You know, despite the sterile, corporate vibe of this place, they made a damn good burger. The juicy, greasy sort you’d expect at one of those diners attached to starship service stations, the kind that knows just how to nurse the high cost of low living.

I took the last bite, savoring it like it might be my last decent meal for a while, then crumpled up the wrapper and tossed it into the red plastic basket. Only a few stray fries and a greasy brown stain where a glob of barbecue sauce had been remained.

With nothing left to distract me, my eyes started wandering, taking in the massive arrays of equipment scattered across the lab. A jungle of wires, glowing containment fields, and tubes spider-webbed across the space.

That’s when my gaze landed on the metal skeleton again, the one that had caught my eye earlier. It sat lifeless on the ground, clutching a box of miscellaneous components like a kid holding their toys. What the hell was this supposed to be? Robo-butler? Prosthetic prototype? Pleasure bot? I shook my head, trying not to let my imagination run too wild, and moved on.

On the other side of the lab, something under a tarp caught my attention. A faint green glow seeped from beneath the fabric, illuminating a tangled mess of tubes and wiring sticking out from the edges. Every ten seconds or so, I heard an audible bubbling sound.

I froze. My knees started to tremble, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. What the fuck could be under that tarp?

I took a hesitant step closer, my curiosity buzzing like static in my head. They didn’t say “don’t look under the tarp,” did they? And before I even realized it, my hand was already gripping the edge of the fabric. My body had apparently decided what to do long before my brain caught up.

Fuck it.

I yanked the tarp back in one quick motion, revealing…

A child.

The kid couldn’t have been older than eight or nine, floating in a green solution inside a massive tube. Brown hair swayed gently in the viscous fluid, and a VirtuMatrix headset was strapped over their face, complete with a breathing apparatus and a feeding tube snaking into their stomach.

I recoiled, the sight hitting me like a punch to the chest.

“What the FUCK?!” I screamed, stumbling backward. My hands scrambled for something to steady myself, but instead, I collided directly into Elaine, who had apparently been standing behind me the whole time.

I screamed again, startled for the second time in less than ten seconds. “Dammit, Elaine!” I snapped, pointing at the tube. “What the fuck is that?!”

Elaine’s expression didn’t so much as twitch. She leaned in close, her voice low and deadly serious.

“Spare parts.”

My stomach dropped.

For one horrifying moment, I thought I’d stumbled into some dark, dystopian nightmare lab where they grew kids in vats to harvest their organs. My mouth opened, but no words came out, the sheer audacity of what she’d just said short-circuiting my brain.

And then Elaine started laughing.

No, scratch that, she cackled. Full-on, doubled-over, tears-streaming-down-her-face hysterics. “Oh my god!” she wheezed, pointing at me like I was the punchline to her joke. “You should’ve seen the look on your face!”

I sighed, scrubbing my hands down my face. “Jesus fucking Christ, Elaine.” My heart was still racing as I shook my head, trying to ignore the fact that she’d just shaved about five years off my life.

She wiped her eyes, still giggling. “Worth it.”

“Well, now that you’ve satisfied your twisted sense of humor,” I said, still trying to regain the color in my face, “can you tell me why there’s a child floating fetal-like in a tube?”

Elaine grabbed one of the red burger baskets that had been sent up, plucking out the burger by the wrapper before taking a massive bite. “Mmmph. I’ll never get over how good these burgers are out here in the void,” she mumbled mid-chew. “Apparently, Bradford bought the recipe from some famous West Coast burger joint, practically a fast-food institution, right before they shut down for good. Now every iNNoTec canteen, diner, and rest stop has a taste of Southern California.”

I sighed, shaking my head. “You need media training. That is the worst dodge I’ve ever seen.”

Elaine just smirked and took another bite, while I turned my attention back to the kid in the tank. With my arms firmly clasped behind my back (because my high ass didn’t trust me not to touch anything), I leaned in for a closer look. The faint glow of the VirtuMatrix screen next to the tank caught my eye, displaying a simulation of a classroom. The kid was learning algebra, guided by a digital teacher.

Elaine, finally relenting, nodded toward the tank. “You’re looking at the next generation of the Bradford bloodline.”

I arched a brow. “What are you talking about?”

“That’s Everett Bradford,” she explained, her tone casual as if we weren’t talking about a kid floating in a tube. “One of many clones of Isaac Bradford Sr. They’re undergoing an educational simulation while they ‘cook,’ as Delia likes to put it.”

“Wait wait wait, so every generation of the Bradford family is just… a clone of the original?”

“Since the 1970s.”

I stared at the kid, trying to spot any features that screamed “Bradford.” “Then why’s the kid brunette? Delia’s blonde.”

Elaine shrugged. “Donor DNA samples are mixed in during insemination to avoid defects. Pure cloning leads to issues similar to inbreeding, so they tweak the process a bit. That’s why Everett has brown hair.”

That actually made sense. If it didn’t work out for ol’ Bubba out on Smoky Reach, it wasn’t going to work here in Barnard’s Loop. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a weird mix of awe and unease. Bradford had essentially achieved immortality, albeit a different kind than Ollie’s vampiric variety.

Elaine had made herself comfortable at the holopit, where my glasses still rested. She kicked her heavy platform Demonia boots up onto the edge of the console, the burger basket balanced in her lap. Her entire vibe screamed regular at The Citadel back in Bay City: ripped fishnets, a black skirt, a Sisters of Mercy tee, and enough silver jewelry to set off every metal detector in the sector. Her eyeliner wings were sharp enough to pierce hearts, blackened or otherwise.

Her freakish cat jumped onto the couch circling the holopit and curled up beside her, seemingly losing interest in watching me for the first time all day.

Finally, I saw my chance to ask. “Alright, let’s get down to brass tacks. What’s with the fuckin’ cat?”

Elaine wiped her mouth with a napkin, set the basket aside, and gave the cat gentle head scratches. She purred contentedly, her glowing green eyes narrowing into slits.

“This is Andromeda,” Elaine began. “A living prototype, a fully automaton cat that serves as both my familiar and my service animal.”

I blinked. “You need a service animal? But you seem so-”

“Independent?” she cut in, arching a brow.

“Well, yeah,” I admitted, scratching the back of my head.

She smiled faintly. “I worked hard to make it so.”

“How’d you do that?”

Elaine leaned back, crossing her arms. “Since you asked… I was born with a heart condition. Only 25% of a heart, to be precise. And because I’m a Starchild, I had to rely on human donor transplants. Spent most of my childhood hooked up to an IV.”

My stomach twisted. A quarter of a heart? I couldn't imagine growing up tied to machines like that. “Why didn’t they get you a Starchild heart?” I asked, frowning.

“Because I was born when Starchildren barely started appearing,” she replied matter-of-factly. “There were no donors. And given our longer lifespans, there won’t be many for quite a while.”

She picked at a fry as she continued. “When Delia was making her rounds at the iNNoTec Experimental Medicine Center in Jezero, Mars, she met me as a kid. I was hooked up to every machine imaginable, and she told me about her plans to use micro-fusion tech to make me a new heart. I told her that was stupid and would probably blow me up.”

Elaine chuckled, her voice softening. “She was delighted by my moxie. Asked if I had a better idea, so I laid out my early concepts. She seemed shocked and pleased at the same time. I was advanced for my age, even for a Starchild.”

“Delia was juggling her company and a thousand other projects, but she still made time to visit me every day. She treated me like more than just another case file, she treated me like family. Since I was a ward of the state, they were about to transfer me to a new facility due to budget cuts, but Delia stepped in and became my legal guardian. She told me I had the power to free myself from my medical shackles and that she wouldn’t let bureaucracy steal that from me.”

Elaine rolled up her sleeve, revealing a small, sleek port embedded in her arm. “As I grew up, I worked with her to design the smallest Domiculus engine in the galaxy and configure it for use as a prosthesis. The catch was that I needed cybernetic upgrades to mount the engine. Delia pulled parts from another project and gave me the implants I needed to anchor the engine to my chest. Now, I get regular artificial blood transfusions to keep it all running autonomously.”

I stared at the port in her arm, then back at her. I’d met plenty of people who called themselves self-made, but Elaine took that to a whole new level. She didn’t just break free of her limitations, she turned them into the tools she needed to thrive. Standing next to her, it was hard not to feel like I’d been coasting by comparison.

“Damn,” I said finally. “You gave your limitations the finger and turned them into fuel.”

Elaine smirked, leaning back and scratching Andromeda’s chin. “Something like that.”

I nodded, grabbing the can of Puente’s Guava Cola off the table and popping it open. “So when did your work come into play in all that? Clearly, designing Domiculus engines using methods the Strexians could only dream of wasn’t enough for you. You’ve got a knack for poking at the abnormal and abstract in a universe that’s already both of those things by default.”

Elaine gave me a cheeky smile as she swallowed the fry she’d just shoved in her mouth. “Who doesn’t love a good mystery? Despite the weapon usually on my hip and my casting abilities, I’m a scientist first and foremost. If Delia’s taught me anything, it’s that the key to discovery is research and analysis.”

I raised a brow. That nugget of wisdom was a bit rich coming from the unofficial poster woman for amphetamines.

Elaine continued, her tone growing more serious. “You see, Tracy, despite my apparent independence, I’m still burdened with all kinds of limitations that keep me from reaching my full potential.”

“Like what?” I asked, tilting my head.

“Well, for one,” she began, leaning back and crossing her arms, “I’m always using my Domiculus ability to keep my prosthesis pumping. Any sort of strenuous activity, physical or emotional, hogs most of the Domiculus energy, which leaves my casting ability completely useless.”

“That sounds… less than ideal.”

She nodded, the faintest flicker of frustration passing over her face. “It’s not. Caffeine? Emotional distress? Any physical exertion? They all strain the engine. If it weren’t for the blood transfusions keeping the system running autonomously, I wouldn’t even be able to function half as well as I do now.”

She gestured around the room, her voice steady but firm. “That’s why I’m a D.A.A. Agent. These anomalies we investigate? I’m not just cataloging them for the organization. I’m searching for solutions, for me, and for hundreds of thousands more who are trapped by similar setbacks.”

I sipped my cola, taking in her words. Elaine had carved out a space for herself in a galaxy full of chaos, but it wasn’t without cost.

“So, you were also a ward of the state?” Elaine asked, sitting back down and casually dipping a fry in ranch like we weren’t about to wade into emotionally murky waters.

I sighed, knowing I’d set myself up for this back in the corridor when I mentioned my foster mom. “Sure was. I was in foster care from eight to eighteen.”

Elaine leaned forward, curiosity lighting up her face. “So you actually remember your birth parents?”

I froze, my thumb running idly over the condensation on my can of cola. A sound flickered in the back of my mind, someone pounding furiously on a door, the thud of fists echoing like thunder. My breath hitched, but just as quickly as it came, the memory fizzled out, leaving only silence.

“I do…” I said finally, my voice quieter than I intended. I patted my jacket out of habit, searching for my flask. Nothing. Right. I’d left it back on Gonzo. Fuck.

Elaine scratched the back of her head, breaking the tension without even realizing it. “I don’t remember mine, unfortunately. I’m told they were Earthbound hippies who lived in northern Arizona.”

“Do you hold any resentment toward them? For giving you up?” I asked, leaning back on the couch. My voice was casual, but inside, I felt a flicker of envy at Elaine’s lack of memories.

Elaine shook her head firmly. “According to Delia, my parents gave me up to the state to make sure I’d get the care I needed. Wards of the state get free healthcare by law. My folks could barely afford the payments on their leased starship, let alone multiple heart transplants. I don’t blame them. And who knows? Maybe one day we’ll meet again. What about you, Tracy?”

“What about me?” I shot back, feigning obliviousness.

Elaine tilted her head, her expression open and curious. “What were your parents like?”

Her question echoed in my head, bouncing around like a stray bullet. That same innocent curiosity was in her eyes, not realizing she was inches away from blowing open a whole can of worms with that pistol on her hip.

“Well,” I began, pulling out my brightest, most deflective grin, “my foster mom was one tough cookie, let me tell you. That woman spent her whole life raising generations of orphaned kids and turning them into decent people. And she did it all in the Counterculture Capital of the galaxy, crammed into a six-bedroom townhome with eight other people. No easy task, especially if you know the Commonwealth Foster Care System and their ‘faults’ as well as I do.”

Elaine nodded, a faint smirk tugging at her lips. Yep, she definitely knew those faults...