Part 14

April 26, 2155

Thirty-two days later.

"Tira-Mother?" Tika whispered.

"Come in Tika. What time is it?" Tira responded sleepily.

"It is after two o'clock." Tika told her as she entered her mother's den, finding only Tira and Menak within.

"What is it?" Tira asked, then suddenly her face froze and she looked strangely at Tika. She reached over for her screen, wrote two letters on it, and said: white light.

She shone it on Tika, and she and Menak could only stare.

"Tika!" Menak finally breathed in astonishment, brushing her skin with his fingertips. "You are so ... white!"

"Yes, I am an albino again." Tika said, looking down at herself and examining her arms. "I did it as a birthday present to myself, and I can always change it back later, but I had really hoped you would like it.

"At first I had all my pigmentation removed, so I could see what I would naturally look like. But I did not like it. I looked too transparent, like you could almost see my muscles under my skin. I have a recording of it though. I had them give me a bit more pink so my skin is less transparent, and then just a touch of tan so I am not such a bright color. It is still a little artificial, but it is very close to my natural coloring. I did not have them put any tan on my face though; I had them give me a tiny bit of extra pink there instead. The only places on my skin that I left absolutely natural are my nipples and my lips. I think the slightly transparent pink looks nice there. And my flower, of course. And my eyes."

His gaze turned to her breasts. "Yes! Your breasts look so magical this way!" he exclaimed, marveling at the almost fluorescent transparent pink of her nipples and areolas.

Then he looked to her face. She was smiling shyly, and blushing an even darker pink on her cheeks, while her lips shared the translucent light pinkness of her nipples. She could not seem pale, because of the contrast with the blazing whiteness of her hair.

But it was her eyes that held him spellbound. They were a transparent light pink, and it seemed like they glowed with light reflected from deep within.

He and Tira slowly bumped heads as they both tried to look directly into Tika's eyes at the same time.

They held her gaze in silent rapture for so long that she was compelled to say something to break the moment, and blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"You know, like those who have had the corneas of their eyes replaced with artificial ones, I can now see the spectrum well into the ultraviolet. The whole world looks different now."

"That is fitting, as the world will look at you differently as well." Menak intoned reverently, unable to tear his gaze from hers.

"Please Menak, Tira-Mother, you are making me a little nervous. It is not ugly, is it?" Tika pleaded quietly.

"You have always been beautiful, and in the last months your beauty has bloomed a thousand-fold." Menak murmured. "But this ... is a thousand-fold more beautiful yet. To see you like this, well ... It is very beautiful." Menak told her, seemingly mesmerized.

"I have made myself forget something for nearly eight years." Tira said, very softly. "I have made myself forget that there was a morning when I handed my beautiful pink baby Tika, with her beautiful pink eyes, over to Meds, so they could color her skin and her eyes brown. And I could not bear to watch. So I sat in the waiting room, hating myself for doing what I felt I had to do. I felt I was ruining your perfection.

"Then they brought you out, and you were still you, still so beautiful with the contrast between your white hair and tan skin, and your brown eyes were beautiful, and I felt better. And I made myself forget that other feeling. Until now.

"And now I feel so much better. So ... relieved. The way you look right now seems so right to me, especially your eyes. I even wonder if it is possible that your designer made you so that you would affect me during your gestation, and instill in me a reluctance to change your coloring?"

"It would not surprise me." Tika said. "I know that when I first looked in the mirror after they had removed my pigment, I got a very powerful feeling. Not that I really wanted to look like that, but that I wanted to be in the company of others who looked like that. I almost felt homesick for a non-existent homeland, full of people just like me, my people, who also do not exist. And I wondered, if my father's mind was normal, how many like me would there be? How many children could he have had? He is about thirty-eight. If he had mated many females, there could have been thousands of me. He would have been fertile no later than sixteen, and his first generation of children would themselves have begun having children no later than twelve years ago. Their children would have begun having children no later than two years ago. And females like myself could of course breed quickly compared to natural humans, but think of the males!

"Now imagine one at a great gathering, surrounded by hundreds of fertile females, there for the challenging. He should be marginally more dangerous than I am, as females generally lose some physical ability compared to males, as more of our anatomy is specialized for reproduction. So basically, he can have any female he desires.

"I tell you, by now there could have been one hundred thousand of us, easily!"

Tika noticed the amazed looks on their faces as they imagined this, and she became a bit abashed. "I am sorry, I got carried away. The point I am making is this: I realized that the entire train of thought was artificial. That I had been designed to have it, and that it was triggered by the stimulus of seeing myself with my natural coloring in the mirror. My coloring is obviously a very important part of my design. Genetic coding for a behavioral response to a color pattern is well established in the animal world. It makes sense to design me to secrete chemicals into your womb that make you want to protect that. And now that I think of it, we have assumed you imposed our years of solitude because you were traumatized by your rape. But I have heard you speak many times of your emotional desire to keep me all to yourself, to not have to share me with anyone. Now I think that your maternal protective instincts were chemically re-enforced during my gestation."

There was a long moment of silence at that.

"I think you are right. I think they may have boosted my natural love for you." Tira said, deep in thought. "I swear, almost every time you have ever been out of my sight for more than five minutes, when I see you again my heart jumps, and I fall in love with you all over again. I have not heard other mothers describe a similar feeling very often, yet I get it every time. I have learned to take it for granted over the years.

"It is a hard thing, to think of it as something that was done to me, because it is so beautiful."

"Listen to me, both of you." Menak said. "You must not think of this negatively, or it will poison you. You have had problems, serious problems no doubt, but you are pioneers in a beautiful new thing that will change the world. In a few years, there may be many little Tikas running around, and it will change the world for sure. They will all have your experience to learn from, and you will know how to raise them so that they do not have to experience the problems you are living through now. But you must feel the way, like any pioneer, and learn from your mistakes until you can build a set of rules to live by, that will give you and your children a healthy life, and a healthy place in society.

"You must think of all the possible implications of your differences, Tika, not so you can brood about how they could make your life miserable, but so you can look at them honestly, and use the information to guide you in building a life that you are comfortably suited to.

"You once said that you had a feeling that you should just trust your designers, and everything would be all right. Since there is no way to change what you are, you are forced to do just that. We still do not know why this was done, so there is at least an even chance that there was a very good reason for it. You must believe that. You must believe that someone needed to make a better person, and a better people, so that they could achieve something great and just. You must believe that they would be here to help you if they could, but they cannot. And you must believe that they did not mean for anyone to suffer from what they did.

"The only reason you have had problems from your differences is because you did not know of them, and because your early development conflicted with our laws and traditions concerning children and sexuality. But like any pioneer, if you can withstand the trials, you can be the first to reap the benefits of the discoveries you have made. I try to think of all the beneficial things you can do, Tika, and it boggles my mind!"

"But you will not do them tonight!" Tira laughed.

"You are right. I wanted to surprise everyone with this, so I left for the clinic after everyone had gone to bed." Tika nodded, and gave them both a hug and a smile. "And I wanted to show you first, but for now I will use the spare den, and let you get some sleep."

"Good night Tika, I love you."

"Good night Tira-Mother, I love you too." Tika returned as she ducked under the door fur and left.

"Tika! Tira!" Davdan called. "Come on, get up you sleepy heads, it is almost noon! It is Tika's birthday, and it is half gone already! Get up!"

"All right! We rise!" Menak announced grumpily.

"Good morning love." Tira murmured as they emerged from the dens.

"Good morning." Tika and Menak both answered at once, and they all laughed.

"Good morning, Tika! Happy Birthday!" Pina called as Tika emerged from the den. She ran over to give her a hug and a kiss. "Oh Tika! Look at you! You are so white and pink and pretty! Is this your natural color?"

"No, but it is very close." Tika smiled. "I had it done last night."

"Well it is beautiful!"

Tika merely shrugged and smiled, and they joined Davdan, Jela, and Raz around the firepit. Those three took their turns saying 'Good morning, happy birthday, congratulations, my, you are so white and pink!'

Tika was surprised to see the fire lit so early, but then she saw the dressed wild pig waiting to be roasted. She grinned as she anticipated the evening's feast, noting signs of its preparation all around the pit.

"I do not understand one thing." Raz mused as they ate breakfast. "Tika is phenomenal, and she should be allowed to attend the tournament and fight in the qualifiers for a rung in the first round. Why hold the gathering to debut her?"

"Well, I do not wish to talk about it, as today is my birthday, so I do not want to get upset over it." Tika said. "I will go water the forest, and Davdan can tell you why I cannot fight in the tournament." And with that, she stood and strode into the trees.

"Raz, many people will have suspected by now that Tika is the product of genetic engineering." Davdan explained. "Now, it is completely Banned to perform an act of genetic engineering on a human without the procedure having first been approved by the Health Department. Whoever designed Tika will eventually face very serious charges, as they did not seek that approval, and such approval would not have been granted if they had. But it is not illegal to be the product of genetic engineering, and Tika will face no charges, because she is completely free of blame for having been genetically engineered. It is in fact illegal to discriminate against someone for having been genetically modified without their consent. Because of that, to make a long story short, any challenges she makes as a Tiger person on wild people's land are valid. She could challenge the Grande Champion tomorrow, and if she won she would then be the Grande Champion, as long as she did it on the land of the Tiger People, or any other predatory people.

"But the wild peoples do not own the stadiums and facilities it takes to hold a Grande Tournament, and so it is held in great cities, on tech land. As such, the tournament is considered a sporting event, and falls under the auspices of the Federation of Sport. Now, they have rules that prohibit artificially improving the performance of an athlete with drugs, or by blood volume manipulation, or by any other biologically artificial procedure. Including genetic engineering. So Tika cannot fight in the tournament, as she discovered in her research two weeks ago. The Councils have decided that such exclusion is not illegal under the anti-discrimination laws, mostly to discourage rampant and reckless genetic manipulation."

"At any rate, we could debut Tika at a gathering tomorrow, and I think she could beat the Grande Champion, but it would cast a horrible pall over the tournament when she could not attend, and many of the other most dangerous fighters would also be unable to attend because of injuries received from Tika.

"At the beginning of the Grande Tournament, the highest ranked two hundred and fifty-six fighters who attend are automatically granted the top two hundred and fifty-six ranks. So if a fighter who is ranked high enough to attend the tournament fails to attend, they will be ranked down, to below the two hundred fifty-sixth rank. So we will hold her gathering after the tournament, and the world will have four years with her as Grande Champion before she is stripped of the title for the next Grande Tournament, and ranked down to two hundred fifty-seventh, after which she can beat whoever wins and take it back. Or perhaps we will build a great stadium under wild people's land before then ... Yes. I think we will."

May 12th, 2155

Sixteen days later.

Tika had been brooding all day. The monsoon rains fell warm and steady. Though civil in her instruction as fight trainer, she had set a program for the others today that required a minimum of her attention, and had spent the remainder of her time since waking slouched against a log, deep in thought. Occasionally she would do something on her screen for a few moments, then set it aside again.

The others had respected her mood and politely talked around her at breakfast and lunch. Tira had only smiled as she handed her daughter bowls and glasses, to which Tika had only nodded as she accepted them.

By evening the rains stopped, in what was to be the beginning of an unusually rain-free week for this time of year.

Everyone was surprised when she suddenly spoke in a decisive tone during a lull in the supper conversation. "I need some time by myself. Perhaps a week, maybe two. I will record your fight training instructions for a week tonight, and leave in the morning. If I will not return then, I will flash you another week's instructions.

"Where will you go, love?" Pina asked, looking a bit concerned.

Tika looked down at her plate for a moment before replying. "I would like to tell you that when I return. I will have some nice recordings of my travels to surprise you with. Do not worry, I will not be doing anything too dangerous."

"All right." Pina smiled supportively. "For Tiger People, we have been living in the company of many. Now that I think of it, I am surprised that you are the only one of us who has sought a period of solitude since we formed this group. Though all of us have taken a day off here and there. Even I go to Professor Hamimoto's home every ten days."

"I had thought that Tira and I might take a vacation together after the tournament." Menak said, giving Tira a loving one-armed hug. "For I too have sometimes felt like I was living in a crowd, and felt the need for solitude, or preferentially her company alone."

"That would be beautiful, my love." Tira smiled, and playfully kissed him on the cheek. "Where would you like to go?"

"I had not thought that far ahead, really. But I have felt an urge for a few years to see Africa. To stand on the savanna that our species originally evolved for. I have heard it gives you a special feeling, right down to your genes, that says: 'This is home'."

"I have heard that as well." Tika nodded. "It is proved in psychological studies that the landscape typified by the African savannah at the forest's edge is most comforting to the majority of humans. For instance, many landscape paintings that hang in any people's homes show sunny grassland, a few trees scattered around, and a stream or river. Basically, like the recreational parks built above every city in the world, imitating savannah. And thank you all for being understanding."

"As long as you understand that as soon as you finish eating, you had better be ready to give me some really good cuddles!" Pina teased. "If I cannot have you for a week or two, I will need every minute of you I can get now to last me until you return!"

"Yes Pina." Tika quietly agreed, smiling shyly as she blushed brightly, and the rest shared a chuckle.

The next morning Tika only woke Pina enough to give her a quick kiss goodbye before running to the Enclave house at 06:30 a.m. She grabbed a quick breakfast-to-go from the fridges there before boarding a tube car. She rode the local line east to the zone at the border of the Vishnu Region and caught the next local into the region beyond. She disembarked at the fourth zone's trading post and ran the tree paths for two kilometers, to the border of a great wild land park. Descending to the earth, she consulted a map on her screen, and ran the ground paths. The forest soon descended into wetlands, and she traced her progress on her screen constantly in order to remain on the right path through twelve miles of bogs and swamps, before coming upon an island of forest in the vast wetlands, perhaps a mile long and half that wide.

She walked carefully through the edge of the patch of forest toward its center, still watching her screen constantly, and soon began to see signs of human activity on the ground. Though not recent, the marks were so blatant that they could only have been left by techs.

She stopped suddenly when the warning came on her screen. It included a map of the forest patch with a blinking yellow outline around the border of a territory, and a strident male voice repeating what was said in text on the left side of the window.

WARNING!

QUARANTINE ZONE!

BIOHAZARD!

ENTRY INTO THIS TERRITORY CONTRAVENES SECTION FOUR OF THE PUBLIC SAFETY ACT! TRESSPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW!

This territory contains an interdicted bio-hazardous life form! This life form has proven fatal to 75% of all humans it has been in contact with! To ensure the safety of medical personnel, no rescue of injured persons will be attempted from within this territory!

KEEP OUT!

'Well, they have at least improved the warning since Tira-Mother was here.' she thought to herself.

She walked farther and saw that there were red signs with yellow lettering placed every eight feet around the border of the territory, facing outward. They were a foot high by two feet wide, placed on posts five feet tall, and contained the same warning that had appeared on her screen. She smiled and held her screen over the border.

Her screen immediately began making a horrible noise at maximum volume, like a fire siren with a loud pink noise in the background.

She cursed and pulled her screen back out of the territory in a fraction of a second, whereupon the noise ceased. She ran a series of tests on her screen, changed a few settings, and gingerly reached over the border with it. It made the noise for a fraction of a second until she withdrew it. She got a tool from her pack and opened the back of her screen. She disabled the Natural Disaster Warning System by disconnecting it from the power supply, and re-closed her screen.

She re-set most of the settings back to what they had been originally, before carefully reaching over the border with it again. It made no sound.

"Thanks Raz." she said to herself with a smile.

She chuckled as she placed it in her pack, and stalked carefully into the territory, fully aware that every living thing within a mile had heard the noise from her screen.

As she had expected, she found him lazing on the sand beside the stream he swam in every day. She knew that he would have woken at dawn, hunted, eaten, and swum, and that he would shortly nap as the sun approached zenith overhead.

She watched him from one hundred and twenty feet away, constantly checking around her for tiger sign, until he seemed sound asleep, then crept through the forest until she was fifteen feet from him before silently emerging onto the sand.

She crouched with her forearms folded in front of her, her right hand grasping her knife handle in it's sheath, but hidden from him, ready for a quick draw. She tried to make herself seem small and vulnerable with her posture and subtle body movements, and she smiled at him with her lips closed.

She took a moment to calm her heart, and made the youngest seeming sound she could, a happy baby-like gurgle in a quiet, high-pitched tone.

He bolted awake and jumped instantly to the ready. For the first time in her life, she recognized her Gift in another, and the truth of the matter struck home in her heart.

'He is my father. He is my father! I have a father!'

She fought down her excitement, knowing this was the crucial moment. She had done everything she could to trigger his nurturing and protective instincts, but knew that if it failed, she might be in the fight of her life.

He was still standing and inspecting her warily. Since he had not attacked and remained ten feet away, she took a chance and slowly held her arms out to him, still crouching, and gave him the happy little laugh of a young infant, still smiling.

His blue eyes seemed to gleam in his face as he slowly sidled closer, but his intense scrutiny seemed only fascinated. When he was close enough he warily reached out and felt her hand, touching the back of her fingers with his fingertips for a moment, then quickly withdrew a foot.

She only continued to smile encouragingly as she held her arms out to him.

He edged closer again until he could cautiously reach past her hands to touch her hair. When she did nothing, he slowly crouched down in front of her and began playing with her hair with both hands, seemingly captivated by its color and texture.

She slowly lowered her arms.

When he had played with her hair for a minute he looked just as closely at her face, and touched her there softly, much as would one who is blind.

Soon he began subtly rocking sideways, and quietly emitting a string of wordless syllables that sounded like 'Uhmuhmuhmuhmah, uhmuhmuhmuhmuhmah..."

It was difficult to read his expression as his shaggy hair and beard obscured most of his whole face, and the corners of his eyes had deep, weathered lines. But as he slowly became more emotional his sounds became sobs, his eyes glittered with tears, and his feelings became obvious.

She suffered a powerful wave of empathy for him. "My gods." she murmured. "You are the loneliest man in the solar system."

She slowly raised her arms and hugged him warmly around his chest, burying the side of her face in his beard and thick mat of chest hair. His arms went around her as well, and he tenderly held her tiny form to himself as he nuzzled the top of her head, and they rocked and cried together for five minutes. When their emotions had calmed till their tears no longer flowed, they continued to hold each other and rock back and forth for another fifteen minutes, until Tika's legs were stiff from crouching.

She gradually released him and stood, smiling.

He returned her smile, and looked her up and down happily.

Tika slowly reached into her pack for a bag of tasty delicacies. There were two of each kind, and the first pair she withdrew were blueberry tarts. She ate one while holding the other out to him, and made a big show of how delicious it was.

"Mmmmm!" she went, with obvious gastronomic delight, and smiled while licking crumbs from her lips.

He took the tart and cautiously licked it, took a tiny nibble and carefully chewed, then abruptly shoved the rest of it in his mouth. "Mmmm!" he agreed, grinning as he chewed. She sat down cross-legged facing him, and he did the same.

Next there were tender teriyaki beef sticks, then fresh bananas, then insulated tubes of strawberry-fudge ice cream. It took him a moment to master dispensing the ice cream out of the tube by pushing up the bottom seal, and by the time he had done so there was ice cream all over his face, hands and beard. Tika could not help giggling at him, and he happily laughed in return as he licked his fingers. Then there were big chunks of banana bread, and a container of crunchy vegetable pieces in ranch dressing. She finished the feast with cold quarts of milk, and water in squeeze bottles.

He watched as she re-packed the empty containers and withdrew a bottle of detangling shampoo and a detangling brush. She smiled at him as she waded backwards into the water till it lapped at her lower ribs, then quickly shampooed, brushed, and rinsed her hair, all the while smiling and cooing with pleasure at the sensations.

Then she calmly walked from the water and took his hand, and tugged gently at it. He allowed himself to be led into the water and coaxed to kneel with the surface up to his armpits.

He moaned in genuine pleasure as she lathered the shampoo and massaged it onto his head and face. It was completely non-irritating, so she did not have to guard against getting any in his eyes, but simply shampooed him everywhere from the chest up. Nonetheless, he closed his eyes tight. She brushed it all out, then touched a button on the brush, exposing a razor blade at the base of the row of bristles at one side, and trimmed his hair and his beard without him even realizing it. She left his hair a foot long, and trimmed his beard down to an inch. She had to immerse her own head under the water several times, while tugging at him gently but insistently, before she could convince him to do the same to rinse the shampoo out. She coaxed him to stand so she could briskly wash the rest of him, and had him sit to rinse.

Then she led him back to shore, and he let her seat him and brushed his hair out again, simply for their mutual pleasure in this act of grooming him. When she moved around in front of him and brushed his beard, his hands rose to her breasts. At first he simply held his palms against them, then he wiggled them a bit and giggled like a child playing with gelatin. Then his expression changed as he slowly rubbed them.

"It looks like it is time to take a semen sample." Tika giggled, and turned to replace the brush and shampoo in her pack.

He reached around her from behind and continued feeling her breasts. It was obvious that he gave no thought to how it felt to her, but simply felt them because he enjoyed it. He began rubbing himself against her behind.

She removed two unmarked green items from her pack, a cube two inches on a side, and a cylinder nine inches long by three inches wide, each with a small, recessed yellow button.

She turned within his arms in a crouch and dropped the items to the sand between them, then wrapped both her hands around his hardening shaft and stroked him. He shivered violently for a moment, and she gently urged him to lay back with a series of insistent little head butts to his chest. Then she hopped over his right leg and lay on her left side beside him, her upper torso resting on his belly, blocking his view of her actions.

His right hand reached around her to play with her right breast, while his left caressed her hair. He began lightly thrusting into her hands.

She reached around his right leg for the green cube, glanced at it and turned it over, then quickly pushed the yellow button three times. A slot opened in the top and the edge of a rolled condom was dispensed. She removed it and the slot clicked closed. She caressed him with her palms as she rolled the condom over the head of his cock with her fingertips, then the rest of the way down his shaft. She began a series of long, firm strokes, at the same tempo as his thrusts.

Soon he emitted a quiet, jerky whining sound as his passion rose. He cried out and thrashed a bit as he reached orgasm.

As his arousal ebbed she stroked firmly up on his big dorsal vein from his anus to the tip of his penis, milking every last drop of his semen into the head of the condom. When she was sure she had it all, she carefully slid the condom off and quickly tied the open end. She stood the cylinder on end and pushed its yellow button three times. A round disc an inch wide clicked open on the end, releasing a puff of cold steam. She dropped the condom into the opening, closed the lid, and pressed the button five quick times. She held the cylinder vertical while she felt for three faint clicks from its internal mechanism, then stowed it in her pack.

The entire operation had taken less than a minute.

He stood and walked ten feet to the water's edge, and unabashedly urinated into the stream.