Anyone

Posted on Fri 10th Jul, 2020 @ 4:39pm by Yuliette Marayan Dr.

1,012 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Resolution
Location: Brown Sector: Zodiac

The front desk was manned by a Yridian with eyes so squinty they looked closed. He wore a brown robe and a neck chain with a magnifying loop dangling from it.

“Your pass?” The Librarian prompted.

“Pass?”

“If you’re not a resident, you must purchase a pass with your account.”

“I’m a new resident. May I have a pass?”

The Yridian produced a paper form requesting name and address. She filled out the address part easily enough, but tapped the pen thinking about the name. She felt something like a stroke of genius: Neone. One name was enough. There were enough people without surnames that she could leave it blank. Neone looked like a real name, perhaps pronounced Nee-Oh-Nee, but the clever bit was it could also be N.E.One... Anyone. It was better than Julie. She slid the paper back to the Yridian.

“May I see your keyring?”

She produced the ring from Tamrinch, which she realized now had a metal stamped tag with details on it. The Librarian borrowed it from her to take down the details.

“Hm.” The Yridian marked her down in his resident membership ledger. He also turned back through the pages and made a curious expression amidst all of his rows of skin wrinkles. “Ms. Neone, do you share this residence with a Simon Speedwell?”

“No… I’m the only occupant.”

“Very well.” The Yridian crossed off an out of date residence record. He made up a library pass and handed it to Yuliette to sign. She scripted her new name. Neone. And he took the carbon and put her pass through laminate with a little circuit printed in the back, and scanned it into his terminal.

“Please update us if your residence status or address changes. Not that anyone ever does. Lost or damaged materials will be billed to you at your residence. Your pass also serves for other residential benefits, such as the community pool and discounted play tickets. Here is a community event program and the library hours and rules. We are open until seven, except for on Tuesdays.”

“What happens on Tuesdays?”

“I close the library early.”

Yuliette drew her lips in to try to resist smiling at the Yridian’s dry humor.

She walked around a little to take the measure of the place. It wasn’t small. This must have originally been one of the grandiose game lounges in the Zodiac’s design. But half of it was walled off and there were all manner of bright colorful murals, covered in children’s paintings. She lowered her sunglasses to look over the top of them and appreciate the wild spectrum. To her amusement, there were at least twenty children's illustrations of Luftufs, each one sporting its own unique sock.

“So that’s what they look like.” Yuliette nodded. Of course. What else could it have been?

There was a window, and through it she could see a daycare center, the lights off, the children having already been collected. There were circle tables and art supplies and giant towers of foam blocks. Then she encountered a wide staircase angled upstairs and along the wall were notices for various school programs and homework reminders. She wondered at how many students attended. Was it compulsory? Likely not. She couldn’t imagine anyone doing much of anything by force of law in this place. Were the teachers paid through some kind of collective sourcing? How did the Zodiac manage a school at all?

On her roundabout tour, Yuliette found the bank of computers— an island of four terminals sitting in the middle of the room. That was hardly ideal. She glanced around to see if anyone was watching her and then pulled up one of the stools. The terminal was very slow to wake up and the screen flickered to life in it’s own sweet time. While she waited she pined for her personal devices. The ones she’d purposely thrown in an incinerator so as not to be tracked when she’d fled. She’d had the latest Shebri comm unit, an Action X Ltd Medcorder that was practically a medlab in your pocket which made every professional in her field jealous, and an Ultricht 9 padd computer which had been a gift from her father that rivaled the performance of onboard shuttle computers. He gave her a new model every year it was reissued. But they all relied on up-links and subspace. And they could all be traced. So here she was trying not to tap her foot impatiently. Which, well, she could only just touch the floor from the tall computer stool anyway.

At the prompt, Yuliette waved her newly acquired library pass at the screen. And it took a while to work on that as well. She looked around at the few other patrons in the library. Nearest to her there was an older gentleman who had molded himself into a chair, deep into a hefty novel. Two Bajoran monks (she supposed by the robes) were standing in the philosophy section and holding a polite debate in bajoran. With their homework assignments in hand, a few young adults moved around the shelving units. A mother with little ones was talking to the Yridian librarian.

When her eyes settled back to the screen it had a query box ready.

Gutzman Memorial Library
Public Terminal 3
WELCOME ZODIAC RESIDENT NEONE
Please enter your search:
{________________}
Or choose an action from the menu


She thought carefully, because she was fairly certain whatever she entered might take a while to compute so she wanted to get it right.

What kind of place would she hide best in? It had to be someplace she would blend in and never be noticed. Where she might be anyone and no one at all. Her index finger moved under the shadow of her hood, stroking the indent over her nose.


Gutzman Memorial Library
Public Terminal 3
WELCOME ZODIAC RESIDENT NEONE
Please enter your search:
{ Cardassian Colonies }
Or choose an action from the menu


The list began to propagate.

 

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