For
lilfluff's prompt (and how I didn't take the Crim. Minds one, I don't knoooow).
Names from Fourteen Minutes
The first thing Aarosa could remember was being passed from the robo-nanny's arms into the living nanny's. She remembered, although unclearly, opening her eyes and seeing another being looking back at her from the nanny's other arm.
Later questioning led her to believe that that had been Aarob, and that they had been, at that point, four months old.
By the time they were four years old, over half of the colonists had been decanted. The ship was overrun with small people, and Aarosa, Aarob, and the rest of her age-mates had their hands full, helping the robo-nannies and the living ones manage Bbiel's group, and Ccarne's, and so on.
By the time they were fourteen, Aarosa's group, and those down through Ddiet's, had been placed into intense training. The ship was nearly at the colony site, and every one of them - cloned from the great minds of science, the great personalities of politics, the great hands of the crafts - would need to pick up what was presumably in their genetic patterns and their pre-decanting programming, and create a colony.
Aarosa's genetic parent had been a botanist and hobby gardener named Rosa Flores; Aarob's had been an engineer named Robert Tanner. Aaritly, Aashley, and the others in their age-group had come from what the robo-nannies and the robo-trainers called "foundation skills:" they and the Bb-group would build the world.
By the time they were twenty-four, Aarosa had moved into a house Aarob had built - the two of them, and Aaritly and Aashley. They had breathing room now, time to date, time to consider marriage. They had all tried relationships with others - Bb's, usually (Aaritly and Aarosa had for a while both been dating Bbiel, but that had ended badly), sometimes Cc's or Dd's, but never below Ff's. It never quite worked.
"We were decanted together," Aashley surmised. "There's no bond closer than that, anywhere in the world. We were the first thing we all saw."
"Family," Aaritly called it. For a colony of clones who shared no recent genetic ancestors, it was an interesting concept. But Aarosa tasted it, and looked at Aarob, whose eyes she had been seeking out for twenty-four year.
"Family." And that they would be.
Whatever happened to them.
Names from Fourteen Minutes
The first thing Aarosa could remember was being passed from the robo-nanny's arms into the living nanny's. She remembered, although unclearly, opening her eyes and seeing another being looking back at her from the nanny's other arm.
Later questioning led her to believe that that had been Aarob, and that they had been, at that point, four months old.
By the time they were four years old, over half of the colonists had been decanted. The ship was overrun with small people, and Aarosa, Aarob, and the rest of her age-mates had their hands full, helping the robo-nannies and the living ones manage Bbiel's group, and Ccarne's, and so on.
By the time they were fourteen, Aarosa's group, and those down through Ddiet's, had been placed into intense training. The ship was nearly at the colony site, and every one of them - cloned from the great minds of science, the great personalities of politics, the great hands of the crafts - would need to pick up what was presumably in their genetic patterns and their pre-decanting programming, and create a colony.
Aarosa's genetic parent had been a botanist and hobby gardener named Rosa Flores; Aarob's had been an engineer named Robert Tanner. Aaritly, Aashley, and the others in their age-group had come from what the robo-nannies and the robo-trainers called "foundation skills:" they and the Bb-group would build the world.
By the time they were twenty-four, Aarosa had moved into a house Aarob had built - the two of them, and Aaritly and Aashley. They had breathing room now, time to date, time to consider marriage. They had all tried relationships with others - Bb's, usually (Aaritly and Aarosa had for a while both been dating Bbiel, but that had ended badly), sometimes Cc's or Dd's, but never below Ff's. It never quite worked.
"We were decanted together," Aashley surmised. "There's no bond closer than that, anywhere in the world. We were the first thing we all saw."
"Family," Aaritly called it. For a colony of clones who shared no recent genetic ancestors, it was an interesting concept. But Aarosa tasted it, and looked at Aarob, whose eyes she had been seeking out for twenty-four year.
"Family." And that they would be.
Whatever happened to them.