A fork of lightning cut across the sky. As perpetually dark as arcadia was the white branching forks were easy to see against the black . Rain pattered against the windows, clouding the city skyline in a murky haze of droplets. Now that Arcadia was growing, new cities were beginning to crop up over its surface forcing the need to name their capital. Adam had put out a vote on the Arcadian web to allow the citizens to help choose the city name, and his only stipulation is that it wasn't allowed to sound stupid. Of course, that did not stop people from being people.
They got name suggestions like
Balzcity
Lickum
Metatronopolis
And
Stupidville
In the end those options had been vetoed in favor of NoxUmber which Martha hadn't bothered to point out was just a mix between the Latin word for night and a sort of deep brownish red color, but it was the only suggestion that hadn't sounded too horribly stupid.
Martha leaned against the window feeling the cool glass against her cheek. Below her the artificial suns had been dimmed to match with the ambiance of the rain. Crazy how far technology had come since she was a child. They said that their generators had experienced the most rapid advancement of technology since the late mid 1900s to early 2000s. The time between the first flight to the moon landing had been approximately 65.5 years. Technology had gone from rotary phones to touchscreens and virtual reality in a similar amount of time. Following that earth had experienced multiple wars and a nuclear apocalypse that had almost destroyed the planet and everyone on it forcing earth to work its way slowly back up through the dark ages for a few millennia. Now in her lifetime she had experienced the flight of the first interstellar ship to being someone who lived on an alien planet they had managed to terraform in under five years.
It was astonishing
And it was part of her every day life.
Martha missed earth of course, most of all she missed the sun, the real sun, the burning ball of gas in the sky , and great blue fields stretching out like wings from horizon to horizon. If she ever got the opportunity she would like to move back to earth where she could experience the sun again, but that would be a hard decision to make.
There were perks to living on Arcadia.
One of them was sitting in her lap playing with his blocks.
Kay loved the rain and the lightning, and was plenty happy to sit next to the window and listen to the sound of the rain. His parents had even gone so far as to play him thunderstorm sounds while he slept.
Martha loved spending time with her grandson. She had to admit to herself that she had been rather skeptical about how he would turn out, who wouldn't be? He was only the second hybrid to be naturally convinced, but it hadn't taken more than two seconds of holding him to decide he was just as adorable as his father had been, all be it with more hands to get in trouble with.
And boy could the boy get in trouble.
He had his father's curiosity, and his mother's stubbornness. Hard to believe that so long ago Martha had disliked Sunny. More often than not she forgot Sunny had been the one to take Adam's leg. That fact seemed so distantly strange now she almost wondered if it could even be true, but indeed it was. And here they wall were from enemies to family, and Martha had now adopted kay's mother as one of their own children.
It had taken a bit to convince her, but just hearing about Kazna was enough to put Martha firmly in Sunny's camp.
Off to her side Waffles and Pancake lifted their heads simultaneously.
The two dogs had been curled up by the door napping, but as soon as their heads went up so did Martha's. The doorbell rang.
She looked down at kay and picked him up, "Come on, lets go see who came to visit."
He gurgled and put a block in his mouth.
The two dogs trotted behind her as she walked into the hallway. Waffles was a very serious sort of dog and as a german shepherd there was soemthing inherently intimidating about he, but even she was nothing compared to her daughter, who was as large as your average wolf with black fur and glowing ice blue eyes, literally glowing due to their bioluminescence. Of course if you met the two dogs you would know just how much of a goof pancake was despite looking more intimidating.
Martha glanced at the security camera and smiled as she opened the door.
"Good afternoon Dzara, I'm afraid Sunny and Adam are out."
The small Drev was no taller than Adam, maybe a little shorter with shiny light purple carapace. Little beads of water condensed into droplets on her carapace, "Oh, I guess I should have called ahead." She shifted on her legs and Martha could hear the soft clicking of her leg braces. Dzara had taken some convincing, but had eventually rejected her old views against assistive technology and accepted the pair of braces offered to her by Adam. She had also accepted reconstructive surgery on her deformed lower hand which had originally been made unusable by her condition forcing her tendons to contract painfully, and keep her hand curled in permanently. Krill had gone in to her forearm and replaced the tendon, allowing the hand to relax. Dzara wore a brace on her hand now though with a little PT it wasn't supposed to be permanent.
"No, its alright, do you want to come in. I can make some tea or hot chocolate."
Dzara seemed pleased with that idea. Turns out Drev could drink plenty of human drinks as long as there was no dairy. Sugar and coca powder was fine enough considering that both things came from plants. You had to be careful about artificial additions, but martha knew what to look for. Juices and some alcoholic were also acceptable but not exactly healthy for Drev.
"That would be nice." She stepped inside smiling at Kay, "Hey," She held out her arms, "Will you let me hold you."
That was a almost a silly question, kay would let almost anyone hold him. Honestly you would have to take it as an insult if he didn't agree. He was just as gregarious as his father and easily went to his Aunt. He was just starting to talk now, but most of it was unintelligible. He tended to talk to fast and about things that didn't make sense to anyone other than him, but he didn't seem to mind.
Martha walked Dzara into the kitchen.
Martha propped the door open onto the covered balcony to let in a waft of rain soaked air. She set Kay down in the living room where she could keep an eye on him, and the two dogs curled up close by to assist her.
"Hos are you doing>" She asked Dzara, pulling two mugs from the cupboard.
"Ok I guess, Ive been working with Adam to set up a Council for Individuals with disabilities. You think he would have thought of it earlier." Her voice wasn't overly critical when she spoke, but full of a certain fondness from her brother in law."
Martha laughed, "You know despite having only 75% of his limbs and 50% of his own eyes, I don't think he ever saw himself as disabled. Never even crossed his mind . Even when he DID he also sort of didn't. Now I think he forgets as much as anyone else. To be fair, he didn't have to live with it for very long before he got his new leg."
Dzara nodded knowingly, "has he thought about getting the leg permanently implanted?"
"No I don't think he's mentioned it. No need. I am assuming you keep in close contact with kanan."
"Yeah, we have a lot of people who move back and forth between Arcadia and Anin. IN fact II was coming to talk to Sunny about potentially switching places with Kanan for a while. It would be nice to get back feel light from Chal on my face again."
Chal, the Drev's star.
Martha understood all to what that felt like. She missed Sol, earth's sun.
"Uh I understand that all to well, but that Idiot president Hunt has made it impossible for us to go back to earth."
"You ad Jim are always welcome to come visit Anin."
"You know what, we might just take you up on that offer. I need a vacation, I miss blue skies. Here, Maya actually did a painting for Kay's room, let me show you." The two of them stepped into the back room and Martha scooped Kay up with one hand. He held a stuffed Giraffe in one hand, a block in another and a set of keys in a third which he happily shook enjoying the noise."
The two dogs followed along behind.
They stepped into kay's room and she flicked on the light so Dzara could see. The Drev made an exclamation of wonderment upon seeing a picture of earth, and Kay played happily with his keys for a few more minutes as they talked .
That's when a low growl rose up from Waffle's throat.
Martha didn't know what it was about that growl, but when she heard it her entire body went cold tingles rolling up into her face as she looked down to see the dog had gotten to her feet. Her hackles were raised straight up and her ears were pinned back against her head. Overhead the lights slowly began to dim.
The room was plunged into darkness, and Martha blinked rapidly as her eyes adjusted to the ambient light spilling in from the window.
The sharp hiss of metal on metal alerted Martha to Dzara arming herself. In the darkness another low growl joined the first.
Keys hit the ground and Kay stopped talking latching himself around Martha's neck with a whimper.
"power outage?" Dzara wondered nervously
"Ive never seen a power outage do that to the lights." Martha's heart was in her throat, and with her free hand she reached up to the wall mounted cubby and withdrew two very important things. She began by quickly slotting the earmuffs over kay's head . They had spent a lot of time getting the boy used to them for just such an occasion.
The second item she pulled had been there on Sunny's insistence.
That there be a weapon in every room of the house.
Of course it was well over ka's ability to reach, and even if he could it was unlikely that hed manage to rack the shotgun. Martha took a deep breath past her pounding heart and gave a rapid jerking motion of her right hand.
Ca-chunk
How martha knew how to pump a shotgun with one hand was a story for a later time.
The dogs were snarling almost frothing at the mouth now.
Martha whistled once, and the two dogs ran around behind her coming to fall in at her heels. They moved with her as she moved towards the door, Dzara covering her other side. Stronger than your average child, kay clambered quietly around onto Martha's back at her insistence and clung onto her with all four of his hands.
He didn't make a sound.
Martha took a breath, and the warm air from her mouth plumed out before her in a white cloud. Dzara held her spear at the ready.
Martha could see into the living room now , past the kitchen and out onto the open balcony door.
It was open wider than she remembered leaving it.
A bolt of lightning cut across the sky illuminating the room for a fraction of a second, and in that instant Martha saw two things.
The trail of watery footsteps.
And a massive black shape looming in the center of the room.
Martha didn't hesitate . The sound of the shotgun going off In such a confined space was deafening, and her ears rang badly. She felt sorry for the poor dogs at her side, but in that moment all of their haring was less important than giving that thing hell.
Her voice was loud in the silence that followed.
"Sick em."
The two dogs shot from her sides like two furry lightning bolts quizzing across the room towards the black mass. In the ensuing violence Martha had trouble seeing what happened. Waffles wen for a leg and pancake launched at an arm both of them latching on.
The dark creature roared.
Martha backed up and Dzara stepped out in front of them spear held at the ready.
The dark shape spun in a circle, and the two dogs held on for as long as they could. Waffles was the first to be shaken off. The old girl hit the ground hard and rolled slamming up against the far wall with a thud and a whimper.
Younger bigger and vicious, Waffles gnawed on the arm she held until the creature began beating her around the head and she was eventually thrown off to splash down into the decorative water feature. The dark shape reared up and another bolt of lightning cut across the room. Dzara must have been illuminated for one sharp moment, as the creature stopped, its burning gold eyes glittering in the dark.
It stared at Dzara like it was seeing a ghost.
Dzara held her ground six feet up against nine or more, " Hello mother."
Kazna took a step back, "You...."
"Don't give me that, you must have heard I was alive." Dzara spat, "No thanks to you of course."
The Drev growled low, "You are no daughter of mine." Behind Martha, kay had begun to cry.
Martha grabbed another set of shells from her pocket and slotted them into the gun, but she couldn't fire or risk hitting Dzara.
"And your not my mom, but that doesn't change the fact that you gave birth to me and left me to die o the side of a mountain, to much of a coward to throw me in."
Martha wasn't sure what Dzara was doing , before realizing.
She was stalling.
Martha would have stayed, but this wasn't about her, this was about Kay. She backed away down the hall quickly heading towards the front door. The growling had started up again, and there was a sloshing from the water feature as pancake got up.
Dzara's stalling didn't last long, "I am not here for you."
There was a short exchange of spears, but Dzara, though she had recently been training hard, was nothing up against a career warrior of decades like Kazna.
There was a sickening sort of crunch and a cry of pain.
Dzara fell to the floor.
Martha had just made it to the door when, it opened with a hiss behind her, and two figures came roaring past her. City light filtered in from the hallway.
"GET AWAY FROM MY SON!"
Kazna was caught off guard as Sunny spear was thrust up under her rib. Adam hit her just after that barreling into her chest and ripping her painfully off her spear. He hit her so hard that the two of them were thrown back and into the window. It was hard to tell how it happened, or even how it was possible, but Adam hit Kazna harder than he should have physically been able, and the bulletproof safety glass shattered, sending the two of them went tumbling out into space.
Martha gasped and ran forward.
Stopping behind Sunny who had also run to the edge.
Somewhere below them Adam's jetpack flared.
Martha turned and ran to make sure Dzara was ok.
She was sitting against the couch clenching wide eyed at an oozing gut wound. Martha could already hear sirens.
Pancake was on her feet dripping, muzzle streaked orange and black.
Across the room poor waffles was struggling valiantly to her feet. Sunny stood protectively over all of them clutching her gore tipped spear so hard it looked like she was going to snap it in half. Martha held kay in her arms now shotgun placed on the dining room table. Kay was sobbing into her shoulder, and Sunny only let up when he reached for her.
Martha's hands were shaking.
Adam appeared then dripping wet and pale as a ghost. Two limping dogs, his mother kneeling next to his bleeding sister in law, and his crying, but unharmed son held in his wife's arms was a sight, and he held himself together valiantly as he helped Martha with Dzara. When the authorities, led by Conn finally shoed up he let someone else take charge, devolving into shaking.
Martha felt the same and clung to the two dogs petting them and telling them how good they were even as quiet tears rolled down her face. Jim showed up as soon as he was able. Running over to see if she was ok just as an EMT was gently bandaging Waffle's paw.
Kazna was nowhere to be found.
Dzara was lucky, to be attended to by the universe's most skilled trauma surgeon barely fifteen minutes past original injury. She would recover quickly.
Martha would need auditory therapy for months.
The two dogs were fine aside from Waffle's hurt paw, and some bad bruising on her sides, but a few days of not moving too much and maybe a few too many treats had her up and running quickly.
Pancake was as right as rein a few minutes after.
And Martha received a Crushing hug from Sunny, who pronounced her the best mother in the universe the title of which she wasn't about to turn down.
It was clear to them Kazna had been going after Kay. The reason didn't matter so much as the fact that. If anything were to happen to him, it was unlikely that his parents would handle it gracefully.
Conn would tighten security around the towe.
Following the news Kelly became a permanent shadow in their household. She didn't say why, but no one was about to turn down her presence. Any help they could get at this point.
Either way, kazna would not make it past them again.
Because a good mother had thwarted that possibility with two dogs and a shotgun.