The Girl in the Tank: Galactic Consortium, Season 1

Episode Three: Spiders and Clackers, ch.7

"Ouch! Big toe, underside," Cheyenne said. She faced the screen and touched the spot that hurt. Then she turned back towards the other wall. It showed the earth news channel.

Most of her life felt odd, surreal, but today seemed even more so. They had put patches on her head and hands, so she could be mostly out of the tank, enough to watch what was going on. They had even shrunk the tank, so it was more like resting in a bath tub, much easier for her to rest her leg over the edge and for them to work on it. The new artificial leg had been attached and Janda and Lana were busy getting the nerves attuned.

Cheyenne inspected her hand while they worked, ignoring the droning report. When she made a fist, it looked like she was wearing a black glove, no more. When she opened her hands, the thin skeletal fingers showed the full extent of the damage. As she slid them across each other they felt alive, real.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw her face on the screen again. It must be the tenth time since they turned the station on. Mom was right, they were milking the situation with the Cambridge and Cheyenne's supposed heroism for all it was worth.

Then her gut clenched as they showed her kids. "Janda, Lana, look," she said. "Those are my kids."

"They look like you," Lana said, "especially the youngest. What was it's name again?"

"His," Cheyenne flared, "name is James."

She caught Lana's looked. "Sorry," they both said together.

"I forget," Lana said.

"No, it's okay. I know what you meant," Cheyenne said. The Consortium referred to all children under a certain age as it. The neuter term didn't have the negative connotation that it had in English and they didn't believe in assigning a gender until the child was old enough to state it for themselves. Even then they didn't consider it stable until the child was nearly fourteen. Both Lana and Janda seemed to accept that Mackenzie was a girl, but they were constantly slipping up and calling James, it. It bothered Cheyenne even though she knew they didn't mean any offense by it.

It also made her wonder. She understood that some people were transgender. But she'd always thought of them as a tiny percentage of the population. Even Lana had said as much, stating that those that medically altered their genitals were "relatively uncommon." To see them as an exception to the rule was one thing. But the Consortium saw them as proof that the rule didn't really work. A tale for old men to tell, Lana said. It was a shift in perspective that threw Cheyenne.

"Cold, third toe. I wish there was some way I could get a picture of them," Cheyenne said wistfully.

"All we got is your two dimensional pictures, but we can screen grab that if you want," Janda said.

"You can?"

"Sure," he replied, "system, back up display slowly. The newscast stopped and ran backwards until the kids appeared. He walked over and outlined the pictures with his fingers. Now, where can we put them?"

Spaces along the wall lit up in a vague glow.

"What's that?" Cheyenne asked.

"The system is showing us where the walls have projection capabilities, of course," Lana said.

"Here," Janda said, pointing at a spot next to the clock. "That way you can see them when you wake up."

Cheyenne smiled as the two pictures appeared on the wall in the designated spot. "Yeah, just like back on the Cambridge. They'll be the first thing I see."

After they returned to work Cheyenne said, "I am tired of the news, though. Can we find something else? Pressure, little toe."

"They added another of your news stations to the stream yesterday," Lana said.

"No," Cheyenne said firmly. It was her mom's favorite station. They had gotten wind of the size of Sarasvat's fleet. The only thing worse than seeing her own picture over and over, and all the spin the political machine could put on it, was watching a bunch of conservative wind bags spout conspiracy theories about an upcoming invasion.

"Oh look, Sarasvat and Aloka," Janda said. "I watched this all the time growing up."

"Sarasvat, like that princess of yours?" Cheyenne asked, looking at the screen.

"One and the same," Janda said.

The show was a cartoon, with a stylized Princess Sarasvat.

"Aloka was a famous human diplomat," Lana explained. "Sarasvat's first diplomatic job was as his aide. They were involved in a number of important missions together. It cemented Aloka's fame and brought the Princess to public attention as a capable leader as well."

"And they had a scandalous affair," Janda said.

"Oh my god, really?" Cheyenne asked.

"Scandalous? I don't know that I'd go that far," Lana said. "When he retired from public service she married him."

"It was scandalous at the time," Janda insisted. "Silly though it was."

"Why was it silly?" Cheyenne asked, intrigued.

"As a Vatari, she was, literally, thousands of years older than him. But in relative chronology, she still young, out on her own for the first time. He was a man in his prime. Some thought he was taking advantage of her youth."

"And others," Lana said, "questioned why a Vatari, who live for centuries, would form an attachment to a human, who live a fraction of that. But in the end, you love who you love. These cartoons, now," Lana nodded at the screen. Princess Sarasvat was currently leading a group of military personnel into battle against some sort of giant bug-like aliens. "Are an exaggeration at best. You can't read too much into them."

"No, but they are fun," Janda said.

They left the cartoon on but Cheyenne barely watched. James and Mackenzie would no doubt love this, she thought. That made her look at the pictures Janda had posted on the wall. They wanted Cheyenne to be the hero, but all she wanted was to be at home with her kids.

"I'll do it for them," she said. The healers looked up. "If they want me to play the part of the hero for the politicians back home, fine. I'll do it for my kids, so we can have peace and I can get back to them."