by Jack Delgado
Episode 5b: Master and Apprentice
Aaliyah came to awakeness slowly, slowly feeling her way out of the warm darkness of sleep. She kept her eyes closed as she floated to the surface of the sea, giving no outward sign that she had regained consciousness. Almost immediately she began to register a deep, grating pain in her lower jaw, the curious sensation of the GIACA reassembling the bones back into place doing nothing but compound the horrible feeling of her broken chin.
She sat up slowly, massaging the broken bone, and immediately felt herself being lifted into the air in a crushing embrace. Adrenaline rushed through her like ice water and she began to struggle, her thoughts still woozy and unfocused. Then she heard his voice, her son’s voice, whispering apologies over and over, a constant refrain of “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t know, I’m sorry…”
“It’s ok, Dante,” she gasped, fighting for breath, “I’m alright!”
Dante didn’t reply, his apologies trailing off into indistinct whispers as he squeezing her closer. Aaliyah felt her jaw with her free hand; nearly healed, the last spot of tenderness fading away under her touch.
“Dante,” she whispered, “I can’t breathe.”
He mumbled again and set her down, dropping heavily into a nearby chair and burying his face in his hands.
Aaliyah took a quick moment to breathe and rub her aching ribs, compressed tight by Dante’s hold. Then she turned to Dante, a spasm of pain racing through her as she looked at him.
She stooped down in front of her son and put a hand on his shoulder, trying to coax him to look her in the eye.
“Dante, I'm fine,” she said soothingly, stroking his hair with her other hand, “I healed without a scratch, you haven't done anything permanent."
"I hurt you," he whispered through his hands, keeping his face firmly covered.
"Yeah, you did,” she chuckled, a rueful little grin materializing on her face, “But I wanted you to attack me. It was your martial test. You've finally beaten me in a fight."
Dante raised his head and met her eyes, the tears just at the border of his own .
"I never pictured it like this,” he replied quietly, “I always thought it would be a formal thing, y’know? In one of the training rooms or out on the roofs somewhere. But this...”
“I was about to kill you, Aaliyah!” he moaned, fear breaking through his voice, “I came so close to putting a bullet between your eyes!"
She smiled gently. "I knew the risks of disguising myself,” she told him, “You were one of the best fighters out there long before now, but do you know why you lost all those times we dueled?"
He furrowed his brow, looking confused. She laughed out loud and affectionately cuffed him across the ear.
"Because you were holding back, kid!” she exclaimed, “Because you didn't want to hurt me, so you restrained yourself from really going all out. Hell, I don’t even think you showed me everything you had in that little fight.”
“I’m glad I didn’t,” he said softly, still keeping his eyes fixed on the floor. She laughed again, silvery and powerful.
“If you had killed me back there, the rest of the runners would probably have thanked you,” she said easily, cracking her neck and grinning at him.
“No they wouldn’t have!” Dante yelped, eyes widening in alarm, “They’d string me up by my toes for a year if they found out I so much as scratched you, much less broke your jaw and much less killed you!”
“Nah, they wouldn’t do that,” she said, pretending to think about it, “Probably more around a month.”
Dante’s wretched expression cracked momentarily, a wide, Dante-characteristic grin breaking through for just a second. Aaliyah grinned with him and pulled her son to his feet, clapping her son on the shoulder.
“Look at you, Dante!” she crowed, “Twenty years old and you’ve already kicked the Ice Queen’s ass!”
“Yeah,” he said, smiling wanly, “She nearly beat me into the ground, though. And she wasn’t even attacking.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “She was a pushover. Now you just have to worry about being faster than a bullet, ‘cause the Endrace won’t be nearly as easy.”
Dante’s eyebrows shot up in the air, his new-found smile falling back into a dismayed frown.
“So soon?” he asked, shocked, “I mean, we just did the fight, we have to do the race now?”
“Well, not strictly speaking now,” she said, shrugging, “Tomorrow evening. You need a little rest after trying to cut my head off.”
“Ok,” he said, sounding a little relieved, “Where are we headed? No hope it’ll be something standard, I take it?”
Aaliyah scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Since when did I do anything traditionally?” she demanded, “We’re going into the Core, kid.”
"Prophet is in the High Castle?” Dante asked, surprised again, “How the hell did he get up there?”
“He’s a hacker. They get everywhere, as long as it’s germ-free.”
Dante chuckled and shook his head. “Where’s he hiding out this time? The Rosewater? The Diamond Club? Limbo?”
“Vinny’s Inn,” she said. “Our race goes from here to there.”
“Great,” he muttered, “Because that isn’t deep in the pile at all.” He sighed and sat back down.
"Where the hell have you been all these weeks?” he questioned her, his tone a little accusatory, “You didn't even leave a note!"
"It was a job,” she said lightly, “I didn't tell you where I was going because you would've followed me.”
He raised an eyebrow. "Would it have anything to do with the riots in Tau City?" he asked darkly.
She smiled crookedly and he groaned, rubbing his temples.
"Aaliyah, why do you accept Demokratos jobs?” he asked despairingly.
“Why do you accept mercenary jobs?” she returned, still grinning.
“’Cause they don’t put the rest of us in danger!” he said, exasperated.
“Oh, and making enemies out of powerful mercs and gangs don’t attract any attention to the runners,” she retorted cheerfully.
Dante rolled his eyes. “Yes, of course it does!” he said irritatedly, “But not nearly as much as provoking J.U.! We can get a whole lot more flak from Jahansson than any worthless mercenary!”
“Like we haven’t attracted any attention to ourselves in the past,” she said, smirking and raising an eyebrow, “We were only every Corporate troop’s worst nightmare for over two hundred years.”
“The key word being ‘were’, Aaliyah,” he pointed out.
“Yeah. Were.”
She shook her head. “That’s not the point, Dante. The point is that I gave Jahansson hell and there were thousands of others that did the same things I did.”
She leaned forward and rapped a knuckle against his forehead.
“Think, son,” she said, still smiling, “If they could have killed us, they would have.”
“Fine, you’ve got a point-” he conceded grudgingly, leaning back in the chair and folding his arms.
“And if they could’ve killed me they would’ve done it a long time ago,” she continued over him.
“What has that got to do with it?” he asked, looking bemused. She laughed, leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.
“Oh, Dante,” Aaliyah sighed, settling back into her chair, “If I believed for a moment you cared more about the runners than you cared about me, I’d probably kill myself.”
Dante said nothing for a long moment, staring at her with a dumbstruck look on his face. His hand slowly rose to the spot where she had kissed him.
“I don’t think you’ve ever kissed me before,” he said slowly.
“Savor it,” she replied, “It’s probably never gonna happen again.”
“Don’t say that,” he muttered, looking away from her.
“It’s only the truth, Dante.” The smile had faded from her face completely, her eyes turning somber.
�
�You know what the Endrace means,” she said quietly, “You know what has to happen. Failure is not an option. So, only success is left over.”
“No,” he protested, shaking his head fiercely, “I won’t do it. I’ll figure out another way!”
“There’s no way around this. This is what has to happen.”
“I won’t leave you, mom!”
She chuckled and shook her head. “That’s what they all said, Dante. Every last one of them said ‘I’ll never leave you’.”
She stood up and walked over to the bullet-ridden bar, leaning forward against the perforated wood with her back to Dante. He stood and followed her, feet crunching over shattered glass and clinking off bullet cases.
He stepped up next to her and put his arm around her shoulder, about to say something comforting, some reassurance. She held up a hand to silence him, not looking in his direction.
“This is our last run and our last job together, kid,” she stated, with an awful finality that kept Dante’s mouth shut, “After this, you’ll be a Master, the youngest since, well, me. You’re already well-known, but your name’s gonna rocket up there with the big dogs once you go Master.”
“You’re the son of the Demon of the Sahara, Dante. You’re already famous, just for that. And after tomorrow, you’ll be off on your own, having your own adventures, doing what you want. I can’t be with you anymore. It wouldn’t be right to hold you back.”
“You’ve never held me back!” he exclaimed, fighting to speak around the lump in his throat. “You made me what I am!”
“Yeah, I did,” she said, smiling wanly, “The youngest runner to achieve Dawnwalker status. The best marksman, the greatest endurance, the fastest reflexes, the strongest, the smartest, the most powerful runner the world has seen for one hundred and eighty years. I made you what you are…”
She turned to look at Dante. He could see the tears, nearly out of her eyes. Her voice shook, ready to crack. Her hands were clenched at the edge of the bar, wood splintering under her grip as it tightened like a vice.
But there was that smile again. That beautiful smile, so full of life and joy and pride and love. The smile that could light up a pit with its radiance.
“But I can’t take any responsibility for what you’ve done. Look at yourself, Dante. Look at how far you’ve come.”
Dante felt his eyes begin to burn as he met her gaze, his throat too constricted to make a sound. Her hands released their grip on the bar and rose to his face, gently resting against his cheeks, her GIACA cool and smooth on his bare skin.
“My son,” she whispered, “Look how far you’ve come.”
There was a long, silent moment between the two, uninterrupted by the outside world. Then Aaliyah’s hands lowered and she embraced her son, squeezing him tightly to her.
"I'm going to bed,” she said quietly in his ear, “You should too. You'll need all of your strength for the race."
She released Dante slowly and walked around him to a door near the back of the bar, colored a sickly green, the paint flaking off and faded. Dante turned to follow, silent, his eyes downcast.
He followed her through and turned left, his hand tightening around the doorknob of one of the rooms Malachi kept for rent. He stopped before entering it, frozen at the doorstep, then turned back around.
“Mom,” he called down the short hall. There was a brief silence, then Aaliyah poked her head back around the frame of the third door down from his.
“Yes, Dante?” she asked, her smile small and weary.
“I love you,” he told her, “Don’t ever forget that. Ever.”
“I love you too, son. And I’ll never forget it.”
Then she was gone, the door clicking shut behind her.
Dante closed his door and flopped down on the bare mattress bed. Sleep was on him in an instant, pushing him down into the warm, friendly dark. Dreams of a good life flowed past him, keeping him comforted and rested throughout the night.