Seven Years Ago . . .

“Nell, you gotta be gummed out of your mind if you think this is a good idea!” Adam scoffed, burying his face in his hands.

“Issac, this is a good investment, trust me!” she pleaded. “We’ll make it back double– no, triple!”

“We can’t make shit if we don’t have an apartment! That was our RENT, Nell!” Adam spat. He towered over her, glowering down at her with a glare of fury. Nell shrank against the wall, offering up a much weaker smile. Behind her flimsy veneer of confidence she wearily eyed his balled up fists by his side.

“Just listen, please, this is a good investment! Sometimes success demands risk! Y’know, need money to make money!”

“Oh Jesus . . .” Adam groaned. His hands relented so he could rub at his temples. She lit up. Nell knew Adam long enough to know that this was his stubborn form of conceding to her and she quickly took the chance to pitch. He has to understand. He always comes around, she rationalized. She cleared her throat and began to speak. Whether it was friend or foe, rich or poor, she always parroted the same pitch. By now, it had become second nature.

“Waltaire aims to offer a much more eco-friendly and consumer-friendly product than other pharmaceutical companies,” she began. “Most competitors try to incorporate as many different remedies and solutions to one pill, right? Streamlines the process, if you will. But! It all adds up to one big, bad cost with mediocre results.

“Our specialized medication, Meanoxaprone, is manufactured to specifically target one issue, and they take down that issue right. How, you might ask? Customers undergo a full biological evaluation and the data is sent back to our labs to be studied. Then, a unique dose of Meanoxaprone is created to solve their specific issue. It saves waste and resources and the customer doesn’t have to pay so much since they only have to take one pill versus dozens. In other words, they pay a little for just what they need. It also reduces the risk for side effects, and–”

“Shut it!” Adam snapped. Nell promptly did so. She returned her unwavering attention to her roommate. “We are not gambling on such a stupid fucking idea. ‘Biological evalution?’ A cure all pill? What kind of technobabble bullshit is that?!”

“It’s not! We have a chance–” Nell fired back, but Adam cut her off.

“You invested in a fucking Ponzi scheme! Can you get the money back?” He demanded, now just inches away from her. Nell didn’t meet his gaze, instead turning her attention to her much more interesting fingers. She had hoped that Adam might buy into the idea and would see the potential it carries. It’s a good idea! And with the right people backing it, they could be rich! Why can’t he see that?

“Adam, please, you have to trust–”

“Can. You. Get. The. Money. Back?” He ground out harshly. To drive his point home, he punctuated each word with a harsh jab to her chest. Nell finally met his gaze to search for any form of understanding. She just needed to see the light spark of hope, just a little faith in this company. She just needed that small shred of assurance to know that he believed her and her risk was worth it. Just– somebody!

But all she was met with was resentment. Nell heaved a heavy sigh. She gave the slightest twitch of her head. “No . . .”

Adam immediately left the confrontation and marched away. A puzzled Nell darted after him to his room. She nudged the cracked door open to peer inside. Adam was tearing the drawers of his dressers open, grabbing messy handfuls of clothing and shoving them into a duffle bag. Her eyes widened.

“A-Adam, what are you doing?”

“I’m leaving,” he gruffly replied. She felt her words get caught in her throat. She spent a few idle seconds trying to regain her ability to speak as he stuffed angry pile after angry pile of random clothes into his bag.

“Why?! I need someone to help with the rent!” Issac gave a harsh bark of a laugh.

“You tell me that AFTER you take our– No, my money to chase after your get-rich-quick scheme?” He didn’t take long to finish packing and zipped up his bag.

“Fuck. You.”

Nell was taken aback. How could he say such a thing? She stood, stunned, as he forced himself past her. Nell kept at his heels as he thundered his way towards the door.

“Please, stay! I’ll get the money back, I swear–”

Issac spun around abruptly and she ran right into him. With a grunt of surprise, she pulled away and stared up at him, eyes wide and pleading. Issac didn’t waver from his own filled of anger.

“Y’know, people warned me about you, Nell,” he began, voice low and cold. “They said you’re a parasite, leeching off others for your own benefit. Scheme after scheme, you tried to convince people their “investment” would pay off. Where’s their pay-off now, huh?”

“Adam–”

“It’s been a year. WHERE IS IT?” he snarled. Nell quickly silenced herself. He stared expectantly at her, as if she would offer some explanation.

But, he was met with no words.

Adam scoffed, and turned away. “Last time I try to help someone out,” he grumbled. With that, he slammed the door after himself.

Once again, Nell was alone and penniless with eviction closing in on her doorstep.

She stood there with her head dipped in shame as tears threatened to break.

No.

No, she’s not going to cry. What use is there crying after a dumbass who can’t see beyond tomorrow? This was the right call! In just a few weeks time, when the world finally realizes what Waltaire has to offer, all that she’s done will be rewarded. All that she’s sacrificed, all her effort, all her constant endurance will have paid off. Those fools who left her and ridiculed her will come crawling back. They didn’t want her, so why should she need them? She doesn’t need Adam or anybody else’s faith! She had her own! And herself is all that’ll matter when Waltaire becomes successful.

But, a part of her in the back of her mind protested. A sliver of her consciousness dared ask the question–

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Is it worth it?

She had to silence it.

With heavy feet, she made her way towards the kitchen. She made a bee-line for the liquor cabinet. She produced her favorite bottle of Hyde’s and slammed it on the counter. As Nell got to work to pry the cork off, she heard her phone ping with a notification. Probably Issac blocking me, she thought and begrudgingly reached around into her pocket to find her phone. Instead, she was greeted with a much more delightful message. An ecstatic one, at that.

One that would change her life.

Daniels: COME TO THE OFFICE. NOW. WE MADE IT, MILLER!

Present . . .

Nell woke up with a groan, her eyelids flickering against the bleak light dripping through her blinds. She tried to turn over into her pillow to shrink away, but the damage had already been done. Begrudgingly, she was awake. She still couldn’t get used to no pitch black room or OT rousing her awake. Her alarm clock was now the same as everybody else’s: The sun.

She furrowed her brow and sat up, fervently blinking the sleep away from her eyes. Instead of being greeted with the familiar sight of her luxury suite, she found herself in a dingy, cramped studio that smelled distinctly of mold. The paint was peeling off in flakes to create a snowy bed over the cracking tiled floor. The only furniture she had was her bed, a musty couch, three-legged coffee table, and a stool in the corner of the room that came with the apartment. Well, it was more so a chew toy for the rats and apartment building for cockroaches. The apartment was so small, she could cross the room in five paces or jump across it twice to get to the other side.

Nell hung her head, burying her face into her hands. The warm embrace of sleep dissipated, leaving the memories of the past six months to snake into its place. The media flocking after her demanding answers to their relentless questions, all of her connections immediately breaking off the moment the news broke, and all of the disappointment pressing down on her like a weight. Disappointment from her peers, the people, herself. Immediately, her head began to pound like it had for those cruel six months.

She pulled back her scratchy polysynth blanket and swung her feet over the edge of the bed. The bed creaked and groaned in a threat to potentially crumble into pieces. She gave a sharp hiss as she was met with frigid linoleum. Whatever fleeting memories of her old apartment slunk away to a distant past. She steeled herself and with a groan, Nell stood and began to hobble her way to the bathroom.

It was the only other “room” and was really a closet. The shower was a spigot and a drain tucked in the corner completely dominated by mold and the toilet was a foot away, also bearing a similar condition. The sink was the only thing free of the bathroom’s plague if you didn’t count the pieces of broken glass from the mirror floating in it.

Like most mornings, Nell had to confront her new reflection. Her hair had grown out exponentially longer and now was past her shoulders. Her figure had gotten gaunter and paler. Her eyes, once wide and bright, now hung hooded and faded. What hurt most was the wounds scoring the right side of her face. They were supposed to have healed over and become indistinguishable. But . . . Her run in with security during her expulsion made them permanent.

The memory was still as vivid as ever. Her throat coarse and burning as she fruitlessly begged The Board for forgiveness, or a second chance, or something. She clawed herself over the table to get in their faces but security tore her off. Her frozen stupor now had evaporated into a fiery need to fight as she battled with all her might against security. It ended up with her stitches and bandages opening up again. She couldn’t get them patched up again and was now left horribly scarred.

Nell quickly finished the rest of her bathroom routine and scuttled out to the kitchen. It didn’t take long to cross the few yards out of her cage of a room and into the equally tiny “kitchen” her “new” apartment offered. With each step, she kicked away spare take-out food containers and glass bottles that reeked since she got here. At this point she got used to breathing out her mouth to avoid the stench.

She approached her fridge and ducked her head to see inside. Sparse, with only a loaf of Crick-Bread, Pseu-Soy Sauce, oatmilk, and a case of beer. She couldn’t even afford FabriPaks anymore if she wanted to keep the apartment for another month. Now, she had to adapt to putting ketchup on bread or ordering Chinese for the upteenth time. Probably the worst of it all was having to downgrade to piss-poor swill for drinks. Oh, what she would give for just a sip of her old whiskey. Nell unconsciously licked her lips.

No, you have to eat, she scolded herself. She grabbed the oatmilk and shut the fridge. In a matter of seconds, she had prepped herself a bowl of cereal. Well, more like a mug of cereal, but the principle remained. She abandoned the milk and cereal on the counter and settled herself on her usual post on the couch.

She heaved a sigh, taking a crunchy bite of her cereal. It was bland and hard. She immediately spat it into her mug and set it to the side with a shudder.

“Jesus . . .” she mumbled to herself, shifting to the very far edge of her couch. Nell felt herself collapse into the cushions, staring aimlessly at the popcorn ceiling above her.

Is this what I’ve become? She thought. A washed up nobody? She used to be on the top of her game. She was one of Waltaire’s leaders and had plans to bring them right into more success. She had so many ideas; she wanted to expand into child and animal medication so that the whole family could receive Waltaire’s top treatment. “Spare no healthcare, spoil the child!” Was the proposed slogan.

That could’ve used some work. She gave a hollow laugh to herself. Even her laugh sounded like that of a corpse from beyond the grave. Nell struggled to reminisce on the old times in an effort to create some form of reality where she had some remnants of a future. She shut her eyes and sank into the flurry that was her mind.

She remembered when she first hit gold. If only they saw me now, she distinctly said. Nell would always remember that. Her prediction turned out true. She remembered everybody who abandoned her came stomping back, demanding that they deserve some cut since it was their money. Was it? Really? They’re the ones who ceded it! If they really wanted it, they’d have to come meet her in court. And they did, only to be flogged and sent where they came from. Her money was hers and she rightfully earned it. She took the risk! Nobody would take any cent of the Nell Miller fortune. It was her sacrifice that clawed herself to the top; it was all her.

But . . . Nell began to feel the creep of a disturbing realization sinking its talons of dread deep in her heart. She couldn’t name the last time she really, really had someone visit her, or talk to her, or Hell, even be in her presence if they weren’t paid, obligated, or wanted something from her. She could count on one hand those very few instances and by now, they were a fuzzy wisp at the edges of her memory. Solitude hung heavy over her like a cloud during a storm, or better yet, like a shadow on someone’s feet. Penniless or rich, corpo or not, truly nobody came to her door, rang her phone, or even acknowledged her. None of what she did was worth it.

If only they saw me now.

She dug her face deeper into her arms, feeling tears prick at her eyes. Everyone was right. She was a leech. Adam got it square on the head. She leeched off her friends and she leeched off Waltaire, only to be burnt off their flesh by the flame of the media. She knew she didn’t do what she was accused of, but every passing day made her believe it more and more. She might’ve not distributed drugs, true, but she deserved what came to her nonetheless. The shitstorm, that press conference, the board meeting, the attack–

She lifted a hand to brush the scars, now gruesomely marked eternally on her face. She was a criminal, a cheat, a fraud, a leech. A leech addicted to blood that ran green.

If only they saw me now.

Nell forced herself to stand up, brushing the tears away. She couldn’t stand the swarm of thoughts in her head. They needed to go away. Even though she deserved every single one of them– No. She needed to get away.

Nell made a brisk path back to the fridge and snatched a beer bottle. She forced the cap off with a grunt and tilted her head back, tasting the sour liquid snake its way down her throat. It was soothing, so soothing. She let the drink wrap itself around her with its boggy grip. She chugged about half before slamming the bottle down with a heavy THUNK! Her thoughts began to mellow out and the nagging voices died out to meek whispers. A sigh of relief whistled past her lips.

If only they saw me now.