As much as I think Cola is adorable, I’ve decided that her character is slightly more complex.

Cola [legal name: Nicola] Fiore got her nickname because she is so bubbly. She says hello to everyone and never forgets a name. When she says, "How are you?" people feel like she really cares about the answer, and they end up telling her more than they expected. People describe her as warm, kind, caring and gentle. She is popular and beloved enough that people have suggested more than once that she should run for local office.

Cola runs her own yoga and aerobics studio, CoreWorks, specializing in "adaptive workouts," that is, yoga and aerobics for people with disabilities. She has a low-key teaching style in which she promotes "feeling at home in your body." She comes to Wharf Lane Apartments to teach weekly classes, which Chaz attends and enjoys very much. Chaz encourages Isabel to come with her. After a series of classes, during which Isabel learns that she is more flexible than she expected, she feels proud of herself and less hostile toward her fats.

Of course, Cola has her secrets. When the Cold Choice makes its yearly appearance and PWS have to confront brain shortages, Cola trades in black-market brains of dubious quality and/or provenance, always at a significant markup. She is one of the most successful Killers [black-market dealers] because she presents her illegal options as a favor that she’s doing for you because she doesn’t want to see anyone suffer.

Though Cola is considered one of the most trustworthy Killers, she faces opposition. Firsthand accounts swear up and down that she has passed off expired brains as fresh and pig brains as human. And who knows where she gets her brains anyway? Her supporters insist that she would never dupe PWS that way and, besides, the expired brains were just a few days over anyway. And all her brains are certified cruelty-free. Cola’s reputation mostly protects her, but the rumors never wholly disappear.

Then she is arrested for conspiring to kill people and harvest their brains for resale. She hired nursing staff in elder care facilities who would kill clients in ways that seemed to be of natural causes. She justifies herself by saying, "I offer a painless, compassionate end to people whose time has come. And they get to be useful. Doesn’t everyone want to leave a legacy and do something good for the world?" 

During her trial, it comes out that Cola herself has spondis. The press gleefully labels her Cola the Zombie Killer.  Her defense tries to argue that her spondis-related brain damage left her unable to tell right from wrong. The PWS community is pissed off by the defense’s insulting and erroneous assumption, "Cola making us look bad," the abnormal public thinking that their stereotypes of PWS as evil, remorseless, grisly murderers are justified, etc.

The opinions of PWS split on Cola. Her supporters can’t really deny that she did it, but they say that she acted out of compassion. Her detractors think that she committed unforgivably revolting crimes. Chaz reacts with anger born out of a sense of personal betrayal, saying that she should be punished harshly because she’s "a bad example and a traitor to her own kind. She took advantage of us all for her own selfish ends!" Anna notices that Cola’s hits out on old and almost always disabled people demonstrate ageism, ableism and an obsession with being "productive" and "useful," with the implication that elderly and/or disabled people aren’t worth living. Isabel feels confused, surprised that Cola has been doing unethical, illegal things and tainted by association because she attended some of Cola’s classes. 

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