Why We Stayed, Part 1

A/N: NLA is in danger. So why are Eleonora and Lila arguing about Ricky Bobby? Lila needs to win or I am moving out of New LA.

Set during Chapter 8, oblique spoilers to the post game and J-bodies. Hard swears. Gino swears a lot, feel free to add more. (Honestly, I tried having him say 'fricking.' Wrong, so wrong.)

Lila, Gino and Ricky Bobby are just regular NPCs, sometimes with helpful blue speech bubbles about fuel usage. The rest belongs to the spooky amazing geniuses of MONOLITH SOFT.

"New Los Angeles is home to us all – including our brothers and sisters yet to be awakened." – Nagi

The sirens hadn't stopped since lunchtime. By now, you'd think they could ignore them, but it was getting under Lila's skin, increasing her fear, making her check and recheck preparations.

"Do we have enough, do you think?" Lila stopped Gino as he passed. Ricky Bobby was busy stacking yet more barrels and sandbags around the office of the Auxiliary Skell Refueling Station 1.

"No." Gino sounded disgusted she'd even asked. "They come at us, we're screwed. The best we'll do is stall."

"How long?"

"How the hell do I know?" He shuffled his feet, clearly unhappy to be stopping even a moment.

"Right, right, sorry. Can we get one more load?"

Gino headed out to the very edge of the station area, where she couldn't follow. He looked up at the tower, streams of data flickering above and below the yellow number now reading 20%. Yet another thing he could do that Lila couldn't. He shouted back at her. "Maybe I can get one later. We gotta get you and R-man out of here."

She didn't answer him until he came back closer. "Ricky Bobby goes. I'm staying."

"Shut up! What good would you be? I'd rather have him around."

She glared hard at Gino for a moment. "If you could get him to the ship..."

"Hey, guys, can we go now? The announcement said we need to go now. I don't like this noise. So can we go?"

"We're all going," said Gino.

"All three of us? Now?" Ricky Bobby asked happily.

"Yup, come on."

Lila didn't argue just then. She followed her techs the short distance to the elevator that went to the upper Administrative District. The huge service elevator was literally right against the station, a definite business plus. First thing a hungry skell saw was her refueling station. Today, its adjacency had other advantages. She'd been able to monitor the line of non-combatants waiting to use it, and had noticed when the crowd had dwindled to nothing during the past hour. Almost everyone that was getting on the Ma-non ship, planning to be shuttled to safety before the seemingly inevitable Ganglion attack on New Los Angeles, had already been loaded. Her crew had timed it close.

However, things changed on the upper level. BLADEs were still hurrying on last minute errands, carrying last minute supplies. No civilians at first, but once they headed down the main shopping corridor and hung a left around the BLADE tower, they found there was still a bit of a delay, a line of people waiting to use the instant transport onto the xeno ship. People stood in bunches along the stairs, and in the meantime they were busily passing messages to surrounding BLADEs, words of encouragement or blessings of protection. Several BLADEs and Ma-non were organizing the evacuation point. The BLADEs made sure there was no crowding while the xenos prevented over-use of the machine. Every dozen departures or so, the Ma-non adjusted the apparatus, pausing the flow for a handful of nerve racking minutes.

It was during one such pause that Eleonora stepped up to the threesome. "Lila, a word please."

Lila stepped out of line and followed her down and around the edge of the stairs, stopping beside a guardian skell. She was grateful that the composed blonde woman didn't lead her away from the protection of the tower. She wouldn't be able to hear a word otherwise.

"Our friend, he's not going on the ship."

"What do you mean?"

"He's to stay down here and help with combat."

"No, it's okay, Gino and I, we'll do our best by the station. Ricky Bobby's going up."

"It's not about your station. It's been decided. I'm sorry, dear, but you know you two won't be able to do much. We can work with him. That's always been the plan."

"He wants to go up."

"That's not his choice to make."

"It's absolutely his choice to make! You can't tell him no." Lila's voice skipped with anger.

"We will. Please, don't make this embarrassing."

"I will throw a fit if necessary." Strange words from a woman standing as stiff as a needle, but no one would have disbelieved her. "He's a non-combatant. He's allowed out."

"Right now, he's a non-combatant. But we can switch that…"

"How? No, don't tell me, I don't care. Eleonora, ma'am, you cannot do this."

"Lila, think about it…"

"I am thinking about it!" She was hissing with rage now, trying to keep her voice down, speaking each word as if it were a small bomb. "If you refuse to let him on the Ma-non ship, you are making a decision that will last forever. You are deciding something about him that changes who we are. As a city. As a species. Whatever comes next, if you refuse him now, it will divide us forever."

Eleonora's voice was a model of gentle logic. "We need fighters, Lila. Everyone. He can do this. This is an order."

"He's officially a civilian. If he were a BLADE, fine, give that order. But he's not. He is a civilian. He gets to make that choice. Or he doesn't. But if he doesn't, what does that mean for any future choices?"

"I am not discussing this now."

"I will say it clear out."

"Do not." Eleonora's voice brooked no disobedience, although her smile remained mild.

Lila stopped, took a deep breath, continued. "This matters, ma'am. Just as much as saving the city. He needs to get to safety. That's what he decided. He matters. He's as precious as anyone else. Or he is not, if you refuse him now. Which means he and everyone like him is not. You can't pretend. Eventually someone will figure it out, and it will get ugly."

"I cannot consider some imaginary rebellion right now when the city is in real danger."

"I didn't mean Ricky Bobby. I'm thinking of other humans and what they figure out about mims like him. About who matters, and who doesn't, and what they can get away with. About who is worth a fraction of someone else."

"We are wasting time, Lila."

"Want me to chose a value? How about 3/5? Tell me you trust them all to choose right. Lie to me."

"He's…"

"If you say expendable, I will kill in your sleep."

Eleonora looked at the normally polite, normally controlled technician in shock. "That is unacceptable talk, even under these circumstances."

"If he doesn't matter, no one does. No one. Including our brothers and sisters yet to be awakened."

Eleonora winced.

"You heard me, ma'am. You think we didn't hear Nagi's speech down below? Hard to miss it blaring directly over our heads. You need to protect him as you would anyone else, or you divide our future in two. Please, Eleonora, please, you need to keep us all safe." Lila was pleading now.

Eleonora looked for a long moment at Lila, calculating possibilities far into the distant future. She spoke gently. "I will do anything to save New Los Angeles." Something had shifted in her face, her voice.

"Please," Lila begged her again, more quietly if no less desperately. "This will destroy us just as surely as the Ganglion would. It'll just take longer. Please."

Eleonora gave a small sound between a sniff and a hum. "This was not the plan."

"Then you've been ignoring a few key facts really hard."

"Very well." Eleonora smoothed her skirt, tugged down her jacket, and smiled. "You'd better get on board. They aren't waiting for stragglers."

"Bless you. You will be the saving of us all."

"We will have a discussion after this is over. It won't be a happy one."

"Anything. I will love you forever. Thank you." Lila ran back toward the stairs.

Gino was waiting around the corner, leaning against the wall. His dark face was tense, but he kept his voice low. "What the hell was that about?"

"Nothing."

"Sounded like she was going to…"

"Nothing, it's settled, let's get up there."

Gino wasn't moving up the few remaining stairs. "She was going to leave him behind, wasn't she, because of his buggy synch."

"No, no, nothing like that," denied Lila.

"Just because he's not as strong in the head, she was going to fucking leave him behind." Gino looked insanely angry.

"Look, Gino, that all had nothing to do with you. Let's get Ricky Bobby on the ship and get back to the station."

"I'm just as buggy as he is. You too. Was she going to bump us? Oh wait, no need, we're the fools that are going to get ourselves killed anyway."

Lila stopped, one step above Gino. Finally, they were about the same height. Being short was the least of her complaints, but she didn't deny this small thrill. Stupid thrill, when what Gino said was all too likely to come true before dinner.

"It wasn't about anyone's synchronization, Gino, nothing about us who are failures as mims." They were ugly words, finally said out loud. Lila wasn't sure if she was lying to Gino or not. There was a lot of space between now and the future, and a lot of space for things she feared might become true. "Eleonora knows Ricky Bobby, from before. She's right about him in a lot of ways that we don't know. He was a soldier, once, somehow, and he can fight. If she says so, I believe her. But she forgot that he still gets a say in his life. She remembers now. I think he's safe."

Gino looked at her for too long. Above them, she thought she caught Ricky Bobby's voice, calling for them. Gino turned to run down the stairs, the wrong way. "I got an errand. See ya at the station."

"Wait…" but there was no point. She turned and bounced up the stairs, and sure enough, there was Ricky Bobby, looking confused and no little bit frightened. He was a good 30 cm taller than she was, but he still reminded her of a little kid lost in a department store.

"Are you guys coming? We gotta go," he whined. He grabbed her hand and started to pull her into the waiting line.

"No, Gino and me, we're going to stay at the station. You'll have to go up alone."

"We're all going. Gino said so."

"Somebody has to watch the station. That's us."

"But I want us all to go. Gino said so! I don't like this."

Lila looked at the hulking tech with a pang of love. She wanted to go, too, far away from all this, to go back to Earth for crying out loud, to before her oceans were gone and everything was ruined. But she could get Ricky Bobby safe.

"We will meet you afterwards. Do you believe me? Look at me. Have I ever not made my word good?"

"No, you always do," he said slowly.

"Right. Even if I can't do exactly what I promise, I make it good. We will meet again."

"Yes. Real soon."

"Very very soon. Now get on that ship."

Ricky Bobby slowly returned to the line of civilians, much shorter now.

Lila had a thought. "Hey, Ricky Bobby. When you get on the ship, see if you can find Twyleth." That was the Ma-non tech that worked peripatetically at the station. Her appearances correlated to pizza deliveries, a fact that Lila sometimes abused.

"Right! The ship's her home."

"Yup. Stick with her, and you'll be okay."

"I'll make sure she's safe. No one's gonna hurt her." Something very clear and focused flickered in Ricky Bobby's eyes, something to make Lila wonder just how far right or wrong Eleonora had been.

"Brilliant. We'll protect the station, you protect the ship." Time had run out. She gave him an impulsive hug, and shoved him towards the transport device.

a/n: Ricky Bobby made very sure that no one hurt Twyleth, whoooo! See "Shield of the Ma-non" for the video.

Meanwhile, the whole destiny of the J-bodies frightens me, not for what they can do or what they are replacing (maybe), but for the logic of what can be done to them, and what that does to everyone else. Explanation of "3/5" on request; if you prefer a hint, read the US Constitution, Article 1, Section 2, the parts that are struck out. Not sure how Lila knew about it, but she did. Maybe she'd memorized the passenger list. Mercy, maybe Eleanora told her.

Next up (probably in 2017, unless I find some good internet): Part 2. All those embers are getting in Lila's eyes. That's why she keeps having to wipe them, sure. Dear heavens, I love NLA, pray for that city in the shining bowl, kids. Bonus: bad Zelda reference.

Happy Holidays of All Flavors
Light a Candle and Work for a Good 2017