Cybil (2018) #projectsuper

Chapter 32: A Glimpse of Paradise, Part 2

Making her way up the elevator to her "room", Cybil almost instinctively felt for the message she had been sent to deliver. Part of her wondered why Fuller had seen fit to put it on the back of a receipt from some store.

Part of her wondered why she cared.

She groaned, head in her hands. It had felt more recently like two different people were at war in her mind: the one she'd been born as, and someone else entirely...

As she got out of the elevator and crossed the hallway to get to her room, she heard chatter from one of the doors to the right.

In former days, the girl would've filtered out the sound as irrelevant noise. But something about this noise compelled her to listen.

"Powers..."

She swiftly made to keep a keen ear towards the door. Thankfully, due to the apparently superhuman hearing she had always had, it was fairly easy to stay hidden while isolating the particular sound.

"Not everyone is like us. You are well aware of that."

A female voice with an accent.

"I still don't understand why you get the looks you get. You're not..."

A younger voice interrupted the second speaker, a woman who had an unsettlingly robotic voice.

"A robot?"

Cybil's heart rate spiked. She had heard that word thrown around in her hearing, specifically by people who talked about her around the Organization's headquarters. While she never paid attention to the context of the word's use, the constant use of the term around her was enough to make her secretly question who or what she was.

The voice, of whom Cybil could identify at least as a young boy, was shushed by the accented woman.

"Do not call her that in public. Not only is she a cyborg in all technicality, but even if she was, it would still be better not to let the populace believe that a life sized robot is out and about."

"Sorry..." the boy mumbled.

"Look, child. You remember the Guardians, correct?"

Guardians? Cybil had only heard a mumbling once or twice of this name. Both by Fuller.

The boy had grown impatient, apparently. "...telling me about them, but I've never seen them."

The robotic voice again. "We'll see them together. Until then, think about this. You'll see kids just like you, with fantastic Powers. You'll make so many friends, and you won't have to be alone anymore."

The rest of the conversation went by unheard by Cybil. She was had been gripped by a deep sense of longing.

Hadn't James been talking about others like her? And now this?

She needed to know more.

Unbeknownst to her, as this thought flowed through her mind, she was being teleported out involuntarily.

...

After welcoming Cybil back and relieving her shock at being promptly removed from a mission in progress, Fuller led her back to her room, where James was waiting for her.

Good.

Neither two were privy to the phone call that the muscular man was having.

"It appears to have gone well. She suspects nothing."

"And you are okay with using multiple people like this?"

Fuller scoffed. "Please, Ana. I'm merely shaping her into her appropriate mold."

A moment of silence passed. "And what of Marcia and Alan?"

"They can remain ignorant for now. Marcia will have served her purpose soon enough. Alan will be a useful ally, as well."

Ana was aghast. "Do you have even the charred remains of a conscience?"

"Sometimes, you have to remove such restraints to fight those who are themselves without restraint."

"..."

"You want to save the world, don't you?"

The phone went dead. Fuller closed his eyes.

They'll never understand...