Interlude 6: Gloria

This kind of work... it was unlike any she had ever done before.

To be clear, Gloria was a veteran in her field, who was no stranger to the trappings of medicine or the sight of blood. Back when she had been an EMT, she had been handling essentially the same work she was handling now. Cleaning gunshot wounds, setting broken wounds, stitching cuts and treating infections. It was loud, messy, dirty work, and it always would be, no matter the employer.

No, what was different was everything else.

For one thing, her salary. As an EMT, she had worked herself to the bone just to scrape by, even turning to illegal implant harvesting to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. Back then, her world revolved around numbers, around budgeting, around making every damn cent stretch as far as it could possibly go. In this way, by scrimping and saving, Gloria had even built a tidy little nest-egg for herself.

And wasn't little just the word?

Here, she quite easily made thrice what she could have ever made as an EMT. The money was good, and varied based on the quality of care administered, and Gloria was damned good at her job. It was a point of professional pride for her that for all the nurses in the company, she consistently walked home at the end of each month with one of the largest paychecks of the lot. At the end of the first year, she had saved a sum that practically dwarfed what she had worked so hard for so long to earn.

And she owed it all to a spam email.

Don't get me wrong, Gloria Martinez was grateful. Grateful for the new home she now lived in, for the new opportunities she could afford her son, and for so much more besides. Sometimes, however, she would get these twisting aches in the pits of her gut, and her bowels would tie themselves up into knots at the thoughts in her mind.

What if?

What if she had deleted the email? What if she had never even checked her spam folder and let the opportunity slip her by? Gloria remembered her disbelief at the figure she was presented with, and she had been convinced that it was some sort of scam. But the job description sounded perfect for her, and the money was simply too attractive for a struggling single mother to pass up. At that point, she had been just one extra bill away from turning tricks on the street for some extra cash. If there was even the slightest chance that this was real, Gloria would cling on to it and never let it go, not so long as she lived.

And it was.

She still remembered the interview. This was a couple of years ago now, when the company was still small, and the man in charge sat her down, dressed in a suit that looked like it belonged in a history book, and described the duties of the job. Initially, when she had first arrived at the address, she had been sceptical. The men here were dressed in overalls, with grimy fingers and mud staining their faces. There didn't seem to be any work for her here. But then one of the workers sat down with her, taking a short break, and the two of them began talking.

At first, Gloria had merely tolerated his presence, finding him to be pushy and even somewhat annoying, and she answered his questions politely, but never offered anything more. The man kept babbling, and Gloria was forced to listen. Eventually, the subject of her presence came up, and she told him she was here for an interview. He smiled, laughed, and asked her if she was to be the new nurse. She was interested after that.

It felt impolite to ask, so Gloria found another way to broach the topic of money. When the man finally told her what he earned with a grin on his face, she could scarcely believe her ears. He sensed her shock, shrugged his shoulders, and said that the boss paid them well for the work they did, but that he expected excellence in return for his generosity with regards to benefits and wages both. It was a mutual relationship, he said, and the boss didn't take on anyone who didn't prove themselves.

When Gloria's turn finally came to venture into the boss's office, she was sweating bullets. Her heart raced, and she had never felt more nervous before or since that moment in her life. This was her chance, her opportunity for a better life, and Gloria would be damned if she was going to let it slip through her fingers. He sat her down in the chair opposite to his own, and began by explaining the role to her with a gentle, encouraging smile on his face. Once that was done, he began with a series of questions, and Gloria did her honest best to answer all of them. Once that was all done, he appraised her, told her she would find his decision in her email in a few days time, stood from his chair, shook her hand, and saw her out of his office. As she left, she looked back at the warehouse with longing in her eyes.

The following days were torture.

She checked her email first thing in the morning and the last thing at night every day for a fortnight. The uncertainty ate her mind, and she kept running over the interview again and again, wondering whether she had done something wrong. And then, after two long weeks, came her salvation. She was due to start a probationary period as the company nurse the following Monday.

Gloria had never worked harder in her life. Though the work was easier than she was used to, she worked herself like an animal. The boss, a man who she had learned was named Arthur and was affectionately nicknamed 'Your Majesty' by his staff after his namesake in British folklore, though never referred to as such to his face, offered her easy smiles and kind words. He told her to slow down, and that she was doing a great job, and yet his words only spurred her on.

When the probationary period came to an end, Gloria was not ashamed to admit that she went home, embraced her son, and then cried tears of relief. The next morning, she came to work, and set to it with as much vigour as she could muster, the same that she would do for every subsequent day after. Much to her shame, the work of a company nurse was an admittedly dull, dry and easy affair. She had expected to face a daily horror show for the money offered, and yet it was anything but. Arthur was fastidious in his implementation of health-and-safety measures, and till relatively recently, she dealt with little more than cuts and scrapes. It was relief to her that the work was so tame, and the atmosphere so easygoing, and yet Gloria could not help the twinge of guilt in her heart at taking advantage of this man's generosity.

That all changed, however, when gangoons started flooding her clinic.

It seemed like eons ago, that Arthur disappeared from the warehouses, off to go and scheme and plot with the best of them. He made a bid for mayor, and for a brief, terrifying moment, she had thought he had perished. He came back, however, with a new limp and an army at his back, and newfound steel in his spine. She had only believed him dead for a week or two, before some of his security team came to her apartment and escorted her to his safehouse in the dead of the night. From then on, she was often called to help treat his wounds as he travelled the long road to recovery. One by one, his broken bones healed, his cuts closed, and his limp slowly faded, and the entire time, he continued offering her those same easy smiles, and those same honeyed words, and the more time she spent with him, the more receptive to them she became.

Still, at least the guilt was fading, for she was most definitely pulling her weight now. Every hour of every working day was full of a fresh new spate of injuries to deal with, borne by those Arthur had assigned the herculean task of bringing order to the city, and Gloria dealt with a dozen new patients every single day. Serious wounds were now the norm, rather than the exception to the rule. For the first few weeks, she would do what she did, and go home every night to her son exhausted but also satisfied at a job well-done.

Her son. Her darling boy. Little David, the apple of her eye, and a budding crook, far too obsessed with gangs and crime and money for her taste. She had tried to set him on the right path, and even managed to front the cost of attending Arasaka academy with a special scholarship. And yet, a year ago now, the cost of her dream mounted when he went for a cut-price BD wreath, and David had fallen from greed to rage when she had briefly slipped into a coma after becoming a bystander in a run-in with the Animals.

Were it not for the premium healthcare offered by the company, she was almost certain she would never have woken in time to bring David back on the right track. He was expelled both for the damage the faulty software had caused, and for attacking one of his classmates in the time she was out, but he wasn't too far gone to save. They wouldn't take him back, no matter what she offered, but that didn't have to mean he was to be bereft of opportunity. Though she felt a burning shame at taking advantage of his generosity once again, there was still one academy that might take him.

She went, hat in hand, to Arthur's office. His academy was a new one, and not well-established, which was decidedly not ideal, but it was the only option that David had left. His expulsion made him toxic, and after learning of the assault, no other school would take him. So, she ventured into his office, her head hung low and on the verge of tears at the burning hot shame festering in her gut, and prepared herself to beg. He greeted her with a smile, sat her down, and asked her what was up.

She spilled her soul.

It was something of an out of body experience. Desperate, she just began to talk, and halfway through her story, the tears that had threatened to spill in the hallway finally did. She cried silent tears over what seemed like shattered dreams, and soldiered on with her story. By the end, Arthur looked at her with pitying eyes, but it was only for a second before he shrugged and nodded and spoke. Gloria was shocked by his nonchalance, "What?"

"I'll take him in."

Gloria couldn't believe it, "Even after the attack?"

He smiled one of his easy smiles, the ones that set her mind at ease, and spoke, "Obviously, if it happens again, then he will be expelled. It is company policy to not tolerate violence, and I will make no exemptions in the case of your son." He tilted his head to the side, "However, I can somewhat understand it. Most other corporate academies are notorious for the pressure they put on their students, and from what I hear, Arasaka academy is one of the worst of the lot. I can't blame your kid for cracking in that kind of environment, especially if, as you say, he was being bullied by the other students. He'll have to sit an entrance exam to determine which cohort he'll be eligible to join, given his education level, but I promise you he'll have a spot."

She stood from her chair, extending her hand out to shake, a wide smile on her face, relief flooding her system, "Thank you, sir! I promise you that you won't regret it! David will never do anything like that again."

He stood from his chair, a sterner expression on his face, walking around the table to face her, and accepted her offer of a hand to shake, "See that he doesn't. I'm a big believer in second chances, Gloria, and the concept of redemption, but even I am not generous enough to believe in thirds."

She shook his hand eagerly, "Thank you anyways, sir."

His lips broke into a smile half as wide as her own, "Anything for you, Gloria." He shrugged his shoulders, "I'm not about to let someone I care about suffer for a single, stupid mistake their child made, not when they nursed me back from the brink of death."

Her smile widened, if at all that was possible, and she felt the beginnings of a blush forming on her cheeks as he gazed into her eyes. She felt like kissing him, so happy was she, but she thought better of it at the last moment, knowing she couldn't take the risk lest he take offence at the timing of her advances. She wasn't about to risk her child's future over a crush, and no matter what she felt for him, he gave little indication he felt the same. Oh, to be sure, he smiled at her, offered her much praise, and seemed to enjoy her company, but those were pleasantries he offered to many other people as well.

It was one of her fondest memories with him, among many. For such a major employer, he was shockingly personable, and surprisingly attentive, especially with her. On account of all their interactions, many around the warehouse giggled and pointed and joked good-naturedly that if Arthur was the king, then she was angling to be queen. She hushed their claims every time with just a touch of extra colour in her cheeks.

Still, even if Gloria had ever thought herself a queen, the past few weeks would have disabused her of that notion. After the initial attack, she had thought they had emerged from the darkest waters, and were now and free and clear on the road to a better future. But then the next wave of attacks came, and Gloria counted her lucky stars that the company headquarters, where she worked, hadn't been hit, at least not successfully. Even still, as Arthur began the fruitless task of essentially building back from the ashes, she found herself drowning in a veritable ocean of blood. She was busier than she had ever been, and it seemed at times that every waking moment of her life was consumed by her work. She saved many lives, and lost many more.

Far too many.

The bodies haunted her. She was no stranger to death, but even she struggled to cope from time to time.

Thankfully, the pressure eased after a while, and a semblance of normality returned. The grins of the staff, however, were gone, replaced with pursed lips and scowls, a sense of grim determination flooding the atmosphere. Almost everyone here had lost someone, and they were all gunning for revenge. This war was personal. However, as time passed, and the bodies piled a mile high, a dozen more dead every night, the determination faded to satisfaction.

Victory was so close you could almost taste it.

Attacks became rarer and rarer, and the skirmishing along the line of control became much less deadly. Very few of those she was close to saw any part in the fighting, thank god, but like any war effort, they all contributed in whatever small way they could. As Arthur bounced from place to place, moving like a conductor building to his great crescendo, the war loomed large. Gloria was not privy to his thoughts or words, but she caught glimpses from time to time. Much of what she heard made little sense to her, but there was no doubting it's effectiveness.

The latest rumours swirling around the mill were around supposed plans for a peace. Opinions amongst her colleagues were split, some happy the bloodshed was coming to an end, others lusting for more blood.

Even still, meetings were being made, dates being set, and her services had even been specially been reserved on the day in case of bloodshed. If there was to be violence, they said, and if Arthur was to be wounded, she was pleased to hear that she would be his first port of call. She didn't want that, of course, but she admitted to herself that she would appreciate the facetime. Arthur was ever an interesting person to converse with, and he always found a way to set her at ease, even when he was in pain.

Hopefully, this whole war business would soon be behind them all, and the time would come where she could talk to him as a normal person might, without stitching another wound or setting another bone.

For now, however, she was content to wait.

And so Gloria enters the fray! What will she have to contribute?
You all wanted her here, and so here she is.
Feel free to comment and let me know what you think.
Hope you guys are enjoying the story thus far!