Page 26 of Her Alien Cyborgs
“As I said, I was too young to remember much, but there were a few older children. One of them was sent to the same orphanage as me. They remember things differently. There was no environmental failure. His parents told him that bad people were coming to make them leave, and they were going to resist. They brought him to the colony’s creche and told him to stay there until they came back for him.”
He squeezed her hand again in silent support, and she squeezed back. The simple but intimate gesture filled him with a deep need to protect and care for this female.
“That’s the story I believe. I think Dynamex found out about the colony and told them to leave. They were stupid enough to try and fight back. My parents and every other adult there died because they thought they could take on afraxxingcorporation. My parents were idiots. They should have left. Instead, they got themselves killed, and I was shipped off to an orphanage sponsored by the same assholes who made me an orphan.”
“Dynamex paid for your upbringing?” Kalan asked. “Why would they do that?”
“Because to them, we weren’t children. We were seized property and a source of future income. Once I was old enough, they sent me for aptitude testing so they could figure out whatjob I’d be best suited for. That’s what happened to every kid. They tested us and assigned us jobs. Since we worked for the company that sponsored us, they held back most of our pay in order to pay off the debts we incurred while growing up. They call it sponsoring, but it’s really just a loan. We had to pay it all back.”
“And what if you didn’t?” Kalan asked. To him, this sounded like another kind of prison sentence.
“We’re tagged.” She pulled her hand from his so she could roll up the sleeve of her shirt. She showed them a small scar on the underside of her forearm. “Anyone who tried to leave their assigned area was identified, tracked down, and punished.” She smoothed the fabric back over her arm. “I was one of the lucky ones. I showed an aptitude for piloting, so they sent me for training. I had to pay for that, too, but there are other ways to make money when your job is transporting freight from place to place. I made enough to pay off my debts before I turned thirty-five. After that, everything I earned was my own.” She patted the table. “Including theGambit.”
“That’s why you became a smuggler,” Fyr’enth said. “It was the only way to pay everything off quickly.”
“It was. I did it for another reason, too. If something happened to me before I paid everything off, my daughter would have inherited my debts.”
Despite everything he knew about corporations, that revelation surprised him. “What? How?”
“That’s the way it works. I might have bent a few laws here and there, but those assholes are the real criminals.”
“They are,” he agreed.
“But that still leaves me with one question,” Fyr’enth said.
“What’s that?” Hezza asked.
“Why do you call yourself Hezza?”
The female seated across from them grinned broadly. “When I was young, I had a lisp and couldn’t say my name properly. Over time, I started calling myself Hezza instead, and the name stuck.”
“Alyssa,” Kalan spoke her name slowly, letting it roll off his tongue. “I like it. You can keep calling me Kal if I can call you Alyssa.”
“Same for me,” Fyr’enth chimed in.
Hezza pretended to look thoughtful, but he already knew what her answer would be. She liked nicknames, but he wondered if anyone had ever given her one before.
“Alright. But I’m still working on another one for you, Kal. After all, Stormy here already has two.”
He blinked at her and then turned to stare at his brother. “Stormy?”
“I told her what my name meant.” Fyr’enth lifted his wings in a shrug. “I don’t think it struck the note of fear I was hoping for.”
Kalan’s only response was to laugh long and hard.
When he was finished, Hezza fixed him with a stare that could have made a charginggharhstufind somewhere else to be. “So, Kal. What does your name mean?”
Fraxx. Something told him she wasn’t going to be impressed with his name’s meaning, either.
“The executioner,” he said.
Sure enough, her lips twitched as she tried to suppress a grin. “I see that subtly isn’t something either of you is familiar with. I can respect that... Cutie.”
“Cutie?” He nearly choked on the word.
“Sure. Executioner. Cution. Cutie. I like it.” Hezza got to her feet and picked up her plate. “Cutie and Stormy, would you please help me with my least favorite part of any meal?”
“Of course,” he said, still trying to understand her logic.
