Gravity's Force

"Vassi 20: Djitani City was in chaos early this morning after a thermal unit in a downtown basement exploded, destroying a city block and killing at least four people. Etania State health officials sealed off the area to treat the wounded, while the militia's new weapons against terrorism, the Crawlers, were brought in to find the culprits and any survivors trapped amongst the rubble. By 5 am this morning, twelve people had been plucked to safety by the Crawlers but several are still missing..."

From his soundproof editing suite at the Etania Loyalist Network in uptown Djitani, Keleden B'Rith sucked back a huge breath and swore at the top of his lungs. He clenched his jaw, his veins rising to the surface as he checked over the pre-written report, which he was supposed to upload into the system. He knew that it was misleading at best and an outright lie at worst, but it had come with direct instructions from his chief of staff that it was to be presented as fact.

This was not the way he had been trained to gather news. He'd always expected the events to happen first--before the reports were written. But this one had come through just as the events described were taking place: he knew, because he had a window, just like everybody else. He had looked out and watched it all happen at the same time that his chief had handed him the report. Reporters just didn't work that fast--but his chief had given nothing away about the report's origins.

Keleden rubbed his chin in agitation, checking over the statement, and ran his hands through his knotted red hair as he checked the programme-running slate. There was a gap in the content run-down, ready to be filled with the story he was holding in his hand.

Just one more reason to quit.

When he had started, things had made sense, but all that was changing. No--he had to be honest: the world had already changed. He needed to adjust...or get out.

He looked through his slate log: as expected, his latest request to file a series of stories from the moon, Tessera, had been refused. A couple of years ago, there would have been no problem. His heart sank; he had to get to Tessera, by legitimate means or otherwise. He knew he shouldn't get his hopes up, but the moon was all he could think about from the moment he woke until he fell asleep, and even in his sleep he sometimes dreamed of being there.

The very idea of going to Tessera was a long shot--and an expensive one at that. But, with a detention centre filled to the brim with prisoners and with highly classified "science projects" already up there, Tessera provided all the ingredients for a great story: lockdowns, riots, suicides. It was a powder-keg situation.

Keleden knew that he could blow the whole thing wide open--but first he had to get there.

Kaeman stood by the newsbar on the footpath, stepping out of the way of the late-shift workers trudging home as the sun rose for the day.

Tel, the man who ran the bar, seemed startled by Kaman's presence.
"What are you doing up so early?"

Kaeman let Tel's rudeness slip past him. "I couldn't sleep."

He slotted his news slate into the motherboard, waiting for his credits to be accepted. His blood boiled every time he had to hand over currency. This was only one of the ways to keep native Etani poor: they had to carry hard currency, yet they were also limited to carrying small amounts.

In contrast, the Tyber immigrants didn't need such primitive denominations; their identity prints were enough to link a payment to their personal accounts. Native Etani, meanwhile, weren't even permitted to have personal accounts. They couldn't get loans, either, Kaeman supposed, although he wasn't really sure about how the money system operated, having never stepped into an accounts building himself. There was a saying amongst his people: "Money is nothing." Sometimes it sounded like a positive affirmation--that family, love and health were more important than money--but most of the time, the saying only served to reinforce the gap between the settlers and the original inhabitants of Etania.

The light on the motherboard flashed. Kaeman pulled out the slate, hungrily scanning its contents in his search for new information. But there was no mention of any incident on Tessera in any of the updated reports, or anything about an explosion in the slums.

"Tel, I swear you're going to think I'm insane," he told the man behind the newsbar, "but I really did see something. It was only a couple of hours ago. There's gotta be something in here about it by now."