Sanctuary

Chapter Fourteen - Senna

"Senna, where have you been? You're filthy," Nami greeted when Senna finally made it home.

"I know, I know. I'm going to go shower," Senna responded, purposefully avoiding the actual question. What would she say? That she had gone down to the ground floor and had a chat with a random stranger? That he had told her Zed was a terrible man? That she might. . . might. . . believe him?

Might. Maybe.

It was harder—when she was back home—to believe that Zed was the sort of person who would frame her mentor and wipe her out of history. He didn't seem like the type of person who'd pass a law that killed babies.

"Senna, what happened?" Nami tried again, her voice even softer than before. Senna could hear the worry. She wanted to tell her, but she'd be in a world of trouble if she did. The moment she said she had gone to the ground floor it was all going to be about that. I told you not to go down there. Didn't I say it was dangerous? It's your own fault you got attacked, going to a place like that.

"Nothing happened. I'm fine."

"What you are is a terrible liar."

"I just want to go work on the HMD, Mom."

There was a pause that hung thick in the air as the stubborn girl met her mother's eyes. Nami looked away with a sigh.

"Fine. But remember, you can talk to me about anything," Nami dismissed and Senna started walking away before she had even finished her sentence.

"No," Senna muttered to herself when she had moved out of earshot, "I really can't."

Senna hoped she could distract herself from it all, from her thoughts, but it wasn't working. The cascading waterfall in her bathroom didn't help. Neither did the shower. Her HMD was really her last chance. She hovered over it in her workroom, dressed in cozy pajamas with her still wet hair knotted up into a sloppy bun so it wouldn't hang in the way and drip onto her work. She had the HMD cracked open and its internal circuit board propped up on a clear stand with a magnifying glass settled over it. Some of the connections looked damaged from age, maybe that was the problem. She waited for the soldering iron to heat up, still unable to shake the thoughts.

If it wasn't true, then what about the photo? That seemed like pretty solid proof. It had certainly been Wrench, though she wasn't at all the Wrench Senna had known.

The iron heated up to useable and Senna started on the repair, carefully melting a thin wire of metal into precise dots onto the board.

Maybe the shadow man had been lying about other parts of his story. Maybe Ko was really Kagerou. But maybe... maybe he was wrong about the law. Maybe his child simply hadn't made it, like the Doctors had said. But that broke other parts of the story, didn't it? If there was no law to speak up against—was Kagerou also wrong? Had she really been on all of those pills? Why? Maybe she did go insane, but got better when she stopped taking them? No, she couldn't believe that, either, because if the part about Kagerou going insane was true then that meant Kagerou was a terrorist. And that meant Wrench was a terrorist—and Senna refused to believe that.

Senna jerked her hand back as a sharp burning pain snapped her out of her thoughts. She set the soldering iron aside and shook her now injured hand with a hiss before investigating the damage. It was only a small burn, but it was on her thumb. At least it was her left thumb. The board looked fine, which was more important than a tiny burn. If she had messed up the soldering she might not have been able to fix it at all.

She turned off the iron, too lost in her thoughts to continue without further injury. She went for the first aid kit as an afterthought, her thumb still throbbing. A quick pat of cream and a loose bandage was all she needed, though she was concerned that the gloves of her school uniform would rub the injury throughout the day—yet more proof that such things did not agree with real work.