Free The Pride of Parahumans by Joel Kreissman Page B

experience as most of the "senior" members, meant that
hardly any jobs were ever thrown your way. I wasn't even allowed to
perform the tests on the osmium sample that my friends had brought
back. That load, combined with the tungsten we had brought in on
the previous run, had barely netted enough to pay the Marquez clan
for another couple weeks, what with the guild's ten percent and the
storage fees for the tungsten and other assorted expenses. So they
were already out on another expedition to find more heavy metals
for the guild to profit off.
    Did I say "clan" when referring to the
Marquez Protectors' Guild? Well, that was about when I started to
see the Protectors' Guilds for what they truly were. To be honest,
I should credit a web show that I started watching while waiting
for the miners' guild to send me some work, "Crowns of Furtopia" I
think it was. It was this fantasy series that took place on an
alternate earth inhabited by parahumans instead of humans and
technologically equivalent to tenth-century Europe. The main
plotline seemed to involve these families (yes they could reproduce
sexually in the fictional world of Furtopia) known alternately as
"clans" or "houses," that governed various regions of the country
on which the show was set. Apparently, the show had gained such a
following on Vesta that some of the terminology had seeped out, and
it wasn't uncommon to refer to the Protectors' Guilds as "House
Wolf," or "Clan Marquez," or any of a dozen different variations on
those, because the leaders of the Guilds had such large clone
families. Anyways, it was an impressive piece of work. They filmed
with live actors wearing replica Middle Ages clothing on board one
of the few bubble-type habitats ever constructed that was pretty
heavily terraformed, and they edited out the sloped ground and sky
to make it look like it was actually on a planet.
    Speaking of those clone families, I had been
scrolling through the list of jobs that were currently open on the
asteroid when I came across a listing from the Society for the
Preservation of Parahuman Species. Curious, I opened the entry and
found that it was for a position as a biotechnician in their
cloning facility. The pay was substantial, with negotiable hours,
but what really caught my attention was the line that stated, "All
insurances, health, property, and Protectors' Guild, covered
entirely." If that meant what I thought it meant, the job was as
good as 99% pure platinum for someone like me. I might even make
enough to pay for my friends' insurance. I applied immediately.
    I was taken by surprise an hour later when I
received a call from the SPPS on my tablet. They wanted an
interview by video chat already. I opened the chat app and was
greeted by the image of a large brown creature that looked halfway
between a badger and a bear, a wolverine, I would later learn. I
could barely see more than his head but he seemed to be wearing
some sort of white lab coat or possibly a ceremonial robe of some
kind with intricate designs of DNA helixes patterned up and down
the lapels in gold. The interviewer directed his large brown eyes
at mine and introduced himself. "Good morning Argentum. My name is
Caleb Burns, and I'm here to determine if you're the type of
parahuman the Society for the Preservation of Parahuman Species
needs in order to continue our most worthy goal of ensuring the
survival of our culture."
    That was an interesting question. "The type
of parahuman the SPPS needs?" What types of parahumans was he
referring to? Species of non-human genes? Skill sets? Body type? I
couldn't tell what he was referring to, so I started to talk about
my hobbies: "Well, I have been performing my own DNA tests using
the genetic material of myself and my crewmates for about four
years, attempting to find the genes that were modified to make me a
neuter instead of male or female."
    This Caleb being was obviously not too
interested in my statement, probably because I had already