Chapter 3


The air was comfortably cool and a little breezy, perfect weather for walking Hayley thought to herself. Her pace was steady; she wasn’t rushing but she also wasn’t dawdling. In her mind, she was on a mission and couldn’t waste time taking in the scenery. Though the scenery was certainly beautiful. Plains of tall bluish-green grass spread out around her on either side of road, dense wooded areas just a little bit beyond those plains. On her way toward the arcology, she passed a number of dirt paths branching off from the main road with signs indicating where the paths led. One of the signs Hayley took note of read ‘Vega Beach’. A colony with its own beaches, she wondered to herself with a smile. This place would probably be paradise if such an oppressive regime wasn’t controlling everything.

Eventually, Hayley came to the shantytown’s perimeter line. While there was a chainlink fence surrounding it, there were no gates, guards or anything designed to otherwise prevent someone from getting in. It didn’t surprise her much. As she understood the shanties were considered by many to be the colony’s ghetto, where the dregs and lower classes called home. No reason to waste effort at protecting them. She could only figure that the Administrative Council found those living in the shanties to be an administrative burden.

The shantytown reminded Hayley of what most new colonies looked like. Clusters of temporary structures spread out haphazardly with little design as to where they would stand. A number of the structures were stacked or conjoined along the sides as per their design, forming larger structures. As Hayley got deeper into the shantytown, pedestrian traffic picked up. Men and women wandered about and children played. She noticed there were a few parked vehicles here and there, but it didn’t seem like there was a particular need for vehicle ownership among the majority of the town’s inhabitants. The arcologies were a quick jaunt away, and what with the closed borders, it wasn’t as though anyone could go for a Sunday drive.

A few people spotted Hayley walking down the street. Her fancy clothes quickly distinguished her from the town’s residence, nearly all of whom wore the drab brown and gray worker coveralls, or some variety of featureless casual clothing. She began attracting a crowd, although no one had yet said anything to her. A young man, probably no older than 18 appeared out of a gathering group of gawkers and took a few cautionary steps toward Hayley.

"Are you...Hayley Komit?"

She stopped walking and turned to face the young man, giving him a broad smile. "Yes as a matter of fact. I am!"

A buzz of chatter filled the group of onlookers, along with a spattering of applause and restrained hoots. Some appeared confounded, not quite sure what to make of her or what all the fuss was about. A wide grin formed on the young man’s face as he took another step toward her.

"Wow! I heard that you were coming to Vega IV, but I figured you’d just be going to the New Liberty colony!" He said excitedly. "What are you doing here!?"

"Well, part of the reason for my tour is to bring awareness to the plight of the people on this planet. It seems like most people don’t know or just don’t care, but I think it’s important that people do care."

"You shouldn’t have come here," another of the onlookers spoke, stepping forward. The middle-aged man moved behind the younger man, clearly his son, and put his hands on his shoulders. "You don’t realize the position you’ve put yourself in by entering the border."

"I understand the risks," Hayley shrugged. "Risk or not, it wasn’t going to stop me from coming here."

The young man turned to face his father. "Dad, do you even know who this is? It’s Hayley Komit! You think the Directorate would try to arrest her for anything? Come on, she’s like the most famous singer in the galaxy right now."

"I don’t care if she’s the Federation President...and neither do they," the older man narrowed his eyes at his boy before turning them back up to Hayley. "Young lady, do yourself a favor. Turn around and go back the way you came. You’re putting all of us at risk by talking to us. Come on Lucas."

"But...dad!" The teen pulled free of his father’s hands and spun around to face him as he and the other onlookers began to disperse. Sighing, he turned to face Hayley again. "Forget about them. They’re all a bunch of damn cowards anyway."

"What do you mean?" Hayley folded her gloved arms. "It’s...it’s complicated. Look, are you hungry or thirsty? We can hit the food shack, and I can tell you all about it."

Hayley gave the young man a wink. "Sure, sounds good."

The boy grinned widely. "Oh, cool. It’s just around the corner. C’mon!"

With a return smile, the singer followed her young fan off the main road and down one of the dirt paths that wound through the town. After a short hike they entered a partially enclosed area set up in a space between several mobile structures. A cluster of circular picnic tables were set up beneath a roofed section, a number of them occupied at that moment. One of the temporary structures making up the walls of the enclosure had a neon sign affixed to it, the word ‘Gus’s’ blinking and buzzing incessantly on it. The aroma of cooked food filled Hayley’s nostrils as she and Lucas neared the establishment. Inside they found a cafeteria-style serving line, a kitchen set up behind a long counter with a man, a woman and a young girl presently manning operations there. The young girl, who was probably a few years younger than Lucas, greeted the two as they entered. Her eyes seemed to light up as she made eye contact with Hayley.

Gasping, she could barely speak. "You’re...you’re..."

"That’s right, it’s Hayley Komit!" Said Lucas, grinned from ear to ear. "And she’s having lunch with me!"

"Ohmygosh!" The girl covered her mouth with her hands, and made a noise that sounded almost like a piglet squeal. "Can I have your autograph?" She managed to mumble through her fingers.

Hayley smiled and nodded as the girl offered her a pen and a pad of paper. "What’s your name?"

"Laryssa...with a ‘Y’ and two ‘S’s’."

"That’s such a pretty name," Hayley told her, as she wrote a small note for the girl, along with her signature. "Here you go Laryssa."

The man behind the counter noticed the exchange and turned his back to the grill as he glanced at Hayley with a pleasant smile on his face. "Ms. Komit...my daughter’s a big fan of yours. You really made her day. Anything you want, it’s on the house."

"Oh no, I couldn’t do that," Hayley offered the man a sheepish smile.

"It’s perfectly alright. Now what’ll you have?"

"Well," she turned her attention to the small digital screen atop the counter which listed the menu items. Her eyes locked onto the one thing she’d been hankering for all week. "Oh, the cheeseburger, definitely! And fries. And a water."

"Domestic or import?"

"What’s the domestic water like?"

"It’s fizzy...something about the purification chemicals they put into it. Perfectly safe to drink, but you may want to stick to imported."

"I’ll do that, thank you."

With her trey of food, she followed Lucas out of the building and to one of the picnic tables outside. Dousing her burger and fries with ample amounts of ketchup, Hayley felt her glands ache for a moment, anticipating the flavor explosion that was imminent. The first bite was a glorious one. It’d been so long since she’d had any junk food. Her career typically prevented her from such indulgences, which was punishing for her considering she was quite a ‘foodie’. Were it not for the constant exercising she did as a child and then the dietary therapy she took as a teenager she figured she’d have weighed in excess of a two hundred pounds considering how much she used to eat when she was younger. Thank goodness for modern technology, she thought as she wolfed down the burger in a manner that was not entirely lady-like. The young boy sitting across from her seemed mildly humored by the voracity at which she ate.

"So where does this meat come from anyway? I assume you must have to grow livestock yourself...?"

"It’s all cloned," the young man shrugged. "They only clone the parts of the animal they need."

"I’ve never tasted cloned meat this good. Usually cloned meats have a kind of synthetic taste."

"Well, we have the benefit of living on an earth-like planet...so we can uh...enhance our food with some local. natural flavors."

Hayley finished off her burger then picked at the fries. "So, getting back to what we were talking about before. You called your dad and some of those people cowards. What’s up with that?"

"They are cowards," Lucas narrowed his eyes. "The DIS...the Directorate of Internal Security, they basically get away with doing whatever they want around here. They rough people up, they shakedown businesses, they detain people for no reason whatsoever! And nobody does a damn thing to stop them. They get their authority straight from the Administrative Council, which means they have unlimited power to do as they please. And then there’s the Exiles..."

Hayley’s attention perked. "The Exiles...yes, I wanted to know about them. I haven’t seen any yet."

"DIS keeps them away from the shanties. Apparently we’re even too good for them. A few get in now and then, but they just wander around aimlessly. They’ve got these things in their heads see, that prevent them from entering buildings and from going too far outside of the Republic. It’s almost like an invisible electrified fence. If they stray too far away, their suits start hurting them...I don’t know how exactly, but you just see them recoil in pain."

"Have you ever tried communicating with one of them?"

Lucas shook his head vehemently. "No, never! It’s a felony to attempt to interact or communicate with an Exile. If you talk to them, touch them, heck even if you wave at them DIS will find out and will arrest you. It happened to a friend of mine. He saw one that looked like it had broken its leg..."

"You call them it," an eyebrow perked on Hayley’s forehead. "They’re people too aren’t they?"

Lucas sighed scratching his head. "Yeah, I keep doing that. It’s part of the conditioning. After they started Exiling prisoners, we all had to go through a two-week virtual seminar. Every night before bed we had to watch these stupid programs that were designed to make us regard the Exiles as nothing more than objects. Most of us still know they’re people, but it’s gotten to the point now after seven years that we actually have stopped seeing them as people. It’s terrible, and I feel like crap everything I think about it..."

Hayley reached out and put a hand on Lucas’s shoulder. "It’s alright. I can understand. As a singer I’ve gone through a similar type of ‘conditioning’ designed to keep me from getting nervous on stage. I’ve basically come to see the crowd as not real. I mean, it’s not like I had to take a seminar or anything, it’s just something that came about after years performing in front of people."

Lucas nodded slowly. "Yeah...it’s just one of those things you stop thinking about after awhile and just accept. Even if it makes you feel crummy. Anyway, like I was saying about my friend...he saw this one Exile that looked hurt. It was on the ground and kind of crawling, like it’d broken its leg. Anyway, my friend goes to help it, and the Exile starts going crazy as if it’s being electrocuted. Well, my friend goes to tell the local DIS garrison, and they arrest him on the spot!"

"What happened to your friend?"

A forlorn look appeared on the young man’s face as he stared off into space. "Now he’s out there...one of them."

"He was Exiled? Just for trying to help an injured person? That’s crazy!"

"That’s how it is in the Republic," Lucas shook his head. "Our lives are so regimented and controlled...any infraction will result in arrest and potential Exile. But what pisses me off the most is that nobody will do a damn thing! Well...not anymore. There were people, friends of mine, who used fight back. They’re all gone now though. Arrested and Exiled. A and E we call it."

"No trial?"

Lucas puffed a sarcastic snicker. "Trial? Oh sure, there’s a trial. They usually don’t last more than a few hours. And I’ve never heard of anyone who was arrested ever being found not guilty. The way the DIS sees it, if you were arrested then you have to be guilty. It’s up to you to prove your innocence, but no one can because it’s your word against theirs."

"This is unbelievable," Hayley sat back. "Well, I’m more convinced then ever that what’s going on here has to stop. But I was wondering...do you think you could take me to wherever the Exiles are? I want to see one."

Lucas nodded. "Yeah. They mostly hang around outside the arcologies. That’s where their buildings are."

"Buildings?"

The young man nodded again. "They have these buildings all over the place, mostly around the arcologies, but some around the perimeter. They look almost like public washroom facilities, you know that you might see at the beach or whatever. We’re not supposed to go in them, but I did once. Each has maybe a dozen of these narrow stall thingies with these weird looking stools inside. The Exiles sit inside the stall and I guess go to the bathroom or something. The only thing is the stools aren’t toilets, I checked."

"Alright, well do you mind taking me over to the New Rome arcology then? I have a pass to get in there."

"Sure." Lucas hopped to his feet and Hayley followed him.

The walk from the shanties to the arcology was a brief one. Traveling down the main road, Hayley and Lucas reached the towering structure’s outer perimeter walls within ten minutes. Uniformed security presence became more evident as they neared. DIS agents were instantly recognizable by the long leather trench coats they wore and the gasmask-like devices they wore over their faces, giving them a frightening if not alien look. They wore red sashes around their left biceps containing the letters DIS in square black lettering within a white circle. Most, if not all of them were armed with weapons Lucas identified as repulsor rifles. As opposed to firing conventional ordinance or plasma discharges, repulsor rifles fired bursts of concussive energy that could do anything from stun a person, to punch a hole through solid metal depending on how high the compression field is set. It made the weapons good as both a non-lethal crowd control weapon or for lethal takedowns.

The pair avoided the DIS sentries, following the wall along to a clearing between the arcologies that had been turned into a parkette. The grass there was neatly trimmed, and was surrounded by a smooth granite walkway and a number of granite blocks that served as benches. It wasn’t the parkette that Hayley was interested in however; it was what dwelled within. Scattered along the grassy promenade was maybe a dozen black clad figures. Hayley was frozen in shock as she absorbed the image before her. Each was covered from head to toe in what looked like a skin made of glossy black latex. The suits left almost nothing to the imagination as they tightly clung to the bodies of their wearer, forming to every contour like a second skin. Aside from the differences in body types and sizes, they each appeared identical. The only distinguishing features were the fact that the female Exiles had larger breasts than their male counterparts. Beyond that, they were all anatomically androgynous, with their reproductive organs flattened and smoothened beneath the latex-like material. There was no way to individually recognize the Exile as their faces were concealed behind smooth rounded helmets with full facial covers. The helmets seamlessly blended in with the rest of the suit- in fact there were no seams of any kind visible anywhere on the suits, as if they were painted on.

None of the Exiles seemed aware of Hayley or Lucas’s presence in the area. They didn’t seem to be particularly aware of each other’s presence at that. They all seemed to maintain their distance from one another. A few of them sat on the benches, some on the ground. Their body language said more than any of them ever could. Shoulders sunken, heads down, these people looked to be in absolute misery. A few of them sat with their hands pressed against their helmets where their eyes would have been and gently shook as if sobbing. Another had her arms wrapped around herself and was gently rocking from side to side with her head craned backed. None made any noise whatsoever.

"My god..." Hayley whispered, eyes widened in shock. "This is...this is..."

"This is nothing," Lucas spoke in a low voice. "These ones are probably only a few weeks into their sentence. Most new Exiles tend to hang around here. The older ones tend to get as far away from the arcologies as they can. A lot of them tend to go out into the sewage system behind the arcologies. It’s easy to get lost out there, and since they’re all automated, there’s no people for the Exiles to bother or be bothered by."

"This is so horrible..." Hayley couldn’t help but be saddened by what she was seeing. Despite not being able to see into the eyes of the Exiles, or see their facial expression, the despair in their body language was enough to bring a tear to her eye. "Lucas, thank you for showing this to me."

"No problem. Anything I can do to let the rest of the Federation know what’s really going on here. Look, I need to get back. I have classes in an hour. If you want to get into New Rome, there’s an auxiliary entrance along the western side. It’s usually not guarded and accepts card key entry. It may be your best bet. Just be careful you don’t get caught."

Hayley nodded, thanked her young friend and gave him a hug before they parted ways. Unclipping her DPAD from the hip of her skirt, she activated the device’s camera mode and took a number of photos of the Exiles in the park along and some of the arcology as a means of giving the pictures a point of reference. Satisfied with the pictures, she followed the walkway out of the parkette and around the arcology to its western side. Along the way, she spotted more guards. They didn’t seem to pay her much mind as they were busy with an Exile. One of them was speaking to the Exile, apparently through a DPAD-like device. She couldn’t make out what any of them were saying. She passed by them with barely a glance exchanged between any of them. She soon found herself in a type of outdoor concourse area or quad with paths that ran to the other arcologies. This area was populated with more than just Exiles, although a few of the black-bodied prisoners could be seen here and there. Within the concourse there were a number of small structures- vendors as far as Hayley could tell, mostly serving food and beverages. Among the structures was a larger one where there was currently a line up of Exiles attempting to enter, the word ‘MAINTENANCE’ appearing in large font along the side of the structure. The singer figured this was one of the buildings Lucas had told her about where Exiles apparently did their business.

It occurred to her that there didn’t seem to be any way for the Exiles to eat. Their mouths were completely covered, and there didn’t appear to be any holes or where a feeding tube or some such a device might be inserted. For that matter, there were no holes in the suit for an Exile to relieve themselves through. She couldn’t quite figure then why they’d need bathrooms, if that’s what they were, or if perhaps by maintenance these were like Exile hospitals.

Realizing she was staring, Hayley quickly turned away and kept walking. Few of the regular citizens occupying the concourse paid her much mind. A few did glance at her, some looking at her as though they may have recognized her, but none of them approaching her. She continued on her way, attempting to appear casual as if she belonged there. Thankfully she didn’t seem to standout quite as much there, as there were others as finely dressed as she, though most of those that were had their own personal entourages. It took another twenty minutes of searching before Hayley found the entrance Lucas had told her about. As he’d told her, it was unguarded although there was a spherical surveillance camera affixed to a nearby street light. She wasn’t concerned about the camera. She figured she’d probably been detected by numerous surveillance devices already- the fact she hadn’t been stopped yet suggested they didn’t consider her to be a person of interest.

Slipping the access card out from her legging, she held it over the biometric scanning device, a thin arc of light projecting onto the card and running down its length. With a receptive tone, the reader recognized the card and the steel door rolled open like an automatic garage door. Stepping inside, Hayley found herself within a long steel industrial corridor. Fortunately, she was alone, making her entry that much easier. She moved briskly down the wide corridor, taking note of some of the vehicles and devices stored within. She figured she must have been near the manufacturing wing of the arcology, as she could hear the drone of machinery and the clanking of metal on metal contact echoing through the corridor. The corridor split off into three different directions as she came upon an intersection. Fortunately, there was signage hanging from the ceiling in the center of the intersection which identified where each path led. She decided to follow the path marked ‘Commercial Center’. After a quick hike, she came to the end of the corridor and to a set of sliding proximity doors. As she entered the door’s sensor range, they split open with a metallic grinding nose.

As she passed through the doors, and then through a short connecting hallway, Hayley’s eyes widened at the sight of the arcology’s sprawling commercial center. It was like an enormous mall interior with a central annex that was about two city blocks wide and easily over 30 stories high with hundreds of shops, boutiques, offices and eating establishments along the edges. Thousands of men, women and children moved about the commercial center interior, popping in and out of the various establishments, some just walking, others conversing, laughing, and genuinely seeming to be enjoying themselves. It was a stark contrast to what Hayley had expected. These people were supposed to be oppressed and downtrodden and miserable! Instead these people looked no worse off than those back at home. Hayley had barely managed to take a full step into the sprawling business center when a pair of leather coat and gasmask wearing men suddenly appeared directly in her path. One had a pistol in his hand and pointed at the young singer’s head. Her heart sank and her stomach cramped as the DIS agents took custody of her.

"Don’t move," one of the agent’s deep voice droned through some sort of electronic voicoder device around his neck. "You’re under arrest."

"Huh!? What for? I didn’t do anything!"

"You’re being charged with espionage and attempting to incite seditious activity," one of the agents moved around to her back and bound her wrists with plastic restraining bands. "Lets go."

Hayley was in a state of shock as the agent pushed her forward. She couldn’t even think of anything to say. Fear gripped her heart, causing her vision to tunnel and the ambient noise around her to turn into a hollow, distant hiss.