Lena

  "No. No, no, no..." Lena stared down at the destroyed, former vilge. All she saw were rubble and corpses. "No." She hadn't expected this sight. Although she knew that monsters existed, the girl had never seen any. Even when the city was attacked by huge birds, she had neither seen nor heard them.

  She had been sent to her well-insuted and secured room. There she did not notice anything of the attack of the disfigured birds.

  "Those were... Wolfcats." The soldier next to her was no less shocked at the result of the attack.

  "If you didn't have to take care of me..." Tears rolled down her cheeks.

  "Then I might have died there", he finished her sentence. "The unit I was in... We all have a second, short apprenticeship in manual working. It's too risky out there for normal manual workers. At least for them alone. I've often had to help with repairs."

  "You're a manual workman?" Lena asked, wiping the tears from her cheeks with her sleeve.

  "I'm a soldier."

  "Ah. Yes, right...", the girl murmured. "Isn't it strange? It's peaceful here in this garden. We could see the horror. As a spectator. As if it were a py. High up, where no wolfcat can reach us. No mutant bird can simply smash this gss. Not as long as it is intact. As long as it is checked regurly and repaired if necessary. But this vilge? When help came, it was too te. This is unfair. Don't you think so?"

  "Yes, sure. Our world is dangerous. In the end, we are in no less danger than the people in the small vilges. If even one screw is loose, a steel beam is rusty and breaks easily, then these beings out there can also successfully attack this city."

  "I know." Lena knew this only too well. One of the capitals had been destroyed by a terrible attack. Ten years ago. The city was quickly repced. The clone was repced. The inhabitants were repced by a few fortunate inhabitants of some vilges, and by some who wanted to move to a capital. Only a few of the original inhabitants survived the attack. Those who did not die from the monsters eventually died from the poison of the outside world. A slow death. Now hardly anyone talked about it.

  "Lena?" Mina suddenly stood next to her. The hologram flickered angrily, while Samuel took a step to the side, in surprise. "Lena? Your father is calling for you. Please go to his office."

  "Is this?" the soldier asked, confused, but he quickly resumed his professional posture.

  "Mina, yes", Lena answered. "Mina? Did he make you py servant again?"

  The artificial intelligence snorted indignantly. "Certainly! Do me the favor and tell your father how to deal with his Creator!"

  "You could just refuse?" Lena suggested. Her nose ran a little after she cried.

  "If it weren't about you, my dear child, I would have done so. Now go, darling! And blow your nose!" As quickly as the hologram had appeared, it disappeared again.

  "She calls you... Her child?" Samuel stared at the pce where Mina had just been standing.

  "Mina is like a mother to me. Come. My father is waiting."

  When Lena and her babysitter arrived at her adoptive father's office, tea, and sweet pastries were waiting for her. Samuel was waiting outside the door. Lena didn't know why, but she was grateful for it. However, the sweets remained hidden from him.

  "Come, have tea with me." Her father pointed to the empty chair in front of him.

  "I... I'm not thirsty..."

  "Sit down anyway and have a tea with me." Her father smiled unimpressed. As always, he was dressed fshy. The fabric of his suit shimmered golden. He wore a colorfully patterned bow tie.

  Finally, Lena nodded, sat down, and took the cup of tea that her father handed her. "Dad? The vilge was attacked."

  "I know. Did you cry? Your eyes are all red. You saw it, am I right?" He held out the bowl of pastries to her. A lot of different cookies. Lena took none. Her father, on the other hand, took two. "There were losses. Not a tragic number. Lesser soldiers, the vilgers, of course, and a few inhabitants of the city who were there. The big cats were finally killed by the shadows. Together with a few more talented, happier soldiers."

  "Not tragic?" Lena held the teacup in her hands, but she didn't drink anything. "I saw the attack. I was at Level 6. It was terrible!"

  "Level 6? That must’ve been bad. A new vilge will soon be built there. The popution in some other vilges is too high for their capacities. We will relocate some residents. Everything is repceable, my girl. Even I am. Don't mourn the residents. They have fulfilled their task. That was their value. According to some records, there were too many mutations there. Caused by the proximity to the poison, but especially by inbreeding."

  "Inbreeding?" Lena took the small teaspoon from the saucer and stirred it in her tea. "Their task? Yes, they’ve brought usable things out of the cities. They have modified seeds so that we can get better harvests here. There was a small research station there. In this vilge, they experimented with potatoes and wheat! That is all gone now! These people were no less valuable than we are, even if they didn't live in a city!" Furious, Lena put her cup on the table. "There was a boratory there! With good researchers from other cities! How could inbreeding occur?"

  "Of course they were valuable", her father confirmed. "The loss of their research is a tragedy. Others will resume it. And, well, our researchers stayed away from the other vilgers. Clearly a mistake. In the future, we will encourage all residents outside the cities to marry outside their social status. However, mutations should be avoided if possible. We need a healthy society."

  "Healthy." Lena herself was healthy. But she had mutated genes. These were inactive, but she was able to pass them on. So according to her father's definition, she wasn't healthy, was she? "The mutations do not always mean that someone is also sick. Isn't it more of an adaptation? To our world?"

  "Of course, child", her father mumbled slightly absently. He hadn't listened to her.

  In fact, each vilge had a different task besides collecting goods. Tasks for which you also had to regurly go into the poison of the outside world. These research stations were always a little away from the huts of the vilges. They were well-equipped to protect those who worked and lived there. But the station had also been destroyed after the dome fell.

  The people who worked there often came from the cities and returned there after a few years of research. In most cases, they were not part of the vilgers, but at least came from the better-off middle css. These researchers had sent the call for help to the city when the damage to the dome was noticed.

  They had not been able to repair the damage themselves. They cked the tools for this. The right technology. Lena had often asked her father to equip the vilges better, but he refused. Mina refused. All the clones refused.

  Why?

  Because the vilges had to depend on the clones. Her father called it the natural order of things. This was the only way to bring order to their destroyed world.

  When Lena left the office a little ter, she took a cookie with her and handed it to the soldier gloomily. "Here. It tastes good", she told him, lost in thought.