Sofita swiped her finger over the photo, bringing up a detailed account of his death, less than thirteen hours ago. “Do we have this shark attack on file?”
Surface Operational Housing
Dirtox’takal [Lazarev Sea]
1 Yubol 2249 1430 Hours
Sofita woke to the sound of seal barks and piercing laughter.
The sheer act of dozing off still unsettled her after so many years. Bouts of sleep plagued those who served between the poles, and luckily for her, such naps didn’t interfere with her ability to hibernate at the end of the year.
Across the pool, a juvenile seal, its stubby whiskers dripping with wet ice, let out a farewell yelp and dove into the black water before getting spritzed with shark urine repellent. Seals were playful until they became overstimulated, so residents of underwater facilities like this one never visited the pool without a squirt bottle.
This unit was just one of many seafloor residences for those employed outside of Ramaxia. Many traded life under the ice for the tharspin-coated footprint of SOHU3, devoid of the artificial skies and weather cycles native to the benthic domes on the mainland. Born color blind like all hizak, Sofita never appreciated the majesty of atmospheric shell technology. Isolated in her colorless world, she relied on others to describe how those indigo skies under the domes clouded to violet before a scheduled rain.
The chilly artificial breeze carried the scent of cooking food down from the atrium’s expanse, where balconies climbed, their undersides glowing like those bioluminescent mushrooms that formed shelves on subglacial tree trunks. Sofita’s little two-room unit sat on the highest floor, beneath a dull white rotunda designed to emulate the ice sheet’s underbelly.
Surrounded by bizaki and their spouses, Sofita often felt isolated from the scant few hizaki that lived here. Her balcony, the only one in the atrium without plants or an outdoor cooker, stood out in this community of cozy relationships. Yet, despite this isolation, she appreciated the safety it offered compared to the habitat rings in Orta.
Given her academic prowess, Sofita could have resided on the mainland, in an elegant high-rise in Utama or in an elite penthouse in Pikalit. Such privilege, earned by the best of femarctic society, was something Sofita walked away from years ago. Weary of ruminating on reality, she snatched up her axico and hoped to lose herself in some fiction until a distant giggle nagged for her attention.
Earlier, a clutch of plump zaxiri had been lazing in the frosty artificial wind, and their whispers began the moment Sofita stepped out of her pants: “Why is her undershirt still on?” “Her fronts are too big, and what’s wrong with her backswell?” “Is that hair on her head?” “That axico isn’t real. Bruisers can’t read.”
All that remained of the chatty herd were two half-naked zaxiri, one a young eleventh-gen and the other a tenth-gen like herself. Between the pair sat a subak, another tenth losing herself in an axico. The subby’s thick robe poorly concealed those weighty, round frontals. Subaki were as top-heavy as zaxiri, but they lacked flabby arms and those hanging, dimpled bellies that their warrior-caste sisters, the marixi, loved pawing at when everyone’s clothes were off.
For Sofita, a subby’s lone appeal was her suzuk. A subak’s braids advertised her origins, and the poolside beauty’s single rope said Toxis. No subby ventured out without her hair woven in suzu, nor did she flirt with marixi, known sexual opportunists who ignored the nuances of consent. During castehood, Sofita and her hizaki peers partook in socio-sexual parties where the attending zaxiri always knew what they wanted and expressed what they expected in return. The subaki at these get-togethers, however, required constant coaxing with no guarantee of physical engagement.
Despite their complicated nature, Sofita’s thighs had bounced their share of subaki. Even now, she conjured ways to pleasure the aloof chunk in her thick robe until the subby’s head rose, with her gaze fixed on Sofita’s side of the pool.
“Komad Kul?”
A familiar tenor lifted Sofita from the chaise.
Pitana Dag, a regal figure in her stylish pantsuit, stood with her arms open. Her long face, unchanged from their castehood years, was crowned by a row of neatly crafted hair cylinders that accentuated her hide’s stripes along the hairline.
The poolside zaxiri observed with hungry eyes. Hizaki were known for their sexual partialism, a trait that kept things interesting, but the subby’s intense gaze felt unusual; most subaki found hizaki too self-absorbed, and their compulsive use of sophisticated vocabulary, pretentious.
“You’re a long way from the helovx-hotel,” Sofita said, entering Dag’s embrace. The three across the pool began chattering, and Sofita couldn’t help but imitate. “That color brings out the brown in your hide,”
Never one to grasp humor, Dag examined her jacket sleeve.
“My stylist claims this color is that of helovx blood.” The slender official regarded her with an inquiring eye. “Does the phasic enhancement in your anatomy eradicate hizaxikogatix?”
“No, Ambassador,” Sofita answered like a proper hizak. “If the Shell altered my physicality, I wouldn’t be obligated to sustain this musculature.”
Dag pulled a small brush from her trouser pocket.
“I’ll refrain from commenting on your physique,” she said, dragging it over her suit jacket’s front. “I must assert, however, that the cut of that water wear is atrocious.”
Marixi spent most of their off-duty hours clad in exercise clothes. Orta assigned every soldier three pairs of workout pants, three onesies for swimming, and three sleeveless shirts for weight training. After making rank, Sofita felt obligated to wear these OAs when not in uniform. It wasn’t easy. Appearance wasn’t just a part of the hizaki lifestyle, it was their identity.
Hizaki abhorred utilitarian fashion. Refined sartorial choices were not just a matter of personal preference but a strategic necessity, as appearance influenced judgment. Naturally, their congenital color blindness enslaved them to hairstylists and clothiers.
Dag’s stylist demonstrated considerable talent by endowing the willowy hizak with a noticeable girsuzsch. Dag’s buttocks had failed to achieve ideal prominence in her later castehood years, an unfortunate circumstance as hizaki valued this physical attribute above all others; the bigger the rump, the better the brain.
“I’m not a conveyance clerk, Komad,” Dag reiterated, her long legs bending as she settled on the opposite chaise. “My presence here is not by choice but as punishment for a perceived tardiness in delivering crucial news to CM Wram.”
“Spite is one of her better endowments,” said Sofita.
As Ramaxia’s prime political ambassador, Dag was under the authority of Lekada Wram, the nation’s Second Office on the Committee of Five. A ninth-gen hizak with a contentious nature, Wram held more power than she deserved, and her disdain for helovxi was only surpassed by her hatred for Sofita Kul.
“I attempted to acquire you in Orta, but your superior directed me here.” Dag’s brow tensed. “Primekomad Hibz is a miserable bruise.”
“She hasn’t aged well,” Sofita concurred, but before she could add more, a shadow darkened the space over Dag’s legs.
The young zaxir stood before them with her ample portions stuffed into a sheer bluzerie that left little to the imagination. Thick, black locks draped two bulbous frontals, alluring mounds covered with spots that ribboned across her chest. She aimed a saccharine smile, full of clean, cusped teeth, at Pitana Dag.
“Sorry to disturb you, but is that an ambassador service pin?”
Dag’s hand moved to the medallion on her collar, but before she could reply, the young zaxir launched into a monologue about her upcoming classes in Mynu. She casually gestured towards the two older breeders across the pool, proudly informing them about her nestor’s profession as a burxol therapist and her birther’s retirement as a genetics counselor.
Sofita and Dag craned their necks for a look. Sofita made a show of gawking, though genuinely curious about the color of the subby’s dotted hide, while Dag’s expression remained neutral, her skill from years of diplomatic service. This rotund beauty was far too young, but an educated belly and a subby trained in orgasmic therapy were worth more than a fleeting glance.
The young thing’s voice rose an octave.
“Did you go to school in Mynu?”
Dag animated with a mirthful spark.
“May I inquire after your name, citizen?”
“Hako,” said the flirtatious belly.
Sofita couldn’t help but interject, “What’s your maks name?”
Hako ignored her and bent over to focus on Dag’s other pins, putting her bulging fronts on full display. “Do you get these pins when you join the OHA?”
Dag played the stolid elder, determined to keep her attention on Hako’s face. Sofita pitied her friend, whose hiziburx centered on abnormally large suzsch. If this belly had met her twenty years ago, Dag would’ve sought allowance to grope and fondle.
“Hold out your hand, Hako,” said Dag, rising from the chaise and removing one of the tiny medallions from her lapel.
Hako beamed. “You’re going to let me touch it?”
“She sure is,” Sofita leered.
Dag admonished Sofita with a disapproving glance.
“They supply me with many of these on Ramaxia Primada,” she said, placing the pin in Hako’s palm.
“You live on Base Thirteen?” Hako said, eyes gleaming like a seal. “Like, you live with helovx?”
Sofita prodded, “Does your mak work by appointment?”
“I don’t know, bruise,” Hako’s nostrils flared. “Go ask her.”
“You can keep that Hako,” said Dag.
“I can’t take this,” Hako purred, clutching the pin to her cleavage.
“Consider it a gift.” Dag pointed her head at Sofita, “In our day, there were so few zaxiri seeking education in Mynu.”
Hako’s eyes shifted furtively. Strange hair notwithstanding, Sofita’s muscular arms, rude behavior, and the stringy blaster peeking out from under her training pants proved she was an idiotic bruise; bruisers didn’t go to Mynu.
Hako stepped closer to Dag, her voice steady. “Can I ask you something?”
Dag took a step back.
“Inquire of me anything, citizen.”
“I want you to call me Hako,” she tapped a flirtatious finger to Dag’s bottom lip.
Dag stiffened, “You may call me Ambassador Dag.”
“You’re Pitanadag?” The young thing’s face flushed, and her mannerism turned donatlike. “I’m so honored to meet you, Ambassador Prime. I’m taking part in the Helovx-Initiative,”
“You’re bound for the Office of Helovx Advocacy?” Dag encouraged her with a grin. “Do you have a particular field of interest, Hako?”
“I have a particular field of interest.” Sofita threaded her fingers behind her head and reclined on the chaise. “Does your mako make room calls?”
Hako feigned politeness while speaking through her teeth. “Not for thick-backed bruisers wearing shitty hair pieces,”
“Her hair is authentic,” Dag spoke with a defensive air before softening her tone. “Hako, this is Doctor Sofita Kul.”
Sofita closed her eyes.
“Such revelations are highly inconvenient, Ambassador,”
“Apologies, Komad,” Dag whispered.
Hako’s silence prompted Sofita to open an eye.
“Breathing is healthier than not,” she teased her.
“Sorry, I just,” Hako exhaled with a smile. “I didn’t think you were real.”
Caste designation was a genetic non-negotiable. Born hizak and engineered to manage or educate, Sofita’s choice to retire from intellectual life and train in the military had been unprecedented. News outlets published articles about her transition, but her complete silence on the subject made her mythical.
Hako turned her attention back to Dag. “I’d like to stay polar, Ambassador,” she said, regaining her voice. “Maybe service on those Helovx-Care Floats in the Ramaxic’acarol,”
“Now, Hako, when in Helovx Studies, you must refer to that body of water by its helovx name, the Arctic. Your instructor might make an example of you.” Dag stepped into Sofita’s line of sight, blocking Hako. “What was your inquiry, Hako?”
“Yes, my question,” Hako giggled before turning serious, “Women have trouble birthing. Do you think citizens like me could live between the poles someday and help them?”
“Women are fragile,” said Dag, “Yet also formidable,”
“I hear some are worse off. My kerma says that women breed with their donations—I mean, children,” Hako’s eyes turned cautious. “Like, if a child is born damaged, if they can’t walk or talk, the parents will eat them.”
Dag cast a knowing glance at Sofita. The young thing’s bizak kerma must have told this tale to discourage her zaxiridoe from leaving the southern polar region.
At last count, Ramaxicon contained almost fifteen thousand helovx, most of which died in the years following the Yosemite eruption. Before that, the species endured a drastic culling during the Eros Impact Event.
Sofita encountered a few incidents of inbreeding among those isolated at sea but nothing on the scale that produced damaged offspring. As for cannibalism, modern helovx, along with the femmar, prohibited it.
“Hey, ask your makers if they’re up for a group?” Sofita jerked her head toward Dag. “The Ambassador’s not returning to the Helovx Hotel anytime soon,”
“Sofita!” Dag gasped.
“If you’re looking for that sort of thing, soldier,” Hako scolded, her hands on her fleshy hips. “Go visit a citbluz,”
“My room can be our bluz,” Sofita pressed.
Hako exhaled in disgust before walking back to her makers.
Sexual by design, most zaxiri worked the massage parlors, dance clubs, and erotic rooms of a Citizen’s Bluzsh. A rare few sought higher education, and fewer still aspired to more than rent-free boarding and daily orgasms. Across the pool, Hako relayed her rude offer, and while the subak tutted loudly, the older zaxir embraced Hako for her flirtation with Dag.
Dag turned sour. “Must you perform?”
“My life among marixi requires regular displays of crudeness,” Sofita spoke like a proper hizak. “Performing, as you call it, is essential to assimilating.”
Dag returned to her chaise without further complaint.
“How long have you lived on Ramaxia Primada?” Sofita asked.
“Four years this Yulitat.” Dag adjusted her long legs. “I yearn for the mainland. I didn’t exile myself from it as you did.” She caught herself and looked Sofita in the eyes. “Apologies, that was a discourteous thing to say,”
Sofita smirked, “I’ll survive discourtesy.”
The lanky hizak pulled a duxpak from her suit jacket and offered up the glossy page-sized unit to Sofita. “Komad, you’re traveling to Yazhou,”
Sofita took the dux, her mood suddenly apprehensive.
“I don’t anticipate a pleasant interaction with Jyr—”
“—You’re not to communicate with Kuril Base in any way,” Dag declared with soft authority. “You’re to have no contact with the Ambassador,”
Sofita stared at her. “What’s she done now?”
“I’m unable to explain.” Dag met her gaze. “And as you’re fond of saying, I don’t care too,”
Caught by the sentiment, she said, “Excuse me?”
“Your indifference is legendary, Sofita.” Dag tugged at her sleeves and surveyed the pool. “I’m shocked you haven’t shaved your head again and stained your scalp with the mantra ‘I Don’t Care.’”
She protested. “That’s not fair,”
“What happens to you, happens,” said Dag, delivering words spoken by Sofita many years ago. “Fusada’s gone, as am I.”
Sofita sat robbed of a retort.
“Moving on,” Dag added, “CM Wram tasked me with interrogating the Jungwanian ambassador. I opted for something less formal,”
Sofita endeavored to lighten the mood. “Did this option entail dining?”
“That meal found me on the gape for hours,” Dag scowled.
“Gape?” she asked, smiling. “I thought Base Thirteen contained only helovx toilets,”
“I reside within a traditional residence,” Dag declared. “I’ll never partake in the helovx squat.”
The first Femarctic toilets were thigh-high mounds of ice topped with circular openings that one straddled. In the Second Gen era, artisans designed the stand-alone porcelain gapirx for a more hygienic age.
“How does a species evolve without a single gurx for urinating and defecating?” Dag’s face twisted in disgust. “It’s unsanitary, urinating from an orifice located beneath the rydok,”
“A woman doesn’t have a rydok. She has a clitoris.” Sofita enjoyed Dag’s discomfort. “Their cunts are as thick as our goozers, and if you’re unfortunate enough to encounter the wrong one, it will stink of a beached seal,”
“Do you lecture in Orta?” A stoic Dag asked. “The crude terminology you’re employing must entertain the lowest of marixi,”
Sofita continued, “Men stand up straight and aim the penis,”
Dag raised her hand for silence but then curled her fingers as if holding something. “Have you handled a penis?”
“We’ve both had the pleasure,” Sofita reminded. “Helovx anatomy, Mynu, fifth year,”
“Manipulating interactive images isn’t equal to handling actual flesh,”
“Surely your helovx delegates have a male assistant or two,”
“CM Wram forbids helovx males on Ramaxia Primada,”
“When you met with Jungwa’s Ambassador,” Sofita tapped the dux screen and glanced at the digital file. “Did she have any advice on handling the penis?”
“Sorkhaq Tani is an agreeable woman, but Jungwanian cuisine is far too diverse,” Dag complained. “Each bite promises misery,”
Sofita studied the image on the screen. A dark-eyed man with long black hair tucked behind his shoulders. His colorless lab coat bore the letters BUMO across the chest pocket. “What helovx cuisine do you prefer, Ambassador?”
“I adore whipped potatoes from the African Trisect, topped with the sauce they call Brown Gravy. Another treat is that thinly sliced cheese.” Dag paused to clarify. “Not the variety they claim is orange, like feces. I speak of the white, and it’s enchanting,”
“Their fecal matter isn’t orange like ours,” Sofita said. “It’s brown, like their gravy,”
Dag refrained from scolding. “Pym Zhang was a geneticist,”
“Living in Orta hasn’t eroded my reading ability, Ambassador.” Sofita swiped her finger over the photo, bringing up a detailed account of his death, less than thirteen hours ago. “Do we have this shark attack on file?”
Dag pointed her head at the dux. “The Sorority of Defense retrieved it from the OHA assignment logs and added it to your Ornith’s queue.”
“Zhang’s projects employed our bio-sciences.” Sofita tapped through to another page of information. “Interesting, since our medical and tech manuals are off-limits to helovx,”
“Helovx cannot decipher or interpret Ramaxi,” said Dag. “Yet, this Zhang was an exception,”
Sofita gave a start. “His date of birth?”
“Summer of 2200,” said Dag, arms folded.
Zhang’s face, typical for a human from Yazhou, lacked no hint of the femarctic male who likely sired him.
“He’s one of Cristi’s,” said Sofita.
Dag blinked. “No one is certain of-”
“You’re here because Wram’s certain.”
Caro Cristi, a ninth-gen male designated zaxir, had been apprehended shortly after Sofita’s birth. His crime was murdering one of his bond partners, a hizak employed in the Antarctica West Islands. While awaiting termination, he’d somehow escaped custody and fled Ramaxia.
“Komadon Kul’s pursuit of Cristi blocked his ability to establish roots,” Sofita said. “He underwent cosmetic surgery to alter his hide and eyes and has since lived as a helovx man named Carl Crystal.”
Dag’s averted gaze held unspoken words.
“Why am I catching this mission, Ambassador?”
“You’re Femitokon,” she said. “An alleged hybrid is involved,”
“There’s no hybrid to terminate. Zhang’s dead.”
“I confess, I had my doubts about their existence until today,” Dag admitted, then leaned in, “Are hybrids truly stronger than their male sires?”
“You’re polluting the subject, Ambassador,”
“No, Komad,” she said. “I’m adjacently guiding the conversation.”
Sofita conceded. “Femarctic males aren’t as weak as you think,”
“You share my maker’s views?” Dag seemed surprised. “Her claim that each new generation delivers males capable of greater extrasensory-”
“—Her views are required reading in the Division,”
“I’ve glanced at her compositions, as have you,” Dag said, dismissive. “I’ve no bias against bizaki rising above their routine, but they lack objectivity in certain sciences.”
Sofita joined in her hizaki verbosity. “You suggest that being born a bizak renders CM Dag incapable of emotional detachment when composing impartial viewpoints?”
“A theory not exclusive to me,” said Dag. “Ambassador Jyr, when representative of Utama, highlighted this fact when proving her unfit to craft legislation.”
“That legislation that formed the Femitokon Division,” said Sofita.
Dag’s thin lips became a line connecting her cheeks. “Even you, Komad, must admit you serve an unethical organization,”
“Be that as it may,” amusement tugged at the corners of Sofita’s mouth. “Former representative Jyr predicated her case not on your maker being bizak, but your maker merely being Wox Dag, a citizen who lacks the sanity needed to substantiate principle.”
Dag sniggered like a donat.
“You want to know if she’s right?” Sofita tallied. “I can speak exclusively of hybrids, who have no extrasensory or telepathic power. They either possess higher-than-normal intelligence or varying levels of emotional impairment,”
“What of their physical strength, Komad?”
“None have been tough enough to take me out.”
Dag’s eyes drifted to Sofita’s toned body.
“The phasic armor in your blood guarantees this?”
Sofita bent the duxpak into a tube.
“Are you suggesting I can’t do my job without the Shell?”
Dag’s eyes set upon the rolled-up dux. “Relax, Komad.”
Throughout her castehood years, Sofita’s refined physical aggression often tainted her intellectual prowess. Hizaki sparred verbally, never bodily; the twin of a marix, she still struggled with this principle.
“When finished reviewing that file,” Dag stood and smoothed the wrinkles in her pants. “Dispose of it in a divisional pak-bin, not one of those street units.”
Sofita snatched up her training pants, careful to tuck her stringy palm blaster into its front pocket. Dag pinched the fabric between her fingers and grimaced.
“That’s a ghastly design,” she said. “What material is this?”
“Jaxol fiber,” Sofita said. “It soaks up the sweat,”
Unnecessary physical exertion made Dag shudder.
“How often do you perspire?”
“When I’m running or lifting weights?”
Dag set aside with such thoughts.
“Fusada almost acquired Cristi, yes?”
“Komadon Kul might’ve acquired him,” Sofita said, stepping into her pants and yanking them over her backside. “If CM Dag hadn’t pulled her from TermSabo,”
“That’s the second time you’ve referred to Fusada as Komadon Kul,” Dag admonished with concern. “She’s not a stranger, Sofita,”
Sofita opened the pool gate and waited for Dag to step through. “A helovx witness testified that Cristi kept a younger male close to him in the summer of twenty-two thirty-three. This witness said that this younger male could repel sharks, but he also altered helovx moods,”
Dag surveyed the area before whispering.
“Did our males have such abilities?”
“Ninth Gen males sense temperaments but cannot alter them,” she said. “This male was likely a Tenth,”
Dag blinked. “Then, my mak’s summations are correct?”
“Presently, her summations are beyond debate.” Sofita turned before uttering the falsehood. “There are no males beyond the Tenth to prove her evolutionary theories,”
Dag came alongside her. “Did you acquire this male of Cristi’s?”
“Never found him,” said Sofita. “One of the women claimed they killed him before Femitokon agents raided the boat city. She said he wasn’t an angel, like Cristi, but a demon,”
Dag rolled her eyes. “The helovx philosophy of a higher power,”
“Cristi appealed to that archaic belief,” she said. “Calling himself an Angel of God,”
“I recognize the constructs of that particular religion, Sofita. You composed enough work on the subject in your years of normalcy.”
Dag hesitated before turning to face her.
“That was discourteous of me,”
“That witness claims,” Sofita whispered, getting closer to the tall hizak. “That this demon killed all of Cristi’s daughters.”
Dag’s eyes went wide. “Hybrid females?”
“I’ve yet to find a hybrid girl,” she assured softly. “This witness also stated that the two other angels turned on the demon,”
“Two angels assaulting third,” Dag whispered. “Including Cristi, that’s four males in total?”
“Femitokon collected the two deceased Ninth-Gen males,” she nodded, her voice still hushed. “This altercation among them is likely what killed that Tenth Gen, not the boat people,”
“How can you be certain?” asked Dag.
“No helovx is skilled enough to kill a male femmar,” she assured. “Certainly not one capable of fucking with their psyche,”
“Refrain from employing that expletive,” Dag sulked. “I appreciate that you bruisers have appropriated the term, but I find it distasteful,”
Sofita smirked, “I’m just composing some marixi normalcy,”
“I apologized for being discourteous,” Dag snapped.
“The tenth-gen male remains at large,” she whispered.
Dag whispered back, “Perhaps he’s hiding in the hide,”
Such a possibility was plausible, though unlikely. After the Balanced Citizenry Act, it became illegal for Femarctic Males to exist in Ramaxia, forcing those at large to live undetected in the gender identity of an ordinary citizen; hiding in the hide became citizenry slang for this covert existence.
The shuttle bay’s annulus-shaped moonpool reeked of briny kelp.
A trio of seals leaped onto the wet porch, slick with seawater and dotted with marine equipment, their joyous barks echoing as they slid playfully into the bizaki work crew. Stronger than they appeared, the femarctic laboring caste, no matter what their vocation, always wore their long black hair in a tail. They also held boundless patience when it came to rowdy marine life.
Dag’s piloted transport bobbed in the chop. A bland placoderm model webbed in glass, it bore the Ramaxian mark on its crowning fin. From its open side hatch emerged a bald eleventh-gen marix in a black Axyrn uniform. Her thick bicep tensed as she pressed a rectangular panel beside the hatch, popping it out. With brutal grace, she tugged out the long tharspin extension and let it drop, marrying it to the platform with a deafening clang.
“Zhang worked for the Bumo Corporation,” Dag said, turning to her. “Ensure nothing remains of his body for autopsy-”
“—and acquire all things related to his work,” Sofita said, and when Dag smiled, she asked, “What do I do if I encounter his research?”
Dag considered it a moment.
“Proceed as if Ambassador Jyr is your Prime.”
Laxum’s airy tenor filled her thoughts: destroy everything connecting Zhang to Ramaxia and terminate anyone familiar with his name.
Dag’s square heels clapped over the extended walk, passing the young marix, who came to attention as she passed.
The spotted marix then regarded Sofita with a stern curiosity. Despite the Shell’s role in her military entry, sheer determination got her through Orta’s strict physical training. Doing so without the spheres had elevated her to legendary status among the eleventh-gen bruisers, all of them donats at the time.
Her generational peers in the tenth tolerated her intrusion into their world, many admiring her efforts and some believing her actions were a product of mourning for Fusada, their former elite.
Not a single ninth-gen marix celebrated her achievements, not when their leader, the Primary, often voiced her desire for Sofita’s demise. Her toxic relationship with the sadistic Fusa Kul fostered a sinister pride; her birth had killed the love of Fusa’s life, the first strike in an ongoing conflict that quieted after Fusada’s demise.
Sofita challenged the Axyrn pilot with a cold stare.
Cowed by a superior, the young bruiser turned away. She hoisted the extension platform up and then shoved it back into its pocket while the muscled hizak strutted from the shuttle bay.
FEMITOKON SERIES BIBLE STUDY