Dark Space: Avilon (30 page)

Chapter 24

30 Minutes ago . . .

“W
ait.”

“Yes?”

Ethan eyed the chair in the center of the chamber.

“A Null can choose to ascend to Etheria whenever they want, right?”

“That is correct.”

“So if I choose to be a Null, at least I can undo that if it turns out to be a mistake.”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m standing by my choice.”

“Very well. Please sit down, Ethan. There are others waiting for you.”

He started slowly toward the chair. “What’s it do?”

“Here you will get to select your professional training, which you will use to make a living for yourself in the Null Zone. The knowledge will be downloaded and then your Lifelink will be disabled. Choose wisely. Any change of careers after this point will require you to learn all of the necessary skills the old-fashioned way.”

Ethan reached the chair and eased into it. He heard a
humming
sound and looked up to see a glossy black dome descending overhead. Somehow he hadn’t noticed it hovering above the chair.

The dome touched the floor with a
thud
and Ethan’s ARCs brought up a glowing table of text and pictures. Each entry showed a picture representative of some type of training. Beside it was a text description, and in the third column was a list of possible jobs he might find with that training as well as the hours and monthly income for each job. Ethan quickly realized that he had no way of knowing what was a good job in the Null Zone, or even how much money he would need to survive. He began scanning the list for the highest salaries. There wasn’t a lot of variation—just a few hundred
bytes
and usually with a corresponding change in hours. He began wondering about the difficulty level of each job as well as possibilities for advancement. Among the jobs listed were
building maintenance,
law enforcer, custodian, night watchman, security guard, personal assistant, desk clerk, sales agent, receptionist, firefighter, bouncer, bartender . . .

Ethan frowned as his eyes skipped down a very long list of possibilities. They weren’t bad jobs, but none of them was particularly well-paid, and all of them had one thing in common—they were easy to train for. If he’d had to train for any of those positions in Dark Space the training program wouldn’t have been longer than six months. He didn’t really need to
download
new skills to do any of those things. “Ah . . . could you show me some better-paid jobs? Maybe with some more complex skills and training?”

“I cannot.”

“What do you mean you
cannot?
You could train me up to be a medic—some kind of cyberneticist that makes more money in a year than I’ve seen in my entire life.”

“I could, yes.”

“So what’s the trouble?”

“The Null government has placed restrictions on what types of training I can offer to people emigrating from Etheria. These are the best opportunities I can give you.”

“The best . . .” Ethan shook his head. “Let me get this straight. I came to Avilon with my own
ship,
and now I’m going to be stuck cleaning bathroom stalls for the rest of my life?”

“Yes, about your ship. There was a museum that wanted it. All of your personal effects have been removed and they will be forwarded to your new address as soon as you choose a place to live.”

“Great. How much does that get me?”

“You managed to decrease your government debt by more than fifty thousand bytes. Now you only owe a hundred and fifty five thousand.”

“My what?”

“Your government debt, Ethan. Please try to hurry up. There are others waiting.”

“Yeah, yeah, just hold on. If it’s a
government
debt, why do I have to pay?”

“Because your wife is pregnant, and that’s how much it costs the government for you to have a child. Breeding licenses currently cost 205,000 bytes.”

Ethan’s cheeks bulged. “You can’t charge me for that! We got pregnant before we came here.”

“That doesn’t change the expenses that the Null Government will incur on your behalf. You can always terminate the pregnancy if you can’t afford to pay.”

“Terminate the pregnancy? You’re talking about my daughter, you dumb frek!”

“To you she is your daughter. To any other Null she is an expensive luxury that they can’t afford. It’s also illegal to breed without first buying a license, but since you couldn’t have known that, it would be unfair to put you in prison and terminate the pregnancy for you. Instead, you’ll be given a preferential interest rate on your breeding loan. You’ll only have to pay two percent per year. The usual rate is five and a half.”

Ethan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His throat was suddenly painfully dry. He shut his eyes and the room began spinning around him. He felt like he was about to be sick.

“Please try to calm down. It’s not as bad as it could be.”

“How could it be worse?”

“You could be having twins.”

Ethan scowled. “You’re enjoying this!”

“No, I’m not. I’m trying to help you. It’s not too late to go to Etheria, Ethan.”

“I’ll pass.”

“You are nothing if not stubborn. Would you like help selecting the best training program from the list in order to fit your personality and your particular financial situation?”

Ethan couldn’t summon the strength for a reply. A moment later the long list of jobs and training programs narrowed down to just two.

Driver’s training.

Law Enforcement.

He thought about how dangerous the Null Zone was and about how corrupt the Enforcers supposedly were, taking bribes from crime lords just to stay alive. He’d had enough of dealing with organized crime while trying to make a living as a trader in Dark Space.

“I’ll take the driver’s program.”

“A good choice. Now select a job.”

Another list appeared before his eyes, this time jobs with descriptions and salaries.

Air taxi driver.

Air bus driver.

Air truck driver.

Courier.

...

Taxi driver made the same per hour as any of the others, but the hours were flexible, meaning he could work when he wanted and as long he wanted, making some extra money in the process. He focused on the first option for a second and the rest of the list disappeared. Being a taxi driver didn’t sound so bad. At least he’d more or less get to be his own boss.

“That is what I would have chosen for you,” Omnius said. “It will take some time for you to get your own car, but there are a number of different companies you can work for, and we already know that you have the natural ability for the job.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Please close your eyes. This will only take a moment.”

Ethan deliberately disobeyed that command, trying to keep his eyes open, but after just a few seconds he found he was unable to resist. His vision grew blurry, and his eyes drifted shut. . . .

When he opened them again, he found himself lying down on a gurney. From the way it rattled and shook, he realized he was in the back of a moving vehicle. A medic was attending him on one side.

“What happened? Where am I?” he croaked. His heart began to pound. His head throbbed painfully with every beat.

Ethan remembered choosing a driver’s training program and then choosing to become a taxi driver . . . but that was it. When had he left the room with the glossy black chair? How had he wound up lying in the back of a . . . an ambulance. He swallowed thickly and began checking himself with his hands.

“Don’t move, please,” the medic said.

Ethan rocked his head from side to side. With that movement he felt a painful stabbing sensation go through his neck, but it quickly faded. He winced and something pulled tight on his forehead. He reached up and found a thick bandage there. Horrified, he began to pull on it. The pounding in his head intensified, and he felt something warm trickle down beside his ear.

“I said don’t move!”

“What happened?” Ethan demanded, trying to sit up. Strong hands forced him back down.

“You were in an accident,” the medic replied.

An assistant appeared on the other side of him with a syringe.

“Alara? Where’s my wife?”

“She didn’t make it,” the assistant said. “Her injuries were too severe. She . . . chose to go to Etheria.”

“You idiot, are you trying to send him into shock?” the medic said.

“Alara died?” Ethan rocked his head back and forth again, feeling nauseated. He broke out in a cold sweat.

“He deserves to know. He might want to follow her.”

A life signs monitor that Ethan hadn’t noticed before began to squeal with an alarm.

“He’s going into shock!”

Ethan’s field of vision narrowed, and soon he was looking down a long, dark tunnel. Alara appeared at the end of that tunnel, beckoning to him, her expression joyous. “Ethan! I miss you! Come
with
me.”

His extremities lost all feeling and a pleasant numbness began creeping through his body. Voices screamed and yelled around him unintelligibly as if he were underwater; he felt an incredible pressure on his chest, but at least his heart had stopped its painful thudding. He was peripherally aware of the medic injecting him with something, but he barely felt the prick of the needle. He reached out for Alara, trying to touch her beautiful face . . .

Suddenly his heart began pounding painfully again, and his eyes flew open. Alara disappeared, and something like fire surged through his veins. Now he was someplace else, staring up at a bright light. That light was coming from a medic’s flashlight, checking for pupil dilation.

“He’s awake,” someone said.

“Good. Get him off the gurney. We’ve got others waiting.”

“Yes, sir. Up you get!” Ethan felt someone trying to lift him, but his limbs were heavy and limp. “Come on! He’s not responding, sir.”

“How much sedative did you give him?”

“Twenty cc’s . . .”

“No wonder! I said twelve, not twenty!”

“I—”

“Get out of the way.”

Someone slapped his face, and Ethan scowled sleepily.

“Wake up!”

Then came a sharp prick, and again fire went shooting through his veins. He sat up suddenly, blinking and squinting against the bright lights in the room.

“Alara!” he yelled, and leapt off the gurney.

“Well, that got him up.”

Ethan whirled toward the speaker and found a medic standing next to him with an empty syringe. “You!” he grabbed the man by his lab coat and shook him until his teeth rattled. “Where is my wife?”

“I’m right here, Ethan . . .” A sleepy voice said.

Ethan whirled around again. He saw his wife lying on the other side of the room, on another gurney. She lay under a fuzzy blue blanket, her stomach bulging noticeably beneath the sheets. He walked up to her, almost afraid to ask. “I . . .” He frowned, trying to understand what was going on. “What just happened?”

Alara turned to him with a smile. “We became Nulls. They just finished de-linking us and syncing us one last time. You were having some kind of nightmare . . . . You called out my name a few times.”

A dream. It was just a dream.
“There was an accident. You . . .”

Alara’s brow grew lined. “I died.”

Ethan felt a jolt go through him. “How did you know that?”

“Because I had the same dream, Ethan.”

* * *

Atton sat down in one of the glossy black chairs. His chair faced more than a dozen others like it, arranged in a circle on the floor of the domed chamber. The ceiling glowed a bright gold overhead. Others came and took their seats.

“Hello, my children!” a deep, resonant voice boomed.

“Hello, Omnius,” a few of them replied.

“Here you will choose what you will become in Etheria. I have narrowed the options for you all to just a few, based on your personalities, natural abilities, and the opportunities available to you. The training programs I’ve chosen are all equally good choices. Some of you already know what you want to do, and you will be either pleased to find that I agree with your choices, or surprised to find that your desired profession is not on the list. In the latter case, trust me when I say I know you even better than you think you know yourself.”