In this chapter, the story EARNS its M rating. I wrote the marked part in a caffeine rage. Don't look if you have a weak stomach.
Liberty Island, 2036
Meanwhile, on Liberty Island, Melody was asleep at her desk. This was not unusual, insofar as sleeping at one's desk goes, as she does so frequently. What was abnormal was the pool of tears that had collected, and was threatening to wet the papers she had fallen asleep working on.
Melody was awoken by a ring at the doorbell. Her only thought was to curse how obvious the tears were. She replied to the impetus, "Give me a minute to freshen up." She splashed water in her eyes, and brushed her hair so as to look presentable. She stowed the papers and put on her façade of strength.
She opened the door.
Svetlana's face poked back out at her.
"It's almost time to start the Rome operation. We need you on-site for a few things, management, finances, site inspection, etcetera."
"I understand. Is the airplane ready?"
"Yes, it's waiting for us on the landing pad."
Melody saw a twinkle in Svetlana's eyes. She said nothing, but tensed up subtly. Svetlana cut it out when she saw, which made Melody tense up more. Svetlana rolled her eyes as they got into an airplane.
Her tension lasted on the airplane. She had her own personal armored car, one that cost 20 million, but was virtually invulnerable against explosions - it took airplane munitions to pierce the car- bullets – the whole U.S. Army could fire at her car and not make a dent- and shelling- the Israeli projectile disabling system had become available on the black market. She was trained in driving armored cars, driving defensively, driving offensively, driving while drunk, and even driving while underwater. She was comfortable in a car. An airplane? Nothing you could fix in midair, nothing you could do in case of a crash. Nothing to prevent someone else shooting you down.
Yes, she was paranoid, she acknowledged that much, but that didn't mean there was no one out to get her.
Colorado, 2028
Her paranoia didn't used to be as sharp. She was in college for her bachelor's in chemical engineering, at the Colorado School of Mines, meaning she could also visit her hometown, Middleton, and reminisce about the good times with her father. She saw a man and fell head over heels at once. Brown hair, tanned skin, and more buff than it would take to get a hundred dings out of a car.
He was an easygoing sort of man, always had a joke. He wasn't prone to any vices, and he was more than willing to let her take the lead. In short, except for the looks, he was almost a copy of her father's "Ron" personality. His name was Eiríkr. Apparently, his family was old, very, very old, and Norwegian, very, very Norwegian. They moved because of the moves the kingdom had been making toward an Islamic Monarchy.
Melody was, as has been said before, a paranoid woman, even then. So she snuck (broke) into his apartment in the middle of the night, and nicked his finger. She mailed the blood off to be tested against the CVB database of personnel working for the enemy, or at least untrustworthy personnel. Meaning, GJ agents or criminals they didn't have under their thumb.
He checked out clean.
He was then checked against all of the normal databases, social security and social programs- God bless socialism- and there was where the disturbing part came. No Eiríkr Anderssen ever officially existed, not with his birth date, or one close to it, not in Norway or anywhere else. Along all of the search algorithms, compensating for translations and possible traditional naming. Still nothing.
That, to say the least, did not happen every day.
She confronted him about it- Glock, with the safety off in hand, of course.
"Hey, I got a question- what was your background like?"
"Tough. My parents were honest, agrarian people. They did their best to farm what they could in southern Norway. What we couldn't farm, Father fished and hunted. We were always worried about scurvy, and we never paid taxes. We never had money, never saw Julenisse (Norwegian Santa), and never bought anything. My mother went into town, worked under the table, and used all the money to buy our family books. She taught herself, and then taught us. I was good enough to get a scholarship to an American university. My greatest dream is to earn enough to get them into the city, at least, and let them retire."
She understood. It was a fairly rare situation, but understandable. Miracles did occasionally occur. She sent an agent to check out his story- there was a family, Anderssens, old and no money, in coastal southern Norway. There was a standardized test recorded in the early 2010's, under his name, and his registration was filed with this university just a little while ago.
So the dating continued, until one day, when she was about to reveal the truth to him and ask him to join her in the organization. They had agreed to cohabitate a few months back. It was the middle of the night. God bless obsessive training. Melody was groggy until she saw her boyfriend's chest blinking. She rolled out of bed, and double checked. He had a bomb, in his chest, somehow. All she knew was she had to get out, fast. She went to the balcony- third story window, had to jump- there was a perfectly positioned car. She jumped, perfect freefall posture- spread out- and then was about to maneuver to impact position when the bomb went off. The shockwave hit her, stunned her long enough for the bomb to let her smack into the car. Luckily her knees hit the sunroof, which happened to be open. She went straight through- her knees popped free of their ligaments at this point- her face clipped the edge, tore her nose free, and cut her head wide open on the rebound. But she was alive. She was conscious through the pain.
Thanks to her martial arts training, she knew how to handle certain levels of pain, and could stay thinking through more than most people. She was conscious enough to slap her "CVB-911" button, and pull out her first aid kit. The kit held two things she'd never used before- first, some morphine as a painkiller for her most serious injuries. She slammed the needle into her thigh. She injected the liquid and the pain cleared just enough for her to bind the most serious wounds- gauze tied across her nose, and a splint- of the car's arms and twine- for her knees, and then the second thing she'd never used before- a tranquilizer. She finally allowed herself to lapse into unconsciousness.
2028, Subterranean bunker outside of Montreal.
By the time she awoke a week later- they had to keep her under the whole week it would take for her to recover from the knee surgery because the doctors knew Melody would insist on getting back up and back to work the second she woke up. Sure enough, she climbed out of bed, used the cane beside her bed, and insisted on getting back to work. The CVB doctor sighed and handed her the morphine prescription. Melody took her first dose before looking at the forensic report.
It turned out that GJ had perfected the art of the synthodrone. This version had similar resistance to human flesh at the surface- but had core armor- and had self-healing surfaces that cut off the flow, rather than a nick killing a drone. Also, they'd learned to make red goo that held DNA. She should've known.
Eiríkr was Norwegian for Erik.
2036, Rome
After that day, she trained all the more obsessively, simply slamming down the needle for her morphine whenever her knees acted up.
She never went anywhere without her glowing red sword. She never went anywhere without her pistol. She never went anywhere without a couple of electronic bugs. And most of all, she never trusted anyone ever again. She would never be attacked, would never be surprised again.
She did, however, undergo five years of reconstructive surgery. She had no illusions of vanity; she merely recognized the value of seduction as a weapon.
The airplane had finally landed; they got to Rome, and Melody used executive privilege to peel off and take a bath. A nice, long, hot, normally relaxing bath. But these reminders of the old ghosts got all of the spirits that haunted her up and running. The most powerful one was her father's shade.
Her life was her father. When she was young, she had wanted to enter GJ just like him. When she was 12, her father went insane. She understood instantly. Her father held no fault. The fault was on the shoulders of GJ for working her father too hard, driving him crazy. Her father was a strong man.
But he was not God.
Melody was her father. She, like all the Stoppable children, had inherited his Monkey Kung Fu Skills, and Mystical Monkey Power. She had not inherited, but had learned, to cook and play piano from him.
She still remembered her father's big, warm hands on hers, directing her to just move her fingers a little, to reach the right keys. To this day, she could still play, even though she never practiced.
Her father never scolded her, never spoke a harsh word, never got angry at her. He always corrected her gently, and she always learned from her mistakes. Whenever she messed up seriously, Kim would get involved.
In an indirect way, she even inherited her hatred of human trafficking from her father.
Just then, she realized her bath water was getting cold.
She got out and got dressed.
Svetlana had scheduled her for a personal tour of all of Rome. She took in the sights, managed to forget about her troubles until she walked by an old roman slave market. It brought back old memories, memories best left quashed, about the time she came within a hair's breadth of slavery herself.
2020, Yamanuchi School
Fukushima and Hirotaka captured them and her father. Her father came in looking simultaneously like an avenging angel, and a demon, the arch-demon. Demonic enough to where, if Satan himself had been there, Satan would've been his bitch. There is no politer way to put it.
Then, for five days, he withstood torture to give them time to escape. When he finally broke, he didn't break down. He lashed out. He ripped out Hirotaka's throat with his teeth. Lashed out like an animal, against someone worse than Satan, worse than evil itself. The slave ring died with him; Fukushima, his partner, didn't have the brains God gave lava.
Melody would take similarly animalistic steps to stop human trafficking.
(THIS IS THE BAD PART. SCROLL DOWN TILL YOU SEE SIMILAR MARKINGS.)
2033, Yonkers
Melody had caught them just outside of Yonkers, three slavers, with a full cargo. She sent a caravan for the slaves in CVB's Recovering Slave Wing, a lavish hospital that was worth millions per year. She had medical technicians and camera technicians on hand for the slavers. She took them to a specially prepared bunker, no windows for the stars to give them away. She would videotape their every torture.
First thing she did was have them crucified. The nails were clean, as was the wood. Their wounds were cauterized, and they would be fed and watered well. They wished it had stopped there and they had died with that.
She teased their penises into erect positions. Then she took a long cleaver, and carefully stripped all of the skin off, taking no flesh yet. She took her time, and carefully peeled off the muscle, and then, when she got it down to the tube, yanked it out of the body.
Then that wound was cauterized. The remains were then stuck up their behinds. She then carefully prepared a bladed drill- as it spun, it shredded whatever it touched. She then proceeded to, in turn, shove it up all of their behinds, until it came out the front.
The rest of the process she didn't bother to try to cauterize. They died somewhere between the arse-peeling and the third layer of muscle being shaved off their torsos.
END OF NASTY PART. SORRY I HAD TO DO THAT.
2036, Rome
She nearly vomited at the memory. Anyone else shown the tape passed out. Never, ever torture in a fit of rage. It will leave you with nightmares. But in her mind, they deserved still worse.
And trafficking had dropped ninety percent since it was posted online.
She removed the syringe from her pocket, and slammed it down. She went back immediately, took her tranquilizers, and cried until they stole her consciousness.