Tags: no smut, feels, non-sexual violence Scylla was strung up in a web of thick orange ropes, her eyes took some time adjusting to the light. She was starting to feel sober, and that pissed her off more than the ropes. “Ooh, scary!” She called into the seemingly empty room. “Lemme guess, you’re gonna slide down from the ceiling like some stupid trideo villain with a spider fetish.” “Don’t be absurd.” Nite Crawler’s voice was close as though he were speaking directly into the back of her ear. Merely standing behind her, the twisted doctor turned the ropes so that the girl with the technicolor hair hung upside down, her rainbow plaid skirt fell down exposing her pale yellow panties adorned by a cartoon bear. Neither one of them cared, that wasn’t the point of this. “Normally my patients have their arms and legs unhindered by my web, but you’re not a patient.” He examined her with every vision possible. She didn’t have a single cybernetic, not so much as a datajack in her neck. How could one live with such an archaic body? “So?” Being sober made her standoffish in the face of danger as opposed to her usual laid back tone when dealing with villains. Not that she was usually used to dealing with anyone face to face. “So I’d like you to know why your arms and legs are secured.” Confusion fell from his voice. People were supposed to fear him. Why was it that this girl was so calm before him? He couldn’t help but be taken aback and insulted by the revelation that someone isn’t afraid of him. “Can you just start your monologue and get this over with?” Scylla rolled her eyes at him. Why would she be scared of him? She knew everything about him, she knew more than he knew about himself. Nothing in the world was a secret to Scylla, including Nite Crawler. “I’m missing quality porn hours. People are watching porn right now and I’m not there to watch them, so the sooner we can get this over with the better.” “Monologue?” “Well, whatever. Just tell me why you’ve got me strung up in your rave lab or whatever.” Nite Crawler was uncertain if she understood the danger she was in or if she was truly ignorant. Unfortunately for him it was the former and she knew just which buttons to press on this tool. “Rave lab? This is a highly technical office with a wide array of state of the art medical devices.” Behind his mask his voice rose a few decibels in anger. “All you’re missing is some bumpin’ tunes. What do you hand out instead of lollipops? Ecstasy? It’d certainly make these ropes feel a little more comfortable.” Squirming in the cables she was actually surprised by the comfort of them and the knots he’d tied her in, but of course if she told him that then there’d be no fun. “You’re here because I need to ask you questions concerning my patients.” Rage poured from his voice as he practically shouted at her, wanting to get to the point so that she might cease with her childish remarks. “Sure, what do you want to know? I’ve got whole dossiers on every single one of them, what each of their augments are, when and if you took them away, their birth names, their Runner names, what they have for breakfast on any given day...” Scylla’s tone flew flawlessly from sarcasm to smug. There was nothing she feared about this situation, so naturally she felt no need to hide her ace in the hole. “Or do you mean your other patients, Gregory Tipton.” The man beneath the mask was shocked. “There’s not a single piece of information I don’t know.” This was not true, but it was true enough. Scylla made other people’s business her business. When she wasn’t filtering pennies from the bank accounts of two thirds of the population of Seattle, she was being paid for information. “Then why are you coming after me? Why are you harassing my patient?” The only reason she was alive was because he wanted answers, but now he feared her knowledge. Where did she keep it all? What if after her death the police search her burned apartment and found a hard drive containing his secrets? It concerned him that she may have become too dangerous to kill now. “I wouldn’t expect you to remember me, I’ve changed a lot since we last met.” It was Scylla’s turn to feel rage. She could play coy all she wanted, but now that he saw all her cards, she wanted him to know just how upset she was. “So, let me tell you a story about a girl and her brother.” ~ “And why don’t you give them a try, Lance?” Dr. Tipton’s smile radiated as the young boy looked shyly at his legs. “Okay.” He looked to his sister, who was sitting in the office with him for moral support, if you could call it that. Her pale blonde hair was short, but still covered her eyes as she looked down at her commlink. Lance was excited that he was going to be walking for her birthday party tomorrow. He knew she was really distant after what happened, but he really wanted to surprise her for her birthday. After all, he felt so bad for being so busy with all his projects and had such a great gift for her. “Gwen! Watch me, okay?” The girl looked up, from her device and nodded. “I’m watching.” She said, trying desperately to sound excited. It’s not like she wasn’t happy that her little brother could finally walk, it’s that she couldn’t help but feel responsible for him to get into them in the first place. As he hopped off the counter and gave his new legs a try all Scylla could think of was the danger she had put him in. Their parents were always absent, off at one technology convention or another and left their kids to their devices figuring the two were old enough to take care of themselves. Unfortunately, when kids were left to themselves they got in with the wrong crowds. With their status and know-how the two were able to accomplish anything. On the net and in the shadows they were known as the Cyber Siblings. The two had gone on their first Run a couple days back and things got bad fast. The incendiary rounds had burned right through his legs and if the thug had sprayed his machine gun just a little higher, Lance would have lost more than just his legs. The kids had been able to pass it off as a welding accident--their parents were well versed in a lot of technology, but they didn’t know burns from an incendiary versus burns from welding tool. “Wow!” Lance’s voice snapped Scylla from her guilt induced daydream. “Are these A-384 Hydraulic Ligaments?” “They are! You really know your stuff,” Dr. Tipton was both impressed and surprised by the young boy’s knowledge. “I’ve wanted to get some for my next project, but my allowance is only a couple hundred nuyen.” “That’s more than I got when I was your age,” Dr. Tipton chuckled. “We’re a bit of a special case.” Gwen spoke up, now looking back at her commlink. She needed a distraction. “Of course. You know it’s not every day I get celebrities in my office.” Trying to warm up to the ice cold girl, he tried a joke. “Our parents are the celebrities, we just share the name.” Gwen lifted her commlink to face, trying to hide from the doctor and hoping he wouldn’t say anything else to her. “What model is that? I don’t think I’ve seen it before.” The doctor asked, pointing to her rather large and handheld commlink. “I made it myself, none of the ones on the market had my needed specifications.” She huffed. “And those are?” Dr. Tipton asked through curiosity. “Private.” The girl said, dismissing him. The air in the room changed and Lance shifted nervously before speaking up to the man who made his legs. “Thanks for the new legs Dr. Tipton.” Looking down at the multicolored plates he smiled. “I can’t believe you even made them rainbow colored like I asked. I’ll be honest I was kinda joking.” “Well, all my patients get the exact colors they want, even those who want rainbow.” That smile of his was enough to wash all the tension from Lance’s heart. After checking his watch he slapped his hands to his thighs as he spoke. “Well, it’s about time for my four o’clock to be coming in. You two aren’t my only new patients today.” Shooing them from the office he prepared for the next patient. The two siblings walked out of the office and into the hallway where a girl, probably a year younger than Gwen rolled up in a wheelchair. Her hair was much more blonde than Gwen’s in fact, it was practically yellow. Both legs and her right arm were missing and Gwen couldn’t help but wonder how she ended up that way. A few quick swipes of her commlink and she had the information from the doctor’s office. A massively bad hovercar crash. The only survivor. Poor thing. The girl seemed to look up at Lance with hope, seeing his multicolored legs made her expectant that she might someday have legs like that. It was that night when things went to shit. Apparently, the security system that Gwen had set up for the Cyber Siblings wasn’t secure enough. She had never expected those thugs from the other night to break into the lavish estate they resided in. Kicking in the door to the room they did most of their work from the mohawked elf sprayed a hailfire of bullets into the room, shattering the dozens of non-holographic monitors and computers as well as several trid devices. Tucking her head down, Gwen’s instincts kicked in. ‘Save Lance’ was the only thought on her mind. Her brother was across the room rifling through a box. Despite the armed men firing firing on them, he had higher priorities, his sister. With her birthday in just one day, he couldn’t just let her present get destroyed by these punks, he’d worked so hard to make it. It wasn’t a sensible thing to do in a life or death situation. Dashing to grab him, Gwen wrapped an arm around his waist and dragged him away from the box of his possessions. He had just grabbed his gift, wrapped in a tiny cardboard box. Gwen leaped out the window, dragging him in tow. Better to jump and break limbs than to stay inside and get punctured by bullets. Lance was the faster thinker of the two and as they fell from the second story window he held Gwen in his arms and landed on his new robotic legs. Unfortunately A-384 Hydraulic Ligaments were not made for jumping out of windows and while they both landed safely, the legs themselves crunched against the ground, causing him to limp beside Gwen as she helped him along. The human in the group of thugs pushed the elf aside. His cyber eyes locked onto the boy. After all, it was him they wanted dead. His rifle was a burst fire, though even with the lock on from the cyber eye he still missed a fatal shot. Two bullets in the leg and one in the back. With Gwen holding him tightly, they were able to escape. The idiots left their car in the driveway and none of these Shadowrunners ever left someone with the car, they all wanted to get in on the action. For Gwen, no car was locked and no car couldn’t be turned on by her commlink. Pushing her brother into the back seat, she climbed into the front and hacked its system. Where would they go? Away from home, away from their private possessions and away from anywhere their mom or dad would be. General Health building, of course. She plugged in directions to the first place she could think of and climbed back to her brother as the car came to life and began to drive on it’s own. Lance was looking bad, the bullet was still in him, somewhere since she couldn’t find an exit wound. That didn’t stop all the blood though. She did her best to keep pressure applied. The box in his hands slipped from his fingers. Gwen didn’t even notice, she was too focused on keeping all the blood in his body. The car pulled into the parking lot of the General Health building. The elevator ride up to the thirty-fourth floor felt like an eternity, but once the metal doors slid open Gwen dragged her dying brother to the doctor they had seen barely nine hours prior. He was just stepping from his office, but he saw them. How could he not? “What the hell is this?” He couldn’t help but curse, he was shocked to say the least. “We got into some trouble. I didn’t know where else to go.” Gwen stammered, “Can you help him?” He didn’t really have the option to refuse. Dr. Tipton was practically scowling. “Bring him into my office.” He should have known it wasn’t just some accident that brought that boy into his office, these children were Runners, given their talents it should have been no surprise, but still they were children. Gwen dragged her brother into the office and Dr. Tipton followed. Pulling on surgical gloves he pulled his tray of tools to begin working on the boy. “Just what got you two into so much trouble?” “These men just attacked us in the street and they shot him. They must have known who we were because they kept asking for our credsticks.” To most people, she would have lied through her tears well, but Dr. Tipton knew better now. “It’s a shame that I don’t believe you, tell me the real reason.” He stopped working, his hands sat perfectly still upon the bloody mess that was Gwen’s brother. “What? Th-that’s the truth.” How much did he know? Gwen trembled with fear. “If you don’t tell me, how do you expect me to help you?” The doctor’s voice became cold, methodical. It was as if he wasn’t Dr. Tipton anymore. “If your story is true why didn’t you go to a hospital? Why did you come here?” There was no answer. Dr. Tipton began to pull away from his new patient. “My oaths are not as important to me as you might think.” “We stole some information from them. Lance built a simple robot that would distract them while I snuck in and jacked into their computers. Apparently, Lonestar wanted the information and we were gonna put it on a dead drop tonight.” She spilled everything. “Just please, keep working on him.” Tears streamed down her face. Dr. Tipton resumed his work, though he was rather bitter that children were getting into Shadowrunning so young. “Don’t go to that dead drop. When Lonestar says there’s going to be a dead drop it’s code.” Gwen was silent and confused. What did he know about Lonestar? “It means they’re going to take the information and kill the messenger.” “How do you-” “I just do.” He knew more than that even, he what the information she stole was and who she stole it from. His Runners. The two sat in silence for the rest of the operation, only the clinks of metal shards were between them as Dr. Tipton pulled bullet fragments from Lance’s body. Finally, after a few hours he looked to Gwen solemnly. “The bullet bounced around a lot within him. Replacing his internal organs would be possible, but I would have to be getting so many parts for that, I simply don’t have those lying around.” Bedside manner was never really a strong suit of his, he rarely needed it since all he did was give people new limbs. There was never a case of complications with that. “Will he live?” Gwen practically shouted. “For a few more hours at most.” Wails of anguish poured from her lips. “I’m sorry. I’ve given him something for the pain and I’ll step outside to give you some privacy.” There was so much she wanted to say, but no words came from her mouth. She was speechless and weeping. “Shhh.” Lance weakly pressed a finger to her lips. “Don’t worry, Gwen.” His voice was what you’d expect from a dying boy, weak, small, but he seemed all too calm. “You don’t need to worry on your birthday.” Confused, she checked her commlink. 12:03 am. It was her birthday. She was officially thirteen. The day she’d been looking forward to for weeks now seemed pitiful. How could she enjoy such a thing without her brother? “ “I dropped your gift in the car. You should get it, I’ll just wait here.” Despite his current state there was a smile on his face. He couldn’t think of a better gift to give her on his death bed. “No, I’m not gonna leave you,” she almost sounded angry at him. “Don’t worry, I’ll be right by your side when you get back. Promise. Now go get it.” Practically shooing her away, Lance said once last thing before she left. Fearing he wasn’t going to make it until she got back. “Just open it in the car and tell me how you liked it.” There was a panic to her movements and Gwen pushed passed the doctor in the hallway. She had nothing to say to him. The elevator ride down was worse than the way up. With tears pouring down her face, the music seemed all too cheery. She couldn’t stand it. Once she made her way to the car she reached in the back and grabbed the small box. Once opened, a holographic greeting card came to life depicting a small animated short of a dog and cat opening and raiding a fridge, beneath it was the caption ‘Together we can accomplish anything. So why should we ever be apart?’ With the desperate struggles of breath that only come from heavy tears, Gwen took out the small datajack in the box and looked at it. A small piece of blue tape wrapped around it and written on it was a message ‘What’re you waiting for? Plug me in!’ With shaking hands, Gwen plugged the datajack into her commlink and a program code whizzed to life as a window opened up. It looked like a chat log. When the first message popped up she stopped crying immediately. Lance: Hey Gwen, what do you need? She typed back with a fierce intensity only reserved for those in the middle of a fire fight. Gwen: What is this? A new messaged popped up immediately. “Lance: A program written from my neural transmission helmet. It’s not perfect, after all you’re the programmer, but since this program was written from my brainwaves, it’s essentially me. So, no matter how busy I am you can always ask my input. Lance: Did you need anything else, Gwen? Gwen: Not right now. As she closed the program Gwen slumped down in the bloodstained backseat, too tired to put any effort into crying she simply let the tears stream down her face. What should have been simply a thoughtful gift had turned into the only connection she had from her brother. She wondered if it would suffice. Turning on the program again, the message box opened. Lance: Hey Gwen, what do you need? Gwen: A hug. Lance: I’m sorry, that’s not really possible. Why don’t you try asking the real me when I’m available.” Whimpering sounds turned to gasping groans of displeasure. There was nothing in this world that could compare to her brother, not even his own brain. Two knuckles rapped on the window. Gwen opened it and tried to compose herself to talk to Dr. Tipton. “You’ll want to disappear. If Lonestar doesn’t get that dead drop, they’ll come find you.” Looking to the car he continued. “I’ll get rid of this, you just get out of here.” “But my brother’s still-” “Your brother is dead.” The doctor said coldly, but continued. “And you will be to if you don’t get out of here.” She followed his words and left. She couldn’t help but catch herself thinking: But he’s not dead. He’s right here, with me. Lance: Hey Gwen, what do you need? Gwen: You. ~ “Then I used my skills to erase my name, records, any trace of me that ever touched the net. Then I kept myself off it. New programs that keep me safe from counter-hacking. I don’t even leave a trace. I created a new identity that no one will ever know except the few unfortunate enough to have to Run with me in person.” Finishing her story, a tear fell from her eye awkwardly because of her upside down permission. “So why did you wish to ruin me? I did all I could to save your brother.” His mask always looked so menacing, Scylla much prefered his real face. “Because you didn’t.” Anger roared behind her words. “When I found out what you do on the side, Mr. Nite Crawler, I realized you had all the technology to fix him in hand up here, but you never took us up here. Why?” “Because then you would have been working for me and would have been in no different of a situation.” Seeing now that the girl he thought he saved had turned into a Shadowrunner regardless, he was pained. She would have been a great asset. “I had hoped that you would avoid Running all together.” “I Run because of what happened. I don’t deserve to die of old age. I want to die like he did.” She started to cry. Really cry for the first time since that night. Nite Crawler flipped her back right side up and walked around to her front. “I have a story for you as well.” Folding his arms behind his back, he continued. “That very night, a spider caught a few flies. They had all come to the spider for better wings, eyes, and legs and the spider gave them to the flies. That night, the spider took back those wings and eyes and legs. He plucked them clean while they writhed in pain. The flies had done nothing against the spider, but he simply decided that those flies did not deserve the wings, eyes, and legs that he gave them. Then the spider did something he had never done before or since. He killed those flies.” Staring Scylla down with his eight orange eyes, she looked back, sniffling despite the smile that built on her face. The robotic arms released her and she fell to the ground, tangled in loose cable. “You should go.” Nite Crawler gestured towards the door of his office. “I trust that you’ll leave my business alone.” Scylla stood up and practically ran over to Nite Crawler, wrapping him in an embrace. This is the second time this had happened to Nite Crawler and he still wasn’t used to it. “Thank you.” “Please just leave,” he was never a fan of sentimentality. “Sure thing.” Turning and leaving she pulled out her commlink. Her favorite program started up when she entered it as it always did. It had gone through some changes over the years thanks to her programming skills. Charybdis: Hey Scylla, what do you need? Scylla: Nothing, I got everything I need. With quiet hands, she plugged in the datajack she had briefly plugged into Nite Crawler’s mask during the hug. Dozens of images, camera feed recordings and sound bites poured into her storage.