Vyyda Book 1: The Haver Problem (7 page)

“A few of us are jumping over to Ell-C.  You should join us.”

              She shook her head.  No point, really.  She’d never enjoy herself.

             
"Come on.  All you’re going to do here is walk in circles. The smell’s still in the air.  Get it out of your nostrils for awhile.” 

             
In a way, Ell-C would be the ideal site for an evening of leisure.  It was the one place half-spetchers could go on Luna and be certain to not encounter a single Earther.

             
Caroline found the place distinctly unpleasant.

             
What had been the first permanent settlement on Earth's moon (before mass migration kicked in) and originally called Lunar City, was now a lingering afterthought, decaying and limp.

             
Ell-C continued to exist on the "modern moon" to attract off-duty, non-Earth Bureau personnel with the promise of cheap drinks, thrills and merchandise (what Earthers joked was "home cooking" for the half-spetchers).

             
Small wonder that the place hadn't been razed and replaced – or even just depopulated and left to rot.  Its fate had been sealed centuries earlier when, instead of expanding its capacity from 12,000, Earth simply constructed a new city, several hundred kilometers away.  Ell-C had languished ever since.

             
The grand total of thirty-six separate cities peppering the Lunar landscape from light end to dark side all had one thing in common:  each had been christened, upon dedication, as the new and exciting thing on the heavenly body closest to Mother Earth.  They grew increasingly sophisticated, these cities.  Better designs, healthier light, more pleasant aromatics and nurturing air.  Eventually, clay and wood and glass and granite were brought in to dress up later settlements, make them feel almost Earth-like.  Almost.

             
Around the time the jewel city of Velsch was built, new communities were increasingly providing homes for a "higher class" of citizen.  Growing mass migration had started to sweep up those who, only a few years before, had been completely safe from removal.  Unlike the earliest men, women and children to be relocated from Earth, those targeted by the time of Velsch's unveiling had the means to resist.  Many could brag connections within the corridors of power.  They simply would not go easily into the night.

             
Assignation to Luna – still close enough to see Earth – was something of a compromise. 
Perhaps being in such close proximity meant they'd be able to return home someday.
  Or so the delusion went.

             
Some of the older cities received clearance to remake themselves as their fortunes fell and they lagged behind newer, shinier metropolises such as Velsch.  Ell-C, however, got no such permission and lost its steam completely within one hundred years of its founding.  The better technology and pleasing aesthetics used on later Lunar settlements were almost never added to Ell-C (and only then as sheer necessities, always as retrofits).  What was the point, after all?

             
Ell-C may just as well have been in U-Space, for all it had to show for itself.

4.

Lockdown

A
party of five (Stovall and Caroline, joined by three agents Stovall had known since Academy days) arrived in Ell-C, emerging from the tunnel that connected the landing bay to the community itself.  Thirty-five meters below Luna's surface at its highest point, Ell-C still used the harsh, outdated lighting it was fitted with during initial construction.  Improvements wouldn't have been all that difficult to install, but again, it was Ell-C.

             
The
fauxgrass
-lined walkway (replete with splitting seams in what purported to be an organic surface) leading out of the tunnel may have been the single best representation of Ell-C's lack of charm, in Caroline's mind.  Was everyone content to pretend that the illusion of life was real enough to pass?  Synthetic, leafy plants, whose colors had faded even further from lush green since Caroline's last visit might as well be pulled up and discarded, she thought.  Empty space would be preferable to the sickly looking decor.

             
The very first structure that the five encountered, poorly patched and listing slightly to one side, hawked trinkets and wall hangings.  A pair of Bureau agents, only vaguely familiar to Caroline, prowled the trinket shop, scrutinizing the wares with indifference, as if it were the least boring option available.

“You know,” Caroline said, bringing up the rear in
the quintet, “maybe we should…” She didn’t bother to finish.  No one was listening.

             
“Arrangers?” Stovall asked brightly over his shoulder.  Caroline held her tongue and no one else disagreed.  It was decided.

             
Arrangers, a drinking and eating spot, had once been devoted to giving the most attractive women of Ell-C a forum in which to appeal to lonely men in other Lunar cities.  A place to strike matrimonial accords.  Earth, however, upon discovering what was going on, shut it down.  All that remained from the ‘matchmaking’ days was the name.

             
Arriving at their destination, the group was stopped at the door by a hulking presence, larger even than Stovall.  He held up one hand, even as he leaned to one side, allowing a local couple entry past Stovall and his companions.

             
"What's the problem?" Stovall asked calmly.

             
"You're all Bureau, aren't you?"  It didn't matter that none of them were in uniform.  HSPBers just had a look to them.

             
"Yeah, but it's not what you think.  We just want a table in the main room."

             
"I got the word:  No more Bureau.  We have the right, you know," the mountain of a man replied.

             
"I've been here before.  No trouble from me.  Ever," Stovall reasoned.

             
"Doesn't matter."

             
Caroline stepped forward from the rear of the group.  "What is it?"

             
She looked past the towering figure, into Arrangers and saw a bloodied and beaten man helped from a back room and down a corridor, out of sight.  Trailing behind was a woman in tears who could have been his wife, sister or some other party interested in the poor bastard.

             
"Bloodbath stakes, is that it?  That's pretty desperate," Caroline said to the enormous, contrarian figure before her.  "Bare fists and carnage.  Can't find any other way to make a living?"

             
"We have the right.  Make our own charter.  Only GLB can overturn it."

             
The man-mountain smiled smugly at Caroline.  She placed a hand on Stovall's shoulder, not necessarily concerned that he was getting riled, but just as a preemptive gesture.  The giant was right.  Ell-C, as with all Lunar cities, was not subject to HSPB interference unless they were involved in activities fundamentally dangerous to Bureau or Earth interests.  The GLB on Earth (Global Legislative Body) was required to act if changes were to be made.  A pounding – even to the death – taken by a handful of Ell-Cers for the entertainment of locals and the basis for gambling didn't raise Earth's pulse one bit.

             
The five walked away.  Stovall shook his head.

             
"I didn't know.  Hadn't heard they'd started bloodbath stakes there."

             
"It's not your fault," Caroline said, leading the way back toward the tunnel separating Ell-C and its landing bay.

             
"There are other spots,” Stovall suggested.  “The TGC Club, Harold Husband's Tabernacle Cottage.  No chance they'll have fights staged."

             
Caroline shook her head.  "I'm sorry.  Just not up to it."

             
Stovall, disappointed, shrugged.  "Maybe I'll stay with the others.  They seemed to want to keep going."

             
"Good.  I'll see you back there."  Caroline offered a smile and a squeeze of Stovall's arm before returning the way they'd come.  As she approached the ugly building where the equally ugly trinkets and wall hangings were sold, Caroline noticed a new arrival on the scene – a woman, middle-aged and hunched.  Set up on the walkway she had positioned a long table supported by makeshift legs, featuring several dozen objects for sale, all identical to one another.

             
The unusual wares caught Caroline’s attention:  circular bronze shields six or seven centimeters in diameter, attached to intricate hammers of the same color and composition.

             
So distracted by the objects was Caroline that she only noticed an approaching trio, arms linked at the elbows, in time to dodge them and come to an abrupt stop.  They were drunk, the obnoxious three, and one of them placed a elbow on Caroline’s back, forcing her hands onto the wobbly table.  A pair of the odd little creations toppled.

             
"Easy there," the woman said with mild irritation, resetting her merchandise.

             
"Sorry."  Just as Caroline was about to continue on, a hand took hold of her shoulder.  She spun, coming face-to-chest with --

             
Stovall.  He had the look of a wounded child, in a way, and offered a slight shrug.

             
"I thought it'd be a nice time out," he said, almost apologetically.

             
Caroline had a skeptical raising of eyebrows in response.  "Not every idea's a good one."  She felt bad immediately.

             
"Buy the lady a gift...all is usually forgiven," the middle-aged, hunched woman piped up, getting only the briefest glance from the pair.

             
"You don't like anything about Ell-C, do you?" Stovall asked, clasping hands behind his back in resignation.

             
"It's taken you this long to figure it out?"

             
"You're both Bureau.  I can tell," the middle-aged woman said, stating the obvious:  if you weren't a local, you had to be a non-Earther agent.  "Take back something that's unique.  The others will be envious."

             
She delivered her best sales-smile, spreading arms across the collection of identical, "unique" items.

             
"What are they?" Caroline asked.

             
"They're gongs, sweetie.  Good old genuine Earth shit.  Truly."

             
As Caroline reached for one and began to ask what 'gong' meant, the entire tabletop exploded with the disruption of a swift kick.

             
The tall, slender man with an imitation tight-collar shirt, cheap pinchback shoes, shiny hair and fury in his eyes held a finger out at the cowering owner of the goods.

             
"I told you – how many times??  How many times I tell you?"

             
The woman took a further step back, sneering at the man and then turned to her merchandise, sprawled across the ground.  Noticeable damage had been done.

             
"You keep people out of
our
place with your junk!" The man yelled.  He'd come from the nearby trinket joint.  A woman, presumably his wife, hung back, standing in the doorway of a side entrance to their establishment.

             
"Break every damn one of them!  Make sure she canna come back!"

             
The man, however angry he may have been, wouldn't get the chance.  Before he could move any closer to the scattered gongs, Caroline drove a foot into his abdomen, doubling him over, eyes bulging.

             
"You people don't have the damn right!" screamed the woman in the doorway of the trinket shop.  She took several steps forward, angry enough to charge, but too frightened to get very close.

             
Stovall froze, watching Caroline to see if she was about to move in for a second shot on her victim.  She didn't.  Instead, she glared at him as he tried to regain his footing.  The woman with the gongs began gathering up as many as seemed to be intact and started to scurry away.

             
"You aren't the law here!" screamed the woman from the trinket shop. 

             
Others were watching now, some getting closer to see what had taken place.  Stovall took hold of Caroline’s arm and spoke softly to her:

             
"Let's go."

             
Caroline allowed Stovall to steer her away, back toward the tunnel that would take them to the shuttle in the landing bay.  She glanced over her shoulder once more.  Content that she hadn't done serious damage to the disagreeable man, she began a full sprint in her departure from Ell-C.