Chapter 3
TILDA
By the time I get back to my apartment, I have signed away the next several weeks of my life, agreed to hurl my body into a televised corporate nightmare, and developed a new respect for the phrase what fresh hell is this.
The corridor outside my unit smells like overheated wiring and somebody frying onions two floors too enthusiastically. I stand there for a second with my hand on the door panel, forehead leaning against the dented metal, and let myself have exactly one private moment of panic.
Then I straighten up and go inside, because Jesse still needs dinner and bedtime and a mother who does not look like she’s about to be sick into the sink.
The apartment is dim except for the lamp by the couch.
Fenn is sitting in my surviving chair like a weathered statue with a mug balanced on one knee, while Jesse sprawls on the floor in front of him surrounded by blocks, three toy animals, and the dismembered remains of a puzzle that had the nerve to oppose him.
Fenn glances up as I come in. “You look terrible.”
“Thank you. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all day.”
He snorts.
Jesse turns, sees me, and lights up so suddenly it’s like somebody threw open a window inside my ribs.
“Mama!”
He launches to his feet and barrels into my legs hard enough to make me rock back.
“Hey, bug.” I drop my bag and scoop him up. He smells like warm skin, dust, and whatever snack Fenn gave him. “Did you terrorize Mr. Fenn all day?”
“No terrorize,” Jesse says with great dignity. “Built.”
Fenn lifts a brow. “He did build. Mostly towers. Then he destroyed them with what I can only describe as artistic conviction.”
“That sounds right.”
Jesse pats my cheeks with both hands, studying me. “Mama sad?”
And there it is. The lethal precision of toddlers. You can lie to adults all day if you keep your shoulders square, but a child takes one look at your face and walks straight into the room where you keep the truth.
“I’m tired,” I say.
He considers that. “Sad-tired.”
I kiss his forehead because if I try to answer, I’m liable to make a humiliating sound. “A little.”
Fenn sets his mug down. His voice is casual, but not really. “What happened?”
I shift Jesse higher on my hip. His weight is familiar, anchoring. “Brautigaum happened.”
Fenn grimaces. “That man always looks like he moisturizes with other people’s stress.”
“That is, bizarrely, accurate.”
“What’d he say?”
I laugh once, the sound thin even to me. “You’re going to think I’m joking.”
“I don’t.”
“He wants me to represent the company in the Galactic Extreme Challenge.”
Silence.
Even Jesse goes still, because my voice changed and he heard it.
Then Fenn says, “The television death carnival?”
“Apparently the phrase they prefer is ‘high-impact interstellar competition experience.’”
“The television death carnival,” he repeats.
“Yes.”
He stares at me. I stare back. Jesse starts playing with my earring.
Finally Fenn drags a hand over his mouth. “And?”
“And I signed.”
He lets out a low whistle. “You really are desperate.”
“Thank you, Fenn. I was worried the nuance might be lost.”
He stands up slowly. “What do you get?”
“Contestant housing. Childcare on-site at the compound. A stipend. Some performance-based bonuses. A promotion review if I survive.”
He folds his arms. “If.”
“Mm.”
“And you trust them?”
“No.”
“Good.”
I lower Jesse and start tidying blocks because if I don’t move, I’ll sit down, and if I sit down, I may never get back up.
My fingers shake only a little. “I don’t have to trust them.
I just have to get everything in writing, keep my eyes open, and last longer than people who make poorer choices under pressure. ”
“That does sound like one of your skill sets.”
“It had better be.”
Fenn watches me for a beat, then says quietly, “How bad is it?”
My laugh catches on the way out. “Bad enough that this made sense.”
He doesn’t answer right away. He doesn’t need to. He looks at the broken chair against the wall, the patched cabinet latch, Jesse’s reinforced booster seat, the apartment that tells the whole story even when I don’t.
“Right,” he says at last. “What do you need?”
The question nearly undoes me more than sympathy would have.
“Honestly?”
“Usually a mistake, but go on.”
“I need you not to tell me this is insane, because I know it’s insane. I need help figuring out what to pack. And I need to confirm every single childcare detail before I let strangers in matching uniforms anywhere near my son.”
Fenn grunts. “That I can do.”
Jesse tugs my shirt. “What challenge?”
I look down at him.
How do you explain any of this to a child who still thinks pockets are a form of magic?
“It’s a game,” I say carefully. “Mama has to go away for a little while and do some hard things for work.”
He frowns. “I come?”
“Yes. You come with me.”
His face brightens instantly. “Adventure?”
The word lands right in the center of me, soft and cruel.
“Something like that,” I say.
He throws both arms up. “Adventure!”
Fenn mutters, “That’s one word for it.”
We feed Jesse dinner while I pull up the contract on my comm and start combing through the clauses like a woman trying to detect poison by punctuation.
Contestant transport departs in less than thirty hours.
Child dependents, where approved, are housed in a separate family wing at the contestant compound during ground phases and in supervised accommodations during transit.
Twenty-four-hour pediatric staff. Security-controlled access.
Nutritional options. Hybrid-species accommodation requests available upon arrival.
Available upon arrival.
I narrow my eyes.
“Absolutely not,” I mutter.
Fenn looks up from slicing fruit. “What?”
“They left the hybrid accommodations open-ended. No. No, no. We are not arriving with a half-Vakutan toddler and trusting improvisation.”
I tap the customer support channel hard enough to feel virtuous.
After three redirects and a hold loop featuring instrumental music that sounds like a hostage negotiation set to flutes, a live coordinator appears in holo over my screen. She has perfect makeup, a soothing smile, and the polished voice of a woman paid to describe disasters as premium experiences.
“Thank you for contacting Galactic Extreme contestant services. My name is Verali. How may I support your journey today?”
“My dependent accommodation file,” I say. “Contestant Tilda Robertson, sponsorship through Brautigaum Plastics. I need confirmed hybrid childcare capabilities before departure.”
Her smile never moves. “Of course. One moment while I access your profile.”
Jesse is humming to his spoon again. Fenn mouths Verali? and I nearly smile.
The holo flickers. “I see your son is listed as part human, part Vakutan.”
“Yes.”
“How lovely.”
I close my eyes for one second. “He’s not decorative. Can your childcare staff safely handle Vakutan-strength developmental variance or not?”
Verali blinks. “Our facilities are equipped for a wide range of interspecies juvenile needs.”
“That is a brochure sentence.”
“I assure you—”
“No.” I lean closer to the holo. “I need specifics. Reinforced furniture. Crib or bed options rated for enhanced strength. Staff trained in de-escalation without inappropriate force. Dietary protocols for mixed physiology. Emergency medical support familiar with scale presentation and pediatric overheating.”
Fenn gives me a small approving nod.
Verali’s smile tightens by a millimeter. “I can note those requests.”
“I’m not requesting. I’m confirming.”
A beat.
Then the voice changes. Less velvet, more bone. “One moment, Ms. Robertson.”
Good.
I get a supervisor. Then another. Then, finally, somebody named Director Pell who sounds pleasantly exhausted and therefore vastly more trustworthy.
“Yes,” Pell says, scrolling through files.
“We can support that profile. We’ve had Vakutan and mixed-line dependents at compounds before.
I’ll update the intake notes personally and flag strength-rated furnishings in family housing.
Childcare specialists will receive the amended profile before your arrival. ”
I stop pacing.
“Strength-rated,” I repeat.
“Yes.”
“Not ‘available upon arrival’?”
“No. Assigned prior to arrival.”
“And pediatric staff?”
“On-site.”
I glance at Jesse, now trying to feed a grape to a toy lizard. “He also runs hot when upset.”
“We’ll note temperature management protocols.”
I exhale slowly. “Thank you.”
Pell pauses. Then, not unkindly, “Ms. Robertson, you do understand the Challenge environment is intense.”
There’s something in his tone that makes me go still.
“I understand that,” I say.
“Do you?” He hesitates, as if debating how much truth his job allows. “This season’s transport packet includes competitor advisories. I suggest you read all of them before launch.”
“I plan to.”
“Good.” A tiny pause. “And bring practical shoes.”
The holo disappears.
I stare at my comm.
Fenn slides a plate toward me. “That sounded ominous.”
“It did, didn’t it?”
“Practical shoes is never the end of a comforting conversation.”
“No.”
Jesse drops the grape, points at me, and announces, “Mama fight shoes.”
I laugh helplessly. “Apparently.”
After Fenn leaves, the apartment shrinks into evening.
Jesse gets a bath, which involves negotiations, splashing, one minor flood, and a passionate argument from him that soap in the hair is oppression. Then pajamas. Then the nightly demand for the same story about the cargo moon fox and the rude comet.
I sit on the edge of his little bed nook and tell it with my best dramatic voices while he curls under the blanket, scales catching the low light in copper glints.
When I finish, he blinks up at me. “Mama go soon?”
My throat tightens.
“Yes.”
He thinks about that with the solemnity of a very small judge. “I go too.”
“Yes.”
“You come back always?”
That one nearly breaks me open.
I smooth his hair away from his brow. “Always.”