The Legacy of the Void

Chapter 4

Year 39 of the Great Exile

The air was unseasonably stagnant. Summers on Yola often entailed temperature spikes high and low, followed by breezes stiff enough to knock over anything not tied down. Instead, on that particular day, the air hung in hot, humid heaviness, permeating every last nook of Alyanya's work space. Annoyance began to cycle through her thoughts as she pushed a few errant white hairs away for what felt like the hundredth time in an hour. She had to stop her own impatient gesture when she would have otherwise used both hands to arrange her hair in another attempt of a top knot. She could already feel her body's sweat starting to pool on her arms, and she knew that too much moisture would render her right hand inoperative. Not for the first time in her life, she cursed the mechanical apparatus that for all intents and purposes looked like a hand of her own. What her grandmother had started she had perfected, and with the exception of too much moisture, it was a perfectly functioning appendage. Absently, she rolled joints in ways no humanoid hand could move as she checked to make sure it was still fully functioning. Overhead, an alarm blared out the end of day, and with a sigh of relief, she gathered all her supplies and locked them away for the following day. It was boring work, assembling computer parts, but she was good at it, and she didn't bring attention to herself as long as she paced herself to be only marginally faster than her co workers. Still, even with all her measures to ensure she appeared a normal Lalatian, she had her own office, and she was allowed to always work on the most complicated projects, but she was always passed up for promotions. It was how she wanted it, and how life operate in the Blender.

After stowing all her supplies, she gathered a few for herself, stashing them in her cargo pants before hurrying out of the factory. The greatest benefit for Alya was not in the dependable work or the anonymity of it, but in the fact that she could take unused supplies for her own personal projects and no one batted an eyelash. Knowing she had little enough time, she slipped down unused alleys on fleet feet, shimming up ladders and hopping over the tops of the closest packed rooftops before reaching the part of the city that housed the marginally comfortable eco-pods. She wasn't overly fond of her current abode, but living in general housing with a thousand neighbors was always safer than finding a place she could feel comfortable in.  Despite her best attempts to remain anonymous, there were always those still looking for the granddaughter of the Lady Aria, and Alya had perfected the art of avoiding them in her five years spent in and around the Melting Pot.

Her current situation was in the dead center of the Melting Pot, in an area commonly called the Blender - both for the assortment of people who lived there, as well as the constant upheaval caused by the Overlord when he sought to tamp down any hint of rebellion on the planet.  Melar Murud had wasted no time after the death of Queen Baracia in establishing a role for himself, and those who were forced to live under his control did their best not to attract his attention.

Slipping in with a dozen other residents of the Cool Desert Eco-Pods, Alya kept her head down and headed to what she was forced to call home. Eco-pods had been an invention of her grandmother's very early on in the Great Exile. Most of Yola was largely hard to inhabit with simple houses, especially in the chaos of the Southern Zones. Eco-pods offered tiny housing options with recycled water, and sustainable electricity provided by the solar panels attached to each unit. After depositing her latest array of tools, she rushed through a shower and a change of clothes. Checking her clock by the door, she knew she had precious little time if she was going to make it to downtown New Athens in time to hear the speech.

As she jumped onto public transit, she took in all the signs, marveling how humans had overtaken nearly every single aspect of marketing. While the entire planet of Yola was inhabited by humans and Lalatians alike, the humans had arrived first, and had named most of the planet before the mass immigration of the Lalatians as they struggled with the loss of their homeworld as well. Both cultures had had their homeworld destroyed, but the humans had had over three centuries more to adapt, and it showed.  She timed her stop to get off one bus route early. She didn't want to face the ugly crowds if she could slip in unnoticed, and there was no doubt the crowds would be ugly.