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!”

I was gone.

IV

1

The reporter is caked with AR. Her eyes aren’t that colour, nor is her hair, and she’s not wearing that. It’s high quality though. Better than mine, but all off-the-shelf in a way that won’t get her much attention. I smile as she approaches and in the corners of my eyes my costume shifts to complement hers. That’s on camera. A couple of likes trickle in.

“And here we have Rin, one of the new troupe that’s taking the city by storm. Chinua, Landing Local.”

“Hi!” A sparkle in my eye. Naff but popular, and fits my branding.

“So, your new production has shot to the top of the theatre charts. What’s it like for your troupe, raking in these likes while you’re still in high school?”

“It’s pretty overwhelming.” Grin, shake my head. “I hope Landing and Tempest will keep supporting us so long as we make plays and media worth it.” Smile and look bashful. Nobody likes a braggart. Our fans will take care of the rest.

“What’s the secret of your success?”

Me. “Well, I defer to the wisdom of the crowd here. They like what we’re doing with AR on the stage, and our new take on the old myths of Tempest.” My ideas. “With recent Core aggression and tensions inside the Zodiac it’s the right time to remind everyone what Tempest is all about. I think, you know, artists are lenses through which a society expresses itself. What we’re doing is expressing what Tempest feels right now. Mindful of its heart while pushing forward into a new future.” What we’re doing is mawkish flagwaving wrapped up in just enough art to make the pretentious feel okay about liking it.

“What are your plans for the future?”

“We’re working on an interactive adaption.” Everyone loves those. Even though they’re always so pointless. Everyone has to make themselves and their friends the stars of their own little legend, and it’s always stupid, derivative and flat. “And a big surprise for the school fest later this year.” That’ll keep our buzz going.

“I’ll keep an eye open for it. And after that?”

“We’re gonna keep it going at uni, alongside school. We’re planning on the same place, and we’re still only beginners. We have a long way to go.”

Likes keep trickling in. Then I see Jasmine tagged us on her feed and they start to explode. But Hanwen is waving at me from backstage. Glance, shrug, apologetic grin, and the reporter gets the message.

“Sounds like a bright future! That’s Rin from the Haraway Players, and looks like she needs to get back to work. Thanks.”

I give a last sparkle and hurry over to Hanwen.

2

The buttresses rise in majestic ranks along the bridge. They branch and rise to support its roof and the great diamondoid plates that shield it from the wind while letting the Sun shine through. At each end it plunges into the cliffs and the mag track winds off through the forest.

I lower the paper and behind it the cliffs rise, forested but unspanned. They would never allow that bridge here. It’s useless, and the style is one that nobody has liked since Earth. I would be marring a site of great natural beauty. We have to take care of the planet. Live as part of it.

The alarm goes off. Time’s up. I need to get back to work. I gather up the paper. The bridge, and the tower, and the statues and the squares. None of them are what Tempest wants. They're an imaginary world, one that can’t exist. I stuff them in by bag and the graphite in my pocket and pick up the pad where the open script is waiting. A moment synchs me with the others back in Landing and I get to editing.

The rain falls down around the canopy and raises a damp smell from the forest. This one is looking pretty good. I think it might be our breakout hit.

3

Hanwen ducks into the dressing room as I approach. As I enter I see her robe is glitching.

“Something’s up with it. I rebooted but it keeps crashing.”

“Turn it off, I’ll have a look at the code.”

She makes a gesture. Hanwen vanishes and Hyuna appears, no longer august and divine hero of Tempest’s mythic history, cloaked in rainbows and jeweled with sunshine, but a harried mortal like the rest of us. I feel a little silly standing there in full regalia, so I collapse my media-managing getup back into my uniform.

“You’re still wearing that?”

“Haven’t had time to change.”

“Do it now, we’ll look at the code after. We’ll get an old Hanwen from backup if we run out of time. But why is it only glitching now?”

As I change I watch her sitting in front of the computer, poring over the code. She’s full Yellow now, idol-perfect. Like all the heroes Hanwen has many transformations, so under the goddess there’s just short dark hair and a white leotard. It’s a good look for her. Better than the confectionery we hide under on stage.

I lean over her chair and peer at the screen. Her hair smells like the forest. Maybe when I’m good enough I can change fashions and build that tower in the trees for us. When I look at the screen and run through the checklist it doesn’t take long to see the problem.

“There,” I point. “That’s not compatible.”

“Oh, duh. I must have left it toggled from when I was doing the crowd.” She flips it back, then twists her head to look at me. “Hey-“

I slip my hands over hers and my lips over hers and she tastes, for a long and perfect moment, better than anything has ever tasted. But no matter how good it tastes it isn’t enough to make up for the slap and the shove.

“What the fuck?” She’s turned in the chair and staring at me, hand up protectively. In the too-long quiet we can hear the crowd chattering.

Tamra calls through the door. “We’re starting in ten, and fuck me there’s a lot of them. If you’re ready get out here.”

Hyuna jabs the air, fumbles once, then gets it right and Hanwen returns, serene. “This never happened.”

But it did.

V

and the forest passes below coming closer as we fall from sky green scrolling past and mountains in the distance and there on the horizon the gleam of sun on a lake of silicon coming closer and closer for the last time it shimmers and its froth and its droplets and its rooves and buildings covered in windows and panels that drink the sun and they’re all so ugly but theyre home as the ship lands in the square and I walk out into the sun to where mum and mum and mums are like they were the last time but this is the last time so its not like the last time where they beamed smiles at my success but even though they dont do that this time they still say welcome home since theres nothing else they can do and I guess it is home for a moment but theyll never stop saying it not even when I see them again in ten years but there’s betrayal I can see it in glances as we head back to the old house I was the golden girl but not any more but what did they expect if you make me special Ill go and be special and you bullshit in civics about the problems with the magnates theyre your problems too and if you want to say they arent then dont look at me like Im betraying you and you especially Kara you did it too when Tempest needed you more than it needs me and Im not even in the army like you were worried and heres the old house and the old hook for my cloak and the old stairs and its so much better without looking through lace you have no taste at all and it’s been a long day and a long trip so I head up to my old room where my old bed is still there and made fresh and its kick kick kick off my shoes and suit and shirt and between the covers where I stretch out like I used to since its for the last time after all and its warm and quiet after the ports and the planes and Im back there tomorrow to the port and then the port and then the ship and two weeks in a can and Ive not done it before I hope dont do something stupid or throw up but you know that doesnt happen and you already prepped and just enjoy the warm cocoon and the quiet and the soft patter of rain starting and the forest will smell tomorrow when I wake up from sleep