The shock was like a piercing glass through his heart as his mind tried to reconcile the horrible reality with his happier expectations. Balder expected that all he would need to do was apologize and confess his feelings, that she would run into his arms, thrilled with the prospect of being his girlfriend.
"What...How..." he started to say, hesitant about which question to ask first.
"A month after you left, there was a quarantine incident," his father said hesitantly. "A few rich kids from Santorna7 broke the quarantine without anyone being the wiser. Apparently, Rose somehow came into contact with them or visited the same place as them. Either way, she caught Santona, a common disease on Santorna7, which is quite manageable there. But..."
"But what?" Balder asked, his impatience and fear mixing in his chest into a potent mixture just waiting to explode. "How is my Rose?"
"You know how bad her immunity to interplanetary diseases is..." Jonathan said cautiously. "She got extremely sick. They even had to install artificial lungs to help her breathe... and quite a few other internal organs suffered..."
"But she is okay now?" Balder inquired hopefully. "Surely, with the advanced technology available to us, there was a way to stabilize her condition?"
"She is stable," his mother said in a tone that didn't give a positive meaning to the word. "She has been transferred to the Castle of Doom."
Marigold lowered her eyes as she said that to avoid seeing pain darken her son's bright blue eyes, which were always full of wonder. It was hard, but she understood he had the right to know the truth, and Jonathan was taking too long prolonging his pain.
"They did what?" Balder screamed as all the horror stories he heard about the place rushed back to him in one towering wave, crushing all his hopes.
"Son, you know very well that after the Cyborg Wars, the government can't afford anything like that to ever happen again," Jonathan said, putting a hand on his son's shoulder.
"What could possibly be the percentage for her parents to refuse to take responsibility for her, for them to accept her being decommissioned, thrown away like she didn't matter?" Balder questioned with unhinged bitterness.
"She is sixty percent enhanced," Jonathan said, unsure how to help his son accept the facts and move on with his life. "You know as well as I do that anything beyond fifty percent is too much. It's too risky. Some cyborgs that fought against humans in the war were only fifty percent enhanced, and they wreaked havoc on our ranks. The new law states that if it's under seventy percent, it's the guardians' right to decide. That's already way too generous, considering the bloodshed that happened all those years back."
Balder closed his eyes to stop himself from showing the anger and frustration his father's words caused him. It felt like he was defending the unfair law, like he was saying forty or thirty percent of humanity didn't matter when, in his mind, even one percent of Rose being Rose mattered more than the whole universe.
Furthermore, Cyborg Wars didn't happen because they were cyborgs. It occurred because they were individuals who wanted equal rights and wanted to be treated fairly. When denied those rights, they lashed out, like anyone would have, biological organism or not.
"She is still their daughter!" Balder said through clenched teeth. "How could they do that to her?"
"In their minds, she is no longer a biological life form. She is no longer alive," Marigold said through tears. "They thought the best thing for them and her would be to forcefully shut her down."
"How could that be the best thing for Rose?" Balder roared, his throat becoming hoarse from all the yelling he had been doing. "She can still exist. Even the tiniest part of her is so much better than most people, especially her hypocritical parents."
"They did the best..." Marigold started to say, feeling the need to defend her friend's choice.
"Would you have done the same to me?" Balder asked, his fists so tightly clenched that his nails cut into his skin.
"No, of course not," Marigold said, shocked by the mere thought of decommissioning her little boy even if he wasn't one hundred percent himself. "But we are not in their position. We don't know their reasoning. For that reason, we can't judge them for their decision."
"Fine, fine, let's not judge those horrible people," Balder said, running his fingers through his hair, tempted to pull at it in frustration. "What about the Marriage Act?"
"Are you sure you want to go down that road?" Jonathan asked in shock. "You are eighteen and could legally evoke it but as far as I know, you weren't even dating when all this happened."
"You don't know that," Balder said as an idea started taking form. "No one can tell whether we were dating or not. After all, we were together all the time. They can't prove that we weren't dating. I'll fill out the form saying we planned to get married upon my return, to settle down. Thus, I have the legal right to decide whether or not she should remain in the Castle of Doom."
"Don't you think that's too much to take on for your friend?" Marigold gently asked. "I know you care about her, but marriage isn't easy under the best circumstances. Marrying her just because you want to save her is bound to make everything so much harder."
"Don't you guys get it?" Balder asked, frustrated at his parents but more importantly at himself. "I do love her! I always have. It was just that I didn't have the chance to realize my true feelings because I was only thinking of my adventures and my dreams, never truly realizing that my dream was to be by her side. Forever."
Seeing the determination and affection in their son's eyes, Marigold and Jonathan hesitantly agreed to what he was suggesting. Lying to the governing bodies wouldn't be that much of an issue since they were the planet's royal family, even though they didn't have as much power as their ancestors had.
As parents, what they wanted was for their son to be happy. That was all that mattered.
Besides, Rose's gentle and kind nature was bound to temper any lesser instincts caused by her artificial parts. Also, her heart and brain, the two most important organs, were still her own.
"Very well, you can head to the Castle of Doom," Jonathan finally said after receiving a nod of approval from his wife. "I'll complete the form and send it to your virtual inbox. Just show it to the guards, and they will initiate reanimation immediately."
"With all her memories intact?" Balder asked, remembering that one horrible incident.
"With all her memories intact," Jonathan said soothingly.
The Castle of Doom was an old storage unit built so high that some people likened it to castles filled with poor souls whose augmentations exceeded the legal limits to be considered human. It was made even gloomier by enormous baobab trees hiding its ugly truth, never managing to fully conceal it but helping people ignore the cruelty of their own ways, which to Balder seemed worse than the viciousness exhibited in the Cyborg Wars.
When Balder reached the hidden entrance, a guard popped out of nowhere, bowing deeply upon recognizing the prince.
"We have already received the new orders. We only need the confirmation scan," the guard said meekly.
Balder used his eye augmentation to finish the additional scanning and was soon led deeper into the disturbing place with people randomly arranged around, not fully living and neither completely dead. It gave him a creepy sensation and a deep sadness that the woman he loved was in such a gloomy place.
"This way, Your Highness," the guard said, leading him to the dark corner with one spot of life. Rose. "The reanimation process has already started. She should be awake soon."
"Thank you," Balder said, his throat tightening and his heart beating a mile a minute. "You may leave us now."
"But, Your Highness , it can be dangerous," the guard said hesitantly. "She might not be the same person you knew. She may try to hurt you."
"LEAVE US!" Balder screamed in the guard's face, insulted that he would dare assume something like that about the gentlest woman he ever knew.
Slowly, life started coming back to Rose's eyes.
Her organic and inorganic body parts started regaining vigor until her eyelashes trembled, and her big brown eyes looked deep into his.
"Balder, you're back!" was the first thing she said. "I thought I would never see you again."
Rose.
His Rose.
How could anyone think of her as dangerous?
However, as she said so, a realization dawned on her, making her eyes bigger in fear.
"You shouldn't be here...I might be dangerous... I might hurt you," Rose said, her trembling voice matched by her shaking hands that kept reaching out but never dared touch Balder. "I can't allow that to happen... I love you too much for that."
As she said that, her face flashed bright red, embarrassment stronger than any other emotion because she hadn't meant to admit it like that, probably never.
"Rose, oh, my dear Rose," Balder said, crossing the distance between them and hugging her gently.
Even with all the augmentations and changes, she was still the same. They still fit perfectly.
He reverently stroked her beautiful dark hair as he whispered in her ear.
"I love you, too. I was just an idiot who needed to go to a whole new galaxy to figure it out," Balder whispered with all the love he felt for this person who was now both fragile and strong but still his Rose.
"But...That's impossible...You..." Rose said, stumbling over her words.
"I called upon the Marriage Act, and I wouldn't do that if I wasn't sure, would I?" Balder said.
Remembering how he often told her that marriage was vital for him and that he would never enter into it for anything but love, Rose was ready to believe him. However, there was another proof she needed.
"May I kiss you?" Rose asked shyly.
"Shouldn't I be the one asking that?" Balder said as he gently lowered his lips on hers, tasting the sweet nectar of her lips for the first time.
"I guess I woke you up with a kiss," he said jokingly as they broke the kiss.
"What do we do now?" she asked hesitantly.
"I am not sure. I guess we'll figure it out as we go. Together," Balder said, hugging her firmly and taking her away from the dark and gloomy place that was supposed to be her eternal home.
Finally, they were together, and Balder was determined never to be apart from her again. And to love her so fiercely that he would make up for all the years she was deprived of his love.
The End