Chapter 44: Don’t be a Hero
3:17 PM July 11th
Ripley
I’d found some bread in Elsa’s apartment. It took some time to find it in the midst of all the spices, herbs and jams and other foodstuffs she owned, half of which remained unopened. She even had garlic. A simple peanut sandwich sufficed for me.
They said you could tell alot about a person by how they lived. I was beginning to see why… her place was a cluttered mess. It’d been nice when I came over the first time, but when I turned open a closet thinking it was a door and found my old bloody clothes from my first outing in Little Requiem… I think it was enough to say this wasn’t a new problem.
You shouldn’t touch another person’s belongings, I knew that. But god, how could you live in a place like this? Maybe it was because I’d only ever stayed in small cramped rooms, but I hated a mess. It was distracting and pulled your attention away, so it started with me organizing her kitchen cupboard.
Then I folded the sheets I’d used to sleep on her couch. Then I picked up some garbage, cleaned out her fridge, and sorted the weeks worth of laundry into the machine. My mom worked late during my adolescence so I normally handled the apartment, it was only once I took her job that the roles reversed.
I then… experimented. Okay, if I had another passion besides Shard Operating, it was cooking. And seeing all the spices there? It was a literal buffet for a starving man. Just fried eggs, I limited myself to that much once my stomach started growling again…
It was divine. I’d never had anything so soft and gooey, it tickled down my throat like an angel’s whispers. Was it the ingredients? It said it was produced on an actual farm rather than cloned, and that certainly played a part in this but…
“It’s… really good.” Elsa’s gentle eyes spoke more words than an entire choir’s afternoon hymn. Little sparkly jewels of amethyst wandered as they bit into the egg. “Who taught you how to cook?”
“The past.” I admitted with the weird statement, sitting on the edge of her bed. “My mom taught me how to use knives back when we were… rich. She had an entire set of these old Yuzhou ones that emulated old Japanese cooking blades. Had this really cool pattern on their edge. Was almost like marble. Probably one of the first times I fell in love with a piece of metal. Ever since we lost everything… I’d just been chasing that flavor of food I remembered as a child.”
“You’re… different than how I imagined you would be.” She put the empty plate down.
“Different, how?”
“I thought you’d be weaker. Mentally, physically. There’s a saying of how the Founders came down to Earth and realized they were in over their heads, you know… they failed alot in the beginning until they fixed things up a few decades later. Just… normally don’t see a lot of success stories coming from a rich guy going broke.”
“Rich kid.” I reminded her. “I was what… 11?”
“10 years and four months.” She said quietly. “Lived poor about the same amount now. By the way… happy birthday, it’s been a few days but… you should know.”
Right. I was now 21 starting July 8th… only my mom and Hoaqin had wished me. We had a nice dinner, it was more relaxed than our old one. “You got me a birthday gift to make up?”
“The DataShield not enough?” She pouted, before sighing. “I’ll think of something.”
“When’s your birthday?” I smoothed the wrinkles on the bed.
“This is going to be strange but… I don’t know… I guess December 12th?” That answer alone revealed a chunk of her past to me.
“You grew up in a Cradle? My grandfather used to celebrate the day he got adopted…” It was faint memories of a grand hall, my grandfather from my dad’s side whose face I couldn’t even remember now was an important man in SynTec’s New California branch. Well, it didn’t matter now, Skeleton said he was dead.
“Mazhyr’s tits, no.” She laughed, the irony of using Cradle-slang not lost on me. “I… grew up in a facility.”
“A facility?” I leaned closer, placing a hand on her knee.
She stared at it for a long while before explaining. “I was a resource… it’s a long story but… a long time ago… I used to have a Gold Implant. They chipped me in as part of some large-scale operation.”
“Who?”
“NeoCore… I got out of it. Lost the Implant too so I had to get a new one. Part of the reason for my four Features.” She summarized it too quickly, there were other details in there.
That she would share when she felt more comfortable.
“Feels like everyone’s been screwed over by a company… my dad… I’m sure you know, but we lost everything once he tried to whistleblow that SynTec’s recent Yellowstone tech was causing volatile activity with its volcanic generators. He uh… you know he-“
I struggled with my words. “He confided in me about it. Mom didn't know at the time, but he asked me what he should do when he found out? An eleven year old kid, that’s who asked for advice. He asked me… whether I should protect the family, or put the bad guys in jail.”
She stared at me quietly, and I stuffed the pain back into my throat.
“Yeah, I told him to be a hero. And look where we ended up. He got fired over some bogus claim of money laundering or debt or something. Lost all of our assets including my parent’s original Implants, my mom got kicked out of university and before you knew it we were all sharing one mattress… it forced my dad to work with Shaun to pay the bills. Pulled him into an even deeper hole of feeding corporate intelligence that Shaun just regurgitated for a higher price. You know, he’s half the reason why that fucking club could even be owned by them, he shared expensive secrets… then they left him to die when no one else was there for him but mom and I.”
I wasn’t done talking. “And you want to know what’s the other reason they could afford running it? The Personality Matrices, about the one piece of SynTec gear they actually stole for themselves, and not one Shard Op’ in their payroll could understand. Not anyone… but me.”
“Ripley…” She started, but my voice cut through.
“My mom didn’t even know.” I laughed bitterly. “Shaun asked her to work at his club first, you know, as a fucking stripper!? Wasn’t until she said that she’d do his Shardware for half the cost that we could actually eat food every night, that we could sleep without growling in our stomachs. Then he came, Hoaqin appeared one day as I walked back to my apartment, and asked if I was Isabel’s kid. We talked, alot. He always gossiped, picked up the habit from him, mentioned this tech that could seal off emotions and I was just so hurt by everything with my dad… that I pounced on it. Fourteen years old and I started tinkering with corporate tech.”
My nails dragged into my scalp, as a tidal wave of memories came surging back. Why now?
“She never knew a thing… I said I loved Shardware and she supported me. I used her notes, her research, I used dad’s old datacubes to figure the Matrix out. It took a year, but I had it in my head. I didn’t care if the SynTec failsafe would kill me, because at fifteen I was so done with life. It turns out I lived, that I’d done everything correctly. Then I sold it to Shaun… and he… he paid me with a Bronze. 5,000 Shardyne. It felt like so much money to a kid back then, but now? He gave me a Bronze Shard for the ability to alter a person’s whole identity. I remember my mom coming back home that night, her eyes hollowed and she drank herself to sleep… she hadn't touched alcohol since dad died. Then spent the next year mumbling about how she hated herself for making women like that, she’d rejected working on the Matrix first. I figured out years later when Hoaqin drunk-cried that I was the backup in case she’d refused to make it work. She was so strong and I-
I caught my breath. “She still doesn’t know I was the one who reconfigured it. But ever since then, something in her broke. Every day she came back, paler… slurred her words, stumbled in her steps. It wasn’t the drink, dark veins crawled up her arm… up from my arm. When she fell the first time… she wasn’t breathing. I was terrified, and tried to call for help. You know what she said… ‘Ripley, don’t. It’ll cost us too much… It’ll cost you too much.’ And I listened to her… what sort of son does that? One of her eyes was so bloodshot she needed to get it removed… She removed it herself in our bathroom. All because I told my dad to be a hero. Because I made her work in a job that was killing her. And for a while, it was killing me. Don’t you get it… everything that fucked up my family. It’s been my fault. It’s all been my fault!”
Her blanket was covered in the rain of my emotions.
“And… I don’t know. Looking at you, that same lack of breath when we left, what happened to Daylight. I remembered her, my mom when she- she fell. I remembered how weak I was then. How weak I still am, I shouldn’t have worried you… I should have been more than a battery. I called Skeleton, you know.”
“You did?” Her hands covered my own. “That’s- what did he say?”
“I told him that he’d never get my grandfather’s stuff, but that I’d sell him mine. He was curious, you know, but… we worked out a deal. Every month he’s gonna send me some Shardware, useless shit he said. Turn it into Gold… not literally, but he said that if I had half of my grandfather’s ability, I could do it. In return, I keep the stuff, but I sell him the prototype and details of how I made it.”
“Ripley… you…” She couldn’t say anything, I didn’t expect anything more. I was weak after all, no wonder she voted against me.
“You need a hug.” And Mirage did just that, not Daylight and not Twilight.
Elsa. Mirage. Her voice came steadily, not an inch of judgment in it. “Go get yourself cleaned up, Ripley… let’s… what happened wasn’t your fault. I overexerted myself, you saved me. You did. I wouldn’t be awake right now if you didn’t take that blow. Just, let’s head on over to the washroom.”
She guided me by the hand, even helped me wipe off the snot from my face with her sleeve. God, I hated myself.
“And… Selene… I… how long has it been since I even thought of her? I don’t get it, one moment I was with her but the next she- why did I stop thinking of her? She was there for me for so long and I just… the Personality Matrix threw her memory aside!” The intensity of the grief sent my head spiraling into the depths of those memories. From the day I got my arm removed and my mom had to begin living with the fact she would never operate again, I’d been in so much pain that I reached out to her for the first time in years.
And it was like she’d never left. Until she did — and I never even remembered it.
“Missy…” Elsa’s voice was hushed, her eyes wide open. “Did she- did she touch you? She uh… has the ability to limit another person’s Features.”
“She…” She could do that? “Yeah, she slapped me.”
Mirage chuckled at that, but there was nervousness there, her eyes fading behind a light as she delved into a Neuralink call. “She can only do it to one person at a time, how long has it been since you were last with her?”
“I dunno… ten- maybe twelve hours?”
“It should be running out soon… okay, she’s disabling it.” Elsa held me throughout it all, just staying close as my mind felt… organized. Memories faded, pain blanketed, and Elsa’s calming touch on my Frame sent them all away.
All packed into a box. Knotted tight.
“It was terrifying when she did it to me as well. It has a mentally eroding effect on us Psyche users. Had me thinking I’d lost connection to Midnight… I was so scared I’d lost her back then.” She pulled me in deeper to a hug. “And I… I was so scared for you. I keep people away, Ripley. It makes this job easier, even among the others I don’t… open up. We all have our own hells and… it’s better we just keep things to our jobs.”
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“A bit late for that now.” I embraced the hug, I didn’t want to let go.
“Nothing’s your fault, Ripley. You were a kid, you didn’t know any better. I did fucked up shit too, alot of it. Before Missy, there was another group, called us The Runaways… all of us faded. Except me. Killed or jailed. For good reason, we were so angry and tired that we didn’t care about who we hurt, we just… did. Until another gang… guy caught up. Tracked me through the Net and… gave me an opportunity.”
“You… you don’t have to share just because I-“
Her grip only tightened, she was doing this for herself. “Point is Ripley, these Implants help us for a good fucking reason. They gave us powers like this because we are weak. Every single one of us. You’re questioning why you got the Gold? None of that matters. You got it. It’s yours by that merit alone. It wants you to protect it, that why it’s made you strong, so flourish it. Feed it. By any means necessary. Grow strong.”
Strong. "You're right... I've been relying on you all ever since I got this power, I've been... dependent on others. You, Twilight, Diamante... Missy. Even my mind is being 'corrected' by the Personality Matrix or not... shortcuts have always been my way to success."
"The Matrix," she grew thoughtful, "isn't something you should hate. Not from where I look at it. I think we both know that without it, you'd have never gotten this far."
"I'd have been..." My breathing slowed, "distracted."
"It's a complicated tool, but to me... that's what I look at it as, a tool." She held my hand. "Just like my Personas."
"That's a bit harsh."
"We're all tools, Ripley. The others included."
"Tools, but to who?"
She closed her eyes, and briefly I felt her mind connect with me through a communications channel. As I opened into it, a screen flickered wide. I saw blood and bodies splitting under a blade, a masked swordsman and police fighting side by side against gang members in what looked like a lavish ballroom. The swordsman, he was fast. To my trained eye, the Shardware on him was beyond immaculate.
He was so fast, it looked like he was teleporting, and wherever he appeared death followed.
"Stage two." Elsa sighed. "Went wrong, 'Masa betrayed our employer, he's handling them personally."
"That guy, he's the R0N1N?" I looked closer, one of his blades swept through the air as blood spilled from its path. Within the air... it was floating and curved as though it could ride the current and the bodies were merely turbulence. "He's... powerful."
"He's Gold." Elsa stated. "One of the strongest Tier Threes I know. Could kill you in a blink, and that's literal."
I saw a flash of lightning, a policewoman charging into that mayhem without fear. Diana was there? Elsa closed the screen, her eyes slipping into mine. "Your counterpart is able to fight alongside him, albeit barely, the question will be 'can you'?"
"I can." Resolve stirred through me, a powerful wave rising. "I will."
"How?"
"Planning... upgrades. Training, and... a lot of BUG-eating." I began to pull up screens of Shardware schematics, adjustments to my arsenal pooling in front of me.
"Alright, your insectivore-ass needs to calm down." She said with a smirk, I laughed at the joke. "First thing, is letting your mind rest. It might sound counter-productive... but when was the last time you did something except Operate?"
"I..." Yeah, I couldn't actually answer that question. "It's my job!"
"You know I could see you pull up those screens and do maths while you were talking to me." She said, making me close them with a swipe. She laughed. "You're such a fucking nerd. All you think about is steel, don't you have a hobby?"
"I made my hobby my work!" I defended myself. "And don't act like you aren't a nerd yourself, miss-looks-at-screens-more-than-grass!"
Her mouth opened wide at that, and her hand raised like she was about to hit me. "I have hobbies besides that!"
"Like?"
"Watching movies." She said with an embarrassed look.
"Like?"
"They- they're Old World Movies... you wouldn't know them." She turned away.
"What genre?"
"Emotional."
"Emotional?"
"They... make me feel nice." She didn't look up into my eyes with how red her face had become.
"Don't tell me your hobby is watching porn."
Her face only reddened, and she slapped my arm. "Says the guy who worked at a strip club! Fine, they're movies for kids!"
Those metal hands of hers actually did sting. "Ow."
"Sorry."
"Not accepted." I said, teasing a smile. "Make it up to me."
"Hah, like I need that." She met my challenge.
"Really? I was going to ask you to show me your favorite movie." I sighed dejectedly. "But if you're willing to scorn me in such a way then perhaps-"
"You would?" She looked up to me, her eyes briefly showing a vulnerability I wasn't expecting. "Sorry, I- uh, I mean... we could. I- I never actually watched a movie with anyone else ever since Topaz... ruined the experience for me... but-"
"You'd make an exception for me?"
"Only if you make a promise to keep sex jokes out of it. These are... wholesome movies." She wasn't meeting my eyes at all, it was kind of adorable. "I, um, you're not a bad guy, Ripley. And... I suppose I owe you one for taking care of me."
"Hey, your ass handled my breakdown today as well." I said warmly, ignoring the tension to switch topcis. "So, yeah, what's your favorite movie?"
She stayed still for a moment, before shaking her head. "Actually... it's... a group of movies made by the same Old World company. My favorite one is... 'Mulan'."
"Let's watch it, then." I smiled. We had a few quiet moments as we prepared popcorn and drinks. Then something strange happened as we got onto the couch, she spilled her drink all over it.
"Tw-twilight!" She smacked her own head, a glow in her eyes fading. "What was that for?"
Twilight smugly appeared in the air before us, shrugging. "I just woke up! Sorry!"
Mirage scowled as she surveyed the messed-up couch. I sighed. "I'll clean it up, don't wo-"
Twilight interrupted, looking at me like I'd sentenced myself to death. "Oh, no! Don't you worry your fried brain about it! I'll clean it up, you guys can just use the bed!"
She winked at me... ah... ah.
Looking at Mirage unsurely, she shrugged. But refused to meet my eyes as we settled in to watch the movie, in fact... she was silent even as it started. It was difficult to know how close I should have gotten towards her, but then Twilight came to the rescue again as she took control of Mirage and slapped her hand onto mine while coming up with an excuse. "Oh, uh, sorry just got the munchies for some popcorn! I'm still a bit unstable!"
Appearing as a hologram behind Mirage, she gave me a thumbs up.
---
One Movie Later
Twilight's initiation did have its effects, eventually I had gotten her head to lean on me slightly. Too bad I was incredibly engrossed in the movie.
"So that's what China looked like before the Swarm and Yuzhou?"
"No... it's actually a depiction of it centuries before the Swarm."
"Ah, I didn't know dragons were real... or that tiny and annoying?"
She held back an explosion of giggles that were barely contained inside of her.
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing, just... you're as smart as you are dumb."
"Ah, whatever." I sighed... of course I knew dragons weren't real. Just like horses.
"So what's next?" I changed the topic.
"Next?" Her eyebrow crept up.
"Told me to relax today... I'm just following orders." I smirked.
"Your choice." She flicked up a screen... I chose the one with the rat in the chef hat.
---
One movie later
"Huh... the rat's kind of like Twilight."
"Excuse me?" The Persona appeared in my vision, an offended look in her face.
"Because you control me by getting to my skull!" I defended... before adding. "And because you're filthy."
Glowing violet snapped into Elsa's eyes, and down came a rain of smacks and a demand for an apology.
"Oh, I'm choosing the next movie, jackass!" She decided.
---
One movie later
"Didn't know lions had a better familial relationship than I did." I commented as the movie ended.
"At least you have one." Twilight sighed, before breaking out a joke before the mood dulled too much. "I guess you got the lion's share of trauma!"
She mimed drumming something with her hand.
"What does... that even mean?" I blinked.
"Founders, you really are uncultured. Don't worry, we'll have you trained by today's end!" She smirked.
And so, one movie after the next. We made jokes, Twilight got a bit handsy and Elsa had to reel her in. But slowly... I got to know the both of them, and before I knew it, we were both fast asleep as her head rested on my shoulder.
July 12th
Leaving Elsa's apartment had me feeling a bit... disappointed. My mother accepted my message and apology of missing home yesterday with a simple 'okay' once I told her I was at Elsa's, but unfortunately... I had to tell her that I wasn't going to be home early today as well. Neither would I be at the gym. Harold Anderson didn’t question my leave, just left a notice that I’d received a paycut. I was fine with it; I was getting a delivery from Skeleton this weekend anyway.
Instead, I was at my grandfather's storage unit as I tinkered with a few Shardware spines I'd bought on the way. Before starting, I stared at the Implants Diamante had given me, I finally absorbed the Accommodation one that was fresh of a MAL.
I’d planned to use it on a Feature Link, but this would be better.
Consuming Warpcode… Excess Free Warpcode Detected… known Feature: Accomodation. Where would the Adapter like to focus the Warpcode?
Technician… Capacity…
Technician V.1.07 has updated to V.1.08
Effect: All Shardware made by or modified by more than 40% by the Adapter now acts one Tier lower in Capacitance.
So all of the Shardware on me right now?
Capacity has improved to Iron VIII
Capacity: Iron VIII [Effective: Bronze I]
Capacitance Overview:
* Neuroframe: Iron III (Iron II) [10%]
* Right Shard-Op Claw: Iron IX (Iron VIII) [25%]
* Left Shard-Op Claw: Iron VI (Iron V) [14.2%]
* Sharded Leg: Iron IV (Iron III) [11.1%]
* Liver: Iron II (Iron I) [8.3%]
* Lens: Iron 0 [1%]
Capacitance: 69.6%
It was like I’d cut a string off from an anvil attached to my back.
I’d only just started.
———
Diana called as I got off work today, she didn't mention anything about the ballroom incident even though it was all over the news. She said she’d gathered some interesting information; it involved human trafficking and that she’d start building a case. I wished her good luck and to call me if she needed help, she kindly rejected that offer.
July 20th
I’d spent the night at Elsa’s again, it'd been a more common occurrence now to spend my time off watching movies at her place. We just watched Frozen and I couldn’t help but point out the similarity in names. She only giggled at that.
I had another job tonight. Topaz led this time.
He was simple, he was fast and sneaky. And we were pulling a fast and sneaky one. At an old diner, I stopped by the mark’s motorcycle, complimenting him about it and then shifting the conversation over to his Shardware. It was a genuinely interesting variant of an old Imperium Solstice Eye.
Topaz made sure he lost his keys, and he went back to the diner to look for them. We promptly stole his bike. Topaz scratched it and the buyer refused to pay for it unless we repaired it… we both had a heart-attack.
We kept the bike. Well, I did… so I guess I have a motorcycle now.
July 24th
Mr. Skeleton’s commission was beginning to shape up. I focused on what I knew best, the musculoskeletal system. What he’d sent over to my grandfather’s storage was all mainly rehabilitation Shardware used for veterans who’d suffered spinal nerve damage, I tweaked it a bit. The spine I planned was built with additional nerve plexii, numerous branches of Neurowiring coiled out of the various motor pathways, allowing an alternative path if the Adapter wanted to control multiple limbs.
It was shoddy work right now, and relatively simple in execution. He offered me 65,000 Shardyne if I kinked out all the problems by the beginning of August. My work was cut out, but I could do this… I had to.
July 25th
I’d come up with a name. RipTech. A RipTech patent for the Soulbranch Spine. It was shaping up nicely, working with the tools and expertise gifted in the gym was a whole new ballpark to test my abilities.
Another gig today, Missy was unsure if I was ready for it.
An assasination. I was smart, cool and collected. My Personality Matrix made sure of that. The laboratory was relatively low security, but Mirage had it down in seconds. Topaz moved quickly, three guards dead by the time I’d used my Livewire Claws to scale up the building, it was something I’d been experimenting with. They sprung high on the experimental lock-on I’d partially stolen from the gun Diamante gave to me. When they hooked into the railing… they steadily pulled me upwards as my feet gripped the concrete wall.
An alert went out with the emergency power, the target moving quickly into the escape Aerodyne.
The target flew for an hour when the bomb I planted exploded.
July 26th
Diamante took me out to a gun range today at 3AM , determined I become a better shot. He was actually quite helpful in improving my aim with my claws, explaining that each one would be having different air-resistance and that I should focus on improving the stability of my launch.
When he dropped me off at work. I had a test on the first year curriculum, it was an actual exam that students took in Shard Op’ school. All laid out on a digital screen which I wrote my answers to.
I scored a 96%. He said I was losing a bonus for not getting a perfect score…
All my lost points were spelling errors.
July 27th
Today had started like any other, I made a quick meal for my mom at seven in the morning, then left on the monorail towards the gym. By eight, I was adjusting Shardware, sometimes my own but mostly I’d been working on limb tuning for the gym goers now. Flexibility vs strength, form vs function, I devoured it all.
My upcoming drafts were coming together. I’d broken apart Whiplash’s arm more times than I could count, ripped into that limb like it’d killed a family member. I was onto something here. Joints more akin to an insect, I was ready to build a prototype once I got a boost in funds. That would have to wait until I delivered Mr. Skeleton the spine, first.
Other than that, I tapped my leg. My right leg. The surgery had been performed a few days after my delve with Mirage, and it was in every way superior to my left counterpart. For one, it was attached to my hip rather than my knee, allowing it to draw out more power. Plus, there were some additional changes I’d made from the base model I’d scrapped from the exoskeleton. The legs I’d stolen from the Crimson Soul grunt turned out to be Anderson’s work, and they were wonderfully used for my upgrades.
Both hands were also entering the next phase of their growth, my right hand was adjusted with a finer launch mechanism. My left hand was more robust, a foundation for the upcoming ideas I had for it. The first step was introducing that blade I’d taken, a nasty surprise for whoever got in close with me.
Then, as the day came to a close. Harold Anderson stopped me, his eyes holding a weight I’d rarely seen him carry. “Come with me.”
I followed, he was my boss after all. We took an elevator down, deep into the abyss of the gym facility. It was a large, mostly empty room, clean and deprived of grime. But the stench was horrible, like death had somehow seeped into every corner of the room.
There was a truck, and as Anderson heaved the heavy door open. I felt a deep pit in my stomach as I counted the fresh corpses lying within.
A pit of pure excitement.