Lisa Neff walked out of her apartment, her eyes taking in the
scenery before her - just as she had nearly every morning since she could
walk. The scenery was nice, certainly, but there was a monotony about it.
Regardless of how correct the decorating people were as to aesthetic beauty,
they certainly didn't seem apt to change anything.
Lisa's apartment was on the third floor up - she'd lived there for
all her life, though it was only recently that she had the place to herself.
Now, leaning on the rail outside her door, she thought about what she was to do
today.
Find Gerald. Go to school. "Learn". Go home.
She sighed - her routine hadn't changed very much at all. The
weekend was coming up tomorrow, in fact, and she knew what she'd be doing then,
too. Hanging out with Gerald. Wandering the colony, likely through the Great
Park. Maybe going up to the lesser-gravity areas, though she still wasn't
experienced enough to feel entirely safe up there.
It was all well and good - there was nothing really wrong
with any of that, but after a while it seemed as though she was stuck in a rut.
Even after her parents had moved out, it had only been a momentary distraction.
As she turned and headed toward the elevator which would take her to ground
level, she reflected upon the fact that her problem was as old as time
itself.
Lisa Neff was bored out of her mind.
"Lisa!" Gerald called from across the crowded cafeteria, waving to
get her attention. Gerald was a student, slightly more advanced in his study
than her. He was studying to be an architect - which usually meant that they
spent their weekends finding different buildings. Lisa didn't especially care,
as there wasn't much else she wanted to do.
The entertainment industry - where she hoped to be - wasn't exactly
holding auditions for people her age. Once she'd finished her education, then
they'd be knocking down her door. There were precious few who were capable of
making creative content. All she had to do was to convince herself she was one
of them.
Gerald closed the distance relatively quickly, considering the
crowdedness of the cafeteria. "Lisa, I was hoping to see you today."
Lisa gave the young architect a wry grin. "What, you expected I
might skip education for the day?"
Gerald looked confused for a moment, then realized that Lisa was
kidding. "No, it's just that... Well, I had stuff to say, and I wanted to say
it to you!"
Lisa laughed. "Go ahead."
"Well, do you recall your plan to fool Alice?"
Lisa's eyes widened. "Quiet!" she said hurriedly, looking around
to make sure that nobody had heard her friend's ill-timed outburst. Nobody was
paying attention to them - a fact which would usually annoy her. Right now she
was thankful for it. She nodded distractedly at Gerald, wondering what
possessed him to bring that up.
"Sorry." Gerald's face reflected the fact that he now fully
understood the gravity of his little slip. At least nobody had heard him. "I
forgot, Lisa...."
"What is it you wanted to say?" Lisa returned, annoyance fading
from her voice.
"Ah, well, I was thinking, if you were ready... maybe this
weekend?"
Lisa's eyes widened again. She hadn't expected that.... "I don't
know if I'll have the program finished by then."
Gerald nodded. "You will. Come on Lisa, we both know you could
finish it tonight, if you wanted to.
Lisa was better at looking annoyed than she was at actually being
annoyed. "Why this weekend?"
Gerald shrugged. "No reason."
There was a reason, Lisa was fairly sure. Gerald obviously
wasn't willing to part with it at the moment, however. Fine, let him have his
reasons. Whatever they were, they were motivation enough for her.
"All right, I'll see what I can do."
Helium Colony.
Lisa took a good look around as she walked toward her home. She'd
dreamed of this for three years now - ever since she started wondering what
lie beyond her own colony.
Helium Colony was on the tail end of Europa - the enormous colony
ship that held them all. Lisa had lived there all her life, as had her
parents, and grandparents, and so on for longer than she could trace.
Alice had suggested that the Europa had been in space for several
hundred years - if not an entire millennium. Concrete numbers, however, were
impossible to get from the computer.
What Lisa did know, taught both by the basic schooling she had
passed years back and by sessions with the ship's computer, was that Helium
Colony did not make up the entirety of the colony ship Europa. There were two
others before one reached the center of their great Vessel - Neon and Argon
colonies. After the center, which contained the bridge, the majority of
Alice's wiring, and of course the Core, there were three others - Krypton,
Xenon, and Radon colonies.
The fact which made Lisa begin her ill-considered quest was a
simple one - nobody currently living in Helium Colony had ever seen any of the
others.
If queried, Alice would tell whoever asked why that was. Genetics,
mainly - the inhabitants of one individual colony would become more
genetically similar over time. Any mutations or differences that happened over
time would propagate through that colony. Though the planners of the voyage
had, according to legend, ensured that each colony would individually possess
enough genetic material to form a stable pool, it would be dangerously
shallow.
So the Captain, almost immediately after Interdiction was broken,
had ordered each colony sealed for the duration of the voyage. It would have
to be a long voyage indeed, for that sort of genetic worry to matter, Lisa had
reflected when she had first learned of the plan. When the Europa arrived at
its destination, the colonists would re-mingle again on the new world, thus
ensuring a large mix of genetic material.
Lisa supposed it was a good plan - though she didn't know for
certain. She was no geneticist. In fact, nobody was - it was up to the Genome
Planning Committee to think of these things. And the Committee resided in the
center of the vessel, inaccessible to her or anyone else in her colony.
The subway stopped, its doors opening. She stepped off, not really
looking around. She'd walked the route from station to home many times in the
past, enough to know it by heart. A few others disembarked with her, forming
their own chattering groups and walking off. She supposed that she knew them -
they seemed to be students like herself - but she could not identify them
offhand. It didn't matter to her, likely they had nothing to say to her
anyway.
Damn that childish mentality, she thought. She liked to think that
she had outgrown the tendency to ignore others for little reason. She didn't
really know, however, as she was one of those ignored.
She was twenty years old - one imagined that her peers might be a
bit more mature. Wishful thinking, it seemed. With a sigh, she climbed stairs
leading up to the third level. She could have taken the elevator, as she had
that morning, but at the moment she wished to walk. Her door was within sight
of the top, and she made her way into the apartment with hardly a thought as to
the scenery, the company, or much anything else.
"Alice!" Lisa barked as soon as she entered her apartment, tossing
her bookbag roughly onto the couch. She heard the chirp that signified that
the ship's computer was listening, and sank herself into a chair across the
room.
"Alice, I would like to request a personal communications device,
please. One which can be worn on the wrist."
Lisa and Gerald had argued that one for a while. Gerald maintained
that such a device would allow the computer to keep tabs on them. Lisa said
that she'd need a link to Alice in case her plan didn't work.
"Very well, miss Neff. The package should be delivered in one
hour."
"Thank you, computer. That is all." There was a second chirp, and
then Lisa shut her eyes and leaned back in the chair. She wondered exactly why
it took so long to send things across the ship - for something as small as the
communicator, the tubes could deliver it. Why would the computer send a
courier?
She decided not to think about that, instead reflecting on her
plan. The plan that her and Gerald came up with long ago. It was simple,
really, the kind of thing that they were really more apt to do in years past,
when they had both been adventurous little kids. She reflected that maybe she
was a bit old to embark upon silly little voyages. Perhaps she should devote
herself to studies - practice her acting, or compose a tale for more credits.
Such preparation would be rewarded, and perhaps was sorely needed, if she
wasn't as good as she hoped she was. But something about the quest that Gerald
had first suggested stuck with her. Something in it seemed worthwhile, like
something she had to do.
A knock on the door woke Lisa. Glancing at the clock, she
struggled her way both to consciousness and to get out of the rather
comfortable chair. Had she dozed off? The timepiece on the wall seemed to
think so. She was walking across the room when the knock came again.
"Yes, I'm coming!" she said, a bit more irritably than she meant
to. Why hadn't the engineers of the colony invented a voice-activated door?
Probably to keep from unleashing a plague of doors which opened during
everyday conversation upon people, her mind replied sardonically.
She pushed a button near the entrance, and heard the latch open.
"What is it?" she asked as the opened the door.
As she had suspected, a courier stood on the other side of the
door, holding a package for her. "Here you go - personal communicator?"
Lisa nodded impatiently and signed for the device, the package
encasing which was handed over to her as the courier left. Closing the door,
Lisa turned inside with her request. It took her very little time to open the
packaging and discard it to be recycled later. And there it was - the personal
communicator. It looked to be about the same size as a wristwatch, but instead
was designed to be a personal link to the ship's computer - or anyone else who
was wearing one.
The plan had been so abstract, up until then. Even when she had
been writing the program, it hadn't seemed as real. She knew she was going to
go through with it, though. She would enter the program tonight, and tomorrow
it would take effect, making her effectively invisible to the ship's computer.
And then she would do what she had waited years for.
She would leave the colony.
[Helium] Log -
Contents -
[Helium] Part II
Geocities