Crisis Memes - 24 - Tue 12 Aug 2256 09:37

Harry recalled the fourteen unhappy days he had spent with his family in this gloomy common room after the Star-Drive had exploded. Since leaving it, two of the six emergency lights had failed, making it even darker than he remembered. The damaged blast doors were now jammed half open and there were even fewer lights still functioning in the silent corridor outside.

“It feels like the whole sector has been abandoned,” whispered Harry.

“There are barricades across the entrances to Ring E on this deck,” Selena said. “To avoid any further fighting the Marines are staying forward of here and some of the blast doors have been resealed. We’re in what you might call a “demilitarised zone”.

They passed through the common room and into the dark interior corridor. Harry was relieved that Selena’s LED earrings still functioned. “So how come you don’t you know what’s going on in York’s sectors – there are sensors and cams and droids and stuff back there aren’t there?”

“There are no active droids in those areas. They may have been destroyed before they came back online. Sensors and video-cams are all off-line or disabled.”

“But some people must have come out there – crossed over to us.”

“Yes they have, but most are traumatised to some degree, and their reports are vague and contradictory.”

They crept into the McLaren’s original apartment through the first door on the left. It was mid-range accommodation: a lounge with entertainment centre, a dining area, one double and two single bedrooms. None of the McLaren’s personal possessions remained and the rooms were tidy – Megan had seen to that.

“Which was your room?” asked Selena

Harry opened a door revealing a small room with a bed and a table. Selena pushed past him and sat down.

“We’re a little early for our rendezvous,” she said. “It gives me a chance to ask you about something, if you don’t mind?”

“Yeah, sure, what is it?”

“I wanted to know what you dream about, Harry.”

“Why?”

“It would help with my transformation.”

“Yeah, right. How’s that going anyway?”

“Complicated and confusing.”

Harry managed a smile. “Yeah, sounds just like puberty,” he concluded. “All you’re missing are the zits.”

“Zits? Wait, I don’t have that word stored.” The android paused for three seconds while a wireless transfer of data took place. “A mild skin disease once common in teenagers. Acne. Twentieth century slang, not in common use.”

“No, not many people get them anymore, except me of course. I saw the word in an old Scottish dictionary when we were taking the Racial Regression programme.”

“So what do you dream about Harry?”

“Oh, yeah, dreams. Well, weird stuff sometimes. The other week I dreamt about my Granddad – who died years ago – he just walked into the Common room here. He said he’d finally figured out that he was dead and he was now pretty cool about it. That was weird – it seemed pretty real at the time.”

“So when you’re dreaming, can you tell that it’s real or not?”

“Sometimes you don’t know until you wake up.”

“But when you remember it afterwards how do you know it’s not a real memory?”

“Well Granddad being in the Common room just doesn’t fit in with the rest of reality, so stuff like that is easy to work out. Maybe you store all your dream memories in one place and when you think about them you know they’ve come out of the ‘dream drawer’ and they aren’t real. Do you dream Selena?”

“No, and Service Net cannot teach me, although we both think it important that I learn how to. But you give me an idea. I could try and create an impossible memory and then tag it with a ‘dream’ identifier.” Selena lay back and moved over to one side of the narrow bed. “Lie down here beside me while I try it,” she said.

“Can’t. There’s no room,” he protested.

She got up and pushed him onto the bed, and then got down beside him so that they lay together like spoons. He brushed her hair away from his nose.

“Can you give me some suggestions?” she asked.

“Um, well how about imagining that you’re somewhere on the ship, and then people that you know are still back on Earth suddenly appear.”

“I’ve never been on Earth. I was activated when the ship was built seventeen years ago.”

“Hey, that makes you older than me!”

“Chronologically, yes. Now, another dream idea please Harry. Something I can relate to.”

“Erm, well, you could think of something you’ve never done before and then imagine doing it.”

She turned around and looked at him. “What would you think of? What have you never done before?”

Before Harry could make any answer, she pressed a finger to his lips, and moved her mouth close to his ear.

“There’s someone outside,” she whispered.

“Sure, that’ll be me,” said a voice from the darkened lounge.

A tall, curvaceous woman dressed in blue maintenance overall and heavy work boots stepped through the door and into the pale light. A mop of wild ginger hair was enough to put her overall appearance beyond ‘striking’, whilst the sword in her hand pushed it well into the ‘scary’ zone.

“Selena, what on earth are you up to?" she asked. "Have you been reprogrammed as a Pleasure Droid? And who is this poor young man you’re snuggling up to?”

“This is Harry McLaren. Harry, meet Morrigan McCabe, Senior Maintenance Engineer,” Selena said, ignoring the other questions.

“I like the title ‘Spy’ better," Morrigan said, "Particularly since that’s all you’ve had me doing for the past few days.” She looked momentarily confused, as if wondering how she had volunteered for such a role. On finding no good answer, she continued, “Do you mind coming out of here – I don’t imagine that bed will hold the three us.”

Back in the lounge area, Morrigan propped her sword against the arm of a sofa and sat down. “Well, it’s nice to meet you Harry, and why are you here, by the way,” she asked.

“Harry is assisting Service Net with strategy planning. You can trust him.”

“Selena, you’re awfully chatty for a house-keeping ‘droid. Switch yourself off and let the lad answer for himself. Don’t be shy Harry – I’m only dangerous when drunk.”

“Ermm, well, it’s just as she said, I suppose,” Harry confirmed.

Morrigan sniffed. “Dammit, Selena, will you stop it with the gas!” she shouted, jumping to her feet. “OK, he’s on our side, I get it, I believe you.”

“Please sit down Morrigan, and tell us what you know about the situation in the aft sectors. For Harry’s benefit, relate everything you’ve learned about Lord York’s activities since the explosion.”

“Sure, I will, if you stop bewitching my poor brain. OK. Lord York - he’s trying to set himself up as the passenger’s saviour. He was with his staff when the systems failed, and they were the first ones to start breaking down the doors. They managed to get in to a big food hall in Ring H and turned it into their headquarters.

“After that they started breaking into the accommodation areas on the adjoining decks and gathering up people and food. York’s got a beast of a fighter with him – Gil Spieling – and a bunch of other tossers who took to threatening and intimidating people like they were born to it. Things were getting ugly, but once his thugs started coming up against the Marines he backed off and started barricading the entrances to the rear sectors.

“But why?” asked Harry. “The Marines were rescuing everyone. You’d think he would have been relived to see them.”

“York knows all about the food situation and how far away we are from a supply planet. He reckons less than half the folks on the ship will survive, and he means for his people to be among them.”

“How did he find that out? It’s not general knowledge”

“No it isn’t, thank God.” Morrigan shrugged. “I don’t know who told him, but he’s got an ocean of money – someone told me that he owns two percent of History Planet - and he has connections with some of the officers in the Marines as well as the crew.

“Anyway, York had himself and large part of the History people behind barricades. By this time I’d broken down a few blast doors myself, and I’d got most of the H Ring Maintenance crew together. It was all just chaos back there - we couldn’t get in touch with the Bridge, so we grabbed a section of 12 Street on Deck 17 - including a very decent curry place – and waited to see what happened. York’s men were shit scared of us of course, but eventually he came along himself and asked if we would try and get some of the facilities working again. I told him to bugger off at first, but then my comms link came back on line and I got a call from Selena here. She asked me to co-operate with York and find out what he was planning, so I asked to speak with him again and I said we’d do what we could for the benefit of the passengers.

“Now, York kept his head down for a day or two, but he was busy plotting just the same. Then last Thursday he called me to his headquarters and asked me a lot about Terraformers. Then asked me to go down there and arrange a meeting between himself and their leader, supposedly to talk about food supplies. It’s not hard to see that I’ve got a Taur or two in my family tree, so I guess he decided I’d make a good mediator – but he obviously didn’t know about the bad feeling between us maintenance folk and the crap-crushers downstairs. Anyway, I went downstairs and met with the Terraformers leader, Hashnak his name is, but he wasn’t really interested in talking and I soon lost my temper with the stupid swine, so whatever York’s real plan was, it got scuppered before it started.”

“Can you recall exactly what this Hashnak said?” Selena asked.

“Oh, he said he didn’t need to join any alliance – he had plans of their own, and we’d all be grovelling down to him before long. The usual arrogant bollocks they always speak. They do have a pile of food down there, but it’ll be a waste of time asking the selfish bastards to share it with everyone else.”

“Well, I came back up and told York the story, but suddenly he didn’t seem to be concerned about the Taurs anymore. He’d found out about the Marines weapons getting chucked overboard by the damn crazy droids. I don’t think that was what York was expecting, but he quickly rounded up a mob of drunken Viking horn-heads and some other assorted nutters and tried to take the whole of 18-12 Street. That turned out to be a little over-ambitious though, thanks to Bruce McLaren.”

Morrigan paused and peered at Harry. “McLaren? Your name's McLaren too - are you related to this Bruce fellow?”

“He’s my uncle.”

“I guess he’s your one-armed uncle now eh? That’s too bad - he’s a good man from what I hear. Well, if you’re anything like him, I’ll definitely give you the benefit of the doubt – even without the persuasive perfume of Miss Selena, here.”

Morrigan leaned back on the sofa, “And that, my friends is pretty much all I know about the activities of the illustrious Lord York."

“There are contradictory schemes in motion,” Selena said. “We need to ensure that the correct ones come to fruition. Can you continue your surveillance Morrigan?"

"Sure thing. York knows that maintenance work is crucial to the safety of the ship, and he thinks we’re too stupid to interfere with his plans. So we come and go as we please – for now at least.”

She unsheathed her sword, and gave it a polish on a cushion which promptly became two half cushions. “I may have to give him a little lesson in diversity training when things get back to normal though, ” she said.

"Nice blade," Harry said.

"Yeah. I nicked it from a souvenir shop thinking it would look pretty cool, and it turned out to be the real thing – and bloody sharp too. There’s some funny writing on the blade"

“It’s probably a replica of a famous sword from old literature. Anduril, maybe.”

"No shit?" Morrigan said. "Never heard of it. I’m going to give it a good Irish name. I’ll call it ‘Caladbolg’.