Chapter 5
Isaac remained in the optometrist's office while Ellie underwent surgery to replace her missing eye. He had been informed that the procedure would take approximately two to three hours, but not yet comfortable with being out in the open alone, he had resigned himself to the waiting room for the entire period. Fortunately it was a slow day and the place was quiet, with little activity save for a couple of other patients who came and went, and the nurse sitting behind the reception desk. The only sounds in the air were the muzzled tones of muzak broadcast through the overhead speakers, and the constant, steady hum of an electric panel that powered the lights and furnishings.
With plenty of time to kill Isaac just sat quietly, doing his best not to draw attention to himself, getting lost in long bouts of self contemplation from time to time and occasionally glancing out the office's front window to observe the passersby. He took little interest in the lobby monitors, most of which displayed patient schedule information while a few of them showed various programs of mindless entertainment. He ignored them for the duration of his stay in the waiting room.
That is, until one of the monitors switched to a news broadcast with imagery of a very familiar place.
Titan Station.
Isaac's eyes shot wide, and he felt his heart thump in his chest. Although the sound outputs from the monitors were muted in favor of the overhead muzak, the video of a stone-faced news anchor sharing the screen with images of Titan Station straddling his shoulder was accompanied by a subtitle stream Isaac could read. Trying to remain calm, he discreetly leaned forward in his seat and scanned each line of script with his eyes, frantically searching for any mention of his name.
[anchor: ... thank you very much, Mike. For those of you just joining us, we want to go live right right now and show you a picture of what's left of Titan Station, off Saturn's moon [break] where I understand [break] we don't have it? Well I'm told we actually don't have that picture right now, but we have been following this breaking story [break] it has been confirmed that Titan Station was destroyed in what officials are saying could be another terrorist attack [break] We have very little information at this point in time to confirm, but I'm now being told that we have on the line EarthGov's executive director of...]
Isaac's rapt attention on the monitors was torn away by the sound of the hallway door behind him. He turned around to see Ellie as she stepped out, walking alongside the doctor with a huge smile on her face. She kept pawing at a fresh patch over her eye as the doctor thumbed through some papers in his hand.
"You still have a little scarring on your eyelid from the corrective surgery, so I recommend you leave the patch on for a few more days. Then, it should be okay to remove it."
"Oh, it's great. Thank you so much, Doctor."
"Your vision should sharpen up in about a week as your brain acclimates to the sensors. If it doesn't improve by then, or if you have any headaches, come back and see me."
"Right."
Isaac stood up from his seat, trying to mask his panic, and met up with her at the front counter. The doctor walked behind and handed the nurse sitting at the desk the paperwork that was in his hands.
"Audrey here will take care of the rest for you. It's been a pleasure, Ms. Langford."
He reached over the counter and shook her hand, then disappeared back through the hallway doors. As the nurse turned her attention to the paperwork the doctor had handed her, Ellie gently jabbed an elbow into Isaac with excitement.
"Man, I'm jazzed. This thing is great."
"So it works?"
She nodded happily.
"Sure does. It's a little dark right now, but I can actually see. The doctor says it'll get better."
The nurse handed a small holo tablet with a digital pen over the counter to Ellie.
"That'll be 2,750 credits, Ms. Langford. I'll need you to sign here."
The total didn't sound right to Isaac, so he shot a puzzled glance at the invoice information displayed on the tablet's screen.
"What's this? I told you to get the higher-end model."
Ellie dismissively sucked the back of her teeth as she took the tablet from the nurse, grabbed the pen, and scribbled her signature along the bottom line.
"It was too much. I can't justify my walking around with a 4,000c eyeball at your expense, that's just crazy. This one works just fine."
He looked a little disappointed, but he couldn't fault her for being conscientious.
"... Ok, whatever."
Ellie started to hand the nurse one of the credit cards Isaac had given her, but he blocked her and instead pushed his forward.
"No, I told you I've got it."
The nurse couldn't help but eye them with a bemused smile as Ellie glanced at her and rolled her eye in jest. The nurse took the card from Isaac's hand and proceeded to scan it, then a moment later handed it back along with a printed receipt.
"That's your copy, and - you're done. If you have any problems Ms. Langford, just give us a call or come in."
Ellie nodded politely, then turned to Isaac.
"Well, that didn't take as long as I thought it would."
They started heading toward the exit, and on their way out Isaac glanced nervously at the monitor he had been watching, but it had already switched to another program. At first he thought he should tell her about what he had seen, but once they were outside and he saw how happy she was, he decided to keep it to himself. Ellie stopped in the middle of the street then turned around, raised her arms, and in an outburst of delight nearly leapt into the air.
"Oh, thank you, Isaac! You don't know how much this means to me, thank you so much!"
He just smiled in response, pleased enough to bear witness to the beauty of her emerging inner vibrancy as she let herself go to perform a quick victory dance. Like discovering a fully blossomed rose growing steadfast in the dead of winter, it had been so very long since he had last seen anything like it.
You have no idea how very welcome you are.
Ellie stopped when she caught glimpse of the enigmatic expression upon his face, one that was fighting to co-exist somewhere between heartfelt admiration and an unspoken sadness.
"... You okay?"
Coming back to his senses, he blanked his face and looked down.
"Yeah. We should uh, we should get going."
She paused a moment, trying to discern any one of the many emotions she could sense in him, but he had already locked her out.
"Yeah... sure, let's go."
They finally departed for the hub's center square and headed through the crowd toward the west quarter, which was more closely focused on housing. The shops and seller's kiosks had thinned out to be replaced by giant, vertical square complexes, and the public pathways had swapped out for long, thin corridors and elevator shafts that connected hundreds of domiciles within them. As they looked around, they saw an overhead sign that indicated the direction of Red Moon Apartments.
They followed the sign into the center of a cluster of towers reaching stories tall above their heads, and upon their arrival it became obvious that they had crossed over into an economically lower-classed sector of New Horizons. The environment was dingy, poorly lit and far more neglected than the other sectors they had passed through, and graffiti and torn propaganda posters blemished the walls of many of the buildings. The grounds weren't as well kept, and the pedestrians here seemed to travel about with far less inclination to loiter. Isaac looked around with a blank expression, then suddenly laughed out loud.
"Wow, looks like Alan really hooked us up. What a guy. I wasn't expecting the red carpet treatment."
Ellie shook her head as she too looked around, faintly detecting the smell of marijuana in the air.
"Hey, he just promised a lead, he never vouched for quality. Let's just hope the place makes up for it."
Despite the intimidating environment, Isaac couldn't help but feel thankful anyway. He turned to her with a strange smile on his face.
"Bad as it looks, this is still a lot better than where I was. Freedom is a beautiful thing."
She flashed him a strange look.
"You call this freedom?"
"Sure do. Clearly you've never been in a hamster cage."
Not sure how to respond to such an odd statement, Ellie changed the subject when she saw a sign affixed to one of the towers to their right.
"There it is."
They both walked down the trash encumbered walkway that led up to the Red Moon Apartments tower, and entered through the front door into the main lobby. The place reeked strongly of oxidizing copper and stale cigarette smoke. An enclosed and barred front desk, some chairs, tagged walls and a few dying plants in undersized pots were the main eye candy in this room. To their right was a broken holoscreen, still capable of displaying a shattered image that was impossible to watch.
They both approached the counter, which appeared to be unmanned, and Ellie knocked on one of the bars across the window.
"Hello? Anybody here?"
They waited a moment then heard the shuffling of footsteps coming from somewhere behind the counter. A woman appeared and approached the window, wearing a standard uniform and RIG, looking a bit uninterested. She appeared to be middle-aged, somewhat attractive but heavily lined with wrinkles and marked with skin damage that suggested a steady, long-term habit of substance abuse.
"Hi there, what can I do for you?"
Ellie leaned forward.
"Umm, I'm looking for Beth?"
"Yeah that's me, who are you?"
Ellie perked up.
"Oh, My name's Ellie, my friend Alan said you would be expecting me, to see about getting a place, for my friend here."
The woman behind the counter eyed them both warily.
"Sure, he called. How long you lookin' to stay?"
"I don't know. Couple weeks, a month, maybe."
The woman nodded, and reached across the desk for a bowl of walnuts that was sitting nearby. She pulled one out, split it in half with her fingernails, then tossed both halves into her mouth with a look of total apathy.
"1,225."
Isaac smirked, watching her graceless movements with a hint of discontent.
"A month?"
"A week."
He pulled his head back.
"That's your weekly rate? C'mon, I can pay cash up front. I thought we were gonna get the 'buddy' discount."
His suggestion didn't seem to entice her at all.
"Cash or account, doesn't matter. 1,225. That's including the discount... 'buddy'."
Isaac narrowed his eyes upon the woman.
"Really? Pretty steep, even for this part of town, isn't it?"
Somewhat amused by his sarcasm, the woman leaned forward with a wry grin and a look of growing impatience.
"Hey blame the economy, everybody else does. Until it recovers, 1,225. You want it, or not?"
Ellie bent an eyebrow and looked at him, floored that he had the nerve to consider arguing with the woman.
"Isaac, what are you doing? Just say yes."
He tsked.
"Can we at least see it, first?"
The woman behind the counter rolled her eyes, and grabbed a set of card keys from a drawer in the desk.
"Sure thing, Your Majesty. Follow me."
She momentarily disappeared from behind the desk, and came out a few seconds later through a secured door a few feet away. With a sulking face she waved her hand at them to follow her, and they trailed her down the hall.
"You have a floor preference?"
Looking around at the malfunctioning hallway lighting and deteriorating walls, Isaac snickered to himself.
Yeah. Preferably a place that has one, thank you.
His verbal response was far more tame.
"... No. Just... one with an open view, if you got one."
The woman didn't answer him, but kept walking until they reached an elevator. She pressed the call button, and as it started its slow descent from somewhere above, she looked down at the key cards in her hand, then pulled one out and handed it to Ellie.
"Fourth floor, third on the right. 416. You can go up there to check it out."
Ellie took the key from her hand just as the elevator door slid open, and she looked at Isaac.
"Shall we?"
They both entered the elevator and ascended to the fourth floor, where the car came to a screeching halt and the door slid open with rustic temperament. They entered a long grey hallway, lined with doors that all appeared to be identical with only a few open, unkempt trash bins swarming with flies along the way to break the monotony. Glancing at the number on each door, they slowly followed the way down until they located the correct apartment. Ellie stepped up to the door.
"Here it is, 416."
There were two people loitering at the end of the hallway, dressed in dark civilian clothing and wrapped in thermal cloaks, hunched over and conversing with one another. When they realized Isaac and Ellie were there their conversation died down, and they both locked hard stares upon them. Isaac returned the stare cautiously as Ellie used the key to trigger the hololock. The door slid open, and just before Isaac followed her inside, he noticed that while one of the two people had lost interest, the second one was still holding onto Isaac with the glare of a hawk. He stepped inside as Ellie called for him, and closed the door.
"You know, for a shithole, this actually isn't half bad."
Ellie nodded somewhat approvingly as they both looked around at what was a pretty spacious studio apartment, far superior in size to the tiny civilian flats aboard Titan Station or ships like the Ishimura. Red Moon was clearly an older establishment, built before the need for compact construction due to crowding had reached its peak of urgency, when comfort had been more of a priority in human housing considerations. Fully furnished, the apartment had a sizable open living space, a full kitchenette, a king sized bed, a full length synthetic leather couch, and its own private bathroom.
Isaac made a round trip through each of the different areas, then slowly approached the large window that lined the room's south wall. It's open, panoramic display overlooked a distant cityline of New Horizons, a harsh, cutout collage of geometric buildings and floating structures, all hovering above the ghostly white surface of Luna as it spanned beneath it in all directions.
"Yeah. I think I like it."
"So, you're gonna take it?"
He then made his way toward the bed and sat down on the edge of it, bouncing lightly upon it a few times.
"Sure, why not? It's got a normal bed. I can't ask for much more than that."
Ellie nodded with a small grin, straining to keep her hands at her sides. She was brimming with all kinds of questions to ask him, all of which she was too afraid to. She struggled to improvise.
"Well, that's... great! So, I guess... you're just, gonna stay here, then?"
"That was the plan, wasn't it?"
She flashed an awkward smirk, trying to be positive but somehow blatantly broadcasting a tone of hurt.
"Yeah. Yeah, it was. And... mission accomplished."
She continued to stand there, looking at him like a child eagerly awaiting an answer from her parent.
"So... what's um, what's next for you?"
Isaac stood to his feet and looked around, appearing to be genuinely disconcerted by her question.
"I really don't know... I honestly haven't thought this far ahead."
She smiled nervously.
"Neither have I."
They both just looked into each others' eyes for a long moment, neither one sure of what to say next. Isaac suspected he knew what Ellie was thinking, and this sparked a conflict of interest in his mind between what he knew they both wanted, and what he felt was best for her. The time was coming very quickly when he would have to lay all of his cards out on the table, to bring her to a solid understanding of who he was, and why it was imperative that she move on to someplace else without him. And he absolutely dreaded it. Still, knowing he could not delay the inevitable, he tried to smile.
"Hey... after we get this thing squared away, wanna go get something to eat? That is, if you don't have anywhere else you need to be."
Seeking to conceal the secretive delight she felt upon his invitation, Ellie crossed her arms.
"Are you telling me you're actually hungry? I was beginning to think you were a robot."
He coyly smiled.
"Yeah, I think I'm really beginning to feel it now. Besides, I was hoping, you know... we could, talk. Finally."
She shook her head.
"I didn't have any plans."
Isaac tucked his hands behind his back, and looked at her expectantly.
"So, is that a yes?"
She tilted her head, then shrugged her shoulders. It was all she could do to prevent herself from doing something girlishly stupid.
"Sure. Sure, I'd like that."