+

‘Yeah, that’s pretty normal,’ said Jemba, breaking the connection with Salvo’s eyes and mouthing a cursory head count of the queue ahead of them.

‘To ignore people calling your name?’

‘It’s work, you zone things out. Or maybe she didn’t hear you. Don’t take it so personally.’

‘I was right next to her…’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘…okay, with a weird red dust cloud between us, but still, I’m pretty sure she heard me.’

Jemba finished the count and turned back to his two charges, noticing a tall Kontolian behind them also tallying up the aliens ahead. Their eyes crossed paths for a brief second, the red alien patting himself on the neck and Jemba doing the same thing back.

‘What was that thing anyway?’ continued Salvo, oblivious to the Kontolian greeting ritual taking place around her. ‘A forcefield?’

‘What?’

‘The red dust cloud blocking out Katya, was it a security field?’

The Kontolian opened their mouth to say something, possibly a greeting, prompting Jemba to put his back to him. ‘No, not a forcefield. Not exactly. It’s more like a scanning field that blocks out any unwanted noise. That’s why I said she may not have heard you.’

‘Why don’t they just use a door?’

‘No need. This way is more open. Helps you to do your work psychologically, without feeling trapped in a tight space.’

‘You keep saying that word, work.’

‘Because it’s accurate.’

‘What work?’

Salvo’s question was drowned out by a sudden eruption of noise from the front of the line, forcing Jemba as head guide to take a step out and see what was going on.

‘Is that a Canni Tut?’ asked Trig, trying to look at the same thing.

‘Group of them. Looks like they’re pissed cos two others got to go in before them.’

‘Two others behind them?’

‘Yeah.’

Trig nodded, doing his own working out as Jemba’s yeah wasn’t giving him much data.

‘It’s normal. Canni Tut take up more space so if there’s a whole group, three, four, eight total, it can take a while for them to find a seat. Or a table if we’re being pedantically specific.’

‘Seems a bit unfair.’

‘First floor dynamics, comrade.’ Jemba returned to his place in the queue, saying ‘sorry’ when he accidentally nudged the Pos Pos in front and getting a ‘good life’ in response. ‘What was I saying?’

‘Do we have to eat here?’ asked Salvo, pulling down her DS7 sweater and stopping when she realised it was turning into a dress.

‘No, that wasn’t it. Something about work.’

‘I mean, why don’t we go somewhere else, someplace less busy?’

‘Ah, don’t worry, the queue will move soon, and it’s not as boisterous as it looks inside. Just the food tubes make a lot of noise so you have to talk loudly to make yourself heard.’

Salvo turned back, frowned, then turned another forty five degrees and scanned. ‘There’s a Nabian restaurant that we went to last night. That was okay.’

‘Relax, it’ll be fine.’

‘I’m not scared, I just prefer quiet places, that’s all. Somewhere I can hear the other person speak.’

‘And you think a Nabian restaurant is the place to do that?’

‘It was quiet last night. And it’s not near this place, so that’s a plus point.’ Salvo looked past the queue and off down the line of shop facades ahead. ‘Actually, I’m not sure where exactly it was. Or the name.’

‘The Nabian place that serves bat meat dumplings?’

‘Among other dishes.’

‘Yeah, that won’t be quiet. Trust me.’

‘We could try…’

‘In fact, the queue’s probably longer than this one. And full of Nabians too. Half of them looking down their nose at you, the other half doing the same thing in their heads. Nah, it’s better if we just stick with what we’ve got.’

‘How about we try somewhere that is quiet?’ offered Trig, half picking up on Salvo’s SOS, half annoyed at the human [Terzoan, if he had to guess] behind him constantly digging an elbow into his back.

‘On the loop line maybe,’ added Salvo.

‘That bar we went to last night…Yum La.’

Jemba coughed, too rough and loud to be natural. ‘Look…comrades…you said you wanted to try this place yesterday so here we are. Now, I highly recommend not leaving the queue. Do that and you’ll be leaving all the queues, and then the quiet places will get slightly crowded and you’ll leave them too and pretty soon you’ll end up like a Krsnik, trapped in your own little bubble, no one bothering to talk to you cos you look like a grumpy fuck. You want that? I assume not.’

‘Maybe we can try it just this once,’ conceded Trig, looking towards the entrance and seeing the group of Canni Tut being ushered inside. ‘The queue’s not that long, and I am kinda curious about the food tube system.’

‘That’s the attitude.’ Jemba patted him on the hair, and then did it a few more times when he felt how spongy it was. ‘Try it once and, if you don’t like it, fine. Don’t go again. In fact, I can even go one better…if we go in now and you don’t like it, then we can exit right away, no recriminations. Okay?’

Salvo pulled down the sleeves of the DS7 sweater. ‘I wasn’t saying we couldn’t go inside, I just-’

‘No, no, basha. Don’t walk it back, Salvo, it’s your second day. You’re still freaking out a bit with all the exotic aliens. It’s completely normal, considering your personality type.’ Jemba looked off across the concourse, focusing in on one of the pod terminals. ‘Ah, that’s what we were talking about. Katya doing her work, ignoring you.’

‘That was ten minutes ago.’

‘Yeah, the work factor. Do three missions and you’ll be on the same track.’

‘It didn’t look like work.’

‘Look like? From what you told me, she was probably monitoring the portal worlds, the missions. That’s one of the most arduous tasks on the station. You have to concentrate for hours and most of the time nothing happens. But if something does happen, you have to see it or…something not beneficial might occur. I’ll leave it at that.’

‘She does that every day?’ asked Salvo, looking at the menu, which was now in view.

‘Not solely that. There are numerous tasks to choose from.’

‘What about missions?’ asked Trig.

‘Admin work at one of the centres, exterior maintenance, interior maintenance, drone repair. Yes, missions too, but once you’ve done seven years, that becomes optional.’

‘Seven years…’

‘However, in Katya’s case, at least the last time I spoke to her, which admittedly was a while ago, she was holding out for Nabian citizenship. And that requires twelve years.’

‘What?’

‘And even then it’s not guaranteed.’

‘Why would she want to become a Nabian citizen?’ asked Salvo, genuine confusion on her face. ‘They’re assholes.’

‘I’m sorry, didn’t you just say you wanted to eat at their restaurant?’

‘No…’ Salvo paused, biting her lip. ‘Maybe. But that wasn’t because of them, it was just so we wouldn’t have to-’

Jemba held up a hand and said something to the Pos Pos waiter who’d just appeared beside them. It didn’t seem to be translatable – the sounds were nonsensical, with a whoosh motif – so it must’ve been in the Pos Pos language.

A few more sounds were exchanged then the waiter returned to the front of the queue, swatting alien hands away as they went.

‘Looks like we got a golden ticket,’ said Jemba, pulling them out of the queue by the arms and prodding them gently towards the entrance.

‘But there are still people ahead of us.’

‘All in groups.’

‘And we’re not?’

‘Four or more, strict classification. Come on.’

Salvo followed obediently, but looked away as they passed the small clusters of Trv, of Kontolians and of Pos Pos that had all been in the queue longer than them. Jemba hung back a bit and draped an arm over her shoulder.

‘Don’t panic, they’re not angry. They eyeball everyone like that.’

‘I’m okay.’

‘Especially new arrivals.’ Jemba clasped both hands together. ‘Now, brace yourselves for weird cuisine. You’re gonna love it.’

~~~

From the inside, the Pos Pos café was like a condensed version of Mong Kok.

Dozens of aliens, maybe even a hundred, crammed into a space with a max capacity of thirty. High tables with steps instead of stools for those aliens who weren’t especially tall, which, on the face of things, appeared to be Salvo and about four others.

She didn’t know if they were female too…according to Jemba and what Trig had told her from the pad, and her own erratic short-term memory, a lot of the aliens on Dah Station 7 didn’t have a concept of gender…but she did get the impression that they shared her discomfort with the ambient noise level, as well as the overbearing size of everything around them.

At least, that’s what her ego was telling her.

Luckily, they’d been given a table in the corner away from the window, with only two other tables flanking theirs, so there were no clear vantage points for random aliens to peer in from the outside and assess their eating skills. Not only that, but the sound seemed to be diluted too, with most of the din from the customers hitting the wall of Pos Pos breath music coming from the ceiling above.

‘To them, it’s singing,’ explained Jemba, hands still stuck together, ‘though you can think of it as instrumental if you like. That’s what I do.’

‘Seems relaxing,’ lied Trig, bobbing his head to the “melody.”

‘Quite windy,’ added Salvo.

‘Right, who’s hungry? Both of you?’

‘Not really.’

‘It’s only half eleven.’

‘Wah, too negative. Think of it as a snack. Where’s the menu pad gone?’

As Jemba was the veteran, he ordered for them, though when both Trig and Salvo saw the listed choices, they felt pretty confident they could’ve managed it too.

Options: Balls.

Descriptions beyond that: A colour and a number. Example, Purple Two Ball. Crimson Seven Ball. In some cases, the colour was an alien word, probably due to the comparative limit of colour perception in human sight, and the number came with a decimal point. E.g. Sasss Five Point Two Ball.

It was an odd system, more like an element classification table than a menu showcasing food, but apparently that was the Pos Pos way.

‘Don’t dwell on the weirdness, it’ll become normal soon enough,’ advised Jemba, turning his back when he saw that a group of Nabians three tables away were waving a hand at him.

‘If we ever come back here,’ added Salvo.

‘You will.’

‘How do the tubes work?’ asked Trig, bending down and examining the bottom segment of the machine.

‘Simple. Rising air.’

‘I know, but…how do they control it? Some of them seem to hover at different levels.’

‘That’s part of the cooking process. Bottom level is high heat, second mid-level is high medium heat, mid-level is medium heat…you get the idea.’

‘Then they shoot up when they’re done.’

‘Exactly.’

Trig answered, but it was absorbed by the burst of ‘waaaataaay’ from a table somewhere in the middle. He looked over and realised why. It was the group of Canni Tut who’d made the same kind of noise in the queue outside.

‘Waaaataaay means coward,’ said Jemba, cracking his finger bones. ‘Doesn’t get translated when stretched out like that.’

On cue, the same word erupted again from the same group. In response, a Trv on the table next to them shouted something that was translatable: ‘security.’

At that point, the restaurant became a hell of a lot smaller, and the breath music a lot more tense, as the two sets of aliens glared at each other, with two Pos Pos waiters moving over to intervene if necessary.

‘Good job we’re not over there,’ Trig whispered into Salvo’s ear.

‘I’d just leave,’ she said, bluntly.

‘Uh-huh.’

Trig didn’t add anything else, not even something tangential, as he could see by the way she was keeping her arms tight in at the core that she was on the edge of something. Better to just ride it out, and hope that the food would distract her. Then tomorrow, or the next day, she’d get used to things and be normal again.

It was a bold hope, and a silly one.

Not least because he didn’t realise that Salvo was, at that very moment, also closing her eyes and attempting mentally to extinguish the whole station around them and replace it with Hong Kong.

To him, she was just tired.

To her…this was Hell Gate 7.

~~~

About ten minutes later, the balls emerged from the bottom of the tube base and started hovering at the lowest level. Trig pretended to watch them as they ascended, but really he was focused on Salvo’s hands. She was wiping them on her sweater a lot. Much more than was necessary given the cool air blowing down from the ceiling. And the cooking process didn’t seem to intrigue her at all. In fact, she seemed more interested in closing her eyes and muttering.

Maybe it was just annoyance?

The first balls made it to the top and Jemba told them to get ready, they were about to shoot out.

Okay, Trig thought, time to embarrass myself.

He put his head next to the top of the tube and, when a purple two ball popped up, attempted to catch it in his mouth.

Somehow, it worked, the ball sliding straight in and down his throat…so fast and so smoothly that he was surprised he didn’t choke.

The Terzoans on the table to the left saw this feat and cheered, some of them calling him a fucking nut, which confused him at first, but then he turned and saw Jemba holding up a little net and shaking his head.

‘Impressive catch, but maybe use this next time.’

Trig took two nets and handed one to Salvo. She took it with only a few words in reply: ‘let’s get this over with.’

He didn’t want to ask it, but felt there was no choice left.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Obviously not.’

‘Wah. I thought you’d say yes.’

‘You dragged me in here and now I’m getting a headache. I told you I don’t like this kind of place. Feels like I’m in a room full of drunk men.’

‘We can leave if you want…’

‘What? Leave?’ Jemba moved round the table and guided Salvo’s net towards the top of the tube. ‘You haven’t eaten anything yet.’

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘The trick is,’ continued Jemba, faltering a little as he saw a mixed group of Canni Tut and Kontolians pull up at the table to the right of them. ‘The trick is…to bring the net down with the ball as it drops. If you miss, doesn’t matter, it’ll land in the surrounding bowl and you can scoop it up from there. Okay?’

‘I told you, I’m not hungry.’

‘Come on…if you run away from everything noisy…everything a bit different…’ Jemba paused, prodding his head as two of the Kontolians shouted over to him. ‘If you allow things to overwhelm you like this…it’s not good.’

Salvo looked past the tube, towards the next table. ‘I think those aliens want to talk to you.’

‘Who?’

‘The ones staring at us.’

Jemba put the net down, just as one of the balls shot out and landed on his wrist. The Kontolians on the next table laughed, shouting martyr comedy, which got a bigger laugh from the whole section around them.

‘Okay, maybe that other restaurant isn’t such a bad idea,’ he muttered, not as quietly as he intended.

‘Which one?’ asked Trig.

‘Outside, any of them. Let’s go. Leave the nets.’

‘What, now we can leave?’ asked Salvo, finally adding volume to her voice, as well as a lot of irritation, but it was unreceived as, just like on the ground floor the day before, Jemba was already halfway out of the restaurant.

‘Fuck…he’s really going,’ said Trig, looking back at the balls still in the tube. ‘What do we do about all these?’

‘Don’t care. I’m following the hologram…’

‘Yeah, but-’

‘…and calling him a fucking hypocrite when I catch up.’

~~~

Across the first floor concourse, with the Pos Pos restaurant way out of sight, Jemba stood with the palm of one hand glued to the Kontolian Forgiveness Pole. It was a weird thing: every minute or so, a small spike would shoot out of the pole, the idea being that if you had your hand on the pole and weren’t truly sorry then you’d be impaled. Luckily, Jemba was a hologram and completely nonplussed. And strangely reserved. As in, he wasn’t saying anything, apart from the occasional ‘fuck.’

Trig tried to prod him with questions about the pole but got no response except ‘wait’, so he just leaned against the nearby railing and did as told.

Salvo stood closer to the pole, arms folded, jumping a tiny bit every time a spike shot out.

After muttering to himself [and evading the spikes] for three long minutes, Jemba rebooted, folded his hands together in sideways prayer and laid out his defence.

‘Matrix malfunction.’

Both Trig and Salvo stared back at him, specifically his forehead.

‘Nothing serious.’

‘That’s it?’ asked Salvo, incredulous.

‘The specifics are too technical for you to grasp.’

‘Try.’

‘Okay then. In the layest of laymen terms. A particular set of my neural pathways are faulty, sending the wrong signals in response to what my matrix interprets as acetic stimuli.’

‘Acetic?’ asked Trig, more to himself than anyone else.

‘It happens sometimes, to all holograms. Best to get away from crowds in these kinds of cases as it can turn violent.’

Salvo pulled up the sleeves of her DS7 sweater. ‘Yeah, that’s what happens to me. Neural pathways sending the wrong signal to acrylic stimuli.’

‘Give me one minute to self-repair. Then we’ll try a different restaurant.’

‘We could go back to that one,’ said Salvo, pointing round the corner to where the Pos Pos restaurant was. ‘I’m sure the balls are still there.’

‘Salvo…’ whispered Trig, nudging her arm.

‘What? He’s the one who said we should go in there. Don’t run away from different things. Remember?’

‘You don’t really want to go back in there though.’

‘Fuck, no. I said that at the start.’

‘So…let’s just go somewhere quiet. Go back to other topics. Like Katya and her Nabian citizenship thing.’

She mumbled something that sounded like a fine, whatever, so Trig turned to Jemba and was about to ask him too, but he was already straightened up and ready to speak.

‘Right. I suggest we try the Kontolian café on the loop line. Much more sedate.’

‘You won’t malfunction again?’ asked Salvo, more than a little caustic.

Jemba fluttered his fingers then stretched them out, an action that was becoming something of a trademark. ‘It is a spontaneous thing, beyond my control. However, it appears to be fixed.’

‘You can leave us for a bit, if you want,’ said Trig, holding out his right hand in a gesture he didn’t really understand. ‘If you need time alone. We can have lunch and meet you at the Book Centre later.’

‘Ah, that’s my job. Giving instructions. Please don’t intrude.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Accepted. Now, let’s find somewhere quiet for Salvo and chat about other, non-matrix related things. Okay?’