“Extensive study suggests that Samurai are in many cases exceedingly resilient in terms of emotional trauma. It is unclear if that is part of the selection requirements or if it is simply a result of the qualities the protectors do look for. Whatever the case, Samurai often find themselves in situations of great peril, and while they might suffer a traumatic event, they will almost always bounce back within days, if not hours, of the incident. Some may call them callous because of it, but the expert consensus is that it is a form of defensive mechanism to shield their minds from all the chaos they have to endure on the job. That said, it doesn’t mean that there will be no reaction to whatever has inflicted that trauma upon them. While they might be much more resilient than most, even Samurai aren’t entirely immune to the after effects. It is best to tread carefully around a Samurai who has experienced something emotional or traumatic. Especially in the time it takes them to bounce back from said event or the time it takes them to do something about it. That is the major difference between them and us. They can, and will, do something about it, most often with very little in terms of consequences.”

- Dr. Steven Johanson, Doctor of Psychology, in a speech titled “The difference between Samurai and the rest of us” given at the “WilliowCore Inc. Psychology Summit”, 2050

When we woke up we felt terrible. Our eyes were exhausted from crying, our throat dry, our mind reeling from the remnants of the last nightmare we had endured. The chorus was quiet, exhausted and weak.

The room was still dark, a quick check of the clock revealed it to be early morning, before sunrise. All of us were exhausted, drones sitting around the house without the energy to move.

Someone was next to us, a quick glance revealed it to be Chloe. She was hugging one of our arms tight to her naked chest while she slept. At any other point in time it probably would have cheered us up, but we couldn’t find the energy to let it.

Carefully we extricated the arm, before we sat at the edge of the bed, face hidden in our hands.

Good morning. How are you feeling?

We didn’t answer, getting up and ignoring the light breeze on our naked skin from the open window. With weak steps we made our way out of the room and down the stairs into the living room and kitchen.

“Like shit,” we muttered finally, taking in the room and feeling lost.

Could I interest you in a shirt?

We shrugged, not particularly caring one way or another and made our way over to the kitchen counter. A shirt appeared on it when we arrived and we picked it up.

It was soft, some dark colour we didn’t pay attention to and some print on the front that didn’t matter.

It was a bit too big for us when we pulled it over our head, reaching nearly down to our knees. Dismissing the shirt we opened the fridge, hoping for a beer or whatever else might be hiding in there. No luck.

Opening the cabinets on the hunt for something alcoholic we nearly missed the silent steps behind us. We didn’t even need to look at the source to know it was Kaysa in one of the nanite bodies.

“You know it wasn’t your fault,” she said in a perfect copy of our own voice.

We snorted at that, but didn’t reply, simply continued our search for some alcohol.

“Is this how it’s going to be?” Kaysa asked, a little scorn in her voice, “Ignoring it in the hopes of it all going away?”

We sighed, closed the cabinet and stood, giving her a level glare.

“We both know it was our fault. We messed up, because we didn’t pay enough attention to how she was doing. Now, either get something strong to drink, or leave us the fuck alone.”

She looked at us for a long moment, then produced a big bottle and a glass and put them on the counter. “Okay, have your drink. But we will sit down and talk.”

Rolling our eyes we walked over, took the bottle, opened it, then took a long swig.

The alcohol burned our throat in that familiar way that was painful yet pleasantly familiar. A bit surprised at the intensity of it, we checked the bottle.

“Well, we did say strong,” we muttered when we saw the 56% marked on the bottle.

Leaving the glass where it was we walked over to the sofas, plopping ourselves down on one of them. Kaysa followed, sitting down opposite of us.

“Tell me what you can remember from the last couple weeks,” she said, face stern but eyes soft.

It made us wonder idly just how much control she had over the nanite drone, since even the eyes looked perfectly alive.

With a long sigh we took another sip, grimaced at the alcohol burning our mouth, then started to talk.

We talked for a long while, listing every little detail we could recall about… pretty much everything. From our life at home, to the job, even the clients we could remember, what they had us do, how the rest of the brothel was doing. We talked about our daily routine, what drugs we took and how, times we had fun alone or with others on break, the duties we had to attend to, the joytoys we talked to. We left nothing out, even going into detail on how the time with our clients went, and what we thought about in our drunken haze. As much as we could remember at least.

We talked about the others, Tina, Sharon, and also Sarah…

Kaysa just sat there and listened, not giving any reaction apart from the occasional nod.

It was… hard. Especially to talk about Sarah. The alcohol helped. A little.

Eventually we ran down with our last day at the brothel and the aliens trying to eat us, all the way up to the moment that Kaysa introduced herself to us.

“How often in all of that did you notice anything wrong with her?” Kaysa asked eventually.

We opened our mouth to respond, then closed it, taking the time to think.

How often did we notice anything? She looked healthy enough. She ate when we ate something. Drunk a whole lot more than us, sure, but she took little else in terms of drugs, so it evened out. She acted normal, she talked normally to us if she did say anything. She never mentioned how unhappy she was even if it was obvious in her body language, nor did she mention anything that she accused us of yesterday.

“We… we don’t know,” we muttered.

Kaysa nodded. “I did some digging. From the little I could find there was a client she had, a couple weeks ago. Proper old school preacher type. I don’t know what happened exactly, but afterwards they met up multiple times, and if the security recordings of his building complex are anything to go by, they had a lot of activities together. The kind even you would exhaust yourself with. There was even a complaint lodged against that apartment, one that led nowhere, of course. It mentioned other tenants seeing a joytoy leaving every other day, barely able to even stand straight and with marks on her arms. She was escorted away by someone they didn’t know, only to show up a day or two later.”

She paused, giving me a long look. “It makes sense with what I could figure out after her death.”

The mention of her death had us tear up again. Closing our eyes we tried to remain calm and took another long swig from the bottle.

“There was nothing any of us could have done. Between the alcohol and the cocktail of drugs they pumped into her, not only was she weak to the point of standing on the brink of death, she had suffered severe organ damage, even brain damage. Her entire body was failing hard. Even I couldn’t have saved her unless you had a Class 3 catalogue unlocked, and even then the chances were, at best, 50/50. The fact alone that she lived this long is a miracle, Seraphine. She was practically dead for days already.”

“But she was fine the day we became a Samurai…” we muttered, not able to understand, “She talked normally, complained about the job… nothing that would hint to any of this.”

Kaysa nodded, “Yes. I don’t know what exactly happened, but here is my theory. Keep in mind that it’s vague at best, but so far that’s the best I could piece together with the little data I have. This preacher, or priest of some kind, talked her into some kind of deal, presumably with the offer of helping her. Of course, that wasn’t the case. I would imagine he used her for his own benefit, or maybe even only his own pleasure. Pumped her full of something that would basically brainwash her, and then sent her on her merry way after telling her to keep her mouth shut and act normal, if she wanted this to continue. Or maybe he told her if she kept quiet she would be absolved of her sins. Or maybe she kept quiet on her own, because she didn’t want anyone to know what she was doing. It's not hard to imagine any number of reasons for her silence. Whatever the reason, she kept her mouth shut and continued with her life. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what she took prior to her death, but the cocktail of drugs was much more than anything even you ever subjected yourself to.”

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Our eyes widened. We had taken a lot of shit in our time, often together with a lot of other things. More than once we had been pretty close to death ourselves.

“She tried to act natural, and considering how your life looked at the time, you wouldn’t have seen the signs. To you she would have looked like she was constantly drunk, or on some other kind of drug. Nothing out of the ordinary from what you knew, so you didn’t pay attention. Someone on the outside might have been able to see it if they knew her well, but again, considering the rather wide spread lifestyle in that district, they might just conclude that she was just as fucked up as the rest. She hid the syringe marks with makeup, probably not to draw attention to it, and the rest wouldn’t be obvious anyways.”

She sighed, shaking her head, “You would have had to notice basically a day after that first meeting for you to have any chance at saving her. If my guess at what they pumped her full of is even remotely correct, it would induce a state of ungodly bliss and brainwashed her into whatever they wanted her to think. In effect they turned her into little else than a living doll that would do exactly as she was told. She probably couldn’t even remember a thing, outside of feeling good to the point of addiction. Nobody could have noticed. Not with the widespread overuse of drugs typical for that district. She would have been just another poor joytoy trying to cope with life. By the time the incursion came along she was long since dead on her feet, not helped by withdrawal symptoms which can be rather harsh on the body after the things she had taken. Even if you hadn’t met her yesterday, she had, at best, another two days before her body or brain gave out entirely. Even if the first thing you did with your points was to try and help, disregarding everything else, nothing would have changed. I’m sorry.”

We sat there, stunned.

We had no idea it was that bad. There was never any sign for any of it. And Kaysa was right, she did look drunk that morning, after waking up, but we chalked that up to the remaining alcohol in her system. Honestly, it would have been stranger for her to be sober, considering that she emptied beer cans by the dozens each day.

We glanced down at the half-empty bottle in our hand thoughtfully.

“We didn’t know…” was all that we managed, tears once again breaking out on our face.

“I know, Seraphine. Which is why I told you it wasn’t your fault. As bad as it sounds to say, it was the result of a fucked up life in a district that handed drugs out like candy. Nobody could have done anything about it.”

There was a moment of silence in which our mind twirled, before she continued.

“And before you get any idea about going after that priest, don’t. Revenge on him won’t get you anywhere. All it would get you was a short lived sense of justice, before things go back to how they are going right now.”

We knew she was right. But it was tempting. Damn tempting.

“What should we do?” we asked, weakly.

“Normally I wouldn’t give this much advice to any Vanguard,” she said with a small smile, “It is not my job to butt into their life and tell them what to do. But I also realise that right now you are full of emotion with no outlet. So here is what I would suggest. Talk to Castas and Tina. Outright banning drugs isn’t an option, that won’t lead anywhere. All it would mean would be that they are sold under the table. But at least make sure that stuff like this can’t repeat itself. Make sure that Sarah’s fate isn’t shared by anyone else.”

We didn’t answer for a long moment, lost with our thoughts and emotions.

Eventually we took another long swig, before we closed the bottle and sat it on the table.

“We’ve always known that our life sucks,” we said, more to work through our thoughts than for Kaysa’s benefit, “Taking drugs is just normal for us. You take as much as you can handle, then you take some more and hope you wake up in the morning. You do your job, satisfy the client as best you can, then move to the next. Many don’t care about how you feel. They only care about some hole they can fuck and cum in. We aren’t people to them, just toys with a friendly smile. But for us that’s part of the thrill. We like being used like that. But maybe that’s why so many of the joytoys don’t think of themselves as people anymore. You do what the client wants, and if you’re lucky you are already too high or drunk to care about any of it. Perhaps you’re so gone and you get to enjoy yourself a little. We always thought it fun. Fun to take drugs, to have fun while flying on cloud nine. We love it. Being… depraved like that turns us on like nothing else. We love being perverted. Playing the easy access slut who cares for nothing but drugs and sex with anyone who so much as glances at us is something we thoroughly enjoy.”

We sighed, rubbing our face, “Maybe we’ve forgotten that not all feel the same way. We know, intellectually, that some don’t, but it’s hard to grasp. Sure, they hate their job, but they can find another job, right?”

We paused, thinking back to our first time. “We never felt… bad. About what we did to get what we wanted. Or needed. Sure, it hurt at first, but then again, even the first time around we could barely think straight. We can’t even remember what we were on. A mix of things, probably. Now that we think about it, that was probably our first hit of shiver… Did it… damage us? Why is it so easy for us to simply spread our legs and let others do what they want? Are we just… coping? Or is it something else?”

Kaysa didn’t answer for a moment. When she finally did, her voice was soft. “Yes, Seraphine, you are damaged. Anyone in your shoes would be. Nobody should have that kind of experience at such a young age. But damaged doesn’t mean broken. For such a long history of drug abuse you are surprisingly well put together. Almost too good, considering that you have taken drugs for half of your life by now. But, as grim as that sounds, that is probably because you started so young and your mind was still malleable. You adapted over time.”

She glanced at us, expression serious, “You aren’t the smartest person in the room, but anyone with your history should be a downright dimwit, if they could function by themselves at all. You are far from that. I know you don’t like to think about your past, nor do you like to think about your family. But have you ever wondered why you are so normal despite all that abuse? It shouldn’t surprise you that you are a designer baby, that much should be expected considering your parent's background and standing. But I think it’s more than that. I never brought it up, because it was never important, but I am almost certain that there was some kind of Vanguard funded project at work. The signs are there, and otherwise I don’t think anyone would be as normal as you are, mentally at least.”

“Wait,” we held up a hand, “What do you mean?”

“It’s relatively normal for Vanguard to sell blueprints or items they procure with points for credits. Chloe did the same for some of her weapons. And not all Vanguard check who their purchases go to. There are many corporations out there that buy up these blueprints and technologies to try and further their own development. It’s normal and expected, encouraged even. If checked in detail, your body shows signs of such research. You are human, yes, no fancy alien experiment or anything, but your body shows signs of advanced gene editing and careful design. Your parents probably commissioned one of those services when they planned on having you. From what I could see so far, since your healer drones don’t have the ability to scan you down to DNA level yet, as it wasn’t required before, I would guess that most physical attributes, your height, your eyes, your hair, even the general shape of your body, plus your mental acuity, were designed that way.”

That was… unexpected. Or was it? We knew we were pretty damn sexy, more than was normal in most cases, at least around the redlight district. It was a large part of why we were so popular. Bella came to mind, who seemed much the same to us. Designed to be properly beautiful, sexy, and smart.

“You mean like Bella?” we realised aloud.

“Yes. She’s another good example of such research. That being said, I do believe your growth was stunted a bit by your drug abuse. You are, to put it indelicately, a bit childlike, physically. That is not unexpected with your history. But it’s not the only thing. To put it blunt, your lifestyle isn’t normal, not by any metric. Some might be more open to sexual advances and requests, but you are downright looking for them. I don’t think there is anything you would strictly say no to, and that is not normal. I realise that you take pride in your job, and the image that you build for yourself. And I don’t want you to question it, or think you are required to feel bad about it. But it isn’t normal. And I do believe that part of that is because of your history.”

She sighed, “You said earlier that you know intellectually that others aren’t the same. That maybe they don’t enjoy things the way you do. And you are correct that you haven’t internalised that yet. Which is why I’m telling you all this. You must realise that you are by no means an example by which to compare others to. Many, many people would be downright traumatised if they did what you do, even if they were pretty open from the get go. Sarah definitely wasn’t as open, and she is a prime example on how those things usually go. Drugs aren’t just innocent candy, Seraphine, nor is sex something that everyone can enjoy with anyone who asks, no matter what they ask for. Both of those things can lead to severe trauma, a complete breakdown of one's life, and mental and physical scars that last a lifetime, even if professionally addressed.”

Finally she gave us a warm smile, “Maybe you should take some time and talk more with Tina and a few of the other joytoys. See how they see it, and maybe even use this as an opportunity to change how business gets distributed. For people like you, they might be willing to make some more money by indulging in more… perverted parts of their fantasies. Clients who want that kind of thing will be directed towards them. That way they can still be serviced, while ensuring that nobody gets hurt. But to do that you need to really look at those who volunteer for this. Make sure they aren’t just doing so because they are under the influence of something, or maybe already damaged.”

“On the other hand you should keep an eye on those who are sliding down Sarah’s route. I understand that you were already doing that, but only to a degree. You need to either pay much closer attention to that yourself, or maybe implement a system by which they can try to get some help. Maybe give them the opportunity to seek you out in private, to talk to you and see what they need. Maybe even create a small department in the brothels for cases exactly like that, that they can turn to to ask for help. Overseen directly by you, to ensure nobody tries to take advantage.”

She paused for a moment, letting it settle, “These are just ideas. How you decide to move forward is for yourself to decide. But move forward. Don’t just sit around, drowning your sorrows. Taking a day or two would help, but afterwards you have to do something, if you don’t want this feeling of loss and that lust for vengeance to eat you alive.”

She got up and placed a small pill on the table in front of me. “When you’re done drinking, take it. It’s a Cleanse. Take some time to think first though. I know you’re used to being drunk, so I won’t say anything. But maybe for the future, see if you can’t kick that habit to the curb, hm?”

And with that she wandered off, the nanite drone returning to the amulet.

We were left behind with a half-empty bottle of alcohol, a Cleanse, and a large helping of things to contemplate and consider.