Alarms sound all throughout the Garden of Chiron, alerting its inhabitants to seek cover indoors. Cleve and I look to Marina for guidance on following the local protocols. She recommends we dash directly to the council building, as it is not too far away. All around us, people are seeking safety, including shopkeepers well-practiced in quickly rolling their displays inside. Marina points out the direction to go, and Cleve takes off at a run. I put my arm around Marina, hustling her along. If miasma does catch us out here, she’s safer close to me.
Sal and their cultists are hurrying off in a different direction, but they keep throwing a glance back this way. Not at me, I don’t think, but at the guy who seems so familiar to me. He looks torn on which way to go. From the glances exchanged, he and Sal clearly know each other. Either Sal’s trying to woo him into the cult, or he’s trying to break away from it. At any rate, he ultimately chooses not to follow them but to dash into the council building ahead of us.
I’ve been around miasma alarms before, and the experience here is different from that hospital in the Morgan dome. When we reach the doors to the council building, we pass under a blower jetting air outwards. The doors close behind us, but people staffing them let in anyone who approaches. Bars don’t slam down, trapping us inside. Still, once the streets clear, protocol is to keep the doors shut until the alarm is over. They probably conduct drills here, that’s how well-rehearsed it seems. It’s possible this is one, though I doubt it, considering Marina’s bioscanner sounded an alarm before the city did. In general, people aid each other, but the priority is always to take care of yourself first, like how on an airplane you’re supposed to put your own breathing mask on first. Speaking of which, I don’t see many people with filter masks here. Marina tells me those are mainly reserved for people who spend all day outside, like rangers exploring the interior.
The lobby here is quite crowded. We may be following miasma protocols, but we might be breaking the fire safety code. “Do we need to wait for this all to quiet down before we go to the office area?” I ask Marina.
“Realistically, yes. The alarms happen pretty regularly, but you don’t try to conduct business during them. You need to keep an eye out for people who need help. And really, I should be helping. Until we get the all clear, just stay out of trouble,” she says, waving us to the side. She turns to weave her way through the crowd back to the entrance. Cleve follows her. He easily slips into the team at the front doors, letting people in and calming those who are agitated.
I scan the crowd, wondering what has become of that familiar-seeming man. Once I locate him, I casually drift that way, continuing to rack my brain for who he is. He seems antsy. I don’t know if it’s the crowd or being inside or the recent meaningful glances exchanged with Sal. He sighs and his eyes dart around, finally settling on the staircase. Before I can get close enough to strike up a conversation with him and see whether he recognizes me, to my absolute shock and surprise, he bursts into movement. First he vaults onto a display table, and from there he leaps towards the stairwell, bypassing all the steps on the lower flight and instead catching the central railing and swinging himself up onto the upper flight. In two more bounds, he’s parkoured all the way to the second floor.
I stand there gaping. That is not the way one normally moves through official buildings. I move to the stairs myself, going up a couple steps to try to see where he has gone. At the top, though, there is a closed door, which he must have passed through. I’m still standing there, shocked that someone would so casually do that in the seat of government when a disturbance begins in the crowded lobby.
“Is this ever going to end? I can’t even see the miasma,” someone complains loudly.
“You know, I bet we could just neutralize this miasma,” somebody else pipes in. “There’s a way to do it, I’m sure.”
“Oh really? Have you written any papers on this topic?” they’re challenged.
Another is entirely done with this whole scene. “Look, I’ve got a miasma blocker. I think I’m just going to go to my lab.” She pulls out a needle and injects herself. Judging by her physical appearance, if she’s a planetfaller she was one of the youngest people aboard Unity.
Marina puts her foot down at that. “No! We open the door to let people in. We don’t leave until it’s safe.” The other scientist pushes Marina aside, despite her pleas. “No!” a flustered Marina cries out again. “We have to—The official protocol—You can’t take needless risks! A Morgan army is coming! You don’t understand!” But the now potentially hallucinating woman doesn’t stop and is outside before any of the other door attendants can come to Marina’s aid. The rest of the crowd, already grown restless—some alarmed by the door opening, others wondering if it is safe to go now—erupt into chaos at Marina’s revelation.
“Knock it off!” Cleve’s loud voice echoes off the walls of the packed lobby. “Everybody settle down. Nobody needs to die today.”
He’s gotten their attention, and they realize he’s a stranger. Calls of, “What do you mean?” and “Tell us what’s happening!” ring out.
We need them to calm down but also to take their attention off the front doors. From my position at the back of the building, a few steps higher than the crowd, I address them. “That man over there, keeping you in here and safe, is Datajack Prime of Data Haven, a frontier settlement that is currently being a buffer between you and the Morgan forces. We are here to discuss this matter with your leadership. There’s no need for you all to be worried about this issue at this point in time. Morgan’s troops are not knocking at the gates of your far-flung farms. They’re not at your front door. They’re on the other side of the Monsoon Jungle, and we’ve taken steps to slow them down.”
My words sink in. There’s still murmuring, but at least the crowd has stopped demanding answers.