Nata leaned against the far wall of her tiny kitchennete as the coffee machine sputtered and whistled. As the machine made a final high pitched wine, Nata reached out and took her disposable paper cup of cheap caffeine.
She took a careful sip and strode across the six feet of bland metal floorong to the apartment door. She took her worn and faded topcoat off its hook and slipped it over her shoulders as she palmed the small door control.
The metal door hissed open, artificial industrial light flooded the dim apartment. The smell of poor-hygeine and cheap drugs assaulted her senses. Nata squinted into the brightness as crowds of people moved about purposefully outisde her door. The appartment was on one side of the narrow outer gravity ring, the floor beneath her being the outermost shell of the massive refinery station.
The naseau of spin-gravity has long since stopped having an effect on Nata, now she found it amusing when inner-planet types came around for refueling, their hands perpetually held over their mouths.
Nata joined the crowd, brushing past beggars and crazed religious doomsayers as she went. Most poeple around her wore cough-masks as some new strand of flu was making its rounds.
A child, no older than nine, walked up to Nata in the middle of traffic. He held out his hands with pleading eyes.
Nata sighed.
"We go through this every other week, kid."
The boy nodded.
"I take it your parents traded rations for stims again?"
He nodded again.
Nata scoffed, and reached into her pocket. "Fine, but you owe me one. Again."
Nata dropped a packet of dried fruit into his hands. The kid smiled a wide, yellow-toothed grin before running off.
Nata watched him go for a few moments before pushing past a druggie stumbling into the crowd.
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Yearnin thang
Nata's ears rang. The air smelled of chemicals and smoke. She groaned, trying to push herself off the metal ground. Her arms gave way and she collapsed onto the metal grating. Somewhere in the distance a man screamed, sirens wailed, but there was something else.
A child.
Nata pushed herself off the ground with as much strength and will as she could muster. She swore as a loose blade of metal dug into her kneecap, sending a jolt of red-hot pain through her body.
She drew a long breath, and forced herself to stand. The ringing in her ears began to fade, and she finally took in her surroundings.
Men and women lay sprawled across the floor of the massive factory. hunks of metal and machinery burned in the open spaces, the emergency sirens wailed louder.
Nata stumbled across the factory floor, the weak gravity of the station helped her to move on legs covered in red gashes and burns.
She listened, desperately trying to hear even the faintest whispers. Nata struggled past an old man in workers garbs, his frail voice calling out to her.
She ignored him.
Then she heard him, the voice was weak, but she heard him.
Nata turned towards the source of the sound, a desperation in her eyes she couldn't begin to explain.
She saw a small, callaced hand reaching out from behind a smoking chunk of metal. She heard the metal blast doors being pried open, voices of the rescue workers calling out into the factory. Nata paid no attention to them.
She approached the metal wreckage, and instinctively reache dout to use it to steady herself, the metal burned like a hot stove.
Nata screamed and pulled her hand away, falling to her knees in front of the boy.
The nine-year old boy she hardly knew. The one she saw everyday, begging for change outside her appartment. His bones were long and weak from living in low-gravity all his life.
Nata sobbed.
She should have saved him. She needed to have saved him.
But she didn't.
A child.
Nata pushed herself off the ground with as much strength and will as she could muster. She swore as a loose blade of metal dug into her kneecap, sending a jolt of red-hot pain through her body.
She drew a long breath, and forced herself to stand. The ringing in her ears began to fade, and she finally took in her surroundings.
Men and women lay sprawled across the floor of the massive factory. hunks of metal and machinery burned in the open spaces, the emergency sirens wailed louder.
Nata stumbled across the factory floor, the weak gravity of the station helped her to move on legs covered in red gashes and burns.
She listened, desperately trying to hear even the faintest whispers. Nata struggled past an old man in workers garbs, his frail voice calling out to her.
She ignored him.
Then she heard him, the voice was weak, but she heard him.
Nata turned towards the source of the sound, a desperation in her eyes she couldn't begin to explain.
She saw a small, callaced hand reaching out from behind a smoking chunk of metal. She heard the metal blast doors being pried open, voices of the rescue workers calling out into the factory. Nata paid no attention to them.
She approached the metal wreckage, and instinctively reache dout to use it to steady herself, the metal burned like a hot stove.
Nata screamed and pulled her hand away, falling to her knees in front of the boy.
The nine-year old boy she hardly knew. The one she saw everyday, begging for change outside her appartment. His bones were long and weak from living in low-gravity all his life.
Nata sobbed.
She should have saved him. She needed to have saved him.
But she didn't.
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