Life's Not a Fairy Tale (No Matter How Much I Want It To Be) Ch.3 (Patreon)

I was still kind of reeling from the ease of becoming an EMT for Citymed. They barely even glanced at the records I’d spoofed for my background. I was technically in the system and it looked like I had all the correct credentials. That was all they cared about.

Citymed was desperate for workers. Not just EMTs, but nurses, doctors, and regular medical technicians as well. Citymed was a nonprofit organization that mainly existed off of donations and the quiet support of Megacorporations. Even Megacorps understood that the poor had to be alive to buy their products. This meant they were one of the only free health and trauma care options in a city full of violence and poverty. Citymed didn’t directly compete with companies such as Trauma Team as much as they picked up the scraps of those companies.

I found all of that out during my short hiring process and orientation. Less than an hour after I walked into Citymed, I was riding around in the back of an ambulance on my way to my first call. It was almost too fast for me to game the system into making me Gloria’s partner. Almost. I managed though and now I was being shown the ropes of the job by the mother of an anime protagonist.

Gloria had kept relatively quiet since I got in the rig. It wasn’t an unfriendly silence, more so one that told me she was all but dead on her feet. Considering how much the anime implied she worked, she could have been just coming off one shift and going straight into another. I doubt she had the energy to entertain a newbie like me so I just let the silence ride.

The first impression I got from Gloria was one of bone-deep exhaustion that screamed out to the Big Data Prediction module in my brain. Like seriously, this woman couldn’t have had a day off in years. No amount of synthetic caffeine could fix the dark circles under Gloria’s eyes.

And even still, she was a beautiful woman. Fiery crimson hair that could only be possible in fiction was kept out of her face by a high bun. She had dark rings under her brown eyes, but they just deepened her beauty instead of diminishing it. They said ‘this is a real woman with real problems and real experiences’. Her body was subdued yet sexy, giving off a vibe of maturity and a will to do whatever was necessary for her loved ones. Gloria wasn’t a perfectly crafted piece of humanity that was meant to be showcased like the celebrities of this world, but I found myself drawn to her more because of that fact.

Seeing her on a screen, I would have called her a MILF. Now that I’d seen her in person, I hesitated to even think that. She reminded me of my mother too much to objectify her like that. That didn’t mean I wasn’t attracted to her — she wasn’t my mother after all. I just wasn’t going to lower myself to thinking of her as an object. Though ‘product’ or ‘collector’s item’ might be more accurate labels considering my Patrons…

I shook my head, trying not to think about that as the rig’s radio crackled to life, “Rig 14, copy? Over.”

“Rig 14 copies, over,” Gloria replied into the radio without a hitch in her driving.

“Update on the gang shooting call at NCU. Priority has been upgraded from 2 to 1. Expect multiple DOA. Trauma Team has already cleared out their clients. Just focus on saving who you can. Over.”

“Understood, dispatch. ETA 4 minutes. Over and out.”

There was a moment of silence as the radio cut off before Gloria addressed me without taking her eyes off the road, “You ever seen a dead body, chico?”

I swallowed, just now internalizing what it meant to sign up as a paramedic in Night City, “Once. It probably wasn’t anywhere near as dramatic as what we’re about to see though…”

Gloria sighed, “You must be new to the city. Don’t matter. Stick with me and you’ll be fine as long as you can keep your Kibble in your stomach.”

I nodded and we fazed back into silence. With the rig’s lights and sirens on, we cut through the Night City traffic with ease. It was obvious Gloria was intimately familiar with driving an ambulance, and in her hands, the rig handled like a dream. We managed to get to the NCU campus with a full minute to spare.

The scene of the shooting was set in one of the university’s many parking lots. From what I could gather from the local net, the cause was a drug deal gone awry. A small group of Voodoo Boys had been selling to some college kids when a pair of Valentinos pulled up and opened fire. The Haitian gang members had all been killed before they could put up any real resistance and the Valentinos had peeled off, leaving a couple of college kids to bleed out on the asphalt.

I gulped as Gloria swung the rig to a stop. That… was a lot of blood and bodies. Judging by the number of bloody holes in all three of the Voodoo Boys, they were very dead. They’d probably died nearly instantly, which was better than the nihilist-cult gangbangers deserved. And I knew the Valentinos responsible for the shooting would inevitably get away with it despite the collateral damage. Such was the way of life in Night City.

I hesitated for half a second and Gloria was already out of the vehicle. Cursing myself, I hurried to catch up. I didn’t forget to grab the other trauma kit before I left though. Gloria was already kneeling by one of the college students. She was holding the kid’s wrist as he did his best to not cough up blood. She didn’t speak to me immediately, grabbing something from her kit and trying to stabilize the patient instead of giving me direction.

This wasn’t my most thought-out plan… I knew some basic first aid, but saving someone from a gunshot wound? Way out of my depth. It was theoretically possible… if I had all the time in the world and a textbook lying open next to me… But even as I thought that my hands started moving on their own. A couple of fast-inject syringes, some bandages, and an IV drip that I held up with one hand were applied to my patient before I could process what I was doing. And even as I mentally gaped at myself, my body continued moving as if by instinct and Talent.

I slowly pieced together what was happening as I stabilized the young woman laying in front of me. Science Talent (x2) was one hell of a drug! My body just knew how to move. My mind knew what to do and use to save this woman’s life. I couldn’t perform open heart surgery or anything, but Science Talent had taken the mediocre skill in first aid that I’d already had and allowed me to use it at EMT levels. And as I worked, I could feel myself getting better at an impossibly rapid pace.

A sigh of relief escaped my lips as the woman’s breathing and heart rate finally steadied. I quickly got her on a stretcher and loaded her into the back of the rig before going back to help Gloria. Her patient was in worse condition than mine. He kept bleeding through the bandages and Gloria kept having to replace them while she worked. Wordlessly, I took over bandage duty for her and let her focus on stabilizing him.

“You’re driving, chico. Get us to Citymed ASAP,” Gloria ordered as we finished up and loaded this patient into the back too.

Breathless and a little overwhelmed, I nodded. I couldn’t help but think she looked even more gorgeous when she was in her element like this. The adrenaline rushing through my veins probably had an effect on my perception of her as well. The ambulance’s engine roared to life and I peeled out of the parking lot with the lights and sirens once again blaring.

“They gonna make it?” I asked, all but shouting into the back to be heard by Gloria.

“Looks like it. You do good work, chico. Started out a bit shaky, but you finished strong.”

“… Are they all like this?” My nerves weren’t fraying because of Stress Defense, but I still felt rattled by that scene of dead bodies.

Gloria’s reply was soft and caring, motherly even, “Like what, chico?”

“Are all of our calls like that? Just dealing with the aftermath of senseless violence for violence’s sake? There has to be a silver lining to all this. There just has to.”

“I get it, chico. I really do. But you can’t let what you see on the job affect you. Happy endings are in short supply here.”

My grip tightened on the steering wheel but I stayed quiet. Fuck the Fae. They promise me a chance for a happy ending and then send me to a world, to a city, where hope comes to die. Fuck that. It all just made me angry. It reminded me of how I’d lived since mom died. How I’d lived for too long. I’d already decided I wouldn’t live like that anymore and now I promised myself that this city wouldn’t kill my hope. I’d make my hazy dream of happily ever after a reality. No matter what.

I got our passengers to Citymed hospital and we were back on the road within 10 minutes. It was already around 10 at night but Night City never slept. Kind of ironic given the name. Since this was my first day, I was only given a half shift that lined up with Gloria’s. We’d both be getting off at 12, but that was still two hours away.

We fell into a sort of routine for the next couple of calls. EMT work was surprisingly… well, routine. Sure, the patients and situations changed, but you were still just doing the best you could to save and stabilize people enough that you could get them to a hospital. And in Night City, that mainly meant working with the victims of ODs, shootings, and assaults.

Still, I got used to the workload with the help of Stress Defense and my Talents. And once I did, I found that the job was strangely similar to the many service industry jobs I’d worked when I was on my own. Customers were still customers, though thankfully most of them didn’t speak very much on account of the trauma. Work was still work. And your coworkers were still your only bastion of sanity or your second worst nightmare after your bosses.

We didn’t run into any trouble until right before our shifts ended. The last call of the night was a simple OD. Neither Gloria nor I thought anything of it. I’d already been on two other OD calls in the short couple of hours since my first shift started. They were both the simplest calls I’d dealt with that night.

But when we got to the location of the most recent call, things were different. There was no obvious body or crowd to indicate where the person who overdosed was. The vacant, dilapidated lot we’d pulled into was seemingly empty. There was a single ominous spotlight shining down on the center of the lot and several structures around the perimeter to provide cover. It was the perfect stereotype of an ambush location.

“Yeah, this place is sus as fuck. We need to leave,” I said.

Gloria sighed, “I know, chico, but we have to at least check it out if we don’t want to get fired.”

“We’re checking it out now, aren’t we? It’s shady and I don’t trust this call.”

She shook her head sadly, “We need to get boots on the ground or Citymed will mark us as delinquent of duty.”

“Fuck…”

Gloria reluctantly exited the safety of the ambulance. I watched her take a few steps, cursed, and got up to follow her. No way was I letting her do this shit alone. My senses were primed and alert as I fell in beside her. The look she shot me, full of gratitude and growing respect, did funny things to my chest. We walked into the light and began looking around.

Nothing immediately stood out. The lot just looked like one of the many spots of urban decay that I was slowly getting used to seeing in Night City. There was a lot of trash and rubble, but no patient. I turned to tell Gloria we should leave when something caught my eye.

Two red pinpricks shone from a bit of abandoned scaffolding in the darkness around the lot. My eyes quickly focused and a humanoid silhouette came into view. Two bits of metal sparkled in the figure’s mouth as it stepped forward slightly and I could make out that it was the outline of a large man. The man lifted something to his mouth and seemed to take a hit before a full-body shudder came over his form. Like a switch was flipped, he launched himself off the scaffolding, almost disappearing from view.

Gloria had turned to say something to me while my eyes were locked on the anonymous junkie. My body moved before a word could leave her mouth. One of my arms wrapped itself around Gloria, spinning her behind me as I used my body as a shield. I could regenerate wounds using my smartmatter. Gloria couldn’t.

A long straight blade appeared in the junkie’s hands as he rocketed toward us through the air. It was held way above his head and I could make out the cruel and insane smile on his face. I didn’t have time to do anything but raise my other hand as the junkie’s blade came down on me like a cleaver.

There was a chill and a feeling of loss from my raised arm before my leg came up to kick the junkie away. He tumbled to the ground, rolling to his feet without losing his crazy grin. The stump of my wrist where my hand just was closed over before the hand even hit the ground. An identical hand made of smartmatter almost instantly grew back in its place.

“Fucking crackheads,” I grumbled as the junkie raised the drug from earlier back to his mouth for another hit.

He barreled at me once again, using the high from the drug to enhance his speed. I unceremoniously shoved Gloria to the side. My right arm shifted instinctively and the junkie slid to a stop as blades clanged together. Taking advantage of the freshly inorganic quality of my other hand, my fingers formed another blade and shanked the guy in between the ribs.

The junkie didn’t even feel his flesh and lung being split open. That crazed grin stayed frozen on his face as one of his hands reached for his side and pulled out a revolver. I swore and dove to the side, waiting to hear the crack of a gunshot. All I heard was an echoing empty click. Undeterred, the junkie flipped the pistol into the air and caught it by the barrel.

His blade whistled toward me, hungry for my blood. The revolver — now a glorified club — followed the path the machete carved through the air. I dove again, slicing deep into the junkie’s calf as I rolled past him. The severing of tendons was the only thing that made him stumble.

The junkie lurched as he tried to stand over me, falling on top of me instead. My bladed hands bit into his chest and neck. Even as blood gurgled out from between his lips, his entire jaw detached, basically folding apart to reveal vicious metal fangs. Droplets of clear liquid beaded at the tips of the specially augmented cyberware. The crazy fucker was still trying to push himself forward so his fangs could bite into me. He only succeeded in pushing my hands deeper into his body.

I could feel his heart beating against the hand I had in his chest. The beating stuttered and slowed as my hand pierced the organ. Life finally left his body with one last spasm and he went limp atop me. I threw him to the side with a heave and just laid there on the ground for a while, cursing myself. I was so focused on my physical senses and the foreboding environment that I’d forgotten about my augmentations. I should have been able to sense the chromed-out junkie with Networked Glamour Manipulation long before he was able to get the jump on us.

Gloria slowly walked over to me as I lay there. She kneeled beside me and slid my head onto her lap. I was so caught up in brooding over my failures and killing someone for the first time that I didn’t even notice until I felt the softness against the back of my head. She stroked my hair calmingly and my eyes refocused on the real world.

“You good, Romeo?” Gloria asked softly. “You really did a number on that dorphhead. That your first time flatlining someone?”

I nodded, doing my best to not swallow my tongue, “Uh… Y-Yeah… Yeah, I’m good. And yeah… it was…”

“Don’t be like that, chico. I don’t think any less of you for killing to protect me. You had barely even seen a dead body a couple of hours ago and now someone made you a murderer. That’s just what this city does to people. You should be proud you didn’t hesitate to do what you had to.”

I made an affirmative hum instead of verbally replying. I’d been in this world for less than a day and my common sense was already being warped. I couldn’t bring myself to feel sad about the guy’s death, I just felt conflicted that he was my first kill. The upgrades and Defenses of The Company were probably helping me keep sane, but I doubted I’d be very eaten up over it without them as well. I mean what else were you supposed to do if a crazed combat drug junkie ambushes you while you’re working?

And with how shady this world got, I knew I’d have to kill again, either to get something I needed/wanted or to save someone I cared about. Every real-life happy ending required sacrifices. Sometimes monsters had to die. Sometimes villains couldn’t be redeemed. Sometimes you had to lose something to really understand what you had. I’d just regained my hope for happy endings and I already found myself willing to make those sacrifices.

I sighed as I forced myself to get up off Gloria’s lap, “We should probably get going. I still need to find someplace to stay tonight.”

Gloria replied as I picked up the junkie’s Razor machete and Overture revolver, “You can stay with me, chico. It’s the least I could do for saving my life. Besides, I think we still have something else to talk about.”

“What?” I asked, turning to see Gloria dangling my severed hand from one of the fingers. “Ah… that… Fuck.”