Opposite Operators

Crai groaned. Everything hurt.

"Crai?!" Mother's voice filtered in through the pounding red haze. "Crai, are you alright?!"

She sounded frantic. That was wrong. Mother was never frantic.

"My head," she said, or tried to say, but it came out more like 'muh ed'.

"Oh thank the Seven." There was the sound of concrete scraping, of something big being moved, and then cool hands on her shoulders.

"Mom," she murmured.

There was the click-hiss-click of the high-grade biorepair unit that they were given for their personal dormizone. Sharp, numb tingles shot over her head, down her back, and then, Crai could see again.

"There," Mother said, setting the repair unit aside. She took Crai's chin in her hand and looked into her eyes. "How do you feel?"

"I can see again," she murmured dazedly. "Nothing else hurts."

Mother picked her up off the floor, because she was laying on the floor in her bedroom of their dormizone, and hugged her tightly.

Her bedroom was a disaster area. The ceiling was gone. The floor was covered in dust and pieces of the broken ceiling.

"What happened?" She whispered, squeezing her mother back. "Was it the riots? Did they get a hold of a bomb or something?"

"We just did the jump," mother whispered hollowly.

"But..." It was slowly coming back to her. "The announcement said it was just a field test."

Mother squeezed her tighter. "That was a lie. I'm so sorry, sweetie, but we weren't allowed to tell you, to tell anyone. They were trying to keep the panic down by saying it was just a test."

Crai raised her head off her shoulder and looked at the ceiling. "Maybe..." Her throat burned. "Maybe they were right to be panicked after all."

"Crai!" Mother's nails dug into her back. "Watch your language! This was endorsed by the Seven!"

She looked around the room again. It was ruined, that much was obvious, but they would be moved to a different dormizone. Maybe one with a bigger, nicer bedroom. This one was only half the size of her old one back in the Golden Tower on Earth.

No, wait. They just did the jump.

"So are we in Tau?" She tried to jump up and go to her terminal, but mother held her tight.

"I don't know," she whispered. "Don't know where we are. But I know we aren't in Tau."

Something cold settled into Crai's stomach. "Mother?"

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Can... you let go? You're holding me a little too tight."

"I would never let you go. You and your brother are everything to me."

Crai winced as her nails dug in even harder, pressing through her Zariman jumpsuit. Mother didn't have nails long enough to hurt this much.

"Mother?"

Mother laughed. "Shh, shh, sweetie."

Crai tried again to pull away. "Did you hit your head too? We should use the biorepair unit."

It happened fast. A hand in her hair, yanking her head back, nails clawing at her spine, and then teeth. Too long teeth.

Crai managed to yank backwards just enough that the huge metal teeth sprouting from her mother's mouth sunk into her shoulder, instead of her neck.

Pain turned the whole world red.

"Mother!"

Her shoulder crunched.

Crai fumbled for the nightstand, and her hand found her tablet. It was an older model, heavy and unwieldy. She mashed it into her mother's skull as hard as she could.

The teeth let her go.

"What the blazes is going on in here?!"

Father charged into the room. He saw everything, and he just froze.

Crai kicked her mother in the chest, sending her staggering back, and lunged for her father, bleeding and sobbing. He caught her.

"Zelata, Crai, what in the Seven's holy names is going on?!"

"I don't know!" Crai sobbed.

From the other side of the room, her mother screamed. It was a metallic shriek of a sound.

"Oh dear stars," her father hissed. He clutched at Crai's shoulders.

His fingernails were too long. Mother and father both worked with the physical sciences as Archimedeans, they kept their nails short.

Father's nails were sinking into her skin.

Crai spun around and shoved him back, away from her, towards mother. She lunged out of her bedroom and slapped the emergency lock on the door.

"Cephalon, lock down room A-4!" She shouted.

"Lock-lock-lockiiiiing down," Cephalon Dalamin said, voice glitching.

The glow of the emergency lock lit up.

All bedrooms intended for children had an external emergency lock on the Zariman. Crai thought it was a little weird, but most of the families onboard were low-caste, and maybe their kids could get unruly. None of the kids of the labourers or lower scientists or whatever who were in her class or her study group seemed particularly unruly, but she probably just got lucky.

Something slammed into the door from the inside. It rattled, but held.

Very slowly, Crai put her palm over the terminal next to the door. "Transparent mode," she said.

The door turned transparent.

She jumped back, clutching at her bleeding shoulder.

Both of them were standing by the door, practically with their faces smashed against it. And beating on it with their fists.

Mother's face was barely recognizable anymore, just eyes and teeth. Father's face was normal, but his hands had turned to metal past his elbows. His fingers were way too long and tipped with razor claws.

He pounded on the door again. Mother opened her horrible new mouth and screamed.

Crai stumbled back again. Her arms and shoulder hurt, they hurt so much.

There was another biorepair unit in the living room. She should go get it and fix herself up.

"Mother," she whispered. Then she cleared her throat. "Mother! Father, something's really wrong. I'm going to go get help, okay?"

Mother screamed again.

Father raked his claw-hands down the door. "Oh sweetie, don't go! Come in here and play with us!"

He grinned. It was such a huge grin, nearly actually ear to ear. She had no idea her father could grin like that.

Crai spun around and ran for the biorepair unit in the living room. She had to get to the lorists and bring them here. They would know what to do.