OSaBC Addenda : Sorrows Untold

Chapter Five : Parent

There were times that Michael Shepard wondered how much of life was simply some kind of sick cosmic joke. Wind whipped past him, carrying the scents of cooking meat, asphalt, and the ever-present scent of ozone and corruption that was endemic to the area. His youth was a wasted mess, his military career was going nowhere, and now he had a child to raise, a dying wife, and a choice to make.

"Typical." His voice was a rough whisper, even as his eyes traced the distant skyline.

He stood on the porch of his father's slightly rundown home, gazing into the ever-rising superstructure of the New York Arcology. The house was a rambling mess of rooms, one of six along a narrow avenue just inside the arcology's downbeam arc. Warehouses, rundown business districts, and literal ruins dating back to the Days of Iron clogged the surrounding areas. It was as low as you could go and still be in the arcology's field… and literally less than sixty meters from the entrance to the shanty town outside.

A swarm of ground cars clogged the streets and the occasional shuttle flew through the skies as the city woke up with sunrise. The gleam of high-lighting from the skyscrapers, the noise – even at this distance – of the city coming alive… he never grew tired of seeing it, and he was constantly tired of seeing it.

Success eluded him again, and again. But maybe things had changed, with what he held in his own two hands now.

Tucked into one arm, his newborn daughter's face wriggled as her unfocused gaze took in the brightening light, one tiny hand clutching to the edge of his BDUs. In the other, he held his cellphone, the message on the screen in clear, bold letters.

Mr. Shepard, your wife has suffered from Long-Term Eezo Exposure Syndrome. It is likely that this was affected prior to or, more likely, during her pregnancy. Secondary CRT scans show several invasive tumors or anomalous masses in her lymphatic system and reproductive system.

He exhaled slowly, thin dreadlocks slipping into his face and bent his gaze down to his child. "Hey, baby."

Sara Shepard made a non-specific sound of happiness, and a flicker of a smile crossed his features before he glanced back at the rest of the message, the cost, the lack of insurance.

"Mike…you didn't wake me up."

His wife's soft voice floated across to him, and he turned and smiled, tucking the phone away. "Sara and I wanted to watch the sun come up over the Big Apple, Yish. That's all."

Yishan Shepard tucked her long, glossy black hair behind her ears as a stern expression crossed her features, sighing as she did so. Her long white cheongsam glimmered fitfully in the ever-growing sunlight, and her features looked drawn and fatigued. "Gimme. Time to feed, unless you want to listen to her crying again."

He carefully handed her over, then glanced down, at the cracked concrete sidewalk leading to the porch, the thin and dying grass of the yard, the sagging frames of the houses nearby. "Yish… I gotta do something this morning. Drive into town, meet some people with BuPers. An opportunity has come up. Big one. Could change… everything."

She frowned, absently adjusting her child in the crook of her arm. "What opportunity? Did you talk to Jason?" Her cousin was an officer with the New York Police, and he'd tried to find a job for Michael several times, assuming he could get a Circumstances General Discharge in doing it.

He nodded. "Yeah, he did. But that's not… going to work out. He talked to a bunch of guys, and couldn't find me a place. He said an ex-Marine could make a lot in SWAT, but I'd have to be cleared from duty, and with the NYC DIV going spaceside… not going to happen. They'll shoot down any CGD just to stop others from applying."

She nodded sadly. "Then… what happened?"

He squared his shoulders. "My SSTAR results came back. Ninety-four percent. I… I have been offered a chance to join the Solguard."

She gasped, then swallowed. "…What branch?"

"Marines. Europa. Central Germany. Alliance pays room, board, housing… and full medical. For me… and for you." He looked back up. "I don't… we don't have a choice. A second lieutenant's salary in the NY DIV is a fifth of what a first lieutenant in the Solguard makes. Germany has all the best schools, close to the Manswells – some of the Solguard there get picked for the Iron Guard, even."

Yishan looked around. "I… I don't know. New places are hard for me and my family is all… here. Even if most of them live off-grid in the foulberg… it's still support. They could help."

Michael Shepard shook his head. "Yish, the insurance won't even cover a third of it. It's more than a million dollars. Even if somehow I got that much, I'm only Class-IV on paper – the money would have to go to a full cit upgrade for you."

His wife's Chinese features shifted into hard lines of fatigue. "And if we don't take this, then…" Her free hand fluttered into the wind for a moment before opening. "It will be hard."

Michael Shepard folded his arms and leaned back onto one leg, smirking. "Nah, we got this. I know new places freak you out a bit, but with time we can get your family all Class I and move 'em over, and start someplace fresh, not my daddy's rundown ass house. A future."

O-SORROWS-O

"Systems Alliance Commissariat! Open this door!"

The sound of impacts on the front door woke Michael Shepard from a drug-induced stupor, but he recognized that voice all the same. His front room was a disarrayed mess, a non-working vidscreen hanging askew, bookshelves filled with unread and rotting texts and colonized by sheets of dust. A coffee table strewn with drug paraphernalia, old magazines, ashtrays and empty cigarette packs.

A fitting end to the messy ignominy that was his life.

"Doors unlocked, Rachel. C'mon in."

The door opened wide, revealing a pair of females in mirror-finished faceplates, one wearing a black uniform with rank-marks for a Major of Marines, the other the stark-white black-trimmed uniform of a Penal Legionnaire.

Michael Shepard leaned back in his ragged and worn out recliner, smiling faintly. Years beyond count had etched into his once-fine features, his eyes pits of wrinkle-ringed ejecta, his once charming smirk a mere line in hard, haggard features. Graying dreadlocks swayed, each one ended in carven bone charms and bits of metal.

He wore urban-camo BDU pants and a dirty, off-white T-shirt, the BDUs cut off at the knee to make room for the street-salvaged cybernetic legs he had, both mismatched and rusted. "I'd offer you a beer, Rach, but spent my last creds on a stick of Nine."

Rachel merely gave a soft laugh. "Figures. And Yishan? Here, or strung out on some corner?"

He rolled his eyes. "She's in the back."

Rachel's voice was almost amused sounding. "Sober, or…"

Michael shrugged. "Does it matter? She's blown on enough heroin and red that you could cut her wide open and she wouldn't feel it. Sides, I know you're cleaning up loose ends, even brought a fucking Legion bullet stopper to take the fall for it, I'm guessing. Took you long enough."

Rachel gestured. "Search the house. Find the other person, do what you need to do then come back in here. Remember. No hesitation."

Michael watched the slender female shake before she shook herself and stalked away, lifting the Avenger rifle in her hands as she walked through the kitchen toward the bedroom. He found that curious – how did she know the layout?

Rachel pulled off her helmet, and gave him a wide smile. "That's Sara, by the way. Just thought you should know."

Michael said nothing for long seconds, then the soft bang of a shot rang out. A broken sounding sob, then a snarl of anger as the figure stormed back into the room, a tiny spatter of blood marring the uniform. "Sara, meet your father. Michael, meet Sara Shepard, the girl you ruined."

For a moment, Michael Shepard almost spoke. Almost told how Rachel had paid him for years after the mess in the swamps, up until he'd sold Sara off – an idea she'd given him. He almost spoke his suspicion his wife's meds had been sabotaged, the hesitancy of the dealer he'd tracked down to say who supplied him that turned out dead the next day.

Almost told her that he suspected this was all a long game, played by those far above both the reach and understanding of him and his child.

Then his daughter tore her helmet off, and his eyes met hers. Dark blue, but shaped like Yishan. Soft, black hair like his wife, a mix of their features. Sorrow was in those eyes, and anger, and grief and above all else confusion.

He remembered, in a flash of light that seemed almost painful and blasphemous to recall, holding her on the sagging porch a few meters away and gazing out over New York, and he felt himself exhale slowly and smile wider.

He could blame others.

He could blame life. Or the doctors not curing Yishan. He could blame his own stupid heroics that got him paralyzed, or the stupidity he'd done in trying to bypass SA law and regs to get cybernetics to let him walk again.

He could blame that ass Grissom, and that prissy fucker Harris – the N Commander – who'd not covered for him, instead letting him get dishonorably discharged and drummed out of his home in Bonn

He could blame his old friends for dragging him down into the lifestyle, or Thalia Renas for fronting him cash and then putting evil notions in his head…

But at the end of the day, he knew he'd chosen everything he'd done.

He'd done it because survival mattered more than fucking shit like 'morals' or 'ethics.' Couldn't eat, drink, fuck, or smoke them, so what did it matter?

He'd sold both his daughters, and neither one of them knew the other lived. He'd ruined his wife, taking out on her what he should have fixed himself, and reduced her to a junkie. He'd destroyed himself and all that was left was closing the circle.

He lifted his chin and stared his daughter in the eye. "Two things, then pull the trigger. You were…"

He paused. He could do this the right way. Give the girl something to carry away that made everything at least tolerable.

Or… he could do it the Shepard way.

His lips twisted.

"…always a mistake that shouldn't have happened. We did our best, and when that didn't matter anymore, I cut my losses. I own that shit. I don't ask forgiveness. You ruined my life plans, and you ruined your mother."

He watched the interplay of strangled fury and confused pain on her features. Good. He didn't really care all that much, but some scars now would toughen her up down the road. That was the best he could do…

…and if he was honest with himself, it was mostly out of spite. He hoped she lived an even emptier life than he had. He spoke with anger with the next set of words, knowing what was left for him.

"Second thing, I make no excuses – and give no answers. Ask God for those. All I ask is you aim for the head and don't drag this out."

Sara's eyes widened, and for long seconds nothing happened, then she pulled the trigger. Michael expected there would be pain, and oddly, there wasn't any. Just a dull feeling of impact, and then…

Nothing. His last thought was darkness was a fitting end for it all.

Blood dripped from the walls, trickling down peeling wallpaper of fading sky-blue and granite. It soaked into the cracked leather of the recliner, into the cheap and tattered carpet so sodden with trash, dirt, and ash it was basically gray.

It trickled down the cheek of Sara Ying Shepard, as she shot her father again, and again, and again, before screaming and dropping to her knees, sobbing and shaking uncontrollably. Rachel shook her head in disbelief at his final words.

Michael Shepard had always tried to do what was best for him and it always went wrong. She couldn't have figured a better way to destroy any hesitance in Sara if she'd had a speechwriter come up with it. She knelt down next to her and lifted the girls' chin. "Hey."

Pools of blue confusion and agony met her gaze, and she met that expression with a small smile. "Let's get you back to base. We don't need to linger here."

Shepard wiped her face roughly and nodded, looking almost nauseated, and stumbled out. Rachel stood smoothly and glanced around, before noticing a tattered, leather-bound book of some kind. She picked it up, and flipping through the pages, found it was a diary.

The last page was from a month prior. "Nothing left to write. Nothing left to say, do, or to live. You don't get second chances at life, piss it away and then all you have left is piss. No point blaming others for your own mistakes.

"Anyone reading this… my name was Michael Shepard. I fucked up everything, destroyed what little good or beauty I brought into this world… and I have not a single goddamned regret. Bible said it best, I am what I am."

Rachel put it in her pack, replacing her helmet and picking up the one Sara had dropped. "See you later, Michael."

She pulled a white tube off her belt and twisted it before tossing it in the kitchen. Striding back out to the shuttle, she got in and tossed Shepard her helmet. "Put that back on once you get your shit back together… and you did well."

Shepard swallowed. "I just killed my—"

Rachel shook her head. "Those pieces of shit weren't parents any more than I am a fucking nuclear reactor. They sold you, for drug money, and he just sat there and called you a 'mistake.' You were never theirs."

She lifted Shepard's chin again, marveling at how – obvious in hindsight – her eyes were the same as her father's. "You're mine now. Always mine."