FOILS 2

"I am not a robot. There is nothing mechanical in me at all." Ava said rather cooly.


"Father stopped experimenting with cyborgs a long time ago and removed all of the mechanical parts in me."


Ava looked down at her hands, frowning as she remembered what they looked like connected with wires and metal, tearing through her skin and making her bleed continuously, but not enough to die. The voice box that had made her voice come out like a computer. The metal plating covering her legs. It was so cold.
 
"Ohmahgawsh," Angela said. "You were a cyborg? Like on Teen Titans?"


The seriousness of the very real situation flew over Angela's head. Or maybe, it was sucked in from her brain and got trapped into her hair. "That's a-mah-zang," she added.
 
Ava looked at the girl like she had sprouted two heads.


"No it was not, it was awful. Imagine being ripped open and other parts, not even living parts, being stuck inside you. Metal being drilled onto your skin to the bone, and the metal being welded on? Imagine your own vocal patterns being interpreted by a machine that fought for control of your mind? Try to think of all these things being put in place, while you were still consious." Ava was breathing harder than usual and put her hand on the wall to keep it from shaking.


What is going on? I am, I am exhibiting an emotional response! That should not even be possible for me anymore. This place... they are doing something to me. I must remain stagnant for survival.


"I apologize for my emotional outburst and will take the punishment you see fit."
 
Woooosh.


"Coooooolio." Angela frowned; Ava was using the wall for support. "Oh, you prob's are gonna catch a cold from using cold water. Like, pneumonia. I should tell The Hawk. Also,"


Angela paused. She had done a 360 degree turn on her heels (which, pleasantly, had sounded like a cat being run over) and was about to go find Barton. "Don't tell him I call him that behind his back. He hates me already because I can't do archery."
 
"I will tell him nothing. Now, should I take my clothes off for the second stage of the shower? Or should I simply get into my night clothing?"
 
Angela jumped as if she had been shocked.


"How long have we been here?" she asked suddenly. "If we've been here for a week, I haven't had a shower in two months. That's a record."


Angela started running down the hall, the thought of Ava and possible pneumonia lost.
 
The next morning Emma stood outside Ava's door, and after taking a calming breath knocked and went in. Ava was still in bed. Her clothes were soaked and had been laid out on the floor, apparently Ava hadn't found the closet.


"Ava? I'm going to show you how to take a shower the right way and then we will have our session. All right?"


Ava sat up and got out of bed, he frame even more emancipated looking than usual, and nodded. Emma smiled and lead her out of the room to the showers.
 
Angela found, after much searching, a radio in the utility closet, and had presented it to Banner, who hypothesized that Steve must have left it behind his last time here.


"It's, like, five hundred years old," Angela said, shoving the prongs of a fork into its dusty vent slits.


"More like seventy." Banner took Angela's fork away.


"More like fifty hundred."


It wasn't long. Angela figured out how to turn it on, and played with the stations.


"Wait, I like this kne....Take my hand, we'll make it, I swear..."


"Angela. Angela, I'm eating- or, trying to eat breakfa-"


"WOAH, WE'RE LIVING ON A PRAYER."
 
Ava had just finished her first successful shower and Emma had helped her dress in the correct fashion. They then went to Emma's office where Ava sat in the uncomfortable chair for over an hour answering questions she did not care about. Emma sighed slightly when Hawkeye came to pick her up, but smiled at Ava when she left.


"So, how you feelin today kid?"


Ava didn't look at Hawkeye as she replied she was fine.


Hawkeye smiled.


"LOok, sorry I got you sick, we are gonna try some kinder foods, like chicken noodle soup. Or, er, we'll go to the kitchen now, I think banner is in there, he can help."
 
Angela didnt need to eat. Breakfast, what was that? She only needed to sing like the car window was down and all the lyrics would be sucked up by the wind.


And then Banner was in front of her, holding the dead radio. "Angela."


"I'm sorry, I was just singing."


"Didn't this dad of yours teach you self control?"


Angela sat down, sulky.
 
Hawkeye walked Ava into the kitchen and tried to ignore how coldly distant she was acting. Teenagers. Even five hundred year old ones got moody he supposed.


"Bruce! What should I feed Ava? Chicken soup doesn't seem like breakfast food."
 
Hawkeye raised an eyebrow at banner, but did as he was told after getting Ava her toast.


Why do they insist on treating me like I am one of them? I could kill them all if I wished. I may yet kill the Emma girl. Her questions were troublesome. The toast is good though. I will stay for the food. 
Hawkeye hid the radio in his room under the bed. If anyone tried to get at it now without the proper security clearance their hand would get chopped off. He sat down next to the bed and picked a small jewelry box out from under it and opened it. The ring inside had taken months to make. It had a pail gold body and a small white diamond in the center. It seemed ordinary, but if a button was pushed-not saying where- a laser beam would emit from the diamond. Another button was an emergency beacon, just in case.


He'd ask her soon. Maybe the next time they saw each other. Not now, but soon, before either of them were killed, or worse.


Hawkeye shuddered slightly and returned the ring to its place. Then he went back out to eat with Ava.
 
"Let me keep it. I won't turn it on," Angela bartered, sitting on the tabletop.


Banner shooed her off. "No."


"You're no fun. I'll get Barton to show me where he hid it."


She crossed her arms in absolution and glanced at Ava. "Dude, what's up? You look like an angry dead person."
 
"I do not understand. Most dead humans do not look angry. Most look as though they were gong through fear as their last emotion." Ava said with a mouthful of toast.
 
"Oh, yeah! Like-" Angela contorted her face in mock terror.


(i feel like thas gonna be foreshadowing)


Banner bopped her head. "You stop that."
 
Ava nodded as she ate her toast.


"Very much like that yes. Though many corpses heads were not attached to their bodies after... The experiments."


Ava frowned at her toast and took another bite.


"Bring me the head. The body is not necessary, I only experimented with the mind on this one."


Ava nodded. It had been three years since the pit and in those three years none of her color had returned. Although she had always been whijte, this level was nearly always transparent and she had been mistaken for a ghost many times when she was gathering experiments for her Father.


She cut the head off of the body. The male human was maybe, thirteen? It was hard to tell at that stage in their life. This one might actually still be 'alive' though. Father had installed some software into the brain to use it as a computer. If this worked he would try it on Ava.


"Place it there." Father directed her, Ava did as she was told. He plugged a cord into one of the circuits on the outside of the cranium, just under the boy's hair, and watched the computer screen.


For a moment the screen flared to life and a thousand images rushed through in a few agonizing seconds. Then the head started popping and before Father could unplug it, it sizzled out.


He sighed.


"Get me another, an older one, a smarter one. Be back within the hour. Go number fifteen."


Ava left without a word. The expression on the boys face had been pain. Not terror.


"I do not believe you can accurately assume your death face until you are dead." Ava said to her toast as she took another bite and swallowed.
 
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"Woah. Deap, bro." Angela murmered.


"Angela, we're going to the weight room now. Alright?" Banner looked sick, and poitedly refused to look at Ava.
 
Ava left without waiting for Hawkeye, who had just gotten out of his room. She walked back to her room and sat on her bed and stared at her hands. They were so small and white, like albino spiders attached to a pair of albino arms.They looked young too, but they were old, so so old.


"Ava! Why did you leave the kitchen?"


Hawkeye was in the doorway, frowning. Ava shrugged.


"All right, come on. We're gonna do some training. All this sitting around is driving me up a wall."


"I do not understand."


"It's making me antsy."


"I see no ants."


"Well, if I stay still any longer you will, come on."
 
"Where you takin' me, cheif?" Angela asked. This was a weird part of the Facility.


"Not the weight room." Banner coughed. It sounded like phlegm.


There, at the end of the hall, was a payphone. It was bright red, too, with a white base; Angela had the sudden desire to call the city of Townsville.


"How old is this place?" asked Angela.


"Older than you." Banner said, after a moment of thought. "You know your dad's phone number? Good, because he didn't write it in his file, helpfully. Makes things harder for us. But if youre the only one who knows it, he'll know its you."


"You're letting me call him?"


"For five minutes."
 
Training was good. Hawkeye had Ava run mile as fast as she could. Then he made her run a few more so he could have a nice jog on his treadmill. Then they did weights and then he saw her skills in throwing knives. He seemed impressed, but Ava could not be sure. Then he brought out a smaller bow and arrows, with a glint in his eye, and gave them to her as if he were bestowing some sort of blessing on her.


"Let's see what you can really do kid."


Ava took an arrow and put it by the string, held it up to her eye and pulled back...


TWANG!


Lots of things happened at once. Ava pulled back too far and broke the bow and it splintered and shattered all over the place, but she had released the arrow somehoww and it had gone off by Hawkeye's direction, grazying his cheek, and sticking to the wall behind him.


Ava dropped the remains of the bow on the ground and refused to shake. She picked needle sized splinters out of her arms and looked how red they had gotten from just being in her for a moment. The body did like to overwhelm things.


Ava heard a snort from Hawkeye, then a stifled chuckle as his footfalls came towards her.


"Ava," He sad picking the bow up off the ground. "I think we are gonna need to get you a stronger bow."
 
"You promise?" Angela asked.


Banner nodded like his head was too heavy for his neck.


He left her with five quarters, because SHIELD was cheap and didnt want to spend extra on its peripheral systems.


Angela took the phone. It seemed hollow, like it really wasn't made of anything.


She remembered using a payphone in the back of a Starbucks, once. A bad once.


She slipped money into the coin slot and realized, as the phone clanked to life, what was missing that bothered her so much: no bubble gum stains. No graffiti. No "for a good time, call xxx" and rusty rain damage. She had to tell Dad.


"Dad!"
 
"I want to take the collar off."


Hawkeye looked up from his newspaper, where he had just been reading the Peanuts and smiling.


"Huh?"


"I want to be able to teleport again."


"Why?"


Ava frowned at him and then looked away. She obviously had notthought about it. Why did she want it off?


"Forget I said anything."


Ava got up from the kitchen table and walked out, before breaking into a silent run. She wanted to see this facility, and she could find her way around by herself.
 
"Hello?" a woman asked.


Angela paused.


"Sorry. I was looking... um," she stuttered and gulped down hard. "Who is this?"


Nasily and nastily, the other end responded, "Alana Graham. Who's calling?"
 
It had been four years ago. Angela was ten.


Dad had sent her into Starbucks with one Wilson and his promises to be outside when she got back. He lied.


Where had he gone? How had she ended up alone?


With five quarters in her pocket (one was a Wisconsin she had hoped to keep), Angela found the obsolete but functional payphone in the back. It wasn't easy on the stomach to touch it; some suburban slime covered it like grease.


When Dad finally picked up, he didn't recognize her voice. Angela panicked. She had begged him not to leave her.


When he realized, he yelped and he cursed and he told her to stay on the line.


It was too late. She had been forgotten like a phone number or an address to a Chic-fil-A.


She waited. The outside lights snapped on, and a business woman walked out. She opened an umbrella and leaned into the light. When Angela saw her, the sudden recognition had been like being hit by a car.


Alana Bloom had a gold clasped, brown leather breifcase and matching heels. She checked the time. She huffed; her breath froze over in the air.


Angela gaped pathetically until Alana climbed into a taxi and disappeared. Soon after, Dad's grumpy pick up rolled in, and she climbed into the front seat, and her soiled clothes seaped into the cushion, and her boots left mud on the carpet, and when didn't Will asked what happened or if she was okay, she didn't even notice because she had just stupidly gaped in the face of an opporunity of a life time.


"Hello? Who's calling?" The woman's voice repeated.


Angela was knocked back into real-time. Her hands, both craddling the phone, trembled as if set on ice. "Mo... mom...."
 
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