NEO World of Advent Chapter Seven
It was late night in Cipher's household. Most the children were already asleep, the younger kids thankfully having been tired out already from Shirley and Brandon taking them on a walk outside for fresh air. The "problem generation," as Charles now took to calling them after the incident with the feathers, were also fortuitously silent. If they were scheming something, Cipher supposed he'd just figure it out later. For now, he was lost in thought, a book of pictures pressed against his lap. It had been some time since he last opened it up, the leatherbound tome cracking upon its opening.
The first picture, Cipher recalled, was of him and Joan. They were young, no more than thirteen at the time. They looked small, faces uncertain. Advents were a new species back then. The world didn't quite know how to deal with them; with Umera's interference with illegal creation of Advent families, there was an abundance of these new creatures and no one to claim them. There was a lawsuit, Cipher recalled, about how a family sued after an Umbrian Advent had been found to have been made from an unconsenting reploid and human. They didn't even know each other; they said that they had no obligation to raise the child. The courts eventually took their side.
Thus the Advent Family system was born. Who better to raise these unwanted children than the children themselves? The politicians raved at the idea, like making a child in charge of another child's life was an efficient use of resources. They were to be given training on family dynamics and above all else, forbidden to look up their genetic ancestry. Neo Arcadia had already suffered the backlash of a lawsuit aimed by the unwitting parents of the Umbrian Advent and were unwilling to repeat it again.
Cipher and Joan were thrust into a strange and unforgiving world together. They met at their "Parental Conditioning Training" and bonded over their mutual frustration. They were among the oldest Advents alive at the time and deemed mature enough to handle the task. It was insane, really. Religious groups kept them from orphanages, budgets kept them from proper room and board often. I guess the people figured that even if no one else wanted them, a fellow Advent would be sympathetic to their kind.
In time, around Joan and Cipher's fourteenth birthday, they were told that they would have to learn how to make their own living. Tom, an old and cranky reploid, gave Cipher his business as he retired. He had learned the ropes quickly and soon mastered the art of engineering products for public use. Joan, in the meantime, learned from a representative from Neo Arcadia how to refine and shape metal. They knew of her father's old position and given her lack of family to take her in, made her a perfect fit for the Forge. They worked together often, Cipher needing a cheap means of acquiring metal and Joan needing someone to sell it to.
Cipher turned the page. Some were with Cipher's family. Getting Charles and Shirley to help. Soon after Kent and Bradley made themselves additions to their unconventional family and with them, the younger kids. Some pictures were of just Cipher and Joan, holding hands and smiling. A moment of first love captured forever by the flash of a camera. There were more pictures that told the short-lived life of their romance. Pictures of Cipher's fifteenth birthday cake being flown in his face by an overzealous Joan. Cipher surprising her for her birthday with a party paid for by a recent influx of sales. Cipher talking to a man in a suit; he had been talking about moving out of the district so that his clientele improved. Joan was in the background, stone-faced. She had never taken his decision to leave lightly.
The next few pictures weren't much better. Occasionally, there would be a moment of intimacy, a rare flash of the way things were, but the casual ease they held themselves around each other was gone. The last picture of them, just the two of them held plastic smiles and rigid bodies. Pages of pictures just of Cipher and his Family, new additions, birthdays, major events. Only later, at a convention for the Heads of Advent families was Cipher seen with Joan. They look relieved, as though their absence had been a thorn in their side finally easing its way out of their pain. Cipher put the book down, his head loosely back as he stared at the ceiling.
What had gone so wrong in their relationship? It's not like they ever fell out of love or mistreated each other. Life just got in the way, Cipher supposed. It just fell apart. They stopped talking to each other, stopped wishing each other a good night. Lapses in time between texts grew longer until the two of them decided it was unfair to each other to continue like they were. They broke up. It was one of the worst experiences of Cipher's life. He felt both awful and relieved, as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He had come back that night to his Family, who stayed up with him to make him feel better. They played outdated board games and fought over cardboard properties with such a reverie that Cipher nearly forgot what had happened.
Cipher had always made his Family his first priority. That night, he made a promise to give them all the best life he could, surrounded by the loss of a partner and the warmth of a family gained not from blood ties but something in a way, stronger. They needed each other. They helped each other out whenever they could; who else would? The world had made it perfectly clear from the start that they were on their own.
Cipher cleared a dry throat wiped his damp eyes with a nearby paper. Underneath it, Cipher saw, was the Gran Serena ad. Cipher picked it up, staring at the prize money advertised. If they had the money, back then, would things have been different? Cipher pocketed the paper and grabbed the keys to the apartment gate. In the bed next to him, Charles stirred.
"You going somewhere?" Charles said groggily.
"Yeah," Cipher said. "I'll be back sometime later tonight. Go back to sleep."
"On it boss," Charles said sleepily, turning over to avoid the inevitable burst of light from an open door. Cipher opened it gently all the same, minimizing the amount of light that would leak through the crack.
Outside, the moon shined a brilliant white. There were few clouds in the sky and the wind blew cold air on his skin, tossing his blonde hair in the darkness. Cipher found his Slider parked at the gate of the complex, unfastening it from the gate, fumbling with the keys in the numbing breeze. Once his hovercraft was safely on ground, Cipher turned it on, feeling the satisfaction of his machine's hum as it came to life in the otherwise silent atmosphere. There were few cars out; those that were outside advertised their existence by long beams of light that could be seen a ways off.
Cipher had planned on a simple midnight ride to clear his mind but found himself at the doorstep of the Dojo. It didn't come as a surprise to him; some part of him knew this was his destination all along. The Dojo prided itself on its long hours, so a few lights were on, even if the night staff couldn't be bothered to be present to greet him at the entrance. The distant sound of sweeping could be heard from an opposite corner and Cipher supposed they were busy prepping the store for closing for the night. Whatever the reason, Cipher planned on getting a workout with the time he had left.
To his half surprise, the room Joan had rented for the two of them was not dark like all the other rooms. The distinct glow of a lit room shone through the glass door and the "smack" of a bag being beaten repeatedly could be heard over terse bursts of speech.
"Stupid - jerk - why- did - you - leave?" Joan's voice could be heard, angry and hurt as she bore the brunt of her anger on the bag. Cipher stood at the precipice of the door, knocking to make sure she knew he was there.
"I'll be careful with the equipment this time, okay?" Joan thought Cipher was a manager, come to kick her out. "Just let me stay a few more minutes."
"It's me, Jo." Cipher stood still, hands in his pockets. Joan stiffened, the rage fading to surprise and shame.
"Cipher! I uh, didn't see you there. Um. Hi."
"What was that all about?" Cipher asked, sitting down on the bench. He offered her a seat beside him.
"Nothing, I suppose" Joan said airily. "Just letting off some steam."
"That sounded like more than nothing to me," Cipher said lightly. "It's alright. If you need to vent on something, the real thing might be better than some poor defenseless bag."
Joan gave an apologetic grimace to the battered gym equipment. "That was my fourth one."
"This is something we really need to talk about, isn't it?" Cipher said.
"I didn't mean - I don't," Joan stopped. "Why did you leave the district, Cy? We were doing well, I thought. Sure, we weren't exactly rich, but we had each other."
"Carla was getting sicker," Cipher said, referencing a bleak time in his Family's history, when one of the children under his care had fallen terribly ill. "The doctors said that insurance would cover a few more treatments, but that was it. Tom had always told me that going private meant more money, if you knew how to do it right. Where we were… It still isn't the best area. No one was going to buy a Slider from a back alley shop if that meant getting mugged on the way back. I had to move, Joan. There wasn't another option."
"I could have helped with her treatments," Joan said passionately. "We could have handled it together, like we always did. We were a team."
"You had your own family to look after," Cipher said. "Do you think I wanted to leave? I thought we could make it work, long distance. And what if someone else got sick? I had to do something. I couldn't just let them starve. The months after we opened shop we made twice as much as we did back then. Would you have done any different?"
"I would have told you I was doing it," Joan said. "I would have let you know first."
Cipher's voice caught in the back of his throat. "I guess I should have said something, huh?"
"You think?" Joan said drily. "All this time I thought… I thought maybe, it was me. That you just wanted to get away."
Cipher balled an anguished fist. "It was never you, Jo. I was being stupid. I thought you would break up or something if I let you know I was going away. I didn't know what to do, between us and keeping them safe."
"It's alright," Joan said, her body loose, as if letting go of an old grievance. "We were just kids, Cipher. We still are. Just young and stupid kids taking care of younger, stupider kids."
"I always envied you, you know." Cipher stared at the wall, lost in thought. "You were always so great with kids. It was all I could do to follow your example. I felt so useless whenever one of the toddlers would start crying or when they wanted a bedtime story. I felt like a failure when they refused to do something, that I wasn't their father."
"Yeah, but you were great at the other stuff," Joan reminded him. "Finance, food stock, budgets… I never understood how you could keep all that in your head. It was so crazy, you know? But somehow you made sense of it. Part of the reason I wanted to enter the Gran Serena, some part of me thought that if I won, then maybe… Maybe we could-"
Cipher silenced his oldest friend with an embrace, but let her go before she could think too much into it. "Even before I left, we had our differences," he reminded her. "We weren't without our problems."
"What couple doesn't have problems?" Joan gave a watery chuckle. "Promise me that you'll at least think on it, alright?"
Cipher nodded. "I will."
Joan cleared her throat, hopping to her feet before pushing Cipher off the bench.
"Hey," he protested. "What was that for?"
"Letting your guard down against a rival fighter," Joan said with a smirk.
The two of them wrestled for a bit, more playing than genuinely sparring before they collapsed to the ground beside each other, laughing that euphoric laughter fueled by catharsis and relief. This felt so good, Cipher thought, to be close to her again. Joan leaned against him, eyes closed.
"Joan," he warned.
"Just five minutes," she whispered. "Then we can go back."
"Five minutes," Cipher agreed, letting his vision go black. What felt like an instant later, his communicator rang and his eyes flew open to the sensation of a warm body next to him. "Joan!"
Joan jerked up sharply in turn. "What? What?!"
"We overslept." Cipher cursed, grabbing his belongings in a hurry, checking his communicator to see Charles's three voicemails, probably wondering where he had gone. He was probably frantic, Cipher thought. He checked the door to see if the night staff had locked them in or not, and, finding it open, stepped outside to return the call.
It barely made a single ring before Charles picked up. "Where are you? Are you alright?"
"I'm fine, Charles." Cipher took a deep breath. "I was at the Dojo with Joan. We just overslept, that's all."
"You overslept? With Joan?" A different kind of concern replaced Charle's frantic desperation.
"It's not like that," Cipher told him. "At least, I don't think it is. I haven't led her on if that's what you're thinking. This just kind of happened. It won't happen again."
"Cipher," Charles said, "I know you say that but you two never really moved on. I want you to be really sure of what you want from her and what you can give her before you stay overnight in foreign buildings again. Nobody wants a child out of wedlock."
"Charles!" Cipher said, scandalized. "It's not like that, I swear. I'll be back soon, alright? Tell the others I'm fine."
"They know," Charles said with an aggravated sigh. "Just get back here, okay?"
"I will when I can," Cipher promised. "I might have to take care of some things first."
"Whatever," Charles said curtly. "I tried. Just be careful. Both of you."
"We will," Cipher promised him. "I'll be back by dinner, I promise you that."
"I'll hold you to that." The conversation ended with a muted click as Charles hung up.
"What's going on?" Joan said. "You sounded tense."
"It's nothing," Cipher told her. "Just someone overreacting, that's all."
"Johnathan called as well," Joan said, "But everyone thinks I just came back late and left early is all. Nothing serious over on my end."
"Lucky you," Cipher said. "I just remembered something. I'm still not actually registered for the tournament."
"Cipher." Joan gave him an agitated glare. "It's tomorrow. The deadline's today. The lines are going to be huge."
"I know," Cipher said. "Sorry! I just kind of forgot."
"Well," Joan said, "If we hurry, we can get there before it gets too bad."
"We?" Cipher lingered for emphasis.
"Of course 'we', you idiot," Joan said. "How else can I make sure you actually get this done? Come on, we don't have any time to waste."
The two of them made a hastened scramble out the door, where they were accosted by the manager, who told them if he had to clean up any sort of "mess" their memberships were as good as terminated. Permanently.
"Nothing happened," Cipher promised the irate man. "Check for yourself. We have to go. Thanks for not locking us in!"
The two of them scrambled on their respective Sliders before making their way to the Colosseum. Sure enough, the lines were huge, but Cipher and Joan made a lucky break when someone asked them to hold her spot for them and didn't come back.
The flagship fighter for the event, Flare - Fighting Fefnir's son - was everywhere. On the cups, on the posters, even a bobblehead that said "Fightin' Spirit Flare wishes you a good fight!" when pressed. There was talk about the security for the crowd, the fighters, the measures taken so that no permanent injury could take place during the actual fights. Apparently, the contenders had to wear a special kind of vest that had a shield that could detect lethal blows on it. Overall, the Colosseum was a marvel of Neo Arcadian technology.
There was a commotion as a veteran reploid was denied access to the Gran Division bracket, where only those verified by the Neo Arcadian Board of Recreation could attend. "That's the one Flare's in," Joan explained. Soon, they made their way to the front, where the attendant took their names and desired bracket.
"The civilian one," Cipher told the attendant. They had agreed that that one, with the lowest level of restriction, yielded their greatest chance at success. "The name's Cipher. I'm being patroned."
"By whom?" The reploid attendant looked up expectantly, the shine of her metallic armor glinting in the sun.
"Here," Cipher said, bringing out his patron's contact info. "She said to call her if there were any problems." The attendant thanked him and sent a list of necessary details to his communicator before accepting the next person in line.
"You never told me who you got to patron you," Joan said. "Who is it?"
"It's that reporter, Neige," Cipher explained. "She was really interested in my personal information, but she got me in. It was kind of creepy, actually though. She asked if I used any cosmetics like hair dye as soon as I told her my name. She wanted to know how much of my oversol I could use and asked me to keep her posted if I unlock more of it later. So long as I do that, I'm golden."
"Blonde hair and those weirdly blue eyes of yours are kind of uncommon," Joan said. "Do you think she wanted to do a column on fashion or something?"
"I guess," Cipher said with a laugh. "I can't think of any other reason why she was so fixated on my looks. The oversol thing is still weird though."
"Who cares?" Joan offered him a fist bump. "We're in it to win it. Don't disappoint me out there, you hear?"
"Same goes for you," Cipher said, bumping the offered fist. "This tournament is going to change our lives."
