By the time the whole unwanted visitor issue resolved itself, Alexander realized it was getting te. Not wanting to disappoint his daughter, he headed home to spend time with Yulia.

  “Alex!” the girl greeted him excitedly, “Look what I made in css today!”

  “Ooh! What is it?”

  “It’s you, silly. See the arms and legs and face.”

  “I think your picture is upside down, sweetie.”

  She paused and turhe picture around to stare at it before turning it so it faced the correct way. “See!”

  He chuckled at her exuberance. “I do see. Should we hang it up o your other pictures?”

  She nodded emphatically and they moved over te wall with numerous other pieces of her art stuck to it with mags.

  “How about here?” he asked, pointing to the top ter of the wall.

  Yulia acted like she the spot but Alexander had never seen her choose a different location after he picked. She grabbed one of the mags and tried reag, but she was too short.

  “Do you wao put it up?” he asked as she struggled.

  She shook her head and tio try until he sighed dramatically and lifted the giggling girl up so she could pce it high on the wall.

  “I finished your puzzle st night,” she puffed out after Alexander pced her ba the floor.

  “You did? Well, let's see it then.” Yulia raced to her bedroom and a few mier returned with a robot that erfect scale model of the ones assembling the space station. The only difference was it was made from pstic, had six multi-jointed legs, and the middle arm used for tool attats had been repced by a happy-looking cartoon dog's face.

  She grunted as she put the robot – which was almost as rge as her – on the floor. Yulia had been w to assemble the thing for two months, ever since Alexander had built it for her. He didn’t want the other kids to feel left out of all the cool toys so he made all his designs avaible for trade. The kids could even earn points to get them themselves if they so desired. They just o pick up rubbish or help up. Nothing too onerous.

  He figured allowing the kids to do small jobs would instill a sense of aplishment and ownership to Edehat the majority of the older drifters seemed to ck. He also let them do these jobs because he knew most of the parents were rather practical, and he doubted many would spend their hard-earned tribution on toys when they could purchase things like medical services or other hard-to-e-by items like the training modules. Alexander didn’t charge for kids to use the learning modules he had earmarked for children. Any child that attended csses got to learn at their own pad study topics that ied them. He didn’t want to force them to do stuff they would find tedious or b, that would only sour them on the whole enviro he was trying to foster. Down the line, he hoped to turn the loose learning into something greater but that was a long-term goal.

  After pg the lightweight six-legged-robot-dog-monstrosity down, she activated it with the remote.

  The little holo projectors that served as the eyes lit up and they looked around before it let out a little meical *whorf*

  Yulia giggled at that and ran over and hugged the neck. “It’s a dht?”

  “Um… yeah, something like that. Do you have a name for your new friend?” He wasn’t worried about the young girl being so close to the robot, it was mostly pstic, so the ces of it hurting her by act were slim. They were even lower with her model since he used one of the advanced chips to implement a self-learning algorithm into the toy. The chip core was coated in dense noallic armor pting and hidden ihe body to protect it as well. If Yulia thought it odd, she hadn’t bothered asking about it. Was it a ridiculous waste of a very finite resourope, not at all.

  “…Dog?” she asked.

  He chuckled, “If that’s what you want to call it, that’s fih me.”

  “Your new name is Dog!” she squealed happily. Dog barked on response.

  Now, Alexander might have included the kits for other kids to build their very own dog or if that didn’t ihem they could get the toy preassembled but he hadn’t included the self-learning po. That was a gift for Yulia only.

  “Shall we take Dog for a walk?”

  She nodded, “e on Dog, I’ll show you around.” The robot barked o the and and clumsily plodded along after the skipping girl.

  Alexander chuckled internally and followed the pair out of the home. He had improved his programming by creating the interface f. There was no need for a ky remote trol. As long as Yulia held the activator, it would follow her. Eventually, Dog would bee smart enough that it didn’t evehat to keep track of its owner.

  The trio made a circuit around their area. By the time they arrived back outside the door, the robot was moving much more naturally. Self-learning really did make things so much easier. He also realized it made him a zy coder. After Yulia went to bed, he would pull the updated code from Dog and see what it improved so he could also improve his future g.

  Ahing had ged sihe attack. He added code into Dog’s programming to alert him if Yulia was injured or in danger. It would also send a ping of her location in the facility to his tablet. It was a step back toward his overprotective instincts and he k, but he couldn’t help himself. With the Hawks gohere was nobody else to keep an eye on her, besides her friend Markus. And he was only a few years older than she was.

  The girl was a bit of a trouble mag, some of that was because she didn’t like to follow prescribed rules until she actually got in trouble. Like the whole trying to explore i, that got her and her friends in hot water with the Hawks.

  The teen boy always having to bail her out of trouble was a different issue though. Alexander didn’t know how he felt about that. If they were both a bit older, he might suspect the boy had a crush on Yulia. It could just be a case of puppy love or maybe he loved her like a little sister. Either way, they were young enough that he didn’t feel the o worry about it. The boy hadn’t been around much tely anyway because his new mother was keeping him rather busy. Eva Wu had adopted Markus after Alexaold her what he did for Yulia during the attack.

  The nice older dy that Alexander had met aboard Petrov had ged sihe attack. She went from a nice old dy to a firm taskmaster, who brooked nument and erfectly fine dishing out orders. Alexander suspected she had always been that sort of woman, but had mellowed out with age. Not that he minded. A lot more people would have died had she not rallied the security people and held off that rge group of pirates until he arrived. She seemed to be raising Markus in the same manner, with a focused iy.

  The boy didn’t seem fazed at all by the ge. The st time Alexander had run into Eva and Markus, the boy seemed happy.

  “Will Yulia be ing to Markus’ fourteenth birthday party?” she had asked.

  As if Alexander would ever deny Yulia from going to the boy's party after he saved her, not once, but twice.

  That did remind him that Yulia was going to be ten soon. The orphanage didn’t have her exact date of birth, so it had just beeered as the date she was found. A bit cold if you asked him, but it was still a day to celebrate. He found it hard to believe how much she had grown i year. When he first met her, she was a skinny waif of a little girl. Now she was a normal, happy little girl who no longer looked underfed or short for her age.

  It was amazing what a year of care could do. Her st birthday occurred shortly after they arrived at Eden’s End. It had just been a small party between the pair of them. He felt bad for keeping her away from people during those days, but he didn’t know who could be trusted during those first few weeks after arrival. He was determio make it up to her for her tenth birthday though. Alexander wasn’t going to start pnning anything or notifying people until after Markus’ party. He didn’t want to steal the spotlight from Markus’ birthday.

  Speaking of Markus, Alexander had to e up with a gift for the boy. Teically, he already had one in mind, but that was more of a reward than a gift. Eva had given him an idea of what to offer the young man since Alexander didn’t know him very well. He was still mulling over that decision though. And how Eva would react when she found out. Eh, it would probably be fine.

  ***

  The day of the teenager's party came rather quickly but Alexander was ready with the gift for him. Whether or not he liked it, would be aory.

  Eva had mao put together an amazing party, and there were hundreds of people attending in Atrium D, where the pyground was. It made seo host the party there for the kids.

  As they approached the rge gathering, Eva smiled and came to greet them.

  “Yulia, Markus will be happy to see you. He’s over in the pyground with the rest of the kids if you would like to join him.”

  Yulia g Alexander for approval. He nodded and she hurried off. They left Dog at home for the same reason he hadn’t announced Yulia’s party yet. This was Markus’ day.

  “Alexander, it’s good to see you outside your workshop. I’ve been meaning to have a chat with you.”

  “Oh? Is this about what happened during the attack?” he asked casually.

  She smiled.

  He smiled back. She wasn’t the only one who could be crafty.

  “I feel like I’m being too predictable in my old age.”

  Alexander chuckled. “It wasn’t hard to guess what you might want to talk about. Although there isn’t much I say.”

  “You ’t or that you won’t?” she asked quietly as they made their way through the uests.

  “A bit of both, I suppose. Don’t get me wrong, I like you Eva, but I don’t know if I trust you with this.”

  The woman nodded. “I assumed that might be the case after I spied on you for Mingyu. After I met you at Petrov station, I knew I would regret that a one day. Sometimes we do things for family we would never do for ourselves,” she sighed.

  “I didn’t know you and Captain Na were reted?”

  “We aren’t, not by blood anyway. But I practically raised the boy since his mother never left the station and his father was busy being Captain.”

  “Ah… I assume you have a guess as to what happened?” While he wasn’t willing to spill all his secrets, it might be good to know what she thought.

  The woman nodded slightly. “Some sort of static field. But it wasn’t like anything I’ve ever seen before.”

  “I’ll tell you this much, Eva. I don’t know anything more than you do about that field. This body,” he waved at himself, “Wasly a choiy part.”

  “And that made-up story about the medical pod?”

  Alexander chuckled, “You’re the sed person to call me out on that. But that’s part of what I won’t be sharing. I’m sorry.”

  The woman nodded, her soft smile never leaving her face. “One day I hope you’ll trust me enough to tell me the whole tale. For now, I have uests arriving. Please enjoy the party.”

  He watched the older woman wander off. She had taken the reje far better than he could have hoped. With that out of the way, he went in seararkus Wu.

  The boy ying a spirited game of tag with the older kids. Alexander waited off to the side until the boy finally noticed him. Markus excused himself and walked over warily.

  “What do you want?” he asked in suspi.

  Ign the terse response, Alexander pulled out a metallic card and ha to the boy. Markus examihe bnk card with a frown before looking back at Alexander.

  “I seem to be doing this far too often, but I wao thank you for saving Yulia, again.”

  Much like the first time, the boy's ears went red in embarrassment. He really o learn how to accept praise or stop being so damn chivalrous before he ended up as a tomato for the rest of his life. Before the boy could walk away or say something stupid like ‘he was just doing what anyone would do’, Alexander tinued. “That card is locked to your DNA profile and gives you full access to every learning module. Not just the ones I authorized for the kids. Every single one… forever. If there is something you want to learn, that isn’t in there, let me know and I will do my best to get it.”

  The boy opened and closed his mouth like a fish. It was good that he seemed to uand the implications of this gift. sidering what Eva had been spending her hard-earned tribution on, this would ease her burden as well.

  The boy eventually stuffed the small card into his pocket. “Um… Thanks for the gift.”

  The boy was about to go back to pying when Alexaopped him. “That wasn’t yift. That was a reward for doing what was right. This is yift.” Alexander handed over one of the crystal cards he had been given by Captain Matthews.

  Again the boy looked lost. He doubted many people would know what the item he just hahe boy was.

  “Alexander!” Eva admonished as she strode up to them “Are you out of your mind?” She snatched the item from the boy's hand ao pass it ba. “You ’t just be handing these out to people all willy-nilly.”

  He wasn’t surprised that the woman reized the item, she had been a first mate for decades. Alexander didn’t take the fusion activation crystal from her. “You said the boy’s dream was to bee a Captain, now he has a ship. I’ll fix it up and when he’s ready to take on that responsibility, it’ll be ready and waiting for him.”

  She gred at him, but there was no anger in the expression, only annoyance. He watched that, while also watg the teenager's eyes bulge wide at the realizatiouro the boy and her expression softened. “We’ll discuss this ter tonight. Please thank Mr. Kane for his generous gift.”

  He wondered what Eva would say when she found out about the other thing he gave him. Access to all those learning modules was worth way more than a ratty old pirate ship, even after it was fixed up.

  The boy thanked him, profusely. The wariness and subtle hostility, that had always been ieenager’s tone whealked to Alexander, vanished from his voice for the first time. Alexander simply smiled and the boy before returning to the party.

  Eva saw something special in the boy; that's why she adopted him, even though she told him ba the station she was too old to adopt. Alexander didn’t need her to tell him the boy ecial, but her willio raise him did reinforce his thoughts oter. Since Alexander’s goal was to beat out the likes of Omni, he needed people like Markus who rose above their peers to make it happen. This was simply an iment towards that future.