part0005

Alex couldn't delay any longer. The United States government was planning to seize their facility in the interest of national security. Alex expected troops to arrive by August 9th. The officials making the decisions hadn't passed word to the military yet because they didn't want Alex to find out about it until it was too late, lest she manage another maneuver like her battery sale to Hamasaki Corporation.

Alex reviewed the message about to be sent to all the employees:

"We will have an all hands meeting starting next week on August 3rd. Attendance is mandatory. I realize this interferes with several people's vacations, but we chose the date based on the least number of people that would be impacted. The meeting will last through the week. Family members living with employees should also attend as the last day will be a party. If scheduling conflicts impact you financially, pass receipts and explanations to the finance department and you will be reimbursed. We will be reviewing things like the vegetarian menu and employee residence size, as well as discussing our future products and deployment schedule. We will also announce some new technology that everyone will have the opportunity to try. During the meeting, no outside communication will be allowed to prevent any accidental propagation of company secrets prior to the August 5th launch. Both the Pacific and Atlanta facilities and residences will be closed down on July 29th. Please either bring your pets or make sure they have enough food and water to live unattended for a week - we're going to secure facilities with a full SEL shield so security personnel can also attend the meeting."

Alex hit send. The announcement went out to employees, signed by both Alex and Brian. If people chose to read that "launch" as "product launch", she wouldn't correct them .

Over the next week, Alex and Brian, with the help of human resources, planned out meal schedules and who would be working when. Alex arranged continued shipment of products on schedule through the week; Sal's brother, Mario, would take care of that. Alex and Brian planned several special security teams and announced that a random selection of people would be chosen to help present the new technology deployment and those chosen would be notified on the morning of their meeting.

Alex sent Milo to invite Soaring Eagle's son and two guests of his choice to attend the entire meeting and provide their input on the future of the land. Alex then gave Lucas several possible desert designs for the empty space that was going to replace their facility. Lucas would work with the Indians because he could wield the picobots to create whatever they wanted if it was possible.

On July 30th, employees and their families started arriving from Atlanta and the Pacific facility and settled into the temporary SEL housing. Everyone had been told to report to the stadium at 9 a.m. on the morning of the 3rd. No one noticed the subtle extra weight they seemed to be carrying - a side effect of the slightly dense matter underneath the entire complex, except for a few people who liked to stand on their scale each morning, and they'd just wonder how they'd managed to gain ten pounds overnight.

While waiting for the meeting day, sports games and movies alternated in the stadium, and people toured the habitats, socialized, and speculated. Spirits were high. Employees had a schedule that gave them a time-slot for minimum necessary duties. People with first aid and medical experience were 'on call'. Security personnel had shifts. Food and farm workers got allocated random people to help from the rest of the labor pool. No one except Alex, Brian, and Lucas had extended duties that would require more than six hours per day.

On the evening of August 2nd, just after sunset, Alex left the complex. It was time to start. Her heart continued to beat anxiously. So much depended on the next couple of days. This step was the easiest. She drove the little sedan the short distance to the small town just opposite the reservation from her own complex. The street address was easy to find, even without the help of the GPS unit one of the security guards had programmed for her.

Alex climbed out of the vehicle and looked around. The house was small, probably only two bedrooms, kitchen, living room, and family room. No garage. It was simple, but well-maintained. No extravagances. A tricycle, a wagon, and two bicycles were parked by the car. The cactus garden contained transplanted local plants.

Alex peered down at her outfit, smoothing out the wrinkles in the light earth-tone jumpsuit, although she knew no one would notice any wrinkles. The owner of this house, Bill Stateman, wouldn't care. He may have been a reporter, but he was a fair one - a down-to-earth, solid, no-frills reporter (which was likely why he was still just a small-town news man; not enough scare-mongering). Nor would his family care. Alex supposed she could have her picobots fix her outfit to pristine condition. She wasn't wearing any makeup. She was done with that, although her hair was still brown. She would let it grow out blond.

Alex glanced back at her legacy car. The technology felt so repulsive now - spewing pollutants both in power source and emission, hazardous by its lack of automation and picobot protection. This would be the last time Alex would be in a car like this for a long time. Even if the government tolerated their departure, they wouldn't overlook Alex's part in it.

Alex realized she was stalling. Don't think. Just do. She strode over to the doorbell and rang it.

"Honey, are we expecting anyone?" Bill's wife's voice carried, but not the answer.

After a moment, Bill Stateman answered. He'd obviously just pulled his shirt on. The TV in the background was playing a children's cartoon. Water from a kitchen sink in the adjacent room shut off and silverware rattled briefly. He looked at Alex's jumpsuit and made the connection to Green World.

"Sir," Alex began, "I wonder if I might have a few moments of your time this evening?" Her voice triggered his recognition.

Bill nodded and gestured Alex in, holding the door for her, only slightly wide-eyed.

Alex waited for him to find his words again. She'd been wrong about the house. The wall between the living room and family room had been knocked out to make one large family room. It was a comfortable room, messy with some toys, books, and newspapers, but it was clean. The older computer in the corner was off. His young daughter was seated on the sofa.

"Honey, who is it?" His wife, Tara, came in from the archway to the kitchen.

Bill introduced Alex, and after a heartbeat, Tara welcomed Alex to her house. Then she moved to the TV and shut it off, saying, "I'll bring some tea in a moment. Come on, Sweet Pea, time to get ready for bed. Your daddy has a visitor he needs to talk to." It spoke well of their parenting that the girl didn't cry or whine.

"Please, have a seat." Bill gestured at the sofa. He pulled the chair over from the little computer desk so he could sit facing Alex. "I thought you avoided the press. To what do I owe this honor?"

"Thank you." Alex sat, leaning back, her body language carefully relaxed. "Our company all-hands meeting is taking place over the next three days." His eyebrow went up. Alex wasn't sure how closely he followed their company activities. After his initial coverage of the company when they'd first arrived, he'd not done any stories on Green World or Alex. "I think," Alex paused for dramatic emphasis, "That it would be criminal if the result of that meeting were not covered."

"Aren't you supposed to be in a courtroom tomorrow?" Bill asked.

So he did follow the company news. Failure to show would result in another arrest warrant. Criminal indeed. "Yes, but I'm sending lawyers instead. I'm sure the judge will be greatly entertained." Alex's directive to Luciano Marino's law team was explicit: tie up the case for 4 days. Shuffle paperwork, file countersuits, pontificate, cite obscure cases. Threaten to break the judge's knees only if absolutely necessary.

"You know I report things as I see them?" Bill said.

"I do. I particularly liked your coverage of the cactus contest at this year's county fair." His eyes squinted as he tried to decide if Alex was serious. "The puns made me laugh."

"I can't tell you what we are meeting about. Company confidential. Besides, our CEO does press releases, not me." Alex was cheered by that thought. How much of the aftermath from this could she foist off on Brian? She silently reprimanded herself for such an unworthy, mean thought.

Luckily, Bill couldn't read her mind and replied to her comment about not doing press releases. "So I've noticed. Is Green World announcing another product?"

"My employees are going to discuss it and make a decision. Just observe. Report if you think it's newsworthy. Report whatever you choose to. Good. Bad. It won't matter, although I'd personally prefer a positive angle obviously."

Bill's daughter came running in, giggling, wearing sparkly pink pajamas. "Kiss goodnight, Daddy?" She leapt into his arms for a hug. A sharp wave of sadness and jealousy startled Alex, a vision of a family she'd never had, wouldn't ever have. It was a little disorienting and unexpected.

The girl giggled again and squirmed down, stood a moment looking at Alex, as if unsure to include her. "Good night," Alex said to her.

The girl tilted her head and said, "You're the lady on TV. You make the batteries."

"Daddy says you're going out of biz-ness 'cause people don't like you."

Tara arrived just in time to hear this. She winced. "I'm so sorry."

Alex shrugged and laughed. "It's ok. Your daddy is a very smart man. I've certainly made some people very unhappy because my stuff is better than their stuff." Alex reached into her pocket and took out a SEL card. It was semitransparent, about the size of a credit card, with a finger sized white circle on it. "Here. I'll give you something for your honesty."

The girl glanced at her parents, who nodded permission. "What is it? "

"A park pass. Hold the card on the circle and say your full name." She did. "That will let you and your Mommy and Daddy and two other people visit the new park we are building."

"Will there be a playground there?" the girl bubbled.

Alex smiled at her. "I'm not sure yet. It depends on what the Indians decide."

The girl stared dubiously at the card that now displayed her name.

Alex said, "Your Mommy and Daddy can help you use it."

"Say thank you and go to bed," Tara directed and took the card and set it on their computer desk. "We'll put this here so it doesn't get lost, ok?"

The girl gave her dad another giggling hug, kiss, and mock-tickle, and was escorted off to bed by her mom.

"So you're building a park out at the reservation?" Bill asked.

"Yes. A thank you of sorts to the Indians for letting us use some of their land. If she loses the card, she can just go get another one at the park office. Her name will be on the list."

"Ah. You realize that bribing my daughter, however appreciated, is not going to make me report favorably if I think your company or you is doing something wrong?"

Alex nodded. "I know. I've always liked the honesty in your articles." Alex took an envelope from the same pocket. "I know it's late, so I won't take up more of your evening. This has locations and times on it, as well as some suggested camera gear." Alex stood and handed him the envelope. Inside were detailed instructions for locations that would give the best angles and views of her complex lifting off into space. "I implore you, get the footage. Decide later what you want to do with it. There's only going to be this one chance."

Standing also, Bill inquired, "You aren't going to kill everyone in some demented cult move?"

Alex recalled Brian asking if she was building a company or a cult when he'd first come to Atlanta. She'd created a lifestyle and community, not a religious following. "Good grief, no. It's just another potential product launch."

"I don't do business advertising," Bill said firmly.

Alex grinned at him. "I know. Thank you for your time, Mr. Stateman. I really did enjoy your cactus article."

Alex left and drove back toward the facility. Halfway around the reservation, she stopped her car and got out to look at the stars. She inhaled the chilly air and wondered what her world would look like at the end of the week. She crouched down and put her palm flat on the hard sand, trying to feel the Earth in its entirety.

The next morning, Alex sent out the list of people needed to help present the new technology. She had them gather in one of the conference rooms. When she entered the room, they looked eager and particularly delighted to have been selected. She deployed her invisible SEL cages and sat down at the table, setting down a stack of folders.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Alex greeted them somberly, "I appreciate your coming so promptly today. I have a lot that I need to get done before the general meeting in a couple hours." She began passing out the folders. "These are your severance packages. Your families and your belongings will be waiting for you at security. I leave it to you to decide what to tell them." Inside each personalized folder was undeniable proof that they were working for other organizations, governments, or corporations, along with a check for three months' salary.

Alex stood again and left, not waiting to hear what they might say. The special security force, who'd been shown how to operate the SEL cages would float them to a SEL enclosed opaque structure adjacent to the park, where they would be kept with their families until the launch and then they would be released.

Alex took a few minutes and went through her emails and found Milo had signed yet another movie deal for her. She peered at her finances and transferred the rest of the money Green World owed her. She sent Milo a note that read, "It's time to settle accounts. Disperse all of my money. 51% to Mario for the family fund. 6% to Luciano, 5% to Irene, 2% to Rico and Emma, 1% to Alan Pickering, my high school classmate, 35% to yourself as an employee bonus. After those last couple tasks, take a vacation. I owe you, Milo. Thank you." As 2% was still $16 million, Rico and Emma weren't getting cheated. Her books and movies would still bring in a substantial income, dumping to private offshore accounts, and Alex wouldn't have any personal expenses for a long time.

Alex and Lucas met the son of Soaring Eagle and his two friends at the security gate. "Thank you for coming, Running Fox," Alex said in their native language to the son of Soaring Eagle.

All three were clad in standard American clothes - jeans and collared shirts. Only one of his friends kept his hair long, and it was pulled back into a neat ponytail. In English, Running Fox said, "Soaring Eagle told us to trust you. He was an old fool. What do you want?"

Very softly and still in his native language, Alex answered, "Soaring Eagle was my friend. I've missed his wise counsel." She was sad they didn't have a message for her. It seemed whatever Soaring Eagle had wanted to tell her was forever lost. "I would like you to attend our first meeting today to hear our plans for the future. Afterward, I would like you to work with Lucas," she nodded toward Lucas, "To decide what you want on this land when we're gone."

Running Fox snorted derisively. "You've already torn up the land and covered it with your tall buildings and pavement. You've destroyed it." English still.

Again speaking in his native tongue, Alex answered, "My buildings have been in your sunset too long. Our part of the land will be turned into a natural park and given back to your people as agreed. Your land that is part of this complex can become part of the park or whatever you'd like. This is the first half of my promise to Soaring Eagle. I will honor that promise and leave." Alex pointed to Lucas. "Lucas will help you with some possible park layouts, building designs, and trail maps."

"What is this going to cost us?" Running Fox asked caustically in English.

"Nothing more. The price was use of your land. That price has been paid. The son of Soaring Eagle and his friends are always welcome at my fire." Alex bowed her head respectfully toward them, turned, and walked away.

Behind her, Lucas said, "If you will come with me, I have rooms ready where you can store your belongings. The meeting will start soon. Have you eaten breakfast? Can I get you anything?" He was making a special effort to talk as clearly as possible given his thick accent.

Alex and Brian sat in comfortable SEL chairs in the center of the stadium, waiting for everyone to gather.

"This stadium sure is useful right now, isn't it?" Brian remarked.

Alex agreed with an amused grin and nod. "I'm certain Lucas is delighted, although he hasn't gotten to a single game, I've noticed."

"You work him too hard."

"You seem to get to most of the games," Alex observed.

"Someone has to make sure Lucas' investment is worthwhile. You let him do whatever he wants."

"You aren't going to give in on this, are you, Brian?" Alex was still trying to get him to confess to wanting the stadium himself.

"Nope." Brian was perfectly aware that she knew the truth, having heard it directly from Lucas, with whom he had dinner frequently. They'd become friends, mainly because Lucas had no interest in how the company was run and Brian had no interest in physics, and the two of them could leave work in their respective offices and discuss more important things like how they were going to find wives. Brian adjusted himself in his chair and changed the topic. "Somehow you failed to mention this job morphing into running a country when you were interviewing me."

"I couldn't; you already thought I was crazy and starting a cult. You were so jumpy and insecure back then, I was afraid you'd skip out." She also hadn't planned on it morphing into a space station; her original idea was a really luxurious Pacific island. She winked at him and then more seriously said, "Hiring you was the best decision I ever made. You did good." Alex's HUD, as well as Brian's, displayed the count of people arriving and sitting in chairs. "That's everyone," Alex said. "You ready?"

"I'm never going to be ready." Brian switched on the projector, using his own HUD. The image of the two of them appeared in four huge, perfectly clear 3D holograms above them so that their faces could be easily seen by every person in the stadium. Their voices would be amplified so they could speak normally and be heard clearly.

"Welcome, everyone," Alex said, "I appreciate you taking time out of your schedules to attend the meeting this week. As of right now, we are on an information blackout and no outside communication is allowed until the meeting is over. We have a lot to discuss and not much time to do it and we have some decisions to make as a community. Be assured, your questions will be answered as thoroughly as possible so we can make the best decisions by popular vote."

Alex waited for people to absorb that and then continued, "At the top of the announcement list, we are rolling out artificial gravity and relocating this facility into orbit around Earth, giving the locals back their horizon as well as their land."

Alex projected the 3D hologram of their facility lifting into space and waited for the din to quiet. The launch would merely be SEL pushing their habitat away from the planet, slowly, until it floated free. The lie that their gravity would be artificial was just more deception for those that were going to try to duplicate it.

Alex said, "This is perfectly safe and we'll use the SEL vehicles to commute between the space station and our Pacific island. Everyone will have the opportunity to choose which facility you want to live at and we'll adapt our business activities accordingly. Your day-to-day life won't change much at all."

That announcement took much longer for people to finish talking. Alex and Brian waited patiently.

"In addition to choosing which facility you want to live at, we have a more important decision to make as a community." Alex inhaled, fortifying herself mentally, and said, "The United States government is preparing to seize our facility and technology which will require us to disclose full specifications and will require us to become a common carrier. This will subject us to laws applying to monopolies and force us to share our technology and business with the power companies."

Alex continued, "We will no longer be able to sell our batteries overseas. The U.S. government is doing this under the pretense of using it to rebuild the country's infrastructure, but what they will be doing is using it for the military, and to force individuals to pay utility companies and taxes on electricity and vehicle power again."

Alex practiced deep breathing until the uproar died down. "We have two options to deal with this. First, we can comply. We will become just another company." She paused. "Or. We can declare our independence from the United States and become our own country." Again she waited for the noise level to reduce and then continued, "I am a patriot, but even our ancestors looked at England and said, 'The price to be part of your nation is too high.'"

"Should the majority of people choose to form a country, we will continue to operate as our company while we define our new nation. This means we will keep the U.S. dollar as our currency. Everyone who chooses to join the new nation will work for the country and continue on the same pay and work schedule. We will continue to sell our batteries worldwide and reinvest the profits into our own people. This means that everyone living at our facilities must become citizens and work for the country. We will not require anyone to renounce other citizenships."

Alex continued, still at a slow pace to give people time to adjust and absorb what she was saying. "If you choose to join the new nation, and this is entirely optional, you will not be trapped and will be able to leave any time after the initial three months. I predict it will take approximately three months to get our space station and island configured and get other countries to recognize our new nation. You will have full internet access and communication; any travel restrictions will be set by other countries, not us."

Alex exhaled and inhaled again. "In either case, I already sold our Atlanta buildings this morning and we will expand our Pacific facility into a full-size island to be our Earth-side location." Milo was also off transferring ownership of their entire desert complex land to the son of Corbin May at that very moment. It would be done before the new law got passed, throwing yet another legal wrench in the "we're here to take over your company by military action" should anything go wrong with their launch.

By the end of the very long day, the employees had voted to create their own country and about 75% of them had made the decision for which facility they wanted to live at. Several families, for personal reasons, were taking the four year pay severance package with the understanding that they could reapply for citizenship with priority in four years.

Alex began the process of sorting living quarters into "undecided, staying, relocating, or leaving" across all three facilities and planning out how the living quarters could be most efficiently rearranged the next day. Everyone from Atlanta that was staying would be relocated to new apartments. Without exception, everyone needed to be decided by the time of the launch.

People were generally in good spirits, if slightly dazed. Many would have preferred a lot more time to make the decision, but the imminent invasion didn't allow that luxury. Alex provided proof that it was coming. The carefully nurtured community and team spirit pulled people together and allowed them to think of each other as family and pioneers. Alex published a short documentary simply titled "The Reasons I Seemed Crazy" that explained some of the strategic decisions that had kept their company alive.

On the following day, everyone was issued a bracelet that activated a HUD and was trained on how to use it for communication, company server access, and "locating living quarters". Alex set her picobots to morphing and rearranging housing at all three locations. The opaque SEL enclosures hid all activity from outside observers, but many personal photos and video were taken of the apartments floating around that they would be able to share later. Alex and Brian held more answer sessions, and people planning to become citizens were grouped into teams for layout design and local rules.

If people were already trained on vehicle use, their HUD let them create and destroy a vehicle for their personal use, although no one was permitted to do that while buildings were floating around rearranging themselves. They started the first course in space-travel, where the number one rule was "never ever trust your eyes to get to a destination". Everyone was kept busy, and even the children were given a reduced gravity playground to bounce in, courtesy of Lucas.

Lucas reported that the Indians had decided on a park plan and that it was under their budget for matter use. He had completed the program necessary to create the park when they departed. Alex had Lucas take over the housing rearrangement.

Milo informed Alex that the government had indeed passed the law regarding energy and energy technology, and the government had issued orders for troops to assemble. Luciano sent a note saying she had to be at court on August 6th or the delayed arrest warrant would be issued. Alex was unconcerned.

Everyone and their housing were sorted based on their decisions, and everything inside was raised up to create two stacked massive rooms underneath the entire complex. The lower one began its conversion into a beautiful desert park, minus the plants and animals. The waiting area outside of the main complex contained moving trucks for people who had decided to leave as well as the corporate spies and their families.

The second level was made into a huge party room, half with an opaque floor and half with a gridded but mostly transparent floor so people could watch the Earth as they lifted off. On their main level, above their soil, the new building created for the space station residential units was located on the eastern side of the facility so it could catch the morning light. This had been configured into a beautiful golden castle for showmanship. They wouldn't keep it like that once they reached their destination, but everyone voted that it would make some awesome historical pictures.

Long before dawn, Alex sent the FAA a no-fly order for the space above all three facilities and the enclosures began to slowly expand upward. Alex's picobots indicated Bill Stateman had followed her instructions and had sent teams to the specified locations with cameras and video gear. Alex sent a note to Luciano to tell him where to find Bill to deliver the chilled wine and hors d'oeuvres she'd gift-wrapped so Bill could participate in the launch party.

Just before dawn, Alex dropped the opacity of their desert facility so the morning sun could glint off the castle and other buildings. Those electing to stay as well as Running Fox and his friends were allowed to depart. The distance slowly grew between the desert park and the party room, careful not to move so fast that air would pull in disruptively fast. The movement was barely noticeable.

As the morning progressed, everyone who had opted to belong to the new nation made a video and signed a document that said they were doing so voluntarily without coercion. People chose times for "departure photos" at specific altitudes, where they would be able to lay down in a specially designed "sunken" area and get their photo taken with the Earth below. Videos and photos were encouraged, although the outside communication was still blocked.

A balloon with a viewport room split off from their rising space station and headed toward the Pacific island with the people who'd chosen to live there. Residences from the other two facilities were also rising in bubbles at the same time as the desert facility, although they remained an opaque pearlescent white, looking like large balloons floating away. These continued on to their final destinations.

Alex expected Bill Stateman could actually perceive their height difference. Alex went over to the side of the party room where he might be able to see her with binoculars or his long-lens camera. She waved and toasted him with a champagne glass that only had apple juice in it; she and Lucas needed to remain sober and awake just in case there was some adjustment that needed to be made to their calculations. Bill could take all of the pictures and video he wanted of the party going on. Citizens had been warned not to wear skirts or other revealing clothing.

People who visited the party room were told that if they got dizzy or scared walking on the transparent gridded floor to simply close their eyes and raise their hands. If someone saw someone doing that, they were to escort them over to the solid floor and make sure they were ok.

Kids ran around playing. Adults could drink if they wanted to. Plenty of food was set out, buffet style, but sadly to the consternation of the majority of new citizens, still vegetarian. They would add fish and chickens for eggs as soon as the space station was able to allocate enough space. Music, games, and dancing kept the party going. People were free to go anywhere inside the facility, and could even go take a nap in their apartment if they wanted.

Motion sickness, nausea, anti-anxiety, and sleeping medications were freely dispensed by any of the first aid or medical personnel if people requested them. Counselors were on hand to relieve people's fears and any panic. Overall, people were unconcerned and unafraid, and they could always head back to the comfort of their rooms and rest if they felt overwhelmed.

At any time, people could look on their HUD to see how high up they were, what the estimated time for their arrival in stable orbit was, or an overlay of a map below them. People who had pets arriving in one of the balloons could check and see how their animals were faring. The lift was so steady that unless one stayed perfectly still and studied the Earth below, they couldn't tell they were moving.

Alex and Lucas could actually increase the speed of the SEL columns pushing their new home skyward. Lucas adjusted their gravity to compensate for the acceleration. When they reached an altitude above where most planes flew, Alex issued the release order for the spies, who'd been in a complete information blackout with their families. They found moving trucks with their personal effects ready to take them back to Las Vegas.

Alex published the videos and statements of their new citizens to the company's, no, now country's, website, along with a list of assigned telephone and internet time slots for contacting family and friends. Everyone would eventually be able to use the network freely, but this temporary restriction was necessary to prevent the network from getting overloaded all at once.

Lucas started compensating for gravity and Alex published the predetermined terms for the new park that belonged to the Indians. Any Indian could get a free lifetime park pass at the new Indian-owned office in Las Vegas. The pass would be genetically matched to the owner, and they were allowed to bring in four visitors. Local residents could also purchase annual passes with the tribal leader's approval. Other people could purchase single day-only passes.

The genetically-bound passes were SEL and would show a map of the area, informational overlays, a "this way out" arrow, and would create temporary small bathrooms with running water and trash disposal anywhere inside the park. The park itself had beautiful rock sculptures, a natural amphitheater, hiking trails, and a pretty lake for swimming. The SEL enclosure around the park maintained the temperature, weather, and atmosphere as well as security. It would let desert animals and plants in, but not people without a park pass, and no vehicles at all. In another five years, with some care, the land would be restored to pristine natural desert beauty.

Alex published Brian's pre-recorded message for the government of the United States and the rest of the world. Their long-life batteries were for the individuals of the world, not for any one country. Orders would be on hold until shipping routes were identified, and then orders would be sold to individuals in countries who formally recognized the existence of their new country and its citizens, temporarily named Colony One.

Colony One's space station would operate in the same time zone as their Pacific island. Phone numbers, with a new international calling code, were published for Colony One offices, although these would only become available as support was added internationally. Citizen communication channels were reestablished and the temporary restriction lifted, although the network was understandably overloaded.

The United States government issued arrest warrants for the terrorists and kidnappers named Alex Smith and Brian Kimberly. Alex and Brian responded by posting a picture of themselves in the specially designed sunken-photo room toasting the world with champagne with the magnificent vista of the Earth below. Lucas even temporarily adjusted the alcove's gravity so they could hold their glasses in an orientation aligned with them, not the party-room.

By 1 a.m., they were in a stable orbit, slightly farther from the Earth than the International Space Station. Majority vote declared August 5th their first national holiday - Launch Day. By early morning, the other apartments arrived in their balloons and Alex moved them inside so people could get to their pets and homes. She accomplished this by sending SEL rope to grab and reel them in and then having the station's SEL hull expand over them and absorb them. Sal's house and antiques shop arrived, but Alex didn't have time to do anything but bring them inside .

After checking everything, both Alex and Lucas were certain the orbit, gravity, SEL enclosure, atmosphere, oxygen, temperature, and environment were stable. Alex sent Lucas off to sleep and went to answer questions and help organize the groups designing their new habitat's layout. When that was done and Colony One's citizens felt empowered to make decisions and could be trusted with their future, Alex stumbled toward Sal's house in a post-adrenaline zombie haze. They'd done it. The rush was over and she could finally rest.

Alex's HUD blinked and beeped with an incoming message. She peered at the time. She'd been in bed in Sal's house precisely twenty minutes and at least half of that she'd spent trying to decompress enough to sleep.

"What is it, Brian?" Alex tried not to sound grumpy, but she hadn't slept since Monday night, and they were already at early Sunday morning. Getting everyone situated and people divided into groups to organize their new home was proving more challenging than Alex had anticipated. Now that people could claim complete ownership of their home and work environment, opinions were running strong.

Brian's panicked voice choked out, "We have a plumbing crisis. We need you."

Alex groaned. "Have Lucas handle it."

Brian growled, "We can't reach Lucas. He's not answering his messages and we can't get into his lab. He's sealed it off somehow. No one else has the ability to manipulate SEL well enough."

Alex whimpered and made herself roll out of bed. "Ok. Send me a location. What's the problem?"

"We have sewage all over the residential quad," said Brian.

"Ok, where's the quad right now?" Alex wasn't even sure where she herself was at that moment. Buildings were still being rearranged.

"Um." There was a pause and then a dot appeared on an updated map on her HUD.

When Alex arrived a few minutes later, she knew exactly what had happened. The program to rearrange the housing hadn't been updated to also include plumbing connections. The people designing the new residence building moved everything around until they were happy with it, keeping it temporary until they were sure they liked the layout. When they were ready, they added the final mark for "permanent location".

While temporarily situated, the pipes were closed over in each unit in small septic systems, but when they got the final mark, the pipes reconfigured and unsealed. Two days of temporarily contained sewage, expecting to be connected to main pipes before being opened, well, opened. The smell was overwhelming. Alex immediately gave herself a picobot air filter.

Alex saw Brian standing with a large group of people off to one side, on an elevated land mass. People trapped inside the residence island peered out of their windows. Alex overrode the "no flying vehicles while things are moving" ban and made a vehicle and flew over to Brian, and the people who had been trapped began abandoning their apartments.

Alex climbed out of her seat and said to Brian, "Let's not put this in the Colony One history books."

Brian nodded somberly. "Good luck with that. It's already all over Earth's social media, complete with pictures and video. It's creating the most appalling jokes and commentary."

Alex winced. "Ok, first, evacuate everyone to one of the environmental habitats. Have them take their pets, except for fish and lizards and stuff that needs to live in a container. Then I'll clean this up. Assure everyone it will be fine and that one day we'll laugh about this." She started creating a SEL wall to keep the mess from continuing its horrible outward seep.

Alex began the tedious process of designing a cleanup program for her picobots. The sewage was everywhere, even inside some of the residences and down the hallways. Some of the citizens in non-SEL units had broken their windows to leave apartments which hadn't been configured to have balconies yet, and shards of glass mixed with the sludge.

Alex already had technology she was using for the temporary bathrooms in both the Indian reservation and the environmental habitats. These used the molecules in the immediate atmosphere reconfigured with picobots to create the temporary room. When the room was disbanded, the picobots simply reversed the process back to atmosphere, converting the waste into dust after a quick scan to make sure it wasn't going to destroy non-bacterial/non-viral organisms or jewelry.

The dust was then scattered back across the ground and recycled into part of the environment. It wasn't ideal, but it was certainly better than this mess. She supposed she could ditch plumbing entirely and just give everyone a bag of dirt to dispose of periodically. Water could be directly purified and recycled.

Alex wished her brain would function. She was too tired. She recognized that every task seemed to be taking four times longer to accomplish, but it had to be done. Everything in the immediate area had to be molecularly scanned. The atmosphere had to be purified to remove the odor. Anything the sewage had soaked into had to be rebuilt. She started at the top and worked her way down. Residence by residence. Lifting them up, cleaning them out, moving them into an air bubble that was filtered and clean.

Alex got through four residences and requested several of the more detail-oriented scientists with molecular knowledge come join her. She trained them and put them to work. If they had any question about something at all, they asked. Eventually, after too many grueling hours, the area was clean. Using air, the pipes would carry waste dirt to a central location for proper redistribution. Any waste could be thrown into the toilet, lid closed, and flushed away. A menu option was added to everyone's HUD that would let them create a temporary bathroom that resulted in a small bag of dust to recycle in a permanent toilet.

Alex awoke a satisfying eleven hours later, starving. She briefly scanned her email and saw Brian had published a statement that no one was going to be blamed for the plumbing incident. "People make mistakes," he wrote, "We learn, we evolve, and we move on." The people she'd taught how to manipulate things at the molecular level with her "SEL matter adjusters" (privately also known as picobots) were busy teaching their peers.

Alex studied the latest station map which was again completely different. Sal's house had been moved while Alex slept inside. It was scheduled to become a museum as was the antiques shop, and they'd moved both to the outer edge of their new tourist zone. Alex would have to see if she could get them moved to the school zone. She'd much rather visit there than risk being accosted by tourists... one day when they had tourists.

Alex stepped outside of Sal's house. Overhead, the high dome ceiling faced space and full-spectrum artificial lights gave the appearance of daytime and blue sky. The air was comfortably warm, matching the ambient "outdoor" temperature of their desert installation. Alex smelled the heady perfume from Sal's late-season azaleas, and looked over his small garden that had accompanied the house. Some of the plants needed water and Alex directed her picobots to convert some of the nearby soil and she added a temporary moisture-dome over the whole garden. Desert atmosphere was too dry for Georgian autumn plants. Eventually, groundskeepers would be around to maintain everything, but Alex bet everyone was too busy to settle into a normal routine just yet .

The tourist zone was mostly just paths and scattered desert plants at the moment between open lots for future buildings. Edges of the rearranged land masses kept their odd gaps, creating a really odd patchwork quilt made of packed desert sand. As Alex crossed the nearly desolate area, she tried to imagine what it would look like complete and filled with people. They'd need to put up street signs along the roads; the paths curved along a grid very much like a spider web, logical but not boring. Alex wondered what they planned for the center.

Separating the tourist zone from the shopping zone was a new gently winding stream bed, also waiting on water. A wide, golden bridge connected the two zones. The shopping zone followed the same general road layout. Here, some buildings were already in place and open. People who noticed Alex waved at her and she waved back but continued her quest for food.

Lunch was fully underway by time Alex reached the buffet. The space currently reminded her of a mall food court, but she knew they planned to turn it into a delightful food-town with the atmosphere of a renaissance fair with kiosks and buildings.

People saw Alex and stepped out of her way deferentially. They did not let her wait in line but instead sent her straight to the food. She was hungry enough that she let it happen, setting a terrible future-precedent that she would later regret. Alex picked a table at random and joined the citizens there, adroitly asking questions so that they spent the meal telling her about things they'd done so far and Alex didn't have to talk hardly at all.

Noise dampeners, both obvious in ceiling decorations, and subtle, in the form of picobots between tables, kept the conversations localized to small groups of tables, and set the sound falloff such that you could easily hear the people at your own table without shouting.

As Alex was finishing, Brian arrived carrying two cups of tea. He nodded politely to Alex's table-mates, and sat down, putting one of the cups in front of Alex. Brian's HUD contained Alex's extended programming that allowed him to locate people without having to go through dispatch - their newest solution to inter-team coordination and people-finding with built-in privacy. After a few minutes of general small talk, the others got up and moved to another table so Alex and Brian could talk.

Brian pressed the privacy button on the table that cut sound to their table only and prevented their voices from carrying. Overhead a subtle red holographic ball appeared to indicate to others that they wanted no interruptions. "How are you doing?" Brian asked. "You've been under a lot of pressure this week."

"I'm good. I got sleep finally. I knew we'd have some unexpected challenges. More importantly, how are you doing? You've been under the same pressure," Alex said.

Brian rubbed at his stubbly chin. "I'm still in a bit of a shock. Despite that sewage spill, people are in a good mood. They're trusting us to hold everything together. They think we're miracle workers. Feels like my responsibility just expanded to infinite. I'm not ready for this."

Alex could certainly sympathize. The plumbing incident really highlighted how incredibly unprepared they were for this evolution. "No real way to be ready. I guess we just solve one problem at a time?"

"Ah, good. I'm glad you brought that up." Brian said with a fake casual tone, picking up his teacup.

Brian continued, "There's a specific forum for issues that got started last night. Usually, I'd just pass things along to Milo."

"But Milo isn't here," Alex finished for him. "It's ok. What's up?"

"Tell me you have a stockpile of disposable items? Toilet paper, diapers, feminine hygiene products, soaps..." Having set his teacup down again without drinking, Brian pressed his hands together hopefully.

The blood drained from her face and Alex stopped breathing a moment. "Oh. We forgot that. How'd we forget that?"

"Yeah. We have food and water; we have oxygen. We even now have miracle plumbing. But diapers, no. We've got a group of people who are now compiling a list of urgently needed products. Not a single country has acknowledged ours yet, so we can't buy anything. There are a few people sharing what they have, or selling it." Brian frowned at the thought of the opportunists.

"It's not a problem," Alex said, hoping that it wasn't. "Lucas can take care of this sort of thing."

"Lucas hasn't come out of his lab," Brian informed her.

Alex blinked. "He hasn't? When was the last time you saw him?"

"I think you saw him last," Brian shrugged.

The last time Alex had seen Lucas was when she had told him to go off and get sleep after their orbit stabilized. "Ok, I'll go find him next."

Brian shook his head. "Diapers have to be next. We've already run out and it's making people panic. And you know what panic will do to us."

Alex inhaled and told herself to calm down. Their population was not going to panic and demand to go back to Earth. "Tell everyone I have this covered and we'll have some supplies in a few hours." She could set the picobots to making supplies instead of batteries.

Alex found her lab buried underneath the recycling building near the residential zone - nowhere near the top half of the factory building, which had been pushed over into the new industrial zone. The citizens thought the basement-lab was storage for excess recycling materials and kept the basement and her lab together. Her picobots had stopped building batteries because they couldn't move the batteries to storage and a bug in her pallet code caused her error notification to fail.

Alex sent off a message to the zoning committee via the dispatch team to have her lab moved, with priority, and turned her attention to designing the molecular structure for diapers. With a cheerful grin, she realized she was no longer bound by patent regulations.

Creating diapers, however, proved more challenging than Alex expected. She could synthesize a diaper's sodium polyacrylate without an issue and she could then sprinkle the dust in cotton fibers, but getting randomly sized leg-holes that wouldn't leak on a suitably baby-soft fabric was nearly impossible. Ideally, parents should have a dispenser that would recycle the matter used for the diaper itself. The dispenser could then give them a small tray of dirt to throw in the toilet. They shouldn't need more than two diapers per child. One for wearing and one for changing when it was needed.

After studying the problem for a while, and looking online for solutions, Alex decided to just ask the experts. She put out a notice for all parents who needed diapers to meet her in one of the larger company conference rooms to discuss diaper design. She could tackle feminine hygiene products next. That would be a similar task. At least they wouldn't ever have a landfill problem; she needed all the matter she could acquire so the particles that made up the atoms could be rearranged into what they needed.

On the way, she went by Lucas' lab to enlist his help. Unfortunately, his whole lab was still sealed off with custom picobots that shifted in a protective grid which her own picobots were unable to penetrate. The door itself had a weird shield configuration, but was also solid and unopenable.

Alex didn't have time to decode their programming and override it. Hopefully he wasn't stuck free floating in the center of his lab and in need of rescue. She thought he was probably just hyper-focused on that equation he was working on and didn't want to be disturbed. She'd have to come back by later and see if she could sort the rogue programming out.

After 12 hours of nonstop design meetings followed by training sessions for the few qualified people on the production of the various items, Alex was tired, hungry, and more than ready for a break. She was a little peeved at Lucas for being unavailable to help. Surely he recognized that the new space station would have problems that needed to be solved? It was selfish to hide out in his lab. She supposed it was her project, not his, but still she wished he was helping.

Alex followed her HUD to the new food court cafeteria and wished for the first time since creating Green World that she had her own private kitchen. Every tenth step toward her destination seemed punctuated with a random citizen who needed something. She kept the irritation from her voice and added the things people asked for to her list and assured them that she would get to it as soon as possible. She corrected one woman's broken hearing aid on the spot, giving both devices permanent tiny batteries.

Alex was almost done eating her highly interrupted lunch-dinner when she saw Lucas enter the area. Giving her head a slight shake in annoyance, she stood up and headed toward him with the intent of giving him a discreet lecture on his responsibility to the community. As she crossed toward him, she saw him stumble.

Alex reached for Lucas to keep him from falling. "Lucas! What happened?"

"Why didn't you come for me?" his voice was raw and scratchy. "I left you a note."

"A note? What? Where?" She rolled back through her memory and didn't see anything. "Never mind that. Sit here. Let me get you some water."

"And food," Lucas croaked. "Carajo, Alex! I could have died." His hands were shaking.

Alex ran off to get him a drink and something to eat. She brought back the closest things she could reach - some apple juice and a bowl of cereal. She jogged these back to him.

Lucas took the glass of apple juice with both hands. When it looked like he might drop it, Alex helped him, sliding in next to him on the bench. He gulped, and then took a second drink, letting that liquid sit in his mouth a moment before swallowing. They set the glass down and he grasped the spoon and ate some cereal.

Alex waited, her toes twitching impatiently inside her shoe. She wouldn't show any outward sign of her anxiety for people surreptitiously watching them. She checked her email on her HUD. There was no message from him. Had it been lost? She needed her communication system to function correctly. She sent off a message to their tech team to check that all messages were being delivered promptly.

After a few minutes of eating, with his pace picking up as the sugar in the apple juice reached his bloodstream, Lucas announced, "We can't be here. It's too dangerous."

"Here... in the cafeteria?" Alex asked, carefully keeping her voice low.

"Space. There's just too many variables."

Alex glanced around. Luckily no one was within earshot. She activated the table's privacy button. The last thing she needed was people hearing their resident physicist saying they had a problem. Several tables had the subtle red holographic ball overhead so at least their table didn't stand out. Alex would deploy HUD-created personal privacy shields as soon as she got a chance. Looking back at Lucas, Alex asked, "How about we take some food and discuss this in a more private location?" She didn't want lip readers following what they were saying either.

Lucas paled and his eyes shot around wildly. "Uh. Yeah. Sorry."

Alex went and collected more food and brought it back. "Your lab?"

Lucas winced. "Definitely not my lab."

She leaned forward and peered at Lucas in worried concern and decided, "Mine then. It's not too far just now. Can you walk?"

"Yeah, now that I'm not about to die from dehydration." He pushed himself to his feet. He was still unsteady but better than he had been. "I thought I might, though, after I managed the heat issue."

"What did you do?" Alex's eyebrows scrunched together. She couldn't imagine any scenario where heat would be an issue inside her space station. It had full SEL shielding with specialized reflective shielding to block harmful radiation. Some areas were designed as heat exchangers to stabilize the inside temperatures while some crossover points for transportation and communication weren't equally protected, but overall, the station was designed to prevent radiation from the sun cooking everyone and the coldness of space from freezing them. Additionally, each of their ecosystems had its own internal temperature stabilizers.

Alex asked, "Do we have radiation shield failure?" Did she need to evacuate the station? Her heart skipped several beats. She pulled up the latest sensor reports on her HUD. The sensors remained stable-green.

"No, no," Lucas rushed to reassure her. "The station is fine." This would have been somewhat comforting if he hadn't added, "For now."

Alex wanted to run toward her lab, but paced herself for Lucas and the trays she was carrying against the station rules to keep food in the food zones. When she finally closed her lab door, she made a soft SEL chair for him and a table for the trays and sat across from him on her cot. Her picobots were diligently building boxes of nose tissues. Lucas' chair was a SEL hack, whereas the tissues would be actual items. SEL could be quickly formed and solid or flexible as needed. Actual items had to be somewhat slowly built at the molecular level. "Let's start with what note and go from there."

"I left it in the picobot shield around my lab. Surely you came to check on me? I was gone almost two full days!" Lucas ignored the trays of food.

"Yes, but I didn't have time to dissect your code. We had a few crises that I could have used your help with." Alex set her picobots to locating some of the altered picobots around his lab and retrieving his programming.

"What crises can you possibly have? This place is in a stable orbit. Everyone is fine. People here are safe. I needed you!" Lucas' hand opened and closed into a tight fist and his eyes shifted from angry to a more shell- shocked, traumatized glaze. He pulled his knees up, feet on the chair and leaned forward, hugging them.

Speaking softly in Spanish, Alex asked, "What happened, Lucas?" On her HUD, she was frantically trying to figure out what was in his custom code that was in any way a note to her. At least her picobots reported his lab was still secured.

Lucas answered in Spanish. "My formula worked, but it only worked one way. It wasn't stable."

"The big formula you've been working on for a while?" Alex asked.

"Yes." His eyes darted around her lab, but didn't focus on anything.

"What is it?" Alex prompted quietly. Maybe she should have insisted he tell her when he first started working on it?

Lucas' eyes finally settled on the pile of tissue boxes that was growing slowly, but steadily. "It's a door to anywhere so long as you know the address."

Alex stiffened and shut down her HUD. She focused solely on Lucas. His breathing was erratic. His legs trembled, but he simply tightened his arms around them. "Where did you go?" Alex kept her voice soft and calm.

"Saturn. Well, technically near Saturn. I almost crashed into Titan. More accurately, Titan almost crashed into me."

Alex had to remember to breathe. She weighed in with, "That must have been terrifying."

"Why didn't you come for me?" Lucas' voice was angry, accusing.

Alex answered gently, not accusingly, "I didn't know I needed to. I didn't see any note."

Lucas fiddled with his HUD and hers snapped on, showing the picobots by his lab. He color-coded them. He made the picobots with the pointy side toward the station ceiling blue and the ones with the pointy side toward the station bottom a faded yellow. Clear as day there were words built into the mesh overlaying his lab. It was obvious to anyone who really looked. It read, "Alex, I've built a teleporter and I've taken all precautions, but if something goes wrong and you don't see me by 7 p.m., reactivate it by pushing the blue button. It's configured to open to where I am. Entry passcode is 3684."

Next time send an email, Alex thought bitterly, frustrated with herself for having missed the message, but she didn't speak this though. "Good grief. I missed that? I'm very sorry." Then, trying not to panic, Alex inquired gently, "Is this door to Saturn still open?" The station didn't need another heat loss.

"No, it's closed now. Unstable as I said. Can't reopen on its own." Lucas' shaking got worse. He wasn't cold; he was experiencing traumatic shock. He needed medical attention, not a lecture.

Alex created a soft moderately heavy SEL blanket and went and wrapped it around him. "It's ok now. You're safe here. Just breathe and try to relax. I've got you now. Everything on the station is completely stable. I'm monitoring everything. All our sensors are reporting normally. You are going to be fine. You're safe now."

Alex adjusted her HUD and requested a doctor and some anti-anxiety and calming medicine, and proceeded to rearrange her lab so an extra wall hid most of her things, including the building of the tissue boxes. She created and arranged some suitably large computers and screens and shifted Lucas' chair into a daybed and got rid of her own sleeping area. The room transformed into the stereotypic expectation of a science lab.

The doctor on duty arrived in a few minutes with a comfortingly recognizable "doctor bag" and Alex opened her lab door to let him inside. Dr. Kgomotso Jakande was an average height African-American who'd joined the company to both pay off his mountainous tuition bills and to work for a smaller community practice outside of the mainstream stress of hospitals. Alex had only spoken with him in passing and she didn't know him very well, but he received good reviews from all of his patients and had earned an annual bonus for all three years he'd been with the company.

"What's going on?" the doctor asked, striding in, and studying Lucas sitting on the daybed.

"Delayed traumatic shock," Alex responded. "Lab experiment gone bad. It was pretty scary. Lucas got to see space up close and personal." Lucas snorted at that but didn't focus on either Alex or the doctor.

"Are you physically hurt anywhere, Lucas?" Kgomotso asked, opening his bag and setting it near Lucas.

Lucas answered with sudden violent, uncontrollable shivering, but managed to shake his head.

Kgomotso proceeded to examine Lucas, testing his pupils, taking his pulse, listening to his heart, and checking his limbs, fingers, and toes. "You have a bit of a racing heart there, Lucas, but you're going to be fine. Let me give you a little something to calm you down." He pulled out a needle and small jar. He pulled Lucas' sleeve up, swabbed a spot, and gave Lucas an injection. "I think rest and sleep will see you back in top form by tomorrow. So what happened?"

Alex put her hand on Lucas' shoulder, silently encouraging him not to mention Saturn. She explained, "He got trapped for a bit in one of our experimental space vehicles. That problem is corrected now."

"Ah. Well, Lucas, you might want to visit one of the counselors for stress management techniques if you have flashbacks or nightmares, but you're going to be just fine. I can always give you some anti-anxiety medicine later if you think you need it, but I'm pretty sure once you have some sleep and rest, you'll be ok."

Lucas nodded. The medicine was already showing its effect because Lucas was noticeably relaxing and he'd stopped shaking. "I'll just stay here for a bit," Lucas leaned over onto his side and snuggled into the blanket. He closed his eyes and was asleep .

The doctor turned to Alex and instead of lecturing her on safety procedures as she thought he would, he said, "I can't tell you how much of a joy it is to be able to give people what they need without having to deal with forms and reports, insurance claims, and justifications. You'll have to watch medical staff for drug addiction abuse eventually, but right now the team is small enough that it's not going to be a problem. You do have a way to purchase more pharmaceuticals?" He twisted a ring on his finger anxiously while watching her response.

"Oh. Um." Alex hadn't thought about it at all. "It shouldn't be a problem once we have other countries acknowledging ours. In the meantime, I can see about synthesizing what we need if you give me samples."

The doctor nodded, accepting that with terrifying faith. "We have some people on regular medicines for blood pressure and cholesterol and such, and, of course, insulin. The mandatory diet and exercise seems to be wiping out a lot of the need for routine pills, although the way people complain about it, you'd think we were killing them."

"Too true." Alex shook his hand. "Thank you for coming, Dr. Jakande. Just let me know what you need and I'll take care of it." She seemed to be promising a lot of people that, she reflected ruefully.

"My name is Kgomotso, but call me David. It's easier to pronounce."

"Thank you, Kgomotso," she grinned at him. "Call me Alex."

"I hear we're officially calling you 'Founder' from now on." Kgomotso winked.

Alex sighed. This was inevitable, she supposed. "I guess it's too late to get that changed to 'Supreme Goddess of the Universe' or something?"

Kgomotso laughed. "I won't take up any more of your time, Founder. Call if you need anything."

After the doctor was gone, Alex created a few more pillows and arranged Lucas into a more comfortable position, and then put her lab back in order. Then she alternated between reading, manufacturing, and responding to forum posts while watching Lucas sleep.

Alex swapped production of tissue boxes to production of shampoo. She would need to delegate all of this at some point. She already had select individuals from the sewage spill cleanup team secretly working on other items, although after repairing the hearing aid, news of new matter-rearranging technology was inevitable. She found a post by Kgomotso during the all-hands meeting before their launch asking if pharmaceuticals were covered and Brian's response that it was handled.

Alex sighed and sent Brian a note to ask what his plans were and got an almost immediate reply that said she had told him she had the consumable items planned and asking if there was a problem. She rolled back through her memory, and sure enough, way back when she'd first sold him the idea of a space station, she had mentioned it in a long list of other things that she was going to take care of. She sent back a message that it wasn't a problem and that she was just trying to make sure they weren't duplicating effort. Alex didn't want to worry him with the truth.

A little over six hours later, Lucas woke up. Alex could see his location confusion as he slowly became alert as well as the moment he remembered because he bit his lower lip.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you," Lucas said.

Alex stood and walked over toward him. "I'm sorry I yelled at you, too."

"Did you?" Lucas pushed the blanket off and dissolved it into a small solid cube of osmium. Osmium, the densest metal, was the most efficient way to store matter they needed. The pillows went to the same fate as he sat up. Changing between the different types of matter was carefully moderated and controlled by the picobots to prevent problems with nuclear fission and fusion. Excess energy was absorbed or provided using the same physics as Alex's batteries.

Alex carried the cubes to the pile that was feeding her manufacturing unit. They were heavy, despite their tiny size. "Yeah, I just wasn't quite as direct as you. No worries. Are you ok?"

"I think so. Hard to believe I'm the first human to ever see Saturn up close. I thought the rings would be pretty." Lucas stretched.

"Unimaginably beautiful. Heart-stoppingly beautiful," he murmured.

Alex tempered her sudden jealousy with a strong dose of near-death reality. "I'm glad it didn't actually stop your heart. Tell me what happened?"

"I was sure my formula was correct. I tried calling you to have you come confirm it, but you had that 'sleeping, do not disturb unless urgent' thing so I modified the picobots around my lab for you."

Lucas went on to explain that he chose Saturn because it was a reasonable distance to test. He opened the door a good distance from Saturn so he wouldn't have to deal with as much gravity, and was very careful to put the full shielding over it so space couldn't interact with the station.

Then he created one of their space vehicles and drove it through the door. He spent a couple minutes gazing at Saturn, unable to believe he was actually there and then he noticed that he was getting cold. The shielding heat exchange wasn't correct because there wasn't as much solar radiation for heat and so he fixed that. When he finished, he discovered that the door had closed. He then spent an unknown duration of time hyperventilating and panicking.

"I told myself you would see my note and come for me. All I had to do was wait. I made sure I was stable and would stay where the door would open when you did it. "

"So I got some nice pictures of Saturn and Titan and I waited." Lucas sent some of the photos to her HUD. His photos of Saturn rivaled ones taken by Cassini while the images of Titan looked like a large blurry orangish sphere due to its hydrocarbon atmosphere.

Alex could barely imagine what scientists would do with the ability to deploy probes across the solar system and retrieve reports instantly. No more seven year delays. They could even recover the frozen corpse of the Huygens Probe if it was still there. They would still have to design equipment that could withstand hostile environments, but they could afford a more trial and error approach. Alex wished Lucas had had more advanced imaging and measurement tools.

Lucas continued, "After a while, I had to set up some additional oxygen-generators, and going to the bathroom was a smelly, unpreventable necessity. Then I had to create a bunch more picobots to work on that, except I didn't have enough matter to create picobots, so I had to use my clothes and shoes. Fingernails, toenails. I may never cut my hair again."

Alex saw his fingernails had been chewed off to the quick and she'd thought his unusually short hair was just a recent haircut.

Lucas ran his fingers through his hair and then said, "You missed the 7 p.m. deadline according to my HUD and I started wondering what I was going to do if you didn't come. Four plus years of travel back to the station with no food wasn't promising and I didn't have enough picobots and condensed matter to create a door back, and I needed a heavy duty computer to do the calculations to get the right address from my location. Then about 12 hours later I realized I didn't choose far enough from Saturn and Titan was going to run right over me, and if you happened to open the door while Titan was there..."

Alex shuddered. Space station, meet Titan. What would cross this portal Lucas created? Her carefully modulated habitat didn't need Titan's gravity, or its -179 degrees Celsius methane, or the possibly radioactive elements from Titan's core.

"I expended some of my matter to create enough propellant to move out of the way, but then realized even if you opened the door after Titan had passed, you wouldn't be able to find me. I needed a lot of matter to build a computer and then a door."

Alex tilted her head, thinking, and then said, "You took it from the ship's gravity module."

Lucas clenched his jaw and pointed his index finger at her. "It took me a while to realize that and here you sit and casually mention it as obvious."

Alex held up her hand, gesturing negatively. "I'm not in a state of panic right now. You did good."

"I couldn't even spare the matter to make something to hold onto, so I just floated there, waiting on the computer. At least Titan passed by the address without any apparent incident. It took way too long to get the calculation for the address of my lab, which would only be correct if you hadn't changed the course or rotation of the station."

Or the location of his lab on the station; the station was still undergoing dramatic dynamic changes. They'd gotten inconceivably lucky on a number of points. "Wow, Lucas, I'm so sorry. I can't imagine how terrifying that must have been."

"We humans do not belong in space. It's too big, too massive, and we are way too vulnerable." Lucas stood and began to pace.

"Technically, even if we're on Earth, we're still in space," Alex offered, aiming for a bit of levity.

"You know what I mean."

"I do." Alex crossed over to the trays of food and handed him an apple, which he took and hungrily bit into.

"I really should have waited for you before making the door. It was reckless and stupid, but I was just so excited. If we could have instant travel, getting from Earth to our station and exploring our solar system would be easy. Imagine the implications for our knowledge of the universe."

"So it's time travel." Alex reiterated. She and Lucas had been in his lab for over three hours, staring at the massive whiteboard that spanned three levels and about six classroom-lengths. They were standing midway up the wall, using Lucas' techno-magic boots. "You got there faster than light and traveling faster than light is time travel."

"No, it's changing locations, not traveling. You were here." He closed his fingers together on his left hand. "And now you're here." He closed his fingers on his right hand.

"But it's going faster than light. That's time travel, by definition," Alex argued.

"Maybe we should redefine time travel, because time stayed the same." Lucas began pacing, making Alex cringe as he seemingly walked on air without any hesitation at all. "I just jumped points. Light took the long path. Distance doesn't exist. You think it does because it does in 3D space and everything we have defined is within those parameters, but the whole universe is a single point and you just need to know where inside that point you are and where you want to be. "

"I don't get it." Alex glared at the massive wall displaying his formula. They'd been through his formula twice already. "I don't understand how that can possibly work."

"The closest thing to explain it is the infinite improbability drive in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ," Lucas said.

"Huh?" Alex rubbed at her eyes and the bridge of her nose, shaking her head.

"Alex, you built a freakin' space station. How can you not have read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ?"

"I've been busy!" she griped, carefully enunciating each word with emphasis. Yet another message for urgently needed supplies appeared on her HUD. She ran her fingers through her hair and swore. "We're going to have to come back to this later or the station is going to fall apart around us." At Lucas' sudden panicked expression, she quickly amended, "Not literally. We just have urgent requests for consumable items, like bath soap, deodorant, toilet paper, and so on. I've got to go make items. I sure could use your help. I'm drowning in requests."

"So long as we eat first," Lucas said as his stomach growled.

As they made their way out of Lucas' lab, Alex said, "Oh, before I forget, don't mention this technology to anyone. We need to be sure it is completely ready and stable before it gets announced."

"No kidding." Lucas snorted.

Brian caught up with them in the cafeteria and pulled Alex away to other duties. Lucas promised to whittle down the pending list of needed consumables without her. They needed to start training people.

To Alex, this felt like too soon. Was mankind ready for the power of picobots? Did she have any choice? Getting into space was only a step; they still needed to be able to live sustainably without supplies from the Earth if humanity was going to survive. Soaring Eagle's prediction and a mountain of scientific evidence could not be forgotten or ignored. Alex could even imagine the face of an old-school stopwatch with the time hand relentlessly ticking down toward zero. She had no control at all over this deadline.

Everyone lived or died depending on how ready she could make them, and yet, she couldn't demand and control how things progressed. She had to allow her people to make decisions and humanity's ark would grow however it wanted, despite her guidance. She didn't have enough time to micromanage everything and she needed to reserve her own authority for truly critical decisions.

Alex arrived at Brian's newly located office at his summons. Some humorous soul had tacked a sign to his door that read: CEO, President, Emperor, King, Sultan, Czar, Overlord, Scapegoat, followed by "Mr. Brian Kimberly". Everything but Scapegoat was crossed out, but each was still clearly legible. Alex knocked.

"Cute sign," Alex said, entering without waiting on the response.

Brian snorted. "Yeah. I refuse to check security vids to see who is responsible. I may just leave it there until my replacement gets stuck with the title."

Alex laughed. "CEO isn't valid anymore anyway."

"Yup." Brian pointed to one of his large monitors. "At the top of the list: the United States has vetoed our application to the United Nations in the Security Council."

"Well, that didn't take long," Alex said, shaking her head and sighing, reading through the formal response letter displayed there.

"Japan, Russia, and most of southeast Asia have formally recognized our nation status," Brian reported.

That would be Hamasaki Corporation's influence. Alex nodded.

"We also have a few scattered other countries - Iceland, Australia, Egypt, Norway, South Africa, and Argentina. Most of the countries seem to be following the United States which is claiming we are still part of the United States, with all taxes, penalties, and applicable laws. You and I now top the most wanted criminals list."

Alex stretched and then settled into one of his chairs, leaning back and kicking her feet out. "I already did my prison time. It wasn't so awful."

Brian grimaced, reminding Alex of Milo when she said something particularly exasperating. "The guys watching our satellite feeds say that the U.S. is moving its military around to take our island. Lucas updated the SEL dome to a semitransparent solid that will prevent them from entering our territory."

"We should probably go have a talk with their commanding officer. When is the fleet due?" Alex asked .

"Maybe tomorrow. Maybe tonight. We can't both leave the station at the same time. I know you're magically pushing out supplies as quickly as you can, but the idea of flying back to be arrested isn't my idea of a brilliant plan." Brian stood and walked the length of his office, rubbing at his neck.

"They can't arrest you. You aren't a U.S. citizen anymore." Alex watched him pace and pulled her feet in closer out of his way as he strode along a path in front of her.

"There's a fleet of ships and submarines coming that say they can."

Alex shrugged. "It would be really stupid of them to expend ordnance against our SEL shield," Alex said. "It can stand up to the vacuum of space; they must realize it can stand up to missiles and we can easily create ordnance. I don't think they're thinking this through too well."

"We aren't going to shoot at them," Brian said, stopping and crossing his arms to glare at her.

"Of course not. You know those bioshields we have? We're just going to upscale them. Go ahead and get underway to the island, and I'll go have a long talk with our programmers and Lucas to give you some options. We can handle this." As Brian was rolling his eyes, Alex added, "Also take the latest batch of batteries for Hamasaki Corporation. They can handle our downside distribution for a while." She grinned. "You take care of politics and I'll take care of technical."

Brian rolled his head, stretching his neck. "Think about what you want to do about the International Space Station and satellites while you're at it. People are asking. If we claim space as our territory, those are in our domain."

"We aren't going to do anything about them so long as they don't pose a threat to us. Space is big enough for us to coexist."

After a long meeting with the programming staff, Alex spent several hours training even more people on the use of picobots. She quietly verified that the picobot security was actively evading detection on the SEL cards for the Indian reservation's park. Then she went around to visit Colony One's habitat teams, checking for problems, and generally making herself available to answer the endless questions that plagued any appearance in public.

That night, Alex managed an almost-healthy three hours of sleep and pushed herself out of bed to repeat the day. Her main goal was to empower people to make decisions so their habitat and ecosystem could grow and survive and calmly assure everyone she met that they would be fine and happy. Change was unsettling and now that people had a chance to calm down from the launch, they were beginning to realize just how different their new lives were.

Alex was eating breakfast when the news feed for their Pacific island arrived. It was put up on a big screen for everyone in the cafeteria. Their own satellite feed showed a fleet of United States Navy ships surrounding their island which looked remarkably small compared to the mass of ocean and number of ships. Colony One wouldn't filter its news to biased summaries, but would show live-feeds of events. Earth-side people wouldn't be so lucky unless they watched Colony One's website.

On the screen, Brian radioed requesting a meeting with the fleet's commander at Colony One's eastern pier and then reduced the side of their protective sphere to put part of the pier on the outside of the protective dome. The eastern pier, while not the largest, was wide and long. It was used for their supply ships and visitors. Given the bombings while Alex was in prison, non-local ships could no longer approach too near the actual island. No boats were currently docked at that pier.

Brian walked out to the end of the pier, alone, dashingly attired in an elegant island floral collared shirt, white shorts, and beach sandals. He carried a simple beach chair - no weapons, no papers, and nothing intimidating at all. He looked like he was on vacation, complete with sunglasses. Tiny, nearly invisible picobot cameras captured both video and sound from all angles, and Colony One's media team was busy splicing the best views together for their website's news feed and internal network.

Brian arrived at the end of the pier, unfolded the beach chair, and settled in to wait. His bioshield would protect him from both sunburn and drowning, as well as any man-made hazards. After a half hour of the world watching Brian sunbathe, which apparently everyone in the cafeteria found riveting, several small motorboats departed from one of the U.S. vessels, complete with fully armed Marines and a man in officer's whites. Three of the boats remained a good distance away while one pulled up alongside the pier and men deployed onto it, surrounding Brian.

Brian interlocked his fingers, stretched and yawned, and stood up.

"Welcome to Colony One's Pacific island, gentlemen," said Brian. The man in officer's whites climbed onto the pier.

"You're under arrest for terrorism," the officer announced bluntly.

Brian ignored this. "We realize that the United States is having a hard time recognizing our independence. We haven't made any threats and we have no intention of doing so. Our citizens are concerned that you might try to forcibly remove them from their homes and prevent them from visiting their family and friends still in your country. To alleviate their fears, I request you take your fleet, go home, and tell your Commander in Chief to recognize us as an independent country and reverse your veto in the United Nations Security Council. "

"I represent the United States Navy. Those are our citizens you're holding hostage on that island."

"We don't have any hostages. Every one of our citizens has a video on our website stating their free will and choice to become citizens."

"We're going to cordon off your island to protect and rescue our citizens." The man turned to his men, "Arrest this terrorist."

Brian's arched eyebrow suggested amusement or maybe boredom. "Colony One does not recognize the right of the United States government to arrest any of its citizens," Brian proclaimed as the men discovered they could not come within arm's reach of Brian due to the invisible picobot shield around him. One of the men tried to use a taser, but it flared uselessly against the picobot shield and didn't reach Brian. "Truly, gentlemen, go home." Brian turned and walked back down the pier, whistling Dvorak's Humoresque, and passing through the SEL dome without even slowing down. Only the beach chair remained on the pier with the men who soon departed. The news coverage by her media team split to a prerecorded video of Brian telling the citizens they had nothing to be concerned about.

People in the cafeteria around Alex cheered, but she did not. Alex didn't want the "them vs. us" mentality. These people weren't their enemy. Time was. Colony One's community still needed a lot of work to survive. Humans needed to pull together.

One of Colony One citizens came over to her. "They're going to send everything they have at us, you know. Not just the United States, but also their allies."

Alex nodded. "They will. We have this covered. We got away in time to prevent our technology from being seized and they wont be able to penetrate our shields or disturb our habitats. We're safe. We even have other defensive abilities if we need them." Aggressive abilities which she wouldn't deploy. "You don't need to worry. We'll start political negotiations for technology to prevent military actions." Not that she would let anyone have the technology, but she and Brian could actively string them along until Colony One's nation-status was firmly established.

Alex retreated to her lab to work on the next item that the station critically needed, knowing that the shield around the Pacific island would stop any attempts by the United States military to enter or harm. Any deployed ordnance would be captured and collected and turned into more land mass. Colony One vehicles leaving or arriving would have the same shielding.

To prove the point, Brian sent one of their people to deliver Hamasaki's latest batteries. The small yacht motored right past the blockade (which the United States was calling a Naval Cordon to keep with their stance that Colony One was still part of the United States). The blockade fired a tentative shot at it, but the ordnance simply absorbed into the picobot shielding. Subsequent ships arriving or departing could be lifted and carried over the blockade with the same protection.

Alex stared at the angry forum posts with disgust. Her citizens were illogically and ignorantly riled up. They were not a population of slaves being exploited by a megalomaniac to gain a massive personal wealth. Yes, her personal finances had grown incredibly since the launch, but this was a result of the novels and movies royalties, not any abuse of Colony One's national budget. In fact, the budget and how every penny was earned and spent was publicly available on their internal website. Alex was not hoarding any future-necessary items, and their team creating consumables wasn't overcharging citizens.

In another set of posts, citizens demanded a formalized political structure, ignoring the fact that they had one that just didn't quite match any of Earth's nation-structures. Brian's position as "Scapegoat" (he'd kept the title) stayed until a majority of citizens voted him out or he wanted to change to another job. He'd be replaced by a random selection from qualified applicants, just like any other job around their nation. It was a position, with duties, not an all-powerful command.

Alex, while being called 'Founder', was given preferential respect on committees, but she was just a normal citizen, like the rest of them, and currently held the job title of 'General Labor Pool' and went around the station to help wherever needed. Currently, it appeared she was needed to sort out mass hysteria, craziness, and stupidity. They didn't have time for this kind of nonsense. She needed the community cohesive and caring toward each other. When the Earth finally failed, humanity was going to need to focus on humanity's survival, not individual goals. This misinformation seemed deliberate to divide Colony One's people and erode their faith in their country.

Alex peered through the other forums. Too many skewed-perspective topics were making people unreasonably angry or scared. Why was there a whole set of posts on the cancer citizens were going to get from space radiation? Where was this nonsense coming from?

Alex started digging through logs and building data-path maps. Several hours later, she had it. Behind many layers of obscure vectors, several nation states were deliberately engaging in misinformation warfare and sabotaging her country - actively trying to make people distrust Colony One's leadership and laws through Earth-side social media in the form of articles, posts, comics, and twisted news stories. The more emotional triggers they could push, the more likely the stories were to get shared.

Colony One, given its decisions by citizen votes, was highly vulnerable to misinformation campaigns. People who naturally tended toward extremist behavior and beliefs, both non-citizens and citizens, forwarded things along without research, and actively engaged in teaching others their 'facts'. This effectively polarized people on issues and created absurd flame wars in both public arenas and their country's private forums. Factual information was so dense, people didn't have the time or desire to dig through it. Even educated people fell into the emotional-trap on occasion.

Alex groaned and scheduled a meeting with the Colony One political structure committee and the information technology staff. Their solution, although labor intensive, was to create a department to preview and analyze every post before it appeared (either directly or edited) on the Colony One forums. Posts would not be modified or filtered, but would gain information analysis tags: Fact, Opinion, Hypothesis, Speculation, Inaccurate Correlation, Incomplete, Satire, Inaccurate, Advertisement, etc. These tags linked to supporting evidence.

If a citizen wasn't sure if something was real or valid, all they had to do was post it to the internal network. This wasn't a full solution, because the Earth-side networks were still inundated by certain nation-state generated propaganda, but it helped alleviate some of Colony One's citizen's ignorance. They also implemented mandatory flame war training, that while not enthusiastically embraced, at least sounded really fascinating and was made entertaining by applying copious levity.

Alex, with the help of several carefully selected people from Colony One's programming team, sent off a few server-crippling viruses to the two main groups producing the inflammatory content, and while it didn't stop them, it at least slowed them down long enough for Colony One's internal measures to take hold.

Specially created teams made sure Colony One's internal network was secure from external hackers. Not only was it completely separate from any external network, it was monitored and protected by both programs and humans actively dedicated to the task. Alex's picobots also invisibly watched for spies and internal threats and she dealt with these silently.

The United States and most of the other countries finally recognized Colony One's independence and while Colony One wasn't accepted into the United Nations, at least they were allowed to trade, have limited tourism, and use travel passports. Both Alex and Brian were prohibited from traveling to the United States or any of its territories. Alex couldn't decide which brought more tourists - their location in space or the dynamic technology of SEL. Both citizen and tourist HUDs offered approved designs for vehicles and items, although tourists could only use a small subset and wouldn't be able to take anything created off the station.

Applications for citizenship rolled in and their population control team limited their growth to station-sustainable numbers. People applied and citizens could add bonus-points to their friends and family, recommending them for citizenship. Additional bonus-points were also given to people with necessary skills. Acceptance was then done by random selection of families, without regard to age, race, or education, weighted with the bonus-points. With this process, most people that were accepted were either skilled or known.

Having been requested from the general labor pool by Brian, Alex finished reviewing the security video and leaned forward and put her head down on her desk. The kid was clearly responsible for destruction of property - namely, one of the paintings in their local-art museum. He was completely out of control, temper-wise, and his heroin withdrawal symptoms were just starting. The tourist shuttle log showed his heroin stash getting quietly destroyed in transit as part of the security sweep. The kid's parents were overwhelmed.

Alex reviewed their current laws although she already knew the answer. The United States government had finally accepted Colony One as a country but diplomatic relationships were still strained. The teenager and his parents were United States citizens, but had signed the mandatory legal paperwork to obey and be bound to all Colony One laws, rules, and restrictions. They were already detained and awaiting sentencing.

The boy was barely 15 years old, but he'd reached his adult size and looked older. He was better dressed than the gang members that used to terrorize her when she lived on the street, but he had the same bearing, the same violent temper, and the same self-absorbed hatred. Statistically, his current path would either land him in jail or dead from gang activity or drugs. His parents were typical middle-class, caring people, and they'd certainly done their best and tried, but they couldn't control a heroin addict in a gang-controlled community.

Alex closed her eyes and recalled the painting the boy had destroyed. There had been a lifetime of skill and soul in that huge oil painting. Historically, it was important because it had been the painting that tipped the vote to create a paid, professional artist job within the community. The artist had donated it to their museum, so the painting hadn't been appraised, but Alex was certainly qualified to estimate it at half a million dollars .

Alex should have realized that with the influx of tourists, she needed to start staffing security personnel in the museum. The citizens understood value and wouldn't have considered destroying a community resource. But a tourist, having heroin withdrawal, combined with typical teenage angst...

Alex went to talk with the artist, Francis Wagner, a woman in her 40's who'd originally joined their company as part of the information technology team. Alex stepped into Fran's studio, noting that the air filtration system was working to keep the toxic fumes clear. Three of her walls were full-size digital displays currently showing the rolling hills of Ireland. The fourth had shelves with art supplies. The canvas in front of her was a full two meters with a landscape painting barely started.

"Hey, Fran," Alex said.

"Founder," Fran tilted her head in respectful greeting and set aside her brush and palette.

"I'm sorry about your painting," Alex said. "I should have protected it better. Now everything is encased in a SEL shield to prevent this from happening again."

Fran sighed. "Is the boy ok? I stopped reading the forums since realizing my fellow citizens want to space a kid." Fran's face stayed emotionlessly blank and she shifted her eyes back to her painting.

"He's fine," Alex replied. "He's just detained for the moment. We aren't going to execute him. Our laws aren't going to allow that. I can't say it was just a painting because I know better."

"Well, what's done is done. We have a digital image of it so it isn't gone completely, and truth be told, there were some things about it I didn't like." Fran finally made eye contact with Alex.

"The bane of being the artist. You see flaws no one else ever will and know which parts don't match your intentions." As far as Alex knew, Sal's brother still hadn't destroyed her own painting as requested. The people desperately trying to figure out her batteries would be shocked to know the answer was right there.

Fran smiled wryly. "So what can I do for you, Founder?"

"The law clearly says the boy has to pay for it. He's a minor, according to United States laws, so technically his parents are responsible, and there's no way they can pay what that painting was worth."

Fran nodded, listening intently, but the slight furrow in her eyebrows gave away her confusion.

"I don't think money matters anyway," Alex said.

"It doesn't anymore," Fran agreed, eyebrows still pulling together. She'd definitely benefited from having art supplies purchased by their country.

"The kid, though, he might be salvageable. He could be an adult if he were in our country," Alex continued, wondering what the best way to approach the subject was. She decided she might as well just say it. "We could put him on a work visa, keep him here until the debt is paid. Surround him with counselors and good examples. But he'd be on station and a constant reminder of the pain he caused you."

Fran frowned. "Wouldn't that have serious political repercussions?"

Alex was pleased the woman was thinking of Colony One more than herself and Alex half-smiled and shrugged. "His parents signed the waiver that they'd be bound by our laws and punishments while they were here. It could be made to work in our favor."

Fran nodded again. "I don't mind if he's here."

"I estimate your painting was worth around $500,000." Fran rolled her eyes at that so Alex continued, "He obviously can't pay that at our $40,000 per year wage. It would take him 12 years. I'm going to charge him $60,000 which will give him a year and a half sentence, and I'll cover the rest."

Fran's eyes narrowed. "But the money just goes back to the country anyway. I'm a professional artist."

"Actually, that painting was done before you were transferred to an artist job position so the money goes directly to you," Alex informed her.

Fran shook her head. "I don't need it."

Most citizens had discovered that they didn't have as much need for money - with housing, utilities, tuition, medical, and food expenses being fully covered by their six hour a day job, coupled with no real place to store a bunch of possessions, money wasn't as critical. Mostly, citizens used money to travel out of the country, to buy "real not SEL" things from Earth, or to pay bills for non-citizen relatives. Colony One's only export, long-life batteries in several sizes, not only covered any ambient loss of national wealth, but saw their balance increasing steadily.

The dynamics of this economy were only now beginning to become apparent. Distribution of limited goods was decided by random lot. The longer a person waited, the more times their name was added to the list. If a service wasn't available, people added a point to the job hiring priority and made do. Colony One was even gaining a subgroup of people who changed to priority jobs because they recognized that the station needed them. The general labor pool to which Alex was permanently assigned took care of the odds and ends as much as possible, but citizens were taking personal responsibility for the success of the society.

Alex agreed that Fran didn't need the money, but said, "Donate it if you like. You're the one who's been most harmed by the boy. Would you be ok with my solution?"

Fran glanced at her current painting project. "Yeah. It won't bother me. Might annoy other people though."

"Thank you, Fran. I'll see what I can come up with, but I wanted to check with you first." Alex realized from Fran's body language that the woman was a bit upset about her painting's destruction, but Fran seemed to be handling it well enough and would be all right. Alex left and went to discuss the punishment with Brian.

After a long talk with Brian about the potential repercussions, Alex set up the forum vote for the kid's punishment. She still had enough sway with the population that it would pass simply because she posted it. She rarely used that authority, saving it for when it was absolutely necessary. Brian added his clout. As Alex expected, the vote passed by majority before Alex arrived back at the security complex, despite not being a popular solution.

Alex spoke with the security guards, giving them explicit instructions, and went to the room where Cal and his parents were waiting. The room had a comfortable sofa, two soft chairs, as well as a door to a bathroom. One of the walls was a digital display set to the rainforest-style living wall in Hamasaki Corporation's lobby. Alex toggled it to a non-distracting neutral grey and said, "Mr. and Mrs. Park, I'm Alex Smith, Founder of Colony One."

Cal's parents stood and shook Alex's offered hand. They'd dealt with Cal being in trouble so many times before that they merely looked resigned, if slightly boggle-eyed at having the Founder's personal attention. Cal remained seated, bent forward slightly, with a surly expression on his face, but Alex noted he was also discreetly rubbing his side - that would be muscles cramps from his heroin withdrawal.

Alex didn't keep them in suspense. "Before coming onto our station, you agreed to be bound by our laws and rulings. The citizens of Colony One have ruled in accordance with our laws. Your son is an adult under our age-guidelines and is responsible for his own actions. He is being charged $60,000 for destruction of property." They cringed. Alex knew that wasn't in their budget. She continued indicating both parents, "And you are both being immediately deported for bringing a criminal into our country."

Cal's mother said, "We don't have that much money."

Cal's father took his wife's hand and said to her, "We can figure it out, dear."

Alex ran her fingers through her hair and said, "You aren't paying." She pointed at their son. "He is. He's to remain here on station and work at our standard citizen pay of $40,000 per year."

Cal's mother gasped and his father paled significantly.

"It comes to 390 work days, approximately a year and a half. Because we are not creating an indentured servant, his housing, food, and medical services will all be paid for." Out of Alex's own money. The 24-hour / 7 day per week social workers were going to be expensive. "You will not be permitted to pay any of the $60,000. That's his debt alone. He will also be required to personally apologize to the artist of the painting." That's when Cal finally seemed to recognize that he was actually in trouble and his parents weren't going to be his shield. His look of panic was almost enough payment.

Alex opened the room's door and the two security guards that were waiting there came in and asked Cal's parents to follow them.

"You can't keep our son," his mom cried.

"You signed the legally binding agreement before arriving on station," Alex said bluntly. "You're being taken to the shuttle port for immediate transfer back to Earth. All your belongings are waiting for you."

Cal's father, clearly intending on arguing the matter, said to his wife, "The United States government isn't going to allow this." He followed the security guards out, taking his wife with him. One of the security guards closed the door again.

Alex stared at Cal while he stared back sullenly; the look of panic was gone and was replaced by the promise of stubborn disobedience. Alex waited, giving the security guards enough time to take Cal's parents to another room where they could watch this conversation on a digital display until she had a chance to go talk with them. After a few minutes, the message from the security guard appeared on her HUD that his parents were watching.

Alex took a deep breath and said, "Cal, I want to be clear about your sentence. While you are here, you're required to follow the rules and regulations of our citizens, but without the benefits of being a citizen. You'll live in one of our permanent residences. You'll participate in the daily one hour exercise period. You will not be permitted to work more than 5 days per week, and to prevent any harm to yourself, our citizens, and our property, you will have a security escort at all times. While food and lodging are paid for, any non-essential incidentals are not covered, and you'll be responsible for any charges you incur. If you check your HUD, you'll see a list of current job openings for which you are qualified, as well as your current bank account balance." His account was set to -$60,000. He would not be able to remove either of those information boxes from his HUD. "Do you have any questions?"

Mutely, he shook his head and Alex didn't tell him to 'use words'. Instead she commented as if she didn't care at all, "That muscle cramping across your abdomen is standard heroin withdrawal."

"I don't use drugs," Cal denied vehemently.

"Certainly not anymore," Alex replied. "Surely you noticed that your private stash was confiscated during the flight up when we did the baggage scan. We don't have any heroin on the station and anything prescription is monitored. The withdrawal symptoms will get worse before they get better. We have medical technicians that can help with the pain. Medical is also covered and will not cost you anything. Would you prefer to visit them first or go directly to your new apartment?"

"I ain't gonna work for you guys. You can't make me." This was accompanied by pursed lips and a sneer.

Alex kept her voice coldly neutral. "True, but you're stuck here until the debt is paid. Medical or apartment, Cal?" Alex put her hand on her hip and raised her eyebrow at him.

Cal frowned sickly, like he might throw up, and doubled over as a massive cramp shook him. "Medical."

"Good choice." Alex opened the door again and a pair of security guards came to escort Cal to medical. Alex then went to join his parents. This conversation would determine how much political backlash Colony One was going to get.

The small office had a desk with two occupied guest chairs. The digital display on one wall showed Cal being taken to medical. Alex reduced the volume on the display, and said, without preamble, "Your son needs help."

"We'll get him help," Cal's father said. "Let him come home with us. We'll pay the $60,000. I have medical insurance. We can put him in a rehab hospital."

Alex moved around the desk and sat down and said, "I want you to seriously evaluate this opportunity I'm offering. Consider this a rehab hospital. The $60,000 was just a token amount to give him a goal. We'll have him with a fully trained social worker or counselor at all times and our medical staff is excellent. He won't be able to relapse because he won't be around his old drug-dealing gang-friends."

"But $60,000?" Cal's mother whispered, "That's too much."

"Not really," Alex said. "It creates enough time to get the heroin out of his system completely and for new habits to form. The painting was valued at $500,000. By time you add medical costs, psychological staff, and living expenses, the bill is substantial. I'm personally paying the difference."

"Why?" Cal's father asked.

"He's a kid in need. I lived on the streets when I was younger than him." They looked surprised. Alex's past was not published. "I can tell you right now that he's headed for drug overdose, gang death, or prison, and I've personally seen all three of those up close and intimately. If I can help him, maybe it will relieve some of my own ghosts?" And what ghosts had Sal appeased when he'd helped her? Alex shoved that thought aside for later reflection.

Alex shrugged. "Look, you can keep your HUDs and see and hear him whenever you want, so you'll know he's safe and not being mistreated. I'll give you my personal phone number so you can call me and talk about his rehab at any time. Let him think he's alone and has to take responsibility for himself. We'll make sure he can't hurt himself or anyone else. This is a safe, healthy environment. I'm simply offering you help for your son, not trying to inflict some horrible punishment." On the monitor, Cal doubled over, grabbing his stomach. His guards waited patiently until he could straighten again, and then helped him to their outpatient office.

Cal Park was a piece of work - stubborn, rude, insubordinate beyond belief. He'd been on the station for four months. Almost all of his heroin-addiction symptoms were gone after the first month. He celebrated not having to go to school (that was a citizen benefit) by buying himself a gaming console and then spent almost all of his time playing video games and ignoring his "escort". He refused to bathe and after his social workers complained about the smell, Alex had surrounded Cal with a SEL shield that filtered the odor, although Cal still thought he was torturing other people. He hadn't worked a single day and never went to the exercise areas. As he was not allowed to bring food back to his apartment, he had to go out at least a couple times a day to eat.

His social workers were told to just stay with him and listen if he wanted to talk. Cal had tried to cut his wrists at one point with a sharp knife, only to discover that the blade wouldn't go into his skin. He tried torturing the night-shift worker by going out to eat in the middle of the night, but that social worker had merely shrugged and pointed out that it was ok to go out at night if he wanted.

Cal's parents were understandably concerned. They were the ones who suggested taking away his gaming console and Alex agreed that it was time for more active intervention, but not a phone call from them. "I'll take care of it," Alex promised and signed up for a week-long day-shift as Cal's "security guard".

Alex arrived promptly at 7 a.m. on Monday morning. The social worker on duty passed her the bracelet with the invisible cage-leash that prevented Cal from simply running away. "No change," the man whispered. Cal was still asleep on his bed.

"Thank you," Alex replied quietly, switching on the light in Cal's one room apartment as the social worker departed. The room contained Cal's bed, desk, TV, gaming console, and a remote game controller in a comfortable reclining chair. Clothes from his suitcase were strewn about, unwashed. The room stank. Quite probably, the toilet in the bathroom with a half-height privacy door was not atomized and flushed. Alex activated a nose filter and pondered the room.

"Hey, turn off the light," Cal grumbled, not moving.

"Good morning, Cal," Alex said energetically and loudly. "Time to get up and get ready for the day. I have a lot of things I need to get done today and you're coming along."

"Am not," Cal grumbled, pulling the blanket over his head.

"30 minutes and we go for breakfast. You should probably get dressed. A shower is recommended."

"Where's my security guard?" came the mumbled voice from under the blanket.

"I'm it for the week," Alex answered cheerfully. "The regulars are all tired of watching you play video games all day. "

"You can't force me to do anything. I'm going back to sleep." He rolled to face away from her and hid his head under his pillow.

"Technically, your other escorts have been instructed not to force you to do anything. I don't have that restriction. Today you're on my time." Alex sat down in the comfortable chair provided for the social workers and reviewed the country's forums until precisely 7:30.

Alex stood up, stretched, and announced, "Breakfast time." She had her picobots tilt his bed and roll him out onto the floor, carefully so he wouldn't be hurt, but fast enough to be jarring. When he stood up sputtering, Alex opened the apartment door and left. Her picobots pushed him along behind her. He was still in his underwear, so Alex adjusted the lightwaves around his invisible cage to give him clothing to prevent citizens and tourists from getting upset. Cal still thought he was in his underwear and said so, loudly. Not changing her brisk walking pace, she answered, "You had a half hour to get dressed. Maybe tomorrow will be different." She had her picobots give him SEL socks and sneakers.

Alex went directly to the local cafeteria and got in line. The cafeteria wasn't as nice as the fair-like atmosphere of the rest of the restaurant zone, but it was fast, with no custom orders slowing down the line. The individual restaurants in the zone were operating on a survival of the fittest method. To stay in business, they had to maintain a minimum monthly customer rate. Space and supplies were provided by Colony One and tourist-profit went back to the country. Food price included operation cost. People who really liked to prepare magnificent meals got to do so.

People saw who was following Alex and shook their heads in sympathy. She took a tray and offered it to Cal, "You want anything to eat?"

When he shook his head stubbornly, Alex shrugged and got herself some raw fruit and vegetables, letting the picobots steer Cal to stay with her. She found an empty table in the busy cafeteria and sat down. Cal refused to join her and stood over her, hovering with his arms crossed, trying to intimidate her. Alex used her HUD to fire off a reassuring note to Cal's parents, who were watching intently.

Midway through her breakfast, one of the chief architects came by. He glanced at Cal, but pressed on. "Hey, Founder, can I get you to review the plans for the new theater? The zoning people are trying to steal our location for another tourist shopping center."

"Ah," Alex said. "I saw that this morning. We didn't approve it yet because it needs to be bigger."

"We're within space budget," the architect said proudly, straightening his shoulders and grinning.

Alex nodded. "Yeah, we need to reallocate some things. I'll send off a note to zoning so they can't have your spot, but double the size of the theater. The resources planning committee wants a bigger theater. "

The architect smiled, apologized for interrupting her breakfast, and wandered away, already adjusting things on his HUD.

Alex looked up at Cal. "You ever been to a real theater, Cal? Not one of those movie theaters, but one with a stage and live performers?" she asked conversationally.

Cal pursed his lips and deliberately, rudely, turned his head away from her.

When Alex was finished eating, she got up, returned her tray and dishes to the SEL recycling location, and went to make her rounds. Cal did not have a choice about following her, although at one point, he tried sitting down, and was pushed along behind Alex at no effort to her at all. Alex adapted and took the cobblestone paths designed to generate more exercise through subtle hills and less flat-walking. He acquired a few sore spots from the bumpy path, but he was in no danger. He stood up eventually and followed along sullenly.

Alex started at one of the food greenhouses. The kindergarten class was just arriving. "Good morning, everyone!" Alex greeted them happily.

They replied with an enthusiastic synchronized, "Good morning, Founder!"

"Field trip today?" Alex asked.

The teacher nodded. One of the less shy children announced, "We're going to plant tomatoes!"

Alex rubbed her hands together. "Excellent! I love tomatoes. I just had one for breakfast, in fact."

Several kids wrinkled their noses, adding their thoughts about that menu item.

Alex grinned. "True, it's not the breakfast of choice for everyone. Well, have fun, class. Learn a lot today."

The students followed their teacher back farther into the greenhouse, while Alex turned toward the greenhouse office. As they moved away, she heard one of the kids ask their teacher, "Isn't that the boy who destroyed the painting?"

"It is," the teacher answered, her tone trying to end the inquiry.

"But why would he do that?" the child persisted. "It belonged to everybody."

"He didn't understand what he was doing." The rest of the teacher's answer was lost as they moved out of range.

Alex didn't change her pace or look back, and she didn't smile, although she wanted to. Counseling by kindergartener was just right. She couldn't have done better if she had planned it. She went into the office, holding the door so Cal could enter too.

"Founder!" The woman at the desk smiled, looking up. "What can I do for you today?"

"I'm just coming by to see how things are going," Alex said. "Do you need anything?"

The woman glanced at Cal, but apparently decided if Alex didn't seem to mind if he were there, she wouldn't either. "We're actually doing pretty well, although we could use more space."

Everyone wanted more space, Alex reflected. They simply didn't have enough mass to expand at a rate their population increase demanded, even with each shuttle bringing up at least double what it took down and her scavengers out collecting space debris. They needed a large asteroid to come close enough to capture and convert.

The woman pulled up statistics on her digital display, presenting atmospheric constituents, plant populations and needs, and soil chemical analyses. About 10 minutes into this riveting dissertation, Cal started opening and slamming the office door.

Alex stood up and said politely, "Excuse me a moment." She took Cal outside of the office and "secured" his invisible cage near the door. She soundproofed it such that he could hear anything outside, but no one could hear any noise he chose to make inside. She set her HUD to monitor him and she went back into the office. It only took him about three minutes to start screaming and punching the invisible wall. Alex modified the wall to be squishy so he couldn't hurt himself and focused on the woman's presentation.

Afterward, Alex went out and peered down at Cal. He had finally settled down and was sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest. He glared at her and stood up. Alex grinned at him and said, "I hear you've skipped a few exercise periods. I need to get mine done, so we'll do that next."

Just outside the greenhouse, Alex paused to create a double-size restroom in the designated area and went in. Cal got dragged in behind her. She raised a privacy shield for herself and used the facilities. Then she lowered the shield and told him, "Your turn. Go while you have a chance. We're not stopping mid-exercise. You should also drink some water from the sink. You're dehydrated."

"I'm not using the bathroom with you watching." Cal crossed his arms.

Alex raised the privacy shield half-way, pointed, and leaned against the wall, tenting her fingers, and waiting. He did actually use the bathroom, but he didn't use the cup at the sink to get a drink. She set her HUD to observe his vital signs, and sent off a note to his parents that she was monitoring him and wouldn't let him go beyond his capabilities. He did not wash his hands.

Alex led them to the deciduous forest and set out at a pace that would push him, although it wouldn't exert her at all. Cal panted behind her, dragging his feet. Although they were nowhere near their fully grown size, the mid-May, late spring trees were dropping pollen and showing early leaves. Leaves from the previous "winter" crunched underneath their feet on the dirt and rock path and only distant birdsong could be heard. An occasional newt could probably be found if they had stopped to pick up one of the larger rocks along the side of the path, but Alex chose to push onward. They were making too much noise to see any of the larger wild animals. Several groups of people passed them, walking both faster and quieter.

After a half mile, Alex judged Cal needed a break and slowed down a little. Then she turned to head back, picking up the pace again when his heart rate normalized. When they got back, she created a restroom again and this time, he did get a drink.

Alex went to the flat grassland habitat reminiscent of the Pampas in Argentina next and started on the high-walk, a semitransparent bridge that did a full loop over the habitat for animal watching. Matching its original habitat, the grassland reflected the comfortably cooler temperatures of late autumn, with golden and green tall grasses and scattered short red and brown-leaved trees and clumps of tall pampas grass with their white-topped plumes.

Again, Alex set a pace that would push Cal. He didn't make it as far before he again needed the pace slowed. This time, she didn't turn around, but instead kept going, just at a much slower walk. The entire time, joggers zipped past them.

Alex stopped briefly over a scrubby woodland area, created a pair of SEL binoculars, gave one set to Cal, and pointed out the beautiful spotted Geoffroy's cat. "That one's male. They're larger than the females. They eat lizards and rodents mainly." Cal didn't comment, but she could tell he was awed.

Alex noticed the time. "Lunch?"

She created an air vehicle for two and flew out of the habitat. Again, she took him to the local cafeteria. This time he took his own tray. He turned to go to the cooked food line and Alex shook her head, "You're on my diet today. All the fresh fruit, nuts, and vegetables you want. Help yourself." She moved down the raw-food line at a pace that would let him select things, while getting her own food. He looked like he wanted to kill her, but he took a couple pieces of fruit. Alex smiled at him and suggested, "Might want to get a big salad also. I have a lot to do yet this afternoon before dinner."

Alex picked another empty table and sat. He also sat and ate his fruit. She could tell that once he started eating, he discovered he was ravenous and the two pieces of fruit disappeared. She ate slowly, waiting for him to get the nerve to ask her if she'd take him to get more. His stubbornness won.

After lunch, Alex subjected him to a tour of Sal's house, offering additional insights to the tour-guides-in-training. Cal avoided looking at any of the paintings the same way Alex avoided looking at the grand piano. They navigated around the people studying unobtrusive signs explaining the art and sculptures.

Once they were done in Sal's house, Alex led him through the cloud forest habitat, again pushing him as much as she could. Here, the trail was a beautiful suspended walkway to keep feet safe from the mud below and keep the habitat safe from visitors. Invisible SEL shielding prevented snakes and other wildlife from interacting with the many visitors.

"Hard to believe we're at the tail end of the dry season, isn't it?" Alex commented, pointing out an adorable little frog on a nearby lush, green tree. "This place matches the Reserva Biológica Bosque Nuboso Monteverde in Costa Rica."

After they'd gone a short distance, she turned around and headed back out again. The poor kid was sweaty, hungry, and miserable, a condition exacerbated by the warm fog. The walkway was also more crowded than Alex preferred.

Alex announced, "Next up. Hair salon. You will get a wash and a cut, because I'm getting my hair done, and you're on my time this week."

Cal frowned but wisely chose not to argue or maybe he was just too exhausted to argue.

Alex instructed the stylist to cut his hair very short. Just having his hair less greasy was a huge improvement. No more gang-long hair. He might even look like a normal kid if he would lose the surly attitude.

"Aren't you supposed to be done working by now?" Cal asked grouchily, "You guys are only supposed to work six hours."

"Yeah, I'm only going to work six hours, but I've only clocked two so far. I'm not counting the exercise periods or the meal times, because I have to do those anyway." She planned to stretch it to a full two shifts. His counselors certainly needed the break.

His hopes dashed, Cal followed her morosely to the next activity. Alex then walked him through the shopping zone, checking in at each shop to see how the proprietors were doing and to ask if they needed anything. Everyone wanted more space. Alex reflected that with the number of people zipping around, the requests were certainly valid.

Three hours later, Alex judged Cal had had enough walking, and took him back to the cafeteria for an early dinner. This time, however, she had mercy and took him down the cooked food line. He didn't hesitate to take a large quantity of food. She picked yet another empty table and they sat.

"So what do you think of our shopping zone?" she asked, giving him yet another opportunity to converse like a normal person.

Alex pretended he'd responded favorably. "See any stores you might want to work at?"

Cal didn't answer, but instead turned in his seat so he was facing away from her while he finished eating.

After dinner, Alex walked Cal slowly around the station until 6:45 p.m. and then returned him to his apartment. "I'll see you tomorrow morning at 7, Cal. You should probably be showered and dressed by 7:30. If you don't select a job to do, you can hang out with me again while I do mine."

The next day, Alex arrived promptly at 7 a.m. to find Cal still sound asleep. She took the bracelet from the social worker and sat down to review the forums in the dark until precisely 7:30 a.m. She then switched on the light and had his bed tip him out again.

"You didn't wake me up at 7," Cal grumped.

"Was I supposed to?" Alex asked calmly. He didn't answer and glared at her, so she again dragged him out into the hallway in his underwear, gave him socks and shoes and some clothing he couldn't see.

At breakfast, Cal took some fruits and ate them. Afterward, Alex slowly walked him around the station until she was sure his breakfast had digested suitably, and then she took him to one of the water parks. "Can you swim?" When he didn't immediately answer, she commented while studying her fingernails, "We can spend the morning walking laps in the baby pool or we can spend it on the adult side." She knew from talking with his parents that he could swim just fine.

"I can swim," Cal snarled.

"Excellent," Alex chirped enthusiastically. "We'll have more fun than we would in the baby pool." She created a double-size bathroom again. She went in, used the bathroom shielded from his view again, and swapped her SEL outfit to a one-piece swimsuit. She created some SEL swim trunks and held them out. "Put them on or swim in your underwear. Your choice."

He scowled but took the swim trunks behind the half-shield and put them on. He tossed his very nasty underwear at her. She caught them and set them on the sink counter, and made a show of washing her hands.

Alex turned and smiled at him. "Good choice. Now, you have to shower before you can get in the pool. There's shampoo and soap over there." She pointed at a newly added shower in their bathroom.

Cal crossed his arms stubbornly and didn't move.

"10 minutes. I'll wait." Alex leaned back against the wall and watched her clock while reading forums. He didn't move either.

Precisely 10 minutes later, Alex announced, "It's time. You still need a shower though." She pretended to think about this and then had the picobots push him into the shower and directed the shower to spray him with warm water. Then she had it douse him with warm, sudsy water, while he sputtered unhappily. When he was suitably bubbly, she stopped the water and advised cheerfully, "You should probably scrub under your armpits." This time he did as directed. She had the shower rinse him off again, making sure the soap was off both him and his SEL swimsuit.

"Great!" Alex said, surveying him. "Let's go swim!" For the rest of the morning, she took him up and down waterslides, careful to pace him so he didn't get over-exerted or exhausted, but certainly enough to make him a bit achy from a good workout. They had plenty of rest periods while waiting in lines to use the slides.

Afterwards, Alex took him to lunch, again going down the raw-food line. Cal gazed longingly at the warm foods, but didn't say anything. While they were eating, she asked, "Which park would you like to hike in this afternoon?"

Alex was privately pleased he actually answered at all. "Ah, good. My choice then. We didn't get very far in the cloud forest yesterday. That one is my favorite - so incredibly green."

Cal grimaced. "We did the one hour exercise period today."

"Aren't you four months behind on exercise periods?" Alex ate a wedge of tomato from her large salad. The perfectly ripe tomato delighted her. Colony One was quickly gaining a reputation for having the best food of any country.

Cal didn't reply this time and didn't respond to any of Alex's other attempts at engaging him in conversation either.

After lunch, Alex took him through the industrial zone, pointing out opportunities for employment that he was qualified for. Naturally, he showed no interest whatsoever and didn't even bother to acknowledge her speaking. When they finished that tour, Alex hiked him through the cloud forest until it was dinner time. Thankfully, there were less people on the suspended path than the previous day. The heat and humidity had both of them sweaty and wilted-looking, although only Cal was exhausted.

At 7 a.m. the next day, Cal was already at the cafeteria eating, hiding at a corner table with his social worker. Perhaps Cal didn't realize that his social worker had simply sent Alex a note about where to meet them and this relocation didn't inconvenience Alex at all.

Alex got her food and joined them at the table, noting Cal had a large meal of eggs, toast, and cereal. She took the bracelet from the social worker and let the tired man depart without comment.

Alex sipped at her tea and said conversationally, "Today, I thought we'd go through the farm fields to see if there are any jobs there that you might like to do. "

Cal gave her a dirty look, but didn't respond.

Midway through their walking tour of the farm fields, Alex got a call from Brian. She answered it, not hiding the volume from Cal. Part of her plan was to let Cal experience someone else's day. "What's up, Brian?"

"We need you in Emergency Response immediately. Our people at our Pacific island reported a moderate, but extended, earthquake at 36 degrees north, 169 degrees west, which they said is in the ocean off Japan, and asked if it was enough for a tsunami. I got our Earth sciences staff to look at it, and they just registered a second 7.8 quake, which will definitely make one. We have confirmed the wave that will make landfall in the 2-3 hour range."

Alex inhaled sharply, trying to visualize the world map in her mind. The latitude and longitude text of the map in her memory was too small for her to make out. "I'm on my way. Put the information we have on our company website and let our employees know. Get word out on the social media networks."

"Already doing that. I'm also scrambling our pilots and medical personnel," Brian informed her. "The Pacific island is already sending what personnel and resources they can."

"I'll be there in about 10 minutes. Have the scientists ready to brief me." Alex cut off the call, selected a vehicle designed for two on her HUD, created it, and pushed Cal in as she got in herself. She flew as fast as safety would allow, muttering, "This station is too big."

Rather than navigate the inevitable traffic on its way to Emergency Response, Alex decided it would be faster to go outside the station and fly directly around to the space port and enter that way. She angled her vehicle, adjusted the shielding for space, and then sped through the station's sky-window. The picobots automatically adjusted the SEL window to create a temporary airlock to let her through.

Only when they were almost at the docking bay did Alex notice that Cal was huddled into a ball, looking terrified. She immediately swapped the vehicle's transparent outer hull for an opaque one. "Sorry about that," she apologized, "I forget not everyone can handle being so close to the reality of space." She brought her vehicle to a sliding fast landing, and dissolved it, sprinting toward the Emergency Response's conference room with Cal floating behind her so he wouldn't have to run.

The conference room was configured as a moderately sized theater with huge floor-to-ceiling digital displays in a semi-circle with terraced desks and chairs facing it. People were still arriving and filling in the space. No one was sitting. People saw Alex and parted, clearing a path for her toward the front where Brian waited. He spotted her and flickered the lights so everyone would stop talking. To one of the scientists, Brian commanded, "You're up."

With his voice amplified so everyone could hear, the lead scientist began detailing both earthquakes and the aftershocks, complete with Earth-image overlays and wave-estimates on the center screen. Actual data was displayed to the right and graphs and predictions on the left. He talked fast and did not explain any of the underlying concepts.

When he stopped speaking and looked at Alex, she said, "Put line numbers on that data display." As she was now standing with Brian and the scientist on the dais, her voice was also amplified. There was a delay while that was done. When the line numbers appeared, Alex said, "Line 38 looks wrong. Where's Lucas? We need that math checked." Alex reflected that having Lucas handle all recent calculations had left her woefully out of practice. She ought to be able to sort this out.

"Visiting his family in Argentina," Brian replied. "We haven't been able to reach him."

"How many models do we have for this scenario?" Alex asked.

"Just the one up there that we just did," the lead scientist answered. "We've got some land-based earthquakes modeled, but we haven't had time..."

"Don't apologize," Alex said. "Let's see what we can do for the problem at hand."

Someone shouted from the back, "I've found the error; I'm sending the new data to the server now. It affects... um... everything after line 34."

The data refreshed and someone else shouted. "That can't be right. Line 58 is missing the tidal amplitude."

Alex bit her lip and said, "Ok, I want everyone calculating scientific data on that side of the room." She pointed to her left. "Medical personnel and supply people to the back center, and pilots, over here." People self-sorted. Brian nodded to Alex and went to the medical group. Alex set up sound barriers between the sections and joined the pilots. Cal floated along behind her, forgotten.

Alex lowered her arm like a hatchet through the center of the group. "Everyone this side and over, I want you in your vehicles and out right now. Head for Hawaii. We'll get you destinations as soon as our scientists have landfall calculations. Your task is to pick up and relocate people until the waves hit and then to help with rescue efforts." Those people departed. To the remaining people, she said, "The rest of you are going to do the same thing, but you're taking medical personnel and supplies as soon as they're ready. As soon as the other vehicles are out, get your own ready."

Alex left them and relocated to the scientists. They'd thrown a pair of formulas up on their display and were discussing adjustments while someone made the edits. Alex added her own comments. Fifteen precious minutes later, they were mostly in agreement. "Is that what we use, Everyone?" Alex asked.

Most nodded. The presenter replied, "It's as good as we can get without more data and statistical analysis."

Alex looked back at the screen and said, "Ok, then, let's see the data." The screen changed. They had an hour and twenty minutes before the first landfall. Their first pilots couldn't be there for another hour. Alex phoned Brian, even though he was just across the room, "Get those medical personnel out right now even if they don't have enough supplies. We'll send more down as soon as we can. They can also get some from locals."

"If we can get airspace restrictions lifted. We should already have requests in to the major governments." Brian disconnected.

Alex looked around at the eight scientists. "Good job, everyone. You saved lives today, recognizing the threat and getting the warning out. I need everyone to pick a location in the top eight by population and that's your domain. I'll issue you pilots based on your geography and urgency and I need you to coordinate rescue efforts. Spread out in this room. I'll give you people to help as soon as I can." They self-sorted while Alex used her HUD to pick a pilot to send to the Aleutians West Census Area at the northern side of the Pacific, and direct two pilots to start at the smaller islands south and west of Hawaii.

Alex's HUD lit with an incoming call and answered it. "Founder, the Prime Minister of Japan is on the line. Shall I patch him through?"

"Yeah." Alex created as small, private room around herself and Cal to cut the noise down. In Japanese, without preamble, Alex said, "Prime Minister, you have a tsunami that will reach Chiba in one hour and seven minutes."

"We're already evacuating coastline areas. We appreciate the warning. We'd like assistance from your flying vehicles."

"I'm already sending what I can to you along with medical personnel. May we enter your airspace?"

"Do you have an English-speaking point of contact I can give to my coordination team?" He gave her the information and Alex thanked him. "Prime Minister, we will do everything we can to assist you, but I have other people I need to speak with." She hung up on him and looked over at her charge. "How are you doing, Cal?"

"I have to use the bathroom," he whispered.

Alex turned their little room into a bathroom, but with the smaller size, she merely faced away from him to give him privacy, and then made him do the same. She dropped the room when they were done, and scattered noise dampeners all over the room so people could hear others standing next to them without shouting.

For the next forty-five minutes, Alex fielded phone calls from different governments and redirected communications to the right people. Brian issued the scientists additional personnel and delegated the parsing of the pilots to his HR manager. The three screens showed updated data and one of the programmers had managed to tie the wave peak data to the map so they had a real-time indicator of the waves. The room braced for the first impact.

Even with an almost two hour warning, the 30 meter wave was devastating. They started receiving live video feeds from their pilots and someone began sorting through them and putting key ones up on the left-most screen. Someone came over to Alex and after pulling on her arm to get her attention, said, "I have a room full of medical supplies out there and no qualified pilots to take it to the surface." Alex nodded and said she'd take care of it, but she was immediately snagged to sort out a communication failure for the Philippines team.

Even with noise dampeners, the room volume was high as people tried to coordinate rescue efforts and medical personnel. Images of buildings being pushed over with people still on them appeared on the screen, with her solitary pilot at that location trying desperately to get people from the water with dangling rope ladders and baskets. Colony One personnel were doing their best, but they were unprepared for rescue response, and there simply weren't enough personnel at each location to make much difference. They were also reporting to and working with the local governments so there was some confusion in coordination. This was the biggest wave in a long time. The center screen split into news feeds with graphic images.

Cal touched Alex's arm and she glanced over at him. "Medical supplies," he whispered timidly, afraid to talk.

"Oh! Thank you, Cal. I forgot." She left the chaotic room and dashed into the abandoned adjacent spaceport with Cal trailing along behind her. She looked at the massive pile of supplies and felt like weeping, instead she swore. "I have twelve locations that critically need supplies in proportionate amounts and they give me one mound of supplies?" She swore again. "Cal, help me get this sorted into twelve piles. Make it as equal as you can. I'm going to go get some help." She cut his cage loose and left him.

Alex came back with a group of teenagers and a dozen adults. Cal had made some headway on creating individual piles. Alex generated location-destination signs above each of the twelve piles and sent everyone in the room a list of which location should get what and then she split the volunteers into twelve groups. The supply lists were based on information coming in from the local governments. She put Cal in the highest-need group because he was most familiar with where supplies were located in the mound.

Alex stepped off to the side and created a sound-bubble around herself and began programming drones that could carry supplies to their needed locations. It was faster than trying to explain to someone what was needed. She periodically glanced up to see how the sorting was going. When she thought she had the programming correct so the drones would avoid any collisions, she sent the code off to their lead programmer for review. He responded about ten minutes later with a few minor edits and the comment that the anti-collision code was now right but he had no idea if the location physics was. The piles had just been finished.

Alex instructed everyone to move off to one side and wrapped each bundle in its own drone-vehicle and sent it on its way. These would start reaching their destinations in about 30 minutes because the station had relocated above the epicenter and had its orbit adjusted to match. They would still need to wait until the wave subsided enough to let the rescuers in safely and the local governments directed distribution. She thanked and dismissed the adults and teenagers and reattached Cal to herself with another bathroom break. When that was done, she went back into the Emergency Response conference room.

The high school students returned and passed out bag lunches to everyone. Alex didn't get a chance to eat hers, because people kept needing her for something, and it was eventually forgotten on one of the desks. Cal ate his and got pulled along after Alex as she went from location team to location team helping however she was able. At each team, she made sure to say encouraging things and thank them for their effort. Colony One's programming team launched a database for people to register so they could find their families and translators were brought in to log people in rescue vehicles.

At one point, Alex paused to watch the graphic video displayed on the left-most monitor. Those were raw, unedited live-feeds of the massive destruction, rescue efforts, and medical services. She wondered briefly if she should be exposing Cal to that, but she didn't have the energy to try and find a suitable escort that could take him away. She resumed going from team to team.

Eventually, the same high school students came and distributed bag dinners. Alex managed to get a couple bites of the hearty vegetarian sandwich, before getting pulled away again. Around 3 a.m., teams started finishing up, having delivered those rescued to appropriate medical facilities in their native countries. Medical personnel and pilots were given the option to stay and help if they were invited to do so by the local government and the others were told to return home to sleep.

Alex created a cot for Cal off to one side of the room and continued assisting with translations and anything else that people had questions about. She started sending people off to sleep in shifts and worked with those who remained to keep their communications up. She noticed Cal didn't sleep either, but instead, lay on his cot watching her. She sent him a reassuring smile and a nod every so often, and went back to the task at hand.

This continued for another day and pilots and medical personnel started returning and local organizations took over disaster recovery. Alex kept Cal with her. She personally shook each person's hand and thanked them and told them they were heroes. Each and every one had that glazed war-trauma stare. Alex had counselors waiting to help. She often repeated, "Rescue swimmers and rescue teams have a lot more training. You did awesome. You saved a lot of people."

Later that night, Alex called the key people to one of the company conference rooms. "We did good, people," she began. "That was awesome teamwork. But we need to know what to do better for next time."

"He shouldn't be here," Brian said, indicating Cal.

Cal shrunk back into himself. Alex responded, "He stays. He was critical to getting our medical supplies out as quickly as we did."

Cal blinked at this and uncurled a little.

"So what can we do better?" Brian asked, returning to the topic without argument.

The brainstorming session lasted three hours. While Cal did not say anything, he was certainly listening.

After the meeting, Alex made her way back to Cal's apartment as he followed behind. She opened his door and said, "Sometimes one of my work days is pretty long," Alex smiled her thanks to the waiting social worker and then refocused on Cal. "Look, these escorts you have with you all the time are trained counselors." The man waiting nodded in cheerful affirmation of this and Alex continued without pausing, "You saw a lot of scary and disturbing things in the last two days. You might experience nightmares or waking daymares. If you need to, talk with them. They'll keep it confidential. It's not a weakness to be upset or disturbed. It's a normal human response to trauma." On that pleasant note, Alex went to find her own bed.

Alex was eating a late dinner the following Wednesday when Cal's morning counselor found her. He sat down with a token drink.

"What's up?" Alex asked, yawning. She'd had a busy five days since leaving Cal back at his room. Their emergency response was woefully inefficient and she and a team of people were working on plans to improve the system.

"He asked about you three times," the counselor said.

"Three, huh?" Alex set down her spoon.

The counselor grinned. "For him, that's loquacious. He asked if you were coming back to guard him again. About two hours later, he asked if you knew what the news is saying about you. Then, just as I was leaving my shift, he asked how often we counselors talked with you."

"Wow. That's practically a soliloquy," Alex said with a grin.

"Yeah." The counselor tilted his coffee and swirled it, but did not lift it to his mouth. "He hasn't turned on his video game console either. He watches the news and stares at the wall."

"I'll come by tomorrow during your shift," Alex said .

"Thanks, Founder." The man took his drink over to recycling and dropped it off, and then headed toward the residential area.

The next day, Alex chanced to arrive for her breakfast midway through Cal's lunch. She took her tray over to Cal and his counselor. "Hi, guys! Mind if I join you?"

"Please, Founder," the counselor said. "I need to use the restroom." He passed her the bracelet and left the food court to politely create his temporary room in the designated area.

Cal watched the man go with a look akin to desperation, as if he wanted to run after him, shouting, "Please don't leave me with her!"

"How are things going, Cal?" Alex asked, wondering how obvious the ploy was.

"Ok, I guess." Cal looked at his plate and pushed his sandwich over a little.

Alex waited. Compared to her last cafeteria meal with Cal, his reply was a miracle.

After a minute, Cal said, "Have you seen the news?"

"I have." She'd reviewed the latest that very morning in preparation for this conversation. The media was viciously attacking her and Colony One, saying that more lives could have been saved if Colony One hadn't been so stingy and uncaring. "They aren't very happy with Colony One this week. What do you think? You were there."

"They're lies," Cal pronounced. "Why don't you defend yourself?"

"I could argue all day long and never change their mind; they won't believe the truth. It's a battle I can't win." Alex shrugged in acceptance of this sad fact. "Besides, I've been too busy working on our emergency response. Got to overhaul it so we can do better next time."

Cal stared at his plate and said nothing.

Alex waited again, eating some of her oatmeal.

"I want to work in the emergency response center." Cal's voice was barely audible.

Alex set her spoon down. "Hmmm. What would you like to do there?"

"I dunno." Cal pushed his sandwich again. "It could be a lot better organized, is all."

"How so?" Alex was careful to set her tone curious, not the least bit derisive.

The response was a long time coming again. "Well, everyone's so busy looking at the details, no one sees the whole picture."

Alex and her team had been considering that very thing that morning. She and Brian couldn't run response in an emergency. They were needed in too many other places. She studied Cal. "You were in a unique position to observe everything. What do you recommend?" He didn't answer so Alex prompted, "You know, without critique, we can't improve. It's ok to speak up. "

After almost a full minute, Cal said, "That one big room doesn't work."

"No, it doesn't. What do you think we need?"

"Well, a separate cafeteria. All those lunch bags got in the way at the computer stations. People were too burned out and made mistakes. They need to leave the room every so often to clear their head."

Alex nodded. "I agree. What else?"

"It also needs a viewing area. Lots of people kept coming through and getting in the way even though they weren't working. They kept interrupting people for updates." Cal spoke quickly, as if afraid to stop once he started.

Alex hadn't noticed the interruptions probably due to her own constant interruptions, but she looked back through her memory and saw Cal was correct.

"People didn't know what they were doing or where they were going." Cal stared at his food.

Alex said, "I have a team of people working on this problem."

Cal exhaled, slumping forward, obviously disheartened.

"You could join them, I suppose," Alex said quickly. "You don't have the background or experience necessary, but that doesn't make your observations invalid."

Cal finally made eye contact with her. "Really?"

"Sure. I'll create the job posting for you and you can start tomorrow. Your counselor can help you find it." His counselor, having received a message from Alex, arrived back in time to hear this.

"I can," Cal's counselor said, taking his seat again. Alex passed him the bracelet. "Thank you, Founder."

Lucas arrived back at the station two months after the tsunami, having spent a month at their Pacific island sorting out new earthquake measurement devices and another month back in Argentina finishing off his vacation. When his message arrived on Alex's HUD, she directed him to meet her in her office, which was currently a large open room with a small desk and chair pushed off to one side. She'd closed over the windows so she could focus on the huge 3D hologram in front of her showing the new, separate housing district where the Earth refugees would find temporary shelter when the time came. They could be integrated into Colony One after the initial rescue operation.

The refugee area, unfortunately compressed as much as possible, was a half circle, centered around a new medical complex and a massive cafeteria. Initially, the stacked skyscraper buildings would have the density of the long- gone Kowloon Walled City, yet would have clean water, food, medical, school, and law. It would still be miserable living, but safe, and the housing could be shifted into Colony One's better structure as the population became trained citizens and they increased the station mass.

Alex would have to get the new populace producing food and supplies almost immediately. At least the new toilets were correctly connected. Sanitation wouldn't be a problem if she could get people to clean up after their pets. While giving space and resources for pets seemed to be stealing from humans, they would need the long-term comfort these provided to help recover from the trauma. She also allocated space to religions, careful to separate incompatible ones, and added recreation and fitness zones.

Colony One's station was due for yet another reconfiguration. She had no idea what the station design committee was going to try next. SEL made it too easy to change. The zones themselves generally stayed in the same layout, but how the zones were arranged and the shape of the station's hull kept changing. They'd been through a few designs already. The committee kept swinging between functionality and structural beauty. Before they could drive her crazy with their antics, Alex had delegated technical support to Lucas.

Alex was trying yet another walking path layout on the separate refugee unit when she heard Lucas clear his throat behind her. She cancelled the image she was studying with a wave. "I'm really glad you're..." Alex turned and paused, eyebrows lifting slightly. "Here." She blinked. Snuggled next to Lucas was a petite woman with wavy, dark chestnut hair. She was pretty with large grey eyes, but Alex could see nervous tension in her uncertain expression.

Lucas himself positively glowed with pride and happiness. "Founder, I'd like you to meet my wife, Sara. We met while I was on vacation. We'll have a second wedding here on the station, but we wanted our families at a traditional wedding first."

Because Lucas spoke in Spanish, Alex did too. Sara must also be from Argentina. Was Lucas being kind to her because her English was lacking or had he merely forgotten which language he was speaking? "Congratulations! Sara, it's very nice to meet you. Welcome to Colony One. You've chosen yourself a good man."

Sara replied in perfect English with a soft, musical voice. "Thank you, Founder. I'm really looking forward to seeing the amazing things that Lucas has been telling me about."

"Most of the high-tech areas Lucas designed," Alex said, switching to English. "The amusement parks with dynamic gravity are some of the most popular."

Lucas gave Sara a happy squeeze and said, "Sara's a teacher."

"Physics?" Alex asked.

Sara laughed. "Third grade. Although I may try my hand at a few other professions. Lucas says I can do that? "

Alex nodded. "Certainly. Every few months if you want. It keeps people from getting burned out and lets them find somewhere they are happy. It causes some issues as people learn their new jobs, but most people are tolerant of mistakes and slowness."

"It's being called the changeover challenge," Lucas added.

"Changeover carnage, last I heard," Alex said.

Lucas hugged Sara and kissed her head. "On the plus side, you're going to get the best service ever from places where people have stayed, because you know they truly enjoy doing it."

"I like being a teacher so we'll see." Sara smiled up at Lucas and they gazed at each other.

Lucas said, "You can teach our kids when we have them." He sighed happily. "I can't believe I'm this lucky."

"I'm the lucky one," Sara said. "I saw you across the market first and knew you were the one."

"No, I definitely saw you before you saw me." Lucas shook his head. "Why do you think I was standing in front of the vegetables? I assure you, I wasn't that hard pressed to decide between eggplant and squash. I don't like either of them."

Sara giggled at Lucas. "It's a good thing you stayed put. I had friends posted at your exits to block you in until I could get brave enough to talk with you."

They'd forgotten Alex was still standing there, lost in their own two-person world. Lucas wouldn't be thinking about work for a while. Alex realized she would have to design the refugee camp's streets by herself. She'd gotten used to getting Lucas' opinion on things, but she certainly wouldn't begrudge him his happiness. "I'm glad you found each other," Alex said.

Lucas looked back over at Alex and bit his lip with chagrin. "Was there anything you needed? Sara and I want to go look at apartment locations."

"Nah, I just wanted to catch up. We can do that later. There's no rush." Alex shooed them off with a wave of her hand.

Lucas nodded. "I'm letting Sara pick our home. I can move my lab anywhere." Lucas and Sara exchanged another long, love-mushy gaze.

"Have fun, you two. Congratulations again!" Alex smiled at them.

Lucas half-bowed to her and they started back toward the main station.

"Nice meeting you, Founder!" Sara called back as Lucas dragged her off.

Alex watched them go and then turned back to her street network. She retrieved the last holographic projection. It was a tradeoff between convenience and available space. If she cut a few access streets, she could give more space to individual apartments, but that would create too much foot traffic at certain hubs. She added a simulation of people's expected walk-paths to find the worst congested locations to try and alleviate some of the bottlenecks.

Wheelchairs were going to be an issue until they could replace them. Alex sighed and set up one building to be handicap accessible. They wouldn't be able to get into the other housing units, but at least they could get to all the public areas. Elevators took less space than stairs, but wouldn't handle the sheer volume of people. They needed both because they wouldn't have time to sort out who couldn't physically do the stairs.

Alex supposed she could make each floor its own habitat. The cafeteria itself would have to be multilevel anyway. Alex shrunk the cafeteria length and width and stacked it. Colony One citizens could deliver food and supplies to each floor easily enough. That would minimize the need for elevators. It would still take someone walking at a normal speed about fifty minutes to get from the farthest apartment to the food court.

New arrival processing was going to be a nightmare. When the time came, she could create a huge open floor underneath the complex and create temporary elevators, but the influx of people would drown any amount of station personnel she could throw at the problem. The refugees would have to self-sort after the initial relocation.

Alex wanted additional help with this design, but she was unwilling to bring in anyone other than Lucas. While she knew with absolute certainty that the Earth was failing, she recognized that she herself wanted to pretend it wasn't for as long as possible. As soon as the information became public, she'd have to deal with it directly. Alex marked that design as a possibility and started on another simulation. She would at least be able to provide options to the necessary committees.

The emergency response center underwent a huge change over the next nine months. Colony One dumped resources and personnel into it as much as possible. Job positions for scientists and response personnel were given priority listings.

The center's new floor plan was designed almost entirely by Cal with a lot of assistance and feedback from both the team and the station's architects. Individual scientific departments got organized by likely shared needs. A dedicated technical team arranged system-wide support for information dispersal. Individual HUDs could request specialized updates. The programming team created skill databases to help locate personnel with the right abilities needed during an event. This would also prove useful for other projects. The emergency response center also included a recuperation area to give workers respite as well as nourishment.

Alex was pleased with the progress of both the center and Cal. While Cal had some expected issues dealing with people as an adult and had to adjust to working, he left behind the surly, angsty teenager and began recognizing that he made a difference, that his insights and help were useful and even sometimes vital to the project's success. The team of people working with him treated him like an intern, giving him help and gentle instruction and allowing him time to research and learn. The center and Cal matured together. Cal's parents were amazed although Alex knew they didn't yet comprehend the natural conclusion to his astonishing progress.

When Cal had only two months left to repay his debt, he began skipping work and his attitude dropped significantly. He refused to speak with his assigned social workers.

Alex again picked up a shift to accompany him. She arrived promptly at 7 a.m. Cal was up, playing a video game. Alex took the bracelet from Cal's escort, waited until the man departed, and went over to the TV and turned it off.

Cal frowned at her, but a guilty look crossed his face.

"So, Cal, what's the problem?" Alex sat down in the escort's chair.

He set aside his game controller and looked at his bed. "No problem. I just want a break, is all."

"They miss you in the center." Alex leaned back, preparing to stay as long as necessary.

"It doesn't matter," Cal said. "They should get used to me not being there. I'll be gone soon."

Alex studied his hunched over, unhappy expression. "Don't you want to go home? Your parents miss you."

"But there are things that need to be done at the center," Cal said.

Alex nodded. "You need an education to truly be an asset though."

"I can get an education here." Cal stood up and began to pace.

"Politically, you know I can't keep you here. You're a United States citizen." Alex scratched her forehead and then rubbed at her chin. She wished she could keep him on the station. They needed all emergency response workers they could get.

"I don't want to be. I want to stay." Cal crossed his arms.

Alex could see the remnants of the stubborn surly boy he'd been not so long ago. "So go home. Talk it over with your parents. Come back if they agree. If they don't, get an education and then come back when you're legally an adult. I'll personally sponsor your citizenship."

He stopped pacing and gaped at her. "You will?"

Cal hesitated a moment and then asked, "Even after what I did?"

"Everyone makes mistakes when they're young, Cal. Everyone does something they're not proud of. You were a different person when you came aboard this station. The people you work with now tell me that you're doing an excellent job; that they're pleased to have you on their team. Your input has been vital to the center's reorganization."

Cal blinked at this, apparently unaware that she'd been keeping track of his progress. "Then you'd let me come back? "

"Absolutely." Alex wondered if Cal's parents happened to be viewing this conversation. Their own jobs and obligations meant they couldn't watch all day, every day.

Cal turned to face her. "Which would be more useful? A degree in emergency response or earth science?"

Alex hmm'd. "You know more about the center than I do. What does it need most?"

"Oh." Cal's eyes moved to his hands which twitched.

Alex said, "You have to finish off high school first anyway. There's plenty of time to decide yet. That reminds me. I've been meaning to come talk with you about your return home anyway."

His eyes snapped back to hers. "What about?"

"Your parents love you, Cal. They aren't going to be a problem. They'll accept you, even if they'll struggle with realizing you're an adult now. Your friends, however, aren't going to understand who you've become. They're focused on themselves, their heroin, and their local gang. They've been brainwashed by the media to believe Colony One is evil and you will not be able to convince them otherwise. They're going to try to suck you back into their world."

Cal paled. "I hadn't considered that."

"You've personally saved not only the lives of people who got medical supplies before they would have if you hadn't reminded me, but you've saved the lives of people in the future who will benefit from your contributions to the center. You're important. You make a difference." Alex paused to let that sink in. "You're going to have to hold onto that and be gentle and understanding with your old friends."

"Gentle? With heroin addicts?" Cal snorted.

"Yeah. Don't engage in arguments you can't win," Alex said. "Show by example and stay on your path. You have two months to try to figure out a strategy to handle the culture shock of going home. You should talk it over with your counselors and practice responses so you don't get hurt."

"Practice?" He raised an eyebrow doubtfully.

"It's a skill just like any other skill." Alex opened her hand, palm up. "You don't think I was born this awesome, do you?"

That made him laugh. "Ok, ok. I surrender. I'll go home. You aren't going to run me around the station in my underwear again, are you?"

"You only thought you were in your underwear," Alex confessed. "I bent light so everyone else would see you wearing clothes."

"You're evil, Founder."

"You were the one refusing to take a shower." She grinned at him. "How about you show me around the new center instead?"

With stops for a mutually agreeable meal, Cal led Alex around their new Emergency Response complex and explained what had been done and why. Prompted with questions, he shared the underlying data and statistics, showing a deeper understanding of the challenges and science than Alex had expected.

"I hate this!" The woman's shrill voice carried across the stream from down the path leading to the forest's exit. Birds in the immediate area took flight and departed.

Alex rubbed her temple, trying to drive out her headache. Just what she needed. Downsiders. She'd hoped the oxygen-rich "outdoor" air would settle her nerves enough that she could eat lunch, but all it had done was give her excessive time to worry about tomorrow's defensive debate that she didn't want to do. Natural versus artificial environments. It would be a direct attack against her space station and Colony One, and would likely be based on ignorance, hype, and agendas.

It had been five months since Cal had returned home, and yet the political atmosphere between Colony One and the United States was still volatile. Brian had scheduled the debate to try and improve Colony One's image, optimistically thinking the press coverage would be helpful.

Instinctively, Alex pulled her feet up out of the water and scooted back against a leafy shrub. If she stayed still, there was a chance the noisy downsiders might not notice her. Maybe they'd be gone soon.

"I will never, ever like this. It's hot, buggy, sweaty! Sweaty! I tell you, I'm done with this. I'm done with you. We both know this isn't working out. We're done. Over. I'm going back to that hotel and getting a room of my own and then I'm going home. It's absurd to be forced to exercise for an hour every day. This place is a prison!"

Not long after this piercing tirade, a man walked into view. He looked about the same age as Alex, dressed in a pressed, lightweight fashionable, outdoor-style linen suit, with matching designer, new hiking shoes. His light brown hair was neatly trimmed and only moderately wind-blown. In a frustrated gesture, he ran his fingers through that hair, pulling at it. Gritting his teeth, he reached into his trouser pocket and withdrew something small in a white-knuckled grip. He threw it at the stream and turned to walk back, without watching it land with a quiet, anticlimactic splash near the stream's center.

Alex frowned. Bloody downsiders, always destroying the environment. Sure, he was having a bad day, but damn it, the Earth was being killed by this bullshit.

After about 20 steps, the man swore and turned back, dashing toward the stream and scrutinized the water with panic.

Alex exhaled with resignation and stood up. "I saw where it went. I'll get it." He blinked at her in confusion. She supposed she might have looked like she had just teleported in. With practiced grace, she stepped across the scattered stream rocks until she got near the center. Then she waded in and reached into the water for the object. It was a small, blue-green jewelry box. She took it to him.

Up close, she saw the man had classically handsome features - strong jaw, squared eyebrows, intense green eyes. These complemented his broad shoulders, surprisingly trim body, and general fitness level.

"Thank you." Opening the little box and letting the water pour out, he commented softly, "It was my grandmother's." He took out the elegant diamond ring, carefully dried it on his shirt and gently tucked it in his shirt pocket. He shook the excess water from the box and stuffed that in his pants pocket where the dampness immediately made a rather large dark wet spot which he didn't notice. "I hope we didn't disturb you. It's just I..."

"It's ok. I understand," Alex offered kindly .

"I'm not sure how much you heard just now."

Alex didn't say anything.

His cheeks reddened. "Sorry. I was going to take her to see Earth-rise and propose. I think... No, I'd hoped that it might fix things. She's a city girl, but we've been incompatible from the beginning." He shrugged, refocusing on Alex. "You aren't going to get in trouble for wading in the stream?" Colony One had many rules about how people could interact with the environment.

"Naw, it's a designated swim area."

His hand gestured in the air as he studied his personal HUD. He was obviously trying to find the map of the area.

Alex waited patiently, accustomed to the delay in responses people didn't even realize they inflicted on the person next to them when they were working with their display. When he seemed to have found what he was looking for and his eyes refocus on her, she commented, "You know, your friend might be happier in one of the dance clubs; those are designated exercise areas too. Lots of deafening music and flashing lights. Very city-like."

"Huh. I hadn't thought of that. I'll mention it to her if she'll speak to me again." His eyebrows pulled together thoughtfully as he studied her. "Are you here to see Earth-rise?"

No, I'm here hiding from my responsibilities, playing around in that useless cave project, and desperately trying to find some way out of tomorrow's debate. Alex settled for a simple nod instead of that thought. "The best view of Earth-rise is just up around the bend, at the top of the waterfall. We have about 30 minutes. It's enough time to get there."

"Been on the station long?"

The question made her pause. Alex hadn't realized he didn't recognize her. She'd stayed out of the press photos since departing Earth, but she didn't think she'd changed that much. She did have her hair pulled back out of her eyes with a rolled bandana and tied up in the back in a rough ponytail, and she was in a simple, design-free, comfortable SEL standard shorts and tee citizen's leisure outfit.

Most people spent their funds on specialty designs. Tomorrow's debate outfit, for example, was a one-off meticulous forest green and gold pants suit, a mere $40,000. Absurd, but expected. Alex pushed that out of her mind and realized the super-generic outfit probably made her look like a new arrival. After tomorrow, she'd probably never be anonymous again. Not that she was anonymous among the citizens anyway, but it had been nice not to be accosted by tourists everywhere.

Rather flippantly, Alex decided to seize the opportunity, even if she refused to lie outright. "I've been here for a while. Come on, I'll show you the way up. There's actually 4 different paths." They started along the stream edge. "There's easy, moderate, advanced, and extreme, just like most of the exercise tracks. There's also a handicap lift, but you have to be registered to use it. The easy path is just a long slope." She glanced over at him, trying to decide if he should be on the easy or moderate path. "You'd have to go pretty fast on the easy path though - it takes longer."

"Which one are you taking?"

"I'll go up the advanced track. I need to stretch and burn off some energy, but you shouldn't try to match me. There's crossover points for all four, so you can change if the one you're on gets to be too much." Alex wished burning off energy would burn off her anxiety, but she knew it wouldn't.

They came around the bend to see the base of the waterfall. The man's impressed inhale and wide eyes made Alex grin. She'd helped with the design. It was a full 31 meters, small by waterfall standards, but meticulously arranged for melodic sound, with scattered rocky outcrops covered mostly in beautiful green moss.

At the waterfall base, a large swimming area was exquisitely lit with dappled sunlight. When actual sunlight couldn't reach the station, the sunlight was artificially generated. Shielding collected and blocked sunlight as needed to create a normal 24-hour day/night schedule. Flat stones near the swimming area provided a sitting area for natural drying and lounging. The air smelled particularly fresh and clear. The entrance to the cave was hidden by the waterfall and plants.

"It's magnificent," he murmured.

"Swim after Earth-rise if you want. The center gets pretty deep." She pointed out the easy path start. "You just follow your map overlay on your HUD. It's pretty simple."

"So where's your path?"

Alex grinned and pointed at the rocky cliff face that went straight up beside the waterfall.

"That's the advanced? I've done some rock climbing. Wouldn't that be the extreme?" At her head shake, he asked, "Do I want to know where the extreme path is?"

"Oh, that goes up in the waterfall. It's a bit slippery, so you have to grip harder to stay on. Mostly the water just tries to push you down, so you have more resistance going up."

"Ah, well, I'll follow you."

Alex shrugged and did not comment about macho men. Most downsiders found the moderate tracks hard. She had daily workouts, no pollution, no toxins, healthy food (when she wasn't too stressed to eat), and a consistently active lifestyle. The advanced track would push her, although she did the extremes at least 3 times a week. There was a decently sized club of citizens that were "extremes only" and busily kept ranks and scored who was "the most extreme" based on time-to-complete and number of extremes done per day. They were a little obsessively crazy, but Alex was designing a couple "ultra tracks" just for them. The first was inside the cave .

As they climbed, he said, "I'm really glad you saw where that landed. I'd've been hours looking for it."

"Station personnel would have picked it up and returned it to you eventually." Specifically, Alex would have retrieved it and passed it along to station security, who would have reviewed the security footage, located him, and issued a warning about littering.

"I swear I don't ever do anything like that. I actually work a lot of cleanup initiatives. I was out on the Appalachian Trail two months ago, picking up trash and updating trail blazes."

"I spent some time in the Chattahoochee National Forest as a kid. This place has a lot of similar vegetation." That had been Alex's home for a couple years, she reflected. Some good memories, some horrible ones.

"Oh! Yes, I can see that. Now that you mention it, that's what this forest reminds me of. This waterfall is steeper than the ones there though."

"Less acreage. We're much more condensed." Alex grabbed the next outcropping and pulled herself up.

The man panted after her. Alex diligently pointed out the first crossover to the moderate track and he stubbornly shook his head. At the second crossover, he gasped defeat and switched paths. At the third crossover, she switched over to the moderate track too, more tired than normal. She'd not slept very well all week, worrying about the debate, and she hadn't eaten.

It was not that she was afraid of "losing" the debate but rather that she was afraid of what the press would do with whatever she might say. In her own country, Colony One reporters had been told they were only allowed to report what they witnessed directly, and were only allowed to state the truth as they saw it, with as little "bias" as possible. Violation of this would be banishment back to Earth, where they could join the Earth reporters who published whatever would incite people to the most fervor and rage. Tomorrow's debate would have a full set of "neutral" downsider reporters. As if they'd be neutral.

"I am not a villain," she growled to herself as she stumbled up the last step. She was still ahead of her visitor by a few minutes, so she spent some time stretching. She felt more spaghetti-armed than usual. Maybe tomorrow after the debate, she could take a few days off and get some real rest. She'd want to hide out from the conference attendees anyway.

Her guest arrived just as Alex was finishing her stretches. He was flushed, breathing hard, but not gasping like he was dying. That meant he was much more athletic than his expensive, sporty clothes suggested. Alex was impressed; no, she thought to herself, she was aroused. Damn, he was sexy. He bent forward a moment, hands on his knees, normalizing his breathing. When he straightened and gazed around, his eyes sparkled with impressed excitement.

Caught up in his wonder, Alex surveyed the area, trying to see the place as if for the first time. The stream that fed the waterfall came down from a steep mountainside slope. The trees were too dense to see the sky in that direction. Opposite that, a low wooden bridge crossed over the stream to a large grassy clearing. Chair-height rocks were arranged to look natural, but on closer inspection, were in a semi-circle facing an opening in the trees. This created an expansive, bold view where the sky was open to the clear SEL force shield and then to space. A slight slope curved downward toward the opening, creating a theater effect.

They crossed over the bridge. Alex expected citizens to start holding weddings here once the cave project got finished and there was more to see than a mere waterfall and occasional great view of the Earth. Whether the Earth was lit by the sun or showing off the nighttime lights of cities, it was magnificent to behold, particularly from one of the designated Earth-rise locations. The best time to experience Earth-rise was at station night, when the Earth below had day. The dark star-filled sky would slowly be overtaken by a brilliant blue, white, green, and brown sphere.

Earth-rise was possible because Colony One's station had been redesigned yet again and split into two double-sided plates. This created four "continents" that were split into districts and environmental habitats. Gravity and "ground" were shared between the plate sides with their "sky" facing space. Thankfully, the design committee seemed to have finally settled on this design.

The larger plate remained at a right-angle to the Earth so half always pointed toward the Earth and half to space. The other slowly spun allowing the Earth to rise and set. Going between them was as simple as either flying or taking one of Lucas' connecting shuttle tubes. The shuttle tubes had independent gravity so people wouldn't feel the spin and reorientation to the new gravity direction. Only the sky would be different when they stepped out of the shuttle tube.

Alex realized they'd each been lost in their own thoughts for a while. She said, "The best view is from the third row, center." She pointed. "It frames correctly if you want to take a picture."

"I don't take photographs. I prefer to experience the moment, not experience taking a picture of the moment."

In that moment, Alex fell in love. He understood how to live. Absurd, really, to fall in love over such a simple statement, but she recognized her feral animal attraction and admiration, and that warm tingle from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She'd written enough of those silly romance novels to recognize it, even if she'd never felt it before.

Not that she could do anything about it. His relationship status was either taken or rebounding, and complicated, and hers was impossible; she couldn't unbalance Colony One's politics by introducing a random person as a spouse or even a boyfriend. Citizens already gave her priority, honor, and power as the Founder, but in order for this country to survive, in fact, in order for humanity to survive, no one could have power over anyone else. Yet, she held power and would keep it just to make sure no one else would take power and abuse it.

"I also like to experience the moment," she said, her voice coming out quieter than she wanted.

He studied his HUD a moment. "We have a few minutes yet." The clock on Alex's display was counting down from 3 minutes 16 seconds. He walked over to the waterfall edge and peered down. "The waterfall is pretty from up here too. Come see."

Alex diligently went over and looked, noting the changes from the last time she'd been up here. The forest trees were maturing nicely and getting that full spongy-carpet look to their tops. The artificial breeze looked sufficiently random-natural. Not too far away, Colony One's city buildings could be seen reaching upward in what looked like a scene painted on a science fiction novel, with odd shapes and a connecting maze of bridges between buildings. It changed and grew daily, a living organism by itself.

He squinted at it. "How can something look so big and so small at the same time?"

She laughed. "I've often wondered the same thing. We're microscopic compared to the Earth. The real trick is seeing the Earth the same way, as microscopic compared to the solar system." They watched several hawks circle and move off around the mountain and then they silently made their way over to the third row. Time ticked down in her display. He didn't spoil the magic silence with words and Alex was thankful.

Birds began to sing again and a gentle breeze pushed the warm air past them. The Earth rose over the forested horizon. Brilliant daylight below, clouds lit from the left in a golden sunrise hue, crossing over South Africa, to just a touch of shadowy grey night over on the right. Alex realized they were both holding their breath. The Earth continued rotating as it rose, showing the South Atlantic ocean in its blue-green glory and then South America, Brazil, and Venezuela. Colony One would eventually slow and hover a few hours over the Earth-side Colony One island in the Pacific Ocean so shuttles could go back and forth, before continuing its strange, ever changing orbit. The Earth rose above their clearing and when it got to a point where it was awkward to look at, they both relaxed.

Their eyes met in mutual awe and Alex felt like she was spinning away into the universe that was his soul. He looked just like she felt. Alex glanced away first. She was too important; her task too critical to allow personal desires to get in the way, and yet, she thought she might throw it all away for one real kiss. One moment of intimacy that would take away the horrors of her childhood. What was she? Some foolish teenager? This was absurd. She started back up the slope toward the bridge.

"Wait," he said quickly.

Alex stopped and turned. "Yes?"

He hesitated. Then obviously not saying what he'd meant to when he stopped her, he said, "That was incredible. Thank you."

Before she realized what she was about to say, Alex asked, "Would you like to see what I've been working on?" No one had been allowed to see her cave. Not yet. Not even Brian or Lucas. She couldn't believe she'd said that and there was no way to take the question back.

"Mmmm hmmm?" He nodded curiously, tilting his head. "I would."

"It's a pet project, really. I don't have much time for it, but Station Development approved it."

"Not far, I was actually on lunch break for Earth-rise." With sudden inspiration, Alex grinned. "Let's take the fast way down. How brave are you?"

He raised an eyebrow.

She winked saucily and ran toward the cliff edge. He shouted after her when he realized what she meant to do, but she'd already leapt off the cliff edge in a perfect swan dive. By time he'd reached the edge and peered over, the gravity cage had already caught her and she was drifting on her back toward the ground below. "Just jump!" she called up. "The farther out you go the faster you'll come down."

"I must be crazy!" he shouted back. He jumped. Not as far out as she'd gone, but far enough to make decent time. She also noted that he jumped in the direction of the deep water, just in case. It took a while to override one's own instincts.

As soon as she reached the bottom, she realized she needed to call security to get clearance for him to enter the cave. She quickly dialed, hoping to finish before he got within earshot. "Dispatch, I need you to tell Station Security to authorize... uh... the person with me... for a one time entrance to the cave. Duration until he leaves."

"Founder! Of course! Is there anything else you need?"

"Uh, no, thank you. That's all." She cut the call off and made sure her 'do not disturb unless dire' option was extended through the evening.

"Holy cow! That was awesome!" The gravity cage had oriented him into a standing position and set him down on the side of the stream near her.

"Yeah, jumping from any dangerous height anywhere on station will do the same thing, although doing it in an unauthorized area will get you a visit from Psyche and Station Security, in that order. This station is really appallingly safe."

"Hard to commit suicide, eh?"

"Where there's a will, there's a way, but the way ought to be a little challenging, don't you think?" Alex winked.

"I suppose so!" He was still grinning from the adrenaline rush from the jump. He obviously shared her passion for excitement.

"I need to tell you - this area is still unfinished. It's not open to the public and I've contacted Station Security to allow you to go in with me right now." At his appalled look of concern, Alex hurried on to say, "It's not a problem. It's just an active construction zone so you need an escort."

"I thought Station Security is a draconian nightmare with zero tolerance and absolutely no exceptions?"

Alex was the key creator and most avid supporter for that policy. "Well, that old saying about asking forgiveness is easier than asking permission... not so true here. It's a safety thing. For all that this station looks like there's a lot of space, we're really a very compressed city with a lot of people. No room for hazardous behavior."

"Ok, so the bathroom designs are still being debated, as are the swimsuit designs. Um. Just a moment." Alex zipped through her HUD and published the prototype tourist-suite for the cave so it would show up on his display. "All right, you have a new icon set in the lower right of your display for proximity actions. Pick one of the bathrooms and go put on a swimsuit."

He gave her an odd look, but his gestures indicated he quickly shifted to studying the list of bathrooms. Egyptian, Japanese, Icelandic (her favorite), Wooded, or Geometrical. They all had sinks, showers, towels, toilets, and guest swimsuits but the differences were in the style and layout. Eventually, the committee would decide on one of them. Probably that ugly geometrical thing, Alex thought with resignation.

The man chose one and the door appeared in the air in front of him. He went in. The upgraded bathrooms were a strange thing - they created a box in front of the person, let them have privacy, and then converted waste to dust, and disappeared when the person exited. The waste-dust particles were then transported via the microtunnels to Colony One's soil distribution center so they could be properly distributed to the correct places in the station, rather than adding to the environment at the location the user was at. Water was created from locally available matter in the sub-soil and then returned afterwards to its original configuration. Lucas had set it up as an afterthought to one of his other projects.

Alex shifted her SEL into a custom designed green swimsuit. From the front, it looked like a bikini, but the back had a strategically solid panel that hid the scars on her back. She supposed one day she ought to repair the scars, but they were part of her, something of life before Sal that hadn't been burned away, expunged with mafia thoroughness. It felt weird to think of life without that history, without the drive necessary to create this place.

Her new companion, still nameless, because if she asked his name, he'd ask hers, and she wouldn't lie, stepped out of the chaotic Wooded bathroom, with his clothes neatly folded in his hands. He'd chosen comfortable boxer-style brown and green swim trunks. And he took her breath away. He looked like a Greek god - well defined muscles, reasonable, natural tan. He had a couple minor scars on his lower legs that were barely visible under his light brown leg hair.

When her eyes made it back up to his face, Alex saw she'd been caught appraising him. He was grinning; no false humility there. Blushing, she said gruffly, "Go ahead and leave your clothes here. No one will steal them." Trying to cover her embarrassment, she strode into the pool of water at the base of the waterfall. He followed. The water was neither cold nor warm, but a good temperature for the ambient atmosphere. "There's a dry entrance around by the easy route up, but the water entrance is much nicer. You can swim, right?"

"I can. I used to work at a marina. Don't know if you saw, but I've got some scars from tagging sharks on my legs. Scraped by fins." His voice held a teasing note.

"What is it you do now?"

He hesitated, his breathing momentarily pausing. Then he answered, "I'm an environmentalist of sorts. I'm here for that convention tomorrow. What about you?"

Shit. He'd be at the debate. Alex tried not to panic. Sal would not have approved of her stress-induced language this week, but it was appropriate. "I'm in the general labor pool. I mostly jump around to whatever is needed. That's why this project has such a low priority. There's always somewhere that is short staffed. Last week I was helping out at the hotel doing maid work." All true, but incomplete. Alex had been designing and testing the new automated room cleaning system and verifying that the rooms reconstructed correctly with random visitor belongings neatly sorted. "We go through the waterfall here."

Just above the hidden entrance, a rocky overhang slowed the water speed so the pelting water wouldn't hurt. Immediately past the cascading water, the cave entrance began - a tunnel into the mountainside with a stream running down its center. Ceiling and walls were natural grey stone, rough, but not sharp.

The stream's water flowed gently toward the exit although it wasn't challenging to move inward. The actual underwater lights weren't visible, but the water glowed an ambient teal color. The stream was about 5 meters across, with the deepest area being just over a meter deep in the very center. Smooth, flat and round rocks made up the stream bed so if a person walked or swam through the water they got exercise.

Alongside the stream, equivalent stony paths provided a walking area. The path was also designed for exercise and had both gentle and steep low hills. The cave opening had a calming effect that would naturally make people want to be quiet. The white noise from the waterfall made conversation impossible until they moved around the bend. Invisible noise dampeners immediately suppressed the waterfall sound.

Alex gestured at her guest to come over to the side. "If you look closely, the stones on the path have a triangular one every meter or so that points the way out. There's also some in the stream bed, but if you follow the current downstream, that leads out too."

"It looks hard for a wheelchair to navigate." At her quick glance, he added, "I have a cousin with spine issues from a car accident."

"Ah. You should suggest he relocate to Colony One. Wheelchairs work differently here." Alex gestured and they continued inward as she explained. "They get their own invisible track above the ground. It would be more accurately described as a hover-chair. It's why we have no special access ramps anywhere either. The person driving the chair can simply go anywhere a walking person can. Doors automatically open and hold open. The chair goes up and down stairs without slowing. The person can even set the height to match standing people so there's no looking down or up at the people nearby. If they want, the chair can be shifted for standing support." She went on to describe the specialty bathrooms and other independence-granting modifications.

"But everyone has to spend an hour each day in an exercise zone as well as 6 hours each day working. That can be impossible for people with medical issues."

Alex shrugged. "Unless a person is a quadriplegic with no voice, there are things they can do. Even then, we have enough assistive technology that getting up and moving isn't as energy-sapping. Getting showered and dressed, for example, is simple with SEL. A quick command will have your body clean head to toe, and your SEL outfit will change from pajamas to day wear. We also have plenty of jobs that don't require physical prowess, and some of the ones that do can be adapted." Alex found herself wanting to share her plans for medical advances also, but it just wasn't time yet. The medical complex was only beginning its expansion and it would be another six to nine months before they were ready for their first patient. If his cousin were a citizen, he'd get priority treatment after the initial tests.

"I don't know. It still seems harsh. You don't ever get to retire. You don't ever get a day off from the exercise requirement. It's pretty regimented."

"At least you didn't mention the lack of meat choices. That's the one everyone complains about most." Alex grinned. "But seriously, everyone contributes to the success of the society. We don't have the resources to support a welfare system. Even our babies, once they walk and talk, have to go to school as their job. Granted, those first few years of school are just play zones, but they get to interact and learn. Some of the elderly even enjoy telling stories and just being companions as their job. Mostly they're taking the advisor jobs though. They've got experience and knowledge that shouldn't be lost. It all works out."

They came around another bend and the path split. The left path changed lighting to a pretty light green. Alex pointed at the green one, but they continued on the teal path. "That path goes to another exercise loop with another climbing wall. I can show you later if you want. It's an impossible climb."

"There's a stone arch with the underside as the climbing wall and a bell in the center. The goal is to ring the bell, but you can't actually get to it. There's plenty of handholds and it looks possible, but as you get closer to the bell, gravity adjusts heavier and heavier. Even the strongest person will get pulled free just before they reach it. It's fun to see how far you can get and because you splash down into the water when you fall off, and you can just retry. It's a play area."

"But what's the point of it being impossible?"

"It's for the people who are bored with the extreme tracks." He gave Alex an incredulous look. Alex added, "Yeah, there are a few of them always complaining that we should make the extremes harder. This'll be the start of the new ultra tracks."

"I suppose. I've been to a few places where I wished the climbing walls were higher or more challenging. They tend to be indoors with a lot of safety ropes."

"So what's your favorite activity?"

"Sailing," he said. "I grew up around water. I think I spent more time on a sailboard than I did at school. My best friend and I raced a lot."

"I've never been sailing."

"Next time you're down on Earth, I'll be happy to take you."

Again, their eyes met and Alex thought she could feel sparks of electricity jumping between them. "I'd like that," she breathed. This time, he broke the gaze first. She forced herself to continue on. Absurd with her complications. Any government on Earth would be happy to toss her in a jail and throw away the key. The press would eat him alive, corporations would try to wield him against her, not to mention the criminal organizations that might take a pot shot at him just for entertainment.

"I have a..." He stopped speaking as they came around the next bend and the cave opened to the crystal cavern. Her pet project. Precious gems and stones from around the earth were carefully secured on the low cavern ceiling, each with its own specialized lighting to show off its beauty. A mere 2687 of them; one quarter of her wealth. Only 423 of them were currently placed. The rest were in individual boxes in several crates stacked off to the side.

"You have a what?" Alex asked teasingly.

"Hrm?" His eyes were riveted to the sparkling and seemingly glowing gems scattered on the ceiling.

"You were saying you have..." she prompted, grinning widely.

"Oh, a yacht," he answered distractedly. "Are those real?"

"Every one of them. I'm placing them and recording their history. There's a theater in the back where we'll have a constantly running documentary talking about the different gems." Alex pointed toward a tunnel opposite the room's entrance, where the stream came in. "If you want to hear about a specific one, you have to come at a specific time to hear it. The whole presentation should run just about 15 days. What sort of yacht?"

"A gaff rigged schooner. That's the kind that has the extra bar at the top of the sails. It's got a big galley and a couple sleeping cabins." As he continued to talk about his boat, it was clear he loved it and knew every detail. Alex encouraged him with smiles, nods, and questions. He eventually forgot she might not know all the right nautical terms and spoke with confident authority, his baritone voice resonating through her soul. She thought she might be able to listen to him forever.

"It sounds really nice." Alex winced inwardly at this lame response.

He turned red as he realized he'd been talking about his boat for way longer than most acquaintances would want and changed the topic. Gesturing back at the gems, he asked, "How many more do you have to... are you gluing those up there?"

"Holding them at a molecular level." It was a bit more technical than that. The SEL holding each gem constantly reconfigured to prevent any constant pressure anywhere on the gems. Some of them would continue to grow over time. "Here, this is what it's supposed to look like when I'm done." She activated the projection overlay. She liked to look at it herself sometimes when she tired of placing gems. The whole room sparkled hypnotically with the image of dazzling gems. After a few minutes she turned off the projection. "Want to put one up?"

"Sure. Come pick one." She swam over to the crates. The individual boxes all had numbers on them.

He peered in a crate and randomly took out #987. Inside that box, an uncut red-purple hexagonal crystal attached to a rough glob of gritty almost cement-ish stone didn't look very impressive. The crystal was about two and a half centimeters long and thirteen millimeters wide.

"Red beryl. This one is from Utah." Alex reached over and took it from the box and ran her finger over it, turning it and looking at it from all directions. She triggered 987 on her display and the cave lights dimmed, leaving one bright spot with a semitransparent hologram of the gem in its expected orientation. Underneath, a white ladder appeared with a table near the top. She handed it back to him. "It's very easy to place." She fiddled around with her HUD a moment and a second ladder appeared next to the first. "When you get to the top, put the gem on the square on the table. I'll trigger the cleaning unit, which removes any dust, finger oil, and such, and coats it in a very thin layer of SEL. You pick it up, orient it to match the hologram, and push it into place. When you feel it grab, let go."

"How much is this one worth?" he asked, turning it in his hand and holding it up to the light.

"That was bought for just over 80,000 Euros at an auction. Overpaid, but the collection wouldn't have been complete without it. That's supply and demand for you." Many of the gems had been bought at a monetary loss, but it was for the future and a steal for that purpose. If only Alex could collect the great paintings, sculptures, and books as easily, but the museums and libraries held their assets too closely. The thought made her sad.

He held the crystal more carefully. "This project relies an awful lot on the zero crime rate. Someone could easily come in and take them all."

"Nah, it wouldn't be that easy. SEL is tenaciously hard to cut and security wouldn't even have to rush to get here, because the cave would lock down. You'd have to steal the whole mountainside, and even then, the cave itself would remain intact." Which would still meet her purpose - to save it for future generations.

He set the gem in the marked off square on the table and Alex triggered the cleaner. A soft chime indicated it was done and he picked it up and placed it. They both climbed down and she went and took another one, sticking the yellowish green crystal across the room from the red beryl. "Spodumene," Alex said, "Also known as Hiddenite or Green Kunzite. I think it's one of the prettier ones, but it's not as valuable."

"This seems like a terribly inefficient way to place these things. Wouldn't it make more sense to take the crate up the ladder and just have the ladder move around as needed?"

"It's not about finishing, it's about the adventure of doing it. Meditative when I get on a roll." With the pace and tune of a nursery rhyme, she chanted, "Take a box, enter the number, swim over to the ladder, up the ladder, clean the stone, place the stone, down the ladder. Splash splash, roll. Take a box..."

He chuckled. "With that kind of work ethic, how do you not get banished back to Earth?"

Alex giggled. "That's the punishment for an incorrigible deadbeat, certainly. As it happens, I work hard enough on my other jobs that no one cares about this one. It's my idea of a mini-vacation. Sometimes I even take a nap in the theater. Hey, let me show you that. Unfortunately, all the entries are me describing the origin, history, and molecular structure of the different stones."

"So long as you aren't singing each presentation..." he teased.

"Ah! What an idea! I should sneak in a singing entry and scare off the tourists who happen upon it." Alex led him through the tunnel away from the entrance. The water depth gradually decreased until they were walking on solid rocks. A fairly large chamber before the main theater created a space for bathrooms again. A rack of towels and robes along the right wall invited use. Nearby a bin existed for the used items, which were immediately recycled. As he dried and put on one of the robes, she changed her SEL to a robe too. The design was super soft and fluffy, in a monkish muted brown, accompanied by fluffy brown slippers. "The idea is to encourage a homey, family-room feeling, while keeping the voice echoes to a minimum," she explained.

The main theater was a circular dome, like a small planetarium. Several rings of reclining chairs and sofas with pillows invited people to stay. The presentation was currently showing the zebra rock, magnified so it nearly filled the ceiling, rotating slowly so each reddish brown and tan stripe could be appreciated.

From invisible speakers, her voice described how the stone came from the east Kimberley region of Western Australia. A map of Australia appeared showing the exact location. The map disappeared as the lecture went on to a short movie on how the sedimentary rock was formed during the Precambrian era when only the most primitive of life forms existed. Sedimentary rocks from that period were used to chronicle the development of the Earth's atmosphere and ocean.

"This is really cool!" He hopped on the sofa nearest the center, a 2-person love-seat, and raised the footrest, stretching out.

Alex joined him. "Best seat in the house." The lecture continued with a very technical description of how the rock analysis was actually done, and then went on to describe the molecular composition of the zebra rock. She could feel his body heat next to her. Maybe she should have sat on the next chair over?

"How much is it going to cost to come in here?"

"Nothing. It's public domain. It belongs to everyone."

"And you proposed this project?"

Alex nodded. Their eyes met again and this time neither of them looked away. He leaned toward her hesitantly, and she followed suit, shifting toward him. Neither dared to speak. He kissed her and damn the consequences, she kissed him back, turning off her bioshield.

Alex muted the presentation, but overhead a brilliant green emerald spun. When he moved on top of her, nothing bad happened. There was no pain and he treated her with respect and tenderness, attuned to her body language. They created a beautiful new experience, together.

Afterward, both of their faces mirrored befuddled confusion and awe. Feeling the weight of responsibility pressing in on her, Alex whispered the dreaded words, "We need to talk."

"So how would you feel about moving back to Earth? You could finish this project..." His finger traced her bare shoulder.

She cut him off with a hand-wave. "I need to tell you something."

At that moment, her incoming call lit up. Her 'don't disturb unless dire' flag was active and the call was from Station Security. Alex's stomach twisted and she swore. "Phone call I can't ignore. Excuse me," she explained, her voice gravelly with frustration and fear. She sat up, pulled the robe back around herself, ran her fingers through her now-damp-dry hair into some semblance of hopeful order, and activated a privacy shield.

"Founder, I'm so sorry for disturbing you. We have a situation. Some of the conference attendees are holding a protest in the restaurant zone. They brought signs and we've been monitoring the situation, but since more people are arriving for dinner, the tension level is volatile. We've got them and citizens shouting at each other now and making threats. We don't have any laws about public gatherings. We checked. What should we do? We can't arrest them without a stated law. Mr. Kimberly is in transit back from our Pacific island and he left you in charge."

Alex clenched her teeth and nodded. Brian could have chosen a better time to leave her in charge. She thought for a moment. "I understand. Thank you for calling me." Responsibility couldn't be ignored. The Station Security woman was chewing her lip nervously. Alex assured her, "You did the right thing in calling me. Please have all citizens evacuate the area until further notice. I will meet anyone who is interested in the event at the baseball stadium to answer questions in about 20 minutes."

"What about the non-citizens?"

"Well, if there's no one paying attention to their protest, it ought to dissolve."

"What about the restaurant staff?"

"Evacuate them too. Just keep tabs on anything anyone takes for billing. We're not going to space anyone. Not even going to confine them. Marching around with signs seems pretty harmless. If it turns into a destructive mob, then run up some individual SEL cages and hold them in place, and I'll sort it out when I get there. Alex out." She cut the connection and lowered the privacy shield.

Her new complication was stretched out on his robe, leaning up on one elbow gazing at her. Damn, he was handsome. "I have to go," she said without preamble and as kindly as she could. "Something's come up that I have to deal with."

"Is everything ok?" he asked, rising and pulling his own robe around himself.

"It will be. I'm just on call for Station Security backup." Alex didn't want to leave.

"Dinner tomorrow? I have a reservation at the Star Trek Memorial Restaurant at 7 p.m."

Those had to be made 6 months in advance. Alex would obviously be taking his ex's place.

"Yeah, I'll meet you there." Alex vowed she'd arrive early at the conference the next morning and talk with him then, before she had to go on stage. It wouldn't be the best solution, but would have to work.

Alex turned and hurried toward the exit. As soon as she cleared the theater seating, she began to run. If she scrambled, she might be able to get to the stadium in 20 minutes. She took the shortcut path out, running at full speed. She didn't hear him call after her, asking her name.

The gathering at the stadium was a nightmare. The local news reporter had been on scene at the restaurant zone, giving play-by-play live coverage to the public news feed and as soon as the evacuation announcement came, people speculated about what might get done to the protestors, and twice as many people as the stadium was able to hold showed up, all angry, most past-dinner-time hungry.

No matter how many ways Alex explained that people shouldn't be upset because the protestors had different life experiences and were making decisions based on that, the citizens claimed outrage. How dare these people show up and disrespect Colony One? Protesting anything on the station is something only citizens have the right to do, and there were already voting polls in place to address social, economic, AND environmental issues. Every visitor who participated should be thrown off the station immediately. It's bad enough that the Founder has to go defend environmental design at their conference tomorrow. How dare they come insult their hosts? They were here by invitation. They should be deported.

Alex's head throbbed and her hands shook badly enough that she had to hold on to the podium for stability. Irritated, she tried again. "We are more evolved than this petty arguing. The fact is - these people are on our side even if they don't think so. They want to defend and save the environment as much as we do. Tomorrow at the debate, we'll show them we are capable of a reasoned and civil discussion, without name-calling and childish tantrums."

Her HUD flashed with a message from Station Security. "We caged one person and the rest seem to be dispersing." Alex didn't want to know what the man had done. The law was quite clear and she really didn't want another international incident on the books, although she'd do whatever she had to.

Citizens voiced their opinions. Alex tried to insert reason. Citizens ranted and raved. Eventually, the decision was made to immediately create a forum to discuss the matter further and a committee to immediately make rules regarding "the incitement to riot" by station visitors, and to put these rules into effect by morning. Why, of course, Founder, we expect you to run the committee. Alex agreed to this merely to end the gathering. Three hours of this nonsense, just to be sure everyone who wanted to say something had a chance to speak and be heard.

That citizen meeting broke up. The committee members agreed to regroup in an hour and a half, so they could go eat dinner first, and Alex went to deal with their caged guest. Per her instructions, Station Security hadn't done anything except immobilize the man in SEL. They hadn't even relocated him to their office, which Alex discovered when she got to the Station Security office. Another 30 minutes for Security to go get him and march him back to their office.

Then time to review the security footage, where the guy enthusiastically yelled and screamed his views, tried to terrify people when citizens were ordered to evacuate by telling everyone they were about to get spaced, and ultimately ended up smashing his sign against a table, which is when Station Security caged him and he subsequently wet himself being scared that he was about to be spaced.

Alex then spent some time talking with the man and assuring him he'd broken no laws, wasn't about to be spaced or deported, and would, in fact, be released as soon as he calmed down enough to be reasonable and promise not to do anything remotely similar for the remainder of his stay.

In the middle of this meeting, Alex declined a phone call from Jay Ryko, who was the conference organizer as well as the man she was scheduled to debate in the morning. She delegated dealing with him to Station Security, who then summarized that he just wanted to put in a good word for their detainee. She didn't have time for more nonsense. It was already getting late and she was exhausted.

They released the man. Feeling too queasy to bother eating, Alex jogged off, stumbling twice because she was so tired, and arrived a mere half hour late for the committee meeting, where the consensus was that the 34 things they'd brainstormed as inappropriate behavior by a non-citizen should be dealt with by immediate deportation. Most of those things were absurd. Arguing with a citizen over the station's environment, political structure, or laws. Carrying a sign against any of these. Wearing a shirt that said anything against any one of these. And so on. They immediately pounced on Alex for details about the heinous crime the man had committed to get caged.

It was 4 a.m. before Alex managed to get them straightened out and the list trimmed down to things that incited violence or destruction. Punishments to range from fines to deportation, based on severity, as judged by forum vote like other station issues.

Rather than hike back to her apartment, Alex opted to hijack an office at Station Security to upload the new law for vote, catch up on the forums, respond to critical issues, and generally try to add reason to the crowd-insanity. The office was too hot and she pushed the air conditioning up until she got chilled and had to cut it back again.

Alex had a hard time focusing, but she had to get her posts in before people woke up and voted without having her opinion to sway them. Group democracy worked so long as people who thought things through managed to get their reasons into the discussion. Her position as Founder automatically elevated her vote and would sway those without a strong opinion. She enviously saw Brian had already gotten his posts done hours before .

Alex was midway through writing another critical post when her morning wake-up alarm went off. She finished off the post, barely had enough time to press through the full-body wash and change her SEL outfit to the green and gold pants suit, before rushing off to the conference center.

Consequently, by the time Alex arrived at the conference, she was just over 15 minutes late. No time to look for her mystery man, to forewarn him, to convince him of the merits of discretion, to discuss the future. Her mouth was dry, her head throbbed, and she felt incredibly light-headed.

"Mr. Ryko is already on stage waiting for you, Founder," the conference's stage manager (not a citizen) informed her with censure when he found out who she was.

"Please bring me something to drink?" Alex asked as he ushered her toward the stage.

"I will. Get on stage."

Alex quickly stepped up the backstage stairs and stopped as the stage came into view. There on stage at the far podium was her mystery man. She stepped back behind the curtain, out of view, before he could see her. She felt the room begin to spin and bent forward to catch her breath and steady her nerves. She was sweating, yet felt cold.

Why hadn't she done her research? Why hadn't she bothered to look up the person she was debating? Why hadn't someone handed her a brief with all his details AND his picture in it? Why hadn't she accepted the phone call last night? Even better, why hadn't she kindly greeted him on his arrival at the station, instead of avoiding him the last two days?

All she'd heard of Jay Ryko was that he was a millionaire playboy who was currently spearheading environmental issues and demanding that natural environments be protected and unnatural environments (like her entire station) be minimized or destroyed. At least she understood why he never asked for her name. The same reason she hadn't asked for his. They both wanted to be seen as a normal person, not as their press-public profile.

Alex gave up trying to calm her fast heart rate. She stood up straight, pinned a neutral expression on her face, and strode out on to stage. She'd have to sort this out after the debate. She went directly to him, shook his hand, and apologized for being late. The color drained from his face.

To give him time to recover his composure, Alex went over to her own podium, apologized to everyone, offered the honest, if lame-sounding, excuse that she'd been handling some critical station affairs, and then generated some blank SEL papers that would look like notes. "I really appreciate everyone's patience," she added, as she shuffled the pages, pretending to put them in order. She glanced over at Jay Ryko. He was staring at his own notes as if they'd turned into a poisonous snake. "I believe the topic for the day is natural versus artificial environments and the merits of both?" she offered.

Someone in the front row, center, muttered loudly enough to be heard, "The merits of natural environments, at least."

Alex smiled thinly. Jay Ryko was still staring at his papers, so she began, "From the beginning of time, mankind has made use of artificial environments. A house is an artificial environment. Farm fields are an artificial environment. Even a chicken coop is an artificial environment. It would be more accurate to say 'controlled' environment, not artificial. It's a real environment, as subject to chaos theory as any environment mankind isn't actively changing."

Mr. Ryko... No, Jay. She was going to think of him as Jay at least in her own mind. Jay clearly skipped over a few pages and read, "What makes you think you can succeed where everyone else has failed? Every enclosed environment that's ever been created has collapsed in on itself, missing critical food chain species, imploding on confined environment psychology, or failing to provide enough supplies to sustain habitation. Your forest is barely 25 square miles, a fraction of a sustainable wild area. How will it succeed?" He cited several failed experiments including the Biosphere 2.

"We will succeed because we must. Psychologically, we have a significant population with the political structure to be safe, but enough input and freedom to allow individuals to be happy and form smaller communities within the whole. This is comparable to the large number of people on Earth that stay within a 2-3 hour travel distance from their homes."

The man in the front row interjected with a fake cough, "Freedom by censorship. Wouldn't let the people hear our views last night."

Alex ignored him. "Environmentally, we aren't imposing any contrived restrictions, rules, or challenges, and we're addressing problems as soon as we see them. We've done extreme analysis on microscopic and macro levels for each of the environments we have here. Each area has fully qualified staff who are dedicated to observing, analyzing, and growing that area by comparing it to and matching the same environment on Earth. We aren't limited by funds and we have very little overhead."

Jay asked some pointed questions about simulated randomness in the environments. Alex responded with detailed technical answers, showing the actual formulas used for the math and statistics, and how they applied on a functional level. She was really light-headed and desperately wanted a drink. At one point, she presented the wrong environmental analysis for what she was talking about, and when Jay pointed it out, she flushed, "Sorry, I grabbed the wrong one. That matches the Chattahoochee National Forest. Here's the correct one."

"All this data seems to indicate you're faking environments with technology," Jay stated.

Alex answered, "It's true that we manipulate light, temperature, wind, water, even the soil. We get as much natural sunlight as we can, but we maintain Earth's 24 hour day-night cycle with an elliptical orbit around the Earth that does not match." She posted a video diagram of Colony One's orbit with a sunlight intersection overlay as well as a Colony One day/night schedule overlay.

Jay reasoned, "Look at what you were able to do. If you focused your attention on the Earth, you could do great things toward cleanup and restoration."

The man in the front row added, "Instead you chose to abandon the Earth!"

Alex refused to engage in verbal warfare with that man in the front row. Instead, she opted for proof that would support her position. "Our Pacific island has been working on cleaning up the trash being dumped there. We have been unable to turn the tide, so to speak, because other countries simply throw in more trash and act even less responsibly. The environment cannot be restored without the direct action and coordination of the political structures in power."

"No," Jay challenged, "You have the technology, yet refuse to use it."

"I have a finite amount of resources and time. It may appear that I have endless resources, but it is not nearly enough to save the Earth." As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew it was a mistake. She was so damned tired that it was hard to think clearly.

"There are things we can do to save the natural environments that you have the ability to do and are refusing!" the man in the front row shouted at her. The rest of the audience cheered him.

Goaded, Alex glared at the man and replied caustically, "The Earth as we know it is dead already. It was inevitable as far back as 1985. All the scientific data and information has been available, although much of it is suppressed. The environmental cleanups and programs are only postponing the inevitable conclusion of humanity's abuse."

"Right," the man in the front row scoffed sarcastically, "If you knew about it, why haven't you spoken up before now?"

Jay told him to stop interrupting.

"Spoken up?" Alex looked up at the ceiling and measured her breath. Her temper exploded. Without explanation, she started listing names of people, in order from the earliest ones who had 'spoken up' and were silenced, killed, threatened, hurt, thrown in jail, lost family, friends, jobs, finances. The ones who tried to defend the Earth, save threatened species, cut pollution, end fracking, end toxic pesticides, end artificial genetic manipulation of crops, end the carcinogenic chemicals in the food supplies, the ones who pointed out that global warming was true. Even with her lips and tongue going numb, she continued.

Jay tried to interrupt her, but Alex stared at her blank papers, pretending to be reading from them, and wouldn't be derailed. People from all around the world, ones who published articles, not just English ones, but all of them. She spoke faster and faster, wanting to name them all, wanting a testament to their anguish and their lives.

Alex concluded, "Why wouldn't I want to be one of them? The information is all there. It's been there, but people are too busy, too uneducated, too self-absorbed, too lazy to put it together and see the conclusion, or they are deluding themselves."

The auditorium erupted into a loud din and hissing. Alex continued anyway, "Colony One isn't about putting humans in space. It's an ark. I've been grabbing species from every environment, trying to save them for the future, trying to get them off our doomed planet. We have 8 to 13 years. 15 at the outside." The outside number was really 8 and her calculations put the end at 7 years; she wasn't sure why she lied. Maybe she wanted to give humanity a couple years of hope? "Your efforts are buying us time and for that, I thank you all, but it's already too late to actually save the planet."

"You're delusional," Jay gasped.

"Am I?" she shouted. "I'm so tired of the endless discussion that doesn't change the facts! Here, damn it." She reached into her database and retrieved the flagged articles, scientific data, lectures, both the public and classified ones. These she posted on the main screen of the conference in a crazy flicker that was too fast to read, but slow enough that the video recording frame rates would capture everything for later viewing. "That!" she pointed at the screen. "Go save the Earth if you can, but stop trying to hinder my efforts to save what I can!"

Leaving the stack of blank papers, she stormed off the stage. The backstage hallway spun threateningly. She shoved past people that tried to stop her and actually punched one of them who got in her way. Out in the daylight, she saw several people whom she recognized as medtechs coming toward her and she ran in the opposite direction.

"Alex! Alex! Turn off your bioshield!"

She could hear shouting, but it sounded so far away. Everything was dark.

"Turn off your bioshield!"

She felt like she should recognize the voice. It sounded very demanding. Very urgent.

"Founder! We need to help you." A different person speaking this time.

"Don't call her Founder, call her Alex. Use her given name. Damn it, where's Lucas?"

It's not my given name, she remembered distantly. One time, long ago, she was someone else entirely. Who was she? They must be talking to someone else. Maybe it was dark because she was in her cave and her fire had gone out. Must be some hikers in the clearing. She should stay still and be very quiet so they wouldn't find her. Maybe it was a bear. She should get her shiv.

"Alex, you've had a seizure. You need to turn off your bioshield so we can help you."

The words held no meaning and she floated around contentedly. It felt so good to just lie there and rest. Her mouth felt dry. She licked her lips. That idiot had never brought her anything to drink. That annoyed her. Where was that drink? Who was it that was supposed to bring her a drink? That promised to bring her a drink? Why would someone bring her a drink in her cave?

"Alex. Turn. Off. Your. Bioshield."

She tried to say "drink", but it was too hard. It bothered her that she couldn't remember who said they'd bring her a drink. She always remembered everything. Maybe everything hadn't happened and that's why she couldn't remember?

"Alex, turn off your bioshield! Turn it off now!"

She felt someone shaking her. Then that same person pulled her right eyelid open. Too bright light and a blur of color assaulted her. The other eyelid was pulled open and that side was also too bright. Her head hurt. Why wasn't her bioshield protecting her from this torturous light? Bioshield. She had a bioshield. Nothing could penetrate it. No bullets, no poisons, no knives. She wanted to add bright light to the list. Where was that list. She tried to focus. Thinking hurt and she couldn't see her HUD clearly.

The voice continued demanding she turn off her bioshield. No, that would let someone kill her. She was too important to allow herself to be killed. She had important stuff to do. If only she could remember what it was, she thought as she floated around, wishing she could float away from that horrible bright light.

"Alex, you've had a seizure. Turn off your bioshield so we can help you. Your blood sugar is severely low."

"She's got the med alerts. I don't know why she didn't see them." Yet another voice.

"They're likely caught in her spam filter. Alex!"

She heard a loud clicking sound directly in front of her face. Damn reporters. She wanted to see which one it was, because she was going to kill him this time. She was going to kill all of the reporters. She forced herself to focus so she could make out who it was. No, not a reporter's camera. Someone's hand snapping their fingers right in front of her nose.

"Can't you override this thing?"

"Don't we have any hackers that can get through?"

"Her blood sugar just dropped another point," another voice said .

"Through her security? It won't be fast enough, if it's even possible. Alex!!!!! Turn off your bioshield!"

Alex blinked. She was in a medical bed of one of the pristine white rooms in the new medical complex. The medical monitoring equipment would be located just behind the head of the bed, out of her vision, while a sink and cabinets were off to her left. Missing were the typical whiteboard, clipboards, and information posters. Colony One's computer system replaced the need for any of that.

The room was deliberately plain to give patients a mental transition from their old life to the new one. Most patients wouldn't stay more than a few days and with HUDs providing entertainment, this white limbo wouldn't be that much of a problem.

"Alex?" whispered Brian from the guest chair to her right.

Alex tried to remember how she'd gotten there but the memory was missing. She panicked and struggled to remember the last thing she could. There was the debate. She winced as she recalled what she'd done. She also remembered storming out. Then nothing. "Shit," Alex muttered.

"Oh, thank God. I'll get the doctor." Brian's hand moved as he used his HUD. He had dark circles under his eyes and needed a shave. "Do you remember having a seizure?"

"No." She went to activate the security footage, but couldn't. "Where's my HUD?"

"We've disabled it. Your bioshield almost got you killed. It's hard to give you an injection when the needle bends away from your skin."

Alex narrowed her eyes at Brian. "You better not be giving me injections." Then she noticed the IV stuck in her arm. "Shit," she repeated, suppressing the horrible flashbacks that threatened.

Kgomotso came in at a run. He was the brilliant doctor who treated Lucas after Lucas' trip to Saturn and was recently helping her set up the huge medical complex. "Founder?" He skidded to a stop.

"What happened, Kgomotso?"

"Low blood sugar seizures. You should be fine in another day or so. You'd probably be dead right now if you weren't so healthy to begin with." Kgomotso walked beside her, but instead of looking at her, he studied the monitoring equipment that Alex knew was there. "When was the last time you ate?"

Alex winced. "It's been a while." She knew her last meal had been two days prior. She'd been too upset about the upcoming debate to eat.

"We're going to have to update our medical alert system. The routine notice went into the log which didn't get reviewed until morning 4 days ago." The doctor frowned as he continued his dispassionate explanation. "The reviewer noted it, but didn't make the connection to your I.D. and figured any diabetic would know to eat something so she just sent out a routine warning. She just pushed your I.D. into the alert system to keep sending you reminders until your numbers normalized. Except they didn't normalize. The reviewer the next day saw the critical alert, looked up your name and instead of sending a full medical staff, which is what he should have done, he called Mr. Kimberly, who decided not to panic everyone by pulling you out in the middle of the debate. Which is why I told him you were going to be a vegetable. Those seizures could have been prevented." Their obvious ongoing argument continued as Kgomotso and Brian Kimberly glared at each other.

Alex's mind did the numbers and latched onto the critical bit of information. "4 days?" She'd missed dinner with Jay.

"Yes, we've had you sedated for 2. Your body was showing serious signs of sleep deprivation on top of your low sugar. Didn't you notice the warning signs of low blood sugar, Founder? As you get older, your body changes. You need to adapt. You're on medical leave for the next two weeks." Kgomotso crossed his arms firmly as if he expected Alex to argue.

"Except we put it in as vacation to prevent any panic," Brian clarified.

"How many people know?" Alex asked. She dreaded the answer.

Kgomotso deferred to Brian who said, "Just the medtechs. And our friendly neighborhood reporter, who followed you out of the debate. He's agreed he's not reporting this; he knows it would cause mass panic. He says you owe him an interview though. Meanwhile, I've been ghost-writing entries on the forums under your account. Some of our citizens are a little annoyed that you can tell them they aren't allowed to have a temper tantrum but then you have one. There's also the matter of you punching one of our guests on the way out of the auditorium. We've convinced the man not to press charges, but he awaits your formal apology."

"Ok. I want this IV out. I want my HUD. And I want to make a private phone call. In that order, and right now."

Brian shook his head. "Alex, you can't tell anyone about the seizures. I think you need to review the forums before you speak with anyone."

Kgomotso frowned at Brian. "You should have some tests to see how you are functioning mentally too. It's possible you have some brain damage I've missed. You should also avoid stress and that means letting him continue to write your forum entries a few more days."

Brian waved his hand dismissing this. He knew Alex too well for that. "I also need you to authorize me to override your bioshield."

"And me," Kgomotso added, crossing his arms determinedly .

Alex shrugged and pulled her IV out and pressed the vein with her finger.

"Founder!" Kgomotso reprimanded sharply.

"Head's up display, Gentlemen. Don't make me ask a third time."

Brian didn't look happy about it, but his hand moved as he authorized it anyway.

The first thing Alex did was repair her vein. Then she ordered her picobots to clean up the blood that sprayed while she was doing that. Brian's eyes got wider, but Kgomotso knew what she'd been working on for the new medical complex. Then, she reactivated the bioshield, adding override authorization for both of them. Finally, she studied her medical report. This scared her and she inhaled sharply. She really could have died. She added immediate, constant monitoring of her blood sugar and blood pressure, setting very restrictive parameters, and obnoxious, impossible-to-ignore warnings.

"Ok, you two can stop panicking now." Alex tried for a 'I'm just fine' healthy smile, but thought it probably just made her seem more ill. "May I make that phone call now?"

Brian pulled Kgomotso out of the room as Kgomotso reminded her, "No stress."

Alex looked up Jay's schedule and her heart dropped as she saw he was already on his way back to Earth. She'd missed him on station by 3 hours. At least he'd still have his HUD so she could call him privately. She sat up, changed her SEL clothes to a standard stationer's jumpsuit, activated a privacy shield, and called.

Jay took longer to answer then expected. His face appeared with a standard white privacy shield behind it. "What?" His lips were tight and his eyebrows almost imperceptibly pinched with controlled anger.

"Sorry for what? Sorry that you didn't have the decency to stay around after the debate and talk with me? Sorry you didn't show up for dinner? I thought you'd at least come to that, regardless of what happened at that debate. Sorry you didn't bother to send me a message saying you wouldn't be there? Sorry you ignored me for 2 days and didn't answer or return any of my calls? Or sorry that you needlessly frightened every person on Earth? People listen to you. They believe you. You aren't the person I thought you were. Did you enjoy making a fool of me? It was cruel. Don't ever call me again." He disconnected.

Alex wept. When she finally stopped, she went through all of the messages he'd left - begging her to call, telling her it didn't matter about the debate, asking her to make some retraction to the 'end of world' statement, but mostly just asking for a few minutes of her time. She went through the replies her station staff had given him. All were that generic 'The Founder is unavoidably busy; please leave a message' nonsense. How frustrated he must have been. She added his name to the list of people who would always be immediately forwarded to her, regardless of her call status.

Biting her lip, she realized she could access the station security feed and actually see him. She had the absolute trust of the citizens. No one would doubt her. No one would ever even know. But no crime had been committed. No crime reported. No valid reason to look at the security feeds at all. In fact, abuse of security feeds was one of the crimes likely to get a person sent back to their country of origin - a rule she'd added to prevent anyone abusing their privilege.

She barely even hesitated before pulling every security feed he was in and watching them all, from the time he first got his I.D. and HUD all the way through his departure from the London airport. He was indeed charming, witty, amazing, and flawed. He never should have been with his now-ex. It was apparent she treated him as an ornament and servant and only really liked the envious looks she got when he was on her arm, not to mention the obvious disconnect between his love of nature and her complete disregard for it. That woman would have never set foot on a sailboat. Maybe a cruise ship, but only if it didn't rock much.

Everywhere Jay went, if he noticed something that wasn't quite right, he fixed it. He picked up broken branches and moved them out of the walking paths, he straightened pictures, he helped people carry things and opened doors for them. He made kids giggle, showing them how to make whistles out of grass blades. Even as she hated herself for the invasion of privacy, she couldn't stop herself.

When Alex found herself watching him shower, she stopped, hating herself. She erased the logs of her accessing the system. Then she erased the footage of her time in the theater with Jay. She didn't want to risk that ever getting viewed. She left a note in the missing spot with her name on it.

"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." she recalled. Alex couldn't let herself do this, except she already had. How could she expect humanity to become better than itself when even she couldn't and she knew how important it was?

Resolutely, Alex shifted her mind away from Jay and looked up the warning signs of low blood sugar and made herself review them again, despite already knowing them. She could actually go back over the week before the debate and check them all off on the list.

Over the next month, Alex refused to retract her statement that the Earth was doomed. The Earth press had a field day and consequently, the majority of reasonable people refused to put their lives in the hands of a madwoman and mostly paranoid, slightly crazy people registered for citizenship. Hidden in this group, super smart people who actually dug through her data began to slip in. They were always quiet about it. They either recognized some of the names she'd listed during the debate (which someone had published on their website) or didn't want their peers to know they were going to trust a madwoman .

Citizens urged their Earth-side family and friends to relocate to Colony One as soon as possible and kept asking if there was anything at all that could be done. Ignoring Kgomotso's mandatory sick leave directive, Alex instead added more people to the Earth's geological monitoring and prediction team and began a task force to figure out how to handle a large influx of refugees "should something catastrophic happen to the Earth".

Then some movie star posted a video of herself nude surfing and people stopped thinking about the end of the planet. After all, people have been crying wolf since the beginning of time and bare breasts were contemporarily scandalous. Colony One's teams continued their research and planning.

Now that Alex was paying attention, she noticed her blood sugar had a tendency to stay low. She ate but some of the higher sugar fruits and heavier meals just didn't agree with her. She just couldn't quite get her body to normalize again. She was plagued with exhaustion and dizzy spells. Her lowered immune system allowed her to catch the flu and grinding her teeth with frustration, she went to see Kgomotso.

Alex found him in the center of the medical complex. His room's location reminded her of a perfect spider web with Kgomotso the resident owner. The office itself was a large square room with a huge collection of medical books and journals on shelves off to one side near a comfortable reading chair and a desk. The open area that took over the rest of the room was currently displaying a triple-sized three dimensional projected model of a woman with a leg split mid-thigh.

Kgomotso himself was standing in the woman's hip, studying the cross-section. With a practiced swipe of his hand, he zoomed in on the femur until the medullary cavity of the diaphysis was twice the size of his head. The nutrient arteries in the periosteum could be easily seen.

"Founder." He stepped out of the projection. "I think we're ready for our first patient."

"Good. I'll start making arrangements tomorrow. I didn't come here about that though. I've been having some problems and I was wondering if you might help?" She described her symptoms to Kgomotso and concluded, "I've scanned myself and I can't find the virus. I haven't found any bacteria either. Is this post-seizure brain failure?"

"Well, we could scan your head and see. Most likely you're just tired. You never took any time off like I told you to," Kgomotso replied mercilessly.

"I threw up this morning," Alex confessed.

"Exhaustion can do that." He rubbed his chin and looked at her thoughtfully. "Hrm. How to put this delicately? You haven't been experimenting on yourself, have you?"

"I would understand," Kgomotso said. "I know we're getting ready to host the first patient and we have a lot of things to consider when doing repairs on such a microscopic scale."

"I haven't been experimenting. Just monitoring my sugar and blood pressure."

Alex knew the second he said the word. "I'm pregnant, aren't I?"

"Let's do a scan and find out."

Alex didn't need the body scan, but let him do it anyway, thoughtfully saying nothing until it was done.

His scan told him the same thing. "Congratulations."

"Kgomotso, you can't tell anyone. I have to talk to the father first. It's complicated."

"Most relationships are. You should go visit one of the gynecologists and get started on some vitamins and then come back and help me get this medical center operational."

Alex provided a wry smile, agreed to come work in the center soon, and went to stare at the stars. She massaged her belly and told her baby she was sorry she thought he/she was the flu. She hacked into the United States phone system and got Jay's unlisted phone number. She dialed it, but then hung up before it could ring. He'd want to know. He might not want anyone else to know he'd slept with "that madwoman", but he would certainly want to know. If it were possible, he'd probably even want to sue for custody to "protect" his baby.

Alex was emotionally drained to begin with. She didn't want to deal with him yelling at her again too. She hadn't recovered completely from his vicious denunciation a month ago, and she couldn't fix it without telling him why, and she couldn't let "Founder has medical issues" tip her citizens' already precarious faith in her. It wouldn't be a problem if she hadn't blundered so badly at the debate, and Earth-side social media hadn't declared her completely insane. Despite her information warriors, some of that sentiment had cascaded into her citizens also.

Colony One had to have priority over everything. It was humanity's future. She had just barely recovered from the debate debacle. In the back of her mind, where she didn't want to look too closely at it, was the guilt of having watched his security feed that was supposed to be absolutely secure and private.

So instead of calling Jay, Alex lay on her bed in her lab on the star-side of the station and stared at the universe until she fell asleep. The silence and endless stars were comforting. She was really looking forward to Lucas finally having his teleportation science working. She wanted to see space from Pluto.

The next morning, Alex read and watched everything she could find on Jay Ryko. The press wasn't kind to him either. He had no privacy. Every date, every glance that lingered too long, a smile even, was torqued into a twisted mocking of a shallow nymphomaniac with too much money and too little to do. His volunteer work on behalf of the conservation organization was minimized and even noted as 'a way for the rich playboy to play with tanned svelte naive girls'. No wonder he didn't want to say who he was. Every interaction would have been tainted with people either thrill-seeking or trying to get money from him. She'd call him eventually.

Alex sat at a desk in a small, unused office near the middle of the medical center. Eventually, the offices would be given to doctors, but until the center had patients and staff, most of the rooms remained empty skeletons, without even furniture.

The phone rang. Alex waited somewhat impatiently for someone to answer it. This was her 23rd call trying to get someone to come partake of the new medical program. She reviewed the man's dossier while waiting. Physical therapist, himself an amputee, working with other amputees. An ex-marine, missing his right leg. By all accounts, honorable, brave. Someone who knew the right clientele to quietly spread the word until the program got enough staff to handle the inevitable influx of people.

When he answered, Alex said, "Hi, I'm looking for John White."

His gruff tone suggested he got too many telemarketing calls. Alex supposed this qualified. "I'm calling on behalf of Colony One's new medical center. I was wondering if you'd be interested in participating in our first program." And here's where the other person either hung up, thought this was a joke, or called all Colony One people crazy for following a madwoman.

There was a pause and then some keyboard typing. "No new medical center is listed on the Colony One website. Good try."

Quickly, before he could hang up on her, Alex said, "Yeah, it's not announced yet. We're currently invitation only."

"I'll bet. Goodbye."

"Wait! If I put it on the website, will you at least hear me out?"

"Sure." His tone indicated his belief on that ever happening.

"I'll call you back in 10 minutes." Alex disconnected. She typed up a brief publicity announcement, called the website team, and sent it to them for immediate deployment. 'Colony One to open new Medical Center for the treatment of chronic conditions. Initially, the program will be invitation-only until the process is optimized. Then both citizens and non-citizens can apply through Colony One's standard random selection process, with priority to citizens. Applications to work at the new Medical Center are being accepted with precedence. Sit up and pay attention, Everyone(jw), this changes the medical industry forever.' She made the 'jw' a superscript to 'Everyone', so it would look like a typo'd 'tm'. John White should spot it, but no one else would understand it.

Alex waited for the website team to send her a reply, tapping her foot impatiently. Noticing her foot, she stilled it. Her fingers unconsciously took over with a fast drumming. The post only took a few minutes. A few incredibly long minutes.

Exactly 10 minutes later, she called John White back. Again, it took a long time for him to answer. "Hi, it's me again, calling from Colony One's new medical center."

"I honestly didn't expect you to call back. I thought you were playing a prank."

"I understand your doubt. I assure you, I'm entirely serious. If you'll look at Colony One's press release announcement page, the latest entry is about us."

Computer keystrokes, then silence. "Huh." More silence. "So what is it you think you can do for me?"

"I can't really discuss the details over the phone. We want to have our first few successes so we can get a good feel for psychological impact and rehab time before we openly announce what we are doing because people will demand details and answers which we don't have yet. You would be our first non-citizen client." She didn't say 'first client', which was also true. They needed a first patient. If they chose a citizen, word would spread like wildfire.

"I see." John White said, "You are looking for a lab rat to experiment on. I already have a state-of-the-art prosthetic leg. I can give you the names of some guys that need assistance though."

"And that's why we chose to call you. You think of others before yourself. You help people. You already know how rehab works. You're already aware of the psychological consequences of systemic trauma. You could give us invaluable feedback on our process and procedures and improve the experience for every future client." Alex pulled at her hair and wondered what it was going to take to get someone to agree to come. She supposed she could go with a citizen if she needed to.

"How much would this cost me?" John White asked.

"Time. While on Colony One, you'd be subject to all our laws and regulations as if you were a citizen. You can bring one person as a helper for the first week who will be allowed to stay in the room with you. After the first stage of your treatment, you'll be relocated to the standard visitor hotel for the duration of your rehab. The plan is to require clients to work the standard 30 hours per week at the job of their choice, through the duration of rehab as payment for services rendered. Travel, food, entertainment, and other purchases would not be covered. As you would be our first, we will also cover travel and food. "

"How much time? I have people depending on me here."

"We estimate somewhere between 3 and 12 months. You will probably be closer to 3 months, given your rehab experience."

"What are you planning to do? Cut my stump off and give me a SEL leg?"

That was pretty accurate, except it wouldn't be SEL. It would be personal DNA-designed organic tissue, microscopically attached as if the leg had never been gone. Rehab involved training the brain to direct the muscles and process the nerve feedback again. Without directly answering, Alex said, "While the technology to do that is certainly possible, we think it would be a step in the wrong direction. Hrm. Um. You'd also have to sign a non-disclosure agreement. It wouldn't be forever, but just until we get enough staff on board to support opening the entire center."

There was a long silence. Alex held her breath. Then he said, "3 months is too long for me to be away from my men." He meant his rehab clients. "They're counting on me."

Negotiation. Alex exhaled. She had him. It was just a matter of price. "Bring your current clients along. I'll give them a visitor pass. They can stay in the hotel. We'll give you a rehab room to use and we'll count the time you spend with them toward your 30 hours per week."

Another pause. Then, "If you are looking for people to treat..."

Alex was impressed at how gutsy he was. The whole price was ridiculous and this verged on impossibly absurd. From his point of view. From her view, it would give her several clients all in a discrete social circle which would limit inevitable information leaks and would give them a social support group for the unavoidable frustration of retraining their brains. "Because we won't be able to hide what we're doing with you, if they want to participate too, we'll let them. I can't guarantee we'll be able to help them, but I'll add them to the list. We're only working with one person at a time for the actual procedure. The process is quite involved. They'd have to sign the non-disclosure agreement too."

"I'll talk with my men and see if they are interested. They really should get the same deal as me, and have travel, hotel, and food also covered, don't you think? We're all healthy, smart individuals with a proven record of working hard and serving others and we'd be doing you a favor..."

She laughed at that. "Shall I give you each a permanent mansion on the Pacific island too?"

"Come on, Founder - yeah, I recognize your voice - you've got money. These guys ain't got anything. They have astronomical medical bills. The military disability benefits take forever to process and most of them are living on donations. I have a girl whose boyfriend just dumped her because it was 'too much' for him. One of them is officially homeless as of last week. You want me, take them too."

Oh, yeah, Alex wanted this guy. He was going to beg to be part of the new medical complex once he figured out they were repairing people. Already trained rehab specialist and he'd make sure the people got a fair deal, and he'd be great at convincing people to come. Her goal wasn't actually healing people right now - it was about building a massive medical response team so when the Earth failed, her station would have the resources to help the refugees. Money, at this point, was pointless. It was going to be completely worthless soon enough. Alex waited as if she were debating it. "Ok, you've convinced me. Talk with your friends. I'll cover everything but incidentals, and they'd still have to work the 30 hours per week as well as do the 1 hour exercise period every day."

"How soon would we need to be there?"

"You could show up tomorrow if you wanted. We're ready. However, I understand it would take time to get everything organized. Sooner is better than later." Reminded, she tickled her baby's foot under her skin and got an obliging push back. "I'll give you a call Tuesday night." That would give him four days to speak with everyone he knew and get volunteers. Good. She could stop trying to find people. Kgomotso was going to be delighted. Incoming clients!

Alex was laying in her apartment's bed, checking nerve connections for their tenth patient when the call came in. Reclining was more comfortable than sitting sometimes. Figuring it was Kgomotso again, she didn't even look at the caller's name because she didn't want to lose her place in the 3D body maze. She answered in her best faux-Jamaican accent which was nothing like the real thing, "Yo, Mon, ya gotta let dings happ'n in der own dime. Mon, I'm'a gonna ship it in an hour. Chill out, Mon."

Silence. In her normal voice, she asked, "What is it, Kgomotso?"

"Is it mine?" Jay's voice halted her concentration completely. She shut down all her open projects with a single swipe, preparing to concentrate with all her energy. The caller's name flashed "Jay Ryko, transferred from Unlisted." followed by his actual phone number.

"Jay." Alex wasn't ready for this yet. It had only been 4 months.

"I'm not kuh-mot, mote-so, whoever that is. New lover? No - I don't want to know. Is the baby mine?"

There was an echo to Jay's voice. She was on speaker-phone, with an unknown audience. "Yours, yes."

"Were you going to tell me?" He sounded mildly drunk.

"I tried calling. I couldn't." Every day, trying to get the nerve to call him, replaying their time together in the theater in her mind. Alex loaded and flipped through the news media. There it was - a photo of her taken by one of the station visitors at just the right angle that the loose clothing designs didn't hide her stomach, with the caption, "Founder of Colony One Pregnant? Medical Experiment or Lucky Man?"

Jay's voice was gravelly. "With all your resources, you couldn't get my phone number? Couldn't reach me through the conservation office?"

"I was afraid you'd yell at me again." Was honesty really the best option? Alex didn't want him to think she blamed him for the silence. She was at fault here, not him. "You're right to be angry. I should have called."

"I want a paternity test."

"Of course. I want you to come for the birth. She should get to meet her father on her first day. I'll pay for everything." Not that either of them cared about money; that was one of the benefits of having too much of it. Alex's books continued to bring in a large amount monthly, despite not having written any more since the launch. Jay had inherited family money.

Jay cleared his throat. "I want the test done by a doctor of my own choice. Not one of your lackeys who will say whatever you tell them to." His words were still slurred.

"If you give me a name, I'll add him and whoever else you want to come to a list of approved visitors."

"She," Alex corrected. "She's a girl."

"If it's mine, you can't keep it from me."

"Her. She is yours and while I'm breastfeeding, you are welcome to come and stay here as many times and as long as you'd like. After that, she can spend up to a half a year, every year, with you, as long or as little as you want and are able. I have no intention of keeping her from you. When she's older, as much as she wants."

"If that baby is mine, I'm going to be its father. You can't keep it from me, no matter who you are. I have connections too." Maybe more than a little drunk. How much bolstering did he need to call her?

Another person spoke up, "I think she was just saying she doesn't plan to keep the baby away from you, Jay." The man's voice was higher pitched than most men, but still obviously male.

"Hello? You are?" Alex asked.

"Byron, Jay's best friend."

An intimate phone call, then. That was promising. Alex stood and paced the room, hand on her stomach.

Byron continued, "He was going to leave you a message. We didn't think he'd actually get through."

Alex massaged her baby. "He's on my automatic allow list now. I didn't get any of his messages while he was on the station until it was too late to matter. I've corrected that problem."

"She still could have called me," Jay mumbled. "Common decency."

"Yes." Byron's voice slightly muffled as he apparently turned away from the phone's speaker, "She could have called you. I think we've taken enough of the Founder's time, Jay."

"She should have called me!" Jay shouted. "Should have. Should have. Should have!" There was a shattering splash as a bottle hit a wall or something equally hard.

"Founder, I'll see he gets you a list of names when he sobers up," Byron said.

"Thank you. Take care of him, Byron."

"He's a decent man. You did one hell of a number on him. You'd better do what you said just now." The connection dropped.

Alex looked at her display's clock. It was 9 p.m. station time. She'd been working on the nerve connections since lunch. Her eyes snapped to her blood sugar display. At least that was stable. She grabbed a few walnuts and ate them anyway. She shouldn't skip meals anymore.

Alex sent Kgomotso a note that she wouldn't get to the review until the next day, and she retreated to her lab facing the stars again. She really liked looking out at the brilliant stars. Even with no artificially generated light, the sky was brilliantly lit.

"It's just a misunderstanding," she told her baby, running her hand across her belly. "I'll make it right when he gets here. You don't need to worry about having a drunkard for a father. If I had a choice between him and all the other men on Earth, I'd still choose him to be your father. Pheromones and basic animal attraction, kiddo. Don't underestimate them." And a compatibility of spirit and thoughts and goals. It shouldn't be possible to fall in love that fast; must be a standard crush. "He's going to teach you how to sail and how to fight for what you believe in even if it's not popular." She put on some classical music for her baby and tried to sleep. Her work could wait until morning. She was far too unsettled to focus on work anyway.

The young woman that the airport staff wheeled in was missing both arms and her left leg. She smelled like sewage that had been cooking in summer heat for three days. Alex did not cringe, but it was hard. Her baby objected with a few good thumps against her abdomen. The man pushing the wheelchair retreated with envy-inspiring speed. Other passengers moved away with their luggage. Alex strode over. "Patricia Madison?"

"Who else?" the young woman snarled.

Alex smiled warmly. "I'm Alex, your Medical Center tech. I'll have someone find your luggage. What are we looking for?"

"Nothing. I don't have any luggage. That bitch pretending to be my nurse refused to load anything in the cab."

"Sounds like you're having a terrible day. Want me to send someone to your house to retrieve it? It can come up on the next shuttle. "

The young woman blinked suspiciously, then nodded. "There's a key in my front shirt pocket. My suitcase is in the back bedroom unless it got moved."

Alex retrieved the key and took it over to their terminal staff and gave instructions, taking the opportunity to inhale deeply. Then she immediately returned despite the lure of fresh air anywhere else. She initiated a full-body scan. The woman was miserable. A whole host of problems, with the most immediate being her need to use the restroom.

"You didn't register the name of your helper for the week?" Alex prodded gently.

"I don't have one. My ex was supposed to come but he backed out before I could get someone to fill out the form."

"Not a problem. We'll get you someone." Using her HUD, Alex immediately put in a request for round-the-clock social workers with home health aide experience. "Let's move you over here and run up a nice private room. The shuttle will build around us."

"In other words, you want to protect the other passengers from me?" The woman made a face, wrinkling her nose.

Alex gave a simple shrug and teased lightly, "Nah, that's to protect you from them for smelling so bad. 'Medical client lynched at airport' would be bad publicity, ya know." With the chair relocated, Alex created a large private room out of SEL. With an excellent air filtration system. "Let's start by getting rid of this antique chair. Useless thing."

"I have to use the bathroom."

"I know. Full body scan. Medtech," Alex explained as the woman flushed red. She created the SEL chair around the woman and had it lift the woman's body to the side. She created a door and shoved the chair out. Someone would return it to the local airport, if only to get rid of the smell. Then she created a toilet. "How would you feel about a bath, too, and swapping your clothes to a SEL suit?"

The woman's eyes were as big as saucers. "Uh, I guess so?"

"SEL. Solid electricity. It's not really electricity and not really a solid, but the name stuck. It dynamically reconfigures. Mind if I cut these off? Moving you around is going to be a bit difficult just now." Alex rubbed her abdomen tenderly. "SEL will be a much better choice for the near future anyway."

"Are you able to..." The woman seemed to focus on Alex for the first time, taking in Alex's nicely rounded abdomen.

Alex saw the instant that the woman recognized her as the Founder because the woman's eyebrows pulled together and her eyes squinted in appalled disbelief. Alex answered cheerfully, patting her baby, "Oh, sure. She's not done yet."

Alex made some scissors and proceeded to cut off the woman's clothes. So directed, the SEL chair moved her on to the toilet. Meanwhile, Alex created a bathtub and filled it with sudsy water. By time the tub was ready, the woman was done, and Alex did the necessary wiping, and had the chair lower her into the tub. She stuffed the clothes into the toilet and closed the lid, letting the unit burn everything into dust. Then she removed the toilet and added a chair for herself. Alex fully cycled the room's air again too.

Alex directed the tub to rise until it was easy for her to reach the woman, and she proceeded to provide the necessary services as gently and thoroughly as possible. The poor woman had obviously been neglected. The SEL chair fully supported the woman, and everything rotated and tilted as needed.

"Do you prefer to be called Patricia? Pat? Some other nickname?" Alex asked.

Every time the conversation touched on something miserable, Alex listened intently, agreed it was awful, and shifted the subject. There would be time for counseling later. Now was a time for breaking the old routine.

"I can swap out the water. Would you like to soak for a bit? I could also trim up your hair if you want." Alex lifted the heavy, now clean, wet, tangled mass.

"Sure." She suspected Pat hadn't been properly groomed in the last year. "This is a full service Medical Center although haircuts aren't my specialty. You could visit a salon this afternoon if you want. In fact, you probably should if you are brave enough to let me cut some of these knots out."

Pat half-giggled, cutting herself short, not yet willing to admit she deserved to laugh. Alex smiled at her encouragingly. Yes, let the woman remember what it felt like to be a real, whole person, not a thing someone must take care of.

Pat nodded. "You don't mind taking me to a salon?"

"I'll go with you to one. You're going to take yourself, though."

"Right." Pat made a scoffing sound.

"I think you're going to like this. Let me show you how the HUD and chair work and are controlled by your verbal commands."

"I thought you were doing it."

"I am, but that's because I'm a medtech today. I have authorization. Proceed everything you want with 'Chair'. Try 'Chair, show display.'"

Pat did and gasped as the HUD appeared in front of her.

"You're the only one who can see your display. Now try, 'Chair, select directory and show hair salons.' You can display information about any that look interesting and call directly."

A few minutes later, Pat had a hair appointment for an hour after they would arrive at Colony One. Alex showed her how to control the actual chair and then how to select a SEL outfit.

As Alex picked through Pat's hair and detangled it, she described the other features of the chair and how it would help her eat and drink as if she had arms. " While it's nice and social to have people help you, you really need your independence. We're going to give you that. I think you'll find Colony One a good home for the duration of your visit."

"Is the procedure painful?"

"I'm told the very end is shocking and disconcerting, but not painful. Recovery is frustrating. You remember how to move your limbs, but your brain doesn't remember how." Alex did a loose braid so the hair would still continue to dry. "How about you lay on your stomach a bit and rest, while I try to get some of the knots out of your neck and shoulders next?"

"Not much on privacy, eh?"

"Medtech. You can't hide shit from me. Literally."

Pat groaned, but there was the smile.

Alex created a massage table and told Pat how to get her chair to orient her into a face-down position. Alex lowered the lights, put on some peaceful music, and did her best to put Pat to sleep. While she worked, she did some minor tissue repair on bedsores and bruising from obviously negligent care.

"I feel like a new person, Founder. Thank you."

"You are a new person. We're going to ditch that old life of yours and you're going to make yourself all over again."

"I have to use the bathroom again."

"I know. How about I give you some privacy to do that? Think you know how to direct the chair well enough?"

"Really. If you get stuck, my number is at the top of your directory and you can call."

When Pat finally came out of the bathroom she'd created within their room, it was clear she'd been crying.

Alex nodded understandingly, "It's ok. Try 'Chair, wipe face' or 'Chair, clean face'."

She did and then asked plaintively, "Can I name this thing something other than Chair?"

"Nope. It's an incentive to lose dependency on it. We're pretty close to Colony One now, would you like to see Earth?" For the remainder of the flight, they watched Earth as it fell away from the shuttle.

On the way to the salon, Alex started to feel odd. Her blood pressure spiked, then dropped, and she started to feel contractions.

"Are you going into labor?" Pat followed Alex to a nearby bench.

"Naw." Alex massaged her forehead as the dizziness continued to rise. When the vertigo didn't dissipate, she fired off a medical alert to request assistance. "I just need to sit here a few minutes. Go ahead on to the salon. It's just up around the bend. Your HUD will direct you. I'll be along shortly." Alex sent off a request for someone to meet Pat at the salon.

"Bed rest," the midwife pronounced dispassionately. "For the duration. No exercise periods. No work. No stress."

"I have a procedure tomorrow," Alex informed her.

"You have bed rest tomorrow, Founder."

Alex began designing her new bed that would operate very much like Pat's chair. "Thank you. I guess I'll catch up on my reading."

The midwife sighed and shook her head.

Two days later, Alex was reclined on her bed, next to and facing Pat, who was comfortably propped up on her own bed in the operation theater. In a happy role reversal, Alex would provide the distraction while Kgomotso would do the actual procedure. He was ready, even if this would be his first 'solo' job. Also present was John White, their patient zero, who was now the distracter-in-training and Pat's future physical therapist. In the neighboring room, on the other side of a one-way mirror, a half dozen doctors watched.

"We're going to start with some simple nerve tests that will take a bit of time. Mostly, it'll be us asking if you feel something and you saying, 'no, feel what?' It'll take us some time to get set up." Alex adjusted her bed height and pillows.

"Is the actual operation going to hurt?"

Alex deferred to John, who stood at the head of Alex's bed, on both of his completely functioning legs. The idea was to keep Pat focused on them and her HUD and not at all on Kgomotso.

"I got my new leg here." John lifted his knee and thumped it with his hand. "You don't feel anything at all until the nerve blockers are turned off. Then it's a bit like jumping into a cold pool. Lots of feedback that is overwhelming for a moment and then you get used to it."

"Do you swim?" Alex asked. Kgomotso was already seeing if Pat jumped when he poked her with a pin. She didn't notice at all. They'd grown/assembled her limbs earlier that morning from her DNA.

"Swim?" She shook her head disbelievingly. "I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of doing anything but laying in a bed or getting pushed around in a wheelchair."

"Yeah," agreed John, "The psychological repair is far harder than the surgery."

"It's not a surgery," Alex corrected. "It's a procedure."

"I keep forgetting that," John replied with a cheery smile and chuckle. Light, teasing, and joking - that was their cultivated atmosphere. "What was your favorite sport before the accident, Pat?"

When Pat looked a little distraught, Alex added, "I know it's painful to think about. You've got years of crying inside every time the subject came up, but you'll be able to do them again. Most of that sadness was from knowing you'd never be able to do them again. You've got a practiced reaction that you'll have to unlearn."

"I used to love swimming." Pat's eyebrows drew together and her voice was quiet.

"Great! We have excellent places to swim here. I'll add that to your rehab list." John nodded firmly, decision made.

Alex pulled up the list of swim locations on Pat's HUD and made it opaque so the image was perfectly clear for Pat and completely hid what Kgomotso was up to. "Let me give you a tour of them. My personal favorite is the reef tank. You get some snorkel gear and swim in a pool that is in the center of a huge aquarium. The fish can't actually get to you, nor you to the fish, but you can swim really close to them." Alex made the display do a full, slow sweep through the tank along the bottom so the coral reef could be clearly seen. Kgomotso was speedily making all the connections on Pat's new leg. "You can set your HUD to show information about each living organism too." Alex demonstrated.

"That's really amazing," Pat said. "Hey, is that a shark?"

"Mmmm hmmm. That one's a silvertip shark. They don't mind the proximity of humans too much." Alex let the image follow the shark. She was really proud of their aquarium that could keep the sharks alive. It was massive.

John coughed. "Aren't they the ones that attack swimmers?"

"Well, yeah," Alex said, "When we're in their habitat and making it hard for them to find other food. You can swim next to them here without fear. Once in a while one of them will bounce off the SEL divider trying to feed, but they learn the boundary pretty quick." She rubbed her chin. "We also have six other pool areas, including 4 water parks with slides, diving boards, sprayers, waterfalls, a volleyball court, and an olympic lap pool."

Alex brought up each one and showed off their assets. "Now, if those are a little too artificial for you, we have pretty beaches down at our Pacific island which you can visit." She changed the display to a beautiful flyover of the Pacific island and its beaches. Alex continued to talk steadily for another three hours, and between her and John, they completely distracted Pat.

Kgomotso worked steadily at the molecular connections both he and Alex had planned. It was an amazing sleight-of-hand, helped by the immobility inducers, nerve blockers, and a monster huge opaque screen in front of Pat's face so she couldn't see what they were doing. This was John's idea; they'd let him watch as they sliced off his stump, and he nearly had a heart attack.

When Kgomotso finished, he messaged Alex, and she said, "Hey, John, tell her about your rehab program." While he did that, Alex verified all of the vein, bone, muscle, and nerve connections. It was slow going, but Kgomotso's work was sound and John proved up to the distraction task.

"Ok," Kgomotso said, "I think I have everything set up. Close your eyes, Pat." She did. "Do you feel that?"

"That'll be the nerve blockers doing their job." Kgomotso was actually moving her new foot. He switched to her left hand and then right hand, with the same result. "Keep your eyes closed for a few more minutes. I'm going to remove the blockers on the count of 3. You'll feel a sudden rush of sensations, but it's all right. It's expected. 3. 2. 1..." He removed the blockers and Pat stiffened and cried out.

"That cold water splash," John told her. "Times three in your case. Go ahead and open your eyes. Don't try to move yet. It'll cause you to panic. Well, it caused ME to panic. You might be braver."

She lifted her right hand and looked at it with disbelief. "I'm dreaming, right? I'll wake up and this will all be gone."

"You're awake. This is real."

"Holy cow! You moved your arm! That's amazing!" John exclaimed.

Pat whispered, "Is it?"

"Definitely," Alex confirmed.

"I can't move the left one or my leg." Her eyes fluttered in panic and she was having a hard time breathing.

Kgomotso stepped up to her and put a hand on her cheek and held her left hand. "It's going to take a while for your brain to reconnect its commands. Deep breaths."

"Yup. Lots of deep breathing." John moved over by her feet and held onto both toes. "Any pain?" He was stronger than Kgomotso, so they normally had him holding the client's feet.

"No. It's just... weird." Pat closed her eyes and looked up at the ceiling. Her new leg pulled out of John's light grasp and nearly kicked him, but he'd been watching for it, and dodged out of the way. Pat flexed the foot. A moment later, she managed to twitch her left hand.

"Incredible," Kgomotso noted with a nod. "No one has ever responded that quickly before. Your recovery time looks very promising."

"Can I have a few minutes by myself, please?" Pat was staring at her right hand and her eyes were pooling with water.

"Of course." Alex navigated her own bed out of the room. Kgomotso and John followed, and Kgomotso toggled the viewing window to opaque, so their audience wouldn't see either. "Nice work, Kgomotso."

"Thank you." He tapped his fingers together. "Founder, that's the last work you're doing for a while. The excitement spiked your blood pressure."

"You're monitoring me?" She arched a disapproving eyebrow at him.

He shrugged unrepentantly. "We can play back the recording and I can point out every time you tried to sit up and strained your abdomen or gestured too enthusiastically."

"It doesn't take much at all to go through the procedure diagrams. I can still do that."

John and Kgomotso exchanged knowing glances and John added helpfully, " I can arrange for a visit from the center's psychologist if the idea of leisure time is upsetting you so much, Founder."

Alex massaged her belly. "I am the center's psych."

Kgomotso laughed. Alex routinely did any job that needed to be done, although her focus was training other people to do those jobs so she could move on. "Well, Founder, this is MY medical center. I'm in charge. Don't make me ban you from the premises."

Over the next few days, she designed her baby's bioshield and monitoring unit that would not only protect her baby but let her see everything her baby did in a constantly running video feed in the upper right of her own HUD. Alex told herself this was necessary given the possibility of threats and political agendas her daughter would have to navigate, but realized she just wanted to make sure no one could ever do to her daughter what they'd done to her. She wondered how well she'd do at allowing her daughter to grow independently and make mistakes that would ultimately let her be a stronger, smarter person.

She did not have a name for her baby and was hoping Jay would let her use his mother's name, but she needed to talk with him. Jay, along with his friend Byron, and a paternity test doctor would be arriving in two weeks. The 'list' had arrived by paper-mail, along with a date range that indicated that he was following the news which was annoyingly following her pregnancy. She and Jay had not spoken since the phone call. Alex had stayed busy enough that she didn't have time to worry about it, but now that she wasn't constantly working, she did nothing but think and fret.

Jay, Byron, and the paternity test doctor arrived as scheduled, but none of the 3 came to visit her and Jay was blocking her calls, and Alex refused to call Byron or the doctor. She was officially confined to her room, pending the birth, which would happen at any time. Medically, Kgomotso and the midwife felt everything would proceed normally, but politically, no one, especially Alex, wanted tourist or news coverage of the actual birth. Let them look on an appropriately adorable and clean little baby.

Alex tried not to let Jay's absence upset her. It would get sorted out. That she spent most of her time alone, with only a periodic checkup by the midwife, gnawed at the back of her mind. She knew every citizen by face, name, job proclivity, family, vote-tendency, and committee. None, however, could be counted as close friends, except Brian, who'd been with her since the beginning, but was too busy picking up her slack to come visit, and maybe Kgomotso, whom she only ever discussed medical center things with. Surrounded by this many people who all knew her by sight and name, how could she feel this lonely? Normally, she kept busy. Always so very busy.

The Marino family, including Milo whom she hadn't spoken with for almost a year, and Dec, the woman from her short prison stay, was still mostly Earth-side. They would be brought up as part of the main Earth evacuation. Alex didn't like to think about that at all. How much time did they have?

This enforced down-time might make her crazy. Odd as it seemed, the conversation with Jay in the gem cavern was the only extended non-work related conversation she'd had in a very long time. No best friend to do a baby shower. No gathering of lady-friends to come keep her company and discuss new-mom things. Just the HUD with endless forums, votes, news, television shows and movies which she did not watch, and mountains of scientific data on the decline of the Earth, and the ever-depressing prep for the rescue, rehabilitation, and processing of refugees. She'd run around naked through the buffet hall before she'd ever put in a request for a companion/social care worker. After a while, she just closed her eyes and let her mind replay her good memories with Sal and some of the better times alone in the forest.

Brian poked his head into the hospital room, not knocking. "Ah, good! You're awake!"

Alex smiled and adjusted her bed to a sitting position. She was really glad to have a visitor. She hated not being able to go out walking around the station. She hadn't realized how active she truly was until she had nothing better to do than sit in this room and ponder the fate of humanity. She could have flown her bed around, but that drew unwanted attention from both citizens and tourists alike. "I heard a rumor that there are people that can sit and watch TV for hours. This has got to be a complete fabrication. No one would ever be able to sit still that long for such mind-numbing hypnotic torture."

Brian laughed, stepping in. "Maybe you should play a video game."

Alex groaned. "I tried. They're worse!"

"Well, Milo and his family are on their way up in a shuttle right now to come see you. Milo told me to tell you not to have the baby until he gets here."

Alex grinned. "I'm letting her make this decision." She rubbed her baby. "And she doesn't know what a fearsome thing it is to disobey a mafia lawyer." Yes! Visitors!

Brian gave a mock gasp. "He's mafia? You said the Marino's are just a rich family with interests."

She laughed. "What do you think mafia is?"

"So where's this man of yours? I was hoping to get a chance to meet him in a less formal setting." Brian's last interaction with Jay had been to apologize for Colony One's Founder's sudden departure from the debate.

"He's waiting for our baby to arrive. "

Brian studied her face a moment. "He hasn't been to see you? He's been on station for two weeks!"

"It's ok. He's here. He'll be along when our daughter arrives. So tell me what's going on in our country?"

"Just the usual. The Pacific island people are busy pushing through a geographic design that will make your hair stand on end. They're building a lot of redundant businesses so they don't have to make the long commute here for things. They're also building their own stadium."

Alex groaned. "Confess. You told them to do a stadium."

"Me? Certainly not! I don't interfere with community development committees. I'm strictly international politics and a bottom-line yes-man." He winked at her. "Now... Lucas, though, I'm absolutely sure he might have said something about putting in a stadium at all locations eventually and having each location create a team so they can have playoffs."

"Uh huh." Alex rolled her eyes. Brian knew Lucas was still working on his teleportation technology so his reference to multiple locations wasn't misplaced. Unfortunately, Lucas kept getting pulled away to handle other station physics inquiries, so he couldn't dedicate enough time to the problem. Eventually, they'd be able to put stations at each of their solar system's planets. "Has Lucas even been to a game yet?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"You really need to find a better fall guy."

Brian chuckled. "Nah. You just need to accept that Lucas is a closet sports fanatic."

Brian glanced at the guest chair but did not sit. Apparently his visit was going to be short. Alex repressed a sigh. While she understood he was constantly busy, Alex wished he'd stay longer.

Brian said, "Oh, hey, did you see the citizens have vetoed the vote for mandatory genetic scans of all citizens?"

"I've been trying not to check the forums more than twice an hour." Alex shifted in the bed, trying to get comfortable. "I wish that had passed. We're going to need it eventually for the population bottleneck and it would be so much easier to get it through now than it will be in the future."

"Hey, you try to knock some sense into them. This system you have going of 'decisions by forum discussion and mass vote' is making our country do all sorts of crazy things. It sucks up a lot of my time too." Brian rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck with this complaint.

Alex could certainly sympathize with the time sink. No individual could possibly track and pay attention to every issue. While citizens could set alerts and warnings for topics they found interesting, even that was a lot to deal with. "It's the best I can do. Humanity has to evolve. Individuals have to take responsibility for our community and environment. We're about to get slammed with a massive influx of people. Our system has to be able to handle it. "

"What if they vote to turn us back into Earth? Greed at the expense of the environment? Individual companies again. Actual paychecks and 60 hour work weeks?" Brian walked to the foot of her bed, nearer to the door.

Alex didn't demand he come back and sit down. Brian really had more important things to do. "Then me and the young lady," Alex pat her stomach, "And whoever else wants to come along, will move and start another colony."

"You are way too idealistic. By the way, we're creating a cattle farm. Lucas approved the mass and space." On that pleasant announcement, Brian ducked out.

Well, Alex thought with a sigh, if she had wanted to control everything, she wouldn't have invited anyone to join her and she'd still be stuck back on Earth because one person can't do everything. Individuals need other people to succeed - help, motivation, knowledge and ideas. That meant recognizing their value and allowing and empowering others to make decisions, even if she would not have done things that way.

But cattle? Alex ground her teeth together. Lucas should have known better. She pulled up her projected expansion data, studying the available matter and required space, atmosphere, plant farms, and then began the tedious work of adjusting her calculations. Lucas was more of a "now man" - they could certainly support enough cattle right now, but in a decade or two, with the added population, they wouldn't have enough meat to share equally. It would cause problems, but maybe by then, they might be able to solve them?

Alex dug through the forums and posted yet another scientific article on genetic variety in closed populations. Maybe it would help eventually. She'd just finished the final edit and post when a message from Brian appeared in the corner of her HUD. She activated it and a video link appeared. Alex's eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. She hit play.

"I want you to come with me," Brian said to Jay, who was eating lunch.

"Did she have the baby yet?" Jay set his sandwich back on his plate.

"No, but I want to talk with you."

"Nothing to talk about until the baby arrives and the paternity test is done." Jay pushed his tray over to Byron and stood to follow anyway. He was wearing tailored khaki's with a white button-down shirt and was just as handsome as Alex remembered.

The video skipped to Brian's office. Jay leaned against the wall by the door, with his arms crossed, looking extremely unhappy. Now that she could see his face better, Alex noted that he had dark circles under his eyes and his lighthearted demeanor was gone completely. She could have wept.

"I just came from visiting Alex," Brian said. Alex glanced at the video's timestamp. It was from 30 minutes ago, from Brian's point of view. Anything that had been said was forever locked in time and she couldn't affect it at all.

"Don't look at me like I'm a rapist. I didn't force her," Jay spit out.

Alex couldn't tell what expression Brian made because the video view was from his perspective. "Oh, I know that. It's physically impossible; she's wearing a full, invisible bioshield that nothing can get through unless she allows it. So what's the problem? I have no idea how the two of you managed to..." Brian didn't finish that thought, but instead said, "Why haven't you been to see her?"

"Why should I? She clearly just wanted someone to have sex with so she could have a child. You guys all treat her like a goddess, but she uses people and throws them away."

Alex winced and felt like she'd been stabbed through the heart. For whom did she dance if not for everyone else? How could Jay be so far from the truth?

"She what?" Brian asked, confusion evident in his voice.

"She deceived me; never told me who she was. Seduced me. Then she immediately runs off and reappears at that cursed debate to rub it in. Then refuses to take my calls or even see me. She's one twisted individual. She should be locked up."

"Oh, no." Brian's video feed went dark as he put his head in his hands. "I was afraid this was my fault. I'm sorry."

"She tell you to..."

"No." The video became active again as Brian looked back at Jay. "She couldn't take your calls and then I told her not to talk to anyone."

"Right." Sarcasm and disbelief dripped from Jay's voice.

Brian's HUD showed in the video. Alex winced at how cluttered it was. Didn't the man ever delete files on his main display? How did he focus on a task or even see around all that? She watched him access the security feeds and link them to the monitor in his office. Brian said, "This is seriously secret. Only a small handful of people know about it. We don't want a panic among the citizens, so please keep it to yourself."

The video of Alex storming out of the debate appeared. Brian scrubbed it forward, past her punching the man, and running from the medtechs, until she spasmed and fell to the ground. "Her blood sugar was so low she almost died." Brian fast-forwarded to them trying to get a needle in her arm and it bending away. "Her bioshield. We couldn't do anything to help her until she lowered it. I thought she was going to die."

Alex saw herself have two more seizures as she was carried to the hospital. Alex hadn't been told about those; it scared her. She kept watching.

Brian continued, "We sedated her at the hospital. Kept her under for days, trying to stabilize her." Brian cut off the security feed. "The first thing she did when she woke up was demand her HUD to make a phone call. I told her not to tell anyone. So you see, it's my fault. She's not the monster you think she is. "

"I've got to go talk with her." Jay turned and strode out of the office.

Brian's voice said, "Alex, I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry. I would have fixed this sooner if I had known. He'll arrive at your room any minute now." The video ended. Alex looked at the timestamp. The walk from Brian's office to her hospital room would take another 15 minutes.

Jay knocked and at Alex's immediate answer, came in.

Alex dissolved the comb and blushed, afraid she didn't look as neatly groomed as she would have liked. He was as attractive as she remembered him, classically handsome face under recently trimmed brown hair, muscled, broad shoulders. "Hi, Jay. Brian told me you were on your way here."

"Is it true?" Jay didn't need to specify what.

Alex chose to answer lightly, with humor, and maybe set the tone for this critical conversation. "Oh, it's true all right: Brian is definitely in trouble for inappropriate access of security video. I'm going to issue him a warning. Can't very well banish him back to Earth, I suppose." She'd have to banish herself, too.

"No, about your seizure." Jay took a step closer to the bed, green eyes inspecting her, studying her for signs of health problems.

Alex gave him a lopsided smile. "Yeah, that's also true. Moral: don't ignore medical warning signs or alerts."

"You should have told me," he admonished, but this time, his tone wasn't accusing and angry like it had been on the phone call. "Maybe we should start over? Hi, I'm Jay Ryko, environmental activist, and uh, notorious international playboy."

"Alex Smith, Founder of Colony One. I don't look like you expected because I dyed my hair and wore a lot of makeup while I was on Earth so when I got here, I'd be anonymous. The news media has my public image, not my real image. Or at least used to." Alex rubbed her chin thoughtfully and then pitched her voice deep and breathy, "Want to make a baby?"

He laughed. "Maybe the way we did it was the right way the first time."

Alex was absolutely certain they never would have connected had they exchanged names. She would have had to treat him like an honored guest (and one she didn't want to have to talk with because of the debate) and he would have handled her like a foreign dignitary. She said, "I'm sorry I didn't call you the minute I found out I was pregnant."

He looked up at the ceiling, exhaling, and then refocused on her and nodded once in acknowledgement.

"I nearly passed out when I saw you on stage," Alex confessed. "I thought you were just one of the conference attendees."

"Hah! You were completely calm when you walked out on stage. You even shook my hand!"

"It only looked that way. I wasn't. I had every intention of getting to that conference early, finding you, and telling you who I was."

"I had every intention of convincing you to come back to Earth with me over dinner. I spent the night planning my arguments and logic."

"I spent the entire night handling the fallout from that idiotic protest. I really hate those people for interrupting us. It still would have been awkward, but..."

"At least we could have talked," he finished. "So all that 'end of the world' stuff was just low blood sugar?"

Alex lowered her eyes. "I wish with every fiber of my being that it were." She met his eyes again, changing the subject before the conversation soured. "May we name our daughter after your mother? If we do, people will figure out you're the father. I wasn't sure if you'd want anyone to know or not."

"You don't think completely covering my expenses wasn't a dead giveaway? They wouldn't even let me override your funding."

Alex also bet her fellow citizens delighted in refusing to change it. Too many of them wrongfully blamed Jay for the debate debacle. "I pick up a lot of random expenses. The current theory is that it's an apology for walking out on you during the debate. Your name hasn't even made the 'potential fathers' list."

"There's a list?" Jay sighed, running his hand through his hair. "Never mind. I don't mind if people know she's mine. If she's going to spend time with me, people are going to notice anyway. Please use my mother's name."

Alex smiled brightly. "When do I get to meet Byron?"

"Um." Jay played with his HUD a moment. "I just sent him a note to come."

Just then, the door opened, and in trooped Milo, his wife, and his two kids. Milo looked substantially older, but healthy and happy. Kelly's long, wavy brown hair was still untouched by any grey. His two adopted boys, age 8 and 10, weren't acting timid, but had certainly been lectured to be on their best behavior. The room felt small. Alex shifted the wall, taking over space from an empty neighboring room.

"That's cool!" Milo's eldest said, watching the wall move.

"It is, isn't it? I have presents for the two of you," Alex said to Milo's sons. She reached into her pocket and pulled out two semitransparent SEL cards about the size of credit cards and handed them over. "Thumb and forefinger on the circles and state your name." They did. "Take them outside and play. I want to visit with your dad and mom." They thanked her and skipped out.

Milo raised his eyebrow, adding the familiar cringe that Alex knew so well. It warmed her heart, even as he asked, "Do I want to know what those were?" Milo went to the end of Alex's bed and straightened the light blanket that was draped over her.

Alex grinned. "Probably not." She wondered if Milo was even aware of his obsession with neat and orderly surroundings. How many times had she seen him arrange his plate and silverware? His action made her feel happy and content, not because he straightened the blanket; she didn't care about that, but because his familiar quirk reminded her of time they'd spent together over the years.

Milo sighed. "I haven't missed your daily surprises."

"Milo, Kelly, this is Jay Ryko, the father of my baby. Jay, this is my guardian angel, Milo Paul, and his wife, Kelly."

Milo sized up Jay. "Aren't you that environmentalist from the debate?"

Jay nodded warily, equally studying Milo. Jay definitely knew about Alex's mafia connections, at least everything that the Earth press embellished and reported. The Earth news media had proven itself unreliable on Jay so many times that Alex hoped Jay would apply some wariness to anything about Alex and her own connections.

"It's nice to meet you," Milo said, shaking Jay's hand, reminding Alex that she'd certainly given Milo enough surprises over his employment that nothing could really startle him. Milo glanced at Jay and then at Alex, taking in their expressions. "We'll come back by again tomorrow. We just wanted to stop in and say hi. We need to get settled in at the hotel."

Alex said quickly, "Milo, when are you moving up here?"

Kelly answered, "We've decided to wait as long as possible. I like my feet on solid ground. It's also good for the boys to know where they're from."

Alex nodded to her. "Visit Sal's house while you're here. It's set up as a museum, but you can get the family tour."

They thanked her and left.

Jay shuffled his feet. After a moment, he inquired, "What did you give the boys?"

Alex adjusted her bed so she was sitting up a little higher. "It's the latest SEL toy the kids have been playing with. It's not available to downsiders."

"Aren't they downsiders?"

"They're family. Special case."

"I notice yet again you didn't answer my question. What'ja give them?"

"Habit." She grinned. "It's an educational toy - it gives them a cubic meter of SEL that they can make into anything inorganic. They can design their own things and sell the design or use anyone else's. There's a contest once a month for the best new design. Children start with 60 kid money. Designs have a max price of 1 and can only make 50 before the design becomes 'public domain'. So basically, the first 50 kids buy the design for the community. If they run out of kid money, they can earn more doing age-appropriate community service."

"But they can make anything?"

"Yup. Younger kids can't make anything swallowable. Dangerous things like knives and guns are flagged for adult review and get safety-ized. You could point one of the guns at someone and shoot, point-blank, but it wouldn't actually hurt the person. Makes a temporary black and red tattoo." Alex tilted her head to the side, unapologetically. "One of the teens made a fortune creating a collection of historical guns. There was a rush of war games for a while, but then one of the brighter kids designed a dual-set laser tag system, so now they're all off doing that instead. We even built a special laser tag park for them so they'd stop tearing through the restaurant zone."

"You encourage violence?"

"No, I encourage exercise, social games, teamwork, community, education, and discipline. We have counselors that immediately stamp out truly malicious behavior. We pay attention to our kids. We have an occasional accident, but no one has been seriously hurt. The SEL building blocks seem to be more addictive than traditional video games and it encourages them to go out and visit with their friends to show off designs. The best designs are play-tested by friends. Here, check this out." Alex created a digital display by the bed and linked to it, pulling up a picture of a beautiful, white-marble sculpture of a puppy. "That was designed by a six year old using the 'clay to stone' option. She made clay, shaped it, then set it, and named it Flaffie. She's apparently working on a matching kitten. The Salvatore Marino Memorial Museum bought the design and has it on display in the modern sculpture gallery."

"How does that work?"

"She got 1 kid money from the museum, 49 from other kids, and now her puppy is available to anyone. There are a couple other kids trying to do designs that are 'good enough', but they're still building their art skills."

"But they can also create electronics?"

"Sure. There's a few fully automated robots in the public database as well as several vehicles. They take a lot more work. The kids that have the knowledge to do them have usually become teenagers and move on to other activities. The kids can dissect the designs and figure out how they work if they want."

"Culture shock. I can't fathom how that doesn't cause complete chaos. You have no control over who creates what."

"Our citizens are waking up. We're healthy. We're educated. We have time. We're evolving. It's bound to be chaotic." She dissolved the display again. "Hmm. Speaking of culture shock. You know that bioshield Brian mentioned to you?" He nodded once and Alex continued, "I'm giving you bioshield rings for you and Byron and anyone else you feel might be in danger due to your association with me. Earth is still dangerous. I don't want our baby to grow up without a Dad."

Byron arrived then, knocking boldly and waiting to be let in. "Hey," he said in a rush, "There's a couple boys out on the lawn with guns shooting at each other."

Alex laughed. "Yup. Milo's going to be pissed. Don't worry about it. They're toys."

"They looked pretty real to me," Byron said.

"Trust me. Toys. The red blood splatter is all hologram based for ambience. They'll eventually get bored and it'll self-clean, or their dad will catch them at it, and confiscate the cards that let them create the guns."

Byron looked between the two of them. "You two have reconciled I take it?"

Alex nodded and Jay answered, "Yeah. Misunderstanding."

Byron plopped down in the guest chair. "Ah, good. The Earth isn't ending. I knew it."

"Some things have to be explained in person," Alex replied and Jay's mouth twitched at the non-answer. At some point, she supposed she and Jay would have to discuss her dire predictions in more detail, but for now, it made no difference whatsoever. She'd see Jay, Byron, and their loved ones got to the station safely when the time came.

Grace Ember arrived, kicking and screaming, two days later. Alex attached her baby's bioshield and monitor as soon as the umbilical cord was cut, which caused some consternation when the medical staff went to do a heel-stick to get a blood sample for medical condition screening and the tiny needles wouldn't work. The nurse had to bring Grace to Alex so she could be carefully watched as she did the heel-stick.

Grace was washed, wrapped in a soft blanket and given back to Alex. Grace was healthy at 3.2 kg, 51 cm, with newborn blue eyes and a light fuzz of hair that could be either light brown or blond. She was passed around to Alex's visitors to be admired and held, starting with her father, and then Byron, and Milo and Brian, their families, and Lucas. When Lucas was holding Grace, he leaned close to her ear and whispered in Spanish, "You come by my lab when you get older, Grace Ember, and I'll teach you physics and show you a world most people never see."

Alex tried not to smile, after all, that was a private comment between Lucas and her daughter. Alex would need some time to adapt to the constant video feed and filter out things she wasn't supposed to know, but no way would she let her daughter be hurt or manipulated or in any way used. When her daughter finally came back to her, Alex told her how loved she was and held her for a very long time. Eventually, people left, and only Alex, Jay, and Grace remained in the room.

"She's perfect," Alex whispered, pondering the schedule of ailments that would help her baby build a healthy, strong immune system.

Jay agreed, and then more quietly, he said, "I've been giving this a lot of thought. Should we get married?"

Alex tilted her head sideways. "Going to do the 'right thing'? Move to Colony One?"

"No. It's not what you want. Your work, your life, is on Earth." Alex also knew he'd be here permanently soon enough. "Do you think if we were married, you'd love Grace any more? You are going to be a good father whether or not we're married. I meant what I said during that phone call. I want her to spend equal time with you. She's half you." And Grace should see what Earth is like before it's gone.

"My father would have thrown a fit. He was always so adamant about family values and not having children out of wedlock."

Alex lightly touched Grace's perfect little nose. "Neither one of us is financially or emotionally dependent. We barely know each other. Our baby is ours, whether or not we are married."

Jay nodded. "If you're sure."

Alex and Lucas settled their children in the newly generated playroom and waited to make sure they could get along this time. Some playdates went better than others. Two year old Grace was sitting in the room's corner, playing quietly for once, chewing on a wooden block while building others into some sort of fort. Georgie, one year younger, squished his hands into a large lump of super soft SEL clay. Other toys were scattered around for when they got bored. Alex started some chipper children's songs playing and keeping the wall clear so they could keep an eye on the children, she sealed off the room so she and Lucas could get to work.

Alex poured tea and took a seat at the table across from Lucas, pushing his teacup toward him. While they could have hired a babysitter easily enough, this way they could easily steal a slice of quality time for their babies before and after. Nothing added perspective to their end-of-Earth discussions like having to stop and change a diaper. By mutual agreement neither of them would speak in front of the children about their dire circumstances. Children absorbed and learned, even when they didn't seem to be paying attention.

"Should we arrange Georgie and Grace's marriage?" Lucas asked, his eyes proudly glued to his son who was making an unrecognizable blob with the super-serious expression and concentration of a master artist.

Alex sputtered her tea across the table.

"Hah! Got ya!" Lucas cackled happily.

Alex thumped her closed hand into her forehead and shook her head. She ordered the picobots to clean up the tea. "Maybe we should at least wait for them to get out of the toddler stage?"

Lucas generated a semitransparent hologram of the Earth above their table. "You really going to send her off to live with her father for six months?"

"With Jay, yes. She's weaned and I want her to see what Earth is like. It'll also be good for her to not deal with the constant 'Founder's kid' aura she's got here. People just don't treat her like a normal baby." Alex added a date wheel under the globe and set it to current and adjusted the Earth to match its season and daylight.

"But she's your daughter. How can you give her away like that? "

"I'm not giving her away. Jay is her father. He can't keep coming here. His work is there." Alex knew Grace absolutely adored Jay and he was always the perfect image of an attentive and doting father. While unconcerned, Alex was a little curious how Jay would handle being a full-time dad. Babies needed constant care. She had hired round-the clock babysitters that spent most of their time on-call in case she suddenly got pulled away.

Alex's spying picobots had also let her know that Jay's current girlfriend, a woman named Avalon Dorsey, was safe. Ms. Dorsey was only slightly intimidated about having the Founder's daughter around for the next few months. Hoping that Grace could be bribed to like her, the woman had prepared and bought Grace some age-appropriate toys and had asked Jay questions about what Grace liked and didn't like. Alex wasn't plagued by a fear of the woman being around or even being left alone with Grace.

Instead, Alex was plagued by jealousy and daydreams of herself and Jay as a happy couple. They'd tried dating for a short time after Grace was born, but Alex's firm insistence that the Earth was headed for life-ending destruction drove them apart. He couldn't accept a relationship with someone so unreasonable and apparently crazy and she couldn't lie to him and tell him it wasn't going to happen. They were still amicable, particularly around Grace, but only if they didn't bring up the Earth in their conversation - an insurmountable hurdle as both of them were passionate about the environment.

Refocusing her thoughts on the present moment, Alex squinted at Lucas. Did he think she wouldn't be watching Grace? "Wait. You don't have full-time surveillance on Georgie?"

Lucas quickly looked down guiltily. "I didn't want to miss anything."

Alex shrugged at this confession. "I've had one on Grace since she was born. I know it seems wrong, but she's my baby. I have to protect her. I'm not going to let her get used or abused."

Lucas nodded at that. He exhaled. "So what do you want to tackle today? Carbon dioxide in the ocean, tectonic plates, or the trash dumps?"

"Your choice. We're just putting bandaids on things. Every step we take forward, two are taken backwards. Why can't they stop destroying our planet? Something will get us anyway. We don't need to rush it." Alex sighed. Despite Alex and Lucas trying everything they could think of, the inevitable end continued to draw closer. There was simply no way to get enough individuals to care and take immediate action, particularly as the local companies and governments were too focused on other goals.

"Alex, would you come down here?" the Pacific island's governor asked when Alex answered the incoming message. "I have four... people here who would like to speak with you."

"Who?" Alex was busy digging through the forums and catching up on everything so she could take a couple days off when Grace arrived home again. Despite constantly watching Grace's activities on her HUD and having nightly video calls, Grace's third visit to Jay had been the hardest on Alex thus far. Alex's four year old was finally getting to a point where they could have conversations. These conversations weren't quite as disconcerting as the ones with Lucas' Georgie, who spouted random college-level science facts and ran off giggling, but definitely showed Grace had inherited Alex's photographic memory.

The Pacific island's governor shifted the video feed to show four extremely dirty, poorly dressed, and clearly starving street kids, two boys and two girls. "They haven't given us their names yet," the governor said. The eldest, a boy maybe 13 years old, was holding a knife. The youngest, a girl who was barely 7, if that old, cowered against the older girl and was clearly terrified. The older girl didn't seem aware of what was going on around her; possibly a drug-haze. The younger boy's attitude and hard body language reminded Alex so much of Mason, the street gang leader she'd lived with before meeting Sal, that Alex felt time-vertigo. The four street kids were in the supply ship's cargo hold, blocking the unloading of the supply shipment.

The governor turned his camera back toward himself. "What would you like me to do?" he asked.

Alex recalled that the governor had two young girls himself, which is likely why he hadn't just run up SEL cages and turned them over to security.

"Ah. Set up a digital display so they can see and hear me?" While he did that, Alex generated a sharp knife for herself and turned off her bioshield. She knew street negotiations, but which boy was actually in charge?

"You're on," the governor announced.

"Hello, I'm Alex Smith, Founder of Colony One. I understand you would like to talk with me? "

"In person," the younger boy whispered to the older boy in street-accent Spanish. The picobots creating the video feed picked up the audio clearly.

The older boy squared his shoulders determinedly and said, "We want political asylum."

Alex wondered if he even knew what that meant. "You're from the United States?"

The older boy nodded. "We don't want to be there anymore. We want to be citizens of Colony One."

"If I promise to seriously consider your request, will you put away your shiv and not threaten any more of our citizens?"

The younger boy leaned over to his friend again and whispered in Spanish, "No, make her say yes first. We can't go back."

Alex, in her best street-accent Spanish, said, "Blood oath. I promise if it is possible, I will make it so." She took her knife, held up her hand, and sliced her palm, vertically, from the "head line" below her middle finger straight down to her "life line", with a short, shallow cut. She spread her fingers, palm toward them, and let the blood drip.

Both of the boys' mouths dropped open and their eyes widened. Alex tilted her head at them in inquiry and waited. The older boy tucked his knife into his belt.

Alex said, "I want you to go with my friend there. He'll get you something to eat and I'll be there in two hours to talk with you in person." When the boys seemed to relax a little, she disconnected and made arrangements to ride on the next shuttle down. Just what she needed. Another political nightmare. The United States government was still trying to push through embargoes in the United Nations until Cal Park was "released" from his "slavery" even though he'd been back to Earth and been granted citizenship through the normal routes.

The governor had secured the four children in a private spaceport waiting room and had brought in the food Alex had recommended that wouldn't harm their empty stomachs. The room wasn't institutional, but a cozy meeting room, with pictures of sunny Caribbean beaches on the walls, and comfortable SEL-leather chairs.

Alex was privately glad the governor had kept them out of sight. She entered the room without pausing. When the boys went to stand, she shook her head and motioned them to stay seated. She sat across the table from them. The licked-clean bowls from the light vegetable soup were still on the table and the bread and crumbs were gone. The youngest girl still huddled next to the oldest girl who stared straight ahead vacantly.

Speaking in Spanish, Alex greeted them. "That was a brave crossing you did to get here."

The oldest, obviously the voted speaker, replied in Spanish. "What do we have to do?"

"Well, under United States law, all four of you are still minors. I have to do an official recorded interview during which you are going to have to tell me your names, and I'm going to have to publish those names, and send them to the U.S. government so your distraught parents or guardians can stop worrying about you." The boys and the youngest girl looked very upset by this. "Of course, if you were to lie to me, I'd still have to go with whatever you tell me, because I don't know differently. But those are the names you get for the rest of your lives. You can't change your mind, because that would be suspicious and I'd have to investigate to find the truth." Alex let that sink in.

The oldest boy was the first to comprehend, but he certainly didn't trust her. His gaze was calculating.

Alex tented her fingers. "I'll work with you so I can make you citizens, but you'll have to stay here as my guests for the near future. What that means is that you're going to be in a legal limbo for a while. I need you to ignore whatever you hear on the news and trust me to work it out."

The oldest frowned at her suspiciously. "But what do we have to do?"

"Go to school. Grow up and be productive members of our community, doing whatever it is that makes you happy. Generally, not cause any trouble and don't draw attention to yourself until you are 18."

"But what do we have to do for you?" the oldest persisted.

"I understand the question. That's still my answer. Neither myself, nor anyone else, will ever ask you for personal services again. Not ever. And if they dare, I'll kill them." She let that sink in. She found she was surprised that she meant it. "I was homeless when I was a kid and now nobody touches me without my permission. I can close my bedroom door and sleep without fear that someone will come in and hurt me."

The younger boy looked at the older boy and said, "See? I told you. She's one of us."

Alex tilted her head at this. "I am, but how did you know? Why did you come?"

"Jane saw that kid's parents doing an interview." The younger boy glanced at the oldest girl briefly, but she didn't react. "You know, that kid you locked up because he tore up a painting?"

"Yeah, I know that kid." Cal Park was currently running their Emergency Response department. He was working on his doctorate in emergency management. Alex waited patiently.

"Well, the parents mentioned you lived on the streets and recognized that their son was headed for overdose, gang death, or prison, and that you were just trying to help him, and they were ok with that." The younger boy spoke so fast, it was apparent that he'd said this same thing many times before while he was convincing their gang to come.

Alex recalled the video interview. It was an old one that people apparently had dredged up as part of a new documentary series on Colony One. The younger boy used the exact words from the interview .

Breaking away from the transcript, the younger boy added, "Dunno what kind of parents would just leave their kid like that. He's better off without them."

The older boy touched the younger boy's arm, silencing him. "We figured if you were trying to help him, you might help us too. And you got a kid now too."

"That's some really good thinking. Really brave." Alex nodded at this logic and quickly looked at her HUD's video feed of 'her kid'. Grace was subjecting Jay to every book store in the airport, in search of "a most special book" for the plane trip over to California, where they'd take one of the Colony One transports to the island. Jay hadn't quite grasped the implications of Grace's memory yet, although Alex had pointed it out. Grace had full access on her own HUD to any book she might want (subject to Mom's censorship). Grace's airport quest was to make Jay follow her around, paying attention to her every word, so he couldn't take any work phone calls.

The older boy drew her attention back. "If you turn us over, we have a plan so we can get back together again."

"It's smart to have a backup plan in place." Alex stood up. "Ok, I'm going to go get you an apartment. I'm guessing you want to stay together?"

"When I come back, and it'll be just a few minutes, we'll do the official recorded video. Can you remember your names by then?" She made air quotes around "remember".

"Yeah, we can do that," the oldest replied, obviously comprehending the real instruction.

Alex canceled her plans for the next three days and arranged to have her station apartment's contents transferred to the island. She could use video conferencing to the space station for a while, and maybe even take care of some things locally that needed to be done. Grace wouldn't care. She liked the beaches for the same reason Alex did - the water and sand kept changing. Alex chose two adjacent apartments. Technically, visitors should stay in the hotel, but there were some special allowances that could be made for extended guests, if they passed a forum vote. Alex's vote requesting an additional apartment for four guests was approved instantaneously. She paid extra for a "rush job" on interior decorating to get furniture and general supplies set up within the next hour. Guiltily, she bet Sal hadn't completely delegated the setup of her own apartment.

Alex spoke with the island's governor and Brian via a video conference call for a short while, making political arrangements, repeated the same call with Lucas for technical conferencing, and then picked up more food and a box of guest supplies. She hoped the children were ready.

Outside the waiting room door this time, Alex paused and let her picobots give her a full medical report on the four children. If she were a dragon, she would have breathed fire. All four needed some sort of medical attention, but the worst was the younger boy. She was surprised he was moving at all. If only the medical complex weren't backlogged, and if only the boy wouldn't be terrorized to have people looking at his every trauma, she could fix him. Instead, he'd have to heal the old-fashioned way, with time, some medications, and some inconspicuous help by her picobots. At least he wasn't critically injured.

Alex knocked on the door and then went in. "Hi," she said in English this time, "I understand from our governor that you are looking for political asylum?" The interview went as expected, and Alex acquired four dependents, from oldest to youngest, Nick, Victoria (Tori), Brad, and Peggy. When they were through with the formalities, Alex announced, "And that's a wrap. No more recording."

She took guest bracelets from the box and passed them out. "These are your guest I.D.'s. You need to wear them all the time, even when you shower or swim. It works as a phone, camera, credit card, map, and computer terminal. It also acts as a locator and a safety shield should anything happen that requires additional protection. I'm even wearing mine."

Alex held up her wrist and showed hers. She made sure to tilt her hand so they could also see the place on her palm where she'd cut her skin. "Mine doesn't have the extra white stripe - that means you're a guest and will be given menus and lists with prices on them. All your food and drinks are going directly to my account, so don't worry about those prices. Let me show you how the HUD works." She additionally gave each child $500 in their own account for incidentals they might want. Alex showed them where their apartment was on the map, as well as key places, like the cafeteria and medical complex.

When Alex was sure they knew how to use the HUD well enough to get by, she gave them small disks, explaining, "These are SEL clothes, just the basic island set. It has pajamas, swimsuits, and a few casual outfits. When you get to your apartment, you can throw away what you are wearing, and just hold the disk between your palms and the clothes will fit themselves to you and you'll get another icon on your HUD that will let you pick what you want to be wearing." She demonstrated, changing her outfit through a couple of the standard island ones. "Mostly, guests don't get SEL clothes, because they can only use them while they are here. Non-citizens can't take SEL outside of the country, but ultimately, this will be better for you because I don't intend to let the United States take you back. They've surely failed you."

Three sets of wide-eyes stared at her. The older girl, Tori, still gazed straight ahead, but she was definitely listening as her mouth twitched.

Alex stood. "Ok, next up, we need to swing by medical." Brad cringed and Tori noticeably paled. "I need to pick up some things for myself. If you think of anything you want on the way there, just speak up. Anything you need that's medical is also going to be billed to my account."

"Isn't this stuff expensive?" Nick asked, his furrowed eyebrows indicating concern that they might be too much of a burden and cause her to deport them.

Alex echoed Sal, "I have more wealth than I can ever possibly use. Allow me to do something worthwhile with it."

Alex directed Nick, as the oldest, to use his HUD map to lead them to the medical complex. She wanted them to know where it was in case Brad had issues and she couldn't be found, but she didn't say so; she merely said it was a good exercise in learning how to use the display and map. At the medical office, Alex picked up a paper bag of things she'd privately requested during the interview. "Do you guys need anything?" she asked, not pressing.

They shook their heads; Brad most adamantly.

The nurse who'd assembled the order and knew precisely what those medications indicated, said, "Well, if you do need anything at all, you come back. We'll take care of you. Don't try to tough it out."

On that note, Alex let Brad navigate them to their apartment. She pointed out that their bracelets would unlock the door for them and stood aside. "I'm going over to my own apartment - that door right there - and rest for a bit. If you need anything, come get me."

As Brad was about to go inside, she touched his arm, and said softly, "Wait a moment." When the others were all inside and distracted by exploring, she handed him the paper bag. "I am a fully qualified medical technician and I did body scans on all of you." He turned bright red. Alex continued, "Can you read?" At his nod, she said, "There's first aid cream in there and pain meds, along with some other stuff. Everything has instructions, but if you don't understand something, just ask me. Also, Brad, and this is important - don't let Tori near those pain meds. Or Peggy for that matter."

The young boy nodded mutely and went into the apartment, clutching the bag close to his chest. His resemblance to Mason was gone. He just looked like a traumatized little boy who needed protection. Alex pushed the door closed, set her picobots to observe them, and went to her own room to lay down and watch so she could make sure they were going to be ok.

Nick was extremely observant. As soon as Brad was inside, he walked over, and asked in street-Spanish, "She didn't ask you to do anything, did she?"

Brad shook his head and held out the paper bag. "She gave me meds. She said she scanned all of us."

Nick looked inside the bag but didn't take it. "Sorry, man. Maybe they'll help though?"

Brad took the bag into the bathroom and dumped everything on the sink and carefully read through the instructions. He took two of the pain pills, which was the recommended first dose, and got into the shower. Afterwards, he applied the cream, and then activated the SEL clothes. From Alex's perspective, this wasn't the ideal way to treat him, but if he had to time-heal anyway, at least this didn't subject him to embarrassing, humiliating, if well-intentioned, medical inspections. It looked like he was going to be ok.

Meanwhile, Tori and Peggy, who'd barely managed to speak their names in front of Alex, had no problem at all with each other or Nick. Peggy, being the youngest and obviously most indulged, was told she could pick which bedroom the girls took, went between the rooms, trying out all the beds, which were SEL-generated identical, and eventually chose the bedroom farthest from the front door. Tori followed Peggy and watched, recommending pillow bunching and blanket crumpling for the ultimate bed-test.

Alex's first evaluation of Tori's lack of interaction was inaccurate. It was not a drug-haze. Maybe the girl had just been beaten by strangers and adults so many times that she shielded herself immediately? Tori had no hesitation talking when the kids were alone.

Nick, after his first look through the apartment, went out on the balcony which overlooked the beach and boardwalk, and stayed there watching a bit. The fact that the permanent residences had beach-view balconies if they wanted while tourists were farther in on the island sometimes caused grumbling among the tourists, but Alex had no regrets. Citizens were Colony One's first priority.

Nick came back into the apartment to find Peggy jumping on one of the beds while Tori stood in the doorway laughing. Nick pushed past Tori and scooped Peggy up on one of her bounces, tickling her. "Hey, don't jump on the beds. We need to be proper people now."

"How long are we staying here?" Peggy asked seriously, pulling free of him. Her earnest gaze said she completely trusted the wisdom of her protector. She was simply too young and malnourished to understand much of what was going on.

"Don't know how long," Nick answered, patting Peggy on the shoulder. He was a much different protector than Mason had been. Mason would have decked Alex for bothering him with 'stupid questions'.

"That lady seems nice," the young girl said.

"She ain't one of us, Katie. You can't trust her. Adults lie all the time." Nick told the young girl.

"She blooded the promise," Tori said.

Nick shrugged. "Could'a learned that anywhere. She just wanted her supplies from that ship and would'a said anything to get me to put away my shiv. Katie, you listen to me, you can't trust nobody but us." He saw Brad come out of the bathroom and said, "Jane, you're next."

Tori nodded, but corrected Nick, "Gotta start calling her Peggy, Troy." She went for her turn in the shower.

When all four children were bathed and in their new SEL outfits and had watched a short cartoon on the TV, Alex predicted they'd be ravenous again. They were a solid, tight-knit family. If she could win over either of the boys, the rest would follow. Alex left her apartment and knocked on their door. On her HUD, Alex watched all four start and look around like they were guilty of some terrible crime. Nick peered at the others. Tori shrugged. Brad mouthed "go ahead".

Nick answered the door.

Alex said, in a friendly, non-intimidating Spanish, "Hi, Nick! I'm headed down to the cafeteria to get something to eat. Any of you want to come along?" Maybe the Spanish would help them trust her more quickly?

Nick looked back at Brad, who nodded assent and carefully lifted himself off the sofa he hadn't moved from since coming out of the bathroom. "Yeah, we'll come," Nick replied.

As they walked down the hallway, Alex said, "I'll show you how to shop for and change your SEL clothes while we eat. You aren't limited to just those few designs. There's some pretty spiffy island-garb. Tori, want to try the map and getting us to the cafeteria?"

Brad answered quickly, "I'll do it." He fiddled with his HUD. As there was only one location with "cafeteria" in the name, he soon said, "We go out the front of the building and just follow the street. Why ain't there a kitchen in the apartment?"

"That's a great question, Brad," Alex replied. She wanted to use their new names as much as possible to help them adjust. "It's wasted space. We are promoting community by having everyone going out. We have some self-cook community kitchens for people that like to make things and clean up all the mess, but even those are community, so people can socialize while they cook. For special events and holidays, people can get a private kitchen and dining room. You can get something to eat any time you are hungry and it's a lot better than eating out of dumpsters." After a moment, she added, "Yeah, I've done that too."

As they exited their building, Brad inquired, "So how'd you get rich?"

"Someone helped me. Ain't no shame in that. Sal helped me. I help you. One day, you help someone else. It all works out." Alex turned and pointed at an archway next to their building. "That's the path to the boardwalk and beach. The water and volleyball pits count as exercise areas. Normally, everyone is required to exercise for an hour every day, but I've put all of you on a medical pass for a month so you can have time to adjust. The school is down that way. We have year-round school with a lot of teachers, so you can work at your own pace and level. It's not like United States schools at all. I think you'll like it."

Throughout dinner, Alex tried to help them with culture-shock, but without sounding condescending or asking them anything personal. She wondered how many of Sal's words had been so carefully chosen. She'd turned into Sal. The historical parallax made her dizzy. When they were midway through eating, she launched a group-display so they could look through SEL outfits together. Her purpose was to slow everyone down to give time for Brad to eat.

They started with stuff for Peggy, who instantly bonded with bunny-pajamas that had enclosed feet, a bunny-eared hoodie, and a large pouch for treasures. Peggy swapped into it.

Alex noted several disapproving glances from neighboring tables. Colony One's citizens were defining some crazy behavior restrictions. Alex sighed. Her table was already getting curious stares for speaking Spanish instead of Colony One's mandated English. "Generally, Peggy, we don't change our SEL outfits in public. It upsets the tourists. But wow! That looks great on you!"

Peggy was busy wiggling her toes in the floppy, soft pajama feet and ignored Alex. Nick looked like he was going to say something to her, but Alex shook her head at him, and said, "It's ok."

Tori finally spoke up timidly, "Can I get a matching one?"

"Sure. Just drag it down into your cart. Everything will resize for you," Alex answered, careful not to act surprised or make a big deal out of Tori speaking. Both Nick and Brad's eyes widened, but they didn't comment either.

Alex grabbed bunny pajamas for Grace too. They flipped through a few adorable kid-friendly shorts and t-shirts, and Tori picked a few for Peggy, who was now flopping her bunny ears around, trying to see them.

They moved on to clothes for Tori. She selected three shorts and t-shirt combinations, and then asked very quietly, "Can I get a dress?"

Alex nodded, "Absolutely. Whatever you want." As they were going through the dresses, Alex saw one she really liked and exclaimed, "Oh! That's new! I want it." She dragged the flowing, white mid-length halter-top dress into her own cart. It had a pretty lace criss-cross in the back and she thought maybe it might make her look attractive for when Jay was dropping off her daughter. Jay's current girlfriend had chosen not to come along and while Alex certainly didn't begrudge him the relationship, her pride made her want to look good. She usually just stuck to plain and functional stationer clothes so she wouldn't stand out. Unfortunately, here on the island, plain and functional would stand out. The residents here preferred bright Hawaiian-style clothes. She selected a few other things quietly on her own HUD.

Choosing t-shirts and shorts for the boys went really fast. They weren't excited by clothes; they went with whatever Tori decided.

Alex noted that Brad was still picking at his sandwich. Afraid to eat, but starving. She understood that. "Halloween's coming up. It's kind of a big deal. We don't pass out candy, but we do pass out unique figurines, er, I mean, toys. You should all pick costumes." She pulled up the costume shop. "I'm going to get some more juice. Anyone want anything?"

They shook their heads, distracted by the costumes. Alex brought back a clear, vitamin-rich vegetable broth for Brad anyway. It would be easy on his stomach and help replenish nutrients. When they finally found a costume for Peggy and Nick was busy convincing Peggy that she'd look especially nice as a winged fairy, Alex leaned over to Brad and whispered, "Drink the broth. It'll help." Brad turned bright red, but did as she suggested.

Eventually, Alex returned four very tired, but satiated children to their apartment, and she turned in herself for an unexpectedly rare early evening. She watched all five of her children for a while. Her own baby was sound asleep and safe against her daddy's chest while he tried to get a few additional things done for work one-handed on his laptop in a first-class double airplane seat. Alex's four new children were huddled together on the floor in a corner of the girls' bedroom in a safe mountain of blankets and pillows, with a pair of soft floppy bunny feet sticking out.

As Alex drifted off to sleep, she pondered Peggy's fairy costume. What if she could make it really fly? She relaunched her HUD and sought out all the costumes where the kids might fly - dragons, butterflies, bats, bees, angels, birds, pegasi... Yes, she could do a simple controller for the kids, with up/down/left/right/hover/forward/follow. She could limit the height to around four meters. Costumes without wings could get shoe-wings, so anyone who wanted to could fly. It could be done safely...

The next couple weeks flew by in a whirlwind of commutes, political and technical meetings, and teacher and psychiatrist meetings. Alex wrapped up and delegated almost all of her station-side duties so that she could work exclusively on the island. She decided the island's oceanography lab might be a good place to settle for a few months. Quiet, set hours, definite schedule.

Alex could spend non-work hours with her five children. She hadn't quite realized the time-impact of four more children, particularly ones with trust and medical issues. She couldn't exactly hire a bunch of nannies and leave them to it, like she had for Grace. These four kids were tough and proud, used to taking care of themselves, but they needed someone who understood where they came from to help them adjust. They weren't able to trust counselors yet; they barely accepted Alex.

Grace had welcomed her four new siblings and lightly prompted by Alex, showed them the school and some of the local tourist attractions. Grace wasn't mean, condescending, or jealous, but it was apparent the children had nothing in common and didn't bond. Nick, Tori, Brad, and Peggy fell into a routine of going to school, then spending time on the beach, and returning to their apartment. All four were healing, both physically and psychologically, but the progress was slow.

Alex entered the door labeled "Oceanographic Lab - Employees Only". Technically, no one enforced the restriction and anyone could go in, but security video would catch anyone unauthorized if a complaint was raised. Any non-citizen passing inside would immediately flag a security check. Citizens could go in and speak with employees if they wanted without restriction, but the sign meant it wasn't a typical place to visit without a specific related purpose. Restricted areas were listed as "Assigned Employees Only" and required the right bracelet to enter.

Alex rode the elevator down and crossed the hall to knock on the lead oceanographer's door. The plaque on the door read "Grand Sultan". Official offices around Colony One tended toward silly signs, reflecting Brian's Scapegoat title. This was one of Colony One's more amusing quirks. If the sign were plain, people knew to leave their humor outside. Karl James, the project's lead, apparently kept things informal.

"You may enter," came the super-serious, deep intonation from inside.

Alex opened the door and briskly stepped in.

The man leaning back with his bare feet on the cluttered desk reading a magazine looked up, paled considerably, snapped his feet off the table and set the magazine aside. He was wearing SEL as a bright island floral print. In a substantially more normal and humble voice, he squeaked, "Founder!"

"Hi, Karl! I'm registered as a floating scientist-at-large and I was wondering if you needed help with anything?" Alex gave him as non-threatening a smile as she could. The magazine was a marine-life scientific journal; he hadn't been goofing off, and even if he had been, policing work-ethics wasn't her domain or concern.

The man swallowed and his pronounced adam's apple shifted. He sat up straighter. "Have we done something wrong? Our last report was a little late, but not unduly so, and we had a good reason."

Alex slid into one of his guest chairs and leaned back, shaking her head and gesturing that he should relax. "Goodness, no. I'm just moving Earth-side for a while and thought I'd see if I could be of any use. You have a number of open job postings."

Karl looked mildly relieved. "Um. Well. Yes, we do. How about I give you a tour and you tell me what you want to do?"

"That sounds good," Alex answered. "Honestly, I wish I could have spent more time here already. You guys do great data gathering and analysis. We've learned more about the ocean in the last year than in the whole of human history. I always look forward to reading your publications." Always 'look forward to' was correct. She hadn't actually read any of them until that very morning, when she'd caught up. It just never seemed to reach priority with all of the other things she normally processed.

"Give me a moment to answer this one thing that just came in." He played with his HUD.

Alex could tell he was sending off a warning note to his staff. She was glad he cared enough not to let his people get equally blindsided by their esteemed guest .

In her own HUD, Alex watched Grace talking her teacher into letting her go for the day. Alex had the sound off, but she knew her daughter's body posture of supplication. Her daughter could be extremely manipulative when she set her mind to it. Sure enough, merely a few minutes into the school day, her daughter was skipping free.

Alex was unconcerned. She'd let her be a child as long as possible. Grace was already working on middle-school math problems with early high school reading comprehension and split time between tutors and school.

Grace's teachers had been told to allow her to leave if she wanted to. Alex's hired nanny would follow along and offer any needed assistance and Alex would be sure Grace had equivalent education-time.

The teachers didn't always agree with Alex's parenting choice, but they chose not to actively argue with 'The Founder'. Grace was an odd mixture of young child and young adult. Scholastically and conversationally, Grace was extremely advanced but she still liked to convert her SEL into stuffed animals and march them across the room in organized lines.

Karl stood, forcing Alex's attention back to the office. "Shall we start with the data lab?" he asked. He had snuck on a pair of open toed men's sandals, but Alex bet he normally walked around barefoot.

Alex expected that would give the underwater lab people plenty of time to clean up. "Sure. How's the new server working out for you?"

"Our network guy was over doing software updates and maintenance yesterday, so we lost a couple hours server time, but overall, it's much faster. We'll be more efficient with it." Karl glanced at her, apparently trying to ascertain if she was being honest about just looking for a job or was evaluating their program for cuts.

Alex suppressed a sigh. She didn't do budget allocations; that was thankfully delegated to a competent team. Alex smiled warmly at Karl and followed along on the guided tour through his domain, asking pertinent questions and slowly getting the man to relax and expand on his favorite topics. She hoped before the end of her Earth-time, she might get a casually intoned, "Kneel, supplicant," when she came into his office instead of that sudden terror. She'd give herself extra kudos if she could get him to keep his feet up and magazine open when he did it.

Just before they got to the underwater lab, Grace arrived. Grace's HUD always showed Alex's location on the map. "Hi, Mommy!" Grace jumped into Alex's arms giving her a hug. "Hiya, Grace. Aren't you supposed to be in school today?"

Grace wriggled down. "I told you. I'm going by Ember now."

"So you did, Ember. Sorry, I forgot."

"You don't forget anything."

"Habit then." Alex glanced over at Karl and asked, "Is it ok if my daughter comes along? I'm sure she'd love to see the underwater window. "

"Of course. Ember, I'm Karl. It's nice to meet you." He dropped down to one knee to shake her hand at her height. He must have heard the rumors that the Founder's daughter was bright, because he spoke to her as an adult, not as a four year old.

The best way to impress a mom, Alex noted, was to adore her children. Karl either knew that or genuinely liked kids.

"You're really tall, Sultan James," Grace observed. She'd definitely seen the office sign on her quest to find Alex.

Alex sent Grace a private note that said, "Sultans are called 'Your Majesty'."

Karl laughed, the sound deep and full of joy, and Alex thought he probably really liked kids. He said, "I'm not tall when I'm kneeling. Have you seen any of the other ocean windows?" The island had a number of public underwater viewing rooms. This underwater lab was actually the deepest.

"I like the reef one the best," Grace answered proudly. The reef had been artificially created, but was now home to a large number of imported tropical fish. People weren't allowed to swim there, but several tube walkways let them go through and observe. The tubes themselves were sloped and angled to make the space qualify as an exercise area.

"Ours is much deeper. We don't have any of the small fish you see at the reef." Karl stood back up and escorted them down the hallway.

Grace took Alex's hand and moderated her normal running pace to match Alex. Alex smiled down at her with approval.

They entered the large underwater window lab. All the way around, a clear SEL floor-to-ceiling window showed the water outside. A dolphin circled on one side and an octopus hovered, staring inward on the other side. The center of the room had a ring of desks facing outward toward the windows. The three twenty-something residents were in pristine SEL white lab coats and Alex pretended not to notice the lingering smell of french fries.

Grace bounced and pointed at the octopus, squealing, "Look, Mommy!" She pulled her hand free and ran over to the window in front of the octopus, pressing her hands against the window, and leaning forward until her nose touched the window. The octopus moved closer and put a tentacle up. Grace giggled.

"The octopi are surprisingly friendly," Karl said. He turned to his colleagues and introduced them. They only goggled a little.

Alex shook their hands and repeated her praise for their work. They proceeded to tell her about their latest data, showing her on their screens. At one point, Karl looked over Alex's shoulder to where Grace was playing with the octopus and his eyes widened. Alex glanced at her HUD and spun around. "Grace Ember! What are you doing?!"

Her daughter was buck-naked, pirouetting in front of the window. "I'm showing him what I look like," she answered matter-of-factly. She lifted her foot toward the octopus and wiggled her toes. "You should show him what you look like, too, so he can see what an adult looks like compared to a kid."

Next to her, one of the techs choked, half laughing.

Alex was trying very hard not to laugh herself. "Grace, what have I told you about nudity in public?"

"This isn't public," she replied, showing the octopus her ears and then pointing at her mouth. "It's marked private on the map. I checked."

"Put your clothes on, Grace." Alex walked toward her. "New definition of public: anywhere where there are people who are not me or your daddy."

Grace shrugged and tapped her bracelet and her SEL clothes and shoes reappeared.

Alex went over to the window where the octopus was holding on and staring in at them with one of his large eyes. "He's certainly very flexible compared to us, isn't he?"

"They talk with colors on their skin," Grace said, quoting from some book.

"They also have multiple brains," Karl added, coming over to them.

Grace smiled at Karl and then indicating the octopus, said, "He seems really smart. I like him." Then Grace turned to Alex and asked, "Can you work in here so I can come too? "

Alex peered at Karl apologetically, "Need another data analyst and one future marine biologist?"

"I'd be delighted. We always have at least one cephalopod and one dolphin about. They chase away any sharks, but they don't seem to bother each other. Sometimes a whale comes by." Karl continued to tell them about the marine animals that visited them. Both Alex and Grace asked leading questions and soon had all four of the scientists happily telling them stories.

On the way back to the island's surface in the elevator and without any audience, Grace asked Alex, "Can I be nude in front of my husband?"

Alex peered at her precocious daughter, quirked an eyebrow at her, and teased, "Did you get married while you were visiting your daddy, Ember? Why didn't you invite me to your wedding?"

"No, of course not." Grace made a face at Alex. "Silly Mommy."

Alex settled comfortably into her new downside life. Spending time in the underwater lab turned into a nice break from her other duties and it made it harder for random people to seek her out with questions that could be answered by Colony One's regular staff. She still had to go to the station for certain meetings, but whenever she could, she either skipped the meeting entirely or attended remotely. This also let her spend time with her four new children.

For Halloween, Colony One would turn into a huge festival celebrated a full 24 hours from noon to noon so children could visit toy kiosks on both the island and the space station. While the day was considered a holiday, everyone still had to work their standard six hours to make it fair for support personnel (food services, medical, security) and those that chose not to celebrate the holiday. Exercise periods were waived for everyone to give people more time to wander around.

Grace opted to be an octopus and demanded the designer put a shimmering blue haze around her so she could pretend to be swimming through water when she was flying. The light bent around Grace's legs and arms, hiding them, and Grace could operate her eight costume legs with her fingers.

Alex had tried suggesting Grace create the costume herself, but Grace refused to focus on the project and said that learning the programming and design tools well enough to do what she wanted would take too long. Alex had simply hugged Grace and suggested maybe she might learn it in the future and transferred the money to their chosen designer. Then Alex spent the remainder of time until Halloween wondering if she should have pushed Grace and demanded her daughter figure it out. Her child could certainly have done it, but Grace was too busy being distracted by the octopi in the underwater lab. Grace frequently ditched school to visit the lab and Alex filled Grace's reading queue with marine biology books.

Alex studied her own costume in the mirror - Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut, who was known for trade, restoration and building, more than war. The SEL costume designer had opted for elegant and realistic, with matching hair, skin tone, and eye color. Alex ignored the historical pharaoh gender discussion and asked that the entire outfit be traditional for the time period for women. By time her appearance was fully modified by SEL, she wasn't actually recognizable. The illusion was complete and deliberate to prevent random people from trying to engage her in Colony One requests and discussions. People who knew her would recognize her children and Jay and know who she was by proximity, but presumably those people would know not to interrupt her family time.

Together, Alex and Grace marched over to the next apartment to collect Grace's foster siblings so they could go get lunch and then start visiting the Halloween kiosks. Flying wouldn't work until the celebratory bell rang at noon. They knocked and waited. Alex faded back the face part of her costume so the kids would recognize her.

Tori answered after a moment. Nick and Tori were assuming more parental roles every day and helped Brad and Peggy with their costumes. Both Tori and Peggy were in matching pink faerie costumes. Alex knew Tori had wanted to be a blue faerie, but Peggy had insisted they match and Tori had given in to the younger girl. Nick was sharply dressed in a dapper black and white tuxedo, complete with bow tie and top hat. He looked like any billionaire who might show up at a jet set fundraiser.

Brad had chosen a scary dragon skeleton. It was only mildly scary right now, but after the young-children curfew at 9 p.m., it would transform into a truly horrifying fire-breathing demon-dragon. The curfew wasn't Colony One enforced, but parental choice. Scary and racy costumes wouldn't come out until after the curfew and a number of late-night parties would pop up all over.

"You all look wonderful!" Alex declared and the rambunctious group made their way out of the apartment building. As they entered the outdoor luau-style cafeteria, Iron Man approached them in beautiful, shiny full metal armor. The circular battery on his chest glowed brightly.

Alex's HUD identified Jay. "Clever!"

Jay raised the face mask. "Yeah! No one will recognize me and I can fly around with Grace. Iron Man is still popular enough that the costume won't stick out." His eyes sparkled enthusiastically.

Alex felt a rush of warmth from the top of her head down to her toes. She swallowed. She wasn't sure if she should be upset or thankful that Jay's current girlfriend, Avalon Dorsey, hadn't wanted to come to Colony One.

The kids ran off to get their favorite foods. Jay's eyes followed Grace and then shifted to Alex. "You look stunning, Alex. That's a great costume. "

Alex's mouth twitched up. He was just being friendly, not making an overture. "Thank you. Our designers are really shining this year. With tech taking over the mundane jobs, the creatives are flourishing. Why wear a shirt when you can wear a designer shirt?"

"Auntie Alex!" Georgie called out from the entrance, running over with his arms spread like he was flying.

Alex just barely managed to get a protective squishy buffer up as Georgie in his oversized Buzz Lightyear costume and head bubble bounced into her. She saw Lucas and his wife, Sara, trailing behind at a more reasonable pace. "Got some problems stopping, Georgie?" Alex helped Georgie right himself.

"Naw, simulated high engine airflow isn't configured for ground travel," Georgie muttered, his words slightly unintelligible from physically undeveloped vocal muscles. "The exit mass flow rate times the exit velocity minus the free stream mass flow rate times the free stream velocity is set up for flying." Georgie peered up at her mischievously, to see if she'd comment.

"Go get yourself some fuel, Buzz," Alex said. "I look forward to seeing you in the air."

Georgie giggled. "To infinity and beyond!" he shouted, quoting Buzz Lightyear's catchphrase and ran off toward the buffet line.

"Alex, Jay," Lucas greeted them with a friendly nod. Lucas and Sara were dressed in matching western outfits, with black and white cow pattern accents.

"I see you modified Georgie's flight mechanics," Alex said.

Lucas grinned. "I needed to do something to keep him occupied or we'd really be in trouble. He tried to launch himself out of the shuttle on the way down."

"Whatever Daddy can do..." Alex observed.

"Eventually, he's going to understand all those equations I'm teaching him," Lucas said proudly.

"He doesn't?" Jay asked.

"Naw, he just recites them right now," Lucas answered. "Gives him something to do while I'm working."

Sara rolled her eyes, squeezed Lucas' hand, and went to help Georgie at the buffet line.

After getting their food, the group rejoined at a table near the center of the area. Palm trees scattered between the tables provided shade from the midday sun.

While Jay regaled Lucas and Sara with an amusing account of his latest trail bridge restoration project, Alex sipped her tea and watched the children. Nick, being the oldest, avidly listened to Jay, trying to distance himself from the children and distinguish himself as an adult.

Peggy was more interested in her costume wings than eating. She kept turning her head to see them and Tori streamed a video from her own interface onto Peggy's so the young girl could see herself. Grace had forgotten her additional legs and was busy picking toppings off her pizza, and Brad was smearing mustard on Georgie's head bubble to create a face. Georgie simply stuck his tongue out at Brad and turned his SEL toy into a sticky-foot gecko robot to clean off the mustard.

Alex wondered if she should step in, but while Georgie was much younger than Brad, he was a native with their technology. Retribution would not be fair.

Before Alex could make a decision, Sara reached over and confiscated Georgie's SEL gecko. "I told you to leave this at home." Sara restored it to card-state and put it in her pocket. Sara raised an eyebrow at Alex.

Dutifully, Alex said, "Brad, keep your mustard on your sandwich please."

Brad didn't acknowledge Alex, but leaned over to Georgie and asked, "How'd you do that?"

Georgie wrinkled his nose. "S'SEL card. You don't have one yet?"

Brad shook his head.

Georgie opened his hip pocket to show Brad something. "Later," he whispered. "I got an extra."

Alex only heard this through her private surveillance so she couldn't comment. She saw Lucas' mouth twitch in amusement.

When the musical bell rang precisely at noon, followed by a loud, deep-voiced, "Wa Ha Ha Ha Ha! Happy Halloween!", Halloween officially started. Pandemonium ensued. Kids scattered around the luau launched into the air with gleeful shouts, forgetting their food. Alex's children were no exception. Nick gave up the pretense of being an adult and joined them.

The safety restrictions kept the children from bumping into each other although several tried. Natural and fantastical flying creatures and humanoids were joined by witches, wizards, and creative flying objects like kites and drones. A young girl waved from her flying blue British police box. The use of SEL for costumes made some startlingly realistic creatures.

Shaking his head at the chaos, Lucas said to Alex, "Did you really think this through?"

"We'll find out," Alex replied, eyes twinkling.

Sara started cleaning up their trays. "I guess lunch is over."

A palm leaf landed on their table but by the time Alex pulled up the flight-code to protect the trees, she saw Lucas had already taken care of it and he'd made sure other matter was equally protected. Both Lucas and Jay joined the kids in the air.

Grace drifted down and wrapped her tentacles around Alex. "Come on, Mommy! We want to see the first mystery clue!" The flight range was limited by the designated guardian so Alex adjusted the distance to let them go farther and took the remaining trays and followed Sara to the recycling bins. They followed their floating entourage to the mini-theater set up specifically for Halloween. A small sign listed showtimes although the information was available on the special Halloween map .

On stage, a man appeared at the railing of an octagonal lighthouse. The hologram was so realistic, having been previously recorded by real actors, that Alex had to check that it was indeed a hologram. The man said, "I began work in the lighthouse in 1934 when the Great Depression was in full swing and Adolf Hitler had just become Führer und Reichskanzler. While I didn't want to drag my dear wife and two children to such a remote location, it was work that came with a house and food..." The man continued with a brief history lesson on the Great Depression and took the audience on a quick tour of his lighthouse.

The man then returned to his railing. "Now we found this here logbook from the previous lighthouse keeper and we took to reading from it to pass the nights." A logbook icon appeared on the HUD for everyone in attendance. "We were shocked when we reached page 187 and he mentioned the shipwreck of the SS Malaine, a great metal cargo liner carrying treasures from the orient." A bookmark appeared on their logbooks. "My son built a model of the ship and I'm sure he would love to tell you about it. He was testing its buoyancy on the beach to the southwest. We would like your help finding the shipwreck and treasure. My wife wrote a letter to the ship's company and got the liner's route. She's around here somewhere and will show it to you. My daughter probably knows where and she's always avoiding chores by looking for shark teeth on the beach."

A mystery clue notebook appeared beside the logbook, listing the three tasks - speak to son, speak to daughter, speak to wife. These could be done in any order so the children could visit the toy kiosks and a large mob of children wouldn't travel from place to place together. The audience dispersed.

With Peggy dictating their direction, Alex's group headed toward the northern end of the island, flying up to travel and then down to land at the kiosks. Jay, Lucas, and Sara opted to fly along, skipping the downs, while Alex chose to walk for the added exercise.

The volunteers running kiosks got to design their booth as well as a trade figurine to pass out. The SEL figurines disappeared into the children's "magic" bags, adding no weight at all. When the children got home, the bag converted into a book, and kids could just tap the page of the item they wanted to play with. The figurines could also be easily traded.

Non-citizen children were also encouraged to participate, and were given temporary SEL costumes for the day and would have their selected figurines converted to actual little hollow-wooden figurines as SEL only belonged to Colony One citizens.

Grace sloshed next to Alex for a while. "When do you think they'll figure out it's faster if we stay on the ground?"

Alex chuckled. "I think it's the adventure, Ember. The goal isn't the finish line, but the run along the track."

Grace shook her head and dashed off to a traditional Sioux tipi with an Indian standing in front where she was given a beautiful feather. The feather disappeared into her bag and she shouted her thanks as she sped off to the next kiosk.

Alex got a message from Brian that Earth's social media was inundated by pictures and videos of the flying children and ignorant fools were screaming about the danger and how irresponsible Colony One's leadership was. Alex replied suggesting he publish a statement that Colony One would announce the casualty count after Halloween and that those concerned should take bets on the actual number. The invisible safety bubbles wouldn't let anyone get hurt, even on land.

Alex's group found the "daughter" for the mystery clue and after another history lesson, they received two more tasks. Alex cheated and pulled up the solution. The quest would take them all over the island, eventually ending in a specially designed underwater building, where the children could pick three mystery items from the treasure.

Georgie pulled on Alex's arm. "Auntie Alex, how come my landing time was off? I calculated it just right."

Alex pat his bubble-head. "Go ask your Daddy, Georgie."

Georgie frowned. "But I launched at a velocity of 2.24 meters per second at an angle of 53 degrees. I should have landed 10.3 seconds sooner and directly in front of the giant pumpkin."

"Go ask your Daddy, Georgie." Alex certainly wasn't going to get drawn into a discussion of headwinds and tailwinds and the additional safety buffers she'd implemented in the costume flight modules to keep kids from knocking into each other and going too high. Besides, Lucas was deluding himself with wishful thinking that Georgie was just memorizing words.

Georgie then giggled and said, "Daddy said I would scare you if I said this. Did it work?"

Alex laughed and shooed Georgie off. She glanced up and saw Lucas grinning. He mouthed, "Got you!"

Alex watched the kids zipping around to the various kiosks, shouting to each other and laughing, and realized she was genuinely happy. Her family. Her life. Not just her own child, but the others as well, and even the adults glowed happy and content, free of that rat-race, weary glaze that permeated other societies. There were still problems of course, because no society was perfect, but this felt close. Colony One was stable and would grow and thrive even without her.

A week later, Alex joined her daughter and the other techs in the underwater lab. Grace had beaten her there because Alex had been called off to a quick zoning meeting. Alex walked over and tapped Grace on the shoulder to get her attention.

Grace glanced over her shoulder with, "Hi, Mommy! Say hello to Henry." Grace had named that first octopus Henry and proceeded to name every other octopus that visited, as well as the dolphins. There was one octopus she named King Lark, who was not the biggest or the most dextrous, but Grace said he was their leader, and so rearranged Karl's name to make that one Karl's counterpart. The lab staff adored Grace, who adored them right back.

"Grace, tomorrow I want you to stay in school. You need the sunlight and human interaction," Alex said.

Grace gave a deep, exaggerated sigh, and groaned. Not arguing, she said, "The desks and lab lights are too bright. The octopi don't like it. Turn that stuff off."

"You know I'm down here to work, right? And those computers and screens are showing us data that we're using." Alex rubbed her daughter's head and kissed it.

"Move out of here then," Grace commanded. "We need natural light."

Alex noted how bossy her daughter was, with that self-centeredness of childhood. "Grace, learn to say please and consider other people's needs."

"But your lights are in the way."

Alex put her hand on her hip and tapped her foot, tilting her head and raising her eyebrow. She waited.

Grace sighed loudly again. "Please find a way to block the light from your workstations, Mommy."

"Ok, I will. But you have to learn the three new books I put in your list by the end of the day."

"Don't make me change it to five books." Alex really had a difficult time being stern with Grace.

Grace pinched her lips together and frowned.

By the end of the day, a new one-way SEL window enclosed the lab desks, leaving the open-to-ocean area completely dark. Karl also rigged a two-way microphone and speaker combination so the sea creatures could hear Grace.

Grace spent most of each day sitting out in the dark area, socializing with the octopus-of-the-day, who was most often Henry. Sometimes she'd bring a children's book and read to them, with a dim flashlight pointed at the pictures. Other times, she'd play music or videos for them. Most often, she liked making shadow-puppets with her hands or using her stuffed animals to tell them stories. The dolphins squeaked back and the octopi flashed their skin-lights.

At first Alex and her three coworkers looked on this with amusement and crunched their numbers and did ocean measurements. But over time, Alex recognized that there seemed to be a pattern in the squeaks and lights that went beyond simple communication. Alex invited the world's top dolphin and octopi experts as well as several language specialists to come work in the lab. Unfortunately, all declined; Colony One policies coupled with the Founder's adamant stance on the Earth's instability still curtailed immigration.

When Alex told Grace no one would come, her daughter had merely shrugged and said it didn't matter because she was going to learn their language. Alex responded by pointing out the best language books and recommending Grace learn a few other human languages so she'd have a foundation to work from.

"Alex, wake up!" the voice was loud, firm, demanding.

Alex blinked and triggered the lights, snapping awake. It took her a moment to realize she wasn't dreaming. There was a woman standing across the room, which shouldn't have been possible. Alex felt like she'd just barely fallen asleep in her island apartment, although she knew she'd dreamed of Halloween costumes.

"How did you get in here?" Alex checked her bioshield. The room alarm should have woken her. She checked it. Both her bioshield and her alarm were functioning normally.

The woman crossed over to the display wall and touched it. "I'm you, from a different timeline, from the future. Run the biology scans. I know you used to be Mary. I know you shot those girls when you rescued Caitlin. I know Sal fed you lasagne when you first met. I know Kuro Hamasaki shot you. I know the last thing you ever played on a piano was Claude Debussy's Deux Arabesques No. 1 and Milo heard you. Give me a HUD. I have things I need to share with you before I get pulled back to my own timeline."

Alex frowned and set her picobots to scanning the woman. Alex pushed herself out of bed and triggered her SEL clothing to a comfortable, martial-arts friendly jumpsuit. The woman could not have known all of those things. No one did.

The woman waited, the calm outward stance betrayed by an electric intensity and tension.

The scan completed, showing a perfect DNA match, for herself, only a couple decades older.

The woman arched an eyebrow, "See? I'm you. Our timelines split the afternoon you slept with Jay. Do you have a child? Children?"

Alex crossed her arms. "Yes, a daughter. Grace Ember."

"Give me a HUD. Please, we don't have much time. Only three more minutes actually."

Alex gave the woman a guest HUD.

The woman talked while she typed with a fluency that could only have meant a lifetime of using the software. "When your daughter is about 8 years 6 months and 3 days old, an alien ship will be spotted. They are refugees. You have to feed them or they will die. They will be followed by a Resaund fleet. You must immediately, without mercy, without thought, destroy that fleet. If they are able to send a message back to their command, humanity will be destroyed. We cannot win. Alex, they walk right through SEL. You cannot save anyone but yourself."

She stopped talking for a moment and Alex realized her account was being accessed. Alex went to try and shut the woman out but realized that would just shut herself out.

The woman said, "I'm you. It's ok. You can trust me."

"The Earth?" Alex asked.

The woman shook her head once, sharply. "Run SEL around to hold the planet together. Lucas can give you a matrix for the band."

"Varies by timeline. Cal Park is the right person to run Emergency Response. Hire really good epidemiologists. Come find me. Information is in the data I'm entering." She continued typing silently. She refocused on Alex again, and said, "I can't believe how young you look, so untouched. Kill that Resaund fleet. Don't let them send your location back. Don't..." The woman stiffened, swore, and instantly shrunk away to nothing as if being pulled away at the speed of light.

Alex immediately scanned the room. There was nothing. She recorded data for everything at the atomic level and shoved it into a newly created secure storage file. Then she sat down on her bed and waited a few minutes to wake up. She was truly awake. Then she replayed every detail in her mind. The woman's stance, her movements - all precisely matched Alex, and the hair, skin, and eyes reflected what Alex would expect her future-self to look like.

She pulled up her account and grabbed a report of everything that had been changed in the last hour, and only one file appeared. Alex didn't open that immediately, but instead went to her room's security footage. That had been erased and replaced with a note with her name on it, just as she'd done before to remove her time with Jay.

Alex returned to the file and tried to open it. It was encrypted with a password prompt. For the next hour, she tried every password she'd ever used. None of them opened the file. Over the next month, she tried daily to open the file, but couldn't. She wanted to beat her future self to a bloody pulp.

Alex heard her bedroom door open and then heard the soft tiptoe footsteps of Grace.

"I know how to talk to Henry, Mommy." Grace announced loudly, pushing on Alex's shoulder to wake her. "But I need help displaying the lexicon. Give me someone to write the program?"

Alex blinked one eye open and peered at her HUD. "Ember, it's 4 a.m. Go back to sleep."

"If you set up the job announcement right now, maybe someone will be able to do it today." Grace stopped nudging Alex's shoulder. "Please?"

"Ok, ok, but only if you promise to sleep until 8."

"6." Instant renegotiation.

"7." Slightly more timid.

"Ok. 8." Grace grumbled loudly at this injustice and turned and left.

Alex groaned, rolled over, and woke up enough to write a job announcement for a custom programmer with a specialty in graphics.

Two weeks later, Grace had her program and was busily entering data that she called Henry's lexicon. Alex walked into the dark room where Grace sat with her back to Henry, showing him her HUD. Alex was trying to think of a good strategy to get Grace to go out to the beach and play for a while. Her child was already starting to lose her tan, despite the sporadic evenings on the beach. She'd already finagled her way out of going to an exercise zone by jogging around the ocean habitat with Henry swimming alongside her. She'd talked to the personnel exercise coach and gotten the exercise waiver all by herself. Alex was so pleased that Grace had actually spoken to someone outside of this small social circle that she'd allowed it. "Hey, Grace, how's the communication going?"

"I need to add more words. Well, they aren't really words as much as emotions and concepts. It's taking a long time because our language is too inefficient."

"Show me?" Alex sat down next to her daughter.

Grace nudged Alex with her toe, "Say hi to Henry first. Don't just ignore him. He isn't just decoration."

"Hi, Henry. I'm sorry I ignored you when I came over," Alex said diligently, half-bowing to Henry. Henry's skin glowed.

Grace, who could see Henry from her own HUD, nodded in satisfaction, and flashed something in the special grid on her display. Henry glowed several rapidly shifting colors in response. Grace flashed a few more things and said to Alex, "I think I told him I'm going to be explaining stuff to you for a while."

"How clearly can you communicate?"

"Established things go pretty fast, but we both get stuck a lot. Henry gets frustrated. I think he's older than me even though they live less years."

Alex nodded. "Older than 5 years, huh?" Alex tickled Grace's side, and then peered at Henry, suddenly getting an idea. "Hey, if I wanted you to translate something for me, could you?"

"Maybe. What do you want to say?"

Grace was aware of the Earth's limited human habitation lifespan, although she'd been so bored by Alex trying to show her the formulas and calculations that Alex had given up trying to explain it to her. Grace nodded. "Oh, sure. We've talked about the plastic islands. He's happy we're cleaning it up. He says some other stuff about the ocean floor, but I haven't been able to decipher that yet. He definitely understands he is on a planet."

"Does he understand about continents?"

"He knows the word, but I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing."

"How about our space station?"

"I've shown him pictures. They don't really understand technology. The dolphins get it, but they haven't been able to translate."

"The dolphins and octopi talk to each other?"

"And the squid and sea turtles. It's more of a common understanding than a common language."

"Can you tell them the Earth is going to have problems soon?"

"I've told them about the Earth. I keep getting back their word for seafloor. The dolphins say the same. It doesn't make much sense." Henry's skin lit up again in rapid color shifts. Alex put her hand up to the SEL window as her daughter flashed some patterns on her HUD much more slowly. "Henry asks if you are a sea turtle, but he asks that about everyone."

"Sea turtle?" Alex tapped her fingers on her chin, thinking. "Hmmm. Sea turtles live a really long time. Could he mean an elder? Maybe someone in charge?"

Alex watched as Grace closed her eyes and reviewed her memory. She wasn't quite as fast as Alex, because she probably hadn't figured out how to process information systematically yet and Alex was content to let her daughter figure that out herself. Alex's own method might not work best for her daughter anyway. After a full two minutes, Grace answered, "It's possible."

"Try telling him yes."

"Ok." Grace flashed a few things. Henry swam away. Grace turned to Alex, "Why did he go?"

"Let's wait a few minutes and see if he comes back. While we wait, why don't you show me your lexicon? "

For the next half hour, Grace displayed patterns and said what she thought they meant and why. Alex found it difficult to differentiate between the subtle curves and shapes made of almost identical hues and values. Concepts for things included variations for season. Ocean depth, for example, included constructs for visible light waves, salinity, temperature, pressure, tide, and geomagnetic location. These were altered by known presence of other sea life and time of the observation, within the solar year. To describe that place in the future, the image got a single bar of greenish-grey. One simple image conveyed everything of interest to not only find the exact place, but to safely travel to or circumvent the area.

The dolphin equivalent used minute changes in amplitude, frequency, and undertones to convey similar information. Abstract concepts were more challenging to decipher. Alex found the audio waveform visual representation even more confusing than the images. The meaning was in the change between their measurements, not the measurements themselves, so the same concepts might appear at completely different frequencies.

Henry came back. He was accompanied by King Lark, the older octopus. They were flashing their lights between them.

Alex did her best regal head-nod to King Lark and said to Grace, "I think you may have chosen his name very well." Alex turned around to sit facing the arrivals, who attached themselves to her SEL window.

King Lark began shifting colors directly in front of Alex. "What's he saying?" she asked.

"I can't read him that fast and I can't read both of them at the same time. I have to tell Henry to tell him to slow down." Grace fiddled with her interface, clearly getting upset.

"It's ok, Ember, take your time. They'll understand." Alex reached over and put her hand on Grace's arm to calm her.

"Ok, he just repeated the ocean floor again, but it doesn't make sense, there's a shift here." Her little finger pointed at some bluish green. "I don't know what that means."

"That's ok, Ember. What sort of things can you say? For instance, can you ask him if it's ok if I take them to space?"

King Lark kept flashing lights at Alex and Grace.

"There aren't any words for that, Mommy."

"Hmmm. How good is their eyesight? Do they see your videos well?"

Grace nodded. "Have to adjust the colors for down here though. At this depth, some wavelengths don't reach."

Alex rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "How about if I make a video that shows what we want to do and you fix the colors and show them? Would that work?"

"Can you tell King Lark to come back in 2 days? "

"Um." Grace fiddled with her HUD and flashed some lights. She watched the response carefully.

Henry and King Lark exchanged rapid flashes. Then King Lark, very slowly, very deliberately, lit up a few times, and then swam away.

Grace shook her head. "I don't know, Mommy. He just said ocean floor again. There's a bunch of embedded signals in it, but I don't know what they are." She pointed at part of one of the lights on her HUD. "That's ocean salinity and over here is temperature, but the numbers I think they translate to are within range."

Two days later turned into four because Grace forgot to account for some tidal shift in her translation, but this time they were ready with their video. In addition to the underwater lab team, Brian, Lucas, and Cal Park were in attendance, all sitting on the floor in the dark around Grace. Only Henry and King Lark showed up from the underwater kingdom.

Alex triggered the hologram which started with them in their lab, next to both Henry and King Lark, and shrunk them, expanding to show the ocean and ocean floor just beneath them, and then continents and the planet and Colony One's tiny habitat above. Then it reversed back to them and started forward, but this time, it showed a huge ball container around all of them and showed that being lifted up and getting attached to the space station. Then the image zoomed in on the ocean inside the habitat.

When it finished, Alex froze it at the end.

Henry and King Lark flashed rapidly at each other and then Henry flashed something slowly at Grace.

Grace said, "I don't know what that means. He hasn't used it before."

"If it were me, I'd want to see the animation again," Brian offered.

Alex replayed the animation, setting the pace slower, muttering, "At least he didn't say ocean floor again."

"We checked the ocean floors. We have nothing out of range," Cal said, reiterating what he'd been saying for the last three days. "Temperature, salinity, oxygen. It's all expected."

Henry flashed something else.

"They want to know when," Grace translated after a moment staring at her display.

Brian cleared his throat. "Politically, we can't do it until later when we take our entire island."

Lucas added, "I also want to run more simulations on Earth's mass and orbit to make sure Alex and I haven't forgotten anything."

"At least 'when' sounds like they are ok with us doing it. You have any way to say 'I don't know.', kiddo?" Alex asked.

"Um. Yeah. Sort of," Grace answered. "It would be hard to answer when anyway. Their time is defined by a lot of things and I don't think we could get it right anyway. I'm not that good at the nuances." Grace set her screen to respond.

King Lark lit up again.

Alex swore. "Even I know that one. Ocean floor."

Alex finished recording the thirty-fourth rescue pod message. She had so many languages to cover yet and already, she was beginning to wonder if her pronunciations and translations were correct. She stood up and stretched, rolling her neck and trying to loosen the muscles. She wanted to get fifty done before going to the pool to swim laps. She really hated sitting still for too long.

Her HUD flashed red entirely and an audible buzzer sounded in her ears. She cleared the alert and read the message. Grace's heart rate was elevated and her biometrics were showing extreme agitation. All five of her children were at the new coral reef grand opening and presentation, at Alex's insistence. Grace needed to get out of the undersea lab and her orphans needed some exposure to Colony One's environmental agendas. Alex had turned off the video feeds so she could focus on the current task.

Alex quickly reactivated Grace's video feed.

"I am not!" Grace shouted. "You should all go back to the United States! We don't want you here!"

"Grace, that's enough!" Nick commanded. He rubbed his thigh nervously, eyes quickly darting back down the tunnel where other people were slowly approaching.

"He started it!" Grace pointed at Brad .

"Everyone's so busy treating you like a Princess, you don't know how to be a person," Brad said, spitting at Grace and then sticking out his tongue. He followed this by calling Grace several words that Grace immediately started looking up. This search history flashed on Alex's display.

"I don't wanna go back," Peggy cried. "I wanna be a Princess."

"We're not going back," Tori said. She hugged Peggy close to her, glaring at Grace. "You're a princess to us, Peggy." Tori kissed the top of Peggy's head.

"You're so ignorant," Grace said, addressing Brad. "Zooxanthellae are smarter than you!"

Brad sneered at Grace. "You're a spoiled, rotten brat."

Alex cringed. She started toward her office door to go break up their fight, but then realized she couldn't without them wondering how she'd known about the fight.

Brad shoved Grace backward into the transparent SEL window separating them from the coral reef. Fish scattered at the sudden movement.

Grace rebounded and tried to punch Brad, but Alex's daughter didn't have a chance against Brad's street fighting experience and he was five years older than Grace. Brad easily dodged Grace and pushed her into the opposite window.

Grace hollered, although Alex knew it was humiliation, not pain. Grace's bioshield would protect her.

"Hey, now! What's this? Where are your parents?" A random citizen stepped between Grace and Brad, grabbing Brad's arm.

Brad instantly twisted free, forcefully elbowing the man in the ribs as he did so.

Unprepared, the man yelped in pain and bent forward. His hand moved as he activated his HUD.

Alex was impressed by how quickly Colony One's security team responded. She watched as officers arrived and secured her four orphans in SEL restraining bubbles. One of the officers recognized Grace and warned the other officers. They didn't put Grace in a restraining bubble, but instead politely invited her to accompany them, which she did, with a vindictive glare at Brad, who was beating on his bubble and shouting, although nothing could be heard due to the sound suppressors. Peggy, separated from Tori by the bubble, was crying. Tori looked like she might also burst into tears but her frozen, emotionless defenses were kicking in, and Nick had his arms crossed, but his eyes were panicked.

Quickly, Alex scanned back through Grace's video to find the start which seemed to be Brad complaining that he already had enough school for one day and that he didn't want to listen to a lecture on how baby coral could be moved to the new habitat. Grace, obviously mimicking Jay's environmentalist speeches, started explaining why the coral reefs were important and the conversation devolved from there. Grace was overbearing and condescending. Her street kids responded as expected and soon the five were having a typical children's squabble.

Alex glared at the clock. What was taking security so long to call her? She paced like a caged tiger. On her HUD, her daughter was explaining and laying the blame entirely on Brad, and the two station security officers were listening intently and believing every word as Grace was able to speak clearly and sound like an adult.

After ten minutes of listening to Grace, one of the officers finally said, "We should call the Founder."

"We can't not call her," the other officer replied. "Tell you what. You call and I'll buy you a beer tonight."

"Drinks are free for citizens," Grace contributed, earning a disturbed glare from the first officer.

Alex noted Grace hadn't called her either and Grace still had full access to her own HUD. Her daughter certainly knew this mess was partly her fault.

The second officer, seeing this glance, said, "Ok, I'll make the call. You owe me."

Alex's HUD lit with an incoming call. She carefully relaxed her face and answered with the best calm voice she could muster. "Yes?"

"Founder, I'm sorry to disturb you, but we've had a slight problem with your four guests."

"Yes, Founder, but I think you should come and speak with them before we release them into your custody."

"Just a bit of a scuffle, Founder. One of the boys bruised a citizen. Nothing serious."

"I'll be right there. Thank you for calling me." Alex cut the phone connection.

When Alex arrived at the station security office a mere five minutes later, she requested a private conference room and her children. The officers brought Grace followed by the other four who were still secured in their bubbles. Alex dismissed the officers and removed the security bubbles. Peggy immediately flew into Tori's arms, and while Tori wrapped her arms around Peggy, her marble expression was securely in place.

"Brad started it," Grace began.

Cutting her off, Alex commanded, "Sit down, all of you."

They did, and Grace started again, and then Nick started to talk over her, and Brad jumped in. Soon the three were shouting over each other. Alex merely tented her fingers on the table and waited. Peggy's sniffles changed to full on tears again.

"Enough," Alex said. "You're making Peggy cry." Nick and Brad winced. Grace just lifted her chin and closed her mouth. "One at a time, I want to hear what happened. Nick, you start. You're the oldest."

Nick glanced over at Grace and then said, "Nothing. It was just an argument. Brad didn't mean to hurt that guy. He just startled him, is all."

"I see," said Alex, recognizing that Nick would downplay any incident to prevent repercussions on his family. She didn't blame him for not mentioning that Brad also shoved Grace. Nick couldn't know how Alex would react to an attack on her blood-offspring. "Tori?"

Tori remained frozen, apparently unaware of her surroundings, just like she'd been on that first day. It was her defense mechanism to keep her from being hurt. Alex wondered how long it would take Tori to start speaking again. When Tori didn't say anything, Alex continued, "Brad?"

Brad crossed his arms and scooted back in his seat. His gaze shifted to Nick and then he said, "It was just an argument. That guy just grabbed me. I was defending myself."

Alex nodded. "Peggy?" she prompted.

"I don't want to go back," Peggy sobbed.

"You're not going back, Peggy," Alex said. "We're a family now. We just need to learn how to get along with each other. What happened?"

Sniffling, Peggy answered, "Grace and Brad were fighting and a man tried to stop them and Brad hit him."

"Ok. Grace, your turn." Alex said.

Grace opened her mouth to correct the name, but Alex raised her eyebrow and Grace said instead, "Brad pushed me twice into the habitat for no reason."

"Hmmm. Should we pull up the security feed?" Alex asked.

Grace frowned and then repeated Nick, "We were arguing."

"All right." Alex sighed. "Families argue. That happens, but we need to talk, not resort to violence, to sort it out. Brad, you understand?"

Alex said, "Grace, school for two weeks. No leaving for any reason. You need to learn how to communicate with other kids. Focus on that."

Grace wrinkled her nose, but didn't complain.

Alex stood up. "Let's go get dinner. Brad, I'll apologize to the man you elbowed. I understand the instinct." Alex also planned to have a few words with security about treating Grace just like any other kid. Standard protocol was to bubble-restrain people and then sort out what was going on.

Later that night, Alex tucked Grace into bed and then instead of leaving, she sat down in the rocking chair next to the bed. "Ember, I need you to get along with them. They're your brothers and sisters now."

"But Mommy, they don't like me."

"They don't like anyone, Ember. People have been mean to them their entire lives. You need to take care of them anyway. You're scholastically much smarter than they are and know how we operate around here, but Ember, you can learn things from them, too. "

"Like what?" Grace muttered.

"They know how to survive, Ember. I watched the security video. You were unintentionally condescending and insulting them. Brad overreacted, sure, but he's angry at the world. You have to expect it." Alex paused and then said, "Did you see how easily Brad escaped from that man's grip?"

Grace rubbed at her right temple and she closed her eyes, apparently recalling her memory.

Alex continued, "He's got some serious fighting skills. You should ask him to teach you. You may not need to know it, but if you ever do, it would be handy. Find out what else they know. You might be surprised. They're not stupid; they just learned different things. Try to be their friend and next time, don't edit the truth to suit you. Take responsibility for your actions." Alex stood and went over and kissed Grace on the forehead. "Nick will protect you if you let him. You need to listen to him when he tells you to do something."

Having given her daughter enough to think about, Alex left. She then went over to her other children's apartment and knocked. They wouldn't even consider bed for another hour or two.

Alex knocked and waited, hearing a movie in the background.

Nick opened the door, nodded once with resignation, and stood aside to allow her in.

Tori turned off the movie, but her emotionless face was intact. The two on the sofa were equally subdued. Not one of them had changed into their pajamas like they usually did. Alex lowered herself into one of the easy chairs and Nick sat next to the others on the sofa.

"Is this when you tell us you are sending us back?" Nick asked bluntly.

Alex answered in her best street-accent Spanish so they would understand she was one of them. "Nope. This is where I apologize for Grace's attitude and the Colony One security for treating you differently than her."

"But I pushed her," Brad said.

"Yup. I know. I watched the security video. Everything in Colony One is recorded. She didn't mean to be so condescending. She just doesn't know how to talk with people. I sure wish you guys would teach her."

"She talked with the police just fine," Nick said.

Alex sighed, not in frustration, but in agreement. "Yeah. Trying to weasel her way out of getting in trouble. I've spoken with our officers and told them Grace is not to be treated differently than anyone else in the future. Normal conversations about normal subjects, she can't do. She compared Brad to a zooxanthellae. What kid does that?"

"What's a zoo ah zan... anyway?" Brad asked.

"Zooxanthellae. It's the algae inside the coral," Alex said. Tori seemed to be relaxing just a little. "Grace shouldn't have said that and she should have obeyed you, Nick, when you told her to stop. I've told her she's to listen to you in the future. I know she doesn't act like a little kid, but she really is. She's younger than Peggy by three years and while she's pretty smart, she's still just a baby." Alex gazed at her four orphans, studying their postures. They finally seemed to be letting go of their fear of expulsion. "I meant what I said earlier. You're my family now. I'm not going to abandon you or deport you. Next time you have a problem with Grace, send me a message and I'll sort it out."

"Hello?" Mario Marino's gruff voice answered the trash phone Alex had sent him.

"Mario?" Alex was hiding in her private lab, with all security feeds set to show her quietly working on her HUD for the next half hour. It was a violation of security protocol and only her and Lucas knew how to do it with the picobots. Eventually, she'd need to deploy a picobot security backup to watch for altered video feeds, but that could come later.

"Alex. What's with the mystery phone? You have my secure line." Sal's brother sounded grumpy.

Alex peered at the time and then at the Earth time equivalent. It was only 10 p.m. in Atlanta, Georgia. He should be up. "This is for your ears only." Her picobots were operating the phone call and making sure he couldn't be overheard.

"Go ahead, but be quick. It's 4 a.m. I'm in London. What do you need?"

"I need a list of all family members and family friends, and I need you to prepare it yourself, personally," Alex said.

"List everyone you want to live if the Earth is ending. Everyone. Don't leave anyone out." Alex chewed on one of her fingernails, caught herself at it and stopped.

"Ok. When do you need it by?" Mario yawned loudly.

"As soon as you can get it done. By the end of the week at the latest."

"Ok. Are you coming to your birthday party this year?"

Alex hadn't been to one of her Marino birthday parties since the space station launch. The family carried on just fine without her. Presents were opened and redistributed without her pointless attendance. "No, and after you are done and send the list to me by a trusted family courier, if you need anyone added or removed, you need to let me know immediately."

"Hmmm. I thought that doomsday end-of-Earth stuff was nonsense."

"I can't wait anymore. I postponed as long as possible. Look, I don't want to scare anyone or make anyone panic, but you've known me from the beginning. You are one of the few people who can ask me a question and get the whole, honest truth, Mario."

"Uh huh." Mario's flat tone indicated how much he believed that. "How's that battery of yours work? "

Alex rolled her eyes. "Seriously? That's your burning question? I tell you the world is imminently in danger of absolute destruction and you ask about my battery?"

"Well..." Alex could hear Mario's shrug, if not see it.

"You've had the formula hanging in your study since Sal died." Alex's painting that Mario had refused to destroy was still hanging in Mario's house.

Alex heard the sudden intake of breath. "No. " There was a long pause and Sal's brother finally asked, "He knew?"

"Sure Sal knew. He worked with me on the business plans. Look, Mario, don't delay on that list. Get it done. It's the most important thing you could be doing right now. Everything else is irrelevant." Alex hung up and put her head in her hands, willing her knowledge to go away. It refused.

After a few minutes, Alex looked at her list again. Family first. All of them. Their friends. Jay and his family and friends and theirs. All employees and direct family who happened to be Earth-side. The entire Indian reservation, along with whoever was there. Every family with a park pass for the Indian reservation. Colony One's entire Pacific island and whoever was visiting at the time. Everyone waiting on citizenship and their families. The Hamasaki family and their friends. The seed bank. Some landmarks. Several of the best libraries and museums. How many people were inside the Louvre on a given day? How many people could she add and still have a sustainable habitat? She ran her numbers again. She couldn't save everyone, in fact, she could barely save any at all.

How many people could her space station really support? How many animals? The atmosphere oxygen was balanced by her picobots, but food - plants took time to grow. Could her picobots synthesize food? And space, that was a problem, not the space outside of the station, but the physical square meters per person and animal. She couldn't compromise the natural habitats; they were precariously balanced already. Her station finally had a magnificent honeybee population and while the honey was horrendously expensive due to the low quantity, honey would increase steadily. Honeybees were dying on Earth due to construction, agriculture, and pesticides. How cramped could she make people's homes for the foreseeable future and still have a society that wouldn't implode? How much height could she steal from inside every room before claustrophobia set in? And if she opted for less people, would they scream about the "useless flower field habitat" she was maintaining? Without it, the honeybees died.

She couldn't make these decisions alone. She scheduled a meeting with her key habitat scientists, along with Brian, Cal Park, and Lucas, for later that afternoon .

After the initial "we are just talking theoretically" lie during which Cal, Brian, and Alex exchanged haunted, knowing looks, the team settled in.

"We have a responsibility to all the species on Earth, not just humans," Cal said.

"Take people's pets, too," Brian said, "It will help with the trauma. We're going to have a lot of upset people."

Logan Malstrom, the eco-scientist for the general human habitat, stared at the spinning hologram globe hovering above the center of their table. "We should get more habitats up here. A desert comes to mind as does a northern hardwood forest and tundra. We could use some more maple trees and some of our species need the extreme temperatures to survive."

"We have a good set of habitats already. Why do we need more?" This was from Sharon Cerdas the lead eco-scientist for the montane rainforest that matched the Reserva Biológica Bosque Nuboso Monteverde in Costa Rica. Her habitat was stable and growing, a treasure of biodiversity, but she was constantly having to make adjustments to keep her environment safe. She was also routinely being asked to help her fellow lead eco-scientists. More habitats would certainly add to her already stressed workload.

"If the Earth were to undergo this supposed destruction, we lose everything. We have a fraction of a percent of the world's biologicals here," Logan retorted.

Juliana, Brian's secretary, asked, "Why can't we just create another planet and move everyone to it?"

"We can't destabilize our solar system," Lucas said, somewhat sharply. "Nor can we collect enough matter to support the entire human population."

Cal added, "We are most concerned with the survival of the human race and as many species we can save."

Juliana's eyes got wide, "You mean we're not going to save everyone? People are going to die?"

Alex inhaled, "It's not possible to save everyone. Our space station will only support so much life, and if we go over that, we'll all die. In fact, when we reach our maximum capacity, we're going to have to stop rescuing people. Very much like the Titanic, I'm afraid."

Brian frowned disapprovingly at Alex as tears formed in Juliana's eyes. "We have a responsibility to our families and friends. We're going to have a list of preselected individuals that will get picked up first."

Logan cleared his throat. "I don't want to say this, but doesn't that mess up our gene pool?"

Cal answered this before Alex could, "It does, but if we're very careful to do compatibility gene scans before reproducing, we can make it work."

Brian nodded. "We think it's best if the people who survive have as little grief as possible. If a mother is with her children, she can be happy for that. Our citizens need their family and friends rescued. We've always put our citizens first and we shall continue to do so. We're taking everyone, the old, the young, the men as well as women, without any regard for nationality or race. We're going to end up predominantly English-speaking because that's what we have the most of already."

"We'll still have people who have lost everyone they know and care about," Sharon rubbed at her temples. Then, observing Brian intensely, she said, "I'm glad this is only theoretical."

Brian winced guiltily; the truth was plain in his eyes. Alex wondered if they should have started with the truth. Alex pretended not to see this, and said, "Humor me. Our counselors and teachers are certainly going to have their work cut out for them, and we're going to need to assimilate all of these refugees into our society."

Logan observed, "Not everyone is going to want to become a citizen and you can't force them."

"True. We're destined to have a split population for a while. The refugee camp and Colony One. The refugee camp isn't going to be particularly pleasant, but we aren't going to let it devolve into chaos. We're going to have to create a lottery to bring families who want to become citizens into our training program. The benefits of becoming a Colony One citizen should be enough incentive to bring people into the future of the human race. They're going to have to learn to live by our rules."

"And our meat menu," Logan commented. "It will be a while before the cattle farm can provide enough meat for everyone."

Alex remained quiet. The cattle farm wouldn't support their increasing population.

"Do we have enough plants to provide food for everyone?" Sharon arched an eyebrow at Alex.

"We're going to end up with some synthesized foods, but ultimately, the real thing is better for its innate variety," Alex answered.

"How many people can we support?" Sharon pressed.

Cal provided the response this time. He'd worked with Alex on the numbers several times. "Right now, about 5 million, but it would be cramped."

Sharon choked out, "The world has almost 8 billion people on it."

Alex nodded. "That's what we're here to discuss. How can we make this space station support more people?"

After several more hours, they had a plan that would allow them up to roughly 19 million souls and their pets. Citizens were asked to prepare a list of family and friends under the guise of holding weekly vacation giveaways for people to come visit the station. They were told to list everyone they knew and mark people they'd prefer with bonus points.

Alex stared again at her own private list, which was terrifyingly small even now that was updated. Jay and Byron and their families and friends. Teachers and students from Kingsport Academy, including Ethan. She briefly considered leaving Ethan off, but that was a death sentence; the odds were against people waiting to be randomly rescued. The girl from the psychiatric hospital, a couple of the convicts from the prison, also the warden, Bill Stateman and his family and friends. She added the entire staff and student body of the yeshiva that funded her favorite library by Mario's restaurant in Atlanta. Most everyone she would have selected were already on someone else's list. Both Sal's brother and Kuro Hamasaki had provided their own lists.

Alex started looking at the world's population. They would need genetic variety. She started a second list, selecting people who were the top in their fields - scientists, athletes, performers, artists, musicians, doctors, teachers, military officers. She did a quick search and saw someone had already selected the Pope. She scanned down her list. It was a good list, with good genes saturating it. Privileged genes, she thought as she suddenly recalled digging through a trash can on the side of the street, scraping mold off an old bit of bread and eating it anyway. She had no idea where to find her old street friends or even if they were still alive. She deleted that privileged list and started over.

This time, Alex selected geographic locations, square kilometers in 20 of the world's worst slums. She then added humanitarians who would know how to speak those languages, and how to teach these people to fit into Colony One's vastly different society. Then she chose some of the world's most renowned instructors who would be able to balance these people's education level; she would not create a slave-class of people.

Alex added a fleet of psychological counselors and people who could help make her society cohesive. Then, she selected five random families from every country not already represented. It would be hard on them, but somehow, maybe, she could pull humanity together. Trauma, shock, culture, personal psychoses, and that would just be the main influx. What would she do about the people who felt entitled to power like Mario Marino and Kuro Hamasaki?

Alex kissed Grace's forehead, hugging her. Grace pulled free, saying, "I'm late. Henry gets upset if I don't get there on time." Grace had a following of octopi now, but Henry was by far her favorite. While usually solitary creatures, the octopi community really liked her daughter.

"Of course. Don't neglect your studies, Grace. As much as that language and lexicon are fascinating, you also need to be able to talk with humans besides scientists."

"Yeah, yeah," Grace muttered, with a dismissing wave of her hand as she ran off.

Alex shook her head, resigned. She supposed she'd've been just as precocious with different life circumstances. She was unconcerned about Grace's education, but her human interactions were suffering. Alex wasn't terribly worried about Grace's inability to talk to kids her own age and her daughter could talk with Karl and the rest of the oceanography staff without any problem, but that was still a very narrow social circle for a growing girl.

Alex went to the next room over to see if her four other charges were ready for school. She was pleased they had settled into their new lives over the last two years, but they were normal children, if ever there was a normal child. The social workers were content that the children were adjusting, although one of them had complained that the children didn't have an adult living with them. Alex pointed out that her apartment was right next to theirs and the walk from one to the other was less than most standard American households from upstairs to downstairs. They were in no danger of being without adult supervision.

Alex also still had secret video monitoring for each of them although she only checked on each of them every few hours. Brad was showing signs of depersonalization disorder, but he wasn't comfortable enough without Nick around for any therapy session, and he wouldn't discuss any of his problems in front of Nick. Alex and his teachers were working on building his confidence and independence enough to be able to get him into private therapy, and he was on a steady antidepressant medication. Now that Tori's drug addiction had been removed, she was mostly becoming their mother anyway, although Nick remained the group's leader.

"Is Ember coming with us today?" Peggy asked as Tori was helping her into her backpack.

"Ember is headed to the lab today," Alex answered gently.

Peggy pouted. "How come she doesn't have to go to school and I do? I don't want to go to school. It's boring."

"Ember is ahead on her schoolwork and is learning how to speak to the octopi as her job today. You actually get to have a lot more fun. No playground in that lab Ember goes to." As it looked like Peggy was about to argue more, Alex added, "I suppose if you want, you could come up to the space station and hang out with me today. Hmmm. I'm going to be in meetings and lectures all day and it won't be much fun either." Which was unfortunately too true. "Your new friend Alice will miss you."

Tori glanced at Alex, took the hint, and said to Peggy, "Don't you want to have lunch with me and Nick and Brad and go to the beach with us after school?"

Alex smiled a thank you at Tori. "Yeah, I won't be back until late tonight. You'd definitely miss out on the beach too."

Nick, coming out of his bedroom with his books, firmly announced, "The four of us are going to school today, Peggy."

"But..." Peggy started, and Nick lifted his eyebrow at her, daring her to argue. Peggy frowned unhappily, but didn't continue.

Tori called out, "Brad, it's time to go. Come on!"

After another prompt, Brad made an appearance and grabbed his book bag. His hair was still uncombed, but Tori took care of that.

Alex walked the four of them to the school with a stop for breakfast, using the time to ask how they were doing, and giving them a chance to talk with her. She did this every morning, using the time as a mini-therapy session to alleviate any of their worries and problems.

Grace rarely joined them, usually grabbing a bit of fruit on her way to the lab. Alex reflected that she spent more time with these four than her biological offspring. When Alex left them at the school, she hurried off to the spaceport to catch the next shuttle. She watched the island fall away as they launched upward, enjoying the clear blue water near the island. Sadly, the massive trash island was still visible to the south, despite their cleanup efforts.

The zoning meeting dragged on and Alex checked the clock on her HUD. The upper right corner of the display showed Grace still in the lab, busily exchanging flashing images with Henry, although Alex had no idea what they were talking about. Alex cycled through her other children's video feeds. They were just leaving school and would go directly to the beach for their hour in an exercise zone. Alex was glad Peggy hadn't opted to come along; she would have been really bored after these six hours of meetings. Alex was barely avoiding a yawn herself. They were on yet another layout for a new restaurant district. Half of the attendees wanted it impressively big, while the other half wanted to increase the size of their stadium to include more fields.

"This would be easier if we just had more oxygen," one of the men grumbled with a significant glare in Alex's direction.

"We are converting space dust and debris into usable matter, but it takes time and our resources have to be shared with everyone," Alex replied calmly. "Everyone wants more space."

"We have more space. That massive empty housing district," the man persisted.

"We need that if something happens to the Earth." Alex kept her voice level, but her hand gripped her knee out of sight under the table. She'd been defending the empty apartments and buildings for six months. Most people still thought she was crazy. "That's nonnegotiable. You can't have it."

The man glared at her. "We can always add back to it if we need it. Like a bank loan. No need to hold up progress."

Alex rubbed at her knee and didn't reach across the room to try to shake some sense into the man. "There won't be time to repay it." After a brief pause, she said, "We've heard everyone's views on zoning. Perhaps it's time for a vote? Which would most of you prefer? The biggest stadium or the biggest restaurant district?"

Alex's HUD flashed red with an incoming urgent message. "Excuse me a moment," she said and switched on a privacy shield.

Cal's face appeared. His eyes were wide, panicked, and his face was flushed. "It's started."

There was no need for him to qualify what 'it' was. Alex swallowed as her stomach turned over. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely no doubt. It won't be apparent on Earth for another hour yet; they think it's just another earthquake. I need your go-ahead to start the evacuations."

Alex inhaled. If he was wrong, the repercussions of the evacuations would be impossible to recover from. In her memory, she saw her future self stating that Cal was the right person. Exhaling again, she commanded, "Go ahead and start the evacuations. I'm on my way. Cal?" He blinked at her and Alex continued, "You are the right person for this. You've studied. Prepared. Done every simulation you could think of. You know more about what needs to be done than anyone else. You have my full confidence and support. Don't let anyone argue with you."

He nodded palely and shut down the connection. She lowered the privacy shield. To the people in the room, she said, "Go to your assigned Emergency Response center. You'll get instructions there." She didn't even wait to hear their questions. She was running. The prerecorded announcement appeared on her HUD, directing everyone to their posts. "Clear a path!" she shouted as she dodged through the marketplace. People moved out of her way, already heading toward their own destinations as instructed.

The main Emergency Response complex was already filling as people arrived and sat down at their stations to review the incoming data. "Talk to me," Alex gasped, skidding to a stop, in front of Cal.

"The super-volcanoes are erupting," Cal said succinctly.

"Most of them. It's a mathematical certainty." He pointed to the map of the Earth up on the main screen, striding over to it. "Massive earthquake here in the Bering Sea. St. Lawrence Island and Diomede have already been pulled underwater. The continental plates are finally shifting from the additional icecap water. Both Alaska and Russia along the Bering Sea are being pulled together. Akademia Nauk on the Kamchatka Peninsula is venting steam and ash. Social media is reporting that the dome buildup is visible to the naked eye. Columbia Generating Station in Washington has already declared an emergency and is shutting down due to earthquake activity." At Alex's slight head tilt, Cal explained, "That's a nuclear reactor. Luckily Bilibino Nuclear Power Plant was already shut down."

Alex glanced around. People were listening. Alex hoped they would fall back on their training and not panic.

Cal continued, "Phase 1 evacuations are underway. All the primaries are on their way here. The reservation is launching, but it's coming slowly so we don't destabilize the continent. Yellowstone hasn't erupted yet, but it will. Our Pacific facility has been shielded but I'm holding off on bringing that up to keep the water weight on the ocean floor semi-stable."

From the far side of the room, someone shouted, "We're registering earthquakes across North America!"

The reply came from the back center, "China's reporting scattered earthquakes too!"

The map up on the main screen updated with red dots and circles with associated magnitudes. Cal studied it. "Nancy, send out messages to Campi Flegrei in Italy and Catamarca Province, Argentina. We need data from their diagnostics to track the upheaval."

Alex noted with approval that the room wasn't chaotic at all like it had been during the earthquake-tsunami emergency. People knew where they were supposed to be and what to do for their piece of the massive plan.

Cal walked her through the expected progression of events. "It's not exactly one of the models I had prepared, but I'm pretty sure given the start point and cascading failures that it's close. I'll adjust the model as events progress." His eyes snapped to another red splash that appeared on the world map up on the secondary room screen and he strode off to consult with his team without even a brief nod to excuse himself.

As clearly as if the old Indian stood in front of her, Alex heard Soaring Eagle's voice say, "The desert rock weeps for the future." Alex went to attach herself to the evacuation team. She didn't want to miss a single person that was on her or Mario's lists. She took one of the free consoles and started verifying the individual pods and then detoured briefly to select and initiate one of the prerecorded message in all languages.

Alex's voice echoed in her ear, set by her picobots to her ears only. Jay would be hearing this message, as would everyone else on her list. "This is a prerecorded message from Colony One. The Earth is currently undergoing cataclysmic changes. You have been preselected to be transported to the safety of Colony One where a refugee facility will provide temporary housing. This safety pod has been programmed to respond to simple requests, such as 'pod, create bathroom' and 'pod, when will I arrive' and 'pod, create window'. Please take a few minutes to enter the names and probable locations of your family and friends on the keyboard in front of you and Colony One will attempt to rescue them."

Alex then verified the rest of the list. Everyone on her individual list was already in the air and headed for the station. Her HUD showed Ember safely in the Pacific island research facility. She sent a note to Grace to tell Henry they were evacuating and to tell her to keep her personal shielding at maximum. Alex automatically adjusted the shielding on her other four children. It was redundant but she couldn't help herself.

"Founder?" A woman touched Alex's arm and waited for her to look up before continuing, "We have requests for assistance from Russia, the United States, and Canada, and complaints from pretty much every European country about us kidnapping their citizens and violating air space."

Brian should be handling that. "Where's Mr. Kimberly?" Alex asked.

The woman bit her lip and stared at the floor. "He's the one who sent me to find you. He's meeting with Lucas."

"Ah. Ok. One moment." Alex raised a privacy shield and recorded, "This is Alex Smith, the Founder of Colony One. I regret we are unable to take your call at the moment. The Earth is undergoing catastrophic changes. The continental plates are shifting and we are expecting significant volcanic eruptions globally. Every effort is being made to provide assistance. Please have your citizens follow your local emergency plans, and secure your nuclear and chemical production and storage facilities." The less damage from nuclear and chemical contamination, the faster the Earth would heal. She lowered the privacy shield and sent the file to the woman standing next to her. "Have all incoming phone calls redirected and play them that message and hang up to keep the lines open."

"Yes, Founder." The woman nodded deferentially and departed.

Alex turned her attention to making sure the proximity programming was operating correctly. Anyone inside the same building as or within half a kilometer of preselected individuals would be automatically encased in a pod and lifted to safety. It was the only way to guarantee she didn't leave someone's baby behind. Pets were also contained and put in their own pod and rescued. When she was certain the evacuations were being handled correctly, she left to go to the refugee facility to make sure that was ready.

Alex started at the medical facility adjacent to and between Colony One and the refugee area. Refugees would not be allowed in Colony One areas without either becoming citizens or being a guest of a citizen according to the current tourist/visitor policies. People would be given medical treatment, housing, food, and access to their own exercise, recreation, and school facilities, but ultimately, they would need to integrate into Colony One. The actual refugee area was still empty - a lifeless, sterile environment awaiting impact.

The medical facility was the best she could provide. Alex met up with Kgomotso, who would be running the medical staff, with the expediency of sending him a message to meet her at the medical facility door. "How are you doing?" she asked him.

"I think we're ready for triage. I've got everyone sorted. They should all know what they are doing. Are we really expecting many people?"

Alex blinked at Kgomotso. "Hasn't anyone told you?"

"No. We're just following standard emergency protocols from the message that Emergency Response guy sent," Kgomotso replied.

Alex bit her lip. Their day was about to become brutal. "We are looking at roughly 18.5 million people in varying stages of health arriving at the station over the next 5 hours."

Alex nodded. "I'm on my way to arrival reception next. Where's your team responsible for triage?"

"This way." Kgomotso stumbled off back toward the main hospital wing and Alex followed.

The 60 people milling around talking were obviously a mix of doctors, nurses, and staff, based on their selected SEL outfits that clearly marked them with white jumpsuits with profession-designating collar colors. Dark green for surgeons, green for doctors, blue for senior nurses, light blue for junior nurses, orange for trained medical staff, yellow for general staff. Everyone had a Colony One name badge.

They quieted when they saw Kgomotso and Alex enter the room. Alex spoke so that her voice would carry, "I need everyone responsible for triage to come with me to our new arrival facility in the next building over. Only red and yellow tag patients are to be taken to this medical complex." Those were the standard medical triage colors for people who needed immediate treatment or who would need observation. "You're to get the patients over here, drop them off, and get back to the intake reception. Do not stay here at the medical complex. Walking wounded and minor injuries are going to have to wait and should be told to go to their assigned apartments as directed by the other Colony One staff members. Tag their SEL I.D. bracelet so we can find them later." Alex paused to let that sink in, and then continued, "Black tag patients," those that were dead or going to die regardless of treatment, "Should be sent directly to the morgue. Families and friends may accompany their loved ones, but should be told to obey Colony One citizens at all times. No one gets onto the station without a SEL I.D. bracelet. Nobody, not even the wounded. If you can't immediately get or understand a name, use the John or Jane Doe sequence number. It's not your job to try to identify people or to help people find their loved ones. You're needed for medical activities only. Don't get distracted."

As Alex led the subgroup out through the convenient hallway to new arrival reception, Alex heard Kgomotso say, "We are looking at an impossible number of patients. We're going to do our best, but we're going to have to work calmly and systematically, putting our energy and time where it will do the most good. Yellows, er, general staff members, we're going to need you to make sure supplies are distributed and don't run out..."

Once at the arrival reception area, Alex found her staff also prepared. These wore Colony One stationer green jumpsuits and Alex changed her SEL outfit to match. Stars on their shoulders denoted seniority, giving them a militaristic ambience. Again, clear name badges adorned their shirts. Alex didn't include stars or a name badge on herself. She walked over to talk with the woman wearing the most stars. "Is everyone here aware of the check-in process?"

The senior intake administrator, a middle-age woman with greying hair, nodded and answered, "We take the people's names, addresses, and names of immediate family members, and issue SEL I.D. bracelets. If we can't get a name, for any reason, we issue them John or Jane Doe and the next number in sequence. We send wounded over to the triage area. We send the rest to the training area to view the material for how to use the HUD. Medical personnel are sent to the complex to assist. Multilingual people who can translate are asked to remain and assist. Everyone else we direct to their housing and tell them to wait there for further instructions. Families get solitary apartments. Couples and individuals get bunked four people to an apartment, and everyone goes in the next available apartment if they don't have one already assigned. We assure people that we will help them find their family and friends soon."

That speech was memorized directly out of Cal Park's guide. Alex vaguely wondered how calm the woman was going to be after checking in a million people. Alex nodded, and echoed Kgomotso, "Perfect. I need everyone to work calmly and systematically. Report any problems to dispatch." Speaking loudly so even triage people could hear, she said, "We'll get everyone a chance to eat and take breaks as we are able. Just do your best."

Alex had worked closely with Cal and Brian to set up a solid procedure for the processing and homing of refugees. Non-citizens would get signed in, be given a custom wristband and HUD, and assigned an apartment that contained beds, desks, and lockable cabinets. Families got their own apartments, while individuals and couples were set up in groups of four. All food was set up cafeteria style in a common area, next to a massive recreation area. The wristbands monitored their biological data, location, and the attached picobots also silently acted as birth control. Population control was critical to humanity's survival.

The first of the individual pods started to arrive. People seemed to fall into two categories: indignant or traumatized. Most had filled in the requested data entry in their pods on the way to the station and could be issued their wrist bracelets and living quarters without delay. Alex watched people arriving for a bit, looking for Jay in every new pod that arrived, even though she knew his likely wouldn't arrive at the station for another half hour. Several obnoxious fools were demanding to be taken back. She went over to handle it.

"Gentlemen!" she had to shout to get them to hear her over the din. "After the immediate crisis is over, we will be happy to provide transportation back to your homes, but right now, all of our citizens are busy. Until then, please accept our hospitality. We will get everything sorted out as soon as possible." She noted with admiration that her citizens were listening to her words and would use them for other people with the same complaints.

"But what is going on?!" one of them grumbled loud enough to attract others.

Alex didn't roll her eyes, although she wanted to. Just what she needed; someone inciting a mob-mentality this early in the event timeline. It was going to be bad enough without help. "The Earth is undergoing continental shifts which is causing earthquakes. You can view our news channel from your HUDs when you reach your temporary housing."

"I need a phone; my cell phone isn't working. I have to warn my family," one of the women said sharply.

"Put their name and address into our database. Our dispatch office is working on connecting people. Calls will come through on your HUD. If you would please come with me over to a brief presentation on how to use your HUD while you are here..." Was it lying to imply these people would get phone calls from anyone on Earth?

The man who had first spoken up stepped directly in front of Alex, invading her personal space and announced accusingly, "You're her! That crazy woman! You probably think this is some sort of apocalypse. You should be locked up! This is criminal. You can't just kidnap a bunch of people."

Alex did not grit her teeth in exasperation or give any indication at all of her irritation. This was only the very beginning of the refugees coming in now - the ones people specifically requested. "Sir, I am not kidnapping anyone. You will be free to leave as soon as the personnel are available to arrange it. In the meantime, please do not hold up our process. We are expecting a large number of people."

Alex saw her old schoolmate and antagonizer, Ethan Jaxon, arrive as his pod dissolved, leaving him at the end of the intake line, which was already snaking backward into a loud mass of unhappy people. He was missing his perfect haircut and his clothes reflected a low-middle class businessman. His exile hadn't been kind to him. Alex didn't want to deal with Ethan too. She decided she should head over to the medical complex where she could be more useful when the wounded started to arrive anyway.

Alex nodded to one of the security personnel waiting off to the side and the man came over. Security personnel were in full blue jumpsuits - a not-so-subtle American-police blue. "Help this man find his temporary apartment, please." She nodded at the man who was still standing in front of her, glaring.

Before Alex could leave, though, her HUD flashed an incoming message from Cal. She ran up a privacy shield. "What's up?"

"We now have a critical number of nuclear facility failures." Cal spoke quickly. He obviously didn't have much time. "We're going to need to separate out people who have been overexposed to radiation. Lucas updated all our rescue pilots' software to scan people, but they've already picked up some. The radiation will contaminate our station and will infect our gene pool with mutations. "

"How soon are they going to arrive?" Alex asked.

"Um..." Cal studied his HUD. "Earliest for the first one, maybe 30 minutes."

"Ok. Have Lucas reallocate space and mass for a flat apartment complex for 80 people, and put it adjacent to the arrival reception opposite the medical center. I'll finish all the connections and set it up." If she needed more space and atmosphere, she could take it from the refugee camp.

Cal nodded and cut the connection.

Alex spent a moment rubbing her temples and pondering how to best set up the separate area before lowering the privacy shield. She went over to the senior intake administrator and said to her, "We're going to start splitting some random people off for minor security screening. It might separate families, but assure them they'll be reunited." The administrator lifted her hand in front of her mouth and then rubbed her arm, unconsciously telegraphing her anxiety, no doubt trying to imagine how she could stretch her already sparse personnel. Alex rushed to assure her, "I'm going to run some stripes on the floor for the people who need to be additionally scanned and bring in another team for that processing so it doesn't impact your people too much. Just do your best to keep everyone calm."

The woman nodded and went over to one of her workers who was having some trouble getting one of the refugees checked in. Alex saw that the Marino's were starting to arrive. She didn't have time to try and sort them out. They'd get assigned to their own refugee section as they checked in, as would Hamasaki's people. A message arrived from Lucas and Alex again ran up a privacy shield and the two of them worked out a plan to keep the radiation contamination contained. It wouldn't be pretty, but it would be as humane as they could make it.

That's when the wounded began to arrive in shuttles, the lucky randomly-rescued people being brought in by trained Colony One pilots. Intake already had an appalling winding line of waiting people, which became chaos as the wounded arrived and started bypassing the long line. This first set included both broken bones from earthquakes and scorch-burns from Akademia Nauk's eruption. At least no one was complaining anymore about being yanked from their homes and life unexpectedly.

Alex helped with triage until she got a message from Lucas that her radiation holding facility was ready, and she went to finalize preparations there. She spotted Mario, Milo, and Luciano, as well as Rico and Emma. She waved in their direction but did not slow down. Jay and his latest girlfriend should also be somewhere in that line, but she didn't have time to look. When she was sure the radiation unit was set up to her satisfaction and the one-way door wouldn't allow people or radiation back onto the station, she went back to help with triage and quickly got pulled into surgery helping Kgomotso.

Many long hours later, Alex again scrubbed her hands in the sudsy water, even though her picobots had already sterilized her head to toe for the countless time. Even with the help of medical staff that happened to arrive from Earth, the medical complex was overwhelmed. The morgue underneath the complex had turned into a mass grave of gently stacked bodies.

Every part of Alex's body ached from bending, lifting, pulling, and running. She spent a precious moment watching her daughter, who was calmly flashing lights at a dozen or so octopi, untouched by the catastrophe outside of her protective habitat-bubble. Her other four children were with their respective classes; the younger ones were watching a movie and the older ones were preparing meals for rescue workers. She glared again at the directive from Cal to report to the arrival reception for translation duty that flashed on her HUD and moved to obey.

At once, Alex saw the problem. Her refugees from the slums had arrived en masse. Lucas had simply lifted off the entire areas, complete with their housing, possessions, sewage, and weapons, and stuck these floating habitats underneath their refugee facility. The people were terrified and distressed. The Colony One citizens were trying to process these people into the official refugee living quarters. Alex's specially chosen social workers and counselors were long since processed and off to their own apartments. Alex cringed.

Alex set her picobots to record and amplify her voice across all of these habitats as well as the arrival reception and said, "You have arrived safely at Colony One. Earthquakes made your land unsafe and we moved you here to keep you alive. You can stay in your homes until we can move you and your belongings into better housing. Fresh food, clean water, and medical treatment will be provided. If you are missing a family member, please speak with one of the people in a green jumpsuit." She then repeated the message in the language of each of the habitats.

She then dug through the now massive database of people, seeking out her chosen counselors and sent them a message on their HUD that they were needed for translation and assistance back where they'd arrived. Hopefully they'd see the message and be able and willing to come help.

As Alex approached the registration area, she switched her costume to her standard station overalls. Alex then found the senior intake administrator, who was now looking extremely war-shocked, and tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention, and then raised a privacy shield around the two of them so they'd be able to talk. Alex set her voice tone as comforting as she could, and said, "Hey! Sorry about this nightmare. You've done so much already and I know this is just crazy insane."

"No one can even talk with these people. They don't understand us and we have no idea what they are saying. Security's had to confiscate a large number of weapons already. We can't even get their names. "

"I understand. I'll issue them all SEL I.D. bracelets with John or Jane Doe and we can sort them out later. That'll cut down the immediate crisis, but won't help locate people. The destruction on Earth at this point means that their relatives that aren't here are going to be dead before we can find them anyway." Alex tried not to sound callous, but was certain it came across that way.

The woman's mouth dropped open. "How bad is it?"

While the woman had seen the wounded coming in, the overall impact wasn't being reported yet. Alex had a running video feed in her HUD which she was trying to mostly ignore. To function, she had to push her distress to the back of her mind. Alex asked, "How much truth do you want?"

"Ash and heat from super-volcanoes will cover the earth and kill the oceans. Water will be undrinkable for the foreseeable future. People who manage to get to stable shelters will probably starve to death before the radiation from nuclear meltdowns kills them. Our space station habitat can only support a certain precision-calculated population, and we either save ourselves and let the people on Earth die, or the human race becomes extinct. Eventually, the Earth will become habitable again, but it won't be within our lifetime, even if we can find a way to start cleaning up the radiation."

Alex stayed to help with registration and translation. Even with the line moving steadily, it would be days before everyone could get even partially processed. Pods with healthy people were still waiting outside the station, while wounded were being brought in and sorted as quickly as possible.

The Indian Reservation was attached and in place, but still disconnected from the main station. The Pacific Island had yet to arrive, having been moved to a lower priority than the individual pods and random buildings where people were more likely to be terrified, but even those buildings were still waiting.

The last few rescue shuttles were arriving, having been given the order to return, based on Colony One's maximum station population calculations.

Everything was going as it should and only this one dreaded task required Alex's attention. Although she could have delegated it, and probably should delegate it, Alex simply could not subject anyone to the pending trauma. She needed her people strong, not broken.

Cal would handle their ecosystem. Lucas would finish connecting the rescued pods and buildings. Brian would handle Colony One politics. Counselors and religious people moved among both populations, consoling and helping as much as they could.

The last few people in line had been picked up by her rescue workers. All had witnessed the destruction and had eyes glazed in shock. Her picobots were scanning them. The ones with too much radiation exposure were being flagged and the citizens who were sorting people were pulling those people aside.

"Sir, we're going to have to ask you to follow the blue dotted line on the floor there for an additional security check," one of her diligent citizens said, following the directions on her scanner. Many of this last group were being sent down the blue dotted line. The rescue pilot had ignored the restriction that had told him to ignore certain people and only pick up ones that scanned green on his ship's sensors. She certainly didn't blame him for wanting to save people. He wasn't the only pilot to do so.

The man being addressed was carrying a small girl who was not flagged, but who had moderate radiation exposure and the longer she stayed in the man's arms, the worse off she'd be. Alex swore under her breath, and fired off a summons for one of their counselors to come immediately.

Alex saw the counselor coming over and approached the man. "Sir, your daughter can wait with Carolyn. If you would please follow the blue dotted line, we're giving select people additional instructions and information. Your daughter does not need to and should not hear these. She'll be fine."

The counselor, who didn't know why people were being separated out, followed Alex's lead anyway, and promised, "I'll take excellent care of her for you." She looked at the young girl, who was maybe four years old. How she hadn't been overexposed to radiation was a miracle. "Your daddy needs to go take care of some things. We have some really tasty food. Are you hungry at all? What's your name?"

The girl blinked at the counselor warily. Her dad answered, "Her name is Mary. Her mom's gone." He hugged his daughter tighter. "I'm all she has. Please let her stay with me."

Alex smiled as warmly as she could at the young girl. "Mary, I really need you to go with Carolyn here while I talk with your Daddy."

Carolyn reached for the girl, who grabbed onto her father tighter.

Alex put her hand on the man's shoulder. "Sir," she pitched her voice very serious and gently commanding, eyes pleading, "I need you to give your daughter to Carolyn and come with me."

The man must have seen something desperate in Alex's eyes because he nodded and tried to hand his daughter off to Carolyn. Alex reached out and helped pry the girl off of him and passed her to Carolyn. Mary screamed and cried, but when Carolyn went to hand her back, Alex shook her head at the counselor. "Get Mary some food and clean clothes. I'll call you as soon as we're done."

Alex steered the man down the blue dotted line and followed him; they were the last that needed to go. Her picobots were screaming about her radiation exposure, and she directed them to block radiation. This cut off her connection to the station network and Alex shut down her now useless HUD, suddenly sharply missing the video feed showing her daughter still in the Pacific island research lab. It felt as if her right arm had been suddenly torn off.

When they were out of earshot of his daughter, the man whispered to Alex, "I won't see her again, will I?"

Alex swallowed and answered honestly, "See, yes. Touch, hold, hug, no. I couldn't let you keep holding her. Radiation exposure." To cross the additional shielding, Alex's picobots created sound for her voice based on her mouth's movement. They also relayed sound from each person based on their vocal cord movements.

Alex and the man went through the barrier that separated the radiation victims from the rest of the habitat. There was no way back until it was over. Alex pressed the button that completely separated their habitat.

"That's why I feel sick, isn't it?" he asked.

"Lethal dose, I'm afraid. I can't cure you."

"She'll be ok. If you have any relatives or friends here, she can stay with them. If not, I'll personally see that she is placed with a nice family who will love and adore her and take excellent care of her. I promise you I will watch over her either way."

"I don't know," he sobbed. "I don't know who is here."

"We're gathering names and addresses for everyone and you'll have a chance to look through the list, as will everyone else. If there is someone here who knows you, you'll be connected."

"How much time do I have?"

"I can't say for sure. Hours or days. Not a week." For his particular case. Some would last longer. They entered a large room where comfortable chairs and sofas were scattered in a U-shape. Tables had computer terminals. And one wall had sealed cabinets. Many people waited. Too many, Alex tried not to weep.

The people milling about spotted her and before they could mob her, Alex walked to the front of the room, holding up her hands. "Everyone, I'm Alex Smith, Founder of Colony One." Her picobots were automatically translating where necessary. The room erupted into the noise of people asking questions, making demands, and shouting to get her attention. She kept her hands raised and waited for them to quiet. "I know you have questions and I'm here to answer them as well as to help you in any way I can. Please sit down." She waited until they sat down. One woman coughed into her sleeve and paled as she saw blood. She raised her hand.

Alex held out her hand, palm down. "I know you need medical attention. We'll get to that." She searched through the people until she saw a woman hugging her two children at her side. "Mrs.?" she asked.

"Carrisford," the woman replied.

"Would you please take all of the children into the next room over and watch them for me? There are toys and a playset for them. I'll speak with you afterwards." Alex watched as Mrs. Carrisford stood and nodded tiredly.

"I'll help," Mary's father said, "I already know what you're going to say."

"Thank you." Alex waited while all thirteen children were escorted from the room. Several people demanded to know what was going on. "There is no easy way to say this," Alex spoke softly, yet her voice carried. "You've all been exposed to a lethal dose of radiation and while I can't cure you, I will try to make your last days as comfortable as possible." She did not look at the door to the children's area.

"My son?" a man asked. His son had gone to the next room over to play.

"I'm sorry. Him too." Alex lowered her head and closed her eyes a moment. When she opened them again, she saw people next to the man had their hands on his back comforting him. "If you have family and friends that went along the other path as you boarded the station, they are going to be ok. If they have any radiation exposure, they will be treated and suffer no long term effects. You'll have a chance to speak with them shortly. If you want to tell them, you may, or if you want me to do so, I will."

She paused long enough for that to sink in, and then persevered. "You can expect nausea and vomiting almost immediately. Several of you have already thrown up. Diarrhea, headache, fever. This will be followed by dizziness and disorientation, weakness and fatigue. As the radiation takes its toll on you, you can expect hair loss, bloody vomit and stools, infections, and low blood pressure."

Alex continued, "I can and will give you any medication that you want to mitigate these symptoms. If you would like an assisted suicide, I will give you anesthesia and you will go to sleep and just never wake up. Parents, you choose for your children." Except the one whose parents had died on the way up to the station. That girl was probably in her early teens and had gone with the children into the next room. Alex was choosing for her, and that girl was destined for anesthesia before the end of the day, before she could experience any of the horrible side effects, before the reality of her parents' deaths could sink in.

Alex pointed to a door off to the left. "Down that hall are rooms where you can sleep and rest. The numbers on the door are how many beds are in the room." She pointed at the door they'd come in. "Down that way, you'll find private rooms with both computer terminals and a window to the station, where you can visit with your family and friends."

Alex crossed over to the side of the room with the counter and cabinets and triggered the panel to open the cabinets.

"Medical supplies. Take whatever you want, however much you want. Assist each other. We will die with dignity and humanity, helping each other. Everything is labelled with recommended dosages and what they are for. You'll find everything from mild painkillers and anti-nausea patches to morphine and heroin and that last cabinet over there has hypodermics with a lethal dose of anesthesia in it."

Adding more instructions, she said, "Take a medical bracelet from this first cabinet and wear it. Please take a moment to enter your name, address, and personal details into one of the computers if you haven't already. It will help to connect you with your family and friends. If you need me, simply tap the bracelet and I'll come as quickly as I can."

Alex took a basket she'd prepared for herself that had some of each kind of medicine and went over to the woman who had coughed into her sleeve. "Nausea patch?" Alex held up a small square and stuck it to the woman's wrist when she nodded. Alex also gave her one of the medical bracelets. Alex recorded the woman's name and address as well as names of her family and friends.

Thirteen days later, everyone who had been in the radiation complex was dead. Alex incinerated the last corpse and kneeled, running the person's ashes through her fingers, even though she couldn't actually touch anything with her shielding. She was beyond tears, beyond hope. If she didn't have Grace to look forward to and take care of, she would have incinerated herself. She really needed to get her communication back online. She'd been so busy that she'd deliberately not tried to re-establish communication with the station. She had needed all her energy for the dying.

Alex glanced around blankly at the empty room. All that remained was to leave and destroy this last room, along with the ashes of good, kind people who, for the briefest moment in time, cared for each other and helped each other, the embodiment of all of humanity's best qualities. Nothing like dying to teach you how to live, one of them had said. Alex listened to the silence, hearing their voices, their concerns, their pain. Her heart felt like it was dead.

Resolutely, she dusted the ashes off her hands - more accurately, off the outside picobot shield protecting her hand. It wasn't necessary. That would also get left behind when she exited, but she felt like her hands might never feel clean again, even though she hadn't actually touched a single person. She didn't want Grace to wait a moment longer. Her daughter needed her. Her adopted orphans needed her. Her country needed her.

Alex pushed herself up to a standing position, every fiber in her body was exhausted and drained, but as she stepped toward the radiation barrier exit, she realized she was desperate to hug Grace and hear her chatter about Henry and his fellow octopi, to hear about something other than the sorrow of dying. She wanted to hear Peggy complain about having to go to school. She wanted to see what kind of trouble Georgie was getting into. Life. Normal, everyday life. She could speak with Brian, Cal, and Lucas about station problems after she had some downtime. She was certain after these days being incommunicado, there were numerous problems that needed to be sorted out.

The long term problems - the culture shock of so many different people, transitioning refugees through the citizenship program, educating the masses of people from the slums, determining critical resources that had been overlooked and forgotten, and the sustainability issues caused by overpopulation - those things could wait. The emotional shock of losing the Earth and everyday life would take years to overcome, if it ever could be. Any immediate problems that had lasted these few days could surely last another day. Both the Marino and the Hamasaki families could survive another few days in the refugee camp.

Alex left the complex, leaving the contamination behind, and entered a person-sized transport ship. She turned off her additional radiation shielding. Her HUD activated as it connected to the network, although Grace's normal video feed didn't appear. Alex frowned. Their networks were likely overloaded. It would appear in a moment. Alex issued the command to send the radiation complex on a trajectory that would eventually throw it into the Sun.

Alex navigated her transport over to the nearest part of the station and flew in through the shielding that kept the atmosphere in and the vacuum out. She was surprised to find herself on the far edge of the refugee camp, not at the crossover point between the refugee camp and the station. She pulled up a current map of the station. Everything had yet again been rearranged. The entire station's floor plan now spiraled to maximize natural light and visibility of the stars. While there were some dedicated places to view the Earth, those had to be specifically sought out. The artificial atmosphere and sky currently mimicked a pretty clear blue, semi-cloudy day.

Walking paths sloped gently to almost follow the spiral curve, encouraging exercise, as people had to walk to get to the cafeteria for food. Multiple cafeterias, Alex saw on the map. Alex approved. She altered her clothing to nondescript jeans and a t-shirt to match the style of people she could see ahead walking between buildings. She supposed her pallor might make her unrecognizable, but she added a wig and baseball cap just to be certain.

Grace's video feed still hadn't appeared and Alex tried toggling to her other childrens'. Theirs didn't come up either. She tried calling Grace directly and the resulting "Person unavailable." made her stomach drop.

Alex created a privacy shield and called Cal, overriding his 'Do not disturb unless dire' setting.

"Founder?" Cal's voice sounded scratchy and tired. No video feed came up. "Are you back?"

"Yes, it's over. They're all gone. Cal," she bit her lip, terrified of the answer. "Where's Grace?"

"She's fine." Cal's video feed appeared. His hair was spiked at weird angles from his pillow, but he'd swapped his SEL clothing into a bathrobe. He looked as exhausted and beaten as she felt, possibly even more so. "At least I think she is. She should be. I needed the island's dome to protect some of the ocean or we'd have lost it all. We couldn't lift off with enough water and life to have a sustainable ocean with the biodiversity we need. Lucas helped me check the numbers."

Cal went on, "We moved the whole island with the ocean below it southwest and expanded the dome out over the Coral Sea and some of the Great Barrier Reef. I couldn't save much of Queensland, as Lucas had to slice off the surface that already had too much radiation, acid water, and ash, but at least some of the Earth is protected. We'll have to keep rearranging it as the continents shift. Right now they've got just over 2000 square kilometers that's very oddly shaped."

Cal put his hand over his face. "I chose marine life over people, Founder. We have plenty of people, but only a little marine life. I'm sorry."

Alex was having a hard time breathing. "The communication, Cal? The communication. Why can't I contact her?"

"The entire dome had to be completely opaque to prevent radiation and to maintain the temperature. There wasn't time to establish a reasonable heat-exchange system, let alone a communication channel. We can't go down there and they can't come up here. Lucas says he can't create a teleportation door between us. I didn't even know that was a possibility. The dome is perfectly pressurized and stable as it is right now. We can't risk compromising that."

Alex's brain slowly translated this. Cal had trapped her daughter on a dead planet to save some fish. Alex swallowed. How had her future self not warned her? Maybe she should have been able to get into that file already? No, she knew the file's password now with absolute certainty. She should never have gone without communication for so long. Alex pulled up her phone registry. Jay was on the station, albeit in the refugee camp, but on station. How was she going to tell him she'd failed to save their daughter? Why hadn't she insisted Lucas focus on stabilizing that doorway technology instead of assigning all of those other tasks?

Cal tried to reassure her. "Oscar Straum is down there. He's the leading ecologist in that area, an expert on both land and the Great Barrier Reef. Saral Thrache is also there and you know he's one of our top SEL manipulators. Between the two of them, they can maintain the environment and keep it safe."

Alex cut the connection to Cal and bent forward, hyperventilating. Then she raised her head upward and screamed. The sound absorbed into the privacy shield, leaving her hollow and nauseated. She told herself that someone would step up and take care of her babies, but they were too young, too vulnerable, to be on their own. Numbly, she wiped away her tears, lowered the privacy shield, and started the long walk back toward her own lab. She would review all of the data herself and find a solution. Just because Lucas couldn't figure it out didn't mean she couldn't.

Alex was about halfway across the massive refugee camp when she heard a scream. Instinctively she turned toward the apartment building and made her way down the narrow hall. The rooms were barely habitable, just large enough for beds and desks, almost a caricature of school dorm rooms, and these were the ones with larger rooms for families. She followed the sound of weeping to a partially open door.

Inside, three young adult men were antagonizing a father, a mother, and a daughter. One held the mother, with a knife to her neck, to prevent the father from doing anything. The daughter clung to the father. Another of the attackers had his knife ready should the father try anything, while the last was digging through what looked like a school backpack.

Alex frowned, consumed by despair, anger, frustration, and sadness. Grace was trapped on a toxic, destroyed planet. Good people were dead, while these thugs decided to terrorize an already traumatized family. And Alex knew, with unequivocal mathematical certainty, that their habitat was overpopulated and the problems were nearly insurmountable.

As if she were floating outside of herself, Alex watched herself tilt her head at the gang, curiously devoid of emotion. She surrounded the three young men with her picobots and incinerated them. They vanished into bright flames and all that remained was dust. Alex didn't even care that one of the three was a Marino. The backpack fell to the floor and its contents, a couple schoolbooks and a teddy bear, fell out.

Interviewer: When did you know you were going to create a space station and your own country?

Founder: Do you think children should eat out of trash cans and be brutalized by the worst dregs of humanity?

Interviewer: I don't understand, Founder.

Founder: I have complete recall both visually and audibly. Sal suggested that I use this ability to do something I really wanted, and at the time, the only thing I wanted was a safe place. Food off a plate, not from a dumpster.

Interviewer: You're referring to Salvatore Marino?

Founder: Yes. He was a good man. Art lover. Savior of humanity.

Interviewer: But you created Colony One?

Founder: Sal suggested that I build a society where children would be safe. Our current situation is serendipitous.

Interviewer: Are children safe here? You executed three teens without trial, without following Colony One's investigation and forum process.

Founder: Innocent people will be safe, but we're overpopulated. Those teens were adults under our law and were fully aware of what they were doing. Security has confirmed this. Humanity can no longer tolerate crime. We do not have the space or the resources to provide rehabilitation and Colony One's way of life shall not be compromised.