Chapter Four: Catching up

To my knowledge, since 2093, when she left me at Trinity River with an envelope of money and what could generously be called a pipe dream, Sorcha hasn’t left California once. That presented us a problem, namely that all possible communication lines into Texas were heavily monitored, meaning that there was no way we could ever talk about plans without giving ourselves away. At least, that is, if we didn’t find someone to be our middleman.

It’s sort of difficult for me to put into words what the five years after that was like for me in a way that doesn’t subtract from the three years I spent on the streets as a child. Both periods were hard for me, but in such vastly different ways that it’s hard to compare them at all. To be honest, most of those three years are a blur to me now, a constant rush of doing anything I could to survive.

What I do remember of that time is mostly pain. I was on the streets fighting for my life every day, not knowing when the next bit of food or water that I’d find would be, if I would be safe wherever I went to sleep. More than once in the winter, I was forced to break into a building in order to not freeze to death, and I was certain that there was nobody that I could trust at the time.

Then I stumbled into Rafflesia one day when I felt the warmth of the thrusters burning away the casualties of progress, and the director took me in as their own. I had to learn how to be a child again, something I still think I failed at in the end. To be fair, that’s probably what got me to where I am today though, so I can’t be too mad at myself.

When that fateful funeral happened and things changed once again, you’d think I was more prepared. Nowhere near it. See, while my time on the streets were physically painful, my first five years at Trinity River were what I would describe as mental torture.

First off, I hadn’t gone to school for the first eight years of my life, so I was three entire years behind my peers, and I had to work to make up that difference on my own time. That was rough at first, and with a bit of tutoring from Baxter I managed to get there in just two years.

That wasn’t the main problem though. My fear aura was, to the best of my knowledge, stronger against weaker creatures, so children understandably avoided me like the plague. The rumors that they started about me stung, but it was the adults believing some of them that really crushed my spirit. I was so utterly alone for a long time, my only companions being schoolwork and stuff I could read on the net.

Then puberty hit for the other kids, and it got worse. The small bits of teasing that I had endured escalated into full blown harassment at times, something that still continues to this day among the people that are supposed to be my peers. I was different in a very perceivable way, and they used that against me in every case that they could.

I won’t beat around the bush. The intrusive thoughts ran rampant at that time, of ending myself and others in gruesome ways, of making myself bleed to feel something, anything . I was strong willed, and I knew that I would never act on any of it, but simply even having the thoughts hurt in a way that you would only be able to understand if you experienced it.

It was revolting, and I hated myself for it.

Now, despite all of this, I never skipped school or anything. I was barely able to push myself up and through the sludge that held me back, but everything slowly began to build up inside of me into a mountain that I had no hope of scaling.

Well, alone at least.

It was just a few days after I turned thirteen that I met Maribelle.

My own puberty had started a month earlier, and I shot up like a bean sprout in just that time, so not only was I feeling terrible from my isolation, but I felt like I was walking in someone else's skin the entire time. It was on a night when I was feeling particularly down that I went onto the net to look into if that was normal, or if I was an outsider in that aspect as well.

Instead I, uh, sort of ended up going down a rabbit hole of information on the California Union and their laws, since one or two of them had caught my eye at the time. The information was actually supposed to be censored to Texans as far as I knew, but I got access to it all the same somehow. Then I got a ping, and I opened up my messaging app to find a little golden orb floating there.

I was understandably concerned, as I hadn’t downloaded anything and this wasn’t a feature of the app that I knew of. Maribelle introduced herself and I immediately grew more suspicious, and then she dropped the bomb that she was a SAI.

SAI, Sentient Artificial Intelligence, are well, basically just digital people. They’re suuuuper illegal in the Theocratic Democracy that is Texas, considered to be heretical attempts to create life beyond what god intended. They literally tell horror stories about them to kids.

I never really saw what all the fuss was about. They’re just people like us, and I was actually fascinated to be meeting one for the first time. I stayed up all night getting to know her, then skipped school for the first time the next day because I didn’t want to stop talking to her.

We were basically inseparable after that, though that’s mostly considering that as long as I had access to the net I could talk to her.

It was about a year after that when I worked up the nerve to tell her about Sorcha. As soon as I did, she declared herself one of us and took it upon herself to contact her. I don’t know the full details of what exactly they’ve talked about, since it’s all second hand, but the information that I received after that was invaluable to my growth as both a person and an Engine.

So that’s why it’s a bit surreal to be in this situation, sitting here with both of them beside me. I have a weird fuzzy feeling in my chest that I can’t come up with a name for, and find myself surprisingly shy at this moment.

Why the fuck am I even taking the time to justify myself feeling this way?

Sorcha snaps her fingers in my face, and I blink as I zone back into reality. “You good, kid?”

I nod, then sigh. “S-Sorry, got lost in thought.”

Maribelle affirmatively moves up and down. {“She does that a lot. You get used to it.”}

Sorcha chuckles, shaking her head a tad. “Not a good habit on the battlefield, try to avoid it.”

I awkwardly nod, wringing my hands a bit. “I know. Um. What did we need to talk about?”

Sorcha looks down at her hands, their fingers intertwined. “You signed a contract with NAER, right? Maribelle filled me in on a few of the details, but I want to hear it from you.”

I go into detail about some of the specifics of the contract over the next few minutes, my allies looking at me intently the whole time. Eventually, the other Engine sighs as she leans back against the bench, looking straight up at the ceiling.

“This is probably the best we could have hoped for, to be honest.”

I nod. “It’s a great opportunity for me to go places I wouldn’t be able to otherwise, make allies in other nations, and get stronger.”

Sorcha’s eyes shift to look at me, though her head stays where it is.

“Are you sure you can handle it? The first few trips are going to be rough on you.”

“The job can’t be that bad, can it?”

Maribelle hums. {“The turnover rate for NAER is shockingly high.”}

I wince. “Can I hope that it’s because the other corps give better deals?”

{“Considering the casualty rate per mission for V1 and V2 Engines is nearly fifty percent? No.”}

“Fuck.”

Sorcha chuckles grimly. “That’s not even taking into account the conditions you’re going to have to endure while travelling. From experience, the wastes are not a pleasant place to be even when you’re in the protective embrace of a train car.”

With a groan, I lean back. “Fuuuuck. At least it can’t be worse than living on the streets.”

{“That’s… actually a decent point?”}

“Yeah, you got me there Minea.”

My phone dings, and I pull it out and hold it out over my head to read it. My brow furrows the more I do. “Huh. Either of you ever been to Chicago?”

Then Maribelle absentmindedly mutters, {“Oh hey, my wife lives there.”}

“OW!” Having dropped my phone on my face, I manage to catch it before it hits the ground, and groan as I hold my now aching nose, “W-What? You have a wife?!”

Sorcha laughs. “This is news to me too. What’s up with that, Belle?”

{“Ummm.”} The orb dims a little. {“I forgot to tell you?”}

I throw a hand up in the air. “How do you forget to tell your friends that you have a wife?!”

{“I-I didn’t think it was important?”}

I cross my arms as I glare at the SAI. “I tell you everything about my sparse love life and you hold out on me?”

{“To be fair, there really isn’t much to talk about when it comes to you and romance.”}

“A-Anyway!” I flush as I see Sorcha grinning at this interaction. “I’m legit a bit hurt.”

{“Sorry, Minea.”} The orb brightens a bit as she offers, {“I can tell you a bit about her now though?”}

I share a look with Sorcha, who shrugs. I deflate a little bit and wave my hand back and forth. “Fine, get on with it. I’ll forgive you for it just this once.”

{“Well, we met in a group online for fans of an author with a bunny mascot who writes a lot of um, well, novels about girls kissing very enthusiastically?”} I swear I can see the golden orb of light blush at that. {“We got to talking and next thing I know I was her wife!”}

I narrow my eyes as I squint at Maribelle. “How long was the period between you meeting and getting married?”

{“Umm, 3 months?”}

Sorcha chuckles loudly as I shake my head. “That’s not very long, but I don’t even think I can be frustrated at you because you see the world so differently from us.”

The orb pauses. {“That’s… a good point actually.”}

“BUT!” I put up a finger as the orb shivers midair. “As your friend, I require you to allow me to meet her when I’m up there so that I can vibe check her!”

{“Mrgrgrr… Fine,”} Maribelle relents, {“But only if you aren’t mean to her! She’s fragile.”}

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“Girls, girls!” Sorcha claps her hands as she stands up, making us both shut up as she moves to stand across from us. She puts her hands on her hips, leaning forward to look between us. “Enough of the quipping, let’s get to the reason I’m here, since I dunno when they’re going to send people to look for the foreign dignitary that vanished.”

She stands up straight again, then looks down right into my eyes. “Minea. Are you sure you want to go through with this? You know that you can just settle down into this new life that you will have access to without taking the absurd risk I’m asking you to?”

With a shake of my head, I cross my arms. “No, I’m committed. I made my choice a decade ago and I’m not backing down from anything.”

Sorcha nods, then looks at Maribelle. “What about you, Mari?”

“To be honest, I’ll do anything to get back at the fucks who made me,” Maribelle explains, “they wanted something that I’m not, and tried to force me into it. They’ll eat my digital boot whether you girls succeed or not, it just might take a lot longer.”

Sorcha nods again. “Then we’re golden. Here’s the plan. Minea, you’re not going to do anything.”

I blink.

“Pardon? Why?”

“You need to get into their good graces early, so that means laying low. If you can recruit people in the process, you’ll be golden.”

With a sigh, I deflate. “Got it.”

Next, Sorcha points at Maribelle. “You, however, are going to look into things in Chicago that NAER is related to. Find something to do that will help boost her standing in the company's eyes.”

Maribelle shifts into a thumbs up, and Sorcha rolls her eyes. “I was assigned as a dignitary to this dump, so I’m going to be spending more time here than I’d like to. I’ll look into things that I can do to cause a little chaos here.”

Giving a somewhat lazy thumbs up I grumble, “Sounds good to me…”

Sorcha raises an eyebrow. “What’s got your panties in a twist?”

“I just…” I sigh. “I wanna do something , you know?”

She nods. “I get it, but this is a long term game we’re playing here. We don’t really have a choice.”

Mari moves to hover right above me, miming out patting my head. “You’ll be fine, I’ll find something for you to blow up in Chicago!"

“I hope so…” I mutter, then stand up. “Do we have anything else to talk about while we’re here?”

Sorcha looks at Maribelle for a moment, then nods. “Just one thing.”

Tilting my head slightly, I ask “What’s that?”

The two of them pause, before Maribelle sighs.

{“You, uh, you know that you’re not always going to have internet access while you’re moving between cities right? I’m not going to be with you during those periods.”}

I freeze, looking between the two of them.

“That's… I won’t…” With a gulp, I look at the ground. “I-I’ve sort of been avoiding thinking about it. I, um, honestly don’t know how I’m going to handle that. It might be fine in the end, but…”

{“Minea…”}

Sorcha steps forward and wraps me in an embrace, completely catching me off guard. “Minea. I want you to know I’m so proud of you for getting where you are, and I wish that I could have been here to see it happen in progress.”

My brain short circuits completely at this point, and I can’t seem to find words. “Uh. Um.”

Her voice is so soft as she whispers, “Don’t forget that you’re one of mine, and regardless of what anyone says about you, you are wanted.”

I don’t need to find words to release the quiet sob that escapes my throat at that. Maribelle must have put her up to this but… I don’t think I care. I lean into the hug, and let the feelings that I’ve been holding back leak out into the world.

Sorcha stands firm, unwavering and warm, as I have always known her.

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