#e002.5

Task 002 (ii) — Character Development AU — coming home. 

Her foot comes down, and she thinks nothing of it. Barely audible is the click of a panel being pressed and the mechanical hum of a rebel-made landmine stirring to life. The explosion comes like an egg being hatched; all around her columns of sand heat into glass that slice up and against her, her bones snap, but the flames — this yellow heated yolk — licks the muscle from her skin and leaves her burning. 

This time, Cairo is not accorded the privilege of forgetting. 

She remembers being pulled from the flames and being stripped of her smoldering clothes. She remembers someone’s fists coming together in a knot against her chest, and a mouth, and wishing she would just die instead. How much easier that would have been! But no. Cairo caught enough breath to cough a spray of blood, and through no fault of her own, she lived. 

Though she herself was strewn across the field, all pieces of meat like a horrible butchery, everything was sewn back into place accordingly. Her doctors quipped she was more stitches than soldier, and Cairo tried to smile at that. She really did. A representative from the Corporation gave her a stack of papers, of which her signature would consent to her total transformation into a Synthetic. (Though the Corporation had the authority to convert deceased soldiers, permission was required when available.) Cairo looked at it. Truthfully, she may have considered it, but ultimately she declined. There was something about the fact that her body was still alive, alive and breathing and doggedly refusing to give up on her despite having been shattered over and over again. There was something about stitches. Stitches instead, any day. 

The invitation came to her half past noon in the form of a smooth grey envelope sealed in gold. A stark difference from Cairo herself, her arms elbow-deep in potting soil at the moment. But then again, both letter and herself were historical things, demure in their antiquity. Both had no business refusing to evolve in technologically advanced Harbor. Both had no business continuing to exist. 

Cairo had cleaned her hands in a black garden hose and taken the note from her android’s waiting palm. Her friend’s swooping signature was instantly recognizable: Titus Blackly, MD, MPH, PhD, Extravagance Incarnate. He was famous in her heart as the friend who stayed; while most others were appalled at her decision to reject the Corporation’s generosity, Blackly was Cairo’s girlhood neighbor. He understood her decision because he understood her, wholly. Titus could recognize her by voice alone. And Cairo realized that this letter, this primitive method of communication, couldn’t have come from anyone else.

‘Bellissima —‘ he began, and she smiled at his voice in her head. His note urged her to join him at CEOSC, which she would never attend of her own accord. Firstly, because she could hardly fathom standing for such a long stretch of time. Secondly, because she loathed other scientists. But when she’d moved to her closet, it was Titus’ hands on her own as she pulled a sweeping green gown from its hook and changed into it before the night began.

And when Titus’s hands had found the handles of her wheelchair, her doubt began to fade. She could do this. She could embody poise and professionally, and ignore the many eyes that found interest in the white gashes all over her skin. How he’d beamed at her! And how much joy she’d felt at the sight of his boyish grin — maybe this was worth it. But then her stomach turned when he left to fetch the both of them drinks, and Cairo’s gaze found the scrutiny of Titus’ sister instead. Milla Blackly was taller than Titus, thin like a snake, and a Synthetic. Her eyes were full of fire, full of fury, and she didn’t have to utter a word for Cairo to know she was unwelcome here. And really, who was she to intrude?

Which was how she found herself here, on the balcony overlooking the tall buildings of Harbor, clutching her arms to her chest and trying to ignore the snap of winter air biting through her clothes. Despite her embarrassment, she still held herself with an air of regality; shoulders back, chin up. It was almost indecent. Her attention shifted suddenly at the sound of the door opening. For a moment, the thrumming buzz of the convention sounded loudly again, but it was muffled soon enough by the door closing, and was replaced by a young figure who Cairo examined wearily. Her voice came out in a breath of fog, “Lovely night, isn’t it? I hope you don’t mind the cold.”