This is today’s effort. I’m introducing another character. Where’s this going?
3.
Cassie had her life sorted. She scavenged. She had everything she needed.
Most folks would find her life strange. Living without a tridee set, comulator, communicator or stim was unimaginable. What would you do all day? Without a servo how would you eat? How could anyone possibly survive?
For Cass it spelt freedom. Unchipped she was untraceable, unaccounted for and free. She had no account to trace, no credits or a dom. Cass lived off the radar. She left no footprints for anyone to follow.
Not being chipped she was free to roam. She could ride the pedways, droptubes and even jumptubes without charge. To the recognition systems she remained undetectable. For her the air was free. The whole system was in her grasp and she’d certainly grasped that opportunity. She’d travelled. She’s journeyed to the very edges, out to the farthest reaches of the rim. She’d seen the most incredible sights and witnessed the most amazing events, as much as any of the hyperspace sailing elite. While the scudcars and hyperspace clippers would not respond to the orders of an unchipped entity there were always ways to simply stowaway. Just a question of being brazen enough. There were no authorities to question her. All systems were fully automated. Unchipped people did not exist.
Besides, Cassie knew no different. Her mother had given birth to her in the ruins of the ancient cities of Terra. She’d been brought up in a small band of Scavvies, carving a living outside of the system, unchipped and feral. They had quite a community among the ruins, tapping into the System for their modest needs. A resourceful group. They made their own entertainment down on level zero. They had their own little family units. Some lived solitary lives. They spread out through the ruins and kept well away from the ‘zombies’ who came to gawk and especially anyone who looked like they might be military or have authority. The ‘Zombs’ or ‘Goons’ always spelt trouble. There were gruesome tales of round-ups and enforced chippings, of groups being forcibly reconditioned and brought back into the system, though nobody seemed to know of anyone it had actually happened to. But why take chances?
Of an evening, when even the artificial ceiling of the stratum above them dimmed, the disparate groups would often coalesce to gather around a fire, to tell exaggerated tales of their exploits, carefully embroidered and full of bravado, danger and daring. They played musical instruments they had made, performed little plays they had concocted, usually at the expense of the goons, or recited poems. They drank beverages they had fermented and danced, danced wildly, cavorting in their elaborate homemade costumes, flowing through the air, piercing the walls with their shouts and laughter. Cassie’s heart would jump in her chest and her feet would fly as if gravity had been temporarily suspended as she allowed herself to join in, to meld with the instruments and lose herself in the notes. Cassie loved these gatherings. They were family. But even so Cassie kept herself apart. After her mother had disappeared she found it hard to trust anything or anybody completely.
The ancient abandoned city was her playground. She’d made her home in a spacious room, an apartment. The family had helped set her up, connecting a lead to the power system so she had light in the periods of darkness, setting up the sanitation and water, running a feed from the food supply. She might not have a fancy servo but she had all her basic needs. Everything else was a bonus. She’d decorated the place with assorted junk, artefacts that she found attractive. This was home; the place she always returned to.
She’d been a young girl of seven when she’d first discovered the reality above her, the hundreds of levels with their pedways and scud cars, the teeming masses, the surface and the sun. The sun. That had been a mind blower.
Tarquin the Grey had taken her by the hand and led the bewildered young girl on her very first droptube ascent, her very first pedway ride, her very first glimpse of ranks of docile people in coloured purpsuits milling like armies of boojies, streaming along the fast-flowing ribbons in the sky. The air full of scuds, the whole stratum full of more people than she could ever have imagined. Then that sun and the open space; a space with no end.
Not terrified. Not afraid. Just excited beyond belief. Her horizons had suddenly exploded beyond all possibility!