#another similarity between jay and heron is that they BOTH know that these systems exist | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

onceuponanaromantic · 3 years

Text

bright above these little chains

(Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial‘s prompt, A Greater Horror. Have a little bit from the Avis Coda. Enjoy!)

“Ms Ai, Katrina,” The alchemist whispered. “I hope you know that whatever happens, I’m proud of you.”

Katrina ran. The freezing night air sliced into her lungs and a stitch grew along her side.

Away from the fire.

The flames licked at the air, kept within an eerily glowing, almost invisible circle at the base of the Institute’s facility. She stumbled, clutching her bionic eye as it sparked and went out.

She stopped, gripping the wall of an alleyway, trying to breathe, still clutching her eye.

“In time, I don’t know if you’ll ever forgive me, but I hope you might understand.”

It had been such an honour to be selected, amongst all the other interns, to work with a top scientist of the Institute. It had been even more of an honour to find out that the scientist she was working with, after having signed multiple trees’ worth of Non-Disclosure Agreements, was Dr Jay Avis.

(It had been enough to ignore the little voice that thought that it had seen that Dr Avis was dead.)

“First rule, do not touch anything that I don’t explicitly tell you to touch.” Doctor Avis looked up from where she had been organising a basket of flasks, her mouth pressed into a thin line. “Second rule, do not eat or drink anything in this room. Third rule—” Her eyes flashed almost gold. “If you don’t know something, ask directly. Do you understand?”

Katrina nodded her assent, gulping. There was so little written about alchemy, and so much of what was written was nigh incomprehensible. But to those who understood it…

(they said you could do the impossible.)

“Good. Let’s get started.” Dr Avis nodded curtly, her face still and expressionless.

“Ms Ai, what do you think I’m working on?” Doctor Avis asked her.

“Something to do with gold. And bodies. And energy.” She responded. It had taken her months to be able to respond so flippantly and vaguely to any question. She hadn’t realised she could just do that until Doctor Avis had asked her to ask any question, and responded that way.

“You’re… Not wrong.” Doctor Avis said, humming. “But not quite right.”

Doctor Avis hadn’t ever showed her the research brief. She had been working on her own thing, constantly scribbling away at a notebook and bouncing between set ups. Every so often, she would look up and ask her for a reaction schema for some conversion. She would give her a small smile, and ask that she explain why she came up with that particularly reaction scheme.

It was difficult, at first. She wasn’t used to having to learn everything from scratch. But it was fun, after a while. And she learnt more about the research project, piece by piece.

She didn’t see the whole picture until nearing the end of the research project, not that she knew it was at an end.

All she knew was that a man walked into a lab one day and looked at Dr Avis. Dr Avis had stared back, not giving an inch.

“When will it be ready?” The man asked, in a soft voice. “People are getting… impatient.”

Dr Avis looked at him, before a cold, cruel smile curved onto her face.

Katrina remembers that smile. She never wanted that smile aimed at her in her life.

No matter how much she complained internally about Dr Avis’ expressionless face.

“Two weeks.”

“Good. We will convene next Monday. It will not do to… fail to hold up your end of the deal, Dr Avis.” The man said softly, his eyes cold and glinting.

“Of course.”

At the end of that day, Dr Avis had become Jay. Jay had taken her hand in hers. She remembered being surprised at how cold Jay Avis’ hand was.

(She remembered the news that Jay Avis was dead.)

They had continued as per normal the next day. Jay Avis’ hands were as stable as ever, even as the speed of her scribbling grew faster, and she muttered to herself as she manipulated different materials, pouring shimmering liquids onto shining crystals and going back and forth.

It had been a week later, that Jay Avis had pulled her back at the end of the work day. She hadn’t known what to expect. She certainly hadn’t expected Jay Avis to hold her hand and whisper how proud she was of her growth.

And how she hoped that Katrina would understand what she did some day.

“You’re stronger than they think you are.” Dr Avis whispered, her voice shaking as she held onto Katrina’s shoulders. “They were horrible to use you this way. They didn’t even tell you. I couldn’t afford to.”

It had been the most emotion she had ever seen from Dr Avis. She had been stunned silent, unable to ask what exactly she meant.

She reached into her coat pocket, trying to warm her hands, as she twisted against the dirty alley wall in pain. She stopped, feeling something in her pocket. On that last day, Dr Avis had told her that she should go out and explore the world. So she had, going to the park to walk around and take in the air

It had been the only reason she hadn’t been in the building at the time.

She pulled it out, frowning at the little drive that fell out onto the dark ground. She squinted, attempting to read the note in the dim lamplight.

She had to read it three times, before its contents sunk in. Her fingers went horrified to the darkness on the left side of her face, covering it as though she could still see out of it. As though anyone could still see out of that eye, against her will.

A mass weapon to turn bodies and lives into energy for companied to use. And worse, they didn’t need any cameras in the lab to make sure that Jay Avis couldn’t do anything else.

Why would they, when they could just use her assistant’s eyes?

#the avis coda #syl's writing #flash fiction friday #oh katrina #being anya's foil is not fun #though seriously katrina has a lot of anxiety based on perfectionism #and constantly fighting to be the best in a highly competitive environment #anya hasn't grown up so she doesn't believe in it #but like katrina knows how all the micro-systems work #and she's constantly anxious about fucking up in front of people she wants to impress #another similarity between jay and heron is that they BOTH know that these systems exist #but also don't... get the emotional implications of those systems

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