… The doctor said that Alicia would never regain control of her body from chest down.
...The bullet had shattered into a dozen shrapnels on impact, tearing holes in the heart and other internal organs. One of the shrapnels lodging into the spine.
...Apparently my quick reaction of rushing her to Pharmatics Hub saved her life… but she had to get an artificial heart, and even now… her spine cannot be repaired…
The doctor who was telling me this looked both sad and afraid… but mostly sad...
I waited outside her hospital room through the night until she woke up, and went to see her.
Her bandaged body was lying on a clinical hospital bed… she looked so fragile… as if on death's door.
… Her eyes were red… She must have been crying so much… but she is keeping it in so I don't have to see… Please don't...
...She told me things...
Apparently she had got into a petty quarrel with Lica in the bathroom and it devolved into a full blown fight, It ended with her killing Líca...
...She told me other things too… like a floodgate had opened...
...I…there is too much I did not know… About Lìca’s feelings… about Nastim being a slaver… about Alicia’s fears...
...Heh… Look at me… Pathetic… Here I thought I had the world figured out...
...Alicia kept telling me things… about this and that… Things I never knew she thought… But slowly she ran out of things to say.
...She looked at me, with a resolved face… as if at peace…
“...Please… Kill me...”
In the Arcologies, a person like Alicia… crippled and in active need of medical care costing hundreds of credits to take care of per day…
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“you have given me so much…” she said...
...I did it again… I let my partner down…
“Please don't make me repay it all with misery…”
...She is smiling…
… Her smile… I never realized how beautiful it was in the past…
...But her current smile was closer to a suppressed cry…
She is crying on the inside, yet smiling… Please don't smile… It hurts so deep...
“...You know what comes next… right?...”
...I know the answer… I know dammit… Why is it that she has to tell me?...
...The right answer is to let her die… She wants it… and there is nothing I can do…
“...She is suffering… you have to let go…”
...It always happens… I always fail...
Looking at her painful smile… I put my hand to my pocket… taking out the gun that Nastim had used…
“…”
“...You know what to do…”
…
“No.”
“What do you mean...No?”
… No.
Just no.
“Fuck this shit.”
I let my partner down again? Yes. I let Lily die. Yes. I let Alicia become a cripple. I am a failure.
So what? Just… Give up? JUST KILL ALICIA?
“NO!” I FUCKING REFUSE!
I let my partner down again? So I will fucking struggle.
I let my partner get crippled? A shrapnel in the spine?
THEN I WILL TEAR OUT A FUCKING NEW SPINE AND GIVE HER THAT.
Doomed by life to cause misery to anyone who gets close to me?
THEN I WILL FUCKING TEAR THE SPINE FROM LIFE ITSELF AND GIVE ALICIA THAT.
I will not back down this time.
I will not accept this failure.
...I will fix this.
If it takes going against the god’s of fate themselves, then so be it.
“Wait for me alicia… I will make it better… “ I told her.
“I promised didn’t I?... I will never abandon you.”
...For the first time in my whole visit, she smiled for real, with tears forming in the corners of her eyes…
“...Okay.” Her soft voice said almost inaudibly.
…
*later*
…
I kick the door open. Revealing the remaining Cage family members, Nastim and his wife. Busily packing to escape Aurora, for the time being I kneecapped both to stop them from running.
I walk over to Nastim, who is screaming in agony, putting a gun to his head.
He disgusts me.
“...Are you afraid of me?”
I can see it in his eyes… That palpable fear. His voice stuck in his throat.
“Assemble y-... ...MY people.”
...But if that is what it takes.
“I have use for them.”