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Prior to his bid for world peace through controlling the flow of Crystite, Hadrien Ashworth helped quell hatreds between the surviving morphs and the rest of humanity. In this excerpt of an interview with his secretary during the announcement of his new corporation we take a look into those more barbaric times.

Aris Holden - Historian

* * *

Alexa Forsythe: That's quite interesting Misses Ashworth...

Hanna Ashworth: Its just Miss. I'm not married. And I'd prefer if you just keep calling me Hanna. People often mistake me for being married to Hadrien, and especially today,... well, with the announcement of Omnydine-M opening, today is a big day for him.

Alexa: Well, that actually brings up a good question. What is your relationship to your boss?"

Hanna: I came to work for him and his sister during the end of the 9 year winter, back when we were still selling power from the refurbished coal plants. Savana and I were in charge of making sure the human and morph workers didn't get into any fights, this mostly meant keeping them separated. I was only there a few months when word of the McOrban Incident hit our plant. The humans stormed the morph camps and killed dozens of them, mostly rabbits and foxes, before we could put a stop to it.

Alexa: Just as a reminder, what was the McOrban Incident?

Hanna: McOrban, from what I heard, was a sheep herder who exploited morphs not only for cheap labor, but he would beat them and force them to fight each other in arenas for customers. Eventually one of them managed to override the Three Laws programming that was added to all morph instincts when they were created. That is to say, this wolfmorph killed him, breaking Law One which states "A morph must not take the life of a human, or by inaction allow a human to die." It takes extreme circumstances to push a morph to break those laws, they are hard coded into their instincts, just like we are hard coded to want to live.

Alexa: And Savana? Who was she?

Hanna: Most don't remember Hadrien's sister, Savana. In addition to being beautiful, sweet, and intelligent, she was also quite a leader like her brother. We worked together for months keeping things running through the strikes. The humans were claiming that since morphs could break the three laws they were defective equipment and needed to be removed before they would go back to work again. Remember, this wasn't the depths of the winter anymore. Things were warming up again, and thanks to Hadrien most places had power. Workers unions reformed over this issue.

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Hanna: We got word that humans were attacking the power plant, so we rushed over to put a stop to it, but when we arrived nothing was happening. We looked all around, but only the morphs and the few humans still willing to work with them remained, and they hadn't seen anyone else either. As we boarded the transport to go back home it exploded in our faces. I barely survived, Savana had shielded me from the blast. My injuries were painful, but not as painful as missing her funeral. When I told her earlier that week 'Till death do us part,' I didn't expect it to be so soon.

Alexa: So, your not only his personal secretary, you're also his Sister-In-Law? How has it been working for him since the death of your wife?

Hanna: Hadrien didn't accept us at first, but after she died he immediately took me in as family. Her death at the hands of a human supremacist so cowardly as to use a bomb on public transport is what spurred him on to support the morphs, to carry on her work. In her memory he has pushed up work on augmenting the human body. At the moment I'm using a pair of legs his people created that take impulses directly from my brain and turn them into instructions. They're not perfect, but they let me walk again.

I still remember one day when he punched a man who came to the negotiation table wearing a 'Chacket Jacket.' Uhg, I hate that pronunciation. I can't fathom what would go through a persons mind to think wearing the skin of another intelligent being would be ok, let alone wearing it to a negotiation to bring peace between the humans and the morphs.

Alexa: Having worked with them so long, why do you think the human workers hated the morphs so much?

Hanna: Leaving aside the hatred still present in our society, I believe there are three major parts to it. Humans fear change and that which is different. We naturally fear 'the other' and have warred amongst ourselves for thousands of years over such simple things as hair color and nose shape. Its only natural we would take issues with intelligent beings that aren't even human. Second: we created the morphs to be tools just before the Fire Fall. Most were created to be common laborers, some soldiers, some colonists incase we ever made it past our solar system. After the Fire Fall ever morph that had a job meant a human who didn't. Third: I think we fear what they could become. Early morphs weren't programmed with survival instincts for living through harsh times, they were either meant to live in a factory or someones bedroom their whole lives. Yet the morph population only dropped a fraction of what ours did.

Alexa: Was that a cat I just heard? I'm allergic to dander.

Hanna: Don't worry, Chakats, like all morphs, were created to be hypoallergenic.

Alexa: Uh... you have a Chakat... here?

Hanna: Yes. Savana and I had always joked about adopting a foxmorph kitt and raising it as our own, but of course, Hadrien only managed to get the new Australian government to protect the Chakats on account of his plans to colonize Alpha Prime. After we got many of the other morphs out of the country I was given permission to adopt a chakitten. I picked hir up just a couple months ago. It's ok now, come to mommy.

Photographer's Note: [I watched as a small creature, much like a black striped white house cat with a small human torso where its neck should be, bounded into the room with excitement. Its arms and legs were loosely bandaged, as if it had gotten into a roll of toilet paper.]

Alexa: Does it have a name?

Hanna: Not yet. Shi's still quite young. Chakat mothers..er, I mean dams and sires, don't name their young like we do. Chakat are supposed to earn their names. But to be honest, I don't know a whole lot about their culture, I worked mostly with foxes and canines. I've been considering giving hir a name soon anyway, just so I know what to call hir. Maybe something about her playful hunting. Yesterday shi chased a hare into a briar patch, the thorns stuck hir pretty bad, but shi wouldn't give up the hunt until I got my legs and came to patch hir up.

Chakitten: Thowrn bwiehr hurt. Why bunny not come out an pway?

Alexa: I'm sorry, I don't feel comfortable continuing this interview with that thing here.

Hanna: Fine then, have a nice day. If you'd like to finish the interview tell your magazine to send a reporter who's not such a closet bigot.

Chakitten: Baw baaaaiiii!

According to the magazines records Hanna attempted to suppress the article, but her photographer ensured the recording got to her editor. It is unclear whether or not this article contributed to her termination two weeks later.

I was directed to find this article when I spoke with Hanna Ashworth as she rooted for her 'daughter,' Thorn Brier, at the Australian Holmgange Nationals wearing the latest ArcFold storage leg prototype.