Chapter 4

Morrigan bolted upright, a scream lodged in her throat, ready to erupt. The voices were echoing in the air. Shadows all around her in the night, echoes of the horror.

She could hear them.

Feel them...

She reached for her shoulders, her hands trembling, and expected to find the inevitable horrors and wounds. The torture.

She wrapped her arms around herself, still shaky, and felt for the wounds.

Nothing.

No blood...

Her mind took a few more moments to orient.

This wasn’t Nova.

She wasn’t being tortured and shamed by her fellow Novians. No one here was ripping off her wings and... and...

She shook her head.

She was on LC-426.

In The Colony.

The nightmares, she’d hoped, anyway, would have been done by now. It had been long enough, she thought, since she’d been expelled from her home. Surely she shouldn’t still be lost in that torture.

The tear that rolled down her cheek said otherwise.

She brushed it away and inhaled a breath.

The ambient light, which had been so dark before, was getting a little lighter. Pushing back against the darkness of night.

The layout of the tiny apartment slowly appeared as the light gradually came up. The bed, beyond that, a small sitting area. The doorway to the hygiene and waste disposal room became slowly visible as the lights came up.

Just a standard, simple room. It hadn’t been created particularly for her, in any case.

Too confining, at least she thought so. So small and cramped, unlike the halls from her home...

Stop it.

“That life is over,” she whispered to herself. “I’m lucky to exist at all. I must stop wallowing in my own pity.”

She glanced at her wall, where a digital unit displayed the hour—approximately fifteen minutes before her designated wake-up time.

“Every day is a blessing,” she whispered to herself as she climbed out of her bed.

Perhaps some of the early breakfast restaurants will be open . Her stomach gurgled, already craving food. Maybe some of that coffee the humans were so in love with.

Morrigan adored the smell of coffee. There was something so cleansing and invigorating about it. Made her want to challenge her day and run, swords drawn, lights flashing and attacking the beasts with all her might—

Her shoulders slumped.

She would not be doing that again.

Not in this lifetime, anyway. She quickly took her hygiene shower and fixed her hair.

Well, she sort of did.

First she dried it, and she got out her jeweled sticks she put in her hair—the ones the initial Transdot officer tried to take from her.

But before she wrapped her hair in them, she held them out before her, like blades.

And was thankful that Transdot hadn’t realized the little jeweled sticks really were weapons.

Or maybe he did.

It didn’t matter. She’d gotten them in, and she had something to protect herself with.

As she waved her arms, the sticks transformed from their tiny thin form into eight-inch daggers, the hilts wrapping around her wrists.

Morrigan felt the shimmer of power in them, and a boost infused her own energy when she held them aloft.

They were the weapons of a Novian warrior priestess—who she was, once. They were small, almost unnoticeable sticks that could transform into any weapon necessary.

Just by her psychic thoughts.

If she wanted a broadsword...

The blade on her right hand transformed into a broadsword, and almost automatically, the knife in her left became a shield.

As a habit, she started to extend her wings.

While they started to extend, pain shot through her shoulders as they emerged. Immediately, the pain dropped her to her knees, and she yanked them back in. She took a couple of breaths, squeezing the handles of the weapons as she forced herself back up.

The skin closed around the wings again, and a single tear fell down her face.

She took a couple of breaths as the pain faded, and she could hear Krevik in her head.

Get up!

You’re a mighty warrior.

Fight!

She bit her lip and adjusted her stance for the broadsword, ready to raise it. She swung it around, feeling its power and strength—

Crash!

The light fixture over her small table tumbled to the floor, her broadsword having severed the connection line to the ceiling.

“Oh no!” she cried and dropped the weapons. They transformed back to their small stick forms as soon as they hit the floor.

“Now you’ve done it,” she muttered, and started rummaging around in the apartment for something to clean up the mess. “This is why I have to stop doing this.” She sighed, sadness creeping over her.

She shook her head. Rubbed her shoulders that were still tender from the wings extending, and also from trying to swing a broadsword around when out of practice.

She wasn’t a psychic warrior priestess for the Novian army anymore. While her thoughts could still control the weapons, she doubted even that would last much longer, and then she truly would just have two sticks to hold her hair up.

Then what would she be? Barely Novian. Not human.

Just something in between.

A creature that used to be something.

“I’m going to destroy everything,” she said as she dressed in some of the Colony clothing that she’d been given. Naturally, she couldn’t find anything for cleaning her mess.

“Computer, how can I clean this mess up?”

“Manual override of the cleaning program initiated,” came the computer’s soft voice. And sure enough, from the wall came a little square box that started moving over the floors, slowly getting closer to the shattered glass.

“How long will this take?” She stepped carefully around the broken pieces.

“One hour. You have a faulty light. Maintenance has been notified to repair the problem.”

“Uh, thank you?”

“Have a pleasant day,” the computer replied. The little box whirled a bit as it worked in its rhythmic pattern around the room.

“Well, okay then,” Morrigan said as she scooped up her hair stick-slash-weapons. She glanced at herself in the mirror while she rolled her hair into its usual bun and plunged the sticks in to secure it. She twisted a strand around the sticks to obscure the markings that other Novians might recognize as part of the warrior priestess uniform.

If she kept them tucked in right, they’ll look like ordinary hair ornaments, which was all they would be soon enough. The longer she was away from Nova and the temples, her powers would fade.

And she really would be nothing more than a human with scars on her back that once had wings.

Soft buzzing pulled her out of her thoughts, and she took a moment to watch the little robot clean her floor.

The little box made her smile.

What was that old saying? About finding simple pleasures in the rudimentary things?

And how nice was it to have a little robot that cleaned up her messes. Whether it was broken glass, or crumbs from something she ate.

Yet the floor was always clean.

She’d never really thought about it before, but seeing this explained it. And the little device was so quiet, she would have never noticed it if she hadn’t seen it come out of its nook in the wall.

Just a slight noise as the little device worked.

A gift.

Not everything was clean, she reminded herself.

She glanced at herself in the mirror in her Company-given clothing. Plain white shirt and gray pants. Each person got all the same pieces in basic colors of black, white and gray.

Unflattering to her figure, making her look like a bag. And unfortunately, she had no time with work to update her own clothing, and she had very little choice.

She was seriously considering asking one of the restaurants for a vat of some kind of red sauce to roll her clothing in.

Maybe a farmer...

They had all the food.

Maybe she could get some juicy pink fruit to soak her clothing in. In her mind, the idea flew though varying incantations, including the eventual probability that others would dye their clothing too.

Then there’d be a rebellion.

A clothing rebellion.

The thought made her grin as she glanced at her depressingly bland clothing. She tugged at her top.

This was going to be a long three years in these drab clothes. Especially when they fit like this.

Ugh. She might as well get to work at The Tailoring Shop. She thought about bringing her other pants to work on while she was there. The machines allowed her to tailor the clothing in only a couple of minutes, but personal work was not allowed on company time.

Besides, there were over a hundred thousand beings in The Colony, and many of them didn’t like the fit of their Complex-given clothing. Morrigan spent a lot of hours a day reshaping the baggy clothes into something more flattering for their owners. They all had to be here for three years, and many wanted to try to dress well during that time.

A change, for certain, but one that would occupy her time well enough, she supposed.

After all, it wasn’t the intense action of being a warrior and on the front lines. It was simple work, and she was starting to actually like it.

Who would have thought adding a line on her application about knowing how to sew with old-fashioned needle and thread would find her placed in The Tailoring Shop?

Leaving her apartment, she watched people walking toward the nearest transport pickup station to be shuttled into the main city.

The residences were towers surrounded the large central hub where the main city was. Shops, food, medical facilities, utilities, whatever would be needed for a self-sustaining colony to exist in. Every person there had a job to help keep up the terraforming and make sure that the Colony would survive.

Domes protected them from the heat of LC-426 while the atmospheric processors worked on creating a strong, regulatable atmosphere for existence outside the Colony.

The full project would take decades to complete.

This three years? It was just the set up and development. Most of the beings there would leave after their time.

The hope, the Company claimed, was that many would stay, and continue in the Colony and make the world their home.

They would have to allow for a few things, though, Morrigan felt—like individual clothing.

She glanced at two women who were speaking softly to each other. They had already gotten their clothing fitted to their shapes. It made such a difference in their appearance, compared to the other half-dozen or so who had not.

Though from the way the women glanced at everyone, with their noses turned up like that, either they were sniffing for something or they thought they were better than everyone else.

But really, from what she’d gleaned already from residents, Morrigan was pretty certain even the wealthiest here wasn’t here for a grand time.

Everyone was running from something.

The Colony was merely a three year pause to pass the time.

#

“You’re bright and giddy, Mori,” Ula said—or rather grumbled—over her own cup of coffee, using the nickname she’d given Morrigan after they had started spending time together.

She didn’t mind it. It made her smile, anyway. She’d never had a nickname before. It was a pleasant change from the formality of Nova.

And change was what she needed.

Not to be Novian, but to be, well, her.

Mori.

Whatever that meant.

“Been awake a while.” She’d decided to grab a couple of cups and take them to Ula’s suite before heading off to work.

She and Ula had met up at least a couple times a week since they’d gotten settled. Ula came from a different Novian world than Mori, and she appreciated her need to keep her personal issues private.

Mori related. She didn’t want to talk about what happened to her, and Ula had said nothing about her own past either.

Their mutual need to keep their previous lives private only strengthened their bond. Ula didn’t ask why Mori had a hard time sleeping, and Mori didn’t ask her why she’d run here to hide from whoever was looking for her.

Besides what she’d gleaned on the transport the first day, Morrigan really didn’t know much about Ula.

Truly, though, she didn’t care. Ula was the first friend that she’d ever had that didn’t want something from her besides general companionship.

Refreshing, to say the least.

Though the longer she was in The Colony, the more she recognized that most of the people were there for all sorts of self-preservation.

Ula was just one of those.

Ula sipped on her coffee, and a dribble slipped down over her bright pink sleeping gown that almost shined in the otherwise bland room.

Mori couldn’t take her eyes off the cloth because she loved the color. Such a bright contrast to the neutrality of everything in The Colony.

“Damn,” Ula said, and started wiping up the dribble. “I swear, I need a bib.”

She smiled. “I’m just impressed you got that in here.”

Ula shrugged. “It could have been stuffed in my bag in the protective lining.”

“How’d you get a bag in here with that?”

Ula grinned. “We programmers are really creative.”

Morrigan smirked. She couldn’t say a thing. She wore two very lethal weapons in her hair every single day.

Morrigan sipped on her coffee. “Are you still liking it down in the depths?”

Ula laughed. “Programming maintenance is the most boring job ever. I swear, I thought I would have gotten to work on some kind of system that would be fun. With my experience as a programmer? I could probably reprogram the environmental stuff to make it rain every day if I wanted to. But what do they have me doing? Running countless scans on the automatic systems, looking for any kind of problem with the programming.”

“Do you find problems?”

“Nothing that I can’t fix in like, five seconds.”

“There will be a challenge for you soon enough.”

Ula raised her eyebrow. “Are you getting that for me? Or are you just being nice?”

“Being nice.”

“Damn.” Ula sighed as she changed really quickly into her grays. The only color on her clothing was the same orange “C” on everyone’s clothes.

“So, have you gleaned anything interesting off anyone?” Ula asked as she started pinning up her hair.

“I don’t do it on purpose.”

“I know. But sometimes you gotta get stuff on accident.”

Mori shook her head. “I wish I didn’t. It makes it difficult to be in crowds.” She maintained distance from people as much as possible, Ula being one of the few who knew of her special power.

The problem was, if her touch gleaned a being’s future, she had to tell them, or it thundered in her mind until she released it back into the universe. If she didn’t tell, it would make her crazy.

Unfortunately, though, many didn’t want to know. So she stayed away from people, as much as she could.

Ula’s eyes lit up. “Huh. Now there’s a puzzle.”

“What?”

“You need a suit of some kind. With a shield that protects you.” Ula started moving around, and speaking very rapidly to herself as she picked up her gown, wadding the pink fabric in her hand.

Mori tensed, watching the pink fabric get wrinkled. “Ula no, what are you doing? You’re wrinkling your gown.”

Ula shook her head and tossed the gown to Morrigan. “Here. You are the clothing person.”

Mori caught it and started folding up the soft fabric.

Ula continued to pace, gesturing wildly with her hands. “You need a protective suit. One that keeps you from reading people when you don’t want to. So you can be in the crowds. And I bet I can make you one—with the same tech I used to smuggle in my gown.”

“What? You don’t need to do that. Really, Ula I’m fine.”

“You cower in crowds. I’ve seen you do it. I betcha anything I can put that together pretty simply. I’ll just need, um... clothing. And some wires and the...” Her voice trailed off.

Mori shook her head. “Ula, you can’t do this. You have a job. Just like me.” She checked the digital clock on the wall. “In fact, we’re both going to be late if we don’t get down there.”

“Right,” Ula said as she glanced around her room. “And don’t worry, I have plenty of time. This is exactly what I need, a new challenge.”

“You’re going to get in trouble at work.”

Ula rolled her eyes. “Please. I wrote a code the first hour that does my job for me. I spend my days hacking the data streams running all through this place. You would be amazed what I know about what goes on here.”

“Ula.”

The woman grinned as they headed out of the small apartment.