StAG: Chapter 2 - Karina’s favor

 The next day I was woken up very early by my cellphone. Half awake I tried to answer the call but I was too slow and the call stopped. I didn’t care to find out who it had been, I just wanted to go back to sleep. I felt comfortable and safe in my hotel room, Astoreth couldn’t reach me here. I had food, and a bathroom, so I didn’t even need to go outside. My plan was to just wait there the whole day for the mercenaries to contact me. But then my phone began ringing again.

This time I was able to answer in time.

“Hello?.”

“Hello, Jacob, it’s me, Karina.”

“Who?.”

“Karina, we met yesterday… I am the receptionist.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember…”

“I… ummmm… are you a real priest?.”

“…what do you mean?”

“Yesterday you were dressed as a priest, is that your kink?, or are you really a sacred man?.”

“It's not a kink, and priests are not sacred, but priests do serve God, if that’s what you mean.”

“Great!, I figured it wasn’t a kink. I can tell. I want to ask you for a favor… could we please meet at the market to talk?.”

I jut wanted to eat cold pizza in my bed and watch old movies all day.  Why did she had to take that away from me?.

“Sure, I guess. We can meet there in the afternoon.”

“No, it has to be now or you’ll miss her, please.”

I looked at the time, it was around four in the morning. The combination of the time and the phrase ‘miss her’ implied things I wasn’t comfortable with.

“You promised you would only use it for important things.”

“I did, and it is. I only want you to talk to someone, I swear.”

I wanted to ignore her and just go back to sleep, no one would stop me, but I would have to know I didn’t help her.

“Sure, I’ll meet you in the market in… forty minutes I hope?. I’m on my way.”

“Thank you so much. I’ll be waiting by the food court.”

I took one sad look at my little dark room, the boxes of pizza in the night stand, and my last chance to be alone for a long time. Then I got ready and I went out.

I had become accustomed to stations were the lights change from morning to dusk, that’s why I was so disoriented when I stepped out of the hotel and it all looked exactly the same as last night. The only difference was that it felt much colder today, enough for me to see my breath in the air. I had to go back to my room for a coat.

The market was relatively close to my hotel, I could walk there in half an hour if I hurried.

As I walked around I thought it was weird how people here had subsidized the dim light form the spine by erecting posts along the streets and putting lamps on top of them.

All these lights made it easy to see the dust floating in the air. It reminded me breathing felt coarse right after I had become used to it. It reminded me to look down and see how the ground and every flat surface was covered by a layer of dust. I guess they couldn’t afford to make it rain very often there, they probably couldn’t afford it at all.

But through the dust and the lights I could see the buildings around me. Old buildings, houses and schools and hospitals and offices. They had bullet holes, they had fissures, their colors were faded, and in short they were just ugly, the kind of ugly of something that used to be pretty. 

Those buildings came from a happier time, a richer time. A time when immigrants from all over Earth populated stations like this, building a system of prosperity for all humankind.

And now this is all that remained of the city. I just had to look up to see the swathes of ruins beyond the ring of lights above me.

Finally, it all reminded me of the urgency of my quest, to help humanity recover. But even if I succeed, fixing places like this will be the work of generations. It will be their cathedrals.

But whose work?, because walking through Astoreth it was easy to imagine it was mostly empty.  No matter what time of day you went out the streets were desolate, the stores were left alone, without customers nor employees. Lone cars would rush by past you and be gone, with the dust they lifted into the air being the only evidence they had been there at all.

However as I got close to the market, even at that hour, it became clear why the city felt so empty, because everyone was here.

I saw the market as I turned a corner. It was surrounded by large parks whose grass and trees were long dead. It rose above the city, imposing, because it used to be a stadium once, for one of the many sports people used to love in the time of my parents. Apparently it was so large more than one hundred thousand people had gathered there to watch the competitions.

But now its position as the largest open area in what remained of the city made it ideal for all the pirates and other criminals to gather here and sell their stolen property. I don’t have the numbers, but I imagine this is what kept Astoreth Station alive.

Oddly enough you didn’t enter the Stadium from the bottom (or so I thought). Instead there were four huge ramps leading people up. This is where the market started.

There were miserable looking people begging for money lined up all along the ramps. They held signs with their public keys, or they recited those keys in a never ending rhythmic litany. One old man dragged himself towards me and he grabbed me by the leg of my pants. I wanted to help him, but when I looked up I saw a host of people like him, like the angels in the staircase. In that moment I was filled with rage, then with guilt, then urgency… but I reminded myself that I was already trying to help them. When the church was restored they would send people like Mother Joanna to places like this, to help all the People in Need. I just had to keep working on my goal and be patient.

“I'm sorry,” I said to him.

“Please,” he insisted, but he did let go of me, and I continued on my way, slowly at first but then quickly.

 

When I reached the top of the stadium I saw more clearly how they had transformed this place. Usually the bleachers would be too narrow to set up anything, but they had taken long sheets of metal (probably meant for the hulls of space ships) along with metal posts to create platforms that sort of extended the bleachers. On top of those platforms they had built a myriad of stalls forming concentrical rings going all he way down to the playing field, which itself had been transformed into the food court.

It was clear that each ring had a sort of ‘theme’ . The first ring was devoted solely for metal scraps. You could find there parts of engines, life support systems, thorium cores, ion thrusters, dashboards, anything you needed to repair a spaceship.

The next ring was also meant for parts of spaceships, but this time it was for large things like hulls, thrusters, or cabins, and instead of having the pieces themselves, the stalls were plastered with pictures of their merchandise.

"Interested in radiation shields hopper?,” a youthful woman said to me when I stepped too close to her stall. “Take a look at our catalogue,” she said handing me a worn out physical book bound in plastic tape.

Inside it was full of pictures of what I assume were radiation shields, but to me they just looked like sheets of metal, indistinguishable from the one we were standing on. Some of the pictures were new, but others looked really old.

"No thanks,” I replied as I handed her back the catalogue.

She leaned in closer to whisper something.

"We have an entire warehouse on FuckAIs Street. That’s where we keep the good stuff, undamaged, never used in battle. You could sail straight through Saturn’s Hexagon with them.”

Maybe the merchandise in their warehouse had never been used in battle, but the sample in the stall had clearly been pierced, even worse, it looked recent. Whomever they took it from didn’t give it up willingly.

"Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind…” I replied and walked away, wondering if it was possible to build an entire ship using just the stuff from this market.

The next ring was full of medical stuff, deoncologizers, organ printers, aspirin… And they had the good stuff too, the ones the Martian Worker Co-ops have in their ships, probably stolen from those very same ships. But mostly it was just recreational drugs, marijuana, LSD, hexanephrine and those fuel crystals that seriously fuck you up, among many others I’m not familiar with.

The following level was quite different because it was all devoted to clothes. Jackets, shoes, skirts, underwear, pants, shirts… it just went on and on. They had so much merchandise their stalls were not enough so they would hang clothes above the already narrow passage in front of the stalls, and you could see those clothes hanging into the distance until they got lost in the curvature of the stadium. I would hate to be there when it got crowded later in the day.

A couple of rings did not have strict themes but rather it was based on whatever they had stolen recently. For example, someone must had raided a mining station because a couple of stalls had samples of unrefined platinum ore while boasting of how many tons they had in their warehouses. The rest of the stalls just happened to be selling all kinds of mining equipment.

I don’t remember very well the order of the following rings nor their themes, I wasn’t keeping notes, but I do remember seeing cellphones, makeup, prosthetics… if you needed something it was probably being sold somewhere in that stadium.

Finally I reached the playing field. The grass had died long ago giving way to dirt, and on top of that dirt now stood a swarm of carts each selling one specific food item, and in between them there were many tables and chairs. One cart sold only one kind of soup, another sold only one kind of rice, another sold only one kind of beverages. You were not supposed to go to one cart and buy your meal, but rather you would assemble your meal form the stuff you bought at several carts. You could even scream at them form your table, ask for something, and they would bring it to your table and charge you there.

It was early, so many of the carts were not open yet, a few were just getting ready for the day, but many others were already working.

“Father Jacob!,” someone called me. It was Karina, of course, she was seating at a table eating some kind of long sandwich. I went over and sat with her.

“Sorry for being late. I didn’t know you had to go all the way up the stadium and then go down again.”

“Why didn’t you enter through the main gate?,” she said while pointing at it. It opened directly to a street.

“Because I did not know about it,” I laughed at myself a little. Of course there had to be a way to go directly to the food court. “Anyway, what is this thing you want me to help you with?.”

“Yes, thanks… It’s my friend actually… I have a friend, Krisette, she’s a refugee but she works in the city, that’s how I met her."

“She works at the brothel too?.” 

“Not exactly… She has two children, or rather, her oldest son recently passed away and… she acts like if he never existed.”

“How did he died?.”

“He was probably kidnapped by some cultists for their sacrifices. Other children have gone missing too.”

"That's horrible. I had no idea.”

“Yeah… The problem is that Krisette has not mentioned her him since he died. I’ve not seen her cry once. She carries on like if nothing had happened. It cannot be healthy.”

“Of course not.”

 "I tried to talk with her about this but we got into a huge fight and I don’t think we are friends anymore… But you are a sacred man, you could help!. You talk with people about death and love and stuff like that all the time, right?.”

At that moment there wasn’t anything I wished more than to be asleep in my hotel room again. But instead I was being dragged into this very personal situation against my will. This was not the reason I came up here. I had a mission and this proved how important it was. This woman had not seen a 'sacred man' from any religion in years, and she was right, religion indeed offers help to people in such tragic situations. If my mission succeeded and the Church was restored they would certainly send preachers to places like this, and in that way I would be helping her and all people like her… I just didn’t want to be helping her specifically in that moment. I was too tired.

“If she doesn’t want help form you who are her friend, why would she open up to me who am a stranger?,” I replied.

“You are right, maybe she won’t, but I gotta try something, right?.”

“Is she at least christian?.”

“She doesn’t follow one specific religion, but she’s very spiritual, and she does admire Jesus.”

“Of course she’s one of those… To be honest… Truth is… Are you sure this is a good idea?.”

She sighed.

“All I know is that she's not well and someone needs to help her. Please.”

“I guess I have to give it a try,” I accepted. “Just tell me where to find Krisette.”

“Thank you so much, even if you fail, you helped, for real. As for where to find her that’s why I wanted to meet you here. She always comes here when she finishes her shift, before taking the bus back to the refugee camp.”

“Is she here right now?.”

“No, I don’t see her. Sometimes her shift ends around five, but sometimes it ends around six.”

“So we are sorta ambushing her…”

“You make it sound worse than it is. Just strike a conversation with her, mention that you are a sacred man in case she doesn’t notice, and she’ll probably bring up her son herself.”

“Why don’t you introduce us?.”

"Didn't you hear?. She hates me now, we had a really bad fight. In fact if she sees me here she’ll probably leave without buying anything. I’m gonna have to leave before she arrives here.”

“Then at least show me a photo of her so I can recognize her.”

“Oh, yeah, good point.”

She took out her cellphone and she showed me a ton of pictures of she and Krisette making faces at the camera while wearing silly outfits with fake beards and hats. I have to admit it was really cute. In between them there were a few pictures of Karina with the children of Krisette. They were drawing, making bracelets, braiding each other’s hair, things like that. She probably used to babysit for Krisette.

Then I remembered the boy in those pictures was dead, and they were not taking silly pictures anymore, and that seemed really wrong.

“I'll do what I can,” I said. 

Karina and I spoke a little more about Krisette and then she left, wishing me luck. I kept looking at the gate, hoping I would see her come in, but then I started getting really hungry and decided to have breakfast while I waited.

And I had to admit it, that food was delicious. Those people only sold one thing, but they had learned to make that one thing to utter perfection. If I could go back there it would be mostly for the food honestly.

I got myself a mexican torta with jamaice water and perhaps I was enjoying my food a little too much because when I looked up again I didn’t see Krisette coming in, I saw her leaving. She was with her daughter and she was carrying a bag of something she had just bought in here.

I quickly picked up my stuff and stood up to follow her. I needed to reach her and start a conversation, but I also didn’t want to seem suspicious. If we were at the market I could have asked what she was buying or something, but now we were on the street.

I just kept following her at a reasonable distance, I was sure she had not noticed me, sadly I had followed people in the past for much less noble purposes. Luckily Karina had told me Krisette visited the market before taking the bus back to the refugee camp, so I already knew she was going to the main gate of the city.

You see, every place in this station which still had water and electricity had some sort of fence around it, specially the main ring. This was necessary in order to protect the people living inside from the people still roaming among the ruins, and each was guarded by soldiers. The Main Gate of the ring was where the buses departed from when taking people to and from the Space Port.

Previously I mentioned how orbital cities are built on the curved walls of space stations, but the flat sides of the cylinder serve as Space Ports. The wall has thousands of spaces for docking ships of many different classes, arranged in concentrical rings with catwalks and elevators so that people can reach their ships. Usually one of the walls is the civilian port where people arrive form and the other is the merchant port for loading and unloading cargo.

The problem is that what remained of Astoreth City was around the middle of the cylinder, around thirty kilometers away from the ports, thirty kilometers through the ruins. That’s why they needed the buses ferrying people thrice per day, escorted by military detachments.

When I arrived at the gate there were a few people already waiting there. They were mostly port workers and mechanics, but a few of them were foreigners like me. Among them were Krisette and her daughter. I stood among those people, as if I was waiting for the bus too, while I tried to think of a way to start a conversation with her.

I looked to the other side of the fence, to the ruins, but some ten or twenty meters ahead of me everything became just shadows. This reminded me just how dim the light from the spine actually was and how dependant we were on the many lamps people had put up all along the city.

But there, in the distance, I could see the lights of the port, like a promise that the ruins actually ended, and if I tried hard enough I could see the shapes of the larger ships docked in there.

After a while the bus finally arrived along with two military vehicles and people started getting in, including Krisette and her daughter, so I just panicked and got into the bus too.

When everyone was inside the bus started moving, and we were off. 

If I spent the whole ride watching Krisette she would notice, but I couldn’t loose her for now, she had to stay in the bus, so I decided to focus on watching the ruins form my window. This had once been one of the main streets in Astoreth and for that reason it was lined with sky scrapers, restaurants, theaters and other luxurious places. I could see them clearly because the caravan had large lantern drones lighting the way, but soon after we were gone they were covered by the large clouds of dust we were raising.

The ride to the port lasted around an hour because the caravan had to stop constantly to avoid chunks of rubble, zigzag between the carcasses of old cars, or stop at a couple of small fenced sections to pick up or drop off the people who lived in those oases of light.

We were about to arrive when I saw something out of the corner of my eye just before the shooting started. The convoy accelerated and the soldiers returned fire, but it was clear they didn’t know where the bullets had come from. I was tense, expecting to hear more shots, expecting bullets to pierce the bus, but no, that was it. I dared to look back and I swear I saw movement in the rooftop of a short building.

I looked around the bus, and the feeling I got from them was that this was normal. Not that they were used to it, not that they were calm, but rather, they were used to being afraid. There was nothing more to do, and nothing more to say, so they just kept in silence for the rest of the ride.

Finally we arrived, and this took my mind out of the fear. When I stepped out of the bus I was hit by the magnitude of it all. Ports are such imposing structures, they are like nothing that could ever be built on Earth. You look up but it is larger than your sight, taller than any mountain, and then you see it connects to the spine of the ship and you realize what you are looking at is only half of it, it continues up, looming over you, until up becomes down. Then you follow the spine with your sight, and you see it becoming smaller in the distance, you see the ribs coming out of it and grabbing onto the walls, you see it getting lost in the distance. Then you realize it’s all one thing, this place where you are is one big thing, and it was made by people like you.

 

But then I looked back at the port. Out of thousands of docking spaces only a few dozens were occupied. That empty space also added to the magnitude of things.

The port was fenced too, and the bus stopped just outside that fence. When the doors opened people rushed to get out while at the same time other people were rushing to get in and go back to the city. I hurried to follow the people getting out, trying to not loose sight of Krisette. When we crossed the gate the soldiers closed it behind us and the caravan went away to the city whose glare I could glimpse in the distance. Just like that I was stuck in the port until the next bus came along. So much for my plans of a lazy day.

The port was a shaky compromise. Before the Silence, when I was a child, places like this had served thousands of people arriving and leaving every day. To manage this flow of people there was one huge building much like the ruins of airpots I have see here on Earth. There were signs pointing people to the elevators going to different sections of the port, there were stores, restaurants and large parks where people could wait for their ships to be ready or for their friends to arrive… But that was then, this place served a very different function now. Now it was the fortress from which soldiers controlled the Space Port on behalf of Lord Bidiga.

The refugee camp had risen in the space between the fortress and the fence, this was the compromise.

Most of the people from the bus followed a road cutting through the camp that lead straight to the fortress, and they were quick about it, but Krisette and her daughter calmly wandered through the camp and I followed them.

The refugee camp didn’t loop around all the way like the city did, but it was long enough that even if you were standing near the middle you could see the ends of it rising in the distance like thin strips of white and brown tents, illuminated by their own lamps.

As I walked around everything was familiar, it was almost like torture. The way all the tents were made with a combination of fabric and ruble from old buildings reminded me of the tents I had tried to sleep in, it reminded me of being woken up by the cold and the insects crawling over me. The small bonfires and pots around those tents reminded me of the food other people had given me, how I wanted to be grateful for it, but I couldn’t because it was so disgusting, and yet I ate it with desperation. The way the tents formed a maze reminded me of the realization that my suffering was not special and the dread that came from it.

I got glimpses of the lives those people were living. The woman who held a crying child, the man who sewed a tear in a tent, the children who were drawing in the dirt. All of them looked at me pass by with distrust, interest and a hint of hostility. They reminded me of the people I had met in Erathipa. Some of them were kind and helped me in any way they could, most of them were kind but couldn’t help me at all, and a few were not kind, being hurt as they were by their own personal tragedies.

Even the trash scattered all over the place reminded me of, well, the trash scattered all over Erathipa.

In that moment I honestly forgot about patience, I forgot about Karina and what she had asked me to do. I was in the presence of People In Need and the guilt formed a knot in my throat. I had escaped that situation, but I only escaped because I had help. How could I wait to help them?, how could I tolerate their suffering?. This was a desperation lodged deep in my soul. The outside world stopped existing, and I only felt despair. I wanted to collapse into my own mind, I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, but I was too impotent to do even that.

In those moments the desperation broke me every time.

But after it broke me, when I admitted defeat, I reminded myself I was only human, and sometimes all I could do was love.

It was taking me a while to gather myself again, but as I slowly regained control of my mind I thought “where is Krisette?.” The fear I had lost track of her brought me back much quicker than usual. I walked through the camp, desperately looking all around hoping to find her, and luckily I did.

Krisette and her daughter were sitting with a group of people gathered around a fire, cooking something in a pot. Krisette and her daughter reached into their bag, took out some slices of garlic bread, and gave them away to the people around them.