–Undisclosed Location, 8:25 AM, Three Weeks Later–
"Well, she’s finally resigned. Cites the death of a close friend and undue stresses in the workplace What should we say?" Vincent looked over the short message again, sighed, and rubbed his eyes.
"All we need is someone to take her place and start training up our rookies. After all, she’s been in her field for six years, and has a reputation of not stopping until everything is complete. She only backed out once, and that was because it would have killed or injured IBs."
Vincent nodded, then looked at the board of directors. "So, we’re agreed that she should be let go, no strings attached?" Everyone nodded. "Okay. I’ll send her the message, and promote her second to overall command." He then left the large conference room, heading towards one of the elevators when he bumped into Dr. Sorbie.
"Oh, hey Charlie. I didn’t see you."
Sorbie just smiled slightly. "That happens every once in a while. I have to say this Vince. I’m retiring."
Vincent stood there for a few seconds, letting his jaw flap in the air-conditioned breeze, then shook off the shock. "Well, I for one will be sorry to see you go, but you’re what? Over seventy now?"
"About that. I have my family to take care of, and I haven’t seen my grandson in almost a year. Besides, it’s about time I let someone else do the paperwork. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in almost five years." Sorbie removed his glasses, cleaning them against his shirtfront for a few seconds, then shrugged.
Vincent frowned for a few seconds, then shook Sorbie’s hand. "Well, that’s the second person who’s officially retired from our company today. As of now you’re five minutes behind Sel, who has officially retired from command of the teams as well as the company to boot."
Sorbie smiled and started to walk away. "Well, I think that’s the best thing she could have done. After all, even she would need time to recover and adjust to her current situation."
"You’re right. Come on, I’ll buy you a coffee. Maybe we can have a good laugh over some of the crazy shit we’ve seen over the years." Vincent offered, and was instantly taken up on the offer. Ten minutes later, the two were sitting at a table at the cafeteria, trading horror stories from their respective professions.
–Meridiana General Hospital ICU, 10:26 AM–
Sel stood in front of the thick plexiglass window, mentally using every vulgar word she could to describe the type of being that would attack a harmless child. A little while ago, she had been given the final report on her daughter’s chance of survival, and it was not conductive to a good mood.
The report, signed by Dr. Pearce, was phrased simply, as if saying it straight up could somehow mitigate the extent of the damage. The bullet had failed to punch deeply into Sebena’s brain, instead rattling down the right hemisphere. While it had rattled its way to the base of the brainstem, the bullet had literally wreaked havoc on its way, severing three blood vessels, carving a series of gouges through much of the sensory cortex until it ricocheted from the top of her skull and shredded the right half of the occipital lobe.
The damage was only exacerbated by the damage to the blood vessels, which caused a series of massive strokes which were only ended by invasive surgery to repair the ruptures with artificial microtubules. Overall, the prognosis was less than a one-in four chance of Sebena surviving the operation alone, and she was still listed in critical condition after three weeks. The worst part was that she was still unconscious, so the doctors couldn’t tell if there was any non-visual damage.
After almost three hours, Sel still hadn’t moved from her vigil, and there was no change on any of the monitors. However, just as she was forced to dodge an organ cart making an emergency delivery to the nearby operating theatre, several of the monitors started beeping, telling everyone in the ICU that there was a massive change in Sebena’s current state.
Sel’s head snapped upwards at the first beep, just in time to see her daughter’s eyes open, and she smiled for the first time in almost a month. Just as she was about to knock on the glass separating her from the ICU, three nurses and Dr. Pearce seemed to materialize around Sebena, and they four members of the hospital staff descended upon the poor child like lint to static. After a battery of tests, mainly involving repeated questions, the nurses carefully unhooked Sebena from the non-portable monitoring equipment prior to moving her to a private room.
Dr. Pearce turned to look at Sel through the large window, and flashed Sel a thumbs-up. Sel’s response was a slight smile and a long sigh, visible to Dr. Pearce as a slump in the bony shoulders that were barely hidden by a well-stretched sweater. Sel leaned against the cool glass of the window for a few minutes, listening as her heart slowly returned to normal, letting her relax from the feeling of having a deranged pinball hammering around in her chest. A few minutes later, Sel opened her eyes as Reba finished going through the decontamination process to leave the ICU.
"So, what’s the final evaluation?" Sel was barely keeping herself from launching towards the tiny doctor, instead redirecting her energy by slowly digging her fingernails into her forearms.
Reba sighed and removed the mask covering her nose and mouth. "Well, I’ll tell you, but only you. Your daughter’s lost the ability to respond to several emotions, at least from what I could see, and she’s also lost several memories, such as where she’s lived for the last three years. Finally, she’s totally blind. Apparently, the damage to her occipital lobe’s right hemisphere hid the damage to the left, which was damaged enough to totally remove your daughter’s ability to see. All in all, she should’ve died on the operating table, if she had managed to get here without shuffling off this mortal coil earlier. Either way, she’s an amazingly tough fighter, with some unusual bloodwork."
Sel looked at Dr. Pearce for a few moments, then slowly made her way to an empty chair sitting in the hallway. "Well, she does take after me in more ways than one. Now, you said she’s blind, partially amnesiac, and can no longer feel some emotions. Is there any chance of improvement, and when can I see her?"
"I don’t know about the chances of improvement, but anything’s possible when you’re packed with microscopic robots. Now, come on. I’ll bring you to her." Reba gently took Sel’s hand, who allowed the doctor to simply drag her to the room where Sebena was flipping through TV channels, trying to understand why she couldn’t see the cartoons she loved so much. Sel slowly and quietly opened the door, and when she saw Sebena sitting up in bed, looking like a fortune teller with the loops of bandages covering her head, she just broke down and dashed over to the bed.
The next thing Sebena knew, she was being held tightly and small splashes of something were falling onto her face, just above her sightless eyes. "Mom? What’s wrong? Why are you crying?"
Sel choked back a sob, then tried to speak clearly. "I-I was just worried about you baby. After all, you’ve been asleep for almost a month. Besides, I’m no longer working at the company, so I can spend more time with you."
Sebena smiled for a second, then squeezed her mother’s chest with a hug of her own, letting her own tears be absorbed into the slightly fluffy wool of Sel’s sweater. After a few minutes of the two holding onto each other, Sel slowly let go, and carefully ran her fingers over the bandages covering Sebena’s head.
"I hope your hair grows back soon. I liked playing with it every once in a while." Sel smiled sadly, then stood up. "I have to leave for a little while, because I’ve pretty much been living in the hospital for the last few weeks, but I’ll be back in a bit under four hours. Now, I’ll leave Dr. Pearce to talk to you, but I need to do some things, okay?"
"Okay. Just, don’t take too long." Sebena leaned back against the cushions, absently touching the bandages with her right hand until Dr. Pearce walked into the room to start talking to Sebena.
–Von Reichter’s Castle, 5:25 PM–
"WHAT?!?" Mikae’s eyes flashed bright red at the medical techno, but she restrained herself from simply punching the techno through the wall.
"Well, I don’t know how to explain this, but, apparently, you’re pregnant. Considering that there’s no evidence of..." the techno shuddered in distaste before continuing, "sexual congress, I can only assume in-vitro fertilization."
Mikae shrugged, then turned to the techno and punched the hapless being hard enough to leave a very messy splatter effect as the techno’s head was liquified by the impact, drooling brains, bone, and blood everywhere as the body began to disintegrate. "Well, you didn’t tell me what I wanted to know. So you die. Now, where’s someone who’s qualified to do an abortion?"
Unbeknownst to her, a small video camera had recorded everything she had said and done. Looking at the screen hard-wired to all the cameras in the castle, Helmut smiled slightly. "Perfect. She’ll be the figurehead, trying to destroy Meridiana, while I’ll control the real power. After all, the Reichter family’s dead."
Behind him, an old painting shimmered slightly, then resolved into an image of a massive, shadowed man wearing a monocle and with a distinctive nose, looking like he could hang a Christmas ornament off of it. "Well, Helmut. You’re still wrong."
Helmut turned around, choked, and dropped to his knees. "Doctor! I- we thought you were dead! We hadn’t heard from you for almost three years!"
"I had my own things to do. Now, where’s my son?"
Helmut looked up and pressed a remote, allowing Dr. Von Reichter to see the video feed of the mansion being destroyed, followed up by the subsequent slaughter of Jose.
"Hmm. Well, your orders are to find and kill every member of that group that killed my son. I don’t care how long it takes, but you will find and kill every one of them. Also, restore the uplinks from the mansion. After all, if you want to wreak havoc in Meridiana, you need an advance base."
Helmut swallowed slightly, then looked at the floor. "Sir? That’s impossible for me to do. They all left last week. And the mansion was totally destroyed."
Von Reichter frowned, turning away from the screen as he did so. "Idiot. The upper floors of the mansion meant nothing. Use the basement labs and barracks to stage your attacks." With that, the screen fizzled out into the normal view of the monolithic painting with a muttered growl about ‘incompetent runts’ letting Helmut curse under his breath for several minutes.