Project: O.R.Y.X.—Operative Reconstitution Yield Xenogenesis
The thought didn’t rise so much as crawl up the inside of my mind, dragging cold certainty behind it. It slithered into the spaces between my misfiring synapses, settling there like a parasite that had been waiting for me to notice it.
Human.
The word felt misaligned, like trying to force the wrong component into a socket. Every time I reached for it—its meaning, its shape, its fit—something inside me resisted. My body didn’t move right. My breath didn’t sound right. My thoughts flickered like defective circuitry, sparking, stuttering, going dark in places they shouldn’t.
If I were human, why did my joints grind like unlubricated hinges? Why did my nerves burn with synthetic sharpness, as if each was threaded with wire instead of flesh? Why did I feel the faint hum—yes, a hum—at the base of my skull, like a machine thinking behind my thoughts?
And why, when I looked at the people around me, did my vision momentarily fracture—overlaying them with strange ghost-data, flickering outlines, measurements, threat parameters I didn’t remember learning… yet couldn’t shut off?
A shiver ran through me, not emotional but mechanical: a ripple of faulty signals cascading down my spine.
No. Human wasn’t the right word. Not for me.
Something had molded me into the facade of one, a pale imitation. A lie. The truth was in the distortions, the glitches in my mind, the unnatural birth, the terror on their faces.
I was far from human. I was a construct wearing the mask of a person, a thing that wasn’t supposed to think for itself or ask questions or feel the crushing dread now unfurling in my chest.
And now that I knew it… I couldn’t stop wondering what else had been put inside me—and what, exactly, I had been made to do.
[art by Albert]
Dr. Yume Watanabe
I was never supposed to be here. Not like this.
I grew up in the crowded, rain-slicked districts of Neo-Tokyo’s Lower Ring, where neon flickered against aged brick, and the air thick with the scent of wet concrete and exhaust. My mother ran a small clinic, her hands always trembling with exhaustion, yet always steady for her patients. My father spent nights hunched over glowing consoles, running simulations to predict humanity’s next crisis, sacrificing sleep for the future he insisted I help shape.
I loved them. I revered them. But love in my family had always come wrapped in obligation, in expectations so heavy you could feel them pressing down on your chest before you could even speak. Giri my parents called it.
From the time I could walk, I was taught that failure was unacceptable. Not merely disappointing—it was shame, a fracture of honor that could ripple across generations. I memorized textbooks like incantations, studied every chemical reaction, every neural pathway, every structural anomaly I could find. I learned quickly. I learned obsessively. Because if I didn’t, my family’s sacrifices—and my own—would be meaningless.
That drive followed me to Ender Station Z94. I had been recruited for my skill in neuro-synthetic integration, my understanding of genetics, and human-machine interfaces. I told myself I was doing this for them. For the family who had sacrificed everything so I could have a chance to excel. I told myself that every decision, every experiment, every sleepless night was for them.
[Yume by Albert, Lumen, the little creature, by @Tōsō-P]
“We can’t stay docked here long. We need to move,” Omar said, fingers already dancing over the controls. “Blackclutch tolerates us—that’s not the same as welcoming us.”
I hoped that with Maren knowing we were here, it would give us just enough cover to slip away unnoticed.
Demarcus perked up. “We could always follow the money.” He grinned. “Heard something interesting on the way in. New bounty just posted.”
Illeus arched a brow. “Let me guess. Another rogue AI?”
“Better,” Demarcus said. “A moving star.”
Silence.
“…You’re kidding,” Omar said flatly.
“Nope. Long-range scans say it behaves like a stellar body, but it’s changing trajectory on its own. Sometimes disappears entirely. Some folks think it’s a living construct. Others think it’s an asteroid wrapped in some kind of ancient propulsion tech.”
Varrick clapped his hands, eyes shining. “Oh, I love it already. Stars that run away usually have secrets. Or teeth.”
Illeus snorted. “Or it’s a death trap.”
“Same thing,” Demarcus replied cheerfully.
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I was supposed to be focused. I was supposed to keep my distance.
But, as I stood in the sterile white corridor of the research ship, watching her through the reinforced glass of her cell, my mind was anything but calm. The humming of the ship’s engines, the sharp, mechanical clanks of the air vents—all of it became background noise as I focused on her. The prisoner. The comet girl. She was like nothing I had ever seen before, and that made her... dangerous.
The intergalactic coalition followed reports of a moving star, a possible asteroid. They even resorted to contract hires—mercenaries—to help with the hunt. Little did they know they would stumble upon an actual being that was affecting its environment strangely.
The first time I laid eyes on her, I was inexplicably drawn. She was beyond the comprehension of the leading races in the cosmos. How could a star be a living being? A living, walking, being manifested in what was in front of me.
Theories swirled in my mind, many of them battling to gain dominion. But I didn’t let myself acknowledge that. I couldn’t. I was the head researcher on this project, renowned for my years of experience across different planets, accumulating knowledge from races both primitive and advanced, through trade and treaties as well as dealings through shady trade stations.
So it was to no surprise that I would be entrusted with studying this powerful being, this celestial force that mercenaries had finally managed to capture after years of failed attempts.
Astraea—a name given to her by the previous crew, though I was starting to suspect that whatever she was, she had existed long before they discovered her. They didn’t understand her the way I was starting to. They saw her as just an anomaly to be studied, a being to be controlled, her power measured and manipulated. But I... I could sense something in her that was deeper than just the surface-level observations.
I glanced at the sterile chart that sat next to the thick glass. It detailed her species—unknown, of course, as much of the galaxy was still an uncharted mystery. But the entries were cold, clinical, as if this were just another experiment, another test. She was a rare celestial being, her body made from the very materials of a comet—a creature of light, dust, and gravity. The ship’s scientists had struggled to understand how she even existed, let alone how to harness her powers.
But they were confident enough to try, with or without her permission.
[Chibi Art by Anne Labyrinth]
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