The Story So Far, Final Entry: New Times
27 Oct 2021Lily Flemmon
So, new times. Right? Well, the nanorobotic fertilizer was a major breakthrough. In the following months, the gardens became marvels, and Chilton Terminal became a cornucopia. The co-op became a station-wide organization, and nobody had any complaints. Station administration had me deliver a “thank you present” to Domino Green, and she ended up dismantling it for parts, but she used the parts to assemble an upgraded control tablet for the nanorobotic systems. Turns out the present was just one of the control tablets that had experienced a functional- and then structural- failure. Someone got frustrated, apparently.Then people started realizing that the new nanorobotic fertilizer could be used as a formidable bioweapon. Nobody in the co-op would do that, at least not on purpose (people did mix up some enzyme names at first). But then one of the control pads went missing, and so did the tech who was supposed to fix it. She had taken it to her quarters, and the next day she was gone and so was the tablet. With all the shipments of produce leaving the station, the tablet and the tech working on it could have slipped off the station without even trying to be discreet.
And, one last “but then…” The chairman put out a memo to the entire co-op letting us know that we had no members with enough military background to even start going after the missing control pad and our tech before either got into the wrong hands.
I had gotten so used to being Charlie, the gardener and produce freighter, that it hadn’t even crossed my mind that I might be going after the missing tablet. Let alone rescuing the tech. I didn't even remember her name. Things had been going so well, I didn’t expect an identity crisis.
And only three minutes after I finished reading the memo, Ronni was at my door. I let her in, and she immediately hugged me. And I felt hot tears running down my cheeks before I even realized I was crying. “Ronni, I- I can’t go back to being Chase.”
“You don’t have to.”
“What do you mean?”
Ronni let go of the embrace and walked into my quarters, straight to the box with the not-medkit in it, sitting on the kitchen counter. “You do realize this is exactly where I left this, right? Three months ago?”
“Yeah, it was difficult enough to think about that I never found a place to keep it.”
“So you left it… in a prominent and highly visible spot, and it just somehow, didn’t collect dust?” She picked up the box to pretend to wipe off dust, and realized the box was open. She looked at the open end, and the medkit inside, and then at me, and her face softened. “Oh, hun, you could have told me. You could have told me you were still looking at this.”
“I- I did-” I stammered at first as the words formed in my head. “I did more than just look at it.” I took the box from her, and walked to my closet where I kept a spare power cell. I pulled out the not-medkit and the power cell, and showed Ronni, well, I showed her who I am. I showed her Lily. “I’ve been holding off on telling you because I always felt like there was one final touch missing, and I could never put my finger on it, but I think I’ve figured it out.”
Ronni’s hands were covering her mouth, and she was on the verge of tears. Tears of happiness, of finally seeing her best friend break free from the confines of a past that had held her back for so long. “Lily…”
“And that final touch…” I walked up to the hologram and placed a tattoo on the back of the left shoulder. A green leaf. A little symbol of the Chilton Co-op, which wasn’t that well known, as it wasn’t an official faction. “...so I always remember my family.”
Ronni was sobbing, but at the same time, she was beaming with excitement. “Lily, I don’t have to be a part of this. This is a bigger life milestone than… than anything I’ll ever experience.”
“You said you would monitor my vitals though, right?”
I pulled out my hardsuit and we worked together to prepare for the operation. And I knew that when I woke up from the procedure, I would finally be, inside and out, myself.
Lily.
So, that just about covers my personal background. I don’t feel the need to go into the mission of recovering the lost control pad and the tech, other than a brief summary:
I bought a Chieftain and the target was in a shieldless Adder, and he surrendered very quickly following a shot from my pulse laser glancing off his canopy, and I even escorted him back to Chilton Terminal, and the tech and control pad went home, and Omnipol handled the actual arrest, since CTAC has no governing power.
But as a closing statement:
It's a lot to come to terms with, spending the first (nearly) two decades of my life thinking I’m someone I’m not, being told I’m someone I’m not, and aspiring to be that someone I’m not, but always failing because, well, I’m not Chase. I was never Chase. I’m Lily, and finding that out after 19 years and having to figure out what I’d lost in my childhood, let alone get it back? Self-discovery is a lifelong process, but having to play catch-up for all that is a wild ride, but even so, I’m really, really glad to know who I am.