Sisters

First Written    Sun Mar 22 02:53:31 2020
File Modified    Wed Feb 14 18:32:26 2024
Latest Upload    Thu Sep 19 03:09:54 2024

3 Gifts

"It's not fair," the Hiver dressed in Human women's clothing whispered. The window shone moving rays of light across the faint purple skin on her faceless head.

"You still have your world, you and the Mechanicals," she continued, "The Arash'Mi have their history, at least. We have nothing. I feel like I belong to a race of orphans. If our world is even still out there, it's lost to us now. What good is survival if every time we venture out to land on another rock, we obliterate every last memory of home?"

"That's not what a home is," the man beside her replied, handing her a stem of red monkeypod flowers, "That's just an origin. Home is never somewhere that was. It's something that is. You have a homeworld. You're standing on it. With me."

"No, that's not it either," she corrected, her tendrils rippling as she took the flowers and spread them throughout her thin, sinuous form for décor, "But I think I get it now. You're home."

"I love you," Anna overheard from across the Alliance transport bus, squashed between her travelling companions.

"By the Chairman's will," she muttered, "Get a fucking room already."

"Be nice," Maxwell reminded, his Mechanical fingers solving an Alliance newspaper game without a pen. Anna recognized the Sudoku puzzle.

"Is it really taking you that long to solve that thing," she poked, crinkling the paper, "I did that one in a minute."

"Not exactly. I'm trying to figure out what they used to generate this thing. I think they're using the date as a seed."

Anna slumped backwards into her seat. She was running out of conversations to eavesdrop on. Instead, the whirring of Maxwell's servos and the tapping of Osten's thumbs as he played on his game console dominated over the chatter she was now bored of.

"My dear younger brother, runt of the Yems" she asked, looking over his arm, "What are you playing now?"

"Rake, Shallow Leaf-Gems," he replied, "It's an ironic competitive leaf raking simulator."

"XXX Ostentatious? Go-Go-Sixty-Nine? Please don't tell me you and Gauguin are actually using these names."

"Okay, I won't," he replied with eyes unmoving from the vicinity of his screen. His eyes flashed for a moment as he summoned c-drones to assemble into the form of blinders around his hands, cutting off his sister's attempts at reconnaissance.

Anna noticed irritation around Osten's neck, where the metal Republic implants merged with his prominent veins - a small but visible reminder of all the Coalition science lying beneath a face that didn't look too different from her own. She wondered whether he had taken his rejection meds.

The bus slowed to a halt, not for the first time. Anna looked out the window to see yet another vehicle-filled intersection where cars were gradually accelerating to cross the bus's path.

"You know," she talked out loud, knowing Maxwell would overhear, "I had always heard we had trouble countering the Alliance's engineering prowess. I'm surprised a super-nation that can't coordinate gaps in its traffic flows for constant motion would be such a threat."

"They've done well for themselves, all things considered," Maxwell lectured without looking up from his newspaper tapping, "A government willing to sacrifice the rights of the few for the progress of many is not a luxury they had. While I don't condone the message of the modern luddite, I can see the charm in an old driver wanting intersections a Human could navigate by eye."

"That and lack of proper AI," he concluded, stretching his fingers for emphasis.

A series of car horns filled the bus's cramped airspace, prompting Maxwell to turn his head and witness a traffic light having been forced green. The blue glow on the implant collar around Anna's neck relayed knowledge of her interference past her resting poker face.

"Anna Yem," Maxwell scolded as she broke out into an uninhibited smile, having earned his attention, "If the firstborn - nay, prodigal - son of the Mechanical race and Advisor of the Chairman himself is content with acting as a mere babysitter, I think you can survive a bus ride. Or should I say, 'have', as I believe we've arrived."

"Finally," Osten groaned, stretching his arms so as to disrupt as much of Anna's personal space as possible. The air conditioned bus opened its doors to usher in a wave of heat. Through her machine interface collar, Anna felt Maxwell's internal cooling fans silently activate.

The bus driver spoke into her intercom, "Welcome to Macadamia Rehabilitation Centre - Hard shell on the outside, health incarnate on the inside. Once an Alliance prison, now a so-called 'criminal residence' in the Republic's Central Pacific Vanguard Islands."

"Formerly known as Hawaii. Or am I no longer allowed to call it that?" she quipped, looking at three of her more recognizable passengers who were ignoring her as they stepped off of the transport.

The sprawling rehabilitation complex was split into small campuses, each, as had been explained in the travel guide, serving as a self-contained town complete with shops, gardens, counsellors, and even libraries staffed with tutors. The grasses and flowers surrounding the bus stop were young, but untarnished by signs of footsteps that would have thinned them in their vulnerable youth.

"Beautiful foliage. It's refreshing to see a prison that doesn't look like a prison. Sure would be nice to take a rake to these grounds wouldn't you say, Osten," announced Maxwell, breaking the silence as they walked, "But I notice something. All of these are fast growing strains, newly seeded. Too young to have been here from the start of the change of management. I think they're trying hard to cover up the outlines of the old Alliance walls. But the soil's still hard and needs time to be broken."

Anna felt the presence of c-drone spigots waiting behind fresh flowers. She pushed against the sensation, elevating her implants' permissions until she had mapped out what she wanted. A pulse of light echoed from the spigots, tracing a dome of light around the entire complex. Should an escape attempt occur, a curtain of c-drones were waiting to weave themselves into a solid barrier at any moment.

"I guess we didn't really break down any walls," she joked.

"It's still a paradise," Osten noted, stuffing his pockets with flowers, "Looks like they've got everything they could ever want here. Well, everything except freedom, I suppose."

The rest of the directions took them to a dormitory within the larger, central campus. A small mixed contingent of Republic Vanguard soldiers and repurposed Alliance police officers stood watch over the entrance. Osten waved at them as they approached.

"Ms. Yem. Mr. Yem. Mr. Maxwell," a shield knight greeted, his fist raised to his chest in salute, "MRC Campus Eight - Political Prisoners of War. I take it you'll be visiting room eight as well, and if so, you'll find down the hall to the right."

"Yes, thank you," Maxwell replied, "And please, ease yourselves in our presence. Don't worry, the Chairman isn't with us today."

"With all due respect, Advisor, I must admit we'd be surprised if he was," the knight remarked as he held open the campus door. A faint reverberation of violin notes striking could be heard within, and increased in volume as they followed the guard's directions.

A knock on the room's door was answered almost immediately. A sonata was playing loudly from one corner of the dwelling while a television airing Republic news blared in another.

"Come on in, I've been expecting you," a lean middle-aged woman welcomed, "Forgive the noise, I prefer it to the alternative."

Maxwell recognized Takome Ma immediately, her hair - a bun with less stray hairs than he had stray wires - unchanged from both the day Jay Yem had met her, and the day his son had lead the assault on the Coalition's Great Hall. He was however, surprised that the former General Secretary of the Eastern Coalition was allowed to keep wearing her red steel qipao.

"Please make yourself at home," she waved at her guests and the prepared table beside her, "Even you, Maxwell."

An assortment of dumplings and other traditional Coalition goods sat steaming as if Ma known the exact moment of their arrival and pulled them out of the cooker accordingly. A small tin of Mechanical servo oil was a tactful although unnecessary addition to the spread.

"You look well, Takome," Maxwell greeted.

"Hi Ms. Ma," Anna waved, scoping out a seat near the dish of Coalition steamed buns and condensed milk.

"Mom!" Osten yelled, running up to hug his mother, "I found you these. I thought your new room would be as plain as the old one, but you look like you've had free reign decorating."

Takome Ma took the handful of flowers and her son's chin in her hand, "These will find a place, Osten. Let me get a look at my son's face, I've missed it."

She pinched his cheek hard enough to bruise and kissed it. A restrained furrow of concern was let through her eyebrows as she monitored Osten's unnatural healing response, now diminished so as to allow for his implants to perform unhindered. Osten knew what she was doing.

"You know I only gave you nothing but gifts, Osten."

"I know, mom. But try telling dad that," Osten complained as he plopped down at the table's side nearest to the television screen, eyes wide at the selection of finger foods.

"So, how's that cute blonde doing," Ma questioned as she grabbed a dumpling with her own chopsticks.

"You know about Gau?" Osten asked, his sister snickering with a mouthful of bread.

"Of course I do, baby."

Anna picked through her food, emptying filled buns of their meat before dipping them in sauces. The Republic news broadcast was beginning yet another segment about the oft-glamorized ruling family - one of the few subjects palatable to both citizens of the Oversees and the conquered Alliance and Coalition.

"…and in conclusion, we thank the Chairman's eldest son and daughter for their military contributions in bringing about the unity of our species, and we wish a speedy recovery to Jay Yem Junior, who..."

Osten changed the channel to an e-sports play-by-play and let out a small huff of excitement as he witnessed a perfectly executed tactic land.

"Do give your older brother my apologies," Ma uttered with closed eyes and a tight-lipped nod.

"Will do," Anna agreed.

Maxwell stood up as a ringtone started from his own abdomen. Correctly, Takome reasoned he had felt the call as it came and the audible sound was nothing more than a formality.

"Please excuse me, all of you. I might have to fill in for a Vanguard officer on the island who's having trouble with keeping civilian morale," he euphemised, "I can only hope the Yem children will treat Ms. Ma politely."

"Take this before you go," Takome reminded, standing to hand Maxwell the servo oil and see him to the door, "And some of these dumplings too. You never know when you'll meet a mouth in need."

"Thank you," he replied.

Ma returned her attention to the young teens sitting around her table. Osten was engrossed by the current television program, and to her chagrin, had nether an empty mouth nor bowl. Anna, as Takome had typically seen her, was alert.

"Anna, does he eavesdrop?"

"He can. But he usually doesn't bother. Especially when he thinks he's already predicted everything there is to be said. Why do you ask?"

"My dear girl," Takome whispered, "Have you ever planned on being powerful?"

"I hate to use this phrase," Anna retorted, "But you do know who my father is, right?"

"You know what I mean, Anna."

Anna Yem smiled and dipped another bun.