About The Laws of Space

Post 161:

The Laws of Space

Episode Six

Chapter Four Begins

Chapter 4: Three Men and a Bunch of Other Crap

            Alder Tate sat in the center of the square amongst the other members of his designated Dom, surrounded on all sides by like-for-like hovels that housed the Regulars. The day had been long and hard at the Mech factory, pressing buttons and moving materials into place for electric MFGs to do their work. Despite the normal tedium and exhaustion, most of his fellow residents were there as well; the square had the Dom’s only Worldview, a community screen one hundred feet square.

            “Ironic.”

            “What is?” Alder asked. He was staring at his hands. They were beginning to resemble his companion’s.

            “Uh, look around, guy. From the heights of isolated glory and safety to find… whatever the Space you wanted to find.”

            Alder rubbed at the stubborn dirt on his fingers. “People. A person. Something. It’s hard to describe. Alone is hard.”

            “You’ve mentioned it. Every time you do, it makes less sense. Look at you now. For a Regular you seem to have a lot of Space. Only me and this moron will come near your broke ass.”

            “Hey!”

            “Shut up, Merchant.”

            “You shut up, Webb. I’m not a moron.”

            “Both of you take it easy,” Alder said. The pair sat on either side of him, but as he looked around he realized Webb’s point. Though the majority of the common area was densely packed, the three of them were surrounded by a thirty-foot perimeter of nothing. Merchant and Webb were more affected by it than Alder. He was used to having a wide berth.

            “What’s on tonight?” asked Lerner Merchant, L1.

            “The same mindless drivel that’s on every night. Some pathetic attempt at storytelling, further inculcating the minds of these sycophantic no-accounts with the opiate of stupidity,” answered Travers Webb, L2. “Then a boring series of pictures with names, reprobates like this guy who have fallen from Space to live amongst the hateful, self-hating, and hated.” Webb worked at the communications center of City Five, and though assigned only to menial tasks, he’d managed to pick up on the nuances of Worldview programming.

            “I have no idea what you just said, but I’m sure it was mean,” said Lerner. Alder smiled and gave up on the grime stuck to his fingers, looking over at Travers. The things he said, the way he phrased them—the guy didn’t sound the way a Regular was supposed to sound. He was sharp, sharper than any Spacer he had ever conversed with. Travers was an angular, stubble-faced redheaded man of 30, the first to discover Alder’s identity nearly a month ago. He told no one, save his hovelmate Lerner. Travers and Lerner stored the secret, faithfully, perhaps selfishly. It was a heck of a secret. After having his picture plastered on every Worldview in the Five Cities, everybody wanted a chance to mock and deride Alder. Tate accorded their confidence as something positive; not that they really knew—theirs was not a world that ran on positives.