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CHAPTER ONE
Maggie
“It’s perfect,” Sophiesaid.
“It’s kind of a mess,” I replied, laughing.
Sophie’s two-year-old, Theo, echoed the end of my sentence, shouting, “A mess! So messy!” as he careened around the mostly empty, dusty shop.
“Theo!” Sophie called to him. “Don’t eat that!”
Theo, the half-human, half-Chimera toddler narrowed his bright yellow eyes at his mother before finally dropping a chunk of what looked like plaster that had been retrieved from somewhere on the floor.
Sophie smirked, rolling her eyes at me, before jogging into the space to catch up with herlet-me-get-my-claws-into-everythingchild. I watched them fondly, then let the field of my gaze widen, taking in the entire shop.
I hadn’t exaggerated. It was a mess. But that didn’t bother me one bit. Because it wasmine. Already, my mind was churning with what it would look like soon. The cluttered floors would be cleaned until they shone. The counters would be polished, the walls painted with fresh, bright colours. Luckily, this place had been a confectionary store at some point before I took over the lease, so it already had the bones of what I needed – the counter space, the cash area, and the small but efficient commercial kitchen in the back. All I needed was to clean it up, put my own stamp on it, and turn it into the bakery I’d dreamed of running since I was a kid back in dreary New Toronto on Terratribe 1.
We’ve come a long way since then, I thought, shaking my head as Sophie once again told Theo not to eat something he’d found. Sophie and I had both lived in the human colony of Terratribe 1, in the manufacturing district of New Toronto. We’d been good friends throughout our lives – lives that now looked completely different from our old ones.
I turned, placing my hands on my hips as I faced outward from the shop, taking in the grand, glittering interior of Elora Station. Yup – this was certainly no New Toronto. Where New Toronto had been cold and snowy with clunky old tech and endless hours of labouring in the shuttle engine factory Sophie and I had both worked at, Elora Station was its opposite in nearly every way. Elora Station was a tourism hub – a human-run commerce station that worked on the Old-Earth calendar. It was busy year-round, but we were approaching its busiest season yet – the season that aligned with the Old-Earth winter holidays. All manner of human holidays made the station sparkle at this time of year – Yalda, Hanukkah, St Lucia Day, Dong Zhi, Omisaka. But the station had been founded by the United States faction of the Terratribe Alliance, which meant that one holiday in particular was what Elora Station was known for:
Christmas.
It was only early December, but Christmas was in full swing on the station. Above the chatter of smiling people whose arms were laden with sugary drinks and shopping bags, I could hear the jingling tune of Christmas carols playing. Shimmering Christmas trees stood every ten meters on this level. This level, like all the levels of the station, was huge and ring-shaped. The shops faced inward from the outer edge of the ring, and the very centre of the ring was a huge column of open air, zinging with spherical hover-vators that whisked shoppers from one circular level to the next. If you went to the centre of the ring, held onto the bars and looked up or down, you’d be greeted by the dizzying sight of all the levels stacked on top of each other, seemingly endless in their splendour.
I’d gotten lucky with my shop’s location – this level was busy, with lots of foot traffic, but not as hectic as some of the other levels. And, a bonus, it was the same floor that Sophie and X’s coffee shop,Hallowed be thy Bean, was on.
“You know you’re going to have to give me all your tips,” I said as Sophie dragged Theo back to my side. She hoisted him onto her hip. He may have only been two, but he’d certainly inherited his father’s stature. He looked about the size of a human five-year-old in Sophie’s soft arms.
“Of course I will!” Sophie replied cheerily. She and her husband X had boughtHallowed be thy Beanfrom its previous owner recently, and it was a relief to have a friend who already knew the ins and outs of running a business on Elora Station.
“Plus,” Sophie continued, shifting Theo to her other hip, “you know X is going to be here non-stop cleaning everything up and getting it all fixed for you.”
“Oh, no, it’s OK. I’m ready to get to work on all that stuff,” I said. This was going to be my bakery – I was more than ready to put some human elbow grease into the project. “I don’t want to burden you guys.”
“Stop! You’re my best friend. It’s not a burden. Literally. X loves to work. He cannot get enough. He was genetically modified to work non-stop. He’s been excited about this project for months!”
