Chapter 127: Truth Within the Lie.
As the walls of the illusions cracked, crumbled and fell Zixxy could see the bubbles of reality beginning to swirl together to form a much larger image before her eyes.
It was like watching a whole host of videos being played all together at the same time but all being stitched together to form a much bigger image out of the whole.
Until eventually with a large pop the whole thing just snapped together like a giant jigsaw puzzle with the very last piece causing the whole thing to snap into sharp focus.
Stood right there at the centre of the image now playing of a laboratory where several egg-shaped pods were mounted and the inhabitants were all shaven-headed and hooked up to a series of what looked like electrical muscle stimulators, as well as a series of IV drips Fifteen.
"W-W-What is this?" Fifteen asked in a shocked voice as Zixxy approached her but without turning to face her.
"The truth, raw and simple, these are the memories they did not want you to see or to know," Zixxy said looking up at the images playing.
In one of them, she could see three children playing together, a boy and two girls who appeared to be older than him but one of which was blatantly fifteen by the way she glowed.
In another, she saw the girl and the boy all older now both being taken away in the middle of the night never to be seen again as their beds were wheeled silently out of the ward in which they were housed.
"N-N-No this can't be true! I-I-I'm an orphan, m-m-my parents were killed, I have no family!" Fifteen exclaimed.
"Actually you have both a younger brother and sister, look here," Zixxy said pointing to the image of the trio playing together.
Interestingly she couldn't find a single image of their parents, not a a one.
Either the Enclave had done a seriously good job of erasing their memory from her mind which was fucking hard to do as core memories like that were near impossible to destroy completely due to how interwoven with a person's personality they were, but there was simply nothing, no residue or even fragments.
"But if that's true where are my parents? Where are our mom and dad?" Fifteen asked looking over the images.
"That I do not know, it might be the case that you are actually an orphan as they claimed or there might be something else at work here, but what we do know from this is that you did once have a family and we know that at least one of them is still alive," Zixxy said causing the figure to finally turn to face her.
Gone was the defiant glare, and gone was the hard and cold stare, now both had been replaced by a look of shock and wonder.
"Which one!? Who is still alive!? Please tell me!!" Fifteen begged and in that moment Zixxy saw it as clear as day, her eyes were identical to Seven's now.
"Your brother, the one they called number Seven, the one they sent you to kill if you could find him," Zixxy said causing the figure to freeze up as those memories of her mission reintegrated, this was going to be the hardest part for Zixxy.
Freeing a person's mind from brainwashing and control was actually the easy part compared to slotting it back together in a way that not only made sense to them but that didn't drive them off the deep end as the pain of their reality and possibly of their actions became obvious to them was truly far far harder.
Trying to buffer these memories and to integrate them with both a context and a sense of understanding that their actions truly were not their fault we paramount to keeping the victim stable.
"Number Seven, yes they wanted us to find and kill him if they couldn't have him, if we couldn't capture him we were to eliminate him," Fifteen said in an emotional voice for a moment before shaking her head and her brow furrowed in confusion.
Here came the context and understanding part.
"Here look," Zixxy said and she summoned some of her own memories to show to Fifteen, holding her hands out to her sides to cause little image bubbles to pop into existence all around her showing her own memories of the man they called Seven.
Everything from him rescuing her, to him leading rebelions and protecting people, it was all there.
"H-H-He's a good man?" Fifteen asked watching the images in wonderment.
"One of the very best I have ever known," Zixxy said nodding.
"B-B-But then why would they want me to capture or kill him, to kill my own brother!?" Fifteen demanded turning to look at Zixxy with a look of increasing desperation to understand these unknown motives that were once a part of her.
"Because they fear him, who he is, what he is and what he represents," Zixxy said clicking her long fingers and causing more images to appear alongside the others.
These images showed Seven's truly caring side, showing him not only helping people but viciously defending them.
"They wish to control the power he possesses, to turn him into a weapon and instrument of their will, as they turned you into, a good little soldier who will not ask questions and who can be used to crush their enemies or to scare them into submission, to bring everyone and thing under their control or to crush those that they cannot sway,' Zixxy said showing her images of Enclave atrocities now.
"So because they fear him they want to control him or kill him?" Fifteen said her voice sounding almost dream-like as she asked the question more of herself than Zixxy as she watched.
"That's right, you see he represents the thing they fear the most in this world, true freedom for everyone, he and the people around him strike to unite the world but to also free it, we do not force people to join us, we offer it to them freely, we show them what it can be by our example and then leave the choice in their hands or indeed claws," Zixxy said showing her images of the non-human members of their misfit band and the love they had for the humans around them and visa versa.
Fifteen looked absolutely amazed by all of this and then she turned back to Zixxy again.
