Ali wasn't impossibly beautiful anymore, and in spite of obvious care to repair the damage her face was now scarred and unsettling.
Or at least, it was to Lana; the sight of what she'd done to her friend made her sick to her stomach with shame and horror. She tried to speak around the gag. “Ali! Are you okay? Did I damage you beyond repair?”
“I'm still functioning, if that's what you were trying to say,” the Caretaker replied with a strained smile. She began checking something below Lana's line of sight, and Lana felt the distant throb of pain in her hand increase in intensity. “As for your own injury, healing will be a slower and more difficult process than for the gunner. Your cauterizer was melted in your hand when he disarmed you, severely burning your flesh. All the way down to the bone, in some places.
“The damage was further exacerbated by molten fragments cooling and becoming fused to your tissue, requiring delicate care to remove them. It will take a great deal of time to regrow the damaged tissue, particularly the nerves, and extensive rehabilitation to restore full dexterity, if that's even possible. The procedures will be painful, so I'll try to do them during your periods of enforced unconsciousness.”
Lana barely heard Ali; her eyes were drawn to her friend's other hand, the one holding a medical sensor; rather than the usual long, elegant fingers and flawless skin, the wrist ended in a large, coldly gleaming mechanical hand with two fingers and a thumb, like what combat androids had. Ali obviously hadn't been able to recover the hand Lana had shot off, and had settled on a temporary solution.
Ali must've noticed where she was looking, and her stricken expression, because she patted her shoulder in reassurance. “The replacement hand doesn't hamper my functioning too badly, and I can take it off and cover the stump with a cloth cap when I want to blend in better.” Her full lips pulled back in a wry smile. “Barix keeps joking I should get a hook.”
Far from easing her guilt, that just increased it. Since Aiden seemed to have no desire to have anything to do with the Caretakers, they couldn't exactly saunter back to HAE's secret base and ask for repairs or a replacement hand. Which meant Ali would be stuck with that prosthetic for the moment.
Suddenly it all crashed down on Lana: what she'd done, her failure to stop herself, the horror of seeing the looks of wounded betrayal on the faces of her friends. On Dax's face. She closed her eyes as her vision blurred with tears, which slipped free and slid down her cheeks, starting hot but cooling quickly.
The Caretaker patted her shoulder again. “I'm going to take off the gag so we can talk, Lana,” she said gently. “But fair warning . . . I can read microexpressions as well as your vitals to determine if you're attempting deception, and I'll respond instantaneously if you attempt to trigger any programs you have hidden in the ship's computer or any of this ship's systems or instruments. Understand?”
Lana nodded, a bit miserably. She had no way of knowing if she was going to try anything, since she had no idea what had taken control of her and when or if it was going to do it again. Still, that seemed enough for the Caretaker, who removed the gag with light fingers and offered her a glass of water.
She was desperately thirsty, but she ignored the offer for the moment. “I'm so sorry, Ali,” she whispered, blinking away more tears.
“I believe you really are, or at least this part of you is,” the other woman replied.
This part? The part that didn't take control of her and try to kill her friends? “I had no idea anything was wrong with me until the Vindicator came and played that awful signal,” she whispered. “Then it was like I was a prisoner in my own head, unable to do anything but watch in horror as I did those terrible things to you, and Belix, and-” the words caught in her throat, and she continued in a miserable voice, “and Dax.”
Ali nodded, eyes full of grim sympathy. “Your hidden side has been operating almost from the beginning. Engaging in small sabotages, hacking Fixes and the ship's computers, sending information to your handlers, planting a beacon to help them find us. Subtly nudging your every decision to accomplish your mission.”
Lana didn't want to believe any of that, but if it was true then a lot of things made sense. Like her insistence on disembarking at Midpoint and going off on her own, even when everyone thought she was insane. Or how she'd genuinely wanted to stay on Callous, but had out of the blue changed her mind.
“I don't remember any of it,” she whispered. “Anything I did, I have no idea.” She jerked her head against its restraints, as if trying to dislodge some painful thorn stuck through her brain. “But I remember everything I did during that fight with the Vindicator. Why?”
“Because you were triggered,” the Caretaker said gently. “At that point you either accomplish your mission and return to your handlers, or you die in the attempt, so there was no more need to keep your brainwashing hidden from your Blank Slate consciousness. It's very rare for someone in your situation to be caught alive.”
“What situation?” Lana nearly pled. “What's wrong with me? Why did I do this?”
Ali hesitated, then settled down on the bed beside her with a sigh. “You're what's known as a Dormant, Lana.”
Unfortunately, like with so many other things she wasn't familiar with, she recognized that term, at least superficially. “A sleeper agent employed by the Deconstructionist Movement.”
“That's right,” her friend said, looking sad. “Deeks take Stag prisoners, political dissidents,
