“Miss?” The gentle voice from the elderly librarian in the doorway of the private conference room startled Irelyn Banners. “Are you alright? Can I get you anything? I’m sorry, it’s just… you have been staring at that table for ten minutes now, and you seem… bothered. Do you need help?”

Blinking rapidly, Irelyn looked at the stacks of files that had been scattered across the table in front of her. The paper trail. The proof of what she had already known, but needed to see for herself. The evidence of something so absurd it felt like she had fallen into the Twilight Zone.

Swallowing hard, Irelyn shook her head. Her voice was flat. “No, thank you. I’m leaving now.” With that, she started gathering up her things, hurriedly shoving the files into a nearby leather bag before starting out of the room. The librarian stopped her and handed over a card that had the name and number for both a lawyer and an abuse hotline. Oh God, he thought she was in that kind of trouble. Was that how he had interpreted the look on her face as she sat there?

Not wanting to discourage the man from reaching out to others who might actually need that help, she simply thanked him and made her way out of the library. Her mind was still spinning from the implications and ramifications from everything she had found out.

It had all started several days earlier, when Irelyn visited her father’s office at the building he owned downtown. Despite how much time she had spent there as a child and teen, the woman barely ever went there now, ever since the falling out she'd had with her family as an adult. Still, she had a question about one of her medical records for work, and her mother wasn’t answering. So she had gone in and headed upstairs, knowing her father would be working through lunch. Sure enough, his secretary hadn’t been there, so she simply walked through the outer office and raised a hand to knock on the very slightly open door. But the sound of her father’s voice from within had stopped her.

She hadn't actually meant to eavesdrop, not really. Hearing her father's voice had just made her stop in case he was on the phone. She had been about to walk away to wait on the other side of the room, when the man spoke her name, talking about how she had betrayed him by not staying with the family and yada yada. Yeah, she’d heard it all before.

What she had not heard before was what came next. What she had not heard, until she was standing there outside the office, was what her father had actually done about her supposedly abandoning him. But she heard it then. Standing by that door, she heard him talk about what he had done. And with each word, Irelyn had felt herself grow colder and more shocked. With each word her father spoke to whoever he was talking to, she felt a sort of anger rise in her that she didn’t even know she was capable of.

The urge to confront him right then had been huge. But she had suppressed it. It wouldn't have accomplished anything at all, other than getting the man to cover his tracks even more. Quickly, Irelyn left the office, though not before stopping at the secretary’s computer to pull up some information. She had listened to her father's voice to make sure he was still on the phone while using the computer to check on where his physical records from the right year were kept.

They weren't in the building, but were kept at a separate facility elsewhere. It had taken a couple days for Irelyn to find her way there, breaking the law to get inside and take the files she needed. The files that would confirm what she had overheard. Breaking in was, of course, pretty bad. But she couldn’t go through official channels. Aaron Banners would simply shut that down and destroy the evidence the second he caught any whiff of a warrant.

But now she had the files. She had the photographs and the paperwork and everything else. And she didn’t feel any better than she had before. She felt sick. She felt… confused.

Paige. Her adopted little sister, the girl she had tried to get close to but failed repeatedly, was… was artificial. No, artificial wasn’t the right word, exactly. She wasn’t a normal human. She had been created, built. Her consciousness came from a computer program of sorts, a cybernetic orb that was placed inside of a manufactured biological body. It was just… hearing her father talk about how he had bought Paige, how he expected her programming to be adjusted to adequately replace his ‘real’ daughter once she was legally able to be seen as an adult, had enraged her to the point of almost kicking his door in. It had been so hard to resist that urge. And now it was even harder. She had the evidence. Her father had kept records of the payments to some shell company, along with transcripts of the conversations they’d had, and more. They weren’t stupid enough to outright say what was going on, but it was easy enough to read between the lines once you knew what to look for. Paige was an ‘asset’, among other similar terms. They talked about her programming, about obedience-checks, payments in both cash and supply form to be sent to some sort of drop-off point, limitations, and so forth.

With the bag held over one shoulder, Irelyn made her way from the library to the parking lot where her car was waiting. There, she simply sat and gripped the steering wheel tightly. Fuck. Fuck, what was she going to do now? She still had no idea who had created Paige, given how vague the files were. There was talk within their deal about how her creator retained overall authority over her programming up until her seventeenth birthday, which would be in a couple weeks. Her creator had retained authority over her programming until that time, while their parents would be given all the command codes they needed to adjust that programming once the day came. Irelyn had no idea why the person behind selling Paige had insisted on waiting until her seventeenth birthday to hand over all the controls, but it was written into their contract.

Now that birthday was only a couple weeks away. When it came, their father would be able to tinker with Paige as much as he wanted to. He would have all the power he needed to mold her into the perfect, obedient heir to his company. He would change her to be what he wanted, the way he hadn’t been able to change Irelyn.

Both of the woman’s fists slammed into the steering wheel hard, a shouted curse escaping her before she started the car and left a bit of rubber on the pavement while peeling out of the lot. She had to do something, had to go somewhere and… and… fix this, somehow. Yet even as she accelerated around another car, she had no real idea how she was going to do that. It wasn't until she was several minutes into the drive that Irelyn consciously realized where she was going. And yet, could the answer really have been a surprise? It was the only place she could think of going right then. Particularly when she glanced to the clock and saw what time it was.

Pulling up outside of Cadillac Preparatory School, Irelyn drummed her fingers along the steering wheel indecisively for a few moments before giving a firm nod as she took the turn into the lot. There, she found a spot and began to wait half an hour until the classes let out. About five minutes into that, one of the security people came by to check on what she was doing, and she told him she was there a bit early to pick up her sister when she came out, showing him her identification. He thanked her, made a note of it, and headed off again. Which left Irelyn to wait another twenty-five minutes. Her mind raced through a lot of possibilities through that time. What she could do, what she could say, how she could bring it up or if doing so was the right idea. Nothing seemed right, and she kept second-guessing herself after every thought.

In the end, as students began to emerge, she still hadn’t made a decision. And there was Paige, already coming out within a group of other people. They were all talking and laughing, and as Irelyn watched from the car, she still couldn’t tell that there was anything… different about her.

But of course there wouldn’t be, would there? Paige would seem the same as she always had, because nothing about her had changed. She had always been this… person. She was still a person. She was still Paige. Irelyn had known her for five years now, since the girl was twelve. The idea that her body was artificial, that her mind and personality came from the computer orb somewhere in that artificial body, all of it was just…

Shaking that off, Irelyn hit the button to lower the window, calling out. “Paige!” When the girl looked that way, along with several others, she raised a hand. “Come on, let’s go!”

There was a brief pause as Paige stared at her, before saying something to her friends. Then she approached, her tone neutral. “Irelyn, what’s going on?”

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Oh boy. What was going on? There were a lot of possible answers to that, most of which would be a bad idea to get into right then. Instead, Irelyn simply gestured to the seat beside her. “It’s been awhile, thought we could go get some ice cream. Come on, I’ll bring you back for your car after.” After what was the question, and it was one that she didn’t have an answer to.

Paige looked uncertain, a slight frown touching her face. For a moment, it looked like she was going to object. But in the end, the girl simply shrugged. “I mean, I guess. You do know I’m not twelve anymore, right? You don’t have to take me out for ice cream. I’m perfectly capable of getting it myself.”

“Yeah, but I know where the best place is,” Irelyn retorted reflexively. “Now get in already.” It was so hard not to stare at the girl, so difficult to avoid giving away what she knew. Logically, she knew there was no difference between Paige now and over the past five years. And yet… yeah, it was hard. And this was with years of experience hiding things from people. If she hadn’t had that, it would’ve been impossible. As it was, it took everything she had simply to look like this was just any other day. Her showing up to take Paige out wasn’t unheard of, thankfully. But she had the impression the other girl basically saw it as her fulfilling some unspoken obligation.

Finally, Paige walked around the car and got in the other side, stopping to say something to a guy that was passing. Then she shut the door and buckled up before looking over. “Good ice cream, huh?”

“The best,” Irelyn corrected before shifting into drive. She pulled away, still trying to decide for certain what she was going to say. To avoid silence, she asked, “So how’s school going right now? You excited to be a senior next year?” Mundane talk, but it filled the air and gave her a bit more time to think. As if she hadn’t had enough already. As if a minute or two in the car with Paige would give her any more solutions than the past several days had, or all the time in the library today, or the drive over to the school, or the half hour she had sat there waiting. All that time, all of it, and she still didn’t know what to do or say. What would another minute add to that?

“Did you have another fight with your father?” Paige interrupted her thoughts, looking that way.

Of course the girl would think that was why Irelyn was here. She’d done it before, had another blowup with Dad and then intentionally taken Paige out. She meant it as a way of showing the girl that she didn’t hold her complicated relationship with their parents against her. Which--

“Our father,” Irelyn found herself automatically correcting. Just like she did every other time the subject came up. It was just like normal, just like almost every conversation they’d had, when Paige would make a point of referring to their parents as Irelyn’s parents, and Irelyn would, in turn, correct her. It was almost a ritual between them.

For so long, ever since she had first heard their father talking about the truth, Irelyn had been at a loss for how to actually address the girl in question. She had spent hours and days agonizing over the right thing to say. No matter what she thought of, it all seemed inadequate and wrong. Yet now, sitting here like this with that single automatic correction, the same that had come every other time Paige referred to their father as only Irelyn’s, the answer was as immediate as it was simple. All that time trying to think of the perfect thing to say, and when it came down to it, there was only one real way to go.

“I know the truth,” the woman abruptly spoke, like tearing off a Band-Aid. She was still driving, gaze centered on the road, though she could see the girl from the corner of her eye. “I heard Dad talking on the phone, and checked his secretary’s computer. He still doesn’t understand that her system is linked to his and can get to any file he can if she knows what to look for. Dad and tech, huh?” There was a thick lump in her throat, her hands tight on the wheel. “Yeah, Dad and tech. Then he went and…. bought you.” The last words came in a quiet murmur.

There was a long moment of silence after that. She could see and feel the girl staring at her while she took a right turn at an intersection. There was no visible emotion on her face, only that same silent, calculating staring.

“That’s… odd,” Paige finally spoke. “I’m not trying to kill you.”

“Because of the programming to keep the truth about yourself a secret and to eliminate any threat to that?” Irelyn shifted a bit, turning her gaze to the girl while hitting the button to activate the auto-drive. Normally, she only did that when she needed to change into her costume for work, or to focus on a call from another Conservator that required direct attention. But this was a special case. She turned to look straight at Paige. “I looked through all the details I could find. The rule about not harming family is a higher priority than the one about protecting your secret. Family is considered an exception to the secret rule, because we’re supposed to know about it. I took an educated guess that Dad and… and the person who sold you didn’t bother programming a specific exception for me. I'm considered family, so I fit under that exception umbrella.”

Paige’s voice turned somewhat incredulous. “You took an educated guess and risked your life? What if you had been wrong? What if you weren’t protected?”

“Oh, I was always protected,” Irelyn assured her. “Try to jerk yourself toward me. Lash out, do anything like you're going to hit me. Go on, it's okay.”

There was a brief pause at that, before Paige very abruptly did so. Her hand snapped out so quickly Irelyn didn’t have the slightest chance to react.

But the computer did. Before Paige’s fist could cross half the distance between them, even with her incredible speed, a pair of cords snapped out of the seat on either side of her, caught the girl’s wrists, and yanked them down to her sides. The cords were durable enough to prevent even a minor to low-moderate amount of enhanced strength from being able to snap them.

“Defensive measures built into the car,” Irelyn informed her. “For when I’m transporting potentially dangerous passengers. The computer watches you through three different hidden cameras, and monitors the way your body weight shifts. If it detects an attack, it reacts to stop and detain you. There's a reason I wanted you to get in the car before we started this conversation.”

She could see the way Paige tested the strength of the cords, pulling at the bonds for a few silent seconds before seeming to slump visibly. All of the energy ran out of her. There was another brief moment of silence before she quietly asked, “Are you going to try to kill me yourself, or find an expert to do it? Either way, I should warn you that it won't be as easy as you might think. No matter what defensive measures you have.”

Irelyn, in turn, gave a brief double-take. “Excuse me?” She paused, staring at the girl as though really seeing her for the first time. “Paige, why would I want to have you killed?”

“You’re angry,” came the immediate response. “Don't deny it, I can tell. I can read you. It's all over your body language. You're furious right now. It's all you can do to stop yourself from lashing out, isn't it? You've been lied to for all this time, and now you know the truth about me.” Her voice actually cracked very slightly at the end. “Of course you want to do something about it. And now you have me right here, trapped.” She indicated the fact that not only were her arms restrained, but her ankles as well, from coils that had emerged from under the seat.

In answer, Irelyn reached out to press a button on the dash. Immediately, the coils retracted and released the other girl. “Yes,” she agreed, “I’m angry. I’m pissed off. But not at you. Why the hell would I be angry with you, Paige? You didn’t ask for any of this. I’m angry with the person who… who sold you, and at Mom and Dad. I am pissed as hell at them for playing these games. If they had bought you, no matter how fucked up that is to begin with, because they really wanted to love and take care of you? That would be one thing. But they just want to use you. Dad wants to change you as soon as you’re seventeen. He wants to turn you into some obedient little heir to his kingdom that he can literally reprogram at will. He couldn't control me. He couldn't make me into what he wanted. So he went out and bought someone he could completely control. That’s why I’m pissed off. You--Paige… you are my sister. I know you've never really believed that before, and now I know why. Now I know why you never opened up. But look at me. I know. I know who you are, I know what you are. And I know that you are my sister. No matter how you came about, our parents tried to control me, tried to make me into what they wanted me to be. And now they’re trying to control you and turn you into what they want you to be. Wherever you came from, whoever put you together and did all this, it doesn't matter. I mean, it does. But it doesn’t change this. You are my sister, and I am going to get you out of this whole situation, just like I got myself out of it. I'm going to take you away from our parents, and then you and I are going to deal with them and the person who sold you.”

“I can’t help you,” Paige informed her. “I can’t do anything against your… against the Banners right now. I can’t do anything until…” she trailed off.

“You can’t do anything until what?” Irelyn asked, a slight frown touching her face.

Paige didn’t answer at first. She seemed to be considering something very intently. Silent thoughts were clearly working their way through her mind, before she finally turned her gaze to the older girl. “Are you… sure about what you said? Do you really want to do something about this together?” There was a vulnerability to her voice that Irelyn had never heard before.

Without hesitation, the woman answered, “Yes. I’ve had days to think about this. I didn’t jump on a whim. I… I took my time. I thought it through. You are my sister. You and me, we’re going to deal with this together.”

She saw the other girl swallow hard. Paige closed her eyes for a few seconds before opening them. “Come to my birthday party. Don't do anything until then. Just come to my party.

“If you really want to do something about this, that’s where it starts.”