Kris:

  The school day ended surprisingly fast with Anise giving entertaining and interesting information for just over an hour, even going beyond the time limit to deliver her first lesson. The overall sense she gave was that there was light to be found in the diverse cultures of Earth, but that the reality was a harrowing and often difficult existence.

  Kris got the impression from her fellow classmates that there was an overall feeling of sympathy and remorse for the way average people had been treated there. A world of humans where happiness was often found in brief moments between an existence in despair and frustration.

  The worst offender was the failure across their planet for governments to meet the disaster of an increasingly automated workforce. By the time anyone got their government to listen to them, major fields of the economy were filled with self-driving ‘trucks’ or AI accounting and software development.

  The average wealth of those beneath the automation movement fell almost overnight while the people on top went about their lives as if nothing changed, because for them, it hadn’t. That schism led to a war that spiraled until no clear lines were left, and everyone was just angry with everyone else. Like that, the world had collapsed.

  Kris felt a gnawing despair at the knowledge that Mari bore memories from that crumbling world. She’d lived it and been fully aware of the horrors, with that being the underlying mindset they’d planted into her head.

  The later assembly only put another crack in the foundations of hatred the students aimed towards the humans in the school.

  Her mother had delivered a speech that made no effort to preserve the feelings of the people of Elitheen over the treatment of their supposed local pariahs.

  “Good afternoon. I scheduled this assembly to apologize for a failing of mine. For one thing, the incident the other day falls on my shoulders, and our response was slow. That is barely a footnote to the reason for this assembly.

  “I have spent a lot of time considering the issues we face, and every time I have had to reflect on this one topic, I have mistakenly left it for another day. I did not consider the damage my own inaction was doing. The topic in question is the way we as a people treat others. Every time I thought about it, I instinctively rebelled at the idea of defining how everyone around me should act or feel.

  “We have all lost someone or something dear to us. We have all handled our loss in our own ways. I am here today to tell you all that imposing our loss on others is not right. What does it make us when we deny food to some people because we happen to have suffered? What does it make us when we physically assault those people to vent our grief? What does it make us when we treat them like our lessers when we fought to be equal?

  “It makes us worse than the empire we deposed. Because we should know better because we lived that life ourselves. Maybe many of you do not have that history, and I have always been happy you did not have to suffer the way your parents did. But it cannot excuse abusing our new positions.

  “And then it gets even worse. Because the people we have been stepping all over are not even from our world. They are the ambassadors of another planet. And they already came here having suffered so much, only to be infected with our ancestors’ mistakes. And then we treated them like they were ants beneath our heels.

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  “Those days are behind us. We should be ashamed of our behavior. How many of you know Mari? How many of you know how she has been treated for a decade? After all that, she fought for us two days ago. Fought and risked her life to kill those afflicted creatures. Her actions reflect what we fought for. It is time for us to live up to the vision the revolution stood for.”

  Kris smiled at the memory of her mother’s speech. It was a stance she was proud of. More than any political maneuvering, that message was the right thing to say. Hopefully it would make a difference.

  So, Kris walked home alone. Mari hadn’t been at the school, and nobody could tell her anything about the assessments she’d been taking. She’d seen Anise and her two assistants going over lesson plans, but hadn’t bothered them.

  When she reached the small house, the interior lights were on, and a subtle sensation seemed to react to her presence, tugging at her senses from the basement.

  “Evening!” Mari cheered from the workshop, where she had taken over a metal work table and layered it with cloth to cushion a few different varieties of weapons, which ranged from knives to guns that seemed like compact versions of what Vilke had carried.

  Kris stopped to frown at an entire spread of scopes that could be attached to the top rails of any of the weapons present.

  “You’ve been busy.” She hummed thoughtfully as she lifted one weapon and studied it. It was surprisingly lightweight. “Where are the bullets for this one?”

  Mari stepped over, then landed a kiss on her cheek, which caused Kris some shock to realize she hadn’t actually offered a greeting or stopped to eye her lover up and down like she usually would. The raven-haired beauty beside her continued without giving her the chance.

  “I guess you’ve mostly seen weapons with a standard magazine.” Mari gently reached over and released a long and flat section from the top of the weapon, sliding the entire cartridge free and turning it back and forth to show off the design.

  “That’s a P90. Barclay likes them, since he’s usually lugging around heavier gear than the rest of us. Honestly, I’ve been deciding on the right alternative to my armor-piercing rifle. It’s heavy and hard to carry places. I might do a custom design, since that’s an option.”

  Kris finally studied Mari, taking in the small stains and signs of work that covered her lover’s hands. “Why are you making all of this, and how did your school assessments go?”

  “Oh.” Mari let her shoulders slump as she raised a palm to her forehead, leaving a bit of some chemical or another on her face. “Karin canceled the assessments. Told off the teachers for how they treated me, and then helped me get some information about something I was hoping we could take care of.”

  Kris stared at her for a long moment before her brain caught up. “‘We?’”

  “You’d never let me go alone, right?”

  She just stared a while longer, then raised an eyebrow. “Where are we going, then?”

  “I’ll need to do a rundown on the information a few times anyway. Let’s save the details for when Anise is around. I wanted to ask her and a few others to assist.”

  That deserved some thought. She knew there’d be more fighting, and had been preparing for that inevitability. Vilke was a familiar face and someone worth trusting. Barclay was a wildcard, but clearly had Mari’s—or perhaps Marielle’s—trust. Anise could rapidly heal a lot of injuries. It was that easy for her to guess exactly who Mari would invite for a foray beyond the safety of the city.

  Would she let Mari go without her? Fuck no.

  “Allow me to show you my latest prototypes, then.” Kris grinned as she stole a quick peck on Mari’s lips before approaching the fabricator she’d programmed remotely. “Allow me to reintroduce you to the Requiem and introduce you to Aria.”

  In her two hands were two blue-hued handguns, each cased in a reinforced metal shell to protect the fine engravings of the mana-infused catalysts inside.

  The shape of each was fairly similar, except the space above the grip of Aria was a hollowed out slot where the core catalyst would sit while firing.

  “Pretty. But what can they do?”

  “Let me show you!” Kris replied with a broad grin.

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