Cracks in the Spires

29: Settling In

Life settled very quickly into a kind of unreal normality. At least that was how Ben saw it. He knew the events set in motion meant upheaval and danger were coming but for now life in UpCit was exactly as it had always been. He had thought of himself as happily integrated into life in the Warrens. Unlike Jan he'd experienced no pangs of regret about leaving the City. He had everyone he cared about out there with him. He'd not wanted to return so he found the speed with which he had re-adapted to City life disconcerting. Take this morning, removing stubble with depilono cream felt blissful compared to scraping one's face with a bit of sharpened metal. The frequency with which he'd removed chunks of his chin along with the hair had led to him trying to grow a beard when they first went to the Warrens but it had been too hot, too itchy and too ridiculously patchy, so he'd eventually mastered the art of shaving. Then there was the music, after breakfast which had been ordered from the café he'd spent an hour playing the xylophone. In the four days he'd been back he'd reverted to his habit of daily practise because he had time. He'd never given up playing but it had been spasmodic. There were too many other calls on his time and playing was a luxury that came second to the business of living. A week or two might go by without him even taking the instrument out.

Now he was sitting on the balcony of the apartment clad in elegant linen clothes, sipping chilled juice and waiting for Per to return from his summons to the UpCit CSB offices. Afterwards they were going to meet Gilfi-Jon and Essy for lunch and then go to MidCit to visit Jan and Kiri. No backbreaking work in the fields. No trying to sleep in the tunnels during the blistering summer days where temperatures regularly exceeded forty five degrees. In the city they called them heatwaves, out in the fens that was normal summer weather. Only the dryness made it possible to survive. You worked at night and even then you sweated. Looked at objectively life for the people in the Warrens was hard as that of interns on the agristates. He supposed the vital difference was the former was a shared effort and necessary for survival whereas the interns saw no benefit from their labour. He frowned, either way the future held no prospect of easy lives for anyone; not with average temperatures still climbing inexorably higher though the rate of increase had slowed in the last hundred years. Eight degrees above pre-industrial earth. Half the planet uninhabitable for humans and no improvement in sight. He got up and went to the chiller to get a top up on his juice. The contrast between his thoughts and actions made him laugh. Except that was the whole tragedy of it.

Per for his part was sitting in the office of Senior Principal Officer Bella Pettel learning to his surprise that he had never left the CSB. His time in the Lo-Cit force as CSO Das had been under cover work to investigate the efficiency of the way in which the Lo-Cit Bureau operated. The 500 cred card handed to him by Asken was in fact part of the back pay he had accumulated while working undercover and only drawing basic Safety Officer pay. He had now resumed his real identity of Per Riss and his rank as a Principal Officer Grade 2. It was a fiction and they both knew it but it was a necessary fiction. He fingered the ID bracelet on his wrist. He'd grown up wearing one but now it felt odd. Apparently his status as a half elite absolved him from the obligation to wear one but his employment required it. Dad had been reduced to tears of laughter when he discovered his status was recorded as 'Special Representative of the Republic of Kvernstadt'. Apparently Hemia couldn't stomach 'Gardener' as an occupation for her son's father. He returned his attention to his new boss who was telling him that he would, of course, be based in the UpCit command working in the supervisory team. When he asked about rosters Bella laughed, no-one of PO rank or above patrolled. The UpCit CSB were not required to ensure community safety so officers worked on special duties, supervisory roles or external affairs. Per gathered that was anything or anyone not actually in the City. He was then shown his office, told he would be assigned duties once he was certified by the medical centre as fit and finally measured for his new uniform.