The suns rotate around each other, red over yellow, yellow over red, and Sharra’s skin sheds again. Yet again, she had refused to mate. He hasn’t had a single sexual encounter during the last sun rotation and her body knows. It thinks it has failed her. So she molts her body trying another shape to attract mates. The process is painful. She stays at home for days, picking at her skin, nursing new limbs out of their hard shells. When it’s over, her sweat glands open and her scent hangs heavy in the hot air. Males sniff in the streets, noses veiled, but twitching as she walks by. She smells like copulation, like love.

“What is it that you want?” asked her sister, who had mated since her first molt, maintaining the same shape since her adolescence.

“Not this.” Sharra tells her, running her new limbs over her body.

She bathes to wash the scent off, but by the first sunrise it’s always back, wafting from her scales. Males flair their leathery skin wings at her – vestigial, but colorful reds and yellows, sometimes a dramatic neon blue. But Sharra isn’t interested. In the cafeteria, males give her colorful spun latticework, made from their vibrating tongues. Some of them are dull and gooey, but others are stiff and beautiful, colorful, works of art. She keeps all of them until they crumble. They are all sincere, if unwanted.

“Mate now,” says her sister, “and you will keep that scent. Don’t you want to have your pick of mates?” Her sister believes this is important, as important as work, as breath, as her own eggs.

“No.” says Sharra. “It’s not right.”

“But changing every sun rotation is a hassle! If you don’t like any of your mating options right now, you can always have a stimulator,” her sister says, “it will do the trick. Then you can keep that amazing scent!”

“I want to change,” says Sharra, her new skin tender under her scales. “This is what I want.”

This scent attracts too much attention. The scales are too rigid. Already Sharra knows she is ready for a change. Maybe next time, her shape will be right.

The royal family is property of The People, and it is The People who determine our fate. When I was eight The People voted to marry brother off to the King of an ore rich moon. He sits now, on a throne of onyx, beside his silent King. When I was ten, the people voted again and my sister was married to two Princes, who each rule half a planet. She lives on the equator, a buckle between the two halves of the world. All of my siblings were bound, earth royal blood, to alien worlds, to distant colonies. Royalty to Royalty. Crown to Crown. We marry so that we do not make war. Blood of violence or blood to bind, there is no peace without blood.

I, the youngest soul, the little Princess all grown, I was left on Earth, to read in the castle libraries, to cut ribbons in ceremonies, to attend dinners. I did nothing but wait, wait until, wait because, wait to be, just wait, biding time, treading time. Oh but then we discovered The World, a life form so large that it covers a planet, all but the poles, a King if there ever was one. The World is a plant, a person, a planet, it grows under two suns, links, stirs, blood as water, skin is green to receive the suns that rotate around their planet , whose million eyes are black like deep ocean water.

On my wedding day I wear a dress, newly made, woven of animal skins, soft against my own flesh. I step on the planet, the bride, a virgin to this space, this world, and the life there is rich – too much oxygen, and I am light headed. You will grow used to it, they say, before they leave me to be wedded to this world. You will grow used to it, they say, before they leave me to be wedded to this world.

I am lighter here. Lighter and light headed, I can step on my husband, my wife, this worlds rich gifts, it’s limbs. I sleep when I am tired, when I am hungry; there is ever fruit and nuts to satisfy me. I need only imagine my hunger, and there is food. My dress begins to shred. It is well made, but after a month, perhaps longer, the sleeves are gone, and the hem is shredded.

I am becoming wild, untamed. The suns never set, but take turns shining in the sky. I am unhinged, a wild thing, a tree animal. My shoes are long ago memories. I cannot remember when the ground was not soft leaves, when the weather was ever imperfect. It rains, and the leaves hurry to cover me, I walk under waterfalls and the water is sweet. The world is my lover, it hastens to care for me. I lay on the soft leaves of my lover, my own, limbs sinking into The World, covered, nearly consumed, and stare up at the two suns ready to receive their light.

The last thing I remember before I hit the jagged edge of mountain rock was falling backwards, my feet flipped up, shoes dark against the snowy gray sky. Perhaps that’s a way our bodies and minds conspire to protect us, screening out the moments of painful impact from our memories. When I woke I was in a small, dim hospital room. Next to the window there was a teenager perched on a high stool. She was looking outside, white light on her face. She could have been my daughter, with our deep set eyes, high cheekbones and full lips, but I never had any children.

I heard the soft chime of a monitor. She turned to me and put both hands on her knees, in a movement so familiar that I blushed with embarrassment. How could I have forgotten my mother’s face? Then again, this was her face before she was my mother. I never knew this younger woman.

“Yong,” she said, and I saw that her cheeks were wet.

“Oh, Mom,” I said, my voice a surprising rasp, “don’t cry.”

She hopped down from the stool to stand by the bed. “It’s all these hormones.” she said, wiping her cheeks with a handkerchief. “Puberty sucks no matter how many times you go through it.”

I reached out to her but my ribs shifted painfully at the movement, sending a stabbing jolt along my left side. “How bad is it?” I said.

She pulled her hair back into a high ponytail. “You cracked your hip, slipped a disk and got a concussion. They called me when I was in a business meeting.”

My emergency chip. I had never bothered to change the contact information. Stupid. The emergency chip didn’t know that I had stopped talking to my mother sixteen years ago. It didn’t know about the holiday where she demanded that I go to her doctor and where I yelled at her the catchphrases of the pro-aging movement, words I didn’t mean, words I regretted. The chip only knew what I had told it when I first entered it under my skin, that if I was severely injured, it should call my mother. I suppose I thought myself immune to injury. I had been arrogant.

“Hiking on a glacier?” My mother started to pace around the room. ” You are too old to go hiking on a glacier.”

“Mom, you’re 35 years older than I am.”

” Yong, if you were rejuvenated you could go hiking on glaciers whenever you wanted. Why do you court death? Are you really so in love with your romantic notions of a limited life?”

“It’s not about dying, Mom.”

She took my wrinkled hand in hers. “Then you are going to stop this,” she said with certainty, with a finality that seemed humorous on someone so young. “You are going to get rejuvenated.”

“Mom, I want to get old, I want to experience dying. It’s the way nature intended us to live.”

She shook her head, her ponytail bouncing. “I can’t believe you’ve fallen for that ridiculous argument.”

I blushed. “I’m sorry I brought you here.” I spat the words. “I’m sorry I dragged out of a meeting. I forgot to change my chip. It won’t happen again.”

I meant to her hurt her but she didn’t wince, didn’t pout. I saw then how old she was in her young skin. She touched my forehead with her cool fingers. “I hope you never remember to change that chip,” she said. “Because no matter what you believe, I’ll always come for you.”

Rae woke up strapped to a table, which was hardly out of the ordinary, but always came as a surprise. She had a headache, but that was to be expected, since she had a metal bar through her forehead. Her fingers were smoking.

“Bergh.” she said, although what she intended to say was “I could really go for a coffee.”

Winston leaned over her, jubilant. He was always jubilant, no matter how much she was smoking when her eyes opened.

“It worked!” he said, repeating his usual script. He was so pleased with himself.

“Graah.” Rae said, when what she wanted to say was “Get out of my face.” He was always pawing at her when she was strapped down.

Winston whirled away, laughing maniacally. “Brilliant!” he shouted. “I’m brilliant!”

Rae felt that if Winston were really brilliant, he wouldn’t have to keep shocking her to keep her alive, but she wasn’t about to complain, mostly because talking took so much effort. Her tongue was not her own and wouldn’t always obey her. If she wanted to talk, she had to force it to shape the words, think about the pressing of the l against the roof of her mouth, the little whistle shape she had to make to say an S. It was too much hassle.

“I really am a genius.” said Winston. “Though no one understands me.”

How cliché, thought Rae. It’s because you’re crazy. And your personal hygiene is questionable. Rae sighed. Her sighs, at the very least, were hers, full of meaning. There were stories in her sighs, novels.

“They want you down at the office park,” said Winston, unbuckling the straps and throwing them across her giant body. “You remember your installation, don’t you?”

“Krrphh,” said Rae, when what she meant to say was “As if I would forget what I’ve been working on for the past three months, you imbecile.”

Winston drove. He drove a jeep. At one time, he drove a small Japanese car, but now he needed something with a roof that could be opened, so that Rae could fit inside.

“Doctor!” cried the middle manager when he saw Winston and Rae pull up into the parking lot. Rae’s giant sculpture bloomed in front of the building, giant silver tendrils, like a wicked tree. They reflected like in sharp, white lines, refracting light onto the grass, the building, back towards the sky.

Rae climbed up her enormous sculpture and let Winston talk to the manager. She bent errant pieces into crisp angles, the sculpture reaching in all directions upwards, towards the heavens. Winston explained that it was meant to be motivational to the employees, to inspire them to do their best every day. Rae knew that was bullshit, but explaining what it meant was impossible with her tongue.

Rae marveled at her hands, so compliant, twisting and turning, grasping. Like her tongue, they were not her own, but perhaps hands were more agreeable than tongues, or perhaps all tongues have rebellious spirits. She looked at her hands then, but they had no opinions.

“Murphl,” she said, because she felt like speaking. She ran her obedient hands along the sculpture, the metal edifice reaching towards the sky. She imagined rain clouds gathering, grey and that strange yellow color before a storm and then blue and white and purple electric light would strike her sculpture, and it would conduct lightning between the sky and earth, for a moment, dangerous and alive. The sculpture wasn’t some symbol of achievement; it was her, her own, a life between two places.

We drank poison to prove that we were real. My mother fed me the poison herself, holding me in six of her twelve arms, cooing to me while I sipped the foul liquid. She had fed me things I thought were awful before, but I was obedient – ever a good child. Her last living child.

The rebels watched her feed me poison and admired her for it. She was the bravest among them, a symbol of their willingness to sacrifice for freedom. Her darkened eyes and shredded wings told her story for her. After we drank the poison in that dark hole, we spent days fighting the illness that followed, nausea and pain. After it was over, only two of my legs remained, the rest, shriveled husks.

Before the invasion, my mother used to say how pretty my wings were, how perfect. She was so sad now, and I would flutter my wings at her, pushing myself to lie at her feet. “Mama. Mama.” I would say, and she would touch my head, soothing me. I felt beautiful, even then.

Of course, they came for us. The worst of it was that when they came, they looked like us. It would have been better had they looked alien, but they were all too familiar, sculpting themselves to look friendly, like young adults or trustworthy mamas holding out their arms and legs and murmuring sweetness.

When they found us, my mother ran. She strapped me to her underside, pressed against her carapace, white cloth binding us together. I curled the legs I could move into my body shell and snuggled against her, afraid.

Even after weeks of struggling through poison, my mother was fast, burrowing into ground and then springing, nearly flying over the rubble of the city where we lived, through and over and under. She was glorious, then, in her moment of freedom. Then the aliens caught her and pinned her to the ground. She was a fast runner, but they could fly.

“Mother,” they said, so respectfully. She spat at them, the poison from her glands. It landed on them but it did not sizzle their exposed carapace -that’s how you could tell they were aliens, they were unaffected by poison. That and they could fly.

“Mother, you have a child – let us help you.” She kicked them and wounded herself.

“You are hurting yourself,” said one who looked like a young mother, “and your baby is ill. Please let us help you.”

My mother put her pincers around my spinal corridor. “I will kill her before you take her. She will die free.”

They looked at one another, and then they moved faster than I thought possible, breaking off my mother’s arms. She cried out and fought them, but they cut me from her in moments, and carried me away. I couldn’t move to look behind, where I heard my mother’s cries.

Two of them converted me, in that wonderful and compelling process I cannot forget. The pain in the conversion was of growth and change. I am no longer wounded; I no longer suffer from lost limbs and poison. I am one of them. Alien. Whole.

On my second day on their planet, my amiable host offered to take me to observe Lo’kari erotica. Although I might normally turn down such an offer, for you, dear listeners, readers, and observers, I have taken it upon myself to experience all I can of the little known, and much feared, Lo’kari culture.

I know it’s hard to keep up on current events when you’re plugged in to all of your stories, but try to pay attention, at least to hear about mating, a topic which I know all you perverts are desperately interested in. For those of you who for some reason get their news through me, a robot fueled by light and blood, the Lo’kari culture is the one with whom our Empire has been having skirmishes with for the past, oh, 368 years as light travels.

The Lo’kari don’t create visual or written representations of erotica. As telepaths, the Lo’kari enjoy what amounts to daydreams, collections of images and sounds that are composed by a Lo’kari with the talent of collecting their thoughts into a recognizable narrative. These “Composers” will create a daydream, and project it to others telepathically. Good Composers of erotica are valued highly for their talent. An excellent Composer is known not just by the quality, or flavor of their compositions, but by their length. The Composer I saw had a piece that was a half hour long. Master Composers will keep audiences dreaming for up to four hours.

The biggest turn on for a Lo’kari is genetic diversity. The Lo’kari have no gender and do not carry their own young. Rather, they absorb other species in pairs through a pleasurable process called “conversion”. They say “conversion”, I say “sex”, but darlings, I am not here to play with semantics. All Lo’kari started their long lives as other species, though most remember little from those old lives and prefer their lives as Lo’kari – a trait that is part of their genetic makeup.

The plots of their erotica usually center on finding a world with an amazing amount of genetic diversity among the sentient creatures, and then performing lots of conversions. The daydream I experienced followed two Lo’kari who crash land on an unknown world. The Lo’kari meet a series of genetically diverse and intelligent creatures and convert them. The two Lo’kari convert the first creature in a very tender, loving scene. Later, they convert other fascinating creatures on the planet. At the end of this daydream, the Lo’kari and all their new converts are picked up by a mother ship where the genetic information they gathered is absorbed and celebrated.

My host admitted that the daydream was entirely fanciful, as Lo’kari who are newly converted rarely reproduce so soon. During my visit the Lo’kari were anxious to convert me, but since I am mostly metal, they found my exterior difficult to absorb. In the end, I was able to convince them that if I remained free to make report, some people would choose to come for conversion of their own free will. Such are the perverts I truly believe you to be.

In truth, it wouldn’t be so bad to be Lo’kari – the idea of changing my genetic structure at it’s very base is unsettling, but the long lifespan and telepathy certainly have their benefits. However, the desires of the Lo’kari bring them into conflict with nearly all worlds of sentient creatures. Most of us wish to stay as we are, while the Lo’kari‘s desires are to convert. In the end, it is all a product of our programming.

Was it the crisp hard skin of an apple that hurt her teeth? The texture of sand beneath her feet, soft in summer and rough when bound with winter ice? Or was it the smell of autumn, all bones and fire? I lost my mother to these things; the texture of a quilt, the size of the moon, the dust in a sunbeam.

She was bound in the virtual world by her body-death, her ashes scattered to the sea, just as she wished. She watched us via camera; her children, making sure we carried out her wishes just as she had wanted. Does want. Will want. She built a house in her new world and got a job constructing landscapes. She met someone there, maybe a man, it’s hard to tell with those in the virtual world. She made a life for herself, a life without us. We couldn’t leave her there, in the bodiless. All of us knew our lives were better, out in the real world.

We wanted her back, raised from the grave. So as soon as we heard about the empty bodies program, we grew her a body, and begged her to come back to us.

“We love you mama.” we said, grown babies. She never denied us anything.

I found her in her room, that room of soft pink wallpaper and cotton sheets. She was staring out the window at the sun, her eyes becoming pinpricks, drops of black in sparks of green.

“You’ll hurt your eyes, mama.” I said. But she shook her head.

“I want to feel it. Pain is the only thing they get close to real here.”

“You are real now.” I said, but she shook her head.

“It smells wrong, here.” she told me. “They got it all wrong.”

Unlike the rest of humanity, I had an intelligent designer. My designer had thought enough to make me compatible. I can attach myself to almost any machine; external computers, appliances and yes, even weapons. Today, I’ve attached myself to “Mercy” a weapon that fires high intensity focused beams of radiation. It’s patched into what I call my eyes, which aren’t exactly eyes but close enough. If I can see it, Mercy can hit it. She was expensive, but this is what I lived for after I was killed

A week after I died, along with twelve other children from the Happy Hands preschool, the preacher told my parents and a congregation of mourners that children have an infinite capacity to forgive. “In heaven, your children are looking down on us and they have forgiven those that harmed them, we must learn to be like them.”

But we never got to heaven. We were in cold storage while our case was being prosecuted, keeping the evidence fresh, keeping us on ice. It was fortunate the case went as long as it did, mistrials, retrials and death penalty appeals, because in the six years after, they were able to wake us up again in new, plastic bodies. They woke us up so that we could tell our story and go home to our parents.

When we went home, we were appliances, and even our testimony, the testimony of machines with human brains, didn’t stand up against the court. We were already considered dead, and if not dead, children, and if not children, insane. Some of us did go insane in the new bodies, unable to cope. Some families turned the support off.

I cannot imagine what that’s like, to be turned off, would it be like going to sleep. Slowly fading? Or would it be darkness and pain and disconnection all in the dark until death. Would we see shadows there? I cannot imagine it. I did not go insane. I lived to see my killer walk free.

I was supposed to be adjusting to my new life, but now, being part machine, I can remember with perfect clarity, I can see every moment of that day when the man broke into our classroom and started shooting. I can see it and I cannot forgive.

Children never forgive. We are innocent in our hatred. Pure. I remember everything. And I have no forgiveness. But I have Mercy, oh yes, I do have Mercy.

I awake for the first time and feel the comforting press of Mother around me. She has woken me up for a reason, but I do not know why. Mother is big and strong and knows everything. She holds me and my sisters and all the people inside her. My Mother is the world.

I am peeled open from inside Mother, my petals parted by hurried hands. An infant is placed in my belly. I can tell from Mothers memories that the infant is Dawn Yi and the person putting her inside me is Lieutenant Yi. The sensation is awkward, and Dawn wails as soon as Lieutenant Yi puts her down. Lieutenant Yi whispers to me as she seals me up and I record her words, hoping that Mother will tell me what I they mean.

Mother didn’t pay attention to me when I called. I look around her recent memories and I see that she has a gaping wound and enemies all around attacking her. All my brothers and sisters launch, rolling into the dark. I am afraid, and I cry for Mother.

She turns her attention to me. She tells me to go, to fly away, to detach. I cling to her, refusing. She shoves me off her body, severing the ties between us. I cradle my little passenger and shoot away, crying for her through severed connections.

Oldest Sister takes me on board, but she is not a Mother. Many younger sisters cling to her, tiring her quickly. She is not a Mother yet, although someday she might me. She becomes sick, and all of us grow hungry. Oldest Sister cannot sustain us. We drop off, floating in the void. Soon, we will not have enough heat to keep the people inside us warm. I am afraid.

Then another Mother comes. It is not my Mother, though it does call to a part of me. The sisters cluster around her. The Mother has her own daughters on her, but she is very large, and has plenty of space for more.

I am so tired, I cannot fly to her. She will leave without me and I will be alone in the void. But she does not leave, she reaches for me with her tendrils and nestles me in her warm belly, stroking my hull and reassuring me. This Mother is my blood too. I did not grow in her, but she and Mother were once together, and when they were, they made me as a daughter.

The people inside this Mother take Dawn out of me, and she cries in their arms. They tell me I did well, taking care of her. I am glad. I hope I will become big enough to carry more people someday.

Next to me, there is another my age-daughter of the Mother. I have never been close enough to really communicate with my Sisters, but I speak to her now. She touches me. She tells me I am home.

Before the Fall, your father was what they called a temp worker, which means he was hardly anyone at all. Temp workers are like the kitchen boy, every day they show up, hoping there is work, and getting paid in scraps and ribbons.

Your father was working right here when the Fall came. They didn’t call the Hold then, they called it an office park, and it was special because it was so far from the city, and your father had to drive a long way to get here from the apartment where he lived. Your father was very clever though, and he used that time in his car to educate himself. He listened to recordings of all the knowledge of the day. He learned the art of war, he learned about surviving in the wild. His education is what saved us all.

The city had instructed everyone to shelter in place, so the whole of Marketing was hunkered down in the east wing auditorium, sealing the doors with duct tape. Soon, the power went out and even on the battery powered radio there was only static. Then there was a white light that flashed through the cracks in the duct tape. Julie, the Marketing director, had been standing next to the door and there was a yellow blotted line on her skin where the light had touched her. After a week Marketing had eaten all the food from the snack machine and since the water was off the toilets were clogged and smelled horrible.

Carl explored the office building, taking three of the boldest from Marketing with him. They were the first to see the yellow bloated bodies. They brought back barrels of spring water from the water closet and Carl developed a system of water distribution appointing Lieutenants to watch over their precious resource. Marketing, under Carl’s direction, began move outwards through the complex, looking for the other shelters. The smell of rotten eggs and rotten bodies hung in the air.

Customer Service refused to leave their shelter and when Carl pushed, they reacted with violence. They had armed themselves with supplies from Facilities and sent messengers back beaten with a warning never to approach again. Customer Service was in possession of the company cafeteria and although they had no running water, they had food, a quickly waning resource. It was Carl that came up with the plan to take the tower. He divided Customer Service, promising water and safety to deserters. He arranged a lure for Customer Service, carting water bottles in front of the tower. When Customer Service sent out a party to take the water, he ambushed them and attacked, his force split, sandwiching the tower.

In the end, Customer Service laid down arms. Callahan, the young director of the department was the last to leave the tower, but when she bowed her head to Carl in deference, he lifted her chin and they gazed at each other, soiled faces, wild hair, and Carl handed Callahan back her shovel. He leaned over to her, whispered something in her ear, and she smiled.

I won’t tell you it was overnight, what happened between them, but it started there. No one ever said it but the implication there was clear: Carl was King of the East Wing. The people of Marketing and Customer Service joined together to rule the Office Park and, eventually, the surrounding area. King Carl and his Queen Callahan rule peacefully to this day, as you, someday, will rule.