TITLE: The Waste Land
SUMMARY: After the Opera, Shilo finds herself alone on Crucifixus. Nathan told her to change the world, but that's a tall order for one girl. M for later chapters; eventual Grilo.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Repo! The Genetic Opera or any of the characters or locations herein, except when noted. They belong to other people with more talent. Please don't sue me, as I own nothing of value.
AN: The title is from the T.S. Eliot poem of the same name. This is rated M for a reason. Violence, sexual situations, swearing, blood—it is Repo!, after all, so no kids allowed. And I'm warning you now: there will be OCs in later chapters, so if you don't like 'em, don't read.
***
It was the rain that saved her.
Shilo didn't know how long she had been walking, or how far. She didn't have any idea where she was going. Seventeen years as a shut-in hadn't done much to help her knowledge of Crucifixus's geography. It wasn't that she hadn't been educated: she knew the square mileage of the island, she knew Largo Towers was located at the center at Sanitarium Square, and she knew approximately how much of the city was covered in graves. But she had no knowledge of how to get from point A to point B, and no idea where she was.
Every now and then Shilo looked around her, searching for street signs, and every now and then she found one, but the names meant nothing to her: Mortuary Street, Undertaker's Alley, Abattoir Lane. Why, she wondered, does every place in this city have these morbid names?
But that was Crucifixus, the world post-plague. And here she was, a little lost girl covered in her father's and godmother's blood, alone in the world. She was hardly a less morbid picture.
The blood was drying sticky on her arms and back, and her wig was clotted and matted with it. Shilo tried not to think of it. After a while, her feet began to ache in her boots, so she took them off and carried them. She didn't see many people: only addicts spaced out on Z, lying in gutters. She supposed that most people must be mourning Rotti Largo, the self-proclaimed man who cured the globe. She doubted that anyone mourned Nathan Wallace except herself.
Shilo felt her eyes sting, but no tears came. She had no tears left. She felt drained, exhausted. The Opera and the reality of her life now were too much for her to take in. Only a few days ago, she had been sheltered and protected. Her imprisonment had seemed unduly necessary, but that was before she knew how cruel the world was, how little the people in it cared. Now, she was completely alone in that cruel world. She knew no one and had no idea how to take care of herself. Her father was dead, Blind Mag was dead, Amber and Luigi and Pavi were probably searching for her, furious that Rotti had willed GeneCo to her instead of them, she didn't have a blood disease but had been poisoned for years—
Shilo took a deep, shuddering breath. Don't think about that. It was the hardest truth to endure, in some ways harder than Nathan's death. Her father, who had loved her, had lied to her, poisoned her, made her think that she—
And part of her still did think—
Shilo felt her lungs constrict, and her vision begin to swim, hazing out into shades of gray. The symptoms of her blood disease—except there was no disease—
"Blood pressure warning. Medicate immediately."
No—no—she wasn't sick, she didn't have a disease, it was just the medicine—
"Blood pressure warning. Medicate immediately."
Shilo, arms tight around her thin body, stumbled into the wall of the alleyway. Her boots dropped from her shaking fingers, and her legs gave out; she fell to her knees, catching herself hard with her hands. Her lungs wouldn't expand, she couldn't breathe, her comlink bracelet was beeping loudly, she could hear her blood pounding in her ears, her vision went dark—
Shilo collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
***
The first drop of rain was like the first breath of life. Slowly, so slowly, her eyes fluttered open. Her comlink bracelet was still beeping shrilly at her; somehow, she managed to tear it off her wrist and find the right button to make it stop.
She lay there for . . . she wasn't sure how long. Seconds or minutes or hours or days. Ever drop of rain that fell on her skin washed away a tiny bit of the blood, a tiny bit of the pain. She lifted her head and shifted slightly when a puddle began to form. She wasn't about to die drowned in an inch of water.
Go and change the world for me . . .
His voice echoed back on her, whatever was left of Nathan reminding her of his final wish. If she was to change the world, she would have to get up.
Shilo got up slowly, testing each part of her body to make sure it was working properly. She flexed her fingers, stretched her arms, bent her knees and circled her head on her spine. She managed to sit on the curb of the street, arms around her knees, boots sitting next to her. She looked around; no one was there. For the moment, at least, she was alone on Crucifixus.
Shilo combed her fingers through the wet hair of her wig. She didn't know where she was, and she didn't know anyone who could help her, anyway. She was in it alone, and this corner was as good a place as any to think it out.
Her first thought was the house, but she almost immediately dismissed that idea. Assuming she could even find it, it had almost certainly been overrun with GeneCops. And, in all honesty, she didn't have any desire to go back there. It had been her prison for seventeen years, a cage haunted by a dead woman and a crippled man. To go back there would be to admit defeat, to say that she couldn't survive without her old familiar surroundings and her medicine and her father's watchful eye.
No, the house was out. What did that leave? The street. Shilo shuddered a little, thinking of the filthy conditions and the prospect of sleeping in Dumpsters, but steeled herself to the idea. No Dumpsters if she could avoid it. An empty doorway would work just as well to keep her dry. And as for the filth of the street . . . well, if other people survived in it, why couldn't she? She could prove herself just as tough as the city's poor, just as tough as the addicts and the scalpel sluts and the graverobbers. There was no reason why she couldn't, right?
Shilo looked down at her comlink bracelet, which she still held in her hand. She pressed a button on the side, and up came Rotti Largo's image, projected in a small hologram. He was the last person to have called her. She cycled once more through the call inventory, and her father's image appeared. Nathan looked calm, steady, in his glasses and lab coat. He was so different than how she had last seen in him, in his Repo clothes and covered in blood.
"I'll change the world, Dad," she whispered to him. "I'll find a way."
Then Shilo turned the image off and lay the bracelet on the ground. Feeling around her, she found an old section of pipe lying in the gutter. Metal. Good. She gathered up her strength and smashed the pipe down on the bracelet. It shattered and flew into a million pieces. There was no way it was salvageable; no one would be able to track her through it.
The last vestige of her old life was gone. Shilo got to her feet, gathered up her boots, and looked around the empty streets. There was another sign on a building corner: Incision Street. And a little beyond that, she saw an empty doorway, sheltered from the rain.
It was a start.
***
Chapter 2 coming soon, and don't worry, Graverobber makes an appearance. Please review if you have some constructive criticism to add or something nice to say. Flames will be forwarded to the ninja hit squad.