“Good evening everyone, welcome to orientation!”

The lead instructor emphasizes her remarks with an all encompassing wave of her hands. Gathered around her are the newest three hundred people who are to travel from planetside up to the Torus station orbiting the moon. Many of the young adults gathered nearby have pensive, or outright terrified looks upon their faces. For most, this is their first experience with space travel, and the prospect of living in or near zero g for the next decade has worn some of their nerves to a frayed mess. The instructor, a Ms. Kim is about five feet tall, slim but fit. She is wearing a safety coverall that is orange in colour, which signifies her as being a director or board of directors member. Turning a full three hundred and sixty degrees she surveils the large welcoming room and all of its eager occupants. She is standing in the middle of the nervous crowd wearing a head set and a sub vocal mic strapped to her throat, so as to not shout when she speaks. “For many of you, the next forty hours as we travel to near moon orbit will be the first experience you have with actual space flight, being under thrust, eating and defecating in near zero g. So, in short… a major shock to the system. We had all of you undergo strict medical testing, so no one is going to die of natural causes! Yay!…” a pause for nervous laughter, of which there is precious little. Her voice reverberates off the painted undecorated cinder block walls. The hall is spartan in design, no pillars or knee walls to hide behind. “You’ve all passed your survival training and undergone some simulations, but fear not! The next seven to ten years will be some of the best you’ll ever have.” On the outer edges of the crowd more orange suited instructors are piling into the room, followed by red suited technicians wheeling in rack upon rack of cyan coloured safety suits. The meeting hall at the space port is starting to feel cramped with all the extra bodies, and suits and equipment. The air temperature is rising as the gathered crowd grows restless and afraid. “Our expected time of departure is four hours from now, so according to my watch, around oh six hundred. By then, you’ll all have showered, trimmed your nails, shaved your heads & bodies, voided your bowels and bladders, removed any extraneous jewelry, stripped down naked and put on the provided safety suits. We have a delicate balance of weight to account for when moving three hundred souls from earth side to outer space. No exceptions, zero religious exemptions permitted. I will now turn you over to our trusty lead technician Darnel, who will take you step by step on how your safety coveralls work, and the prep needed to get you into them safely. With that, my team will bid you adou.” In a sweep of theatrics, the orange colour coded team leaves the hall, departing down a long winding ramp located near the front of the hall, and heads to the ship located three kilometers away, down the supply corridor that’s one hundred meters below ground, and very heavily heat shielded. An extremely heavy set man dressed in a rich red set of coveralls steps out from behind a cluster of suits on a steel rack on large industrial rubber wheels. He is sweating under the anxious glare of three hundred, cold, tired and weary new recruits. Gathering himself, he straightens up and raises his arms to signal the crowd. “Thank you instructor Kim, hello all… I’m lead suit tech Darnel Smythe, and I will give you all a run down on some of the suit specifications, and why you need to prep your bodies accordingly for them to work properly in case of a sudden loss of atmosphere while in transit, or while on the station, in class, at work, on a mission, or just in general through ultimately unlucky circumstance. Ha. That was a mouthful.” An audible gasp is heard throughout the crowd. Wide eyes, and a couple of horrified wails can be heard among the gathered recruits. This is information they have been given numerous times over, via document, speech, and in the simulations themselves, but never so bluntly, or all at once like that. The reality of their choice to pursue life in space is hitting home like a lead weight to the belly. In space, death lies in wait behind every choice you make. “Right, so from what I understand the majority of you are all from earth. My manifest shows a few here from Mars and a couple from the station off Venus. Now you lot have traveled previously, and can pull off from the main group as you’ve been fitted for suits, and are still wearing them.” Shocked noises from the group, again. “Oh yes people, these suits are all that you’ll be wearing from here on out. They have an internal rigging we’ll go over later, but you will eat, sleep, work, study, bathe, exercise in these suits. Until, you earn a colour coded new one that corresponds to your vocation and training. Since you are all new, young and dumb. You will spend the entirety of your time in a suit. Can’t be having green horns and noob students dying on us just because a micrometror poked a hole in a hallway, or training facility.” The look on the gathered group is one of stunned incredulity. A very stout young man with blue hair and various facial piercings pipes up.”That can’t be right, I have all these expensive clothes that I bought especially for going to university on the torus. I can’t possibly be expected to dress exactly the same as everyone else. I just can’t!” Looking at the tech, the young man has his arms crossed over his chest, and his chin thrust outward. “Eh, sorry chico, you all wear it. The bags you dropped off at the front gates, all gone into lock up. All you get are what I’m about to give you. Now in order to get you to focus on the task at hand, I need everyone. Every. One. To strip naked, yes here, right now. Yup, peel down to what your mother’s gave ya! You are all going to walk single file through the showers, then you’ll be diverted to the void rooms, where a warm milky liquid will, well… void your innards. Then you’ll have laser hair removal, yup, you guessed it, all of it. Bam! Gone. Your nails will get trimmed down to the quick and then we’ll go over the suits, pack you in, then march you to your seats. I do apologize for how cold the water is. This will be the last full flow shower you’ll have for a very long time. I wish I could say the water is above fifty two degrees farenheit, but… it isn’t. Life in space is hard folks. You signed the waivers. Took the psych tests, completed simulations and a multitude of training sessions. The movies are great, but this is the real world. Oh, here we go, the doors will open and the clock is ticking people. Move, move, move!” The sea of red tech’s move down the line of naked recruits, helping them to form a single file. A huge set of steel double doors pull open to reveal a dark and cavernous hallway starkly lined with water spigots and jets of multi coloured fluids. Not mentioned in the documentation are the delousing treatments and the mild acid wash that’ll take two full layers of skin off, and aid in the laser hair removal. Cutting weight is difficult at the best of times, so strict measures to save every possible ounce have been enacted. On the floor, a conveyor belt stirs to life, mild gasps and hearty screams of shock as the ice cold streams of water are doused over the glut of nude bodies. A flashing yellow strobe kicks up in the hallway, as men and women and the young and old are diverted one direction or another. The muffled sound of gagging and vomiting can be heard through the echos of screaming and crying. The void process is harsh, and not limited to just bowels and bladder. Breakfast must be purged too. For the biological males, prostates get emptied, in a perfunctory manner. The milky medical cocktail liquid ingested is also used to dry up gastric juices and bile, so no one suffocates in their helmets during take off or during the forty hour trek to the moon. For some, prolonged exposure to near zero g will set off violent bouts of vertigo and nausea. In order to limit the transmission of any airborne illness among so many new recruits into what is essentially a closed ecosystem, drastic medical measures are undertaken. Drugs, needles, radiation baths, invasive biometric scans, the likes of which no one would willingly sign on for are done in secret while the recruits are voided. They’re helpless and weak. Totally disoriented. Sheep for the slaughter, as it were. Each one, though surrounded by hundreds of other people, are suffering in a desperate isolation of their own choosing. The truth is, the entire indoctrination process takes about twenty four hours total, not four, and the faces of the crowd will be hollow, teary eyed, and desperately weak when they are seated before the technician, medical staff, and his army of tailors. The processing has begun, it will be hours before Darnel need address the group again.

“Welcome recruits. Glad to see so many faces after your… ordeal. It isn’t pleasant, but it is necessary. Now, on to the fun stuff. You will be given your safety suits, or coveralls, shortly. They are a very pretty shade of cyan. That denotes to everyone else aboard any base, capsule, rig or what have you that you don’t know jack shit about living in space! That fact, quickly denoted, will save your life and theirs. Yes, there is a method to the madness. If and when you are somewhere that loses atmosphere, it happens real fucking quick, so you. Can’t. Talk. Colour coding is now your friend. It’s been drilled into you by many others, but you have to live it, to appreciate it’s simple yet awesome effectiveness.” Walking through the crowd of what looks like hung over freshman college students after a week long alcohol fueled binge session. Darnel looks over the neat formation of the gathered half conscious recruits. Each laid out on a mechanical surgical gurney,in equal lines, with equal spacing between them. The lead suit tech talks animatedly. Wild gesticulations, modulating his voice with precise changes to capture and maintain their waning attention. They’ve all been run through the ringer. A type of joint trauma most will likely never fully remember, as their bodies and brains will shut these memories out, for the sake of their sanity. Dark halls, screams, purging both fluids and matter, drugs and the bitter cold knowledge of true isolation. A harsh reality, one that is a secret hidden in plain sight. “Ok kids, the suits go onto bare skin. That way you get the highest quality seal. It seals in numerous places, in case of a tear, or blow out, we can save the maximum quantity of your body in case of catastrophic failure. These bad boys seal at the ankle, calf, knee, thigh, waist, chest, neck, wrist, elbow, armpit.” Darnel is ticking off the locations on his fingers as he speaks. “There is an internal catheter system to expel and expunge bodily waste. Means you can work long hours in eva, and not have to try and hold it in. There is also a function for hooking up to the steam showers on the station, to bathe, and flush out dead skin cells and such. Your biometrics work through the suit too. The ability to get food, drugs, sleeping quarters, into and out of your class rooms, job placements, entertainment facilities all are tied to your own biometrics.” The mention of drugs, food and entertainment brings some life into their worn and weary eyes. Some faces have a haunted thousand yard stare, that begins to melt away with the following message. “This wasn’t on any program or documentation, but it’s a gift from The Company to all those stationed on the torus, and any rig, vessel that they have commissioned. You are all allotted a prescribed amount of recreational drugs, access to sex workers, education, job training, food and entertainment. Do. Not. Under any circumstance go to a private, non sanctioned vendor for either drugs or sex. Our system is heavily regulated, taxed and monitored for your safety. You can not OD, on our supply, and when you have shift hours, or class hours or some regulated function to perform, your biometrics will cancel out and nullify the effects of whatever it is you chose to use. But only If it is from The Company, or one of our chartered pharmaceutical vendors. If you’re brilliant, but socially awkward, the brothels in the green sector will take care of you. The healthcare, wages, hours of operation and peace of mind of our regulated sex workers are guarded heavily, so use them as needed, don’t go private. Your tax dollars are there to provide you with what you need and keep us all healthy. Enjoy yourselves…. so on that note, my team will come around shortly, and fit you into your suits, boots, gloves and test your auto deploy helmets and respirators. Just lay back and let us work our magic.” In the silence of three hundred exhausted newbies the experienced technicians set to work plying freshly scrubbed nude bodies into their spongy body socks with waste management system inserted and inflated, and coveralls on top. As each unit is inserted and inflated in bladders and bowels alike, for both the men and women, an occasional yelp, moan or cry can be heard among the group. Thousands of pairs of rubber gloves go into the recyclers, to be incinerated down to their constituent parts, and reassembled later as other synthetic latex products.

The three hundred bodies are wheeled down the subterranean hall way, on a long train of gurneys. Each body has been infused with a sturdy mixture of vitamins and minerals, so they will survive the next forty hour flight without food or water. The vast majority of cyan suited recruits are fast asleep, or are so over tired that they can only watch, wide eyed as they pass two and a half kilometers of cold yellow lighting, damp concrete, and the musty smell of a tightly contained, low ceilinged windowless, windless cavern that seems to stretch on into utter blackness in the distance. As the long stretch of lights comes to an end, and the gurneys travel the last five hundred meters in utter darkness, the smell of the launch vehicle hits the nose like a punch. The mix of fuel, and astringent cleaners, oil and detergents wafts over the space like a damp towel over the head. It clings to the nostrils, and burns the lungs and stings the eyes. At the base of the launch vessel, a massive elevator sits, large enough to load up thirty gurneys and the eight techs required to haul the recruits to their coffin sized berths. Slowly, the elevators move up and down, as the gurneys return collapsed, and empty, more recruits are loaded. Not long after an automated buggy interlinks with the collapsed gurneys and returns them to their resting spot, just outside of view of the welcoming grand hall. Hidden behind huge metal doors, stored just off a large empty hallway full of spigots and a conveyor belt floor.

“Goood morning freshmen, this is your captain speaking. I’m captain Hardy, flying with us today is my number two Ms. Casey Phillips. We are approximately twenty hours away from Torus station, which is both the station name, and the design. She’s ugly as fuck, but awesome in scale. Also your new home for the next seven to ten years. In case no one mentioned this, the station runs on continental shifts. That’s right folks, she’s a twenty four seven type of gal. Whether you are a worker, student or prostitute, you’ll all live in rotating eight hour shifts. Congratulations on making it this far, you are now allowed to move freely about the common areas of the ship. There is a viewing deck at both the forward and aft sections of this ship. If you are currently experiencing vertigo, or nausea please refrain from vomiting anywhere but in your immediate crew quarters, as they are designed for just such an occurence. The Company, always thinking.” With a loud click the pa system kicks back to the soothing soft jazz that had been slowly growing louder as more and more freshmen recruits regained consciousness after their ordeal during induction.

The personal crew quarters are more like pre fabricated, pale blue cloth paneled coffins, with a singular soft yellow light embedded in the ceiling, so as not to provide a surface you could cause any head trauma on. Inside the recruits are velcroed into a quilted padded blanket, to keep from bouncing off the padded coffin walls during transit. At the foot of the tiny room is a media screen set to stand by, with stock images of the launch vessel, the torus and flight crew fading in and out as a screen saver. The passengers are equal parts students, vocational apprentices, and support staff for the immense Torus station. What was once just a ship yard for The Company, has now expanded to be a system wide university of choice, tradesmen learning center, and hub of activity. The entertainment sector has ballooned from three levels to a bustling thirty. It now boasts television stations, several movie studios, theme parks and casinos. The work force in the mechanical sector alone is upwards of eight thousand souls. Capsules don’t just come here for repairs any more, they are designed, fabricated and manufactured by the score. Rivaling the designs and capabilities of anything produced by the old school earth bound teams from The Company HQ in Houston Texas. After the mark thirties were completed, the Daryl Bradley Design Shop decided that they’d show off some of their new tricks, and in secret, built, tested, and flew a newly fashioned Minotaur class starship for the first time ever. With an entirely new design for propulsion their starship was able to make a successful jaunt out passed Pluto and back in three weeks time. What had previously taken one hundred and eighteen weeks one way, was now only twenty one days. The cosmos were finally opening up. After catching wind of this momentous achievement The Company swiftly stepped in to purchase, then patent all aspects of the design. They pride themselves on being beyond competition.

The first mission would be to go as far out as they could get, ping any sensor, or antenna arrays they could find, and report back. In truth, someone very high up with The Company wants to find The Non Sequitur, and figure out what had gone wrong all those centuries ago. The greatest thing about the vaccum of space was how well it could preserve anything it came into contact with.

 

PART VIII