TIME:
4 HOURS LATER
LOCATION:
ASTRO DAWN
PRIMARY MEDBAY
POV:
Lilith Runethari
I stare in awe at the depiction of manufactured suffering before me. A small smile crawls up my face as I behold the annoying little brat, Aria Vrit.
I hear a buzz from my tablet across the room. It has been buzzing like an angry colony of Aeths. (An insect species that is extremely territorial and similar to what humans call bees and wasps.)
"Mara, can you tell me what it is that our guests want?"
"Yes, my lady, they seem to wish for the whereabouts of guest Aria and where you are located."
I sigh, based on the fact that Mara is using her degrading voice they seem to be nearby. I glared at the door with more than a little annoyance, they should have been quiet while I was dressing up their daughter for her performance. If I make a single wrong move there is a not so unlikely chance for complications.
I mutter under my breath, "Well, I guess this is as good as we are getting for our pitiful star stage prop. Let them in, tell them I am in the medbay and have just finished stabilizing their spawn."
"Understood, my lady."
I feel the pressure in the room shift as the bulkhead silently opens. At the same time I hear someone hit the floor hard. I look back to see Richard on the ground after falling shoulder first.
'Was that the cause for dull banging for the last few minutes... Mara remind me to look at the security footage later.'
'I will, don't worry.'
I hear multiple sets of hurried footsteps enter the room, but they quickly stop a distance away. Notably I hear the telltale sound of a rebreather on a closed cycle. I turn around making sure to keep Aria completely obscured, can't let a good show start too early.
Immediately I observe many emotions painted ever so clearly across 4 faces. Even Temlic seems unable to suppress them. I returned Richard's glare with a soft look of uncaring apathy.
Richard quickly gets up, his face red with rage that only a father could have. I could see him squeezing his fists barely resisting the urge to lunge at me, for what he views as me taking his daughter.
Veranda was white with delectable fear, but I could already imagine her adrenal glands starting to spike with activity as her face turned wonderfully fierce. She was like a baby skink trying to intimidate a towering wortka. (A species of reptiles similar to what humans call boars.) I stared at her with a hint of reproach.
Leah was the least expressive, though based on the wet eyes I felt she must have seen this as some betrayal of trust. I looked at her with interest wondering where she got that feeling from.
Temlic's face was ashen white, the man was sweating like he was stuck in a sauna. It was clear he was fearful of something, what that something was, I had no idea. I looked at him with the same interested look I gave his partner.
Richard, like the bullheaded idiot I knew he was; failed to restrain his rage. He charged at me with a roar. I calmly picked up a scalpel, waited for the perfect moment, and threw it at him.
I watched his eyes widen at the sharp knife sailing towards his throat. He froze but just before he came to a complete stop the scalpel hit his throat. He seemed to freeze and clutch his throat as he panicked, coughing wildly. I merely watched the scalpel fall to the ground clattering against bare sterile metal. I nodded my head internally after the move; just as I had hoped, the blunt end of the scalpel hit him perfectly.
"Next time you rush me I won't let it be just the blunt end that hits your throat. You are not as large a threat to me as you'd think. Be warned however, I will not stand hostile actions again," I spoke with the tone that implied this wasn't some empty threat, and that I also viewed everything I said as completely true—which was not hard as it was the truth.
He slowly and shakily stopped clutching his throat as he looked down at his bare clean hands. He looked up towards me with wariness but I saw it vanish into fear. I previously took an ever so small step to the side as he was checking his throat, revealing his daughter to him alone.
He slowly walked forward taking heed of my words and approached Aria. I saw the other guests start inching forward, fearful of what had shook Richard Vrit—a survivor of a failed attempt to retake an artificial hell world called Cascadia—so much. I decided to walk to the side of Aria and place myself a respectful distance away.
Veranda suddenly raced over barely avoiding the scalpel despite my warnings, but I let it slide. It was clear I was the last person in her thoughts right now.
I could already see tears welling up in her eyes. Leah and Temlic slowly shuffled after her cautious of me the entire time. Temlic kept his look of pure dread and despair.
Richard suddenly spoke up with a shaky voice uttering a single word, "Why?"
I decided to relieve some stress and played ignorant. "Why what, I'm sorry but I don't quite understand."
He growled, "You know what I meant; why does my daughter have multiple tubes with her blood being pumped out and in. And moreover, what reason is there for her to have a fucking pipe going down her throat! This is too much, why do you need 10 fucking cannulae to just "stabilize" her!"
I retort calmly, "It was necessary, because her blood was incredibly starved of oxygen in the limbs. If I had kept it to the procedural four there was a chance she would lose digits or even her feet and hands to cell death. This was an emergency measure to make sure her limbs quickly received the oxygen they desperately needed."
I looked him in the eyes and lied as naturally as I breathed. I saw a hint of wariness exit his body as I spit out random semi-informed words that sounded reasonable. I looked back towards Aria, eyes closed, but vital signs were stable and calm.
I shifted my gaze towards the back of Veranda's head sobbing as she looked at her daughter. She looked back at me, her eyes red from her crying.
"Can I please hold my daughter's hand?"
I looked back towards Aria who was enclosed in a transparent but durable bubble of plastic. This was one of the things I actually was advised to do. Mara is unsure of what caused Aria's condition to worsen so suddenly. So we are keeping her in a completely clean closed environment; with nothing that wasn't just nitrogen and oxygen down to the part per billion.
"The reason for the pipe is to both feed her, and cycle an extremely semisolid biocompatible support that is being put into her lungs. Her lungs are so damaged that I was advised that supporting them was the best way to mostly eliminate the chance of a possible second attack."
Aria lay in her plastic coffin, the image was perfect even her chest refused to rise to take in more air. She looked dead but it was clear she was alive, her complexion while sickly still hinted at proper blood flow.
I shook my head, "That is to say I can't, my ship's AI is completely clueless to what caused this sudden failure of Aria's lungs. We are going to keep her in that bubble until we have figured out the cause, and a way to at least prevent another flair up while she is in our care."
Veranda looks at me in despair; it only worsens, as she realizes that her daughter's suffering may not be over yet. "What do you mean another flare up, aren't her lungs completely destroyed? I mean she can't even breathe normally."
I give a laugh that sounds joyless like I deeply regret telling her these words. "Hehe they aren't completely destroyed, they are just severely scarred. If she has another incident her lungs may not be breathing air, but there is still plenty of blood that runs into it. If she is unlucky whatever this is, might cause a portion to be cut off from blood flow. Then that chunk of lung will remain to rot, after all it's not like she will feel breathless or light headed."
She stares at her daughter with an expression of pure agony, I could already tell she was a single step from a complete mental breakdown. I looked towards Richard as he squeezed his hand as he realized he was completely powerless to stop this. I felt a grin spark across my lips but I quickly suppressed it.
"You know I can help her right? It will take some time, but I can heal her," I whispered sweet promises just loud enough to be courteous and caring without seeming sly.
Temlic coughed and I felt a spike of annoyance threaten to break my carefully crafted mask. "Um, Miss Runethari, I don't think they are in the state to make such a complex choice."
I reluctantly nod before looking at a security camera in the corner. "Mara, what do you think are the chances we can successfully transfer Aria to another facility, with the people and resources we have available."
Suddenly the room dimmed as the holoprojector displayed Mara wearing her tattered crimson clothes she insisted on, and her beautifully generated white mask. Her slightly slouched posture made her look more approachable in my opinion.
Everyone's head snapped to Mara's form and they anxiously waited. "The chances of Guest Aria being taken off this heart-lung machine safely remains high. However, I advise we proceed with caution, until I have time to figure out the cause of her lung failure. It might be that taking her onto Garnet Station will only worsen the problem."
Temlic's lips tighten into a line as he can't completely deny the possibility. Aria's condition was rare as rare can be. You could count the number of confirmed cases of her disorder on a single hand in the past 3000 years. Most cases are presumed to actually kill the baby soon after birth and are suspected to be a small pillar of what is known as sudden infant death syndrome. After all, there are plenty of ways a baby might stop breathing. And this disorder was incredibly subtle at first, not even spilling a drop of blood, but it grew increasingly more damaging as time progressed.
That was simply Aria's fate and terrible luck. Even the doctors who said they could cure her were probably treating it as an experiment and a way to get a favor from her. The disorder was simply called Progressive Pulmonary Fibrodegenerative Disorder. Aria managed to live long enough and have few enough attacks to be able to give an informal name, "The Quiet Blender."
She said the pain was like what she imagined a blender to feel like. It made sense, as the lungs degraded anything could cause it to suddenly tear, then it would fall apart, like a house of cards. Building up silently until the day it would all come crashing down. The disorder will eventually reach its conclusion of either death or what Aria will likely endure, being hooked to a heart-lung machine for the rest of her life; hoping the next attack doesn't lead to other complications.
Lilith stopped looking at Temlic, who thankfully kept his thoughts to himself. Clearly something consumed him from the inside, but he remained silently standing at the side of Richard.
I look back to the distraught family. This scene was truly inspiring and cathartic. I have finally gotten my form of revenge on Richard; even if I didn't cause Aria's attack, I was surely putting him through mental torture.
Veranda suddenly quietly murmured, "Lilith you have my agreement. Please. Please just save my baby girl. I don't care anymore, just as long as she can live, and I will be able to see her again..."
I felt a smile form to observers. It would appear caring and comforting. In reality I was just eating up this piece of karmic artistry. I looked toward Richard and saw him slowly nod his head once.
"Then we are at an agreement! I will keep you updated on her progress. However, can you please tell me how old is she, no offense but this won't be as effective if she is going through puberty."
"She is just nine... can you tell us when we will see her again," Veranda spoke, defeated and tired but hopeful.
"I will allow her to visit you after treatment, but I can't afford to have her visit often, maybe once a standard year. However, you can visit her as much as you want when we are in this system or stopped at Garnet station. As she will be my ward she will likely be travelling with me often."
I see their shoulders lift slightly clearly and they seemed to expect a different, much harsher visitation schedule.
Lilith told the Vrit family that she will make the contract, vowed that their child will be healthy the next time they saw her. They never noticed how her grin shifted to one of impatient sadism. The family numb and overwhelmed by grief nodded, still mourning that their daughter came so close to death and only a bargain from a devil will save her—they grieved, unknowing of what they had truly just given up.
And thus, a seemingly minor bargain was struck—and humanity doomed.