# Veera - a Sci Fic Novel from Kiran Kumar Chava

## Chapter One: The Oldest Tree

Veera woke to the smell of cake. Not the synthetic kind that came in sealed pouches from the auto-kitchen - real cake, the kind his mother baked only on birthdays, filling the apartment with the warm, yeasty fragrance of actual flour and actual eggs and actual sugar. He lay still for a moment, eyes half-open, watching dust motes drift through the pale morning light that filtered through his bedroom window. Seattle's skyline glittered beyond the glass - towers of steel and carbon-fiber rising into a sky so clean it almost looked fake. Somewhere below, a transit pod honked while zooming past on its magnetic rail - a sound so rare it cut through the pleasant fog of his half-sleeping brain. Transport was nearly silent these days. You only heard a honk when something went wrong.

There on the ceiling, he saw five stars glowing brightly - holographic stickers that hadn't been there when he'd fallen asleep. He knew instantly it was his sister's doing. It brought an involuntary smile to his face.

He sat up in bed and found her drone already hovering at the foot of his mattress, its tiny dot light blinking red.

"Happy birthday, Veera!" Anika's voice came through the drone's tiny speaker, slightly compressed and cheerful. She was recording. She was always recording. "Say something for the archive!"

"Go away," Veera said, pulling the blanket over his head.

"Perfect. That's going in the family

...