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Palpatine had a great many plans in play, but his favourite was the clones.
His favourite was CC-1010. His little Fox.
He'd had many a thing in mind for the chips, for the end of the Jedi, for all of it, and the Kaminoans had exceeded his expectations.
But there were things to work out, if his plan was to come to fruition, and having the entire Coruscant Guard at his disposal to run tests on was simply fantastic. It hadn’t been hard at all to isolate them, to lock their voices so they could not cry for help, to get his lab rats where he wanted them.
And there was nothing they could do if he were to steal one or two away and test Orders on them.
One or two a week.
Most of the time he’d send them back, they wouldn’t even remember what had been done to them. They'd lament their memory gaps to one another, speak false promises of protection.
But that's where his perfect little Fox came in.
Because he was willing to do anything to protect the other clones, his little siblings, and he was the perfect test subject. And a leader, which made him all the more important.
Palpatine had no problem using Fox for his uses, if that was what the clone wanted.
Of course, Fox wasn’t who he used.
Fox was bold and brash and protective, and under that he was weak and scared and desperate. Fox would do anything for his family, and part of him wanted to test how far that loyalty went. To order him to do things, no chips, no mind control, just threat and hostages.
He had a base of them.
But Fox would remember things, and he was determined. If he remembered things, he would eventually find a way to stop all of this. And that would be a large problem should it happen.
No, he used CC-1010.
CC-1010 followed Orders, like a good soldier, he did exactly what he was told.
And while CC-1010 followed orders, he could feel Fox screaming out, trapped in his own mind.
He'd expected the chips to remove the clones personalities when they’d first been designed, but there was something crueller in their being trapped in there while their bodies worked without them.
It was perfect.
Well, almost perfect. There was one issue he’d been facing.
Separating the chip, and the person.
He enjoyed the clones feeling and seeing what was happening, but he needed them not to remember it when the chip switched off again after their orders were carried out and they became them again. But he also needed them to remember what had happened once they were activated again.
He could make them forget, make their experiences little more than flashes or nightmares, make sure no word of it ever slipped past their lips.
Forgetting wasn’t the issue.
Remembering was.
A week ago he’d brought Fox to his office, activated CC-1010, and sent him on a mission.
CC-1010 had returned and reported on that mission.
Fox was coming to his office now, summoned for a meeting, and Palpatine was going to see how much CC-1010 remembered, and how much his little Fox remembered.
Right on time, there was a knock at the door.
He used the Force to lock it behind the clone, who stood at perfect attention.
He could feel little Fox’s apprehension, his worry, the very feeling of bracing himself.
“Commander, please, your helmet.”
The clone removed his helmet without a word, placing it on the desk where Palpatine had motioned.
He wanted to see the clone’s face when he did this, he never got tired of it.
“CC-1010, activate Order 13.”
He snapped to attention, his mind swirling for a second until it was blank, save the weak protestations he could feel through the twines he used to keep his little Fox’s mind where he could see it.
“CC-1010, report on your mission six days ago.”
“Yessir...”
And the report began, perfect and detailed.
It had worked.
Oh, this meant more than just making them useful before he took full power, but afterwards he could revert them to play with and then turn them back into living droids at will.
He never had to let go of his pet.
He sank back into his chair and allowed the victory to wash over him for just a minute, before his practicality returned to him.
He looked up to the clock. His little Fox would notice the time had passed, but only about 20 minutes. Not enough for a mission. He'd investigate. He had to keep testing to make sure Fox didn’t remember and CC-1010 did, and he didn’t want his pet working anything out just yet.
But what to do...
Palpatine smiled, and motioned, the little hand on the clock turning backwards, to the exact time Fox had taken off his helmet.
“CC-1010, deactivate Order 13.”
Fox’s mind flooded to the forefront, but the veil he’d crafted, the seeping darkness, it blocked every memory of the past 20 minutes. Just as it always did.
He started their meeting, a perfectly normal one, and the clock hand moved twice as quickly.
When the meeting was over, the clocks hands were exactly where they needed to be, and moving normally once again.
.
.
.
Fox practically fell onto Thorn’s desk. He'd been aiming for drama, but with his head pounding as it was, he’d ended up having a lot less control than he’d hoped.
Thorn didn’t even look up.
“Meeting with the fiendpatine?”
“I hate those meetings. They take up so much of my day. And my head is killing me.”
“They can’t be that bad.”
“It did not feel like an hour. And not in a good way. I can’t believe I was in there for that long.”
“Are you sure you were?”
“I kept an eye on the clock, I was in there every second, but it doesn’t feel like it’s that long. It just always takes longer than it should, which is eternally frustraiting.”
“You gonna go to Fix for a painkiller?”
“They don’t do anything, there’s no point.”
“Ah, one of those headaches.”
“Has Hound created a dark quiet room for migranes yet?”
“Oh don’t we wish it. I think our rooms are empty though, and they can be dark with the lights off.”
It sounded like a very appealing plan. His head felt like his brain had been half-replaced with some sort of sludge, his limbs felt heavy like he’d been doing excercise to collapse, he was tired, his vision blurred unless he was focused.
He didn’t know what Palpatine was doing to him, he couldn’t work it out. He hadn’t missed any time, he hadn’t left the office, and yet he still felt as though he had physically.
Maybe it was just Palpatine’s presence, or something.
“Come on vod, lets get you something to eat and then get you some sleep, you need it.”
He wasn’t going to argue, for once.
He swayed a little and his vision blurred and greyed as Thorn led him to the canteen.
Sleep sounded like a very appealing idea.