Chapter 3: Orientation
They found nothing, after hours of check ups and the threat of throwing fists by his amá against the doctors that attempted to cut it all short after the first five minutes.
Other than his remarkable lack of cyber augmentations beyond the bare necessities for his day to day life.
And hadn't that been a shock to him when he heard that one. Running through numerous brain and cognitive scans, reading and perception tests, they have cleared him with the suggestion to 'Perhaps take a week off, stress can do all sorts of things to the mind these days.'
It was only thanks to that strange thing's intervention that his mom, his amá, didn't get arrested for physical assault against the hospital staff.
Her arm over his shoulders, lithe and skinnier than he remembered, David almost melted into her embrace.
"Don't worry mijo I have taken two weeks off and we can have some nice time between the three of us, can't we dear?"
To his dread his amá turned her bright gaze towards that thing, walking next to her. He could feel that thing's stormy blue eyes resting on him, its gaze he desperately avoided. Burying himself deeper into his amá's embrace he was never more thankful for his youthful stature than he was now.
He felt a shiver going down his spine when he heard that thing sigh in a dramatic fashion, that immediately earned a violent retribution by his amá with a cheeky grin.
"Ah~ my love, you know my heart of hearts. Though I wouldn't have complained if it were just the two of us again."
The words fixed David in his tracks his head snapping to face that thing, bringing his amá to a sudden and surprised halt.
'It'll be a cold day in hell and from my frozen dead fingers before I leave you alone with her for a single nanosecond, choom.'
"Doing stuff together sounds great." He nearly cringed at how youthful, child-like he sounded. Meek and boneless. But if it meant he could watch out and protect his amá from that thing he'll take any kind of shame onto his shoulder without breaking his stride.
'I have stared down Smasher and grinned in the face death before, I can do this any time of the day, choom.'
And the sea stared back at him. Impossibly vast, stretching on and on. Gentle yet foamy waves rolling about, carried by the changing wind. Towards him. David flinched, face pale.
His amá came to the rescue waving her finger in warning between the two with mirth in her voice.
"Behave you two! I know a good place around so come on. We already know who's paying for our all you can eat menu."
The menu turned out to be a delicious ramen bowl, with a rich broth. It soothed his nerves with every greedy slurp. Filled the uneasy void in his gut with a comforting warmth. He listened to the sounds of the chef's kitchen tools preparing the next meals, the customers around them going about with their lives.
Leg trembling beneath the table, David fought to control his breathing.
'Calm down. Collect yourself. And think. Orient yourself.'
Despite it all, he still found the burdensome weight press onto his shoulders. Triple checking his chronograph, he felt his heart constrict, biting his lip. Beyond the window outside of their cubicle David witnessed the busy life of Japantown with half bewildered eyes. Street merchants selling their wares for a profit as they used the final days of the Christmas to their fullest.
'It is true. Only a week to '75. It's not a god damn fucking glitch. I'm back, but how?!'
Memories, bright, lively rushed through his mind like a flood. Dorio teaching him how to throw mean right hooks. Pilar and his silly antics. Rebecca. Ever loyal, brash red eyed menace. Braver than a hundred men put together. Maine, who taught him and took him under his wing. Whose arms he carried until the very end.
Lucy.
He rubbed eyes as he felt a familiar burn erupting behind them, his throat tight and clogged.
"Mijo." It broke his heart to hear her like this, next to him not once moving away from his side, letting himself be pulled into her embrace once more.
"Son." That thing's voice broke his solace like a thunderclap, his eyes snapping onto that brown-haired sham of a man. The hand, large and calloused, that had reached out to him halted in his tracks by David's glare.
Surrounding the disturbed sea was a grimace on that thing's stone-like face, the offending hand slowly retreating back into his fold. His amá's reprimands quickly died down as that strange thing spoke.
"David, I'm so sorry. For the abruptness, for my absence, for all of this." A heavy wind blew across the the stormy seas, and cloudy skies slowly but surely dissipated revealing bright spots of blue and glinting light.
"But we will get through this. We'll make new memories, the three of us. I swear it. Days will feel like years, mark my words."
'Just what the hell are you?' David doubted the chills travelling down his spine were the intended reaction to the words of that thing claiming to be his sperm donor.
With an uneasy sigh David tore his gaze from the bottomless sea that called for his attention and chanced a look at his smiling amá, white blonde hair bobbing out of the corner of his sight.
David snapped towards the small figure, so fast he nearly twisted his neck. The familiar twin tails, the short stature, the boisterous voice that took him back down memory lane were unmistakable.
"My, my what is Rebecca doing here in this neck of the woods?" Eyes darting back and forth between them, a sly grin overtook his amá's lips as she lifted him up by the arm and dragged him towards the table where Rebecca and two other sat.
One tall and lanky easily recognizable.
'Kiwi.' A mixture of emotions rolled around his gut when he saw her. Their eyes caught for a brief moment and David saw the way her eyebrows scrunched together and quickly moved to look at the third occupant of their table.
As tall as himself, short black hair merrily chewing on a bubblegum she looked like the picture definition of an gamer girl.
"Yo Becca, Sasha how are you two? Didn't know you were fans of stuff like that!"
"Don't go laying that crap on me it was her idea! Getting preem through her latest job made her a total buzz kill and dragged us in this fucking place! Uggh!" Becca threw her finger at Sasha, earning a cute laugh and a devilish look as a response.
"Come now it's not every day justice is served like that in this city." Saccharine but with a hint of vicious satisfaction, her voice chimed all too gleefully in David's ears as his amá clapped his back with a smirk.
"Ah, so you were the ones responsible for Biotechnica ending up belly up. My boy David is getting all starry eyed already."
Even though it was just a braindance he could feel the heat of the sun on his skin, the twinkling stars scattered across the black with her voice caressing his ears.
"Oh. Uhhh yeah." David hacked up a cough, words stumbling out of him in their rough. Eyes flitting about he found his lifeline in the form of Rebecca and grasped onto it like a drowning man.
"I have already heard that you have some of the fastest and meanest guns in the leagues!"
The laugh that exploded out of Rebecca melted the tension off David's shoulders and lungs breathed a little easier.
"Oh, you're fucking adorable. You know just how to butter up to the ladies don't you!?"
Sasha leaned forward with a catish look, mischief on her lips that signaled danger to David like nothing else.
"He does have a way with words, doesn't hurt that you're quite cute to look at."
A furious blush exploded across his face, 'Damn my teenage hormones!' He stammered and stuttered, his hands itching for a shovel to bury himself then and there.
"But where are my manners, this is Kiwi. Don't let her sourness fool you she's a real sweety underneath — eep!" Sasha shot up in her seat as Kiwi shifted back in her seat a stern glare still fixed on a visibly chastised Sasha, rubbing her leg with a pout.
'Kiwi,' David stared, her final moments flashing through his mind, her words within words.
' "Go 'et her for me." You taught Lucy and lived suspicious of everything in NC. And in the end you still cared enough for her to go on a limb and place your trust in us. The ones you've crossed.' With tapping foot, David and Kiwi simply nodded at each other, not missing the weary look they gave each other.
"Aww look at him going all shy and gruffy!" Barbs were traded, shots were downed. Deliciously sweet de-carbonated drinks were emptied. And a painfully familiar rhythm settled in as he sat at the table with Kiwi and Rebecca after what felt like an eternity. For the first time in a long while he felt like he was standing on solid ground on his own two feet.
Every second was like balm to his heart while a needle constantly pierced his wounds.
'Maybe I'm becoming a masochist.' He thought as sipped his juice, curiosity taking over over as he glanced over his shoulders and immediately felt his blood go cold.
His amá was in the arms of that thing, the happiest he had seen her in a long time. In the arms of that stranger who smiled wide and shiny. The ocean-like eyes, warm and blue and welcoming.
"I-I g-gotta go! Give Lucy and everyone my regards y-yeah!" He stumbled out of his seat, caught his footing and marched over. Tall and with every step of the way his stride grew with purpose, resolve steeling his mind.
Sasha watched the retreating back of that kid, David, her mind churning as she looked at the rather tense, one-sided stand-off between him and his father. Gloria stepping in meditating between the two.
"Man, how can they both look so similar yet that old man of his gives me the creeps like nothing else."
'That's an understatement.' Sasha shivered as Rebecca's words rolled through her. Though they resembled each other like father and son, there was something about that elder man that sent a chill down her spine whenever she caught a whiff of him.
Wrinkling her nose she turned away, popping in another bubblegum when Kiwi piped up.
"How did he know of Lucy?" Sasha checked her drink to make sure it didn't turn into a glacier form the sheer coldness of Kiwi's words.
'Not to mention the way looked at Kiwi.'
"Sooo what's the gameplan?"
Sasha pondered Rebecca's question and for a moment eyed the tense teen. He tried to put up a tough front that she could respect, but even she could see the fear engraved into him.
"We can't afford to alienate Gloria but we should also check all of our options. Regardless of that it's Maine's call to make."
"Tsk!"
Seeing and hearing such a display of displeasure from the normally stoic team-member, Sasha quickly jumped in with a wink and finger to her lips.
"Don't worry we'll dig into him, you know how I am when it comes to mysteries and buried secrets."