Riding through a a dystopian metropolis on a motorcycle, holding onto a hot chick is supposed to be pretty badass, right? It feels like it is. The kind of ending a video game character would get. We would maybe one last cool jump or skid and then cut into the credits any moment. I'd take that. I wouldn't even care that I'm not the one driving. Except in real life it's more complicated, because the hot chick who is driving can barely stand, and I'm holding her as much to put pressure on one of her wounds so she doesn't bleed out as anything else. Also she's my long-lost sister, so, there's that. Am I holding her too tight? Boy nervously loosens his grip, but only for a moment. Not tight enough? His eyes roam around uncertainly. I don't usually hold people. Girls especially.
She turns her head to the side, like she was saying something to her over her shoulder, but with the broken helmet on, he can't see her lips, just her eyes, imploring. Boy's deafness doesn't leave him in a world of complete silence. Some sounds make it through the trauma done to his inner ears... at least the general shape of them if not the fine specifics, helping him read lips and sometimes guess at meanings even with words he misses seeing, but with no lips to look at and the motorcycle engine drowning out everything, he's at a complete loss. Even the LED display would be better. As it is he's just left confused whether she said anything at all. Am I supposed to do something? Or may don't do something? Don't hold her so tight? Pretty much all the holds he was taught growing up involved immobilizing an opponent... anything like a hug got him thrown and kicked, so he's not experienced at riding a motorcycle with somebody. Or maybe it was a warning of something, like... Somebody's on our tail. He whips his gaze backwards, just in case the Van Der Koy regime unleashed cyborg Dobermans on them, but there's nothing... everyone's probably still scrambling after the bunker massacre. When next he looks at her, he only sees the back of her helmet.
I can't believe she made me go back for that thing. Twice. Well, she didn't make me, but she tried to go back for it herself, and I wasn't going to let her do that when she was bleeding out, so, yeah, she kinda made me. And she made me too. He flashes back to the elevator, when he let his real sister down to rest on the floor while he went for the button, and he finally had a chance to read her lips... those lips were talking about how she needed her get something, but he couldn't tell exactly what. That was when the hallucination appeared again, the one of his little sister as she looked she was still a little girl. This Mina was dressed in a child-sized leather racing suit, black, although with a helmet decorated with a unicorn horn. Her sudden reappearance filled him both with relief--because he worried he might have banished her after telling her he didn't need her, when he decide to kill... sh*t, I guess that was our uncle,--but it also was disturbing. Now that he'd found his actual sister, still alive, surely the one in his head had no reason to appear again.
Yet, there she was. Maybe it made sense, though, his actual sister came back from the dead, so why not his imaginary one, too? And she was helping him interpret. "You've got to get her helmet," she'd said. Her, she could always hear clearly, which was why it was easy to tell she was a hallucination. "She's needs it, and she's in too much pain." His sister's--his actual, physical sister's--wounds were smaller than his own, but she hadn't been taught the Shaman's mental techniques for slowing bloodflow and forcing coagulation. Even with the big lacerations up one leg and arm, it seemed like he was the more functional one right now... yet still she wanted to go back for the helmet with the broken display. I guess she's really just nuts about motorcycle safety. So he rolled his eyes at his imaginary sister, and held out a hand to the real one, to tell her to wait there, rest, and he made a hobbled-run back to where they left it... picking up some discarded guns on the way, and returned... and then once they reached the garage had to make another two trips, one to get her to the motorcycle, and the second to get the helmet and guns again, because he was too tired to get both at once.
Still on the bike, seeing no Dobermans or other pursuit, Boy takes a moment and considers the implications of the hallucination's return. So, what, do I just have two sisters from now on? One real, one in my head? The thought dredges up another memory from his past, long buried--What is this, two flashbacks in a row?--of a tattered paperback book, where that had happened to somebody else who found his sister again--or maybe a clone of her--after thinking she was dead. The Shaman didn't let him read fiction, just the dictionary and revolutionary tracts... imagination is a distraction, he was always told, but reading was essential even in his eyes. So the paperback Boy remembers was from before that, and that realization unearths the rest of the memory. He and Mina had found it in the library, picked it up only because the author's name, Mira Grant. Boy, back then, teased his sister that it was only a few letters different from being her, because she was Mina the Gnat. She got pretend-mad at him, stormed off in a huff, and he remembers offering to read it to her to make it up to her, reading together being one of the things they did when they were under lockdown. The details of the story... those elude him after so long, he just remembers the book being a little more intense than a lot of what they read, probably why it stuck in his mind so long. When he offered, he thought they'd quit after a few chapters, but the story drew them both in--despite it turning out to be the third book of a trilogy--so over the course of a few days, they finished the whole story. Now, he can't remember exactly what was so compelling to the both of them, except that maybe that it was a world that seemed functional on the surface but underneath was a totalitarian hellhole, much like their own. That they were in the ruling family didn't lessen their knowledge of that fact. In the book, though, they could pretend to be the brave people resisting the system. Also, there were zombies in it and other elements in it which excited them far more than their protected compound ever could. Why couldn't our totalitarian hellhole have zombies? Zombies were fun to kill, at least, not like the vague unsettling feeling he had to push down every time he ended the life of a human being. At least Zombies can't drive, he thinks, looking over his shoulder, and then swiftly looking again when he realized the meaning of what he saw.
sh*t, sh*t, sh*t. He taps June27's shoulder to direct her attention to what he spotted, one of the armored military trucks of the regime, barrelling through the streets. When she looks back, she reaches for the gun she stashed a holster attached to the bike, but can't complete the motion... she needs all the strength in her hands for driving right now, so it's up to him. He could use the rifle on his back, but it would mean letting go to sling it off, so he decides to reach past her for the holster designed for the driver, squeezing up against her a little more but only for a second before he releases her with one arm and turns to lays down some suppressive fire. With all the wounds on his body, each shot sends lancing pain up his arm in addition to the usual warmth and kick, but he focuses through so it doesn't affect his aim. Unfortunately, although it makes the other driver swerve randomly to avoid a headshot, the vehicle keeps chasing them.
Their particular hellscape didn't have zombies, but they had soldiers who might as well be, considering how mindlessly they followed the orders of... Who is in charge now, anyway? he suddenly wonders as he continues to look for a shot that will take their pursuers out. Sooner or later one of the neighboring city-states would notice the power gap, see conquering a new territory as a good way to deal with an ambitious cousin or something who has nothing to rule over there, and make an invasion play... unless somebody strong took the reins of power fast and restored order. But who? Great Gran-Gran? She was a tough old broad. Then again, she was at the fake family dinner, so maybe she wasn't all there. Or would somebody ambitious in the military just use her or one of the decoy actors as the face of the government, pretending the dynasty's endured. Figurehead: a nominal leader or head without real power. He recalls suddenly a Great Uncle, in exile.... sh*t how could I forget Grunkle Stan? If he wasn't dead, he might take the opportunity to make his move, stage a return to power.Then again, he can't imagine Grunkle Stan--since the only real memories he can dredge up of the man, before he was finally sidelined, were of him griping loudly about Melanie wasting money on 'optics' including the Cyberdogs boondoggle, and even absurdly high powered machine guns--digging into what was left of the family fortune just to put a bounty on their heads. And somebody had to be paying these guys, or promising them something, otherwise they would have broken off the chase already. Finally, Boy hits a tire at just the right time, sending their pursuers skidding into a concrete barrier, stopping it and allowing the two of them to gain distance and turn a corner. There are almost certainly more on the way, but none are in sight.
His sister turns her head again, and this time he reads her mind, or thinks he does, because he thinks she was telling him to hold on tight, and so just in time he braces himself when she takes sudden detour to a ramp, jumps over a low wall, the two of them crushing together for a moment, especially Boy's crotch slamming into June27's butt, which feels inappropriate and he forces himself to slide backwards once he can resist the pressure. Momentum: The quality that keeps an event developing or making progress after it has started. Maybe by now they'd started something nobody could stop, that now that the leaders of the Van Der Koy empire were gone, it was only a matter of time before the whole system finished collapsing. Perhaps it would spread to other city-states, and something approaching a functional united country of the people could form again, like things were before the Fall. Probably not. But really, all Boy wanted was that somehow, through all the chaos, he and his sister could be free... not just on the run, but truly free, to build some kind of life. Together. The word echoes through his mind, his heart, even though he's not sure what freedom looks like, together sounds pretty much like heaven.
A few more turns, and everything begins to slow, then stop. Boy looks around, checking the alleyway they've parked in, first for threats, then for location. He's not sure where they are, just that it's still well within the city, still in danger... but at least it's out of sight of the main streets and next to a building that's all boarded up, possibly condemned. June27 struggles to push herself off the bike. She shakes her recently pierced hand as though the effort of driving was making it go numb, and the force of the landing might have exacerbated her other injuries, so Boy slides off to help her, despite his own wounds. She waves her hand towards a metal door, indicating that's where she wants to go. Boy can't see why... there's not even any handles it and it's flush with the wall, until she taps the side of her helmet and the entrance pops out an inch, letting her pull it open... albeit it with obvious effort. Okay, maybe going back for the helmet was a good idea.
If she's talking, he still can't tell, a word and a grunt have roughly the same shape. Instead, Boy just reads her eyes, through the shattered display, and assumes she wants to go inside, so he helps her limp there, pushes the door closed behind them with a leg. From the exterior, he expected a large space, like a warehouse or a garage, but inside, it's much cozier, the light switch June27 tagged on the way in illuminating a small apartment. They enter on a kitchenette, cupboards, a sink and table, a fridge, but no oven, just a microwave. A few feet away there was a space set up as a living area... spartan, no decorations on the walls, minimal furniture, just a bed up against a corner and a a television on a stand one could watch from bed. A place where someone might rest for a night if they had to... and right now, they had to. Since it was a place to lie down, Boy helps his sister to the bed... the wince in her eyes says "f*ck!" as good as any display as she goes horizontal, and if Boy's damaged ears were more sensitive he'd hear a soft groan, but he can't, nor can he hear the breath of relief when she's finally resting. He finds a small seat from the kitchen, pulls it next to her, ready to help in any way he can.
While he's doing that, June27 removes the helmet, takes a deep breath. She waits until he's looking again, can see her lips, and communication isn't so hard... yet it is. For Boy, at least... he doubts his sister knows the Shaman's sign language, and he can't speak. Even if he could, he isn't sure he knows what he'd say right now... and keeping his face neutral, that was as much a defensive lesson from the Shaman as how to block knives. He's afraid to do more than look, in case she vanishes, turns out to be a new, more elaborate hallucination.
Maybe she thinks the same thing. His sister's a little better at emoting, and, underneath the drying blood on her face, there's a surprised half-smile of wonder, like seeing something you've only dreamed of, and her eyes glisten. That's probably the pain, actually. She might be in a lot of pain. He is, but his training suppresses it, makes it a distant fire.
After a few seconds of mutual staring, she finally speaks, and he has to imagine her voice, but can at least hear some muddled shapes, use that to read her lips. "There's a medical kit. Inside the fridge. Vegetable crisper." He springs into action again, fetches it... it's bulkier than he expected, like a weapons chest, but inside are a lot of tools he recognizes... and quite a few he doesn't. The Shaman mostly trained him to use natural resources, sew wounds up with sinew, disinfect with poultices, although he didn't turn his nose up at more modern tools when they could be salvaged.... clearly modern was a relative term.
He picks up a metal spray can, unlabelled. What the hell is this? he wonders, briefly, but then spots something he does know how to use, a bottle of alcohol and bandages. On himself, of course, but how hard could it be to treat another person. Flesh was flesh, whether it was his or his sisters shouldn't matter much, he would be as gentle as possible, though some pain was inevitable.
When he turns back to his sister, she's still lying on the bed, but has shrugged off the heavy yellow jacket, wearing just a crop top. His eyes flit to her shoulder... she took a bullet there, but the jacket must have been bullet resistant, because there's not actually a hole, just a laceration where the softened impact must have still come to a point. But just broken skin, which was relatively speaking, good. He hated digging bullets out. So Boy inspects the rest of her body, quickly, just to priortize, then wets a cloth in alcohol and tries to control the trembling and do what needs to be done... but it's so much harder when someone he cares about is the one suffering from what needs to be done. Still, pain comes with the territory, he tells himself. Pain means you're doing the right thing.. He presses the cloth to her wounds, begins wiping. Clean first, then sew, then bandage.
He keeps his eyes low, on the wounds, but he can't help noticing, he feels her tense with pain, but as much as it rends his heart, he has to ignore it. He even ignores her weak hits on his arm... when it really hurts, sometimes hitting something makes it better, and he'll take anything his sister can dish out. It's only when he moves to her face, to wipe away the wounds that the shattered headplate caused, that he realizes she's not just swearing, but talking to him.
He's not sure what words her lips are forming, at first, and that transfixes him, stops the treatment. She might even be calling his name, his real name, but he doesn't remember that, the mouth movements don't fit into any word he can imagine. Then she says something he can recognize. "The spray. Get the spray bottle." He withdraws, goes for the kit again, returns it, and she wrenches herself into a semi-seated position again and sprays it right on the stomach wound. A fine goop, only a few shades darker than her skin, soon covers the area. "New Skin does everything," she says. "Disinfects. Seals flexible. Even pain relief. Promotes healing and gets you functional enough to keep fighting, fast. What, did you live in a f*cking cave?" Then her lips form into a grin. It was a joke. "Oh, right I guess you did. This stuff's from before the Fall anyway, they can't even make it anymore..."
He's only a little surprised to use her to describe it as The Fall, given she was still raised with the Van Der Koys... they preferred the term The Chaos Years and the official line was that it was decadence and terrorist collusion that led to the gradual collapse of high-tech infrastructure around the world... largely only noticed in retrospect, when things people took for granted became harder and harder to replace when they reached their planned obsolescence. The common people were allowed to call it The Fall as long as they didn't point blame anywhere, although a lot of them knew where it should go, and also knew that Hilda Van Der Koy didn't come out of the Chaos Years to forge order and save them, like she claimed. Or according to the literature the Shaman provided... and for all that the man might have lied, the explanations he offered of history made a lot of sense to Boy. In those books--mere possession of which was a Culling-offense--the Fall was explained as simply the inevitable result of too many authoritarian regimes gaining power at the same time. Sure, things run smoothly for a while... high-tech capitalist society was just as happy--maybe more happy--to work with them as they were anyone, considering business owners are usually insulated against the social changes, but between their deliberate efforts to ban technologies that give people power to organize and their tendency to promote sycophants and punish people for dangerous opinions, authoritarianism takes a toll. Every once in a while they'd discover that the guy running the AI server farms was only hired for his skill at bootlicking and doesn't actually know how to keep them from crashing, or the one guy who knows what to do when the company satellite stops responding was liquidated weeks ago for 'moral degeneracy' and now it's just a hunk of expensive dead metal, and the world got a little worse. You can survive, even adapt to a few situations like these, but the mindset ensures they keep happening, and sooner or later you reach a tipping point where too much of the world you rely on has just become unreliable, where oppressive governments wind up having to chain people in warehouses to make guns because they can't trust anyone who sells them, and everyone, even the ones in charge, are constantly scrounging around to replace technology that used to be easily available. It's like how everyone used to have phones they carried around with them, that had video games on them and everything, but now most of them are useless relics that don't even charge. The Shaman himself probably had one of those, as a kid, although it's hard for Boy to imagine. Certainly, pockets of ultra-technology still existed, but they weren't evenly distributed, and as often as not they didn't live up to expectations. Like a lot of the technology used to oppress them. Magical pre-Fall biotechnology? Hopefully it's better than the cyber-dogs.
Yet it seems to have sealed June27's stomach wound. "Gideon made sure I had an emergency supply of this, just in case I got hurt." She passes him the bottle now, invitation implicit.
Boy pushes past the mention of the woman who's been the focus of his revenge quest for years--who he just learned is his mother, their mother--and focuses on the task. He's never seen this particular product before, but he's a quick learner. New Skin, must go over the wounds, right? So he sprays each bright laceration he can see, carefully, hesitating only over the head wounds because it might get in her eyes, and she waves him off so he decides against it. Her hand was previously a bloody mess but now it's looks like she can use it again, and she takes the can from him. "Okay, okay, that's enough. I want to do you, now."
Um, phrasing? he thinks absurdly, but he knows she only means the cuts all over him, so he extends his arm first and watches as she sits up, with no small amount of difficulty, but at least it doesn't look like she's dying. The spray doesn't hurt, it's cool, almost but not quite numbing. The underlying pain's still there, but it's less screaming that he has to ignore and more like a deep-muscle tiredness. "We can't stay here for long," she warns.
Yeah, that's pretty obvious.
"But I have a plan. We need supplies. I've got a bit stashed here, but not enough to really get away, you understand?" Boy nods, although he doesn't. He thinks all they need is to get out of the city and he can take care of the rest. But she was the head of security, so she might know more about what they'll be up against. "There's a VDK supply cache. We've got a few, but one in particular I've been stocking with stuff I needed to get away, if I needed to." Boy tilts his head, surprised, and she fills in, "Every dictatorship falls eventually. Even Hilda knew that, that's why she was so paranoid. Unfortunately, there's probably a shoot-on-sight order on me right now, and the longer we wait, the harder a target it becomes. The good news is, there's a fifty-fifty chance I know the commander of the guard working tonight. Leg."
It takes Boy a second, and she repeats the word before she realizes he means his leg, and he raises it to the bed, so she can spray-bandage his wound, You were like the head enforcer, don't you know everybody?
She misreads his question, or maybe reads past it, because if she knows everyone, she also knew the people chasing them down. "I know, I can't trust anyone from the regime. Except this guy. I'm pretty sure he won't turn us in." She smiles sheepishly. "He's kind of in love with me."
Boy's face twitches.
"Ooh, somebody's jealous." He looks towards the kitchen where he hears the words--or imagines he does--to see Mina is sitting, watching them again, eating cereal. The cereal is a hallucination too, he's pretty sure. He would have noticed it before.
I'm not jealous. he insists. Except maybe about that cereal. It's been years but he can still remember the taste of the sweet blue loops. But not about her having a boyfriend, why would I care about that?
"You're totally jealous," she insisted. "And that's natural. Pretty girl, and she's basically the only one who's your match in a fight. Of course you're going to be into her. And of course you're not going to be the only one."
I'm not into her. His inner voice is frustrated, defensive, confused all at once, makes it sound angry in his head, snapping at Mina in a way that felt unfair. She's my sister! he points out. I'm not into my sister!
"I'm your sister. Mina. She's June27. Badass VDK enforcer, who you turned to your side. Totally different."
But she's you. Weren't you here for the big revelation? Though she wasn't, she'd vanished by then, deep into his subconscious. At the same time, he knows that's all this is... his subconscious, so why was it expressing itself in this way?
"Shut up, She's not me," little Mina insists, annoyed herself, now. "I'm me. And you deserve happiness. And hot makeout times with somebody pretty, like her."
There's no way I can make out with her!
"Why, because she's got a boyfriend? Relax, she never said she was in love with him, so you've still got a chance. This is the perfect moment... you're both tending each other's wounds, it's romantic. You just need to--you know--make a move."
I'm not making a move!
"You can't rely on a girl making a move on you. Sometimes they're scared too. Look, she's giving you the signals." The signals seemed to be her slowly spraying artificial skin on him, though she does look up briefly, stares deep into his eyes, before looking away. "She's practically eye-frenching you."
She's just making sure I'm understanding her. He's not... she's been talking this whole time, but, distracted by the hallucination, Boy wasn't watching her lips carefully and so he has no idea what she's been saying the last few seconds, but he gives a slight nod of recognition anyway the next time she looks up, because he doesn't want her to know just how damaged he was.
"Fine, be a chicken. I'm telling you, though, she's perfect for you, and if you don't make a move, she's going to settle and wind up with the captain of the freakin' guard."
This is absurd. You aren't even real. He forces his eyes away from her, back to June27, focusing on her lips, but she's stopped talking for a moment. Now, she tenderly grazes her fingertips along the length of his leg, as though checking the seal.
"This will do for now, but too much friction will wear it away so we should apply a real bandage in a few hours when it starts bleeding again." Boy still likes looking at her lips, a lot, and he worries it means something, that the Mina in his head was on to something. That self-consciousness, as well as her fingertip trailing up along his thigh, even if it was meant innocently, fills him with the desire to flinch back to avoid another, more dangerous reaction, but he's trained to control his body, so he doesn't, He merely lowers his leg off the bed and turns to his side so she can do that knife wound that he was pretty sure he was going to have to sew up himself. Having somebody, somebody who cares, is nice. That's all this is.
"What about you?" June27 asks, when he looks at her again, the last major warning signal in his brain no longer blaring, no longer needing to be acknowledged and deliberately looked past. "Do you have anybody? Anybody you need to protect? Anyone, you... you know, care about? Anyone special?"
Jeez, she must have been talking about her captain of the guard boyfriend this whole time. Boy doesn't wince, but he does feel more pain from that realization than from the wounds, at least now that the medicine's been applied. And he can't answer, not in any words she can understand, so he just reaches out, tapping gingerly on her shoulder, the one that didn't take a bullet, to signal that she was the only one he cared about. For the last ten years, his only goal in life was to murder Hilda Van Der Koy, and that's done. Now, he just wants to make sure his sister is happy. Even if it's with some guy who probably isn't worthy of her.
The smile she shoots him at that simple gesture fills him with warmth, and he sits down on the bed next to her to take a good look at her. The redness in her face is a little alarming... probably inflammation, since it's still a bloody mess. Around her eye there's a ring of deep red that could use NewSkin if it wasn't probably dangerous. He reaches for the the med kit again, a new cloth, some alcohol, and starts wiping her face clean as best he can. "So what do you think?" she asks. He tilts his head, eyes scrunches up in confusion. "Of the plan? Raid the cache for supplies, then flee the city and lie low for a while?"
And then we can go live in a tree house in the jungle and be happy together. Sounds like a magical perfect plan. Almost. Having his sister's boyfriend along for the ride wasn't anywhere in his plan, but if she loves him, he'd make do. He gives her a thumbs up. "Are you up for it? Because we might have to fight some more. You seemed pretty good at that, and we made a hell of a team, but..."
He taps his chest with his fist, hoping that gets across his intention. I'm good.
"Of course. I just need a few things here before we go. Help me up," He extends a hand, heart lifting when he feels her squeeze it, gently, like she can scarcely believe he's still there, still real. He feels much the same, but she lets go when she gets to her feet and picks through the medical kit, secreting something in her hand. Or maybe it wasn't made to be secret, Boy can't tell. He doesn't question her... couldn't if he wanted to, but won't, just follows her into one of the side rooms, where his earlier expectations of a warehouse are finally fulfilled.
This space is vast and empty, lit mostly whatever radiance filtered through a skylight, and a simple desk lamp on a long workbench, cluttered with bits of electronics and tools.... and, sitting on the middle, another version of her helmet, this one with the screen intact. "I didn't expect to have to use this so soon, but it's as good a time as any, right?" When she looks back at him, he's giving her a questioning look, wondering why it's so important to her. "I made this version myself."
Impressive, but... why though?
She softens, fingers dancing over the helmet's head. "After they gave up on you, I didn't talk, for like a year. Hilda brought in child psychologist after child psychologist. Promised rewards if they made me better. If they didn't... well, there was the All-Psychologist Special Edition of the Culling."
sh*t. I remember that culling. I thought it was a Scientologist thing.
"But one of them used to work for Zoogle or Moogle or something before the Fall, and got inventive, came up with this. Or something like this. The first ones were like those big sunglasses, except the words I wanted to say appeared on them, if I thought them clearly enough. As I got better with them, I could even do simple pictures. Like this." She pulls the helmet over her head, and the LED display kicks into life, scrolling a pixel image of thumbs up.
The helmet comes off again, and something might have been lost, because she asks, "...You know?" like she just made a point she wants him to agree with.
Know what? You know I can't see your lips with that on. And I like seeing your lips. He shrugs.
"Anyway, once I started texting, it seemed... I don't know, childishly stubborn to never speak. But I still didn't talk much. I liked not having to say things out loud. The display... it was like it read my mind, so if I said something I impolite, it wasn't my fault. And then Melanie did her usual thing about branding and optics, talked about how the Van Der Koys having a rude little girl wearing dorky video glasses wasn't going to strike fear in the hearts of the peasants, so they made the helmet, and Gideon started training me to become June27." She lifts the helmet, looks at it like an old friend. "I've been scrounging up spare parts for this version for years... scavenging, trading with other states for some of the bits and pieces... I wanted to keep it quiet, and a lot of the components have been hard to get since the Fall, so it took f*cking forever. I only finished it about six months ago. I've just been keeping it ready for the day I finally killed the Shaman. I was planning to strike out on my own, then, if you w..." She doesn't finish the thought. "It works just like my original one, except without all of the spyware."
Why wouldn't you want the spyware? Boy wonders, though he's thinking of things like an internal taser or long-distance microphone allowing you to eavesdrop on distant locations.
June27's eyes widen and light up with an idea, and, biting her lip, she lifts her arm, offers the helmet towards Boy. "Do you want to try? Maybe it could help you... speak?"
He's slow about it, but he's curious about what she sees in the glass, how she sees the world. The metal slips over his head... it muffles what limited sound normally makes it through to almost uselessness, but it's warm, tight... not as claustrophobic as being buried in muck, but still an enforced distance from everything that he isn't sure he likes. The video display gives everything a slight tint, and there are words on the corners, heart rate, time, temperature. He finds his sister's face, and wonders, So how the hell is this supposed to work?
A smile lights up her face, even with the damage and bruise. On the internal display, he a flash of letters scroll by, on the top, almost too fast to see, but he does catch the word 'work'. "There you go!" she says, Lip-reading takes a lot more effort with the extra muffling. "You almost got it! Just... sort of try to think loud and slow, you know?"
He doesn't like this, not just the extra effort lip-reading takes with the extra muffling, but also this concept of reading words off his thoughts. What if it... The thought is loud, like all his thoughts feel, and fast but it must have been good... the part of the display that must be used for showing her what she's showing to the outside world is forming words and he instinctively needs to derail them so nothing accidentally leaks out. Instead, he focuses on something else, a deliberate question at the back of his mind. Why June27?
The words appear, slow and clear, and his sister's smile turns rueful, less proud. Boy pulls the helmet off his head before it can reveal any other stray thoughts, sees her still struggling with an answer. "That was the day they declared you dead. Before that, the family thought they'd get you back. Somebody would turn you in for the reward. Hilda even offered an amnesty, if anyone came forward with you, even if they were a rebel. Every morning I still thought I'd wake up and expect to see you at breakfast. But on June 27... they said I had to accept you were dead. I didn't, I never gave up hope, but... it felt like Mina died that day. There was just this body, and all I had to keep it going was revenge. Sure, I hated Hilda, and Melanie, and Uncle Gideon, and everyone else... but I hated the rebels more, for not turning you over. When Aunt Melanie said I needed to rebrand, the name was an easy choice. I wanted the rebels, all of them, to know that June 27 was the end of them, too, even if it took a while to catch up with them." Her face is hard, but then breaks suddenly, tears beginning to flow that she needs to wipe away with the back of her hand. "But now you're back. And I'm not sure what to do with that, honestly."
He pats his chest, Yeah, I'm here now. You can be... you.
She sniffles and wipes her tear again, and Boy wants to comfort her but he's not sure how. He wasn't built to comfort, he was trained to kill. "Put the helmet on again. Say something else."
He just shakes his head. It's not for him, he can't control his f*cked-up brain. Even right now, he spots little Mina wandering through the garage, proof of that on a fundamental level. "You should," she says. "Then she'd see how much you want to kiss her." That settles it, the reminder that he can't control his thoughts or desires... only his actions. He passes it back, and she accepts it, albeit with a message attached.
"You're right," she says, and Boy wonders if he should have put the helmet on after all, to avoid misunderstandings. "I'm still June27. At least I need to be for a while longer."
"Oh well," Little Mina says at much the same time as the helmet is passed over. "It looks better on her, anyway," Boy isn't sure he agrees, but the hallucination feels vindicated by June's declaration of her name. "See, I told you she wasn't me,"
Did you miss, like, that whole conversation? Boy wonders, because in his eyes it was made very clear that she was the same Mina, but his hallucination still doesn't want to accept it. but he looks back to his real sister, realizes that he's missed something too. She's talking about something, the bottle of pills suddenly in her hand. She looks faintly guilty, as though she thought Boy's distraction was from noticing them, and in her embarrassment she's felt the need to explain. "Designer amphetamine, pain suppressant, mild fishin' ribbiter." June was saying 'disinhibitor' but though Boy is pretty sure he misread it--because the only thing he can think of is a frog with a fishing rod and that makes no sense--that's one of the things about lipreading, you usually only have time for one guess at a word you're not sure of. Any more than that, and you risk missing the rest. "And yeah, I know, they tightly regulate these. They're illegal for everyone but our elite soldiers, because they can make you pretty hard to deal with... especially if you concentrate them, and turn them into an inhalant. We've got too many vapeheads that do that, makes them crazy and feel like they're invincible, you know?" So that was what Dave was on. "But again, the family know I can handle it, they make sure I get a supply every week, just enough... and like this, they're delayed release, longer burn, certified non-addictive. At least not physiologically. So it's not what you think. I've even been cutting back to just one or two every mission, so I can make a little money selling the excess to the vapeheads." She leans in. "I'd do without them if we could count on some rest, but I don't think I can get through what we need to do today without a little boost, you understand?" Boy nods, and so she pops two in her mouth, swallows them dry.
Amphetamine: any of several drugs used as a a stimulant. Stimulant: a substance that makes the mind or body more active. More active is good, right? When he was young, he had the attitude that drugs were bad, unless they were medicine, but life with the Shaman revised his view of a lot of things, so he doesn't even think to judge her... besides, right now, these sound more like medicine than anything else. Like the spray. Science to speed things up. Possibly also from before the Fall. A wonder pill that removed pain, that certainly sounded like the kind of thing the Van Der Koys would hoard for themselves, whether they still have the ability to make it or are just using up an old stockpile. Either way, it's a weapon, and when an enemy's got a weapon, you do what you can to take it and use it yourself. So when his sister puts the pills down he takes the bottle and pops a few in his mouth too. They're not chalky or like astringent herbs like the drugs he's used to, but a little sweet, though not much flavor beyond that. Really, they remind him of some kind of gummy candy. Action candy!
June27's hands grab at his arm, but it's too late, they're in his mouth and only then he looks at her, sees her staring wide eyed, that he wonders if it was a mistake. But she's not scared, he decides, just surprised, maybe a little amused. Perhaps worried, at most, from the way she paces a few steps in either direction, but he doesn't get the sense that they're in immediate danger or that he just poisoned himself. "Okay then. I guess we're doing it this way." He shoots her a questioning look, and she explains further, while making more interestingly mixed facial expressions. "It's fine. I was going to rely on you to keep me focused. But if we're both amped up..." A shake of her head, another assurance, "It's fine," that becomes threatens to become less convincing if she has to say it one more time. "These things affect people differently, but mostly... things just get a little slippery under the pills, you know? So you might feel a little spacey, a little wild, but as long as you stay focused, you'll be functional." Boy nods. Focus is one thing he's always prided himself on. "I'll put the plan in the helmet's display. So I don't lose track of what we're doing. And we'll watch out for each other, keep each other from going too far. Just remember, there are times I might say or do things a little... weird," She hesitates, uncertain how much she wants to prepare her brother for whatever demons might be inside her head waiting to be unleashed. "And don't... just don't hold them against me, okay?" Again Boy nods, aware of the things inside his own head that aren't quite right. "Try not to think of me like your sister at all."
"Told you," said the hallucination of Mina. She's peering through the toolbox, looking for anything interesting, anything she could play with.
"Think of me more like... a child with poor impulse control."
So, like my sister.
Suddenly, the hallucination's side-by-side with her real counterpart, pouting at him. "I heard that."
"With me, one of the things with the pills is, they make me a little more eager to f*ckin' kill."
Considering we'll be fighting a bunch more soldiers that... actually sounds pretty useful.
"And I can usually stop myself from going off the rails, but... if I slip and act weird... I just don't want you to hate me after." He'd already told her she wouldn't, but Boy senses this is the main source of her worry.
But what was to fear? They'd already kicked the sh*t out of each other and come through it united--reunited--, fighting the system that both of them once belonged to. If she rages out for a moment and attacks him, a little more pain isn't a problem. Maybe he won't even feel it. Boy tries on a smile and reaches out to put an arm on her shoulder, squeezing gently. I can't. I love you. Boy then slides his eyes to the hallucination, hoping she doesn't get jealous, and knows it applies to her too.
"Okay," June27 says, taking a deep breath. "We should gear up. Get anything you need and then hit the road. I don't know how much time we have." He loses a bit more of her instructions as she gets prepared... his real sister is still not entirely used to directing all her words where he can see her lips, so when she turns to put on another yellow cut-off motorcycle jacket, the thread of whatever sentence he was following vanishes, and he just watches her 'gear up.' June's not just got another jacket, it's like this place is a set up to give her backups of everything she needs... there's a rack of the mini-axes she uses, too. He's not sure whether they're actually tomahawks or just hatchets, the dictionary wasn't entirely clear on the difference, but he's seen how good she is with them and now she's got a fresh pair. Those aren't her only weapons, though, she also selects an assortment of small knives and slips them into her boots, belt, and jacket pockets, and she's talking during all of this but Boy doesn't really know what he's saying because she's moving around too much and soon he grows self-conscious of watching her and he mostly stops trying to follow the conversation, instead just taking more quick glances around the room and the gear stored here.
There was one thing the hallucination of his sister has over the real, grown-up version... he doesn't have to see her when she speaks, so when she says, "Is that... no way!" Boy whips his head in her direction to see what she sees. Or rather, as he knows deep down, what he must have seen and only belatedly realized the significance. On the other side of the room, still mostly in darkness, were familiar boxy silhouettes... he only now realized what they were. Arcade cabinets. Like the ones he and Mina used to sneak away to play. It's gotta be another hallucination. He took a few steps in that direction, anyway.
"No, it's as real as I am." Which really didn't help, coming from his little sister, but he can't see anything that screams hallucination to him. If he was imagining it, surely he wouldn't picture it dusty and turned off. As he gets closer he realizes June27 has all the games they used to play... Outlaw Bike, Super Guardian, Yesterdays Hero, including their favorite, SUPER DRAGON PUNCH FORCE.... No, wait, the logo was slightly wrong, the stylize number was in a font that made it resemble and mirror the D, but slightly different, because it was a... Three? They made a SUPER DRAGON PUNCH FORCE 3!?!
Suddenly, it's animated by bright lights, and he jumps, looks around, spots June by a switch, helmed under one arm. "Oh, yeah. When the Arcade got shut down, I had some of the games moved here. They're even rigged so they don't need Van Der Coins." Boy smiles, realizing she still used that old name for them. "But I haven't played in forever." Boy looks back to the screen, then her, the excitement plain on his face and infectious on hers, "We might have time for one game. Go on. I need some time to program my internal display, anyway."
He'd rather talk to her, but once she puts the helmet on, he's not sure they can have much conversation anyway, so Boy turns to the arcade, presses the button where once, coins would go, and the familiar game starts with unfamiliar graphics and a new map. The gameplay is exactly the same though, aside, perhaps, from a few of the new fighters. Boy has to completely guess at the finer tunes of the blaring, energetic, music. He can feel the beat, but for the melody all his brain can come up with at first is La-la-la-la. One thing he has no trouble remembering is the voice of the announcer. Player Two Has Entered The Game.
Only she hasn't, not really. June's lost in her helmet, and little Mina can't actually manipulate the controls, but she stands beside him at the controls and it feels like they're playing together, that soreness has started to fade from his body and he starts to feel young again, even have fun again. Boy wonders if he's actually happy or if it's just those pills starting to kick in, but only for as long as it takes to defeat a few of the early opponents... then he's sure the drugs are at least involved, but maybe that doesn't matter. So what if things are starting to feel less real? Real has been mostly awful these past ten years. Here and now, he's got his sister. He imagines the two of them staring off at the city together, preparing to leave it behind.
It doesn't take long to really feel, on a visceral level, what June meant by the drugs making things 'a little slippery' because time itself seems to flow weirdly, like he's living panel by panel in some kind of comic book... an animated one, anyway. Dissociation: The experience of detaching from reality and observing from outside yourself. That's what it's often like, he's watching a stream of images rather than living them, like his imagination began infecting reality. At some point, he realizes the hallucination of his sister has been replaced by the real one, June27 has joined the actual game, still wearing her helmet, and they're fighting, playing the characters Morlo and Wally. Sometimes it even feels like they're inside the game, but it's fun, and Boy loses track of time until they look behind them and realize there's a group of six heavily armed soldiers in regime armor behind them. How'd they find us? he wonders, but no one can answer him, his sister just has !!! ??? and !!! flash across her face screen, but then he remembers the helmet itself... or rather, the old one, still in the other room, the room these soldiers must have come from and puts it together. Oh, right, that's probably what she meant by spyware!
Of course Hilda would have demanded some means to track the location of her daughter, especially after losing her son. And now she's gone, but there must have been some kind of order to take them alive, or maybe these soldiers had some residual loyalty to June27, but there are only six of them and Boy is sure they can take them, sees his sister coming to the same decision. The drugs have fully kicked in and he feels incredible, strong, fast, and before long he's smashing the butt of an assault rifle into a soldier's face, and looks over to see June bury the wider edge of her tomahawk in another. This time it really is like they're in a video game, all action, no consequences. Sometimes it even feels like they're in a full arcade, cabinets along every wall, rather than just one side of in the back of a safehouse that's no longer safe. Soon the level is clear, the opponents are all dead, and maybe he should care more about that, but he doesn't, just gives a thumbs up to June, who returns it, then she takes his hand and leads him back out to the street, to the bike, no words exchanged, just the knowledge that they played games for too long, now was the time to get down to business.
Though he wants to play more games with her, and as she approaches the bike a few steps ahead of him also can't help his gaze drifting downwards, following her ass as she walks, the practical fabric still not completely concealing a shape that seems like some kind of hypnotic attraction. f*ck she's hot he thinks, and then is thankful he refused her offer to wear the helmet, because when she looks back at him she has no idea the inappropriate thought that went through his drug-spiked mind. Though this time, riding behind her takes on a whole new significance as he feels that ass he just admired pressing up against the crotch, feels himself get hard like never before. It's natural, amphetamines are a stimulant, so this part of me is just... stimulated. He feels a little bad about it, but not too much, the drugs seem to stuff guilt in a burlap sack and lock it in a car trunk so that it's somewhere there, but muffled as everything else enjoys the ride, the friction of incidental contact. Besides, he tells himself, She can't feel it. At least, he's pretty sure it's at an angle where it pushes just above her butt and if she notices it at all she probably thinks it's some kind of blunt weapon like the baton he used to bash in one of the guards' nose. Because if she knew what it was, surely she would be cringing away instead of taking unnecessary jumps and pulling cool tricks that tend to push her even more up against him. If he holds on tight, that's only natural. Both for safety, and because he found his sister again, he wants nothing more than to hold on tight, no matter that his body says he might like a little more.
The Mina in his head would say something weird and inappropriate, probably, but he hasn't seen her since the video game. Maybe she and June fused, or maybe little Mina just ducked out while the drugs were in. She never did like drugs back then, or people who used them... clearly growing up she altered her views, considering they're on a drug-fueled mission racing through the city.
Boy has no idea where the two are going. The Shaman always had him keep out of the central areas of city, sticking to the outskirts, so he only has a limited idea of the layout... besides which, June27 is taking odd routes to avoid pursuit or any evidence of where they're going. The direct approach obviously isn't the right one, so he's not surprised when they stop in an alley and sneak on foot up a fire escape, and finally she points out their target.
Things are starting to calm down, the drugs must be wearing down, or he's adjusting to them. A Food Bank? He looks again, to see if there is a fortified military facility next to the food bank, but, no, it's not even a good enough area of town to have much interesting, some of the buildings are dilapidated. Which, to be fair, a lot of the city is these days, the Van Der Koys were not even particularly efficient dictators, though the central areas where the protected rich live were still pretty functional, though the coming chaos might change that. This area must be just outside that, the type of people that live reasonably comfortable lives as long as they don't rock the boat or draw too much attention to the fact that things used to be a lot more comfortable. The VDK Food Bank (with signs warning Good Citizens Only and Have your card ready!) is relatively clean, but only by comparison, and an observer might even assume it was closed entirely, except for the two guards milling about the entrance.
Boy looks to his sister, and notices she's taken off the helmet again, shaking her hair, and has a manic grin. "f*ck, I'm practically dripping wet after that ride." Boy isn't sure sure what she means, since she doesn't look any sweatier than before, if anything the breeze was refreshing, but before he can try to find a way to ask her about it, her face wrinkles up with what he assumes is a laugh, maybe a snort, and she says, "Sorry, I probably shouldn't have said that. Besides, business before pleasure. Ready?"
The objective and their full plan still isn't entirely clear to Boy, so he gestures down towards the entrance, as though verifying, and then does an attempt to mime, finger guns followed by putting food in his mouth. Are we robbing a food bank?
"No, it's not about the food. I mean, if you're hungry, grab something... but there's a hidden vault, with an emergency stash."
Boy looks again, accepting this, except for one thing, and he holds up two fingers and gives a doubtful look. Only two guards, though?
"Right. These places are meant to be a secret, so nobody rips us off. Even the guards don't know what they're guarding. Only the squad commander inside's got the clearance... he's the only one that can open the vault, and only if a Van Der Koy is also there, entering their code. Unfortunately, the commander's also got a panic button that will call every VDK squadron within six blocks here before we can break through his bullet proof glass. But if it's Manny, I can get him to open for me even if I'm public enemy number one. We just need to take out the outside guards, first. For that, I've got a plan, I just need to hatchet." She flashes a surprisingly goofy smile at him, which he can't help but returning, but soon she goes back to business. "I'll sneak around the other side of the building, so we can come at them from both sides. We need it quick and quiet, so when you see me, get ready to move. Inside, there might be a couple more guards and Manny, he'll be the one behind glass. I'll talk him out. If it's him. Otherwise, we do it the hard way, take out every motherf*cker that tries to get between us and what we we need." She pulls out the pills for the inner pocket, pops another in her mouth, and this time has no hesitation about offering it to Boy. "Top up?"
Boy takes it, pops the action candy, not entirely sure he can trust himself under their influence but not sure he can trust his body to do what still needed to be done after the comedown. So far, aside from one unfortunate reaction, the effects had mostly been good... and by the time they were riding the bike again, surely he'd have that under control. Just think unsexy thoughts.
She lifts the helmet again, ready to put it back on, but first she warns him, "Follow my lead in there, okay?" Boy nods, because, of course he would. "I might need to think fast and make some sh*t up to explain you to Manny, get him to open the door. Just play along. I'll square everything later." Another nod, and her face disappears again, display reading, Ready?
One more exchange of nods, this one decisive, and they part. The plan goes almost flawlessly. Boy waits in position to spring, and here June27's display helps, when he sees it light up in the distance saying Let's go! he knows that's the signal, and that must have gotten the guards' attention because they're turning towards her, which allows Boy to rush them from behind, snapping back an arm before it can be used to pull a trigger. He then moves to finish the job with a neck snap while his sister chops at the throat of the other one... and before long the VDK army is down two more loyal soldiers.
The door's either unlocked or June's got a key in her helmet, because they don't even search the body, just sling their rifles over their shoulders... June first, then Boy follows her lead., and then inside, where it looks like... a food bank. Boy can't actually recall ever being inside one of those. The Shaman didn't want him to go out alone and was big on living off the land anyway, and before that being the kid of a dictator, he presumably never needed to be in one of those, but the place still lines up with what he'd expect from an actual food bank so much that he almost doubts his sister about it being a VDK facility. It's just shelves of dry and canned goods. There's a little spot near the door for a cashier... or perhaps not a cashier, exactly, because this is nominally an operation to demonstrate the benevolent charity of the Van Der Koy regime and so cash isn't involved, but at least some kind of check-out process with a ration card or something to verify Good Citizens aren't taking more than their share and Unsavories aren't taking anything at all and just starving to death as the elites probably prefer. The cashier spot is empty at the moment, after hours, but soft light still filters out from the back, behind the shelves, and that's where June27's slowly making her way. Boy follows her, although his head darts in every direction just in case there's another guard to be taken out.
"Psst," he heard. "Look." It's Mina again... apparently the hallucination hadn't fused with June27 after all. She's pointing at a spot his eyes skimmed over a moment earlier. A cereal aisle. Or a cereal shelf, at least. "You need to pick up some Frosty Puffs!"
You just had some! He craved the crunchy blue loops when they were just a hallucination, but now that they're real he remembers, And you know they just sponsored a Culling to kill me, right?
"Oh boo-hoo. That wasn't about you. There's no ethical consumption under capitalism anyway. Especially authoritarian capitalism." That was a line from one of the Shaman's revolutionary pamphlets. He's not entirely sure if the real Mina spoke like that as a kid. June27 probably doesn't now. "What's important is, they're yummy! And you know, if you're going to take her home with you, a decent guy's gotta think about breakfast the next morning."
I am a decent guy but I'm a little busy right now. June27 has been taking a slow, cautious approach, darting from aisle to aisle, using the shelves as cover, and Boy ignores little Mina to catch up. Suddenly, June holds up a hand, palm out, and he stops, though peeks through a gap in the shelves to see. Yes, there is one other soldier... or two, rather, since he appears to be talking to somebody in a bright room behind glass. Boy can't see either of their faces so he doesn't know what they're saying, but it's going to be hard to take out the one guy without the guy behind glass taking out the panic button.
June doesn't even try. She just rushes in from the side, dispatches the guy outside in a few quick but brutal moves. Boy rushes in to offer support... his plan is to shoot the bullet proof glass a few times and then hopefully shatter it with a kick, which probably will take long enough that the panic button is pressed, but it'll get them in and out fast, but he doesn't even had time to verbalize it, he sees his sister put up a hand... two hands... first to the guy behind the glass, then one to him. STOP, her faceplate reads, so Boy stops.
The guy behind the glass is tall, reasonably good looking, short hair and a noticeable stubble-beard. He doesn't seem to have hit the panic button, but Boy can't see where that is, so it's possible he has. Instead, he's holding up a gun at June, which fills Boy with rage and also makes him wonder whether the glass isn't that bullet proof, or if panic made him do something completely useless. "I can't believe it," his lips are saying, although Boy gives him a pathetic, whiny nerd voice. "You are a traitor!"
June drops her tomahawks and pulls off her helmet as well, dropping it on the crumpled body of the guard she just took out. Boy adjusts his position so he can read both sides of the conversation by only shifting his gaze. "...not a traitor, I just didn't know who I could trust, Manny. But you know me. That's why I came here. There's a coup going on, and you're the only one I can be sure of."
"But you're with him," the guy who is presumably Manny says, pointing his gun towards Boy, though with glass still between them. He looks like he wants to believe June, but apparently has doubts. "He's all over the news! That's the rebel leader who... he killed your mother!"
Boy found it interesting that they were saying that, considering it was June who actually did. Also interesting was that June was lying to Manny. Pretty openly. After the first rush of words, she was speaking slowly, placating, to calm Manny down, and it was easy to spot what wasn't even close to reality. "No, Manny, listen... this guy here? He's part of an op. You know how my aunt Melanie is about the Culling, she thought it would add drama to have some sexy rebel actually escape... just for a few days, long enough to round up any sympathizers helping him and execute them all. Only some dumb motherf*cker thought it would be a good moment to launch a real coup. Now they're spitting out propaganda to make us into scapegoats."
"See?" Little Mina points out. "Can't care about him too much if she won't even tell him the truth."
Maybe the truth's just a little hard to believe. She'll tell him the whole story when things calm down a little.
When he looks at June again, she's saying, "I just knocked him out, okay? He's fine."
Boy looks down at the body. Oh, he is not fine. He might still be alive, he is twitching, but there's enough blood spilling out that he probably won't last long. That seems like it could put a strain on their relationship.
Manny's gotten over the initial alarm, but it's solidified into something harder. He's taken a step towards the console on his side of the glass, one hand still pointing a gun at them, the other hovering over a big red button that must be the panic button. "...and I can tell by your eyes you've taken those stims... don't even try to deny it. How am I supposed to trust you?" Manny asks. "Maybe you're just a vapehead, gone rogue and are now just here for supplies. What am I supposed to think?"
"Of course I'm on f*cking combat stims right now," June admits, "...because I'm fighting for my life here. And not just mine. We talked about this, Manny. The powerful get torn down, eventually. And when that happens, everyone connected to them is in danger. That means you, That's why I'm here. I came back to protect you. And yeah, I need supplies too, but you think I can't get them somewhere else? Somewhere safer? Manny, if it was just about that... if I only wanted to think about myself, I'd just go after one of my personal stashes and run off with him." Her head jerks back in Boy's direction. "I mean look at him, he's hot as f*ck. And you know how the pills usually hit me... ready to kill and craving a f*ck... and I'd be lying if I said taking this boy for a ride hadn't crossed my mind, but... I'm not a vapehead, okay? And I'm not so f*cked up I can't focus on the bigger picture. What I want for my future."
Something occurs to Boy suddenly. She was warning him, earlier, that the pills make her eager to... OH, f*ck AND kill. Lipreading, it was almost indistinguishable from f*ckin' kill. So Boy realizes that she might have been warning him about that, that she might go a little wild, maybe jump her boyfriend here. The thought is alarming, but so's another. You should tell him I'm your brother he thinks. Otherwise Manny might get jealous. The drugs can't be so powerful that she'd actually try anything on Boy. He knows she'd need to be super f*cked up to actually do something like that with a blood relative. Incest: Illegal sexual relations between two people who are closely related. Supposedly anyway. He wasn't sure why it was forbidden or f*cked up, exactly, but he remembers the definition from the dictionary at least, and there had to be a reason.
Yet the thought crossed her mind, and she said thought he was hot, unless he read the lips wrong. I probably read her lips wrong. he tells himself. From the side, it's sometimes harder. She must have been talking about a ride on the motorcycle. Or she was using some kind of metaphor. Though his heart rate starts to rise anyway.
"Besides..." She looks more directly at Boy now, waves him over. "Come here." He complies, nervously walking to her side, and then feels her fingers on his jaw. "Open your mouth, Boy,"
Again, Boy complies, not just because she accidentally called him the only name he remembers for himself, but also because she told him to follow her lead... and as he does so, he feels a hot rush. Shame: A painful emotion caused by consciousness of a shortcoming. This isn't the first time Boy's felt shame over not being able to speak, but it is the first he's so conflicted over it, the first a part of him is hard when this intimate part of him is exposed by his sister. The pleasure outweighs the negative feelings, for once... it's probably a side-effect of the pills.
"See, Manny? They cut out the poor bastard's tongue because they were afraid he might accidentally reveal the op to the rebels. You think I wanna kiss that? I'm only with him because he's loyal as a dog, and a damn good fighter, and sure he's also delicious eye candy but... but there's not a whole lot there, you know?" Now the shame's starting to hurt, but it looks like Manny's no longer quite on edge. She lets go of him. "I need something real. I need you, Manny. So you can either push that button and prove I was a f*cking idiot for ever thinking we had a special connection... or you can open up vault access so we can raid the cache and start planning for tomorrow."
Slowly, Manny lowers and holster his gun. His hand had already drifted away from the panic button... as bizarre as it seemed to Boy, June's demonstration seems to have turned the tide, and he reaches for a set of keys and presses one into what looks like a panel holding a fire extinguisher. At the same time, he puts the palm of his hand against the a sensor that must be yet another layer of security. When he turns the key, June moves to the door of the large walk-in fridge, puts her hand on the handle but leans to the side, where there's a panel that is only now slid into visibility, almost certainly because Manny has turned the key inside.
June27 presses her eye to the sensor, widens... curses, and tries again, and again, but finally on the third time the machine reads the eye despite her dilated pupils or whatever else might have been interfering with it before, and a light turns green. She opens the door and there's a room where the food bank stores refrigerated foodstuffs... but the back wall is sliding upwards, revealing a second, hidden room behind it. June flashes a grin back at Boy, like, 'Mission Accomplished' but then looks back to Manny's glass enclosure, and Boy follows her gaze... the door's opening, Manny's coming out.
But that's part of the plan too, right? Because they were here to pick up the guy June27 was in love with, so she could be happy, which is all he wants anymore, really, her to be happy. So Boy's unsure, then, why this bothers him so much... then it hits him. Boy likes to think he's become adept at reading expressions as well as lips, intentions, the body's tells, and he's getting the distinct impression... I get the impression this guy really doesn't like me. This is confirmed when Manny raises his gun again, pointed at Boy. Nailed it.
June's behind him at the fridge, so when she turns back, Boy can red both of their lips easily. "What the f*ck, Manny? I told you, he's on our side." Boy tries to signal this by holding up his hands meekly. I don't want any trouble dude. Mina, why didn't you tell him I was your brother!
"Yeah, loyal like a dog," Manny agrees. "Only, I don't think we can afford a dog right now, June."
The gun raises again, but pauses when he hears, "He can watch our back."
"I can protect us fine. He'll be a liability because everyone's going to be looking for him. We don't need him." He raises the gun again and Boy tries to decide whether to take it from him, or just let this be the end, free his sister like she tried to free him.
"Trust me, Manny, I need him," June insists, stalking closer, retrieving the knife in her boot carefully... Boy assumes soundlessly as well, but he can't tell. Manny doesn't turn back, at least not more than a half-hearted glance over his shoulder, since he's too worried about Boy.
I can see her plan, Boy decides. She's going to put the knife up to his throat, get him to drop the gun, just until things cool down. But she won't mean it. Just to defuse the immediate tension. Once the gun's dropped, she'll tell him the truth.
Only she surprises him. "More than I need you," she finishes, and jabs the blade into his neck, a spray of blood decorating the walls. In almost the same motion, she uses the knife as leverage to swing around and kick the gun off course. It goes off, but nowhere near either of them, and she takes the weapon out, stabs him again and again before pushing him down.
Boy stares, realizing this is the second time tonight his sister has killed someone important to her just to save him. How can I ever make that up to her? He watches her breathing slow now that the exertion is over, and she tosses her head towards the fridge, or the door beyond it. "Come on." Boy reaches an arm out, trying to find the words, to ask if she's okay, to thank her, something, but even the voice in his head can't come up with anything. He just gives her a look, points down to the body, then to his heart, as though to signal the heartache. "Oh, don't worry about it. I was going to kill him anyway. I was just hoping we'd get him to carry stuff for us first, maybe get a ride off him." Then, noting his surprise, breaks into a smile. "I said he was in love with me. I didn't give a sh*t about him." She gives half a shrug, adds, "I mean, I dated him, a little, mostly to get Mom off my back. He's a regime brown noser, a yes man. The kind Melanie thought it'd be safe to marry, but... I couldn't see myself with him long-term."
"Told you so." It's Little Mina, back again. "You should kiss her. This is the perfect time. She already said she thinks you're hot, and she killed her last-boyfriend for you. Like, in badass-mercenary-love-language, that's practically a marriage proposal."
But Boy doesn't, for so many reasons, just follows, into the fridge, and the cache behind, which is also refridgerated. June tosses him a canvas backpack near the door, then opens up a lockbox filled with... Is that gold?
"Revolution-proof," June points out. "Van Der Currency might not be worth much for very much longer, but with this..." They're various sizes and types, large bars, small ingots, coins, even pieces of jewelry. June also nods to boxes of ammo. "...and those will let us buy anything we need."
They fill their bags, though Boy doesn't look at June, and when she touches his shoulder that he realizes she's trying to talk to him again. "Hey. You're not mad at me, are you?" He shakes his head. "Because that stuff I said to Manny... I didn't mean it, you know?"
He gives a sheepish grin. Right. I know you don't think I'm hot. That would be...
She goes on, "I just needed Manny not to be threatened by you, cause he's--was--an insecure little sh*t. But when I'm on the stims, sometimes, I don't notice when I'm crossing a line, you know? I don't think you're dumb. And there's nothing gross about what happened to your tongue. Scars are sexy, remember? f*ck, you don't need me to tell you, I'm sure plenty of girls made out with you, at like, revolution orgies, right?"
I don't know what you think my life's been like, but there weren't really any girls around, Boy thinks. I'm not even entirely sure what an orgy is, but I'm pretty sure I've never been in one.. He knows the definition, of course. Orgy: excessive indulgence in something especially to satisfy an inordinate appetite or craving. Also, a sexual encounter involving many people. Neither were a feature of his training.
"No?" is all she reads off his face. "But you've kissed someone since, right?" Boy looks down.
"No one other than me." This is little Mina, and he averts his eyes to her direction, tossing gold coins in the air, though she has a smug look in her face. "Remember that Truth or Dare game? Just before I died?"
You're not dead! And that was... you dared me to let you!
But she feels June's fingers on his face again, turning him towards her to get his attention... only she's far too close, before Boy can react, her lips are on his, and her tongue invades the space where his should be, pushing in. It becomes another flashbulb moment of dissociation, another comic panel replacing real life, though this time because it's just too bizarre, he can only process it as though somebody outside is looking in, though he still feels it... and the next panel is her pulling away, smiling, "There," she says. "Now you don't have to stress it. It's fine. I mean, a little weird but I ... I mean, a girl could get used to it, if you gave her a chance." She averts her eyes, as though suddenly regretting the impulsive move, "Come on, grab what you can while we have the chance."
"She wants you to grab her, dummy," Little Mina advises, but Boy knows that can't be true and returns to filling his pack with gold. Mina sighs, "Have I been wrong yet?"
June turns away from him, doing the same, and he senses she might be talking, rambling, perhaps, but he can't get a look at her lips to see for sure. Soon, their bags are full, and heavy. Too full and heavy. On the way back through the fridge, he stops, dumps out some of the weight. June hears the sound, turns back to him, gives him a look, and another as she sees what he's putting in its place. "Milk? Why do we need milk?" It's a plastic bag, the kind the Van Der Koys distributed to the poor but never used themselves, though Boy's gotten used to it... most of the time he drank milk straight from one of the Shaman's animals, but occasionally the Shaman brought a bag home from some raid and it was a treat, somehow becoming more delicious just because it was still cool from whatever fridge he got it from... maybe just because before too long it would become room temperature, even spoiled. As for why he needs cold milk right now... he can't explain in words, so he brushes past June, needing to squeeze to get past her and being very careful not to accidentally touch her, or lean in to kiss her, but soon the danger's past and they're back to the main room of the food bank, and he picks up the box of Frosty Puffs and shows it to her. The grin she breaks into heartens him, and she says, "God, you're not actually going to leave behind a bunch of gold just so we can have cereal are you?"
In Boy's eyes, he's not leaving that much... what's still in his bag is enough to put him in the category of rich, compared to how he's lived this past decade, and, more importantly, he points to one of the slogans on the box, "Full of Flavor." And the reason for that? Sugar.
June27 shakes her head and rolls her eyes like she's frustrated, though a smile puts the lie to that. With a sigh, he can't hear, she temporarily drops the can full of gas she's holding in one hand so she can take the box from him, then shrugs off the shoulder pack so she can lighten the load there and fit it inside. "Fine. I've got the box, you've got the milk." Something about stealing actual food from a food bank doesn't sit well with Boy, but he doesn't worry about it for long. Whoever is first in line in the food bank tomorrow will likely find the bodies, but also a bunch of gold scattered around for the taking, so, hopefully that would make up for it.
The triumphant music starts playing in Boy's head and he feels like he's going to go animatic again, the excitement building, his confidence along with it. The Magical Perfect Plan is halfway done. They've had fun at the arcade, and robbed a bank, of sorts. They got a full tank of gas for June27's cycle, which was almost as good as a horse. Now they just need to ride off out of the city and find a treehouse to live in for the rest of their lives.
The Shaman's place, he decides, is the logical target for that part of their plan. It's not technically a treehouse, except that it's a house, in the trees, but maybe that's enough. The only problem is, Boy knows it's too far to get to, at least tonight. Yet there's another place... the place the Shaman sometimes took him to, in an abandoned neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, struck hard by an early Culling, supposedly as a way to show Boy where he once lived with his Mom. They never went to that house itself, because in the Shaman's eyes it was too dangerous a risk for sentimentality, but there was another place nearby that he'd rigged for easy entry. They sometimes used this second house as a stopover on their trips to the city, and from a window there they sometimes would gaze at the house they dare not set foot, where Boy supposedly grew up. Now, Boy realizes this was all a lie... the memories he had of a life before the incident must have used the stopover house as a template. And maybe the unsafe house they looked at from afar was the Shaman's all along, monitored in case he came back, but holding meaning only for him... and for all his preaching about memories making you weak, he couldn't entirely abandon the place.
Everyone else in the neighborhood seemed to have no trouble abandoning their places. If someone was determined enough, somebody could easily have fixed some of those houses up--there was still running water and in the stopover place even a gas generator the Shaman sometimes used--but people were superstitious about living in a Culled neighborhood. There was always the chance the VDK soldiers would misfile some paperwork and assume that whoever was living there now was still wanted for sedition... and the soldiers played this idea up, whether intentionally or otherwise, by doing just that sort of thing now and then, which was probably incompetence but might have been deliberate, serving the secondary purpose of consolidating the population closer to the city, where they could be more easily controlled. Yet the neighborhood itself still existed, getting slowly claimed by the wilderness, dilapidated and overgrown, but even so, functional. That was why that house could still be a good place for Boy and June27 to pause and catch their breath. Even a comfortable place for them to sleep tonight. Multiple places I mean.. Only one bedroom, but Boy could sleep anywhere, and even without a bed it meant a roof over his head, furnishings, and running water. Luxury, compared to living in the jungle. So much luxury, in fact, that it was suspicious for an abandoned neighborhood, and even while using it the Shaman warned him in their private sign language that the places were also left as a temptations... they could use it sparingly, but any squatters hiding out there long term were walking into a trap, lulled into complacency, only to be rounded up whenever the militia needed to do a sweep. So it wasn't without risk entirely. Still, to Boy it seems safe enough for one night, in the chaos, until they could make it to a more secure place to hide out together, always.
The idea of finding a permanent home with his sister excites Boy, but this time with less awkwardness, as the pack on June's back provides a little more distance, a little less direct contact for the uncomfortable stiffening effect the drugs force on him, and which recurs whenever he thinks about his sister, or especially that brief kiss. Eager to f*ck AND kill, he realizes, again, that it might be a reaction they had in common, this particular arousal. It was just his body, and with nobody appropriate to express it on, his mind was going weird places... but that was nothing new, growing up alone he'd often had to take care of that particular tension on his own. Once they were safe, he would find an excuse to get away, until then, he would endure it, just as he endures the rising and falling waves of perception and dissociation from the drugs.
Things do get slippery again, on the ride out of town. Boy knows it's not a simple escape, they have to crash through several checkpoints... sometimes literally, sometimes by stopping and taking out opponents in frenetic combat that only endure in his memory as isolated scenes, comic-book style with bold outlines and bright colors shaded with halftone dots. Maybe he shouldn't have taken that second pill, but what hasn't been lost in the haze is the fact that his sister is phenomenal, whether a vivid, sweating real person in front of him or an iconic representation of a warrior. He just wishes she didn't have the helmet on, so he could talk to her in more than a few bright words and pictures. Holding onto her on the back of the bike, though, that's pretty good as a consolation.
At some point, Boy pulls out of the pleasant haze and realizes they're out of the main part of the city, in the abandoned outskirts, and near enough to the stopover house that he knows where they are... possibly because they've been driving in circles. It's almost as though, as he's gaining focus, his sister's losing it, so Boy takes that as a cue to take the lead... or rather, lead from behind, directing June27 with pats and pointing to get her to turn. off the beaten path, and finally to stop, abandon the bike. The streetlights are out in this area, long since smashed, another sign of the rot that's crumbling the city, but he can direct her to an old woodshed that puts the bike out of sight. Then he takes lead again, which, in the bright moonlight he can do, but he's never had to lead somebody else, and stumbles when a cloud obscures the light. June catches him, and in the darkness, the only light is from the lights on her display, saying, "You OK?" and then "Where are we going?" flashes over it. Boy can't respond, and watches June take the helmet off, pass it to him, offering. It would let him speak.
He doesn't trust himself with it, not really, but decides that if he uses it for a short burst, he can get his meaning across and return it, so he slips it on, concentrates. Safe House. Nearby. Whoah. The 'whoah' is from the sudden increase in his vision. Everything's much clearer in the helmet, albeit in a sickly green, but far brighter than it had any right to be. Night vision
"Lead the way," June27 advises, trusting him to continue with the helmet, so he does. As long as he looks away, he doesn't have to worry about his stray thoughts being revealed, and he takes another step before stopping, so abruptly his sister steps into him, although not very hard, even hard enough to distract him from what he saw.
The interior of the display is full of words at the corners, things like heart rate and environmental conditions, so much information that Boy's first instinct is not to read it at all, just look past it for what he needs to see.. and, given enough time, would probably forget the words were there entirely, but something did catch his eye in one corner, text that June must have programmed in, to keep reminding herself.
"Stay Focused:
5th and Helstone Cache
Rob it before the revoke credentials
Recruit/Kill Manny, Whichever's Easier
Rush South Exit - Most f*ckups stationed there.
Find somewhere safe in outskirts
f*ck Manny to deal with drug comedown"
Which all seemed pretty reasonable, except the line beneath all that, a reminder she must have written for herself and then became so part of the display that, under the drugs at least, she began to ignore, perhaps forgot was there. "HOT GUY IS YOUR BROTHER, REALLY. NOT A HALLUCINATION. DON'T RUIN THINGS. DON'T HURT HIM. DON'T TRY TO f*ck HIM."
She needed a reminder for that? But then, he could see how, maybe with the amphetamines, she might forget they were related. That had to be all she was afraid of.
"She thinks you're hot." Little Mina is there again, waiting by the boarded up door to the house.
She's my sister! he tries once again to remind her, but the Mina in his head was stubborn, she wouldn't listen.
"I'm your sister. She kissed you. Well, I kissed you too. Back when you had a tongue. But that was kid's stuff. You've got a chance at an adult relationship here, if you weren't such a coward about it."
The door may look sealed, but most of the boards are carefully cut, held in place only by the most tenuous bind... there's a spot where you apply a little bit of leverage and the three nails that're actually still holding it closed pop free, and entrance is allowed. It's not the only way in... several of the windows are smashed and easy to climb through if you want to risk shards of broken glass on the journey, but this is the less painful option, so Boy opens the door, carefully leads June27 through it and to a couch. Throughout it all, he keeps his gaze away as much as possible, looking directly at her only long enough to think WAIT HERE and have it display on the helmet before turning again to the hallucination of his sister, who's following him.
I'm not a coward. I'm the ultimate warrior. Although he's not sure he needs to be a warrior anymore, or wants to. Still. A warrior wouldn't make a move on his sister, that's... that's like taboo.
"The ultimate warrior follows his heart. Even if the whole world is against him." Little Mina says, then sighs. "What did that old guy always say? Listen to your body, not your head. Your head lies."
Boy finds some candles and a set of matches, lights one and carefully places it, filling the room with a dim light. Then, he can take off the helmet, light another. The Shaman also lied an awful lot. Besides, you're in my head, so...
"Whatever. Look, the candles are a good idea. Romantic."
Practical! Boy insists defensively.
"I'm just saying, you seem to be following your instincts and it's leading you in the right direction..."
My instincts for having light to see...
"So I'm going to leave you two alone. Maybe you can make something happen if I'm not here cramping your style. Just remember, you want it, she wants it, so... be a warrior!"
With that, she vanishes., and Boy's left staring at the space, wondering at the f*cked-upedness of his own head. f*cked-upedness wasn't a word in his dictionary, but it was a word nonetheless. Sometimes you have to make your own definitions. f*cked-upedness: The quality of being f*cked-up.. He was f*cked up on the combat drugs, f*cked up by his upbringing, and maybe he needed to just accept it, embrace it even. Be a warrior, she tells me. But sometimes being a warrior meant tolerating the conditions you can't change. Like that Mina was wrong... his sister couldn't be interested in him like that unless she wasn't in her right mind and didn't know who he was. He'd be a warrior by staying strong, resisting his own impulses when they don't serve the mission... which is watching out for her.
Boy doesn't feel like a warrior for long, because when June27 touches him, he practically jumps out of his skin. Of course he didn't hear the soft steps of her approach, but normally his zanshin was much better. The reaction forces a smirk out of June, and Boy marvels how much a simple smile makes her feel better, and he smiles too. Maybe that's the lesson of listening to his heart... he's got no other goals left in his life but making his sister happy. If he works at it, he could become an instrument shaped for a new single purpose... making his sister smile as much as possible. He could get behind that.
"You okay?" she asks him, and he nods, gives a thumbs up, then waves at her to follow, takes the candle into the kitchen, the sink, turns on the tap to demonstrate... running water. "You know they leave these on as a trap," June says, confirming that the Shaman wasn't wrong about everything. "To catch squatters, you know? Only the geniuses can't narrow it down who's using excess water any closer than the general area, and with all the leaky faucets, burst pipes and sh*t in this city, they only send people to come investigate a few times a year... and we just had a Culling, so we should be safe for one night."
Boy nods, then decides if that's the case, he might as well make use of it, so he rushes back to where he left the backpack and returns with the bag of milk, placing it with the sink so that the stream of water runs over it, keeping it cool. The Shaman sometimes kept things cool in a stream, so the same principle should apply.
Here, June must have read his mind perfectly, because she says it out loud. "Good thinking. Looks more like another burst pipe." She pulls off her outer jacket, hangs it on chair by a small kitchen table, near a broken window, and she stretches her arms behind her back, arching her belly towards him. "God, I'm still so wound up. I wish I could go for a shower and... relax."
He holds up a finger. Lights another candle, leads her to the bathroom, where there is indeed a shower... the walls are dirty, but the water itself's clean. After placing the candle on the sink, he demonstrates by turning the shower tap on.
June brushes past him, tests the spray with her fingers. "Yeah, I mean a hot shower," she says. "I mean, a cold shower might be good for me too, but then I'd need a warm body to snuggle up to, and... well, I'm sure that'd be awkward, you know?"
Boy nods, though he's not sure why, he just wants to agree with her. Though, in truth, cold showers are more up his alley. Not just right now, but because heat was always a luxury. Still, he understands the desire, to be neat, and clean. And as for snuggling up after... he's never had that experience, but... God that sounds good.
June turns away, the hint of a frown forming on her face and Boy would wonder if he said the wrong thing, if he said anything at all. But she doesn't seem interested in the shower... she turns it off and then uses the bathroom sink to wash her hands and guzzle down a few sips of the water from cupped hands, then slide past him again, almost too close, on her way out. He lights another candle, and uses it to light others left standing from the last time the Shaman stayed there as he follows his sister around the house, getting a sense of their surroundings, inspecting their place for the night. There's only one bed... whichever Culled citizen this house used to belong to apparently had no family and a secondary room was a library, which was probably one of the reasons he was swept up in the raid. The books are gone, bare shelves all that's left, and nowhere set up to sleep but the master bedroom, but that's fine... Boy always slept on the floor, as a lesson, and he can do that again... by his sister's side, if she'll let him. Since she thinks snuggling would be awkward.
She peeks in at the bedroom but hasn't noticed the problem yet, or if she has, hasn't commented on it, but after her hand lingers on the door frame, in the flickering candlelight, he notices something alarming, a stain that wasn't there, and transfers the candle to one hand so he can use the other to reach out to her, take it, look closely. You're bleeding again.
She notices. "Yeah, sh*t... NewSkin's wearing away... all the friction, on the weak points." Washing her hands must have been the last straw for it. He pulls her, gently, to the bedroom, motioning her to sit, lights the candle on the nightstand, and then tries to decide what to do. After searching his memory for a moment, then the house for a little more, he returns with some gauze bandages, and a bowl from the kitchen filled with water. A makeshift washbasin, with a rag. June is still sitting but tries to wave him off when she sees what he's preparing to do. "It's fine, I still can't really feel it, but... yeah." He ignores her, and she doesn't fight, just lets him bandage her up, a little more properly. "This is the second time tonight you're playing doctor with me." She exhales a little too quickly. "I just mean... seems like you're really good at taking care of people."
Boy shrugs, not sure that's true, but he dabs at her face, the alarming ring of red around her eye. Never really had anyone to take care of. The Shaman took care of himself, mostly, aside from the assigned chores.
"Not me." June says. "I'm good at the action, but not so much about the cooldown, you know? Even right now, I just want to... do something. Something exciting. Like, anything that gets my heart pumping again." Boy gives her a weak smile, trying for encouraging but all his memories of what that looks like are too old to be sure he's doing it right. He checks the stomach wound, feels her suck in her breath, but the NewSkin seems to be holding there, for now. "I'm probably going to screw us up. I don't want to screw us up, but... I know I'm going to. So much that I almost want to do it right away, just get it over with. Then you can go live a better life." Boy shakes his head emphatically. "Maybe that's all I have to offer you. I mean it's not like I can cook."
I can cook. Over a fire, sure, but that's all you need. For both of us. And you don't have to do anything for me. We're a team, even if you just do... cart stuff. But he also knows that she will help him in countless ways, even if she doesn't know it, and he searches for a way to demonstrate that. Her hand is bandaged, well enough, so he looks over, notices his arm is starting to bleed through the NewSkin too, hands the gauze to her, and she breathes out a little in relief.
"Yeah, that I can do." June ties a quick but effective bandage around the wound on his arm, though the NewSkin still keeps a good seal on most of it, and she seems to think it's better to limit it to where it actually starts bleeding again. Since clearly some kind of first aid training was part of her curriculum, Boy doesn't question. Not even when she says, "Take your top off." It's obviously to look for other wounds, and he's not particularly body conscious, so Boy just unzips and shrugs off the red vest he's been wearing since he got in that car trunk. "Man, you're like a peak physical specimen. The guys at the barracks have custom workout plans, steroids, and some of them are might be bigger but I don't think I know anyone as... sculpted as you. Just look at those abs. It's like your whole body's honed for one purpose." The compliment fills Boy with warmth, because, yes, that was the intention, his body is... was, a weapon. "Could be more than one purpose." Boy tilts her head, not sure what she's getting at. "You've really never been with a girl? At all?" He doesn't want to look at her, suddenly, the flush of shame makes it feel like if he sees a pitying look in her eyes or he sees a laugh break her lips he might turn to stone or something, but he also knows he has to look at her to understand what she's saying, so he only averts his gaze briefly. And when he looks back, her eyes aren't judging, nor are her lips. "Hey, it's okay. I just... wish I could have found you sooner. You wouldn't have had to be so... deprived."
Deprived. It's a good word, one he knew intellectually applied to him but didn't feel it in that context. There was nothing you could have done, even if you'd found me. By the time Mina was June27, he was so far gone he probably would have done something he regretted before he ever realized it was her.
"I'm sorry I kissed you back at the food bank, without asking. I should have let you... let you choose somebody. I warned you, on the pills, I'm..." And she doesn't finish, lets out a chuckle, but it doesn't bother him like Boy thought it might, since it's not mocking, and as much directed at herself as him, confirmed with her next words. "Look at the two of us, huh? With our upbringings, we could stage a 'Who's More f*cked-Up' contest."
Oh, I'd definitely win.
It's like she heard him perfectly from the way he moved his eyes. "Oh, you think so?" He imagines the teasing, competitive tone, much like the Mina he remembers from his childhood. "Mom had me trained as an enforcer, and I went along with it. With all I've done, both sides probably want my head on a pike and, you know, I really can't blame them. At least you had the sense to run away."
I was brainwashed into forgetting my whole family. Except you. And I have a hallucination of you that keeps popping up,
She can't hear his specific point, just saw him pointing to his head in a circular motion, but she has a counterpoint. "You think you're f*cked up? I'm basically a drug addict... I mean, the combat stims are supposed to be non-addictive and I honestly have been trying to cut back, but I still can hardly get through a mission without popping one. I honestly can't remember the last time I went more than a few days without any."
The Shaman gave me a lot of psychoactive compounds too Boy points out. Have you ever eaten stink bugs? I've eaten stink bugs. That's f*cked up. But she can't hear his joke, so he puts one hand softly on her neck, tries to drill the real message in through eye contact alone. You did what you had to do to survive.. Maybe it was even a good thing to need drugs to do what she did, working for Hilda against the people of the city. Even though he's prepared to forgive her now that they're together again, that doesn't mean he likes the thought that she, too, was part of the brutal regime that made so many lives miserable. He knows she was forced into it, just like the Shaman forced him into his life, but in Boy's eyes, the thought that she was self-medicating is actually a point in her favor.
"I've only got a handful left. Why didn't I think to put more in my bugout stash instead of selling them?" This question was asked more to herself than anything. "It's probably for the best? But I'm terrified. You know, I don't think I've even ever had sex with someone when I wasn't high on amphetamines first."
His hand slips off her neck to gesture to himself again. I haven't been with anybody at all, he reminds her.
Too late, he realizes that gestures can be interpreted multiple ways. "You want to do it? I mean I guess that is something I could offer you...." There's a look in her eyes, playful, flirtatious. Like she might actually want it.
Boy's eyes widen, not with alarm so much as just pure stun. Holy sh*t, could Mina have been right? It wasn't just that she was afraid she might forget who he was. She wasn't just play acting. He has to consider the idea that she actually might be into him and want to do sex stuff with him. I'm, uh... I'm honestly not sure what do do with that. He's not disgusted, or even disappointed, just... at a loss, because sex is so outside his experience he's not sure where to even begin.
"Relax, I know that's not what you meant," and his heart drops, feeling stupid for not realizing she was just teasing him. The shame makes him looks down, away from her lips and she needs to use her fingers to direct them to her again. "I felt you, on the bike. That's... that just from the stims. You don't have to be ashamed, okay? It's just a physical reaction. It doesn't mean you would actually do anything. I get the urges every time I take the stims, and mostly I don't act on them. " He tries on a smile then, but it's uncertain, possibly because his body's having that same reaction right now. It's too dark for her to see that, but she tries to read his eyes with hers, weighing, and finally bites her lip and adds, "But you know what might make me win me the Who's More f*cked Up? contest? I probably would go through with it right now, if you wanted to. I want to. Even when I thought you were just a rebel, the way we fought... if you didn't work for the Shaman I'd have been tempted to offer you a 'last cigarette', but now, knowing you're my brother... " She trails off, but Boy's mind races with the promise of that unfinished sentence. "See that's the downside with the stims... when I take too many, I can't always tell what's a bad idea. Impulsive child brain, adult needs. Good thing they're starting to wear off, huh?"
Yeah, good thing. Boy thinks she's changed her mind again, backtracked, which he understands, somewhere, is probably for the best... yet he can't deny the disappointment, and is pretty sure even without the stims he wouldn't be entirely sure why incest was a bad idea. By definition, he supposes.
"Of course... you know, one upside about these..." One of the tiny pockets on her fatigues contain the small bottle of pills, and she shakes it. "Before you're fully sober, and have to be responsible again, you can always decide to take more. Because sometimes you want to do the bad idea anyway. So in theory, we could get a little more f*cked up, and... be a little more f*cked up. Release all this... tension we both feel. Just physical. I could show you how, so when you find somebody you love, you don't have to fumble around, learning the moves. I know that's twisted and probably like morally wrong too, but... we've got a hell of an excuse right now."
Now that she's confessed this, this wanting, Boy decides maybe it's safe to admit his own feelings, the burning curiosity, the hunger to make up for the time they lost by becoming closer. For that idea, Boy's not sure he even wants an excuse. Warriors don't make excuses. They follow their heart. He leans in towards her... all he knows about this sort of thing is that kissing is the start, so he'll start, and let her take over. He awaits the contact of her lips once again.
She puts a barrier up before their lips meet again, her own fingers. "Do you want this? Because I feel like I'm pushing you. Taking advantage, because you don't know any better... and you've gone along with everything. You don't actually have to indulge your screwed up sister."
Make up your mind! but it's frustration more than anything else, as Boy doesn't now how to convince someone of anything without words, it's not like she can read.... The thought half formed, he stands up in one move, rushes from the room, only realizing in retrospect how it looks, after her returns wearing the helmet and sees June27 wiping tears from her eyes. I want this. I want you. Show me.. The words scroll across the interior display, confirming June can see them too, they were read completely off his brain.
So does the surprised smile that breaks across her tear-stained face. "All right then. Let's do the bad idea." He's not entirely sure what to expect in terms of speed, but she moves incredibly fast once it's decided, almost like she's afraid one of them might change their mind again. Before that can happen, before he's even entirely sure what she's doing, she's pulling her top over her head. Boobs goes through his mind, and little pixel art versions of them appear on the display, both for him and his sister to see, filling him with another shot of embarrassment for what he guesses is a juvenile reaction, but they're the first he's seen other than crude drawings, and it's a moment where the helmet forces him to compare them directly. The real thing is better, there's only a slight variation from the male chests he's seen, but something in those small subtle curves and alluring points of narrowness that makes all the difference, sends his thoughts racing and makes his gut roil--in a good way, somehow. Boy whips the helmet off before his inexperience can betray him again with another immature broadcast thought, but mostly so he can see his topless sister in the candlelight and confirm this all isn't just another hallucination..
Yep, she's still there. Still with boobs. Now without light-amplification, but somehow all the more alluring, and he shuffles forward even though it's a little hard to walk. She's got the pill bottle in her hand, dumps out a few stims to top up her poor judgment and offers it to him.
Here, Boy hesitates. He takes the container but he stands by his first instinct that he doesn't want to do this on stimulants... or any more of them, anyway. Warriors don't need excuses. He's made plenty of bad decisions without drugs, and if this was going to be another, so be it. If she's worried she's taking advantage of him, he'll be able to tell her he went into it with a clear mind. Besides, June was worried about running out, perhaps saving an extra for her was the noble brotherly thing to do. June misses this brief inner conflict... she's busy taking off her combat pants, and for Boy that's also far more interesting than weighing the pros and cons of whether he should take drugs for his first time, so he puts the bottle on a table, his dose still inside..
Of course, the truth is, some remnant of the drugs are still coursing through Boy's system, and the top-up June just took hasn't even kicked in yet, so when she does climb on top of him to finally start the deed, they're perfectly even, both of them are still in a somewhat altered state, and the mad heartbeat pushes Boy into another bout of on-and-off dissociation. He knows his sister is taking the lead, that seems right and proper, but the exact order of events escapes him, the first memories form as mere sketches because he's too lost in sensation to make them any more detailed. He knew, intellectually that sex was supposed to feel good, but wasn't expecting just how intense the experience was, even compared to his solo efforts. When there's a partner, its a far bigger rush and he's surprised how quickly his body just began to move automatically in the most efficient way to enhance and stretch out the pleasure, becoming, almost, like a combat dance except nobody's getting hurt... or not much, anyway. Some pain signals from his tortured body are starting to make it through the drugs, but they're more than dwarfed by the vivid intensity of all the good feelings.
It's enough that Boy doubts his very memory. Because surely an experience like this could only be fueled by drugs, ones more powerful than the ones he ever had at the Shaman's place. So he must have taken that extra stim after all, because he's zooming and he's sure it can't all be from whatever's left of the last pills he took at the Food Bank. Unless it's just the thrill of what he's doing. Placebo:, he remembers randomly from the dictionary, A treatment having no pharmacological effect but that psychologically induces the same beneficial results as an actual drug. He begins to seriously consider whether it's possible he's not even affected by the stims at all, but instead just high off June27 herself, that it's his intense joy over them being together that's ping-ponging him in and out of the same dissociative headspace as the pills did earlier. Maybe this is why incest is so taboo, if it's like a drug. Or... could that be what romantic love is? Either way, he could get addicted. He wasn't expecting to be terrified by the thought that she might decide this is only a one night thing.
The other thing he isn't expecting is the dirty talk. This he comes to be aware of midway through the act, and he missed how it started... the vague descriptions of sex that existed in his head didn't involve much talking, and once he was experiencing it, the mere sensations were so overwhelming that Boy's first instinct was to just give in, close his eyes, and enjoy everything as it happened, until his whole body is just a vessel for pleasure. Certainly, now and then, he comes back to himself and he just has to look at what's happening with his own eyes, and also check in with her lips, in case she needs him to do something different or stop. The problem is it's so hard to focus on that, because when his eyes open on June27 now, by candlelight, for once her lips aren't what steal the most attention. Her whole body is beauty in motion, especially in motion naked on top of him. This is what a naked girl looks like, he reminds himself, and it looks much better when you're close enough to touch, or actually touching, or a part of you is inside her. It's resplendent, is the word for it, the way the candlelight shines off her sweaty skin, and he drinks all of it in, let the sight of it burning its way in the barren space for 'naked girl' in his imagination like a brand, setting a standard that will never be beat. Two brands, really because he remembers her beauty both in 3-D living motion and bold-lined, too-bright cartoon images that must be a product of his imagination and the altered state of perception (whatever might have caused it). Boy knows he won't forget either of them as long as he lives. And as for the feeling, there's never been much time for pleasure in his years of training, but he's starting to realize how deprived he really was. You needed pleasure in your life just like you need food, and a starving body should take it wherever it's offered. Having his sister's naked body bounce on top of his is better than eating stink bugs.
Yet his eyes do drift to her lips now and then, and that's when he realizes how she's been talking for... who knows how long, really. During fights, she might be almost silent, but sex appears to be another matter, at least once she really got into it. Words keep slipping out, almost incoherent at times, although he imagines some of the lip movements might just be moans rather than words. When he's got enough focus to, he pieces together some of what she's been saying to him. Or saying to herself. He's not entirely sure it's directed at him, or that she even realizes she's doing it, as opposed to the drug making her just speak her thoughts out loud. One memorable fragment is: "Know what's so hot? I might be the last person to kiss your whole tongue." June must have remembered the same 'Truth or Dare' Boy did. "And the first one after.... And now, I'm your first lover. I'm in your head forever now. No one can ever take that away. That's mine. You're mine, you hear? I claim you. Maybe not forever, but tonight..." And she leans in and once against shoves her tongue in his mouth, and he does what he can to kiss back as he exercises a muscle he never realizes was so neglected. "And I'm first. You'll never forget me again." He wants to tell her he never, ever forgot her before, but she leans forward again, this time to bite at his lip, not enough to draw blood, but another reminder at how pain and pleasure could mingle. "That may be all I get so let's go..."
In some ways sex feels like a combat, but it's one fight Boy doesn't mind losing, even surrendering to, because he's certainly feeling she's got the upper hand here, but not in a bad way. The words, though aggressive, actually ease his heart, because it means she wants this closeness, she wants to be a part of his life, his soul... and if this is what it means to be claimed, she can claim him again and again.. He pulls her close to him, wanting nothing more but to stay hers forever, it feels.... so... good..
After that, his mind... or his memory, shorts out for a bit. When he opens his eyelids, he realizes he must have fallen asleep, exhaustion setting in and a sense of immense peace finally convincing his body that it was safe to give into it. Sadly, the peace didn't entirely last. Under the influence of the drugs, even his dreams seemed like cartoons, impressionistic memories of the events of the past day, some good, some bad. Plenty of June, Mina in her butterninja costume, himself as a kid, and the people who died tonight in various iconic poses, real or imagined. One nightmare flash of Hilda looming like a giant over a cityscape stands out, and then an image of him standing with many others in a group, like the two of them just died and they were in some afterlife where they could be together in peace, before all is blackness and music in his head. At the end of it, Boy's eyes snap open and he realizes this can't be the afterlife, because something's missing. He's no longer touching June. She's there, at the edge of the bed, pulling her top back on. She looks back at him, her face ashen. "I'll go," she says, and the way she can't seem to look him directly in the eyes, it seem like she thinks this is something she expects he wants.
Wait, why?
"I'm sorry," is all June27 says, at first, but then she adds to it. "I knew I'd screw us up." The vulnerability he sees in her eyes makes Boy ache, proving that what they just shared was nothing like combat after all... because in a fight, when someone shows you vulnerability, a warrior exploits it, and here all Boy wants to do is make her safe even at the expense of his own life. He just isn't sure how to do that, or how he hurt her in the first place. Things seemed to be going so well!
Was this because I fell asleep? he wonders, but she's not looking at him. Maybe that's the wrong signal, but... I was f*cking exhausted. He scrambles off the bed. He's not good at signals, but if she's leaving, he needs to stop it, so he grabs for June's helmet on the nightstand, puts it on, taps it to get June's eyes on him. Why?
She's on her way to the door, but she does look back, brow furrowed in anger, but he thinks it's not anger at him, more herself. "Because I'm no good. I got my brother back. Everything I wanted, and I..."
Made me happy! he sends... and since she seemed to enjoy it too, at least the act, maybe they could try it again, get back to that space. It's the only thing he can think of. Round 2?
A laugh escapes her. Or maybe a sob. Emotions can be harder to read than lips. It could be something in between. But it feels like the same kind of victory as earlier, when he turned her sadness into delight. "Okay," she says, as though she's pretending to give in to a suggestion that she also wants. "Round 2."
Round 2 is a longer, more spread out affair. There's less desperate urgency, but at the same time it inspires more activity, like... they can afford to be more vigorous this time around now that they've had a little time for rest. It's not one event of rising momentum coming to a climax, but bursts of energetic fun. To Boy, less like an intense sparring session on the edge of a cliff that they both tumble over just when he's ready to surrender, and more like a team sport with a partner and she's educating him not just in the craft, but the spirit, the joy of the game. The lesson are also interrupted several times... first because they knock a candle over and need to act fast to stop the entire house from going up into flames, and then a couple times for breaks for water or breath or because they discovered the sudden need to bandage wounds that have been reopened. The activity involves a lot of friction, and NewSkin can only handle so much.
Each interruption threatens to give either of them time for second thoughts, or to say the wrong thing in word or expression, but neither do, if anything the short breaks just renew their energy to get back into things without expending themselves totally, allowing the two to try different angles, orientations, combinations of flesh on flesh, or flesh and hardware. Both of them wind up wearing the helmet at different times, during the night, like it's a tool to give one another a peek into their actual thoughts or have a better view of their coupling. June talks less, and Boy dissociates less and less into art, as things goes on, but Boy does start to regret one thing... not taking that extra pill. But only because June27 seems to want to play longer than Boy really has energy for. Still, the Shaman has trained him for intense stamina and even though this might not be the activity it was intended for, the techniques and mental focus transfer well enough until his sister rolls off him and is suddenly snoring in the crook of an arm. If he fell asleep the first time, this just about ties them up. Looking forward to the tiebreaker round he thinks as he fades to black. Just not right now.
The next morning, the candles have burned out and light is streaming through the windows... and June is gone, again. But the helmet is there, proving that Boy's whole escape with June and their night together wasn't just an elaborate hallucination. Her being gone isn't much better, but there's something encouraging about the way things stand in the room. The helmet still being there, but more what's beside it. Folded on the nightstand next to it are some clothes. Not the ones he had last night... in fact, the vest seems to be nowhere in sight, and he imagines her taking it out to wash all the bloodstains from it. Instead, by the bed is a there's a white tank top--a little grungy from repeated dirt and not-entirely-effective river washing, but still mostly clean and another pair of pants cut off just below the knee, and his shoes. June must have gotten up and explored the house, found one of the spare outfits Boy left when he and the Shaman were coming to town. There wasn't a lot of time for laundry allotted on cabbage-selling trips, and because Boy liked to smell less objectionable when he could (with only three of five fully functional senses, it was important to treat them well when it didn't compromise training) he started keeping extras on hand at the house. He uses the now-lukewarm basin of water to quickly wash himself down, and then changes into the new outfit.
"Finally, you're decent," he hears, and jumps. There's Mina again, in her PJs.
What are you doing here?
"Just saying 'I told you so.'" She smirks triumphantly
You weren't watching all that were you?
"Eww, no, gross! But I know what happened. And I know you meed to make sure she doesn't regret last night. If you can make this work, then you won't need me anymore."
That was what he told her just before she disappeared the last time. But now... he's rethought, a little. I'll always need you, he decides. Maybe not in my face all the time, but...
Mina looks in both directions, as though worried she might be overheard even though that's impossible, then sighs, and leans in, her face like someone very begrudgingly giving up a secret. "Okay, June27 might be me," she allows. "So maybe I don't have to hang around so much. But only if you stay with her, and never give up on her. You promised."
He nods. I did.
"I mean it. You can't just be a warrior, watching her back... she needs more than that. She needs a partner. That means you have to keep June27 in your heart every day, from now on."
It sounds like a lot, but it doesn't feel like it. To Boy, it doesn't even seem that hard. Always.
"Good. But I still need to stick around until you've convinced her you feel the same way. You're not so good on the expressing yourself." He makes a face. "It's true. You don't have the loverboy instincts yet. You haven't even gotten up to make her breakfast!"
Right, breakfast! He rushes to the door, and only there does he pause before grabbing the knob as worries start to overtake him. What if he's already too late? June might not actually be here at all, she could have just fled the house like he stopped her from doing last night... maybe the shame over what happened too much for her. The helmet might have been left behind as kind of a gift, a way for him to talk. June27's gotta be out there, right? Panic threatens to make his heart race, but he pushes it down... even if that happened, he'd find her, no matter how long it took. It was one thing if she didn't want to do the sex stuff again, or the kissing... but he needs her in his life somehow... or at least he needs her to know that he wants that more than anything else, but let her go because she didn't want the same. Just like the lesson, a warrior can't control what his opponent does, only his own reactions... with a partner, that seems even more true, he can't control her or force her to stay... but he still can keep his promise by making sure she knows she's always the most important to him.
The panic was for nothing. His stomach starts to calm as he spots her in the kitchen. She's found a glass pitcher, opened the bag of milk and dumped the contents inside. The box of cereal is on the table. Maybe she did breakfast for him. I'll do it next time.
She jumps as she spots him, but calms quickly, gives a tremulous smile. Tremulous: shaking or quivering slightly from nerves. He returns it, doing his best to be expressive with only his expression, that he's happy to see her. And there's cereal. He grabs two bowls, spoons, and takes them to the table, and they sit on either side of it. She hasn't given him a word yet, but she's watching Boy, and he thinks it's for any sign of disapproval or regret over last night. She looks oddly brittle, like if she saw one, she might shatter, so he won't give her one. Instead, he pours the blue loops of delicious puffed cereal into her bowl first, and then into his while she's adding her own milk. When his bowl is full, she's already holding out the pitcher of milk, arm stretched across the table and shaking from either nerves or bearing the weight, and he takes what she offers. He pours a bunch in his bowl, because it's been a long time since he's had cool milk with cereal, and the cereal-flavored milk after the cereal is the best thing ever. Well, maybe not anymore.
June's looking down at her bowl when he finishes and looks back at her, but he waits for her to look at him and gives her another smile. Everything's okay he says, softly, with only his eyes. Mina said he couldn't just be a warrior, so he's trying something new, not shouting at her with his warrior voice, trying a new, softer, brother voice, the one he finally remembers, a little, even if the only word he clearly remembers saying in it is Always. It's a good word, though. We're still good. He lifts a spoon to his smiling mouth as though showing her it's okay, and they eat their first bite at practically the same time. Although the taste isn't quite the same as his memory tells him--which doesn't surprise him, what with his damaged tongue--there are enough taste buds left that the hit of sugar is a balm to his whole soul. He chews, keeps looking over at June to see that she's enjoying it, and when she looks up she gives him the best smile you can manage with a mouth full of crunchy cereal before it dissolves into the milk, and she gives the briefest of nods, like she's telling him she's okay.
They enjoy a few bites of delicious cereal, and then they look away from each other as the same grim thought hits them. What now?
This last night was only the beginning. Not only would making sure both of them were comfortable with the situation--gradually, wordlessly defining the borders of their new relationship--be a long, constant struggle... they still had plenty of mundane issues to deal with, and Boy knew he could only ignore them for so long. Only one box of cereal and a little bit of milk before they needed to worry about food again. They might have to do something about June's pill supply if she really was addicted. And sure they had gold that would probably help with both problems, but spending it meant interacting with other people, and at least one or the both of them were probably on a death list now... if the totalitarians maintained power, they'd be public enemies number one and two, and if there was a re-energized revolution then they'd probably want to execute June27 for her actions against the people, even though she turned sides at the end. Revolution was far messier than an incestuous relationship.
He looks to June27, not sure how--or when--to bring up the issues. To his, surprise, she is. "Okay, so maybe we're both tied in the f*cked up contest," she says, though the brittleness returns in her eye as she waits for him just a beat to see if he's going to disagree. "But you know what? Even after last night..." she stops there again for just a moment, gingerly feeling around the rules, worried that perhaps they weren't allowed to talk about it, but Boy gives her no sign that she's made a misstep, so finally she finishes, "...we are still by far the least f*cked up members of our family."
He smiles again. It was true. And he hoped his sister agreed, as two people equally f*cked up by the way they were raised... it's far better to be f*cked up out of love than f*cked up out of hate.
