by Jack Vantage
Damn! What if she found some handsome hunk and couldn’t keep her hands off him?
“Intaker’s are not allowed to view offensive material on the cyberspace ports or E-Network, and they aren’t allowed to bring any offensive material into the building. It is an instant expulsion. We will not tolerate any poisonous media in any form. And finally, the worst crime here is bullying. Again, it means instant expulsion. Should you be a victim of bullying please don’t hesitate to come see me. We will deal with it immediately, understand?”
“Yes, Miss Ellen. All that goes without saying.”
Miss Ellen slid a piece of paper over the desk. “Here is your Intake number. This is your access number to all your Intake consoles. In each data intake period, a console will be provided. All your work is stored there and sent to your home consoles for any after-data work. The number will give you access to a personal e-mail account and video communication on your console. It also gives you access to the library, and our online database of books, although we encourage intaker’s to read directly from the written works in the library. If you pop in, a librarian will be of assistance to introduce you to the system and how to use the place.”
“This place sounds perfect, Miss Ellen. I look forward to learning here, and I look forward to knowing good distributors like you. I have heard all about the success Elysees has produced, and I would like nothing more than to be part of it.”
Miss Ellen smiled. “Good. I think you’re going to be fine. Do you have the payment details with you? I spoke to your mother and she told me that the credits would come from your account.”
“Yes, Miss Ellen. How do I transfer the money? I believe the entire payment is to be given now?”
“Lift your hand up,” Miss Ellen said as she pulled a small rounded credit clicker from a desk drawer.
She leaned towards Lecodia and waved the silver clicker to affect a silent transfer. Miss Ellen sat back and looked at Lecodia with inquisitive eyes.
“What was it like growing up on a space ship? I expect the experience was fascinating but also a little sad. Was it good? Bad? Tell me.”
“Well, I was okay with it most of the time.” Lecodia sat up and smiled at Miss Ellen. “The best part about it was everything was free. My parents had paid for everything before we left, so it was what you call an all-inclusive deal. The ship was great. It had everything. I especially loved the pool.”
“Surely you had days when you wanted to get away from it all. I can’t imagine being confined to a small space.”
“The ship was massive, a mile and a half long, a quarter-mile in height. I never got to see it all. There were thousands of rooms, but yes there were days where I would stare from the window and into the perpetual void. I would stare for hours and want to walk free. It was like my emotions were pooling inside with flammable danger. Like everything that makes me a woman was under attack. I just wanted to be free to be who I am. I managed to focus on what I wanted to be, which was a fashion designer and model.”
Miss Ellen looked on with meek excitement and said, “Dear Lecodia you’re free now. Free to be who you want to be. No more dreaming of this world, you get to experience it and do everything you wanted. There is one thing I always wondered about, Television? I can’t live without television. How was it?”
“The ship had years of pre-recorded shows aboard, and almost every movie you could hope for. So, it was okay, I had never seen any of the shows. My mum used to go mental because she’d seen everything before. The first thing my mum did when we arrived was turn on the television in our new apartment.”
“Quazar TV is much better than Earth TV. She must love it, although I must admit I watch too much, and too many gossips shows. I bet your mum is indulging in some gossip right now.”
Lecodia laughed. “That’d be my mum.”
“What did your parents do for a living back on Earth? We had a brief discussion but I didn’t want to pry about your personal life too much. Tell me to keep my nose out if you want.”
“It’s fine. They ran a chain of restaurants, Italian Restaurants, but neither was Italian. My dad is American, and my mother is from Brazil, Puerto Rico. She moved to America and fell for my dad. They loved Italian food, and from nothing, together they set up a very successful chain that can be found all over America. They sold the business for a handsome amount to get here. They wanted a long holiday.”
“Are you glad?”
“Definitely. I’m so thankful that they stopped me seeing the troubled society of Earth. My mum would talk with me in my dorm, woman to woman, and explain her reasons for putting me through it. She is a good mum who promised a shopping spree this week, I can’t wait.”
“Good, good,” Miss Ellen said smiling. “I am so excited for you. I think you’ll love the place. If you want to know a great beauty parlour, you should try the one I regularly visit, just a few miles from here. They can colour you like artists. I’ll send the address to you via the Cyberport and the credit list of all their services,”.
“That would be nice. I’d like that,” Lecodia replied.
Miss Ellen seemed a decent woman. Her meek sensibility came across with subtle dignity.
“Please don’t hesitate to come and see me if you need anything. I’m always here. My Cyberport name is in your Cyberport’s memory. Just ask if anything comes up.”
Lecodia smiled. “After a few weeks you’ll think I was born here. I really want to make some friends and explore the world as much as possible.”
“If you’ll follow me, I will take you to your first data period. It’s Science I’m afraid. Well, Chemistry to be exact, a compulsory period,” Miss Ellen said. “The distributor is a woman named Miss Lowe, an excellent member of the Elysees staff. She will introduce you to everyone in that period. Throughout the day you will be introduced to many new intaker’s and many new distributors who, I’m sure, will welcome you.”
“Thank you. I feel much better knowing I’m good hands,” Lecodia replied as both rose from their padded chairs.
The nerves kept re-surfacing like an unwanted memory. It felt like she was dreaming and needed a reality check.
“You sound like a very clever and lovely girl Lecodia. I think you’ll fit in just fine here, and I think the intaker’s here will love you,” Miss Ellen said.
Lecodia hoped so, hoped she could be who she wanted to be here. She knew she was clever, knew deep down she could get what she wanted, knew she could be the leader of the pack.
“I know they will.”
“Always remember to be who you are Lecodia. Don’t try to be someone you’re not.” Miss Ellen turned away. “Come, follow me to your first period, Chemistry.”
As Lecodia and Miss Ellen left the office, they stepped back into the most wondrous promenade Lecodia had ever entered. Inside, the data building was a work of art. Historic Quazar paintings coloured the entire length of the eighty-foot high, cathedral-like nave. The paintings were inspired by Quazar’s early growth and painted by some of the greatest artists of modern Quazar times. Some were beautiful city landscape paintings, portraits that encapsulated Quazar. Lecodia’s favourite was a young boy standing at the edge of a super skyscraper with a wondrous gaze which seemed to look down at her. She felt inspired by the colossal building. Every morning its aura would rejuvenate her desire to learn and lead.
Either side of the nave, aisles were separated by small archway openings held by a series of perpendicular columns. Within the aisles awaited thousands of inbuilt, stainless steel wall lockers.
“A locker will be assigned to you by the end of the day. You may keep anything in it at your own risk,” Miss Ellen said as she walked. “Good girls like yourself are always the victims in such minor crimes.”
They passed a handsome guy who smiled at Lecodia with gleaming white teeth. He had the brow of a hero and the smile of a Lothario. His tapered styled black hair waved on by and his strong eyes flirtatiously followed hers. Phew! she thought. This is a vixen’s paradise!
Chapter 4
The Motley Crew
Dylan always anticipated Miss Lowe’s data periods because of her long, toned legs and curled blonde hair, which heightened the effect of her piercing blue eyes that held him with a beam of beauty. He hung on every word that came from her small pink lips.
Everyone in the data period agreed with Dylan as they talked about the dominance she held with her mature looks. Everyone agreed that they would, in a blink of an eye, take her to bed and learn a lesson or two there. Everybody teased her about it, flattered her with remarks that any other distributor would take offence to. Instead she dished her fair share of taunts right back at them. This made her the favourite distributor Dylan’s period had, well the boys at least.
He neared the data room’s entrance with a pulsing house tune blaring from his sleek silver headphones. He slipped them around his neck as he hit the button for the door. It zipped up swiftly and released a soothing rock rift through his body. Drake, a tenacious rocker, exuberantly plucked on a small portable bass guitar. Its inbuilt speakers spat sound around the room from the front of the class. His hair, a flat-spiked black Mohican, parted the air as his head lowered and raised in rhythm with the bass.
Joan, Drake’s other half, sat atop of a desk in front of him, nodding her shoulder length, luminous green hair to his noise.
“Hey Joan!” Dylan said as he passed.
“Morning, Dylan. Hope you’re ready for the weekend,” she replied. Her manner was sepulchral, and her eyes were deep purple. Her head nodded like she longed to be a zombie or something.
The oncoming weekend was the biggest one of Dylan’s life and the excitement was dawning on him like Christmas day. A new millennium would soon dawn, and the party of parties was only a matter of hours away. The data room was chaotic, like every other Thursday morning, except this morning was the day before the big night. Everyone would be sitting on pins as they looked forward to the unforgettable event.
Brandon, the class roughneck and agent provocateur, wore a shining sports tracksuit, crew-cut blue hair, and sat upon his desk in the middle of the room talking to the vivacious Deve, his closest friend. She went beyond that when he needed it. In her baggy white linen trousers, indigo tummy-revealing top, large pink-rimmed glasses, and platinum blonde hair, she talked up at him with a delinquent discussion about the day.
“Hey, Brandon, Deve!”
“Dylan, man. How’s it going, my friend?” Brandon replied.
Brandon was infamous. If he was your friend, that was great, but if you crossed him or started a ruckus with him, you’d better be ready for more trouble than you could handle. He spent most of his time coming up with ways of breaking the law in minor ways than anything else. How he had never been apprehended was a wonder. He had a habit of slipping from the clutches of punishment like a fish slipping from a buttered hand.
“High Dylan,” Deve said in a gleeful tone of voice.
Dylan smiled at her.
Jack Riley, a smooth black existential friend, sat with his girlfriend on his lap at the back of the class. His short, black, slim cowgirl-dressed sweetie was paying attention only to him. Her arm smoothed his body as she chatted with cold coolness. Her name was Lexine Hart.
Dylan waved and they both waved back.
At the front of the class, on the desk next to Joan, Dylan’s two Chinese friends Xandu and Fredu sat next to each other. Both wore styled jet-black hair, kilt pattern skirts, and tight tank tops. And they were too in love to realise Dylan had entered the room as they ogled each other with sickening affection.
The room was a large, wide, clinical white space, with symmetrically placed dark blue ligneous desks in neat square rows, five in depth and three in width. This was the room for Theoretical Chemistry, with the practical room next door. At the front of the room, behind Drake as he continued his rocking, Miss Lowe’s station observed from a slightly elevated position, her desk a bold red. The wall behind her desk held a large one-hundred-inch screen-board that was turned off at present.
Dylan walked between the desks and towards his at centre room. Next to his desk sat Leon Kenny, his best friend, with blue portable Virtual Reality glasses glued to his head. He held a sleekly curved computer controller in one hand and moved his head with eyeing motion, his vision sealed from reality.
Leon was the flamboyant one of the class and everyone liked him. If you needed anything, he could hook you up. His dress sense said it all about him as he wore satin-like deep red trousers, and a silk forked-lightning white shirt. His white hair was erect in a spiked flat top.
Leon was a cyberpunk, a lover of anything virtual. If he could virtualize himself, he would without a second thought. His goal in life was to be a games designer; all he ever talked about was gaming and cyberspace. One day he played in virtual reality at a game’s competition for twenty-four-hours solidly, breaking a world record in points for some war-styled first-person shooter game.
The next week Leon came into the class with a console magazine containing an article about the competition win. All day long he waltzed through the data building with hauteur behaviour, it was unbearable. All day long he looked for eulogistic return for the game competition. The competition paid a prize of one thousand credits. Leon spent it all on gaming equipment and games. He hadn’t stopped playing for weeks. He was prepping for an upcoming event in the game’s competition world.
Dylan leant over towards his headphone-covered ears and asked, “Leon, can you hear me?”
# # #
Alert must stay alert! Leon Kenny thought. Must be fast, must be fierce, and must be nimbler than them.
His arms were poised in front of him, and he held out a small thin chromed blaster. The digital decaying industrial environment was a photorealistic virtual world, which moved along in Leon’s first person POV with fluid realism.
Leon had played the game a thousand times, but unpredictability remained as the programmers crafted the game with artificially intelligent enemies that read his every move and calculated his mistakes in previous bouts of the game. Every time Leon picked the game up, the number of enemies increased, intensified, and evolved to a more intelligent and deadlier foe.
A pentagonal tunnel crafted the virtual environment, with chunky tubes and pipes running its length on all sides, each with a hyper-coloured glow of reds, blues, yellows, and greens that lit the way through the decay. The industrial floor, a gridded metal mesh, rattled with every step of his feet, and a suffocating darkness lay beneath. Drips of rusted water echoed through the tunnel with an eerie effect.
Leon had enemies left before the end of level boss, but where would they come from? The corridor mazes off left and right in a labyrinth of possible ways. Leon had explored every corridor, every door, and every level that the game held, but still he was engrossed in playing.
He approached a left turn, slowed, and reloaded his blaster with a large battery like magazine, locking and loading as it whined an electrical sound. He slowed more and quickly peeked around a left corner, then ducked back before anything could attack. Nothing there but a sealed door, and Leon knew what was inside that room. An ambush of ten enemies awaited, small grease-stained bots, just under five and a half feet tall. In an enclosed space they were deadly, as he found out the first time, he entered the room. The nippy machines would blast him senseless before he could get off one shot.
Leon checked the corridor ahead again. He had just continued when a faint crashing sound echoed from behind. He spun to see an empty tunnel, its length stretching into an infinite darkness. For a second, he looked hard, then turned and continued until another faint crashing sound caused him to whip around again. The tunnel was empty, but something was moving, lurking, following.
Reluctantly, Leon turned and continued when a small robotic cyborg pounced from a right turn ahead. Its silver endo-skeleton was revealed by random skinless segments all over its body and head that were torn and dangly, like ripped giblets of cloth. The cyborg was a mangy
design, a weak, simple drone, but was intelligent enough to unleash a hail of red laser blasts straight at him as it landed on its feet.
Leon dropped to the floor and retaliated with pinpoint accuracy, shredding the pale skinned cyborg with an onslaught of green laser blasts. Its mechanical limbs malfunctioned with electrical arcs, and its fleshy chunks of human skin shredded like paper. The half-human, half-robot crumpled in a pile of goo and components as smoke tickled Leon’s blaster barrel.
Leon regained his composure, stood up, and sidled past the fallen cyborg. Leon looked down, where its half-skinned face, blank white eyes, and metal endo skeleton was revealed by the shredding. Must keep moving!
Water gushed from a burst pipe in the ceiling ahead. Leon sidled through. The water momentarily fogged his vision before it returned to twenty-twenty.
The faint crashing sound echoed from behind again, but five cyborgs opened fire from ahead. Each one was tucked into a corner, and their red lasers whizzed past only inches from him. He ducked into a left turn, put his back against the wall, and poised his blaster for attack.
Leon peeked around the corner, clocking the position of the cyborgs as they shuffled behind their cover. Two of them stood inside a right turn ten metres away, one lay centre floor in the tunnel, and two were positioned inside a left turn next to it. Leon could see a right turn five metres ahead. He readied himself to dash for the cover, hopefully eliminating one of the enemies.
He ran, sending a hail of lasers at the floor-bound cyborg, hitting it repeatedly and killing it. Leon moved his gun to the right, killing both cyborgs as they sent a stream of lasers at him. He tucked into his new cover with just two cyborgs left. Leon peeked again, viewing the cyborgs that stood behind the farthest corner. They shuffled with fear.
He swapped weapons, lowering his small handgun and raising a two-handed assault laser rifle. This baby could fire twenty lasers per second with its ten-inch barrel. Its power charge metre positioned atop the rifle and glowed with five red-light bars. It was fully charged.