We Too Will Grow Old: A Sci-Fi Romance

Morning Sky

Sentinel Station
Sector 17, Ward 29
2283, 3rd Standard Cycle
Carina, Age 22

Carina held a length of braided rope taut between her hands, wondering if it was strong enough to choke the man beside her. She pushed away the dream with a deep sigh, dropped the rope into the box at the foot of her bed and rubbed her wrists. There were some friction burns, bits of skin rubbed off and cuts scattered over her arms and chest. They were all shallow, nothing cura couldn't fix. Harken was a creep, a thief and a conman, but he wasn't particularly brutal in bed. She pulled the blanket up to her neck.
“My payment?”she asked.
The old avaki man sat up, facing away from her. He yawned, stretched and stood.
She sighed. He always did this. She always hated it. He knew that.
“Your pants are over there.” She pointed to the corner.
Harken dressed, humming under his breath. He stood over her and grinned, his arms crossed. Graying fur bristled above his mouth and around one long, chipped tooth.
“Ah, you're always such a treat, Rigel.”he said. “My little relic, my dear historical gem.”
She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists around the blanket. “My payment, Master Tallov?”
Harken laughed, gravelly and low. “I guess you've earned it. Little extra from me, too, like always.” He reached into his pocket and tossed three cred sticks onto the bed. “You did well this month.”
“Thank you.”she said drily. “Master Tallov.”
He nodded. “Get some sleep, Rigel. You got a long day ahead.”
“I know.”she said, as if she'd had anything but long days for the past seven years.
He left at last. She released the blanket and inspected the sticks, flat blue things with patterns like ancient circuits engraved in them. It was as much as he'd said it would be, with a bit more tacked on since he'd made her fuck him to get it this time. It was less than she had earned. She stowed two of them away, yawned, and opened a door on the wall. A black jumpsuit lay bunched up beside a pile of tubes and a bottle of pills. She opened a grey one and smeared cura over her cuts. It was cold and smelled like vinegar, but it at least dried quickly, smooth and the same paper white as her skin. There were four left. She could probably stretch them over the next ten days.
Her stomach twisted. She rolled her eyes, opened one of the clear tubes of nutrel and squeezed the paste into her mouth. The rations on Veniae-di had often been bland, but this was utterly tasteless, and coated her throat in a greasy film when she swallowed. Still, four tubes a day contained enough calories and almost enough nutrients to keep her healthy and active. She could usually afford three. She chewed two gritty vitamin pills and an immune booster, washing them down with the smallest sip of water, and pulled on the jumpsuit. It was looser than before, and she wondered if the fabric had always been so thin, or when the left elbow had torn. She tied on a mask and pulled her hair into a beanie.
Tucked behind the headboard, her netpad flashed. It rested in her hand, a thick grey square before she unfolded it once and pressed a holo button. A pixelated image of a dandelion filled the screen and quickly faded, deleted. The encrypted channel was active again. She smiled softly and left the room, yawning. The back hall was quiet as always, the walls and carpet thick to confine all sound to the many rooms branching off of it. She touched the door to the side entrance, thankful when it slid aside, as she wouldn't have to leave through the main rooms of the Artemis club. Acid and smoke met her nose, cura and cigarettes.
“Oh, morning Cyrus.” She waved at the tall, dark skinned human man leaning against the opposite wall of the corridor. He hadn't bothered with shoes, or to button his black vest, leaving much of his chest exposed. There was an old, human style waste chute in the yellowed white wall behind him. Refuse spilled out. A speaker above his head crackled out a news report, something about an expedition to the ruins of Earth. He took another drag from the cigarette, snuffed it out on the back of his hand and pocketed it.
She sighed and shook her head. “At least put a little cura on that.”
“Later.”he said, his voice low and scratchy. He pushed away the tube she held out. “Don't want to waste yours.”
“Oh, stow it.” She grabbed his hand and rubbed paste on the fresh burn. It filled the pale, bloody pit and dried as if the skin had never been touched.
Cyrus rolled his eyes. “Gee, thanks, mom.”
“Oh, please, I'm only four years older than you. At least go for sister instead. Wait, that's…not very funny after last night. To think those guys went home to their straight laced families after that.”
He groaned and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “Don't remind me.” He shook his head, shoving away the tube of nutrel she held out.
She sighed, one hand over her face. She didn't know where he got cigarettes, or how he used them without Harken knowing, but she could guess just how much of his pay they ate up. “I think you’re getting thinner.”she lightly chided. “You've got a look to keep up.”
“Right.”he said, the word drawn out. “Cyrus Sin, the mountain every insecure sleaze wants to conquer.”
“More like just a tree.”she quipped. “Maybe an oak. It'd be nice to see one of those someday. Anyway, take it.”
“Fine.”
She waited until he'd finished the tube, then slipped it in her pocket to refill later. “Thanks. Hey, I'm headed to Tevell's for a bit. Want to get tea? They might have that green one you like.”
He yawned. “Maybe. My…dad might see me today.”
“Oh, I...I hope he does.”she lied. “Still, I'll be at the cafe for a bit. Put some shoes on. The floor’s dirty. And, hey….”
“Yeah?”
“Take care of yourself, okay?”
He shrugged.
“And…I'm sorry.”
“Harken's fault.” Cyrus looked away. “Really, Nova, I'm fine.” He drifted past her, returning to the Artemis back rooms.
She turned and continued up the dark, warm corridor, past closed bars and clubs and walled off dead shops. There were few people about, and all were quiet, but the lights and noise of the nearest square loomed in the distance. Closer by, an avaki woman approached, dull eyed in a faded brown dress, wearing no veil. She sped up, and just before they collided Carina clutched her netpad and cred stick.
“Varthek!”the woman spat. The word roughly translated to ‘brash weakling’. “Whore!”she added for good measure. The human word fell easily from her mouth.
“Sorry!’Carina yelled back in the avaki common tongue. The woman simply glared and stormed away.
Carina sighed. She slipped on her translator earpiece. Tovie had been right about her implants settling down, but she still appreciated the noise filter she'd added a few years ago. It had taken weeks to build, and the components had been outrageously marked up, but it helped now as she entered the square, blunting the speech around her and fully muting the advertisements. Still, the walls blazed, as did massive columns placed throughout the dark, open space, neon reds and blues and purples, flashing slogans for products and services she couldn't afford. Security officers stood around them. She turned off her artificial eye and slid on translucent sunglasses, shielding herself from them as well. A travel pod whizzed along a track near the ceiling, and a hover car eased to a stop by the nearest landing pad. She pushed through the crowd toward it, staring out the window, though window wasn't really an adequate word.
Sentinel Station had, in the second standard cycle, been a simple fuel depot with a rest stop attached, before trade routes changed and traffic around it increased. First more docking bays had been built, then more depots and stops. Even then, ships had gotten backed up, unable to leave. Slowly, they had connected, first to each other and then to the buildings around them, until they were stuck in place, inextricably tangled.
This square had been a small rest stop, gutted and reformed. She didn't know if the windows had always been there, only that every square had them. The display buzzed and towered over her, a lavender and lilac morning full of drifting granite clouds. It was a perfect reproduction of the Kiershaan sky, a bastardization of twilight on Veniae-di and the closest many avaki would come to a sunrise on their own home world.
She unfolded her netpad, twice now so it was just a little larger than her hand. With the press of a new holo button a picture filled the screen, a black and white drawing of a woman's face, wan and wrinkled and half hidden behind thin, prematurely grey hair. She smiled with chipped, crooked teeth. It was far from perfect, far from a photograph, but it was not a complete lie, and was all she had regardless.
She held it up to the false sky. A mechanical whirring sounded behind her. She lowered her head. Soon the security drone flew away, a pale blue ball propelling itself above the milling crowd. Nearby an officer shifted on his feet. Nothing, not even horns, showed through his thick grey armor. He adjusted his rifle.
She didn't know if he noticed her. This wasn't her destination. Shoulders slumped, she continued on.