Exsid’s mind raced with the possibilities but too much was unknown to come to any conclusion. Instead he watched as doctors treated patients on gurneys in the hallways, noting that the hospital was full of people running every which way. He saw this as a scene that would continue for many days as more people would come out of their houses and into the streets after the Emergency Signal was shut off. The number of patients here would possibly double. Nano-factories down below would be hard pressed to produce enough nanomeds to help everyone. The shortage of the medicine would cause an outrage.
Managing to get to the elevator systems, Exsid stepped into the elevators that would bring him to the lower floors where the operating rooms and intensive care centers were located. The three little girls named Betty were all located on the same floor, but all were several doors apart. Taking the elevator three floors down he came to the OR hallway that was also filled with wounded. Unlike on the first floor, here the hospital had run out of beds and gurneys to put people on. The wounded were lying on the ground, some staining the floor with their blood. Exsid’s scanner detected large amounts of bacteria on the ground, despite the use of nano-machines to kill the viruses and bacteria. There was just too much for the machines to handle. Infection, something only very rarely seen in the Rings, would start to become a reality if the nanomeds ran out of supply.
Exsid walked into the room that held the first Betty and looked at the four beds packed into the room. Walking over to the little girl he tried to see if she had those innocent little brown pigtails he remembered her having. But the girl he saw was a short haired blonde, one with a temporary cast over her wrist and a large bandage over her stomach. The red blood stain on the bandages told Exsid she had been shot and child-friendly nanomeds were still trying to fix the damage. An IV was hooked up into her arm, meant to supply her with mass produced low quality artificial blood cells, to replace the lost blood and to prevent the girl from bleeding out. He felt for the little girl, but it was not the Betty he was looking for.
He walked another two hundred feet to the room that held the second Betty. He dodged doctors and nurses running to and from patients and walked around the patients who were lying mostly motionless on the floor. Most were coughing, showing signs of respiratory infections. Unlike in most of Earth’s Arcologies, all adults who lived in the Jupiter Rings were supplied with a small nanomed dispenser that was connected to their Biocomp. That dispenser could be used to treat against infections and diseases up to and including most types of cancer. But the amount of nanomeds stored in the dispenser for civilians was small and needed to be replenished every now and then at the expense of the individual. The dispenser was upgradeable to a larger capacity, but not everyone had the cash flow to support that investment. For the people lying on the ground around Exsid, their nanomed supplies were already low or used up due to being used to recover from injuries resulting from the Rebel attack. They did not have enough to combat the amount of bacteria and viruses now being thrown around. Exsid’s own dispenser was operating with around sixty percent capacity, but his version of the dispenser held much more than a typical civilians.
Exsid walked to the second room that the directory said held the second Betty, noticing that a doctor was also in the room. As he walked into the room and closer to the bed containing the second Betty he noticed the small cute little brown pigtails that he remembered her having. She seemed so innocent as she slept in her bed despite the events that she had just walked through. She had temporary casts over her neck, left arm, and left leg. Exsid walked up next to the doctor. “How is she doing doctor?”
The doctor looked up from the girl, obviously reading her stats on his Exovision. “Hello detective. How may I help you today?” The doctor asked, completely forgetting that Exsid had asked him a question.
Exsid figured that he had to be so busy and engrossed in his work that he just did not notice Exsid until said something. Exsid decided to just let it pass despite how much he hated repeating himself, something his ex-wife would always annoyingly point out when they were together. “How is she doing doctor?” Exsid asked again.
“We splinted her up with the temporary casts and inserted nanomeds into her blood stream. She didn’t lose too much blood, which is good since we are running very low on the artificial blood cells.”
“Will she recover?”
“She will be fine but we can’t give her any more nanomeds unfortunately. Her recovery time without that will be several months through natural organic recovery.”
“Why can’t you give her more nanomeds?” Exsid asked, feeling a pit form in his stomach as though he already knew the answer.
“Her parents are on the recent Death List your Chief put out. She has no insurance to cover her. I’ve done the most I can even with bending the rules,” The doctor said, sighing as he looked back at the little sleeping girl.
Exsid thought about a few things for a minute, staring at her along with the doctor. “What if I legally adopt her? Does she have any other family members?”
“None are listed, typical for a family who probably recently managed to move in from Earth.”
“They had that much money?”
“Most likely not. They probably came here on work visas. Her records show her father was a fusion generator engineer, and those are rare here. They were most likely working off the cost of the transport through the company that owns the fusion generation systems.”
“What will happen to her?”
“She will be put into the Orphan Program. It’s a low education program but it will give her some opportunities.”
“And if I adopt her?” Exsid asked again, trying not to grind his teeth from repeating himself for the second time with this doctor.
The doctor paused for a second as he looked at Exsid, most likely scanning his identification number to look up his insurance information. “She would be covered. But I don’t suggest doing that.”
“Why is that?”
“Scans have shown she has deep psychological damage. We think she may have watched her parents die. Or at least one of them.”
The way the doctor said it so nonchalantly made Exsid a little angry at him. But then Exsid reminded himself that the doctor probably worked the past twelve hours straight with the patients here. He was probably running on stimulants from his Biocomp to keep up with the amount of work he was being presented with. Everyone else working here must be doing the same thing. “I’ll do it anyways.”
“Could you please log onto the government server and fill out the forms?” The doctor asked.
Exsid logged onto the server and brought up the adoption forms. The form was auto-filled in seconds and then approved through an RI. The whole process took less than thirty seconds. “There,” Exsid said curtly.
“I’ll go get the nanomeds. Your insurance will be billed automatically for anything she needs. And everything should be covered.”
“If anything isn’t covered, just bill me for it,” Exsid said to him.
“Will do,” the doctor said as he walked out of the room.
Exsid stared at Betty, looking at her cute face that seemed so angelic as she slept in her sedated state. He felt a longing for his ex-wife, who still had a non-contact order against him. They had never had a child together, something Exsid had always wanted. She had a genetic defect that prevented her from having children naturally and was one of the few defects still not fixable with current medical technology. It caused a rift between them. With Exsid’s focus on his job and his relationship with Darvin, she had enough of him and left him in a very nasty divorce.
Seeing Betty sleeping there made him realize just how much he missed not having a child of his own earlier in life. He just looked at her pigtails, slowly realizing just how much work there would be to help her get past the psychological issues caused by her witnessing her parents die right in front of her. He also remembered the way she had walked with those vacant eyes before he had brought her to the hospital. The docto
r walked back into the room with an injector filled with the nanomeds she needed. He hoped he was up to the task of being her step-father.
***
Al Chipman relaxed in his favorite sofa of his private residence located deep inside of the secret Callisto compound. The old previous governor never knew about this subterranean series of buildings that will soon make up the new government seat of the Jupiter Rings. All of his staff was now moved in. Everything was going to plan except for those snags in the beginning.
Al brought up his glass and took a sip of his favorite chardonnay. He was watching the viewscreen, looking at the news happening on Earth. He was interested in a few events taking place here. When he turned to the Commonwealth News Channel, he saw the one event that he needed to see. His partners and suppliers had told him that this would happen. He could now initiate the last stage of his operation that would allow him to separate the Jupiter Ring System from the Commonwealth with the support of the majority of the populace living here.
Al used his Exovision to open up a call to Jillian. The ARI came up into his Exovision as an image of a light green colored transparent face of a sharp chinned human female. Sometimes Al always wondered why Jillian could not settle on a single image to represent itself. “Yes, sir?” she said to him, a bit more curt than her usual self.
“Start the last stage Jillian. Let us begin our new future,” Al said to Jillian.
“Will do,” Jillian said excitedly, her image winking out of his Exovision right after she said that. Al just hoped everything went according to plan in this next stage. If it did, his revolution was guaranteed. If it didn’t, he would be potentially out casted and would be forced to become the dictator he did not want to be.
***
All around Matthew, the world had gone to hell. Together, Yuj and Matthew walked out of their jobs in protest in their last two hours of work. What had started out as a peaceful protest became violent as several members started looting the minor businesses and as small gang leaders exploited the situation towards their benefit and gain of electronics, food, and other technology. All of a sudden thousands of the protestors joined in the violence. Over fifty thousand people had begun the protest, but now the police were violently cracking down on them because of those violent protestors.
This was the one thing Matthew did not want to happen. He had become part of a violent protest. He had to get out. But he couldn’t leave Yuj by himself.
“What is happening?” Matthew asked Yuj as they walked down a sidewalk towards Matthew’s apartment. It was the only place Matthew could think of that would offer them any sanctuary. If anything, Matthew could contact his own supervisor in there to try to explain the situation and to try to save his job. But Matthew put the chances of that happening as very slim. They were a few kilometers out from the apartment. He just hoped it wasn’t on fire like some of the other buildings here.
“I don’t know, boss,” Yuj said, shaking his head. He kept looking at the ground, not wanting to look up and at Matthew. “I really don’t know.”
“Can you contact your cleric?”
“No, boss. The VPN is down. I don’t know what’s happening.”
“The VPN is down? What do you mean? I thought you said that couldn’t happen. That they couldn’t detect it.”
“I don’t know, boss. It won’t come up on the server list.”
“You told me that wouldn’t happen right before we walked out.”
“I know, boss. I don’t know.”
“Well, let’s get to my place first and see if we still got jobs for tomorrow.”
“Yes, boss,” Yuj said as he still looked down at the ground.
They rounded a corner and came upon a scene where a group of rioters were clashing with police. Before either one of them knew what was happening they watched as a small canister landed down at their feet and began to float up to head level using a dual rotor design. “What the…” Matthew said before he felt like he was knocked to the ground.
The pod released sonic waves and light beams directly at both of them, stunning them. Yuj and Matthew both fell to the ground, crawling up into a fetal position and grabbing at their ears. Matthew felt himself yelling uncontrollable in pain. He tried to upon up his eyes but they were blurry with tears and dark spots from the intense light blocked out half of his vision. He crawled up to his knees and felt like he was punched in his shoulder twice. He felt something like cloth slap him in the face slightly, not knowing he was hit by the bean bags shot out from the Mark III Police Bots just behind the police line.
The rioters’ line broke down and they started to run away. Someone knocked into Matthew as he tried to stand up for the second time, almost putting him on the ground. But then he noticed that he wasn’t as disorientated anymore, someone must have knocked down the pod with a club or something similar as they ran past. He stood up and opened his eyes, trying to spot where Yuj was.
Yuj was in front of Matthew by about two meters, he was starting to stand up as well. As Matthew was still on one knee, he saw through his blurry vision a black figure walked right in front of Yuj and strike him down with a black baton. The figure, a police officer in mechanized armor Matthew figured, struck Yuj right in the temple. Matthew watched as Yuj landed on the ground only an arm’s length away from him, knocked back from the force of the blow. Matthew looked down at Yuj, his head bent at a weird angle, clearly broken. Blood was starting to pour onto the street from the gash on Yuj’s forehead. Yet, all Matthew could see was Yuj’s vacant eyes as they stared at him for a single second and then slipped slightly off to the side, staring into emptiness.
Matthew felt a sudden anger build up inside of him. He watched a coworker die, a kid to him, but someone who also brought that little bit of cheer to work that made it more enjoyable. He tried to lash out at the officer, but didn’t get even close. With a back swipe from the baton, the police officer knocked back Matthew, striking him in the shoulder and breaking his arm.
Matthew sprawled out onto the ground, unable to move. The officer stood over Matthew, raising his baton for one final strike to finish the job when a voice behind the officer spoke up. “Stop,” a voice said loudly as another figure in black strolled up beside the other officer. Matthew tried to pay attention as blackness crept in from the corners of his remaining vision.
“What?” The first cop asked.
“Command says it wants a few for questioning,” the second said.
“Alright, he’s done for now anyways.”
“Ok, secure a bot for his retrieval. Bring him sun side,” the second other said and walked away.
“Yes, sir,” the first said with a twinge of regret in his voice. The last thing Matthew saw before he blacked out into blissful unconsciousness was a weird looking robot pick him up while the first officer chuckled just loudly enough for it to be the last sound Matthew would remember from this event.
Chapter 11
The colonization of Mars was the same thing as the use of Hawaii for the United States of America during the years of World War II. Technology at the time required a way station for when the orbits of Earth and the mining habitats of the Asteroid Belt were on opposite sides. This was during the age of manned freighters, a century before the advent of drone freighters that decreased the amount of fuel consumption, mainly because the lack of life support, and an increase in the amount of transportable cargo volume. After the advent of drone freighters, the people living inside of Mon Olympus decided they needed to export a product to stay within the economic chain and prosper. To this effect, they looked towards their north pole and the water ice there. A large pipe project, similar to the ones used to transport oil during the twenty first century, was built underground to transport water from the polar ice cap in the north to the Mon Olympus station. From here, flexible tubes connected the top of Mon Olympus to an orbiting offloading station in very low orbit. The use of relatively low power ion thrusters powered by fusion generators prevented the station from falling down
to the surface. Freighters picked up the water supply here and transported it to waiting hydroponics companies on Earth’s Ring, where water was in great demand. After this trade practice was established, the transport of water from Earth’s oceans up to the Ring was banned. This ensured Mars as a powerful trade partner to Earth and its Ring, allowing it to prosper and become an attractive destination for new colonists even to this day.
-The History of the Earth Commonwealth
“Darvin, what are you doing here again?”
“Asking for another beer?”
“Of all of the things on this Ring, all you want is a beer?”
“Yes, Daniel. Now can I get my beer?”
“You have to be the worst detective ever,” Daniel said to Darvin, sliding over a freshly poured mug of Darvin’s favorite draft beer.
Darvin caught the beer in his hand as he sat down on a stool. “Yes, well, at least you got the detective part right.”
“How is it out there?” Daniel asked as he started to clean a mug.
“The Emergency Signal was turned off ten minutes ago.”
“That doesn’t mean too much. It was on for over twelve hours. Tell me a bit more and I’ll throw in a free mug for today.”
“It’s fine for now. Very dirty, bodies were cleaned up and put into storage for identification purposes. RIs have searched the corridors and rooms of the Ring. No Rebels to be found. They got out fast. We don’t know how they got inside in the first place.”
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