The Shock of the New

Chapter 44: Holidays in Heimdall

The W.E.R. space colonies were very much the ultimate holiday destination for the rich and powerful members of the W.E.R.. In fact the absolute wealthiest members of W.E.R. society even held permanent homes in the space colonies.

For someone as low on society's ladder like Eleanor Johnson, the notion of even visiting one of these places was completely out of the question, not only because of her limited wealth, but also because the lower races typically didn't get the chance to visit a prestige part of W.E.R. engineering.

As she walked through the entrance terminal to the Heimdall space station, Eleanor was feeling a lot of disbelief. Never in her life did she ever think she'd actually get to set foot in a place like this. As she walked up to the entrance gate, Eleanor saw the man in the terminal give a slight look of disbelief at the fact that a non-white woman was actually setting foot in the place.

"Passport and tickets please" he said. Eleanor handed him her passport to which the man looked it over before handing it back to her

"Very well. Enjoy your visit to Heimdell, Ms Taylor"

As Eleanor took the passport back and walked away, she sniggered to herself. The passport was a fake of course as there was no way Eleanor would have gotten out of Lunaville W.E.R. using her real name. She'd also shaved her hair off and donned a wig to further throw off anybody who saw her.

Upon leaving the entry port, Eleanor caught a shuttle bus to the Freya district. None of the members of the Cult of Babbage had travelled to the complex together for risk of being caught. They were instead to arrive to the colony separately and meet at a café called Great White Brews in which the next phase of the plan would come into fruition.

The coffee shop was located just outside the centre of the district and was very much an unassuming place that looked very much the same as most of the other buildings on the station. Eleanor stepped inside and looked around. The other members of the cult were nowhere to be seen anywhere inside. Eleanor walked over to the counter.

"Excuse me?" she said to the barista on duty "I'm part of a party that's reserved a table here. You wouldn't know anything about that would you?"

The barista, a fresh faced man with dark hair and a small moustache looked up at her

"Name?"

"Olivia Taylor" Eleanor replied. The Barista proceeded to type the name into the computer on the counter.

"Yeah" he said "Party of 5 right?"

"That's us" Eleanor nodded.

"Head over to table 22" The barista pointed to a table at the back of the shop

As Eleanor walked through the café, she saw that the vast majority of faces sitting around the tables were white people. In fact she was the only non-white in the café which was getting her more than a few suspicious looks. Eleanor however ignored them. She was used to this sort of thing anyway.

When she sat at the table, Eleanor briefly looked over the cafe's menu and was somewhat surprised to see that despite the high class nature of the Heimdell space station, the food served there was the same artificial stuff as the rest of the W.E.R. Eleanor had been expecting it to be some of the luxurious real food that the cult had shown her.

Eleanor eventually ordered a coffee which was brought over to her table. However as she drank it, Eleanor felt a sense of strangeness. Although it was no different from the coffee she'd been drinking all her life, it tasted dull and synthetic and didn't have the usual effect she got from drinking coffee. Maybe it was from trying real food for a change.

Eleanor pondered it for a few seconds, only to be interrupted by a voice saying "Hey! You made it!"

Looking up, Eleanor saw Debbie standing just in front of the table.