Week 51: Han Comes A-Calling

The torrential ran beat down over the streets of Seoul, an endless blatter avross his face which plastered his slightly shaggy hair across his forehead and he fought the wind as he walked towards the entrance, dragging a sealed cart behind him. While it was only a short walk from his SUV, he was thoroughly soaked by the time he reached the intercom.

He pressed the button and spoke. "Ms Terraheute. It's Han, could you let me in please?" He shouted to be heard over the howling gale.

There was no noise for a few moments, and then the intercom clicked. "Han." It was a statement, spoken in Bell's soothing and impassive voice. There was a longer pause. "Do you have Ren with you?" The girl's voice had picked up speed, but she seemed in no hurry to let Han in, rain or otherwise.

"Yeah, I've got her right here." He replied, briefly pausing as he wiped the rainwater from his face. "Can I please come in? It's rather unpleasant out here." Han's voice was, despite being relatively loud, remarkably calm, despite the fact he was having trouble seeing in the rain, even with his advanced eyes.

There was another pause. Bell, her voice serenely mechanical, changed pitch slightly. "I would much rather prefer to just take her from you now. I will be outside momentarily. Please feel free to enter the courtyard."

The durasteel door in front of Han rumbled to the side revealing a very damp and plain open area that appeared to wrap around the two story central building. It was no less rainy, but the 20 foot tall walls did block out some of the sounds of the city, and some of the view of the massive foundry not more than four blocks away. White gravel went from the door to the far wall, and thick, strangely healthy ivy grew along the walls. Small bushes with glossy dark leaves grew at the feet of the ivy. The building ahead of Han had two doors; a wider door that looked like a loading bay for trucks, and a smaller door off to the side of it. There were 4 massive turrets in the corners that Han could see. They appeared to be functional.

The walls and roof--in fact, everywhere Han looked--were bristling with cameras and laser trip wires. Even the door he passed had a handful of trip wires, as a visible chip and bomb scanner.

Han stepped forward, taking note of the security he spotted as he did so. He spoke up. "I'm not leaving Ren here without speaking to Sosie first." His voice was calm, but firm, no trace of doubt permeating it.

"Now you can either take me to see her, or I can go find another person to repair Ren. Personally, I'd rather have someone competent do it, and I think Sosie would too."

The intercom chirped back. "Mom will repair Ren; of that you have should have no doubt." There was a long moment of quiet but for the pounding rain, and then the fast grating noise as the durasteel gate slid mostly closed. The small door to the side of Han opened, revealing Bell. Her skin was fleshy now, no longer silver, and her pink and purple hair was clipped out of her face with a simple gold beret. She took a few steps toward Han, feet light and bare on the gravel, t-shirt and long black trousers immediately getting drenched by the rain. "There is no one more skilled than Mom. You will not send Ren to anyone else." Her large bright eyes met Han's and stared.

"I'm well aware that nobody can handle such a task like your mother. That's why I'm here. But I haven't seen her since Pinkie died, and she's been locked up in here since then. Unless I speak to her, see for myself that she's okay, I can't leave Ren here."

He paused. "So please, lead the way." He bowed respectfully, a small torrent of water falling from his head as he did so.

Bell continued to stare before setting her jaw. It became obvious she was smeakering, but she kept her eyes locked on Han. The rain continued to pelt them both, but after another long moment she gave a curt little nod. "You may enter, but you must bring Ren. I will wait."

The dainty replicant stood soaked in the cold rain, bare foot on the gravel, and watched Han for his reaction.

"Thank you." Han said plainly, then stepped forward, pulling the cart along with him. "Where should I go?"

Bell motioned to the smaller door and stepped aside. Behind Han, the durasteel door to the courtyard closed completely. There didn't appear to be any other ways out of the compound, but the ivy might be able to take some of his weight.. maybe. He certainly wouldn't be able to leave with Ren.

The room inside the door was mostly dark, and full of cars. A van, and some dusty old vehicles that Han would remember as Ida's, still untouched. There was light in the room beyond, an open door leading to a mirrored room. The floor was smooth and even concrete, and there was no sign of Sosie or indeed, anyone else.

Han walked slowly through the room, his vision cybernetics easily compensating for the darkness of the room. As he walked, he couldn't help but feel a sense of foreboding, as if the place he curently found himself in was one of immense despair. He shook his head, and told himself he was imagining it. Probably projecting his own feelings about Xu onto the building.

"Hello? Sosie? Are you there?" Han called out, as he headed towards the mirrored room.

The mirrored room was a well lit training room. A series of various training machines were set up along the far wall. The floor was lightly padded, but there was a slightly worn bath across the middle. No one was there. Cameras were visible above, small and simple. From behind him, Bell walked through the door to the garage, and the distant noise of the rain stopped.

The room beyond the traiing room was once wide open. To the right, there was a very large and imposing mainframe computer set up against the wall. A giant holoscreen, only the bottom of which was visible form here, could be seen. A ticker in English and Mandarin ran along the lower edge. It appeared to be news of some kind. A fireman pole dropped along the back wall. The room appaeared to open up to the right, so the whole of the holowall could be seen. To the left there were a few metal boxes and stairs going up to the second floor. In front of Han there was a massive machine, set up like the frames of a cube with space inside of it, and boxes of mechtronics hanging from the frame.

Sosie was, at first, nowhere to be seen, but there was a distant shuffling from the stairs down at the far back right of the room. Eventually a white haired head popped up form the stairs, and looked around blearily.

Han spoke up. "Sosie?" he began walking towards her. "I'm glad to see you again. How...how have you been?"

Sosie looked... terrible. Her hair was not the beautiful pale of colorless bleached locks, but rather the lackluster white that comes from age and stress. It had been cropped short, and was messy. Her eyes were rimmed heavily with dark bags, and she had lost weight. A lot of weight. She had never had much spare to begin with, but now she looked almost skeletal. Her body was wrapped in a massive dark red bathrobe that was threadbare in places, that hung so loosely from her that Han could see a fair bit of very pallid skin. Thankfully for Han and sad for any incest shippers, she also wore a tank top under it, which at least protected her possible son from an eyeful of what were certainly now very small breasts.

She blinked a few times and looked up at Han, tilting her head slightly. "..Busy." Her voice sounded hoarse, as if she was sick or had been screaming recently. She looked at the box. "..Bell says you have Ren? How did you get her?"

"You look awful..." Han blurted out, before realising he'd said that outloud. "Yeah, I have her here...Sosie, what's wrong, are you sick? I could get Parvati or someone to come help. Just say the word, and I'll arrange it." He looked around, looking futilely for some kind of medical equipment, not that he would have the faintest idea what to do with it.

"I don't want to burden you while you're so ill..."

Sosie frowned at Han's words, brows furrowing. "I'm not sick. I'm just suffering from sleep debt." She did indeed look exhausted, and undernourished, and as if she had been very stressed for the past few weeks. Her eyes narrowed slightly, and she sighed, moving closer. As she crossed the stairs, there was a noise from behind her; the clicking of nails on cement. One geneshifted cyberwolf was visible, its body covered with gray and white fur. It regarded Han carefully, following in her footsteps. "I haven't felt much like sleeping, recently." There was a note of bitterness in her mostly hollow voice.

The cyberneticist ignored the animal. She seemed steady enough on her feet. "How did you get Ren?" She repeated her words more gently, and flicked her tired eyes from the box to Han's face. She licked her chapped lips. "I thought she was abducted with Xu."

"Sosie, I'm no medic by trade, but even I can see when a person is more then just sleep deprived. When was the last time you ate?" He looked at her disapprovingly, wondering if she was going through the same process Han had several months ago when he allowed his body to fall into disarray from lack of food and sleep. "As for Ren, she was shipped to me in a nonfunctional state this week. Seems once Ban had his money, he had no use for her, and sent her back."

The tiny lady moved around Han easily, momentarily ignoring him. She ran her hands over the crate, frowning. "I ate not more than two hours ago. My cybernetics are all off or in safe mode for repairs. I'm fine." Sosie sounded slightly annoyed as she talked in her weak voice, more focus returning to her words as she tried to defend her diminished state. "Non-functional how? Take her to the med bay, here."

Sosie turned and walked to the doors to the right of the training room, a side of swinging double ones. Inside, there was a small examination room, walls lined with various screens, cabinets, and some examinations tables. She hurried past this room, past double doors that led to a cleaning room, into an operating theater. If Han wanted to keep talking to her, he could have to follow. As if it was second nature, the geneshift gave Han a slow, meaningful look and followed Sosie with only a brief moment of hesitation.

Bell only now moved into the main room, green eyes glowing in the light.

Han sighed. "Don't change the subject, and don't treat me like an idiot. I grew up in Kowloon Sosie, you think I don't know what it looks like when someone is starving themselves? I watched my father go weeks without eating in order to pay for medicine when I got sick. You're not eating, or at the very least, not eating anywhere near enough." He spoke while following her, dragging the cart with him. "As for Ren, it looks like she took a lot of damage, probably defending Xu. I don't know exactly happened though."

"I did eat about two hours ago," Sosie sighed, walking around the side of the operating table. A few tools were out, but there looked strange and foreign to Han's eyes. She extended a hand down to pet the reddy gray wolf behind the ears. "And when you entered, I was trying to get back to sleep. I've just been busy for the past few weeks, and rest has been hard. Bell, come in here."

The last words were addressed upwards, to the camera. Bell walked in swiftly--she had to have been waiting just outside the doors--and stood to attention, eyes focusing on her mother and not the strange giant man next to her. "Bell, help Han remove Ren from this box. Let's see if she's recoverable."

"Oh, I'm sure you ate something. Chances are, you had a nutribar, and that was probably the only thing you ate all day, probably all you ate in the last few days. I know what it's like to get so focused on things that you start treating your body like utter crap. Believe me, I know how that goes."

He shook his head, then began flipping open the locks on the container, revealing a damaged Ren inside the padded box, which he began to lift.

Sosie rolled her eyes at Han. "I'm not accountable to you. If you want footage of me eating, I'm sure Bell can find it." She waved her hand, eyes focusing on the damaged Ren. Han began to move the replicant, but Bell swooped in. Despite her tiny frame, Han could tell by the way she so easily lifted the dead Ren that she was probably even stronger than he was. Bell, with Han's help, gently lay her friend on the table. There was something very tender about Bell's actions; she supported Ren's head as if it were a child's, she leaned Ren's weight against her as if she was afraid to break the blue-skinned beauty. She pulled back only slightly, reaching a delicate hand down to clasp Ren's limp fingers. Her eyes focused on the dead replicant's face, unblinking and intense. "...Mom?"

The replicant smith leaned back and looked Ren over. There was a very large hole through her chest, wider in the back than through the front, coming in at a slight diagonal angle. The skin and clothes were charred around the wound, as one might expect from plasma. Sosie shrugged off her robe, letting it fall to the floor. She wore underwear and a tank top, but seemed unbothered by her relative nudity. Han could see strange marks along the inside of Sosie's arms; healing grayish patches. Sosie began to undo her patient's clothes, ripping them off unceremoniously. She produced a little plasma bladed scalpel from the table of tools, and cut off what she could not quickly pull off. "Mm, whoever did this knew what they were doing. Her power supply unit is shot. Destroyed right through."

"You're right. You're not accountable to me. Hell, even before you split from Oracle, we weren't exactly close. But you know who you are accountable to for your health? Those who care for you, those close to you." He shook his head and turned to Belle.

"If those you care about appeared all skin and bones, looking like they've been chained up and not fed for weeks, how would you react? Would you just let them self destruct like that?!" Han's voice was getting angry, this dismissal of his concerns as if Sosie was fine was beginning to truly irritate him.

Bell picked her head up slowly, tearing her large, doll-like eyes away from Ren's still face. There was a look in her gaze that was dangerous, a sort of warning look that seemed distantly familiar to Han. "I am concerned about my mother. I am programmed to be. I try my best." She looked away from him, and turned back to her fallen mechanical comrade. "However, I am more concerned with the people close to me who are dead." Her slender fingers closed gently around Ren's hand.

Meanwhile, Sosie had exposed Ren's chest, removing her clothes completely. Her fingers felt along Ren's ribcage, touching around the massive plasma wound and avoiding burned blue flesh. Something clicked and a large square of the chest popped half-off, fused to the ribs. The replicantsmith pulled at it, making Ren's topless body jolt as she yanked. "Han, your concern is being taken into account," Sosie mumbled, hands getting slick with lubricating fluid that oozed from the hole, "I told you, I was busy. But I have been sleeping and eating. And this--Ren--is more important than my self-care habits."

Sosie slid her arm up to the elbow inside the replicant, fingers feeling around. Her brow furrowed. "Gonna need to replace all these wires, but I could probably hook up a bypass. Bell, go get my cybernetics toolkit, and the PSC4 model from my room." She looked up to her daughter with a brief, tender look. "I won't let anything happen to her."

Han shrugged, affecting an unconvincing air of nonchalance, as he replied. "Fine. Consider the matter dropped, at least for now. As for Ren...how long do you think it will take fix her?" He looked concered at the gradual deconstruction of the Replicants body.