Space Station had always struck me as a stupid name. There is no spare space on The Station. There was no spare oxygen, or water, or food, either. There was also no such thing as vagrancy, or homelessness, which in some lights could be seen as utopian. Except it wasn't because no-one had cause to be homeless.
I had cause to be homeless. Seven days in quarantine with a nasty case of Rona had all but exhausted my supply of credit. That virus sucks. You can't even save money by running your apartment on a low O2 concentration. You are gasping for breath as it is. Well, I was free to be out now, but I needed money and quickly. If I couldn't come up with the goods, my 'landlord' would kick me out. Oxygen flow turned off automatically, forcing me out into the corridor of the hab unit, then the door shutting, never to open again to my biometrics.
I hustled over to the Engineering District. I had a quick mind and quick hands, and there was always work for people with that combination amongst the shifting myriad of startups, workshops, and labs. I liked the word 'bustling' as a description. It didn't really fit perfectly as that was invented for the old teeming cities and social spaces of Earth when thousands of people might be interacting in markets or bazaars. The District was the closest we had. A lot of Stationfolk found it overwhelming, but I had always found some comfort in the noise. People who live Driveside often talk about the spin engines ambient hum in the same way. I suppose this is just dialled up.
Today though, that dial had been turned right down. Almost to zero. Units were closed and shuttered, almost no-one was walking around. I caught sight of a tech merchant I knew that was still open and drifted towards her. She drew back from me as I approached, so I stopped a few metres away.
“Hao, Ashleen.” I said. “Are you OK?”
“Hao” she said by way of reply. She looked worried.
“What the hack is going on? Where is everyone?” I asked.
“You been living under a crate, Harri?”
“No, I just couldn't afford the data stream and my O2 stream. Can you give me the free version? I need to find some work quick.”
She raised an eyebrow. “How bad?”
“Pretty bad. I've been on lockdown for a week and the whole last month has been pretty tough after those Asklokian traders came through and fixed everything as part of their bartering, there was no work. I'm a day, maybe 2 away from getting booted.”
She looked crushed. My stomach started to fill with ice water. “Ash. Please, it's me. What the hell is going on? Why do you look like I've just told you I'm not going to agree to go to bed with you?”
Ash smiled at that “You wish, habrat”. Then her expression changed back. “There is no work. I'm just shutting up. We all are. The Station is being put into full lockdown.”
“Lockdown. Fuck. Look, is there anything you've heard about. If I don't make the rent, I've got nowhere else to go. I'll be spaced or have to go to the Zoo.”
“Harri. I'm sorry. I can spot you a day or two's air, but last week trade has been awful and..”
“Ash, I wouldn't take your money if you had it to give. I'll figure something out. How's your ankle recovering after that fall?”
I chattered unhappily about the usual stuff for a couple of minutes. When I left the hab I'd been desperate for that sort of chat after a week on my own, but now it sort of felt pointless. My mind was racing. Ash could see it. Her heart wasn't in it either. In the end, I called time on the sad exchange and headed out.
“Good luck,” she said as I left. She meant it.
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My stomach growling finally interrupted my racing mind as I passed near a small stand selling some very tired looking mealworm patties. The owner looked about as tired as his product but he looked up hopefully as the smell of the food made me slow down.
“Finest food this side of the ring? 2 for a credit!”
Given the complete lack of open food outlets I'd seen, he might well have been correct for the first and only time in his career selling poor quality protein to poorly paying customers in this particular part of the Station. I contemplated my almost total lack of funds and decided that 1 credit wasn't going to keep me in my apartment either way, so I may as well tackle this particular problem on a full stomach at least. Food had been as meagre as data in my week-long shut-in. I tried for a bit more information.
“This all for the Rona? It no worse than normal is it?”
“Rona? Hack no, no-one cares so much about that. This is for the visitors. We need time for the halls to be cleaned down properly. They can't stomach all the bugs we can. So we all need to be inside so they can make sure everything is killed off, you know?”
I clearly didn't look like I knew anything, so he continued, while I chewed thoughtfully. “If we are all inside, then we don't pass things around and if they clean the rest then there is nothing out there.”
“Yeah, I get the concept. Who is coming though? We don't have anything you don't get on every other station anywhere in the galaxy. Who isn't prepared for that?”
“Terries.” I choked on my burger. “Here? Terrestrials, are coming here?”
The vendor nodded, grinning broadly. I got the impression he was enjoying being in the know. “Yep. Coming to meet the Governor. First time in my life for sure.”
I decided against saying anything to that. He had a slightly dog-eared appearance but could have been almost any age. I thanked him instead and continued on my way. I hadn't actually realised that I was even on my way anywhere until I arrived. Unconsciously or not, I had been heading for one of my two options if I couldn't find some work soon. The Zoo.
A down on their luck person in the Station couldn't just sleep out in the corridor. Oxygen wasn't free, and if you weren't renting a hab, you weren't paying your dues, and you didn't have any. Nowadays there are two solutions to this problem.
The old way is still available, you can get spaced. I don't mean fired out of an airlock like in old 21st Century movies. Of course not, you'd be wasting an airlocks worth of air, and that was worth more than you. No, you just get dumped into the garbage disposal with all the completely non-reusable waste, pulped down, and evacuated in the next release. Might be a week, might be a month. The Station was very resourceful and not much was allowed to go to waste. Still, though, no-one wanted to eat people, or anything grown using corpses for nutrients. That's not to say people didn't try, but it was pretty rare.
Fortunately, First Contact, and the huge rush of 2nd, 3rd and 212th contact that followed in the years after it had created a second, better option. That is not to say a good option, but if the alternative is being ground up with radioactive trash and fired into the nearest star, it's a low bar to get over.
The Zoo. That was what we called it, but it made less sense than Space Station. Humans were the only exhibit at this Zoo. It was clean, quiet, almost medical, and for the very reasonable fee of zero credits, you could be housed and fed, and allowed to breathe. The catch was that anyone in the Zoo could, and would be sold to any Xeno that came to visit the station, and wanted a human. That's how the Zoo made its living and could afford to house all those who could not house themselves. Humans couldn't buy people, old laws on slavery still on the books, but Xeno's were not included in them, what with people having not really ever considered the possibility. These days no-one had the credits, space or oxygen to employ people to argue about new laws, so they just sort of got worked around, and places like the Zoo appeared.
I shuddered as I turned away from the Zoo. Some people still chose to get spaced. Which seems crazy except you had no idea what you were being bought for at the Zoo. Sometimes you might be a pet, or a slave, or a servant. Sometimes a delicacy, or a plaything, or a chew toy for their real pet. Sometimes much much worse than that. Personally, I would always rather roll the dice, but I had really hoped to not ever have to play that game.
The chips were nearly all in play though. There was only one way to avoid the Zoo now, that didn't involve me getting ground up like a mealworm pattie. It did involve me stopping breathing though.
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“Not a chance. Nope. Zip. No way”. He was walking away from me before I'd even opened my mouth.
“Come on man!” I pleaded. “I've got no-where to go, no air to breath, no chance. You don't want me to have to go to the Zoo, do you?
“Don't guilt-trip me, you little punk! I said I would look out for you. I never said anything about risking my job. I didn't owe your mother that much. I'm no more keen on the Zoo than you.”
“But The Station will be on, lockdown! Who is going to know?”
“Well if all goes to plan, no-one. But if anything goes wrong and they find your frosty cadaver in one of my Sus chambers, then I'm going to be shit out of luck.”
“On account of me being dead” I interjected.
“Yes! Exactly, not even having to face the music like me. I'm not doing it.”
“You can do what you want with me?” I winked, in what I hoped was an alluring manner.
“Eurgh. I'm not a pervert. If I want to do 'something' I'll use an AI like any sane person. Especially with the Rona going back around again.”
“You are the second person this morning to react like that to my advances”, I said.
He laughed. “Yeah, Ash has got sense.”
I pouted. “Look, Ji, I really mean this. I have no other options. Well, aside from the other 2 shit ones. If you put me into Sus until the lockdown is over I'll give you the key.”
He stopped complaining for a moment and looked at me. “Seriously? Finally, you'd give it up and let me open your mothers' lockbox?”
“Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Look I can't afford any air until the Terries come and go, and things go back to normal around here. So I need you to stop me needing any.”
Ji thought about it for a couple of seconds. “OK. Deal. We need to move quick though, I need to get back to my hab like 10 minutes ago. You know what to do.”
I did. This was not the first time I had leant on my mothers' old partner to help me temporarily kick my pesky and expensive breathing habit. This would probably be the last though, I mused as I climbed into the Suspended Animation pod. God knows what was in that box, but once he had whatever it was I had a strong feeling I would be very unwelcome around these parts.
The last thing that flitted into my mind as the Pod powered up was that it was a real shame to have to miss the Terries visit. That would really have been something.
