by Forbes West
Botha laughs. “Nope. I’ll put a bullet in him first, and then I’ll let him in. Wife-beating scum.”
You start to nod rapidly and sniff the air, as if about to cry. “Yes, yes. Terrible.” You muster an amazing emotional act. Afterwards, you do not understand your outburst against Jaime and why you made up such lies and decided to slur his name. Something unconsciously bubbled to the surface and your anger and your sadness at his departure has made you say something less than sane.
* * *
Dee gives you the grand tour of the place and people trickle out of Mission Friendship. Half of them are the middle class of Network life—Ni-Perchta overseers—in their neat flight suits, but the rest are independent owners and operators in their mining gear or their Kevlar armor. Some greet you with kindness and courtesy, others ignore you. An old school bus painted blue and white pulls up in front and takes people to their respective places of work in the area—the Darling Mine, Mine 357, the Scales Mine, and Orichalcum Refinery.
There is a gym on the fifteenth floor of the apartment tower, a full one with weights and exercise bikes, and there’s a heated pool on the sixteenth floor. An old man is swimming naked, and Dee smoothly asks him to put on his swim trunks.
“Why?” he asks. “Is this not proper? I mean, Dee, this is not the United States. What law are you enforcing?” He says this with his wrinkled and very naked carcass barely covered by a towel.
Dee smiles thinly. “But, Mr. Bern, let us remember that we have by-laws here on Network property as well as the US Constitution.”
Bern jumps into the pool, showing off his wrinkled and concave ass. As he pops up to the surface, he states, “Well, call the Counters, see if I care. Roll the dice and let’s see what happens, champ.”
Dee turns and smiles at you, gives a fake laugh, and leads you back to the elevators. “The old man loves to play around. If people don’t get the joke...”
You’re confused.
“You’re from Long Beach, right?” Dee asks. “Me too.”
Another elevator pulls up before she finishes her thoughts, revealing the three Counters, Botha, Robert, and Tadeo.
You catch Botha yelling, “This is the deal. Get some goddamn clothes on, you old bastard!” at the top of his lungs just as the elevator doors close.
You are shown empty apartments ready for rent, priced at twenty-eight thousand Dii-Yaa a month, or two thousand dollars a month in real money. You wonder why they are so expensive, considering that most of the apartments have the same amount of living space as a Volkswagen Beetle. As you look over the new appliances, specially made without electronic components in order to avoid the EMP bursts, you ask why the rent is the way it is.
Dee replies smoothly, “People want to live with people, not with the Ni-Perchta. Except for the crazies. So they are more than happy to pay to live inside a real settlement, whatever the damage to their paycheck. Besides, they pay nothing in US taxes, so they still come out ahead. And the Network is a corporation, albeit one with a unique mission. We need to generate income in everything we do.” She smiles at you, a wide and white smile, predatory and unkind.
You don’t say anything as she rambles on. “Our mission is to make The Oberon a modernized world through progressive renovation and development. The Ni-Perchta here live as we did back in the fourteenth century. Illiteracy is found in almost seventy percent of the native population, child marriage is common, and slavery is legal. The Witch-Lord knows this, and he works with us to make this a proper and decent place to live.”
You nod. “Of course.”
Dee leads you back to the elevator. “Wanna see something neat?”
You nod, already terminally bored by the entire experience. The elevator reaches the highest level of the apartment tower and opens to a small hallway that leads to two black doors. Dee walks ahead and pops open the doors with a key from her key ring, revealing something else entirely.
The penthouse suite is tastefully furnished, larger than most houses back on Earth, and takes up the entire floor. It’s a modern art masterpiece made into a home and over six thousand square feet, according to Dee. She walks you through it, showing off the wall-to-wall closets, the Jacuzzi bath, the incredible almost-three hundred sixty degree view of the world around you. All the furnishings are here. It’s an empty but fully-stocked palace waiting for a person to move right in.
“Nice place,” you state, meaning it. It’s done up in a sort of Arab motif, with striped pillars and gold furnishings adorning the place. The floors are tiled and covered in some spots by Persian rugs.
“Only for the best,” Dee says. “Seventeen thousand dollars a month. Quite the place and only for the best.”
For someone who has lived only in cramped, crappy apartments or slept over at someone else’s house, the size and luxury of the place hit you in the gut and right in the back of the shoulder blades all at the same time.
“Anyone renting it?” you ask.
Dee shakes her head. “If you can get someone to rent it, I’ve got a great bonus for you.” You raise an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Sixty-five dollar Network voucher,” she says, indicating that this indeed is something to work for. “You get the most expensive place rented, you can get a nice little meal downstairs for a couple of days,” she says with a wink. “I know.”
You nod, looking over the place in open envy. Dee seems to be reading your thoughts. “Not like you or me could grab a place like this,” she says with finality. “But maybe in the next life.”
* * *
You end up back at your desk with the computer, waiting for Dee. There is a young Asian girl at the other desk, looking very, very tired and hung over with heavy bags under her eyes and her long black hair slightly askew. Jake comes over to her. “Ohayou Saki, when did you clock in today?”
Saki yawns and speaks with a light Japanese accent. “Probably, like, five minutes ago. Hello.” Saki stands up, smooths her blue uniform out, and shakes hands with you.
“And what time is it, Saki?” Jake says. Saki nervously chuckles.
“Um, five after ten. I’m sorry, Jake, it’s just, well I was feeling like I was getting the flu again.”
Jake nods. “Dee and I have to go to three oh one—they’re moving back to Earth before the portal closes. Show Miss Sarah here how to take down work orders.”
“No problem!” Saki says and you and she watch Jake leave the room. Saki mutters something in Japanese and goes back to the computer. Within a moment, she’s back to playing Super Mario Bros. 3 on the computer.
“Oh hey, sorry, you want to…” she starts.
You sit down at your desk and look over the notes you’ve been taking about your new job. “Oh, I figure we got about six more hours in the day. I want to type up my notes beforehand.” You smile. “How is your day going?”
“Shitty,” she says. “Woke up from being so drunk last night in the Funeral Breaks at this, uh, speak-easy run by an American. On Moondog.” She looks slowly over at you, realizing she’s said something terribly wrong. “Kidding, kidding! I never leave the Mission past curfew without permission.”
You nod, and she turns slowly back to her computer. “You want to see a work order now? I have to put one in for the guys; there’s a broken faucet in four twelve.”
“Sure,” you say. A thought jolts you a little bit. You are doing exactly the same thing that everyone else is doing on Earth. The same exact type of corporate job that everyone else is doing. You look down at the tiled floor for a moment, thinking.
Saki says, “Hey, don’t forget, day after tomorrow is Christmas. You got the invite to be at the observation lounge?”
You nod. “Oh yes. Thank you. In that goodie bag, thanks. I got the message.”
The day ends as it started—with you barely interacting with anyone. The miners start drifting in about the time you are going to wrap up for the day. 6:00 p.m., Oberon Standard Time. You are surprised as Dee pays you immediately for your work in Dii-Yaa money
. One thousand four hundred and thirty-five Dii-Yaa to be exact.
“Witch-Lord law,” she says. “Have to be paid daily. Oh, you know, there was one thing.” She leads you over to her office. “Sorry, I know you’re probably clocked out, but here’s a rundown on people looking to get a “dayhawk” license for Sargasso-3.” She pulls out a small folder with long thirty-page forms. “These are the salvage license forms—Form twenty-seven bee dash six. Now they have to be approved by myself, then cleared by Jake as the Bureau agent.” Dee grins. “How much do you think a license costs?”
You shrug, not terribly interested. Dee smiles. “Twenty thousand cash, up front.” You fake surprise. “Straight to the Network. You sell a license; you get a hundred dollars out of that. Sound good, Sarah?”
“Sure. But isn’t that expensive? I mean that's…”
Dee keeps smiling. “Sarah, we have a contract from the Witch-Lord and the Bureau that states we have the right to charge whatever is appropriate. This is market appropriate.”
“Yes, but wouldn’t that put people…I mean, would make people do things illegally instead?”
Dee shrugs. “Not really our problem, Miss Sarah. Besides, it’s for their own good. If you have a good amount of money you can avoid most of the danger out there because you have the means to have your expeditions properly funded.”
“Any way around that?” you ask, innocently.
Dee grins. “I wouldn’t know anything about bribes, if that’s what you mean...” She shakes her head. “Nope. You want to see our little salvage and ori showroom in the back? I mean, if you need to run off back home...”
You shake your head, not really interested but not quite ready to say no to your new boss.
She nods to the door, jabbering away as she leads you back beyond the elevators and the lobby. Past the mural depicting the Witch-Lord is a metallic sign bolted over a couple of large steel doors reading:
Official Ori and Salvage Buy Center for Sargasso-3 and JUST SAY NO TO ILLEGAL ORI AND SALVAGE SALES. SMUGGLING IS A CRIME.
The wholesale prices for the orichalcum is in the thousands of Dii-Yaa, but a quick conversion in your head finds them to be pretty reasonable compared to what was being sold back on Earth, especially the telekinesis ori. A large bulletin board to the side explains in English, Spanish, and Japanese that they have:
Non-Human Non-Ni-Perchta Control Ori! 20K D-Y- Taurus. Telekinesis Ori! 15K D-Y- Leo.
Fire Control Ori! (High Danger!) Mkt. Price. Sagittarius. Electrical Ori! Mkt. Price. Libra.
* * *
You walk through the steel doors and discover a Nemo Gate—a small one, only big enough for one person at a time. You enter and in a moment you are in some underground place you know not where. Dee materializes and leads you into the shop run by a few Ni-Perchta under a human overseer. Stepping inside, you feel as if this is the most insane antique shop you have ever seen in your life. There are items on shelves that stretch up the entirety of the stone walls. Radio Oberon is playing over hidden speakers. The room is lit by gaslight, making it dark and dungeon-like. Why no electricity is being used is never explained to you.
There are no customers inside, just the glass counters full of random stuff and old-fashioned cash registers. There are old statues of the man-beast things from the Antediluvian cities and lots of old guns, including something called an ori-projector. It looks like a haphazard mix between an M-16 and a flashlight, hooked up to a backpack. There is also random junk, historical pieces, traditional Ni-Perchta armor, and clothing that looks medieval.
You look into the glass counters, seeing things you have never heard of before—a jar of Remembers, also known as school pills; five pills for three thousand Dii-Yaa, or one Krugerrand (no US dollars accepted).
These pills are, according to the cards in the glass cases, guaranteed to give you increased intelligence for a temporary period of time, and you will be able remember any event for the next hour with one hundred percent perfect clarity and recall.
There are strength pills as well: “guaranteed to increase physical strength by 200% for three hours.”
Golden belts that emit a “body shield to deflect physical blows or gunfire” are also behind glass and so are large, hollow boxes: “an infinite storage device when hooked up to electricity.”
And, of course, pure orichalcum pieces line one wall, ready for re-sale.
“Everything you ever find or mine out there has to come through us. The Network’s economy is bigger than Belgium’s,” Dee says, looking around the shop. “You know where we are?”
You shake your head.
“Neither do I. Once the Gate is shut off for the evening and the doors weld themselves shut for the night, no one can get in or out. If anyone tries to rob the place, the doors close and the room gets gassed. Even the tiniest bit of shoplifting. A little Antediluvian machine does everything. Thank God, too. If someone had access to all this stuff that the legals sell to the Network in this sector to re-sell back on Earth...” She makes a mock shivering motion.
* * *
Alone, back at your apartment in the basement, you turn on the radio and grab a beer from the refrigerator. You sit on the couch, listening to the only radio station coming in—Radio Oberon out of Solomon’s Bay. You drink and fall asleep on the couch after filling out the license form.
Later, you wake up in a stupor and realize that Radio Oberon is now playing some old type of radio play, something from the 1940s or ‘50s. You like it—there’s a weird freshness to such an old-fashioned show, with its melodrama and the faint scratching of vinyl.
“Tired of the everyday routine? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all?” the narrator says on a recording made before your own mother was born.
“We offer you... escape!” a second narrator shouts like a used car salesman on amphetamines.
Vincent Price rambles on about a lighthouse that’s apparently surrounded by jellyfish and sharks and smells like death. Then the narrator has an adventure or something against rats and blind tribesmen while smoking a pipe to hide the stink of death.
The show ends in half an hour and you are not tired, not tired at all; you want to explore a little. It’s 10:25 pm, according to the wall clock. The rules of the Mission state that you cannot leave Mission Friendship without a pass or escort from Mission Security at this hour. But the Benbow Inn, the bar inside Mission Friendship, is open until 3:00 am.
Standing outside the Benbow Inn, you try to see if anyone is around or working at this place. The doors are closed. You suddenly feel weird, dejected, alone, hopeless, all of those feelings put together into one hideous emotional cocktail. Finally, Treena and Winniefreddie, the Page sisters, open up the place, and you walk inside.
The Benbow Inn is apparently nothing but four walls and an incredibly small version of the Nemo Gate that girds the Pacific twice a year. Treena and Winniefreddie have disappeared, apparently having gone through the Gate itself back to, well, wherever they have just gone to. A neatly printed sign hangs from a cardboard cut-out of John Wayne. Step on in, Pilgrim! One second away from cold beer and fun!
You hold onto the side of the Gate, girding yourself, but then give up and feel this sort of pull as you go through the middle of the Gate. There is a thunder crack and you can see, for just a brief moment, everything at once —your past, the present predicament, scenes of the future, all in a flash, in a jumbled mash that you can barely remember after being pulled through the Gate. Then you see a thousand stars exploding and have the sense of watching a white ring of light form and grow.
You are on the other side of the Nemo Gate, which is next to a pair of heavy wooden doors inside the actual inn. Looking through the massive plate glass windows at the front of the inn, you watch as a light rain pours steadily down onto a turtle and duck pond, scattering the little animals. Green grass-covered hills covered by the night are just a moment’s walk from the porch of the Benbow.
You also spot Mission Fri
endship’s modernistic tower miles away. A large sign bolted to the front doors of the Benbow states: No Access Beyond This Point For Any Network Settlers Past 10:00 pm.
The Inn is deserted, despite it being 10:30 pm. The wooden booths and the tables with red checkered picnic tablecloths are empty.
The front bar is decorated at one end with the giant skull of a Baleen dragon (“quite harmless if a bit large in real life,” Treena explains later), and hundreds of framed photos from around the world fill every nook and cranny. The ceiling is decorated as if were the night sky, with the seven moons. Dark but homey, the place has that rich smell of years of spilled beer. It also smells of eggs—there is a large clear glass jar of deviled eggs sitting in the middle of the bar, reminding you of a place in Long Beach your dad once took you to. A plaque that states: ILLEGAL TO HAVE ALCOHOL WITHOUT A PERSONAL LIQUOR LICENSE—WITCH-LORD LAW hangs above the bar.
An apron-wearing Ni-Perchta male with one side of his face heavily scarred watches you from down a hall that leads to a true, old school Viking dining hall area. An open fire pit covered in hot coals is in there, with large bits of meat being grilled under a partially- opened roof. You realize that the bar section must jut out a little bit from Mission Friendship itself.
You yell out to Treena and Winniefreddie, who are stalking about the place. “Hey! Hello!”
They seem to want to ignore you, but walk over slowly and meet you by the bar. “Hey there, yourself, girl. What’s up?” Winniefreddie says, looking bubbly. “Good to see you. Sarah, right?”
You nod. “Need something to eat and drink. You guys are open, right?” you say, friendly. “How much for a beer and uh, you guys got something heavy? Burgers? Steak? Somethin’?”
“Of course. For a price,” Treena, the skinny one with horn-rimmed glasses, says, walking around the counter. She creeps you out at first with her weird voice that sounds like Bullwinkle being castrated by hot oil. “Five hundred Dii-Yaa.” She bats her eyes four times in quick succession, fluttering them at you behind her glasses. Her voice returns to normal. “Please. Sorry, I get excited talking about money.”
