Citizen Snip's Application #2: The Dunkey Roll

A child drawing breath for the first time in their existence, the first action any child will every take if they are destine to live in this world. An exhausted mother, smiling ear to ear as she holds her child for the first time, gazing upon her beautiful baby girl’s face for the first time. This, however, was not one of those cases.

“Are you fucking stupid, Alice? You can’t keep that baby.” Madam Justine said, furious at even entertaining the thought of such a preposterous suggestion. “How do you plan to take care of it, to feed it? You’ve already made the extra credits from the Johns who like the pregnant girls, the kid’s outlived its usefulness.” She exclaimed once more.

Alice simply smiled, still looking down towards her newly born baby girl. She had planned to snuff its life out once it had come out of her womb, but she didn’t expect this feeling to flow over her, the feeling one experiences when they first lay eyes on their child. “I…I’m keeping my baby, Miss Justine, I can still work for you, I can keep her in my room.” Alice lightly mumbled as she looked up towards Justine, genuinely happy for the first time since the two had met.

“Fine, but you’re back to work next week, and I’m not hearing another word about it, Alice.” The Madam sighed as she walked out of the room, and for the time in the Justine’s fun-girls brothel, an infant was one of its residence.

There Syndra sat upon a dingy old cot, a child of only six, it didn’t take much to keep her entertained. An outdated holo-game sat in her hands, occasionally flickering to signal the end of its life span, but the toddler didn’t care, she knew mommy would be back soon and they would have dinner together and play until clock-bell rang. Seconds turned to minutes, and minutes turned to hours as the child sat there, waiting for her mother patiently.

*BANG* *BANG* *BANG* Echoed loudly through the room in which Syndra sat, still playing her holo-game. The young girl jumped, quickly jerking her attention to the door a moment later. She had heard these loud bangs before, all the time in fact, but never so close, not inside the building. The young toddler quickly stood and began lightly skipping to the door. *Shroosh*, she flung open the door, continuing to walk down the hallway, wishing she could call for her mother, but she knew she couldn’t because mommy said the men didn’t like to hear children when they played with the other girls. Down the second hallway, she saw a small cluster of people surrounding the entrance to one of the rooms. “They seem scared,” Syndra thought to herself as she quietly skipped ahead, eventually standing knee-high next to the girls as she looked into the room. She quite understand what she saw. Mommy was on the floor, face down, she was naked and a large pool of red surrounded her. Could it be blood? No, no way, she had gotten a cut before playing on the floor, and not nearly the much red came from her arm.

“Oh, sweetheart, don’t look!” One of the girls exclaimed as she finally noticed the young. She quickly covered the young girl’s eyes and began walking her back to her mother’s room. “What happened to mommy?” the young child spoke softly to the girl. She wasn’t old enough to understand the situation, but she understood at least that something was very, very wrong.

“Just sit in your room while we figure this out, and don’t out!” The girl quickly replied as she scooted Syndra back into the room. There the young toddler sat on the cot, a wave of fear and raw emotions quickly flowing over the poor child. After a moment she looked towards the holo-game she was playing a few minutes before, and after a moment, the game began to visibly rise, though only a few centimeters at best before lighting plopping back onto the bed. The young, terrified for her mother, was further confused from the events that had just transpired. She laid there, simply waiting for her mother to return.

A month had passed since the young girl ran away from the care of Madam Justine. “A child unwilling to sell her body for me is a child that’s going to be sold.” As Justine had put it six weeks earlier. Syndra was still very young, but thankfully the corruption of her mother’s naivety had resonated with Syndra before her mother’s death, and so she ran, figuring that anything out here couldn’t be worse than what transpired in that hell-hole she grew up in.

It was only a few days outside the brothel that Syndra realized just how wrong she was. In those few days she had witnessed muggings, gang violence, and even a straight up murder. It was a jarring difference than the brothel, even though her mother’s attempt at sheltering Syndra stopped after her, she never fully cusped how much the brothel itself had saved her. It was on the evening of April 15th that Syndra had decided that the next morning, she would simply return to the brothel and beg for forgiveness, slowly coming to terms with her life as best a child of her age could. With those last thoughts, she fell asleep next to a large sewer pipe in one of the nameless alleys of Omega.

“Hey there!” A small voice exclaimed only a few feet from where Syndra was sleeping. As she slowly raised her head, she was met with the site of a young girl, perhaps a year older, perhaps less, but she was smiling, glowing even, something Syndra hadn’t seen in her time in the streets, or even the brothel, at least not since she last saw her mother alive. “Why are you sleeping under here?” The girl asked, almost seeming concerned for Syndra.

“I…I uh, I was just going to go home.” Syndra said softly as she wiped some for grime from her left cheek.

“Home, where’s that?” The girl asked, casually crouching down in order to be eye-level with Syndra.

“Uh…Justine’s brothel.” Syndra squeaked to the young girl, now looking directly into girls eyes, eyes filled with confidence and kindness, something she had longed to see since her mother had left her.

“You don’t look like a whore…why don’t you come with us? I bet you’ll like it better.” The girl stated quite simply as she stood up, offering Syndra her left hand.

Syndra looked up towards the young girl. Why would she accept this offer? People weren’t nice, they were cold, they only wanted to help themselves, but something in this young girls eyes reminded Syndra of her mother, reminded her of what happiness could look like. Infront of her she saw what she could only describe as a genuinely kind person, and with this last thought, Syndra quickly reached up and grasped the young girl’s hand, slowly pulling herself up with the help of the young girl. “What’s your name?” The girl said, eye-level with Syndra, still smiling.

“Uh…Syndra, my name’s Syndra.” she said softly. She attempted to allow her hand to fall to her side, but the girl was adamant on keeping ahold of it.

“I’m Bea, com’on, let’s go meet the others! They’re around the corner.” The girl exclaimed, walking towards the exit of the alley as she lightly pulled Syndra with her.

Syndra never made her way back to the brothel that day, or any day in fact, she had found a new home among one of the many small gangs that littered omega.

“Why would I do this, Bea!? I don’t want them to stick that thing in my head!” Syndra said in a mix of fear and anger, a visible layer of fright draping both her and the Aura of the room. “What if something goes wrong?” she sighed lightly as she looked towards the floor of her room, sitting on yet another dingy cot, but not alone this time, she was sitting next to her closest friend, Beatrice.

“Look…Syndra, we’ve gone over this, you –have- to do it. This is our way out, this is our way to finally scrounge together more than just scraps. You realize what we can do with your biotics? We can take anything we want!” Bea attempted to explain. She was smiling as always, something that comforted Syndra.

“I’ll be right next to you before and after the surgery. It’ll give you a better life, it’ll make things better.” Bea stated a few moments later as she slowly placed her hand ontop Syndra’s. “You just have to trust me.”

“I trust you…” Syndra said, sighing a moment lafter. “Okay, let’s go.”

A moment later the two stood up and walked out of the room, walking towards an event that would was yet another changing point in Syndra’s life.

There, Syndra sat on an operating table, clothed in a battered surgical gown. Only a few feet away John, a man in his mid-20’s whom had been the leader of their little band of misfits, made the final preparations for the procedure.

“Here’s the last payment.” John spoke as he handed a small holo-deck to a man clad in a surgical outfit, obviously the doctor prepared to perform the surgery.

The man nodded as he retrieved the device and slid it into his pocket. “Okay. As we’ve talked, I have the L2 module which we’ll be using. The procedure will done in a few hours, come back this evening.”

With that, John nodded and began walking out of the room, briefly smiling in the direction of Syndra as he did.

“Alright, lay down.” The doctor spoke as he walked over to the operation table. “I’ll be putting you under, you won’t feel a thing.”

Syndra nodded and slowly laid onto the bed, uncertain of the events that were about to transpire, resigned to the fact that it was pretty much out of her hands at this point. A moment later, Syndra slowly closed her eyes as the placed a small mask over her face. “Alright, now, count to ten for me.”

“One, two, three…four…”

There, on the same cot she slept peacefully for years and years, Syndra laid in visible anguish. Her nerves endings had been used and abused by the biotics she had been using for the last five years. Unrestrained and untrained with the old and dangerous L2 module, Syndra had finally learned the repercussions for the use of her abilities.

“I can’t fucking do this anymore, Bea…It hurts, it hurts so much!” Syndra cried out quietly, beginning to visibly cry from the never ending pins and needles prodding and probing her skin. “I…I can’t make it stop, it doesn’t stop…I just want it to stop.” She mumbled quietly to Beatrice, whom was sitting next to her on the bed.

Beatrice quickly leaned over as she reached into her pocket, removing a small inhaler, the look of concern and worry draped on her face. “Hey, hey, look at me, babe, look at me.” She said in a soft tone as she placed her hand on Syndra’s right cheek, lightly stroking it. “Look at me.”

Syndra slowly opened her eyes, only anguish and pain filling them as she looks back at Bea. “I just want it to stop…”

Beatrice nodded and slowly moved the inhaler over Syndra’s mouth. “Open your mouth, babe, I can make it stop.” Beatrice said softly, persuading her as best she could.

Syndra slowly opened her mouth, and almost immediately Bea placed the inhaler exit into Syndra’s mouth, pressing down on the tube for about one and a half seconds. “Breath it in, just breath it in.” Bea said.

Syndra slowly inhaled, a wave of relief slowly consuming her body, visibly becoming more and more relieved. A moment later Beatrice lightly planted her lips on Syndra’s. “You just have to trust me,” Beatrice said once more before placing the inhaler in her own mouth, inhaling a large amount of the drug as she simply lay there, next to Syndra

“Why are you even fucking reading those things, who gives a shit about math?”  Beatrice said in a fairly condescending manner as she lay on the cot, letting out a light sigh.

Syndra let out a small sigh and shrugs. “I dunno, Bea, I found them and they’re interesting, who fucking cares if I read them?” she says in a rather tired tone, sick of having the same conversation over and over again. “I understand this shit, it might be a way off this fucking rock…aren’t you fucking sick of this place?”

“Pfft, why would I want to leave? This is my home.” Bea said as if it was a matter of fact.

“All we do is steal, fuck, and get high…I don’t, I don’t want to fucking do this the rest of life.” Syndra said weakly as she looked back towards Bea. “We’re almost old enough to Enlist, why don’t we just do that? We can get off this place, we can actually have a fucking life.”

“You need to remember where you fucking come from.” Bea scoffed, “This is what we do, and we’re going to do it until we die, so fucking get over yourself.” She continued, proceeding to retrieve a syringe full of some dark brown liquid from a drawer next to the bed. “You think they would let someone like you in anyway? Your fucking nerves are shot, and you judge me for getting high every day?”

Syndra then looked back to her books, speaking in a defeated, sad tone. “You’re right...”

“I know I’m right,” Bea proclaimed, one again as a matter of fact, “Now, come over here and shut up for a while.”

Syndra looked back towards her once again, shaking her head. “No…my nerves feel fine right now, you can have the full hit.”

“How am I going to explain it to her,” Syndra began to think, trapped in her thoughts as she walked.

“I have to convince her to come with me, I can’t come back here, not with John.”

“Maybe I can get her help…she’s resourceful, she can find a job anywhere I get stationed, I just need to get her away from this place.”

These thoughts continued to race through her head, over and over again, attempting to find any happy solution to this situation presented in front of her. These thoughts continued until she walked into their bedroom. In the bedroom, there laid Bea, sprawled out naked on the bed as usual. It was at this moment that Syndra finally realized what had become of her friend, her love, her family. Drug paraphernalia riddled the bedroom, from used needles to empty inhales, Beatrice was beyond help, beyond help, she was truly lost, another soul claimed by Omega.

Syndra left that day and reported to the Alliance for bootcamp. She never said goodbye to Beatrice or any of her friends or associates. To those people, she simply disappeared like so many people on Omega do every day.

After Syndra’s retreat from Omega, she went through bootcamp as every Alliance recruit does. For the first time in her life, she was able receive both help and training for her biotics and her condition brought on from the unsafe usage of an L2 module. She showed promise on an aptitude test in mathematics, and was quickly put into the engineering program, eventually leading her to becoming a propulsion’s engineer on the SS Irelia.

The SS Irelia was one of the many Warships tasked with the final assault and retaking of Earth. It, along with many of the ships in the Alliance fleet, was damaged beyond repair and was eventually placed into an indefinite period repairs and upgrades, leading to most of the crew being transferred to different assignments.

Soon after the Reaper Invasion ended, Syndra was transferred as the head propulsion’s engineer on a Council Joint Taskforce which resided on a ship known as the SSV London.