Chapter 32: Getting Settled
After decades of isolation from the planet-bound population, the humans in the biomes had changed. The most dramatic changes were societal. Most of the biomes started with agrarian societies. The wisdom of the time was to restrict these societies to sustainable technology. Any technology that was developed inside the biome was, by definition, sustainable. The only external tech allowed was controlled by the fixers. The plan was to educate a fixer class within the biomes so the tech could be maintained throughout the lengthy trip. Maintenance tech would be part of the cargo. All planet tech was restricted. As a result, the black market flourished.
Jayne read and absorbed all the manuals given to her by Poppy. She spent some extra time scanning the newsy archives for anything pertaining to Biome 7. It was time to digest what she had read. Jayne knew it would not take her long to read the material. To Jayne, reading was like recording the information. She hadn’t really gained any knowledge but it was all available to her any time she wanted. She was digesting now. She was sitting in a small bedroom in Poppy’s house under the sea. She was waiting for the flier to take her to Biome 7. Today was the first day she would become Cassie Kai. Her clothing was not what Jayne Wu would have worn. She looked like a young woman and not a 13-year-old girl. The only thing of Jayne’s that Poppy would let her take to the biome was a Sergio Partelli. The grav suit that was much more than a grav suit was neatly packed in one of her cases.
The flier would soon arrive and take her to Biome 7. Everyone who entered Biome 7 was scanned down to the cellular level. Any dangerous impurities or contaminants would be removed. If they could not be removed, then the person was barred from entering. Jayne would not have to go through this process. Poppy had done all this testing in advance in order to avoid the DNA identification scan. Once inside the biome, she would be invisible to the Forevers. Jayne Wu would fall completely off the grid and Cassie Kai would be resurrected.
It was late when Jayne arrived. There was no fanfare. There were, in fact, no people. The flier was pilotless. There was no sense of motion at all. Suppression fields took care of that little irritation. You sat in your seat, the doors closed, you waited for a time and then the doors opened and you exited at your destination. She was directed by her VID to her residence in the fixer quarters. There was a large gym to give the fixers who worked the biomes an opportunity to work their muscles in normal or higher than normal gravity. This was very important in environments that were less than one G. In Biome 7, where the gravity was .79 Earth standard, it was especially important to keep your muscles toned. Fixers from low grav environments would often say that it was more work at home than at work.
Jayne’s new quarters were incredibly ostentatious when compared to her old quarters. She did not have an AI like Lucky to look after many of her basic needs, but the absence of that was totally overshadowed by the sheer size and luxury of the apartment she now called home. She even had a video window that mimicked a real window. It was looking out at the day side of a blue Earth streaked with white clouds. The continents sparkled with lights as each day faded into night.
She carried a small bag containing a few toiletries and the Sergio Partelli into her new apartment. She decided the only safe place for the suit was with her. She entered the bedroom and looked around. The room contained a large bed, a dresser and a side table. Off the bedroom were two doors. One led to a private bathroom and the other to a large walk-in closet. The bathroom had real running water in the sink taps. The shower looked like Earth standard. She needed a good cleaning so she removed the alien clothes; clothes that belonged to Cassie Kai. She stepped in the shower and touched the required buttons to start the cycle.
She screamed in surprise and delight when warm water, in full flow, sprayed out of the shower head. She was soaked. Completely wet all over. Jayne had never felt this much water in her life. The mist showers of the nursery and the HUB lasted about two minutes from start to finish and used about 500 ml of water total. In the time it took her to realize that she was being sprayed with warm water, at least five litres had run down the drain. She had just wasted five litres and still more came out of the shower head. Jayne felt so guilty at using so much precious water that she had to shut off the flow. She soaped herself and her hair and shivered in the cool air. She realized she had to rinse off the soap. She hesitantly turned on the shower again and quickly rinsed off the residue of soap from her hair and her body. The water never stopped. It just kept flowing; warm water kept flowing over her. She noticed temperature controls on the shower wall and touched the temperature control to make the water hotter. Soon the room was filled with steam. The heat from the decadent flow of water soon relaxed her muscles.
She shut off the water, dried herself and stepped from the bathroom into the closet. There were rows of clothes and shoes lining the walls. All styles were laid out in front of Jayne for her perusal. She held a fancy dress to her body. It looked like it would fit her perfectly. Then she realized that all this clothing was for her use. Everything here was her size. She had no idea what to wear. She walked out and flopped on the bed. She spotted her bag containing the Sergio Partelli. She removed it from the bag and put it on. Poppy’s words replayed in her head. “Try the command: ‘Suit override – Wu – thirteen exponent thirteen’. That will open up the suit’s extended functions, which are many. Once in this system the ‘suggest’ command will allow the suit to look after your safety.”
Jayne said in an unsure voice, “Suit override.” She stopped and looked down at the suit. Nothing had changed. She continued, “Wu – thirteen exponent thirteen.”
Jayne felt, rather than heard, a voice fill her. It was like her bones were vibrating and transmitting sound to her auditory cortex.
“Override initiated,” said the suit. Jayne realized that no one could hear except her. “Please speak a key word or phrase for future ‘suit to owner’ communication.”
Jayne thought for a moment and then hit on the word ‘thirteen’. It was common enough for her to fit into a conversation if ‘suit to owner’ communication in public was required.
“Thirteen,” she said.
“Future communication will be initiated when Wu – thirteen exponent thirteen says the word phrase ‘Override – thirteen’. Is this correct?” the suit intoned silently into her head.
“Yes,” answered Jayne. She thought for a moment and then said, “Suggest – residence casual.”
The Sergio Partelli instantly altered to a yellow sweater and jeans.
“Suggest – sweater color pink.”
The sweater changed to a light pink.
Jayne smiled and thought about all these clothes that would go to waste. She would never have to wear any of them.
She decided to explore. She stepped out of the residence and into a lift. She went down to the main floor of the fixer quarters and walked out into a rotunda surrounded by windows. She walked around looking into the rooms beyond the glass. There were a number of recreational facilities available to fixers in their leisure time. Everything from restaurants to kiosks, from ping pong to snooker, from libraries to gyms, was available. There was no GravBall tube. There were some limitations on the space that could be allocated to fixers on the biomes.
The gym was spacious, mainly because it was crucial to the health of the fixers working to maintain and repair all aspects of the biome’s functionality. Jayne stepped inside and scanned the room. It contained a number of exercise equipment machines. Most of these machines were capable of running a series of tests on each user and delivering the appropriate type of intensity and duration of exercise. Jayne noticed some grav treadmills in one corner of the room. She walked in that direction to check them out for future use. She stepped up on the nearest and reached to start a random grav program.
The gym was very quiet except for the humming of the treadmill grav generators and a rowdy group of young fixers lifting weights on the adjustable gravity platform. She glanced up at the gro
up. Her heart rate leapt. Right in front of her was Joseph Kane. Mr. Big Foot was being his usual show-off self. He was curling a large weight with his left arm while he chatted with a pair of girls bench pressing weights and spotting each other. Jayne quickly looked down, letting her hair fall over her face. Cassie Kai wore her hair down. She turned quickly around and moved towards the exit, all the while staring at the floor.
“Excuse me,” said a voice to Jayne’s right. Jayne did not turn towards it. She was in a panic to exit before Big Foot looked up and recognized her.
The voice spoke again. “Excuse me, but aren’t you the new LO?”
Jayne did not stop. She moved purposefully to the exit.
Suddenly she felt a tug on her arm. She looked up and right in front of her was a tall blonde woman. “Aren’t you the new liaison officer?” she asked.
Jayne nodded her head in the affirmative. Her brain was racing with panic. She had to get out of there before she was exposed by Joseph Kane.
“I thought so but you looked a little young for the job.”
Jayne cleared her constricting throat. “I’m older than I look,” she said.
The woman stared at her. Jayne realized she was waiting for more information.
Jayne continued. “I am Cassie Kai. And you are?”
“I’m Cornelia Banks. I’m the person you talk to when you need something fixed. I coordinate all the fixers who keep this place running. I suppose we will be meeting formally tomorrow morning at 9:00, B7 time. The days here are a little longer than Earth normal, as you probably know, but soon you will not notice the difference,” she prattled.
Jayne kept her back to the group of fixers at the weight lifting station. “I was just out for a walk. Great gym you have here,” she said. “Nice meeting you. I have to get back to my rooms to prepare.”
Jayne walked quickly to the doorway. It opened. As she walked through, she heard Joseph Kane call out, “Hey, Wu. What the heck are you doing here?”
Jayne did not respond. She hurried back to her rooms, grabbed her VID, called Poppy Greenway and sent him an emergency icon.
At the time of the biomes, electronic transmissions were always coded. Quantum computers could decode just about anything if there was enough money and need behind the process. Jayne took no chances. Poppy had given her a dozen halves of paired tabs of entangled crystalline carbon atoms. She inserted one in her VID and waited. When Poppy received her emergency icon, he would pop the entangled partner into his VID. The two atoms would check for entanglement. Once established they would link to their partner and generate a fluctuating key. Once the key pattern was established, then normal communication could begin. This method, though breakable, would take a Super Cray about one second for each of the trillion generated keys. That works out to a little over 31 years to complete. For all intents and purposes, this kind of communication was secure, at least until they developed the still mythical ‘zero point tap’ that was theorized to be able to lock on and identify contrived entanglements.
Jayne’s VID beeped and she began to talk. “Poppy, he’s here and he recognized me. He was right in the gym making his muscles big. What the hell is he doing on Biome 7? This was supposed to be secure and right there in front of me is Big Foot. He is not my favorite person, ever since he pushed me into that line-vac. The dolt is calling out ‘Wu, hey, Wu!’ for all the world to hear and see. I just left and pretended I didn’t hear and it wasn’t me. He will mess this up if you don’t do something. Get him out of here. Send him to Biome 2. Yeah, Biome 2. That’s a perfect place for him. Stinky Biome 2 is a good place for his stinky self. Poppy, please?” she begged.
“By Big Foot, I must assume you mean Joseph Kane. Don’t panic. Boy, are you ever lucky,” he said calmly.
“You mean unlucky. Having him around just sapped all my luck right out of me,” she complained.
“No, very lucky. And your luck must be rubbing off on me because his presence just solved a big problem for me and a big problem for you all in one go,” he stated in a satisfied tone.
“How can having that jerk running around calling out my real name be lucky?” she asked. “Poppy, I need this fixed fast. I have my first meeting with the omie counsels and fixer coordinator tomorrow morning. I don’t want him blabbing my name wherever he goes.”
“Relax. Get some rest. All will be well in the morning. I guarantee it,” he said and he broke the connection.
“Damn!” Jayne said as she flopped down on the bed. She reached over and grabbed her VID. She removed the single use entangled tab and snapped it in two pieces, destroying it.