Remember the Starfighter (39 page)

The hospital was located on the other end of the island, the New Terran research facility in complete contrast to the quiet and simple town from where they came. The checkered board of argon lights shimmered off its futuristic exterior, the domed buildings encircled by floating transports, and robotic drones. It was a large and sprawling complex, housed in several connecting centers, the advanced technologies ingrained throughout its tessellated structure.   

The automated hover-transport touched down on the site, emitting smoke and blowing dust through the air. Arendi disembarked, helping Julian to carry the comatose man to the facility. As she did so, she noticed the droves of people walking under the erected lights, on a paved trail. From the elderly to even children, she saw crowds of human colonists congregating outside. Some were simply passing by, but many others had assembled to watch a gray-haired woman in protest. “Seek salvation in conversion,” she chanted. “We must demand it. It’s our only hope.”

Arendi looked at the colonists, and quickly found herself almost at a loss for words. There were hundreds of people, more than she had ever seen before. But none of them were what she had expected. Their appearances were so different from her own and that of Julian, she had to wonder. “Are these humans?” Arendi quietly asked.

To her, they looked frail, and deformed, their skin so white it seemed almost translucent and unnatural. Many more were unusually tall, inching close to seven feet, and yet walking with an awkward hunch. They shuffled along, some wearing their augmentations — the visors over the eyes, the wires attached and even bolted to their arms and legs. What had happened to them, she thought. Was this some kind of infection?

They had entered the hospital, stepping into the modern facility, the yellow light of a scan beaming over them to analyze the condition. A floating box-shaped drone then appeared, casting a pair of lights on the comatose man.

“He’s unconscious,” Julian said. “I think his mental state may be degenerating.”

“Understood,” the drone replied in a low monotone. The machine accessed the scans, including personal information from the man’s embedded bio-ID. “Please proceed forward, to emergency section Alpha ahead. The next of kin has already been informed.”

They placed the man in a nearby wheel chair, with Julian pushing it forward through the gunmetal gray hallway. Arendi walked behind, catching a glimpse of the other drones methodically moving in the air.

It was when she entered the emergency section that she saw the other patients. Behind the glass door, there were scores of them, laying on hospital beds, many attached to a red visor over their face. She heard the shrill scream, a boy maybe ten years old sitting in the chair, his eyes the same as the comatose man: white and possibly empty of any sight.

Julian, meanwhile, let go of the wheel chair. A New Terran nurse, dressed in a green uniform, had taken over, and asked that he not cross the quarantine section. She went along, passing by the child, as the boy continued to cry — his mother at his side, resting her head over his, her eyes sealed behind a visor of her own.

Arendi stared in horror. She had no idea it had been so severe.

“Their condition,” Arendi said. “The specialist Alysdeon only briefly mentioned it. What is happening?”

Julian rested his hand on the window next to the emergency section’s entrance, and watched the doctors move the man to an empty bed.

“It’s the cost of being a refugee,” he replied. “Their bodies aren’t designed for this planet.”

It was such a strange thing to say: “designed.” But Julian couldn’t be more accurate. These colonists simply did not belong.

“Many of the people here didn’t come from an Earth-like planet,” he said. “They came from Second Gaia, a planet that couldn’t be more different. Less gravity, less oxygen, less light, less everything, but still it could sustain life.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “What about terraforming?”

It was a practice that had been common so long ago. To breathe life into worlds that otherwise would be inhospitable to humans. From what Arendi had known, eons ago humanity had terraformed Mars, the Jovian moons, and begun work on planets in the nearby Alpha Centauri system. All in an effort to make them colonies rich with water, atmosphere and even plant life. 

“No,” Julian said, shaking his head. “Terraforming can take centuries. The only real quick alternative is genetic alterations.”

It explained what she saw in the colonists, their bodies misshapen and almost decrepit. The higher gravity alone on Carigon would be enough to cause discomfort and strain their movements. She could only imagine what other difficulties the colonists faced.    

“Unfortunately, the alterations, there were long-term side effects, especially for the poorer communities,” he went on. “Some of the colonists suffer from various genetic defects made worse over the generations. Their eyes have degraded, and have trouble adjusting to Carigon’s light. As for others, well...”

Julian didn’t need to say anymore. She remembered the man’s rage, and the way he convulsed in his seizure. Ironically, many of these alterations were originally meant to be enhancements, but done with shoddy or primitive technology.

“It hasn’t helped that they’ve been forced to migrate here,” he added.

“The devices they wear. It’s to assist them. Acclimate them, isn’t?”

“Yes. But it was never really supposed to come to this.”

“What do you mean?”

He gestured at the window, and the dread it contained.

“These people had nowhere else to go. So many of them were sick. They didn’t have the right genetic codes, or the citizenry, or even the credits to make it anywhere else. So Carigon took them in, but it was only meant to be a temporary measure, before a suitable planet could be found.”

“But with the Endervar war raging on, there are no resources to settle them on another planet. This is now their home,” he said, waving his hand at the surrounding floor.

“This hospital has been trying to treat some of the genetic diseases. And even alter the colonists so that they can live here. The colony administrators are trying to give them jobs, make things normal for them. It’s easier said than done. It’ll take time. ”

He tapped the window, with his fingers, tired of the sight in front of him.

“I’m lucky. Haven is so similar to Carigon. But it’s ironic. For so many other humans, this Earth-like planet is maybe the last place where they should be.”

He then walked toward a nearby bench, and fell into the metal seat, completely exhausted.

“Colony building,” Julian continued. “It’s so hard. Even if you can escape the Endervars, where is there to go?”

He was right. This planet, as habitable as it seemed, wasn’t for them. Arendi felt the chill on her skin. These people. These colonists. As different as they may be, these were the new humans.  

She spied what was inside the makeshift shelter, a simple long tent with an open flap as its entrance. There, the young girl was, her face jutting out and resting inside a mechanical brace. A man stood over her, and held the visor in his hand, tweaking its size to fit over the girl’s eyes.

Outside the tent, there were a few others waiting under the night sky. A tall woman in her 20s, holding the hand of a small boy half her size. Both were pale, the woman’s vision still healthy, but the boy not so fortunate — his pupils a milky white. “400 credits for lift visor” a neon electronic sign at the entrance advertised. “8000 credits per implant.”

These shops and many others like it had become a side industry brought from Second Gaia, the headsets helping those who were blind to interface with the world around them. Arendi stood by watching as others with the similar condition ambled by. A few of them wore the so-called “lift visors,” or what was essentially a simple pair of glasses, but built with a line of microscopic cameras. The images they recorded were then directly sent into the user’s brain, restoring some semblance of normalcy for victims of their genetic disease. She saw visors of all kinds, the frames in some cases scratched and peeling — the components likely cobbled together from second-hand equipment.

Arendi didn’t wish to see anymore of it. And yet that’s all there was. People forced into a destitution she had not imagined. As she left the tent, Arendi saw other victims simply sitting on the ground, perhaps too tired to walk, and staring into the red lenses. “Lift time,” Julian had told her. Or another way to interface with the world. The virtual world that is, the galactic and local media spheres the preferred refuge for the stricken.

She smelled the cooking fumes nearby, and looked for Julian. He was not far, and waiting in line at a stall to buy some food. Behind him in the far-off distance, Arendi could see an even larger facility hiding among a forest. The structure not a building, but an actual starship, the white lights sparkling across its hull. It appeared almost like a mountain, the vessel grounded and refitted to act as a home for the colonists. Inside, the living conditions had been configured to what life had been like on Second Gaia. But still it was not enough; the interiors were already overcrowded with too many colonists.

Julian then entered her gaze, returning with a piece of local fish. It had been cooked on a wooden stick, and left lightly charred.

“Alysdeon,” Julian said, raising his other hand to look at his comm-band. “She’s calling. She wants to meet.”

As he munched on the meal, Julian stared down at his wrist, surprised.

“Actually, she’s close by. Really close in fact.”

He took another bite out of the food, before throwing it away in a nearby trash bin, a hovering drone ready to collect it. “Let’s go,” he said, walking from the medical center and toward a dense cluster of shelters dimly lit in the night.

Although the makeshift settlement was clean, Arendi could tell that the shelters had been crafted out of what few resources were available. It had been quickly constructed to accommodate the masses wanting to live closer to the hospital. Some of the structures took the form of large and rusted shipping containers, the long blocks packed together in one row after another, the entrances replaced with a two-windowed door. But many more had been built out of scrap, the sheets of recycled polymer molded in walled sections and in some cases nailed to the ground with spikes. They were only a few meters high, and selling products like fruits, entertainment services and visor repair. Many of the shops, however, were vacant of customers. Instead, Arendi saw that close to a hundred people had gathered at the rationing section of the settlement. An unmanned transport flew over the crowd, the floating barge unloading the food packs with the help of three attached robotic arms.

She walked away from the scene, unsure what to think. This was not the way she had envisioned humanity, surviving on the edge of the galaxy, and yet still struggling to get by. Next to her on the ground, she noticed a thin man, lying there in a ragged shirt. He was blind and visor-less, and held an empty cup in his hand, begging for others to fill it with any acceptable credits.

“Yeah,” Julian said sullen, walking ahead. “I’m sorry you had to see this.”

They eventually arrived at their destination, the single brown shipping container under a green leaved tree. Its door was made of wood, the only signifying mark on the shelter a number 40 scratched in white over the entrance. Julian knocked, the delicate door creaking open.

Arendi entered behind Julian and saw the specialist. She was sitting down on a simple stool, and looked in their direction. At her side was a person lying on a bed. He was motionless, and covered in a tweed blanket. She thought that maybe the man was asleep, but then noticed the sad expression on the specialist’s face. With a scan, Arendi then realized the truth. He was dead and no longer breathing.

As Julian exchanged greetings with the specialist, she approached the corpse. He was an old wrinkled man, with gray hair, and like so many others, afflicted with the genetic disease. Or in this case, had been. The life was now gone from the man’s white eyes.

Alysdeon leaned over the body, and took her hand to seal the man’s eyelids. She then raised the man’s head, and removed something that had been placed at the back of his neck. Drops of blood spilled out as the needled circuits retracted back into the thumb-sized device.

“Who was he?” Julian asked.

Alysdeon now held what remained of the former leader, his declining mind replicated and transferred to device between her two fingers. She cleaned it with a cloth, and handed it over to the other figure in the room. 

The mysterious man nodded as a pair of circular orbs lay suspended in the air near his shoulders. He was dressed not like a typical colonist, but in a more lavish argent suit encrusted with jewels across the sleeves. Furthermore, his black hair, along with his mustache and beard, was perfectly cut, the front combed into several winding unflappable curls. Very much like the one of photos Arendi had seen at the barber’s shop, the style clearly atypical.

But the most striking feature was the lack of any visor on his face. His black eyes stared off unimpeded. In fact, he seemed free of any implants of any kind. The man charmingly smirked, as one of the orbs flew to the specialist, and magnetically pulled the device from her fingers and into itself.

“I’ll do my best to salvage what I can,” the nameless figure said. “He’ll be uploaded to the collective as soon as possible.”

The two orbs circled around the man, only to approach closer and closer, before they disappeared into his chest. He did not even flinch in the least, holding his two hands calmly behind his back.

“So then, who is the lovely lady?” he asked.

The figure looked directly at Arendi, the smirk widening on his face.

The specialist rolled her eyes.
 

He bowed, placing an arm over his chest in a formal salute.

“Please, please. That’s my alias. I only like to use it to intimidate. Or to impress someone, particularly attractive New Terran women.”

He looked at the specialist in another sly grin.

the specialist remarked.

Arendi was about to initiate another scan, when the man deliberately revealed his true self. The image of his careful designed face and clothes flickered away, momentarily disappearing into what it was: a fabricated deception, brought on by the pair of orbs floating at what was formerly his torso. The man’s image then casually came back into existence.

“Call me Richard,” he said. “I’ve heard of your exploits. And I’m most intrigued.”