Heri poked at the chunks of meat in his bowl with a tentacle, trying to look as if he wasn’t hungry. He was molting though, his feathers sticking out in odd directions. Last year when he had been growing, he had devoured anything I had put in front of him. The same glint was in his eyes now, but he wasn’t eating.
Jalasen shifted on her hind legs and nervously patted down her fur. She was eyeing her food as well, but hadn’t taken a bite out of the vegetables in her bowl yet.
Putting my tablet down on the table I moved my eyes between the two of them. “I don’t think I burned the food. Did I spice something incorrectly?”
Heri’s feathers drooped and he smacked he snapped his teeth together, “where is your food Mother?”
I smiled showing him my teeth, “I ate while I was cooking. I’m full. Eat your food it’s getting cold.”
Jalasen shifted her quadrupedal lower body, putting her forward clawed feet up on the table, raising her small head so that it was level with my own. Her eye stalks waved from side to side and she let out a low keening warble, “You did not eat. I was watching you cook!”
I kept the smile on my face, leaning forwards I pushed her plate towards her. “Eat, I’m fine.”
Heri clicked in annoyance and pushed his food away. It was his favorite, overcooked cuts of beef and bones in a broth.
Jalasen put a hand on her own plate of steamed vegetables, fighting my grip she pushed it away to join Heri’s in the center of the table.
I looked at the two plates of food for a moment, “Do both of you want to be grounded? Eat your food.”
Heri clicked his teeth again, “Not until you do Mother.”
Shifting in my seat I picked up my book again, “Human adults can go for a long time without food. You are both growing, and you are going to eat, right now!”
My statement was punctuated with a growl from my own stomach. I closed my eyes ignoring it.
“Mother,” whispered Jalasen, her eye stalks twitching towards the sound. Her ears were in them somewhere, I had never really figured out how that worked.
“Eat.” I growled. Leaning back from the table I closed my eyes waiting.
She whimpered and I heard her claws scraping on the top of the table gouging into the old wood. The sound of crunching vegetables filled the dining room.
I kept my face impassive.
“Jala!” hissed Heri.
“I’m hungry! Mother said she is fine!”
“She is lying! You can hear her stomach moving, she is hungry!”
Opening my eyes, I picked up my tablet and turned to the next page of my book. “Eat Heri. You need to be strong to protect your sister.”
Heri’s feathers drooped at that, his eyes flicked quickly back and forth from me to his Sister and then the food in front of him. I was being mean, putting it like that but it would convince him to eat.
Picking up the bowl Heri opened his maw and quickly poured the mixture into his mouth, the pouch around his neck quickly extending to hold all the food.
The two children looked at one another and then at their empty plates. They were both still hungry, but that had been all the food I had managed to get. They both knew their wasn’t a point to asking for more.
I smiled at the two, “I cooked, can you two handle cleaning up the table?”
Jalasen groaned, the unwillingness to do chores was something universal in children. It took her hours to clean her nest, and Heri had never once in his life managed to make up his bed in the morning.
“We can do it Mother!” said Heri. Grabbing his and Jalasen’s bowls Heri dashed into the kitchen. Jalasen let out a disgruntled chirp and followed.
I smiled as her claws scrabbled to find purchase on the floor. She still hadn’t learned how to move quickly on the old tile.
My stomach growled again and a wave of lightheadedness swept over me. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday’s lunch at work. The cut in the meal tokens that were being allotted to everyone, and then dividing the food I could get into three was unsustainable.
I was going to have to get more meal tokens, the quickest ways were more dangerous than the factory. If anything happened to me, the two would be trapped and starve, or shot when they built up the courage to leave the house.
A knock on the door interrupted my thoughts and I stood. I heard a plate hit the floor in the kitchen, Heri burst back into the small dining room a tentacle around one of Jalasen’s legs dragging her along with him.
His eyes were wide in fear, I pointed at the wall. His feathers flattened slightly and Jalasen warbled in distress.
“Quite!” hissed Heri as he tugged the small hatch open and pushed his sister into it. He glanced back at me teeth chittering in distress.
“Go, I’ll open it when it’s safe.”
Heri’s feathers were completely flat now, but he followed the command and closed the hatch.
Moving to the door I brushed at my stained jumpsuit, trying to make it somewhat presentable.
Looking through the peephole I winced. “Damn it.”
Mr. Tyler was standing on my front porch dressed in one of his signature pre-invasion suits, his pepper grey hair cut short and beard carefully sculpted to make it look as if he did nothing to take care of it.
A bodyguard was standing off to his side, one of the Halkek weapons in his hands. The barrel was glowing a soft green, set to stun.
“Hanna? I heard something crash, are you OK?” asked Mr. Tyler.
I unlocked the door and pulled it open, “I’m fine. You just surprised me is all, dropped a plate on my foot.”
Mr. Tyler nodded, “Sorry about that.” He pulled a few coins from his jacket and held them out.
Hesitating I took them, “Thank you.”
Mr. Tyler stepped inside, the bodyguard shadowing him across the threshold.
“What can I do for you?” I asked still at the door.
“I wanted to check up on you, I promised your Mother I would look after you.”
I closed the door and crossed my arms, “because you’ve been doing so well checking up on me.”
Mr. Tyler chuckled, “Yes well, it’s better to see how far people will be able to go on their own merits. You’ve certainly done well for yourself.”
Looking around Mr. Tyler moved and sat at my table, in the same seat Heri had been in.
Studiously keeping my eyes away from the hatch in the corner I sat down at the head of the table.
“I’d like to think so.”
“I think you have as well, but your talents are being wasted on the factory floor.”
Mr. Tyler leaned forwards and thumbed the rough edge of my jumpsuit sleeve.
I steeled myself and kept my arm in place, “but like you’ve said, I’ve earned it. It pays the bills, keeps me comfortable.”
Mr. Tyler looked around the room, his eyes roamed over the wall and the few pictures on the wall. He looked at the kitchen and finally settled his gaze on me.
“I know you’ve been asking for additional meal tokens. I can get you those if credits aren’t enough.” Said Mr. Tyler. He looked around the room, “For whatever reason you need them.”
I narrowed my eyes, “I’m content with my job as it is.”
Mr. Tyler nodded and stood up. Walking around to his bodyguard he plucked the weapon from him. Holding the weapon up Mr. Tyler set it down on the table.
“I’m not asking you to pick one up and fire it Hanna.”
Mr. Tyler slid his hand down the gun, and flicking the release popped the energy core out of it. Moving efficiently, he broke down the gun into its parts separating them into two piles on the table, Human and Alien.
“But those of us who aren’t fighting need to help the ones who are. Assembling low grade power cells is beneath you. Humanity needs people like you and your Mother to ensure we remain safe!”
Reaching out I picked up one of the power control circuit boards in the Human pile. “My Mother created weapons to protect me, to protect Humanity. I barely remember the Invasion.”
Mr. Tyler slowly nodded, “Don’t try too. Most of us who lived through it would rather forget. The Corprum, they were inhumanly vicious.” He looked at the power cell in his hands, “The handheld weapons were the least dangerous. We could overpower the shields they wore with concentrated fire, or grenades. Those of us fighting in the trenches were lucky. The biological and chemical agents,”
Mr. Tyler paused and shook his head, “I lost my entire family to those.”
Mr. Tyler put the power cell on the table. “You’re Mother, and the people like her who worked to find cures to the viruses they unleashed, how we could use their own technology against them, they were the real heroes. All I did was hold the line.”
Looking at the chip in my hand I nodded, “They wanted to protect what they had. Save their children, make sure they had better lives.”
“What parent doesn’t?” asked Mr. Tyler.
I looked at him, “Can you say that’s what Humanity is doing now?”
I crushed the chip in my hand, ignoring the biting pain as the circuitry cut into my hand.
Mr. Tyler’s face hardened, “We are defending ourselves.”
“When have concentration camps, invasions, and wars of extermination done anything but create more strife in our own history?”
Mr. Tyler pursed his lips. Turning back to the table he quickly reassembled the gun, careful to leave the power cell out. Without the limiter, it was in danger of exploding.
“They attacked us without provocation, tried to exterminate us Hanna.”
“So, we should do the same?” I asked voice low.
The frame of the gun creaked as Mr. Tyler crushed it between his hands. “Ideally, no. In a perfect world, it would be a resolute no.”
He stood up and handed the gun back to his bodyguard, “We don’t live in a perfect world though. It’s kill or be killed. The Corprum left their people behind, whoever leads them. They’re heartless, or trying to take advantage of our mercy. Humanities priority should be survival, if we must commit atrocities to guarantee that. So be it.”
“I won’t kill, until I have to. If I develop weapons for you now, they’ll be used to kill because the man wielding them wants to, not because he has to. They’ll be used to kill an alien starving in a cell after some doctor’s finished cutting him up.”
Mr. Tyler brought a hand to his face and groaned, “If we wait to kill until we have to, there is a much higher chance we will lose.”
I pointed at the door, “I’d rather lose then become like the Corprum.”
Mr. Tyler stood and walked towards the door, he paused at it. “Flowery ideals won’t save the future of Humanity Hanna.”
I sharpened my gaze, “Actions will. Leave.”
Mr. Tyler shook his head and opened my door, his bodyguard catching it, respectfully closed it behind him.
I didn’t move, listening for the slight hum of his transport taking off.
Slumping back down into my chair I turned my eyes to the wall, “It’s safe to come out.”
Heri slowly poked his head out from the cubby, one of Jalasen’s eye stalks poked out beside him.
“Moma?” he asked his voice shaky.
I was on the floor in front of them and in another moment, both were crushed to my chest, my arms holding them tight. The familiar feathers, rough skin, claws, temperature, and feel of my children.
Tears collected in my eyes and put my face in Heri’s feathers. He hadn’t called me Moma since he was small, and I had barely been more than a child myself.
“You two were so good at being quite.”
Heri moved a tentacle up to my face, wiping away one of the tears.
“You never told us your Mother did that, helped make the weapons that got rid of the Corprum.” whispered Heri.
I pulled back from him, and wiped at my eyes not sure what to say. “She was protecting me Heri.”
“Like you protect us?” asked Jalasen, her voice keening.
“Like I protect you.”
I looked at the two of them and smirked, “You’re not Human.”
The two small aliens blinked and looked at one another, “We know that Mother.” Said Heri speaking as if I were a child myself.
“Yes, well to most Humans. Something not Human is Corprum.”
Heri’s feathers puffed out, “We’re not Corprum! They were monsters!”
Jalasen’s eye stalks retraced inwards and her claws scrapped at the floor cutting into it, “I’m not a monster!”
Fresh tears welled up from my eyes I nodded, “No you’re not.”
Taking a tentacle from Heri and a claw from Jalasen in my own hands I looked at the two of them, “What you look like on the outside, doesn’t make you a monster. It’s who you are inside that does. Do you understand?”
Jalasen let out a happy chirp, “Yes!”
Heri’s grip tightened on my hand, he looked at the floor for a moment. “Does that mean Humans can be monsters?”
Wearily I inclined my head, “Humans can be Monsters just as terrifying as the Corprum.”
Heri’s feathers flattened to his body, and his face sobered.
I sniffed and stood, letting their hands fall from mine.
“Now, both of you did exactly what you were supposed to do. I have a chocolate bar hidden away, do you two want to share it?”
Their faces brightened, and they began to dance on the spot talons and tentacles flopping about in a happy frenzy.
“You get a piece too Mother!” said Heri.
“Yes, we all share!” said Jalasen.
I leaned down and hugged both again, “We’ll all share the chocolate.”