Chapter 3
When I emerged onto the roof the cold Lior air greeted me. I briefly regretted not getting my coat from my locker, since my hoodie was barely enough protection from the stinging winds. You’d think I’d learned my lesson. Lior had only been terraformed over the last 60 years, and the climate had only been suitable for sustaining life for the past 45 years. Global temperatures were still rising, but for now, living around the equator still saw a sun dawn over thinly frozen water every morning. The sun high over my head cast a small shadow around my feet. The view still amazed me. The high rising buildings around the school dwarfed the small complex, a testament to humanity’s current Golden Age, as we revolved around a yellow star. I’d seen some images on the LinkWeb, showing Lior at night from high above as a fairly barren planet, and a thin line of glowing lights all around the equator, broken only by the occasional frozen lake.
“Hey, Vorn!” Tonk’s voice reached from the edge of the building where he sat with Lian and Rond. As I approached them and sat on one of the benches with them, Rond gave me a friendly upwards nod, and Lian briefly interrupted her rant to greet me.
“Mornin’, Vorn”, she spoke with her usual chipper attitude, beaming a smile at me. She was cute, in a way one might find a kitten cute. I’d say she seemed Hispanic, if humanity had not mixed and intertwined enough to mostly make such distinctions archaic. Straight oak hair to her shoulders, round brown eyes and a small mouth that talked way too much without actually saying anything. I sometimes pitied Rond for that. “So why is it that after all that time and money, they still don’t have the PDE up and running? I still have power outages now and then. What is this, the pioneering age?”
Rond seemed to suppress a sigh at that. He’d been going out with Lian since she came to Lior half a year ago, and while they had come to the point in their relationship where they had the occasional spat, they were still definitely in love. Despite her verbal diarrhea on repeating topics and despite his seeming lack of ambition and heavy drawling accent. Rond was slightly pudgy, but it fit his large posture. He had a permanent 5 o’clock shadow on the lower half of his face and friendly eyes. They seemed right for each other.
“I told you sweetie, the PDE takes time to make. A lot of it. Stars are huge y’know. Besides, surface-based power-plants are still necessary so long as it’s freezing out here. Next time there’s a power outage, you can just crash at my place. Da won’t mind, y’know.”
Lian broke out a wicked smile at that, and I turned to Tonk before I was forced to hear -and yeah, envy- their relationship talk. “Say Red, made up your mind yet for what you’re gonna do after graduation?”
Tonk seemed glad for the distraction, as Lian and Rond had devolved into discussing possible ‘activities’ during a power outage. Too private. “Nah, not yet. Figured hosting might be nice, bringing some humanity to the service industry. Better and easier than managing AIs at least, though the pay is likely shit unless people really enjoy my company. But who needs money anyways. How ‘bout you, big guy?”
I’d asked myself the same question quite a few times. Officially, hybrids were equals to humans, but there was no ignoring our obvious physical differences. The service industry was not really for my kind, since a 7.5ft tall warrior would hardly rhyme with 'hospitality'. The only ‘services’ some pervs sought in hybrids was due to some sexual fantasy about massive size differences. Though my mom oddly enough managed to be a tour guide for people looking to buy property on Lior. Lior was booming, and would be a great place to live and raise children when the Partial Dyson Engine was running and the climate had grown more comfortable. And right now property was still cheap. A once in a lifetime opportunity! Or so she claimed. My dad managed and ‘raised’ medical AIs. Profitable, but too little contact with organic lifeforms for my taste.
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“I’m thinking of joining the Frontier Mission. I know it can be dangerous, but if there’s one thing pretty advanced on Lior, it’s the Frontier. Mostly because it's not exactly on Lior. And some Hybrid muscle is always welcome, I’ve heard. Besides, I think it’s pretty cool to explore unknown worlds, discover new species. Space still has so many different images to see that telescopes simply cannot capture.”
Tonk thought of what I said, touching his hair again. An odd tic of his. “It does sound pretty damn awesome, but some Missions never return. What are you gonna tell your parents? ‘Hey mom and dad, I’m just gonna go to unknown space and maybe you’ll see me again in ten years, maybe never. Toodles!’ You think they’ll be okay with that?"
I snorted at that, “You know how my parents are, they’re even more driven to doing exciting new stuff than I am. My dad actually suggested it. I think they’d be proud to have a son who might get the chance to do what we were made to do. Bash in alien threats. If there are any.”
Tonk tilted his head and looked at me with confusion. “Your parents would be fine with you dying?”
“Of course not!” I said with some exasperation. “But we were literally made for war. There is this itch deep inside of us, that we never get to scratch, and those of us that try by fighting others meet with the Chaining Frequency.” I looked down into Tonk's eyes. “My parent would not want me to die, but if I get to scratch that itch that has been nagging at my parents since their birth, they would be happy for me.” I looked out at the city around us. ”It’s a weird kind of love, really. My grandpa never shut up about his war stories. He’d tell about some of the most horrific battles, and made them seem grand. I think he exaggerated some of the stuff he could do to impress his only grandson. I think he enjoyed that war. Except for Attion, he didn’t talk about that”, I drifted off.
The diversion of Attion was a large-scale invasion of T.O.R.I.’s home planet’s moon. A way to draw in as many forces from the planet itself as possible. It was instrumental in winning the war, but also where the greatest losses of Hybrid forces were suffered of the entire campaign. Almost two million dead in the span of three days. A nightmare, even by Hybrid accounts.
We let the matter rest there for now. Lian and Rond had stopped their lovey-dovey dialogue and joined in a conversation and banter about a lot of nothing, until the low hum of the buzzer signaled the end of recess.
That night, I found myself in bed looking up application forms for the Frontier Mission on the LinkWeb, having excited myself for the prospect of becoming a space explorer. Were I to actually sign up, my life would take an all new direction. On one hand, I would no longer be confined to a single planet. On the other hand, starting a functional family would be damn near impossible if I was out in deep space most of the time. Besides, I would become an adult away from home. My eighteenth birthday was fast approaching, but not fast enough to celebrate it on Lior and board the next academy ship that would leave. And my eighteenth birthday would be somewhat special. Even more special than a human's. I would be an adult, a warrior. That would mean gaining the right to a mark.
The mark was an odd custom, one of very few specific to hybrids. It had started near the end of the war that birthed us. My grandfather would sometimes claim that his team and their heroic feats had started the custom, but when pressured on details he would skirt around the meat of the matter. I liked his stories, but one could season a family's dinner with the grains of salt I had needed to listen to him. Official records stated the marks had spread too quickly to define a source.
Nowadays, it could be found on the cheek of every adult hybrid, though it was incredibly plain. My grandfather and his fellows had invented the right to update the mark for every achievement, mostly achievements related to warfare, but since those were no longer obtainable after the war, people stuck to only marking their greatest milestones in life. A modification for marriage, having your first child, laying down one's arms for the final time -retiring really-, and so on. The LinkWeb dedicated an entire page to it in its library.
Using gestures, I kept navigating the Frontier Mission's Link, only growing more and more excited for the prospect of joining. I turned off the LinkNav on my ceiling, and pulled my bedsheets further up to cover myself. As I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, I made my decision. Then dreams overcame me quickly.