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.
No comments:
Post a Comment