"Thanks." She tosses a half dozen credits
into the Cutter’s scabby hands before sliding out into the tunnels, past
dental and med rooms, through the hidden crack and back to the hall of
the Din.
Before entering the main room, Rayn
sneaks to a back supply shaft. She passes the remaining six credits given
to her by Noma for the tattoo into the hands of a filthy, pungent kid waiting
outside. She nods him off, slips back in, then tenses. She can feel it.
Someone has seen.
Rayn goes back to the main room, hops
on a barstool, leans back, crosses her arms and slowly taps her feet. She
looks around at the cluttered, claustrophobic retreat and its motley assortment
of scraggly patrons.
Here. Tucked in the heart of the Middlelands
as far as possible from the ever-spreading skirmishes. Built with bartered,
bribed, and gently blackmailed supplies and the big heart of big enterprising
Noma. Bar in the center, jerry-rigged entertainments to the sides, dank
smoky air throughout. Neutral ground. Highs on one level, Lows on the other,
Mids all around.
The Din. A place for all, thus not
targeted by any . . . yet. Highland officers in their purple uniforms,
drink and off-duty gender-mix above. Lowland rebels in their green makeshift
uniforms, rest and plan below. For others, civilians, poor, caught-betweens,
there is everything, doctors, dentists, new identities, unaffordables,
desperate necessities, all tucked away in the back rooms. For lost ones,
teens like Rayn and Kindra, there was refuge with cots to sleep on, money
to make, and a break from the life and death battles of the streets.
A hand shakes her out of observation
mode. It’s Noma, the large, florid, copper-haired woman sweating behind
the bar, checking out Rayn’s tattoo.
"Nice. All twelve?"
"Yeah. But no frees this time. On my
bill."
"Okay. Have fun, dearest." She tosses
Rayn a table rag with a loud, brassy laugh. Then the boundary crystal dangling
in Noma’s damp but ample cleavage flashes. She rolls to the aeroport entryway.
~
The iris opens. Two officers,
one too old, one too young, tether into the High entrance, sliding down
from their hovering patrol ships far above.
Rayn watches from behind
the ridges of her eyes as Noma beams them a well-practiced smile. "Welcome
dearies to the Din. Leave your weapons or you can’t come in. Keep to your
authorized level and zone. And everything’ll be fine till you get home.
Kindra!"
Kindra climbs up from the
Lowland level. She glares through her cascading icy-blonde hair at Rayn,
still sizing her up. Arayna, tall, fit, pierced and now tattooed, hair
short on one side, braided in back, but long and concealing over the scar.
Her attire, formed of nothing but leather strips, straps, belts and pouches,
hand-made leather boots and rags, was yet somehow not unattractive. Kindra
wondered where the hell the girl came from anyway with those unnervingly
watchful black eyes and that accent in her few words that could almost
belie a highlevel birth.
Rayn notices Kindra’s look
and glares back just as hard at Kindra’s low-cut clothes and coquettish
motions and accent all too careless to be anything but choreographed.
As Kindra directs the officers
to a table, she brushes by Rayn, "12 credits for that? You, vain? Say it
isn’t so!
While teasing Kindra forgets
and walks through a missile game. One flies at her on its way to the board.
Rayn snatches it mid-air, an inch from Kindra’s eye, throws it back at
the board -- dead center, 60 points -- then answers, "It wasn’t vanity."
"It was a sign… of vulnerability,"
a voice says. "Dangerous in this world. Now it’s gone."
Rayn, surprised, turns to
the old officer who spoke her thoughts. He looks over and through her a
little too well with his single unpatched eye. She leaves.
Kindra looks after her then
tries to shake off the near-miss. "She’s just bitter. Orphanages, war shelters,
streets, street smarts. Guess that’s all our Arayna Zeeyé-whatever
ever knew. Oh well. Now what would you little boys like?"
"Zeeyél? I’d like
to know more about her. For a price of course." The old officer crosses
Kindra’s palm with credits.
Rayn overhears. I wish
it was. If this was all I had ever known then it wouldn’t be so hard. She
didn’t remember much but she knew there was once a time without fear. Her
father’s laugh. The huge jungle-like garden with its own atmosphere and
sky at the center of their expansive circular home. Her mother’s blazing
hair and smile. She shakes it off. Its not like Kindra didn’t drag in
off the streets too, probably lower ones at that.
As the evening passes it
grows clear that there is a new heightened tension under the stale smoky
air. Reports of troop movements and weapons’ fire very nearby. More civilians
sneaking in for injury treatment or counterfeit transport passes. And more
arguments and shouting among the purple officers and green rebels.
Kindra serves a group of
drunken Purples.
"Our world was perfect! Anything
was possible!"
"Anyone could move from the
bottom to the top if they worked hard enough!"
"Now . . . fighting, insurgence.
The nerve! The ingratitude!"
"Most of the transport tubes,
elevators, and half the upper levels structurally unsound. Having to lift
up and tether down. These barbarians are trying to tear down our whole
world!"
"They started it and before
its over, they’ll make us wipe them all out."
"Wipe em out!… Like Lowlevel
21e tonight."
While below, Rayn watches
a striking young Green rebel leader jump on a table, his mug in hand, eyes
blazing,
"For years we worked ourselves
to death! Literally trapped at the bottom of our own world! Trapped by
money and mega-corps too powerful for the pathetic Council and Chairman
Onar to stop or even control. And now they can’t stop us either! If we
have to reach up to the sky and pull them down to us to make them listen
we will!!!… After we move our injured to LoColentry tonight."
~
Rayn and Kindra meet at the
bar after each whispering something to Noma. Noma suddenly reaches for
the arms’ store, pulls out a laser-bow, and points it at a genuinely surprised
Rayn. "Kindra says she saw you dealing out my credits!"
Kindra saw her. Rayn’s face
hardens and she chooses to explain herself only by pulling a small energy
blade from its hiding place under her shirt. She aims it at Kindra.
Kindra pleads, "No, now!
It’s not what you think! I wouldn’t, not after the missile thing. Trust
me!" Then Kindra grabs a weapon. She and Rayn both dive and fire .
. . just missing each other. The bar becomes chaos. Both sides scatter.
But not before Noma is able use the distraction to slip word to the Green
leader to evacuate LoColentry, the locals’ name for LowLevel 21e, without
being noticed. By anyone that is except for one one-eyed Purple officer
still stroking the credits Rayn had been surprised to see Kindra reject.
Noma returns to Rayn. "Sorry
for makin’ all that up and scarin’ you, dearie, but I had to act fast.
I know you don’t care for soldiers, ‘specially Greens. And I usually don’t
pick sides just collect and deal information. But there were injured involved."
She tosses the reward given for her information into the till. "Always
nice to do the right thing, ‘specially for the right price."
Kindra turns to Rayn. "Did
you miss on purpose?"
"I don’t miss."
Kindra whispers, "And how
did you know I didn’t really tell her what I saw by the supply shaft?"
"I . . . "
"Trusted me? Good thing too."
She grins. Rayn, with a trace
of a smile, adds, "Besides. It wasn’t what you think. Trust me."
At the last functioning transport
tube nearby the aromatic boy shares out the credits to two other kids from
Rayn’s last orphanage, not for some illicit purpose but to exchange for
one-way tickets to distant relatives in the outer-levelzones and relative
safety. "At least they have some place to go." Rayn had thought.
"What the hell, now they could."
As the children leave they
pass an incoming troop of Purple officers, weapons raised, headed for the
Din.
NEXT WEEK: EPISODE 3 -- "LA
MUSIQUE DE GUERRE"
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