Calida Walters

Calida Jovanna Walters, nee Garcia (RN: CW-01-1-12-53256) was an inmate in Inurement Correctional Facility, best known for rescuing over 400 children from a corrupt Cornovis facility in late 2393. Her charges included the actions taken during the rescue and the accidental murder of her husband and her stepson on February 15, 2394. She also aided Olive in her prison escape, using her pyrotechnics knowledge to burn down a good portion of the prison. When she had the chance to escape with Olive, she stayed behind, saying she was "too old for such adventures and her time must be served."

Early Life (2374-2384)
Calida was born one month early on January 16, 2374 in a snowy alleyway where her mother had ran to escape the authorities. Isabel was alone when she gave birth to Calida and passed out from the pain shortly after. They both would've frozen in New Carolina's harsh winter if not for an elderly woman who had happened to come outside to smoke and see them on the ground. She brought both Isabel and Calida into her apartment and wrapped them in blankets after cleaning them up. Isabel woke up hours later and named Calida after her older sister who she hadn't seen in years.

Kate, as the elderly woman asked to be called, took Calida and Isabel in as her own and helped care for Calida while Isabel tried to earn money. Calida was a tiny, quiet baby, and Kate saw her as the granddaughter she never had. When Isabel was able to find work as a maid, Kate took care of Calida while she was away and prepared school lessons for the then 15 year old Isabel.

When Calida was 5, Isabel didn't return home from work one day and Kate became worried and suspicious of the motel she worked at. With Calida on her back and a gun on her belt, Kate arrived at the dingy motel in Fahrund and found it to not be a motel at all, but a brothel being advertised as one. (Gravity song for this scene) She stormed in and disarmed every guard she came across until she finally found Isabel tied to a bed and out of her head on narcotics. Kate untied her and replaced her clothes haphazardly and, with 5 year old Calida on her back, grabbed Isabel by her waist and walked out of the motel holding everyone she found at gun point. Calida, ever the quiet and clever child, never said a word and kept her eyes shut the entire time per Kate's instructions.

Back home, Kate doused Isabel with cold water in the bathtub to wake her up and then bathed her while she talked to her. Calida joined shortly after.

Kate registered Calida for school just a couple months later, paying for it out of her retirement. Isabel, having become sick, stayed home most of the time and helped Kate with her garden. Isabel became quite the green thumb and would often take Calida into the greenhouse to show her everything she'd planted and grown.

The couple years after the motel incident, Isabel became increasingly sick and Kate finally decided to take her to the hospital even though they couldn't afford it. At the hospital they found Isabel had a handful of severe bacterial infections and they put her on antibiotics almost before they stopped talking. They kept her overnight, and by morning Isabel's immune system couldn't handle the sudden influx of antibiotics and she died of Septic shock on September 1, 2384 when Calida was 10.

On the same day she died, the hospital processed her case and found she didn't have a registry number. Taking matters into their own hands, Kate was arrested for kidnapping and Isabel's body was flushed into a space a long with the rest of the unregistered patients. Calida didn't even get to say goodbye to her mom or Kate before they were both taken away and she was taken to the Cornovis facility in New Carolina.

Cornovis Educational Facility for Orphaned Minors #1 (2384-2391)
Calida was processed into Cornovis kicking and screaming with rage and asking where either her mom or Kate was. In the hospital wing of the facility they strapped her to a bed and forced her mouth shut with a metal plate for nearly two weeks. They left her in the room alone in the dark except for when she received her daily meal and the "daily readings" which were propaganda on the good Cornovis was doing for her and trying to hypnotize her into forgetting her family. She never gave into any of it, refusing to eat and always screaming and crying herself hoarse. Eventually needing the room for another patient, they reluctantly let her out.

Calida caused problems in the facility from the start, engaging other kids and even the guards in violence. She received almost daily physical punishments but none of them, no matter how painful the guards tried to make them, stopped her. The facility warden eventually put her in a solitary confinement 24/7, disallowing contact with any of other kids and any kind of entertainment. The warden had initially wanted to cut her tongue out to silence her all together but the doctors at the facility's hospital denied the request as it was inhumane.

Calida only ever demanded one thing, and that was justice for her mom and Kate. While in solitary confinement, she used her nails to carve her words into the walls and also in attempt to claw herself out. in 2389, after five years of confinement and fingers that were nearly rubbed to the bone, they let her out and brought her to a courtroom, where Kate was. They let her talk with Kate, who had been in prison since 2384, and told Calida that if she behaved for the two years remaining in the facility, they would drop Kate's charges and let them both go free. Calida, only ever wanting her life back, believed them fully and spent her remaining two years doing exactly as they told her to.

In 2390, she began a sort of romantic relationship with one of the school teachers, John Walters, who was 25 years her senior and a member of The Eyes (a cult). They met in secret, usually at night in places in the facility only John would know about, and he would often have her come into his class for "extra activities" after normal school hours.

As a member of The Eyes, John believed that Cornovis was a corrupt corporation designed to deliberately orphan and brainwash kids and that the government was fraudulent. He was extremely religious and what he liked to call "traditional". He brought Calida to meetings as an "initiate", and introduced her as his wife. Calida was aware that the situation was similar to her mom's, but went along with it anyway.

In 2392 after Calida turned 18, she was supposed to be let go and reunited with Kate but she was informed that Kate had passed away the year prior. She was filled with a new rage at the system and decided to take John's offer and marry him and join The Eyes.

The Eyes (2392-2394)
Calida's initiation assignment was to take out the warden of CFOM #1, the facility she just graduated from. Without hesitation, she posed as a new male security guard named "Cal" applying for the warden's personal team. With her inside knowledge of Cornovis and the warden herself, Calida was able to get the job. While in her orientation, she slipped a drug into the warden's drink that made her fall unconscious. Before leaving, Calida set the building on fire and escaped as the alarm bells began ringing.

Even though she was now a member, she was still subject to authority and was seen as John's "property", just as the other wives was. She wasn't allowed to go out by herself and was required to wear full body clothing that obscured her body. This was especially frustrating to her after growing up wearing uni-gender clothing and not being allowed to go outside the facility. She reluctantly obliged to it, understanding that she would be able to leave one day and divorce John.

In November 2392, she discovered John had had a son with his previous wife. He was just 2 years younger than her and came to live with them after he graduated school.

She was mostly assigned tedious assignments like theft and occasionally committed arson to silence opposing religious groups. John took any earnings she may have gotten and she never saw any of it. She tried to reach out to the other wives but all of them were just as extreme as their husbands and threatened to turn her in. She kept a low profile after that, carefully watching everybody and learning everything she could about everyone.

Sometime in December 2392, The Eyes stole a shipment of various kinds of narcotics with the intent of keeping it to themselves. Calida, who had had troubles sleeping for years, was given one to help her fall asleep. She became inadvertently hooked on it and started to steal more for herself. This went unnoticed by both John and his son, who never paid any close attention to her.

In January 2393, Calida missed an assignment because she was passed out asleep after taking one of her drugs. John was enraged at her and had every other member of The Eyes throw a stone at her. He denounced her as a slave - someone who serves the members of The Eyes in any way they want but isn't actually a member themselves.

As a slave, Calida actually attended more meetings than she did as an actual member as the slaves get to go more places than the wives themselves. In October 2392, she learned The Eyes had infiltrated and were going to bomb CFOM #1, killing everyone inside. Not allowing the kids she grew up with to die, she walked out of the compound in the middle of the night posing as her husband and went to the facility. Enlisting the help of a few younger kids she knew, she was able to sneak all 400 kids off the grounds. She didn't know what they were going to do once they were out but at least they were alive. She returned to the compound before sunrise, no one even noticing she was gone.

The escape was all over the news the next day and The Eyes were furious. Calida stayed silent and only smiled to herself.

In February 2394, video footage of the escape was released and Calida was technically caught, but since she posed as John the authorities came looking for him instead. He denied it immediately though he knew it was her. After they left, he took her out to their pod and said he was "taking" her somewhere. Strapping her into the front seat and his son in the backseat, he took off in the pod in a yelling fit. He said he was taking her to The Eye's educational center where they took the kids born to The Eye's members. They stopped at the top of the cliff right before the building and John got out of the pod to talk to a guard. Seeing no other real option out of this, Calida slid herself into the drivers seat and drove into John, sending both him and the pod tumbling down the cliff.

Aftermath and Trial (2394)
The fall in the pod from the cliff killed both John and his son but Calida barely scraped by with her life. She was pulled from the water by authorities who had seen the whole thing and taken to a local hospital, where she received emergency surgery for a broken spine and collapsed lung among other, more minor injuries. A day after recovering from the accident and surgery, the hospital released her to the authorities where they immediately put her on trial for the manslaughter of John and his son. She was also charged with the possesion of narcotics after they found it in her belongings, and arson and smuggling the kids out of CFOM #1. She admitted to all of it and was initially sentenced to 70 years in the Inurement Correctional Facility on Mersey, but was able to shave just 5 years off her sentence for giving them information on The Eyes.

Physical Appearance
Calida had cropped jet black hair, gray eyes, and brown skin. She had a narrow face with high cheekbones and a turned-up nose. She had a small forehead with a close hairline and her ears slightly stuck out. She had a faint spattering of freckles across her nose and later in life she got a tiny geranium tattooed below her left eye. She had frown lines very early in life.

Calida stood at roughly 5'9, and was always thin and lanky but athletic.

In her later years while still in Inurement, she grew her hair out when it began to turn silver and she wore it in a very messy bun.

Trivia

 * According to ancestry records, Calida's biological father was Isabel's cousin Leon, making Calida a product of incest but this was wildly disputed by the surviving family members.
 * Calida called Isabel by her name instead of mom.
 * Sometime really early in her life, Calida broke her arm but she didn't remember doing so.
 * As a child, Calida wanted to move to Heavenside and be a scuba diver after watching a documentary on it.
 * Calida was distantly related to Rodrigo Ramirez, the only known person to have escaped Inurement successfully.