Acceleration pushed Ai'la back into her seat, the monochrome gray landscape slipping past from back to front as if she were traveling backwards.
Ai'la smiled at the thought since she actually was moving backwards.
Splashes of color started to appear in the window before quickly disappearing, brilliant white of a cluster of tanks, the white and blaze orange of a wireframed dune buggy bouncing comically as it drove by or the gleam metal, the sun almost painful to the eye where it reflected off the bare metal.
A ribbon of metal stretching off into the distance came into view as she stared, a bead of light quickly accelerating down it's miles long length. She couldn't see it but knew there was a ramp somewhere at the end of that ribbon and that the transfer shuttle traveling just over a hundred miles an hour would be launched into the sky without the need for any rockets.
A dull roar filled the cabin, some of the people crying out in panic, the pressure of acceleration changing from pushing her back into her seat to pressing her firmly down. Ai'la even let out a gasp of surprise when a sharp bump bounced her in her seat, the dull roar quickly ending.
"Ladies and gentlemen," a voice said, Ai'la automatically reaching up to touch the side of the helmet she wore without even realizing, "Welcome to Lunatic City.
"If you'll please remain seated a Donkey will arrive shortly to transfer us into Lunatic Hanger Bay Seven, please remember to keep your envirosuits sealed until transferring into the habitable zones."
A bump rocked the shuttle and Ai'la glanced out without being able to see the 'Donkey' that then began pulling them slowly across the landing tarmac, her heart hammering in her chest at the thought of finally arriving.
It had been a year since she had walked into the InterSol office almost on a whim, a year since she had been convinced to take the aptitude tests and then, amazingly, been offered a position with InterSol.
The position that had been offered had been... problematic... but when she had heard the offer, how much she'd earn, the opportunities that would open up after successfully completing her two year contract...
Just the money alone, twenty thousand InterSol credits a year, had been more money than what she could have possibly imagined. She had no idea how many dollars that would be, after the collapse as the world reserve currency and hyper inflation in the 30's and the economic collapse in the 40's no one bothered to use dollars anymore. Everyone used black market gold, coins that went by weight. A penny was one hundredth of an ounce, a dime a tenth, and a one ounce coin... well, no one, especially Ai'la ever had a one ounce gold coin.
Part of her InterSol in processing had been required remedial classes, and after taking them she had been able to work out that twenty thousand InterSol credits would be a little more than eight ounces of gold a month.
More money in a month than she'd ever had in her entire life.
The remedial classes in finances, investment, dividends, and interest had been a necessity as well considering she had no clue as to what to do with any of that money after she had begun to receive her pay.
That class... well... all the remedial classes, especially the civics and history classes had been amazing and eye opening and... infuriating.
She had graduated from the Government provided High School and had even spent two years in a mandatory trades school training program, and still couldn't perform to InterSol bare minimum standards in reading, writing and arithmetic. There wasn't a single person that she had graduated with who could have passed any of the basic reading and arithmetic InterSol tests, and the civics, history, and science tests? She had never even heard of the vast majority of that material.
There was a bump and the shuttle rocked slightly, Ai'la having watched as the shuttle was pulled into a hanger with massive doors slowly closing behind them.
Ai'la reached up to rub the side of her helmet unconsciously, the Synaptic Interface itching just below her scalp. Without that link that allowed her mind access to the infonet all those remedial classes would have taken years instead of months even with her well above average aptitude scores.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the docking umbilical is attaching now and you'll be allowed to disembark. Please remember, do NOT remove your environmental protection until you have entered the habitable zone. InterSol is not responsible for your stupidity.
"Welcome to Lunatic City and please, enjoy your stay."
There was a loud hiss as the atmosphere was evacuated from the transfer shuttle, Ai'la glancing around to see if anyone had failed to check their suites, and then the door opened. A person in a metallic blue envirosuite stood just outside.
"Please, if everyone could step this way we'll get you into the airlock and let you loose to enjoy the city," a voice said inside Ai'la's head.
She was still getting used to the way her Synaptic Link would automatically allow public safety addresses to be heard inside her mind. She could override that setting but found the idea both stupid and uncomfortable. There tended to be a reason for such addresses.
Ai'la followed the crowd down the umbilical and into an airlock, the outside doors and atmosphere cycling quickly until the exit doors opened.
"Welcome to Lunatic City, it is now safe to remove your envirosuite helmets. Enjoy your stay on Luna!" the voice said.
Ai'la stepped out of the airlock and removed her envirosuite helmet, her hands running through her tangled and matted light brown hair before she looked up and froze in shock.
She stood in a concourse with large reinforced windows overlooking a balcony. She couldn't see the ground level, but she could gaze out over two miles of empty space to the opposite side of the circular atrium capped with a domed and brilliantly illuminated ceiling to the dozen balconies that were visible on the opposite side. Each of those balconies were planted with trees, bushes and climbing vines, the visual impression not of an open pit reaching down into the bowels of the moon, but of a hanging garden, a jungle of green covering the walls with hundreds of flowering trees, many of them fruit bearing, clamoring for any available space. There were even streams cascading down from level to level in a slow motion dance of sparkling water. A colorful parrot flew by streaming a long tail of feathers, the flight surrealistically slow in the low gravity. The only thing ugly that marred and clashed with the beauty was a huge rusted and scared cylinder off to one side of the concourse surrounded by blue velvet ropes. Worn and chipped cutting bits adorned one end of that cylinder, Ai'la recalling that this was one of the only remaining original boring machines that had been lowered from a rocket and within minutes of landing had begun to bore into the lunar regolith to create the seed that had eventually blossomed into Lunatic City.
But it wasn't the beauty of the plants or even the birds, or even the rusted and ugly cylinder that drew her eye. Ai'la stared at the throngs of people. Many of them on the concourse still wore envirosuites, some gingerly removing their helmets to take tentative stiffs of the air, but there were also people wearing one piece work suites of varying colors to indicate their jobs, business suites, even the tissue thin, pastel paper clothing she was used to being issued in the Indianapolis City Block.
But there were others.
Ai'la's eyes followed a very tall, lithe woman with gleaming white hair down to her waist wearing a gossamer thin gown that seemed to shimmer and change with every step from a metallic silver to being as clear as glass as she moved, the cloth allowing glimpses of the woman's naked body somehow more sensual than if she had been nude. Ai'la's eyes widened when a woman did walk by completely nude and not even wearing shoes, their eyes meeting for an instant, the woman's lips twitching in amusement at Ai'la's stare before wandering away into the crowd.
Ai'la couldn't imagine wearing anything like what she saw so many of the women wearing back in the City Block, the outfits guaranteed to lead to being assaulted... and worse. Rape was of course illegal, everything was illegal in the City Block, but rarely if ever enforced. Punishment only occurred for those that annoyed the Block Managers, and then there were a laundry list of hundreds of crimes piled onto them. Crimes everyone committed every single day but were only punished occasionally.
Ai'la recalled a quote from her remedial civics class, something about 'show me the man, I'll show you the crime' from some long vanished evil empire, but it was a reality she had lived with every day in the City Block.
Lunatic City... InterSol was... so different. Almost nothing was illegal here, not drugs or gambling, not even knives and firearms, not even prostitution, but anyone breaking one of the few laws that Lunatic City did have would almost certainly face a quick and harsh punishment. It was almost unheard of for a criminal not to be caught and punished. She still was trying to come to terms with that concept, that even minor property crimes deserved the harshest of punishments. A man stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family being punished so that a thousand people stealing only a loaf of bread didn't destroy the baker's livelihood, making his family destitute through no fault of his own.
A query and her Synaptic Link gave her the address and directions to her Sponsor and she set off down the concourse.
Her new... career... was a case in point of the differences between the City Block and InterSol. Ai'la felt ashamed to admit it, but she had lost her virginity for a voucher for a synbeef roast, a gray vat grown lump that had tasted like cardboard but had seemed like a feast for her and her mom and two younger brothers. It hadn't been unusual for her or any of her friends to trade oral, or even more, for food or clothing vouchers, but doing so had been blatantly illegal. Any woman who happened to be caught would be sentenced to hard labor in one of the many labor camps... that is if one of the City Block Managers didn't find... something else... for her to do instead. And because women who did what they had to do to get enough to feed themselves were viewed as dirty and pathetic and shameful, it wasn't unusual to get smacked around or worse, a black eye, broken arm or fractured rib, instead of receiving the promised voucher.
She knew from personal experience.
Escort services were not only legal in all InterSol jurisdictions but was also encouraged with Providers given legal protection and looked at as valuable, productive members of the community. Anyone dumb enough to refuse to pay or physically assault a Provider would be lucky to end up working in the Penal Mines on Mercury.
The differences were baffling to Ai'la, the cognitive dissonance between her experiences in the City Block and what existed here in Lunatic City making her head hurt and initially even had her rejecting the offer InterSol had made.
Her aptitude tests had placed her two standard deviations above the mean, something that she hadn't understood or grasped until after her remedial math classes, but her experience and training in the City Block had severely limited her possibilities for career choices.
Ai'la had been shocked and more than a little angry when the woman at the InterSol Employment Aptitude Test Center had suggested working a two year contract as a Provider... just a fancy word for a street whore as far as Ai'la had been concerned... as a way to start a career with InterSol. That as an InterSol employee she would have access to medical care, continuing education, and any trades classes she chose to take advantage of. And after her two year contract she would be able to apply for any job she wanted anywhere in the solar system and was qualified for. Which in Ai'la's case with her aptitude test scores would be pretty much open to what ever she chose.
