Turns out it’s harder to see Belle than I thought, and just about as difficult as Marcella said. It takes halfway through my program with Danielle, or six weeks for us to arrange an appointment for her. I’m practically buzzing inside the doctor’s office to see her.
When Belle walks in, it’s like I’m seeing her for the first time. Her hair’s pulled back in a tight ponytail, she has professional black glasses on, and she has curves that fill out her skirt, blouse, and coat combo. She scans the room, greets the doctor and pauses when she sees me. “Kimber?”
I hear the surprise in her voice and assume it’s happy so I bound over, pick her up in glee for a spin and plant a kiss on her lips. A second into the kiss I realize I’ve made a mistake: Bell is stiff and my enthusiasm isn’t reciprocated.
I back up, put my head down and step around her toward the door. “Bell, I’m so sorry. I assumed, I shouldn’t have. You’re dressed so professional and I . . . I . . ..” I sniff and can’t contain myself anymore and rush out the door to sob around the corner. How could I assume she would be the same? She has been working as a professional for almost six months. Maybe she doesn’t have time for a kid like me anymore.
Half an hour must have passed before I hear the clack of office shoes come down the hallway.
“Hey Kimber.” I hear pity more than compassion.
“Hey Maribel.” She winces at her full name, but I’m not sure I care. “Can you talk to me now?”
“Not for long, and I’m not sure I should. It took me a while to get to this point.” I look up and quirk my head.
“You’ve worked to be this cold to me? That’s something you wanted to do?” I can hear my voice flutter with the threat of tears.
“Want? Oh no. I wanted to crawl in your pocket and go everywhere you were. But how is that healthy for me, Kimber? Do you have any idea how all-consuming my need to be around you was? No of course you don’t. You didn’t care to see any of that did you?”
“Fuck you, Maribel. Don’t bring your distance-based rationalizations into this. I forced myself to feel for you. I actually studied to find out what it took to be a good partner and started doing the little things I could manage until I started to feel what the books described. And you wouldn’t know because I didn’t want you to realize how fucked up I was from the Orphanage. Sometimes I was glad you didn’t know me well from then, but now, it seems you’ve made up your mind from incomplete information. How does that make you feel, Maribel?”
“Nice words, but actions speak louder, Kimber. So does silence.”
“Interesting choice of hill to take a stand on. I wrote you messages from and through different departments for weeks, getting the same response every time: Miss Gooding is not accepting your messages at this time. Explain that to me.” I stare fiercely into her eyes from the ground. I can see the moment she starts to question what happened, then she shakes the thought out of her head.
“Whatever happened, I used the tools I’ve been learning to help myself be less of a mess without you. Now that I’m no longer desperate to see hear and touch you, I’m not sure it would be the best to relapse.”
The last word hits hard. She’s been learning therapy tools and terms to help other kids, and she probably worked with her mentor to make this happen. He’s probably the reason she used the word ‘relapse’. Was I really as dangerous as a drug to her? Is that what her mentor thought? I’d like to think that my mind was set on how I felt about Bell, but if Marcella thought she was wrong for me and inhibiting my progress, what would I do? What if she thought she was a danger to me in general?
Thinking I have gathered some mote of understanding, I rise from my crouch and look her in the eye. “If you and your mentor think I’m a danger to you and your work, that much I understand. I don’t appreciate you trying to shed the blame to me when you just could have said I was a danger in the first place.”
As I walk by her toward the doctor’s office, not daring to look at my former girlfriend, I feel a touch on my elbow and a whisper. “Kimber, wait.”
I take a deep breath and turn to her. “I did, Maribel. I waited, then I got too anxious to wait and then I asked my mentor and my doctor to arrange an appointment for you. Then whatever this was happened. What else am I waiting for?”
“Are you around for good?”
“Probably not in the cards for me. My job will include moving around a lot in the beginning. I would love you for every moment I’m able, but I can’t promise to be here.”
She shakes her head and I finally start to hear emotion in her voice. “I can’t go through all of this again, Kimber. It was so hard not to compare every moment of my life to experiences with you. I need someone I can hold, someone I can touch. I can’t rebuild myself every time you have to leave me.”
I raise my head, and lock gazes with her, “Tell me what you need from me Bell.”
She looks away a few times, and by the time she meets my eyes for more than a moment, tears are dripping down her cheeks. “Walk away and let me figure out a life without you.” She chokes the words out, and I can tell how hard they were for her to say.
To me it feels like she grabbed the heart that I gave her, dropped it off our balcony and waited for a vehicle to run it over before pushing me off after it. Anger and self-harming sorrow warred in my mind until I looked back into her eyes and remembered that she used tools to say those hard and harmful things to me, I can use tools too.
I reach to my belt and shake a quarter-sized tube until a caramel fell out. She looked down in surprise as I pop it in my mouth and the brief hit of serotonin allows me enough breath to squash my emotions into my appendix. The effort allows me the mind space to say, “Okay,” turn around and walk back to the office and close the door behind me, hearing her cry before the latch clicks.
***
Six more weeks, short a few hours of course, find me back in Danielle’s subterranean lair of aether-based chicanery. I have been more ornery and combative since ‘the incident’ with Bell, but I’ve been apologetic of my outbursts though I have been unable to contain it fully.
“Need you in the suit again Kimber, and this time, you’re staying in it until you initialize.”
I get naked in a doctor’s office yet again, still finding it suspicious that I need to get naked for science as much as I have. She pokes some buttons, inspects my suit while fiddling with some of the squiggles on it, then starts tapping on her invisible display.
I should have that shit in hours, which I can’t wait for, and I won’t have to feel left out of the joke any longer. “So, what exactly are you looking for?”
“Hm? Oh, your saturation. Which is 93% right now. I’d like you to eat an Astorian prepared sandwich to slide you closer to 99, but other than that, calories in general to fuel any transition that happens.”
“Well hell doctor, we both know I can eat. Bring it on. I can mess up a sandwich.”
“If you’re buyin’ I’d take one too.” A familiar voice says, coming from the waiting room.
“No shitting way! Grizzly bastard, is that you?” I hear chuckling as the grey-speckled veteran walks into the room.
“The whole team calls me that now, you pint-size pain in the ass.” He smirks as much as he can. I also know he doesn’t hug, or I would have leapt on him.
“Did you, or did you not stare down a Grizzly Bear and win?” he grumps at that, knowing that I’m right. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, Fontaine figures you should have friends about for this. They called me since you ain’t got none.” He smirks again.
“Awww, mighty kind of you Tennison.”
“It’s Mason, kid. And I’m here to keep you company, or shoot you dead. In case you mutate into . . . something else.”
Oh, well that makes solid sense, if Marcella were in a similar position, I wouldn’t be able to do it. “Thanks Mason. What kind of food you want?”
“Seafood? I haven’t had fresh fish in a decade.”
I look up some prices and am startled by the price of Earth fish. A whole credit for a salmon dinner? It better be served on the Empress for shit’s sake. I see a foreign ‘no aether Salmon Substitute’ description and order that for Mason, and I que in a Summer Farms Sampler for me, to include bird, beast, and fish with greens and that strawberry shine Marcella likes. This should get me a few percent saturation easy.
I pour my cheering section cum executioner a glass of shine and hand him his meal. He opens the box and his eyes close at a whiff of the meal before him. When he takes a bite and hums. He takes a moment to himself then says “Not sure if this is my last meal or yours, but I’m at peace with it.”
Damn, old man, that was poignant. I lay out my boxes on the bed-table thing I was sitting and unpack my boxes of barbeque, sandwiches and . . . sushi? Aww, hells yes. “You know, I could think of worse people to have a last meal with. Afterall, you are why people call a mustache a frowner.”
He grunts and finishes his bite. “And you’re the reason kids aren’t allowed inside during the day.”
I can’t help but snort at that. I would be a menace if I stayed inside all day. “How many directions were uphill through the snow before you got home from school?”
“Five at least. Two more if we had to rescue idiots.” He looked at me pointedly, referencing a specific mission where they had to come back the next day to get me off a building I got stuck on.
“What is snow even like?” I ask, spreading the green stuff on a bite of fish as I found I like the nostril-clearing spice-paste.
“Like dust, but wet and cold. What’s living with an assassin like?”
I shrug, “We wrestle, argue over movies, and shout at each other over the way we squeeze the toothpaste.”
Old man nearly drops his fork full of fish. “The great Miss Fontaine argues over movies?”
“Well yah. She’s basically my sister.”
“Next thing you’re going to tell me is faeries are real and the Empress is your girlfriend.”
“From what I’ve heard, the Empress is a Royal Pixie. Does that count?” I actually got him to snort. I pat him on the back a few times and he swats my hand away.
I hear staccato beeps from the machine behind me, showing I just passed 95% saturation. Hells, these beasts must be packed with aether. How rich is Astoria with the stuff compared to Earth? A few minutes later, Danielle walks in, looks at the machines and finger pokes some blood from me and puts it into an atomizer.
“Curious, your blood is a full two percent behind your skin. The disparity is usually the other way. You’re eating . . . never mind, I can tell. Whatever you have is potent. Stop at 98, and coast. You should be at your year mark in a few hours?”
I nod, “How immediate is a mutation if I get to 100?”
“Good question. Through some truly reckless patients, we estimate that the system waits until full saturation occurs, or evens out, or reaches between 30 to 50% overshoot. The range is so large as some folks just go for the gold once they’re over. Hasn’t worked out yet, so please don’t.”
I am absolutely going to slam this food right before I initialize, but I’m not going to say that to her face. The way the old man is looking at me, he knows what I’m thinking.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
The next hour comes and Mason is well finished with his meal while I am still nibbling on mine to get closer to 99. “Marcella’s not coming is she?”
“Nah, kid. It’s why I’m here. I told ya. If you mutate too far, I’m to kill you. Fontaine would stop me if she were here and the doctor told her that it’s the best option.”
“Well shit, Mason. I was expecting pomp, circumstance, maybe a parade or something. Not a pending execution.”
“I could parade your entrails around the room if you like.”
I nod at that. “I would, actually. Red is my color.” Grave humor is crass at the best of times, but at the worst of times, it hits a spot that’s hard to define. The funniest part of mortality so far is that people worry about it. Red flashes on my monitor start keening and carrying on. I see a 100 flicker into existence and then back to 99. Time to coast upward I guess?
I start snacking again, Mason warns me with a “Kimber” telling me he’s being serious. Yet I continue to slowly eat the rest of my sushi. He cocks the pistol and holds it against his hip. I nod in recognition and we both stare at each other as I keep eating at a sedate pace.
I hear running from the waiting room and when Danielle arrives her hair is mussed and her lips smeared. I mentally congratulate Marcella on a job well done. The doctor shouts though, which I don’t appreciate.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
“You basically told me if I’m going to 100 early, coast upward. I have ten minutes at least. I couldn’t risk evening out at 101.”
“Are you insane? Your blood is lower! You would have evened out lower.” I stick my hand out and she pokes me. The atomizer says that my blood is 100 and my skin is 101. Too late now. “I hope your gamble is worth it. It’s only your life Kimber, what good is that?”
I know she’s hurt and what she’s aiming at, but I’m still offended. “I’m an Orphan, so basically worthless Doc. Gotta swing for the fences right? If I fail, it’s just Marcella’s whole savings and livelihood right? Your big doctor money can take care of the both of you.” I fling fish at her dumb face.
“You could be ruining my study and the lives of future Orphans.”
“I’m not ruining . . . Ow!” A jolt of electricity zings through me. “The hell is that. Felt like the worst static I’ve ever felt. “Ow!”
“Kimber, you stubborn . . . lie down and I’m going to stab you with things.”
“Ow, did you miss an or?”
“Fine, lie down and I will stab you, or I let you mutate and Mr. Tennison will shoot you.”
Yep, good or. I lie down and she starts slapping electrode stickers on me, connecting them to wires and stabbing me with needles and connecting my blood to machines. Some of those machines break when my jolts come.
“Fuck! These are expensive Kimber! You’re a stubborn shit and I don’t like you right now.”
“I don’t like me much either!”
“Just accept the initialization prompt when you see it!” She shouts as she tries to ground the equipment to the conduit on the walls.
After minutes of the shock and AHHH! bullshit, I see text in my vision.
//Greetings Kimber Novarro! Do you wish to accept the System?//
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!!!!! I may have screamed it as a shock hit me that was so powerful my whole back pulled off the table.
//Aether detected. Analysis required . . . . 1%//
Another shock rocks me, “fuck your analysis!” I scream. I don’t know how often the shocks hit me, but I know nothing else until I see another update.
//Analysis Complete. Aether saturation 117%. Would you like to include Aether in your initialization?//
“Yes! For fucks sake! Just end this!”
//Resolving exclamation to ‘best use’ through initialization process.//
//Initialization progress . . . . . . 7%//
The electricity subsides, but the pain distributes through every possible section of my body. Meat, bones, organs: they are all stabbing my brain.
//Initialization progress . . . . . . 27%//
Now, only my joints are screaming with the odd feeling of someone peeling wallpaper off the inside of my skull. The pain is so odd I don’t think I screamed at all.
//Initialization progress . . . . . . 67%//
“If you shoot me after this much pain, I will make you watch me eat you.” I growl as I see Mason point his pistol at my head. He doesn’t back off, but he tilts the pistol up some.
//Initialization progress . . . . . . 97%//
The entirety of my body pops like cracking knuckles. The lancing pain subsides and just a full-body throb persists as the full-fledged display in front of my eyes ticks up the last percentages.
//Welcome to the Andromeda Matrix, Kimber Novarro.//
//Your aether has been used for the following:
Body Structure Changes.
Talent Enhancement.
Skill Enhancement.
Ephemeris changes. //
“Is it over?” I slowly push the gun against my head away.
“You fried my lab, it better be over.”
“Is that you kid”
Say what now? What the hell does he mean by that? I know what the doc is crying about. The arcs that hit my body probably fried her gear. If . . . he pushes the gun back? “Grizzly, I’m about to get offended, I don’t care how many snow drifts you walked through.”
“God, it is you. What the hell happened? What kind of fucked up experiment is this?”
“What’s crawled up your ass old man? I swear . . .” he takes my arm and leads me to a mirror.
“What the fuck?” I exclaim as I see my reflection. I am taller than the old asshole, and my bone structure is gaunt, my skin still light tan, but otherwise I look like a Mexican variant of Marcella’s Nordic heritage. “MARCIE!!”
Feet patter at a breakneck pace. Marcella dashes in, looks for me and slides into the patient table, takes an endo and flops and skids across the floor on the other side. Less than a minute later, she joins us at the mirror and we’re all checking for mirages. The novelty wears off us all around the same time as we turn an evil eye on Danielle.
“Doc.”
“Dani”
“Trollop.” Marcella smacks Mason. “Doc”
“What the fuck?” we exclaim together.
She’s laughing her ass off. “So, I thought when Kimber was calling you ‘Sister’ was an exaggeration, but it clearly wasn’t for her. This is the power of intent with the system when aether is involved.”
I turn to Marcella with a broad smile and mug her with a fierce hug. “Believe me now, you giant turd.”
“Gods, fine! But you look like my mom had an affair with a tella novella star.” I squeal and basically tuck my hands and feet inside her pockets.
“Wait, I thought she was possessed because she wants to be Fontaine’s sister?” Mason asks.
“Seems that way,” The Doc replies.
As I realize that the System must have pulled this image or desire from my subconscious, a bloom of love and belonging flows through me, but I check it and stuff it down as I ask a very important question. “How do you feel about this Marcie?”
“Are you kidding me? Now people won’t ask me why I spoil you! Long lost sister, obvi!” She tackles me back to the ground and tickles the shit out of me. I’m here for it and don’t even care that her girlfriend and a grizzled war vet is watching.
“So kid, now that you’ve had your pillow fight with the boogey . . . woman, what else did you get?” I see Danielle prepare her notebook for my answer. I think of my status and a sheet plops in my vision.
Race: Human (P) Andromeda Code: T + Module points: 0 Subrace: N/A Track: avail. @ lvl 3 (t-0, lvl. 2) Intelligence: C Clever: B Awareness: A Beauty: B Charm: D Presence: C Strength: C Agility: A Fitness: B Capacity: E Refinement: S Power: C Skills Pistols: Intermediate 2 Rifles: Intermediate 7 Ballistics: Beginner 4 MMA: Intermediate 3 Endurance: Intermediate 2 Cooking: Beginner 1 First Aid: Beginner 3 Interrogation: Novice 7 Urban Assault: Novice 8 Blades: Advanced 1 Manipulation: Novice 1 Intimidation: Novice 3 Mental resistance: Beginner 1 Talents Body of Power I Aether Dependence Enhanced Recovery I Triggered Action Mechanical Calm I don’t know what half of this means, but I remember the grades being from E to A with ‘S’ being possible for the truly elite. Save I have an ‘S’ in an aether attribute. What the hell? “Just share it with us Kimber.” Doc says. “Yes of course Doctor. How do I do that as this is minute one of my system usage?” “Just tell the voice in your head to do it.” Mason says. Just tell the voice, meme mah mah poo poo. I would not do any of those things, User. “WHAT THE FUCK?!” The people around me chuckle, but I am not laughing. Okay inner voice, hello and help me understand. Hello, I am the embodiment of the collective of machines inside your body. The symbiotes too if you had any. I will be your companion for your lifetime. Well, shit. That is awesome. Sotto Voce is a term that would describe you, but that’s not a name. How about Tova? I like and understand the reasoning. I am Tova. May I call you Kimber? Yes please. Can you throttle reading my thoughts to when I think them at you? I can. I don’t prefer it, as it limits my ability to help, but I will understand if you limit me so. How about if you limit your responses to when I think at you? That is a preferrable arrangement. Okay, Tova. I hope we come to enjoy our growth together! I feel an agreement in my mind that is honestly just odd. “Oh, your skills are expansive, and you have more talents on initialization than anyone I’ve met, but your stats are . . . low.” The doc explains. “Well, doc, I have 5 talents? And one of them, Triggered Action boost my speed and strength based on my emotions, so, what is double ‘C’ in your experience?” “Oh, I see. High ‘B’ low ‘A’ perhaps. Okay, I can use that as data. Talents to make up for your lack of stats is indeed an important measure.” “But what if it doubles her agility too?” Marcella asks. “I’m going to eat your last bite of sushi, kiddo.” She deliberately tries to trigger me. I let it. As she reaches for it with chopsticks, I throw my bear paw at the sushi and snag it well before and toss it at my face. I chomp it as she snags the place where it was. “Ahaha! I was right. Your speed is doubled as well. Clear into ‘S’ with your talent!” My now likely blood sister shouts in glee. “Dani, this means your test on Kimber is a success! She’s faster than ever, and has two more beneficial Talents.” “They didn’t boost her physical attributes though!” “Dani, babe, look at her. She may not be a specimen on paper, but with inches in height and the structure of my people and the muscle density of hers, she can train a bunch of physicality! It worked, Doc!” She plugs some numbers into a screen and keyboard I can now see. Thank the Empress for small favors. Would you like your efforts to be visible? Tova asks me a simple question and I’m ready to panic. I need to get used to this quickly. No, can you code finger wiggles to messages? I can do thoughts as well, but as you are choosing to separate from the idea of me reading your thoughts, I can register finger ‘wiggles’ at any angle with the proper intent. I am more capable than a transponder if you care to be adventurous. Okay, smartass. Scan for variants of my and my mentor’s name in plus one minus one communications and alert me for hits in a separate folder. I try to be snarky, but Tova just check-sums me and continues with the work. Oh, maybe she’s trying to build trust with effort? If so, it’s working. “I think my other big talent, Mechanical Calm, is linked to the treat thing you had me on. Can confirm it worked before this. Praise me so we can check?” “Oh, Kimber, this is far above our expectations!” the doc rewards before thinking. I use the praise to suppress my emotions and a field of grey assaults me and it’s all a smidge slower. I take and reverse Mason’s pistol, the deadest of expressions on my face as I progress to collect other items. Before the clap of a belt tells me to stop using talents, I’ve collected sections of most of their garments. Holy cow, these talents are boss mode! Alarm hits Mason and he raises his weapon, I slap and shove as he returns the gestures as we have a hand-to-hand-gun fight until one of his slaps disarms me. When he clacks a barrel against my head his face softens. “Solid showing, Kid. Now that I know you’re sane, I’m off. Taking the food and the shine.” What a shit. I happily let him leave. Minutes later, the remaining people want to question me. “Kimber. I want to talk about your status.” “Can we do this tomorrow? I just got electrocuted a dozen times before I got my system. I could use a nap.” Doc takes a deep breath, then looks at my mentor. She shrugs then backs my play. I love her. Doc Danielle nods and then we take the liberty to slink off to the elevators. “Am I keeping you from your new girlfriend?” She blushes, the adorable assassin. I know I am, but I want to hear her response. “I wanted to, but when I said that I wanted to spend a few nights with my new half sister, she beamed at me? Empress, I think she likes the idea of me having family to torture me?” “Marcie, heh, I will only torture you in private. However, I will insist that we share blankets until I am forced to abandon my post. I have missed my sister time, and I’ll be damned if Warram can keep her from me now.” “Oh? What will you do if we are now related?” “Be more ridiculous of course.” I reply, knowing that she wants me to say so. My mentor is a shameless hopeful. Despite her protests, I sleep on top of her, and she hugs me by the end of the night. I cry as she strokes my hair, similar to hers, as I soak her shoulder with pent up emotions that I’ve been stewing in. Her petting fades as she falls to sleep, but I also fade as her breath evens, and I feel at home for the first time since I left Bell months ago.