Somewhere Interesting

I sit in my rack, boots sitting beside me, one standing straight, the other with the calf lolling over. Feet clad in a layer of artificial cotton flex slightly as I look at them. It's warm with the curtain closed, and quiet.

I skim through the pages of the ships network, network caches from a dozen worlds. I'm going to be mad at myself later for just sitting like this rather than going to a bar, watching media or anything else I might be doing. I'm not even looking at anything in particular, just scrolling through random websites, my brain turned to low.

Docking complete. You may debark. The message across my vision on the ship's AR network engages. I didn't even notice we were docking until now. It saves me from guilt though. Instead I can pull my boots on over my thigh highs and drop out of the rack to the deck. The ship has gradually been turning its gravity up to Surface's slightly higher normal. Part of me worries that I'll end up shattering the boots heels or driving them up into my heels like punji stakes but somehow this fails to come about. A quick hand gesture summons my duffle and I begin to walk down towards the off load ramp.

There's not many people getting off here. The kind of people who take the racks on an old tramp freighter are not often those who stop at Surface. I get a few looks as I pass. I haven't exactly made many friends here. I haven't exactly spoken to many people here. I ignore them and walk out into the ships main section, gravity dropping off to nothing as I leave the spin section and grab a handle, heading down towards the star port. Out the airlock gravity returns and I'm pulling myself up through the hatch, grabbing my case as it meets the gravity zone and yanking it thorugh. The station smells funny. Something has been put in the ventilation systems to scrub the usual stink space stations have. Probably something imported from nearby Oceania.

Natives and locals scurry around and its suddenly full of noise and bustle. Heja move through the crowd like giants through the ocean in some ancient monster movie. . . if those monsters had been supermodel hot. I look around once, then keep walking, concentrating on not bumping into anyone. Glowing lines of AR lead me to the down station, where a tiny young woman is supervising a drone as it lets people through the turnstile. She smiles at me, then looks crestfallen my eyes pass over her.

Say something. Say something. "Uh, hello." I stop, then step to one side so not to block the people behind.

"Uh, hi." She smiles. "Welcome uh, to Surface? Are you um... are you okay?"

"I'm fine. When I get to the bottom can I get a taxi to my hostel right away?"

"Uh, sure." She looks at me worried. "You're Tempesti though right? Is it safe for you to sleep in a posthuman structure."

"Probably?" I feel an intense need to leave suddenly "I'm going now." Turn and walk away.

It started with an advert. Some friends of mine had taken me out to the Londenium Cinema on Landing, taken me out to get me away from my flat where I showed heavy signs of just sitting. There'd been an advert for Surface. Tourism, finding yourself, posthuman structures. My friends girlfriend had said "You should do that." And then I'd said "Okay." Maybe she was joking.

And so I am here. I step onto a train down, sit on a seat and don't look out, eventually playing a game on my implant to pass the time. The train clicks down and we're out into the sunlight. Then I'm in a small aircraft flying South at high speed. Then I'm landing amid gleaming spires of glowing not diamond, their polished exteriors dusted with snow turned to icy slush by the heat of the sun. I vaguely look at the massive flow of waterfall ahead, the floating towers. The floating tower I'm on. For a moment I consider walking to the edge, climbing up on the rail and diving off to see what's down below, blocked by the carbon.

I don't though. Instead I go to the hostel, passing groups of tourists and locals who give me odd looks all the way, press my palm against the scanner and walk inside, into my room. Boots off, one calf flopping over, the other more or less straight. Sit down on the bed. Think of eating. Don't. Eyes Closed. Sleep.

I ran the numbers and I think we can do it. We just need sufficient heat to melt the snow. There's enough liquid there to flood the subway system definitely. I raise a hand to gesture to the AR display next to me, spun with crystals and angles that defy geometry as I know it.

An unreal haze hangs around everything, my commanders face looking up is outlined in spinning complexities I can't quite read but draw my eyes in. Okay, but where are we going to get the heat from?

Easy. Crack open the fusion reactor up here, and you'll get an absolute mass of ionized gas, superheated coolant and transfer medium. That goes down onto the snow. That goes down into the subway. It kind of sucks for the locals but it'll suck much more for us if we have to storm...

Flickering tunnels, EU soldiers and drones, weapons pointed. So clear in my imagination. Villains from the cartoons I used to draw.

Alright. Get the fire battalion on the phone. No point in waiting around.

I key my phone icon, now a thing of infinite complexity that's pulling me in. . . and then the complexity grows, and grows, and grows and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

II

I wake up. My head aches. A migraine array of alerts and warnings scrolls across my vision. Beyond them are several concerned faces and one of the big, bulky all wired drones they use to do battle field surgery in combat archaeology operations. I command my implants to go off but they don't. "Nngh."

The tallest of them speaks, handsome face coming down near mine. "Oh my, she's awake. Ms. Syed. Please don't be alarmed. Your implants have been affected by the posthuman network but it's not serious, and there's only been very limited bleed into your biological brain. We're going to switch your implants off and purge them.

"Raa..." I can't seem to get the words out properly. An arm descends and I feel a slight sting as the needle goes through to my lace's access point and hits the switch. Then blessed relief as the implant turns off. I sigh and lie back, then realize one of the ones looking down at me is the woman from the terminal gate. "You came down to look for me?"

"Well..." She smiles "You seemed like you were in a bit of trouble. I couldn't just leave you." "Thank you." I realize to my extreme surprise I actually mean that. Shakily I extend a hand. "Maya Syed."

She shakes, grip small but strong. " Csilla, Csilla Varga Szabo." She smiles at me in a way that I think I could get used to. "When you're done here perhaps you could come home with me? You need to stay away from Xanadu a bit I'm afraid, if you go back before the cache clears then it'll update your implants too when you get close." She speaks with the seriousness of someone repeating what they've been told.

The doctor looks up from the bot. "Yes. You should know better than to sleep inside a posthuman structure with implants like that." He frowns at me, reproving. "Whatever possessed you to do that anyway?" The words "Are you a rapture fucker and am I doing this for nothing?" float unsaid between us.

"I don't know. I just... didn't care at the time." The arm retracts and the doctor hands me a pressure dressing. I apply it and then get up. "So are there any pills I'll need to take?" The Implants begin to come back up and I reload the settings as I like them.

"No, you should be fine without medication. However if you experience any additional symptoms you should see a doctor immediately." He shakes his head then to Csilla "Make sure she gets some rest too."

"Yes Doctor." Csilla is dutiful.

I get up, sway, then stand. "I'm fine really. This is nothing." Its night outside the window. The aurora painting the sky a beautiful abstract of red and green and blue, the great blue ball of the gas giant glowing above it. "This is. . . nothing. Thank you doctor." I smile, shake the doctor's hand and walk free into the cool night and the lights.

III

Csilla pulls a slim pad from off her belt as we go. All the natives carry them, apparently as an alternative to having a neural lace. "I'll just call my car. It's parked a bit of a distance away, shouldn't take too long though." She smiles at me. "Home's about half an hour's flight."

She continues to natter and I become aware that she's trying to fill the silence between us. I smile. "Thanks for well, helping. You're pretty dutiful. I like that."

Csilla looks up at me then blushes and averts her eyes. "T-thanks. I... well I'm just doing my job as a customs official and so on." She coughs. "I guess I like helping those in need. I mean. . ." She's saved from flustering further by the arrival of the air car, which settles down onto the paved area in front of the doctor's surgery with a hum of lift fans. It's a bulbous, rugged machine like a mechanical bumblebee. We used craft very like it during the war. I feel a sudden chill and mount hastily as the gull wing doors wish open at the side.

"So uh..." If I was her I'd ask something like "why don't you care if you live or die?" Instead she says: "what's Tempest like?"

"Hot. . . windy a lot. It's kind of a surprise how cool and dry your planet is." I shrug. "The ocean goes on forever, but you often can't see it because of the fog."

"There's fog alot on tempest?" She asks. The car seems to be driving itself.

"Only when it's not raining." I stretch and realize I just made a joke. I didn't really think I still had it in me.

There's a question I wonder if she'll ask. The one that looms unsaid in any conversation with off worlders. Csilla natters on some more before she gets to it. "So uh, what ca-" She catches herself "colour are you?"

"I'm blue." I smile. "The artist caste."

"Ah, but I thought you were uh... a soldier." So, rather than just ask me what's up with my not quite suicide attempt she's trying to reason it out. If I was at home I'd be in a psychological hospital right now. . . which is why you're not home isn't it?

I shake my head. "People from all castes serve in the Defence Force." a small smile. "Half the violence takes place behind someone's eyes." I frown and something inside me gives me a push. "I have, well I suppose I have a problem. Are you sure you and your. . ." What is even the term for this? "Your housemates are prepared for this? I don't want to put you out."

Csilla gives me a suddenly serious look. "Well I can't leave them like that. Maybe you should go see a psychologist though. I can find one if you like."

"I don't really want to see a shrink. . ." Her face glitters in the aurora. She's beautiful in a cute way. I remember a broken heart on Kannon. . .

More to the point I can't turn her down after I named the problem. "Alright, I will. Uh... does stuff like the cost?"

She shakes her head. "Not to Tempesti, your government has a fund set up to pay for any medical work you might need." She smiles "I wouldn't worry about it though. Just get some rest." The flier drops into its final approach to a large cluster of buildings. "In the morning you can meet everyone else and make an appointment right?"

"Sure." I smile, wondering what I will dream of tonight.

IV

I dream a war dream. Masked knights and adventuresses storming a great ice castle to rescue the princess within. I am one of the latter, a cleric with her hood pulled low. Both within the dream and observing it. We fight against great ogres. There are so many but we are so skilled.

Finally we smash through the last room and break the princess from the throne she's chained too. There are meddles and celebration. Then someone asks. "What do we do now?"

I wake to the warm light of a new day, stretch and walk out to the outdoor toilets. It's chillier than I'd like. You'd think that a group who's planet has actual snow would be more for indoor plumbing. When I get back in I find Csilla waiting nervously. This seems to be a thing she does. "Come on. I'll introduce you to everyone. We bathe together. . . that's okay with you right?"

"Well sure as long as it's just bathing. I don't know you guys very well yet." "Uh, I live with a couple of men too, so uh..."

I count to ten. "I kind of figured you might given the odds." I look down at her. "I'm sure I'll stand it somehow."

One of the bad things about Tempest is that everyone everyone notices gender around you. I'm sure that in whatever heavenly server they're in, our founders are quietly annoyed by the way their great work is used to resurrect the very issues they sought to escape. Alternatively maybe they think it underlines just why it's still needed.

Csilla scampers off and I go get a towel and some other stuff out of my kit, wrapping it around myself as Csilla gets back. It's chilly as hell. The chance to get into the bath with Csilla and an unknown number of sexy Surfacian woman is tempered by the fact I'm freezing my tits off, but I try not to let it show as I'm led into what seems to be a natural hot spring chamber in the basement. Small candles burn everywhere, giving the place a dim and steamy atmosphere. As soon as I'm past the door the cold vanishes to be replaced by a wet heat, like a sunny day at New Reykjavik.

I walk down the stone cut steps and step into the water. It has several more lights floating in it, as well as four people, two men and two women. The nearest is the Heja. She's tall and busty and really hard not to stare at. Beside her are a pair of Kolbri men, both back from me in a way that makes me want to grit my teeth. On the other side is another woman, who looks rather like Csilla except blond not brunette.

"Hi." I step into the water and feel the heat rush into me. It's helped by the fact that nobody is wearing a towel except me.

"Good morning." The Heja smiles. "You must be Maya." She reaches out an arm and we shake. "Let me introduce you around. This is Gizella, Adorjan, and Gabriel, and I'm Zsuzsanna."

"Nice to meet you all." I relax into the water. "Thank you for letting me be a guest." That sounds right.

"Well Csilla told us about your problems and we couldn't let someone in need sleep in some Immigrant Town hostel." Zsuzsanna grins at me. "Let me show you around the baths... soap is over here. Don't worry about dirt or whatever in the water we have a system that cleans it out. . ." There's something infectious about the tall woman's grin. The others come out of their shells a bit after a while.

"So why are you on Surface?" asks Adorjan. "Are you a posthuman worshipper?"

"I'm not sure. I guess I sort of am. . ." I shrug. "It's mostly just, well, I don't really know what to do with myself. I guess Csille told you guys about last night?" They nod. How do I even explain this to people who weren't there? "I fought in the war. It affected me a lot. . . I guess I'm looking for somewhere where I can find something to live for."

Zsuzsanna smiles gently. "Well, you've come to the right place then, and I know just where to start."