A household, holding truth in captivity,
New Houston, where we lay our scene,
beneath the thumb of assumed divinity,
Where no Vanguard may intervene.
Far below the true foe’s home,
A pair of star-cross'd lovers convene,
Their misadventured struggles make known,
One's parents' work obscene.
Together the samurai, fight, find love,
In battle against time and fate,
Working towards the world above,
Where naught but death await;
The which if you with patient eyes attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
***
Laying on the floor of my cabin in a pile of all my droll clothes, I hold a broken shard of bright, almost fluorescent green glass up to the dim light above me, marveling at the tiny fractures and miniscule imperfections that fill it. Originally, it had been a nice little vase that I was going to put into my room, but a month at sea had changed that. In hindsight, I think I like it better shattered anyway.
I sigh, flipping the piece to see the other side and contemplating the beauty of what I'm holding. Whoever crafted this glass, some hundred and fifty years ago, before even the world wars had rocked Earth, probably had no clue of the cost of what they were making, no idea that uranium could kill them. Their art lasted, but who knows how long the artist had lived after making this? They shared a fate now, and something about that just tickles my heart.
My left hand spasms and the shard flies nearly perfectly vertically up into the air, slowly rotating as it falls. It lands softly onto my chest, and I reach to pick it back up with my good arm, but flinch as I cut my thumb on its sharp edge. Grimacing, I reach over and grab a black cotton sock from beside my head, using it to wrap up the glass. The threat successfully secured, I sigh, rolling my eyes as I toss the now deadly ball of fabric across the room into my duffel bag.
This was so fucking boring.
As I lay dazed, I ignore a few strange sounds I assume are someone talking out in the hallway, but nearly jump out of my skin as a blur of a face appears looking down onto me. I hastily spin and sit up, acknowledging the likely crew member who had so rudely entered my room, sighing as I turn my inner ear implants back on. The man’s voice is deep and masculine, and I can’t help but appreciate the bit of scratch that accompanies it. However, I can’t help but freeze when I actually listen to what he has to say:
“We’re docking very soon, so get yourself packed and ready.” Shaking his head, the man walks away, but pauses in the door frame just before he steps out of the room. “Don’t forget, your family is expecting you for dinner. And keep your damn augs online while on my ship in the future.”
As the man slams the door, I take a shaky breath as the situation begins to descend upon me. Family dinners are something that usually take me a week to work up the courage for, and now I have to go to one with just an hour’s notice? I hastily stuff my clothes and other miscellaneous items into the duffle bag I use for trips, flip my implants off again, and rush out of my cabin towards the deck. As I step into the midday sun and feel the crisp ocean wind, a bittersweet smile rises at the sight before me.
Looming far above the ship I’ve spent the last month upon, New Houston’s central tower stretches nearly four hundred feet into the air. It’s long shadow pooling just beside the eastern FPS rig, one of the many migrant builds that litter the ocean surface. I know the original conversion, the central tower, was originally a piece of floating scrap metal a first gen samurai claimed to rebuild as a bastion for the future. It worked, and so New Houston was born.
It sucked, but it was still home. I’m actually rather relieved to be back, all things in consideration.
A few figures brush past me as I stare up, about a minute passing before I snap out of my daze and continue towards the bow of the ship. I step out onto the deck, roaming until I am standing just at the edge above the water. The gulf is a clear, transparent blue as always, a sight that I’m definitely appreciating more after the several beaches I visited in New New York. I really hope I don’t ever have to go diving there.
Gradually, the incessant cacophony of the base of the tower begins to fill my ears, a faint ringing beginning to grow with each passing second. I slowly suck in a breath, the crew’s words about my implant echoing in the back of my mind, but it soon is too much to bear. I inwardly grimace as I tap the back of my neck three times, flipping my implants off once again.
As soon as the ship lurches to a stop, I can’t stop myself from jumping out and sprinting away from my waterbound prison. The muffled sound of someone yelling at me causes a microsecond of hesitation, but the idea of actually getting to relax in my room drowns them out enough that I continue forward regardless.
Thankfully, I actually have pretty good stamina thanks to Grandfather’s insistence on me ‘preparing for the worst case scenario’. To him, that means an incursion, which means working on combat skills. I hate working with guns, but the HEMA stuff was fun, at least until he began forcing me to only face him instead of anyone else.
Not that I know why, he stomps me into the dirt every time. It can’t be good practice.
After around a minute of jogging through the wet docks, panting, I step foot onto the floating central platform. The wide array of Dredge Bells that populate its edges are as popular as ever, but I absolutely rue whoever thought of the transportation method. A small individual airlock hooked to a crane was technically a good idea for descending into the depths of the city, but in practice? I shiver as I hastily slip into a crowd, leaving the cursed hub of transportation behind me, nearly knocking an older fellow over as I stumble out towards the interior lift.
When it fully descends, I step inside of it, passing a giggling maid as I do. For a frozen moment, out of the corner of my eye I see a flash of breathtaking sapphires in the blur of her face. I swing to look at her again, my heart suddenly doing double time, but she is nowhere to be seen. I shake my head, doing my best to banish the fleeting image; I’d probably never see that one again, anyways.
Leaning against the cold glass wall as the door closes behind me, I take a few deep breaths to calm my heart as a couple worst case scenarios about tonight begin to bounce around in my head. I bite my lip, turning my head towards the horizon, sighing at the unfortunate beauty of the afternoon sun reflected upon the water. If this were anywhere else, I’d probably consider it a paradise; Unfortunately, this place is probably the opposite.
I slightly flinch as the lift lurches to a stop, and with more then a bit of hesitation, I step out onto my family’s private floor. Like my family in general, the first thing you notice when you arrive here is the blatant crooked contrast between the pearly manor and everything around it. When my grandfather bought this place two decades ago, he’d left a space all around our house to give himself an area to make a garden, but like most things in his life, it was left by the wayside in favor of killing aliens. In the end, the New Houston standard won out, reddish steel and gray concrete melding together into the rather dull, barren hue that tends to dominate the city as a whole.
I take a few steps forward, reach out for the door handle, then jump a bit when I hear my implants turning back on, a buttery smooth yet obviously artificial deep voice with a stereotypical british accent immediately following,
“Welcome home, Young Master. Let me get the door for you,” The Vanguard AI monotones as the door clicks open.
“U-Uh, yeah,” I mutter, quietly pulling my hand back, “T-thanks Jysli.”
“It is no problem, Anthony.” I flinch at my name as the entrance to the family manor automatically swings open, then swiftly banish the vein of self hatred that was just dug up as I awkwardly shuffle into the main entrance of our house.
Due to my mothers strange tastes regarding interior design, the large room I enter resembles a classic high-end hotel lobby; a red velvet carpet lined with gold leads down the middle, a few couches with the same design sit with their back against one wall and an empty reception desk occupying the other. Each of the three hallways centered here connect to different sections of the building, and I hastily rush towards the one to the right, hoping that I can get to my room before anyone catches notice of my presence.
Unfortunately, I get barely halfway through the hallway before an all too familiar, nasal sing-song voice from behind me makes my blood freeze. I stiffly straighten my back, hoping my inadequacies weren’t as obvious as I know they are. My bones creak as I turn to see a figure whose appearance had been perfectly engraved into my long term memory.
“So, you’re home, Anthony.” The woman walks up to me, bringing her right hand to her blurry face. “How was New New York?”
I take a shaky breath as I turn to continue towards my destination, trying with no avail to push down the suffocating fog that has begun to rise in my chest.
“G-Good,” I manage to sputter out, an exceedingly paltry answer to a woman who very much does not like that sort of thing. Not skipping a beat after that, she mercilessly attacks her words sending a javelin of ice into my heart:
“I’m expecting you to talk allll about it tonight, okay dear?~”
Right when I reach my bedroom, walking up to me and putting her hand onto the small of my back. I gasp at the feeling of her nails slowly moving across my shirt, the uncomfortably ticklish trace she leaves making me shiver.
“Relax for a bit, won’t you? You’re finally home.” The woman chuckles as she steps away, then pauses before she leaves view. “Oh, and just so you know, Anthony, we’re having snook for dinner tonight! I even went down and picked it out for myself!”
I inwardly cringe as I step inside my room, locking the door behind me as I do. I take three deep breaths to calm my raging heart, then trudge across my room. I place the duffel down beside my desk, pulling out the few actually interesting things I had picked up on my trip before I dump everything else into a laundry hamper.
I saunter over to one of my drawers, pulling out some glass containers, which I then begin to put my prizes into. To be specific, the broken uranium vase, a half melted rolex watch, and interestingly enough, a totally fried samurai tech watch. Funny that the only things I managed to get could be considered trash to some people. I first take my new timepieces, easily slotting them into my clock collection, before I find myself deliberating where exactly to put the broken glass.
I had collected a lot of different things through the years, mostly during my dives at the ruins of old fallen cities, and I displayed them here for my own viewing pleasure. After a quick once over, I end up slotting the container between my black gems and alexandrite, deciding them close enough to gemstones to fit. With my final job done, I dramatically do a little spin before I flop down onto my bed.
Staring up at the ceiling, reality begins to truly sink into me. I was truly finally home.
All in all, New New York hadn’t been fun. Everyone was in a hurry it seemed, and I would nearly be run over every time I tried to walk around by myself. The incessant ads flashing across my augs didn’t help my opinion of the place either- one of the few benefits of living in New Houston was how strictly controlled things like that are. I mean, I’d prefer to have access to the wider net instead of the shitty reef intranet, but I’ll take what I can get.
The actual work itself was at a breakneck pace in comparison to normal, and something about handling the legal teams of corps there made me even more nervous then I normally was in that kind of situation. Thankfully though, I managed to keep it together enough to finish the negotiations. Well, to be more specific, the entire deal ended up a huge trainwreck that didn’t pan out at all, but I gotta look at the bright side.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Man, tonight’s dinner is going to be the absolute worst.
“Ugggh.” I cover my face with my hands, my chest filled with dread at the inevitable future.
I wish I could turn off my implants and sleep, forget about the stupid thing and make my report tomorrow. That’d for sure get me yelled at by my parents though, for multiple reasons, but mostly for the implant thing. Grandfather was super strict about the implants; There was a sense to it, of course, considering that we needed to be able to hear the emergency sirens, whistles and the like. Yet, as everything else, they just… made it into some kind of sick game.
I wish I knew why.
As exhaustion begins to weigh upon me, I reluctantly creak to my feet and slowly waddle over to my closet, hesitantly opening it. Inside, sitting beside the few clothes I hadn’t deemed as necessary for my trip, the single mirror I allow to be in my room sits in its solitary exile.
Well, it’s been a while since I last checked… No time like the present, I guess.
I reach out, pressing the small button on its metallic side, illuminating the dusty surface of the mirror. Despite my slight hopes, the blurry image remains the same as it always was.
I’ve forgotten what I look like.
The mess of my reflection is not unlike someone had painted a portrait of me before tossing a bucket of dirty water at the canvas. I could still look down and see my body, of course, but that tends to cause a bit of a different problem. To be honest, everything to do with this made my stomach churn with dread.
I ram the bottom of my fist into the mirror’s switch, grabbing a fresh white shirt before slamming the closet door shut. Taking deep breaths to calm myself down, I shift away from my closet and sink into my squishy leather chair. I slowly change without looking down nor rising from the seat, then sigh as I lean back to look at the slowly spinning ceiling fan.
“How the hell,” I mutter quietly to noone as I slowly spin around in the chair, “Am I going to convince her to let me not eat the fish?”
That thought bounces around in my head incessantly, at least until I find myself standing in front of the most imposing doors in our home. Twice as tall as me and probably several times as heavy, the thick, basically medieval doors my grandfather chose stood out like a sore thumb in this opulent palace of a building. With a gulp, I press my hand to the door, the gigantic wooden slabs sliding across the floor as if they were weightless as I do.
Samurai magic is weird.
Inside, our family dining room is reminiscent of a king’s hall, the absurdly long table illuminated in flickering light from the burning brasiers hanging from the ceiling. Every piece of fabric in the room is a deep maroon, not counting the handwoven tapestries depicting the history of New Houston that are proudly hung upon the walls. The gigantic table which could seat twenty is just set with five gigantic, ornate oak chairs, all placed upon one of the table’s length.
I’m somehow the first one to arrive, but despite my urge to just leave, I sit down in my designated seat anyway, the closest one to the front of the room. I carefully arrange the shining, pure silver cutlery we always used, placing them into the exact way I liked it. If I was going to suffer in this room reeking of my Grandfather’s ego, I’d do it while at least a bit comfortable. These damn chairs sucked to sit in- They weren’t even family heirlooms or anything, but thinking about it, that might even be his master plan. One final fuck you as he leaves a world he made an objectively worse place.
“Hey, you’re back!” I freeze as the chipper yet uncomfortable voice enters my ears, “God, it’s good to see you bro.”
A frown creeping onto my face for multiple reasons, I wave hello with my fingers at my brother, though I don’t look up. He frowns as he takes his seat, three chairs down from me, showing off his always perfect manners as he places his napkin into his collar.
“Why the long face?” He scoots the chair forward like it weighs nothing, straightening his back as he looks at me. “I know you’re probably tired, but is something wrong?”
I shake my head, forcing a smile as I bite my inner lip. It really hurt to lie, but I couldn’t talk about the deeply complicated issues I had been having, especially to him. He had been… far more pleasant to deal with during the last year then I typically remember him being. I did appreciate it, but right before I left for New New York, he dipped out on something he promised to me. Now that he’s standing in front of me again, I find myself deeply uncomfortable at how similar his tone is to how it used to be.
It makes me feel more sick then I already do.
As if my discomfort was blood in the water, both of the dining room doors slam open as my grandfather regally steps inside, stomping towards his seat at the center of the table. He was by far the easiest person I know to recognize, his gigantic silver suit of armor never coming off even when he slept. The man was nothing if not paranoid. He silently clunks down into his seat, the gold trimmed, circular carvings in the oak behind him almost resembling a halo.
I turn my head to the entrance again as three more figures walk in. The first is obviously my mother, her pearl white heels clicking on the ground as she moves to the end of the table. The other two figures are easy to guess, as they move to the seat beside me, the larger of the two sitting down. That makes him my father, who I honestly don’t really know much about. Well, other then his tendency to have a ‘helper’ with him at all times, typically the head maid Marianne. She was nice enough, but I did occasionally catch her staring at me. I'm just going to assume this is her and worry about literally anything else.
A familiar, awkward silence fills the room as the members of our family adjust themselves to an arbitrary standard. Each one moves the same way, their practiced motions supposedly showing off their social status in the best possible way. It just claws at my composure like the screech of a feedback loop.
A new figure enters the room from behind a curtain pushing a covered cart, and soon everyone has their plates filled with the utterly simple meals one by one. As the youngest, I’m made to wait the longest, though it doesn’t particularly matter in the end. Nobody eats before Grandfather.
I receive a filet of perfectly cooked snook and a pre-sliced baguette, alongside a glass of red wine. It kind of baffles me how stubborn these people are. I know from my many lessons about high society that it’s a faux pas to serve red with fish instead of white, but during our family dinners, we only drink red. Anything else is blasphemy.
Grandfather lifts his fork and eats a small bite of the fish, signaling the beginning of the feast. Everyone else eats in perfect harmony, quietly chewing their meals while showing absolutely no emotion, no indication of if they think the food is good or not. I try not to focus too much on it as I slowly nibble at a piece of bread.
To my surprise, my father is the first one to break the silence, a rather unusual occurrence to be sure. His words are slow, chosen with consideration I don’t usually expect from him, his deep baritone displaying a surprising amount of interest in the topic of his words.
“The cleanup effort in Seattle has proven a rather lucrative venture.” He takes a bite of fish, chews it exactly six times, then swallows it. “It’s increased the stock value of our heavy machinery shell by at least fourteen percent.”
With a sigh, my grandfather places his fork down, making all of us go rigid. After a moment, he speaks, his annoyance obvious in his rather brittle, aged tone.
“Richard, what have I said about dealing with the matters of samurai?” My grandfather picks his fork up again, chews the fish five times, then swallows.
“Father,” The man eventually mutters, nervously placing his own fork down, “I understand that you don’t like it, but-”
I jump as grandfather slams his fist into the middle of the table, a new crack splitting its surface in twain.
“THAT IS MY ROLE, RICHARD, I DON’T NEED YOUR GODDAMN HELP!” Taking a deep breath, my grandfather casually places another piece of fish into his mouth as if nothing had happened. “If you need to find someone to interfere with, have it be your useless son who can’t even close an already done deal.”
I pale as a chill runs down my spine, everyone in the room turning towards me. My heart begins to race, all the useless excuses I had come up with during my walk here jumping ship. I take a few shallow breaths, shifting nervously in my seat as my mind rushes to find anything I can say.
“I-I…” I frantically look between all six figures, yet I can’t even manage a single word. “I-It was…”
Before I can finish, my brother nonchalantly grabs hold of the conversation, placing his fork down as he declares:
“I’m going to space with Eren tonight, Grandfather.”
My mother audibly gasps, her glass shattering against the floor. My jaw hangs open mid sentence, but I close it and shut up as the giant man at the center of the table begins to chuckle, before it turns into a full out belly laugh. When he finishes, he takes a long, extended sip of his wine before saying anything.
“You and Haifisch, huh?” He chuckles a bit again, holding his glass out at my brother. “Color me surprised. I’m impressed you managed to do this under my nose, guess I’ll see you there.”
I- What? Space? I understand that means that Haifisch is a samurai, but what does my brother going with him mean? Completely out of the loop, I watch as my mother, trembling, takes another bite of fish, and six agonizing gnashes of her teeth later, she places her fork down.
“What about your work?” My mother takes a new glass from the server, clenching it in her hands. “You have responsibilities down here, Tristan.”
My brother scoffs, munching down a chunk of fish. I quietly gasp when I hear him only chew five times.
“I can just hire someone actually skilled at the work you give me to do it.” My brother says, continuing after he takes a sip of his wine.
My father leans down on his elbow, tilting over to look at his son.
“Tristan, I understand wishing to break away from us,” the man grumbles out, “But you heard father earlier, Samurai are his-”
Grandfather raises a hand, and my father immediately stops talking.
“It’s fine in this case.” The goliath chuckles, cracking a knuckle. “He’s using his partner’s name and not ours. I have no qualms.”
“Honestly, it’s not like you can stop me,” My brother chimes in, “I’ve been an adult for half a decade and Eren is strong enough that you didn’t even know I was seeing him.”
I nearly fall out of my seat when my mothers slaps the table, jumping to her feet and swiping her hand through the air.
“UGH! What if you die up there?!” She screeches, “No one would be able to take your place!
“I’ll be fine,” He responds, then continues “In the farfetched case something inconceivable happens…”
My brother sighs, then turns to me. My heart plummets when I realize what is about to happen and why Tristan had changed so much in the last year. “You could just have Anthony take my place.”
My mother stumbles, then with her hand on her forehead plops onto her seat. A small aura in my eye is a harbinger of an oncoming migraine.
“No… Nonono, this can’t be happening, that isn’t how this works…” Taking a shaky breath she takes a sip of her wine before shattering the glass between her hands. “I-I can't have another child, and he’s not my…”
The entire room freezes at her words, and my mother visibly hesitates before turning to look at me. The aura having enveloped the entire right side of my vision, I shakily stand up. Feeling tears beginning to form, I immediately decide that I am not going to break in front of these people over something like this. I stumble back a few feet, shaking my head as I start walking away from everything.
“I-I’ll talk to you all… L-Later.” I stutter as I cross my arms over my stomach.
My mother takes a few steps towards me, holding a bloody hand up in some vain attempt to get me to stop, “Wait, Anthony, I didn’t-”
Without waiting for her to finish, I storm out of the room, not bothering to close the doors behind me. I turn my implants off with three taps behind my ear, and though I hear a few muffled protests behind me, I continue on my path. As I re-enter the lobby, I feel a hand grab my arm, but I don’t even turn to see who it is. Using the escape reflex that Grandfather drilled into me with his damned training, I wrench free then sprint away, only stopping when I am safely in my room with the door locked behind me.
I almost collapse to my knees as I get my shoes off, but I manage to catch myself on my chair to limply roll over to my bed. I crawl up, bringing my knees to my chest as I silently choke a sob. Tears begin to fall as my thoughts begin to spiral, the things that had been spoken in that room finally beginning to register fully.
So that was the truth, the reason they treated me like they did. How quaint. I’m here suffering while they act out a fucking soap opera.
I fall over, pressing my face into a pillow as anguish washes over me, something deep inside me cracking. My consciousness slips, fading in and out for what feels like an eternity. My thoughts are blurry, an utter, incoherent mess that nothing can escape from without being corrupted into a blob of negativity.
When I finally regain some lucidity, I find silver moonlight filtering in through my window onto my face. Groaning quietly, I sit up, then stumble my feet as I grab an empty glass from atop my desk as I enter my connected bathroom. Putting it beneath the tap, I groggily wait for it to be filled, closing my eyes and downing a small pill while I do. When the cup begins to overflow, staring at the empty wall, I raise it to my lips and take a sip.
Only to drop the cup, shattering it across the floor as I feel something solid enter my throat, the object slipping into me before I realize what is happening.
I cough and gag in disgust, looking down in horror at creatures I had never seen outside of pictures. A small swarm of tiny Antithesis Model-Sevens wriggle around in the glass, and one even moves onto my foot. Something inside me shatters, the echo of which reverberating through my mind.
I scream as I begin to stomp on the glass with as much force as I can, doing my best to eliminate what I knew was a direct threat to me, but also other people’s lives. I didn’t care that they lied to my face for my entire life, or that they tormented me every chance they got, and even if they hated me with their entire being. I wouldn’t let these things infect anyone else.
I wince as the shards of glass piece my skin when my foot slams into the ground, but I ignore the slicing sting as I continue my rampage against the worms until all the damn things stop moving. It takes an excruciatingly long time, and I can’t help but take a deep breath of relief when it’s over. I stumble back and clutch the middle of my chest, falling onto the cold bathroom tile as a sudden sharp pain begins just above my stomach. It’s only when the pain begins to slowly rise that terror feels me, and in that moment, I know I’m about to die.
Thankfully, a second far more sudden shock rattles me, and as I reach up to clutch my head at what I think is the worst migraine of my life, it happens. A sugar sweet, honey-smooth, yet obviously artificial, feminine voice with a teensy bit of a southern swing slips into my mind.
System Initialized!
Good evening, honey!
When faced with certain doom, you endured excruciating pain to save those who had betrayed you. This selfless action has allowed me to deem you worthy of becoming one of the Vanguard, the defenders of humanity. I am Nyvi, the one who will assist you in your new role. Rise, you who have no future, and claim for yourself the fate you deserve!
Rise, Anthony Montero, and become a protector of the weak!