From here she could see a sizeable portion of the city. Many of the tall tenement towers were dark twilight pepper-pot silhouettes; a few round habi-flat portholes glowed with other early risers. But in the large the buildings were dark slabs. A couple of hours from now, the billboards that encrusted them would flicker and stir to life; become a patchwork quilt of neon coloured commercials.
Far below at street level, the pedestrian walkways were empty. Here and there bathed in weak pools of cyan coloured from the night-light globes, She spotted the faint stirring of some poor homeless bastard, pulling a rag blanket over himself to stay warm.
That so could have been me.
She heard the whine of a single sky-car pass over, its headlights flickered over the bubble, momentarily dazzling her. It passed by smoothly, untroubled by airborne gridlock and she watched it become a mere dot in the distance, and disappear as it dived down steeply to the cityscape below. Ellie wondered what it must be like to be one of the rich few who could afford to drive those inside New Haven. The purchase tax alone on those vehicles was as much as buying a decent sized habi-flat. She spotted another one far away, its twin front lights twinkled like two faint stars tethered together.
Now that was something she missed…seeing the night sky clearly; the infinite glittering of stars, the golden slash, the rich purple of the sky, the movement of interstellar ships out there beyond this world’s thin atmosphere. The little porthole of her own bedpod was angled downwards so that her limited view was of the streets far below. The same with most of the other habi-flat windows. Like a million beady eyes, all of them gazing downward. A design feature; people like to gaze down on the homeless; on the heaving stew of life below.
Who wants to look at boring fregging stars, right?
Another beam of light flickered across the bubble-stop and Ellie saw the large yellow drink-bottle shape of the skyhound descending as it approached her. Thrusters hissed as it decreased speed, gently bumped against the walkway, and locked itself against the bubble stop with a gentle thud. An opening appeared in the plastic as a passenger door slid open on the side of the hound and she stepped in, displaying her ID card to a scanner. A holographic display indicated a deduction of 1.25C.
The skyhound was empty.
She stood towards the back of it, where the carbo-steel hull gave way to a plexitex viewing blister. Watching the city pass beneath and recede smoothly was normally how she preferred to spend her journey across New Haven to the Industrial Sector. This morning, however, she was on her way to the South entrance, only a couple of stops beyond where she normally climbed off the hound and made her way down to street level in order to complete her journey to work on foot.
I wonder how Sean is doing?
That one came entirely out of nowhere; she realised that she hadn’t spared him a thought since she’d moved in with Jez. She felt a puzzling mixture of guilt and something like pride.
Guilt.
She owed him more than this; more than just dismissing him from her mind like she’d done over the last three weeks. But then she knew Sean would be so proud of her.
She guessed that the Freezer would be well on its way out of the Seventh Veil and racing home at great speed across the vast empty space between systems to their training planet, GL5-D. She tried to imagine him locked inside his own sarcophagus, awake, thinking, albeit incredibly slowly, about home. She imagined him dreamily contemplating the exciting challenges that were awaiting him, perhaps, possibly sparing a thought for her in return. Quite possibly, in that dreamy slow motion existence; worrying about how she was faring alone in New Haven?
She desperately hoped that she’d not caused him any trouble with his father attempting to contact him aboard the Freezer to ask him if he knew of her whereabouts.
She played with a scenario. What if Sean turned up right now. Appeared right now on this skyhound and asked her to marry him and settle down on some agri-plot out there in that clay wilderness?
The farm. Raise a crop of plant-animals. Maybe put in for a child or three? She could see herself becoming mum. A world of three domes and a once-a-year trip to a trade show.
She answered her hypothetical scenario very quickly.
No, thanks.
The life she was leading right now was what she wanted. At least for now. The work she had was pretty dag, but it was bringing in the creds, and living life with Jez was fun. Plain and simple. Ellie wasn’t ever going to admit to her cube-mate that she was the first proper ‘girl’ friend she’d ever had. That would sound so sad, so pathetic, so like her. In fact Ellie had so far been very coy about telling Jez about her life before New Haven. All she’d told her was what she’d figured within minutes of meeting her; a farm girl drawn to the big shiny city. That’s it. It was enough for Jez.
Things have changed so much, so quickly.
She had moved into that cube three weeks ago with absolutely nothing. Jez said that she’d been sharing the cube with another girl who had upped and left with no warning, leaving her in a tangle with a rent she couldn’t afford on her own. So, Jez had said, actually it was a mutually beneficial arrangement to both of them; not an act of charity.
She had offered to cover Ellie’s first month of rent, to give her time to find a job and get established. Then of course, she could fregging-well start paying her half.
That very first night in the habi-flat? They’d stayed in. Jez had whipped up some savoury gunk in the FoodSmart, produced a few bottles of Lemon-Bubba and they ate, talked, drank and giggled (after a couple of bottles each) until the early hours of the morning.
Ellie figured, as she nursed her first ever hangover the next morning, that things were going to turn out just fine.
The skyhound descended several hundred feet as it passed over the Industrial Sector and approached the South entrance. The ceiling height was lowering as they approached the edge of the city and the huge plexitex dome above them began to slope down to meet the ground.
Ellie could just about see the outline of the landing fields through the fogginess of the plastic shield and wondered if Lisa was parked out there on one of the green pads. She hoped Aaron was already down and grabbing an unhealthy breakfast at Dionysius. She wouldn’t be able to stay long, perhaps ten, maybe twenty minutes, then she’d need to make her way back on foot to the Industrial Sector to start her morning shift.
The skyhound was beginning to fill up with people starting their commute to work, and she was relieved when it finally descended to street level near the plaza she’d stood on when she’d first entered New Haven three weeks ago.
Seems like ages ago now.
Just three weeks, and all of a sudden, the previous nineteen years she’d lived on Harpers Reach felt almost like somebody else’s life.
She hopped out on to the street, fighting against a surge of people trying to get on the hound, and made her way up the wide thoroughfare towards the small, unremarkable bulkhead that opened onto the immigration centre; New Haven’s busiest entry point.
She walked past it, noticing a small family, a young couple with a boy a little younger than Ted, staring up in awe and with some degree of trepidation.
She grinned. Newcomer, eh? Pfttt.
She hoped they weren’t going to be razzed on their first day and lose everything like she had. It was a grim reality of life, she pondered, that there wouldn’t be a Jez; a knight-ess in shining armour, out there to pick up every newcomer who came badly unwrapped on their first day.
She proceeded across the plaza, picking up her pace as she spotted the canteen. It was cluttered with grimy, unshaven men in oily dirty overalls. Pilots like Aaron, stopping here long enough to deliver and collect, and grab a fried breakfast of fat-soaked synthi meat. She scanned the various men digging into steaming plates of food, but saw no sign of him. She weaved through the plastic chairs to the door of the canteen and opened it. Inside a warm fog of steamed food and body odour greeted her. A familiar smell, not so different to that of the kitchen in whi
ch she worked. She studied the queue of men by the counter, many of whom turned to stare at her in a way she found uncomfortable; in the same way they looked hungrily at their freshly fried food.
There was no sign of him inside.
She decided her best bet was to take a seat at one of the tables outside the diner and watch for him. She could do that for only another fifteen or twenty minutes, then she knew, regretfully, she would really have to get on her way to work. Ellie picked an empty table and made her way over to it. She pushed to one side the detritus on the table to one side; an empty plate with scraps and a cup with the dregs of a coffee in the bottom. She was wrestling with a chair, awkwardly wedged beneath a table, when she felt a heavy thud on her narrow back.
CHAPTER 4
‘Hey Ellie girl? Good God, is that you?’ rumbled Aaron, looking down at her, his face a mask of surprise.
‘Aaron!’ she cried, surprised at how delighted she was to see his scruffy face once more. She embraced him, wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders. He swamped her awkwardly with one large arm in return, and then held her away from him to look at her. ‘What’s happened to you?’ he said with incredulity.
She didn’t understand at first, but then it occurred to her that she must look radically different to the girl he’d dropped off three weeks ago.
Jez’s influence of course.
She had taken Ellie round some market stalls selling cheap off-world clothes, selecting garments that were more to her taste than Ellie’s. She’d also gone to great pains to show her how to apply make-up, again in off-world fashion; pale foundation, dark eye shadow and carbon-black lipstick. By the time she had finished, Ellie looked like a hastily assembled, down-market version of Jez.
Aaron gazed at her death mask make-up and her dyed, fox-red hair , the black vinyl thigh-boots, the pink lace tutu skirt under a dark green pvc corset…and the Crazie-Beanie T-shirt. He took it all in with an expression of disapproval and concern.
‘Oh yes,’ she shrugged self-consciously, ‘I…I’ve got a bunch of new clothes now,’ she said offering a smile that looked like an apology.
‘I noticed,’ he said. ‘Sit down, I’ll go and get us some coffee. Then you can tell me what the Hell you’ve been up to these last few weeks.’
‘Okay,’ she said. She got the idea he disapproved as she watched him head inside the canteen. He was gone for only a few minutes before returning with two plates of steaming food and a couple of plyfoam cups of coffee on a tray.
‘Oh….I’m not that hungry,’ she said curling her black-painted lips in disgust as she studied the pool of fat-soaked food on the plate he set down in front of her.
‘You look like you could do with some decent food, girl. So eat up.’
Ellie’s stomach churned at the thought of placing that food in her mouth, but at the same time she didn’t want to start off on a bad vibe with Aaron. ‘Okay,’ she said picking up a plastic fork and starting to push the fried synthi meat around unenthusiastically.
‘So, how have you been getting on?’ he asked.
‘Fine, I guess.’
‘Fine eh? So you got some new clothes. I guess you’ve got the other, more important things covered then, like somewhere to stay?…a job? Right?’
Ellie nodded. ‘Oh, yes. Covered. I’m doing okay. I’m sharing a cube with another girl, I’ve got a job.’
‘A job?’ he said with surprise and a genuine smile of approval. ‘What is it?’
‘Uh…it’s umm in catering.’
Aaron prodded a fork at his food. ‘In catering huh? Posh tucker is it? I suppose you probably look down on gunk like this now, eh?’
You kidding? I make gunk like this now.
‘Yeah,’ she answered reluctantly.
‘So, tell me about the girl that you’re living with?’
She wondered how true an answer she could give Aaron. There seemed to be so much that would need to be edited out of an honest answer that she might as well lie to him. She didn’t want Aaron to know that Jez was an exotic dancer in one of the seediest flesh bars in the Service Sector. That she brought home men on a regular basis and often made enough noise in her cube that Ellie sometimes slept with headphones on. That wasn’t what he looked like he wanted to hear from her right now.
‘She’s quiet, you know, shy….not a lot of trouble really.’
‘Uh huh. She’s like you, eh? Another runaway?’
Ellie knew virtually nothing about Jez’s past. ‘Yeah, another farm girl like me,’ she said with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. ‘But she’s been here a bit longer, so she’s helped me find my way around.’
‘That’s good,’ he said nodding, chomping on a mouthful of synthetic fat and gristle. ‘How old is she?’
Ellie shuffled uncomfortably. Jez was twenty-six, six years older; the difference between being kidult and an adult.
‘Umm, a couple of years older I guess,’ she muttered quietly. She hated lying to him, especially after all the kindness he’d shown her.
Aaron continued eating in silence, shovelling the food into his mouth briskly. ‘A little older, eh?’ he said eventually. ‘And she’s the one I guess who’s been handing out the fashion tips, hmmm?’
Ellie nodded.
‘Well, it seems like I needn’t have worried so much about you over the last three weeks then,’ he said. ‘It looks like you’ve adjusted quickly. Maybe you really are the city type.’
Ellie thought she detected to tone of reproach in his voice. ‘Yes, I’m doing alright, I guess.’
She wondered whether to tell him about what happened to the money he had loaned her, tell him how she was mugged on the first day and lost it all. But if she told him, maybe he would think she was lying, maybe he would think she was hoping he would let her off the payback by telling him such a story. She’d hate that - him thinking that of her. She was determined to pay him back.
‘Aaron, about the money…’
‘Oh, yeah. Forgive me for sneaking that letter into your bag. I just wanted to be sure you had enough-’
‘Thank you, Aaron. It really helped me a lot!’
I wish.
‘But I just wanted to say, I’ll pay you back. I promise.’
‘Okay Ellie, don’t sweat it. When you can, you can. But listen, how can I say this?’ Aaron put down his knife and fork and steepled his fingers beneath his unshaven chin as he searched for the right words to carry on.
‘I’ll be honest…I’m a bit concerned about you already girl,’ he said studying her. ‘You know what you look like right now?’
Ellie didn’t like the sound of where this was going. ‘Fashionable?’
He sniffed. Was that a laugh?
‘Maybe,’ he sighed. ‘I wouldn’t even begin to know what’s fregging fashionable. But if you asked me, I’d say you look a little like one of those poor bitches that work the flesh bars. All dressed up like a pleasure-doll or some piece of meat in a grunt-flik. You’re barely more than a child, Ellie.’
‘I’m twenty!’ Ellie felt her face burn hot underneath the caked-on makeup. ‘I’m allowed to do what I want now. And anyway, who the Hell made you my Dad all of a sudden?’
Aaron’s face dropped and, for the first time, his gruff sandblasted demeanour revealed a fragile fissure. That outburst had stung him.
‘Hey…I’m worried is all, Ellie. You’ve been here three weeks, and already this city has got its hooks into you. You’re already dressing like the deadheads that shuffle round this place. No. Worse than that, you’re dressing like the kind of whore who picks up the deadheads that shuffle-‘
She spurted coffee. ‘What?!’
‘How long before this place totally sucks you in, huh? And you end up-’
‘How I dress is my business, Aaron!’
‘…and you end up, just another waster. A dome-drone, living your life through the toob, or worse, spending all you earn tossing chemical shit down your throat it in one of those bars.’
‘I don’t beli
eve this! I dye my hair and buy a few clothes, and you’re saying all these nasty things!’ Her voice was wobbling. Her anger was swiftly escalating toward tears. Damned if she was going to do that. Blub like a girl.
‘Ellie, Christ…you need to get out now, before this city swallows you up and turns you into another one of them,’ he said, pointing to the brightly coloured pedestrians shuffling past nearby. ‘Look,’ he added, lowering his voice, ‘I’m doing a polar run tomorrow. Come with me and let’s see the snow again huh? We’ll make another snowman, a bigger one this time, and have a snowball fight.’
Ellie was tempted by that, by the simple, childish, uncomplicated pleasure of it. But she had a toe-hold on the city now, and with Jez by her side she felt almost invincible. Yes that was it. Invincible. New Haven was beginning to feel like a playground in which they were both going to have the time of their lives. Exploring the Great Beyond, even heading off-world could wait just a little while, right? It wasn’t going anywhere. And, look, it had only been three weeks. No time at all. It felt right. For now.
‘Sorry Aaron, I want to stay here.’
Aaron shook his head sadly. ‘If you stay here, you’ll never get out, Ellie. New Haven will eat you. You’ll never get far enough ahead of the game to think about anything other than meeting the rent and the bills. That’s how it works here, that’s the system.’
‘I’m staying,’ she answered him.
He pushed his plate away and turned to the coffee. The food no longer seemed quite so appetizing to him. ‘Well listen to me here….you owe me eight hundred creds, Ellie. You owe me that money.’
Oh crud! here goes….
‘And that’s a lot of money to find when you’re trying to pay for some shitty habi-flat and the weekly O2 bill for the air that you breath, girl. But that’s exactly what you’ve got to do week in and week out in New Haven.’
‘Aaron, about the money, on the first day I…’