Chapter 3

Open curtains let November light into the room, bathing the white tiles in a dying afternoon's brilliant glow. The window opened to the north side of the hospital, adjacent to the children's ward. A handful of kids were at play outside, swinging on squeaky swings and digging through the sandpit with plastic backhoes. One of the children – she couldn't have been older than four – jumped off the swings and landed face-down in the sand. A nurse was quick to her side, making sure she was alright.

Renzol followed the little girl's plight from her hospital cot. No sound carried through the window, but the helpless cries echoed deep inside her. She didn't care about strength or weakness anymore. She just wanted to cry like that again. Just cry and cry until it was all better.

Why's she here? What horrors does a girl her age have to go through?

Of course the child wasn't crying just because of a sore knee or a bumped head: she might have been in-between chemo treatments, or maybe recovering from something harmless like chickenpox. Regardless, it must have felt like the end of the world to her. Renzol pulled her metal knees tight to her chest.

If she can do it… if she can keep fighting, then surely I—

Her throat tightened at the thought and fresh tears welled in her eyes.

Though I guess I didn't exactly just scrape my knee. A cynical laugh escaped her lips at the thought.

The first bullet had entered her body between the ribs on the left, just above her kidney, while the second round had pinged harmlessly off her alloy thigh. However, the first 9 mm hollow-point had grazed a rib and shattered, tearing open a lung. The internal bleeding and oxygen desaturation had rendered her incapacitated for days. The wound still radiated pain despite all the painkillers, but she hadn't been critical for a week now.

The police had arrived shortly after Renzol had woken up. She hadn't seen them, only heard their angry voices as they argued with someone in the hallway. They had returned two days later and that time, Renzol had caught a glimpse as a nurse had passed through the door. A man dressed all in black and bearing no visible badges had been blocking their passage into her room.

The police hadn't bothered her since. A doctor had brought her a letter stating all charges against her had been dropped, and that she was free to go as soon as she recovered. It was signed by the President himself.

Renzol had no doubt the Council and Commander Awo were behind it. But to her surprise, she didn't care. She barely spared a thought to the police, or to the people who had been pulling strings. She didn't lose sleep over a future where charges were pressed against her and the media uproar that followed. It all seemed so trivial. There were more important things, like the crying girl outside and the way she struggled back to her feet.

The door creaked and Renzol tensed. She pressed her chin to her knees and held her gaze outside. Someone pulled a chair next to her bed before sitting down with a quiet sigh. Renzol had been preparing herself for this all day, but she still wasn't ready. Maybe she'd never be ready.

Doctor Reed cleared his throat. "Renzol?" he asked.

Only silence answered him as Renzol followed the children outside. The little girl had stopped crying, and the nurse set her down to let her continue playing. The tears had returned to Renzol's eyes. She wanted to turn around and face him, but the courage wasn't there.

"Maybe it would be easier if I contacted someone you know? Family perhaps? Someone from XCOM?"

"No!"

Renzol jerked around, grasping the rails of the medical bed tight. Her eyes glimmered wetly as she met the psychologist's gaze. "Please," she managed to add before pressing her forehead against her knees.

"Alright," Doctor Reed agreed, "No friends or family. Is it alright if a technician checks up on you? To make sure your systems aren't damaged?"

Renzol tensed again. They would know who she was. But she had to begin somewhere, and a nod barely noticeable was as easy as it would get.

"Good, I'll make the arrangements." The psychologist scribbled on his clipboard before placing the pen down with a clack. "So, Renzol. Why did you want to see me?"

Renzol froze, the words catching in her throat. She wanted to speak them, she truly did. But it was so hard; fighting all the mutons of the invasion at once would have been easier for her.

"We haven't made any real progress during our previous meetings. I'm here to help you Renzol, but I can't do it without you. Would you tell me why you wanted to see me?"

Renzol trembled. She hugged her knees tighter, and a quiet screech broke the silence as metal ground on metal. She closed her eyes and the tears were finally released, cutting wet paths down her cheeks. The gunshot wound in her side ached, a constant reminder of what she had attempted.

"I want to live."

The whisper was nearly inaudible, disappearing under a shaky breath.

"I want to live!" Renzol managed to cry out before the sobs took over.

Violent convulsions shook her body as emotions long shackled were finally set free. A huge weight had been lifted off her heart, but it was far from over. Starting the process was easy; what lay ahead was hard.

Nolan Reed had been Renzol's psychologist since her medical discharge from XCOM. They had met a few times before, but their first genuine session occurred in that tiny hospital room. It was little more than Renzol crying, but it was a start.

XCOM's bio-technician arrived some days later. He wore a regular doctor's coat with the Northwestern Memorial Hospital's logo – a blue-and-white amalgam of the letters N and M – over the front pocket. Renzol didn't recognize his face, but she could tell he recognized her. Thankfully, he was very discreet about it. There was no small talk as the man conducted a full physical check-up of her augments, and Renzol was happy to pretend he was just another healthcare professional. Her elerium core and artificial marrow readings were normal, the medical ports showed no signs of mistreatment or wear, and all the alloy parts moved and functioned as they should. The inflammation around her shoulders and hips had almost disappeared, and the man stressed the importance of continuing her medication in order to keep the most violent of cybernetic rejection syndrome's symptoms from returning.

"Besides medication," the technician said while packing his instruments, "the most important thing is mental health. Based on your file, Doctor Vahlen believes that to be the cause of the disorder."

Renzol tensed at the mention of XCOM's chief scientist, but in the end she accepted the advice with a silent nod and then the technician was gone. Renzol stared out the window, wondering if he would board a jet headed for a remote island located off the coast of Japan.

On the sixth day after her first meeting with Nolan, Renzol managed to talk about the war.

"It was a UFO op in July. Landed Raider in Mexico, in the mountains of Veracruz. Captain Scubaman was commanding." Renzol paused for a moment, her eyes growing distant. "I guess he was a lieutenant back then. I was the 2IC. Lead operative of the AT fireteam as the rocketeer, too. Cell was there as my support gunner."

She remembered the operation like it was yesterday: multiple pods of drones and seekers, and the first cyberdisc they had encountered during the war. Led by her and Cell, the squad managed to destroy the mechanized enemy without casualties. A storm of molten alloy had torn through the trees they had used for cover before Daishi had finally put the disc down with her laser strike rifle. It had been her fifth operation serving alongside Cell.

"Post-op, Cell asked me to train with her," Renzol said before falling quiet. The gunner had always been a hard-ass, someone she had looked up to. Now that Renzol thought about it, she had never asked Cell why she had made the offer that day.

Renzol cleared her throat. "I went with her. She was my spotter in the gym. I used to train a lot after hours." Her voice trembled slightly. The tide inside her was rising, and dark waters threatened to take over. She hugged herself tight.

"I never… never asked her…" Renzol ground to a halt, unable to finish the sentence. The trembling turned to shaking, and anxiety became heartbreak.

"Because you're my best friend," Cell whispered deep inside her.

"You never asked her why she did it?" Nolan helped her along.

"I never—never—" Renzol struggled for air, and her erratic breaths turned to sobs. Through her sorrow, she managed to whisper, "I never told her I loved her. She was my best friend."

The front door closed with frightening finality, sealing Renzol inside her apartment after what seemed like an eternity outside. A cascade of unopened letters and brochures sprawled across the hallway floor. She laid her bag amidst them and leaned against the door, closing her eyes and breathing in. She gripped the notes Nolan had given her tight, but she didn't need to look down. She had read the words over so many times she had them memorized.

Start simple. Something you enjoyed before the war. The smallest thing is fine: reading, sports, any other past time activity. Routine, Renzol. Routine is key, and the familiar is a good place to start.

It was all too much. Starting a new life – where to begin? Renzol let the air out and opened her eyes. With an awkward bend of her metal knees, she decided the mail was as good a place as any.

Pension, electricity bill, an angry letter from her landlord, more bills… Renzol read through the countless letters, opening them on the spot before engineering a neat stack out of them. By the time she was done, the stack was the size of a respectable paperback. The bills that hadn't expired she paid on her laptop – the ones that had she placed in a separate pile that evoked a distant sense of apprehension inside her. It was so mundane she wanted to laugh – she had gone through a lot more than missed bills in her time – but the frantic sound that left her throat rang hollow and too loud and was so devoid of real humor it scared her.

She continued where she had left off with the hallway, cleaning the apartment room by room. She didn't dare vacuum this late at night, but she organized, dusted, and took out the garbage. By the time she was done, the small apartment looked better than it had in nine months.

A shower later, Renzol found herself standing by the near-empty fridge. She had bought the bare essentials on the way and a Subway sandwich and fruit served as her dinner.

She was done in minutes. The apartment was silent but for the quiet humming of the fridge. Renzol clasped her artificial hands together. The nights she had spent at this table overcome by despair were beyond counting. She glanced at the blinds. If she was to open them now, what would happen? Would she stare out into the night until the familiar tinge of cybernetic rejection syndrome was back, niggling away at her shoulders? Would she once again be on the whims of her guilt and suffering, never to heal?

Let go. You want to, the cold voice of the Box whispered inside her.

"No."

The denial didn't make the fear go away. Nothing would, Renzol was sure of that. But it gave her strength. It gave her purpose.

Renzol stood up and tore down the garbage bags that still clung to the edges of the kitchen window. She balled them up and tossed them in the hallway, followed by the bags in the bedroom. She was done living in hiding. After only a second's hesitation, she opened the bedroom blinds.

The lamp post cast its orange glow over the empty playground. Dark asphalt stretched out in all directions, snaking in-between the apartment buildings and onto the lit streets beyond. Most of the windows were dark by now but some were still lit. For a brief moment, Renzol wondered what kinds of people were hiding behind those curtains.

The bag she had brought back from the hospital lay on the bed. She walked over and from within produced a thick hardcover. She took it under her arm, and an overwhelming sense of nostalgia came over her. Eyes closed, she lingered in the moment. Tears prickled at her eyes, but they didn't quite come. It was alright: if she cried tonight, then so be it. But she wouldn't cry for herself; she wouldn't cry at her helplessness or the hopeless predicament she was in. She would cry for the past, for the people she had loved and lost.

"It's okay to cry. In fact, it's good. But crying over an uncertain future? It's pointless. People do it all the time and really, there's nothing wrong with it per se. But we still have a say over the future, so why cry over it? The past though… the only thing we can do is come to terms with it. And what better way to do that than an honest expression of one's emotions?"

With Nolan's words in mind, Renzol laid the book down on the kitchen table. It let out a hollow thud, resounding with the promise of a new beginning. She knew sleep wouldn't come yet – the routine of a steady sleep cycle would have to wait. She grabbed a pen, flipped open the cover and scribbled the words she remembered so vividly inside.

"To my son Hunterhr on the day he answered the Call of Duty: always remember who you are and where you came from." – Thomas Hunterhr Sr.

Even as it broke her heart, Renzol smiled and touched a synthetic finger to the words. It wasn't the real deal, but it would have to do. She couldn't remember where she had left off a year ago, so she simply started from the beginning. She had time.

Renzol flipped to the first page of War and Peace.