Opalina Outpost

Chapter 2: Trash Heap in the Desert

Ravi climbed into his single-seater hov at first light and punched in the address for the ziggurat. It was horribly early, but Archcom Pridian would already be in her office, and he needed to catch her before she left the ziggurat to tour every damn unit posting from the city to the coast.

The hov rumbled to life but didn't streak out onto the magnet lane the way he wanted. Instead, the upgrade reminder popped up again, overtaking his entire windshield. A gleaming female voice erupted through the morning quiet. "UPGRADE TO MASTALI NAVIGATOR SEVEN—"

"Fuck off." Ravi stabbed at the tiny disconnect button hidden in the corner of the advertisement. His nav system on the hovercruiser was old enough to be a family heirloom and only stored a handful of addresses but work and home were all he really needed. Not to mention, it was offensive seeing the legend of the Mastali reduced to selling hov upgrades that projected demonic cat ears on the craft while driving or some shit.

Upgrades thwarted, he leaned back in the seat as the hov finally got moving. It jerked out onto the mag lanes and sailed toward the hazy outline of the ziggurat overlooking the city.

He'd finished his coffee by the time he passed the ziggurat's main gate. Good thing too, because the hov jerked into traffic on the main lane, and Ravi sloshed back and forth in his seat as the cruiser tried to find its way through the crowds. So many hovs at the ziggurat first thing in the morning, sleek bullet cruisers and rattling rust buckets like his own. Registration day.

A few of the nervous recruits had their parents in tow, everyone milling around in front of the central entrance to the ziggurat, waiting for the appointments that would tell them which unit was their first assignment. Hummingbird drones buzzed from face to face, scanning retinas and issuing garbled instructions.

At this rate, it'd take him forever to get through to the Archcom's headquarters. Setting the hov to locate a charging bay, he hopped out and darted through the vehicles on foot. He cut across the lawn and through swarms of new recruits to the nearest entrance, a shining set of glass doors in the base of the ziggurat. The touchpad was ice-cold beneath his fingers, light flickering as it read his biometrics and scanned the double metal circles of his subal ripple.

The doors chimed at him and refused to open. "If you are lost, please find the nearest drone for directions. Appointments for specialty units are in their respective branch buildings—" Ravi muttered and waved his hand in front of the damn things, but the doors continued to list out the three service branches as if they were addressing kids on a school trip.

Might as well go through the Enforcers branch, even if it was the long way. He jogged away from the clusterfuck of confusion in front of the ziggurat, and around to a lesser known entrance, steering clear of the registrants filing in another door to receive their instructions. This time the doors scanned him and let him in, and he passed through familiar hallways. It was early enough that most of the office bubbles were sealed and empty, except for where the new Enforcer recruits were gathering.

Out of habit, he paused beside one of the screens announcing possible commendations and downloaded the list onto his holowatch. Scrolling through it kept his mind busy on the walk, even though it was a weak list. A commendation for tree planting in the city, a commendation for construction at a fish hatchery, a commendation for rocketry, none were promising. The first two were far too basic compared to the commendations he and Gadsen had already collected for their unit, and the rocketry one was clearly meant for an Enlightenment specialty unit. He and Gaden had positioned their crew as an Enforcer unit for years, and they were finally starting to gather some prestige. Their next commendation needed to be—not his problem. He flicked away the list. It was Gadsen's unit now, and Gadsen could figure it out without him.