Tainted

Three months, three months, it had been three months since her dreams had gone up in smoke, denied a place on a AGL warship because she was only 10 years old.



“Come back when you’re older,” they said.



Ha! If only they knew. No Josh took that back, if they knew she would be a dead girl.



“You’re a smart girl, you’ll be fine.”



Yeah fine, a ten year old girl on Zero Point who was already a known whore. She would be fine. All she had to do was spend the next 6 years selling her body for points while alone with Jen, a woman who seemed to suck all the life out of their little dorm. And pay for the rent on a place for four with the points of just two.



What was Josh to do? For three months she did the only things she could, waitress at Zero G, sell her body on the services level and integrate herself into the flow of the station.



Boy she thought Jen, Riku and Striker were fucked up, but boy was she wrong. There were girls who only fucks biofs, and girls who wore collars and called some guy master. There were cybrogs and splicers of all kinds and Cindy had gotten to know many of them. Did she consider any of them friends? No. Did any think of her as a friend? She doubted it. Candy and Riku were nice by comparison. But she did have a growing network of allies, and she soon learned just what it took to buy their loyalty, obedience, or support. It meant Tom was pushed further back but all those allies and favors would pay Tom back when it was time. Cindy grew cold in those few months, her only light was the calls from Striker and the transfusion of portion of Striker’s funds to her own account. But inside Cindy was dead. To make matters worse Jen was growing tense and jumpy, as much as the pale woman made her shiver Jen was her only family on Zero Point, and so as Jen sat shivering and crying in her sleep across from Cindy she sighed.



“What is going through her head I wonder?”



Cindy sighed and began to cruise the network on her evo-charm, not looking for anything in particular but driven to find it non the less. After about a hour she found herself cruising the AGL website, into the archives she searched until she caught a title that piqued her interest.



“Winged AGLs face TTN assault group.”



With a tentative click she waited for the video to load, the camera was shaky and the resolution poor, making out any face difficult but there was what looked to be a white winged woman leading the charge. Cindy sat transfixed at the poor video, feeling as if she was peering into Jen’s past. The battle was fast paced and often the camera cut out when the action got good. In the end it looked like the AGLs had won but at great cost. The entire winged unit were dead, and Jen appeared to have had her wings fed though a blender. Cindy shivered, she looked up as Jen whimpered in her sleep and got her way out of bed wrapping her arms tightly around the woman. Her body went numb, the world fading to black but she held Jen tight. The poor girl had watched her entire team wiped out and her own wings mutilated, No wonder Jen was as cold as the dead.



Cindy rocked the older woman in her grip as her consciousness faded.



“Oh Jen, I’m sorry, so sorry Jen. We don’t deserve a woman like you.”



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Cold, Cold, Cold as the grave. Her grave. It was so hard, life. Why keep fighting it. Josh was dead, Tom was a dream, and in reality dreams would never amount to anything. And Cindy, she was a whore. What was there to live for? But it would take to much effort to end it all, she realized in a moment, she was in good health, it would take days, days of agonizing pain and hunger to just let sleep and death take her. And to wake would mean another day on Zero Point. It was loose/loose. Cindy lay there in the cold for she didn’t know how long before finally she began to stir. Slowly she rose up off of her bunk, her small body clearing the heading without a moments beat. As the world came into focus she looked across the room to Jen’rya, her head downcast into her hands as Cindy’s mind cleared. Her face was unseen, but waves of regret poured off of her, palpable to even Cindy.



“Jen? What’s wrong?” Cindy asked timidly.



Slowly the woman’s head rose, for the faintest moment her face lit up with joy, Cindy had tried since their first meeting to avoid the woman’s gaze again but in this moment, weak for her waking she had forgotten to look away. It lasted only a moment as she looked into the eyes of the pale woman, and reflexively she winces preparing to drown in those sorrow filled eyes again. It lasted only a instant, just as he smile had. Cidy looked into those eyes and saw Tom, she saw Josh, she saw Dr. Townsend, and Candy/Striker. The world seemed to open up to her in those eyes, a world a hope, of happiness, of peace.



“You were so cold! I thought you had left us! Oh Josh can you forgive me!”



And then that world was drowned by the sorrow. As her own statement drifted from elated revelry at Cindy return to the despair that ruled her at all times the vision of light was consumed in the dark. For only a moment Cindy saw in the face of Jen a vision of heaven instead of her own hell reflected and magnified back.



Cindy rose from the bunk, standing firmly on the ground and looked into those pools of icy regret, but in that instant something had changed for Josh, for Cindy. After all his torments he had seen a reprieve in the eyes of Jen. Josh was set, he would see that light in the woman’s eyes again.



“Do you want to talk about it?”



“About what?” Jen wondered curiously.



“The Winged Core of AGLs final battle.”



Cindy reached for her evo charm and uncoiled the wire from the hatch tossing it over to Jen, after a moment Jen plugged it into her own and a moment later the site Cindy was viewing was synchronized to the woman’s own charm. After a short wait Jen released the cable and returned it to Cindy with a toss.



“Oh…that battle…” she began “That was another unit, my unit had only feathered wings, and I was not in command.”



“Go on…”



Cindy’s eyes were transfixed on that of the woman across from her, despite the despair reflected in them Josh could not break his hypnotic gaze. Jen leaned back against the wall of her bunk, her head tilted back staring up into space for a moment before it drifted back down. As eye contact was resumed Josh caught a glimpse of pride and duty reflected in those eyes before the darkness consumed them.



“It was a long time ago, Long before even Josh was born, before that battle you saw. There were no cameras, or men, alive to record that battle. But it played out much as the one you saw. There was one key difference, though. The monsters we fought, also has wings of a bird. Our own comrades, they turned against us.”



“And in the battle you were badly hurt? Your wings mangled?”



“No…those that survived, as a mark of his vengeance, the leader of the betrayer’s ilk tore our wings from our backs as a final insult.”



Cindy saw anger and then sadness in those eyes, she moved to rise and comfort the older woman. Jen recoiled as Cindy rushed her, wrapping small and pudgy arms around the older woman’s waist.



“I can only imagine the pain you felt.” Cindy wept, her body going numb even as her tears streaked Jen’s tunic.



Jen looked down to the girl and smiled, “Thank you, it has been far to long since last I felt…relived.”



Cindy giggled as Jen stroked her hand through the child hair, passing a moment to play with the small triangles that made her ears and she laughed. The cold was replaced by a warmth that seemed to radiate out and envelope both Cindy and Jen’rya. Jen laughed as she wrapped her arms around the girl, holding her tight. Her voice barely a whisper was easy enough for those ears to pick up.



“Oh Josh, I thought that was to be your guardian. But perhaps it was meant to be the reverse.”



Her laugh continued, a laugh like silver bells, a laugh Cindy yearned to hear more of, despite herself she purred, long and low like a cat, even as she could feel the darkness clawing at the fringes of this aura of warmth to retake control. In a moment Jen found herself being pulled through the sliding door out into the main way, despite herself she could not hold down the laughter as it poured out.



“Cindy! Cindy! We’re half dressed, where are we going!”



Cindy let go and looked up into the eyes of the woman laughing.



“First we go shopping for a pair of beautiful dresses, then we go eat, and then we find someone who can make us look like a princess in this shit hole!”



“Cindy! Josh! What has gotten into you?”



Cindy just laughed as she dragged the older woman along.