Ellie Quin Book 3: Beneath the Neon Sky Read online

  Nervous flyer. That was definitely an expression of anxiety on his little face.

  It was an often stated claim made by all gene-imp producers universe-wide that these creatures were genetically designed to lack the capacity to feel any emotion whatsoever. It was that specific assertion that ensured no-one need feel guilty about how they treated these poor things. Looking at the subtle ticks and movements on Harvey’s face right now, Ellie wasn’t entirely convinced they understood their genetic products.

  ‘It’s okay Harvey, we’re perfectly safe.’

  Jez sighed and shook her head. ‘Ellie, you’re such a butterhead.’

  ‘He’s scared.’

  ‘He’s a machine….that’s all. He’s a meat power tool, that’s it. Aaaggghh - look, you’ve got me calling it him now.’

  Ellie smiled, she nudged Harvey gently. ‘See, you’re slowly winning her round.’

  They arrived at the port exit in the Industrial Sector as it approached midnight. The usually crowded immigration hall was deserted and passing through, flashing their ID cards and their landing-pad passes, they arrived via the service tunnel at their submerged black pad hanger half an hour later.

  Aaron was sound asleep in his bunk as they tiptoed inside the cabin and both squeezed awkwardly into the lower bunk together, Harvey curling up on the floor beside it.

  *

  The next morning, over breakfast, they sat on the floor of the cargo hold, which was now, encouragingly, looking a lot less like the inside of a large rusting skip.

  ‘The fitters are coming in today to put in the viewing ports,’ announced Aaron as he slurped a scalding mouthful of stewed coffee. He pointed to each of the long walls of the cargo hold. ‘There and there, they’ll cut out a panel about eight feet long and four feet high, and then install reinforced, double-paneled, plexitex viewing blisters.’

  ‘Oh good,’ said Ellie, ‘because it feels like a psycho-cube right now.’

  ‘It actually looks a lot better than I thought it would, now you’ve painted it, Ellie,’ said Jez, looking around.

  ‘Yeah,’ nodded Aaron. ‘Although you missed a bit over there,’ he said pointing towards the roof.

  Ellie sighed an oh-ha-ha sigh.

  ‘Tomorrow, I’ve got some ship-fitters coming in to install a toilet pod and then, they’re also running a power feed through from the front cabin to here somewhere so we can power the FoodSmart and heating, O2 system and other bits and pieces. Any ideas where we would want to put those things?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that.’ Jez got up and walked across the hold towards one of the long walls. ‘One of the viewing windows here, right?’

  Aaron nodded.

  ‘I think if we place the FoodSmart here, beneath the window, along with the water dispenser and coffee-maker, so this little area becomes sort of like the galley. And then over towards the back, there…’ she pointed towards the rear of the hold, where the large exit door was open and ramped down to the pad outside, ‘we could put the toilet pod.’

  Aaron nodded casually, ‘okay, that seems sensible enough.’

  ‘The passenger seats could be arranged in a rinky dinky semi-circle facing the other viewing window, and maybe we can install the toob in the middle of the seats. What do you think?’

  Aaron shrugged, ‘I guess, if you think that’ll look nice.’

  ‘Trust me, I know all about look-nice,’ smiled Jez.

  Ellie smiled. Jez, the frustrated interior designer.

  Aaron got to his feet and walked across to where Jez had indicated where the FoodSmart would go, and studied the route the power cable feed would have to take, plus the feed-offs for the other powered utilities. Ellie watched as both of them discussed the best way to route the feed, and smiled with a belated sense of satisfaction.

  She had wondered whether this odd little team of theirs would work out. She had considered Jez and Aaron to be opposites in many ways. Jez was loud, brash, extroverted, impulsive and impractical, and he in turn was laid back, quiet, sensible and very practical. Ellie had expected them to dislike each other on sight. Chalk and cheese. Maybe they had at first, but there seemed, despite a cautious wariness of each other, a growing mutual respect. She had expected friction, sparks even, but so far, thank crud, there had been none. Even the issue of Jez’s small clothes mountain had been resolved painlessly. Instead of Aaron going ape when he’d seen what she had brought into the cabin from their recently abandoned cube, as she had thought he might, Aaron had simply found a storage locker in the cargo hold and had told her she could toss her things into that.

  Ellie watched them as they walked along the metal wall, discussing, gesturing. It felt strangely like some new unorthodox family had been magically squeezed and shaped like clay, from the solitary forms of three lonely people. Jez and Aaron though, were more like an older brother and sister, than a mum and dad. It was an odd and comforting sensation that she savored as it pleasantly passed over her.

  She lay down on the floor, propping up her head with one skinny hand as she finished off her bowl of Solar Nuggatz, Harvey sitting cross-legged beside her and chewing on his bowl of dry, brown protein pellets.

  What a peculiar family we make, she thought.

  CHAPTER 3

  ‘So, for only four hundred creds you’re getting a once in a lifetime trip up to the last arctic wilderness of this world. In ten, twenty years it’ll all be gone.’

  The couple stared at her in disbelief. ‘We really have snow on Harpers Reach?’

  ‘Oh yes! Thousands of square miles of beautiful virgin snow, untouched, unseen by any other humans.’

  ‘I can’t believe it. I thought it was all just orange mud and rock out there,’ said the woman.

  Jez spread her palms with shared disbelief, ‘I know! It’s amazing, isn’t it? And this is your one chance to see it. We’ll set down on the snow, and provided the O2 conditions are right, we can camp out overnight on it.’

  ‘That sounds really rather primo. Wonderful. Four hundred creds you say?’

  ‘Yes that’s right, four hundred per person. That buys you four nights aboard the Lisa, a comfortable, spacious, pleasure cruiser with all the facilities you’d expect.’

  ‘You have holovideo entertainment aboard?’

  Jez smiled, ‘of course we do…with all the usual channels.’

  The man turned to his wife. ‘Well?’

  ‘Oh lumpkin, let’s do it! It won’t be around forever,’ she turned to Jez, ‘will it?’

  Jez shook her head sadly. ‘No ma’am. Before you know it, it’ll all be gone forever. And this may be your only chance to see it for yourselves. There is no other shuttle service like this on Harpers Reach.’

  Jez leant toward the woman, and looked cautiously around before adding quietly, ‘and best to book now and enjoy it, before the unwashed plebs below catch on and ruin it,’ she said nodding towards the plaza’s balcony, and the city below. ‘If you get my drift. Get it while it’s exclusive.’

  The woman nodded, ‘I know what you mean,’ she replied with a hint of distaste in her voice.

  ‘Okay, so do we book a trip through you?’ asked the man.

  ‘Yes indeed. We can swipe your cred-card right now and I can then book you onto our next flight, which is scheduled to leave in five days’ time.’

  ‘Five days? Hmm that’s a little short notice. When’s your next trip after that?’

  Jez pulled out a tablet and carefully scrutinized the complicated spreadsheet of data that scrolled down the glowing screen. She sucked in breath sharply and clucked uncertainly.

  ‘Well now, hmmm. We’re down to the last two seats for this next trip. That was full but we had a late cancellation, and then sadly, the trip after that is already fully booked-up.’

  ‘Oh, well what about the trip after that then?’

  Jez shook her head sympathetically, ‘booked up as well, I’m afraid. Can I give you some honest advice?’

  The couple both nodded eagerly.

/>   ‘I’d take these last two spots for the next trip. I know it’s short notice for you, but the way things are going, it could be weeks, even months before we might be able to get you up there onto that lovely snow. And you’d want to be one of the first to visit it, right?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said the woman. She looked at her husband. ‘Lumpkin?’

  ‘Okay, okay…let’s have those last two seats. You will be able to get us on won’t you?’

  Jez nodded, ‘yes, let’s not waste any time though. One of the other girls on our sales team might book that slot if we’re not quick enough.’

  The man’s eyes widened with a growing sense of panic. He hastily fumbled for his cred-card, pulled it out of his jacket and thrust it urgently at Jez.

  Jez smiled, took it and deftly swiped it across the optical reader at the top of her tablet. ‘And there’s another fifty creds booking fee per person on top of that,’ she added with a look of concern, ‘regretful the cost of red tape in this damned city, isn’t it?’

  Neither the man nor his wife seemed to care too much about that as she totaled up the credit charge and processed it electronically.

  ‘Well? Did we get those last two places?’ the woman asked anxiously.

  Jez looked down at the display, pleased that the very first two ticket sales she had just made on behalf of Goodman Tours had been such a cinch.

  She offered them a sigh of relief, ‘yes, it looks like you got there just in time. Lucky you!’

  She handed them a printed slip. ‘Here’s your boarding details, and the time of departure. You’ll need to arrive at least an hour before our departure time to be processed by the port authorities.’

  ‘Oh lovely!’ the woman replied.

  ‘You two are going to have the trip of a lifetime,’ said Jez beaming at them, her voice rich with warmth and sincerity, as if they had been friends for a lifetime. ‘Just don’t forget to bring some thick and cozy clothes.’

  She bid farewell to both of them, and watched them walk away across Devinia Plaza towards a row of off-world jewelry shops.

  Like taking candy from a baba.

  She grinned.

  Oh this is going to be so-o-o-o easy.

  CHAPTER 4

  The old man watched from afar. Watched Ellie Quin eating heartily, smiling, laughing, in good spirits.

  Good.

  He wondered if she had the slightest inkling yet; if her mind was telling her at a subliminal level, that there was something inside her, something so very important, something that would irrevocably change all of humankind.

  Behind those delicate features, he wondered what this creation of his was really thinking about as she smiled and appeared to listen to the banter of her two friends. He studied the girl as her attention momentarily wandered and she casually cast a glance upwards to the sky. She was watching a stream of cargo tugs servicing a distant freighter hanging in low orbit.

  Edward Mason smiled.

  Yes, that’s my little girl. Following her programming - dreaming of escape.

  He knew that was what she must be thinking about. He knew that because he alone had engineered her very psyche; he had engineered that powerful nomadic desire into the very core of her personality. She was built to be that way. And for a moment, for a fleeting moment, he felt a shred of pity for his creation. For however long she lived, and it wouldn’t be for too long, she would probably never know true contentment, she would never feel at peace with her environment, she would always be pushed by that basic, artificially enhanced urge to press on to pastures new.

  You were designed that way, my dear. To want – to need - to travel. To spread your wings. No different really to the homing instinct of a pigeon. Or the up-stream desire of an Old Earth salmon to return to its breeding grounds. Programmed instinct.

  He noted her attention returned to the animated conversation going on around her. Ellie’s female friend looked to be a few years older, and the man, at least another ten years older. They seemed very close; a strong bond between the three of them.

  Very interesting. She has managed to make friends.

  Which was indeed curious. Mason had designed her to be introverted, shy, secretive; to find establishing relationships difficult. That was an important characteristic that had been built into her personality so that she would instinctively seek anonymity, obscurity - so that she would habitually avoid drawing attention to herself. That she would never have her instinct to travel compromised by a friendship; torn between moving on and leaving behind someone she’d grown attached to. He had assumed that, when he finally caught up with her, he would find her utterly alone, without any friends at all. But it seemed that, to some extent, her personality had reached a little beyond its programming. Very interesting. An example of nurture over-riding nature perhaps?

  Perhaps her parents had managed to teach her how to reach out and find friends. It was so fascinating. He smiled as he acknowledged that there was no way for sure that one can totally predict how a human life can develop. Despite her DNA virtually being authored from scratch, designed in a petri-dish, it appeared as if the environment of her childhood had found a way to change her, just a little.

  What a fascinating creature you are, Ellie Quin.

  He wondered, though, whether these two friends of hers would present a problem. It was hard to tell just yet. They could be a help or prove to be a hindrance. The time was coming when Ellie would need to be guided off this world and out into the universe to do what she was designed to do. There was always the remote possibility that the Administration had caught wind of this, and that even now, their agents might be en route to Harpers Reach or, worse still, be here on the planet already and beginning to close in on her.

  He had been thorough in ensuring that nothing had been left behind him when he had faked his death in the upper stratosphere of Pacifica, and then disappeared. The extensive notes he had made on her in his personal journal had disappeared with him. All that had remained were his digital notes, locked away in that non-descript directory, and even then, he had been careful never - never - to reveal the name or whereabouts of his precious child.

  He was certain the Administration had no conceivable idea of the fate that awaited them.

  After so many years of patience, decades of patience, things were finally beginning to happen. The end of it all was in sight, and he was here to ensure that his little girl spread her wings and flew away with the minimum of fuss.

  With, or without, her friends.

  CHAPTER 5

  Ellie awoke with a start. The soft chiming of the alarm beside her pillow had featured somehow in her dream. She vaguely recalled being chased by someone or something; fighting desperately to stay ahead of some closing threat behind her, clambering over rocks and rubble and all manner of unlikely obstacles to keep in front of it. The beep had been some sort of proximity warning coming from a device on her belt, urging her to go faster as it grew louder and more insistent.

  ‘Go for it, girl,’ Jez mumbled sleepily as she turned over in the cot above, and quickly fell asleep again.

  Ellie rolled out of her bunk, pulled herself across the grilled walkway and leant against the sink on the opposite bulkhead. She splashed some cool water across her face.

  It did the job. It woke her up.

  She sprayed a cloud of ActiBacto under her arms, up her nightshirt to kill the sweaty-socks smell of the cabin that clung to her.

  She looked up towards the front of the cockpit to see Aaron dozing in the pilot’s seat, his large legs pulled up onto the arm of his seat, and his cap tugged down over his eyes. Through the windshield, looking forward, she could see the first light of day staining the purple sky with a hint of peach, and the drab ground below raced beneath them still bathed in the violet-blue shadows of night.

  Their passengers would be waking up soon and it was Ellie’s job to play the stewardess. Yesterday had been the first day of the four day trip. They had set off at midday to allow their ten paying guests
the best light with which to see the spectacle of the port and the exterior of the dome of New Haven and, of course, the encrusted shantytown along the base of it. Ellie had joined them by the recently installed viewing windows in the hold and ooohed and aahed along with the rest of them. Second time around, it had been just as breathtaking to behold the sheer, awesome scale of the dome.

  One of the older ladies confessed it had been several decades since she had last seen anything outside of the city. Ellie wondered how a person could endure living so long in one contained environment without at least stepping outside once in a while. Several uninterrupted decades trapped inside New Haven? She’d go mad.

  Ellie had studied the ten passengers they had aboard as they gazed out of the window, watching the city begin to shrink as Aaron eased the shuttle away, heading northwards. There were three older couples, varying in ages from, she guessed, mid-forties to mid-fifties. Ellie had struggled to engage them in a little small talk, something that didn’t come that easy to her, unlike Jez who could effortlessly exchange banalities with anyone, and somehow enjoy it too. Two of these couples had taken on the trip as an anniversary present to each other. For the third couple, the trip was a birthday present from the husband to his wife.

  Then there were two brothers, both in their early thirties by the look of them. She had found out that they owned a holo-board advertising business between them. The older of the two, Sam, had proudly told her that thirty-six percent of the floating holographic billboards that floated around the city were theirs. It was a booming business he had assured her, and they were one of the biggest players in New Haven. In fact, Jez had actually been in the process of renting some billboard advertising time from them when she’d decided that Sam and his brother, Ryan, could do with a couple of tickets and a well-earned break from making lots of money.

  Ellie shook her head and chuckled. She never misses a trick.

  The other two passengers were each on their own. One was a young woman, Corin, perhaps a little older than Jez. Jez had referred to her as an Airbag. Ellie knew the stereotype well; young woman married to a richer older man, her own air car…usually one of the bigger, chunkier, utility models. Her type lived their lives entirely above the twenty-four storey mark, flitting from one tower-top boutique to the next. Corin was already flirting quite shamelessly with the two bill-board brothers, presumably enjoying the freedom of being off the leash and away from her sugar-daddy.