Life Support

by Starscribe

Chapter 6: Allies

The next thing Flynn knew, it was dark outside, and they were alone. The nurses hadn’t come for them—though they would if they waited much longer. His limbs were already going stiff from the chill. He looked up, clearing his throat loudly. “I, uh… think we should get inside,” he said, not into the Ponypad.

For once, even Caroline didn’t look annoyed with him. She nodded, glancing down at the screen. “We should get going,” her pony said. “Thanks for taking the time to talk to us.”

It hadn’t just been talking. So many hours had brought plenty of ponies in and out. Some of them had more to say about emigration, others wanted help contacting someone on the outside. These ponies seemed unusually well-connected for emigrants, who Flynn had always imagined cut themselves off from “reality” the instant they emigrated.

But there’s a lot I haven’t known about this stuff until now, he thought. Even the things I knew I never really knew. It had been very hard to argue with the case these ponies made for their own existence. But then again, they had a great deal of reason to want their identities to still be the same people. But just because they wanted it didn’t mean it was the case.

He would have to think about it later, when he had a little more time. Maybe talk to Gina about it. Unlike several of those who he’d been speaking with, Flynn himself was on a clock. Before the year was out, he would be dead no matter what he did.

But he didn’t say any of that out loud. “I’ll catch you in a few,” he said to Gina. “I’ll get us transferred back to our shard. Just don’t get into trouble until then.”

She squawked at him in amusement and disbelief, nodding. “Like these soft city-ponies could cause me trouble.” She took a step closer to the screen, lowering her voice. “You haven’t been persuaded by these ponies, have you? They aren’t tricking you into becoming a slave?”

He shook his head vigorously, confident that the gesture would be translated to his avatar. Less confident that he meant it. “We’re here for my friends. They’re the ones who want this.” Another lie, and he could tell from her expression that she wasn’t convinced. He shut off the Ponypad.

By the time he had, his friends had put theirs away as well, and a nurse was hurrying across the grounds. Like many of the nurses at St. Justin’s, she wore a habit under her apron instead of scrubs. She was holding something in one hand, an envelope.

“You three need to go inside right now!” she scolded, hands on her hips. “Honestly, do you want to catch cold? Go on then!” She helped Jose to his feet, taking his Ponypad from him so that he wouldn’t have to worry about dropping it. He insisted on using his crutches to make their slow way back to the building, even though he clearly should’ve been in a wheelchair himself.

Caroline walked along beside them, seeming relieved to be moving so slowly. “Miss Garcia, I see you’ve got a letter with Jose’s name on it.” She grinned, though like all of Caroline’s emotions it was far more subdued than might be expected from someone their age. “That wouldn’t be from his caseworker, would it?”

Jose’s face brightened at the question, and he nearly fell over in his haste to snatch the letter from her grip. “Gimmie!”

Miss Garcia held the envelope out of reach, catching Jose with her other hand and holding him steady. “Now, now. You can open it inside when you’re back in your rooms, alright? Your dinner has already been sitting there an hour getting cold without you.”

“Not hungry,” Jose grunted, though that hadn’t been remotely true of his character in the game. That pony had gone through half the refreshments at the party and still had room to spare. Earth ponies.

Still, they made good time to Jose’s room, where they got another scolding about minding curfew before Miss Garcia finally handed over the letter. Jose took it in shaking fingers, struggled to open it a minute, before finally giving up and passing it to Caroline.

The girl took it eagerly, but she didn’t struggle with it as Jose or Flynn might’ve done. Instead she licked one of the seams on the short end, before blowing into a corner until the whole thing had inflated, then popped it sharply between both her hands. Then she slid it out easily, passing the single sheet of folded paper to Jose.

“Jose Pena Castillo Reyes,” Jose read, his excitement palpable. “As the representative assigned to your wellbeing by the City of Chicago, it is my duty to act to protect you from any threat to your health and safety. Before the advent of the thing called Celestia, this never brought my decisions in conflict with prevailing medical wisdom. Never have I been forced to…” Jose began to read more slowly, slumping backward against his bed.

Caroline took the letter from him, her reading terse and angry. “Disagree with the opinion of your consulting doctors. I am forced to act according to my conscience, however. I cannot approve a procedure which would leave you dead at its conclusion, regardless of your desire to undertake it. Euthanasia in all its forms must be resisted to protect the basic dignity of all patients, even those in the most disadvantaged situation.”

I have thus denied your request. If you wish to appeal my decision, you may arrange a meeting with the city’s provisional office of Children and Family Services and request a new caseworker who might be more sympathetic.” It went on, but not much further. Caroline tossed the crumpled letter aside, before slumping to the floor to clutch at her chest, breathing very heavily.

“That bastard,” Jose wheezed, his hands going white as he gripped the railing on either side of his bed. “He knows… he knows I don’t have time for that. By the time I get a meeting…” He glanced longingly to one side, where his Ponypad was now plugged in, charging. “I’ll be dead.”

“Gerald Malani is my caseworker too,” Caroline said, when she had finally recovered. Little splotches of color were visible across her face and arms, but she ignored them, and so did they. It wasn’t as though much more could be done without either a transplant or a permanent transfer to life support. “We’re both dead, Jose.”

“No,” he argued. “Not you, Caroline. You can appeal. You just got to… stay calm long enough. You can get someone who isn’t…” He muttered a long string of Spanish obscenities. “You’ll just have to… enjoy it for both of us.”

Flynn watched his friends from the doorway, struggling to find the words to comfort them. But anything he thought of sounded empty—after all, even if he wasn’t as afraid of emigration as he had been, that hadn’t changed into a desire to do it. He already had the consent of his parents to emigrate—that was how he’d become an orphan in the first place.

It felt wrong to say pointless, stupid things to Caroline and Jose, when Jose might be dead in a week. So, he didn’t.

Instead, he gently shut the door to the hall, rolling closer to the bed. There was no one else in the room—these hospital style rooms were always one to a bed, even before half the hospice had emigrated.

“So you tried to follow the rules, and it didn’t work,” Flynn said, his voice dark.

“If you’re going to fucking start Flynn, it isn’t—”

Flynn shook his head. “I’m not gonna go off on Celestia this time.”

She didn’t seem to have the strength to respond to that. Neither did Jose, who stared down at the crumpled letter on the floor like it was his death sentence. Because it was.

“Celestia doesn’t care about the rules,” he said again. “She isn’t the one you have to get approval from. Right?”

“Right,” Caroline said, though she still sounded angry with him. Ready to lash out at a moment’s notice, if he misspoke. “So?”

“So if we can get Jose into a center, he can still go. It doesn’t matter if we have Malani’s signature or not. That was just to get out of St. Justin’s.”

Jose nodded, wiping the tears away from his face. He’d been crying very quietly, but didn’t look terribly embarrassed about it. He wasn’t healthy enough for embarrassment anymore. “You’re right. I don’t know if it’s much better—if we were normal kids, we could maybe climb a wall, or just run. But we’re not. We can’t even jog.”

We. Flynn heard the implication, and he didn’t argue. Even if the day’s conversations hadn’t made him want emigration for himself, he no longer felt smug that one of his friends was being denied it.

It might not have been the conversations. It was hard to see someone so unhealthy, hear Jose’s wheezing breaths, see how little he ate, and to think that he didn’t deserve the chance. What does he have, two days?

“When my family emigrated…” he began, after a long silence. “That was before it got easy. We were the first ones in our city. There was only one center open in the country then, the one in DC. We couldn’t afford the trip… Celestia took care of it. I bet if we tell her how bad this is, she will know what to do. She has people everywhere, maybe even in St. Justin’s.”

They both stared at him. Caroline was the first to break the silence. “Did I hear right? Flynn? You’re saying we should go to Celestia?”

He blushed, unable to meet her eyes. She’d be just as smug as he always had been. “Yeah, well. This is important. Jose… needs to go. Desperate times. And… maybe being a pirate these last few months has changed my mind about some stuff. Maybe I’m a criminal and now I want to break laws in real life.”

“You can go whenever you want. Your parents signed for you way back then,” Caroline muttered, but she didn’t press the issue. Instead, she lifted her Ponypad, propping it up on the table in front of Jose. “Sit on the other side of the room, Flynn. Block your door with your chair. They won’t be able to sneak up on us.”

He obliged, grateful for the double-blessing that he wouldn’t have to see Princess Celestia again today. Their last meeting had been terse and uncomfortable—as though she knew what he was doing, and was constantly on the edge of punishing him for it. But she hadn’t that time, just done as he’d asked and moved him (and Gina) around in Equestria.

Her voice sounded clear even from across the room. “I’ve been listening to your conversation,” she said, as sweet as ever. “It was wise of Entry Vector to suggest involving me.”

Flynn suspected that if she really had been listening, she would’ve volunteered herself if someone hadn’t done it for her. But that was a moot point now.

“So, can you help?” Jose asked, sounding desperate and hopeful. “You can see me, right? I feel it… feel myself dying. I don’t know how much longer I have.”

Celestia’s voice was no longer cheerful. “I believe your judgement is correct, Jose. I apologize my intervention with your health had been less successful than with your friends. Unfortunately, not every disease can be overcome as easily. The rarer the condition, the fewer resources I could devote to treating it.”

Jose shrugged dismissively, as though he hadn’t even heard the specific words. But Flynn did, and was so consumed by their implications he didn’t even hear what Celestia said next, or Caroline’s reply.

She’s been messing with our health? Apparently trying to treat us. Flynn had been feeling better since he started playing Equestria Online. He thought it was having something to do again—a purpose. But apparently there might be other reasons. Or she wants me to think there are.

“I have been planning an intervention on your behalf,” Celestia said next, in response to whatever Caroline asked. “I realized Mr. Malani would not be cooperative many months ago. My attempts to replace him have been… unsuccessful. I could not alter records without his notice, and eventual legal troubles for Equestria. I would have preferred either of those avenues, to spare you the pain, but both have been made impossibilities.”

“Does that mean you don’t know how to help me?” Jose asked. “Or that you just have to use a different way than you wanted?”

“I’m afraid some of your own involvement will be required,” Celestia answered. “I realize your abilities are limited, but what I have in mind will not be particularly difficult. You should be warned, however, that failure would produce legal troubles that might be difficult to overcome. You might not get another opportunity to emigrate if you give up on this one.”

Flynn could almost hear her talking to him. And maybe he would be better off giving up, waiting for whatever strange things Celestia was doing to improve his health.

Flynn had been spending the last several months saving ponies from captivity. He couldn’t do that in Equestria, but not do it for his friends. He might be wheelchair bound, might not be terribly coordinated, but he couldn’t be crippled by exertion or stress and he wasn’t nearly dead. By some measures, that made him the most capable member of their group.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, with total confidence. “Tell us your plan.”

Comments

[Lightwavers]

Excellent. The detail about how she opened the letter really added to the authenticity.

[Seeking Dusk]

Well then... I suppose technically Flynn is playing a criminal, and it wouldn't be the first time a 'criminal' worked with someone they disliked for personal reasons.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Ah. Celestia's been training Flynn for this for months. Now to see him invert his normal role. After all, even if he does manage to keep saying no, he'll be bringing her two yeses.

[book_burner]

Flynn had been spending the last several months saving ponies from captivity. He couldn’t do that in Equestria, but not do it for his friends. He might be wheelchair bound, might not be terribly coordinated, but he couldn’t be crippled by exertion or stress and he wasn’t nearly dead. By some measures, that made him the most capable member of their group.

You dumb, stupid child! What do you think is going to happen when you're around one of those chairs, eh?

[EverfreeSparkle]

8434815
None of them will live to adulthood anyway. If I had to choose between certain death and uncertain death I would choose uncertain death. But other than this specific scenario, I would not recommend emigration.

[Tapkomet]

8435837
But isn't life as it is now (with modern medicine and such) "certain death" anyway? You might get ill and get a chance to emigrate before dying, or you might get hit by a car or get a stroke and die on the spot.

Now if humans had extensive cybernetic augmentations and clinical immortality, such that sudden death was practically unheard of and life expectancy was seemingly unlimited, it would be a different story, but as it is not emigrating is a huge risk in the FiO universe.

[pjabrony]

If I were those kids, and if I were looking for the simplest solution, I would simply switch Flynn's and Jose's identity and have "Flynn" consent with the permission already given by his parents.

[Yami Vizzini]

Whoa... things are heating up now. Kind of glad now that I didn't get around to this until the next chapter was up. And I don't even know what to make of Celestia's "treatments"....

I do wonder how this apparently church-run house rationalizes emigration.

[unknowncape7377]

this story's celestia reminds me of the corrupt celestia in A Winter's Rose

[Solana]

He blushed, unable to meet her eyes. She’d be just as smug as he always had been. “Yeah, well. This is important. Jose… needs to go. Desperate times. And… maybe being a pirate these last few months has changed my mind about some stuff. Maybe I’m a criminal and now I want to break laws in real life.”

Finally, the Phantom Thief FiO story we all needed.