Free Binary Cycle - (Part 1: Disruption) by WJ Davies Page A

Sure, a few more friends might be nice, and she’d definitely like to be able to spend more time with her mother, but overall, she was happy.
    Skyia smiled to herself, at all the things she was grateful for, as she slipped the dress over her head. The delicate silk brushed softly against her skin.
    She didn’t need a father, she told herself. Especially not one who would so easily walk away from her and her mother.
    ∞
    Skyia danced out of her room while MiLO waited patiently by the front door, a perfect gentleman. She heard the rumble of her mother’s rover outside—why she drove that noisy, archaic machine, Skyia would never know—and glanced out the window just in time to see her mom disembark from the buggy. 
    She felt a rush of excitement at the thought of reuniting with her mom after so many months—nearly half a cycle. The lights on MiLO’s front display blinked and cycled through magnificent shades of deep violet and crimson—he, too, was obviously excited.
    A chime sounded and she heard her mom’s voice fuzz a muffled “Hello” through the speakers. MiLO reached a mechanical arm up to the door panel and pressed a button. The door cracked down the middle and the two halves swung to either side, welcoming ruddy rays of sunshine into their home, along with her mother.
    Cassidy Walker stood, silhouetted against the glimmering light, a glowing torus surrounding her lithe frame. 
    Skyia squealed and ran to her mom, throwing her arms around her. She buried her head in a familiar bosom and whispered how much she’d missed her. She felt like she never wanted to be separated from her mother again, and that all the time she had spent in the Tower alone with MiLO was a distant dream.

Chapter 13
    Patient, weary feet
Home is where my heart lies still
Who is waiting there?
    Cassidy Walker’s speeding buggy ate up kilometers as fast as it guzzled gasoline. The vehicle's engine rattled a thunderous roar as it barrelled up the steep and rocky slope, heading upward to the Signal Tower plateau. Cassidy was returning home, and relished the thought of reuniting with her daughter.
    Through the windshield, Cassidy’s eyes followed a forest dove as it soared up into the clouds, becoming nothing but a tiny, dark smudge in the wide sky. A second smudge joined it, both birds catching the thermal drafts rising up out of the humid valley. Suddenly, with wings folded tight, they catapulted down toward the ground, chirping a mournful song to any who would listen. These were large birds, larger than a human head, growing larger during the two centuries that they had been living on Taran. The lower gravity here seemed to have that effect on most plants and animals imported from Earth.
    The doves called out again, their lonely cries echoing across the valley. To Cassidy, their distinctive woo-OO-oo-woo-woo was one of the most beautiful sounds on Taran, and was something she had been looking forward to in the months since she had last been home, half a cycle ago. 
    Despite having the freedom to traverse the entire planet, the doves tended to stay close to the redwoods here in Alexendia, their original nesting grounds. Though they usually brought her much joy, today, as Cassidy listened to their songs, she was filled with a great sadness—a strange, aching emptiness in her stomach. How could such beauty be so full of misery, she wanted to know? Why did she feel as if her heart was breaking, just a little more, with every note of their mournful scale?
    Cassidy adjusted the seat of her mountain buggy, making room for her long, tanned legs. She was returning from a months-long archaeological dig in Ganji Province, and suspected she would have to return yet again before this cycle came to an end.
    She navigated the buggy around a bend, thinking about the twenty year journey that had led to this moment. As a bright and enthusiastic twenty-year-old university student, she’d been part of the team that had discovered the first extinction