4
Gia
Level 15.
The Nebula.
Gia’s going to find Starla there chatting, and she’s going to have a calm conversation, going to be the chill big sister, not the overbearing twenty-years-older matron, the house mother.
Gia had mothers and fathers back in the commune, of course, but the authority figures she remembers the most are the brothers and sisters at Sulila, the women and men — Gia’s age now — who had learned medicine well enough to teach but not to serve out their indenture in a good Sulila hospital. The most skilled were the professors. The others were house parents, eyes peeled to ensure that each new wave of incoming Sulila students adhered to the moral code: not a sip of alcohol, not a breath of smoke, not a second glance at another student’s test — or body. Bots in the blood
