Vyyda Book 1: The Haver Problem (9 page)

We laughed.  All of us that understand English, anyroad (as my Yorkshire-born countrymen, just down the way from me would have said).  Even those who didn't speak the language began to laugh, as such responses are infectious.

When the facilitator stood straighter, tightened his jaw and demanded the names of each person in the little group, they responded with names that I recognized as those of past American presidents:  Theodore Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Stuart Abramson.  One large man with a beard close by, wanting to get in on the action, identified himself as former president Elizabeth Steele.  The laughter continued.  More barbs from observers on the fringe and general merriment made us all feel a tad brighter.  It seemed as critical as oxygen in that moment for everyone there to believe that they could give as well as take in this stark nightmare.

However, any pleasure we grabbed ended right then.  Pointy-nose arrived, conferred with several of his underlings and made his way to the large, bearded Yank.

"I'm told that you're Elizabeth Steele," he said.

The response didn't come immediately.  The man who had been last to join in on the lampooning of the facilitators looked to his companions.  He didn't seem to want to lose face along with everything else he'd had taken away.

"You've heard of me.  That’s flattering."

Pointy-nose took hold of his baton and delivered a swooping uppercut to the chin of the bearded man, giving off a sound that I knew to be the fracturing of bone.  Once on the ground, nearly senseless, the victim of the blow tried to sit up.  Before he could do so, pointy-nose drew a weapon from inside his uniform and fired one shot into the poor man’s skull.

The air was taken from the room and the only voices to be heard were from those not close enough to have seen what happened.

"No place at all is this for such special people," pointy-nose said to us, eyes fixed unsympathetically on the dead man.  "Stuart Abramson?"

As pointy-nose scanned the people on all sides of him, the man who had originally claimed the name of the long-dead president said nothing.  His eyes drifted to the ground and remained there.

It did him no good.  One of the original facilitators on the scene pointed him out and "Stuart Abramson" was brought forward.

"I have a mess here that needs cleaning up, Mr. President," pointy-nose sneered at the man whose eyes remained lowered.  Pointy then faced the rest of us and circled the dead man.

"You'll all receive DNA and retinal scans for your identity profiles which will follow you to your final destination.  This," he raised his voice for emphasis while grabbing the collar of the cowering man beside him, "is Stuart Abramson, former President of the United States.  Any person referring to him by another name while you're still at this facility will not make it beyond our boundaries.  I hope I make myself clear."

Rumblings further back in the crowd were quickly shushed by others who didn't want to see any more violence.  Pointy-nose continued:

"The identities you are supplied with here will be permanent.  They are the names you'll carry for the rest of your lives.  Since so many of you are inclined to be someone else, I’ll indulge, as a gesture of hospitality."

He picked a small, excessively frightened man from the group and dubbed him Rourke Pelowinski, the famed American spree killer of thirty years ago.  An overweight man who had difficulty walking became Hector Padilla, top-tier Mexican footballer.  When a muscular, rough-looking figure was pulled from the crowd, pointy-nose paused for a moment, thought and finally announced:  "Sir Isaac Newton."

And on it went.  A source of considerable amusement for the facilitators, pointy-nose left his subordinates to continue the renaming process.  None of them seemed to tire of the humiliating exercise and it made me wonder how people of this sort, with no apparent ability to empathize, are made.  Is there one of these in each of us?  I pray not.

That was seven days ago, and as I conclude this entry, I will oversee a final patient of mine here at the relocation facility before being sent to my ultimate destination.  All of the men and women who were with me upon arrival have long since departed for their worlds and I can only wish them peace in their lives going forward.

              The air was foul.  Dorsey had meant to dispose of the spoiled syntho-cheese, but had become so involved in the reading that it escaped his attention.  He closed the ether screen and got rid of the offensive spoilage by way of his disposal chute.  He climbed onto his bed, draping a forearm over his eyes…and thought back.

             
During the years following abandonment of Hyland-6A, and his only living relatives, Dorsey had crossed paths with a multitude of individuals with incredibly familiar tales to tell.

             
Iconic figures in human history prior to man’s forays off Earth seemed to have descendants in all corners of U-Space settlements.  Dorsey had run into Gladstones and Garcias, Changs and Carlisles, Pettibones and Puccinis.  Most of them were thoroughly convincing (or thoroughly convinced) of their heritage – every bit as much as Millar Jefferson had been with his insistences about Thomas Jefferson.

             
They seemed, perhaps, slightly happier in a strange way, than those who were comparative ‘bastards’.  Had it made Dorsey’s father happier?  More satisfied?  Was such a distinction ample compensation for the misery of life in such limited circumstances?  It was the first time he’d thought about his father in months.  He wasn’t sure the man was even still alive.

V              V              V              V

              The intercom bell in Dorsey’s rooms ripped him from the slippery edge of sleep.  It seemed much louder than usual.  The excessive volume made some sense once Dorsey identified the voice that followed:  “Professor Jefferson to the Crimson Room.  Others are waiting.”

             
It was Dominic Spackle paging him – right hand man of Sykes director Pietro Sklar and, very likely, the most disliked individual on the planet.  Only Spackle would knowingly adjust the volume to such an obnoxious level.

             
Dorsey had suspected that all residential spaces – even those assigned to faculty – were under surveillance.  He couldn’t prove it, but if Spackle
could
spy on him, what better time to use the intercom to such effect?

             
Time to run.  Dorsey was late for an academic hearing to which he was a key party.  His Sykes garment went back on and he hurried out the door.

6.

Dole Vardon

             
“Mr. Vardon, you have the right to an opening statement.  Do you have one?”

             
The question, asked by the portly, perpetually bleary-eyed Pietro Sklar, Director of the Sykes Academy, was received by a red-haired young man wearing impeccable, expensive clothing with a blank stare.

             
“Mr. Vardon?” Sklar prompted him once again.

             
“How much does an opening statement count for?” the young man asked.

             
“Count for?”

             
“Right.  If I don’t have one, does it really work against me?  ‘Cause I can put something together now if it’ll help.”

             
This was Dole Vardon.  A fourth year student in the midst of working on what was typically a three-year certificate which would allow him to apply for a trading broker’s license (a  near necessity for anyone hoping to do "legitimate" business in U-Space).

             
Most who had encountered him at Sykes couldn’t determine if he was imaginative and resourceful or catastrophically foolish.  In truth, he was some of both.

             
For the moment, however, he was mostly on the brink of expulsion.

             
The disciplinary hearing had been delayed more than a quarter of an hour due to Dorsey’s late arrival.  He’d finally come, slightly short of breath, exhaling his apologies as Sklar looked to him for an excuse.  When none was offered, Sklar addressed the issue:

             
“You did know the time for this, didn’t you?”

             
“I did.  I was…thrown off my schedule.”

             
But now, as the event had begun, Sklar turned his full attention to the student whose fate at Sykes depended upon the outcome of the hearing.

             
Vardon sat at the center of the medium-sized, non-descript stone-gray Crimson Room (no one could remember how it came by its name) occupying a straight-backed chair.   He faced the quartet which would decide his fate:  Sklar, as moderator, and the three members of the faculty disciplinary committee:  Madeleine Roote (psychology), Shanterr Burgess (engineering) and Dorsey Jefferson.  As committees went, it was among the least desirable assignments.

             
The single, long table at which the four were situated and the seats behind it, sat very slightly higher than Vardon's chair.  The disparity had been Sklar’s invention.  He didn't vote on a student's fate in disciplinary hearings, and was expected to certify the decision reached by the three faculty members.  A sense of drama with positioning of furniture seemed the only way to make his influence felt.

             
Yet, in Dole Vardon’s case, no measure of tactical intimidation was likely to raise the pulse or bring even the smallest bead of perspiration to his brow.  He seemed hardwired to be imperturbable.  The aplomb didn’t come from supreme confidence or cold calculation, but rather from an inherent tendency to not fight what faced him.  Dole Vardon simply “rolled with it”, regardless of what “it” happened to be.

             
Dorsey’s awareness of Vardon was limited to the stories that had started circulating about the young man almost as soon as he arrived at Sykes.  First was the illegal, highly suspect lottery created by Vardon.  Once that enterprise was scuttled, another quickly took its place:  the sale of sleep inducers and spine stimulators at extraordinarily low prices to students (and a few faculty members).  These helped no one sleep and stimulated no spines (although reports of severe headaches and nausea were widespread).

No one ever figured out where the alarmingly defective merchandise had come from and Vardon wouldn’t reveal his source.  It did result in the first administrative warning issued in his direction, but he shrugged it off with a sheepish grin.  Such was the bizarre mystique of the ginger-topped paradox under scrutiny by the faculty disciplinary committee.

The red hair (something which very rarely occurred naturally in humans any longer) was suspected by many on Sykes to be dyed.  In truth, it was genuine, as was the red-triangle marking – more accurately,
branding
– on the back of Vardon’s neck.  It signified childhood orphan or bastard status (a practice only recently abolished through most of U-Space).

Take the red hair, branding and Vardon’s
questionable activities and you had the ultimate outsider.

Yet Vardon had never appeared to Dorsey as particularly lonely, unhappy or disaffected.  Even as the young man stared at the panel before him with a doleful expression, Dorsey surmised it was likely for effect.  Given the charges, Vardon could certainly use any bit of sympathy available.

No opening statement was offered.  Dole Vardon was asked to account for the actions that led him to be brought before the committee in the first place.

“I like to think of it,” he began, “as applying the lessons I’ve learned here in a practical situation.  You see --”

“Mr. Vardon, we simply need the facts.  What you did and when you did it,” Sklar asserted.

“You mean how I traded all the goods.”

“Without the additional commentary.”

“Right.  It started when I found out that the school was buying its food in bulk and stockpiling it for months.  I’m frequently influenced by my ability to recognize opportunity and the need to act on it.”

              Sklar shook his head in frustration.  “Please, Mr. Vardon.”

“I
got into the school’s system – which isn’t very secure, by the way – and I located the registration number for the most recent ten ton food parcel to come in.” Vardon leaned forward and held his hands out, palms upward, as if suddenly addressing them on equal footing.  “Were you aware that the school really seems to be pushing the limit when it comes to spoilage of food?  It might be worth looking into before somebody gets sick.”