“Alright, that should cover all of the essentials. Again, classes will resume on Monday and you can find everything you will need to know on your tablets. Use them to contact me if there is an emergency. See you on Monday.” Ms Amelie finished in a well rehearsed manner then exited the apartment, closing the door behind her.
Isla Margale and Karkos Meridian watched her leave.
“Well, this sucks.” Isla huffed, shoulders slumping now that they were finally on their own. She began to explore.
Karkos remained in the living room, looking around absentmindedly.
“Oh! We have one of those rehydrater things. I’ve seen these in media series. I guess that’s kinda cool.” Isla called from the kitchen. She began to open cabinets one after another, giving a running commentary of the items she found.
Karkos decided to take a seat on the sofa in the living area. He began to pick at the skin around his nails; a habit that he’d quickly developed as means to vent his anxious dread. The skin had already grown red, bleeding in some places, but it didn’t hurt so he kept at it.
There was a window by the sofa which he turned to stare out of. The sky was darkening, indicating that evening approached.
A day on the surface of Venus would last for two hundred and forty three Earth days. Slightly longer than one of Venus’ years, which took two hundred and twenty five Earth days. The angry planet would complete a full orbit around the sun before it would complete a single spin on its axis.
The enormous floating Venus City used a combination of intake sails and propulsion engines to orbit the planet high in its atmosphere at a rate of once per twenty four Earth hours, passing equally over the day and night side of the planet as it travelled.
The flightpath perfectly simulated a standard Earth day for the residents of the cloud-city while enabling it to disperse various chemicals and biologics into the planet’s atmosphere to aid with the long term terraforming effort as it travelled.
For convenience sake the city observed a seven day week which was synched with that of Earth’s, including the name of the days of the week.
The self made day and night cycle was also synched to that of the GMT+1 timezone. The same as that of the location of the Plug Corporation headquarters.
The result was that 6pm on a Friday in Italy was also 6pm on a Friday in Venus City.
Karkos watched the sky darken from a soft yellow white to the rich golden brown of sunset, the whole while picking and chewing at his nail beds unconsciously.
He found a bitter sense of irony in the cosmic dance. This day had also lasted a year for him, and the part of himself that was so full of dread had begun to understand that tomorrow would too. And the next day, and the next…
“So, feeling any better?” Isla asked after an hour or so of narrated exploration.
The question roused Karkos from his thoughts. He realised the tips of his fingers were stained red and quickly hid them from his housemate.
Isla was sucking on a pouch of fluid and leant against the wall of the living area, looking at him pointedly.
“No.” He answered in a quiet voice, not intending to speak any more than was necessary.
“That was a dumb question. I feel horrible so I suppose you probably do too. What I meant was, are you still planning to quit?” Isla pressed.
Her voice sounded terrible. Much worse than it had done back on the shuttle. She’d used it far too much already today and should be resting it. Didn’t her throat hurt?
“I will quit this program the moment they let me. I’m sorry Isla.” He answered dispassionately.
Isla clicked her tongue in frustration then took an irritated sip from her pouch.
“You don’t know that means that you would fail too.” He offered diplomatically.
“And you don-” Isla started loudly, but began to cough and turned away from him to bury her mouth in her elbow until the coughing fit subsided.
Once she had recovered, she took a deep breath and continued in a softer voice.
“And you don’t know that they won’t fail me too!” She accused with quiet anger.
“Isla you really should let your voice rest. You won’t be able to speak at all tomorrow if you keep this up.” Karkos advised earnestly, but Isla raised a hand to indicate that she didn’t want to hear it.
She began to say something else but closed her mouth after a moment and simply glared at him instead.
She took another sip from the pouch and winced as it went down.
“Is that food?” Karkos asked dully.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
In response, Isla paced angrily to the kitchen area, retrieved something from the food storage and then returned to the living area. She tossed an identical pouch at him and it landed in his lap when he failed to catch it.
Karkos studied the pouch of liquid food. “Aren’t we supposed to take medicine before we eat these?”
Isla shrugged at him, then left the room.
Karkos was examining the medicine in a kitchen cabinet when he heard the sound of breaking glass from the hallway outside the apartment.
<hr>
“Ok” Ms Amelie finished, exhaling the word wearily. “That’s all the essentials. Listen, make sure to read through everything on your tablets, it’s all on there. Directions to the classes and the class schedule. And remember, classes resume on Monday. Don’t be late Aeon.”
“I’m never late!” Aeon lied gleefully.
Ms Amelie shot her cheeky student an exasperated look before continuing in a serious tone.
“Listen, just look after Lulu. She really doesn’t look very well. If her condition gets worse please contact me immediately on your tablet Ok?”
“Ok Miss.” Aeon agreed, cheekiness gone. “Will she be alright?”
“The doctors at the clinic said that it''s a severe case of tank sickness. Apparently she suffers from it regularly and doesn’t do well on her wakeup checks either. Some people just don’t respond well to leaving their tanks. Make sure she drinks some water today, and try to make sure she eats something by tomorrow at the latest.”
“You might need to help her into bed tonight if she still can’t walk, and tomorrow try to ask one of your neighbours to help her wash. One of your female neighbours, Aeon. Do you understand?” The teacher asked sternly.
Aeon looked at her with a serious expression. “Yeah, of course Miss. I’ll do what I can.”
Ms Amelie sighed again, then patted her student gently on the shoulder. He didn’t flinch.
“Aeon, nobody else will be able to help you with this stuff. There are no support staff on this project and I must be as hands off as possible. They will only let me back into this building if it’s an absolute emergency. It’s up to you and your fellow classmates to tackle any issues that might arise. Please look after Lulu. She will be depending on you completely until she has recovered.”
Aeon met her eyes with firm resolve. “You can count on me Miss. I’ll do my best.”
Ms Amelie smiled ruefully and tousled her student’s hair. “Good lad. Alright, onto the next one. Take care, both of you. Message me on your tablets if you need any help.”
With that, the teacher left the room.
Aeon exhaled and placed his hands on his hips, head cocked.
“Well, this is different.” He stated, looking around the spacious apartment.
Lulu lay on the sofa, breathing slowly and heavily. She watched him through dark ringed eyes.
Aeon smiled at his partner and walked over to sit on the sofa. There was enough space at the other end for him to sit down without squashing his partner''s feet.
“Oh cool, is that an entertainment console?” Aeon chirped. He pulled his tablet out of his pocket and placed his feet onto the small table in front of the sofa. He checked for nearby devices and located the entertainment console.
“Woah, Lulu there’s almost an exabyte of media on this thing. That’s way more than in the Plugnet library. It’s all unlocked too. Sweet.” Aeon announced cheerfully. He turned to smile at Lulu.
The sick girl returned the smile. She began to say something but immediately began to cough.
Aeon half rose from his seat but the coughing didn’t last for long.
“Are you ok?” He asked.
Lulu didn’t respond to the question, leaving Aeon unsure of what to do next. What had Ms Amelie told him to do?
“Oh, would you like something to drink?” He asked, eager to help.
Again there was no response from the sick girl whose head lay heavily against the soft cushion of the sofa. A miserable expression in her eyes.
Aeon dropped off the sofa and onto his knees then scooched over to her side. He knelt by her, ignoring the sharp pain in his knees from the hard floor.
“Hey. Listen, we’re partners now you and me. That means you’re stuck with me Ok? And you know how stubborn I am, so when I told you I was gonna do everything I could to help you back when we were on the shuttle, I meant it.” Aeon declared with an undaunted grin on his boyish face.
“And if you don’t like that and you want me to leave you alone, well then, just walk over there to the kitchen and get yourself a drink. Then I’ll be happy.” He finished.
Lulu, who had turned her head to look at him as he spoke, rolled her eyes, then returned a resigned smile to her determined partner.
Feeling more encouraged, Aeon tried to leap to his feet but stumbled slightly as his weak muscles didn’t respond as well as expected. He looked around the room for Lulu’s tablet and saw it laying on a kitchen countertop.
He retrieved the device, along with a pouch of water and returned to Lulu’s side.
He handed her the tablet and placed the pouch of water on the arm of the sofa.
“I’m going to try and move you into a position where you can use your tablet. Are you ok to sit up a bit?”
Lulu looked at him for a moment, then nodded.
“Ok, let me get some cushions.” Aeon announced, then proceeded to help Lulu to sit up on the sofa with her back against the far armrest and a wall of cushions propping her up. The new position allowed her to use her tablet while it rested comfortably in her lap.
She began to trace words across the surface of the device with her fingertip, then tried to lift the device towards Aeon once she was done but struggled with the effort.
Seeing this, Aeon jumped in with a suggestion. “Hey, once you’ve finished typing, tap your finger against the side and I’ll look at it. I can erase the screen for you too.”
Lulu nodded, and tapped the device with a fingernail.
Aeon picked it up and read the words on the screen.
“Thank you.” The screen simply read.
“No problems at all, partner.” He answered, erasing the screen and placing the device back onto Lulu’s lap. “We’ll figure this out together. I’m sure you will be up and about in no time, but until then, I’m your guy. Now how about some of this lovely recycled piss water?” He asked jokingly, offering the pouch, straw first towards Lulu.
Lulu laughed silently, then eyed the pouch hesitantly, before nodding in resignation and opening her mouth slightly. He held the pouch to Lulu’s mouth and she drank.
Aeon felt a sense of accomplishment that helped eased the fear that had been spiraling within him since the morning.
Despite the face that he wore for others, Aeon was deeply nervous about being unplugged.
He liked being himself, or at least, the himself that he was on Plugnet.
He didn’t know who the hell he was now. Someone that acted like Aeon Bounder, but looked like a malnourished goblin.
He glanced again at his frail arms. Every time he did so he expected to see the defined muscles of his Plugnet avatar and everytime he didn’t see them he experienced a sense of disconnection from reality.
He felt like a stranger in his own skin, lost in a world that he didn’t know or understand.
But he wasn’t alone, and laying on the sofa next to him was a person that was having a distinctly worse time of it than he was having.
A person that needed him.
And maybe that was all that was necessary. Because if there was one thing that Aeon Bounder knew to be absolutely true about himself, it was that he wanted to help people.
Regardless, he thought, looking at his stick thin arms in dissatisfaction, I’m definitely going to have to do something about these.
Lulu finished drinking from the pouch and Aeon placed it on the windowsill by the sofa.
He turned around to make a joke for Lulu but was interrupted by a loud crashing thud against the door of the apartment. Aeon thought it had sounded like breaking glass.
<hr>
Ms Amelie finally concluded the final apartment tour. Her head ached. She’d known this was going to be the most difficult of the day so she’d scheduled the pair for last.
“Right then. That’s everything you need to know for now.” She said, opening the door to the apartment to leave as she wrapped up the familiar instructions.
“Please try to get settled in the best you can and remember, classes resume on Monday. You can find everything that you need to know on your tablets including directions to the classroom and the class sched-”
The teacher was suddenly interrupted as she turned back towards the final pair of students and barely registered the drinking glass as it hurtled past her head.
She felt the air move her hair as it passed.
Behind her, the glass shattered against one of the other apartment doors and she watched in horror as Hereon Povos picked up another glass with desperate anger in his red eyes.