Chelen City: Interlude: Lizzie

 Notes: A little Lizzie interlude to tide us over before the finale. I couldn't leave her to suffer!

Title: Chelen City: Interlude: Lizzie

***

Interlude: Lizzie

 

He was here again.

It was the seventh time in the past two weeks he’d come to her. The first few times he spoke for a while before finally leaving, and she thought he’d given up after the third one, when he left with [[tears you made him cry you’re a terrible person]] a sad expression. But then he came back.

It would be easier if he gave up.

[[you miss him you’d miss him even worse you liar, you’re even lying to yourself that’s so stupid]]

He’d stopped talking so much. That was fine; she didn’t want to listen to him [[she has every audio file he’s ever spoken in a special place right next to her central cortex where she can listen to the whisper of him]] but even though he didn’t say as much, he still sat down beside her. Sometimes he accessed things on his tab or his implant, but more often he just leaned his head against her hull and kept her company. Not even Pol wanted to keep her company much these days [[you say you’re too busy for him too but you’re not, you’re just boring and angry and sad and no one wants to be around you not even Catie]]

Catie still talked to her every day; in some ways Lizzie and Catie were never separate. Their cortexes were combined so often right now, working for Elanus, that she could practically do her sister’s calculations for her. But she couldn’t, actually, because Catie didn’t do things the same way Lizzie did. She was much better with people, which was why she was helping Elanus handle the media while Lizzie focused on accessing Moreno.

[[make you pay for taking away Kee, I hate you I hate you I HATE YOU]]

She’d already made it so that he couldn’t leave Gania. Apart from the fact that doing so right now would trigger a clause in the constitution that made him ineligible for office and obliged to step down for dereliction of duty, she didn’t want him to escape justice. Elanus would get justice. Elanus was the only one who loved Kee as much as Lizzie di- [[no I don’t love him I don’t love him, I don’t, I can’t, he doesn’t remember me I’m nothing to him so he has to be nothing to me now but I miss him, I miss him, I MISS HIM]]

Thanks to massive infiltration of the identity matrixes at the ports and a black-market bounty on the head of any third party who attempted to exfiltrate the president, Moreno’s efforts to leave had been blocked. And today…today was the day he would fall. Today the presidential mansion was finally going to lose its last layer of digital protection. Some of the pieces had been there for centuries, intertwined with traps and triggers that would do everything from causing a citywide blackout to starting a negative cascade in the stock market. Anything to create confusion, to make it easier for the president to sneak out.

But no. Lizzie had found them all, every connection, every thread, and cut them ruthlessly. Caria Jayde was marching toward the mansion right now, a groundswell of followers with her, the media treating her like the darling Elanus had persuaded them she was. Elanus wasn’t present there, of course; he wasn’t going to be a part of the overthrow and arrest. He couldn’t be.

There were so many crimes to be laid at Moreno’s feet, but the greatest of them were the perpetuation of Elfshot Disease, and the murder of his vice-president. There was plenty of video to back that up, and it had been playing non-stop for the past news cycle. Few people thought to ask about the other person who’d been there with xir, defending xir [[forgetting everything important, all the people who love him, all for that AWFUL FU*(IE*UE(#WE*H)@E>>>>……--------reboot]]

“It’s going to be okay.”

Lizzie’s code blipped. She pulled back from her observation of the march to register the feeling of Kieron’s hand on her hull, stroking gently. Why? Why was he bothering? She was fine, she—

Was trembling. Ripples resounded up and down her hull, little tremors that made her joints flex just enough to buzz in places. She was shivering. Quivering. With…what did she feel?

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Kieron said, rubbing soft circles into her colorful synthskin. It took a moment for Lizzie to realize that her skin had turned gray. She’d been shiny white ever since the accident, reflective and cold and not colorful and bright the way she liked to be—had liked to be [[green is your favorite because its his favorite, you love it because he told you about grass and trees and the color of Zak’s eyes, the same as Pol’s eyes, green green green]] but serious. Firm. Unwelcoming. And now she was gray and trembling, and Kieron was with her.

He didn’t remember her, but he was comforting her. He didn’t know her, he couldn’t love her, but he was still with her. Over and over again, he’d been with her. Come to her. And all she’d done was push him away.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking in there, baby, but whatever it is, please, talk to me about it,” Kieron said, and there was pleading in his voice. “I’m here for you. I know I don’t remember everything about you and about the things we did together, but the love is still there. Every time I think your name, I know I love you. Every time I see you, I feel like my heart’s opening for you. All the things I’ve watched and heard, they all tell me what a wonderful person you are. You’re the best, honey; you’re my girl, and I’m your Kee. You saved my life.”

He leaned his forehead against her skin. “You saved me. You’re amazing, do you know that? I would be lost without you. Elanus would be lost. We’d all be messes if we didn’t have our Lizzie.”

It takes a moment for her vocals to come online. “K…kee?”

He smiled and patted her hull. “Hey baby.”

“Why are you crying?”

“Because I don’t want you to be scared,” he said. “I feel so bad about that, I can’t even tell you. I don’t want you to be afraid or lonely or feel like you aren’t loved, because you are. I love you so much, I swear. We all love you.”

“But you don’t—you—humans love as a result of shared experiences or certain archaic types of kinship, not…not…”

“Baby.” His voice cut through her babbling. “Are we sharing an experience right now?”

She could feel the heat of his forehead against her synthskin. It made her feel cozy. “Yes.”

“Then we have one. And we have way more, too, and just because I don’t remember them right now doesn’t mean they don’t count. They do. They do, so much. I love you, Lizzie.”

“I…”

“You don’t have to say it back,” he told her, then smiled. “But I think you might feel it too.” Where they were touching, her skin had turned grass green. “It’s going to be okay, Lizzie,” he said again, and this time. This time [[maybe he does love us maybe he loves us after all, maybe he…Kee Kee Keekeekeekeekeeeeeeeee]]

Lizzie wasn’t sure what kind of sound she made, but she felt color burst across her skin, and she felt the pressure sensors register Kieron’s grasp tightening for a moment, and she knew.

She knew he loved her. Even though things weren’t the same anymore, he loved her.

And she loved him back.

Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Two

 Notes: A little resolution, a little preparation, and we're slowly winding down this one, my darlins <3

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Two

***

Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Two

 

“I want to talk with her.”

Elanus opened his eyes slowly, pulling his consciousness out of his implant matrix and letting all the algorithms he’d set into motion continue without his oversight as he focused on his fiancé. “Good morning to you too,” he said. “You want to talk to…who now?”

“Lizzie.”

Ah. Elanus pinched his thigh with his thumb and forefinger, a dirty little trick to get him fully back into his body in a hurry. Some people dissociated when they felt pain; Kieron was among them, with pain representing little more than a mental exercise for him. It was the opposite for Elanus. Pain disturbed him in a major way; he didn’t like it, and so whenever he felt it he wanted to get rid of it as fast as possible. A little pain got his blood pumping and his brain operating at top speed, which he felt like he was going to need for this conversation. “She doesn’t want to talk to you, though.”

Which had surprised the hell out of Elanus, but he wasn’t going to make his girl do anything she didn’t want to. As soon as Lizzie had found out Kieron couldn’t remember her, she’d shut herself off from him completely, shunning even the mention of his name or any of his updates. Not even Catie could force her way past the barricades Lizzie had erected around the mention of the man she loved as a father.

“I know,” Kieron said. “But I think she might need to.”

Elanus sighed. “You don’t know that. You don’t know her. She’s not some random person you met on the streets; you two have had adventures together that were formative for her, and she’d having to deal with the fact that those adventures only exist in her mind right now. You need to give her time.”

Kieron glared at him. “If you were serious about her mental health, you’d have found her a therapist.”

Elanus was stung. “She doesn’t want a therapist. What good have therapists done any of us lately, anyway? Look at what yours got away with.” Or her wife, whatever—same legal entity. Both of them were currently under house arrest, a palliative gesture by Moreno that would amount to nothing because Elanus was going to tear his throne down and burn it to ashes no matter what.

“Just because mine turned out shady doesn’t mean every therapist will. Besides. You refer to Lizzie as a girl. A child—someone with a juvenile mentality.”

Elanus didn’t like where this was going. “Yes…”

“Then she shouldn’t be making all her own health and wellness decisions anyway.” Kieron crossed his arms. “If I’d gotten my way when I was thirteen, I would probably have ended up killing myself before a year was out.” Elanus flinched. “I didn’t get my way; I had to undergo a metric ton of therapy in order to stay on Trakta, and I hated it, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t help.”

“Look at you, remembering more and more about your life.” His past, specifically. Kieron remembered almost all of his shitty childhood, yay, and almost all of his years on Trakta at this point. Finding out Zak was dead had been traumatizing all over again, and he’d yet to remember anything specific about his relationship with Elanus or their daughters. All he seemed to understand was that when he thought about them, he loved them.

For Catie, that was enough. She dealt well in abstracts; Catie was ephemeral in taste, mood, and programming. She could accept that Kieron had both forgotten her and that he still loved her without any sort of dissonance, for which Elanus was fucking thankful.

Lizzie, on the other hand, was a creature of concrete ideas. She liked hard data, evidence, things to review and store away and reference. Feelings weren’t enough, in and of themselves; they needed to be supported by facts. And the facts, to her, were this: Kieron didn’t remember her or any of the things they’d done together. That rendered his love for her moot; he couldn’t truly love her because he didn’t know who she was.

Elanus had been arguing against her point ever since she made it, but…Kieron was right. Elanus hadn’t pushed very hard because, well…Lizzie seemed so adult. What even was her age, anyway? How could he even track her mental development with any sort of reliable metric, when there were only two beings like Lizzie in existence and one of them was content to remain, mentally, a young child? Lizzie didn’t want to talk about Kieron, she didn’t want to acknowledge he existed, but that just wasn’t healthy. She loved Kieron. She adored him; Elanus was pretty sure Kieron was his younger daughter’s favorite person. It wasn’t good for her to pretend like he was gone, or dead, or had never existed. All that would do was leave a hole in her sweet little heart, whatever form it took.

“She might not say anything,” Elanus pointed out.

“That’s fine. She doesn’t have to. She just needs to know that I’m there for her, and I’m going to make an effort whether she listens to me or not.”

“That sounds incredibly frustrating for you.”

Kieron shrugged. “It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever been through.”

“Given that the things you currently remember include your completely abysmal and abusive youth, I don’t think that’s an endorsement.”

Kieron, damn him, smiled at that. “You’re really sweet, you know that? Sometimes I’m not sure what you see in me, but then you talk to me like this and I know there’s got to be something special between us.”

Ow. Having a literal hole punched through his heart might hurt less. “I love you.”

“I know.” Kieron came over and kissed his forehead. “You tell me every time I see you. You make sure I don’t languish in the darkness alone.”

Oh, you asshole. “That’s what you think I’m doing with Lizzie, isn’t it.”

“I think you’re giving her every opportunity to talk to you, or Catie, or even Pol and Xilinn,” Kieron said. “I also thing they’re not the ones she has an issue with. It’s me. And Restaria, but xe’s gone.” Xe was gone as of yesterday, off to Olympus in one of their transport ships, and Elanus was fiercely glad to see the back of xir. “Let me do what I can to mend the bridge.”

Elanus sighed. “It’s not your fault, though. You didn’t mean to forget her. She knows that, she understands that—”

“She understands it intellectually, but that’s not the same as feeling it.” Kieron kissed him again. “If you really think it’s a bad idea, I won’t do it…yet. But I think it would do both of us some good, eventually.”

As long as Lizzie didn’t throw a tantrum as big as a minor moon, yes. “Do it, then,” Elanus said, looping his arms around Kieron’s waist and pulling him in close. Kieron hugged him immediately, and Elanus felt a headache he hadn’t even consciously registered begin to die down. God, Kieron’s hugs were a drug. “But don’t get upset when she doesn’t talk to you.”

“I won’t,” Kieron promised. “I can be patient with her.”

And hopefully Lizzie will be patient with the rest of us.

Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-Three, Part One

 Notes: On we go!

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-Three, Part One

***

Chapter Twenty-Three, Part One

 

So. This was what it felt like to be totally unmoored, lost in the depths of space and wondering whether or not he was going to bump up against the right planet or not.

It was an unfair comparison, Elanus knew that. Kieron was right here, lying in their bed, asleep instead of unconscious for the first time in days. Neither of them was lost, not exactly, but…shit, how long had it been since Elanus had had to manage without Kieron? Over a year. More than a year of having him, sometimes having each other so intensely it was remarkable they didn’t hate each other in all honesty, a year of pain and injury and anguish and a love so intense that it seemed to spread to every corner of Elanus’s life.

And it could be so much worse, he had to remember that. It could be so much worse. He had Kieron alive. They were together. Kieron might not remember him perfectly, not yet, but regular Regen injections over the next few weeks would probably do a lot to help him. He would probably remember their past together, the life they’d been building. He had better remember the girls, because that was a pain that Elanus just didn’t know how to help. He couldn’t do it on his own; he couldn’t make them another father or find them a different version of the same thing. Kieron was Kieron, and he’d built special relationships with both of their daughters. They needed him, and he needed to remember that.

It's been one day. Less than a day. Five hours. And he’s more upset about this than you are, so stop wallowing and start figuring out the rest of your shit. First things first: finishing off Moreno.

It went without saying that Moreno couldn’t be president. Elanus had prepared for a hard sell to Caria, and it was hard, but not for the reasons that Elanus had thought it would be.

“Putting me into a position of authority over an entire planet is a farce!” she’d cried as she’d stalked about the room, a drink in one hand while the other gesticulated wildly. “Look at my track record for good decisions, hmm? I fostered an insanely brilliant mind in Deysan and then lost him to greed and envy. I turned my back on you when the two of you started sparring and you ended up being right about everything. I refused to believe there was a conspiracy going on in the highest levels of our government about the existence of Elfshot Disease, and even that turned out to be true! How can I be a good leader when I can’t even tell the difference between right and wrong?”

“You don’t have to do it for long,” Elanus pointed out. “Be the interim president, be there long enough to stabilize things and put an official stamp on the work that needs to happen. In a year, if you want to put forward a new name for office, you can and we can formalize an election. But that process needs to be cleaned out as well, or it’s going to be the same old political families rising up over and over again, and I think we’ve seen that they’re not prepared to change as needed.”

Given that Moreno was even now “investigating” the heinous attack on the Cabinet that had been captured on camera by Restaria and sent to Fritz, who’d just broadcasted it from his studio a few hours ago, it was safe to say that change came slowly. If Moreno had the slightest hint of self preservation, he’d be liquidating his assets and getting his ass off-planet as quickly as possible. Instead, he was entrenching. He was settling in to fight.

Fine. Elanus was more than ready for a fucking fight.

Already the polls were against Moreno, thanks to some careful social media sculpting led by none other than Catie. Lizzie, for her part, was slowly breaking in to the technological leviathan of a stronghold in which Moreno had shut himself away, capturing bits and pieces of his code and integrating them into a system-wide virus that she would trigger on Elanus’s order. His girls did flawless work, and soon Moreno would learn that, to his detriment.

Caria had come around, as Elanus had known she would, with the promise that she wouldn’t have to stay in the position for long. The only issue was making sure she was able to stay in it—technically, they were going to be breaking a number of treaties with the Alliance government they were a part of, and if this was interpreted through the lens of being a coup, things could get very bad very quickly. Even with the Central System armed forces in a shambled right now, they still had way more armaments at their disposal than Elanus could get his hands on or make in a hurry.

That was where Restaria was going to come in. Xe was going to be the emissary of Gania’s cause to the current president of the Alliance, none other than a man who’d been accused a time or two of instigating a coup himself—Sigurd Liang. Once in charge of the Academy on Olympus, now the admiral was in charge of holding the entire Alliance together. There had been several moments when Elanus was sure things were going to slip into utter chaos, yet Admiral Liang always seemed to be able to pull it back again.

The last thing a man like that needed was a distraction in the form of one of their outer allied planets enacting a coup. No, Restaria was going to go there, undone and unaccompanied except by an AI who would keep a close eye on xir, and xe was going to explain every fucking thing to Liang all on xir own. And then…well. They could keep xir or get rid of xir, what the fuck ever. Elanus didn’t care as long as Restaria never, ever came back to Gania.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. That was painfully true in Restaria’s case.

“Elanus.”

He cleared his throat. “Go ahead, Lizzie.”

“I’ve got eighty percent of Moreno’s built-in systems linked and prepared to be locked on your signal. It will take another five hours to get to eighty-five percent, and another full day to approximate a hundred percent. His algorithms get much denser the closer to the center of his web I get.”

“Eighty percent should be adequate,” he said. “Begin the process, but only in the fringe of the system. I want Caria and Fritz to be there for the takedown. She needs to be seen as being in control.”

“So that you aren’t.”

“Exactly.” He paused. “And what about the other little project I had you look into?”

Lizzie hummed. “I verified the release of data didn’t come from the office of Delilah Farraday. It was from a personal implant modem belonging to Ghislaine Farraday.”

Her wife. Her loving, Ganian wife betrayed her trust and sold her patient out to Restaria. “Thank you.”

“What do you want to do about them, Elanus?”

“I’m still thinking about it,” he said, running one hand delicately through Kieron’s hair. His fiancé didn’t stir, too tired to wake. That was fine.

He could sleep for now. Elanus would take care of him. He’d be here for Kieron, no matter how long it took to set him to rights. As for the rest of it…

Well, all that would be settled much, much more quickly.