Title: We Live in Deeds
Author: strangelittleswirl
Fandom: Repo! the Genetic Opera
Pairing: Graverobber/Shilo (eventually)
Rating: R
Word Count: 6,722
Summary: 'Her name was Shilo Wallace once.' The aftermath of Opera, and the beginning of a new chapter in the city's history.
Warning: Language, violence, and inferences to mature themes.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. I'm merely playing in the genius world created by DLB, DS, and TZ . I do not have any claims to the poetry used either.
Anastasia blinked and rubbed at her eyes a few times before returning her gaze to the end of the bed. What had they shocked her with?
She sat up with a groan. "Did I get hit with a corpse truck? Jesus."
Medi was looming over her, peeling off gloves with a frown. "You constantly make me consider getting a new face," she muttered. "Brian, would you help and make sure Anastasia eats something?"
Brian snapped to attention, happy to be needed. Ana twisted and dropped her legs over the side of the bed, her limbs heavy with exhaustion even as her heart beat a little faster.
Did it honestly matter that the guy at the end of her bed was Graverobber? It had to be, what with the makeup and multi-colored strands of hair. Under the makeup, she could make out the beginning of wrinkles, the sort that everyone in the city got with time. Pollution, lack of sunlight and vitamins. City faces reminded Ana of a sick plant, pale and translucent.
It was him, judging by the clothes and the general behavior. Even as Medi tended to his wounds, she caught his eye once or twice as she made her way out of the infirmary. Same cold blue, like a winter sky on the prairie.
Just why exactly was she nervous about him recognizing her? Perhaps because aside from Fred and two girls that had gone to her school-they had failed to recognize her and she continued to keep them in the dark-the Graverobber was the only person from her old life. Fred had birthed her, in a way, but this was someone who knew who she was then, all colt-like legs, knobby knees, and early adolescent awkwardness. He would have remembered Shilo Wallace, who had never actually killed a person. Shilo Wallace was not intimate with the term 'blood lust'. Shilo Wallace had not fucked someone against a garbage can. Shilo Wallace did not know the various pressure points on the body, and she hadn't seen a sunrise over the east coast. This realization, for some strange reason, caused her stomach to churn.
Brian led her with a hand around her wrist, weaving through the crowd, occasionally loudly announcing that he was on a mission from Medi. Usually that got people to shut up and do what they were told, one did not fuck with Medi if they knew what was best. She could be kind with the invalid, but she could also forget to put a the topical anaesthetic on if she did not like you.
Fred emerged from his office just as Ana was finished wolfing down a bowl of soup, eager for her instructor to explain to her what happened. Granted, it would come with a great deal of berating for allowing herself to be tasered, but still. Vaguely, she remembered the man in the woods, remembered thinking that he looked a great deal how the grave-pillaging peddler had looked like, but once she had recognized that he was not a threat, she had been too busy to take the time to see who it was.
"Sparky," barked their leader, and it only took a second for Ana to realize that he meant herself. Biting back a groan, she pushed herself out of her chair and followed him into the office.
"Don't pull that shit again," he muttered under his breath as Ana closed the door. She nodded.
"Yes, sir."
"That girl who went with you, she was one of our teachers. Her father was one before her."
The brunette waited, knowing full well what came next.
"She didn't make it back with you. You'd have already known that if you were conscious."
The soup was cement in her stomach, and there was too much of it, trying to come out all at once. She swallowed, hating it as she did so, and nodded.
"Is there family that needs to be notified?" Her team, her fault. Mischa would have a field day with this info.
"No, she was the last. There is, however, a group of kids waiting for her to teach tonight. This is a bit last minute, so you'll be covering her class."
"Yes, sir."
Medi watched Brian leave with Ana and sighed, shaking her head. "Something is up with her," she said quietly before grabbing a wheeled stool and drawing it close to Graverobber. "Alright, to business. Fred says you're known as the Graverobber."
"The Graverobber, Graverobber, Grave, what have you."
She gave him a disproving look. There was something about this woman that made him wish he had scrubbed behind his ears before seeing her. "Right. Well, I know from the fact that you are sitting here that you made it safely past inspection from Fred and Pierre, so I can ask you about this. I need a steady Zydrate run to be dropped off routinely. We can't keep doing runs from outside the city; it's gotten to be too dangerous. And morphine, codeine...none of it has the same properties as Z. Even diluted, dirty Zydrate is better than that. So what do you say? Come round twice a week, receive routine pay?"
He shrugged and reached up to bother the bandage, which she stopped with a swat to his arm. "I enjoy being able to pay rent, so this sounds good to me."
She chuckled and gestured towards the door. "We've got a silent lock down going right now while we regroup and reassess, but feel free to mill about.
He nodded and was just about to exit the infirmary when she called him. "Watch that attitude, boy. Fred doesn't take shit, ok?"
He nodded, and after a second in which he wasn't sure what she was thinking, she smiled.
"Welcome to the Resistance, Graverobber."
Ana was excellent with demolition-sometimes, a Molotov cocktail was more impressive than a dirty bomb depending on the situation. She knew the name and make of every weapon that passed through a Resistance building's doors. Pressure points, triage, torture and interrogation techniques. Entomology was a breeze; poetry a passion.
Teaching was another thing.
The class had already assembled-when they were on lock down in the subway, an old gift shop inside the station took the place of their normal classroom. There was a smart board in the corner, and enough space, once the counters were removed, for desks. The shelves were now holding worse-for-wear tablets, and the master consol was up front, where Ana would stand.
By the time she arrived, the middle group was already assembled and sitting in their desks. Their faces fell when she entered, and the seven students looked down to their work.
Squaring her shoulders, Ana moved over to the consol and brought up the lesson plans for the day.
"Right, well," she started, thinking that perhaps it might help to sound like she knew what she was doing. She didn't. Not really. Hopefully the past teacher left detailed instructions, although it was looking to me the opposite case. After glancing at the children, she looked back down at the consol screen to read.
"Is Miss Lisa in the infirmary?" asked one of the students. "We want to bring her a card after class lets out."
"No," she responded quickly as she continued reading the screen.
"Well she's in the station, isn't she?" the same student asked again, a boy with chocolate-dark skin and eyes, she now noticed, just as dark and deep. The room had gone deadly quiet, and Ana realized what had just transpired. The young woman sighed and seated herself on top of the desk, facing the kids.
"Guys, I'm sorry, but she isn't. Miss Lisa did not make it back, and it was on my watch."
A little girl in the first row shrugged. "Death happens. Miss Lisa didn't have very good eyes," she said in a matter-of-fact tone. "We lost Miss Lisa's mom the same way. What are we reading today?"
And like that, the class segued into normalcy, and Ana cautiously made her way through the lesson plans.
Three classes, each three times a week. Fred had made her take up teaching them for the time being, on top of her other responsibilities and her missions. Ana learned to be careful about possibly breaking a finger during a fight or training, because she'd have to grade papers later. She was drinking copious amounts of coffee. She couldn't complain; she never complained. Fred was teaching her a lesson: people were not expendable. Everyone helped their cause, and the loss of any was a great loss.
Ana couldn't help but frown as she thought of this, wiping at her face with a ratty towel. Mischa had already left her in the sparring area to clean up by herself-"I've got something I've gotta go do", he had called over his shoulder; probably with his tail between her legs-and she was enjoying the quiet when she heard the stairs creak. The petite brunette looked up to see Medi descending.
"So will you be hiding this afternoon?" the older woman asked. Ana kicked the underside of the mat to start to roll it up, and frowned yet again.
"What?"
Medi walked over and helped Ana roll up the mats. "I mean, every time I get a Zydrate drop off, you cannot be found. And you've been skittish recently."
"Got a class to teach." There was no way she was having this conversation, even if Medi was someone she could confide in, this wasn't one of those things she'd-
Medi was eyeing her with suspicion. "You've screwed your share of the guys around here, but I've never seen you so flustered as when you woke up and saw him in the infirmary. Out with it, girl."
Medi Flannagan had a gaze that equated to Sodium Pentothal. The truth came bubbling out, and all the while Medi listened.
"So he was one of the first people I really met outside of my home, and one of the last people to see me before I left the first time. I was young, he was a male and nothing like my father, and so naturally I instantly was attracted to this bohemian man..." Ana shrugged. "But it's not like it meant anything; it was a little girl's crush, and I'm sure he doesn't even remember me."
Medi sighed, appearing to think over what the younger woman had shared as they climbed the stairs. "That still doesn't explain why you bail the second you see this guy. You're attractive, not deformed, and it's not like you've blown up to a ridiculous size. So why are you afraid for him to see you?"
Ana pushed past a few gathered people in the kitchen to the fridge to collect a bottle of water, waiting to continue their conversation as they set out of the back of the house to the warehouse a few blocks away. "Cowardice, maybe? Afraid I've built him up in my mind to be more than he really is? Medi, if I knew the answer to that, I wouldn't be as fucked up as I am."
"You are not," retorted the woman sharply while wrapping a chocolate colored hand around Ana's arm, "fucked up. You are surviving, and I get that. You can't be textbook normal in a world that doesn't follow the rules of that textbook."
That last word caused Ana groan, cursing loudly enough for it to echo off of the walls around them. "That's right, we are starting the Modernists with the older kids today."
"I'm guessing that makes sense to you."
"It's a...a poetry thing. I'm more into Romanticism, but-what?" she asked, seeing her friend crack a smile.
"Never considered you a romantic."
The brunette shook her head. "No, no not like that, it's a movement in poetry with an emphasis on nature and symbolism and other boring stuff you probably don't want to hear about."
Medi nodded. "You'd be correct, now let's get going, you've got a class to teach and I'm sure there's a handful of people that need stitches.
The Graverobber was accustomed to secrets, to having his own and finding then out, to keeping them and keeping them from others. There was something about having a new one that left him with a feeling similar to that of having new shoes or new clothing. There were thousands of people he passed on the street who didn't know of his participation in the Resistance. There was a satisfaction in that knowledge.
Brian, for the past three weeks, had been appearing and guiding him to subway station to make his drop offs. It was time again, and with pockets laden with vials, he made his way to the predetermined rendezvous point. Brian was slouched against an old, crumbling Blind Mag concert advertisement; he was looking nervously down at his watch.
"You're late, we don't have a lot of time, you know." As far as greetings went, it was horrendous.
"There's always time, Brian. Time for murder and the taking of a toast and tea." Brian shook his head.
"Talking with you is like talking with Ana; I get this feeling that I need a glossary to fully understand you," the youth muttered. At the mention of the girl's name, Graverobber turned, raising an eyebrow in the process.
"For someone oft spoken of, she's very scarce."
"That's because she's stuck with teaching right now," said Brian, blushing at the graveyard prowler's observation-this kid was head over heals in that sad sort of way. "And doing a lot of other stuff. She's, like, really important and stuff. She and Misch-Misch both are. But she's really good with poetry and shit, so they asked her to instruct, I guess."
The two men slipped under a fence and through an alley, then seemed to double back on their route for a short time before veering in another direction. Eventually they ended at a derelict warehouse. Brian extracted a key from his pocket and opened a chain-link fence to allow them both through.
"The classroom is in the old worker's lounge over there," said Brian, after they were patted down, scanned for bugs, and allowed into the building. "That's where the classroom is."
"Thanks, kid," muttered Graverobber, although he had no intention of actually going to look in on the class. He did, however, have to go in that direction, because Medi's kingdom of cots and privacy screens took up the corner near-by.
Medi waved him over to a folding table that had been set up as a desk for the woman. She pulled out a small cooler from underneath and unlocked the padlock on it. "Dump 'em, I can't really talk right now. Setting a bone for Mischa here, who simply cannot, for the life of him, remember what I tell him about his tricky shoulder." She disappeared behind a curtain but then popped her head back out. "Thank you."
And with that his task was finished. It seemed like a waste of a trip if he didn't get something out of it-besides his pay of course. Perhaps he'd go to the canteen section and get something to eat. A warm meal under a roof on a cold night like this would be worth it.
The door was open to the lounge, and in front a group of teenaged children on rickety couches, sitting cross-legged upon a desk, was the Ana of Brian's fame. Her head was turned facing a stick-thin shaggy blonde girl asking a question about symbolism, to which another student responded.
"I dunno, I felt like using the words 'Repo Men' in my poem. It made it sound kinda creepy, with the repetition, I thought," explained the boy.
"Good, Chase. The rhythm of the words really helped. Repo Men," said the teacher, playing with the word, feeling it and tasting it. "You know, no one else has them on the outside. It's all ours, our very own 'thin men of Haddam', I guess."
It was that girl. The Repo Man's daughter. Shilo Wallace. No one else would talk like that.
Those eyes had never sparkled like that, however, and the lopsided grin had only just begun to be feminine the last time he had seen it. Her face had lost some of its youthful roundness, well a lot of it, actually. There was a gauntness to her, a look of routinely missing a few meals here or there. The tan she sported-he remembered them from his childhood: brief memories of his mother's friends, returning from vacations with golden brown skin like that.
In all his years in his particular and singular line of work, he had not seen a ghost, not a real one at least. Granted, occasionally a pair of GeneCo eyes which had not been removed prior to death would suddenly turn on, broadcasting a latent memory or two, but the Graverobber had attributed it to buggy technology. But the woman before him-tan and very real-must have been a ghost. Shilo Wallace had died escaping from the city, year ago.
The class had moved onto a new subject, but as they flipped through the old textbooks, Shilo's gaze traveled towards the door and Graverobber for a moment before continuing with her lessons.
Medi was calling for him to come over, which gave him an excuse and incentive to tear himself from his place outside the doorway, so he left and walked back over to the infirmary.
Shilo Wallace was alive. Shilo Wallace was Ana. Things were making less sense with each passing second.
Once upon a time, two young men had a genius idea, a way to save those who were dying around them. Their small, upstart cloning business-it was mostly old women who wanted cats and dogs cloned-could be the location of a great change in their dying society.
Rotti had the business brains, and his friend Malcolm had a great grasp of the scientific parts of it. Together they set the plans in motion to make Geneco a household name. Malcolm would work in the labs and out of the spotlight, and Rotti would create the image. The money slowly started to pour in, and success was theirs.
For a time.
Then Malcolm had become bedridden, and remained so for many years before finally succumbing to the poison that had been laced in his coffee and later his intravenous drip of morphine.
Poor little Malcolm Junior. Luigi had never liked him. As children they had terrorized one another-when Luigi was not in the psychiatric ward, of course. Or under house arrest.
Beneath him, the girl cried out.
Luigi pulled a little harder on her hair, causing her back to arch a little more, and he continued. Pavi had whined last time that he not played nicely with their new little toy, so this time he was putting her through the ringer. Just beyond the door was a team of SurGens and Genterns, waiting to swoop in after he was finished. A few stitches, a little more Zydrate, and she'd be escorted down the hall to his brother.
Sloppy seconds for the Pavi. Amber's decomposing face had caused his younger brother to lose some of his admirers. Stories had gotten out about the two of them-bitches who had been returned to their parents a few years ago, after that ridiculous school had burnt down-Shilo Wallace, that cunt-had caused them to lose their popularity. Luigi had picked his way though the Genterns.
For fuck's sake, he couldn't even kill them anymore, people were watching.
At some point boredom had taken over and the brothers had decided to have a competition; sharing the whores had meant an equal playing field.
Take this one, for instance. Dirt poor, had been at the school. After the fire, she'd gone into the makeshift program while the school was rebuilt. With her glasses and her braids back then, she looked like that chick on the old beer packages at first. Dozens of surgeries later, and you couldn't recognize her.
After one last thrust, he climaxed with a grunt. The girl below him was quiet, having given even crying at this point. Bitch was lucky. She'd been tossed from Geneco employee to Geneco employee, working her way up the ranks, on her back and her knees; others didn't provide her the meals, SurGens, or other small luxuries afforded to her in the Largo house. And all they asked in return was for her to shut up and lay back.
Glenda drew her robe back on, feeling the soreness in all of her muscles. The tears were getting ready to spill again, and she tried to contain them until she got out into the hallway, where the staff would whisk her away, give her a hit of Z, and stitch her up.
Hobbling towards their office, on the arm of a Gentern, she made her way past Amber's office. Just out of the corner of her eye, she made out the Head Repo Man, with his dead eyes. He gave her the creeps. She was happy they hadn't asked her to fuck him.
Walking to the SurGen office allowed her to pass a window-a real one. Bullet-proof and barred, she could still look through it and see the world below. She wanted that world, ached for it. She wanted to get out of this. Why had she ever allowed this to start?
There was a mirror just outside the SurGen's door. As the Gentern swiped them in, Glenda spared a glance into it. No more freckles. Perfectly blue eyes. Her hair was red for the time being, loose and wavy, nothing like the tight curls she tamed and bound in braids before.
Her last thought, before succumbing to the icy-hot burn of Geneco Zydrate, was of the window, the space, and the freedom.
After class the class let out it was time to go down to the basement and check on the latest raid's scores. Ana knew that it was with a look bordering on lust that she looked at a Dessert Eagle that had turned up; the reassuring weight was beautiful. The whole lot of the guns were pre Wi-Fi-they'd continue to function even after Brian shut down part of the city's gun grid. Finally, she settled upon a smaller standard Glock, enjoying the light heft and the familiarity. These were what she had learned to shoot with, and even with her eyes closed she could see the ammo textbook pages clearly.
But sooner than she would have wished, it was time for dinner. One of girls around her age was tittering over the 'new guy in the long trench', so she knew he was still there. Tonight, at least, was clean up duty for her, which meant at least an hour in the kitchen afterwards.
Mischa and his men came back, minus only some blood and a bit of someone's ear; it was a victory, and the entirety of the group was positively giddy with satisfaction.
Normally dinner was jovial and loud, one of the few times that Ana and the rest would let their guard down for a little while. But not tonight. Tonight she sat ate briskly and quickly got up to do the dishes in the old industrial cafeteria's kitchen.
She had been in the kitchen for at least ten minutes before he followed her-she was just about to answer one of Pierre's questions when the door to the industrial kitchen whined and opened, and there stood the Graverobber. The petite girl went back to packing food up, watching the newcomer out of the corner of her eye.
"Medi needs you," he announced, jerking his head at Pierre. For a moment, her bulky friend seemed to consider, then in a strange voice he said, "She needs me?" and off he went.
The kitchen door whimpered and shut, and Ana went about her task. He was watching her, and she tried to keep it from bothering her.
"Wallace Stevens?" he asked, finally, and she had to look up. Quickly, she shrugged and went back to work.
"Working off of the course material. Another guy is going to be coming in to teach; I'm getting to the point where I might shank one of them."
He chuckled and leaned against the industrial freezer, arms crossed and a leg crossed over the other one. "Don't remember you being that outwardly violent."
"Genetic, but I didn't have to be hostile, back then." Sure, it was flippant, but it felt good. Something about him this close made her feel tense.
He was studying her, head slightly to the side, all loose-limbed arrogance and shoddy clothes. He probably stole them off of the corpses. Good taste, regardless.
But then she met his eyes. She had forgotten that his eyes were blue; somewhere in her memories she had remembered them as something darker, more in keeping with the character that he seemed to play-dark brown, almost black, perhaps.
"Can I let you in on a secret?" he asked, suddenly cheerful, as he strolled over and popped a grape into his mouth. She shrugged, as now her hands were in the sink and she was up to her elbows in dishwater.
"There's a lot of them around here."
He made a noise then, at the back of his throat, as if he was considering that statement thoughtfully, then the faint smell of patchouli and death that had been present since he entered became stronger as he leaned closer. Sweat, dirt, life itself, that's what he smelled like, too. "I have no fucking clue what's going on." He whispered into her ear, breath hot upon her ear. The Zydrate dealer pulled back, giving her a conspiratorial, wolfish grin. Oh, but she hadn't worn that red hood for years...
"Most people are in the dark, too. And if you want answers, you better roll up those sleeves and help me with this shit. Everything has a price, Graverobber."
The dishes were caked with crumbs and grease, and the platter slid oily through his fingers in the murky water.
"So most people are aware of the Resistance in some form or another. Most just think we're fighting against Geneco for the sake of fighting-that's where they start underestimating us. A lot of people think that we're just plain stupid, fighting against the only company keeping us alive." She leaned towards him, eyes bright and passionate. "That's where they're wrong.
"Do you know that the United States still exists?"
"Yeah, on old dollar bills," he scoffed. "Aside from some freaks on the woods, this city is it."
She shook her head and took the platter from him, rinsing it off now that he had scrubbed the baked-on grease from it. "Nope. East coast still has cities scattered along the edge. While I was out there, we were working on a study; we're pretty sure our exposure to the ocean breeze, the wind patterns and shit? That's what saved this place. Not Geneco-they just profited, tried to find a solution to the problem. I mean, every once in a while, someone still dies because of organ failure, but for the most part, you're looking at a population of people who became resistant to the disease."
"Science shit, trippy," he commented, for lack of something more to say.
"So there were a couple of groups in the city, rebelling and shit. But it wasn't until we started organizing, linking up with some of the survivors outside of the city, that we were able to become unified."
"So that's how the Resistance was formed: stream-lining some anarchy?" He took the towel that she tossed to him and started to dry out some of the cups.
"Yup. This place make look pretty shoddy, but believe me, we're more organized than you could even imagine. Budget, health, sustainability...we have departments for all of it. A city within the city."
They continued with the cleaning for a short time in silence. The urge to ask her, to continue this conversation, weighed too heavy on his shoulders.
"But what about you?"
The dark haired young woman stared at him blankly. "What about me? I told you everything."
He took the moment-really, it presented itself, didn't it?-to give her a lingering look. Oh yes, this was not the little Shilo Wallace of knobby knees and sickly pallor that had followed behind him, a shadow sprite of sorts. "I've never seen such an attractive, lively corpse before."
Shilo raised an eyebrow. "That attempt was deplorable-but points for an attempt. Left, got shot crossing the border. Fred dragged my carcass with him, I was patched up, he kicked my ass into gear, and I've been working for him ever since."
"And the name change?"
The girl turned to study the dish she was wiping off. "I just needed to, I guess."
Now that he understood.
He realized then that the dishes were clean, and that they had worked so smoothly together and diligently while they were talking that neither had realized the job was finished.
It was burning her from the inside out. It had been, what, four months since she had used street Z? Too long, too fucking long.
Amber scratched at her arm, watching as the marks became pink and raised on her pale skin. She tapped her foot.
She called one of the Genterns in, the one she knew was using. The girl looked at her nervously. "Yes, Miss Sweet?"
"When was the last time you saw Graverobber?"
The girl blanched. "I-I don't know what you're talking about, Miss Sweet."
"Oh, fuck off," the woman-blonde today-spat, and decided she disliked the paperweight on her desk enough to hurl it at the Gentern. More of both of them, where they came from. Both easy to replace if it came to it. "I know you see him, he hits you up. Where the fuck is he?"
"I-I don't know miss, I haven't seen him around that much, recently."
She threw money at the girl. "Well, go find him and bring me back some. Don't think I wouldn't know how much that buys; I better see all of it. Or I'll let the boys' little fuck toy have a night off and you can take her place."
The girl scurried off and she realized she had been scowling. That wouldn't do at all.
It could leave wrinkles.
Notes:
Graverobber's comment about time is paraphrased from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot, a Modernist poet-going by James Ledbetter's analysis, Prufrock is a prophet poet who goes unnoticed in a society that is disbelieving and ignorant; the character seems to give up because of this. If you've got access to literary databases (ex: through your school) try to look up the article.
'thin men of Haddam' is taken from line 25 of 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" by Wallace Stevens, and Stevens made it up, saying it was a Yankee-sounding phrase