Chapter Thirty-Two

As soon as the car came to a halt in front of her home, Viktoriya leaped from her seat and raced through the gate into the house.

Rebecca sped away, hoping no security cameras recognized or recorded her, even though she had deployed her window and plate obfuscators to hide her identity as much as possible.

“Mom, Dad!” Viktoriya cried, storming in as though she were rushing a patient to the emergency room.

Her mom and dad sprinted out of the kitchen upon hearing her cry out to them.

They stuck fast in a state of shock, in disbelief at what they saw. Their girl was in her bedroom with her best friend, as far as they knew.

They gazed at her—disheveled, clothes torn, scrapes and blood in a mosaic of distress and pain.

“Oh my God!” her mom screamed as she ran and fell to her knees in front of her.

“Vik! Vik! Your, your arm!” her dad stammered in shock, closing in right behind his wife.

“Noxx, vitals! Send the scans to Dr. Bravermen, ask him to come immediately, emergency!”

They helped her onto the couch and began gently looking over her injuries. They gently searched to see how badly she was hurt, still unable to fully arrive into the reality of how she wound up in that awful condition. The overwhelming smell of gunpowder permeated into her very being.

“Help him,” she sobbed. “Please… This is… CLEFF, his… mainboard.”

She tried to reach into her jacket pocket for the part. But she was too injured to connect her mind to her movements.

Choe overheard the commotion and ran downstairs to see what had happened.

She took one wide-eyed look at Viktoriya, turned, and ran back upstairs, locking herself in once again.

Eva saw the look on Choe’s face and knew something was up.

Rosa held his crying daughter in his arms. Then they went to the couch in the living room. A few of the kids at the party ran to the front room to see what all the commotion was about.

“Dr. Bravermen’s ETA is seven minutes. He recommends seventy milligrams of Ardentak to reduce pain and assist with calming for Vik, and ten milligrams of Dexstresil to assist in calming the two of you.” Noxxor said.

“Yes, fulfill and send the droid immediately. Call the parents of the visitors to come and pick up their children, please,” Rosa stammered, staring at one of the teens emerging from the game room.

He gave his wife a worried look. “I think she may be in shock—”

Eva was not so understanding. The one question she could not stop asking herself was where had Viktoriya run off to and what had happened there.

She knew who had the answer.

Eva knew where she would find out exactly what had happened.

Choe’s heart was pounding—too fast for her liking. She stood behind the door, trying to control her breathing. She knew where Viktoriya had been, and seeing the terrible mess she was in; she understood clearly that everything had gone upside-down sideways. She could not go down there and ask if Viktoriya was okay. That would mean confessing to Viktoriya’s parents that she had snuck out of the house—with her help.

She remained in the bedroom, unsure of what to do next. Her feet were restless. She paced from one end of the room to another, trying to figure out a solution, but nothing came to her.

All she could think of was her friend looking like she had barely escaped death and wondering what Aura may have done to her. She bit her lower lip almost until it hurt too much.

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They were right, after all.

Aunt Aura was indeed a bad person. Anyone could see that from what she had done to Viktoriya. Choe could not describe what she was feeling. Perhaps it was fear, or maybe just disgust. Disgust would do just fine. She hated Aura for what she had done and how she’d hurt her friend.

Eva pondered on the scene that had just taken place. She could not wrap her head around it. A few minutes before, she would have sworn her daughter was inside her room with her friend. But to hear her call from outside, covered in blood, dirt, and what smelled most definitely like gunpowder—what had Viktoriya gotten herself into?

She was going to find out, and from how Choe reacted, she knew there was something she was hiding. She stormed to Viktoriya’s room, commanding Noxxor to override the lock.

Choe noticed the door slide open and ducked into the bathroom. But Eva was not ready for any games. Her daughter had returned home covered in the stench of death, and it was likely that Choe knew why.

Something must have gone terribly wrong wherever the hell she went, and she was going to find out.

“Choe,” Eva called, trying to keep her voice calm and stable.

The girl remained still, hoping she would just go away. But even she knew the veil of the bathroom door was not doing an outstanding job of shielding her.

“Choe,” she called again. Eva’s voice was curt and loud. It pierced through Choe so sharply she jumped and then opened the door.

“Tell me what happened from the very beginning.”

There was no mistaking the tone in Eva’s voice. She might have said the words calmly, but they were indeed firm enough to carry an absolute authority.

Young woman, you better start telling me how my daughter ended up in this mess, and you better not leave a single thing out of it.

Choe quivered in fear under Eva’s gaze. She tried to speak, but her words kept breaking. She barely came up with a coherent sentence without having to go through it repeatedly. But Eva remained calm, listening through it all.

“It was. It was… Aunt… Aura. She went there to help Aura. She thought Aura was in danger and may get hurt. She thought if she found out what happened, she could help,” she said before Eva turned and stormed away. Choe gulped, letting out a huge breath that she had not realized she had been holding until then.

The doctor arrived and assessed Noxxor’s scans, then examined Victoriya’s arm.

“Vik is stable, but we are going to need to get her into surgery to take care of her arm. I have an AI med-transport dropping in. They’ll be landing at the front driveway in just a moment,” Dr. Bravermen reported.

The two anxious parents stared at one another in silence and waited as the doctor continued examining their daughter’s arm.

All Eva could think about was her Viktoriya might never be the same. Her girl was already such a fragile soul, and now she worried how this would add to her already heavy load to carry.

She wiped the tears that continually formed in her eyes, not caring or even trying to hide how much it tore her apart.

The medical dropship landed on the front-drive a few minutes later. The entry door slid open as Dr. Bravermen and the family boarded to jump directly to the hospital.

Hours into the procedure, the assistant doctor came into the room to update her parents with unpleasant news, carrying a robotic arm in one hand.

“Eva, Rosa, Viktoriya is a very, very strong young girl, and overall, she is doing excellent as the operation progresses. However, there is a complication that we have an update on, and we’ll need to have your decision and authorization on how to proceed,” the doctor reported, trying to remain positive.

“What’s… What is wrong?” Eva inquired, looking somber, already showing signs of sadness intensifying in her face.

“Viktoriya’s arm is not salvageable to the level where she would recover normal functionality and use,” the surgeon sighed.

“We have come to a point in the surgery where we must decide to leave her natural arm in this state, leaving her with severely limited feeling, movement, and use of her arm and hand,” he said.

“Or, we have this option, the CyberArm, which we can splice into her neural network and nervous system, basically enabling her full and normal use with the cybernetic arm,” he said as he lifted the robotic appendage before them.

“Our team of doctors discussed this thoroughly and considered every available option, as we understand the importance of such an impactful decision. We all unanimously agreed these two options are the only viable paths forward, given the severity of the damage,” he finished.

“I understand if you need to take a few minutes to discuss this privately, so you may raise us on the comms here once you have come to a decision,” the doctor said, then turned to go back to the operating room.

“Wait. The new arm… She will have complete control over it as if it were her own? What is meant by ‘she’ll have full use’?” Rosa asked.

“Yes, apart from the obvious aspects of it being the CyberArm, it will respond as if it were her actual arm. We also equipped it with an array of over seven hundred haptic feedback sensors from fingertip to shoulder, giving Viktoriya the ability to feel things such as grip pressure, taps or touches, heat, cold, and the like. It has a very advanced AI core to run itself,” the doctor explained.

“Give Viktoriya a new arm,” Eva and Rosa both replied in unison.

The doctor walked through the door and replied, “Yes, we’ll begin immediately.

“Just so you’re aware,” he stopped, turned, and looked back at them before saying, “We all were hoping for this option as your choice. We believe that you’ve made the best, most positive decision for your daughter.” Finishing and kindly smiling, he turned and then exited the silent room.