Backstory

"A Nova beast!? Did the loss make him go crazy!?" John exclaimed.

Noticing Tyler's perplexed gaze, he precised:

"Nova beasts are often considered the top of the cosmos' food chain, they're immunized to conventionnal weapons, almost immortal and so ferocious it would need an entire special agents' squad with appropriate weapons to just repel them" the giant man said. "Trapping one in a basement, even at the peak of technology, is basically like trying to contain a nuclear explosion in a steel cage"

"Yeah, before developping their weaponary with the Fefnir tech, humans only could put their hands on one because it was already near death, though nobody ever knew the reason" Erica precised. "But don't worry, the one in our drink-loving friend's basement has been interrupted in its developpement while sector A's scientists were experimenting on it, so it's still in its preliminary state"

"Ok, sure, that's cool and everything, but shouldn't you first explain how it would be of any help?" Tyler asked.

Erica carefully explained them the plan she had in mind as they listened attentively.

"Damn, that sounds so fucking vicious" Tyler said with a chuckle. "Yeah, we're definitly going for this"

"Yes, that's definitly a good plan... but how are we going to persuade Harry to give us the Nova beast?" John asked.

Erica frowned slightly:

"Well, at first I thought about threatening or blackmailing him, but that wouldn't be fair for Penny who told us all of this so we can help her father" she said. "So, I thought we could make Penny ask her, since she's the one who wants Enry Arsin's death, she should acept to help us convince her dad"

At this moment, Tyler stood up:

"Nah, no need to ask a brat to do the job, I'm going to convince him myself" he said casually.

"How?" Erica asked, slightly skeptical.

Tyler shrugged:

"I have absolutly no idea" he said.

"Uhm, Tyler maybe you should think about it-" John started.

But the drunkard was already gone.

Erica patted John's shoulder- a pretty impressive feat considering the height difference.

"Let's trust him for this one" she said "After all, Tyler's role is crucial for Cifer's future, so we have to start leaving him some responsability as soon as possible"

"I guess so..." John recognized. "I just hope it'll be alright"

Meanwhile, Tyler already arrived to the kitchen of the manor. There, as expected, he found Harry drinking alone, slouching on his chair while weakly pulling an already almost empty bottle of clear red wine to his mouth, finishing to drink it in one go.

Tyler couldn't help but wonder if he too would end up like this... or even if he would live long enough to end up like this. He brushed this thought away as he sat in front of his host:

"Hi, short time no see" he greeted.

"Yeah this greeting, hip, was truly terrible" Harry said. "I accept to give you a glass of my favorite wine if you never say 'short time no see' in my presence ever again"

"I take you to the word, so it's a deal I guess"

"Eh, smart brat"

He poured half a glass to Tyler. Usually, the latter would've liked more but, considering he was already near coma from drinking, he didn't complain. Humidifying his lips with the pale liquor and appreciating its warming sensation, he directly adressed the sensible topic:

"Penny told us the story" Tyler said. "I'm sorry for your loss... sorry for everything that happened to you"

Harry emitted a bitter laughter:

"Brat, just tell what you want already" he interrupted. "She told you about the Nova beast and now you want me to give it to you guys to do, hip, whatever you need to do to escape this shithole planet, is that right?"

"Yeah, that's basically it" Tyler didn't deny.

"You know what, sure, I don't even give a shit anymore at this point" Harry said. "You can just take it and do your stuff, now finish your glass and leave the kitchen so I can drink in peace"

Tyler took a small sip but didn't empty his glass, nor he left:

"You know, I don't think I can even begin to understand what it feels like to lose the person you love, and then work beyond your own limit for years to save your child, only to end up losing them too when you thought you could finally save them" he said. "I'm a sector V's rat after all, I never had enough to know what such a loss could do in the first place"

He trembled a bit, almost dropping his glass on the floor:

"But you know, I also had a person I loved. And I too had to see her be taken by this shitty world without being able to do anything, so i can imagine how something even worse than this would feel" he said.

Right after, a bottle crashed right beside Tyler's face, and a shard scratched his cheek.

"Imagine? You think you can, hip, imagine?!" Harry shouted. "Everybody can imagine falling off a cliff but do you think that makes them able to understand how it feels? Why don't you fucking try to jump if you wanna know how it fucking feels?"

Tyler didn't get angry and just took one more sip before wiping off the drop of blood that appeared on his cheek with his sleeve.

"I guess you're right" he said. "Then tell me, I wanna know how it feels"

"And why would I tell you?" Harry retorted.

"Because everyone need someone to listen to them once in a while. Hell, look at me, even I need to talk sometimes, even when I feel so unimportant I'm like a damn side character in my own life! Come on... I know you wanna talk, go on"

Harry remained silent for a moment, but then he eventually put his hands on his face, and started talking with a weak and shaking voice:

"She... her name was Amande" he said. "She was beautiful, and, hic, smart, and... people often say that true love takes time to appear but between us, it was instantanous. And then, when we had Penny, I felt like I couldn't be happier, that I was, hic, the the happiest person in the world- and somewhere, I think I really was"

He took some sips and continued, his voice getting more and more broken:

"But then, when she left us, Penny and I... I felt broken, but I didn't want to accept it. I didn't want to accept I was sad, I wanted to tell myself I could simply get past it... not for me, but for her. I drowned myself in my research in hope I could heal Penny as fast as possible. Then, hic, then... then... then we'd live happy"

He laughed self-depreciatingly:

"But this bastard Enry Arson... THIS DAMN BASTARD! He promised me he would heal Penny, and he ended up sacrifying her, using her as... as, hip, a damn EXPENDABLE! And you know what this bastard did after it?

Harry smashed his glass on the table.

"He shoved his damn money down my throat! Bastard told me he was sorry, said that it was an unfortunate accident, that he sincerly wished me the best, in a public speech and you know the damn funniest part? Everybody who listened to it knew what kind of, hip, bastard he was, yet they still applauded him! Cheered him for his so fucking great generosity! And blamed me for saying him to piss off!"

Anger disappeared from his face, replaced by unfathomable sorrow.

"At the end, I was thrown away from sector A and had to find another place to live. Because of the creation of the second Penny, the secret installation of restrictive structures in the basement for the Nova beast I snatched, and all this damn alcohol I bought so I could avod ending tied to a rope, most of my hardly acquired money disappeared. Even then, I still had far enough to get a more comfortable and luxurious place in one of the middle sectors. But do you know why I chose this location in particular, at the border of sector E, right before sector Z? Even with how much I fuking hate those damn higher sectors?"

"Why?" Tyler asked.

"Because in the end, the one I despise, the one I, hip, hate the most is myself. Do you know what else I did for all those years where I was only focusing on my damn work? Well that's it: nohing, I did fucking nothing else! Just because she was ill didn't mean Penny wasn't a true person. She had a life, she had friends, she was someone. I could have been there for her, accompanied her in her youth, I could've been a true father. But instead, I just tried to save her from an illness that would've taken years and years to manifest and, in the end, when I reappeared in her life, it was to send her to this bastard Enry Arsin"

He almost choked on his guilt and sorrow, but in the end managed to make the next words come out:

"My daughter could've lived more, and end in happiness in a painless way. I've never been there for her, except to be the one to ruin everything she had, everything, hic, she could've had..."

In the pale light of the moon that was bathing the kitchen through the elegant windows, casting a complex game of reflections upon the many empty bottles and colored glass around them, Harry's face no longer looked like it belonged to a human, instead looking ghost-like to the point Tyler might've thought him dead if not for the complex mix of negative emotions dancing in his tired eyes.

"At first, I only arranged for the second Penny, the one you know, to be created because I wanted to use her to delude myself, to, hic, act as if my original daughter actually had been saved, like all of my efforts from the very beginning weren't in vain. But gradually, she became like my... eh, who the hell am I kidding. She truly became my real daughter, and I truly love her as such. Before I realized it, while alcohol was the only thing that allowed me to live, she was the only one that gave me a reason to"

He then calmed down, which almost felt worse for Tyler.

"But even then, even while, as a last-gen android, she's actually a sentient being, someone and not something, there's still one thing that separate her from a human: she can't grow up. Even if her mind can change on its own, I'll never see her become an adult. In the end, hic, just as much as the daughter I love, she's the eternal unchanging reflexion of my failures"

At the same moment he finished his sentence, he also finished emptying a last glass, which was now reflecting his tired eyes.

"And here ends the pathetic story of Harry Wiser, a dumb scientist that thought he could be happy in this shitty world"