The seasonal changes on Vega IV came about quite rapidly. It was four months into Hayley’s exile on the planet and the rainy late summer and autumn seasons had at last given way to the winter season. The bright blue-green trees had transformed into a vibrant collage of oranges, reds, yellows and browns. While she was unable to experience the sensation of changing temperatures thanks to her suit, she’d noticed that regular citizens that were out and about had adopted heavier clothing. She could see people’s breath on the air, and noticed frost appearing on the grass. Then the snow came. It started off slowly at first, coming down in brief snow flurries that reminded Hayley a great deal of home. She would sit and watch the snow come down between the tall arcologies and remember Montreal in the late autumn, imagining holding a cup of steaming hot cocoa between her hands with marshmallows slowly melting within. Memories of the holiday season filled her head- the sight of decorations filling Sainte-Catherine Street and all of the busy shoppers braving the cold, hopping from store to store in a flurry of activity. The feeling of the cold air on her face and the sounds of crisp white snow crunching beneath her feet as her parents used to pull her and her older sister along during their shopping trips to La Centre Eaton. She thought of the smell of turkey baking in the oven, the sound of her mother chopping vegetables and her father being shooed out of the kitchen whenever she caught him trying to get an early taste of the bird. She remembered the way the house was always so fully decorated, with holly coiled around stair banisters, wreaths hanging from every door, and the sparkling lights and animated decorative bulbs of the 8-foot tall Christmas tree they would get each year.
Even as Hayley grew in interstellar acclaim and moved on her own, those family traditions had always meant the world to her. Regardless of what she was doing at the time, she always made sure she had a few weeks off around Christmas so she could be with her family. She missed their faces. Their voices. She even missed the inevitable arguments she’d have with her sister Melanie over the merits of choosing a singing career, instead of going into politics like her.
Hayley breathed a mournful sigh, wishing she was home right now. Although on Earth it was only September, the winter season on Vega IV was making her yearn for those familial settings. The kick/dodgeball games continued into the winter season, albeit briefly. When the ground froze, it made running a little more difficult and harder on the feet. Then, when the snow finally came to stay, it became impossible to bounce the ball properly. Roughly a week after the first snow fall, the heavy stuff hit. It came down in massive sheets, huge icy flakes that covered everything within the first few hours, but didn’t stop for days. Hayley was relieved beyond words that her suit kept her comfortable in the cold, as she was up to the mid of her calves by the time the blizzard finally ceased. Unfortunately, the pond Hayley called home had frozen over. She’d gotten so accustomed to sleeping almost completely submerged that when she had to sleep in a snow bank that first night, all she did was roll around. When she woke up, she was buried. At first she thought her suit may have malfunctioned when she opened her eyes and was greeted by darkness. It took her a moment to realize her head was completely buried.
After digging herself out, she ventured through the park to see how the other Exiles were coping. Against the fresh bright white snow, they all stood out like shiny black silhouettes. She was amused by the activities of a few of them- one was in the process of building a towering snowman. A number of others were firing snowballs at each other, some were laying in the snow making snow angels. Childish activities certainly, but fun was where you could find it. And were Hayley not feeling so depressed lately, she might have even joined in the snowball fight. Unfortunately, all the snow and winter activities did was make her feel nostalgic about home and miss it even worse.
Trudging across the park’s vast snow covered field, she decided to get in close to the arcologies. Snow removal along the roads was done quickly, the snow never allowed to accumulate more than a few centimeters before large tank-like vehicles were deployed. Rather than shovel the snow away, the vehicles actually sprayed some kind of chemical on the roads from a nozzle on its front section that melted the snow and prevented the water from freezing. A street-sweeper style vehicle would then appear a short while later, sweeping away the excess water and ice, leaving the roads looking as dry as they did in a mid-summer day. She had to be careful navigating around the roads, constantly watching for the snow removal trucks. She doubted they would stop for an Exile, and the potential of being crushed under the vehicles treads wasn’t very appealing.
One of the good things about winter was that there were few ordinary citizens out and about. It meant the promenades were usually all but empty except for the Exiles, who practically took over the partially enclosed spaces. Unfortunately it meant there were Exiles constantly within close proximity, and Hayley found herself regularly being submitted to the Warden’s painful proximity alarm. It seemed the concentration of Exiles near the arcologies had increased since the first blizzard. She’d noticed even in her park there appeared to be far more Exile traffic than there had been throughout the past few months. Either DIS was cracking down on more citizens, or the Exiles who typically stayed away from the civilized areas were coming in. It kind of made sense to Hayley. The roads and walkways around the arcologies were constantly being cleared, making travel a lot easier. She could only guess what having to trudge through knee-high deep snow in the wilds had to be like. Unfortunately things were becoming a little too crowded for her taste. The battery of proximity alarms was wearing on her patience. Without her game to keep her occupied during the day and her inability to sleep in her pond, she thought it was kind of pointless to stick around the city all winter. Instead of going south however, she decided to go north of the arcologies. In her four months of exile, she’d never ventured beyond the northern most boundary-wall that divided the arcologies from the rest of the world. Not that there was very far to go north , as the Vega Bay shoreline eventually curved east. What lay immediately north of the heart of the Aegean Republic was a vast open network of canals; part of the city’s sewage and waste system. A sprawling, kilometers long maze of interconnecting steel canals, drainage pipes, viaducts and artificial islands spread out before her as she neared the edge of its perimeter. Steam rose from the tepid waters constantly flowing throughout the wide steel trenches, all of it pushing toward a towering facility silhouetted in the distance- most likely the waste reclamation facility.
Hayley followed the pathways deeper into the vast network of canals. Fortunately the residual heat coming from the water seemed to keep the snow levels to a minimum. A number of temporary structures had been built atop the islands between the canals- most of them were the older model ‘porta-home’ types that looked like large trailer homes with legs, perhaps left over from the early days of the planet’s colonization. Smaller then the more common modular units, the porta-homes were solitary non-modular units about twenty feet long and eleven feet high from foot to rooftop, designed to be deployed from the air. The porta-home’s occupancy lights were on, suggesting someone was still inhabiting the structure. Hayley couldn’t fathom anyone choosing to live in a place like this.
As she approached one of the structures, she noticed a familiar shape adorning one of the structure’s side panels...a rough, barely legible letter A within a circle. She remembered seeing a mark similar to it months ago, in her first day as an Exile, marking the wall of a maintenance station. She wondered if perhaps it’d simply been done by that same thuggish Exile, or if perhaps it was some kind of identification marking.
As she continued nearing the structure, movement along the periphery of her vision caught her attention. She stopped, noticing an Exile had appeared from behind another nearby structure. A physically fit male, he stared at her with his arms folded over his chest. Suddenly more Exiles appeared, some crawling up from the canals, others appearing from beneath the porta-home structures. Hayley suddenly found herself surrounded, with Exiles all around her standing equal distances apart from each other and away from her so as to not trigger their proximity alarms. There were over a dozen of them, males and females all sharing a common trait- they were each physically very fit, suggesting they were all long-timers, or had been fit prior to exile. Although she couldn’t read any of their faces for obvious reasons, their body language suggested they had hostile intent. She couldn’t imagine what any of them could do to her however that wouldn’t cause them pain also...but then again it hadn’t stopped the brute she’d encountered that first day.
One of the Exiles, a female with very nicely toned thighs and biceps took a step toward Hayley though was careful not to enter illegal range. Something about her suggested familiarity, though she couldn’t be sure why...there were hundreds of female Exiles out there of similar size and shape. Yet there was something about her, Hayley was certain she’d seen her before. The female exile gestured at her wrist, apparently the universal symbol of time amongst Exiles, then jerked a finger in Hayley’s direction. She’d come to understand the meaning of the signing as she’d seen it many times before. The question was how long she’d been exiled? Hayley held up four fingers then made an ‘M’ shape with both hands by joining the tips of her thumps together and pointing her fingers downward. The female exile shook her head, pointed at herself then tapped her wrist. She then held up both hands, showing eight fingers followed by the ‘peace’ sign, which indicated years. Eight years! Hayley’s eyes went wide under her helmet. This woman, whoever she was, wasn’t just a long timer; she had to have been among the first prisoners to be exiled before it became standard procedure on the world.
The female exile pointed past Hayley’s shoulder, gesturing south toward the arcologies. Rather than risk a confrontation, she decided to follow the instructions and left the sewage and drainage complex. The confrontation left her feeling a little despondent and out of sorts, even though it had ended peacefully. Perhaps it was because she was desperate for any sort of contact or community, and the one real community of Exiles that seemed to exist had just rejected her. She wondered just how long she’d have to be out there before they accepted her.