02: Quagmire
This is the second chapter of Part 1: First Mover Advantage, in which Elena discovers the Gateway Ring's refugee crisis runs much deeper than she anticipated.
If it’s your first time here, check out the Table of Contents. You’ll probably want to start with the Prologue.
02: Quagmire
So many people! People are camping in the streets, as far as her eyes can see. The air is dusty and stale. Smells of overworked life support systems. Overhead, she can see the ring’s surface curving across the sky, between the cacophony of ships. Curving all the way behind a pale moon reflecting streetlights back at her. The perspective makes her dizzy.
It’s nighttime but that doesn’t mean much on a ring spinning around a moon orbiting a planet rotating around a star. The day/night cycle is erratic at best. Dominion Nexus handled this by adjusting the intensity of street lighting, ensuring some set sinusoidal change in perceived lumens. It doesn’t quite do the trick.
She exits the docks and walks down a crowded avenue lined with nanocrete buildings. Tents are pitched next to the buildings, with families inside them. Some are sitting on blankets or chairs on the sidewalk. Around them, other people are walking at a brisk pace. Plenty of vehicle traffic on the road too.
She locks eyes with a young girl for a second. No older than six, blonde hair, green eyes, dirty blue dress. She's sitting on a blanket, next to her mom, under a graffitied wall. Her eyes slide to the graffiti: a human shape being swallowed by what seems to be a small dinosaur. She guesses it’s the artist’s rendition of a Tauran.
She keeps walking. People turn to look at her. Her tidy business attire stands out, something she didn't anticipate.
The street looks familiar, but at the same time very different than she remembers it. It's eerie, like sliding into a parallel universe. Way too many people, more trash, flickering streetlights. Walls are covered in illegible writing and crude drawings. Broken glass. She steps around an orange bag emanating an awful stench, either rotten food or something dead inside. She could use a drink.
She enters The Cosmic Drift, one of the many bars that sprouted around the docks. The overhead display is cracked, so the sign reads “The Co mic Drift.” Whether an accident or intentional vandalism, she finds the new name ironically fitting.
She was here during her deployment. The very same bar. She's surprised, she didn't intend to return to this place, but some part of her subconscious seems to have led her here nevertheless.
She enters to find the same small booths, same mock-wood tables and chairs, same black bar top. But the place is packed and looks dodgier than she remembers. A table is broken from what must have been a fight. An almost dried puddle of what looks suspiciously like blood stains the floor. The background noise is a few decibels higher than it should be and it stinks of spilled booze. She is carrying enough tacticals not to worry too much about her own safety. Still, this didn’t use to be a dive. She briefly considers finding a different spot, but there’s nostalgia here.
Last time they sat in the corner booth. All ghosts now, except her. Last time she was here was right before Forge. With her team, with Darius. She feels a gray sadness deep in her chest. They had no idea what they were heading into, spent a night drinking and having fun. Sergeant Cooper got so drunk that night, they started calling him “Hammer.” Back when the Cosmic Drift had no blood on the floor and no broken tables. Back when the sidewalks were clean and were not filled with despair. She sighs.
She walks up to the bar, takes a seat, orders a Solar Flare. The black bar top is sticky. The bartender is efficient despite the crowd, hands her the drink in no time. She takes a sip, tastes the familiar citrus and subtle spice undertone, but the flavor is somehow off.
She strikes up a conversation with a grizzled man sitting next to her. She notices he has temple grafts like hers. NeuroSync Rejection Syndrome? Puritan? Either way, it’s quite a sighting. She could count on one hand the number of people she met in person with her condition.
“What's going on around here? I just translated in.”
He looks her up and down, making her feel slightly uncomfortable. He looks very tired. Unshaven, with deep bags under his eyes.
“Translated in?”
She is about to use her fake identity for the first time, try it on for size (here on business, you see), but decides to keep quiet instead. He continues:
“You work for Abyssal by any chance?”
He looks disgusted. It's her damn attire; she does look corporate in it.
“Oh, no” she tries a fake laugh, is surprised when he finds it convincing. Thinking on her feet now: “I'm a digital expert.”
“Why in the world would you want to be here? Everyone is trying to leave!”
She realizes he had a few drinks. Not slurring his words yet, but not completely sober either. She wants to keep him talking, maybe learn something.
“Afraid the Taurans might come back?”
“Taurans... Who knows,” he says, becoming confidential. He leans in close enough that she can smell booze – “You ask me, there's no Taurans. I think they were made up by one of the mega-corps to take over.” He lowers his voice even further, “Or Ingram for that matter. Either way, best not be here.”
Her first thought is the guy has been drinking way more than she initially thought. But then again, is what he's saying really impossible? Not impossible, just highly improbable. She has very limited intel, but even so, this doesn’t sound very reasonable to her. The Taurans were here alright, left a trail of destruction behind them.
“I'm Elena” she says. “Where are you from?”
“Jake,” he replies. “Verdant. Trying to leave. Abandoned my farm and came here with the family. We've been stuck for weeks. Almost no civilian ships are moving and we're about to run out of credits.” He grimaces.
She thinks of the people camping in the streets. “Family?”
“Yes. Wife, daughter, two sons. This is them.”
He sends her a family picture. A smiling Jake, looking much less tired than the present version. Beautiful redhead wife next to him, kids on both sides. The youngest one, the daughter, is a toddler. The other two are teenagers or close to it. The golden fields behind them make it clear the picture was taken on Verdant, probably at their farm.
She looks at him, trying to determine how old the picture is, how far gone are those good times. The Jake in front of her looks somewhat older, but not by much.
“Beautiful” she says.
“Fucking landlord hiked up the price again today. I won't be able to make rent unless I find a buyer for the farm.” The implication is clear – Jake and his beautiful family will end up street-side, like the rest of the stranded escapees. And most likely, nobody's buying his farm. Or they're offering peanuts. She feels embarrassed by this, buying distressed property is her fucking cover story!
“I'm sure you'll find a way out” she says, doesn't believe it. He doesn't buy it either.
“Doubt it. I don't have connections. Too many people trying to leave.”
“All from Verdant?”
“From all over the sector. Except Forge. Those fucking mega-corps won't let 'em. What about you? Why come here when everyone’s trying to leave?”
He's definitely not a big corporate fan, good thing she didn't introduce herself as VP of Acquisitions. She continues the improv act.
“I'm here to find my cousin. He's on Verdant too. We haven't heard from him in a while.”
He softens up to this.
“I hope he's OK. Maybe he's here, check the ring before you travel. Most likely he’s here. Lots of Verdant folk here now.” He gestures towards the outside.
She nods, thanks him for the tip. She is truly sorry for him, but she is on a mission. She needs fresh intel, needs to catch up on the local news. She picks up her drink, stands up, wishes Jake good luck, and manages against all odds to find a small unoccupied booth. She gets online, accesses the local network, soaks in the situation. Her grafts (VoidTech v18 Tactical Edition) offer her a very decent bandwidth for immersion-surfing. Not quite the same experience as regular people, who can use their implants to fully embed in the digital, but top of the line for her condition.
She zooms in on the ring: the Sector 36 Gateway Ring is built to support a permanent population of around twenty million, with a few other million transitory: colonists, tourists, ship crews. Most ships coming or going through the jump gate stop here on the way to their destination. So do most ships traveling within the sector, due to the ring’s central location. She puts the overview aside, she knows this already, been here before. She requests a summary of recent events and skims over the data.
At the moment, there are more than a hundred million people here. Four to five times more than Dominion Nexus ever anticipated. Way beyond what the infrastructure can support. Crime is on the rise. People are leaving settlements in droves, trying to book transport out of the sector. They end up here, stuck. As military ships pour in, very little outbound traffic is allowed through. Queues are measured in months.
Her intel definitely didn’t cover this. But she is not trying to translate out yet, she needs to get to Verdant. She looks up schedules, transit plans.
For the foreseeable future, there is no civilian transit headed trailing, towards her destination. Plenty of military vessels headed coreward, to Eureka Base and what used to be the theater of war. There is daily spinward transport to Forge. Corporate paramilitary vessels are also heading to Forge by the dozen – looks like the Abyssal Mining Consortium doesn't trust the military to protect their interests. Or maybe they're just making sure people stay put.
She can afford to pay quite a lot, if someone is willing to get her to her destination. She arrived with enough credits to see her through some major hardships. She would prefer mass transit, stay inconspicuous, fade in the crowd. But it doesn’t seem to be a viable option. She gives up and puts out a bid for transport to Verdant and waits for takers.
She gets offline, inhales, thinks. What if the asset is here? Jake was pretty tipsy and had some far-out theories. That said, the truth on the ground is a hundred million people are crammed on the ring. But Spark got no other signal from Doctor Linton. If he is smart, he’ll stay put, waiting for pick up. And as far as she knows, he is smart. Stick to the plan, captain. Retired. Different ball game, same rules.
She'll need a place to sleep – she hopes it won't be on the street.
Back online, searching for lodging. To her surprise, there are plenty of options. Tiny box rooms (the military term is coffins) at eye-watering prices. Somehow, someone is profiting from the desperation. She books a room nearby.
Nothing to do but wait for someone to take her bid now. Jake might be right, the asset might be here, but she doubts it. She can’t think of a good way to check either way. Any search for “Doctor Linton” would ring an alarm for whoever is tapping the wire. They had a plan worked out long in advance, not much to do now but stick by it.
She needs to rest. She exits the Cosmic Drift and heads towards her rented room. It’s on the same ring segment, a few dozen blocks away. She could walk there, wouldn’t mind the exercise, but it wouldn’t be a pleasant walk. The streets are dirty and way too crowded. She hops on the hover rail instead.
The rail car is spray-painted all over in red and green, in an indecipherable pattern that is meaningless to her. She can't find a seat. She feels a draft once the rail starts moving, counts three broken windows.
The rail goes by what seems to be a street brawl. Onlookers giving a wide berth to a handful of people shoving each other, then throwing punches. She sees one of them go down, catches a glimpse of guns being drawn before the scene slides out of sight. The hover rail continues its glide. People are everywhere, walking, sitting, sleeping, fighting. She never imagined this is what she would find here. Sector 36 never ceases to surprise.
It's a short ride; her room is not far. Once the rail pulls into her station, she hops off and walks half a block to the hotel. She doesn’t realize she is being followed.
Next chapter:
