Touchstone 1 - Stray

together and, just as I had back when she was showing me around KOTIS, I kept noticing people recognising her. A member of First Squad. Even if people outside KOTIS can’t record her image, in the facility’s support city there were a lot of people who knew who she was, or were from KOTIS taking a break. It put the Kanza game in a different light. I knew but hadn’t really thought through how very much all the Setari are faceless celebrities on this world, the people everyone wants to know. And I get to spend all this time with them, and can’t let myself buy into it.
    I’d told Maze that I thought First Squad were nice to me because they were nice people. But I am just as much an assignment to them as I was to Zan; they simply approach the task differently. Every time I start thinking about how nice they are and how much I like them, I hear: “Don’t forget the psychological aspects,” and remember that I’m part of their job. Helping them feels like the right thing to do, but it’s not necessarily the right thing for me.
    I really miss Alyssa, miss having someone I trusted absolutely, and I wish I knew whether Nick has told her everything that happened, and if she believed him. Mum’s not silly enough to announce to the world that her daughter is off on another planet, no matter whether they succeeded in videoing me. I’d give it a week before Jules posts that phone video on YouTube, though.
    I thanked Mara carefully when she delivered me back to my brand spanking-new apartment, putting a lot of effort into pronunciation. I might be an assignment to First Squad, but I appreciate that they don’t rub that in.
    Mara told me where and when to meet tomorrow, since we had a lot of training to catch up on, and then left me alone. With a door I can open. It’s a test of sorts, I guess. From practically no freedom to quite a lot, to see how I’ll react. I went out straight away and up to the roof, where it was evening, and blowing an absolute gale – not raining, but super windy. Fortunately, I’d taken my brand new jacket with me, and found a corner to tuck myself in to think, and read through the instructions Mara had shown me on how to change the public spaces in my rooms. Simply loving that I was able to walk up there on my own, and I could go back when I wanted to.
    I don’t trust them not to take this away from me again. So far they’ve chopped and changed their approach to me several times, and could easily decide it’s better to keep me in a box. In its way this is just another bit of positive reinforcement training. But I’m happy enough to keep being cooperative in return for an unlocked door.
    I’m missing home a lot today. But I really really hope I don’t wake up tomorrow and find that I’ve gone tearing off through the spaces again. I need a better understanding of just what the spaces are, what natural gates are, before I even begin to think of experimenting. There’s an entire world of information which I’ve just been given access to, and I need to go do more kindergarten so I can hope to understand some of it.
    They thought I was stupid .
    Wednesday, February 13
    Settling in
    So, my apartment has three and a bit rooms. The bedroom is a little larger than my original box in the medical facility, with a lot more cupboard space. The bed’s a double bed, too, instead of the narrower ‘hospital-type’ bed. I had a lot of trouble deciding on what kind of bedspread to buy, and ended up with a dark green one with a pattern of leaves and tiny white and pink flowers.
    The kitchen part of the main room has a small refrigerator and cooker and a sink, plus bench and cupboard. Given the Setari can get all their meals from their canteen, there’s no need to do a lot of food preparation in the apartments, but at least it’s possible.
    There’s a ‘coffee table’ and a matched pair of two-seater lounges facing each other over it. All very plain, and nothing you wouldn’t find in any Australian home, though made with a light, possibly hollow frame that seems vaguely related to whitestone. Wood is far too rare here to be used for basic furniture.
    I think I’d like to get some throw rugs to put across the lounges. There’s no television or sound system or anything like that because all that’s inside your head, which makes the lounge look rather bare. The study nook is not really a study nook, I think. After all, I haven’t seen a printed book or file yet, let alone anyone writing by