She was smiling, but the smile looked pasted on. Not quite fake, but not happy, or pleased either. Her stride - short, mincing steps that propelled her faster than seemed possible – carried her through the restaurant towards the counter at the back of the dining room.

She paused at the counter as though she was ready to pay for her meal, but reached across and flipped over a book. She ran her manicured finger down one side of the handwritten page, then the other. She shook her head, bouncing the piled, coiled braids of rust-colored hair, then walked around the counter and through the left side of the double swinging doors behind.

She walked through the kitchen, pausing to ask her husband where his daughter was. He slid the sauté pan off the fire, and turned to face her, smiling – his smile was warm and genuine.

“You know,” he said, bending to give her a brief kiss on her cheek. He didn’t want to muss her perfectly applied lipstick.

She shook her head again, and headed to the stairs on the right side of the kitchen. She wasn’t mad. Just annoyed. The girl was sixteen! She should be able to keep a simple schedule.

“Why are you always up here?” dressed in form-fitting black slacks, ruffled blouse, and black tennis shoes, she looked very out of place on the roof of a narrow three-story brownstone in Brooklyn, New York.

“Homework,” Danica said simply.

“It doesn’t look like it!”

The young girl sat up from the folding canvas and twine zero G chair, and swung her hazel eyes to meet her mom’s brown ones. She tapped her temple.

“Oh, so your interface can help you with your homework?” her mom’s voice was tinged with sarcasm. “Can it help you keep a schedule, too?”

“I’m sorry, momma,” Danica cast her eyes down. She had seen the notification, but was really wrapped up in her research paper. It was only her second paper since she entered Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn.

“That’s alright,” mom’s tone softened. She had a hard time staying upset with the girl. She did so well at everything else. “Do you think you can help out now?”

“Yeah, OK.” She said, standing. “Let me get changed.”

She headed towards the stairs down to their apartment, but not before looking up one last time.

Danica Calland was always looking up.

It’s not that she was in love with the skyline (although she did think some of the architecture was pretty), treetops, birds, the sky, moon, or the stars. She simply was not truly happy in her young life on the ground in Brooklyn.

She had no real reason to be unhappy, she mused as she stepped down the stairs. Maybe her scars… but, no. That was surely part of it, sure, but she’d grown accustomed to the furtive glances and rude stares.

After all, her parents rented and operated a small family restaurant, so she was never hungry. The restaurant did well enough that the family always seemed to scrape by. Bills were paid, if occasionally a bit late. Everyone was clothed, even if they were used and not the latest fashion. Everyone was sheltered, even if they were crowded – all five of them – into a two bedroom apartment above the restaurant.

And, she was never bored. To be honest, she would have really appreciated some boredom. Between college, martial arts and yoga, the restaurant, and home, there was rarely any free time. She was often tasked to work in the restaurant’s kitchen after school – usually peeling vegetables or washing dishes, and once she was allowed to serve tables and keep the tips. She was an outstanding student in school and even enjoyed most of the work assigned. As the eldest of three children, she was often ‘in charge’ of her slightly younger sister and much younger brother at home when her parents were working.

She did have some, perhaps, lesser reasons to be unhappy.

She was quite conscious of her appearance. A mass of twisting scar tissue stretched from her temple to her thigh along her right side. The scars were from an unfortunate accident when she was 11. Being used to the odd looks didn't mean she welcomed them. She often replayed the whole scene in her head.

She had graduated from the sixth grade with honors. In fact, her marks in the end of year testing were so high, the school system promoted her directly to the 10th grade! She had used her interface several times on the way home to check the chip encoded with the information. After the news had finally sunk in, she was so excited she rushed through the docks at the back of the restaurant, and barged into the kitchen. As she passed the fryers to find her father to share her news, she bumped into a pan filled with ice and water, setting it to slowly spinning on its dented bottom. She didn’t even notice that it was rocking, inching closer to the vat of hot oil.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

She found her father working on the flattop across the aisle from the fryer, and, tugging on his sleeve to get his attention, began to babble about her graduation and promotion. She was almost incoherent with excitement, and as her father, smiling, tried to calm her down to better understand her, the ice and water reached the edge of the opposite counter and slid into the nearly boiling oil.

Instantly, a geyser of superheated steam mixed with hot oil sprayed the side of her body, and she screamed. Her father dropped everything and pulled her away from the danger zone while using his interface to dial for emergency services.

Even as he was pulling her to safety, her interface had kicked in, telling her body to produce endorphins to help with the pain, and adrenaline to stave off shock. Additional hormones were generated to assist in healing.

But the damage was done.

The injuries were mostly superficial. No problems with her eyes, nose, or mouth. Minor surgery was needed to correct the damage to her ear – mostly cosmetic – but her hearing was unaffected. She did have to go through months of physical therapy to stretch the scar tissue and allow full range of motion in her arm, leg, and jaw. There was also an undetectable issue with her interface.

Yes, the damage to her body was for the more part superficial. The damage to her psyche was much, much worse.

Fortunately, her physical therapy was based in a large part on martial arts and yoga. While the fluid body movements and stretching helped her not only recover from the tightening scars, the meditation and concentration helped her mental state. That she could now defend herself was just a bonus. She had almost made it to black belt by the time her physical therapy was over.

Still, she felt ostracized by the other students at school when she was finally able to return… as though she had no friends. Not that she would have had the time to be with any friends.

Part of that was, she felt, the scars. They put people off. She felt ugly. If she’d had the courage to ask anyone, they’d have told her otherwise. She was, in fact, beautiful when one looked past the scars. Her physique, toned, lithe, and muscular. Her bearing, graceful. Big eyes that shaded from green to hazel – the right with the telltale ring of light from the interface – were always watching, looking for something. The incident with the ice and oil had taught her to always be aware of her surroundings.

Part of it was her age. Now that schools had restarted, she found she was several years younger than any of the other students. With her rapid promotion there came a reputation. She was seen as aloof and distant. Maybe even a little stuck up. Her peers – she still thought of them as peers even though everyone was at least three to four years older than she was – thought she thought she was better than them.

Finally, part of it was her intelligence. Being younger, and being hospitalized for a while, hadn’t slowed her down. She read most of the course material for her first semester while healing and was already ahead when school started.

The extra schoolwork and time spent in the gym, sparring and practicing her forms did get her out of the kitchen sometimes, but offered her no additional free time.

Enough musing, she thought as she stripped down to her bra, panties, and socks in preparation to dress in the kitchen whites. She had work to do!

Because she got there late, there was already a large pile of pots and pans at the dishwashing station. She’d have preferred peeling veggies, but today’s menu didn’t call for many of those. Tonight’s menu consisted of shrimp and grits – they used polenta instead of regular grits – or escargot on a bed of lettuce with a garlic vinaigrette, garlic toast, and a garlic butter dipping sauce.

She grinned to herself. Patrons ordering that meal wouldn’t have to worry about vampires tonight!

Sigh. She shrugged into the heavy clear plastic apron and started to spray off the dishes. She knew there would be a lot of them. There always were when the restaurant served escargot, and she hated the little pans her dad used to cook the snails. So fiddly to wash!

As she was spraying, she again let her mind wander. She remembered the first time she’d encountered the French delicacy. She’d been disgusted until her mom had shut her up by poking a snail dripping in garlic butter into her mouth mid rant. She understood then that the chewy morsel wasn’t the prize… it was the garlic butter!

“Dani,” her father came up behind her, towering over her 165 centimeter frame by at least 20 centimeters. She put the sprayer down and turned to return the smile she knew she’d find. “You need to keep your schedule here at home, too.”

He wasn't mad, but she knew he had to take a side. And, he was right. Even if it was college, now, she needed to focus. Flights of fancy and daydreams would get her no where.

“Yeah, I know…” she trailed off. “I’m trying.”

She wanted to get a hug, and tell him all about what she was learning, where she was going, what she was planning. She didn’t. In her head, a voice chided her for still acting like she was 12, seeking parental approval for a path they’d already spoken out against. Instead, she put on a wan smile and picked the sprayer back up after taking the pan her dad held out to her.

After dinner service was complete, and the dishes all finished she sought out her parents to get permission to head upstairs. They were finishing up in the kitchen, using greasy grill blocks powered by pure elbow grease to polish the flattop, but she refused to enter. Standing at the entry, she called out.

“I think I’m done. Can I head up?”

“Let me check, little one,” the nickname was a family joke. Danica had passed her mother’s 152 centimeter height years ago.

Her mom came out of the kitchen, and inspected the rack of cooking vessels, the cutlery trays, and stacks of plain white plates and bowls. She found nothing wrong and, pausing for a cursory hug, let Danica go.

The young woman stripped off the plastic apron and hung it back above the dishwashing machine, giving it a quick spray before heading to the stairs.

“Thanks, mom,” she called over her shoulder as she began to climb. “I’ll do better tomorrow.”

If her mother replied, she didn’t hear it. She was already headed for the roof. She hoped the night sky would offer a better view.

She was hoping for a glimpse of the Pleiades.