by Alex Scarrow
‘No listen to me. You can forget about the loan, write it off okay? But you’ve got to do me one small favour.’
Ellie looked up at him nervously, she couldn’t imagine what he could want that would off-set eight hundred creds. ‘What?’
‘When I left you on that launch pad, and you were getting ready to enter, you had a goal didn’t you? Do you remember that? Beyond getting into the city, you had an aim greater than this, right?’
Ellie nodded slowly. She’d wanted to follow Sean’s example.
‘I haven’t forgotten. Leaving Harpers Reach,’ she replied, ‘seeing some of the other worlds out there.’
Aaron smiled hopefully. ‘Yes. So, I want you to make sure you keep in touch with me. And if you do, I’ll see how I can help you get there. I’ll keep reminding you of that goal Ellie, nagging you every time we see each other. And you’ve got to promise not to avoid me, do you understand? Otherwise I’ll have my eight hundred creds straight back, or God help you.’
‘Okay Aaron,’ she said.
‘Okay then,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll give you my V.I. number, just for emergencies.’
He handed Ellie a card. It would have to be for emergencies only, the cost of calling him thousands of miles away up at the polar cap, or around on the other side of the planet at Harvest City, would be astronomical.
‘But we’ll meet here again when I get back in two weeks, same time. And your favour to me will be to make sure you keep coming to see me, every two or three weeks, alright?’
That seemed reasonable to her, given that there was no way she could imagine paying him back from what she earned right now. Or any time soon for that matter. And yes, she owed him this.
‘All right.’
‘And…you stay in touch with your folks.’
‘I’ve already called them.’
‘Good. Well keep doing that. Just a quick call. A credit here, a credit there. That won’t break the bank, right?’
She caught a glimpse of the time on an ad-blimp floating high above the skyline. It was half past.
‘Oh freg! I’ve got to go!’
‘Your catering job?’
‘Yeah,’ she said pushing back the plastic chair so quickly it clattered over on to the floor and drew the attention of a group of men shambling by in the street. They wolf-whistled and called out phrases that she was beginning to get used to and normally would have brushed off without a second thought. But in front of Aaron, wearing these clothes, the make-up, she felt exactly like what he’d said; a pleasure doll. A cheap one at that.
‘You might want to have a little rethink on the fashion clothes Ellie,’ he rumbled quietly. ‘Tone it down a bit?’
She smiled, nodded. She knew he meant well. ‘Okay.’ She thumbed over her shoulder. ‘Aaron, I’m sorry, I’ve got to…’
‘I know,’ he waved her off, ‘you go before you’re too late. Remember, time moves along a lot quicker than you think.’ He gave her a tight smile. ‘See you here in a couple of weeks? Don’t be late…otherwise you’re buying.’
But she was already gone; already swallowed up by the passing current of pedestrians.
OMNIPEDIA:
[Human Universe open source digital encyclopaedia]
Article: Ellie Quin > Aliens
Of the thirteen hundred worlds within Human Space, records from the thirty-fifth century show that over half had indigenous life of one sort or another on them prior to the arrival of settlers and their terraforming machines. In many cases, the indigenous life were little more than single-cell organisms, but on over two hundred worlds life had developed significantly to produce more complex forms. Nonetheless, many of these species were still primitive.
Seven hundred years ago it appeared that we were the only race with the ability to travel between the stars. But that ended with the first encounters of other intelligent species on far flung worlds at the edge of Human Space. Although these races were all less technologically developed than humankind, they offered fascinating new cultural models, philosophical ideas and sexually transmittable diseases as they began to integrate into the human population.
Of the many alien species that integrated successfully with humans the most enigmatic of them were known by most people by the colloquial name – ‘Boojams’.
Boojams, as any young child today can tell you, died out suddenly some three hundred years ago; victims of a virulent plague that passed quickly and easily throughout Human Space, carried by humans and affecting only this unfortunate, fledgling race. Prior to our totally destroying them with what to us was little more than the common cold, they were the first alien race to assimilate on a wide scale into our society and although there are none to be seen today, their elephantine appearance was distinctive. Echoes of their likeness can be seen everywhere today from product logos to children’s bedtime stories, where a Boojam, or similar-looking creature, will often play a sympathetic and kindly character with a wealth of old-fashioned, home-spun wisdom and guidance to impart.
The other species that quite often makes an appearance in colonial folk lore were called The ‘Onlookers’. At the time of Ellie Quin, this species had only recently been encountered. Back then very little was known about them as emissaries from the Administration had met only a few dozen times with chosen delegates of theirs. Early commentaries of the time described them as being mobile micro-colonies of less evolved creatures, vaguely reminiscent of frogs. One of the first of our emissaries to meet the Onlookers described them as ‘twisting clusters of smooth, olive-skinned creatures, their small limbs and bodies entwined so tightly that they formed a larger, more substantial entity’. As we know from history, it was only shortly after these first few tentative encounters that they revealed their true nature to humankind.
User Comment > XXXAlienzzzzXXX
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User Comment > Feral Master
The alienz on my planet suck. They’re stupid [xxxx]ing morons. I throw stones at them and kill them. They’re so stupid.
User Comment > Willow-Girl
You’re a cruel ignorant [xxxx] dittohead, Feral. I hope one day some aliens come and kill you! Your type make me ashamed to be human.
User Comment > Anonymous
What planet you live on Feral? Maybe same as me? Koodz - they’re like big [xxxx]ing slugs. We run over the baby ones and squish them. They squeek just before they pop. Beautiful! Hah! 8D
User Comment > Lay Tawnee
Feral and the poster above DISGUST me! You’re no better than animals. I hope some law marshal somewhere is reading this comment thread. You should both be ASHAMED of yourselves!
User Comment > Anonymous
Wah-wah-wah-wah! Listen to Tawnee cry like a big bay-bee. Go [xxxx] yerself you stupid [xxxxxx]
CHAPTER 5
She saw her first alien a few months after arriving in New Haven. Ellie had expected to see them everywhere in the city for some reason, but as yet, very few Boojams seemed to have been enticed into settling down on Harpers Reach. They were a common enough sight on many of the more established colony worlds. She guessed they preferred the comfort and stability of these older, terraformed planets, where the population was more equably dispersed across the entire surface and not crammed together into an enviro-dome.
The evening on which she saw her first ever alien had started ominously. Jez, fuming and spitting venom, had dragged Ellie out of their cube shortly after she had wearily trudged in through the front door, exhausted after a hard day working in the diner. She had grabbed Ellie by the arm, and without a word, marched her down to a small bar at street level. After she had bought a couple of Spartans they found a relatively quiet corner of the bar in which to sit. Ellie decided she’d waited long enough to hear what this was all about.
‘Are you going to tell me what’s up then?’
‘I quit my job.’
‘You did what?’
‘You heard. I quit that dancing job down at Dantes.’
Exotic dancing . The hours were scandalously easy and the money was great. When Ellie had asked, not long after she’d moved in, whether it was a job she might be able to do too, Jez had gone to great lengths to convince her that it wasn’t that great a deal; those creepy-looking basket-cases that frequented the place, ogling her body, made her skin crawl, and the fights that broke out occasionally were sometimes unpleasantly close to the dance podiums.
Jez being protective. Jez acting the big sister.
Although it was easy money, the easiest, in fact, she’d insisted that Ellie was way too ‘farmy’ and innocent to be exposed to that kind of grubbiness. In a way she was glad Jez was trying to discourage her like that. It felt reassuring, comforting. And anyway, Ellie reflected, she probably would be a really cruddy dancer, wriggling unconvincingly, self-consciously and most definitely out of time with the music. Plus of course, who’d want to see her skinny frame almost naked, spasmodically twitching to music?
‘Why did you quit?’ asked Ellie.
‘Because some frecking, slimy-fisted offworlder broke the Look-Don’t-Touch rule, once too often.’
Ellie was surprised that she should quit over something as trivial as that. Jez confessed that most nights there were always one or two inebriated punters who pushed their luck a little too far only to have their unwelcome paws slapped casually away. Jez was used to dealing with that.
‘You quit because one of them touched you?’
‘Well,’ Jez mumbled guiltily, ‘I quit because I broke his arm…by accident, I might add.’
‘What?’
‘The idiot wanted a stroke. Knees down, I’m okay with that. But he was heading up. So I kicked at his stupid arm, and the stupid thing snapped.’
Ellie’s bit her lip. ‘Crud!’
‘So…this guy was going to call in a law marshal, but my oh-so-loyal boss, oh yes…my very loyal boss, decided to calm him down by sacking me on the spot,’ Jez hissed angrily. ‘So, I decided the fregging drook wouldn’t sack me; I quit instead.’ Jez added, nodding her head resolutely. ‘That showed him, right?’
Ellie offered a supportive smile. ‘I suppose it did. So, what are you going to do now?’ she asked.
‘Get totally juiced on my last paycheque. I’ll worry about it tomorrow.’
Ellie looked out through the grimy, condensation-fogged window of the bar at the passing river of pavement-traffic. So many of them looked drawn and beaten into submission, shambling on their way through the neon-lit murkiness of evening to or from jobs that paid barely enough to keep them in cubes. It dawned on her that her cruddy little job down at the slap ‘n’ grill wasn’t going to keep both of them going for long. Jez’s wage had dwarfed hers, and whilst these last few weeks she had just about been able to pay her side of the rent, Jez was the one who paid the O2 bill and for most of the shopping. Unless Jez could find another job as well paid as the one at Dantes, pretty soon, the pair of them would be turfed out onto the street. Ellie shuddered at the thought of losing the modest comforts she had only so recently grown accustomed to.
‘We’ll need to bring in some more money,’ she said finally, knowing Jez would curse her at being reminded of the bleeding obvious. ‘We can’t carry on for long. Not on what I’m earning.’
Jez stared glumly out of the window.
‘I can see if I can work some extra shifts there. I’m sure there are some spare hours going,’ Ellie added.
‘You already work stupidly-long hours there Ellie,’ Jez replied, taking a long slurp of her Spartan. ‘Is that what we’re here for girl? Wake up, go to work, come home, eat, sleep so we’re refreshed and ready to do it all again? Is that it?’
‘We’ve got to get some more money, Jez. Otherwise-’
‘Yeah, we need money to keep on keeping on. But…but that just sucks. Doesn’t it?’
Ellie shrugged. ‘What else can we do?’ Jez turned and looked at her with disgust. ‘Are you serious? Have you been dragged down so fregging quickly? A few weeks ago you were talking to me about leaving Harpers Reach; making it out there into the stars and seeing it all. A real wilderness-chik, a wild-child, girl-with-a-pulse…not like those damned zombies out there. Now, you’re looking at me and telling me I should be worrying about paying bills? Ellie girl, you need a wake-up slap.’
Ellie recoiled at Jez’s tirade. ‘I was just saying we’ll need to get some more money or we’ll be kicked out of our cube.’
Jez laughed, spurting a cloud of her drink out through her nose. ‘Is that ALL there is to worry about!?’ She continued in a mewling voice that aped Ellie’s out-of-city accent. ‘We must have enough to pay the bills.’
Ellie scowled. Jez was laughing at her. She could be thoughtless, thick-skinned, sometimes even downright offensive, but to date, she had never laughed at Ellie. Never derided her. Never looked down at her for being a naïve farmie. Ellie wondered if that precedent was about to be set, and whether this little outburst of scorn would prove to be the very beginning of the end of their short friendship as Jez tossed Boring-Pay-The-Bills-Ellie aside to replace her with some other lost sob-story waif to be next month’s pet charity project.
‘My little cube-buddy,’ Jez said leaning forward and cupping Ellie’s small chin in one of her hands. ‘Don’t you see, this is not a bad thing. It’s not a disaster. It’s a good thing!’
‘Uh?’
‘It’s the kick up the fanny-buns we both need. It’s good medicine.’
It certainly was a kick up the behind. Mind you, she was struggling however to see why they both needed it, and why Jez was looking so upbeat about the situation.
‘When I picked you up Ellie, you told me you wanted to get the fregg off this cruddy little planet. And so do I. Now, see, the way I look at it….the problem with that job at Dantes was that I was earning too much. You and I were getting too damned comfortable sitting on our fat buns, splurging the money away on drink, fancy food templates for our FoodSmart and rinky-dink clothes. It’s time to refocus girl. It’s time to turn our eyes upwards and focus.’
Jez swung an arm around Ellie’s shoulders and pushed her forwards so that with a dull thud, her forehead was now pressed up against the scratched plexitex window. Jez pointed outside at the people passing by.
‘These fools, these lifeless walking corpses Ellie, are all worried about bills. That’s what they worry about.’
One of the passers-by, a middle-aged man, haggard and worn down to a stump by the burden of too many years of struggling to make-do in the city, met Jez’s gaze. Seeing her finger pointing directly at him, he smiled hopefully, the last of his libido lifting his sallow face into something he must have been hoping approximated a rugged yet attractive smile.
Jez grimaced and flipped the finger back at him.
‘Ellie, look up there! Look at the tops of these buildings, the dome and space beyond.’
She obediently looked up, her breath steaming the window so that she had to rub it clear to see. She suddenly realised that raising her eyes like this to gaze up beyond the very tops of the city towers, was something she hadn’t done in quite a few days.
‘Up there in that big purple sky are the things that the likes of you and I should worry about. Bigger things, better things,’ Jez said, staring wistfully up at the faint line of the Veil. ‘You can waste time way too easily here,’ she added. ‘I came in five years ago and I wasn’t planning to stop for long. Just enough time to charm my way into enough money to get the fregg out of here.’
Five years ago.
With a chill Ellie realised that one day she too might wake up and realise she had been stuck in the city that long. Probably longer. Too busy pulling every shift available, washing dishes and serving repulsive gunk. Too busy to dream any more. Too busy running just to stand still.
‘I propose two things, my diminutive little cube-chik,’ Jez announced, settling back on her stool and clasping her hands firmly. ‘Firstly, the start of a two year plan.’
Ellie drew her eyes awa
y from the darkening night sky. The lights all over New Haven were winking on as the last of the natural light from the world outside slipped away. Advertising holograms began to wink into existence up along the sheer vertical walls of the tenement blocks that towered over and shadowed the narrow street outside.
‘Go on,’ said Ellie.
‘The two year plan is this,’ Jez continued. ‘We earn as much money as we possibly can. And I mean, we do anything, literally anything we can to get that money. And our goal is to have earned enough within two years to buy a ticket - one for each of us - off this shit hole.’
Ellie sat back on her stool and turned to Jez, a look of uncertainty on her face. ‘Anything?’
Jez shrugged, ‘well almost anything. We don’t, you know, sell our bodies or anything like that,’ she added curling her lip in disgust at the thought. ‘But, we will do anything else. Whatever it takes, okay?’
Despite the fact Ellie was being asked to sign up to a very nebulous plan – the details here were foggy at best - she knew Jez was right. They had been in danger of settling into an almost comfortable rut, becoming part of the cellulite settling on the fat butt of New Haven. With a shudder of guilt, she reminded herself of her promise to Aaron; to not lose sight of her goal to make it off-world. Here she was, she’d already done that – thinking of nothing more important than making enough money to keep their cube. To add insult to injury, she had even missed the last two arranged meetings with him. On both occasions, Ellie had realised with a jolt at the last moment that she should have been elsewhere, across the other side of the city with Aaron, instead of shopping with Jez for ever more outrageous accessories. Or slurping Spartans and watching Jez scouting for a sexual partner for the evening.
Oh crap.
Actually, she was loosely scheduled to meet him soon; it was an open repeating invitation; Dionysius, once every two weeks. She just hoped he would bother to turn up again. This time she wasn’t going to let him down.
‘So?’ Jez was looking at her expectantly. ‘Whatever it takes Ellie? Right?’
