Calamity and Her Whims, Chapter 6

Eleanor fully hit the ground when the train jostled her around as they came to a complete stop. “Ow!” she groaned, raising her head off the floor and rubbing the side of it. “That hurt.” Thankfully, living on a remote space rock made her tough against most injuries. That didn’t stop her from bruising, though.

Trolley flipped down in front of her friend’s table with a frown. “I’m sorry!” she said, “There was a mistake in the control room. I believe the conductor almost skipped over this stop. I had to override his control and take command and try to halt ASAP and– Oh, it was a mess! Please, direct your blame to me. I should’ve seen this coming,” she sighed sorrowfully.

“Why would the conductor want to skip a stop?” Taylor mumbled to himself.

Sophia’s expression went sour. “I think I know why,” she whispered. When Eleanor and Taylor probed her for more questions, she started kneading her skirt. “You saw him, didn’t you? Rough, shell-shocked… He might still have some grudges about the war.”

Eleanor and Taylor both looked down at the floor. Agreement was universal. It felt as if even the babies in the creche knew the sad reality. The door’s to the children’s creche opened to an impatient audience.

A tall woman in a tight pencil skirt and lab coat walked in with a mean glare in her eyes. A few kids even hid away behind bookshelves to avoid her gaze. Her hair was mostly black, apart from the streaks of gray throughout all of her roots. At her feet stood three children. They all had brightly colored hair.

A young girl, perhaps the same age as Taylor, with baby blue hair had scales growing in place of rambunctious cuts and scrapes was on the woman’s right. A teen with white hair, who looked a year or so older than Sophia, with bright yellow eyes and talon-like claws on their feet and hands. Finally, hiding behind the scientist was a little boy with long, floppy ears. He had a custom pair of headphones over his elf ears. He briefly peaked out from behind her, only to hide again.

Each wore a school uniform, but there were slight modifications to all of them. Some were as simple as cutting out the pants so talons wouldn’t be disturbed, while the girl with scales had bulky, wooly leg warmers and a sweater. Possibly to protect her from herself. From the scales growing all over her cheeks and fingers that grew in place of cuts and bruises, it seemed like she was one for getting in trouble.

There was also a special emblem on their sleeves. Eleanor had to squint to read to see it, but after her eyes made it past the logo of a double helix, she could read the words: Property of Genetech.

Trolley went on with her introduction, when suddenly her screen shut off. One of the boys playing with dolls was the only one with enough confidence to go up to the A.I., poking her screen as the Genetech kids stared.

Trolley’s screen folded back into the ceiling and the conductor ran in, panting as he came to a stop. The Genetech children instantly brightened while the others in the creche pulled back and held onto each other. Scary kids, scary scientist lady, and the scary conductor made even the babies confused and on edge. “Silver? Tilly? You’re here?” he said, his gruff voice turned soft.

The teen with eagle eyes ran into the conductor’s arms and the girl with scales was jumping around him. “Constance! You’re the conductor?” the teen with feathers poking out from their cheeks said, beaming. The small boy with elf ears was too shy to approach, instead clinging harder to the scientist.

Taylor recoiled into his sister’s side, grasping the front of her shirt and hiding under her arm. “Who are those kids?”

Sophia glanced at Eleanor, just as bewildered as Taylor, then tried to keep a smile. Ellie could read the worry in it. “I dunno. Should we invite them over? They’re probably just as scared as we are!” she said, shaking her brother’s shoulder, “That scaly girl looks about your age, right? She might be in your classes! You should ask if she’s eight, like you.”

Eleanor was easily impressed by how well Sophia could handle a situation with her anxious little brother. There was a weird sort of sadness she felt. Eleanor never had an older sister, so she could miss what she didn’t know, but a strange emptiness filled her chest. Maybe she just needed to see Daddy again. He left early in the morning and Eleanor had to eat breakfast alone. It was certainly something new. Someone familiar would definitely be a comfort.

Before she could overhear anymore of Sophia, Eleanor took a peek outside. It was another piece of blown off planet, just like her own countryside chunk. From what she remembered, multiple intense bombings made parts of the planet split off. To everyone’s relief, it never hit any major cities. Terrorists never made it that far. They found one with a functional house and farm on it, the two moved on it just before it splintered off, and they’d been cut off from Iris ever since. All that kept the planet chunks from leaving the Iris belt was a weak gravity field and a brand new railway system.

This one was much smaller than Eleanor’s. This one she could see the end of from the train. The building in the dead center didn’t waste any time taking up all the space the rock had to offer. There were only a few patches of grass on the side. A tall and large compound sat with the words GENETECH LABS plastered on it. It was made with a minimalistic design and Eleanor couldn’t see any windows from this angle. The only sign of life was a garden on the roof labeled Hydroponics.

“What is this place?” Eleanor asked, whispering as the conductor and ‘property of genetech’ spoke about how they’d been holding up.

Sophia’s brow furrowed and she put a finger over her mouth, then tilted her head at Taylor. It was obvious that he had caught on to his sister trying to hide something, but he decided against saying anything. Taylor had long gotten used to being treated as a normal, dumb kid by Sophia. She only spoke truthfully to people she saw on her level, such as Eleanor. Even then, she still sugarcoated everything because of a one-year difference. Maybe eleven and twelve were a bigger age gap than Taylor realized.

“Oh, the conductor’s leaving. Why don’t you invite those kids to our table? They look lonely!” Just like that, Taylor grumbled and made his way over to the Genetech kids. Each gave him a cautious look as he introduced himself.

“Are you gonna answer my question now?” Eleanor murmured, scooting closer to her now that Taylor was gone.

“Yeah,” she said, her tone losing its fluff and care. “You remember a bit of the war, right?”

Eleanor shrugged, “I don’t remember what it was about, actually. I left Iris when I was three.”

“Well, basically, now that Earthlings are allowed on Iris, they found out that Genetech isn’t as illegal as it is there. So they were getting angry at Genetech because they’ve been allowed to do a lot more alterations and make all these huge advances in science! Earth people called it inhumane and all this stuff, but nobody took it seriously until people found out they’d been testing out their new DNA alters on completely artificial people!”

Eleanor gasped quietly, secretly looking over at the Property of Genetech. “No way.”

Sophia nodded frantically, as if this were nothing but gossip. “Yes way! Like, there was no need for pregnancy or anything. Artificially made and developed from the embryo! I heard my mom talk about it all the time. The science of it all is insane!” The two leaned in closer to each other, talking as fast as they could to avoid the rapidly approaching Genetech kids. “So everyone started arguing over the ethics and if they were even human, some defending Genetech and others saying the practice should be abolished, and then all the fighting started, and Genetech made even more artificial kids made for just for fighting in the war and…” Sophia saw as Taylor held the scaly girl’s hand, bringing her over to the table with a shy smile. 

“Well, here we are. I don’t know what those kids are classified as now. It still says that they’re property…” Eleanor tried to smile as the artificial group of kids sat down on the cushioned couch dug into the floor. The teen with eagle eyes and talon sat last, careful not to scratch the round table. “The war only ended a few months ago, right? Maybe they’re just under Genetech’s care? They have that scary science lady following them, so obviously they have caretakers now. Besides, they’re going to real school now, right? That’s good, too.”

Sophia sighed, “I hope you’re right.”

Eleanor couldn’t think of anything to say, and they both quickly turned to the new kids at their table. “Hi!” the scaled girl with blue hair exclaimed. She reached across the table with a beaming grin and an open hand. “I’m Reptile, but all my friends call me Tilly!” Her hands were scarred. Thick armored scales grew in. Even Eleanor could spot the irritated skin as scales poked from her fingers and hands. Once hands were shaken, she immediately sat right next to Taylor. He smiled faintly.

Sophia put the mask of the devoted sister back on almost instantly. “Hi, Tilly! It’s nice to meet you! And you must be Silver, right?”

The teen played with some of the feathers that jutted out from behind their ears. “Yeah. That’s me.” Even as the train started blasting off to their next stop, Silver refused to grab onto anything. They kept their talons under the table, shy at every mention.

“I think they’re neat,” Eleanor said. “Sucks you can’t fly, though.”

Silver’s shoulders slowly untensed themselves. “Yeah,” they chuckled, “That’s what I said!”

“And you?” Taylor said, gazing intently at the boy with pink hair and headphones.

He instinctively covered his ears, despite covers already being in place. He looked even younger than Taylor. Tilly and Silver both looked at him, only for the boy to sink under the table. “We dunno, actually. He can’t talk.”

The scientist slowly made her way over to the kids, taking her spot behind a bookshelf the group could just barely see over. “He can talk,” she added. She opened her palm and, from a little crystal implanted into it, a holoscreen appeared. She tapped and wrote with her stylus diligently. Eleanor could only read a few scribbles on it, but it was a document about 'a subject’s integration.' Whatever that meant. “He simply refuses to talk,” she continued. Sophia smiled softly at the boy, trying to calm him down. “We think the sound of himself talking is too loud for him,” the scientist concluded

Tilly groaned dramatically, “We know, Miss Instance. But he never talks so why even say that he can?”

“There’s a difference between choosing muteness and being born with it. You’d know that if you attended any of my Life Science classes,” she said. If looks could kill, Instance would have slaughtered Tilly by now.

“But classes are boring! I wanna play outside and talk to people and do pushups and stuff! You can learn outside, too!” Tilly argued. Taylor was quick to take her side, pushing for learning in ways outside of classes.

Silver sighed. “Get used to this. Tilly used to try and run up walls before we were sent to the front lines.”

Sophia and Taylor simply giggled along with them. Eleanor was the only one who looked mournfully out the window, back into the abyss of space. It seemed the Conductor lightened up on his rough start of the train. He did have a sweet spot for their new friends, the child soldiers.

All this time, her home had been going through that much? So much fighting and destruction that they made artificial child soldiers? She missed out on all this technology, all this suffering, and she had been whining about how sucky homeschooling was! Well, homeschool did suck, but that wasn’t the point! She had so much– a treehouse, a dad who would die for her, games, chores, clean clothes– and yet she complained!

Eleanor gripped the hem of her skirt tightly, turning her knuckles pale. Idle conversation between the group passed with ease, but Eleanor didn’t step into it. She’d already met enough people and her head was filled with enough thoughts.

“Alright kids!” Trolley cheered, flipping back down as if nothing ever happened. “Next stop: Retina!”