‘Jez, I don’t want to sound like your mum, but-’
‘So don’t,’ snapped Jez.
‘…but, maybe it’s time you got up and-’
‘Ellie! I mean it! I don’t need you to give me the big ra-ra speech, okay?’
She bit her lip, wondering whether it was wise to push the matter further. In the months they had lived together, they’d yet to have a real argument….well, at least a serious one. It looked as if right here, right now, was going to be the first true test of their friendship. Ellie knew there was never going to be a good time to do it; Jez needed this friendly kick in the ribs - the sooner, the better.
She sucked in a breath, and steadied her nerve before reaching out for the remote control and turning the toob off.
‘Jez, you’ve got to pull yourself out of this…this…’
‘This what? I don’t need to pull myself out of anything thank you very much,’ Jez snarled. ‘And, what makes you so fregging great anyway? Huh? So, you’ve got a daggy job down the Recyc? Double-rah for you. The money’s so crud it barely pays for the ‘hound over there and back anyway!’
‘But it’s something Jez. We need to bring in something.’
‘What’s the fregging point? Every job we’ve had isn’t anywhere near enough to get us off this crap-stack. Even if we could save every last cred, it’ll take us years and years.’
‘We need money right now otherwise we’ll be on the street!’
‘So what? That’s where I found you, so you’ll be no worse off will you?’
Ellie was taken aback. Where the crud had that come from? There was a really nasty, spiteful tone behind those words. ‘What are you saying, Jez?’
‘I’m saying, you’re a waste of space Ellie….you drippy-chik. I’m saying that since I pulled you up out of the gutter all those weeks ago, nothing has gone right for me. Nothing!’
Ellie felt her heart freeze, and her stomach twisted itself into a knot. ‘Why are you being so shitty? Why are you saying this?’
‘Why? I don’t know. Maybe because I think you’re holding me back. Maybe because you’re just bad luck. Maybe because I’m fed up carrying your precious little self on my back all the time,’ Jez said reaching out for the toob’s remote control. ‘I’m not your mum, or your big sister, I wasn’t put on this fregging planet to wipe shit off your arse for you. Maybe I’m just worn out being your cruddy babysitter!’
‘Oh,’ said Ellie.
Jez cycled through the stations in silence and Ellie watched various holographic images flicker on in front of her, and then vanish to be replaced by another.
Jez’s words reverberated in the silence. The volume on the toob was turned down.
So expertly handled, Ellie girl.
She got up and headed towards her cube. Jez was right, of course. She always was. She was the one who came up with all the big ideas, she was the momentum that had carried them both forwards. Maybe Jez would be better off without her to slow her down. The only thing Ellie had brought along to the party was some naive fantasy to get off-world, but then Jez had wanted that too - once upon a time, at least. All Ellie could take credit for is accidentally re-awakening that desire in Jez. That’s all she’d managed to do.
She entered her cube, the door closed behind her, and the small light above her bed flickered and winked on. She sat down on the bed and looked out of the small round porthole beside her pillow at the city below.
Maybe it’s time to think about going back home.
Aaron had suggested he might try his luck over at Harvest City. It was a much smaller domed city, but there might be some business he could pick up ferrying goods between there and New Haven. It was a long shot, but unless he found some other work here, it was something he would have to at least try. He told Ellie that if he did head across to Harvest, he could take her with him and drop her off home; it was not very far out of the way.
Ellie had said no, flatly, very sternly. An hour ago, talking with Aaron, she wouldn’t even have considered the idea. Now…seeing how Jez really felt about her, she wondered whether it might be an idea to take Aaron up on his offer. She felt the very first tear trickle down her left cheek and run into the corner of her mouth.
That’s the price you pay for putting all of your trust in one person.
She realised now that she had probably leaned too much on Jez. Her friend wasn’t really to blame. She was. And Jez was right about that other thing - ever since Jez had picked her up off the floor things really hadn’t gone right for her.
Ellie pulled up a corner of her quilt and blew her nose, then wiped her eyes. It was time to admit she was beaten; at least for now. Maybe in a few years time, when she was a little older, wiser, smarter she might try again. To be fair, she was still just a child. Twenty yes, but really just a child. There were, of course, other children in New Haven, but they were not on their own, they had their families. It was unfair of Ellie to rely on Jez to be a substitute parent or an older sister.
She could try again in a few years, there was no law that said you only get one chance to try and break free. She could try…
There was a knock on the door, and she heard Jez’s muffled voice. ‘Ellie?’
Ellie remained silent. She wasn’t ready just yet to talk to Jez. But Jez persisted, knocking again. ‘Ellie, open the door….don’t force me to say please, because, as you know, I don’t do please.’
She clamped her lips tightly shut and concentrated on the view out of her window.
‘Okay, then….I’ll say what I’ve got to say through this door. Listen, I’m really sorry. I…I said things just then I don’t really mean. I genuinely didn’t mean any of that crud I said. Not a word of it.’
The headlights of a passing air car fleetingly lit up Ellie’s small room as it swooped by.
‘In fact Ellie, here’s a funny thing. I need you just as much you need me. You’ve helped me remember that there’s much more out there than this cruddy place. And I love you for that.’
Ellie continued to stare out of the window, she watched a holographic advert slide into view. It was an ad for ProtYum ice cream.
‘And we are a good team. You’re the brains, I’m the brawn. So, look. I’m all done being defeatist and miserable and I’m ready for us to get back on the deal, and work our way out of here.’
Ellie watched the advert drift lazily across the night sky. A young, beautiful, pale-skinned family seemingly, without a care in the world, were frolicking in snow, hurling snowballs at each other, whilst all effortlessly enjoying tubs of tasty, nutritious ProtYum.
Outside, Jez rested her head against the door with a dull thump. ‘So, Ellie….I’m sort of done talking to the door now. Please - there you made me say it - please open the door and tell me you forgive me.’
Nice one Jez, you really know how to charm people, dontcha?
Jez ground her teeth with frustration. She had said some pretty cruddy things to Ellie, and the stupid thing was she hadn’t meant it, even as it was tumbling out of her mouth. It was just frustration. She was angry that nothing she did ever seemed to make any damned fregging difference. She was still no closer to getting off this cruddy planet than she was five years ago when she’d first arrived in the city. It was like every effort you made, everything that you did merely managed to keep your head above water and no more. And that’s all you could ever hope to achieve in New Haven. And if by some miracle you did manage to earn just a little more than you needed to pay the rent, the O2 bill, and the groceries, then the temptation was all around you to go and splash out on some shiny little bauble of distraction. Those temptations were everywhere; on every toob channel, on every wall - adverts cajoling you to spend, spend sp…
The door slid open and Jez nearly toppled in. ‘Ah thank crud, I’m really…’
Ellie shushed her with a finger and then said, ‘Jez, I have just had the most incredible idea!’
CHAPTER 18
They entered the main entrance of the shopping mall,
Nimods, the largest in New Haven. Ellie looked up at the lift column in the centre of the mall’s central atrium, rising twenty floors upwards and another ten down into the ground.
‘Wow,’ she muttered.
Surrounding the central space of the atrium she could see the smooth cream-coloured balustrades of each of the floors, receding up into the distance. Unlike the streets of the city, Nimods Mall had a cool, soothing ambience. The ever present crush of pedestrian traffic, the flickering neon brashness and the noise of countless sky vehicles and floating billboards, was left mercifully outside.
‘Have I not shown you round this place yet?’ asked Jez.
‘Nope.’
‘Hmmm, sorry about that. Mind you it is oober-pricey in here. You’d get a much better price down at Baldini’s Bazaar on anything you see in here.’
Ellie stepped towards a map of the mall and ran her finger down the names of the businesses plying their trade inside.
‘Look, are you going to tell me where exactly you’re dragging me along to Ellie?’ asked Jez yet again.
‘Not yet,’ she replied. She found the name of the place she had agreed to meet him at. ‘McGuires’. It was a bar on the eleventh floor, about half way up. It had been his suggestion; he’d obviously been there himself before. Jez spotted where Ellie’s finger had come to a stop.
‘Ahh McGuires? I heard it’s quite trooby inside. Very olde-worlde style. But why exactly are we going there, girl?
They took one of the central lifts up to the eleventh, all the while Ellie’s eyes drank in the tidy, calming pastel splendour of the floors as they rose past them.
‘For crying out loud Ellie, when are you going to tell me what this Big Idea of yours is all about?’ Jez asked again as they stepped out of the lift, and made their way across a shiny faux-marble floor towards the glowing neon sign of McGuires bar across the way.
She stopped outside the entrance. ‘This is it.’
‘Hey. Did you get a job here?’ asked Jez incredulously. ‘That’s pretty impress-’
‘No,’ said Ellie, ‘no job. We’re meeting someone in here.’
‘Who?! Who the frag do you know that I don’t?’
Ellie led the way inside. McGuires was dimly lit. The walls looked like they were clad with a dark oak mock-wood panelling, and fake oil lamps spaced along the walls glowed, warming the inside with an amber hue. She looked around. The bar had many dimly-lit, high-panelled booths with green faux-leather benches tucked snugly inside them around what looked like old wooden barrels. Ellie had seen barrels like these in an old histo-dram on the toob….something to do with pirates and big wooden boats with sails.
She spotted him sitting impatiently in one of the booths, just about to finish off a tall fluted glass of beer.
‘Jez, this way.’
She led her friend towards the booth, and at the last moment Aaron looked up at them. ‘Well Ellie-girl, it’s good to see you again so soon, but is there any chance you gonna tell me what the hell this is all about now?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said a little nervously.
Ellie had told neither of them what her great idea was. Just that she had one she thought might solve a lot of problems all round. She knew it would sound kind of cruddy if she just blurted it out without taking the time to think how to present it to both of them. Keeping it to herself despite Jez’s incessant cajoling and pestering over the last twenty-four hours, had given her a bit more time to think through how she’d sell the idea to them.
Also, adding an air of mystery to the Big Idea had made Jez really sit up and take notice. Curiosity had been driving her to distraction. Jez was becoming annoying in fact, pestering constantly over the last day as Ellie set up this meeting. Ellie half suspected Jez would be ready to sign up to anything just to find out what the frag the big secret was.
Of course, the person she really needed to sell this to was Aaron. Without him this was going nowhere.
‘Aaron, this is my friend I told you about,’ she said stepping to one side revealing Jez.
His eyebrows shot up briefly as he took in her tall athletic figure clad in a crimson pvc corset, the yellow and black striped leggings, and glo-boots that pulsated with a neon orange light around the ankle.
‘Jez, this is my friend, Aaron.’
Aaron nodded politely, ‘yes you’re very much how I imagined you’d look.’ He reached out a large hand, which she grabbed firmly and shook.
‘And you’re almost how I imagined you’d look,’ she replied a little coolly.
Ellie grinned. ‘Great, introductions all done.’
Jez sat down opposite Aaron, studying him with the slightest hint of distaste betrayed by the curl of her lips. Aaron sat up straight and stretched his back. ‘So Ellie, you got me all the way over here…you want to tell me what this is about, girl?’
‘Yeah,’ said Jez impatiently, ‘I’m all a ga-ga with this big mystery.’
Ellie sat down on a stool and looked at both of them in turn over the top of the plastic barrel. She licked her lips nervously, hoping she wasn’t about to make a big fool of herself.
Ok girl, let’s not mess this one up.
‘It’s just an idea I had. I think it’s something that might help all three of us out. But first, should we just get something to drink?’
Jez nodded, ‘sure, it’s been a while since I’ve had one. In fact it’s been too long since I had one anywhere. Three Spartans?’
Aaron shook his head, ‘I’ll have a bottle of Genesis.’
He pulled some creds out of the breast pocket of his boiler suit. ‘My buy. I know you girls are a little short right now.’
Jez grabbed the money quickly, offered Aaron a sugary smile, and turned and headed towards the bar. Aaron watched her go and then turned to Ellie. ‘So that’s the infamous Jez then.’
‘What do you think of her?’ she asked.
‘Hmm….she’s no shrinking violet.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘She’s not shy.’
Ellie shook her head, ‘oh, she’s definitely not that.’
There was a question she needed to ask him before she took things any further. ‘So, have you found any other work yet?’
Aaron shook his head grimly. ‘I checked with the port agents…there’s nothing around right now. All the cross-planet contracts are covered. Unless something turns up soon, I’m going to have to take that gamble and go across to Harvest to see if I can pick anything up there.’
Ellie nodded, she was genuinely disappointed for Aaron, but at the same time guiltily relieved that it meant the Big Idea hadn’t been shot down just yet.
Jez returned with three bottles clasped together in her hands.
‘You got served quick,’ said Aaron. ‘Took me ages to get any attention from behind the bar.’
Jez shrugged. ‘It helps if you’ve got a pair of titties to jiggle.’
Aaron smiled, ‘fair point.’ He liked her candour.
Jez set the bottles down on the barrel. They all reached for their drinks, and then both Aaron and Jez slowly turned in unison towards Ellie.
‘Well?’ said Aaron.
Here goes. Get it right, girl.
‘Right then…this is my big idea.’ She cleared her throat apprehensively. ‘We sell shuttle trips up to the north polar region to rich people in New Haven who have never seen real snow.’
Aaron and Jez stared at her in silence.
‘That’s my idea.’
The silence lengthened as both of them continued to stare at her. Then, after a few moments, she noticed Aaron’s eyes darted upwards, focusing on some distant point above her. She smiled, knowing exactly what he was doing. He was calculating something in his head; probably fuel burn to the polar region and back.
Jez on the other hand looked puzzled by something more elementary. ‘What’s ‘snow’?’
‘White stuff, like ice…but soft. Some planets have whole areas covered in the…’
‘Oh that! I’
ve seen that on Friends and Lovers,’ she said and then paused. ‘My God, we have that stuff on Harpers Reach?’
Ellie nodded. ‘Yeah, right up near the north pole.’
‘Thousands of square miles of it,’ added Aaron before returning to some obscure calculation in his mind.
‘You’re kidding? Crud! Who would’ve thought this crappy mud ball would have something that fantasto on it?’
‘That was what I thought when I first saw it.’
‘You’ve been there?’ Jez asked incredulously.
‘Yes. It was lovely. Aaron was doing a run up to the O2 refineries there. We stopped on the snow, got out and played around on it.’
‘OhMyCrud! That’s just so….so…’
‘Cool?’
Jez nodded, taking a slug of her Spartan. Aaron, temporarily put whatever it was that he was calculating to one side and re-engaged with them. ‘So Ellie, how do we all fit into this idea of yours then?’
‘Well,’ she tapped her fingers, ‘you’ve got a shuttle. Jez is a sales genius. She can sell anything to virtually anyone. And me? Well I could do all the other things that aren’t piloting a shuttle or selling.’
He leant forward onto the barrel, placing a big elbow on its plastic surface and cradling his bristly chin in one hand. From what Ellie could read in his body language, he was definitely giving the proposition a few moments of consideration. ‘The thing is Ellie, Lisa is a transport shuttle. There’s no room in the cockpit for passengers, and to be honest, it’s all a bit grubby and…’
‘But there’s room in the cargo hold.’
Aaron nodded, ‘true. But we can’t put people in there!’
‘If it was hosed down and given a good scrub, a coat of paint, some carpet on the floor and if we fixed in some bunks, some chairs and a FoodSmart….?’
He nodded slowly, ‘Well…I suppose…yeah, maybe.’
Jez leant forward, ‘and what? I sell the tickets?’
Ellie looked at Jez anxiously, wondering whether she was being too pushy. Jez was the one used to handing out the orders. ‘Um, yeah….what do you think?’