text: (WP) I Will Survive They’d thought they’d killed her. They’d thought they’d eradicated the rest of her kind, and they would be right about that. She was the only one left. In space, it was impossible to track the passage of time. It had been years since Laika had even seen another life form, let alone someone like her. She hadn’t known how much time had passed, and her memories were foggy. All she remembered was her lover’s face, and the way that she had looked when she let Laika go. A fierce, almost predatory grin lit up her lovely face, and her laugh, sounding to Laika like birdsong, or what she remembered of it. But the betrayal had faded, leaving behind only her rage. It had grown inside of what was left of her heart, watered by her desperate need for vengeance. How odd, that the face she’d loved so dearly had been nearly erased by time. She might have been a cyborg, but even her memory was not infallible. The ruins of the ship around her had been the only thing to shield her from being blown to bits, once she’d hit the atmosphere. For a while, this dazzling new planet had dulled the agony of almost dying. It was like the earth she remembered in some ways, and in others it was totally different. The sky was a dark, rich purple, no matter what time of day or night it was. Laika couldn’t look at the sky anymore; she had a job to do. She would return to the colony and make certain that the people who betrayed her would pay. \*\* By the time Laika was through with the rest of her repairs, her entire body was aching, even the robot parts, and the sky turned from purple to a bright neon teal. She would allow herself a few hours of rest, a small meal, and then she would set out for Volterra, to the planet where her life had begun and ended. Laika didn’t like thinking about the past, about what came before. Even if she could remember it all, she didn’t want to. In those days, Callie had been all she had. Even when she’d lived on the streets, Callie always found her, usually with a sandwich, water. But she’d come back, again and again, no matter where Laika went. Somehow, she was always able to find her. And then one rainy night, Callie had stayed with her, and they’d kissed for the first time. From that point out, it hadn’t just been Laika, not anymore. It had been Laika and Callie, badass queer women who would take Earth, and the galaxies beyond it, by storm. What killed her most about Callie’s betrayal was that Laika had seen it coming. Callie’s father, a scientist, always had a scowl on his face whenever he saw Laika, making no attempt to hide his displeasure. She’d only learned of Callie’s true motives right before she’d abandoned ship: she and the rest of her kind were mistakes, results of a failed experiment, and they’d been taken into space not for a new life on a different planet, but to be erased, forgotten. Reborn. But she’d survived, and she was coming home to get even.