Chapter 9


Days passed, and with each passing day, Hayley felt herself fall further and further into a pit of misery with no way out. She’d been an Exile for a full week now, and still nothing about it felt natural. She doubted it ever would. In the time since she’d first been ‘deposited’ into the wilds of Vega IV, she hadn’t moved far from the spot she’d been left at. She hadn’t been in any mood to explore after that first day, and pretty much just putted around the area of that first maintenance area, never straying too far away from it, always keeping it within eyeshot, coming to regard it as the closest thing to a home base she had out there. A few other local Exiles made use of the station, which Hayley didn’t mind at all. She wasn’t going to turn into one of those territorial brutes like she’d encountered before. She’d counted seven individual Exiles who made use of the facilities. Most of them were reasonably fit, indicating they’d been out there for some time. There was the female Exile she’d encountered inside the Maintenance bay that first day and had watched for a bit. She continued to come by regularly, though didn’t appear to be totally dependent on that one station, suggesting there might be another freely available one nearby. Along with her there were a pair of short males who seemed to always come around the same time. Because of their similar statures, Hayley had come to know them as the ‘twins’, although she doubted they were. Then there was an extremely athletic looking woman who was also very tall, easily 6-foot 5-inches. She had the physique of a sprinter, and appeared to do quite a bit of running in fact. She’d run up to the maintenance bay then run off. Hayley wasn’t sure if the woman ever walked. She certainly hadn’t seen it. Finally there were two others, an average sized male and female, both of whom weren’t in as quite good shape as the others, but were certainly well on their way.

After five days, Hayley had become a common sight them. She’d found a place not far from the maintenance station on a slightly raised part of the ground just within the nearby outcropping of trees. Her ‘perch’ she called it. The Exiles that frequented that particular maintenance area often looked in her direction when they came to it, some even waved and she waved back, or at the very least stopped moping long enough to glance up at them. None of them ever bothered to approach her though. Not that she minded. She’d rather they keep their distance. She did at least like the fact that someone was acknowledging her. It didn’t make her feel quite as isolated and alone.

But she knew she was alone. A friendly gesture of greeting wasn’t the same as actual human company and companionship. The Exiles could have neither. It was designed to be a lonely and pathetic existence, with every Exile a prisoner in his or her own mind. Hayley had gotten in the habit of talking to herself...rather talking to her Warden, even though it didn’t respond. The only time it spoke is if she’d violated the conditions of her imposed exile in some manner. After about five days however, she’d figured out the more common violations, and had stopped committing them.

Proximity violation – too close to another Exile

Proximity violation – attempting to enter maintenance area before cycle

Protocol violation – being overdue for scheduled maintenance

Contact violation – touching another Exile, even when inside maintenance area

Those were the main ones she’d encountered at least thus far, and were the ones she’d avoided committing for the most part.

Thick clouds had moved in on the morning of her seventh day in exile, and rain soon followed. It rained well into the afternoon, getting very heavy at one point. Sadly, Hayley couldn’t even feel the raindrops hitting her body. It was just one more of those tactile stimuli that she was being denied.

She sat on her perch beneath the trees, having moved very little that entire day. She’d paced a little around the invisible perimeter surrounding the maintenance bay, careful to not stray too far into as to incur the Warden’s wrath. After that she’d laid in the long grass for awhile, studying some of the small green ant-like insects that were crawling around everywhere. Then it was maintenance time. After that it was just hours on the small mound, staring off into space, boredom pecking away at her mind, madness feeling not so far away.

When at last the rainfall had grown to monsoon levels, she felt she had at least something to study for awhile. She watched the torrential shower saturate everything, turning the nearby dirt path into mud, making the trees appear alive with movement as the large droplets splattered against them. By the time the skies had grown dark, the rains had let up a little bit, although there was still a light drizzle.

Hayley was beginning to doze when she was abruptly stirred by the Warden’s voice, despite the fact she was still hours away from her next maintenance cycle and there wasn’t an Exile to be seen nearby.

"HK14, standby for your weekly activity update from Warden system central mainframe," Warden’s monotonic synthetic voice droned.

Activity update? She wondered what that was all about. After a moment, the voice returned.

"You have committed a total nine violations in contravention of the terms of your incarceration and have incurred an additional 88 days in your sentence. You now have 630 days remaining in your sentence."

"What!?" she cried out, her body shooting to her feet. "No! You can’t be serious!! You can’t do this! You stupid fucking machine! That’s almost two fucking years!"

Screaming, Hayley collapsed to her knees, clutching her helmet in desperation while smacking her face into the dirt. Breaking out in heavy sobs, she had never considered that her sentence might be increased...and so gratuitously for seemingly innocent violations. It wasn’t as if she’d killed anyone, or hurt anyone or even threatened anyone. She’d inadvertently gotten too close to other Exiles a few times, had touched another Exile on a few occasions and was late once in getting to maintenance...by a few seconds. This was so unfair. It was arbitrary. Above all else, it was just cruel. After regaining some self control, Hayley sat up, her hands balled into fists and clutching globs of wet mud. She couldn’t imagine feeling worse than she did at that moment. She had no idea how wrong she was.