Sore and sweaty from that morning’s training, Cassie limped into the clinic’s lavatory. Compared to the luxurious pools and facilities of the Aviary, the single hot water cleansing stall paled in comparison. Cassie knew she should be grateful. She was free. No one could force her to playcompanion to wealthy clients anymore. But when she scraped at her skin in the cleansing unit with more force than necessary, leaving behind dark red grooves from her nails, she couldn’t bring herself to feel grateful.
Was it really freedom without her voice? At least in the Aviary, everything went as expected. At least in the Aviary, she had people she could speak to. At least in the Aviary, she didn’t feel so alone. Cassie scrubbed a single tear away from her face. She wasn’t going to cry. Crying didn’t stop the clients from harassing you or the Aviarist from punishing you. It was what she had always told her flock, and she didn’t want to be a hypocrite now.
Her breaths came in jagged as she smacked the palm of her hand against the button for the cleansing unit. Warm water and suds pooled around her feet. She was going to get on with her day. As much as she hated to admit it, running drills had helped. Her muscles were the right kind of sore, and now it was time for her to go struggle through her first official reading lesson.
There were new clothes in her size, but something about Eleri’s oversized castoffs made her feel less exposed. The healer had never asked for them back, and Cassie wasn’t going to offer unless she did. She pulled on a gray-green jumpsuit that washed out her olive-toned skin and then shifted the sleeves down to cover the dark marks where she’d been scratching herself. This was the first step. She resolved to learn as much as she could as quickly as she could.
When emerged from the lavatory into the clinic’s main atrium, S’samph and Eleri were both there speaking quietly. S’samph glanced up first when she tried to creep by without disturbing them. He was still dressed in the same drab fatigues he’d been wearing from that morning. Eleri looked up after him, following his gaze, and then smiled at Cassie when she noticed her passing by.
“Do you need anything?” Eleri asked with kindness that churned Cassie’s insides.
She responded with a negative shake of her head, but she could feel S’samph’s eyes on her as she exited.
The heat of the day had risen with the suns, and Cassie knew she should be wearing sun protection even for the short walk from the clinic to the schoolhouse, but she couldn’t particularly bring herself to care. She knew the residents of Laurus stared at her when she was out and about. It wouldn’t surprise her if S’samph or Eleri told them to leave her alone, but the pitying glances just reinforced the deep emptiness coiled tightly inside of her. Cassie pulled a hydropod from her bag and popped it in her mouth as she walked faster down the dusty road leading her out of the sun and out of everyone’s eyes.
A levibike was parked in front of the building, probably Örim’s. She trained her expression. No sadness today. She was Cheerful Cassie, here to learn her reading. Her boots kicked up dust as she marched up the steps of the schoolhouse and made sure she was ready to face the awkward educator. Even if he did only seem to care about her for her voicelock.
He was waiting for her with a datapad in hand when she entered the schoolhouse. “Oh, hello there, Cassie. Are you well? I hope this timing isn’t an inconvenience for you.”
She shook her head and looked for somewhere to sit. All the seats were adhered to the floor, leaving the only free chair at the Örim’s workspace.
“Here, you can sit here. I need to stand to use the holoscreen anyway.” Örim stood and offered her his seat, which she took with a controlled smile.
“I’m so grateful!” she said.
“Okay, let’s start with the very basics then. Are you familiar with the concept of the phonetic alphabet?"
The word alphabet was familiar. She knew how to make letters with fingerspelling, but she had no understanding of the word ‘phonetic’, so she shook her head.
"Excellent, let’s start there then.” He pulled up a graphic on the screen with a chart. Each box was filled with a different symbol. “In Universal, all sounds you can make with your mouth are represented by a symbol.”
Her brows lifted as she waited for him to realize his mistake, but he continued onward, unaware. She sat up straighter as he ran through each of the sounds and boxes. It was simple enough in theory. It would just be an exercise in memorization.
“Do you want to try tracing the symbols? It’s a bit old school, but I find it helps cement the memory better than holowriting.” Örim asked as he offered her a stylus and a basic datapad. Cassie accepted and found it had been preloaded with outlines of the shapes.
She mouthed the sounds she remembered as she traced over each of the thirty-seven symbols. Örim watched with a critical eye as her wobbly lines covered the letters.
“You have a good memory,” he commented. Cassie nodded. She had to. It was important to remember information about each of their clients to ensure the best possible customer experience. If she’d been allowed to, she could have recited each of her 93 regular clients’ favorite drinks, the names of their offspring or mates, their home planets, and most of their identifying information. There was a reason she was popularly requested for her companionship. Clients valued the way she made them feel like a companion and not a client. In comparison, thirty-seven symbols were unremarkable.
When she had finished her tracing, she handed the datapad back to Örim with a question in her eyes. Her hands instinctively formed the sign for ‘more’, even though she knew he wouldn’t understand.
But he noticed, even if he didn’t understand. “Does that mean something?” he asked, as he attempted to replicate the motion. Cassie nodded and made the hand sign for her name, which was a combination of the signs for ‘dangerous’ and ‘bird’.
Then she said, “My full designation is Cassowary, but you can call me Cassie,” followed by a repeat of the sign for her name.
Örim repeated the sign with his hands. “That’s your name? Cassowary? Cassie?”
This produced a real smile as she signed her name a third time. Örim returned her smile with an excited tap of his elbow nodes and then repeated her sign.
“Cassie. Should we practice writing your name?” he asked. Cassie nodded and accepted the datapad again. Örim held the stylus first and wrote a sequence of symbols. “There. That’s your name in Universal. Cassie.”
She accepted the stylus back and copied the symbols in her own shaky hand. Her name. Written out, it felt like hers for the first time in her life.
“So, is there anything you can tell me about yourself or your interests? It might help me find better reading material for you.”
This made her stomach twist. What could she tell him besides the programmed phrase about her imaginary interests? The Aviarist had given each passera a set of fabricated hobbies to humanize them for the clientele. But she had to say something. “Thank you for asking! My hobbies are calligraphy and laser volleys.”
“Calligraphy and laser volleys?” he echoed. “Oh.” The realization must have struck him because he made a motion with his finger nodes. “Those aren’t real, are they? You don’t know how to write. Calligraphy requires advanced penmanship.”
