Far Beyond
Joshua stood motionless, the sound of people popping in and out of existence washing over him like hail on a tin roof.
Even when the guy standing next to him disappeared with a sharp crack, he barely raised his eyes from the patch of ground before him.
There was cheering from the Shallow End when a group of kids sitting in an ancient open top Chevvy crashed into reality with a particularly loud bang. The Chancers around them yelled and clapped, trying to entice them to stay.
At the Deep End, heavy loads disappeared with thunderous whumps and thuds. A rolling boom announced the arrival of a huge transporter.
Still, Joshua stood immobile, watching the crudely marked patch of ground before him. A month of constant movement had almost completely obliterated the lines, scuffed and buried under a layer of dusty red soil. It was enough though, and Joshua knew the spot well enough to visualise the safe distance to stand and wait.
So he waited, patient in the knowledge that there was nothing he could to to make things happen any faster.
In the next row over, Carl was also on duty, waiting for his own arrival. They had done the usual small talk hours ago, expressed thanks for the good weather out on the exposed plain and complained about the pittance being an arrivals officer paid. Not that they’d be anywhere else. However you dressed it up, this was a planet on the backside of the network. It had little to offer, little to give. If you were born there, you’d likely die there as well. For Joshua and Carl, welcoming arrivals was the most excitement they’d probably ever see, and who’d pass up on the chance to see what came in during alignment?
So they stood there in silence, waiting - Carl getting increasingly fidgety as the hours ticked by and Joshua more still.
With a whip-crack, a young couple appeared at Carl’s designated space. The woman opened up screwed-tight eyes and subconsciously patted at her own body with her free hand. The man stared a little too hard straight ahead for a moment, clearly trying to look unaffected by the instantaneous transfer. Both carried bulging backpacks — the sure sign of new-lifers, their entire worldly possessions squeezed into a few litres of canvas. Before they could make any further movements, Carl was running through the patter.
“Folks, please pay attention to me, stand exactly where you are and we’ll have you sorted in a moment. Welcome to Eterna. As you are currently in the arrival zone, it is important that you follow all instructions carefully. We’re going to follow this path here, keeping within the lines. That’s right, there’s no hurry. Once we’re at the…”
Joshua tuned out. Even first timers knew what was expected, having had it drummed into them a dozen times before departure. If they didn’t freak out in the first couple of seconds, they’d follow their arrival officer and be safely planetside in moments. You didn’t get too many freak-outs, but they were always worth watching for. No-one wanted to be chasing a tourist into the path of another arrival. That hadn’t happened in years, but the gruesome stories were still shared between officers in between shifts.
Of course, departures were timed to avoid too much risk. That meant that Joshua’s space wouldn’t be used for at least twenty minutes. He didn’t mind, but just stared at the dusty ground and let the sounds of interstellar transit wash over him.
After a while though, he did look up. The sounds were the same, but after a month of noise, the subtle shift in rhythm tweaked at his ears. The ringing silence between each crash and bang was just a tiny bit longer, the sharp cracks slightly less frequent. Alignment was coming to an end, and within the hour, transfer would cease. Good news. No more standing staring at the ground. Bad news. No more paying arrivals, no more excitement.
He was just trying to figure out how much longer transfer might continue when, with an explosive pop, his arrival space was filled. An elderly Asian woman burst into existence with an expensive looking transfer case next to her. The case, designed to fit in the narrow arrival area, was nearly twice her height but barely more than two hand spans across. Balanced on a constantly twitching ball, it looked like a physical exclamation mark, announcing it’s owner’s arrival and obvious wealth with immaculately proportioned style.
“Madam, please pay attention to me, stand exactly where you are and I’ll have you sorted in a..”
“Yes, yes, I know, I know”, she batted away his patter and set off in a slightly alarming direction. Her case obediently spun on it’s axis and followed her silently.
“Um,” he dashed ahead of her and tried to steer her into the safe lane between arrival spaces, “Welcome to Eterna. The arrivals gate..”
“..is like every other arrivals gate, boy.” She asserted, heading safely towards it now. He briefly considered that he had no idea what other arrivals gates might look like.
Joshua danced ahead of her, dimly aware that he was not adding much value.
“You need to have your..”
“..transfer papers. I know, I know.” A mottled hand waved a bundle of documents in an expensive leather folder at him.
Mercifully, they reached the arrivals gate and Joshua stood glumly to one side as his fare was welcomed by one of the uniformed officials. She was just being ushered politely into the air-conditioned shade when she turned to him.
“Well done, boy. Helping old ladies not get vaporised, eh?”, her hand thrust forward and he found himself automatically taking the small bundle of notes. The gimlet eyes of the official followed the exchange carefully and his pose adjusted to be ever so slightly more deferential.
The woman winked at Joshua, turned and disappeared into the building, trailed by the officer. Joshua tried to resist the urge to unfold the bundle and count the notes. From inside the gloom, her voice floated out,
“I know, I know…”
As though able to smell money, Joshua’s supervisor was suddenly by his side.
“Do me a favour, don’t run off just yet, J. Alignment ends in..”, he consulted his tablet, “..eight minutes. Can’t afford to miss stragglers now. It’s been a good transfer this far.”
Joshua nodded. There was a job to finish. The market was shut this late anyway.
He slowly made his way back to his spot, aware that the noise of arrivals was now obviously intermittent, staccato pops and cracks in place of the constant drumming of the last month. We wasn’t due to welcome any more travellers, but he didn’t mind, especially with a bundle of notes burning in his clenched fist. He took up the familiar position, staring at the patch of ground before him.
After a while, the gap between each crash became long enough that he found himself counting, as though measuring the distance to a receding thunderstorm. The scheduled transfers at the Deep End had all but stopped. If you’re moving hundreds of tons of food and supplies, you do it to a timetable and the transfer agents were justifiably proud of their accuracy. At the Shallow End though, late arrivals were inevitable — it didn’t seem to matter how many fortunes people had paid for their ticket, they could still manage to turn up late. Carl jumped when a grey looking suit popped into existence nearby, but happily took the unexpected guest away in the hope of a last minute tip.
The gaps got longer. He reached a count of forty before a small family with a wailing kid and two very harassed looking parents materialised across the other side of the Shallow End. They were herded away, and the arrivals zone fell silent. The remaining staff stood quietly, some checking their watches, others staring at the dusty huddle of buildings around the arrivals gate, waiting for the klaxon to sound.
Joshua gave up counting and stirred himself, looking around to see who else was left.
He was just about to start the walk out of the zone, anticipating the klaxon, when at his spot a fizzling, ripping sound turned into a weirdly protracted pop, and suddenly before him was a woman nearly a head taller than him, standing alone, her arms wrapped around her waist like a hug.
The arrival was so unexpected that he just stared, forgetting the patter and caught rabbit-like in her returning gaze.
She was wearing something that might have looked like an astronaut’s jump suit if it wasn’t cut so fashionably. Against the pristine cream of the suit, her petrol black skin was flawless, making it impossible to judge her age. Despite her arms wrapped around her waist, she stood like an orator about to give a speech. Joshua was overwhelmed with the impression of carefully contained power.
Yet, her eyes were pleading.
He automatically began to take a step towards her. As if in response, she opened her arms from around her waist, as though to welcome him into her embrace. The movement released the pool of blood she had been clutching to her body, a dark red slick dribbling messily downwards. He could see the twisted hole in her jumpsuit framing ugly, fleshy damage. Whatever had happened had gone deep.
“I..”, she began, and collapsed onto him, any sense of elegant control lost in a horrible tangle of limbs and dead weight.
The pair of them fell to the ground, Joshua caught off guard and unprepared to support the woman, failing miserably to hold her upright. She half landed on him, half rolled to one side. Her eyes never left his, but instinctively he knew the moment they were unseeing. For a moment he lay helplessly still, staring into her sharply sculpted face. A terrible sensation of viscous warmth spread over his trapped hand.
The moment extended like a rubber band, before snapping into focus and he found himself screaming for help.
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