Find Violet Hyde: Secrets In Space

Archie

Mr. Hubert sat on a cold metal chair, hands bound by some invisible force. He stewed in silence for what felt like an eternity until he heard a symphonic voice boom around him.

"Archie Hubert." The voice sounded strangely familiar.

He searched the tiny room for the culprit behind the noise. All he could see was the same cold blue from metal ceiling to floor, no windows or doors, nothing but metal and dim green light.

"Where the hell am I?" He grimaced as his own gruff voice echoed in response.

Again, the voice chimed, "You are aboard the Confero. Violet Hyde was your creation; tell us how she came into existence."

Archie Hubert sighed, he was helpless, and he would have to tell the truth, no matter how terrible. "My ancestors found plenty of Vitruvian genetic material on Old Earth - in the battle ships that didn't finish their missions. What they recovered, they stored for future use." He turned his head and spat.

The voice was irate. "We were improving Earth with consent; humans don't remember that part of history."

Trying to get through the story that had plagued him for 16 years, Mr. Hubert ignored the voice. "16 years ago, the woman who rules the Moon Colony now thought it would be beneficial to engineer a race using saved Vitruvian DNA. I told Lucille it was unwise, that your people would come back for their own. She never listened to me."

His bound hands shook with rage. "We went down to Ickwall to search for candidates. We found plenty and more, the people of Ickwall had been reproducing and hiding their children from... experiments or the Farm. Madame Lucille's team took nearly 200 children that night. One child was born only a few hours before the raid, now she goes by Violet." He cleared his throat; his heart was pounding in his ears.

"As the children streamed into the lab, I was...sick. I knew the tests we would have to run and the painful experiments soon to be held. Then I saw thin little Violet, far too young to be in the lab. I started yelling for Lucille, who was processing children a few stations away. She saw Violet and...something changed in her eyes. I still don't know what made her change her mind, but she said Violet would our subject alone. Lucille made Violet's tests top secret, allowing no one but me to help with the experiments. 

I would come every day to check the girl's progress, inject genetic material, and keep her occupied. As she grew older, her hair color changed from midnight black to purple, but everything else stayed fairly human. She was profoundly intelligent, far above the smartest humans her age and Violet always had advanced perceptive abilities."

The voice returned. "How did she escape Moon Colony?"

Mr. Hubert sat in silence for a moment, figuring out how much to tell the voice. "When the Genetics lab was raided by Vitruvians and the subjects were...taken...Violet wasn't on the premises. Lucille heard of the incoming attack and exiled me, sending the child with me to the Farm for safe keeping until she could bring Violet back."

Again, the voice rang through the empty room. "What did she intend to do with Violet Hyde once she returned to the Moon Colony?"

"When the lab fell under attack and all the other subjects were taken or...destroyed. Lucille lost all the Genetic research on Vitruvians. At first, Violet was to be one of many Vitruvian and Human hybrids. Lucille hoped the experiments done on Violet would continue to transform her DNA and she hypothesized it would take more than 15 years. Lucille came to the clearing at the Farm to take the girl back, but I don't know what she planned to do with Violet once she had her." Mr. Hubert was exhausted, he felt his eyes throbbing, and the room started to spin.

"What is your relationship to Madame Lucille?" The voice was curious.

"Can I go now?" He grumbled through gritted teeth.

"We will let you out soon. First answer the question."

Archie Hubert furrowed his brows and chuckled. "What is my relationship to Lucille? Well the answer is tricky. Back on Moon Colony, I was a respected geneticist. My partner in research was Lucille; first met in the lab and worked well together even though her ideas were usually more...imaginative than my own. So officially, we were research partners."

"Research Partners..." The voice repeated his answer. 

"What do you know about Zia?" The voice was almost coy.

Mr. Hubert ran a hand down his face and shook his head slowly; he could almost see himself in the smooth metal covering the wall opposite him. "She was sent to the Farm a couple years before I took Violet there. I knew she had come from Ickwall, but she was the only one that ever spoke about knowing a life outside the Farm. No one else ever talked about it."

"How did she fight the memory loss? Wards of the Farm are ignorant of life beyond its walls, correct?" The voice interrogated.

"You see, new arrivals would come in the ships from the Moon Colony with their memories erased and a new story implanted in its place. The children of the Farm believed they did not have families, or they passed out in the wilderness of Old Earth or lost their group. Zia received the memory loss injection, but her memories of Ickwall were still strong. She would talk about life before the Farm, and believed her memories of Ickwall were of a city on Old Earth. She remembered being with her true parents, she remembered them selling her to the Farm. She does not realize everything took place on Moon Colony, but if she saw Ickwall she would know the truth."

"I did not see any harm coming from her staying once I figured out what she knew. When new arrivals would come to the Farm from Ickwall, she would teach them to read. I started asking Lucille for more books with the new arrivals. Zia thought traders of some sort had brought them by. She was always the brightest in the whole operation and she made the Farm a happier place. After I saw how she was with Violet I knew I couldn't lose her. I knew she would stay to oversee the Library." Mr. Hubert shivered; the room was growing colder by the second.

The voice went quiet for a few minutes, then "You will have no memory of this confession." A thin gas began to fill the small room, hissing through unseen cracks, green fog clouded Archie Hubert's vision. He swayed in his chair, his binds obstructing him from gaining balance. He could smell metal, flowers, tea, books, and his head dropped back. He passed out.

*

If you have any thoughts on this chapter I'd love to read them in the comments. Also, vote if you had a nice time reading. :)

Hmm... What do you think is going on here?

Archie Hubert has more going on than you thought, huh?

How do you feel about the info he shared?