The boy took off his new faux leather jacket and laid it, along with Tayus's welder's goggles, on the chair in front of the computer desk. He warmed up a ready meal in the microwave, and as the last few seconds ticked down on the display, he passed the time by reading the labels on the cans scattered around. They were from different brands, but all had the same fine print:
Authorized by SnackBite Inc.
He weighed the can thoughtfully in his hand, then put it back on the shelf, walked over to the fridge, opened the freezer compartment, grabbed a packaged chicken leg, and studied the label.
Produced in Adenaaru, Vega Prime. Distributed by SnackBite Inc.
The microwave beeped.
Lex put the synthetic meat back, closed the freezer and grabbed the steaming plate from the microwave. He stepped out onto the terrace of his apartment and sat down in a lounge chair. The night air was cool, and the mist from the streets drifted up in swirling clouds. He brought the spoon to his mouth but paused, wondering how SnackBite Inc. had gained so much power and how many other companies the corporation had devoured to get there.
The terrace lights illuminated the hedges and palm trees along the railing. Lex switched off his PDA and glanced up at the night sky. Kronos and Chiron cast their glow on the surrounding skyscrapers. The gas giant and its sprawling rings covered nearly a third of the sky. The night was quiet; for a city as vast as Vega Prime, the silence up here felt strange. He took in the mist and the distant street noises of LowerCity for a while. Then, he switched on the hologram and searched the infonet for his nemesis, the Thandros Corporation. He wanted to know what crimes they were being criticized for. But when he pulled up the results, all he found were good things.
The company stood for freedom and progress, or so it claimed. Thanks to them, society was able to function without government control. They were the strongest military force in the war against terrorism—just like the bartender had said. Without them, humanity would never have made it to Cetos V, as it was Thandros that had provided the fusion engine technology when the human race was still building the generation ship Union in Old Earth's orbit.
Lex couldn’t help but think of his own experiences with the megacorporation and Earl Tardino’s words aboard the ST SAMSON, when he’d said that the TC also controlled the media and the infonet. The boy switched off the hologram with a click and stared at the night sky, lit not by stars but by countless colorful city lights. The whole topic of corporations felt too overwhelming. Everything here, in this world, was so much more complex and twisted than it had been on Limbo.
After a while, he stood up and slowly walked to the railing. The night wind tousled his hair as he stood there, placing his hands on the rail. He looked out into the distance, at the strange, bustling world where his future lay. But something inside him whispered that this future he believed in wasn’t possible without the girl.
******
On his fifth day in Vega Prime, he began his search for work. Using the apartment computer, he looked up job listings that matched his skills. He only found jobs as a factory or warehouse worker—positions that required no qualifications at all. He researched how to write job applications and drafted one for the role of a starship technician. He listed his work experience on Limbo in full detail, but left out his time in exile and the unnecessary details like the miserable living conditions, torture and slavery. Instead, he highlighted how, during his two-week journey aboard the ST SAMSON, he had often shadowed the Chief Engineer and gained some valuable experience. Once the application was complete, he sent it off to the contact address for the Starship Technology Corporation.
Later that afternoon, he made his way to the Keldaraan District, a massive industrial complex in the northern part of the city. It was filled with production plants, factories, power stations and worker camps. The steep cliffs were lined with oil refineries and desalination plants that pumped seawater into the facilities. Countless factory chimneys loomed over the district, belching clouds of smoke into the air. Keldaraan was always blanketed by a dark cloud of pollutants, casting the area in a gloomy, ochre-colored light. The boy could only guess where the sun was behind the black smog, much like it had been on Limbo.
"Where there's light, there's also shadow. And this is literally the shadow side of Vega Prime," said a tall, thin worker with messy, pitch-black hair. He had gotten off the shuttle with Lex, now standing beside him, also taking in the steel landscape and foul-smelling air.
Lex didn’t respond, just watched as the young slender man walked away, then turned his gaze back to Keldaraan. Far in the distance, the smog cleared, and sunlight sparkled on the ocean. With a heavy sigh, he turned his back on the sea and joined the other workers as they boarded the large lift, descending into the district.
An hour and a half later, he signed a three-month contract as a production assistant in a glider factory. The department head seemed impressed by his skills, though Lex wasn’t sure if the man had even read his application since he didn’t mention anything from it—not even that Lex had come from one of the prison moons. Lex was assigned to supply the production lines. His first shift would be unpaid; after that, he’d be working thirteen hours a day on the assembly line, six days a week, for five credits an hour—before taxes. Pay would come every two weeks.
******
He’d barely slept the previous night. Keldaraan was several hours away from his apartment. Exhausted, he stood at the assembly line, lifting ion batteries for the electric gliders off the conveyor belt with another temp worker, bagging them in plastic and stacking them. That was his only task, with just one break, during which he ate a meager meal in the cafeteria and checked his PDA.
There was a new message in his inbox.
He had hoped the message was from the girl, but it was from the HR department at Starship Technology. An employee had replied, saying that the next application period wouldn't start until the following spring, and he wasn’t even sure if someone from the prison moons would qualify for the entrance exam. Whether he wanted to check on that or if Lex was already out of the running wasn't mentioned.
He eventually made it back to his apartment in the middle of the night, kicked off his boots, and collapsed onto the bed with an almost empty stomach. As he set the alarm on his PDA, a reminder popped up on the display for a new level-up. He’d almost forgotten about the leveling system Major Franley had mentioned. He tapped on it, and the hologram of his character profile appeared. He was now a Level 3 Citizen of Vega Prime, and he scrolled through the achievements he had unlocked so far:
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Shop Til You Drop: For buying new clothes
Eco Hero: For picking up trash that wasn’t yours
Cog in the Machine: Complete a 14-hour factory shift
...
He didn’t bother reading the rest of the achievements. Instead, he switched off the hologram and stretched out on the bed. He wondered how much XP he had earned as a "good citizen" for delivering the Black Orb to TC and abandoning his only friend left on the moon, along with the rest of his people. He might only be Level 3, but that had definitely been high-end content.
The news was playing on the 65-inch screen above him. He’d tried changing the channel the day before, but there was no button on the remote to switch it—or even turn it off—so he muted it and let the images of violence and terror, supposedly caused by Crimson Dawn, flicker across the screen. His eyes grew heavy, and he passed out from exhaustion.
******
By the second week, he had to move. The rent for the luxurious apartment was 2850 credits every two weeks. That was what he’d make in three months. He moved to Keldaraan, straight into the worker camp and took up a small room with a shared kitchen and bathroom on a different floor. His alarm rang at 4 AM. He still had on the stinking clothes from the day before, drank a workers' coke to wake himself up, and fifteen minutes later, he was heading out to work. He tried to hide the back pain from carrying heavy glider batteries from the other production workers.
During lunch break, he sat with a few guys from his shift in the break room. He was peeling the wrapper off a protein bar, staring blankly at the video screen on the wall.
"So, how’s it treating you here?" A tall guy swung his long legs over the aluminum bench and sat down at the table with his tray.
"Still better than Limbo," Lex said.
The guy with the jet-black hair weighed his response with a hand gesture. "You’re probably right," he said. "But there’s always somewhere worse. That doesn’t make this place any easier to stand."
"True." Lex chewed while glancing at the slim figure beside him. "So why are you the only one wearing a black jumpsuit?"
The young man, who had only the initials C. R. on his name badge, poked at his food. "’Cause I’m an electrician," he replied.
Lex looked at him, stuffing the last piece of the protein bar into his mouth.
"You can’t be the only electrician in the factory."
"Maybe I am, grunt."
Lex crumpled the wrapper in his hand, laid it on the table and watched the news playing on the big screen at the far end of the cafeteria. The pretty news reporter from First News was the same woman he had seen back on Limbo, Ginger North. On TV, she was reporting on the Crimson Dawn and the attack on the ST SAMSON earlier this month.
"Do you even know what you look like?"
The boy half-turned toward the electrician, studying him and wondering if his question had anything to do with the news. Could that interview, the one Ginger North had done with him in Bancarduu about the conditions on the prison moon, have aired here in Vega Prime? Was that why his shift partner recognized him?
"And how do I look?"
"Like you could use a little Vanta-B."
Lex paused, confused. "Vanta-B?"
"Yeah, Vanta-B, dreamer. A Void-Amplified Neuro-Treatment Amnesiac."
"And what does the B stand for?"
"Biochemical."
"Biochemical?"
"Or maybe Beta. Or Batch B. I don’t know, dreamer."
"And what does it do?"
"It makes you forget all this crap," the electrician whispered.
Lex watched as he unzipped his dark jumpsuit a little and reached into the inside pocket. A moment later, he set a small, golden capsule on the table in front of the boy, rolling it in a half-circle until it stopped against the crumpled wrapper. Lex rested his hands on his thighs, making no move to pick up the little pill. He stared at it for a while before looking back at the electrician.
"What’s this?" he asked.
"That’s Vanta-B," he replied. "And if you don’t want us both hanging from a noose soon, you’d better pocket that capsule right now."
Lex hesitated, then grabbed the tiny thing and slipped it into the chest pocket of his jumpsuit. His heart pounded in his chest. He glanced at the large video screen, but suddenly, what was happening there seemed far less important than what was going on right here, right now.
CR grinned darkly. There was something mysterious about the young electrician. Lex had never seen hair as thick and messy as his. Jet-black strands fell over his face, casting shadows across his eyes. CR was almost as pale and skinny as Lex. He had high cheekbones, a noticeable scar on his mouth, and a strong jawline with well-defined muscles and a firm chin.
"What would you say if I offered you a life that was nothing but fun and free time?" CR asked.
Lex thought about it. "I’d ask about the price first."
"Smart kid. The first time’s free, as you just saw." CR left his half-eaten meal on the table, stood up and stepped over the long bench. He patted the boy’s chest pocket, where the capsule—Vanta-B—was hidden.
"That’s all that’s left of him. His legacy, his gift to the poor. How do you think we’d survive even a single day in the factory without it? I’ll tell you, kid: we wouldn’t. Our time on Cetos V is limited, and unfortunately, it’s packed with responsibilities we don’t want. But what if you could forget everything except your best moments?"
"Then..."
"That was a rhetorical question, dreamer. Come to me when you need more Vanta-B. But I only sell it by the bag."
Lex watched the lanky, mysterious figure disappear from the cafeteria. The brooding guy with the initials C. R., who juggled being an electrician with dealing drugs. After a moment, Lex turned back to the video screen, and suddenly, the First News was showing the faces of Lieutenant Major Franley, Chef Flint and Pilot Tangaroa Tessar—people he hadn’t seen or heard from since the incident on the ST SAMSON.
His heart skipped a beat.
"They found them," he whispered.
Heavily armed corporate guards were dragging the handcuffed rebels away while a crowd of onlookers pressed against the barriers, hurling insults at the Crimson Dawn rebels. The rebels walked straight ahead, expressionless, toward an armored police truck. The news anchor was calling it terrorism, a barbaric act of hatred that demanded justice, but Lex’s emotions were all over the place. The rebels had been responsible for the deaths of half the crew on the ST SAMSON. He should’ve been relieved that the World Union had caught them. So why did he only feel two things right now—sympathy for Tessar, Franley and Flint, and an overwhelming anger toward the world government?
Why did he feel that way?
Ginger North announced that the rebels would be executed later that evening. Right then, a message from the girl popped up on his PDA.
He’d been telling himself for days now to stop thinking about her, and he’d already given up hope of ever seeing her again. He was only planning to check the time to see how much longer his lunch break lasted, but then he saw the message notification. His heart pounded in his chest, skipping and racing. He opened the message, and there it was:
I want to meet you. Today at 7 PM in the city center. I’ll send the exact coordinates in a separate message. Please tell me you can come. If we wait any longer, it might be too late.
He looked up from his PDA. One by one, the factory workers around him stood and left the cafeteria, heading back to work for their late shift. But the boy stayed seated. All of a sudden, the girl had come back into his life. She wanted to meet him.
But what did she mean, “too late”?
What was behind the mysterious message?
He lowered his gaze to the hologram and wrote back, telling her he’d be there on time, no matter where they were meeting. But after shutting off the hologram, he sat there, wondering how he’d manage not to ruin their first meeting with the dark thoughts that kept pulling him back to the rebels of the Crimson Dawn, who were set to be executed that evening. He thought about whether there was any way he could get himself into a better mood, and suddenly, his hand shot to his chest, feeling the small, hard capsule through the fabric of his shirt. After a brief moment of hesitation, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the little golden capsule.
How would we even get through a day at the factory without his gift?
The electrician’s voice echoed in his head as Lex weighed whether to take it or not.
Good vibes. Is that what Vanta-B promises? he wondered, placing the small capsule on his tongue. He washed it down with the rest of the isotonic water from his cup and was just about to get up and head back to the conveyor belt when another problem hit him—work. It was almost 3:30, and his shift didn’t end until one in the morning. For him to make it in time for the meeting, he’d have to finish work in the next two or three hours, which was impossible.
So, he quit.