Summus Proelium

“I must say,” Irelyn mused while sitting on one side of their father’s absurdly ornate dining room table, a massive stretch of polished wood that was meant to seat at least thirty people comfortably, “that was a very dramatic thing to announce before going silent for the past ten minutes. Kudos on your sense of flair and drama.” She was trying to keep her tone as light as possible, going for threading the needle between gently prodding Paige to continue with what she wanted to talk about, and simply teasing her as a way of showing her that it would be okay. Whether she was actually successful at that remained to be seen. But then again, she had just woken up from a multi-week coma a few hours earlier, and had now sent her former best friend off to potentially get into a fight that she herself wasn’t even allowed to participate in. A very dangerous fight against incredibly unpredictable opponents. And now Paige, her adopted sister, and the daughter of one of the people ultimately responsible for that coma in the first place, had promised to tell her exactly what she was, before falling silent for that entire time. A silence that had felt almost like a thick, physical blanket draped over both of them.

Without actually discussing what they were doing, they had both come inside the house, moved to the dining room, and sat at the stupidly fancy table quietly together since those last words. And there they had stayed through that entire time, while Irelyn waited patiently before finally speaking up just then.

Paige, for her part, blushed slightly under the teasing words and stared down at her hands. Her fingers flexed, opening and shutting a few times as the girl gazed at them with an expression of wonder. It was as though she was amazed simply by the sight of her own hands being able to move. Honestly, if Irelyn hadn't known better, she almost might have thought the girl was on some sort of drug or medication that was making her act like this. She was certainly behaving oddly, and with everything that had been going on, it would be hard to blame her. If anyone had an excuse to need some mind-numbing alteration by this point, it really was Paige. Her adopted parents were dead, clearly killed by her own birth father, and her own involvement in the whole situation was evident even if the precise details were still uncertain.

But no, this wasn't drugs. Irelyn wasn't sure how she could be so sure on that point, yet she was. She knew this was something very different, something more important, and probably more life-changing than drugs. Those would have been understandable given the situation. This was something that Paige was afraid to tell her, and Irelyn wasn't sure how to help that beyond making it clear that she would sit and listen to whatever it was. She just needed Paige to actually say it.

Finally, the other girl let out a long breath and looked up to meet her stare. “Okay, I can do this. I need to tell you some things. A lot of them aren't very good. They're bad. And there's other things I can't tell you because they aren't my secrets to say. I'll tell you everything I’m allowed to right now, everything that wouldn't be betraying other people who deserve to have privacy. Just, please listen to all of it.”

Before she could say anything else, or do anything other than take another deep breath, another voice spoke up from the doorway, despite Irelyn’s firm belief that no one else was in the house. “And when she says that, what she actually means is that we’ll tell you everything we can.”

Obviously, the unexpected voice made Irelyn jump out of her chair, knocking it over as she twisted around with one hand raised defensively and the other arm extended to cover Paige even though the girl was on the opposite side of the table. If someone had managed to break into the house without her even noticing, it was-- what she saw brought her short. There was a blonde girl standing in the doorway. But not just any blonde girl, a rather familiar one. “Cassidy Evans?”

It was definitely her, even if she had changed her look. Her skin was notably more tanned, her hair was worn in a ponytail and had been dyed blonde, and even her eyes were a different color. Contacts, obviously. Most people who didn't have much experience with the Evans girl wouldn't have been able to place her at all. But Irelyn had seen her enough, largely thanks to her father’s ugly obsession with that family, that she could see through that and recognized her immediately. What she didn’t understand was why she had changed her look so much.

“Sierra,” Paige started in a voice that was much closer to Irelyn than she had been just a moment before, “I thought you were going to wait until I actually got to the point of introducing you. I swear that was what we agreed on.”

Shifting at the realization of how much closer the girl was, Irelyn glanced that way to find Paige standing directly beside her with one hand on that chair that had been falling. She had somehow gone around or over the table in a split-second, catching the chair before it could hit the floor. Had she jumped over the large table and landed silently beside her, or run all the way around past several other settings to reach this side? Either way was incredibly impressive, if not actually impossible for a normal human girl, no matter how much cheerleading and gymnastics practice she had. This was something else, something Irelyn really needed to focus on.

Instead, her attention was devoted mostly to the figure in the doorway. Blinking at the name, Irelyn echoed, “Sierra? What is that, a nickname? Are you trying to make some changes?” It was possible, with both of her parents going through the same thing Irelyn herself had, that Cassidy had felt the need to dramatically change herself. It would explain why she was here, at least. Especially since the last thing Irelyn knew, these two were constantly at each other’s throats. She’d had no idea what that was about, aside from the high probability that it was pushed by her father. She absolutely would not have put it past him to encourage Paige to be a total bitch to the young daughter of his primary business rival.

The girl in the doorway, however, gave a soft snort before shaking her head. “Believe me, there's some changes I'd love to make. I've got a whole list, actually. But it's not what you’re thinking. I am not Cassidy Evans. By which, I mean I have never been Cassidy Evans. We are physically different people. Though I hear good things.”

Opening and shutting her mouth a couple times, Irelyn turned her gaze to the girl beside her and asked, “Okay, what exactly is going on? Is this some long lost twin? Did… did our dad create a clone of Cassidy just to fuck with that family?” She absolutely would not have put that past him, especially if he'd had regular contact with someone like Benjamin Pittman, who… wait a minute…

“Dude!” Sierra’s face lit up. “That was really close. You're right, Paige, she’s pretty quick. Even if she does seem to be in a little bit of denial right now.” Her hand made a dismissive motion. “And don't give me that look. You were seriously taking all day about it. Sometimes you just need to rip the Band-Aid off and get through it. Either she accepts you or she doesn't. If it's the latter, we need to move on. Better than sitting around hemming and hawing forever.”

There was a lot Irelyn wanted to say to that, but she had no idea where to start. She was still reeling from all this, and it was honestly only the fact that Paige was reacting to the new arrival that convinced her she wasn't experiencing a hallucinogenic side effect from lingering Sleeptalk. But no, it was real, and she was starting to think she actually had an idea of what was going on.

Paige finally spoke up, while stepping around to stand beside Sierra. “Okay. Alright. She's not a clone, or a long lost twin. She’s a Biolem, Irelyn.” She paused then, before adding, “And so am I.”

Over the following twenty minutes or so, Paige and this Sierra girl told Irelyn about what their birth father-- or creator-- had done, about what Irelyn’s own parents had been a part of. They told her about the Biolems, which Irelyn had already known a bit about, thanks to other encounters. But those Biolems hadn't been all like these two. They were very simple as far as intelligence went, barely more than drones. They certainly couldn't have passed as ordinary people on their own for the sheer number of years that Paige had.

Apparently there was a good reason for that. Those other Biolems had little more than fancy computers running them. They didn't have real personalities. Not like these two. Paige herself had an upload of Pittman’s own daughter’s personality and mind, while Sierra a slightly altered copy of that. It was complicated, apparently. But that was why they were different from those other, simpler versions. They had what was essentially an upload of a human mind instead of a computer program. They were a much more advanced Biolem than those foot soldiers from before.

It was, to put it simply, a lot to take in. Irelyn found herself needing to sit down almost as soon as they started. She sat there silently, watching and listening as her adopted sister and the girl who looked so much like Cassidy Evans explained the whole thing. Or, at least much as they could right then without exposing others. There were certain things they wouldn’t talk about just yet.

Paige had been created originally as a test, a proof of concept. And as a way for Pittman to make his young daughter immortal after suffering from the death of his wife. But he saw her as a failure on that point, for some reason. She was more like a close sister to his original daughter. Maybe because she had her own personality and not simply a carbon copy of the original girl. Either way, he had been using her to get investments from another rich family, the Tates. Then something bad had happened. That family had been attacked in their home and massacred. Which was very much news to Irelyn, since she only remembered that family dying in an accident in a completely different state. But apparently that was part of a big cover-up. Again, there were details in that story that Paige and Sierra weren’t allowing themselves to get into.

Either way, Pittman had been enraged by the loss of his investors and his friends. He blamed the Evans for what happened, for some reason. Maybe because they refused to invest in his work? Or because he thought they were actually responsible for the attack? It wasn't clear. But whatever the reason, he saw them as his enemies, and became rather obsessed with taking them down. Which made him the perfect partner for Irelyn’s father, who was already quite obsessed with seeing the Evans as his primary rivals. Apparently, Pittman’s first plan had involved abducting the Evans’ older child and replacing him with a Biolem copy, who would do something horrific like kill ‘his own sister’ and then dramatically confess to all sorts of crimes that his family was supposedly responsible for. That would make their business empire completely crumble to dust, and the Banners would be ready and waiting to jump in and take over everything when that happened. They would become the new richest, most powerful family in the state.

That, however, had fallen through when Paige had exposed him and the plan to one of the Evans’ chief security people. He had been able to get Pittman arrested and sent to Breakwater. Which, honestly, the idea that the Evans had that sort of power really didn't surprise Irelyn at all, once she gave it a little thought. If anyone in the world could simply snap their fingers and fast track a trial to get a person banished forever like that, it was definitely Sterling and Elena Evans. Especially if that person was responsible for attempting to destroy their family and murder their children like that. They had clearly been very motivated to make him go away. Though, to be perfectly honest, Irelyn wasn’t sure why they hadn’t simply had Pittman killed. Maybe they were just too squeamish for that and didn’t believe in killing? She wasn’t sure. Whatever the reasoning, they’d had the man sent to Breakwater, which should have been the end of him.

But, of course, that hadn't been the end at all. Pittman had simply moved to plan B, even as he was sent away. He'd had his best creation, Paige herself, sold to the Banners. They would help him with everything he needed to do, in exchange for helping to take down the Evans (something both sides wanted to do anyway), and for a brand new daughter to replace the one who was such a disappointment. And this one they could literally control and program to behave any way they wanted. There wouldn't be a repeat of Irelyn. The Banners would be able to essentially create their perfect daughter, though they weren’t going to be given the codes to do their own programming to make her exactly what they wanted until after Pittman got what he wanted.

Or, as the case actually was, they were never going to be given the codes to control her.

Paige, for her part, was ordered to create a history of bad blood between herself and Cassidy Evans. Then, on her seventeenth birthday, she was supposed to kill the girl and get herself banished to Breakwater as well. Being a secret Biolem rather than a Touched, the island prison’s defenses wouldn’t be prepared for her, and she would be able to break out her creator and all of his people.

It was an overly-complicated and convoluted plan, but then, Pittman was literally a mad scientist, so that tracked. And he was obsessed with the Evans for some reason, so any plan he came up with had to involve hurting that family as much as possible. So all of that made twisted sense.

Of course, Paige’s birthday had already passed. She had been ordered to murder Cassidy Evans, but had found a way to avoid that. She didn’t want to get into the details, yet assured Irelyn that the other girl was still safe and alive. Instead, Paige had destroyed that warehouse where the other Biolems were being made, with the help of that Paintball boy. Maybe he had helped stop Paige from following her programming? It wasn’t clear. But he did have access to a Tech-Touched of his own, that Trevithick girl, so it kind of made some sort of sense.

Whatever the reasoning, however they had stopped that from happening, Paige had destroyed the warehouse. But her father had infected her with a hostile AI program meant to take over her mind and turn her back to his side. That hostile program had become Sierra, and together, they and Paintball’s people had managed to find one of the last remaining advanced Biolem bodies for her to be put into. That body had been a copy of Cassidy Evans herself, probably intended for a similar purpose as Pittman’s original plan to replace Simon Evans with a duplicate.

And now both of them were part of Paintball’s team, despite technically not having any powers. They were Biolems, with their own enhanced physical abilities. They were Poise and Style. Her own adopted sister and this girl who looked like a twin to Cassidy Evans were Biolems working with Paintball on Avant-Guard.

Irelyn felt like an idiot for not figuring that out sooner, to be honest. It seemed so obvious in hindsight that she wanted to smack herself. Well, not the Biolem part, but she really should have recognized Paige. Or at least, she told herself she should have.

“Are you doing okay with this?” Paige tentatively asked with an expression that made it clear she wasn’t sure she should even be saying anything at all. “I mean, we just told you that we’re… biological robots.”

“Biological robots,” Irelyn echoed, a small, rueful smile playing at her lips. “Something tells me that’s not as different from ‘human’ as we might think.” She took a long, deep breath then before looking that way. “Your fathers--both of them-- told you to kill Cassidy Evans. They forced you to do it. If you were human and they were holding a gun to your head, you still would’ve had more of a choice in the matter than you did. They might as well have used mind control to force you into it. But what did you do?”

“I… found a way to bring Cassidy back,” Paige murmured softly. “I found a way around their demands.”

“If you were ‘just a robot,’ you wouldn’t have,” Irelyn informed her simply, yet pointedly. “You would have followed your instructions and gone no further. You chose to go against your father the first time, because you knew that what he was doing was wrong. You chose to find a way to beat this programming, because you knew killing Cassidy was wrong. You made choices, your own choices based on your own moral code. If we can have humans that are as evil as Pittman, or even Cup and Pencil, then I don’t exactly think my species has an iron grip on morality ourselves. You made choices that went against your so-called programming. You made your own decisions as best as you could, while having a gun to your head the entire time. Paige, I don’t care if you’re a robot or a rooster. I’ve spent years working right alongside TONIs, you think I can’t recognize human-level morality and intelligence in a creature that usually doesn’t have those? I watched the entirety of Star Trek: The Next Generation for God’s sake. Don’t make me quote the entirety of Picard’s Sentient Being speech, because I’ll do it right here and make you watch me act it out. I will judge you based on the choices you make, not on who built your body or whether your brain is flesh or metal.”

Irelyn let that settle for a moment. It was important for Paige to hear it, even if it would probably need to be repeated often.

There were still things Irelyn needed to ask about beyond that, however. Things that didn't make sense. She had to ask why, if Pittman hated the Evans so much, he didn't just have Paige shoot them when they weren't expecting it, or even put a bomb in one of his grunt biolems and have it blow itself up near them.

Those two exchanged glances before Sierra shrugged. “Well, part of that is because he wanted to ruin their lives and make it all very personal, but another part is probably the whole Ministry thing. He thought he couldn't get away with attacking them directly just like that.”

Her words made Irelyn frown. “What do you mean, Ministry thing? What, is he religious?”

That was when they dropped the real bomb. Taking turns, the two of them told Irelyn all about the secret organization that actually ran the city. Even after everything she had already heard, Irelyn was convinced this time they were either messing with her or exaggerating. It was all just so absurd. But she kept quiet and listened. By this point, she knew Paige and this other girl wouldn't have just been making the whole thing up entirely. There had to be something behind it.

Once they were done, she exhaled. Her voice sounded hollow even to her own ears. “So, you're telling me that both crime and law-enforcement in the city are actually controlled by a single organization, which itself is run by the richest family in the state. You're telling me that for decades now, since before I was even part of the Minority probably, they have been controlling everything.”

“Not absolutely everything,” Paige replied, “but most of the big stuff, yeah. They collect taxes off crime, and use law enforcement to keep it within reason. They play both sides.”

Irelyn genuinely had no idea how to react to that, none at all. She just sat there, letting the thoughts run through her mind. As she was processing, Paige and Sierra both pressed her to not say or do anything different. They informed her that the Ministry had people in every team and in every law-enforcement and judicial office. Some knew more than others about what they were doing, but all could be assets. And it wasn't just here in the city. They apparently had contacts at the state and federal level, though to a lesser extent. It still wasn't safe to try to go after them. Anything she said could--would end up finding its way to the Evans, even if the initial person she spoke to was safe. There would be reports, paperwork, something would slip somewhere.

Holding up a hand to stop that, Irelyn announced, “Okay, I understand. I need to think about all this. I'm not going to do anything stupid and rash, I promise. Besides, we still have to let the Breakwater people know just what Pittman is capable of.”

Sierra snorted at that. “Well, he's not really capable of anything besides fertilizing some flowers right now.”

Paige elbowed the girl, and then explained what had happened, that they had actually teleported that bastard over to get the cure from him, found out he hadn't made it, and then handed him over to the Ministry themselves. Which was when he had been killed.

Oh wow. Okay, Irelyn had been given a lot to digest in a very short time. That was the straw that broke the camel's back as she simply held up both hands.”Nope, nope, that’s enough. No more of that. I'll deal with everything later. This is… too much to process immediately. Right now, I am awake, and I feel like celebrating. So let's have a family dinner. You know, with what's left of our family.”

Paige was staring at her. “I mean, Sierra and I can just go. We can take care of ourselves. You don't have to pretend that I’m actually your sister. Your parents bought me as part of a conspiracy to do something terrible, and now they're gone. I'm not going to fight you for any of this. I’ll just disappear. You can have it, all of it.”

Irelyn gave her a sharp look. “You’ll do nothing of the sort. I promise you, Paige, if you try to disappear, I will do everything in my power and call in every favor I have to find you and bring you back here. I don't care how it started. I don't care what the reasoning was. My parents adopted you, and that makes you part of my family. You're going to stay here, and we're going to handle this together, no matter what it takes. You are my sister. I'm not letting you go off on your own. You're not alone. And where exactly do you think you're going?”

That last bit was directed at Sierra, who had been heading for the door. She stopped and blinked back that way. “I mean, I wasn't adopted.”

Irelyn shrugged at that. “You were created as a copy of her. That sounds like a twin to me. Fraternal maybe, but still. You're her sister, so you're my sister. You belong here too. So get back here. Now like I said, you’re both staying. I--I’ll process everything at some point. Maybe I’ll do a little screaming, I think Dad still has some really good soundproofing in the theater, that’s a good place to scream. But in the meantime, let's order some food.

“And see just how high up the ranks we can get for the weirdest family dinner in the city.”