It's been three hundred and ninety-seven days since the draft of Terra-54, and twenty-six since the start of the SOTC, Special Operations Training Corps—otherwise known as the Battlement from the candidates. From the colony, only thirty qualified for the draft. And out of the group, only five made it to the SOTC. All five are Altered.
Liz doesn't find this surprising.
Being human in space doesn't offer a lot of survival perks. Radiation poisoning. Osteopenia. SAS. Without gravity the whole biological system protests. Even with gene therapy, there's not a whole lot to build from. Which is fine for leisure travel or colony life. Liz is familiar with this as someone who has been screened for Rift Sickness four times in the last decade. Have you experienced any dizziness—shortness of breath? No. Any brain fog in the last month. No. What about tremors in any limbs? No.
She's come up negative every time.
And she's not complaining about that. Everyone's so damn keen on getting their hands on someone with otherness. After manifesting, Leon, her brother, was snatched up in that initial draft—taken to Acheron and trained day in and day out. She knows, she's received the PMs. He tells her the competition's fun, that he's close to the top of their class, and his phase record is over an hour now. Liz isn't exactly happy about that. Better grades mean faster graduation.
Faster graduation means ending up at the front.
Ready or not.
"Yo, dude. Can you stop leaving this crap in the bathroom?" Mel says.
She's got a wad of hair in her hands, now dry from last night.
"Oh. My bad. I'll remember next time," Liz says.
"Uh-huh, that's what you said yesterday. I'm surprised you aren't bald by now."
She murmurs something and walks away, brushing down her gravity-defying bed head before Liz can say anything back. She claims it's worse here because of the low Gs. Liz spots the mug of coffee in her hands and accompanying eye bags. It's only six, but she's already at the caffeine. "That's why she's so short," Liz thinks and knows better than to say anything.
The linebacker-built girl is Melody, or Mel as she prefers. She's been Liz's roommate for about a month now. It's been alright. Mel's nice. Er. Okay, maybe not nice but decent enough to be honest. Which is good for communication. But they're still in this state of what to push back on and what to let go.
Or maybe that's only Liz.
"I'm serious about the bald thing," Mel continues a bit uncharacteristic of her usual uncaring self.
She pops her head around the bathroom door
"There's no way losing a gumball sized mass of hair is normal. You should get that checked out by campus health."
Liz ruffles her hair to make sure it's still there. It is to her relief, though matted and messy from sleep. She should get ready for class.
"Aww. It's nothing but a little hair. Thanks for worrying, roomie. I can feel the love."
She waves a few air kisses over.
"Fuck if I care about you ever again."
Mel dips back behind the sliding door with a sigh.
It's a quarter till breakfast is over, and about an hour till Liz's first class, Structure of Materials. Liz rolls over onto her stomach. Only a few weeks in and she wants to skip it. She sighs and rolls back over and off the bed to slide on the floor.
"That's gross, are you a slug now?"
Mel stands over her, disappointed or disgusted.
Probably both.
"Shut it. Some of us aren't morning people," Liz says into the cold, cold, metal floor.
Why everything must be made of printed metal slabs at these colonies, Liz will never know. But she thinks it has something to do with the rapid growth of industry and decline of culture in the early twentieth century.
"This is why we invented caffeine."
"And that is why you're short."
"Get up." Mel pushes her with one slippered foot. Not hard but still.
"Abuse. I'm petitioning for a change of roommate."
"Body shaming. I'm posting you on the Q. You'll never find another. Now get up and get dressed, we have breakfast to inhale."
"Alright," Liz says and crawls to her feet to dress.
The canteen is packed.
Someone rushes ahead of them and takes the last of the cheese pizza. There're only the synthetic ones left.
"This is why coming late sucks," Mel says.
Liz plates a portion of grilled grumbal instead. It isn't so bad. Mammalian life on TR-1e is in its early stages so meat has a weird texture, but the taste is like turkey.
"It isn't so bad. At least we've got real food options."
"Real food. Yes. Ethical? That's debatable. Do we even know if the native life here is sentient?"
Mel pointedly takes a pasta dish from the buffet.
"The local RDC says they're on the same level of a domesticated chicken. So it should be fine."
"I don't trust anything until it's been independently verified."
"What needs independently verified?" Marc asks.
He's wearing that god-forsaken jacket again. The one resourced from Terra-1, tweed he called it and said it helped him think like the greats.
Philosophy majors.
"Alyssa is advocating for the consumption of indigenous life again," Mel says.
"It has been approved by the RDC," Marc agrees.
They all have their trays loaded now, so they turn for the tables.
"But," he starts, and Liz already knows where this is going, "The RDC classifies any lifeforms with the intelligence of a three-year-old human or under as suitable for consumption. And many ethics boards outside of the IHS disagree with that standard."
"Fine. Fine. I agree; I'm a monster. Now can we eat and talk about something else?"
"Easy enough. Did anyone listen to IPN this morning?" Marc asks.
"No," Mel says, answering for both of them. "Something you want to debate about?"
"Don't worry, I'll save that for Alvarez and Ruth. There was a broadcast about some transport vessel in the system. They spotted Miraging while drive cooling outside Ophel."
"Transport vessels are always picking up Miraging. It's the cheap shielding. It warps light."
"I know but IPN says a scouting ship from Baize should be arriving in the week."
Liz puts down her fork.
"Military?" she asks.
"Yeah," Marc says.
"Why wasn't there a Rift alert?" Mel asks.
"It's only one ship that reported it. And no activity has been spotted within the quadrant."
None within the quadrant. Ha. Like that matters. Liz stares at her half eaten grumbal. Leon is about twelve hours away by alcubierre drive, at one of the closest ISA bases in the cluster. Now that he's in SOTC there's a chance he might know something, especially since it applies to his sister.
"I don't like this either way. You think we should skip classes? It's not like we are staying in the dormitories. No RA's going to check on us."
"Idiot. Half of the staff stays at Dormont. Trying to hide from the professors there is a fool's errand. But, no. There's no sense in skipping for something that isn't confirmed. Over 80% of reports are false alarms. You said it yourself those ships have cheap shielding. And as for the military mobilizing, we all know Baize has lost most of their scouting vessels since the Teagarden's System was overrun."
Marc is right. Baize, the capital of Pisces, has been struggling with its neighboring sector for months now. It would make sense for them to work with the military to investigate local chatter. So it's likely nothing, but either way, Liz flicks her wristlet and sends a quick message to Leon. It displays a letter whooshing away to the Q on the holo. At the corner, the time reads, "7:28."
"We should head out. Breakfast is ending," Liz says.
"They need to change that. What type of school ends breakfast before 10?" Mel gripes as they take their trays to the sanitation racks.
"A service academy."
Liz tosses her trash into their respective vats—recyclables, burnable, etc.
"I came here to study at an accredited Altered biology institute not to join a regime."
There's that sigh again, and the group turns to leave.
"They're the same thing here," Liz says.
She shoves her hand in her pockets. A wad of lint and hair is stuffed in one. Liz pulls it out and throws it at the burnable vat. Her vision shakes. A uncontrolled rapid eye movement.
She misses.
"Huh," Liz says, blinking.
"Off your game today, I see," Marc says.
"I guess."
There's a shrug, and Liz picks up the lint and tosses it.
They split off going their separate ways after exiting the canteen. Marc leaves for the Liberal Arts college, Mel to Life Sciences and Liz to Engineering. Each campus is about ten minutes by tramway or shuttle. Not long but far judging by the size of campus, which is spread over ten thousand hectares give or take a few hundred. If not for the apartments, none of them would even know each other.
Liz heads to the station, no chauffeur waiting for her unlike her well-off friends, and boards the tram. When it takes off, there's the pulse of the cart lifting and the minute sensation of dizzying momentum before the stabilizers take control. Then it's only the rapid blur of light outside the window and the quiet of the car. Liz leans against the pole and checks her wristlet. No messages. He must be in the middle of PT. She shuts off the holo.
The thing is, Liz is about as resistant to the whole militaristic aspect of school as Mel. Life in such rigid order is unappealing. If the invasions had never increased, she'd probably still be at her home colony going to the local agricultural trade school, taking after her father. Now she's studying materials engineering under a famous armaments engineer, all because the chances of her brother dying due to a suit malfunction are disturbingly commonplace.
Phasers—or type 1 Alters—have the ability to phase in and out of tangible space. "It's like tilting in and out of frame," some researcher explained in an article Liz read. It's common among Alters, not nearly as rare as type 3, still very few can control it. But among the scarce few that can, some are able to phase matter outside of themselves, and Leon is one such case.
The tram stops. The cart jostles and Liz's leg gives in a shutter. She stumbles over onto her ass just as the doors open. People stare. Shit. She gets to her feet in a flash, head down, and speeds out.
Clumsy. Really clumsy. She's not clumsy. Having two left feet is for other kids, not her. Maybe it's the muscle loss from skipping the gym. Or maybe it's her nerves.
Liz flicks her wristlet again.
Nothing.
"7:45," the time reads.
She hurries out of the station and up the ramp to Boswald Hall.