>>5832448Mom knows.
She got an automated alert on her link courtesy of some faceless bureaucrat in the NCPD. Not one of dad’s friends. She called in a panic, hoping it was a glitch. That conversation hurt more than a bullet, and there’s been a couple more since. You hate it. She shouldn’t have found out like that. You could’ve called, waited a little less. Beating yourself up over it won’t make it any better though, you’ve had enough of that for a few days at least. Probably be back at it within the week, but you’re trying not to screw anything else up now.
Right now you have to deal with paperwork. Piles of it, most digital but a few packets still on archaic sheets - it’s too much for a teenager to make sense of. Finances, legal stuff, ownership transfers, loads of fucking garbage you shouldn’t have to deal with right after your dad got murdered by some psycho MaxTac cast off.
Vicky and the others from the precinct have helped with some of the practical stuff, errands and the like, and the department sent over one of their lawyers for a couple of hours to help plan things out and make sense of your family’s situation. He was bored. Clearly didn’t care much. Did his job at least, dad’s death pension from NCPD was approved and it’s helping to pay for mom’s treatment.
It’s not even close to enough, a couple thousand eddies a month. Her costs are in the low five figures usually, and hit six figures once when she had that experimental nano-tech surgery. That basically burned through all of your family’s investments and savings, and that’s with mom’s ‘compensation package’ from BioTechnica halving the cost to begin with. How dad’s been paying for it these last few months is a mystery, the money from his work just doesn’t add up to what was needed, even with all the extra shifts.
But hey, at least you finished school early - getting those credits and cutting a year off high school <span class="mu-i">really</span> helped you get ahead of things. Yeah, sure. What a fucking waste, there’s no way you’ll be going to university without a corporate contract covering it now, and there’s no time for that kind of commitment.
You’ve got three weeks before the sky starts to fall.
Rent will be due, mom’s bills will come in, everything’s going to come crashing down. But that’s a problem for later, right now you have your father’s funeral to attend. It’s supposed to be small, a few friends from the NCPD and old work colleagues of mom’s. She’ll be there in VR, which is to say she won’t be there. No money for a flight, and she’s in no condition to travel alone even if there was.
>Take stock of what all you DO have. Check over dad’s things. Feels a little less like he’s gone when you look over some of it, and you still haven’t dug through his comp.>Head off now, you can’t be late to your own father’s funeral. Need to put on a strong show for mom, even if it kills you.>Write-in. 