Her Brother's Keeper: A Story of Alpha Centauri
A Very Busy Afternoon

Colonial Year 258; 207 Terran years after the Founding

Christiana was in a hurry. A big hurry. She was going to be tardy to practice once again. Mrs. Parker, the teacher of her last period of the day, had held her after class for the third time this month.

To save even a few seconds of time, she did not properly strap her mask closed, nor did she double check the seals. Instead, she used one hand to hold it tight against her face as she rushed through the ’lock before the outer doors finished opening.

While the teachers frowned upon such actions, they tolerated it for those dashing between structures on the small campus, since the buildings were fairly close together. Even if the children had a slight leak in their masks, five minutes of minimal exposure to the elevated see-ohh-too in the outside air wouldn’t hurt them.

The problem was that she wasn’t just rushing between buildings on the elementary school grounds. Instead, she was dashing from her campus to the middle school complex, which was roughly half of a kay-emm away. While five hundred and fifty emms did not sound very far, it was a major risk for the blonde-haired girl. After all, if she ended up being caught by someone on either school’s faculty, the resulting lecture would cause her to be even later than she already was.

Christiana cut between two buildings and ducked in back of a nearby hill, trying to remain undetected.

‘For once, being small comes in handy,’ she thought as she rushed onwards. She kept hoping that the long scraggly grass covering the hillside would provide enough cover for her to go unnoticed.

After emerging from behind the mound, she continued to hurry until she reached the wide pond’s backside, which marked the two schools’ unofficial border. After all, students from both complexes would visit the pond regularly to feed the large colorful koi fish which lived inside. However, the students rarely visited the backside of the body of water because that was where the shed housing the pond’s equipment was located. Technically, this area was off-limits to the children, but it didn’t stop the kids from cutting through here from time to time.

As she moved by the building, Christiana could hear the pumps and see-ohh-too scrubbers inside of it hard at work. In her science class, they taught her they pumped the resulting cleansed air underneath the pond where it created tiny bubbles. These bubbles added extra oxygen to the liquid and forced out dissolved carbon dioxide. Jets circulated this see-ohh-too free water throughout the small lake, allowing the koi to live outside. During the same lecture, Christiana learned fish farms used the same process to cleanse the ocean aech-too-ohh that they use. However, the farms did things on a much grander scale.

After passing the building, she continued along the shore until she came to a set of stepping stones. These concrete “stones” cut across the water’s surface to the side of the pond closest to the middle school. After looking around to see if any teachers were nearby, she began speed walking over top of the stepping stones to shave off a bit more time. As she quickly hopped from one small circular concrete platform to another, she could observe many koi swarming in the water underneath her.

“Sorry, I don’t have any crumbs for you today,” Christiana muttered with a little regret. She almost felt like she was teasing the poor fish, since kids would feed the koi from these miniature platforms. Thus, the animals associated someone on the stepping stones with food. Right now she did not have time to stop and give them a snack, no matter how much she wanted to.

After crossing the pond, only fifty emms remained between her and the middle school. This was the most dangerous part of her journey, since there was nowhere to hide between her and the closest educational building.

“Here goes nothing,” she whispered to herself as she dashed across the open space, hoping that she would not get caught.

On that day, Christiana was lucky because none of the teachers saw her cross the grass-covered field. However, it turned out that she had had a very close call.

A few moments later, as she was about to turn a corner between two buildings just inside of campus, she came face to face with an instructor. The lecturer would have seen Christiana running across the open field if she had rounded the bend only a moment earlier. As it was, the middle-aged instructor scowled at her as she passed by, the eyes above the woman’s fully fastened mask clearly communicating disdain. After all, she had her filter unfastened, and she had almost literally run head-on into a teacher.

In response, she gave the instructor a quick but respectful bow before dashing on. If the lecturer had taken offense to the girl’s actions, the sensei would have called the girl back and given her a good tongue lashing. Once again, Christiana was in luck since the tutor simply continued walking, making no comment whatsoever.

After running for another five minutes, she finally made it to her aim: the middle school gym. However, by that moment, despite all of her rushing, she was still a quarter of an hour late...

-----

After a long and grueling practice, Christiana emerged from the gym with her long blonde hair wet from the shower and her mask properly fastened. Saito-sensei had held her well after the normal time to make her do extra calisthenics and weight training to punish her repeated tardiness. As a result, by the time she left the building, Mainday had ended, and Alterday had begun.

Since the Fall Quartanoctis was only two weeks away, a-cent-a was already high in the sky, even though a-cent-b had only recently set. By the illumination of the second sun, Christiana could see her surroundings clearly. However, that would not be the case this time of the evening in three and a half months when Winter rolled around. If the teacher held her this late near the Winter Longanocte, then she would have to walk to the bus stop in the darkness of Night. That was not something that she looked forward to, despite the many lights lining the walkways.

‘I really don’t want to be caught out here by myself during the Night,’ she thought as she trudged away from the Middle School with her aching muscles. ‘It’s bad enough that I have to take part in the blasted tournament. Punishing me for being late was just the cherry on top.’

She slowly walked towards the motorcoach shelter and therefore downtown. As she did so, her eyes automatically went to the tallest structures in the small city, namely the carbon precipitation towers. These fifty emm tall pillars in-took see-ohh-too processed it and released ohh-too back into the air. It then transformed the pure see into solid square chunks of five see-emms per side. They later hauled away the resulting “synthetic coal” via train and buried it, thus sequestering it and speeding up the terraforming process.

She could easily see the irony in this, despite her young age. She had learned in history class people had mined coal for centuries back on Old Earth. Meanwhile, here on Cooper’s World, the exact opposite was true.

The squeal of the motorcoach’s air brakes drew her out of her musings when it arrived. After scanning her bus pass, she nodded to the driver before taking the first open seat. Soon thereafter, the motorcoach pulled off in a cloud of diesel fumes.

They had discovered the technology of creating gasoline and diesel fuel from coal on Old Earth back during the early twentieth century. Here the colony had replaced the coal with see captured directly from the air to make “carbon neutral” fuels. However, there was only one place that produced such liquid fuels, and that was all the way to the far east in Cooper’s Landing. They shipped those fuels via rail from the capitol two thousand five hundred kay-emms away, through Planetfall, and finally here to the small mining city of Simmon’s Town.

As she thought about her hometown, she watched the buildings lining High Street pass by in the weak illumination of Alterday. Luckily, the sky was almost cloud-free, so the light from a-cent-a remained unobstructed. However, despite the clear skies, the second sun’s luminosity was currently only about twelve hundred times as bright as the full moon back on Old Earth. Therefore, Alterday was only about as brilliant as a very cloudy Mainday. Still, that was more than bright enough for the girl to see the constructions interspersed with the occasional tree as the motorcoach made its way downtown.

Since it was late, there were few pedestrians on the streets. However, a few masked figures were rushing by on the narrow sidewalks, hurrying from one destination to another. Most of these people had long, flowing hairstyles like her own, but a few had shorter, more utilitarian bobs. No matter how attractive long locks were on a woman, some jobs made flowing tresses too dangerous. Having one’s hair get tangled up in machinery was a good way of becoming hurt, maimed, or even killed. She shuddered at the thought of some gruesome accidents that she had heard about from her peers. Here on Cooper’s World vanity could lead to tragedy if a lady wasn’t sufficiently careful.

When the motor coach stopped at a traffic signal, she pulled out her com’. She sent a typed message to her eldest Sister Anastasia-onee, letting Ana-onee know she was on her way home. If she had forgotten to do so, the poor girl would have had a long trek from the closest bus stop to her house. Doing that after her strenuous practice would not be pleasant, and she wanted to avoid that walk at all costs.

‘I don’t even want to become Johnathan-nii’s Keeper!’ she thought as she impatiently waited to hear back from her oldest Sister. ‘While it would be nice to spend the school day with oniichan, I don’t want to be parted from my womb-mate. Why are they forcing me into this predicament?’

Moments after sending the message, she received a positive reply. Apparently, Anastasia-onee would meet her at the bus stop with their matFam’s minivan, but she would have to wait a little while. After all, it was just about dinnertime, and cooking was one chore that Ana-onee was in charge of.

‘At least I won’t have to walk,’ she thought. Even if she had to idle around for half an hour for Ana-onee to give her a ride, it was better than the alternative. Simply thinking about that trek made her legs ache more than they already did.

While idly wondering what the family would have for dinner, her gaze was once again drawn to the passing scenery. At that point, the motorcoach stopped and picked up more passengers in front of city hall.

With its surrounding swath of vegetation, this ornate structure stood in strict contrast to the plain but functional buildings that made up the rest of Simmon’s Town. According to her Mother, an ancestor of the current mayor had the government building constructed in her great grandMother’s time. They had built the pretentious edifice just after they had completed the nearby hydroelectric dam.

That mayor Toyama had expected a large spurt of municipal growth because of the additional available electric power... a period of development which never quite came about. After all, the prefectural authority had already earmarked most of the electricity provided by the dam for the Washington mines, copper refinery, and electric transmission line production facility. That was only fair, because the Washingtons had paid half of the bill for the hydroelectric facility, and they had done so for that very reason. The Toyamas, however, saw things in a different light, and the two most prominent families in Simmon’s Town had been feuding ever since.

After finally passing through the center of the municipality, the motorcoach stopped a few more times, picking up additional passengers until they filled the vehicle almost to capacity. As the automobile made its way along the edge of the Lyons River, the bus pulled into the parking lot of the Simmon’s Town train depot. Upon reaching the small city’s transportation hub, the great majority of the conveyance’s riders disembarked, leaving only a handful of people on board.

As she looked out of the window, she could see the motor coach’s former occupants head toward the many passenger vans parked near the train station entrance. Both fuel and automobiles were expensive on Cooper’s World. Therefore, it was much more economical for the average citizen to use these transport services rather than to own their own cars. Besides, most private companies offered a travel stipend as an employment incentive. Why pay for gasoline and a car payment out of pocket when your employer covered three-quarters of the cost of a daily ride on a shuttle van? Especially when that vehicle dropped you off and picked you up at your own front door?

Once the mass exodus of passengers ended, the motorcoach sped away in yet another cloud of diesel smoke. Her gaze drifted to the rocky, rapid-filled Lyons River, which paralleled the road on which the automobile now traveled. Because the train station was on the northern edge of the city, the river’s view to the east became less obstructed as the bus approached its last stop.

Since the buildings rapidly tapered off, and because there were almost no trees planted beyond the outskirts of Simmon’s Town, there wasn’t much else to look at. The municipality was in the Fuji mountain range’s foothills, so the barren and undeveloped hillsides obscured the west’s view. Meanwhile, the panorama of the Fuji Mountains themselves was lost in the distance because of the dimness of Alterday. Despite having passed its zenith, a-cent-a did not cast enough light to illuminate the peaks which were located several kay-emms away. Besides, the hills often impeded the mountains’ perspective even during Mainday as the motorcoach followed the roadway beside the waterway.

“I’m almost at my destination anyway,” she whispered to herself. Her family’s dwelling was only three and a half kay-emms north of town on the Lyon’s River banks. However, by that point, the road had veered away from the riverside to the north-northwest. That was why Christiana had let her Sister know she was heading home. The dirt lane stretching from the bus stop to her family residence was quite long because of the paved road’s sudden change in direction.

Just moments later, the motorcoach came to a halt at her destination. After standing up, she gave the driver a friendly wave before disembarking into the small copse of trees. This marked the entrance to the dirt road leading to her home. Yet again, the bus belched a cloud of noxious fumes as it pulled off to finish what little was left of its route.

Meanwhile, she looked around at her surroundings with her nose filled with the mask-filtered smell of the surrounding evergreen trees. The family had planted this copse in order to shelter those people in the household who might wait to catch a ride at the bus stop. While the woods yielded little protection from the rain, they provided badly needed shade on hot Maindays. The plants also gave some surcease from the wind, the cedars blocking all but the strongest gusts.

“Come on, Ana-onee,” Christiana muttered to herself. While she knew intellectually that she was safe this close to home, the girl still felt a bit spooked for several reasons. First off, she was only fifteen, an amount that sounded more impressive than it actually was. After all, that number reflected her age in Cooper’s World’s Colonial Years, which were much shorter than Terran years. Back on Old Earth, she would have just turned twelve. As a result, she was quite young to be waiting by herself during Alterday. Especially when the dim light of a-cent-a made the shifting shadows cast by the trees’ foliage seem sinister.

The second reason that it spooked her was that she was alone. Until they chose her for this training, she had been inseparable from her womb-mate Haruhi-nee. While the Sisters were genetically unrelated, both of them got along very well. Of course, that’s not to say that the two girls were in complete harmony, and there had been many occasions where they argued with one another. However, they quickly made up and thereafter acted as if the fight had never happened.

While both siblings were strong-willed, they had learned to depend on each other at a young age. If she became frightened, then Haruhi-nee would act strong in order to support her Sister. Later on, she would do the same for Haruhi-nee when she wasn’t at her best. Thus, the two children had a mutually beneficial relationship.

“I wish you were here, Haruhi-nee,” she murmured as she looked at her surroundings in discomfort. Of course, while having her older (by eleven minutes) Sister around would comfort her, Haruhi-nee had a hobby that sometimes rattled her younger sibling. Namely, Haruhi-nee liked to read books and stories about the many myths and legends that had cropped up since the Founding.

Late in the evening, Haruhi-nee would often sneak from her bed and snuggle up to her in Christiana’s bunk. This action would always wake her, even if she was in a deep sleep. Then the dark-haired young lady would tell her imouto all about the legend that had kept her up that night. Following this, the duo would talk about the myth until they fell asleep together.

She would have thought the elder girl was silly for getting scared by such ridiculous stories under normal circumstances. Now that she was outside and alone in the middle of Alterday, she couldn’t help but become a little frightened by her memories of Haruhi-nee’s outlandish tales.

The legend that unsettled her the most was about individuals who roamed Cooper’s World’s outback during Alterday and Nights. These mythical characters neither wore masks nor did they need them. Instead, they would approach people who were in isolated parts of the wilderness and start up a conversation with them, slowly approaching closer and closer to the lone woman. While initially disturbed, the person in question would soon let their guards down, feeling attracted to the approaching stranger. Some legends even spoke about an irresistible feeling of desire for the visitors, an unexplainable, all-consuming, and unrestrainable longing. In those cases, a person would embrace the unknown individual, their minds filled with uncontrollable lust.

Hours later, the victims (for victims they were) would return to their senses, often with disheveled clothes and having a sense of incredible satisfaction. It was only when the women began straightening their clothing that they realized the most disturbing part of their encounters. Namely, they would replace a deep cut or scratch that was still bleeding somewhere on their bodies. In addition, these wounds always appeared to have been sucked upon, judging from the bruises of love bites surrounding them.

During the brilliant light of Mainday, Christiana found this story to be as unbelievable as the legend that every government building had an arsenal of advanced weaponry hidden inside. Supposedly, these weapons caches were placed in the structures to prepare for a possible alien invasion. However, standing all alone in the dim sunlight of Alterday, she found these tall tales to be quite disturbing.

‘I wonder if any of those fables have a bit of truth to them,’ she considered as she examined her surroundings. As she stood there in isolation, she began wishing more and more that Ana-onee would soon arrive to pick her up. After all, most of the legends that scared Haruhi-nee were laughable.

Who in their right mind would believe the myth that the crews of the star-ships Hope and Destiny were immortal? Or that the Coopers who captained Hope during the First and Second Waves were the same Commander Cooper that Cooper’s World had been named after? After all, the Second Wave had arrived at the planet just over a Terran century after the planet’s discovery. Thus a person would have to be barmy to believe that the three Coopers in question were all the same woman.

There was also a tale that seemed to dovetail well with the legend of the ‘blood-drinking strangers.’ This tale cited reliable sources that showed that a small portion of hemoglobin from blood banks all over the planet was being transferred each week to Cooper’s Landing.

However, a memo released decades ago by Congress had disproved that anything nefarious was going on. The letter stated that plasma from more rural locations was indeed being shipped to the capital, but the city’s high population density was the reason. They stockpiled the excess lifeblood from the rural banks there in case of a natural disaster or another emergency. They did this to ensure that the vital fluid could be distributed quickly to the affected locations.

Ultimately, even this memorandum was not enough to squash the story that the lifesaving liquid was being used for hidden purposes. Paradoxically, the release was adopted by believers as proof that their theories were true.

Christiana believed the government’s explanation. After all, how could there be villainous intentions behind stockpiling disaster supplies? Now, however, with thoughts of the ‘blood-drinking strangers’ swirling in her mind, she was no longer as sure.

Just then, the girl was pulled out of her reverie by the honking of a car horn. She had been so busy watching the surrounding trees and thinking about dark legends that she had not heard her elder Sister pull up. In response, she quickly approached the minivan’s front passenger entryway.

Through the windows, in the emerald-lit compartment, she could observe Anastasia-onee putting on her mask and checking its seals before hitting the switch to open the passenger door. As the portal opened, the interior illumination momentarily changed to yellow before turning a much brighter red. Over the sound of outward rushing air, she could hear a calm, recorded female voice saying, “Warning! Cabin see-ohh-too levels are above acceptable limits. Please secure your masks until the indicator lights return to green.”

In response, the girl slipped into the front passenger seat before the ingress was completely open. She immediately hit the door button, and it came to a close before the recording finished repeating. The sound of fans then followed, some blowing in see-oh-too free air while others vented the unfiltered atmosphere into the outside. This process lasted for three minutes, during which the din of the fans drowned out any attempts to converse. Meanwhile, the interior lights changed to yellow and then to a much dimmer green. This time the voice said, “Cabin see-ohh-too levels are within acceptable parameters. It is now safe to remove your masks.”

Upon hearing this, both females loosened the straps on their filters, letting them hang from their necks while allowing them to don them at a moment’s notice. After all, minivans with air exchange capabilities had only been on the market for the past decade. Before then, these mechanisms were only available on larger vehicles such as passenger vans and train carriages. Even now, automobiles with atmospheric filtering systems were marketed as luxury models. Most people still had to wear masks the entire time they traveled.

Before Christiana could say hello, Anastasia-onee began the conversation by saying, “Mrs. Parker held you after class again, didn’t she?”

Christiana sheepishly replied, “Yes, she did.” She couldn’t help but be taken aback by the look of anger on Ana-onee’s light mocha features.

“Sydney was right! That bitch is getting bribed by one of our patMothers to mess up your training!” Ana-onee said, her irritation clear from how she slammed the minivan into drive.

—-

As soon as the van pulled off, a figure emerged from the shadows as if by magic.

The dark, hard to see figure pulled what appeared to be a com’ from its pocket.

Suddenly a young-sounding female voice said, “Princess one has entered the coop and is on the way to the nest.”

“Good job out there. I will send a car to pick you up as soon as the coast is clear,” a similar female voice responded.

“Can you hurry it up, its really spooky out here.”

“And you call yourself a yokai?”

“Just hurry it up okay?”

“Roger that. Out,”

“Bloody kyūketsuki!” the figure muttered as it melded with the darkness once again.

Unbeknownst to her, the person on the other end of the conversation was muttering a curse of their own.

“Weakling tanuki!”

—-

‘I’ve never seen Ana-onee this angry before,’ Christiana thought. Being the eldest sibling, Anastasia-onee served as the role model for the younger children. This was a position that Ana-onee took seriously, and thus she showed none of her negative emotions in front of her siblings. Of course, Anastasia-onee was only twenty-three Colonial Years old and in her last Year of high school. Therefore, she was barely considered an adult in the minds of society. Taking this into account, it surprised her that Ana-onee maintained such a firm grip on her emotions at such a young age.

Momentarily shifting her gaze off the dirt road, Ana-onee turned to look at her younger Sister. Then she while asked, “Just to be sure, were you the only one that she held back?”

“Yes,” Christiana responded, glancing up at her sibling. Then, after noting the flash of wrath in her eldest Sister’s dark brown eyes, she continued, “But this time, the reason was the upcoming recognition ceremony. She wanted to ensure that someone from our matFam will be present at the event to help Haruhi-nee and I bring home our awards. So on this occasion, it seemed like she had a good excuse for holding me late.”

“What about the last time she held you behind and the time before that?” Ana-onee asked, tossing her long, straight black tresses out of her face while keeping her focus on the road. However, Christiana knew her oneechan was still very irritated despite her calm voice. Flipping her hair was one of the subconscious ways that Ana-onee showed her anger, an action that all of her siblings were well aware of.

“Um, not really...” she reluctantly replied, praying that her Sister did not ask her to reveal everything to their Okaa-sama. That was something that the youngster had been attempting to avoid because she knew how their matriarch could be.

“Look, I know you want to handle things yourself, but you need to report this to Mother. This affects the entire House and not just you,” Anastasia-onee said carefully. As always, Ana-onee was trying to be diplomatic about family matters while still getting her views conveyed to her youngers.

After a deep sigh, she fidgeted in her seat for a minute before responding. “You are right, neechan. This may be something that I cannot take care of on my own.” Then, after a few moments of thinking, she asked, “What did patMother Sydney have to say about the matter?”

PatMother Sydney was their Father’s youngest wife, and she was technically Anastasia-onee and Christiana’s new secMother.

There were two major issues concerning patMother Sydney within their maternalFamily. The initial issue was that Sydney was a Colonial Year younger than Ana-onee and a grade below her in the same high school. As a result, the eldest Daughter Ana-onee and patMother Sydney considered each other equals inside of the matFam and therefore were on a first-name basis. If they hadn’t been friends and schoolmates before the Marriage, then Ana-onee would have referred to the young woman as ‘secMother Sydney.’

The younger girl did not think of Sydney as her secMother. In her inexperienced eyes, the youngster would only have a single secMother, namely secMother Karen. This woman had served their matFam as a Junior Wife until one Colonial Year ago. During the five Years that she spent working off her Dowry Debt, Karen became exactly what a secMother should be. In Christiana’s heart, she literally turned into her second mother. Therefore, the child refused to use the term secMother when referring to Sydney.

Instead, she used patMother, or paternalMother, when talking about her. While technically correct, society considered this term to be far too formal for someone to employ for their own maternalFamily’s actively serving Junior Wife. However, in the girl’s eyes, Sydney was just another one of her Father’s Wives, and therefore the title patMother fitted her perfectly. In fact, she had been so stubborn about this that the other members of the matFam had given up on trying to change her mind about it.

Ana-onee spoke carefully once again. “First, remember that Sydney moved here from Planetfall because she wanted to escape the political intrigue of her own House. Power struggles and scheming happened daily in both her matFam and patFam, so Sydney learned how to spot these things to survive in that environment.”

“I remember,” Christiana replied, “That is part of the reason her Dowry Debt was so high even though she came from a distinguished family.”

When Sydney moved to Simmon’s Town, she had only had the creds she had saved from her allowance. While the amount had been substantial enough to live off for a decade, it wasn’t enough to buy into a respectable Marriage.

Sydney had been lucky that their matriarch still had fairly young children and had been looking for another secMother to help raise her offspring. That was why their Mother had been willing to pay off most of Sydney’s Dowry to the House in exchange for the adolescent’s five Colonial Years of service.

Their Okaa-sama got a youthful helper, and she could also add a well-known name to her own House. Thus, despite costing her a few hundred thousand creds’, it was a win-win for their busy parent.

“Because of her experience with such matters, Sydney could spot what was going on as soon as I told her you were coming home late from practice once again.” Anastasia-onee explained as she drove, “Her exact words were ‘Someone is bribing Christiana’s teacher to keep her after class. They probably want to upset the martial arts instructor enough to make her quit.’”

At this, Ana-onee flipped her hair once more. After a moment’s thought she proceeded, “In Sydney’s old House, such maneuvers were common between the patWives to get their children into better positions within the patFam.”

“But why would they do something like that when it could backfire and anger the House matriarch?” Christiana asked innocently.

Anastasia-onee sighed and said, “You are too inexperienced to realize how influential our matFam is.” Then the older girl sat in silence for a moment. “Look, even if someone only wins the position of Keeper and does not properly complete the assignment, Mother will still pay that young lady more than adequate creds’ for a substantial Dowry. In fact, she’ll probably have sufficient creds’ left over to buy a dwelling for a large matFam. Plus, if the person properly completes the appointment, they’ll also receive a prominent spot within Okaa-sama’s company. Either of those prizes is ample reason to make one of our patMothers take a chance at making the family Matriarch angry if it leads to their Daughter winning.”

This time it was Christiana who sighed as she turned to look out of the passenger side window. “I still don’t see what the big deal is about a task that basically amounts to glorified guard duty,” she said in a disinterested tone of voice. “The only thing good about becoming a Keeper is the spiffy black clothes.”

“You will understand when you get a little older,” Ana-onee replied as she brought the minivan to a halt. Then she pushed the button to open the wrought-iron gate to their home. Embedded in the bars of the massive entrance were a pair of ornately shaped words: The Washingtons.

---

From the outside, the Washingtons’ house looked tiny. Its front consisted of a small brick edifice erected against a massive grass-covered hill. Its most prominent feature was two white columns, one on each side of large painted double doors in a style reminiscent of colonial North America. Like most structures erected during the early days of the Second Wave, the structure did not possess any windows to reduce any see-oh-too leaks. In fact, they had built most of the dwellings underground for that very reason.

The brick structure was the primary ’lock into the main residence. Therefore, even though it was big enough to hold ten adults and thus had a large surface area, leaks from the exterior were not of major concern. They pumped filtered air into the construction at a pressure higher than the outdoor atmospheric pressure. As a result, it forced the cleansed air outside through any cracks where seepage might have happened. That way the see-oh-too rich atmosphere could not seep in through the chinks.

Instead of parking in front of this entrance, Anastasia-onee drove further down the driveway and around a slight bend. Here a set of vehicle proportioned gates was built into the hill. Once again, Ana-onee pressed a switch, and the entryway opened to show a scarlet-lit area large enough to hold a medium lorry.

Inside there were many red flashing lights, dying the room in their flickering crimson glow. On the opposite end of the chamber was another portal. After driving into the chamber and stopping the automobile, Anastasia-onee pushed another button. When she did this, the doorway to the rear of the minivan closed. As soon as the entranceway shut, the room’s lamps slowly stopped flashing until roughly five minutes passed. During that period the room’s illumination faded to yellow and ultimately to a steady green. Then the second pair of doors unfolded inwards to reveal a downward sloping tunnel. As Ana-onee proceeded down the descending road, the opening behind the automobile finally shut. This extinguished the emerald glow emanating from the truck-sized ’lock.

After a few seconds, the tunnel opened into a spacious, well-lit underground garage capable of holding about thirty automobiles. Most of the spaces were already filled with vehicles of all shapes and sizes.

While pulling into a parking space next to a large passenger van, Anastasia-onee looked over to the minivan’s left and at the empty space located there. “It looks like Mother still isn’t home,” she said while exiting the vehicle.

“Thank goodness,” Christiana muttered. While it was only putting off the inevitable, this brief reprieve would give her a little while to eat her already late dinner in peace. It would also provide her some time to think about how she would talk to her parent about such a touchy subject.

Together the Sisters walked up to yet another portal. As they approached, the gates retracted into the walls on each side, much like the entrance to an elevator back on Old Earth. Just inside, a few paces from the first set of doors, was a second pair. However, unlike the truck-sized ’lock the duo had gone through earlier, the inner doorway opened as soon as the exit closed. That was because this emergency ’lock would only activate if there was a see-oh-too leak in the garage. Since that would only happen if the vehicle ’lock failed and became stuck open, this was merely a precaution.

After the girls went through the second door, both of them stopped. Lining both sides of the hallway were several buttons that began at the height of one-half emm and continued up to two emms. Each of the switches glowed either green or red. They were evenly spaced about twenty see-emms apart for the first few emms of the corridor.

Without even thinking about it, she pushed an emerald button at her waist level. A small compartment opened to reveal two round depressions, one of which contained a mask filter. Meanwhile, the second was empty.

With a well-practiced set of movements, Christiana reached up, unscrewed her mask’s filter, and placed it into the vacant spot. Then she took the freshly cleansed filter out of the locker and screwed it into her mask. After she pressed the button to close the alcove, the color of the switch changed to red.

Meanwhile, Ana-onee completed the same procedure, but she had to do it twice since she wore an adult-sized mask with two filters. Of course, this took her twice as long, so she continued down the hall a short way without waiting for her Sister.

There the hallway widened with benches place into alcoves on both sides of it. Here she sat and removed her outside shoes. Then, after looking for the cubbyhole on the wall with her name on it, she pushed a button to reveal a set of indoor slippers. After exchanging her outdoor shoes for the footwear and closing the cubby, she put on her house shoes. Then she waited for her oneechan to do the same.

Once both of them were ready, they proceeded inwards and stood before a heavy metal security door. This was the first of two armored doors that the Sisters would have to go through to enter the main family’s living quarters. Even to her, this seemed excessive. When she had asked their Okaa-sama for an explanation, her parent would only say that there was a reason for the precautions and nothing more.

After doing a little research into the matter, Haruhi-nee and Christiana had determined one important thing. This level of defense was comparable to that of the bank vaults used in Cooper’s Landing. The only structures with higher levels of protection were certain government buildings and police barracks containing non-lethal weapons arsenals.

Ana-onee spoke towards the tiny camera above the portal. “This is Anastasia Washington and Christiana Washington gee-emm Harris requesting access.” Then both siblings placed their eyes up to the instrument to the left of the door. This allowed security to do a quick retinal scan of both Sisters.

Soon afterward, a cheerful human voice spoke from a speaker next to the entryway. “Both identities are confirmed. Welcome home, you two.”

“Thank you, Sara-nee,” the girls said, almost in unison. Sara-nee was a surveillance officer who usually operated the house’s systems from the main control room. She was a lighthearted girl in her late twenties who had worked on the matFam’s defensive detail for seven Colonial Years.

All the youngsters got along with her because of her vitality and pleasant disposition. When the children were younger, the good-natured woman had often cared for them when their secMother was unavailable. Thus she had earned the unofficial title of Sara-nee amongst the siblings, although they were careful not to call her that in their Mother’s presence.

The large metal entranceway opened outward towards the girls, causing them to step back to avoid being hit by it. As the two young ladies passed through the portal, they stepped into what seemed like a different world. Whereas the floor on the exterior was bare gray concrete, the other side’s floor was carpeted. While they painted the cement walls outside the door in a flat white color, they bordered the walls on the opposite side in wooden wainscoting topped with finished drywall.

There were even curtain-covered ‘simulated windows’ interspersed along the hallway. These ‘simulated windows’ used fiber optics to pipe sunlight inside from above ground. However, the light of the many crystal chandeliers which lined the passageway’s ceiling overwhelmed the faint illumination of Alterday.

It was as if a person had stepped from a corridor in a modern utilitarian factory into a mansion passageway from the late twentieth century.

Used to this transition, the two siblings paid it no heed. They continued down the hallway until they came to a T intersection and turned to the left, away from the security wing and the servant’s quarters. They then entered a corridor lined on one side with the same windows as the entrance hall. Opposite the ‘windows’ were heavy wooden doors interspersed with framed sketches, drawings, and paintings from the early period of the colony.

After walking for a few moments, the duo moved to an intersection and turned a corner. They then walked for a little while and then came to yet another junction. This went on for almost five minutes, both girls taking the maze of corridors in stride.

The confusing floor plan was a defensive measure. It disoriented any potential intruders while providing an impressive number of meeting rooms, guest rooms, parlor rooms, kitchens, and similar chambers.

The area that they were in was the ‘public’ or ‘outer’ portion of the dwelling. This was where visitors and members of the patFam could stay. Only those belonging to the matFam, certain guards, and the most trusted of servants could enter the ‘inner’ or ‘private’ part of the home.

Eventually, the girls approached the entryway leading into the innermost section of the house. Security had hidden this heavy metal entranceway behind an otherwise nondescript wooden door, no different from the other doors lining the corridor.

Once again, Anastasia-onee led the way by placing her hand on the plate beside the portal. She then said, “Christiana Washington gee-emm Harris and Anastasia Washington are here and seeking entry. Today my code is tango-tango-charlie-foxtrot-echo.” The younger girl then placed her appendage on the sensor and stated, “My cipher is yankee-quebec-oscar-november-x-ray.” The entrance beeped softly, at which time Christiana removed her palm from the scanner.

What followed was a momentary pause during which a computer checked the handprints, code words, and voiceprints of the Sisters with those on file. Then, unbeknownst to the siblings, security also ran a voice stress analysis to ensure they were not being forced to open the entrance against their will. Also, the computer conducted a facial recognition check using the portal’s miniature camera.

After a brief pause, the entranceway made a soft beep. Over the access way’s com’ a surveillance officer said, “You may enter.” Finally, after a series of loud thunks, the heavy metal door opened away from the girls and towards the interior of the matFamily’s quarters.

Since this was Anastasia-onee’s normal routine, she thought little of it. However, the amount of surveillance that their matFam had in place once again disturbed Christiana.

After all, when she and Haruhi-nee visited other people in their patFam, their houses did not have as many defenses as the Washingtons had. In fact, her Mother always had at least two members of security accompany her on such trips, “Just in case.” The girl could not understand why the duo needed guards when they were only going over to play with their patSisters.

Now that the door was open, the siblings could enter what they both considered their home, the ‘inner’ house. As they walked inside, the officer greeted them at the security station. “Good evening, Miss Anastasia and Miss Christiana,” she said with a slight bow. This was Jessica, a woman in her early fifties who was a former member of a Planetfall SWAT team. She made quite an imposing figure, her tall and muscular frame visible under her impeccable black and silver uniform.

Jessica’s long dirty blonde hair and soft gray eyes were in extreme contrast to the stern look she always wore on her face. Whenever she saw this sentry, the child couldn’t help but think that she probably looked like a person in the military back on Old Earth. However, since Cooper’s World did not have any armed forces, the girl had nothing to compare her to except some two-D photographs from her history texts.

Jessica had been working for the girls’ Mother for over ten Colonial Years, and she served as the manager of security for the entire estate. During that decade, she had never missed a work shift, even though she was raising her six children. That alone was enough to earn the woman promotion after promotion within the matFam’s defensive forces.

Since she had also had a distinguished career in law enforcement, becoming the head of surveillance was all but assured. Christiana’s Okaa-sama had once joked that Jessica would be the police chief in Planetfall by now if she hadn’t lured her away by offering her a considerably higher salary.

The sentry had laughed upon hearing this jest, smiling openly for once. Then, seconds later, her face returned to its normally disciplined demeanor. It had surprised her to see how attractive the officer was when she smiled, and she wished that the older lady would grin more often. However, no matter how hard the womb-mates tried, they could not get her to laugh and smile, much to the Sisters’ disappointment.

Suddenly, she heard a very familiar voice from a nearby open doorway crying out, “Welcome home, Chris-mouto.” Then, as she turned to face the entrance, Haruhi-nee bust into the room, giving her Sister an unexpected bear hug.

Just as Christiana wasn’t used to being parted from Haruhi-nee, Haruhi-nee was not accustomed to being apart from her sibling. ‘We are womb-mates after all,’ she thought as the black-haired girl gave her a quick peck on the cheek.

Upon stepping back from her, she got a good look at her favorite Sister. As usual, she was wearing a frilly dress from the early twenty-first century, complete with crinolines and petticoats. Since she was a serious history buff, she liked to wear old clothes from the same period as the vast majority of the house’s furnishings.

However, even she didn’t go as far as dressing up in corsets and hoop skirts. “It’s just a hobby after all,” she had once explained to her womb-mate, “No need to torture myself with an uncomfortable corset.” As a result, Haruhi-nee mostly wore the Nipponese gothic lolita style instead of the Western neo-victorian fashion of the coinciding period.

Of course, this choice made sense when you looked at the girl’s facial features. A person could tell at a glance that she was of the Asian persuasion with her long, jet black locks, light skin, and almond-shaped brown eyes. She had her tresses tied back with an oversized bow. A bow which was the same dark blue color as the ruffled dress she was wearing. As a result, their eye and hair colorings were in sharp contrast with one another.

In fact, these siblings, who were never parted, had been awarded several nicknames based on their sharply contrasting features. The first was ‘Yin and Yang,’ which referred to the ancient Asian symbol of light and dark coming together to form a complete circle. An additional nickname for the pair was ‘Shiro and Kuro.’ These were the Nipponese words for white and black, respectively. The last moniker given to the Sisters was ‘Mainday and Alterday.’ This signified the bright illumination of Mainday as opposed to the much dimmer Alterday. Upon hearing this, Christiana had wondered why their classmates had chosen the two kinds of day instead of Mainday and Night.

Her family differed from the norm when it came to the study of Old Earth’s past. How could they not be interested in former times when pieces of the Colony’s history surrounded them in their own home? She remembered the time Years ago when she had asked secMother Karen, who had drawn a framed picture on their parlor wall. She had thought that one of her siblings had produced it when they were much younger. It was a very crude finger painting, after all.

Her secMother had laughed and told the girl who had created it: Evelyn Pace, the third President of the colony. In fact, that very illustration had been made on the starship Destiny as it journeyed to the Alpha Centauri system with the First Wave of colonists. Miss Pace had been born on the vessel. Her parents had been two of the instructors who had traveled on the ship to educate the young colonists during the long voyage between the stars.

Until this point, Christiana had not been very interested in yesteryear. To her, history was memorizing a bunch of facts and then spilling them out at test time. The past had been no more important than the animated vids that she and her siblings watched on their day off from school. However, in all of its colorful and messy glory, this one picture made her understand that those individuals in the books were actual people. They were just like her, her Sisters, and her friends.

These women had their own stories and their own struggles and their own hopes and dreams. After further thought, she realized that many of them had struggled to survive on Cooper’s World. In fact, some of them had given their very lives so that her family could have all the food, shelter, clothing, and other comforts that they now had.

This realization had proven to be a major turning point in Christiana’s young existence. ‘If they worked hard for the future generations, then I can too,’ she told herself as she started to take both school and life more seriously. She even roped Haruhi-nee into her way of thinking, eventually sparking the older girl’s interest in former times and getting her partner in crime to work harder academically. The rest, as the old saying goes, is history.

By always doing their best and supporting one another, the Sisters soared up their class rankings in both academics and athleticism, both realizing their abilities as they applied themselves. Now the duo competed for the top academic spot, while the dark-haired girl was happy in taking the number two rank in athleticism. “I don’t like to sweat as much as you do,” was her excuse whenever she came in second behind her younger sibling in athletic competitions, but she knew better. In reality, she was just being nice to Christiana and was letting her womb-mate win by a slim margin. She loved the black-haired youngster all the more for it.

“Do I have something on my face?” Haruhi-nee asked as she scrubbed both her mouth and cheeks with her hands. This brought her out of her thoughts and made her realize she had been standing there and staring at her womb-mate for quite a while.

“Um yeah, let me get it,” she responded, her hand reaching out to brush a non-existent eyelash from under her Sister’s right eye. She was far too embarrassed to tell Haruhi-nee that she had been gazing at her for half a minute while lost in thought. Besides, if she told her the truth, the older girl would bop her on the head and then call her “baka” or “weirdo” for the rest of the evening.

Saving her from an additional awkward silence, a cry of “Chris-mouto!” came from the same doorway Haruhi-nee had previously used. Running footsteps followed this outburst, and yet another figure ran into the room and began hugging her tightly.

“I missed you too, Johnathan-nii,” she said, embracing the frail-looking boy as hard as she had hugged her Sister earlier.

John-nii was Christiana and Haruhi-nee’s elder brother. However, truth be told, he wasn’t that much older than the Sisters. In fact, the womb-mates had been born almost exactly one Colonial Year after him. That meant that their Okaa-sama had to have had their embryos implanted mere weeks after Johnathan-nii’s birth.

While this was technically possible, women usually gave themselves a few months to recover after delivery before having another embryo implanted. It was even rarer for someone as young as their Mother to have two embryos inserted at the same time. That was a practice typically reserved for elderly individuals in their seventies and who had only produced four children. After all, if an individual retired without having at least the state-required six offspring they would not be eligible for Public Retirement Support.

Until the two girls entered the academy, the three youngsters played with one another every day. Except for bath time and bedtime, the trio were inseparable. However, when Christiana and Haruhi-nee reached the age to go to primary school, it surprised them to learn that their brother would not be going with them.

Their Mother told them that since John-nii was a male, the law required that he had to be homeschooled until he was old enough to enter middle school. Johnathan-nii was already a Year behind in his studies because their parent did not have the heart to separate the siblings. Okaa-sama then said that the kids could play in the evenings after the girls finished all of their homework. While the children had agreed that playing together after they got home was better than nothing, they had all cried themselves to sleep that night.

That was why the John-nii was almost always waiting for the two girls when they returned from the academy. Usually, they would go to the girls’ room while they did their homework, and Johnathan-nii played a game on his hand-held. Then whichever Sister finished their assignments first would help the other one complete her work. Eventually, the trio would get down to the serious business of playing.

Pulling herself back from her memories, Christiana realized the boy was still hugging her. “Um John-nii, what’s up?” she asked her only Brother, doing her best to react calmly to this awkward situation. It was a well-known fact on Cooper’s World that males became easier to anger and upset as they got older. Therefore, she was always gentle when talking to her oniichan, especially when he was acting a little strangely. The last thing she wanted to do was to hurt the feelings of a member of the emotionally weaker sex.

“I was worried about you, that’s all. Haruhi-mouto returned hours ago, and you still hadn’t made it home,” John-nii explained, upon releasing her from his tight embrace. As the boy stepped back from the long hug, she took a prolonged look at her brother.

Johnathan-nii’s round face wore a distinct expression of concern, but that guise melted into a grin as he peered at his Sister. Then he gave a quick laugh of relief as his dark green eyes regained their usual sparkle. Suddenly, he reached out and ruffled her long, wheat-colored tresses. The loudly giggling young lady responded to the boy’s playful behavior by doing the same to John-nii’s short curly brown hair.

Not to be left out, Haruhi-nee wiggled in between the two and placed her arms around both of her sibling’s shoulders. “Come on, you guys, Chris-mouto still hasn’t had dinner. I am sure that she’s hungry after such a long practice,” she stated while gently guiding her siblings in the direction of the matFam’s dining room.

“You can say that again,” she replied as her stomach gurgled. At that point, the three youngsters laughed merrily and began walking towards her long-awaited dinner.

---

While she sat eating her meal, her attention was less focused on her siblings’ chatter than it was on the meal. Tonight Ana-onee had made miso fish with sesame noodles and greens accompanied by plain gohan, a large salad, and black tea.

While the Washingtons had more than enough ’creds to eat bio-meat every night, they only had the lab-grown food on Sat’days and major holidays. Christiana felt very privileged that she could have flesh as often as she did. Most of the population of Cooper’s World could only afford lab-meat on Shōgatsu, Independence Day, Alliance Day, Guy Fawkes Day, and Christmas. Later, after she learned that there were millions of people on the planet who only had sufficient funds to have fish once a week, she became even more thankful.

There were two reasons that their matFam consumed bio-meat so rarely. The first was that marine products were much better for those who consumed them as opposed to meat. Studies conducted on Old Earth had shown that women who had diets primarily consisting of seafood and vegetables lived longer and healthier lives. At least when compared to those who mostly ate meats and starches.

The other reason was that their Mother did not want to spoil her offspring. Traditionally the Washington clan believed a person should work hard for what they desired and not have it handed to them. Therefore, their Okaa-sama did not give the sibling’s life on a silver platter. Other than for the tight security and the overall size of the house, the children lived like that of the upper-middle class.

If the kids wanted anything more than the bare necessities from middle school onwards, they had to excel in academics. Luckily, Christiana and Haruhi-nee had begun working harder on their schoolwork well before exiting elementary school. Otherwise, they would have had a rude awakening when they finished their primary education.

At that moment she heard the chime that indicated their Mother’s arrival. Therefore, she hurried to finish her dinner. After excusing herself from her siblings and returning her dishes to the kitchen, she made her way to Jessica’s station and scheduled a meeting with her Okaa-sama. While she wanted to delay the discussion as much as possible, she also had a lot of homework to complete. ‘This day just keeps getting longer and longer,’ she thought as she headed to her bedroom. She did so while hoping that Haruhi-nee was there and that she would help her with her studies. After all, she wanted to have a little time to play before it was time for bed.