Chapter Two
"Tara," a soft, warm voice was saying to a burnt-golden haired little girl, a hand running through long locks, twisting gently into honey-colored braids. "Such pretty hair."
"Mama," Tara thought, feeling happy as the long, tapered fingers skillfully parted and worked the silken strands of her hair. The light smile on her full lips turned downward, into a slight frown. Something wasn't right… She didn't have a Mama. No one did.
"Can't you do anything right?" The man's voice was ugly. "A whole planet full of them…"
Tears filled Tara's eyes.
"Donald, please—"
"It's damned embarrassing, that's what it is. What is the point in being here, on this side, if we can't make a proper girl?" Tara did not think it possible, but his voice got even uglier with innuendo. "Unless it's in her genes…"
Mama started to cry…
"YO, T! Wake up and hand me the frakkin cen-strip!"
The angry noise right in Tara's ear made her start and her rig jerked heavily, causing her to shoot up and overbalance. The pneumatic stabilizers groaned to compensate as Tara reeled, forcing herself to relax to allow them to work, as her training sluggishly kicked in, replacing the adrenaline coursing through her hijacking her autonomic nervous system. She squeezed her eyes shut, her heart in her throat, 8 seconds, 5, then 2…
"Shit, T! What the frak are you doin'? Down! Now! Go down!" The tinny voice in her ear hissed. When she opened her eyes, Faith's angry scowl showed clearly through the window of her helmet, lit from above by the LED of the head unit. It made her look ghoulish. She fumbled with her control unit, strapped to her harness, to comply with Faith's harsh command, when the speaker again buzzed with a harsh "Wait!" The foreman's gloved hand shot out toward her chest to relieve her of the 100 bolt-strip nestled in the carry-all strapped to the side of her harness, before Faith slapped her hard on the shoulder. "Now get out!" Tara sighed but said nothing in her own defense and she began the descent down the side of the 90-storey structure they had been contracted to erect. The building would eventually house the dorms for the crew for the new generator currently under construction in the south side of Genelecom City.
Tara's boots hit the launch and land platform, automatically releasing her harness from the rig. She barely broke stride as she came free, cracking the seal to her helmet, the low hiss of the released air from the rebreather hardly noticed. The quality of the air outside, to be frank, was only slightly better than the recycled stuff she had been breathing a kilometer above. She walked into the launch prep room and pulled off her helmet as she made her way to her stall, shoving the helmet into its cubby and unfastening the harness and zippers of her suit. The harness fell off her shoulders and hips followed by the suit, leaving Tara in the standard issue blue-grey tank and panties. She pulled the tie from her hair, releasing her long, dirty blond hair from its pony, and grabbed her bag with her street clothes and headed for the showers.