Carina Valencia

[NebulaCloud]

~~ Two months later, 816 AS ~~

“Pinche hijo de puta madre…” Carina muttered aloud, not quite loud enough to hear over the roaring furnaces, welding arcs, and bubbling molten metal. She stood there, frozen in place at her work area, still with a pair of long tongs shoved into the blast furnace before her. She felt the heat of embarrassment and anger building behind her face even over the heat of the foundry, grinding her teeth together as she watched her father shoving his way through the crowd of workers milling about the floor.

His eyes, twin spheres of stern fury, were firmly locked on her position as he fought his way over to her. Carina knew exactly why he’d come looking for her. She wasn’t more than about two or three hours into her shift, and it was well beyond dark outside. How he had managed to get past the curfew officers was beyond her, but she knew he was going to have some choice words for her when he found out. She just hadn’t known when. And she most certainly hadn’t expected him to show up the same day and make a huge scene about it here at the foundry. He wasn’t due for his shift until morning, and the foremen typically didn’t tolerate visitors for very long, if at all.

Carina wiped the sweat from her face and threw the tongs to the ground, the loud clattering reverberating through the already noisy mill. She took a few assertive steps toward her approaching father as he neared her position, and solidly stood her ground as she met his eyes without flinching. “What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded. “You’re gonna get me in trouble with Wilkes.”

“Ya sabes por qué estoy aqui, niña,” Felix snapped at her as he stepped through the last bit of the crowd in his way and stood inches from her nose, looking down his own at her angrily. “What’s your angle, going behind my back and applying to that goddamn deck hand position!?”

A few of the workers nearby were starting to turn their heads to see what the commotion was about, which angered and embarrassed her even further. Her cheeks felt like they were on fire and her jaw was clenched so tight that her face was starting to hurt. Lowering her head a bit in a vain attempt to hide from the curious onlookers, she glared up at her father and hissed through her teeth. “Can you, for once, not make a scene? Keep your damn voice down.”

“Oye, niña,” her father snapped back, making no attempt to lower his voice, “you don’t get to tell me what to do. I’m your father, and you’ll show me some damn respect.”

“I’ll show you some respect when you do something to earn it, Dad,” Carina growled.

Felix’s eyes narrowed down to dangerous-looking slits. “I specifically told you that job was out of the question, little girl,” he snarled in a deep, rumbling, threatening tone.

“And I told you I don’t care,” she fired back. “It’s better money, and better than this dead-end crap here.”

“No me vengas con sandeces,” her father retorted. “You just wanna chase some stupid-ass ideal about getting off-world. I done already told you, Carina, give it up. We got mouths to feed and bills to pay, and we don’t got time for you to be gettin’ after some childish fantasy. I won’t have you runnin’ off and abandoning my family.”

“They’re MY family!” Carina yelled, her pulse now throbbing in her temples. “I’ve been taking better care of Mamá better than YOU ever since I was fifteen!”

“So help me, Carina,” Felix said with deadly evenness in his voice, “you raise your voice to me one more time, I’ll teach you a thing or two, even in front of everyone here.”

She couldn’t help but grin sarcastically at him after that comment. She knew her father well enough to know that he had thought twice about hitting her ever since she was a teenager. It was funny, really. All his macho talk, and he was a little scared of his own daughter who was almost half his size, even though he’d never admit it out loud, maybe not even to himself. “You know it’s true,” she replied, slightly calmer but still with evident irritation. “Only reason I haven’t been promoted past you is because your meathead buddies think I can’t handle it, even though I work circles around four-fifths of the men here.”

Felix snorted at her. “You wouldn’t last one hour on day shift, niña,” he challenged her. “Third shift is where they put the women, and the mariquitas that can’t hack it during day shift. Your production numbers ain’t half of ours.”

Her eyes shimmered a little as she grinned a little wider at him. “Wait a minute,” she said. “You pissed because I applied, or because you think they’ll accept me?” She sneered derisively up at him, chiding him, daring him. “Mad ‘cause you think I can do better in life than you ever did?”

Her father’s eyes flashed with unbridled rage for a split second before he reared his hand back and struck her hard across the face. The force of the blow almost spun her backwards, but even with the stinging handprint on her cheek, in the blink of an eye she had recovered, clenched her fist, and drove it squarely into his solar plexus.

Felix wasn’t a huge man, but he was heavy enough not to be reeled over onto his back from the blow. He wasn’t, however, a tough enough man to avoid having every breath of air completely knocked from his lungs by his daughter’s savage punch, and he doubled over, clutching his unresponsive lungs. On the way down, however, he was met with Carina’s elbow as she swung it violently upwards in a follow-up, shattering his nose and sending blood spraying across his face.

That one was enough to send him off his feet, and he slammed into the hard concrete floor with a dull thud, his head cracking against the ground with what seemed to be just barely less than enough energy to crack it clean open.

Another blink later and security guards were swarming over the floor, tossing workers aside as they moved in to stop the fight even before it had a chance to really start. Montgomery Steelworks was notorious for its lightning-fast response to anything that threatened to halt productivity. Even though they bragged it was because they cared for the safety and well-being of their employees, everyone there knew better. Regardless of the reason, however, Carina still was more than surprised at how quickly the bright yellow uniformed security guards had materialized from seemingly nowhere.

Instantly she found her arms pinned uncomfortably behind her back by two surly guards, and after one or two fruitless thrashes of resistance she suppressed the urge to struggle, and stood there staring icily down at the man who had attacked her and gotten laid out for it. Felix was helped to his feet by another two big guards while a smattering of other ones milled around the immediate area, barking orders to get back to work, nothing to see here, show’s over. Felix cupped his broken nose in his hands, blood dripping off of his fingers, wrists, and chin.

“You ungrateful little—” he roared, and lunged forward, but before he got even far enough for Carina to react, he was seized firmly on each arm by the guards who had helped him up, and similarly restrained. He, however, continued to struggle to get free, angrily trying to exact retribution on his little daughter who had just humiliated him in front of all the men he had called sissies.

Even though Carina knew she was probably going to be chastised and flooded with statements and interviews by the foundry’s brass for her little stunt, she couldn’t help feeling a little sense of satisfaction. Her dad had deserved it.

“You think you’re tough as nails then, huh!?” Felix roared as he swung to no avail against his captors. “You think you’re man enough to do it better’n me!? Go on, then, get after your stupid little fantasy! But don’t you bother coming home tomorrow morning then, you little bitch!”

“I don’t need you, I ain’t never needed you!” she barked back, tugging forward against her own restraints. “Any time you wanna take another swing at me, I’m ready for you, old man! You just try it any time you’re feelin’ big!” She yelled louder at him as he was dragged away, craning her neck to be sure every one of her words was heard. “And so help me, if I find out you laid a FINGER on my sister or Mamá, I’ll kill you! You hear me!? I’ll KILL you with my bare hands, maricón!”

“What’s goin’ on over here?” a deep bass voice demanded. A grime-smeared white hard hat moved through the crowd, and a giant gorilla of a black man effortlessly shoved his way through. Easily seven feet tall and with arms and hands that appeared as if they could crush a slab of granite, he was a mountain of sinew and muscle, a veritable titan. He looked around, scratching his stubble with one enormous paw, his other clutching a clipboard that looked disproportionately tiny in his grip, as he surveyed the area. “Valencia, there a problem here?”

Her anger still present, she wrenched her arms free with a sudden jerk, the guards behind her caught by surprise. “Leggo, puta,” she snipped. A single shake of the enormous foreman’s head stayed the guards from trying to grab her again. She rubbed her throbbing, stinging cheek as she looked up at him. “Nothin’ I didn’t already handle, Mister Wilkes.”

“You get into a scuffle, Valencia?” Wilkes asked, his powerful voice rumbling in her own stomach.

“Her dad came in hollering at her,” one of the security guards said before she could respond. “She must’ve cheesed him off pretty good, because he smacked her across the face, so she put him on the floor.”

Behind his iron façade, Carina swore she saw a hint of amusement on the titan’s face. “That so?” he said, looking back at her.

Carina shrugged. “Pretty much what happened,” she said. “Can I go back to work now?”

Wilkes grinned a little. “Eager as always, Valencia,” he said, his voice slightly friendly. “Better come on up to the office first. We gotta get your statement.”

She sighed, and reluctantly nodded. At least the next few hours of statements and reports would serve to distract her while she calmed down. After she had, she might actually be able to figure out where she was going to get some sleep, because she wasn't going home after work. At least not until after Felix had left the house.

---