Glitch #ONC

Chapter Sixteen

The next few days passed in a blur of meetings and questions Luke didn't have an answer for. He tried his best to follow the physical therapy the doctors prescribed, but it felt like he wasn't making any progress.

Without the cocktail of drugs, his mind cleared. The world around him made more sense and he no longer had to whisper questions to Stuart. His paperwork for training in the academy of sciences lay on the desk in his room awaiting his signature but he couldn't make himself sign it.

"Are you ready?" Stuart tapped the open bedroom door with his knuckles.

"I don't think I will ever be." Luke pulled himself out of the chair and buried the paperwork in the top drawer of the desk. He tightened the pink tie around his neck.

"She would be proud of you." Stuart lay his hand on Luke's shoulder. "You've stood up and made your voice heard countless times already. She wanted you to make a change."

"But I'm still too weak to do it."

"For now." Stuart tried to straighten his own tie and pulled it undone, "Can you save me, I hate ties, I almost never have to wear one in my line of work."

"Yeah, I guess it might get in the way of your taser." Luke took the silky material in his hands and quickly tied it into a neater knot. "You're lucky we were forced to wear ties throughout our school years."

The pair of them jumped into Stuart's car, a smaller sleeker model than the van he had brought Luke home in. They shared jokes and tried to stay as light-hearted as possible as they took the short journey across town. Luke lost his humour the moment they drove through the cemetery gates. 

As they drove further through the maze of headstones Luke noticed a crowd was gathering on the hill. He asked Stuart to stop the car. His breath came out in a shudder as he tried to keep his emotions in check. An arm wrapped around his shoulders and steered him up the hill.

"You've got this," Stuart whispered to him, "I know it is hard, but you are strong."

Luke couldn't look around at the people surrounding the hole. If he saw her eyes or button nose in the crowd he knew he would lose it. He tapped the paper folded in his pocket and hoped he had the strength to say it out loud. 

"Is it okay if I just drop it in instead of talking?" Luke whispered in a moment of anxiety. 

"She already knows what you wrote, so it makes no difference." Stuart gave Luke's shoulder a squeeze. "You do what you need to."

The religious representative was selected by Melody's family. Luke didn't know what denominations existed in the real world and it seemed fitting to let them have some input in saying goodbye. He listened to the old man drone on about souls and assertion to heaven and peace but found himself watching a honeybee. It buzzed from the proud daffodils to the lowly dandelions gathering precious nectar. 

Luke broke when Mel's mother took position and started the eulogy. Their voice was the same. It tugged on his heart hard enough to pull it from his chest. He struggled to keep his crying quiet so as not to interrupt.

When they turned to him the words on his paper blurred. He tried to remember what he wrote but his brain was as blank as it had been when he first woke from the sim. His eye caught on a flower bobbing in the vase as the head of the grave. A large bumblebee laden with pollen tumbled out and flew over his head.

"Melody was special, she didn't care who you were, she found good in everyone." Luke's voice cracked, but he tried to keep talking, "She loved her family, and I was so honoured when she decided to include me in it." Luke shook his head as his words failed. His knees buckled and forced him to kneel.

"Thank you," Mel's mother crouched down to his eye level. "She always talked so highly of you and I can see why. It is a shame that we had so much time together when you ended up with so little. Please take her love in your heart and do not dwell on the pain. She wouldn't have wanted that."

Luke nodded and allowed her to help him up. She trembled as she enveloped him in a hug. He wished her a silent goodbye as he turned back to Stuart. "I want to go now, I can't watch them lower her into the hole." 

Stuart assisted Luke back to the car, twice he had to insert himself under Luke's shoulder to keep him upright. His shirt was damp against his skin from Luke's tears.

Luke's fingers refused to work the seatbelt. He was forced to accept Stuart's help to silence the warning alarm on the dashboard. They drove in silence for a long time. He watched the speedometer as his mind overclocked in his head. 

Less than a street away from their house Luke suddenly stopped staring at the needle and looked at the road ahead. "I have made my decision."

"What?"

"My decision, what I am going to do with this life I have been gifted."

"Okay, but there isn't any rush. Dick hasn't gone to trial yet."

"He'll be put away, maybe a few others too, but it won't solve the problem." Luke sat up tall and dried his eyes on his sleeve. "I'm not going to be a brain for your sister, I want to use my experience to do something more."

"Sounds honourable."

"Don't mock me."

"I'm not, I just think there is a lot of emotion in the air right now. Wounds that haven't even had time to scab over let alone heal. I applaud you for taking a positive route out of the brown stuff, I just want you to have the respite you need first."

"I can't just sit by and let other people suffer as I did. While I sit here in your fancy house dining on food I didn't have to buy or cook, there are people being harvested for parts by people that don't see them as human. Humans that were never given the choice."

"Sounds like you've already got your campaign started. I know there are a number of people that will back any effort you make for a prominent position. Not all those born outside get to stay there. People want to know their loved ones are safe, not being exploited."

"Exactly."

"However I should probably tell you that some will be put off by your gift. It comes from jealousy or fear as most prejudice does. The intensity of politics may make it harder for you to control, I urge you to take some time to understand the nature of it in this world before you put too much on your plate and end up like so many of the others."

"Others?"

"Don't let my sister know I told you." Stuart lowered his voice, "Not so much now, but at the beginning when there were many of them emerging at once the politicians argued that there was no place for them in society. 'We have no idea how their genes interact' or 'what monsters will they breed'. So a bunch of them got together and demanded sanctuary."

"Did they get it?"

"Here in the UK they did, in other countries they weren't so lucky. The United Southern States of America sent theirs into exile in the 'Deadlands'. 

The last word was met with the engine dying. All the lights on the dashboard flashed wildly and the horn honked twice.  Luke stared at the car in horror.

"You've heard about it I presume?" Stuart pushed the engine start button to no avail.

"I was threatened with it once. A guardian at South Three."

"Take what you heard with a pinch of salt. The guardians are an odd bunch, some of them just get off on intimidating people."

Luke closed his eyes in exhaustion, "Another thing that needs fixing."

"It can't be fixed right now. Rest."

"I know." Luke yawned. "One battle at a time."