Beginnings part ii

The next day she was in the Bazaar again - She was still wearing a hat, a shapeless encompassing hat that hid most of her head. She kept touching it like she was worried someone was going to take it, or it was going to fall off. She asked lots of questions, about me, about EM, about why people do unpleasant things to each other.

Gradually, under gentle questioning it came out that her father had done "things" to her, and when she wouldn't do what he wanted, he'd tried to put chips in her head to make her. And when she got away, or was too broken, he got access to her med clone and did what he wanted with that. She took her hat off to show the scars, where her father had tried to put chips in her head; where the medics tried to repair the damage - her hair shaved close to the skin, and the pink patches of the scars in her head.

I guess I assumed the worst - that her father had molested her. And I wanted to be in that white inty with him in my sights. Shoot him down, slowly, make him suffer and die.

But I needed to save Cia first. She looked like she was in post-combat shock - not sure that surviving was the lucky option. I started with the obvious, that because bad things happen to a person, that doesn't make that person bad. That the person at fault for hurting her was her father, not her. It still surprises me how people have to be told this. She told me that Amieta had promised her that her father couldn't hurt her again.

I told her she didn't have to be ashamed. That her father should be ashamed. That her scars were... battle-scars, and battle-scars can be things of pride in being a survivor - that she was a survivor.

I think I helped. I think she looked stronger after thinking about it. She even invited me to come to dinner sometime.

Then I got to meet Amieta, or Ami. Ami is an older woman, who has been in the wars - both her arms have been replaced with prosthetics from the shoulder down. Not prosthetics that could pass as flesh, but obvious mechanical prosthetics - I think Ami understands about battle-scars. Amieta looked at me like she's met a lot of young punks and if I'm one of them it will go worse for me. I think I like her. She seemed pleased that Cia wasn't wearing her hat any more.

It was a long day of talking but at the end of it I felt useful. Needed. Maybe even wanted.