Never Fade Away: Consumed My Hate (ch. 21) (Patreon)

"Your nose is bleeding," Jack remarked as we headed to our destination, flying in one of the air cars that I had commandeered. The others were following behind us, the mission already underway. I had anticipated this moment since I first escaped the Orphanage -- the moment that I would go back. I thought I would be nervous, or scared. Instead, I found that I was so focused that I hadn't even noticed that a drop of blood had trailed down out of my nose. "Did you miss a dose of your immune boosters?" She asked me, narrowing her eyes at me.

Honestly, probably. Everything had been such a rush. Everything was done at the very last minute. I didn't get a chance to implant or test a series of mods that would help us out in a combat scenario. Nor did I get a chance to create, much less give, some of those implants to David and the others. With PYM Particles, so many doors opened when it came to efficiently creating space… "Probably," I admitted, blowing out the blood onto the floor before wiping off my nose. Jack gave me a mild look, but she didn't have any time to dig into me about it.

Through the holo-windows, I saw that we were rapidly approaching our destination. The same location that I had escaped from months ago. I inputted the command code to open the dock doors and I watched them open. I still had fingers in their systems, but they knew that. That's why I had to find out about them shutting down from Lucy. And they knew I was coming to, because as soon as the doors opened, we were greeted by a rocket.

A smart rocket.

I reached out with Breach, tearing through the ICE on the security team like it was wet tissue paper. Because of that, I could tap into the connection of the one who fired the rocket, letting me guide it right back into the building. An explosion rocked the cover the guards were hiding behind, throwing bodies to the side as we entered the building. It looked exactly as I remembered.  I clenched my jaw as the air car touched down, the others entering behind me. "Our exit has to be secure, Jack. Try not to damage our ride out.”

"I fucking know," Jack returned as I got out of the car. I turned my attention to the members of the security team that were still alive and hit them with a Synapse Burnout. They died pretty much instantly, falling to the ground and spasming. Jack was annoyed that we were spread so thin. She needed to protect our exit, which just left me to organize the actual escape. "I'll be waiting for you. Unless you take too long."

I shared a grin with her, both of us feeling the anticipation and thrill. Looking away, I headed into the Orphanage -- a place I had fought tooth and nail to escape. The doors opened for me even as the net runners that were hooked into the Net were trying to keep me out. I felt them prodding my ICE while I entered the elevator, easily beating back their attempts to stop it cold in their tracks. They were making progress, but they were completely unprepared for the sheer depth of my ICE.

A cyberdeck was limited in terms of storage. There was only so much room for ICE and everything else -- spells and daemons, soft for interacting with implants, meditech, apps, and so on. I had removed that limitation completely. My ICE wasn't done -- not even close -- and the sheer breadth of it would take them days to get through without directly jacking into my systems. So, I ignored them and focused on the offense.

My eyes glowed red as I rode the elevator down to the Orphanage, my back leaning against the walls. The runners tried to keep me out. They almost did a good job of it, but they weren't prepared for the sheer power of the Skeleton Key. I tore through their feeble defenses despite remote hacking, hijacking their controls over the cameras and then the security systems. The turrets that were installed for my arrival.

They went off, gunning down the team that was waiting for me, while I bounced signals to members of the team that I couldn't reach. I detonated their grenades or fried their brains with little issue. By the time the elevator reached the floor and slid open, everyone that was supposed to greet me was dead. I stepped over a corpse with my hands in my pocket, marveling at the difference.

The last time I was here, I ran like the devil was nipping at my heels. Now, I was able to calmly stroll into the lobby. It looked like what I remembered, just without the people. Clearly upscale -- white flooring that was slowly being dyed red from a good two dozen bodies. Gold trim while one wall was nothing but tinted glass that gave a good view of Night City. I hadn't noticed because it had been night when I escaped. And the sun was setting already.

A time that I picked intentionally, to avoid overwhelming everyone. Night was easier to deal with than the day. The spaces felt less open.

Calmly, I opened the elevator door and stepped inside. The Netrunners were picking up the pace, becoming more desperate. I didn't want them to cause any problems on our exit, so I started hunting for them on the way down. I felt their panic when I tripped through their alerts, tearing through their defense… in a span of thirty seconds, I saw the three of them laying on a table in a netsuit. I fried their brains with a bit of uploaded code and made sure they were dead before dismissing the camera feed that played on one of my optics.

The doors slid open to familiar hallways. The slight smirk that I wore promptly faded away upon seeing them. My gaze landed on a familiar face. "You have to be crazy to come back here, trash," the gorilla armed security guard said, leveling a shotgun at me. He seemed surprised when I wouldn't let him pull the trigger, his fingers not obeying his commands. Because his arms already belonged to me.

"You should have stayed dead," I remarked, panic appearing in his eyes before I forced him to aim the shotgun underneath his chin. I made sure to pass him by, the rest of his squad spasming on the ground before I made him pull the trigger. At the very least, he didn't beg before he killed himself. I continued down the hall, my heart starting to hammer in my chest. All of the kids were in the dorm… but they had deliberately removed the camera inside of it. In preparation for me, I think.

Clenching my jaw, I forced the last door in my way to slide open, revealing the room I had spent almost my entire life inside. Stepping inside, I didn't hear so much as a sound. My heart clenched, the worst-case scenario tugging at my thoughts -- was I too late? Were they already gone? I scoured the Orphanage for information, but they were being deliberately secretive about it to prevent me -- and other megacorps -- from learning what was being done with the kids. I swallowed a lump in my throat as I rounded a corner, heading into the central room-

"L!" I was immediately greeted from behind a rough looking barricade. I recognized the voice instantly before I saw who it was. T threw himself over the barricade and sprinted right to me, and a breath that I had been holding since I left this place was let go. He was moving too fast and I recognized what the iron on his back was. A Sandy, one that grew with the user. A smile broke out on my face, bending out and scooping him up as he all but tackled me. "You're back! I knew you'd come back! I didn't believe them!" He exclaimed, sounding choked up with tears.

I wasn't doing much better when I saw the rest of the kids were cautiously poking their heads out from the barricade. They looked at me with wide disbelieving eyes.

"Course I came back. Said I would, didn't I? You've been holding everything down, T?" I asked him, reaching up and rubbing his shaved head. An action that felt so familiar to me. I entered the rec room, seeing nothing but familiar faces. I was looking for people that I couldn't see as much as those that I could. Year fifteen -- previously fourteen -- was missing several faces. I only saw one left of the nine that had been here. As for my year…

"It took you long enough," M greeted me, pushing past a few kids. He looked tired, I noticed. The surgical lines around his head were more pronounced, but his head didn't seem as extended as it was before. Instead, there was a metallic plate hitting out of the back of his skull. That stopped just above his ears. His eyes had dark bags underneath them, which must have been from stress. Sleep was induced at the Orphanage.

"The world is a lot different than we imagined," I admitted to him, feeling at home for the first time since I left. I brought him in for a hug, a lump in my throat. In response, M laughed and reached up to pat my head.

"I noticed. You look weird with hair," he told me, taking a step back. His gaze searched my face for a long moment.

T-6… well, T-7 now, quickly interjected, "Did you see the big lightbulb? Is the ceiling really blue?!" He questioned, looking at me with wide eyes. M closed his, chuckling to himself. T had his priorities completely out of whack and everyone thought he was asking a stupid question. It sounded so outlandish a few months ago. Hardly any time at all, really.

This room… this place… it had been my whole world for fifteen years. And now that I was back, it seemed so very small.

"I did. But, when we leave, the ceiling is going to be dark. We should be able to see the moon, though. Most of the light comes from the ground," I explained in a way that they could understand. Now that the shock wore off, I heard everyone excitedly chatting with each other. Marveling that I was back. That I was here to get them out. T just gaped at me, and I turned my attention to M. "I have a ride out of here, but we'll need to get creative to make sure all of you fit. Back up five feet…" I instructed before reaching into my pocket and tossing a small chip on the ground.

With a thought, the PYM Particles grew it to regular size, and if everyone was shocked before, then they were dumbfounded now. "It's something I built. It'll shrink you down so I can carry you out," I told everyone, sending a look at M while everyone else gaped. "I ran into Dr. K on the outside. She told me that A was still alive. Is he here?" I asked, seeing M's jaw drop.

"I thought you killed- No," M shook his head, and my stomach clenched. "I haven't seen him since you left. I- we can talk about it later. When all the kids are packed up," he decided and T-7 held onto me tighter.

"You just got here…" T-7 started to whine, burying his head into the book of my neck. I felt the same. I fought like hell to reach these guys. The things that I did to reach them -- the number of people that I had killed… if I ever had any lines in the sand, I had left them behind ages ago. All to get here.

"I know, T. But it'll just be for a little bit. Once we're home, we can hang out and I can show you all the games that these guys have been keeping from us. There won't be any more work days or quizzes. Just nonstop fun," I promised him, walking him to the platform. With the utmost reluctance, he let go of me and I saw that his eyes were watering. I'm pretty sure he snotted all over my shirt too.

"Promise?" He all but begged.

I smiled, crouching down to his level, "I haven't broken one yet, have I?" I asked him and he looked absolutely sullen that he couldn't argue the point. So he offered a nod, and I took a step back. With a press of a button, the platform hummed to life and in a flash, T-7 was shrunk down to the size of a piece of dust. From there, the process started of shrinking everyone else down. I had had a breakthrough with the technology -- I would hesitate to call it safe… but it worked, and it was far less likely to kill than this place. All the while, M explained what had happened while I was gone.

"They cracked our code," M told me in a low voice. "I'm not sure if they always knew it or not, but they took it a lot more seriously after you escaped. Wouldn't let me teach it to the others. They started gassing rooms if they thought we were conspiring. Sometimes, they'd take us for weeks at a time and we'd only find out when we returned. I'm not sure what they were doing to us," M confessed. I frowned the more that I heard, my heart clenching at the news. M saw it on my expression despite my attempts to hide it. "You came back as fast as you could, L. We knew it was going to get rough after you escaped and we rode it out."

It was reassuring to hear, but I still couldn't shake the feeling that I should have been here. It was stupid and completely irrational. I did everything that I could, but I still felt like I could have done more.

"We never saw Dr. K or Dr. D again. We had a new doctor -- Dr. W. He was alright. He seemed afraid of us, honestly. Hardly said a word to us outside of instructions during a work day. Are you sure that A is alive?" He asked me, earning a nod.

I was sure. I was tearing through the facility records looking for him as we spoke. I knew that Jack was holding the exit -- she was throwing soldiers out of the window and laughing as we spoke -- and I knew that the orphanage had lower levels. The lowest level was completely empty. So was the level above that. However, two levels below our feet was a good dozen people. They were making an emergency exit, and I noticed they were destroying the cameras.

"I'm sure. I haven't seen him with my own eyes, but Dr. K was alive. She got brought back. I think the reason why you didn't see her again was because she was being punished, or something. It doesn't matter. If A is alive, he's here. We just have to find him," I decided. Still, it wasn't good news that they had cracked our code. If they went back to watch the recordings…

My lips thinned as the last kid stepped onto the platform and got shrunk. With a thought, I had the platform fold into itself -- becoming a protective casing for what housed my family. It, in turn, was covered in a thick layer of gel that was in reality, a hundred feet thick. Shrinking the whole thing down, I then put the case inside of a protective casing at my belt. "They have been trying to catch me since I left. I ended up faking my death, but it seems that some of them didn't buy it," I muttered. It was something that I had never considered.

Did the Orphanage know about my charges?

Shaking my head, I decided that it didn't matter at the moment. I had my group of kids. Now I had to go down and rescue the others. "You up for this?" I asked M, sharing a smirk with my old friend and passing him a gun. He checked the slide, and the mag before flicking off the safety.

"As soon as I heard the alarms going off, I knew it was you. We stuffed up the vents, broke the cameras… we were going to hold out until you showed up, L," M told me. He reached out and squeezed my shoulder, "Some of us didn't make it. But none of us doubted that you were coming back for us."

A small breath escaped me. I did feel bad for those that died while I was preparing. And those who were taken before I could arrive. I failed them. But I didn't fail everyone. "What have you been working on for the past month?" I asked him, heading for the elevator to take us a floor down. I shot Jack a message, telling her that I secured the first group. Now it was time to head deeper for everyone else. I might not have been able to save everyone, but I would be damned if I left anyone behind.

"They kept having us move those blocks. That's what this helps with," M informed, tapping the back of his head plate. "And… some of us can move things now. I can," M informed, catching my attention. He proved as much by reaching out to the fallen shotgun as we passed the corpses by and pulling it into his hands with the same purple energy that Jack used. "Everyone that didn't have a long term job ended up getting the implant. I'm one of the stronger ones."

My jaw clenched. The megacorporations were making biotics. There did seem to be some standardization for the implant now, based on what I had seen. However, I couldn't help but feel like I was seeing a very small piece of an otherwise larger picture. I knew more about the Orphanage, now. I understood its function in the grander scheme of things. And what I knew was that the Orphanage was where megacorps were willing to take risks with their designs.

It was where they were buying access to higher-quality meat.

So, what did it mean? They stabilized biotics-

No.

It meant that they could create biotics.

I swallowed a lump in my throat, suddenly finding myself a great deal more nervous. It wasn't something that was widespread, or I probably would have encountered it by now. But if I was seeing standardization here, then it was only a matter of time. Sooner or later, I would be squaring off against a squad of Jacks. And that was a terrifying thought.

My thoughts came to an abrupt end when I got a message from Jack. They were stepping up their attempts to break in from the top, and I was getting notifications that they were trying to head up from the ground floor. I killed the elevator, forcing them to walk and giving us more time. David also forwarded me a message that his evacuation was going well. They were almost ready to leave and head back to the base.

The elevator doors opened in front of me and my eyes glowed red, sending out a wave of daemons while M created cover. A purplish shield of shimmering energy appeared between us, the squad defending the floor failing to kill us. It seemed we would be descending blind from here on out because they had destroyed all of the cameras. I started to take a step out, but M placed a hand on my chest. "I can clear this floor, L. You get the lower one. Quick and fast, right?" He said, shooting me a smile.

Worry clogged my throat but I nodded. "Head down when you're done. Have them step on this," I told him, passing him another container. M offered a serious nod. He had a plan. I knew that much. He had been preparing for this moment as much as I had and I knew I should trust him to do it. Still, as the elevator doors closed, my skin began to crawl with anxiety. Even without the cameras, I reached out with Ping, terrified I just let M walk into a trap.

But, when the elevator doors opened again…

Any thoughts that I had came to a screeching halt.

Instantly, I saw that it was different from the other floors. I wasn't greeted by long hallways that were marked by doors. It was the opposite, really, since the elevator opened up almost in the middle of the room. It was arranged in a large circle while the walls were lined in a ring of… vats. I’m not sure what else I could call them. My heart rose up to my throat and my grip tightened on the pistol I had, my gaze searching for a trap. Or anyone. But, as far as I could tell, there was no one on this floor. Not at all what the records listed. Was it a false lead, or-

I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and my heart just about leapt out of my throat when I saw what it was. Or, rather, who it was.

I didn’t know him. But, even if I did, I don’t think I would recognize him. He floated in greenish liquid inside of a vat, his face covered by a black mask that was connected to a tube. The rest of his body… it didn’t seem to exist. Below his head, I saw a handful of organs floating in a mess of webbing of some kind. It was pale, almost like spiderwebs with some strands were thicker than others, but it had countless thin branches out.

“A?” I breathed, looking at whoever was floating in the vat. Slowly, I stumbled forward to a terminal. Turning it on, I almost sobbed with relief when I saw the name on it. It wasn’t A. However… however…

I did know him.

V-24.

He used to be the longest lived member in the Orphanage, back in the day. He was the one that made it all the way up to V-17 way back when I was a kid. Then, one day, I never saw him again. I never thought anything about it at the time. He was incredibly old at seventeen, so it really was only a matter of time before he died. Actually, it was nothing short of a miracle that he managed to make it all the way to seventeen. But, he didn’t die. He was brought down here and reduced to… to this.

“What did they do to you?” I breathed, horrified. His vitals were solid, but he was braindead. I would fucking hope he would be in that state. He was still alive, though. All these years later, beneath our feet. I scanned the records, seeing experiment histories. The answer to my question was a lot -- they had experimented on him for years. Surgeries that were far more invasive, determined to get whatever they could out of him before he died. However, five years ago…

“They’re harvesting biotic nodes?” I muttered, looking up at the webs and I just about hurled when I realized that I was looking at his nervous system. They were growing it. Harvesting it. They constantly exposed him to Element Zero and regrew his nervous system, forcing the nodes to grow, and when his nervous system was done regrowing… they restarted the entire procedure.

Any trace of moisture vanished from my mouth.

‘Don’t let A be down here.’ The thought would have been unthinkable mere minutes ago, but I hoped I didn’t find him down here. I would rather be forced to hunt him down to the ends of the Earth, wherever they might have taken him, than find A down here. I didn’t want him to have suffered through this. I didn’t want him to-

“L?” I heard, the voice muffled and distant. I closed my eyes, my head dropping for a moment and I tried to prepare myself for what I was about to see. I didn’t want to look. I really didn’t. All the same, I knew I had to, so I turned around and opened my eyes.

A was floating in one of the vats and I saw entire chunks of him were missing. It was hard to say that he was mostly whole when I saw that he was missing his legs and most of an arm. The one hand that he had was pressed against the glass, looking at me like he was struggling to see me. I stumbled forward, feeling drunk, as I approached. Shakely, I pressed a hand against his, the glass separating us. A small disbelieving laugh escaped him, “Knew you’d come back, L.”

Too late. I came back too late. “Y-You don’t look half bad for a deadman,” I told him, trying to keep my voice light but a sob was in my throat. It was a cruel thought, but it would have been better if A stayed dead. It would be better than being reduced to this.

“That’s my line,” A said, his voice adopting a sad edge that was nearly lost in the fluid he was suspended in. “Figured the outer world would have chewed you up and spat you out, L,” he said, trying to keep his voice light but he gave up halfway through. “This isn’t your fault, L. It’s the way things are. How they’ve always been. They brought me back for that Element Zero stuff. Called me a G-unit. This is on them,” A told me, but as true as the words might be...

It didn’t help. I looked at A and felt like it was my fault. No, I knew it was. This was my fuck up. This was because I snapped. This…

If I had kept my cool and swallowed my emotions, then R would have been the only one to die. The rest of us would have been outfitted with stable biotic implants. We could have taken our time… and we all could have gotten out. The only reason why we didn’t was that I lost my shit. Everything David said and did to convince me otherwise fell away. This-

“L,” A interjected, breaking through my spiraling thoughts. I struggled to meet his gaze. He should hate me. He should blame me. Instead, his lone eye was filled with compassion that I didn’t deserve. “It was never about us, L. It was always about them.”

T. All the kids. Everyone else locked in this pit, our bodies not our own, and waiting for the day for it to be our turn to die. We decided, together, that we would break out so the kids didn’t have to go through what we lived through.

I closed my eyes for a moment and I wiped away a tear that started to fall. “Yeah. It was always about them,” I agreed in a voice just above a whisper.

“How close is the exit?” A asked me in a low voice, and I swallowed thickly. My mind raced, trying to figure something out -- a way to take him with us -- but I knew the truth just looking at him. I didn’t have anything to save him. I couldn’t make anything to save him. The charges… I used all of the charges to improve the PYM Particle tech and… I…

I couldn’t save him.

“M is clearing the upper floor, but we got everyone else out,” I told him. We would get everyone out except for him. My friend. I grew up with him. I knew him better than he knew himself, really. We hadn’t been close originally, but as our year thinned out, the ones that were left were drawn together.

“M made it, huh?” A sounded happy about that. “I’m not getting out, L.” He told me, his tone so accepting of that fact that I immediately tried to rebel.

“That-”

“I’m not getting out. Even if I did… this isn’t living, L. I… just once… do you think that I could see the moon?” A requested, his voice soft and barely above a whisper. He didn’t dare hope. I clenched my jaw and lowered my head, trembling with impotent rage. The logical part of my brain told me that I shouldn’t say yes to that request. It was too big of a risk. I couldn’t risk it all for the sake of A’s last request. No matter how much I wanted to.

But, I’ve never been particularly logical.

“You’ll see the moon, A,” I told him, swearing it. I didn’t care how many people I had to kill. I didn’t care what Night City tried to throw at me. A would see the moon. “Let’s get you out of there, A. We’re heading to the top to get a good view,” I told him, sending a message to Jack. I expected the answer that I got, but I ignored it. It didn’t matter. I found a wheelchair while I initiated the draining sequence and I closed my eyes for a moment when the elevator opened up.

“L-... A?!” M shouted, seeing A just as the vat had drained and started to slide back. I hardly recognized him. His skin had a waxy bloodless quality to it, like it was going to sag off of him. He was too skinny, and I could see hints of bone. I’m not sure what that stuff was, but it was like it had been dissolving him.

“W-What happ-ppend to yo-your head, M?” A rasped through an oxygen mask that I hooked him up to. There was a grin in his voice, but none of us had it in us to smile. M looked horrified until he forced himself to swallow the expression, his eyes meeting mine when we set A into the wheelchair, his modesty protected by a thin blanket. “A-ah… s-still look b-b-better than b-both of y-you,” he added.

M forced himself to laugh while I stood behind A, pushing him to the elevator. My legs felt like they had been hollowed out and filled with lead. My heart alongside them. The three of us stepped into the elevator, I gripped the handles with white knuckles. I caught a glance from M and nodded sadly, his expression falling. We both knew what this was. “That’s not saying much, A. All three of us are ugly,” M tried to inject some humor, but it fell flat. A tried to laugh, but a hacking cough interrupted him.

He didn’t have much time, I knew.

I grit my teeth, my eyes flashing red when the elevator came to a stop. I started to lash out with a Synapse Burnout, only to pause when I saw that it was Jack when the doors opened. Her gaze met mine before looking down at A. Her brow furrowed, “You look like shit,” she told him, earning a weak chuckle from A while M looked like he was about to take a shot at her with his shotgun. Her gaze flickered back to me, “They’re swarming like flies up top. You’ll need me there,” she told me.

I offered a small nod, the elevator continuing upward. Jack said nothing else, sensing the mood within the elevator. We rose all the way to the top, but we couldn’t reach the roof. Instead, we had to reach another elevator -- a public one. That was fine. We would make it. No matter what we had to get through. A would see the moon.

The elevator doors slid open and we were greeted with a hallway full of firepower. M threw up a barrier while Jack surged forward, tearing into the soldiers that were trying to stop us from leaving. The soldiers -- Arasaka -- screamed out orders, trying to stall us. But those orders quickly became screams when Jack got her hands on them. She crushed them with biotic energy, curling some into a ball, blood splashing out across the hallway walls. Then she sent some kind of ball at them that drew everything to itself, only to be ripped to pieces from the gravity it produced.

M wasn’t far behind, his shotgun bucking against his shoulder while he maintained the barrier. Anyone that Jack missed, he took out. It was quite a sight, I reflected, blood dripping from the walls and the hallway filled with what could only be described as carnage. Dozens of bodies quickly piled up, cover was demolished, and the sounds of screaming overpowered the sounds of gunfire.

I trailed behind them both, pushing A forward. I could hear him getting weaker by the second. Opening the doors with a flash of my eyes, we continued into the elevator and took a short ride up to the roof. Even before the doors opened, I sent a Suicide beyond them, hearing the gunshots echo out as everyone beyond the doors killed themselves. The door opened just in time to see a good twenty Arasaka soldiers dropping to the ground.

An airship started to fall from the sky, along with the drones. At that moment I didn’t care what they hit. All I could do was push A forward, past the carnage, letting him get his first and only look at Night City in all of its glory.

It really never got any less breathtaking, I thought, reaching the edge. The sea of lights and neon, of tall buildings and narrow streets. Millions of people called this place their home, for better or worse. And in its own way, despite all this shit and garbage that everyone pretended that they didn’t see, it was beautiful.

A didn’t pay any attention to the city, though. His gaze drifted upward, looking at the night sky. The cloud of smog that hung over Night City had finally faded away, letting me see the sky for the second time since I got out. I had been too mesmerized by the city to think to look up at the time.

The moon was out, shining just as brightly as the sun, it seemed. A pale white that was framed by infinite darkness.

“Wow… the moon… sure is pretty, huh?” A breathed, his tone fading away. Weakening.

I swallowed thickly. “Yeah,” I agreed, gazing up at it, glad that I could at least give him this. “It sure is.”

A didn’t respond.