Ravana's Shadow (22) (Patreon)

Every citizen of the Institute wanted to watch the launch test. It didn’t matter whether kids were placed in completely separate apartments, or even undergoing Remedial treatment deep in the basement. Everyone wanted to see the Institute’s first attempt to escape the confinement of Mara’s gravity. With the success in this first test, Kit could secure the willing cooperation of her fickle population of young templates.

She took maximum advantage of the opportunity, of course. Far from discouraging her population from viewing the test, she asked Jay to dust off old projectors from storage, ensuring that every section of the Institute could watch.

She couldn’t be out with the majority sipping from a juice box. Despite the reflection she saw in the mirror every morning, Kit was still somehow in charge of the Institute. Maybe one day she would realize how to reconcile the dissonance of being the most mature citizen of a colony with members as old as written language in the world she came from.

Not today.

Today, Kit wore her dress uniform, then sat for two hours while Emma fussed over her messy hair and dusted her with makeup she was pretty sure wasn’t doing anything at all. Her reflection didn’t seem to be changing.

Emma would hear nothing of her objections of course and shoved her back into her chair until she was satisfied. "There we go. Try to keep from moving your ears too much until we're done filming, okay?"

Kit folded her arms, glaring at Emma—or glaring at her reflection in the huge mirror, anyway. The changing room was empty except for the two of them—and Jay, of course. She could never be without Jay during such a pivotal day in the Institute's history. He'd even given some advice at points, including on the acorn pin Emma used to hold her hair in place. The gold did look nice in her hair.

"I'm not sure how I'm supposed to do that," Kit said. "If our templates had normal ears, it wouldn't be a problem. These ones do what they want."

"They do what you tell them to," Emma said, spinning the chair slowly around. "It's not just subconscious, you have control. Use it."

Kit focused very hard on holding her ears in place, which meant they did the exact opposite, rotating back around and folding backwards. Emma groaned, throwing up her hands. "Mouse, make sure the documentary says I did my best. She had every opportunity."

Jay dutifully scratched that onto his tablet—though as far as Kit knew, there was no such documentary.

"Thanks, Emma! I didn't know you knew about movie makeup too."

"I don't," she said, without hesitation. "We had some kids who made movies maybe... two thousand years ago?" She counted on her fingers for a few seconds, then shrugged. "They're in Remedial now. Pretty sure they went down there to film, and just forgot what they were doing. You could try to bring them back if you want."

If we get that far, they can put together something using Forerunner's recordings. He's watching us from every corner of every room. Kit took a few cautious steps forward, testing the fit of the dress uniform. Like everything she wore, it was tailored perfectly, with a gap precisely in the right place for her enormous tail. Skirt, blouse, vest, and coat—almost dignified.

They could give her a few shiny medals, write her name in sharp black letters. But even making her boots a little extra tall couldn't make the body underneath look like anything other than it was; an 80% template.

She shifted back and forth in the mirror, tail sagging slightly the longer she looked. Maybe she should look into an older template, if only for days like this.

Or maybe Forerunner had been right from the start, and she should've just lied to Ravana until the day of their rendezvous, hoping their Forerunner wasn't intact enough to detect the deception. 

"Jay, can you make another note for me? Before we go to the control room."

Her assistant stood from his seat, hurrying over. He tilted his head sharply to one side, rolling his eyes. "No, I'd rather just stand here looking at you." He circled once around her, and mimed writing on the tablet with his little pencil.

Emma caught him by the shoulder. "It's rude to stare, mouse. You know that squirrel is way too young for you."

"For me to what?"

Emma looked like she had something obvious to say—but then she scratched her chin and looked away. "Dunno."

Kit thought maybe she knew—except her memory didn't make any sense. Maybe something about living together? Except they already did that. There was nothing that special about having the same quarters. 

"I want to investigate making a second version of our broadcasts," Kit said. "One where we use some kind of... effects... to make everyone look big." She stood on tiptoe to demonstrate, holding her hand all the way up to the ceiling. As close to it as she could reach, anyway. "Not something real, not new bodies. It just needs to look convincing."

Jay circled back around, then stopped right in front of her. He tilted his head to one side. "Why? They already know how we look. You sent them recordings from the colony, interviews... you won't trick him."

"It's not to trick him. I think it would just make us less scary. If we match his expectations for how we're supposed to look and act, he'll have fewer reservations about the mission. I think. Just make a note, okay? I'll look into it later."

He shrugged. "If you say so, Kit. Do you still want to send a message to Ravana before the test? We should probably get to the control room quick."

"Not too quick," Emma chided. "No running until after the test, Kit. Keep all those bits and pieces from falling out of place, okay?"

She nodded weakly. "Yeah. I'll walk fast, promise. No running."

She made it a few steps out the door before she started running. Kit wasn't going that fast—she couldn't move too quickly with the stupid skirt and boots anyway. Months of living on Mara had her used to going barefoot everywhere, enough that doing otherwise slowed her down.

Jay caught up after only a few steps, doing far better in his slacks than she did with her uniform. No fair that everyone said she looked better this way with a stupid skirt. "Didn't you just say—"

"I'm not running that far!" She reached the elevator, smacking awkwardly into the wall. It wasn't her fault it was so hard to stop in low gravity!

The door shut behind them, then began to ascend. Kit heard muttered voices outside—other colonists. Even unable to hear any specific conversation, she felt the eagerness in it. Today was the first day of their future.

Jay nudged her to turn away from the wall. He looked her over, then sighed, tugging at her vest. He poked at the pins in her hair, then turned the rocket on her uniform so it faced the right way. "Aren't you supposed to set the example for the rest of us?"

She stuck her tongue out. "The example of being reckless and brave, and doing things even though everyone says you can't. I think I'm pretty good at it."

Jay took his tablet back out. "You want to review your speech one more time? You could practice with me."

Kit considered, then shook her head sharply. "Nah. I'm not gonna give the one I memorized anyway."

Jay groaned loudly—then the door opened, and they walked out. 

The top floor was packed with colonists, filling in much of the available space. They'd left an aisle clear for Kit to use, leading to the shut control room doors. 

Part of that was just sensible design—they'd put the huge screen on the opposite wall, over the tiered sections leading deeper into the dome. That way anyone on any level would have a view—albeit some better than others.

Sawyer had a chair right next to the control room door, where he would have no view of the big screen at all. Even so, he stood up as she approached, patting Kit's tail as she passed. "Good luck, Director. Guess we're going to the stars together."

She nodded eagerly. "You were always gonna do that. I'm just here to give everyone a little nudge."

The automatic doors opened, into what had once been a cafe reserved for the 100% templates. All those exclusive services were closing down now, as Kit's transition towards standardized services for every member of the Institute continued. That meant a perfect, large space to use for Kit's command center.

Kit still remembered ancient views of NASA command centers from before the birth of the IEF, when dozens or even hundreds of people were needed to launch even a basic mission. Each one had specialized knowledge and performed some critical role or another to serve the ongoing operation.

This test required no such human interference. Technically speaking, they didn't need a single person involved in the process at all. Drones had built the test vehicle, drones had cameras and sensors recording every aspect of it, and drones would initiate the launch burn. Forerunner would control them all, as well as perform the first analysis of the test's eventual outcome. 

Kit had ordered the control room built in the style of one of that old footage anyway, with a dozen individual stations tiered towards a large display on the far side of the room.

Most of those stations were already occupied now, by the same colonists who had designed or supervised each individual section of the launch vehicle. Naturally there was Maddie up near the control chair, double-checking her numbers with a handheld calculator and a set of colored pencils. Rich was on her other side, watching a camera feed of the fuel system and monitoring a dozen different temperature readouts. 

Every member of the upcoming expedition was here, in fact—except Emma. Until the doctor accepted her downclass, she wouldn't fit on the mission, so would have to keep watching from the sidelines. 

However much longer she could, anyway. 

Kit circled around the room for a few minutes, shaking hands with everyone and catching up on their part of the project. She heard about safety checks from Ashley, on the precise measurements of the mock load from Tess, and got a breakdown of the mission plan for the 10,000th time from a breathless Maddie. 

Finally, launch arrived. She settled into the control chair near the center of the room. Despite its name, the seat had almost no actual controls—but it was positioned with a commanding view of the most important stations.

Others present with them had no station at all. Morgan sat near the back, right next to the door. Jay had the chair next to her, with a little folding desk for his tablet so he could write. 

Others had stations in back, like Sam. His role had nothing directly to do with the current mission, though it was no less important. "How is our signal to Ravana?"

"Clear," he answered. "Ready for me to connect you?"

Kit nodded, settling both arms on her chair. It rose into the air just a little, elevating Kit over the other occupants. 

Ravana's living quarters were growing familiar to Kit the more of them she saw in these conversations. Her counterpart usually spoke to her from an unflattering low angle, often drifting in microgravity surrounded by various bits of debris, or tools.

Garrick had shaved recently, judging by the thin stubble on his chin. The top of his jumpsuit was rolled back, and the thin shirt underneath was torn and stained with grease. His absurd outfit did make at least one thing clear to Kit; the human wasn't about to die of infection anytime soon.

Most of Garrick's bandages were gone, with fresh patches of pale skin underneath. The Pioneering Society's medical science had its own little miracles.

"Mara, that's new. Haven't seen that set before."

"Our control room," Kit said, before any of her colonists could speak. Maddie was already seething, and she hadn't even opened her mouth yet. Her tail smacked into the wall beside her, loud enough that Sam jumped from the comms station.

"We're preparing for a complete test launch of the first stage, with a simulated load for the remaining stages. These conditions should be an accurate simulation of the Ravana mission six months from now."

Garrick squinted down at something—probably the screen of the device he was speaking on. "Well look at you, all dressed up and everything. I don't see the point of all that effort. I don't care how you look."

No, you just think our colony is stupid and want us to change everything about it, Kit thought. Of course, there was nothing they could do to fix any of what bothered Ravana's governor. As Kit now knew with painful certainty, none of her population could grow up, maybe ever.

"We care. Mara is watching. Most of our population has contributed something to this mission. After our success today, I'm sure others will too."

Garrick looked away from her for a second, squinting at another display. "Can they see me now? All your people? I want to talk to them."

"No," Kit said. "But if you have anything for my senior staff, you can tell them. Most of the people in here are going to be on the mission out to Ravana. Raise your hands if you're going, everybody."

Several kids raised their hands, including Kit herself. She had to set an example.

If she thought that was going to make Garrick a little less insufferable, she was mistaken. His view shifted, distorting briefly near the edges. Forerunner did his best to smooth that stuff out, warping the background but keeping the image focused on the speaker.

It stopped moving a few moments later, with Garrick now floating in front of a single large vat. Machines hummed in the space behind him, and he had covered his face with a cloth.

"Just that you people should get your asses moving," he said. "Living in a virtual lunchbox with a computer taking care of you, you won't know how bad things are in the real world. So, look and appreciate." He pointed the camera away from himself, in through the clear lid of the tank. 

"You cannot imagine how rancid this smells. There are things in here you can't even describe. Rotten food, rotten plants, and rotten people. I'm living next to this, and thanks to you, I'm eating the things that come out of it. Try to remember what eating is like, even if you don't have to do any of it in your little simulation."

Kit folded both arms. She already had an angry response ready, but she wasn't the first one to speak this time.

"Obviously you don't know anything about running an interplanetary mission," Maddie said. "The time horizon you've given us is already ludicrous. We're already pushing the boundaries of what our materials and expertise allow. How much faster do you think we can go?"

The time delay felt surprisingly short, despite the pressure of so many watching this moment.

"I'm not even really talking to you," Garrick said, annoyed. "I get it. So, I guess your persona can listen to me. I'm not going to roll over and just do what you want. You want Ravana, earn it. I don't care how twisted your subroutines got that makes you think kids will get me to cave. If we don't live, you can die on that rock."

He pushed the camera away, and only then seemed to look at anyone. "Go on then, Kit. Do what the computer makes you." The transmission ended, leaving Kit and her senior staff in stupefied silence.

Kit remained in her seat for a few seconds, squeezing her fingers together so tight they hurt. She took a single sharp breath in, then out.

"Glad you didn't let him talk to the colony," Morgan said.

"Agreed." Sadie had the seat just beside Morgan. She stood up, rocking back and forth in place. "Thought I knew how barbarians act from you, Kit. Does he always sound like that?"

"Like he's barely talking to you?" Kit asked. "And he never hears what you're saying? Pretty much." She leaned forward, resting her head in her hands. Of all the people left alive on that colony, why did it have to be an angry old miner? 

"Forget it," Kaden said, from one row down. "Let him think what he wants. So long as he can keep his word when we get there. We're about to launch a rocket!"

"Yeah!" Chase agreed, just as loud. "You know what makes our colony different from his? Ours succeeded. If Mara had all the mass Ravana did, there would be like... millions of us."

"All clear for engine pre-check," Maddie said, a little louder. The fox was clearly bored of waiting. That meant the other colonists would be too. "Anything else, Director?"

"No. This is your show." She sat back on the seat. "Sam, get us a nice clean recording. Time to launch a rocket.”