168 U.Z, ODMAN W28

It was the kind of rain that made the air scream.

Madeline Parker watched through her window at the rainstorm outside. It hammered on the roof of her house, flattening leaves and bushes with the sheer power of its wrath. It held no fear for her - her home was shedling-made, and although she didn't like the bugs all that much, whatever they built lasted.

She was alone in her house at the moment. A part of her welcomed the rain and the sound that came with it. It certainly made her home feel less empty.

Madeline had lived in her home for only a few years, but she’d grown comfortable in it. The wood-paneled walls were all real. The half-bathroom had a working shower and bathtub, which provided hot water well enough.

She was lonely.

There wasn’t any way around it. She had plenty of time to think, since nowadays jobs were only for those that wanted them, but all that free time only meant she had no compunctions on the fact. She’d applied for foster care, but the odds of anyone actually being orphaned were low to say the least.

Politics were gone and human military went with it. Everyone was allowed their own weapons, but it didn’t matter when the only ones you wanted dead took revenge with extreme predjudice. Nobody was an orphan because the only people who died anymore were the truly stupid and the extremely old, and rarely did those unfortunate people leave any orphaned children behind. Even if they did, she was at the bottom of what was most likely a very long list.

A flash of lightning lit the sky up, and a roll of thunder shook the house a second later.

She sighed, leaning on a desk by the window. Lifting her mug, a white cup without markings, she took a sip of the hot chocolate it contained. Some people might have been a little judgy that she had a supply of hot chocolate so readily available in the latter half of spring, or at least the season they called spring on Odman. Some people didn't appreciate the finer things in life. Like hot chocolate.

The ground rumbled once more, but no lightning preceded it. Madeline leaned forward, forehead furrowing as she stared through the rain at the street in front of her house. She had to squint, but she still managed to make out the shape sitting on the road.

The moment she did, she set the cup down and hurried to the door, throwing it open. She was immediately soaked by the downpour turning the world sideways, but there were more pressing matters on her mind.

One of the giant shedlings, one of their Warriors, lay full length on the road. She couldn’t see where the massive centipede’s tail ended, but its head occupied the entire street. What could only be called a carriage sat mounted atop its neck, spotlights illuminating everything in front of it.

Two more of the shedlings, much smaller ones, scuttled off of the carriage. They held no conversation and wasted no time, moving towards her house. A very small package was visible, gently hovering midair between them.

Madeline was trying hard not to panic. Shedlings didn’t just pay house visits and they certainly didn’t come in person if they needed something.

She wasn’t the only person wondering what was going on. The lights of her neighbors’ houses were on, onlookers observing the spectacle through their front windows and likely gossiping up a storm to their friends.

The pair of shedlings steadily walked up her sidewalk, unhurriedly and without the slightest hint of discomfort at the rain. The shedling on the left was a little thick, with a softened layer of iridescent chitin plates forming a carapace along its back. Measuring perhaps twelve feet in length, its many legs bore its weight well. As with all shedlings, it had two beady black eyes and a pair of fine antennae, plastered back along its carapace, with a fearful maw of teeth crouched behind a pair of hooked mandibles. The second was leaner, but otherwise similar in appearance.

They crawled across the ground towards her house. As they grew closer, she made out a small white device strapped to their necks, partially hidden under carapace plating. She wasn’t sure what it was for, but she was pretty sure it had something to do with the package floating between them.

Almost a hundred and seventy years since shedlings had conquered the known universe, and telekinesis was still fascinating. There was just something about using one’s mind to lift things that Madeline couldn’t help but find endlessly interesting.

They stopped at her doorstep, antennae gently waving from side to side. The left shedling rose, rearing up until it towered over Madeline. The white device on its neck lit up, and it spoke in a distinctly female tone. “Are you Madeline Anthony Parker?”

Madeline gaped, more out of surprise than anything. “Yes?”

It nodded. “Good. Take this.”

The package gently moved forward. It was a large, oblong object wrapped in thick fabric, keeping her from seeing what it was. Reaching out her arms, she accepted it and almost dropped it. It was much heavier than she’d anticipated.

The second shedling presented a clipboard to her, held aloft by an invisible hand. She hadn’t seen it anywhere on the shedling’s person, but it hardly mattered. Looking from side to side, she carefully set the package on the table in front of her window, returning to the door and automatically taking the clipboard. “If you don’t mind my asking, what’s going on?”

The first to speak stared evenly at her. “You applied for foster care, correct?”

Madeline’s heart dropped to her stomach and rubber banded into her throat, and she whipped her head back around the corner of her front entrance at the small package sitting on her table. Snapping back to the shedlings, she stammered, “Y-yes, I did. Is that-”

“-Killerie of The Exceptional Mind,” The second shedling finished for her in a feminine voice, knocking her heart back down. “She cannot be cared for by us. For her and our safety, she has been rendered both mute and deaf to us. She will learn your language and ways, and hopefully adopt your culture better than she can ours.”

Madeline swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry and her brain on fire with questions. The most important one took priority. “You’re giving me a shedling?”

Shedlings didn’t have orphans. Ever. They all came from one family and worked in perfect coordination and cooperation, they got along with each other, they knew each others’ thoughts - eyes above, they even shared memories, if half of what she’d heard was true.

The shedlings nodded in sync, and Madeline started flipping through the papers attached to the clipboard she’d been given. It held a number of details about the infant shedling lying on her table - female, two months old, positive temperament, Engineer caste. There were a few phrases which stuck out, most noticeably-

“-Psychically handicapped?”

She received another nod from the shedling on the right. “Her antennae have been fitted with telepathy caps. Her ability to lift will not be inhibited, but she will not be able to learn from us as our children do, and she will not be able to commune as we do. Do you accept her?”

Madeline paused. It… wasn’t what she expected. To be honest, it hadn’t even been in the realm of possibility a few minutes ago. But it was a child, wasn’t it? A child who needed a… mother.

The word made a shiver run up Madeline’s spine, and it made her realize what her answer was.

“I do.”

The shedling on the right nodded. “Good. Your card’s limit will be substantially increased to account for nutrition needs.” Turning as one, they both began heading back towards the Warrior patiently waiting for them on the road.

Madeline closed the door, a sense of surreal disbelief filling her. Turning to the sodden shedling bundled on her table, she slowly approached it and pulled the first wrapping off.

A small face peered back at her. Two black eyes, squinting at the sudden increase in light as they were exposed to the numerous lamps and lights in Madeline’s house. A purple carapace curled over her forehead, with two thin antennae gently resting on her back. They were capped with an infinitesimal white piece of metal, a dim glow emanating from each one. She had a tiny little mouth, a mess of teeth hidden behind a pair of mandibles soft from youth. A white device similar to the ones the shedlings had been wearing snugly sat on the side of her neck.

Madeline sucked a sharp breath through her teeth, but didn’t pull away. It wasn’t what she expected at all, no, but still…

“Hello, Killerie,” She whispered, and the centipede’s antennae perked up. “I’m going to be your mom.”

The words alone brought tears to her eyes.

She wouldn’t be alone anymore.