by M J Gauntlet
After a short walk to the gravtrain station, he waited about fifteen minutes for the northbound train to arrive. He boarded it on time and had an uneventful trip to Bright’s capital city of Plex. Sitting across from him for part of the trip, was a man who was apparently from the out country by the cut of his clothes and who was probably on holiday. He had the stocky look of those born on Bright and Zax could see the tattoo on his palm. The commuter looked up at Zax and smiled a small self- conscious smile, then when his eyes went down to Zax’s tattooed hand, the smile slowly faded, to be replaced by a scowl. After a few minutes, the outlander got out of his seat, and moved to an empty spot, further down in the car. Zax inwardly sighed. Even here in the supposedly cosmopolitan big city, there was no escaping prejudice.
Second sunrise, first noon, found Zax outside the bank waiting for the doors to open. All the depositories on Bright were owned and run by the government and dispensed the currency used on every world throughout the Imperium …the eunit. Planetary monies and coins had been done away with centuries ago, ever since the fall of the old Confederation and the rise of the Imperial Unity. Now every planet used the universal ‘energy credit’ (known as an ‘e’unit, or simply ‘unit’) as the basis of their economy.
The eunit was based on the energy intake (cost) vs. the energy expenditure (earning) of an individual. How much energy it took to feed, cloth, and house a person, along with the energy spent in keeping them healthy was given a calculated EC (energy cost). While, how much energy an individual spent doing a task was awarded an EE (energy earning). The balance maintained between the EC and the EE is what ran the economy. If a person did nothing, eventually his EC would rise to the point where he was considered a drag on the culture and was given a job to do. If they refused, they often went into the penal system where, just by being there (even if they only sat in their cells), they ‘gained’ energy units because they provided ‘jobs’ for others such as the penial guards, cooks, etc. and were eventually freed.
Education was provided by planetary systems and funded by the Imperial treasury. Inversely, matriculating through school was considered an EE activity. The time spent in school added units to a person’s account, until they reached the age of eighteen. If they wanted to further their education, they were given board exams for their chosen specialties. If they passed, then they would continue earning eunits while they were learning. If they did not pass the exams, they could still go on to higher education, but the units for doing so were deducted from their built-up balance. The eunit cost of obtaining a higher education are very steep.
Every job a person did earned him units, some tasks earned more units than others. The specialized fields such as medicine, forestry, engineering, etc. generated a higher EE than, say, waste management or being a tube jockey. Every planet maintained its own eunit exchange rate balance. This planetary exchange rate was attuned to the energy requirements that best suited that planet’s individual customs, cultures and environment. On Bright, employment in the space field earned triple that of a similar planetary-based job. That was why, Zax took a scut job like scrubber at the spaceport and put up with all that shit from that fat assed crew chief Slater.
By the time, the gravtrain had pulled into to the Grand Central station of Plex, Zax’s car had become crowded to the point where there was standing room only. The coach was packed so tightly, that Zax didn’t notice it when a slightly portly man jostled him as he was exiting the car. Zax took a moment to get his bearings as he looked around. This was the main gravtrain station on the planet and as such, was full of both people and aliens, all hurrying along to their individual destinations. Walking over to the floating information kiosk, he tapped the key for the Central Imperial Bank. The image of a map instantly appeared, detailing the quickest route from his current location. Lucky for him, the central branch of the planetary Imperial bank was within walking distance of the station.
All the banks on Bright, being state owned, kept the same opening hours except for the main bank in Plex. Being both an Imperial bank and a planetary bank, the central branch opened two hours earlier than the normal banks and stayed open two hours later. The bank in Plex was the largest bank Zax had ever seen. Walking in, he passed two human bank guards at the doors, instead of the stationary robotic ones in the smaller banks. To his left, there were windows where both mechanical and human tellers transacted the day-to-day banking business of a line full of patrons. On his right, there were rows upon rows of automatic eunit deposit and exchange booths, where he could see tourists and off-worlders queued up, eunit credit chits in hand. Overhead, there was a high vaulted ornate ceiling, and the space between the floor and the ceiling was filled with uniformed bank employees on floaters and hover discs, whizzing by on various errands. They carried in their hands data chips, plasticine flimsies, and what looked like actual file folders and binders! It was all quite intimidating.
Swallowing once, Zax looked around, hoping to find a friendly face and spied a woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties, at the end of a row of tellers. She was sitting behind a desk with the words ‘safe deposit’ floating in the air above her. As he headed towards her, Zax could feel the eyes of the guards following him across the chamber. The woman looked up just as he reached her desk, stood up and smiled. Zax offered her his hand and she placed her hand, palm up into his, giving it the customary one shake. Zax noticed the inconspicuous glance the woman gave to his hand and cringed inwardly. But to his surprise, her smile broadened even wider. Bringing her own hand up, she placed it on top of his and gave a second handshake. This was the customary handshake that was usually given to a friend, it was quite unexpected from a stranger.
“Good noon to you sir! Can I be of assistance?” she beamed. It was only then, did he notice that she had a finalized backhand tattoo (indicating naturalized citizenship), same as his, on her hand.
“Er…why yes,” Zax began, “well at least I hope I’m at the right place.”
Noticing his discomfort, she motioned for him to sit down in one of the floating gravchairs. Placing his rucksack on the floor, Zax eased himself into the chair. Almost immediately, he felt it automatically molding itself to his figure. Reaching into his right breast pocket, he pulled out the key card Alicia Wilkerson had given him and placed it on the desk’s surface.
Zax found himself looking into a pretty face, with soft eyes of violet, which were looking directly back into his own emerald green, golden flecked, iris eyes. She had a face that could have easily been that of a bio sculpted holo star: lightly tanned, brown, toned skin with high cheekbones, combined with a set of sensuously full lips and a pert nose. All accented by a stylish cut, shaved close to her head along the sides and, with longer, soft, spiral curls in the font. Although her dark hair was tinged in a soft ultraviolet hue that complimented her eyes, she managed to present both an air of business efficiency and reckless fun, simultaneously.
“I was just given this key card and was told that it is for a safe deposit space in this bank.” Zax placed the keycard on the desk between them. “I would like to use it to gain access to that box, if I could,” he said.
“Why I’d be glad to help you, but first shouldn’t you tell me your name,” she replied, with a mischievous smile.
“Huh…Oh… I’m sorry, you’re right. I am Zaxxion Grayson. My father, Ezekiel Grayson, opened this account when I was a just a young boy. My father has recently died in a fire and I only just now discovered that there was this safety deposit box. You see there was this attorney, that I didn’t even know he had that…”
“Ha, ha, ha, slow down, slow down I think I understand,” she responded, with a musical laugh. Then her face turned somber, as what Zax said sunk in.
“I’m most sorry at the death of your father, you have my condolences,” she added, gravely. Reaching across the counter, she picked up the key card and deposited it into a slot on her desk. Her eyebrows knitted together in a little frown, then she began to input a series of keystrokes on the
virtual keyboard. After a moment, a light blinked, and she removed the card.
“It appears, that this keycard is actually for a box located here at this branch. This safety deposit container happens to be in the Imperial section of the vault, a very high security area. As a matter of fact, there hasn’t been a vacancy in that area for the past ten T-years. According to my records, the unit rates for this size storage unit have more than sextupled since the deposit box was first issued.”
Zax thought about his falling unit balance and groaned silently. The groan must have not been as silent as he thought because the woman’s face rose to see the consternation on his face. Her eyes widened slightly, then her face broke out into a smile.
Laughing, she said, “No, no, it’s not what you think!” and held her hands out to allay his distress. “In fact, this is a good thing. Here let me explain: You see your father leased this box twelve years ago and paid the then going rate for its rental, in full for the next twenty-five years. The fact that it was paid in full, means that the increase in rental fees over the intervening years does not affect this box at all. In fact, you stand to gain a handsome profit, if you wanted to sell it back to the bank or you could even lease it out to a third party.”
“Oh, I see. Thanks for clearing that up for me Miss… er…” he inquired, smiling.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, I have forgotten to introduce myself. My name is Talbot, Miss Lauria Talbot.”
“Well, thanks a lot Miss Talbot. As you might have guessed this is my first time visiting this bank, as a matter of fact it the first time I’ve ever been to Plex. I’m not sure of the correct procedure, so if you could just explain to me what it is I need to do next to gain access to the contents of the safety deposit box, I would be grateful.”
“Of course, of course. Just give me a second and I will walk you through the procedure myself,” Miss Talbot replied, as she rose from her desk and handed the safety deposit key back to him. Walking from behind her desk she gestured for him to follow her, then pointed to the rucksack and attached floater.
“You will have to leave your floater here at my desk. There are no unauthorized floaters allowed beyond this point. Its presence would set off the vault alarms, sorry. Now if you will follow me,” she said, as she walked away. Ms. Talbot wasn’t as tall as he, but she took long, swift strides and Zax found himself falling behind, but he didn’t really mind the view. Watching her hips sway back and forth, made that both the longest and shortest walk of the day. She was dressed in a stylish medium length business suit, that seemed to enhance her nice figure, while simultaneously conveying a sense of complete propriety. Zax almost had to skip in order keep pace with her. As he hurried to match her pace, he began to wonder if all big city folk were in such a hurry.
Miss Talbot stopped before a row of hovering gravdiscs. Choosing one that was wide enough to accommodate them both, she stepped on it with him at her side. She pressed a series of buttons on its control panel and the disc lifted smoothly toward a row of doors, embedded behind the walkway above them. Zax noticed her glancing sideways at him, probably to see if he might become alarmed at the sudden rise or the seemingly unfettered space around the disc. Of course, Zax showed not the slightest alarm considering that on his job, he had ridden much shakier platforms to much greater heights.
After a short trip, the disc stopped at a balcony about fifteen or twenty meters above the main floor of the bank. Stepping off onto the raised walkway, she beckoned him to follow her to the right, towards a set of two massive steel reinforced doors. The first door was imbedded into a clear plasticine wall over a meter thick. Behind it, a second door was set in a ferrocrete wall in front of which sat a uniformed armed guard. Surrounding both doors, were a bevy of electronic imagers. Miss Talbot halted at the first massive door and inserted her own keycard. There was a brief pause, then the door slid quietly aside, allowing them both to step into the antechamber. Stopping at the guard’s desk, Miss Talbot removed a keycard from her pocket and handed it to the guard. Taking it from her hand, he placed it in a slot in his desk and then turned expectantly towards Zax. It took him a moment to realize that they were both waiting for him. Sheepishly, he quickly fumbled through his suit pocket and produced the keycard Miss Talbot had given back to him. The guard took his card and placed it in an adjoining slot next to hers. There was an audible beep from the speaker on his desk, after glancing at a readout at his desk, he retrieved both cards, handed them back to each of them and nodded for them to continue. Miss Talbot went up to the second vault door, inserted her key and the massive door swung outward and slid to the side. She nimbly stepped inside and Zax quickly followed her.
“Here we are,” she said, airily waving her hands at the massive space, “the Imperial safety deposit vault.”
Zax found himself standing in a room with a series of steel doors set in along the wall. Lauria walked up to a door that seemed identical to the others and produced a different keycard. This one was bright orange.
She began to instruct Zax by saying, “Ok, here we go,” as she placed her keycard beneath a slot next to the door, “so, listen carefully. Once I place my keycard in the door, you have only five seconds to insert yours. If you fail to do so in the allotted time, then a time lock will activate, preventing entry from that key for twenty-four hours. This is a built-in safety precaution to prevent entry under duress. Make sure you keep in constant physical contact with your keycard while it is in the slot. The vault compares your bioinformation to that which has been imprinted on your card. It is the same with mine. Once it is open, I will follow you in the secondary room and show you how to recognize your container.”
With that, she inserted her key and a red light came on above her slot. Zax, keycard in hand, quickly followed suit and the red light flickered once, then flashed green. The door slid silently aside, revealing another chamber of which three walls were embedded with row upon row of circular faceplates of various sizes.
“Hold up your card up to your eyes and look through it,” Lauria said, nonchalantly. Doing as he was told, Zax found that he was able to look through semi-transparent keycard. Turning his head while holding up the card, he noticed that one of the round faceplates seemed to glow.
“What you see is your specific container,” Lauria continued, as she backed out of the room, “Only you can see which one is yours. It’s another security precaution. Just place your keycard in the slot above the box, and it will slide out. I will leave you now, and I will be waiting back at the main desk. If you have any questions just use the intercom in the foyer to speak with me.
With those last words, she left him alone in the vault. Zax walked over to the highlighted box and inserted his key into its faceplate. A thick, cylindrical tube immediately slid out of its slot and into his waiting hands. He was surprised at how light it felt. Taking the safety deposit box, he went into one of the empty vestibules at the rear of the room, shut the door and sat down. In the compartment there was a desk, with a blank terminal embedded into its surface, what looked like a box containing real paper tissues and not much else. Placing the safety deposit box on top of the desk, he noticed what looked like a small thumb-sized panel on faceplate of the tube. Holding his breath, Zax pressed his thumb to it, there was a hydraulic hiss, then the curved top of the container rolled over to the side.
Holding his breath, Zax investigated the recess, blinked twice, then let out the breath he was holding, with a loud exhale. The container’s contents were anticlimactic to say the least. The safety deposit box contained several items of a dubious nature: There was a standard multi- faceted video cube, and an intricate slivery necklace made from some unknown material. Next to these, rested a strange looking hand sized metal device, which had a round spinning cylinder with five or six empty chambers. Sitting on top of a handful of papers filled with notes and doodles, was a strange looking multicolored cube, about ten centimeters square, that seemed to be divided into several equal sized smaller cubes.
Twisti
ng his lips into a sardonic smile, Zax emptied the contents onto the desk’s surface, then checked to see if there were anything else in the container, but nothing was clinging to its sides, it was empty. Zax found that he was mildly disappointed at the container’s contents. He didn’t really expect a cache of jewels, platinum bars or some type of coded secretive map, but he realized that had built up in his mind something a little more…well… dramatic. Zax chuckled out loud, as he realized how he had let his imagination run away with him. After building his expectations so high, it was funny to be let down by a handful of keepsakes; a silver necklace, an odd metal tubed device, some doodled notes on some scraps of paper, what looked like an oddly shaped plaything and a video cube.
Picking up the Tri-D 3D Vid Cube, he decided that he should at least look at it, but how? Remembering what Miss Talbot said, he looked for the intercom and found it on the wall next to the entrance. Walking over to it, he pressed the call button and it was immediately answered.
“Yes, Messer Grayson, can I be of assistance?” Lauria’s melodious voice queried.
“Er…yes ma’am, you can. I have a 3D Vid Cube here and I am wondering if there is a place in here where I can view it.”
“Why yes there is, as a matter of fact, just look at the edge of the vestibule desk and you will see a slot that can accommodate and display any cube up to three hundred terabytes of data. Oh, by the way,” she added “you can call me Lauria if you wish.” Zax felt oddly relaxed as he heard the warmth in her voice. Looking where she had told him, he found the cube receptacle that he had overlooked.
Placing the cube in the square slot, he sat back in the floating chair and waited for something to happen. There was a flicker as an out of focus holo picture appeared in the air in front of him, then image came into focus. He swallowed hard…it was a picture of him, his father…and his mother. Time had eroded Zax’s mental picture of her, until it was only a fuzzy image in his mind, but now here was a sharp image of her. He had forgotten how beautiful she was.
