Thunder and Webs C117 [Gold]

The promised day has come. Ripley is ready to Implant his mother.

Apologies for the delay, three chapters today and regular posting back on. I'll also upload extra chapters in the coming weeks so that Gold is back on schedule.

Chapter 117: Every Step Led To This

February 13th

3:46 PM

Mirage

“I keep telling you, you don’t need to worry about me!” Twilight answered over the call. “Besides, I’m not supposed to… tell you police stuff, you know this.”

“I know, Twilight, it’s just…” Elsa leaned on her mattress, her heart unnaturally vulnerable. “Somehow, I miss you.”

“I miss you too, bitch.” Twilight replied, seemingly satisfied to hear some admission like that from her author. “Even though… I’m relieved to be away.”

“Yeah, can’t say I blame you.” Elsa chuckled, tapping her skull. “My head’s a mess.”

“And so is mine. Living with Diana… is an experience.” Twilight chuckled. “She gives you a run for your money in being multiple people at once. Poor girl hasn’t been catching a break. And I’m beginning to worry I’m a bad influence on her. She’s been… flip-flopping through her worlds quite a lot.”

“Well… at least her public appearances as Lilian Rose aren’t raising any suspicions. You’re good at that.” Elsa sighed, eyes scanning through the net. “Anyway… enough about her. Are you sure… sure you don’t want to say goodbye to them?”

“It wouldn’t change much, they never got to know… me as I am.” Twilight’s voice had a tone of pain to it. “Just stay safe, El.”

“You too.” Elsa said, before the call closed. Her eyes felt heavy, lines of code coursed through her mind at each instant as she looked at the Datacubes holding Daylight and Midnight.

She leaned forward, a chord from her arm connecting her to them.

Midnight appeared in her shadowy dress, coursing light of scarlet pulsing through her like blood as clawed hands raised. “So, dear sister has refused to say goodbye to us.”

“It’s not that, and you know it.” Elsa sighed, a hint of pain breaking through. “But Mid, Day… what I offered, you’ve made up your mind?”

“There’s no place in the world for someone like me.” Midnight scowled.

“And I’m perfectly happy where I am!” Daylight chimed, hugging Elsa from behind. “Plus, I want to stay with you and Ripley!”

“You girls… have to understand that I can’t…” Elsa rubbed her eyes. “I’m trying to move past needing you both to regulate my emotions. You two staying with me… would defeat that purpose, I’d have to-”

“Of course.” Midnight hissed. “Throw us away, wouldn’t be the first time you sent us out to die.”

“But hey, I’m not sad about it, Elsa!” Daylight smiled. “I’ve lived a short, but happy life.”

“Of course, you have Day.” Midnight scowled, scorn filling her eyes. “You aren’t allowed to feel sad, everything about you is sunshine and rainbows.”

“Aw, don’t be so sour, Middy!” Daylight poked her darker reflection’s cheek. “We should be happy that Elsa is becoming a good person… I’ll be perfectly fine dying if it means her and Ripley become…”

Daylight’s smile faltered, only to become more feverish than before. “We should be glad!”

Midnight scoffed. “Fucking tool.”

Elsa snapped her fingers in between the two of them, groaning. “Look, give me time to consider other options… I don’t want to rush this before becoming a Gold Adapter.”

“So its about you?” Midnight turned a wise eye. “Whatever, just kill me off for the umpteeth time again, no need to make such a big deal out of this. Just tell Ripley that we’re too unstable or some other bullshit you say whenever we become too different from what you want. I can hardly believe you’re even going with all his ‘embrace the light’ bullshit. You know what you are… you know what you can’t help but be.”

Elsa’s eyes darkened, black and white rings erasing her violet gaze. “Really? Forgive me for trying to change, even when I offer you both that option, you refuse to-”

[Incoming Call from Rip <3]

Elsa shushed the two personality clones of her, picking up the call. “Ripley, everything okay?”

“Yeah…” His voice came out tired. “I’m just… I’m ready to put it in her, El. I need you with me.”

“Oh… right now?” Elsa jerked up. “Did you…?”

“I didn’t.” His voice came out flat. “But we didn’t find anything suspicious on Skeleton’s Implant. I’m going to wake her up now… so… just come, please.”

“I will… love you.” She smiled into the call.

“Thank you… and I…” his voice took a moment to continue, “I love you too.”

As the call ended, Elsa packed her stuff and found herself ready to leave in minutes, but hesitated. She felt the collar given by Missy around her neck, dictating her life in the hands of Ripley Donovick, as much as she trusted her boyfriend…

Her fingers held up the package Missy had given her. Ripley had been given a tool to control her; and she’d received one to control him.

———

Ripley

4:23 PM

Taking my mom off sedation and removing the ventilator, I took the risk of injecting her with some of my nanites to stimulate her nervous system’s respiratory centers into remaining active. Her breathing came shallow, her eyes half-lidded as they opened, and her speech slurred. I held her hand as she spoke in weak rasps. “Riii… Ripley?”

“I’m here, Mom.” I squeezed both metal hands around her singular flesh limb, feeling the weak pulse of her blood beneath my steel. “I just wanted to talk to you for… a moment. Me and Starlight both.”

Starlight chimed up from a drone hovering beside me. “Abuela! We’ve got everything ready for you to start working again!”

My mom had a dream-like smile come to her face as she spoke in a soft whisper. “Thank you, Star… I’ve been wanting to dig my fangs into some good old chrome again. It’s been too long.”

“I know, it really has.” I chuckled, my nanites stimulating and reacting to her nervous system, just barely providing her the lucidity I needed to hear in her right now. “But… I need to talk to you, inform you… about the risks.”

I pulled out the Implant. “With this, you should be fine, healthy and… able to live as you were. However, I’m… I can’t promise you that it will work.”

“Mhmmm.” She yawned. “Ripley, I’ve been perfectly aware of that for a long time. What you’ve done for me… is incredible. Every step of the way, you’ve grown so much.”

She tried to sit up. I leaned in to support her, letting her tear-filled gaze drip its emotion into my own. “I know you’ve had to do… bad things for this. I knew you would have to, to save me. And… I’m so sorry for putting you through all of this.”

“I told you, this was my-”

“Your decision.” She nodded, her pale and thin fingers reaching for my cheek. “It was your decision, and it was me who decided not to get in your way. I could have. I reasonably could have done a lot more to stop your idiot ass from causing trouble for yourself, for… digging deep into this messed-up conspiracy. And I’m sorry myself for… being just as curious as you were. I should have been more careful, more… put together for a long time. You’ve taken on so much for me, and you’re just a boy.”

I let her continue getting her words out. “I know you’ve been… dealing with so much inside your head, and I’ve never been able to help with it the way I should have. And so, I’m terrified, Rip… of dying, of leaving you alone, of not being able to watch you grow and… I’ve been scared that… me being sick changed you.”

“Changed me…” My eyes closed as I picked apart what she said countless times over. “Your fears… I did change.”

“I know…” Her eyes squeezed with shame.

“But I don’t regret a thing…” I leaned in to hug her. “I did bad things, hurt people who didn’t deserve it, made life a whole lot worse for so many people. Ever since I got this power, I acted out in ways… I thought I never could. For a while, I accepted being a bad person was necessary, but I refuse to think that way now… because of you, because of Starlight… I want to be a good person. To make up for all those mistakes I made, even though time-and-time again, I would do them for you.”

She sniffled, her breath wet and cold on my shoulder. “Rip… no matter what anyone thinks, you’re my hero. You always have been, and you always will be. No matter what you’ve done, I’ll walk every step of the way with you to change this city. This world.”

I needed to hear those words more than she knew.

“Thank you, mom…” I rubbed her back, letting myself feel that warmth for as long as I could. “I’m going to be honest with you… I know I’ve done all this and found a cure, but… it isn’t guaranteed to work. What I’m doing to you right now is using my nanites as a neural stimulator to let you regain consciousness and control of your body. Theoretically, I could do it indefinitely until… your sicknesses reach a natural threshold that I can’t sustain anymore. If you’d rather not take the risk, if you’d want… a few more weeks in good health and sound mind, I could… I’m just giving you a choice.”

Her hand found its way to my cheek, rubbing the tears that I hadn’t quite realized were falling as she spoke with surprising confidence. “I’ll take the cure. I want to live. At least to see Starlight get a sibling or two.”

Smiling, I tapped my forehead against hers, before giving a resounding nod. “I’ll be sedating you for the operation, okay…”

“I trust you.” She let go of me slowly, savoring every touch as I injected the sedative into her veins.

As sleep began to consume her, my thoughts stirred quickly into overflowing panic, but Starlight stayed to keep my mind in check. “Dad, we’re both ready for this…”

I knew, but I checked the Implant again and again, swallowing my doubts as I awaited for Elsa to arrive. Those minutes passed in silent procedures, as I injected my mother with numerous medicines to ensure her body wouldn’t struggle from the sudden intrusion of a piece of alien matter.

The Silver Implant, pulsed in my hands, like a faint heartbeat — one I had to transfer to her. No, one that was rightfully hers. My grandfather, Alberich Gravas, the Hammersmith had this Implant prepared for her, and yet she decided to save it for me… until my father’s death tore it away from us.

It had taken years to come back to us, but it did. It’s Unique Feature, Technopath, would set my mother on the course of being everything she deserved to be. A groundbreaking Shard Operator, one who’d set this world towards a brighter future, just like she struggled to give me one. She’d gotten us here, one step at a time.

Elsa’s arrival came, but her words barely passed through the sound of my own heartbeat. Everything I’d persevered for came to this, to save my mother, to change our fucked up future’s.

“Elsa,” I settled my fingers onto her cheek. “It’s time.”

She took my hand, kissing the metal fingers as she offered me a soft smile. “Ripley… you have a big heart. Don’t forget that.”

“I know…” I lifted the Silver, taking one last good look upon it.

Features: Integration; Technopath; Sustain

Grade: Silver

Compatibility: 87%

Gently, I plucked the thin skin of my mother’s hand, letting a single drop of blood melt onto the steel carapace of the implant. Perfectly in tune with her, it writhed up, seeking her flesh out as it expanded into the form of a silver spider. It curled away from my grasp and onto her fingers, skittering excitedly up her forearm, elbow, to the back of her triceps, around her shoulder and clavicle — one step at a time — before pin-pointing her nape and the Neuroframe over it.

With sharp fangs, it burrowed a hole beside the trapezoidal block of metal, slipping into my mother’s sedated flesh until it disappeared into a bloodless wound where it would crawl up her spine and towards her brainstem.

I clutched my mother’s hands, my breathing overtaking my thoughts as I heard the sound of a whistle breaking through from the sheer tension. My mother’s hands tensed on mine, her mouth flew open in a silent gasp and a gurgle of pure desperation left my own.

“Come on…” I closed my eyes, tears flowing down in a river as I desperately searched for the working Warpcode of the Implant within her. All I felt were the failed prototypes of a cure in my pocket. Useless Silver Implants.

Useless… when I’d broken apart the fundamental laws of this world to create them. In the end all I could hope on was the past, on the legacy my grandfather had left us, that somewhere despite his abandonment he’d left her a path forward. He’d done so much for her, this had to work.

Then I felt it. The first tangible waves from her Bioshard that her Implant was beginning to fuse with her brainstem, lovely waves of warpcode that transmitted hopes and dreams of a future. Meeting their waves, I poured my own Gold into working through Frequency Sync, as though I could Warp this shitty future of ours into something better.

In the distance, I felt the tangible pressure in my skull of an Update, but I didn’t let it distract me as my mother twitched and buckled, her hand tightening on mine.

Elsa’s voice echoed behind me, a startled gasp. “Ripley…”

“It’s working.” I hushed. “It has to work.”

I poured more of my purest will to make this work, dreaming of a future where she stood by my side as a mentor, keeping me in check when I inevitably would grow overeager and mess something up. I saw the two of us saying goodbye to this shitty apartment, putting a bowtie on this chapter of our lives as we reclaimed destiny from the hands of greedy corporations.

I saw the Swarm, the undoubtable misery it would bring. That harrowing inevitability where we’d have to fight for our lives, for our city, for our future. I’d never stop fighting, I’d do anything possible to be the hero she believed I was. We’d do it all together. One step at a time. Because…

Tears choked me as I gasped. “Because you’re my hero, Mom.”

The blurry refracted lights entering my eyes were hazy, dream-like, but I could feel warm pressure on my hands. Conscious pressure I’d dreamed of for so long. A small flutter of code slipping through the nerves of leading down to her thumb.

I saw her singular eye open, barely. A warm smile leading into a chuckle, one distracting my mind from the whistle in the distance.

“Mom?” I smiled in between the snot dripping down my face and throat.

She smiled, slowly drinking in this world with new life.

And then I felt a needle in my neck.

Static blurred my vision, a sharp pain burning through my head as I felt weaker. Lost. Vulnerable.

I staggered back, my eyes reconfiguring from the momentary loss of connection as I felt Elsa hold me and saw Starlight’s drone shivering in the air. “Dad… are you… alright?”

“Ripley, I’m so sorry.” Elsa held onto me like she was losing me, but I was so confused. All I heard was that damned whistle in my ears, the static in my eyes refusing to witness reality before I felt that needle in my neck pierce even tighter.

My hand reached for the wrist injecting me, but I saw through the tears and static that it led to Elsa’s tearful face. “What…”

“It was the only way… Psyche updated. It created a Protocol that…”

“What?” Breath shook out of me. “Everything was fine!”

“Ripley…” She buried her face into my chest, before her hands touched my face and suddenly the static cleared. “I’m so sorry.”

I saw the update that had occurred.

Psyche V.3.24 has updated to V.4.00

Effects:

• Increased ability to focus on hopeful futures.

• Reconfiguring… Protocol: Dreamscape allows the Adapter to focus and live out simulated dreams of the Adapter’s desires.

I could finally determine the source of the whistle.

It came from a line on a hologram above my mother, one connected to her heart rate. It was flat.

Her hand was limp, dangling down the side of her hospital bed as a silver insect crawled down on it — covered in blood.

It curled back into an orb and fell to the floor, bouncing twice before rolling to my feet.