Zane & Delanna
Void Munashii
It was my first year of college when a group of my friends decided that we should go to Earth for spring break. This made sense since “spring” really had no meaning at home, so we all piled into Sartik's shuttle and headed out. It was a bumpy ride since the shuttle was only meant to carry half as many of us as it was, and also because Sartik was drunk.
We went to the San Francisco dome, and while everyone else wanted to stay there and party, I decided to venture outside and see the remains of my ancestral home. I had never been to Earth before, just seen it through the plastiglas domes in the sky at home, so I took a cab out to the peninsula; a city that had once been called San Carlos before the exodus.
My great-great grandparents were Earthborns, and they were part of the last, and largest, exodus out into the big black; leaving our home world to rot. Most of the people who stayed moved into the domed cities: New York, San Francisco, London, Tokyo, etc. Only a few crazies, wilders, kept living out in the pollution; I guess I could sort of see the attraction of the quiet and the wide open space even if the air did stink.
Of course by the time I was wandering those silent streets with towering abandoned buildings on all sides of me, the pollution had dropped to twentieth century levels, which is to say still quite unhealthy, but breathable. I could feel it in my chest though; the pollution combined with pollen from the blooming plants grown up through the ruptures in the pavement were not playing nice with lungs raised on filtered air.
I was walking up a street, wondering what it all looked like when it had been inhabited. Was it as crowded as they made things look in school? Was it like San Francisco? Was it as crowded as home? Had my ancestors perhaps walked this very street at some point?
I was so lost in thought that I didn't hear her at first. Her stage whisper blended into the wind blowing between the buildings. I don't know how many times she tried to get my attention before I finally noticed her.
“Hey!” I finally heard, “Help me!”
I looked up and saw a woman, she looked about my age, but it was hard to tell due to the air filtration mask covering most of her face (I could not afford such things; I could barely justify the expense of the cab ride out from the dome), standing in the frame of what had once been a window on the third floor of one of the vacant buildings; or at least I would have expected it to be vacant. She was wearing what looked like expensive clothes; much nicer than my coveralls anyway.
She waved to me, “Help!” she hissed.
I called up to her, “What are you doing up-?”
“Shhhh!” she hissed, “I need help. They took my pod, and they have blasters! They're going to-” She turned suddenly.
“What are you doing?” A loud and raspy voice echoed down. It was the kind of voice you only heard from people who had lived their whole life breathing polluted air; which is to say pretty much just Earthborns, “Get away from there!”
I ran and took cover inside the doorway of another building, hoping he did not have a decent pair of infospecs that would give away my body heat. I doubted that the wall was thick enough to completely shield me.
There were a few moments of silence before the man spoke again, “There ain't no one out there, you little quot, now sit down and shut up before I throw you out that window.”
“You're not going to get any money if you zip me,” the woman said defiantly.
“You'd probably survive, and there are other ways to earn creds than just ransom, you know? Now come here!”
The voices stopped. I waited a few more minutes before I came out from my hiding place. While I waited, I tried to wrap my skull around the situation. Was she another tourist like me? Well, maybe a tourist, but not like me; not with those clothes and that mask. She probably had her own flyer out here somewhere too, and had been captured by the wilders while she wandered... the same thing could've happened to me.
Of course it could also have been a trap. Maybe she was bait to lure in people like me for ransom? Not that they would get any money for me. My family spent all of their spare creds trying to keep my sister in line.
Maybe they wouldn't want money though; I had seen stories on the stream about how some Earthborn wilders were cannibals, and would hunt domefolk, tourists, and even other wilders for food. Well, they would have to put in some effort if they wanted to eat me.
I grabbed a large chunk of fibercrete from the cracked and filthy floor of my hiding place, and headed for the building that held my damsel in distress. I wasn't exactly the big damned hero type, but I would do it for my sister, and for all I knew she was somebody's sister.
The inside of the building was dark; the light fixtures long dead. I pulled out my infospecs, and used the night-vision app to let me see as I crept my way through the old structure. It smelled like decay, and piss, and feec.
I heard movement, and stopped. Someone, or something, was around the corner from me. If it was an Earthborn, they would be stronger than me, so I would need to keep the element of surprise. Of course if it were just a deer, then I would feel foolish.
I stepped around the corner, fibercrete raised, and found that it wasn't a deer at all, but a dirty, hairy wilder wearing clothes made out of some sort of brown leather. I did not stop to think about what animal had sourced the fabric, I just swung my makeshift weapon, hitting him in the face with it. He staggered back, so I hit him again, and he dropped to the floor.
He was still breathing despite the blood covering his face. I had given him a broken nose, and probably a concussion. I took his blaster, datapod, and three knives in trade. After just touching him I wished I had brought some sanispray with me.
I felt more confident with a gun in my hand; dad had taken me and my sister, Sarna, to the trainer all the time. I had fought through plenty of simulated battles; I only hoped that I would not freeze up in the real thing.
I didn't run into any other wilders as I made my way to the third floor. I got turned around, and ended up at the wrong end of the building though. I got more lost as I tried to find the girl and her captors. Every hallway looked the same as ever other hallway; how did Earthborns deal with this?
I finally found them; I should have just followed the smell of feec to them in the first place. There were five of them, all gathered around the girl. They all looked pretty much like the wilder downstairs; brown leather clothes, long, unkempt hair. The girl looked completely out of place sat on a chair in the middle of them.
I stepped into the room, blaster raised, and yelled, “Let the girl go!” Like a character out of a bad TD show.
Rather than let her go, they turned towards me, pulling their own blasters. One of them grabbed the girl out of the chair, and put his blaster to her head.
“Oh good, more ransom,” he said.
“This doesn't need to get violent. Just let her go, and we can all pretend this never happened,” I said, not sounding as confident as I wanted to.
“Or you could put down that gun before you hurt yourself, kid,” one of the wilders replied; I was surprised to realize it was a woman.
“Or before we hurt you,” said another.
“Put down that blaster, son,” said the man holding a gun to young woman's head said, “I will shoot her.”
I had done this scenario before, it never ended peacefully in simulation. I was sure I could shoot them, and probably survive, but I had to make sure the hostage didn't get hurt.
“Come on, kid,” the man said, “Drop the gun, or make your move. The only difference is whether or not you get zipped.”
“He's not alone, you know,” the girl said, “He's just one of my escorts. The others won't be far behind him. They'll kill you all.”
“And does your daddy always hire bodyguards out of middle school? This kid can't be older than fifteen,” the female wilder scoffed.
I was seventeen actually.
There was a noise on the other side of the room; something moved. The wilders turned to find a feral cat had
jumped down from a hole in the ceiling. They relaxed then, turning back to me.
That's when she made her move.
The girl jerked free of her captor, then turned and kicked him in the groin.
As the wilder started to double over in pain, I made my own move. I shot the two wilders closest to me, dead center of mass. Their leather did nothing to stop energy blasts, and they went down.
The girl grabbed the blaster from her captor's hand, and used it to shoot the other two wilders before either of them could decide which one of us they should shoot. She then trained the gun on the last man, who was curled into a ball on the floor.
“Oh feec, please don't” he croaked.
“Should I?” she asked me.
“No” I said without hesitation, “but we should tie him up, and call the SecFor to come and pick them up.”
She liked that idea, so we left him tied up.
By his ankles.
Hanging from the third story window that she had first called to me from.
I wonder how long he was there before SecFor showed up to arrest him.
She introduced herself to me as Delanna Troy of Mars, also on Earth for spring break. She gave me a ride in her rental flyer, where I first saw her face without the breathing mask; she was beautiful. We talked during the flight back to the dome, I told her my name was Zane Del Rathi and that I was from Luna. She laughed about how we were from opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum (which was true, my family couldn't afford a trip to Earth, never mind a home on Mars), but she was not trying to be mean or anything.
She took me out to dinner to thank me for helping her, and then to breakfast the next day. We spent the rest of the week together, and we stayed in contact even after we both went home. There was a real connection between us; not just a spring fling.
As first dates go, I suppose it was a unique one, but the woman who would eventually become Delanna Troy Del Rathi changed the entire path of my life just by getting caught by those wilders. I wish I could say that we lived happily ever after, but that only happens in fairy stories, doesn't it?