Portrait

I

Kara is my birth mum which means I was in her tummy until I came out when the Euros came back. Sam is my gene mum which means I’m made of her and also Kara. The other grown-ups are also my mums which means they help bring me up which makes me a grown up. I’m not a grown up but I help bring up the girls who are smaller than me but I'm not a mum because I'm not a grown up, but I'm responsible. Some of the other girls don't have birth mums and Nned has four gene mums but most are like me but it doesn't matter because we're all part of Tempest.

It rains a lot and when it does the forest smells damp and the streets and we wear raincloaks but I like not to which makes Kara cross because I drip on things and she won't let me stay outside until I'm dry like I said.

And they arrived just as you appeared, you child of reconnection. Maybe that’s why Tempest gave you to us. You’ll keep us safe again.

Kara is a Red that means she’s strong and she used to fight Shivans but I'm not allowed to ask her about that except sometimes. She holds me with one arm and its like flying. Sam is a Green which means she’s smart and she does things for a co-op with a computer but I don't understand the numbers. I'm back from the doctor and she says I'm Blue which means I'm good at writing and drawing and singing. Sam says she thought I'd be Green like her. But I like drawing.

I drew her picture and she put it up on the wall. Portrait, by Rin, age seven.

II

1

"No Rin, I'm staying home this time."

She stamped her foot. "But you're a hero! The Euros are back and people have to fight them to stop them! That's what Reds do!"

"I'm sorry. But I can't. I'm hurt. Inside, where you can't see it, but it's there."

"This is why you won't talk about it."

"Yes."

She glared at the floor. "But what good's a hero who can't fight?"

"Rin, apologise!"

"No, stop. It's alright. She needs to learn this - really she's a little late losing her idols. We should have had this talk before. Rin, I'm not a hero. I never was, because I'm just one person. Heroes are people working together. I'm just a person, a weak and fallible one."

"So why'd Londenium give you that thing?"

"That's just... a memento."

2

"She's devouring everything she gets her hands on about the fighting. And some of it's not good for someone her age. Did you guys put her onto this?"

She waited outside the door, motionless.

"Don't we have a filter?"

"Kids find ways."

"I guess so. But I didn't expect to get the complaint from you."

"You think I approve of this because I'm a vet? The last thing I want is for her to go into it."

"All this fighting proves we need people who still will."

"Just what are you saying?"

"She didn't mean it that way, Kara. But she's right. If Rin has taken an interest she's hardly the only one and we can't stop her. It's up to her what she does with her life."

"She's Blue! A war is no place for an artist."

"And a village full of children is no place for an ex-Red."

"I beg your fucking pardon?"

"Cool it, both of you! Len that was... Kara, stop!"

Footsteps. She slipped away.

III

1

I was a Shellshark. The other girl from my village wasn’t. But the algorithm was weighted like that, to break up region groups. So I had a Shellshark floating over my arm and Hyuna a Treecat over hers. I reached out to touch it and my hand passed through.

“See you around.”

“Yeah.”

It was weird not needing specs. I kept putting my hand to my face to check. But there they weren’t, and yet the signs plastered themselves across space regardless, marking group and route and room. The pre-op, pre-school kids in the city looked so dumb already, though I was one just a week before. And the foreigners walking around were even worse. Didn’t they know how childish they looked, gawping through glasses?

A family stopped me when I was out in the city, called me cute, wanted a shot of me in my uniform with their weird kid who I think might have been a boy. I ignored them. I had to work hard, not mess around with specs and their spares.

2

Already by then the Reds were dominant on the playing field. But I had been training hard for a long time. You needed to be fit to fight, even if you were in command like I guessed I would end up. So I made it onto the gridiron team. I wasn’t as big as the reds but I was tall and fast and made an able receiver.

The same was true in silat club. I could get by, though I ached every day. I was never mistaken for a Red. I think I could have captained it if I had had time to train properly, but I was always busy. Waking in the morning, eating the no-doz kept under my pillow and letting that day’s reading go through my lace. Up with the others, making and eating breakfast, scrupulously monochrome uniform, then lessons and points and doing our best for the Shellsharks so we’d be the best of all the groups. Then exercising, and training, and clubs, and filling out the list I’d made of all the things that would take you towards the battlefield. Then reviewing what I’d read in the morning, and mental exercises, and going to sleep after the others had long gone silent.

The wargaming club thought I was Green for a while. I didn’t talk about it. When I told them I was Blue they were surprised.

“Huh really? I’ve never seen you draw or anything outside art class.”

“I don’t have time for stuff like that.”

“Geez, you’re weird.”

3

The counselor met me in the teacher’s office. I was worrying my teachers, she said. They hardly ever saw me out playing and didn’t think I had many friends. They didn't want me to fail to engage with the others. We were all a whole, and its cold on your own.

It was true I didn’t know anyone even as well as I had Hyuna, who was a Treecat so still kind of distant. But I was in a lot of clubs. I was on the teams for gridiron and wargames even. So why was she looking at me like a stupid kid? I had the best aggregate in the year. I looked at the group numbers and worked it out backwards. If I wasn’t here the Shellsharks wouldn’t even be in first. That’s helping the group, not painting faces and giggling like the Blues in art class.

But that’s not what recruiters think. The points didn’t mean as much as I though they did. Just trying hard isn’t enough. You have to be part of the family.

4

“Come on, Rin.”

“I’m almost done.”

I peered in the mirror and pressed my lips together.

“I thought you quit silat so you’d have more time.”

“I’m almost done!” I held my eyelid rock still while the robot dabbed at the lashes. “You should take more care too, you know. Every time you’re out with that frizz you call a hairstyle people are taking pictures. They’ll be around for-ever.”

“Nobody cares about dumb teen photos, Rin. I saw my birth mum’s, they’re the most awkward thing in the world.”

Hyuna glared at me when I met up. We got back together in the second year so it wasn’t really a glare that meant anything. She was a Yellow so she had tons of other friends, who I think she worked quite hard to introduce me to.

“Mazie worked out how to spoof the curfew. We’re out till way past midnight.”

“I can’t. The big match is tomorrow. I have to be up on time.”

Mazie’s idea didn’t work anyway.

5

“I told you this would happen!”

“Stop freaking out, Rin. It sucks but we almost won. We’ll all be here next year.”

“Yes. We almost won. So maybe if you’d listened to me we would actually have won! There’s no electrum medal for almost winning!”

“You don’t know your plan would have worked any better than Ben’s.”

“Fine. Fine! Find excuses to call it inevitable. I can't stand another minute of this.”

Coach found me a little while later.

“I know you’re upset, but so are they. You shouldn’t take it out on them. Lilium are the best there is, getting this close is incredible.”

“It’s their fault! I spent ages working out that plan and they decided to ignore it. It's because I’m Blue and Ben’s Green.”

“That had nothing to do with it and you know it. If that’s the vote, that’s the vote. You should ask why you couldn’t persuade them of your plan, if it was better. Then use those lessons next year.”

“There won’t be a next year. I’m done with this stupid game. I’m not lifting them up, they’re dragging me down.”

“Rin!”

But I was gone.