Slaves of Cerberus

Jack came to on the floor of her cell, her shoulder aching. No doubt they hadn't been gentle with her when they had tossed her back in the clink, but she supposed it could have been worse. At least those perverted fucks didn't take the opportunity to "enjoy" their helpless captives before putting them back behind the forcefield.



As Jack rose up from the floor, she immediately checked for Jenny. The red-headed teenager was still limp on the ground next to Jack. Seeing her sent a shiver through Jack, remembering what had happened back in the testing area, and as she stood she tentatively put a hand down between her legs. Nope, just bare snatch down there. In the midst of moving them back, they must have removed the fucked-up sex toy from her hips.



"Jack," she heard her name being whispered. "Jack, are you okay?"



"Ugh," Jack moaned, rubbing at her sore shoulder and walking over to Jenny's unconscious form. "Doing just peachy, cheerleader, how've you been?" she answered as she wrapped her arms around Jenny's waist. It hurt like hell, but Jack eventually managed to haul the limp girl up onto her cot.



"I'm... glad to see they brought you back in one piece," Miranda said, Jack barely able to make her out through the cell wall. Even after all this, the stuck-up bitch was only begrudgingly able to admit that she was happy Cerberus hadn't dissected her. "I just hope they didn't abuse you too terribly."



Jack sat back against the wall dividing her cell with the Lawsons', a slight smirk on her face. "Oh, it was horrible stuff, alright. They showed me a bunch of naked pictures of you, cheerleader," she quipped. "All that perfect smooth skin of yours, with not so much as a freckle on it? Shit, by the end I was begging them to stop."



"Jack, don't do that," Miranda responded. "With all that's happened, don't you think it's time for us to let this petty rivalry go?"



"Ah, but you're just so much fun to fuck with, princess," Jack said, before letting out a long sigh. "But fine. You want to know all the gory details? Here you go."



She told Miranda everything that had happened. Waking up with Henneman shooting her up full of some red drug. Getting unstrapped and treated to a full 360 degree panorama of rape. And then Henneman telling her to fuck Jenny, helpless in her own chair, with a massive strap-on.



Miranda remained silent during the whole telling. Once Jack recounted the gas filling the room, Miranda quietly asked, "So... you didn't do it?"



Jack paused for a moment in disbelief. "Are you shitting me, cheerleader?" she finally asked, voice loud and incredulous. "Of course I didn't fucking do it! If you thought for one second that I'd do something like that to an innocent little girl, then bitch you'd better..."



"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Miranda quickly interrupted. "It's just... after seeing what happened to that asari down at the end of the hall, I thought that maybe you... you might not have been in your right mind."



"Get this straight," Jack said, "I don't care what that bastard pumps into my veins. I'm me, and I'm gonna stay me. And you'd just as soon see me wearing a goddamn Cerberus uniform as you'd see me do anything to hurt Jenny. You get me?"



"Of course, Jack," Miranda responded. And even without Jack being able to see her face, she could hear the relief in the woman's voice and understood. She needs to me to resist this shit, Jack thought to herself, because she knows that eventually, she and her clone sister are gonna get injected with the doc's little experiments. And if I can take Henneman's shit and spit it right back in his face, then maybe she can, too.



Despite herself, Jack couldn't help but sympathize with Miranda a little. Just like Jack, she was afraid, but trying her best not to show it. Just as much for herself as for her more-innocent cellmate. Neither Jenny nor Oriana had ever been put through shit like this before in their entire lives. At least Jack and Miranda had had the horrors of the Reaper War to harden them up for such horrors. Not to mention Miranda and her years spent running from her father, and Jack and her... well, every fucking second of her life. The two of them were the ones who had been through so much, and had to be strong for the sake of the ones they cared about. 



"We'll get through this, cheerleader," Jack said. "Maybe not without a few more scars, but think about what we've dealt with up to this point. Giant fucking robot monsters bent on destroying the entire galaxy. Compared to that, what's a few messed-up thugs with constant hard-ons and delusions of resurrecting Cerberus? Maybe things will be shit for a while, but we'll come out the other end in one piece. Just like every other time. Because you and me... we know what it's like to fucking survive."



"I hope you're right, Jack," Miranda said. "But I worry that Henneman may just be warming up at this pint. Back when he first joined Cerberus, I could see that he was a brilliant man. Brilliant, determined... and dangerous. That was the reason I had him assigned to undercover work, rather than shoving the bastard in a bloody cell and ridding the world of his twisted fantasies." Miranda paused, and even without being able to see her, Jack was somehow sure that Miranda was staring at her sister as she said, "Perhaps it would have been better if I had. Maybe without Henneman's support, Cerberus wouldn't have been able to come back from the dead. And maybe we wouldn't be in this terrible situation..."



"Jesus, again with the martyr complex," Jack said. "Stop making this all about you, cheerleader, and start thinking about ways to get us out of here."



"Me?" Miranda asked. "What makes you think I can come up with a way for us to escape?"



"Because that's what you do, isn't it? You make plans," Jack said. "You're the one who planned out the mission through the Omega 4 relay. You planned a way to keep your sister away from your father for years. Shit, you're so good at working stuff out in that genetically-perfect brain of yours, you even managed to make yourself forget what happened that night at Shepard's apartment, when we..."



Before Jack could continue, the entrance of the cell block slid open. And a face that they hadn't seen in ages, and yet seemed so very familiar, stepped into the room.