Window-Shopping at Bargains

Posted on Fri 31st Jan, 2020 @ 12:13am by Elizabeth Anderson M.D.

1,713 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Resolution
Location: Brown Sector, Deck 2445, Market
Timeline: MD -3

A bargain is something you can't use at a price you can't resist. --Franklin Jones

Corin Durant entered the Brown Sector market with Elizabeth and gazed about the market in startlement. The place looked nothing like his expectations.

Where he came from, many merchants took their merchandise home at the end of each day, so they could guard it. What passed for a market in Turkana City was little more than stalls cobbled out of metal scraps and partitioned with khaki cloth or sheets of canvas. Here, the residents had actual shops fronting onto a sidewalk, with doors that could lock.

"It's weird. The layout looks much more orderly than I'm used to, but the way they arrange the merchandise--it's all over the place," Corin said to Elizabeth. "We'd never keep things out in the open like this. Anyone could take them."

"Maybe that says something about who lives down here," Anderson replied. "I don't know much about it yet, but there doesn't seem to be a huge police presence. Maybe these people police themselves. Or maybe there's some kind of gang that keeps everyone in line. It's amazing, when you start looking, how little information we have on these decks. This is not just one migration, or even one species down here ... but they seem to get along. I wonder ...."

Stopping outside a shop selling common medical supplies, the counselor let her eyes roam over a table propping the door open. There were boxes of various sizes of bandages, none of them with Federation markings or brands with which she was familiar. She picked up a box showing a picture of a bottle with white tablets inside.

"Sodium metamizole," she translated, then looked at Corin. "This is an ancient drug! Most places on Earth stopped using it in the 20th or 21st century at the latest. It has some unfortunate side effects ... like possible death." She looked back at the bottle and sighed, then put it back on the table. "I wonder where they get this stuff. It isn't out of date, according to the packaging."

"Why would anyone still make it?" Corin wondered aloud. "I've never even heard of it, and I used to do deep cover work with a drug cartel."

"Anyone with access to modern-day drugs wouldn't," Anderson asserted. "Maybe that's the problem. It would work for many things and many people, but it's still a risk. Pregnant women or nursing women shouldn't use it, for instance. But if your head is killing you, and you have nothing else ..." she shrugged. "It's better than witch doctors and ... I don't know ... a cup of peppermint tea? But it's still risky."

"Peppermint tea tastes better than pills," Corin remarked.

Elizabeth looked around at the people in the market place, zeroing in on their clothing, their shoes, even their shopping bags. "No one here," she nodded toward a few people nearby, "seems to be thriving, not by Starfleet standards, not in comparison to civilians shopping the Promenade."

"Remember, though, many of the people shopping in the Promenade are tourists, mixed in with Starfleet personnel and station residents," Corin replied. "They have latinum to melt. That said," he added in a low voice, "the folks in Perry Gardens dress better than this and look better fed. So whatever happened, there's been a significant breakdown in their support system, and it's ongoing--which makes me wonder how it can be restored or at least improved."

"Which leads us back to why I plan to open shop down here," she said, as they walked along holding hands. "If I can get to know the people, maybe I can find out what is broken and find a way to help fix it."

They came out of the tunnel of the shops and into a better lit area, including a park of sorts. Children were playing on a dirt field and they stopped to watch. "Is it baseball?" Elizabeth asked doubtfully.

"You're asking me?" Corin said with a laugh. "I grew up in tunnels--which reminds me; I ought to take you bowling, sometime." He looked back at the game. "No, I don't think it's baseball. Looks more like some form of stickball--maybe? The kids used to play stickball in the streets near where I lived in Edinburgh."

Anderson shrugged, "It seems the same to me ... hit a ball with a piece of wood, right? They seem to enjoy it, though." A cheer went up from the ragged band of children on one side of the play area, as one of the team members in the dirt lot caught the round, brown-wrapped 'ball' that had been hit. The two visiting adults watched for a moment more and then wandered on.

"I suppose if children are playing here, it's safe enough for us to walk around a bit of the neighborhood," the counselor surmised.

"Probably," Corin said. "And it's nice to see them actually playing, instead of having their noses stuck in a video game. I never could get used to that on Earth." He glanced at Elizabeth. "How far into the neighborhood do you want to go?"

With a shrug, she said, "I don't know. Far enough to see what it's like. I don't know if this is normal average, or if we're looking at the best neighborhood or the worst ... or just what. Children playing ... that's a good thing. I doubt their parents are any smarter than other parents, but maybe they don't have access to vid games? See, that's part of the so-much-I-don't-know. I don't really know how these people live down here. In the areas I've walked, I don't see homeless people sleeping in the streets. I don't see thugs hanging out on corners, women selling their services. But look around at what else is missing."

"There's little excitement--among the adults, anyway," Corin said. "Purpose, maybe, but no zest for living, no spring in anyone's step." He fell silent for a moment, thinking. "I wonder how people move in down here? How long has it been since any new refugees were settled in this section? I've not been aware of any since we arrived, but I haven't been paying attention to these decks, either. I wonder if endogamy is a problem among these people?" He winced. "That could be a medical mess." Corin glanced at Elizabeth. "Sorry, my mind is going in a lot of directions all at once. One thought leads to another, and another."

"One question I can answer for you," Elizabeth said. "The last official refugees came here in 2373 - Maquis women, children, older people - non-combatants, all. The Federation granted them refugee status when the Cardassians wiped out the Maquis. Others have unofficially come here in the intervening years. I think there was a thriving smuggling community under the former administration of the base. Well, not under them, exactly," the counselor back-tracked. "But when they were in control of things here. No doubt the people did better then." She stopped to look in a dusty shop window, but it wasn't really where her attention went.

"Not all the refugees have been political ones, either. Did you know about the severe volcanic upheavals on Daylin V, Syran III and Deyellan? All of those planets had populations fleeing destruction and the air quality at home, and they landed here, too. Sentallis Prime had a major shift in tectonic plates, and that led to the second deck being given over to refugees. It was getting crowded as large portions of that population came seeking safety, too."

Anderson shook her head. "How can something that tries to relieve suffering wind up causing so much?" She turned to look up at him. "And what is endogamy here? So many groups of refugees, all having something in common. I haven't made a study of it, but I'll set a bot on the last census. Let's find out if that's a concern. You would think Starfleet medical would be watching for inbreeding calamities, though."

"If the folks down here are very careful and keep good records, it might not be too bad of an issue," Corin said. "It's something we have to keep on top of, back home, and it might be the one thing that gets the two cadres to finally make peace with each other. I'm going to talk to my buddy Andrus about this, see what he knows. The lack of Fleet response is weird, unlike them."

They ambled along the streets for a while, Elizabeth making a record of everything she saw, to help her help the people. For the most part, things were relatively normal, but there were a few things that concerned her. The main one was that there didn't seem to be anything for young people to do. They were clustered together in what passed for parks, or around certain buildings. She was uncertain what the buildings were, since they bore no logos and didn't look like places of worship.

"The young people seem aimless," she commented to Corin. "And Andrus, the big boss, I presume? I might be in over my head. I don't see many records in the database, beyond basic population count. If other records are being kept, where are they? Who's keeping them? The people here? Maybe. They've been better off than a lot of refugees over the history of the universe, so maybe they've been more organized."

Anderson stopped at an intersection of corridors. "Let's head back through the market and go upstairs to find some answers. I think I've seen enough."

"Reminds me of the younger ones at home," Corin said. "We had scout and guard duty to keep us occupied, or hunting outside the city. Sometimes the cadre leaders put us to work, too, keeping the city clean, since it wasn't like we have much of an underclass or janitorial equipment that wasn't falling apart. Everybody has to do their share of the work, either mopping up, doing repairs, working in the hydroponics labs--or practicing with weapons, or course. But arms practice comes after everything else." Corin kept a neutral expression on his face as he nodded politely at passersby as they walked through the deck's corridors.

"Aren't you going to show me your office?"

 

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