Another day passed, with Pride becoming increasingly irritable with every passing hour.
I had managed to pacify him slightly with a few cosmetic changes to our appearance, but that satisfaction didn't last long.
Luckily for my rapidly declining sanity however, Judy had indeed stayed true to her word, and thought of a solution
The reason she didn't want me to go outside alone was because she was worried for my safety.
Therefore all I had to do was prove I was capable of handling myself.
The answer Judy came up with came in the form of a small metallic chip, which was apparently a new training model used to nurture recruits for the military and police force.
Simply slot the glowing pink end into your neural port and be transported to a fully functional and private training area.
I didn't ask how she had managed to get her hands on it.
"You can go out once you pass firearms training, and not a moment before." She had said to me, a deadly seriousness crossing her usually posotive visage.
I nodded and reached out to grab the chip from her, but quickly gave up after it was raised far above what I could possibly have reached.
"I know that look. I'm serious." Judy stared down at me, unimpressed.
She had noticed how restless I had been becoming over the past few days, no thanks to the resident idiot hiding away in my head.
'I only hide because you want me to.'
And yet you fail at even that, as she would have no idea what I was thinking if you just stayed silent like you should have.
Pride bristled irritably, but I ignored him.
"Pass it first, and I'll get you a weapon when you do. Then you can leave whenever you want. Okay?" Judy wagged the chip above my head, glaring down at me.
"Ok." I agreed, finally retrieving the small chip from her outstretched hand and inspecting it closely.
"Which slot does it go into?" I asked, hesitating as I brought the glowing shard up to my left ear.
Judy reached up a finger and tapped the bottom of the two, her painted nails clacking against the smooth rectangular slab of metal located underneath the base of my ear.
"That one, and don't ever mess it up - despite the safety precautions installed it'll hurt like a bitch if you try to download the wrong type of information suited for them." She winced, no doubt remembering the pain of a past mistake.
Simple enough.
"What about the other one?" I asked, resolving to ingratiate myself with the inner workings of my new implants when I had the chance.
"That one's for data shards only, they usually have a red tip, unlike that pink one."
"I see."
Judy retracted her finger from the port and I reached up, only for my wrist to be grabbed, forcefully halting the motion.
"Uh, I forgot to mention, but it has the same effect as knocking someone out, you might wanna lie down first."
You tell me this now?
"Alright."
I hopped off the couch, walking over to our room before climbing the ladder and depositing myself on the bed.
Time to get to work.
I tilted my head to the side, slotting in the shard and leaning back.
A large amount of indecipherable text blitzed across my vision before the world went black, and my mind departed from my body.
~~~
{Judy Alvarez}
I locked my fingers together, sighing deeply.
I stared at the table, leaning my head forwards onto my hands.
My elbows pressed into the table uncomfortably, but I didn't pay it any attention.
I wasn't stupid.
I could tell he wanted to leave the apartment and explore, and I noticed the hesitancy and caution behind every action he took; as if he were afraid of setting me off.
It wasn't right.
"Oh Angel, what did you do to this kid?" I muttered sadly, feeling slightly sick as I remembered the weathered lattice of scars covering his torso. "Ugh."
My calm facade broke, disgust overwhelming every fibre of my being.
I covered my mouth, gagging as I remembered my best friend's happy face, her carefree and innocent smile.
How could she go around smiling like that? Laughing happily after inflicting such pain on her own flesh and blood.
The story he told me couldn't have been the only time this had happened either, the scarring was far too deep and far too light in varying places.
It was layered, some older and some more recent.
Maybe she had started using him as an outlet for her stress after it happened, after the first time she had done it.
It was sick, a monstrous thing to do.
No, now wasn't the time to be thinking about this.
"Judas?" I called, getting up and striding over to our room. "Don't spend too long in there, time passes on a one-to-one scale."
I walked over to the ladder, skipping two of its rungs and hoisting myself up over the rails.
The boy's eyes glowed a dark gold, his misshapen irises replaced with two white crosses angled similarly to a multiplication symbol.
He was slotted in already, nevermind.
I smiled, forgetting my negative thoughts as I stared into the constantly glittering gold.
Kids would be kids.
I remembered getting jealous when one of my old classmates got a pair of Teknics back in Laguna bend, they made it cycle through every color of the rainbow all day; much to my classmates awe.
Good old times.
I frowned in discontent, thinking back to the modifications I had put onto the shard.
It had taken some time to prepare, as I normally worked with BD's; but I had cracked the way it operated in the end.
The training difficulty was locked at the highest the shard could offer, that being level six; Veteran.
There was no way on Earth a child of six was passing this test, hell - even I stood absolutely no chance against it when I tried.
The difficulty selection wouldn't even show up on boot, like it normally would have done.
I bit my lip, the feeling of guilt slowly eating away at me.
A small voice emanated from the back of my mind, doubt wriggling its way to the front of my mind.
Was it really my right to bar him from going outside?
No, it wasn't.
But I had no choice, he'd just have to be satisfied with us going out together.
Yeah, it was better this way.
It was safer.