The next few days go quietly, at least, or comparatively so. I keep my normal hours and spend all of my waking ones in the tank room, completely alone and loving it. Twice a day I wander off to get food, but I do that as quickly as I can and bring it back to the tank room with me. No one bats an eyelash about this; if anything, they expect it, even like it. If I’m isolated, it’s better for everyone. I can’t infect the rest of Firebird, or whatever it is they’re scared of, if they don’t see me.

Four days after I put my material into Tank Four, I have to go talk to the brood mother about incoming. Tank Five is a week from prime, and it’s the first I’ve had since the very first I did on my own where three have survived the whole way. Usually my tanks produce twins, which I know is good enough, but triplets are a happy rarity and something I need to warn Carly about before she gets stuck tending them.

Carly doesn’t like me. Like most people a couple years older than me, she’s been programmed that way, taught to see me as different because I represent what Firebird was created to prevent. In addition to that, Carly has something of a superiority complex. She was the first natural-born here, brought into the world just two months after Firebird was sealed off, and she uses that detail to her advantage. It’s how she became brood mother a few years ago, and it’s why Min and Phoebe let her do what she wants. Jas doesn’t, but Jas generally forgets she exists… which is better for all of us, but…

Point being, Carly is one of my least favorite people, and the fact that I have to deal with her on the regular does not help.

Brood hallway is mayhem as usual. Tank-born live there from the day they’re born until the day they turn sixteen, with a few exceptions – I got my own space in another hallway when I was fifteen, for instance, and Zoe Adams got her own at fourteen because she’s Jas’s protégé and nobody was brave enough to tell her no. We’re the lucky ones, I guess. The average tank-born kid exists in the brood, given the minimal amount of attention for survival, until they’re old enough to define themselves. It’s not a terrible arrangement, but given the people who end up tending the brood, sometimes it does worry me.

When I find Carly, she’s holding a yowling baby who’s trying to eat a loose strand of her thick burnt-caramel hair. Despite aforementioned complexes, Carly genuinely loves being brood mother, but I can tell that this kid – the most recent to come out of Tank One if I remember right, about seven months old now – is getting on her last nerve.

“Want help?” I say in greeting, opening my arms to hold the little darling if she wants me to.

“Nah,” Carly replies, rolling her eyes. “This one doesn’t have teeth yet, I’m not too worried about where his mouth goes. Yet.” She takes a step back from me and takes me in. Compared to her, I look relatively composed, but not having another human’s vomit on my shirt apparently has that effect. “What do you want, Alix?”

“Fair warning. Thought you liked that.”

“How many and how soon?” Whatever her faults, at least there’s no bullshit with Carly.

“Three and about a week. Both of their bloodlines are from here, if you’re-“

“I don’t care about that,” she mutters, giving me another dramatic eyeroll. “They’re tiny and need constant tending, that’s all I need to know or think about.”

“Your enthusiasm is infectious.”

For that, I get a death glare. “We’re parallel versions of the same person, Alix. Both of us the first of our kind here, both responsible for helping guide new life. Difference is, you hide away with your tech and I get the interesting part of it.”

She’s not wrong, but I know better than to openly admit that. Letting Carly know you think she’s right is one of the biggest mistakes a person can make around here, and not one I have any desire to pursue right now. “At least the tanks don’t scare you.”

“Nothing scares me. I voluntarily surround myself with cute little ankle-biters. Whatever the hell you do… I don’t know how it works, but I’m not afraid of it.”

Again, I remind myself that Carly is honest. Terrifying, definitely, but upfront. “So, it’s not going to be a huge issue when I bring them in a few days?”

“Pawn them off on Hope, same as usual. She’s good with the new ones. Confuses the hell out of me how she’s got maternal instincts like she does, but she’s useful here.”

“Is it okay if I go talk to her?”

“Yeah, sure. Just don’t wake anybody up or else-“

I don’t hear the rest of Carly’s sentence. Too much else going on, and another person to check in with. Hope, at least, is a nice person. A little wary of me still, but a quiet girl with a pure heart and a natural inclination towards getting screwed over. It’s an interesting combo to watch – or hear about from Zoe, more frequently – and Hope is the sort of person you can’t help but like. Maybe it’s her eyes, all big and haunting, or maybe she actually is that awesome. I’m not sure, but-

“Heyya,” Hope says as I slip into the baby room. Most of its occupants are asleep, save for the one Hope’s currently feeding and of course Hope herself. It’s peaceful here, calming, and smells like new life. “Everything okay?”

“Fair warning. Triplets. Few days out. Carly told me they’re yours from the start.”

“Wow.” Hope’s eyes get even bigger than usual, and I remind myself that she’s never gotten a triplet set before. She’s only worked with the brood for four years, still new at this but here out of love. Or possibly, depending on the rumors one hears, a desire to hide from her mother’s dramatic legacy.

Honestly, sometimes I wonder if any of us daughters of Firebird are actually functional.

“I’ll bring them once they’re clean. Or I’ll have Min bring them if you’d rather.”

“I like you better,” Hope shrugs, or at least as much as one can shrug with a baby in one’s arms. “You don’t ask questions. Min meddles.”

“She doesn’t-“

“She asks about Zoe, which she shouldn’t have to because she could just as easily get that information from Jas, and then she tells my mother and then I get stuck actually talking to my mother and it’s a disaster,” Hope sighs. “Like anyone has any right to tell me how to handle my love life. And yet they all try.”

“I don’t,” I remind her.

“Yeah, because you’re friends with Zoe. You know we’re functional. Most people don’t think we are. Y’know, leader’s daughter getting tangled up with a tank-born guard second. I know it looks odd, but that’s part of why I love her.”

I’m tempted to point out that part of the oddness is because Phoebe is genetic crazy and a lot of people fear that Hope will turn out the same, but I know better. Hope’s a cute kid, and Zoe’s lovably terrifying. They’re a strange match for each other, fine, but that’s what makes it work.

“So that’s still going well?”

Hope laughs. “I am twenty years old, I am in love with an absolutely beautiful girl… I think this is the ideal right here. Well, minus the fact that I’m here all the time, but… I love the brood. They need me.”

“I wish I’d had somebody like you when I was tiny,” I murmur.

“You had Rachel. I don’t remember her so well – she didn’t like my mom, I don’t think – but she was better than me.”

“She practically turned me into a weapon.” I feel the vulnerability rush in, wreaking havoc on my heart again. I’m not sure Rachel meant to do what she did to me, but it happened all the same and-

“And you’ve reclaimed yourself,” Hope reminds me. “You’re not her.”

“Funny how everyone’s been telling me that this week.”

“Because it’s true. You’re a good person, Alix.”

“Then why am I so alone all the time?” I gasp, trying to keep myself from crying.

Before Hope can answer, I run. Everything’s hitting me so hard all of a sudden, and I need to get away from people before it gets bad. That was one of the better things Rachel taught me – how to hide away whenever I start to feel things too much. I’m really good at it. I know all the cross-hallways here, and I have a route of shortcuts from the brood hallway to the one I live on practically in my blood. It only takes a couple of minutes, I see no one once I’m out of brood hallway, and my home hallway is completely quiet. More so than usual. At this time of day, I’m used to interesting sounds, but today… today is good.

Today, I let myself into my room and collapse on my bed and break down sobbing because everything is too much. Because I am so alone, so unwanted, and it’s not fair. I’m not defective by much, I know that, but it’s enough to ruin me. Enough to make me untouchable.

I’m not Hope, with a cute girlfriend and a bright future.

I’m not Carly, with a husband ten years older than her – the youngest of the originals – who helps run agriculture and barely sees her.

I’m alone. I’ll always be alone. I’m nothing.

When the crying stops, I roll onto my back and reach for my bedside table. I keep a knife in my drawer for times like this, when my self-destructiveness gets real bad. I pull it out and hold it in my hands for a few moments, feeling the weight, savoring it. I have this, at least.

As soon as the want gets bad again, I push my skirt down my thighs, sit upright so I can see better, and run the knife across my thigh. A light cut this time, barely enough to bleed but enough that I feel something apart from my sadness. Then another one an inch lower, similar, just enough to block me out.

My skin’s just dark enough to scar, but no one will ever see them. No one will ever see my exposed body. I’ll never have to explain this to a lover.

Some days I wonder what it’s like Outside. There are other colonies, I know that, but there has to be a world apart from that. There’s a world that Noah, our survival-dealer, occupies and thrives in. And some days I wonder if I’d be better off out there, alone in the wild, than I am here.

In the wild, I tell myself, maybe someone would be desperate enough to see light in me. In the wild, maybe I’d be enough.

I put the knife back in its home, roll back onto my stomach, and cry myself to sleep. It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last. I keep routines, and while they may not be ideal, at least they work.

Good but not good enough. Story of my life.