by RJ Johnson
"Anything else?" Meade asked, his hopes beginning to wane.
Suresh shook his head. "I'm afraid not sir. People from the downtown tend to keep to themselves and avoid listening in on their Master's conversation. We have been trained from nearly birth to keep ourselves invisible and out of our Master's affairs."
"Hmm." Meade was disappointed. If they were in Coalition territory, it would be likely he'd already have solved the murder. The service class in the Coalition loved to gossip and there was little they didn't know. What was he missing? He asked himself desperately.
"What's this Downtown I keep hearing everyone mention?"
Suresh's head shot up and looked worried. "It is the section of Rosetta where 90% of the people who live and work here reside."
"Maybe one of them saw something." Meade said hopefully. Suresh shook his head.
"There are at least 40,000 people that live in Downtown." Suresh replied, "It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack."
Meade was hopeful and smiled as he donned his black cowboy hat. "You know the secret to finding a needle in a haystack Suresh?"
"No sir, what?"
"You use a metal detector."
"Where do we find one sir?" Suresh asked.
"Vicktoria Vlachenko. Women like her always know what's really going on, or at the very least, know the guy who knows. Besides, I got the feeling that she knows more than she let on earlier. If she had spent any amount of time with Sinjakama, she knew about those engines, I guarantee it. We find her, we find out what the right questions we should be asking."
Suresh nodded and the door opened in front of them. "What if we can't find her?" He asked.
"Then we come up with plan B." Meade answered.
"What's plan B?"
"I don't know yet. That's why they call it plan B." Meade answered. He hoped she knew something, otherwise, his investigation was about to come to a screeching halt.
Chapter Sixteen
The journey to Downtown was more difficult than Meade had anticipated. The majority of the colony revolved around the main mining facility, the living quarters of the upper castes and Koschei's expansive forest. Downtown on the other hand, was located on the opposite side of the asteroid and was only accessible by one extraordinarily congested Tun.
Unlike the private Rampets Meade had been taking with Suresh over the upper levels of Rosetta, the only Tun that led to downtown was serviced by an enormous Rampet that traveled at half the speed. Thousands of commuters and pedestrians stood, their faces dirty and bloody from the day's work, the scent of body odor almost overwhelming mixed with the stale air provided by the CO2 recyclers. The air here was rank and Meade could hardly keep from vomiting in his mouth at times. It was almost eleven bells and the last last train to Downtown was arriving as the final shift of the day was coming to an end.
Meade and Suresh jumped on the train joining the crush of people who jammed inside the compartment just before it pulled away from the station. Meade couldn't help but stare at the people around him. Thousands of men and women stood, most of them silent as they awaited the Rampet to get them to their home for the night. They'd eat dinner, and then collapse into bed, only to wake up a few hours later to return to the Pit and mine for ORI. Meade even saw more than a few children clutching their parent's hand, their faces also dirty from a long day of hard labor.
"Step aside Dog!" Suresh barked at a pair of workers who had managed to grab the last seat on the train. "Scum like you sitting while a better stands? Shame!" Meade's eyebrow raised and was about to protest when he saw the two men instantly stand and make their way down the train, their eyes never looking up from the ground. Suresh indicated he should sit and Meade shook his head. He tapped a particularly tired looking woman on the shoulder and demonstrated she should sit down with her child. Her eyes widened in surprise and fright as she backed away, mumbling something in an incomprehensible language and Meade was left confused.
"No one will dare take your seat sir." Suresh said. "They are the underclass, and are trained to defer to people such as ourselves no matter the situation."
"This is inhuman." Meade said surprised by the people who had drawn away from him, all pretending to pay attention to the fast moving walls outside their Rampet.
"No sir," Suresh said, his voice sounding sad. "This is Rosetta. If you do not sit, the seats would remain empty for the rest of the journey. It is best if we take advantage of the situation. We still have another forty minutes until we reach Downtown."
Meade grimaced and then shrugged his shoulders. It was stupid, but, as Suresh said, he may as well take advantage. Besides, it felt like he had been on his feet all day, so he sat and Suresh sat down next to him as the Rampet rocked to and fro on their journey to Downtown.
"Is this what it's always like?" Meade wondered. "How long has the Consortium gotten away with treating people like this?"
"It is as it's always been sir." Suresh looked around. "I remember riding trains just like this back on the Homeworld before I was scooped up by the Sinjakama clan and indentured to work with them. Since then, I've been fortunate enough to travel first class."
"Sounds like you lucked into a decent situation then." Meade said, and then instantly regretted it as he saw the shadow cross Suresh's face. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I don't know how you ended up where you are."
"It's all right sir. I take no offense." Suresh mumbled. Meade touched his arm.
"How did your family come to work with Sinjakama?"
"My father was an engineer's assistant helping to build one of the first Orbital Cities." Suresh said, his voice a monotone. "Our family had come into a bit of money and he used that to return to school and earn his degree. Unfortunately, born in the underclass as he was, his opportunities were limited, despite my father's brilliance."
"Hard to move up in a world that makes the best profit keeping folks down I guess." Meade remarked.
"You have no idea." Suresh continued. "My father met my mother who was a handmaiden to a prominent diplomat on board the Orbital City, and they fell in love quickly. Their love was consummated and I was the result." Suresh smiled at the memories. "She was a wonderful woman, who was taken too soon from this world."
"She died then?" Meade asked gently.
"In an accident on board the Orbital City where my father worked." Suresh hesitated; this memory was clearly painful. "My father had been working on the exterior plating when he realized the process the Consortium was using to protect the outer hull was insufficient in cases of severe micrometeorite showers. After warning the lead engineer several times of the design flaw in his plans, my father was sent to a labor camp on Luna as punishment for daring to question the Consortium.
"My mother remained behind to take care of me, but it was a struggle." Suresh lowered his head in shame. "I do not know exactly when it happened, but one day during school, we were warned of an impending micrometeorite storm and our class was taken into the deep interior of the Orbital city and held there until the danger had passed. After a few hours, we returned home and I discovered the apartment given to us had taken the brunt of the damage. My mother was inside preparing her Madame's midday meal and was caught unawares."
Suresh's voice was choking up and Meade patted him on the back, unsure of what else to say.
"In regret, the lead engineer on the project announced he was taking me in and that I would spend the rest of my life as his son's personal assistant." Suresh raised his head and Meade realized what had happened.
"Sanjay Sinjakama was the man who ignored your father's pleas?" Meade was shocked. "And you continued to work for him anyway?"
"What choice did I have?" Suresh asked. "It was that, or be sent to the labor camps on Luna, or back to the Homeworld where I'd have even less of a chance of surviving. I took the job and spent the next several years growing up alongside Master Sinjakama assisting him when I was called upon."
"Didn't you blame him for your parent's death?" Meade
asked.
Suresh shrugged. "Perhaps. I was once very angry at his ignoring of my father's condemnation of his technical skills, but over time, I grew to like the family. They took me in and gave me a more comfortable life than most others in my position. I've seen the clouds on Venus, I've traveled further and done more than anyone in my family ever has before. Yes, as a servant perhaps, but I never allowed myself to look at my situation as anything less than I was exactly where I should be at all times."
Meade shook his head. "That is stupid."
Suresh raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Why do you say that?"
"I don't mean to mock your views, but, all I'm saying is, people in the universe like to think they're where they're supposed to be because of some stupid master plan handed down from some invisible magic higher power that has a 'plan' for us. That's just a bunch of superstitious hooey that comforts anyone who can't imagine that they're where they're at in life because of circumstances they can't control. It's a very human response to the chaos that rules the universe." Meade sat back, feeling a bit bad for how he was speaking to Suresh. It wasn't his intention to mock the man's deeply held convictions, but, Meade was a realist. He knew he was where he was because of the choices made by his parents, and the ones he had made in his life. There was no master plan, things never got better. They just were.
Suresh smiled and shook his head. "Respectfully sir, I disagree. There is always a plan. Whether you know it or not, the plan is always in motion. You can try and resist it, you can tug against the gravity pulling you to your ultimate destiny, you may even be able to delay it for awhile. But you can never escape it."
Meade shook his head and smirked. "Please, how comforting is that to the people standing here on this train do you think?" He waved his arm at the dejected masses that surrounded them. "Do you think these people all are living the best destiny they should be? What about those who are living in the Consortium labor camps on the moon?" He shook his head. "These people are stuck in a continuing cycle of dejection and utter hopelessness and there's nothing that will break that cycle."
Suresh smiled and shook his head. "Sir, you take the microscopic view of things. When viewing the ultimate plan of the Universe you have to pull back and look at each individual here as an individual point of light that paints a larger picture. Who is to say that their destiny is to remain as they are now? No one knows what the future holds. One of these people could be carrying a child who brings our people to a greater height. My father escaped his poverty once, it can happen again."
Meade shook his head. "This is one of those cases where we have to agree to disagree."
"Respectfully sir," Suresh said, "If you believe you're nothing but a random particle with no ultimate destiny, why even bother to get up in the morning then?"
"Guy's gotta eat." Meade shrugged.
"And you have no thoughts for the future, no plans?" Suresh quizzed.
"Course I have plans. I plan on getting rich enough to live my golden years out in a comfortable manner on one of those orbital cities. I'll spend my days playing in the gaming parlors, and my nights in the bar."
"What about a wife? Children?"
Meade shook his head. "I never had much hankering for either one if I'm being honest."
"A loveless life sounds like a lonely one." Suresh replied softly.
Meade shrugged. "I tried the love thing once. It didn't... work out."
"If I may," Suresh asked. "Why did it not work out?"
Meade sighed. He didn't expect to get into it, but Suresh had revealed his life history to him, might as well return the favor.
"She was a client I tried to help once… things got complicated and then…" Meade refused to finish the sentence. Still thinking about Ellie plunging into the path of the sonic drill was too much for him.
"What was she like?" Suresh asked.
Meade smiled at the memory. "She was beautiful. French, tall, and a personality that always looked to make me laugh. Never thought I'd fall in love, but she was a woman worth falling in love with."
"What was her name?"
"Ellie Wilder." Meade said wistfully and was suddenly sad. He hadn't said her name out loud since the day she died. "She died a few years ago and is gone now, and I try to avoid thinking on the past. It's one of my rules."
"Rules?" Suresh quizzed.
"It's a set of rules I've collected and memorized for myself over the years. Rule #9, obsessing over the past is wasted energy."
"Sounds like a good way to never learn from the past." Suresh replied amused.
Meade shrugged. "Where do you think all my rules came from?"
"What happened to her? Why did it not work out?"
Meade shook his head, "'Spose it's only fair. She died in an attack by one of the Warlords who was looking to expand his territory. She had been called in to settle a dispute, and that's when we met..." his voice caught as the painful memories suddenly bubbled to the surface. He cleared his throat and hoped Suresh didn't notice his discomfort. "I got caught up between the two factions and she came in to help me extricate my dumb ass from the situation. When the dust settled, she was dead." He grimly smiled, "So was the sonsabitches who killed her."
"So you got your revenge?" Suresh's voice was neutral.
"One way to look at it." Meade replied, "I look at it as doing what needed to be done. They had killed the woman I love and I made sure they couldn't hurt anyone else who might have someone who loved them."
"And you didn't feel bad for killing a fellow human being?" Suresh was fascinated. Meade chalked it up to the fact that murder was so rare in the Consortium. With the recent confirmation he had about the compliance chips, it was doubtful anyone was even capable of thinking of murdering a peer.
"I've killed more than one. And every time I didn't feel any worse than I would if had put down a rabid dog. I did what needed to be done."
"Did it erase the pain of your loss?"
"I don't think anything does that." Meade admitted. "It's partly why I have that rule. If I don't think about it, then it doesn't matter anymore. Besides," Meade added, "I got my goals to look after. I ain't gonna make it to an orbital if I'm too busy being miserable about a woman I lost several years ago."
"I suppose that makes sense." Suresh admitted. The pair lapsed into silence for a moment until Suresh spoke up again. "You realize of course that Emeline is deeply in love with you."
Meade was taken aback and shocked. "Her? No, of course she ain't. We've been friends for ages, it's never been more than that."
Suresh smiled. "For a man brilliant in so many ways, you are incredibly blind."
"She's a friend Suresh." Meade said firmly. "She ain't ever been anything more than that."
"Are you sure she knows that?" Suresh queried.
Meade sputtered and searched for a response. His mind raced as he thought about the time and years they had spent together. Through the friend filter, everything they had done together had felt innocent. But if Suresh was correct, then he'd have to rethink a few things.
"There's no time to think on things like that at the moment."
"If I have learned anything over the years Master... excuse me, Mr. Meade, it's that love can wait, but only for so long. You should take advantage of your opportunities while you are still young."
"I got a case to look after."
"Won't there always be a case? Or another distraction? Something to prevent you from taking another risk from getting hurt?" Suresh shifted and faced Meade. "It appears to me that your rules do protect you, and they protect you from ever having a chance to love someone else again. That my friend is a greater tragedy than anything that these people face. Look at them..." Suresh waved at the underclass around them. "They may be miserable in their lives at work, the Consortium may be slowly crushing them under its boot heel, but they still find time to love one another."
And as Meade looked over their fellow commuters, he could see Suresh was right. Suddenly the workers didn't look s
o miserable. The closer they came to Downtown the brighter their faces looked, the louder their chatting became and the Rampet that was once so morose and miserable was slowly coming to life. These people were returning to their homes, to the people who loved them and the people they loved.
"It's never so bad as you may think when you have love in your life." Suresh said wisely. "It only takes opening your heart to the possibility."
Meade swallowed. Seems as if the young man knew more about life than he had given him credit for. He turned away from the crowd and stared at Suresh.
"I'll give you that these people seem happier than I first gave 'em credit for, but just because you see Em as being in love with me, don't make it true."