Hello, welcome to Dust. My name is Kai.

Entry 1, Genborn. The author, Arcea Nickel.

This is Dust.

It was good to be back near thought, standing in the shower, hot water pelting against her coppery skin.

She didn't need to scrub it. It was designed to shed grime and water, and harder things.

But the steam and heat felt so good that she lingered.

There was nothing like a long shower to slough off the stasis of a beach vacation.

The islands of May and I had been beautiful, of course, but she had only so much use for beauty.

She preferred a good day's work.

That was probably just genetics.

Or in her case, genetics plus engineering, she thought, staring up into the shower stream, eyes wide.

The water didn't bother those shining orbs, any more than it did her skin.

Welcome back.

Dern's upper half appeared in Nia's sight, a projection that only she could see.

He tapped a few keys, and his image was replaced by a collection of data files.

What have we got?

Panic, trooper. Overloaded a sift hour.

How many dead?

Nearly 2000.

She blinked quickly, flipping through the files.

The attacker didn't look dangerous, but they never did. Ugly though.

Pasty skin, eyes too small for his face, stringy, curly hair.

...