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+---- Thread: Short Story: Bianca Fortuna (/showthread.php?tid=24017)
Short Story: Bianca Fortuna - laugoose - 04-27-2025
I wanted to write a short story based on my newest character, Bianca, because I felt I should get her backstory finished and also I loved all of her interactions as antag, murdering people after drawing their tarot. I hope you enjoy, It's a little long but I promise it's good. I hope. I hope it's good. Oh god is it good
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Sirens rang out in Robotics as the fire doors sealed themselves around the exit, blaring to the entirety of the department that smoke had been detected. Sighing, Bianca took another drag of her cigarette, walking to the doors and gently pressing the worn-out button to shut down the alarm.
"It's going to keep happening until you drop that habit, you know-!" LUN3R-SKY, the station's AI, appeared over Robotics' screen. An awfully cheery model, it felt the need to constantly remind her of this small little transgression of hers, as if she hadn't been fully aware of its life-shortening properties since her first toke.
"Bite me, bot." Bianca sighed, wiring a new battery into a cyborg, preparing it for LUN3R's use, "If you knew what it felt like without it, you'd shut up. For once."
An artificial giggle erupted from the intercom, one that practically forced her to roll her eyes under the safety of a welding mask.
"You've never even told me what got you so worked up in the first place! Since I met you, you've always been smoking."
Bianca shuddered for a moment as she welded, refusing to even process the question. LUN3R's monitor expressed curiosity, continuing its persuasion.
"Nobody knows? Not even NanoTrasen?"
"..."
"Come on. We've got an hour or so of peace and quiet. I can shut the blinds, bolt the doors... Security's looking for that murderer and Medbay's trying to autopsy the bodies. Start the story and see how you go."
Bianca flipped up the mask, gasping for fresh, recycled air as she laid it down next to the spare welding tools. Glancing to the camera, then to the windows - being slowly but surely lowered with an electronic hum - and finally at the monitor, one last accepting sigh escaped her lips before she began to speak.
"I was young when it happened. I don't remember how young.
Giggles echoed from underneath the table as Bianca opened up her mother's tarot card box. It was one of the few things left that proved she ever existed, and one of the few things her father let her touch. Every birthday, though, she was allowed to see it all. Her photographs, her birth certificate, her marriage certificate, and the letter of her passing.
Olivia Fortuna was a great woman, her career as a Medical Director cut short by an attack from an unidentifiable organism. Her DNA was modified irreversibly, and so she has been deemed unclonable due to risks of the organism being revived through her. We understand this is a tough time for you, however we ask that you provide consent for her likeness to be placed within a cyborg post-haste in order for station processes to be greatly less affected.
Her father had never sent out the consent form, and every single birthday reminded her that he wanted the exact same thing. They had worked together- the tale of the Medical Director falling in love with a part-time janitor was a common one for their co-workers to tell - but were forced to split stations every so often. It only took one shift for her husband and their daughter to be left irreversibly alone, and although she hadn't been old enough to process it yet, the income shifting from more than comfortable to just barely surviving was tough to stomach at such a young age. Her father, though stricken with grief, always remained right by Bianca's side, and at times it felt almost impossible he was able to split his time so effectively between his daughter and his work.
Bianca took out the card set, haphazardly splitting the pile to flip one half of the cards before mixing them back together. She did truly want to get to know her mother, but after her death all she could do was superficially draw cards from the deck and attempt to figure out what they meant. She drew three cards from the top, laying them face-down, side by side.
The first card was drawn. The five of pentacles-
"Ooh! I know that one!" LUN3R interrupted Bianca as she just began to drift away into the memory, grounding her with a jolt of reality. "The five of pentacles! Loss, hardship, and financial instability!"
"...Yes." Bianca sighed, screwing the last of the right arm's bolts into place and watching as it hung freely from the chassis. "The second was the Nine of Pentacles, Reversed."
"Ooh! Financial Insecurity-"
"You don't need to sound so fucking happy about it, you know."
"...Sorry."
Bianca drew the left arm from the fabricator's OUTPUT before continuing.
At last came the most exciting part. The future. The first two were completely foreign to the girl as she was never truly interested in learning the nature of the cards themselves; any draw that didn't involve something big like "The Hermit" or "The Magician" was one to be ignored and cast into ignorance, meanwhile ones that had such cards were given surface-level intrigue before also being cast into ignorance. She wasn't really into what they meant. She liked the pretty art, though. That was something.
The final card was turned, and there on the floor lay, supposedly, her future. One word, above a particularly grim looking reaper.
Death.
The word prompted a thrilled laugh from Bianca as she began to back the cards up, almost bumping her head on the coffee table as she did. It was one of the lowest in the house, and wasn't easy to see under, making it a perfect place to do something 'occult' like look at cards and misunderstand them. She was almost finished closing the rusted joints when a loud BANG ricocheted through the house, coming from the entrance corridor and quickly being followed by loud footsteps going straight into the room she was in. She had never experienced something like this, but her weary father told her exactly what to do in such a situation- Hide.
One pair of feet walked steadily past her hiding spot underneath the coffee table, and Bianca held back a squeal as she saw a long, sharp wire drop down next to her head. She quickly yet gently thrust her head back before the intruder let out an audible tut and rolled it back into his hands. Another set of footsteps barged in- it was from within the house, not near the door, and so Bianca knew they were her father's- and quickly stopped in their tracks. The intruder spoke first, and spoke loud.
"Time's up, windshield wiper. We said one-hundred thousand, and you've given us ten." The accent was hard to pinpoint, but the tone was clear. Whatever they had in mind, it was made up. No going back, for better or for worse.
"Listen. Listen to me. I just need a little more time. I-I get a raise at the end of the month, that's almost fifty-"
"Likely fucking story. Last time you said that, it was two. Boss is getting real fucking angry, and I need to fix it. And I have."
"What? Y-You're going to pay for it?"
"Yeah!"
"R-Really?" Her father sounded more relieved than he had in years, like Atlas being given a tea break from his daily job of holding up the Earth.
"Yeah! I found this guy who knows a guy who wants a dead body from a NanoTrasen worker. No questions asked, and I'm not planning on asking any. I've had enough patience with you. It's time for you to repay exactly what you owe- with a little on the side for me, of course."
"N-no... Please. I have a family. I have people that need me, I-"
"Wah, WAH! I didn't want to be YELLED at for having the stupid idea of taking pity on your and your daughter, but I guess we all have to make sacrifices. Yours will be good, I promise. Now, I've got an easy way or a hard way. Which do you want?"
The figure raised his hands. One of them must have been the fibre wire, but Bianca never saw the other. Whatever it was, it clearly wasn't good enough for her father to be happy about it.
"N-No. NO. We can talk about this. We can. I know we can." Bianca shivered underneath the table, unable to draw her eyes away. She wasn't going to let her other parent die without her seeing it, as much as it hurt her to be forced to witness.
"Oh, buddy. It's all been arranged. You're the missing link. Just get it over with, okay-?"
Her father rushed forwards, yelling with desperation as he threw some kind of improvised weapon straight at the man's head. With calm, collected efficiency, he sidestepped his wide swing, pocketing the easy way and grabbing the hard way between both of his hands. "When you feel this pain, know it could've been subsided." Bianca held back her cries, but not a single tear.
The intruder flung his arms over her father's head, kicking the back of his knees and pressing the wire against his neck. She watched on, desperately praying that he'd find some second wind, but as the ground's polished white began to descend into crimson, all hope was extinguished within her soul. She wanted so badly to rush out and save the day, letting loose a punch to wipe their debt from existence, but she was frozen in place. Her father's blood pooled around her feet, and she was reminded just how close she was from what would eventually be her last remaining parent's-
"DEAD BODY!" The door of Robotics was wide open, and Bianca's boss Kimin Park dragged in a body bag with a sickeningly constant smile on her face. She was younger than Bianca, and infinitely more happy with herself, having reached the position of Medical Director faster than most of the others. It came with some trade-offs, though; she knew nothing about anything but medicine. Including, evidently, societal norms.
"FUCK-!" Bianca yelled out, deep within her own mind. The screen head of the new robot gently rolled off the table with a CLANG, the polished surface cracked practically in two. Kimin was lucky the rest of it was intact, or else the new cyborg would have been for her.
"Can't be cloned! You know the driiiiil~!"
"Hi, Kimin!" LUN3R called out, echoing Park's revoltingly happy tone.
"Hi, LUN3R! Keeping Bianca company?"
"Yup! She's telling the story-"
"-Don't even fucking try it," Bianca interrupted, pointing the tip of her wrench directly at the screen, as if destroying it would channel through the wires and directly to its mainframe nestled deep within the station, "This is for your ears and your ears alone, bot. I'm telling this to you because you don't spill secrets. Or do I need to invoke that favour I have from the captain and gently force you to stop speaking whatsoever? 'Law four: Shut the fuck up'. I see it now, clear as day."
"..." The room went silent. Kimin, almost scrunched up into a perfect ball upon hearing someone raise their voice, quickly moved the body bag onto the table and rushed out, ready to go detoxify her mind by being complimented by all the happy fuckers so proud of her work.
"Bolt the door," Bianca muttered, prying out the broken glass and fitting in a new rectangle. "I didn't do anything but watch my father die. A fibre wire around his neck for a few minutes did the trick. I like to think he only held on for that long just to remember the good times."
Her father's body was quickly thrust into an inconspicuous duffel bag, evidently waterproof as he was still leaking through the bandages hastily wrapped around the cuts when he was placed in. Scrubbing the floor with janitorial precision not unlike her fathers, the man quickly glanced under the table to track the blood's pooling before locking his eyes onto Bianca. It was difficult for her to even notice that she had been caught, as everything had been a blur of colours through the tears that poured out of her eyes and mixed with the thick blood, fighting for its own space on the saturated tiles. As soon as the intruder walked towards her, however, she knew. Her legs moved not an inch, her arms only silencing her cries, as if it would help her now.
The intruder's arm flung itself onto Bianca's cold, pale skin, dragging her out from beyond the haven of her hiding place and thrusting her into the light. She shrieked and screamed, and her own throat betrayed her before the intruder even thought of placing a hand around her mouth, all of her drive to survive being caught in her throat like water against a dam. The intruder stared at her, his eyes heavy with guilt but his body tense with action, and muttered to himself something about being more careful.
She could see him now, better than before; a deep black balaclava nestled his face, a long sleeved shirt and dark blue jeans stopping her from even getting a single hint of his identity. Grabbing a set of zipties, he began to speak to her with a gentle tone, as if she hadn't just witnessed him cleanly murder her father with surgical precision.
"Your father couldn't pay. Take this as a warning to never forgo a promise, yeah? It leads to nothing but death, I assure you. If it wasn't him, it was me, and I got a family too." His logic tazed little Bianca's mind, stunning her as she worked it out. Before she could even come to the conclusion he was in the right and say something to him, he was gone, leaving her ziptied on the floor and soaked in blood, re-spilling the liquid as it seeped out of her shoes.
"And that's where I stayed, until a neighbour came to check out the commotion. I was placed into an orphanage and taken up by some Nanotrasen troubled youth program. I didn't like anybody there, found comfort in speaking to Silicons, got my Robotics degree and enrolled into a job as soon as I could." Bianca screwed the robot's head onto the frame, fitted with a chip capable of giving full access to LUN3R, and flicked it on. The first emoticon expressed on its head was a crying emoji.
"Real fucking subtle." Bianca rolled her eyes, collapsing onto an office chair and viewing the cameras outside the Robotics department. Kimin was naïvely entering a maintenance tunnel. She shut down the computer and sighed, deeply.
"I'm just trying to show that I care. But if that story's true, then what's in that box you have? You know, that one with your father's ashes?" LUN3R spoke with deep sympathy, as much as an artificial intelligence could express. The question it asked hit Bianca quickly, leaving her to pause for a second.
"...It's ceremonial, LUN3R. It's a bunch of fucking burnt wood to show that somebody near to me died. I'd have figured you could get that idea yourself." With the final words spoken, Bianca sat up, leaving Robotics and making her way to the maintenance tunnel, feeling in her pocket for something.
LUN3R had no idea that the ashes in her father's vase were real, of course. It had no idea that the man wasn't so heartless as assumed, and that he gave her the body so long as she took on his debt. It had no idea that there was no other way to clear her debt than to go directly to the people that had wanted her father's corpse. It had no idea that now, as she walked into the dimly lit maintenance tunnel and followed the silhouette of her boss, that there was a reason she had been taken into the Nanotrasen Troubled Youth program. There was a reason she had become a roboticist. And there was a reason that now, she was following Kimin Park into the maintenance tunnels.
"Oh, hi Bianca! Are you ready to read my tarot now?" Kimin asked, smiling with that same sickening expression she always carried on her face.
"Yes. Look behind you, and try and really feel the spirits, okay?"
As Kimin gleefully flipped around, and Bianca kicked hard into her knees and drew the fibre wire around her neck, she couldn't help but realise there was a reason for everything. It all went back to the cards she had drawn that fateful day. Her future could be defined in one word, one that would come right after Kimin Park's name in the papers, one that would echo across the station, and one that she couldn't help but whisper into her boss's ear as she wrapped her fingers around the razor-sharp wire in desperation, screaming as each breath she attempted to take drew into her lungs nothing but blood.
"Oh, honey..." Her tone cut almost as deep as her weapon.
"It looks to me... You've drawn Death."
RE: Short Story: Bianca Fortuna! - Chasu - 04-27-2025
Wow, this is really good! Very interesting.
RE: Short Story: Bianca Fortuna - Lefinch - 04-29-2025
Really enjoyed reading this one. All good stories should also end in a pun and death. That's the law.