her tongue. “Your reputation is trashed, your marriage is done, and I don’t think your wife’s gonna have any trouble getting a restraining order.” That tiny little girl looked up, big brown eyes gleaming and so very bitterly happy he didn’t know how it hadn’t bleed out of her all along. “You’re obsolete,