sorry mom

[meyneth]

Who: Fiora (meyneth) and Meh Yewll (imaginary_wife)
When: Evening of April 30th
Where: Med Bay
What: Fiora got stabbed by Rinzler after trying to bring him to Alan by herself. She's at the Med Bay for the second time in less than a month for repairs.
Warnings: cyborg trauma; probably discussion of violence/what happened.



[It's late at night, close to midnight, when the sliding door to the Med Bay opens. In stumbles Fiora, barely able to stand, and there's a distinct sound of water sloshing loudly as she stomps to the nearest examination table and practically collapses onto it, one arm splayed over the edge so she can grab onto the frame and keep herself from sliding off.

The noisy entrance is over by the time the automatic door closes behind her. Now there's just the sound of dripping - not slow dripping, but rapid. Dripping like that from an overfilled gutter during a rainstorm.]

Doctor! [Fiora cries, one cheek pressed against the table, her gaze turned to the side.] A-Are you still here?!

Comments

[imaginary_wife]

[Doc Yewll is almost always there. She hears the sound as she's in the back, three sets of DNA read-outs rotating on her screen, and she turns to see-]

The hell happened to you?

[She's already running over, though, frantic to get to the mess of a woman she repaired just the month before.]

[Maybe if she has time to process, she will recognize what that mess of a wound is. Considering she saw something like it on Tron. But for now she wants to stifle what sounds like a flood.]

[meyneth]

[The doctor's voice. She is here, then. The knowledge energizes her briefly, and with a grunt, Fiora weakly pushes on the ground with one foot. It's enough for her to drag her body onto the table with her arms, although on her stomach - which isn't going to be very useful for repairs or for stopping the consistent leaking of water. Considering the fact that she had to stumble here from wherever it was she'd been injured, it's a lot of water rushing from her system still.]

A - A fight.

[She's not out of breath, but she does seem to be shaken and exhausted. Planting one hand on the examination table, she tries to roll herself over. But her abdominal flexors are severed and one of her legs is partially paralyzed on top of it, making the complex motion of turning one's body over to be very difficult.

But from the side, it's clear Fiora took a severe hit to her abdomen. Wires and bits of metal protrude from every which way. Somehow, it's the physical damage that's the problem, and not so much her robotics being doused with water.]

...It looks... worse than it is.

[imaginary_wife]

Looks bad enough. Jesus. That's a hell of a fight.

What does the other guy look like?

[Doc Yewll forcibly grabs her to turn her properly, looking at the mess of wires and water. She goes to grab the drone again, and a laser scalpel.] Shtak. Let's plug your damn leak first. Holy hell, woman.

[meyneth]

Yeah, it was... unlucky...

[To say the least. The water tank wasn't simply punctured; the corner of it was cut clean off, like diagonally slicing off the corner of a block of cheese. The thank is empty by now, of course - all that gushing water was from the rest of it draining out of her.

Now that she's on her back, the leaking has finally stopped. There's one error message gone, about two dozen left to go.]

I promise, it's not that bad. I've got a backup battery. [As if that makes the physical carnage any better. Also, she'll just... gently avoid that question about her attacker.]

[imaginary_wife]

You didn't answer my other question. If there's someone else out there hurt, I need to know. Or I need to tell someone to stop them before someone else is.

[She hasn't been alerted to any deaths via the MIDs yet. Sometimes she's not within earshot anyway.]

[But right now she focuses on the woman in front of her. Getting that water stifled first, so it's not in the way.]

[meyneth]

[The flow of water out of the wound has almost halted entirely, now that she's on her back. She bends her good leg to tip her body slightly, exposing more of her wounded side for the doctor's tool.]

He's not hurt.

[But she doesn't sound bitter or angry about it. Instead, she picks up one arm and lays it across her eyes, exhausted.]

He won't stop either.

[imaginary_wife]

Then we need to call someone. [She says in a matter of fact tone.] Who did this?

[She doesn't turn away from her work though. Not yet.]

[meyneth]

[Fiora doesn't answer. She says nothing. Instead, she turns her head away from the doctor, arm still crossed over her face, hiding her expression.

Telling on Rinzler will just make this worse for him. It'll just make people more angry at him for things that are outside his control. This wasn't supposed to happen - she was supposed to detain him, take him to Alan, and help him go back to normal. Help him recover from what had been done to him...

Now, those idiots Peter and Alice will go after him with no sympathy or empathy and probably just convince Rinzler to respond to others with violence even more than he already does.

Finally, just as it looks like she's ignoring Meh, Fiora mutters.]

You know... There were lots of others like me. Other people who were kidnapped by the Mechon to be turned into Face Units. We're immune to the Monado... because in our hearts, we're still human, and... the Monado doesn't work on humans. Only Mechon. So we were like... a work-around. A cheat.

[Pause.]

We're all brainwashed. They force us to be loyal to the Mechon, and attack our old homes... Our old families. After having gutted our bodies and adding all this scrap in its place.

[imaginary_wife]

[It's then that Doc Yewll thinks about the damage done, that she looks at the mess and realizes the weapon that did it because she's seen it before.]

Rinzler.

[She can see where this is going.]

Why did he attack you?

[meyneth]

[Yes, Rinzler. Fiora's heart sinks when Meh figures it out, but she isn't surprised either. If anyone would know Rinzler's modus operandi, it would be the people who work in the Med Bay.]

Because I attacked him. This man, Alan, he said he can fix Rinzler's programming.

[Is the doctor going to... tell everyone now? Fiora doesn't want the entire ship to know, as shameful as the feeling is. Going to the hold or having a trial or whatever, that doesn't scare her. But what if people assume she's the same as Peter and Alice?

The thought makes her want to explain herself even more.] Doctor, you... you don't know how many Face Units still need saving. All those normal people who got converted and brainwashed, while I... while I was lucky, I got it easy...

[imaginary_wife]

You fucking moron.

[She doesn't even beat around the bush.] He's not a face unit. He's a program. I could have reprogrammed him months ago, me and Sam Flynn. Tron told me not to back when Rinzler attacked him because he said that his consent to change was important. And Tron is Rinzler, from a different timeline. They've been through the same thing.

And if you want to get into vague similarities, having been made a part of a slave race? Consent is pretty damn important.

Now hold still and let me fix this. Then I gotta check and see if he's on the defensive. [Though Frisk will have posted by then.]

[meyneth]

[Fiora is silent during the doctor's derision, and she keeps her arm splayed across her eyes. But by the end of it, she's hiding behind it, and her lips is quivering tersely.

She wasn't done talking yet. But fine. Nobody seems to care about actually helping Rinzler. It seems they'd have done it by now. Instead, they'll just let him keep on being brainwashed and unable to help himself. Maybe the doctor things all the Face Units should just be allowed to gleefully kill their families, too? After all, they'd never consent to being put back to normal. If Fiora had suffered the same treatment and killed her brother, that would be fine? No consequences and no helping her either?

Why the hell is everyone pretending like Rinzler is supposed to be a brainwashed, weaponized monster instead of the person he used to be before all that?

Whatever. Her heart is pounding, her head is still full of two dozen error messages, and now she's bitter and angry. She says nothing and waits.]

[imaginary_wife]

[Like she says, Rinzler isn't a Face Unit. She's frustrated, after everything. At the time she'd been tempted to alter Rinzler out of her own spite. But she hadn't.]

[Rinzler wasn't a butcher, though. There were people here who had done much more damage in much shorter time. In the end, Doc Yewll had chosen to side with Tron.]

Was it Sam Flynn? [She asks as she patches her up.] I really need to know if anyone else might be in here tonight and if someone should be sent to stop him.

[meyneth]

Was what Sam Flynn? I don't know any "Sam Flynn."

[Fiora's answer is soft but bitter. She's doing everything she can to keep herself from venting all her emotions at once. There's no point. She just wants to get repaired and leave.]

[imaginary_wife]

The other programmer. The one that helped patch up Tron. So it's someone else then.

[Someone she hopes doesn't die.]

Rinzler's not an uncontrollable killer, but if he's threatened he will hyper-react. [As he obviously did with Fiora.] So if someone else is going to threaten him they need to be told to back down or go to a captain.

[meyneth]

Yeah, right. Those other two aren't gonna listen.

[That was the whole reason she'd gone alone - to try to wrangle Rinzler without Peter and Alice making things harsher than they needed to be. So much for that. If anything, she's made the situation even worse for Rinzler now.

Finally, she lifts her arm slightly to glance over at the doctor.]

Will it take a long time to fix?

[imaginary_wife]

Look, I want to help everyone. Even people I disagree with. I gave brain surgery to the man who cut my skin off. So I want to know who it is, and what to be ready for.

[She knows she has the tools for Rinzler, if worse comes to worse. But she's never messed with his code on purpose. But if she must, she would, just to repair him. She doesn't think Tron would object.]

This'll take another fifteen minutes, he made a mess of things.