Ellie Quin Book 2: The World According to Ellie Quin Read online

  The World According to Ellie Quin

  (Book 2 of the Ellie Quin Series)

  By

  Alex Scarrow

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.

  © Alex Scarrow 2012

  Cover Image and Design © Alex Scarrow 2012

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  About the Author

  [An Audio fragment]:

  ‘…Sorry it’s been so long since I last wrote to you Hufty. The first day I arrived here at New Haven I was razzed by some off-worlder. I lost everything except this voice-diary and the ID card I got given when I entered. You know, I was all set to turn around and head back home after that, but I don’t suppose I’d have been able to make it far without a single cred.’

  ‘But then you know what? It’s funny when I think about it, she scared me when I first saw her…this girl picked me up, she saved me, like a knight in shining vinyl. I wish you could meet her, she’s so, I don’t know, so….fearless, so full of self confidence. I know this may sound strange, and really, I barely know her, but I feel safe when she’s around, like nothing can hurt me because she’s there. Stupid isn’t it?’

  [End of Audio fragment]:

  OMNIPEDIA:

  [Human Universe open source digital encyclopaedia]

  Article: ‘The Legend of Ellie Quin’

  The audio fragment above is one which has been fully authenticated by voice-print analysis as a genuine diary recording made by Ellie Quin. It is thought she made this entry not long after entering the city of New Haven. Details of this part of her life are rare and sketchy at best. Eight hundred years later all we have are rumours, fairy-tales, myths peddled by many different interest groups - even religions - hoping to co-opt her story in order to support their belief systems or vested interests.

  A discerning student of the Legend of Ellie Quin, is best advised to treat with a healthy dose of scepticism most if not all of the anecdotal tales from her time living in the city of New Haven. Many of the myths and tales of her time living there are mere flights of fancy [Reference-links:] Ellie Quin: The Queen of Aliens. Ellie Quin: The Third and Final Prophet. Ellie Quin and the Seven Mutants] and have merged into popular culture and mythology. Many of them even appearing in supposedly respected historical d-books, the insta-web, even repositories of open-source knowledge like the Omnipedia. One is best treating all information from this chapter in her life as suspect.

  Who really knows what happened to her in there? All we do know for certain is this; at roughly the same time she left home for New Haven, the Administration became aware of her existence and what she could possibly mean to Human Space.

  She was an experiment; the creation of a geneticist who had recently died. She was an experiment; a quite deadly experiment and the Administration were very, very frightened. Which is why records indicate one of their very best ‘finger men’ was immediately dispatched to the labs of the Department of Genetic Analysis to investigate the case and, if necessary, terminate the experiment.’

  User Comment > Digi-EeZee

  Okay, that’s assumption right there. No one knows that for sure.

  User Comment > QumpFan

  Oh? You an expert on Administration-era history are you?

  User Comment > Zee-Galactik-Razcal

  They sent people to kill her u kno? Thadz wot my brudder sez. Boishee!!!!

  The Admin wuz like the weevil empire or sumfin.

  CHAPTER 1

  The shuttle came to rest in landing bay seven, the one used for routine supply deliveries for the Department’s laboratories - the ‘Meat Library’. It was a discreet arrival, specifically called ahead by the important passenger aboard – the man from the Administration, a man in his late thirties, and arguably at the top of his game.

  Deacon.

  As the clouds of coolant steam thinned and cleared from the pad, the exit ramp dropped lightly onto the deck. He emerged from the shuttle holding a small travel bag in one hand. Deacon liked to travel light; a change or two of clothes, some toiletries, a good antique, paper, book to read and that was all. It kept things simple if he was going to be on the move a lot; and it certainly seemed that was going to be the way things were for him for the foreseeable future.

  He looked around the landing bay. No welcome party of high-ranking Department bureaucrats waiting to greet him. Just as he’d hoped.

  ‘Jolly good,’ he uttered. Discretion was everything.

  He turned around to beckon over the nervous and agitated young man who was hovering just inside the shuttle.

  ‘It’s okay Leonard, it’s quite safe,’ he cajoled gently.

  Leonard took several tentative steps down the ramp to join Deacon.

  ‘Leonard, we need to make a start immediately. We need to go through all of Mason’s files. I want you going through his notes, see if you can find anything that’s going to give us a lead.’

  ‘Y-yes sir.’

  ‘I’ll find the acting department head, and let him know we’re here,’ added Deacon. He stroked the dark bristles of the tightly clipped beard and moustache that ran a thin pencil-line around his mouth. He knew Mason’s deputy, and now acting department head, was a characterless pen-pusher. The man would do anything he could to co-operate after Deacon announced where he had flown in from and the source of his authority.

  He strode stiffly across the deserted landing deck, the forefinger of one hand tucked smartly into his expensively tailored, genuine silk waistcoat, as if in the act of retrieving a fob watch. His dark, three-quarter length evening jacket flapped with each vigorous stride. Lenny followed in his wake, anxiously glancing around the echoing cavernous bay interior.

  *

  Deacon settled into Mason’s chair and spun it immediately around to stare out of the window, down onto the spectacular cerulean world of Pacifica.

  A lovely view.

  He envied the old man that; the view. Deacon’s own world - Liberty, the seat of government - was predominantly urban. It was the base world for the Colonial Administration’s various departments and the extensive administrative core. A densely populated world with only tiny areas of wilderness left untouched and preserved in roofed-over terrariums, for those willing to pay enough to enjoy the sensation of grass beneath their toes; the hiss of leaves stirring on branches. Beyond those exclusive biomes of nature, it was a noisy bustling world of plastex and carbocrete.

  Certainly no wilderness, no empty spaces, no babbling brook beside which a man might order his thoughts. Not on Liberty.

  He smiled as he savoured the beautiful view. By contrast, Pacifica was refreshingly empty, a world of flat horizons and a sky almost free of the orbital clutter of mankind. Only the more observant of the few hundred thousand inhabitants down there, living on small man-made floating villages, might notice the three larger stars in their night sky, moving slowly to keep a geo-stationary orbit - the laboratory, and her two, ever-present, military escort ships.

  When this was all over, and that might take some time he suspected, Deacon promised himself he would take
a sabbatical for a few years and enjoy some solitude down there on that peaceful water-world. He was long overdue time away from the constant gibbering white noise of people. Deacon needed that, every so often, a little time away from the herd.

  He turned round to face Mason’s desk. Deacon respected the old man’s taste for early twentieth century furniture. The hue of the faux-wood in the natural light reflected from Pacifica was rich and auburn. In another time, under different circumstances, he could imagine Dr Mason and himself as fellow enthusiasts, fellow collectors, perhaps even being friends, sharing as they did a very uncommon and very unfashionable admiration for Old Earth antiques.

  Deacon cringed with revulsion at what the great unwashed masses of humankind considered good taste these days; baggy, formless, untailored, neon coloured clothes, ultra-minimal silver and chrome finished furniture, glistening, plastic, chunky gold-painted jewellery. The vulgarity of people’s taste turned his stomach. Since being a boy he had preferred the muted dignity of dark and rich deep colours; burgundy, navy blue, jade green, and had a taste for the elegant contours of early twentieth century couture. His suit, a rendition of Edwardian English style, hugged his lean, well toned body tightly. He had no need for bulging thigh pockets, puffy airbag jackets or oversized and sagging pants to hide the sagging cellulite amassed from too many junk food meals.

  But then, all of that might change if Mason’s creature destroyed the universe.

  Deacon was almost tempted to let Mason’s plan run its course. Perhaps the universe might be a better place without human trailer trash littering it with their habi-cubes, food wrappers and awful pounding music.

  But it would also lead to unfathomable chaos, the end of the Administration and order - a return to darker days. Mason’s child, his creature, his genetic abomination had to be found at any cost. His briefing back on Liberty, directly face to face with no less than three of the ruling committee, had been unequivocal;

  You have the highest authority in this matter. The child must be found and destroyed.

  Deacon knew they had to act swiftly. And he suspected that somewhere in this study or in Mason’s personal data space would lie a clue that would lead them directly to this child.

  And Lenny, his assistant, would surely find it.

  He looked up at the young lad, standing quietly beyond the desk and staring wide-eyed out of the window at the blue world outside.

  ‘Come, sit down here Lenny,’ Deacon said, standing up and offering him Mason’s chair. Lenny shuffled awkwardly around and settled into the chair, as Deacon swiped a hand over the desk lens and the holo-screen flickered on in front of them.

  ‘Dr Mason was a genius Lenny, but also quite a bit careless. His thoughts, his conclusions and his plan are all in here, spelled out in great detail. But the one thing I’m certain he would have been so careful never to enter as digital data, was the code number or location of this child. We need to know where it is, Lenny.’

  ‘Yes Sir.’

  ‘Do what you do best, lad. Help me find it.’

  Lenny smiled. Nothing satisfied him more than to be able to please his mentor.

  CHAPTER 2

  ‘New Haven can be quite a scary place if you don’t know it too well. The first day I arrived, even before I was razzed, I’ll be honest, I was petrified by it. And if I’m really honest with myself now, even if I hadn’t lost everything on that first day, I wonder whether I would have lasted even a week in this place if it hadn’t been for her.’

  Ellie snapped off the voice diary, suddenly aware that she was thirsty. She sat up in bed, nearly hitting her head on the storage unit above it. She looked around her bedpod with some degree of satisfaction. Okay, so it was small, in fact it was a quarter of the size of the habi-cube she slept in back…home. Ellie realised the word ‘home’ had come with the slightest hesitation. The farm, Mum, Dad, Ted and Shona, that would always be ‘home’, but after only these three weeks, the small contained flat she shared with Jez was beginning to feel like a home too. The walls of her cube were plain white, unadorned with decoration or colour, unlike Jez’s, which were adorned with pictures of semi-naked men and some women…and some halfway in between; most of them genetically enhanced to feature bulging pants and/or improbably large breasts.

  She stood up in the two-foot margin alongside her cushi-bunk. That was it for floor space in her bedpod; two feet by five. She pulled some clothes out of the storage unit above her bunk to throw over her underwear. Jez of course, was quite happy parading around unashamedly in their small habi-flat wearing a thong and a ‘top’ that was not much more than a nipple-covering elastex band. Of course, Jez knew she had a body with remarkably attractive athletic contours and had the irritating habit of loitering in front of anything that vaguely reflected her Amazonian gorgeousness back at her. Ellie on the other hand looked down at her whippet-thin body and catalogued her small list of woes; knobbly knees, drainpipe-hips, mouse-breasts and the still visible, but fading rash from those tubweed stings on her forearms. She pulled nylo leggings over her feet and up her narrow hips and threw on the other things that were tangled in the pile of clothes. She looked in a small mirror. Her face was still blotched with the makeup they’d been playing around with last night.

  Good enough.

  She picked up the voice diary and squeezed past the bunk to leave her pod.

  ‘The habi-flat we’re sharing is kinda tight. I mean re-e-eally tight. One bedpod for her, one for me, there’s a washroom the size of a coffin and a shared area where we kind of do everything else,’ she muttered quietly into the diary as she entered the main space.

  ‘Jez’s asleep right now I think. She had a heavy session last night. She brought a man back and drank quite a few Spartans. I think she kicked him out sometime during the night.’

  Ellie suspected Jez wasn’t the easiest person to share a bed with while suffering a hangover.

  Ellie wandered across the small communal space; not much ‘wandering’ going on though; five steps and you were across it. On one wall was the suggestion of a ‘kitchen’; little more than a fridge, a FoodSmart and a small tap and basin. In the middle of the room was a single gel-couch facing a small, second hand holovee projector.

  ‘We’ve got a skanky old toob we bought for only a few creds. Would you believe it, Hufty…I’ve actually taken to watching the sopa-drams? That is when I’m not working, or she hasn’t dragged me out to yet another crazy go-juice joint.’

  Mum watched them, Shona too. That used to really bug the Hell out of Ellie, the pair of them watching all that ditto-head crap. Always the same stock characters, always facing the same emotional dilemmas, or fighting or carrying on some ridiculous feud with some other character that goes on and on from episode to episode.

  ‘Jez really loves ‘em. She forced me to sit down with her and watch an episode of one of them from beginning to end. What was it called…? Oh yeah Shuttle Stop 12.’ It was a sopa-dram set in one of the type of shuttle-stopovers dotted around Harpers Reach; the usual collection of stereotypes playing the pilot, the engineer, the canteen cook, the storekeeper and the other regular characters. And then there were the passengers that passed through, the grumpy ones, the mysterious ones, the romantic ones; life’s rich cast of soap opera clichés

  Ellie opened the fridge and pulled out a box of Solar Nuggatz and poured herself a bowl. This particular box had contained a ‘Plaz’ - the red Plasma Ranger, it stood on top of the FoodSmart.

  ‘I guess I’ve got her to thank for that, now I’m hooked into watching that stupid Shuttle show whenever it’s on.’

  She poured some soyo-milk over the cereal and instinctively switched on the toob before flopping down onto the gel-couch to eat her breakfast. It was early yet and the only programs on were newsie shows and Quizzers. She shuffled through a dozen stations before giving up, muting the toob and speaking into her diary once more.

  ‘I’ve got a job. I started it last week. Okay. It’s not the greatest job in the world, but it�
�s enough creds that I can pay my share on the habi’, and have enough over. I’m cooking in a Slap’n’Grill over in the Industrial Sector. It’s thirty minutes across the city in a skyhound which isn’t too bad, I guess. But, Hufty, the food I have to cook up is just totally gaggo. There’s a lot of off-world types working in the Industrial Sector, so this place does native food for them…and boishee…’ she curled her lips, ‘some of it is pretty gross.’

  ‘Well Hufty, I gotta go. It’s a work-day today and I need to be dressed and on my way pretty soon. I guess you can see that things are working out pretty good, and they’ll get better. I promise I won’t leave it so long next time.’

  She snapped off the diary once more and finished off her breakfast, slurping the last of the soyo-milk from the bowl.

  CHAPTER 3

  She exited through the double perspex doors of the tower onto the upper-level pedestrian walkway linking their scruffy, billboard-encrusted tower with a neighbouring one and waited in the bubble-stop half way along for the skyhound. This morning she was up and out three quarters of an hour earlier than usual for a work-day. It was dawn-minus-one, six o’clock in quaint Old Earth dialect – the way Dad would say it. She was anxious to make sure she managed to keep the rendezvous she’d arranged three weeks ago with Aaron Goodman.

  Through the semi-opaque plexitex sky overhead, she could just make out the peach colour of the predawn sky replacing the purple of night. The city was quiet at this hour. The incessant rumble of sky-car traffic, the bass throbbing of music from some street levels below, the irritating repetition of slogans and catchphrases from the larger advertising screens and the floating billboards, the half-hourly rooftop call-to-prayer of Chrislamists; all of that was absent at this peaceful hour.

  She sheltered inside the bubble stop from the gusting, cool winds that blew around the tops of the towers. The people who lived up here at the top called it the ‘hurling’. It was New Haven’s own, unintended, weather system; convection currents of the warm air from street level gusting up and displacing the cooler air at the top.